The Bishops' Wars: The History of the Religious Conflicts that Engulfed Britain and Led to the First English Civil War

England has more often been faced with the claims of competing kings and queens than with a period of no monarch at all. The major exception to that rule came in the 11 years between 1649 and 1660, when England was a republic. Following the disastrous reign of Charles I and the civil wars that led to his execution, Parliament and the army ruled England.

That situation was one that would not have been possible without the Bishops' Wars that preceded it. In the 1630s, Charles's high-handed a...