The execution of Charles I in 1649, followed by the proclamation of a Commonwealth, was an extraordinary political event. It followed a bitter Civil War between parliament and the king, and their total failure to negotiate a subsequent peace settlement.

Why the king was defeated and executed has been a central question in English history, being traced back to the Reformation and forward to the triumph of parliament in the eighteenth century. The old answers, whether those of the Victorian narrative historian S.R. Gardiner or of Lawrence Stone's diagnosis of a fatal long-term rift in English society, however, no longer satisfy, while the newer ones of local historians and 'revisionists' often leave readers unclear as to why the Civil War happened at all.

In "Why Was Charles I Executed?" Clive Holmes supplies clear answers to eight key questions about the period, ranging from why the king had to summon the Long Parliament to whether there was in fact an English Revolution.

The Eastern Association has an assured place in any history of the Civil War. Within the region, early in 1643, Oliver Cromwell and his 'Iron-sides' first rose to prominence; in 1644 the seven constituent countries raised the force which, at Marston Moor, tipped the military balance decisively against the king, and was to become the major component in the New Model Army in 1645. Using a wide selection of original national and local archival materials, Dr Holmes seeks to provide an explanation of the impressive performance of the Association in the war. He emphasizes the need to combine studies which have too often been regarded as autonomous fields of enquiry - of military organization, of central politics, of the local communities - to obtain a total perspective.

The execution of Charles I in 1649, followed by the proclamation of a Commonwealth, was an extraordinary political event. It followed a bitter Civil War between parliament and the king, and their abject failure to negotiate a peace settlement. Why the king was defeated and executed has long been a central question in English history. The old answers, whether those of the historian S R Gardiner or of Lawrence Stone, no longer satisfy. Clive Holmes supplies clear answers to eight key questions about the period, ranging from why the king had to summon the Long Parliament to whether there was in fact an English Revolution at all.

The book will is the first full analysis of the gentry in the early modern period since G.E.Mingay The Gentry: the Rise and Fall of a Ruling Class (1976). It offers a synthesis of the recent specialist work on this key social and political group, but will also provide a distinctive approach to its subjects through the use of the texts and artefacts by which the gentry sought to fashion themselves.