The American Revolution did not just happen. It was the culmination of two centuries of Enlightenment ideas that entered men's minds and were refined and honed until they expressed themselves in an unprecedented rejection of tyranny in the name of individual rights and political freedom from the whims of arrogant monarchs and conniving, power-lusting politicians. Sparrowhawk: Book Six, War, encapsulates that process in the story of an exiled young British aristocrat, Hugh Kenrick, and a former indentured felon from the British lower class, Jack Frake, who both reject the tyranny of the British Crown, become friends and neighboring planters, and form a bond that will enable them to take the first steps towards independence from the mother country. Hugh Kenrick becomes a burgess for his county and helps Patrick Henry secure the Stamp Act Resolves, but still believes that reconciliation with the mother country is possible and feasible. Jack Frake leads his Virginia militia up to Boston and Bunker Hill to help the northerners fight the occupying British army. But then the conflict reaches Caxton, Virginia, and the town has a taste of the violence to come. The Sparrowhawk, the merchant frigate that has carried the principal characters back and forth between England and Virginia, plays a central and dramatic role in the denouement of the series. The American Revolution was the capstone and apex of the European Enlightenment and an unprecedented philosophical and political event in human history.