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Addressing the military organisation of both Royalists and Parliamentarians, the subject of this thesis is an examination of war effort during the mid-seventeenth century English Civil Wars by taking the example of Shropshire. The county was contested during the First Civil War of 1642-6 and also saw armed conflict on a smaller scale during the Second Civil War of 1648. This detailed study provides a comprehensive bipartisan analysis of military endeavour, in terms of organisation and of the engagements fought. Drawing on numerous primary sources, it explores: leadership and administration; recruitment and the armed forces; military finance; supply and logistics; and the nature and conduct of the fighting. The extent of military activity in Shropshire is explained for the first time, informing the history of the conflict there while reflecting on the nature of warfare across Civil War England. It shows how local Royalist and Parliamentarian activists and 'outsider' leaders provided direction, while the populace widely was involved in the administrative and material tasks of war effort. The war in Shropshire was mainly fought between the opposing county-based forces, but with considerable external military support. Similarly, fiscal and military assets were obtained locally and from much further afield. Attritional war in Shropshire from 1643 to 1646 involved the occupying Royalists engaging Parliamentarian inroads, in fighting the garrison warfare characteristic of the period. Although the outcome of both wars in Shropshire was determined by wider national events, in 1646 and again in 1648 the defeat of the county Royalists was due largely to their local Parliamentarian adversaries. Broadening this study to 1648 has provided insight into Parliamentarian county administration during the short interwar period.

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This Project is an investigation to determine the position that a 17th Century musket ball was fired from a musket, when given the position it was found on the battlefield. Prior to this research the main concerns with making predictions were considered to be associated with the deformed shape of the musket balls affecting their drag coefficient and therefore, their distance to ground impact. The distance they would continue after impact due to bounce and roll was unknown. Previous research has been used and built upon to recreate the conditions of the English Civil War as accurately as possible. It was found that the average distance to ground impacts were in good agreement with predictions using the drag coefficient for a sphere showing that the distorted shape resulting from the firing process of the musket ball made little difference to its drag coefficient in the majority of cases. However, the distance travelled after the first ground impact greatly exceeded expectations, with the musket balls almost doubling the total average distance to their final resting positions - an increase of 81%. From these findings the initial factors thought to have had high relevance to the final resting position of the musket ball (velocity variation and drag co-efficient) become less significant and factors such as ground hardness become more prominent. The knowledge gained during this investigation will re-establish more accurate information to be obtained on the firing positions of opposing forces during conflicts in the English Civil War.

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There is little question that Hobbes's Leviathan and Behemoth are largely responding to the civil conflicts that were tearing seventeenth-century England apart, but scholars disagree in their interpretations of Hobbes's diagnosis and prescription for the civil war. Complementing previous interpretations, my MA thesis suggests that Hobbes also traces the source of the civil conflicts to Western philosophical tradition (WPT) itself both methodologically and substantially. Methodologically, ancient Western philosophers do not start their ratiocination process with definitions of the terms used, and Hobbes argues that this lack of adequate method leads to all kinds of absurdities and consequently a whole false reference world. This critique is largely based on Hobbes's materialist accounts of philosophy and mind. Substantially, Hobbes suggests that Aristotle's natural, moral and civil philosophies in particular contribute to the chaotic opinions and the civil conflicts. After detecting this source, Hobbes undertakes perhaps the most ambitious endeavor to exorcise the demon of the tradition in Western history, by radically scientizing the philosophical tradition and establishing a science of politics.

There is little question that Hobbes's Leviathan and Behemoth are largely responding to the civil conflicts that were tearing seventeenth-century England apart, but scholars disagree in their interpretations of Hobbes's diagnosis and prescription for the civil war. Complementing previous interpretations, my MA thesis suggests that Hobbes also traces the source of the civil conflicts to Western philosophical tradition (WPT) itself both methodologically and substantially. Methodologically, ancient Western philosophers do not start their ratiocination process with definitions of the terms used, and Hobbes argues that this lack of adequate method leads to all kinds of absurdities and consequently a whole false reference world. This critique is largely based on Hobbes's materialist accounts of philosophy and mind. Substantially, Hobbes suggests that Aristotle's natural, moral and civil philosophies in particular contribute to the chaotic opinions and the civil conflicts. After detecting this source, Hobbes undertakes perhaps the most ambitious endeavor to exorcise the demon of the tradition in Western history, by radically scientizing the philosophical tradition and establishing a science of politics.

ABSTRACT This thesis aims to (re)examine the breakdown of consensus that led to the outbreak of the English Revolution. It aims to do so from the particular perspective of a group of moderate godly laymen, commonly known as the 'Junto', who played a prominent role in the religious and political machinations of the Long Parliament before the outbreak of hostilities in 1642. Of particular concern is an exploration of the ideological background of these men in order to delineate possible contours of continuity of thought and action extending from the 1620s to the Long Parliament; an objective which has been facilitated via the deployment of a kind of micro-prosopographical methodology which focuses more on qualitative rather than quantitative 'ties of association'. With a view towards charting such contours of continuity, the 1630s provide the crux of the thesis. To this purpose, a number of ties of association have been interrogated including the involvement of these men in colonisation schemes (in particular the Providence Island Company); their resistive action to prerogative taxation; the efficacy of godly communitarian and social ties; and their association with the irenic schemes of John Dury and Samuel Hartlib. Deeply contextualised analysis of such ties of association has the potential to reveal and reframe previously obscured contours of continuity. Furthermore, this focus not only sheds light on this important yet relatively neglected decade but also contributes to a growing body of post-revisionist research by reappraising the revisionist emphasis on short-term and non-ideological causes of the English Revolution. This thesis demonstrates that, for these men at least, there can be discerned a continuity of dissident ideological thought and action stemming from the mid-1620s and receiving its fullest expression in the Grand Remonstrance of November 1641. Moreover, although this dissident ideological framework had political/constitutional implications, it was fundamentally religious in origin and nature, stemming as it did from a reaction to the Arminianism of the Caroline ecclesiastical establishment in the 1620s and its subsequent Laudian efflorescence in the 1630s. Thus this thesis demonstrates that for these men the causes of the English Revolution were essentially religious in nature.