A B&W Movie Set During the English Civil War?

Twitch: First Shot From Ben Wheatley's A FIELD IN ENGLAND Features Exactly That

To Kill a King

I watched this movie the other night -- I enjoyed it, maybe more for the spectacle than anything else, and I agree that it compresses too much into 1 hr and 47 minutes.

I really should read more about the English Civil War though -- any suggestions?

Fairfax, Cromwell et. al.: Republicans seeking to preserve that tradition in England? Or radical revolutionaries? The movie shows Fairfax to be more of the former, while Cromwell is more of the latter, even though the note at the end of the movie seems to support Cromwell, crediting him as a precursor to the French Revolution, which brought upon us the modern political age. (I don't think it was meant to be ironic. It states that a king was restored to the throne, and that England has not been a republic since.)

Apparently English Catholics tended to side with Charles I -- because he was Catholic? Or because they had a stronger affection for the monarchy, or were more loyal and obedient (as they understood those virtues)?

How should Catholics judge the Stuart cause? Could one support it without agreeing with his absolutist claims? And if the king denies that there are any legal limits to his authority, can anything be done to curb his power except by force (and maybe the installation of a new monarch)? And is it too radical for a society with a tradition of hereditary monarchy to cast it off in favor of a new method of appointing the monarchy?

An internet essay on the English Civil War.

Rotten Tomatoes (trailer)

youtube

Libertarian = Classical Liberal

The English Civil War and the First Libertarian Movement
By Jeff Riggenbach

It seems to me that none of the major players was totally in the right during the English Civil War. Who was the representative of republican thought?