English Civil War – The Bell Bookshop https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk Henley-on-Thames Fri, 13 Dec 2024 15:47:42 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/cropped-Bell-Background-Blue-32x32.png English Civil War – The Bell Bookshop https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk 32 32 The Manningtree Witches https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/the-manningtree-witches/ Thu, 04 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/the-manningtree-witches/ Fear and destruction take root in a community of women when the Witchfinder General comes to town, in this dark and thrilling debut.England, 1643. Parliament is battling the King; the war between the Roundheads and the Cavaliers rages. Puritanical fervour has gripped the nation, and the hot terror of damnation burns black in every shadow. In Manningtree, depleted of men since the wars began, the women are left to their own devices. At the margins of this diminished community are those who are barely tolerated by the affluent villagers – the old, the poor, the unmarried, the sharp-tongued. Rebecca West, daughter of the formidable Beldam West, fatherless and husbandless, chafes against the drudgery of her days, livened only by her infatuation with the clerk John Edes. But then newcomer Matthew Hopkins takes over the Thorn Inn and begins to ask questions about the women of the margins. When a child falls ill with a fever and starts to rave about covens and pacts, the questions take on a bladed edge. The Manningtree Witches plunges its readers into the fever and menace of the English witch trials, where suspicion, mistrust and betrayal ran amok as the power of men went unchecked and the integrity of women went undefended. It is a visceral, thrilling book that announces a bold new talent.

]]> White King: The tragedy of Charles I https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/white-king-the-tragedy-of-charles-i/ Thu, 10 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/white-king-the-tragedy-of-charles-i/ The subject of a BBC TV series on Charles I
The prize-winning biography of Charles I

* Winner of the HWA Crown for Best Work of Historical Non-Fiction 2018 *
* Times Book of the Year *
* Shortlisted for the Catholic Herald Biography Award 2019 *

Less than forty years after the golden age of Elizabeth I, England was at war with itself. At the head of this disintegrating kingdom was Charles I, who would change the face of the monarchy for ever.

His reign is one of the most dramatic in history, yet Charles the man remains elusive. To his enemies he was the ‘white tyrant of prophecy: to his supporters a murdered innocent. Today many myths still remain.

It is an epic story of glamour and strong women, of populist politicians and religious terror, of mass movements and a revolutionary new media: one that speaks to our own divided and dangerous times.

‘This is the most gripping piece of revisionist history I have read for a long time’ – The Spectator

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