author
Samuel Rawson Gardiner
1829–1902
Best known for making the English Civil War and the turbulent 17th century feel clear and human, this Victorian historian devoted his career to tracing the struggles of monarchy, Parliament, and religion. His books became standard reading for anyone trying to understand Stuart England and the age of Cromwell.
5 Audiobooks
A Student's History of England, v. 1: B.C. 55-A.D. 1509 From the Earliest Times to the Death of King Edward VII
by Samuel Rawson Gardiner
The Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648
by Samuel Rawson Gardiner
A Student's History of England, v. 2: 1509-1689 From the Earliest Times to the Death of King Edward VII
by Samuel Rawson Gardiner
Oliver Cromwell
by Samuel Rawson Gardiner
What Gunpowder Plot Was
by Samuel Rawson Gardiner
About the author
Born in Hampshire in 1829, Samuel Rawson Gardiner became one of the leading historians of 17th-century England. He studied at Winchester and Christ Church, Oxford, and built his reputation through careful, deeply researched work on the early Stuarts, the English Civil War, and the Commonwealth.
Rather than writing a single popular history, he spent much of his life producing a long sequence of connected books that followed the crisis of the Stuart monarchy across decades. That patient approach helped make him an influential authority on figures such as Charles I and Oliver Cromwell, and his work was widely respected for its seriousness and command of sources.
Gardiner also taught modern history at King’s College London and was later elected to fellowships at All Souls and Merton. He died in 1902, but his histories remained important for generations and still shape how readers picture the political and religious upheavals of 17th-century Britain.