The World Turned Upside Down - The British Civil Wars 1638-1651

The World Turned Upside Down
  • 4.2 (9)
  • HISTORY
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Welcome to exciting new weekly podcasts from top historians, all about the British Civil Wars.

  1. FEB 18

    Duels, violence and conflict

    Early modern Europe, including England, was a violent and dangerous place to live. Just how dangerous has been revealed by research in archives across Europe by Professor Stuart Carroll of the University of York. He argues that violence increased sharply in the sixteenth century and remained high until the 1720s. Throughout this time, disagreements repeatedly ... Read more

    30 min

  2. FEB 12

    Controversy – Was Charles I responsible for his own downfall?

    Historians of the British and Irish Civil Wars have repeatedly asked to what extent was Charles I responsible for his own downfall and consequently, the failure of the monarchy? In this programme, Jacqueline Eales, Emerita Professor of Early Modern History at Canterbury Christ Church University, traces how the King’s intransigence repeatedly undermined potential supporters who ... Read more

    34 min

  3. 11/21/2025

    Pride’s Purge – Radically shifting the balance of power

    On 6 December 1648, Pride’s Purge marked a watershed moment in the English Revolution. By arresting some MPs and preventing others from sitting, the New Model Army seized political power. Now the Army, rather than Parliament, would dictate the future settlement of England. The exclusion of the more moderate MPs ensured that a hard line ... Read more

    34 min

  4. 11/07/2025

    Paying for the New Model Army

    The formation of the New Model Army placed a significant burden on every taxpayer in England at a time when wartime devastation, disruption of trade and a series of poor harvests was already causing hardship across Britain. According to the Army’s detractors, the country could simply not afford to pay a cost equivalent to over ... Read more

    34 min

  5. 10/31/2025

    Fiery spirits – Protestors on the edge of civil war

    In the years leading up to the outbreak of Civil War, very few would have predicted that England would become a Republic. But in Parliament, one MP, Henry Marten (1602 – 1680) who was returned for Berkshire in the Short and Long Parliaments, became an early and outspoken champion for republicanism and subsequently for the ... Read more

    27 min

  6. 10/24/2025

    Brilliana Harley – A woman of faith and substance

    Brilliana Harley was one of the heroines of the British and Irish civil wars. A deeply religious woman, in her husband’s absence, Brilliana successfully held off a royalist siege of her family home at Brampton Bryan in Herefordshire for three months during 1643. During these weeks she vividly described these events and even rejected a ... Read more

    32 min

  7. 10/17/2025

    How did the civil wars alter the British diet?

    Dr Mark Dawson has conducted extensive research into food and drink in the early modern period. In this programme, he reveals that this period saw a fundamental and irreversible evolution of the foods widely consumed by families at all levels of society. Production and consumption of fruit and vegetables increased while soldiers began to eat ... Read more

    32 min

  8. 10/10/2025

    Devil-Land – England under siege

    Among foreign observers, seventeenth-century England was known as “Devil-Land”; a diabolical country of fallen angels, torn apart by Rebellion, religious extremism and royal collapse. It was a place troubled by continual crisis. England was seen by continental neighbours as a “failed state”; endemically unstable and rocked by devastating events from the Gunpowder Plot to the ... Read more

    27 min
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Welcome to exciting new weekly podcasts from top historians, all about the British Civil Wars.

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