These essays reexamine the early Stuart period from a fresh vantage point: the career of Thomas Wentworth, earl of Strafford. Wentworth played a crucial role in virtually every disputed policy of the 1620s and 1630s, and his career encapsulates many of the paradoxes and tensions in Stuart politics. The Political World of Thomas Wentworth boasts a series of major articles exploring the political world under Charles I through Wentworth's career, and challenging some of the categories and presuppositions that characterize recent work on this period.

Introduction: the historical reputation of Thomas Wentworth J. F. Merritt; 1. Phaeton's Chariot: the parliament-men and the Continental Crisis in 1621 Thomas Cogswell; 2. Sir Thomas Wentworth and anti-Spanish sentiment, 1621-1624 Conrad Russell; 3. Wentworth's 'change of sides' in the 1620s Richard Cust; 4. The church triumphant? The emergence of a spiritual Lord Treasurer, 1635-6 Brian Quintrell; 5. Power and communication: Thomas Wentworth and government at a distance during the Personal Rule, 1629-1635 J. F. Merritt; 6. Thomas Wentworth and the political thought of the Personal Rule Anthony Milton; 7. The attempted anglicisation of Ireland in the seventeenth century: an exemplar of 'British history' Nicholas Canny; 8. 'God Bless Your Free Church of Ireland': Wentworth, Laud, Bramhall and the Irish Convocation of 1634 John McCafferty; 9. Strafford, the 'Londonderry Business' and the 'new British history' Jane H. Ohlmeyer; 10. The public context of the trial and execution of Strafford Terence Kilburn and Anthony Milton; 11. Retrospective: Wentworth's political world in revisionist and post-revisionist perspective Peter Lake.

' ... a high-quality collection, essential reading for anyone who wishes to examine the cutting edge of early Stuart historiography'. History ' ... the volume is ... a very useful addition to the burgeoning literature on what has been called the 'new British history'. Historical Journal