Religion has always been seen as a critical element in the political meltdown of 1640 – 42, which led to the English Civil War. Exactly how and why has generated a great deal of debate, with recent discussion stemming from John Morrill's now-famous suggestion that ‘the English Civil War was not the first European revolution: it was the last of the Wars of Religion’. But what within the context of seventeenth-century England are we to understand by a religious war? To rephrase the question: What was singularly ‘religious’ about the motivation of the combatants on either side, and to what extent did the formation of allegiance mirror existing confessional tensions present within Stuart society? This book attempts to explore these issues.

Granted that the Reformation ushered in an era of Christian militancy in England, arguably the more ‘militant’ aspect of English Protestantism–puritanism – has traditionally been ascribed an important role in fomenting rebellion against the crown. Perspectives have changed since Samuel Rawlinson Gardiner's monumental account of the ‘puritan revolution’ written in the 1880s. For Gardiner, celebrating puritanism in robust terms as ‘the strength of England itself’, Protestant triumph at the Reformation helped nurture an independent spirit among the English people, propelling the nation to resist the absolutist tendencies of successive Stuart monarchs amid an heroic historical quest for political and religious liberty. However, this teleological view of early modern religious developments has proved influential.