The personal rule of Charles I

"In 1625 Charles I succeeded to the throne of a nation heavily involved in a European war and deeply divided by religious controversy. Within four years he had dissolved Parliament and begun a period of eleven years of personal rule. In the first, monumental and massively researched history of the King's personal rule, Kevin Sharpe has written a work of unprecedented importance in the debate on the origins of the English Civil War." "Whig historians have maintained that civil war was the inevitable outcome of a contest for power between King and Parliament. Revisionists have emphasized the basic harmony between King, Lords and Commons. Most scholars have agreed that it was the aristocratic temperament of Charles I, his adoption of 'new politics' and promotion of suspect religious policies, that eroded trust in the monarchy and fuelled a conflict that could have been avoided." "All such judgements rest on preconceptions which no biography has satisfactorily elucidated, and no history has thoroughly examined. Kevin Sharpe presents a wholly fresh picture of a dominant Charles I, of his personality, principles and policies. He explains why a king who, after summoning more parliaments i