Traitors and Tyrants: Religious Rebellion and the Gunpowder Generation (1603–1640)
Volume IV of the acclaimed series The Crown and the Cross

A kingdom on edge. A monarch walking a tightrope between faith and power. And a powder keg of religious tension threatening to explode into war.

Traitors and Tyrants plunges readers into the turbulent reign of James I and the early years of Charles I, when the promise of unity under the crown unraveled into distrust, division, and rebellion. From the infamous Gunpowder Plot of 1605 to the ideological battles that paved the way for civil war, this volume explores the collision of Catholic fear, Puritan idealism, and royal ambition that defined a generation.

Follow the rise of Jesuit underground networks, the failed diplomacy of the Spanish Match, and the suffocating surveillance culture of the Stuart state. Witness the crafting of the King James Bible, the rise of anti-Catholic myth, and the growing Puritan cry for reform that royal authority could no longer contain.

With cinematic narrative and rigorous scholarship, this book exposes the religious foundations of a nation spiraling toward catastrophe. It is a portrait of England in crisis—a kingdom haunted by memory, divided by theology, and poised for civil war.