C.V. Wedgwood

Europe in 1618 was divided between Protestants and Catholics, and Bourbon and Hapsburg, as well as empires, kingdoms, and countless independent states. After angry Protestants tossed three representatives of the Holy Roman Empire out the window of the royal castle in Prague, world war spread from Bohemia with similar abandon and relentless persistence, destroying European powers from Spain to Sweden as they marched on the contested soil of Germany. Fanatics, speculators, and ordinary people found themselves trapped in a nightmarish world of famine, disease, and seemingly unstoppable destruction. The Thirty Years War was a turning point in the making of modern Europe and the modern world: out of it came the system of nation-states that remains fundamental to international law. C.V. Wedgwood's magisterial book is the only comprehensive account of the war in English, as well as a triumph of scholarship and literature. Includes maps and charts.

King Charles I was his own worst enemy. Self-righteous, arrogant, and unscrupulous, he had a penchant for making bad decisions. His troubles began the moment he ascended the throne in 1625 upon the death of his father James I. Charles simultaneously alienated both his subjects and his Parliament, prompting a series of events that ultimately lead to civil war, his own death and the abolition of the English monarchy. Charles' personal and family problems revolved around religion and a lack of money. His marriage to the Roman-Catholic French princess Henrietta Maria in 1625 did not please his Protestant subjects and led to suspicions of his motives. In 1637 he totally misgauged the sentiments of his Scottish subjects when he attempted to impose an Anglican form of worship on the predominantly Presbyterian population. Riots escalated to general unrest, forcing Charles to recall Parliament in 1640 in order to acquire the funds necessary to quell the Scottish uprising. The continuing civil unrest in the north forced Charles to again convene Parliament in December 1640. The following year the Irish revolted against English rule while the determination of King and Parliament to assert their authority over the other led to open conflict between the two in 1642.The tide of the Civil War ebbed and flowed for the next six years, culminating in the defeat at the Battle of Preston of Charles' army in August 1648 by Parliamentary forces under the command of Oliver Cromwell. The King was charged with high treason against the realm of England. At his trial, Charles refused to enter a plea. Notwithstanding the absence of a plea, the court rendered a verdict of guilty and a sentence of death declaring:"That the king, for the crimes contained in the charge, should be carried back to the place from whence he came, and thence to the place of execution, where his head should be severed from his body." Three days later, the king was led to the scaffold erected at Whitehall, London.

This volume tells the story of the four eventful years which immediately preceded the Civil War, years which transformed the tranquil dominions of King Charles into a land rent by mistrust and menaced by fire and sword. It tells of the rise of the covenanters in Scotland with such leaders as the gallant Montrose and the mysterious Argyll. It tells of Parliament's opposition to the King under the skilful leadership of John Pym. The tragedy of Strafford is linked with the terrible insurrection in Ireland. Miss Wedgewood has sought to convey the vivid day sequence of events as they flooded down on the men & women of the time, and to restore as far as possible the immediacy of their experience.

"When King Charles came home from Scotland in the autumn of 1641, London was bright with hangings and the fountains ran wine..."With these words C V Wedgwood begins the second volume of her history of the Great Rebellion which carries the story from 1641 to 1647, from the Parliamentary passage of the Grand Remonstrance to the dramatic moment when the Scots surrendered the captive King Charles to the English.These were the years when the great battles of Marston Moor and Naseby were fought; when Prince Rupert emerged as the King's chief general; and Montrose conducted his brilliant but forlorn Scottish campaign. On the Parliamentary side the death of Pym was followed by the rise of Cromwell, both in Parliament and in the field. The New Model Army, which won the war for Parliament, was largely his creation. It was not merely an army but a new social force in English life.By the end of this volume, the Royalist cause had suffered a political and military defeat from which it could not recover. As the centre of power moved from King to Parliament; so it moved within Parliament itself to groups led by Cromwell, and at all times, the course of the struggle was profoundly influenced by events in Scotland and Ireland.Miss Wedgwood depicts this violent welter of military, political and religous developments with clarity, humour and sympathy; at the same time she communicates the tension and uncertainty, the texture of day-to-day life in a country at war with vivid and unforgettable immediacy.

