author
Samuel Rawson Gardiner
1829–1902
Best known for his sweeping histories of Stuart England, he turned the English Civil War and its tangled politics into a lifetime’s work. His books helped shape how later readers understood the clash between monarchy, Parliament, and religion in the seventeenth century.
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 was educated at Winchester and Christ Church, Oxford. He became one of the leading historians of seventeenth-century England, focusing especially on the early Stuarts, the English Civil War, and the Commonwealth.
Gardiner devoted much of his career to large, carefully researched multi-volume histories, including History of England from the Accession of James I to the Outbreak of the Civil War, History of the Great Civil War, and History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate. His work earned a strong reputation for depth and seriousness, and he was later recognized by Oxford with fellowships at All Souls and Merton.
What still makes him interesting is the scale of his ambition: he tried to explain not just battles and rulers, but the religious and political ideas driving a national crisis. Even when modern historians revise his conclusions, his writing remains a major foundation for anyone exploring the world of Charles I, Cromwell, and the English Revolution.