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Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History Magazine.

Over the winter of 1641 to 1642, England stood on the precipice of civil war.

In his new book, The Blood in Winter, Jonathan Healy charts how the relationship between

the King and Parliament disintegrated during those months, leading England down the road to a

bloody conflict. I spoke to Jonathan to find out more about why tensions arose between Charles

I and the MPs and whether anything could have been done to

avoid war. Jonathan, why don't we start with the title of your book, Blood in Winter, A Nation

Descends 1642. Let's focus in on that winter then of 1641 and 1642. Why was this such a pivotal

time in British and Irish history? Well, I mean,

I started with, I think it was fair to say, one of the most iconic moments. The word iconic

gets overused, but this time I think it's right. In English political history, which was the time

when King Charles I first angry at the sort of dissent that he was getting from Parliament,

marched down into Parliament and tried to arrest five MPs in the House of Commons.

It's one of those moments that most people who know a bit about English history know about.

So I wanted to sort of tell the backstory of that big, big, dramatic, divisive, important moment. But also, in the lead

up to that, there had been this incredibly intense period of political strife, popular protest,

...