The effects of civil war are suffered most horrifically by the ordinary men, women, and children involuntarily caught up in it. Such was the fate of the citizens of Chester, who for almost4 years found themselves at the center of the battle between King and Parliament. Chester's inhabitants withstood the terrors of bombardment and the rigors of starvation in one of the most fiercely contested sieges of the Civil War. This is the story of their brutal introduction to the realities of war and their gallant defence of Chester. John Barratt also provides insight into the role of Chester's women...

Cromwell's alliance with France in 1657 opened for the English Republic and Charles II's army in exile a new theater of war in Flanders - in addition to England's ongoing war with Spain. It resulted in the old opponents of the Civil Wars in Britain meeting in combat once again. This book tells the story of the two armies: Charles II's polyglot army of Irish, Scottish and English soldiers - fighting for the Stuarts for a variety of reasons - and the expeditionary force dispatched by Cromwell to assist his French allies, with the objective of securing Dunkirk as an English possession. The book,...

General George Monck once described the Royalist horse as "a rabble of gentility." Modern research has largely dispelled this image of the King's cavalry. However the description seems at first sight appropriate to the body of cavalry known as the "Northern Horse." Formed from those elements of the Marquis of Newcastle's Northern Royalist Army which elected to continue to fight after the crushing defeat at Marston Moor (2 July 1644) during the next 15 months the Northern Horse swept across much of England and Wales, becoming increasingly notorious in the process. United and reorganized by...

The Battle of Stow on the Wold and the end of the Civil War in the Welsh Marches. c 30 ills incl. colour artwork, maps, contemporary prints, portraits modern photos