Nehemiah Wharton

There isn't a lot of information from the ground in the English Civil War - from the ranks - but one man, a Roundhead sergeant of Holles' regiment, Nehemiah Wharton chronicled the early stages of the war - read about him here.
There's some gems in there:
Every day our soildiers by stealth doe visit papists' houses and constraine from them both meate and money. They give them whole greate loves and chesses, which they triumphantly carry away upon the points of their swords.
Things like that make you wonder whether the Civil War was really part of the general feeling of religious intolerance that was raging on the Continent - an add-on to the Thirty Years War if you like.