ABSTRACT
In what were to become the Royalist areas of England and Wales, the Civil War did not arise, inevitably, from any fundamental social, economic, religious or even political cleavage within local society. It was an artificial insemination of violence into the local community. The traditional rulers of England, King, Lords and Commons, betrayed the first duty of government, to promote the order and security of the governed. Instead they set leading men of each county against each other to the ruin of themselves and their communities.
