Just as Charles I's reign ended upon the scaffold at the close of the British Civil Wars, it began in a disastrous entry into the Thirty Years' War. By studying the movement of people-soldiers, refugees, diplomats, exiles, merchants, and artists-and news and ideas between the Stuart kingdoms and the war-torn Continent, this book argues that the Thirty Years' War was the defining issue of the beginning of the young king's reign. This interdisciplinary cultural history brings together the words and images of these violent beginnings: the bellicose days.