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The Blood in Winter

A Nation Descends, 1642

Jonathan Healey

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Hardback

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English
Bloomberg Press
04 November 2025
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A nation on the cusp of war. A king ousted from his capital by the people. A society on the brink of collapse. From Jonathan Healey comes a thrilling history about the months that sent England into civil war

‘An old-fashioned Westminster thriller . . . You could hardly find a more engrossing or exciting story’ DOMINIC SANDBROOK, SUNDAY TIMES

‘A rollicking history, packed with fire and excitement
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‘The House of Cards-ish drama remains gripping to the last’ LITERARY REVIEW

After years of tension between a king and his people, in 1641 England reaches a semblance of peace. Armies have disbanded, legislation has passed to ensure Parliament will continue to sit, and the people are tentatively optimistic. Radical politicians congratulate themselves on a stunning political victory. Royal servants are coming to accept an altered future.

Then comes winter. With it, chaos, protests, political deadlock, and eventually a remarkable attempt by King Charles I to destroy his opponents. On 4 January 1642 Charles marches on the small riverside city of Westminster at the head of an army, seeking to arrest five Members of Parliament. In doing so, he sets in motion a series of events that will lead to bloodshed and war, changing a nation forever.

Why did the English Civil War break out? The Blood in Winter tells the story of an English people's great political awakening, and of a nation that splintered into bloodshed at a terrifying speed. Jonathan Healey recreates the claustrophobic atmosphere of the day, with rowdy protestors in the streets and London blanketed in coal smoke. It is a story of remarkable but flawed characters, all faced with unpalatable choices, and a frightening picture of a society in profound distress.
By:  
Imprint:   Bloomberg Press
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 238mm,  Width: 162mm,  Spine: 30mm
Weight:   693g
ISBN:   9781526672292
ISBN 10:   1526672294
Pages:   432
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming

Born in Leeds in 1982, Jonathan Healey is a historian of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He writes history from the bottom up, focusing on ordinary people – their lives, loves, culture and politics. He is Associate Professor in Social History at the University of Oxford, and was formerly picked as one of the winners of BBC Radio 3's New Generation Thinkers Competition.

Reviews for The Blood in Winter: A Nation Descends, 1642

Healey has done it again. The Blood in Winter is history as it should be told, where new light is cast upon one of the most dramatic years in British history. Shaped by meticulous research and a narrative worthy of any political thriller, the result is masterful -- ALICE LOXTON, author of Eighteen: A History of Britain in Eighteen Young Lives This is everything a history book should be. Healey fills his narrative with portraits of extraordinary characters, which combine to make his account of Britain’s descent into Civil War a truly human one. Nothing could be more relevant to us now, in this political moment, than a history like The Blood in Winter that gives an example of how fast and almost accidentally nations can fall apart, and the individual decisions of conscience that must be made along the way’ -- OPHELIA FIELD, author of The Favourite Healey is in the vanguard of modern popular history, and The Blood in Winter charges like a squadron of cavalry through the tumultuous year that led to the civil wars, giving equal billing to the people’s politics that shook the streets of London and the arguments and doubts that filled the houses of parliament -- NADINE AKKERMAN, author of Invisible Agents A superb history. Healey has the rare ability to make the seventeenth century accessible without being patronising, and to cover big and important themes while keeping the reader royally entertained -- SAM FREEDMAN, author of Failed State This is a wonderful book, exhaustively researched, vigorously argued and teeming with the furious joy of seventeenth-century life * The Times on 'The Blazing World' * A brilliant, bloody account of England's most dramatic century . . . Thrilling * The Telegraph on 'The Blazing World' *


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