The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England

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Healey’s enthusiasm and love for the period is clear. Thanks to the explosion of published material of the time, there is a wealth of surviving pamphlets, manuscripts, diaries and documents forming a treasure trove of material for scholars such as Healey to delve into. This was the first century to provide such riches for it’s future historians. Though “an absolutist by nature”, James was canny enough to realise the limits of ambition in his wealthy new kingdom. His son, Charles – the spare who became the heir following the death of his glamorous brother Henry in 1612 – was less flexible. Healey is scathing in his judgment (and, refreshingly, never afraid to judge) about this “man of blood” who in the 1640s led his country into two needless civil wars, describing him as a “stuffy authoritarian… never ruthless enough to be a successful tyrant”, though he concedes, as did Rubens, that the king had a good eye for a painting.

The book was at times slightly hard going with a lot of characters and documents popping up that weren’t re-explained, so a bit easy to get lost if you’d put it down for a while. It would have been good to have an index of characters and key laws/treaties. But I soldiered on through and got the main thrust of it. The 1600's gave us so much else entertainingly and so interestingly written about by John Healey in The Blazing World. I was keen to read about the Levellers, a group so ahead of its time and its aspirations still in the 21st century a pipe dream in a country still defined by its class system and elite with the royals at the top. The main population still lived in the countryside though industrialisation was just beginning with Newcastle coal being shipped to London. The British Empire was beginning to take off and at home the great stone buildings were replacing the wooden structures of Tudor England. Any student of US History would be well served by understanding the British Civil War period. The founders of the US and framers of the constitution and bill of rights were *very* familiar with those decades and it absolutely shaped the US government design and balances of power. The idea that the founders would have had *any* intention of allowing - for example - the vice president of the US to decide which electors were valid, is as absurd as it comes. I read Devil Land last year and thought it was excellent (I would have given it four stars out of five, the same as this book review) but didn't review it at the time as I was a bit occupied with other things (moving house). ↩︎A fresh, exciting, “readable and informative” history ( The New York Times) of seventeenth-century England, a time of revolution when society was on fire and simultaneously forging the modern world. •“Recapture[s] a lost moment when a radically democratic commonwealth seemed possible.”—Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker

A] lively, compelling and combative study of the most dramatic and consequential century in English history. . . . The Blazing World offers a thrilling panorama of the period, from perspectives high and low, told with a winning combination of impish wit, sound judgment, and serious scholarship. . . . It will delight those new to its extraordinary age, and fire up its grizzled veterans.” —Paul Lay, Telegraph There is one chapter (17) which felt out of place, perhaps because I have already read detailed histories of this period, 1665 and 1666, discussing the Dutch naval wars, the Plague and the Great Fire of London.Healy is very good at explaining the jargon of the day, which many historians enjoy using without explanation. The Star Chamber, for example, was a harsh Royal Court which was held in a chamber with a star-spangled chamber. He gives clear explanation of "ship money", "the etcetera oath", "roundheads", "Scottish Covenanters" "the Barebones Parliament" and "the Cavalier Parliament". The path and fate of the various religious entities and how they attempt to control and are controlled by various political forces is worth pondering for any folk that believe Christian Nationalism provides a solution to anything . (Unless you believe there is a shortage of violence - it can probably help solve that). IMO, in the phrase "Christian Nationalist", the Christian is quite silent. Lucy Hughes-Hallett The radicals of 17th-century England began to think the unthinkable Jonathan Healey describes how Diggers, Levellers and other revolutionary sects started proposing universal male suffrage, legal aid and even a national health service It was not to be. Following the execution of the stubborn and slippery king, a Commonwealth was proclaimed. Cromwell’s conquest of Ireland – here given no more and no less space than required – and of Scotland secured these isles in preparation for experiments in government. First, there was the fundamentalist Nominated Assembly, or Barebone’s Parliament, which Cromwell disbanded in favour of the settlement devised by the soldier and intellectual John Lambert – for whom Healey, a fellow Yorkshireman, cannot disguise his admiration. Lambert’s Instrument of Government, Britain’s first and only written constitution, reimagined the old trinity of King, Lords and Commons as Protector, Council of State and Commons. Cromwell took top spot in 1653, though the Protectorate was doomed from the afternoon of September 3 1658, when “Cromwell died, people not much minding it,” as an Essex clergyman wrote in his diary.

A fresh, exciting, “readable and informative ” history ( The New York Times ) of seventeenth-century England, a time of revolution when society was on fire and simultaneously forging the modern world . • “Recapture[s] a lost moment when a radically democratic commonwealth seemed possible.”—Adam Gopnik, The New YorkerThe Restoration, widely welcomed, saw a return towards monarchical absolutism, for which Louis XIV, the French Sun King, was the model and apogee. James II, who inherited the Crown after his brother Charles II’s death in 1685, had learnt nothing from the tumultuous age into which he had been born. His misjudgments climaxed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, which ensured the Protestant Crown in Parliament under William and Mary, in whose reign scientific and economic innovations would pave a path to global ascendancy. Ugaz’s case is all too familiar in Peru, where powerful groups regularly use the courts to silence journalists by fabricating criminal allegations against them.’ Despite the radical changes that transformed England, few today understand the story of this revolutionary age. Leaders like Oliver Cromwell, Charles II, and William of Orange have been reduced to caricatures, while major turning points like the Civil War and the Glorious Revolution have become shrouded in myth and misunderstanding. Yet the seventeenth century has never been more relevant. The British constitution is once again being contested, and we face a culture war reminiscent of when the Roundheads fought the Cavaliers. Healy] makes a convincing argument that the turbulent era qualifies as truly ‘revolutionary,’ not simply because of its cascading political upheavals, but in terms of far-reaching changes within society.... Wryly humorous and occasionally bawdy”— The Wall Street Journal Well the book covers the events from King James death in 1604 to the crowning of William of Orange in, the core of the book is focused on the events leading up to and through out the English Civil War. A fascinating time when Parliament deposed King Charles, put him on trial and then executed him. The king's death would usher an almost 10 year of republican rule in England. Many of the most radical factions in Parliament had wanted to bring about universal male sufferage and other political reforms. The civil war also had a strong religious aspect with the King's downfall bringing a very strict strain of Protestantism in the form of Puritanism. The Puritans not only swept away much of the most formal trappings of the Church of England, they also banned or limited more popular religious culture such as Christmas