The nine contributors to this book focus on three English civil wars: the civil war of King Stephens reign; the Wars of the Roses; and the civil war of the seventeenth century. The wars are viewed within a wider European context, and characteristics of civil war are considered alongside developments in European warfare. This book deals with the general theme of the interaction of war and society rather than the details of individual campaigns and battles. It is concerned with the nature of war and the way it was conducted in the medieval and early modern periods, as well as the way it has been recorded and interpreted by contemporaries and later commentators.