"This is the 14th set of volumes in the History of Parliament's authoritative work of reference, covering the people who sat in Parliament at Westminster from the origins of the institution in the 13th century, together with surveys describing the constituencies and elections that sent them there. Seven volumes of biographies cover the men who became Members of Parliament in the period - 1,806 detailed articles on the political elite of seventeenth-century England (and some people well beyond the political elite) between 1640 and 1660. They include the political leaders such as Oliver Cromwell himself, John Pym, Richard Hampden, the two Sir Henry Vanes, many other military leaders and commanders of the war on both sides, among them Sir Thomas (later Lord) Fairfax, Henry Ireton, and Sir Ralph Hopton; the regicides who sat in judgement on King Charles I and signed his death warrant; and the numerous non-elite men, often religious and political radicals, who became Members of Parliament in the so-called 'Barebones' Parliament and afterwards, including the preacher Praise-God Barebones himself. These are accompanied by a volume covering the 316 constituency survey articles, identifying the outcome of each election held for a parliamentary seat during the period, and describing the economy, society and politics of each constituency. They include the elections held in Scotland and Ireland for the Parliaments of the Protectorate period, when all of the separate nations of the British Isles were briefly united under the 1653 Instrument of Government. The first volume contains an Introductory survey, which pulls together all this information into the most comprehensive description of the nature and operation of the Parliament in this period ever assembled, together with social, political and economic analysis of the Members themselves, and a survey of the electoral system. The volume also contains detailed histories of each of the executive committees that were created by Parliament during the Civil War in order to co-ordinate its tax-raising, security and military operations."-- Taken from dust jacket.

Gift: History of Parliament Trust.