ABSTRACT
Extract I (Chapters 2 and 3): The kind of men who went to people the English islands
[...] Out of this conflict between King and Parliament,1 there arose the most ferocious, the most bloody and the most uncompromising civil war that history has ever known. Never had the English character shown itself in such a terrible light. Each day dawned on new atrocities, which appeared to have been taken to the ultimate extreme, only to be outdone by others even more savage. It seemed that the nation was on the brink of destruction, and that every Briton had resolved to be buried beneath the ruins of his country.
