Caroline Era

The Caroline Era covers the reign of Charles I from 1625 until the monarchy’s defeat and the king’s execution in 1649. Court culture, religious controversy, royal finance and conflict over the limits of prerogative gradually gave way to civil war across the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland.

The period matters because political and religious disputes that had accumulated under the early Stuarts became military conflicts capable of destroying the monarchy itself. It also includes the cultural world of Henrietta Maria’s court, royal patronage and the social pressures created by war and taxation.

Robert Harris’s Act of Oblivion begins in 1660 after the Restoration and belongs to the aftermath of the regicide rather than to the Caroline Era itself.