Zealots: How a Group of Scottish Conspirators Unleashed Half a Century of War in Britain

An page-turning account of often misunderstood events which draws attention to the bloodshed caused by religious extremism in Britain’s history.This is an innovative, controversial history of Scotland and Britain in the early modern period. Its originality lies in new research pin-pointing Fife, especially St Andrew’s, as the area where a group of men instigated not just Scotland’s wars of religion but also triggered three civil wars in England and Ireland.Oliver Thomson provides a detailed analysis of the church parishes and castles of Fife reveals a unique concentration of ex-mercenaries and rebel clergymen who together promoted the two Bishops Wars leading to a series of Scottish invasions of England, and consequentially all three of the English Civil Wars (The Wars of Three Kingdoms) and around 650,000 deaths.