For perhaps the first time, I'm doing my research on a period before I buy the models and start laying down the paint.! What kind of madness is this?
Well, the ECW is a period I have always been interested in and which is severely undervalued in the popular consciousness (in my opinion), with the rather sexier elements of Reformation England, such as Henry VIII and Elizabeth, hogging the limelight. Poor James only really gets a look in for the Gunpowder Plot, and Charles for losing 'to Cromwell' and getting his block knocked off. Perhaps it is because the reign of these two ushered in unpleasant and bloody episodes in the form of witch trials and the civil war respectively, or because a multiple uxoricide and faux virgin are just that much more scandalous. People prefer sex over death, marginally, and I can't say I blame them much.
Regardless of the reasons for its apparent unfashionability, I started my research here; Peter Gaunt's military history of the war. What better place for a wargamer to start learning about the period, I thought?
Hmm. Not the best place, perhaps, but I shall talk about the good points of this book before I go on a whinge.
It is meticulously researched with an enlightening focus on shedding some light on the ongoing academic discussions around the war, and weighing things up in a dispassionate fashion. Whenever an argument was made I found it hard not to get swept along with the reasoning. The writer's knowledge of smaller engagements is excellent, and includes many original accounts which help to bring the scenes to life. This book is a fantastic resource for the skirmish gamer looking to find details of less well known engagements. Likewise, the bibliography is impressively thorough and will act as an amazing jumping off point for further, more specific, research.
However, I would strongly advise against attempting to read this book cover to cover. It is deeply frustrating. It is arranged in distinct sections; causes of the war, 1642 - 1645 (a chapter loosely based on each year) and aftermath, which makes sense as a whole structure, but where it falls flat is in the arc of each chapter; because to be honest, there isn't one. Gaunt springs about from small engagement to small engagement giving little idea of the links between them, giving great details which are fantastic resources for the gamer, but do little to help with the cohesion of the whole. The larger, more famous battles of the war are in some cases given less treatment than other smaller engagements, bafflingly.
Likewise, Guant's writing style is dry and his sentence structures rambling and without control. He opens the chapter on the repercussions of the war with a whole page recounting and analysing a letter, but it is not until after we have stumbled blindly through this wall of information that we get any context about the recipient, the sender, or even the topic. It's this kind of arse-about-face writing that is reflected even in the individual sentences themselves, and which makes reading this book a frustrating chore. The book clearly does whatever Gaunt wanted it to do, be that to paint a picture of the war shedding light on a number of smaller engagements that Gaunt feels are important to overall picture, or to pick a path through the scholarly minefield, but a coherent and logical guide to the military history it isn't, and the charmless and convoluted writing style compounds this into a book that is useful, but not enjoyable.
I will be returning to Gaunt's book to dip in and out as required in a way I might not with other history books due to the wealth of information and quality scholarship contained within, but I'm glad I'm moving on to a more readable history of the period (God's Fury, England's Fire, a book whose opening chapter is entitled 'From the bowels of the whore of Babylon'. This looks promising as the author clearly has an eye for a well-tuned sentence!).
TLDR: Essential reading for the skirmish gamer, but don't expect to enjoy prolonged exposure.
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