We Need to Talk about The English Civil War

There are various parts of UK history that many people talk about, the English Civil War is not one of them

Okay, let’s be clear about this. A lot of people do talk about the English Civil War, there are even re-enactment societies, I seem to recall even Bill Bailey once did a comedy sketch about members of such a society having a drunken fight outside a pub, divided of course, between Cavaliers and Roundheads.

But it is not discussed or looked into anywhere near as much as, say, the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, or the Middle Ages, or the Industrial Revolution, or the Victorian era and 20th Century history. How many films do you know of starring big Hollywood names, that are set during this period, other than Cromwell (and if you haven’t seen it, it is worth watching in spite of the gross inaccuracies, especially Alec Guinness’s performance as King Charles I)? There have even been few TV series set during this period, although the BBC did a very good production spanning two series called By the Sword Divided, in the early to mid 1980s.