Seeking background information on 1600s English history

[sylvar]

During the drive home from a doctor's appointment (about which I'll write more later), I listened to the podcast of a BBC In Our Time show about 17th-century print culture in England and how the rise of literacy and printed material affected the (English) Civil War. segnbora will probably enjoy listening to the show, which is available here in mp3 format. (A complete podcast feed of In Our Time is here.)

I realized that, since European history was optional in high school, I am ignorant of some pretty basic facts about the period. While I'm sure I could look up individual facts, I'd like a recommendation from anyone who knows of a lively, readable book that would explain things like these:

• Who were the Royalists, Roundheads, Cavaliers, Levellers, Diggers, etc.?
  • Did they tend to come from specific geographical areas of Britain?
  • Did commoners tend to identify with these groups or were they mostly factions within government and church?
  • Who used these names to describe these groups, and did they call themselves the same things or were these unwelcome labels assigned by opponents or later historians?
  • What were the concerns and interests of people we identify with these groups, and what did they do about it?


• What was the Popish plot? For that matter, are we talking about the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church or Alexander Pope?


• What have Dryden and other literary figures got to do with all this, if anything?


• To paraphrase William S. Gilbert, precisely what is meant by the terms Commonwealth, Republic, and Restoration in this context?


• How was organized religion involved in all of this? To what extent were religious factions concerned with theological and moral issues, and to what extent were they concerned with defending or promoting their church?


• Were the groups involved in these changes political parties in anything like the current sense? Did political parties grow out of this period, or did that come later?


• What was going on in Spain and France and other relevant places outside of Britain? What did people there think of all this? What did those governments want to happen within Britain, and did they get involved?


• How did the lives of tradesmen, servants, farmers, etc. change during this time?


• To what extent was this strictly an English affair, and to what extent were Wales, Cornwall, Scotland and Ireland involved?

If anyone feels like explaining this stuff, that's cool too, but I assume it will be most expedient to give me the title of a book.

Comments

[creases.livejournal.com]

I am! Hiya!

No, I don't have any particular books. What I know comes from long-forgotten snippets of history classes, from picking up incidental stuff from prefaces and footnotes of contemporary stuff (I have a professional interest in 17th century political philosophy), from combing Wikipedia and from picking [Noung]'s brain.