This volume evolved from an international conference entitled ‘Royalists and Royalism: Politics, Religion, and Culture, 1640–60’ that we jointly organized at Clare College, Cambridge, in July 2004. This conference brought together more than seventy scholars and students from four continents and a variety of disciplines, all of whom shared a common interest in mid-seventeenth-century British royalism. The conference proved extraordinarily lively and stimulating, and we hope that something of that atmosphere will be evident in this collection. More than thirty papers were presented at the conference, spanning the period from the late 1630s to the early 1660s, but in the interests of focus and coherence we have decided to concentrate this collection on the period from about 1638 through to the execution of Charles I. We plan in the near future to edit a related collection entitled Royalists and Royalism during the Interregnum.

Sally Johnson, the Conference Manager at Clare College, went out of her way to ensure the smooth running of the conference. She and her colleagues were a model of helpfulness, efficiency and professionalism. We raised close to £10,000 to pay for the conference. We are deeply grateful to the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) in Cambridge for their generous financial support of the conference, and for providing us with invaluable administrative assistance. The British Academy paid for the flights of a number of scholars from the United States.