This is a revised edition of an examination of the motivations behind the English Revolution and Civil War first published in 1965. In addition to the text of the original, the book includes thirteen new chapters that take account of other publications since the first edition, bringing the work up-to-date. It poses the problem of how, after centuries of rule by King, lords, and bishops when the thinking of all was dominated by the established church, English men and women found the courage to revolt against Charles I, abolish bishops, and execute the King in the name of his people. The far-reaching effects and the novelty of what was achieved should not be underestimated — the first legalized regicide, rather than an assassination; the formal establishment of some degree of religious toleration; Parliament taking effective control of finance and foreign policy on behalf of gentry and merchants, thus guaranteeing the finance necessary to make England the world's leading naval power; abolition of the Church's prerogative courts (confirming gentry control at a local level); and the abolition of feudal tenures, which made possible first the agricultural and then the industrial revolution. The book examines the intellectual forces that helped to prepare minds for a revolution, which was much more than the religious wars and revolts that had gone before, and which became the precedent for the great revolutionary upheavals of the future.