Reviews

A King Condemned: The Trial and Execution of Charles I by C. V. Wedgwood

humbird's review against another edition

3.0

A very detailed, thoroughly-researched, balanced discussion of all aspects of both sides of the last months of Charles' reign, trial, execution, and its impacts. Not having a good understanding of the conflict between Charles I and Parliament and the civil war before we started reading Coffin it was a bit hard to understand at first, especially to sort out which group was who (Puritans, Parliment, Cavaliers, Independents, etc.). It was even harder to keep track of all the different names that were mentioned and where they fit into the overall picture. If I were to read it again, I would keep a list or chart with notes about who was who. She also moves back-and-forth in time, discussing one area before backtracking to discuss the same time period from a different angle, so keeping a timeline would have been helpful, too. However, I did eventually get the main people put into place and learned enough about the years that came before from another source to have a better sense of context.

Overall I learned a lot from this book about the personalities and motives, strengths and faults of those involved and hope to go through it again at some point, taking notes and keeping a timeline as described above. With these tools and a better understanding of the times before starting this book, I'd get a lot more out of it.