In 1639-40 Charles I twice mobilized England and Wales to suppress a Scottish rebellion against his ecclesiastical and, by implication, his temporal policies. Between these campaigns the Short Parliament of April-May 1640 was convened, bringing into sharp focus the mistrust that had festered between Charles I and those he ruled. The Bishops' Wars, so-called because they were fought to uphold episcopacy in Scotland, demolished the myth of Caroline political consensus and revealed the gulf between King and country.

England's inability to crush Scotland or even to prevent the invasion of the north by the army of the Covenanters, this book argues, was essentially a political failure which demonstrated Charles's inability to manage government. It was the King's maladministration of the institutions at his disposal, rather than structural failure within the institutions themselves, which precipitated failure in a war that was entirely of the King's choosing. Charles expected institutions such as the Exchequer, the Ordnance Office, and the lieutenancy to perform at unreasonably high levels of efficiency despite shortages of personnel, precipitous decisions that gave insufficient notification to royal servants expected to perform difficult tasks, and a dearth of funding, all results of his Personal Rule. He could not fully mobilize the nation's might because his subjects did not entirely trust his motives and methods. Lacking that trust Charles could only start wars; successfully finishing them lay beyond his grasp so long as he could not harness fully the kingdom's resources.