This famous book by a celebrated historian recounts the life of the unlikely revolutionary hero and favourite of Emperor Charles V, William Prince of Orange, who mobilised the legendary group of rebels known as the Beggars to fight the imperial forces of Spain. William's life and exploits reveal him as an inspiring symbol of moral and political force in an age when ideology and intolerance were the rule.

It is the measure of Richelieu's greatness that it should be so difficult to imagine the growth of the French monarchy, or the development of Europe in the seventeenth century, without him. The Cardinal was a personality so dominating and so impressive that in his lifetime almost every event in Europe, however remote, would be ascribed to his secret interference. He was credited wrongly by the English with having provoked the Scots Wars of 1638 and 1640, and rightly by the ?Spaniards with organising the Portugese and Catalan revolts of the same period. His spies and agents covered Europe no less than his police system covered France. In the imagination of his contemporaries he was the cunning spider seated all-powerful in the midst of an enormous web of intreague." - From Chapter 1 During the eighteen years that Cardinal Richeliu served as first minister to King Louis XIII, the power or the monarchy in France was entrenchedso firmly that it survived sunshaken through the long and perilous minority of Louis XIV old when his father died. During those eighteen years of his influence, France became the foremost power in Europe and the fountainhead of European art. His administration produced profound changes that are still being felt today in France and all of "the account," says the author, "is not yet closed."

The World of Rubens 1577-1640

Recounts the life of seventeenth century Scottish hero James Graham, the 1st Marquess of Montrose, who spent years struggling against the anti-royalist forces of Civil War Scotland, until his execution in Edinburgh in 1650.

A wonderfully bold and wide-ranging narrative of the world's defining events from the beginning of civilization to the early Renaissance. "Her style is a marvel of clarity. And, in sheer readability she is a match for any historian living or dead." -- J. H. Plumb, The Sunday Times .

NEW HARDCOVER WITH NEAR NEW DUST JACKET.. SHIPS FROM WA- USPS. EXPEDITED SHIPPING AVAILABLE. 1994, BARNES & NOBLE. Biography; Biography & Autobiography; Cromwell, Oliver; England; Europe; Great Britain; Historical; History; Kings and rulers; Non-Fiction; Renaissance

A dramatic story of the ruthless servant of King Charles. The Earl of Stafford rose to become the most powerful and the most hated man in the British Isles--only to find himself deserted by his master and forced to go to the scaffold to appease the wrath of the people. In this revaluation of the original version, Stafford emerges as a complex ambitious, greedy, unscrupulous, but with intense Puritan piety and unflagging devotion to duty. "Her style is a model of clarity. And, in sheer readability she is a match for any historian, living or dead."--The Sunday Times.

Essays--that enlarge horizons, guesses at motivation, unravels intricate sequence of events--give the joys of history

Book by Wedgwood, C.V.

Written by the notable historian Dame Veronica Wedgwood and originally published in the Collins' 'Pictures of Britain' series, this book is an accessible text listing and explaining the major battles that occurred within the British Isles from the Norman Conquest up to the 1940s.Battles listed include: Hastings, The Welsh Wars, Falkirk, Bannockburn, Barnet, Tewkesbury, Bosworth, Flodden, Edgehill, Marston Moor, Inverlochy, Naseby, Dunbar, Killiecrankie, and Culloden. Each battle is accompanied by a battle map from the era. At the end of her description of the Battle of Culloden, Wedgwood movingly alludes to the impending threat of a German invasion and the airmen caught up in the Battle of Britain who “left the quivering air signed with their honour.”

The life of the well-known English poet and educator set against the social life and historic events of the seventeenth century.

Vol. 1: The King's Peace 1937-1941 Vol. 2: The King's War 1641-1647 Vol. 3: The Trial of Charles I

Published for the British Council and the National Book League.Bibliographical series of supplements to British book news on writers and their work.

Fine condition green paperback, couldnt be nicer from 1964.

1966. First Edition Thus. 669 pages. Illustrated paper cover with lettering. Contains black and white illustrations. Pages and binding are presentable with no major defects. Minor issues present such as mild cracking, inscriptions, inserts, light foxing, tanning and thumb marking. Overall a good condition item. Paper cover has mild edge-wear with light rubbing and creasing. Some light marking and tanning.

King Charles I

Laid in is a glossy publisher's photo of the author, together with the Review slip, publisher's prospectus, and a news clipping of the book. Slight newsprint tanning to free endpaper only; otherwise near fine.