All the King's Armies

Stuart Reid's All the King's Armies is a fully-researched interpretation of the military events in the United Kingdom from 1642 - 1651. He begins by setting up the divisions that would characterize the civil war: King Charles' pro-Rome tendencies trickled into the rural areas through the local squires and ministers while Parliament's pro-Protestant tendencies were stronger in the industrialized towns and commercial centers (Reid xiii). Reid then outlines Charles' clumsy attempts to bring Protestant Scotland into line with his religious reforms that only resulted in the National Covenant of 1638 and the embarrassing Bishops' Wars that actually weakened Charles politically while strengthening Parliament's position. This led to even more challenges to Charles' rule, namely a Catholic rebellion in Ireland, which Reid attributed partly to the Irish Catholics' awareness that a rebellion might then succeed against the weakened crown. It was Charles' subsequent illegal invasion of Parliament with an armed gang to try to arrest five leading members of Parliament that precipitated the civil war (Reid xvi).

In this introduction, Reid successfully details the events that led to the deepening political mistrust between Charles and the Royalists and the Parliamentarians. Thereafter, however, Reid's analysis becomes an exhaustive interpretation of the military events that characterized the war. His first full chapter, for example, signals the almost purely mili

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Category: History - A