John Adamson’s book traces the careers and fortunes of the small group of English noblemen who risked their lives and fortunes to challenge the king’s attempt to create an authoritarian monarchy in the Stuart kingdoms during the 1630s. What was achieved in 1641 astonished – and alarmed – contemporaries: the trial and execution of the king’s most powerful minister; a new, and sometimes violent, phase of religious reformation; the drastic curbing of the powers of the Crown; the planning of a major Anglo-Scottish military intervention in the Thirty Years’ War. The threat of war was rarely absent and the resort to armed force come to seem a viable, perhaps even the only, means of resolving the conflicts within the Stuart realms.

The most comprehensive re-evaluation of the origins of the English Civil War for over a century The sequel, THE WAR OF THE REALMS, will be published in 2009 John Adamson has written extensively on sixteenth and seventeenth century political and cultural history He is a winner of the Royal Historical Society’s Alexander Prize and the University of Cambridge’s Seeley Medal for History THE NOBLE REVOLT has received excellent reviews: ‘Excellent… As rigorously close-up historical narrative, this is exemplary stuff’ Guardian ‘Immensely scholarly and beautifully written book… This is one of the most original and thought-provoking books on the civil war I have yet read’ Literary Review ‘A work of great style and imagination… As with a great 19th-century novel, the story and the characters will become your friends for life’ The Times ‘New and profound, it’s an exciting read, full of colour and finely drawn characters’ Spectator ‘Engaging… delivers a body blow to recent modes of revisionist analysis’ Daily Telegraph ‘A monumental achievement…a timeless study of the realities of power… John Adamson has given us a masterly account’ Sunday Telegraph