Barry Coward's The Stuart Age is a detailed analytical reference with a wider scope than a military history of the civil wars. Its political, social, and economic coverage follows the period from the inheritance of Elizabethan England through James I, Charles I, Cromwell, the Restoration, James II, William III, Mary II, and Anne. The Elizabethan constitution matters because later generations treated it as a model settlement, although it was a compromise that stored up future trouble. The problems James I inherited help explain Charles I, whose weaker political judgment met a less favorable situation. The book places the civil wars, the Protectorate, the Restoration, and James II's deposition within a single Stuart chronology.
Chapter · 11:14-13:50
A long-view guide to the Stuart age
Barry Coward's textbook explains the Stuart age through political, social, economic, constitutional, and religious developments across the whole period.