Parliament: The Biography (Volume I - Ancestral Voices)

The history of Britain's Parliament is in many ways the history of the nation itself. It's a story which has quite literally a cast of thousands. Some of these politicians were venal and corrupt, others were honest and inspirational; some were drunk and given to violence, others hardworking and dedicated to the business of running the country.

This first of two volumes takes us on a 500-year journey from Parliament's very earliest days in the thirteenth century through the turbulent years of the Wars of the Roses and the horrors of the English Civil War, and up to the end of the eighteenth century, when Parliament first truly began to take on its modern form.

Chris Bryant tells this epic tale through the extraordinary characters at the heart of the action. His book is not the dry, theoretical history of an institution. Rather it is the vivid, colourful biography of the people whose passions and obsessions, strengths and weaknesses have made us what we are today.