This collection of essays re-examines the historical debates of the early Stuart period from a fresh vantage point: the career of Thomas Wentworth, first Earl of Strafford. Wentworth played a crucial role in virtually every disputed policy and debate of the 1620s and 1630s. A noted 'country' parliamentarian, then a Privy Councillor and President of the Council in the North, a controversial Lord Deputy of Ireland and a close ally of Archbishop Laud - Wentworth's career encapsulates many of the paradoxes and tensions in early Stuart politics. This collection boasts a series of major articles by some of the most prominent historians currently active in seventeenth-century political history. The essays explore the nature of the political world under Charles I through Wentworth's career, challenging some of the categories and presuppositions which characterise recent work on the pre-Civil War period.