History Of The Great Civil War 3: Volume 3 1645-47: v.3 - Softcover

Volume three of S.R. Gardiner's classic study of the English Civil War covers the period from September 1645 to October 1647, tracing the final victories of the New Model Army in the campaigns of 1645 and 1646, and the extraordinary political and religious upheaval which shook that victorious army in 1647. These years are of particular interest to students of the period because of the revolutionary fervour which gradually took hold in the rank and file of Parliament's Army and set it at loggerheads with Parliament itself (or at least the Presbyterian faction which controlled Parliament). Gardiner chronicles the events which led to the abduction and eventual incarceration of the King, and the rise of the 'Agitators' in the Army, and of the Levellers who pressed for a greater recognition of the role which the common soldier had played in the triumph of the Parliamentary Cause. This period also saw the first experimental proposals for a 'settlement' or new constitution, the search for which was to be a major point of contention between opposing military, political and religious factions.

Gardiner was educated at Winchester and Christ Church, Oxford, and for some years was a member of the Irvingite Church. From 1871 to 1885 he taught at King's College, London, becoming professor of modern history there in 1876, later becoming a Fellow of All Souls, Oxford. He died in 1902.