*WINNER OF THE WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE 2022* A BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021, AS CHOSEN BY THE TIMES, NEW STATESMAN, TELEGRAPH AND TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT. This groundbreaking portrait explores the most turbulent century in English history, revealing a nation in near-constant crisis. Seventeenth-century England, known to foreign observers as 'Devil-Land,' was marked by seditious rebellion, religious extremism, and royal collapse. Clare Jackson's original account highlights the horror that Elizabeth I, an unmarried heretic, inspired in Catholic Europe, while her Stuart successors, James I and Charles I, were viewed as incompetent. The era was defined by traumatic civil wars, regicide, and a republican Commonwealth, followed by the unstable reigns of Charles II and James II, culminating in William of Orange's invasion and the imposition of a new order. Jackson portrays England as a 'failed state,' plagued by instability and catastrophic events like the Gunpowder Plot and the Great Fire of London. Yet, from this chaos emerged creativity, vividly illustrated through eyewitness accounts, many from astonished foreigners. Spanning from the eve of the Spanish Armada in 1588 to a not-so 'Glorious Revolution' a century later, this work offers a spectacular reinterpretation of England's complex past.
