The Impact of the First Civil War on Hertfordshire 1642-47
Edited by Alan Thompson
Hertfordshire Record Publications, 2007
From Dust Cover
Most documents in this volume are papers deposited by a local subcommittee of the Committee for Taking the Accounts of the Kingdom, set up to audit income and expenditure by wartime committees controlled by parliament in each county. The introduction puts these sources in their national, local and historiographical context. The main text is then divided into three sections.
The first - fighting the war - covers the men involved, including officers, volunteers, militia and impressed soldiers; the provision of uniforms, weapons, ammunition and supplies; commandeering, purchase and use of horses; committees and wartime administration; the secretariat and communications; the fortification of Newport Pagnell, St Albans and Hertford.
The second - paying for the war includes propositions, loans and contributions; local assessment; the collection of rates, loans, taxes and contributions; payments to troops; the allocation of, opposition to, and repayment of, monies raised.
The third - the impact of the war on communities and individuals - covers the effects on communities of free quarter; the effects of war on central-local relations, on parishes, on individuals; sequestration, its organization and effects on royalists and clerics; the sale of sequestered and concealed goods.
Also included are several appendices, brief biographies of key people and indices of person, place and subject. This is an essential volume for historians of Hertfordshire and of the civil war in general, and also for family historians researching the period.