THOMAS WENTWORTH

Written by one of england's foremost authorities on 17th-century politics and subtitled ""A Revaluation"", this biography of Thomas Wentworth, First Earl of Strafford, follows by 27 years the author's first study of King Charles the First's most brilliant and influential minister. Drawing of facts uncovered by recent research and enlarging on the material in her previous book, the author here gives an unbiased and comprehensive picture of a man of controversy and contrasts, a Puritan who followed the King, a man of piety who brought ruin to his enemies. Born in 1593 the son of a wealthy Yorkshire landowner, Wentworth, a stern Protestant, served in the turbulent Parliaments of Charles's early reign. Turning from the parliamentary to that of the King, he become Lord President of the North and Later Lord Deputy of Ireland, offices be ministered well, and in 1640, the last year of his life, First Earl of Strafford. Wentworth, who served the King loyally, was an eminently practical man, , ambitions, with a remarkable latent for detail and an even greater talent for accumulating wealth and for making enemies. Recognized by Parliament as its chief enemy in the struggle with Charles, Wentworth was falsely charged by that body with treason, unfairly tried and sentenced to death under a BILL of Attainder. Charles, his friend, ? to gave him in May, 1641, the Earl of strafford was beheaded to the tune of rejoicing, the most balad, and perhaps the ablest, man in England, Written the authority but lacking the flair of A.l.. Rows's somewhat similar studies, this scholarly biography will appeal to and of 17th-century English history; American readers with little knowledge of the period may find it heavy doing.