Royalists, parliamentarians, independents, puritans, presbyterians, catholics, soldiers, English, Irish, Scots, all plotting in shifting alliances – the English civil war period was a complex event, and Michael Braddick’s God’s Fury, England’s Fire doesn’t make it much clearer. That’s not in itself a bad thing. I think one of the jobs of a historian is to confuse us, to help us understand how unclear and complex historical events really were. Contrast that to the charlatans who treat history as a well of clear moral lessons for our time. I don’t want clarity from history. I want truth.

But to this unavoidable challenge Braddick adds the avoidable one of unclear language. As he himself might put it: the passive voice is highly present in the pages of this book, representing a challenge of interpretation for the reader, who finds themselves in a continous linguistic struggle for understanding. Ie.: Braddick writes poorly, which makes the book hard to read. Nobody ever does anything here, things just sort of happen. When, at the end, Charles I is executed, (I mean martyred), you’ll almost believe the axe flew by its own accord.

That’s a shame, because this is a fascinating subject. I’m most interested in the cultural aspects. The collision of ideas and beliefs and practices, daily life in the shadow of political and religious upheaval. Some examples: A witty prisoner, censorship by ear-cropping, and descriptions of the cost of war for common soldiers. Fine and vivid writing, which unfortunately is not representative of the whole.

Others died accidentally. Ralph Hopton was severely wounded when a casually placed tobacco pipe ignited barrels of gunpowder and two other soldiers in his army died from the accidental discharge of muskets. Edward Morton was blown up, along with his four children and his house, while mixing gunpowder for the royal army. His wife’s escape was said to be providential, since she had tried to dissuade him from doing this work for the royalists. Another judgement was visited on Captain Starker, inspecting the loot taken from the capture of Houghton Tower in Lancashire. One of the company lit a pipe, which ignited the powder, killing himself, his captain and sixty of his comrades. The consequent burn and shatter wounds were horrifying.

[..]

Many of the fallen died of their wounds, often in pain and some time after the battle. John Hampden took six days to die of wounds received at the battle of Chalgrove Field, six agonizing days. Care of the wounded was taken seriously but was limited by both resources and expertise. Wiseman, seeking to learn from his battlefield experiences, seems to have made a diagnostic distinction between those who died howling like dogs and those who died screaming. [..] Shattered bones and the threat of infection were the principal dangers. As Wiseman noted, an undressed wound was within days full of maggots. Amputation was often done immediately, while the wounded men were still in shock, since their courage might fail them later.

- Michael Braddick, God’s Fury, England’s Fire

Under Charles I, Alexander Leighton and William Prynne suffered alongside their books. In fact Prynne suffered the revival of burnings by the public hangman, in 1634. His Histrio-Mastix had denounced stage plays, and included attacks on female actors, at just about the time that Henrietta Maria appeared in a court masque. The timing was ambiguous – the criticism might have predated knowledge of the Queen’s participation – but the implication was a dangerous one. However, Histrio-Matix was dangerous as much for its tone – highly intemperate and disrespectful – as its content and this earned it special treatment. Lord Cottington, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, ordered it to be ‘burnt in the most public manner that can be. The manner in other countries is … to be burnt by the hangman, though not used in England. Yet I wish it may, in respect of the strangeness and heinousness of the matter contained in it, to have a strange manner of burning, therefore I shall desire it may be so burnt by the hand of the hangman’. It was on this occasion that Prynne lost the first parts of his ears: set in a pillory at Westminster and Cheapside, one of his ears cropped in each place and copies of his book burned before him. It was said that he nearly suffocated from the smoke.

- Michael Braddick, God’s Fury, England’s Fire

The Privy Council was anxious to discover who had incited him to commit the murder [of the Duke of Buckingham], suspecting the ‘Puritans’, but Felton insisted that he had acted alone and had not told anyone of his intentions. In the face of this insistence William Laud, then Bishop of London and emerging as an influential anti-Puritan, threatened him with the rack. But Felton was clearly made of stern stuff, and even though he was a ‘person of little stature’ he had ‘a stout and revengeful spirit’. In these tense moments he demonstrated considerable sang froid, replying that if he were put to the rack:

he could not tell whom he might nominate in the extremity of torture, and if what he should say then must go for truth, he could not tell whether his Lordship (meaning the Bishop of London) or which of their Lordships he might name, for torture might draw unexpected things from him.

After this there were no more questions for the prisoner.

- Michael Braddick, God’s Fury, England’s Fire

As plot devices go, super thieves and con men are the non-scary equivalents of serial killers: Endlessly fascinating but overused and implausible. There are some in real life, but once you’ve seen fifty variations of the Super Awesome Heist story, or the Brilliant Psychopath Plays Mind Games With Detective story, the spell breaks.

I almost like Scott Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamora. It’s a Super Awesome Heist story in a fantasy setting. It’s well written and intelligent, thus passing a test most fantasy doesn’t. It begins strong, and stayed there for the 220 pages I read.

But then I asked myself what it was that I liked about it. It wasn’t the characters. I still haven’t got a clear idea about Locke Lamora, the con man whose intricate plans to ruin a nobleman appears to be the main plot here. He’s just a name on a page. The city is interesting – but that got me thinking about Lankhmar, Fritz Leiber’s city of prototypical sardonic thievery, and I remembered how much better in every way his stories were than this. I thought: Why am I reading this? I want to reread Leiber!

I realized that the only thing I enjoyed about this novel was the Super Awesome Heist story, which is just too awesome, too perfect, (although clearly headed for a sudden Complication), and from there it all fell apart. It could have been different. This is the kind of novel I might have read in one sitting on a hot summer day. But it’s not to be.