The Verneys by Adrian Tinniswood

All happy families may be alike, as Tolstoy noted, but one family's feelings about disappointment, disgrace or death are probably not much different from another's. In his splendid narrative history, The Verneys, Adrian Tinniswood follows a Buckinghamshire dynasty over several generations, through happiness and unhappiness, beginning in the reign of James I and ending with the invasion of William of Orange.

The thrice-married Sir Edmund, who died in 1600, makes a brief appearance, as does his son, Sir Francis, by his second wife. But this is really the story of his descendants through son number two. Also called Edmund (1590-1642), the knight-marshal of Charles I's household had a dozen children with his wife Margaret. The oldest, Ralph (1613-1696), "a broker, a worrier, a country gentleman", was married in his teens to the devoted and intelligent Mary. Of their seven children only two reached maturity. His heir, plump clownish Mun (1636-1688), wedded another Mary - who turned out to be mad. When their three offspring died as young adults, industrious brother Jack inherited and was later elevated to the peerage.

The book hums with Tinniswood's infectious enthusiasm. For this richly detailed account he trawled through tens of thousands of letters among the 100,000 documents discovered in the 19th century at the Verney estate, Claydon. The papers - squirrelled away by Ralph, the head of the family for over 50 years - burst with the kind of domestic and political detail that makes a historian's heart race.

"To know the Verney family is to understand 17th-century England", writes Tinniswood. This volatile period saw the English fight the Scots, the Irish and then each other. The Verneys lived through the Civil War, the Restoration, the plague, famine and the Great Fire of London.

But "knowing" the Verneys illuminates family dynamics as much as it does the wider picture. Letters asking for help or forgiveness, giving advice or a dressing down, showing tenderness or disapproval - sometimes both at the same time - bring the Edmunds, Ralphs and Marys gloriously to life. We feel we're in the room with them.

And how familiar they seem. Anxious parents fret about feckless sons; reckless daughters shock elderly relatives. Domestic violence, illegitimacy and criminality are all here. So are those stock figures: the husband having an affair with the home help, the auntie who enjoys a flutter, the girl who sleeps with her sister's fiancé.

During the Civil War, members of this staunchly anti-Catholic family ended up on opposing sides. Disliking the King's policies but loyal to him anyway, Sir Edmund fought at the Battle of Edgehill. Son Ralph stayed at home. He was for Parliament and ardently opposed to Charles I's personal rule. That didn't stop him dispatching loving messages to his Dad or being wracked with worry about his safety. He had cause: Sir Edmund was killed in action. His body was never found - only, according to legend, a hacked-off hand, still clasping the King's standard.

If politics divided them, the Verneys were united by a sense of honour and the family name. But what really shaped their existence was money and the lack of it. They should have been wealthy but court life and 12 children depleted Sir Edmund's finances. For Sir Ralph, the Civil War had drastic economic implications.

Trying to keep afloat could involve bagging a 10-year-old orphan heiress for a 13-year-old son, or investing in some mad scheme to drain the Fens. As first-born, Ralph may have struggled with £9,000 of inherited debts, but at least he controlled the income. If sons further down the line couldn't land a rich widow, they had to find other ways to net some funds.

Ralph's uncle Sir Francis (a first son who fled England in 1608) became a Barbary Coast pirate. Tom, Ralph's bad apple brother, had several stabs at making his fortune in Virginia and Barbados. That's when he wasn't in prison, which he often was. Ralph's second son, Jack, traded in the Orient and returned to England £6,000 richer.

At some level everyone felt financially hard done by, from Tom - the only one ignored in his mother's will - to Ralph's heir, Mun. Dwelling in a tavern under a false name and suffering from VD, the 20-year-old asked how it was his father couldn't afford him an allowance, yet spent stacks remodelling Claydon? Even one of his aunts noticed the servants were dressed better than he was.

Infant mortality and death in childbirth were tragedies families in the 1600s accepted. Military men like Ralph's two other brothers might be expected to die in battle. (One of them miraculously survived Cromwell's horrendous siege of Drogheda, only to be murdered by an acquaintance days later.) Insanity, however, flummoxed them. Soon after marrying Ralph's oldest son, Mary Abell started laughing hysterically, starving herself, screaming and attacking people. She slept with her maid, swallowed glass and threatened to rip open her own belly. Eventually Ralph washed his hands of his daughter-in-law, now widowed, and had her declared lunatic.

Tinniswood shows a sneaking admiration for the irrepressible Verney women. While Ralph was in exile abroad, his wife bravely pleaded against the sequestration of his estates, even forging a deed (a crime punishable by death) to buy time. Ralph's gaggle of plain dowry-less sisters (with the exception of Cary who married well, twice) chose bad husbands over no husbands. Susan wed a debtor, Pen a drunk and Peg a wife-beater. But they all gave as good as they got - yelling abuse and punching back. Untameable, ugly Mall became pregnant by a Welsh clerk. After a failed abortion, she agreed to give up the baby but not her lover. Foot-stamping Betty, meanwhile, graduated from sitting on the laps of male servants to running off with a clergyman five years her junior.

Letters are used sparingly, making those that Tinniswood quotes seem more powerful. The Verneys were fluent, engaging correspondents. Ralph's words on Mun still touch - "For his dear mother's sake, I would gladly love him but he will not let me." Sir Edmund's are dignified: "I have eaten [the king's] bread and served him near 30 years, and will not do so base a thing as to forsake him." Tom's self-pity ("I will take a rope and make an end of myself") and shameless wheedling ("Everything is so extreme dear that it would grieve anyone to see it, as you shall by that little bill I have enclosed") come over loud and clear.

Occasionally, the intimacy can be disconcerting. "Rather too much information there, one feels", Tinniswood comments on a communication about the state of Susan Verney's breasts. In another letter, an uncle informs Ralph, whose wife lies dying, that he's located a slutty maid who "will match your cock". The magnificent Verneys are like us but, at the same time, unique. Tolstoy is right after all.