I'm John Bax to with Jonathan Healy, Professor Jonathan Healy, Social Historian at an

Associate Professor at Oxford University.

His new book is The Blasing World,

A New History of the Revolutionary England,

1603 to 1689.

Jonathan mentions the Scottish revolt,

but that's the first of many rising up against the absolute power of the king.

We need now to go quickly through the 1630s and the 1640s, because the King's power is challenged not only by religion

of religionists but also by people who have been disappointed about his way of exacting penalties, exacting taxes, and what is an effect, tyrannical.

The word tyranny is used all the time.

Jonathan, the fighting begins almost casually in the early 1640s,

with the king riding around with retainers, that is to say his private army traveling with him.

At the time, there was no standing army, is that correct?

When the king needed men to fight with him, he'd called to his lords and they'd raise the army.

So is the king understood to be at this point ordinary riding with his protectors or is this seem to be a step back a weakness on his part?

Well I mean he's the if you like the sort of the kind of Rubicon moment if you like is when in at the very well the

the winter of 1641 1642 where essentially so what's happened is that Charles has been forced to call Parliament.

Parliament has pushed him down a sort of, you know, a path of reform.

As part of that, they have put William Lord in prison and they've put Stratford on trial

and eventually had him executed against the king's wishes.

The king wasn't able to do anything about it.

And after that period of reform,

...