“Wild Humours of the Common People”: violence and sympathy in The Wars of the Three Kingdoms 1639- 1653

Throughout the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (1639-1653), acts of interpersonal violence and sympathy were enacted by and against civilians and were given expression in popular print literature as well as more personalised accounts. Consideration of violence during the wars has often focused on whether violence happened in the way sources said that it did. This approach, while valuable, undercuts the significance of textual and pictorial depictions in their own right and as a means of evoking specific emotions and reactions in audiences. It also negates their use in better understanding civilians’ experiences of violence in the wars. This thesis seeks to address this shortfall by focusing on the use and meaning of depictions, rather than their accuracy in representing events, in part through the prism of sympathy.