"It is not my case alone, it is the freedom and the liberty of the people of England, and do you pretend what you will, I must justly stand for their liberties. For if power, without law, may make law, may altar the fundamental laws of the kingdom, I do not know what subject he is in England can be assured of his life or anything he can call his own."
A Monarchy Transformed: Britain, 1603-1714
(Mark Kishlansky)
If some interpretations or facts are open to question, the larger narrative seems balanced and reasonable.... Also, much must be forgiven a historian who writes of the egregious Titus Oates that he "was eventually hoist on his own canard," and of Queen Anne that her pleasures were "limited to gambling and dining, losing pounds at one set of tables and gaining them at another."
Charles I
(C. Carlton)
This is by far the best modern biography of Charles I and will be welcomed both by general readers and by specialists...a strikingly individual contribution to our understanding of the personality of this King.
Charles I and the Road to Personal Rule
(L. J. Reeve, Anthony Fletcher (Series Editor), John Guy (Series Editor), John Morrill (Series Editor))
(Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History)
This study of the character and policies of Charles I provides an analysis of the political crisis leading to his personal rule in England during the years before the civil wars. It fills a gap in the historical literature of the period by integrating ideological with political developments and English with international affairs. It is also a contribution to the wider European history of a critical phase of the Thirty Years War. The book offers a new way of understanding Charles by demonstrating how ill-suited his personality was to the workings of the political world. It also argues that Charles's innovatory rule created a new pattern of national politics deeply destructive in its effects. The book gives a gripping account of the king's willingness to pervert the due process of law in dealing with his political opponents, as well as investigating his failures in religious and foreign policy
Charles I: A political life (Profiles in Power (London, England).)
(R. Cust)
Charles I was a complex man whose career intersected with some of the most dramatic events in English history. He played a central role in provoking the English Civil War, and his execution led to the only republican government Britain has ever known. Historians have struggled to get him into perspective, veering between outright condemnation and measured sympathy.
Richard Cust shows that Charles I was not ‘unfit to be a king', emphasising his strengths as a party leader and conviction politician, but concludes that, none the less, his prejudices and attitudes, and his mishandling of political crises did much to bring about a civil war in Britain. He argues that ultimately, after the war, Charles pushed his enemies into a position where they had little choice but to execute him.
Phoenix: The Image of the King: Charles I and Charles II
(Richard Ollard)
"Remarkably and immensely readable...A just yet compassionate study of two complex, muddled, fissured human beings caught in the most difficult of crafts--kingship...It should not be missed by anyone interested in the Stuarts or in the personalities of Charles I and Charles II: indeed, any reader will be greatly stimulated by it."--J.H. Plumb, New York Review of Books. Two kings, father and son...and yet, their personalities could hardly have differed more. Through sources as varied as masks, statues, poems, medals, and contemporary written records, a picture of these Stuart monarchs, their characters and their politics, emerges.
The British Civil War: The Wars of the Three Kingdoms 1638-1660
(Trevor Royle)
"Trevor Royle's achievement is to have skillfully encompassed and explained the complexities of his subject in a single voume of no excessive lenth. A capable historian...he has well understood the combined intricacies of politics, diplomacy, military campaigning and changing public opinion." --The New York Review of Books
The Trial of Charles I: A Documentary History
(David Lagomarsino, Charles T. Wood (Editor))
Eyewitness accounts of the trial and execution of Charles I portray a revolutionary moment in English history.