Smith, A History of the Modern British Isles, 1603-1707 (1998) and Derek Hirst, Dominion: England and its Island Neighbours, 1500-1707 (2012), which stresses England’s growing domination of Britain and Ireland through the early modern period. Another good study of the early Stuarts, again closing with the outbreak of civil war, is Tim Harris, Rebellion: Britain’s First Stuart Kings, 1567-1642 (2014), which provides a detailed narrative account of Scotland and Ireland as well as England and Wales.Īlso particularly good at providing a three kingdoms account and showing how England, Scotland and Ireland interacted during (part or all of) the seventeenth century are David L. Roger Lockyer, The Early Stuarts: A Political History of England 1603-42 (2nd edn, 1999) is a clear and detailed thematic assessment of the opening decades of the century. Austin Woolrych’s blockbuster Britain in Revolution, 1625-1660 (2002) is a splendid and detailed account of the period from the accession of Charles I to the restoration of his son, though covering the reign of James I, too, as an introduction.

A rather more detailed account of the first half of the century is provided by Derek Hirst, England in Conflict 1603-1660 (1999). The best overview of the whole century and beyond is Barry Coward and Peter Gaunt, The Stuart Age: England, 1603-1714 (5th edn, 2017). The early seventeenth century, the early Stuarts, the civil wars and beyond: a select bibliography of biographies, monographs and collections General studies of early seventeenth-century England

Cavaliers by John Barratt