Jonathan Healey – författare

A nation on the cusp of war. A king ousted from his capital by the people. A society on the brink of collapse. From Jonathan Healey comes a gripping history about the months that sent England into civil war‘An old-fashioned Westminster thriller . . . You could hardly find a more engrossing or exciting story’ DOMINIC SANDBROOK, SUNDAY TIMES‘A rollicking history, packed with fire and excitement *****’ DANIEL BROOKS, TELEGRAPH‘The House of Cards-ish drama remains gripping to the last’ LITERARY REVIEWAfter years of tension between a king and his people, in 1641 England reaches a semblance of peace. Armies have disbanded, legislation has passed to ensure Parliament will continue to sit, and the people are tentatively optimistic. Radical politicians congratulate themselves on a stunning political victory. Royal servants are coming to accept an altered future.Then comes winter. With it, chaos, protests, political deadlock, and eventually a remarkable attempt by King Charles I to destroy his opponents. On 4 January 1642 Charles marches on the small riverside city of Westminster at the head of an army, seeking to arrest five Members of Parliament. In doing so, he sets in motion a series of events that will lead to bloodshed and war, changing a nation forever.Why did the English Civil War break out? The Blood in Winter tells the story of an English people's great political awakening, and of a nation that splintered into bloodshed at a terrifying speed. Jonathan Healey recreates the claustrophobic atmosphere of the day, with rowdy protestors in the streets and London blanketed in coal smoke. It is a story of remarkable but flawed characters, all faced with unpalatable choices, and a frightening picture of a society in profound distress.

'This is a wonderful book, exhaustively researched, vigorously argued and teeming with the furious joy of seventeenth-century life' THE TIMES'A brilliant, bloody account of England's most dramatic century . . . Thrilling' TELEGRAPH‘The most entertaining general history of seventeenth-century England I have read’ TOM HOLLANDThe seventeenth century began as the English found themselves ruled by a Scotsman, and ended in the shadow of a Dutch invasion. Midway through, society collapsed into a civil war, followed by army coup and regicide. For a short time – for the only time in history – England was a republic. In coffee shops and alehouses, ordinary people fizzed with ideas that were angry, populist and almost impossible to control.Despite these radical changes, few today fully understand the story of this revolutionary age. Leaders like Oliver Cromwell, Charles II and William of Orange have been reduced to caricatures, while major turning points like the Civil War and the Glorious Revolution are shrouded in myth. Yet, as Jonathan Healey argues, the period has never been more relevant. From raw politics to religious divisions, civil wars to witch trials, plague to press freedoms, The Blazing World tells the story of this strange but fascinating century in exuberant, panoramic detail.

The first major regional study of poverty and its relief in the seventeenth century: the first century of welfare.The English 'Old Poor Law' was the first national system of tax-funded social welfare in the world. It provided a safety net for hundreds of thousands of paupers at a time of very limited national wealth and productivity. The First Century of Welfare, which focusses on the poor, but developing, county of Lancashire, provides the first major regional study of poverty and its relief in the seventeenth century. Drawing on thousands of individual petitions for poor relief, presented by paupers themselves to magistrates, it peers into the social and economic world of England's marginal people. Taken together, these records present a vivid and sobering picture of the daily lives and struggles of the poor. We can see how their family life, their relations with their kin and their neighbours, and the dictates of contemporary gender norms conditioned their lives. We can also see how they experienced illness and physical and mental disability; and the ways in which real people's lives could be devastated by dearth, trade depression, and the destruction of the Civil Wars. But the picture is not just one of poor folk tossed by the tidesof fortune. It is also one of agency: about the strategies of economic survival the poor adopted, particularly in the context of a developing industrial economy, of the support they gained from their relatives and neighbours, andof their willingness to engage with England's developing system of social welfare to ensure that they and their families did not go hungry. In this book, an intensely human picture surfaces of what it was like to experience poverty at a time when the seeds of state social welfare were being planted.JONATHAN HEALEY is University Lecturer in English Local and Social History and Fellow of Kellogg College, University of Oxford.

A WATERSTONES, TELEGRAPH, ECONOMIST AND NEW YORKER BOOK OF THE YEARA major new history of England's turbulent seventeenth century and how it marked the birth of a new world'This is a wonderful book, exhaustively researched, vigorously argued and teeming with the furious joy of seventeenth-century life' The Times'A brilliant, bloody account of England's most dramatic century . . . Thrilling' TelegraphThe seventeenth century began as the English suddenly found themselves ruled by a Scotsman, and ended in the shadow of an invasion by the Dutch. Under James I, the country suffered terrorism and witch panics. Under his son Charles, state and society collapsed into civil war, to be followed by an army coup and regicide. For a short time – for the only time in history – England was a republic. There were bitter struggles over faith and no boundaries to politics. In the coffee shops and alehouses of plague-ridden London, new ideas were forged that were angry, populist and almost impossible for monarchs to control.Despite the radical changes that transformed England, few today understand the story of this revolutionary age. Leaders like Oliver Cromwell, Charles II, and William of Orange have been reduced to caricatures, while major turning points like the Civil War and the Glorious Revolution have become shrouded in myth and misunderstanding. Yet the seventeenth century has never been more relevant. The British constitution is once again being contested, and we face a culture war reminiscent of when the Roundheads fought the Cavaliers. From raw politics to religious divisions, civil wars to witch trials, plague to press freedoms, The Blazing World is the story of a strange but fascinating century, told in sparkling detail. Drawing on vast archives, Jonathan Healey refreshes our understanding of public figures while simultaneously taking us into the lives of ordinary people to illuminate a revolutionary society that forged a new world.