Protestantism and Patriotism is a detailed study of the first two Anglo-Dutch Wars (1652-1654 and 1665-1667) and the ideological contexts in which they were fought. It differs from other treatments of English foreign policy in this period by emphasizing that diplomacy, trade and warfare cannot be studied in isolation from domestic culture. It also insists, unlike most studies of domestic politics in the period, that England's place in Europe and the wider world was central to political and cultural developments in this revolutionary age.

The landed estates were one of the fundamental structures of early modern England. They were omnipresent, for they were not confined to the countryside but penetrated into every borough and city. English society was composed largely of landlords and tenants. It follows that to understand the nature of this society the relationship between the two must be studied, and in particular the role of the man who linked them: the estate steward. Stewards, Lords and People analyses the role of the estate stewards in the social mechanisms of later Stuart England. It is based on many years of research...

A major contribution to debates about the origins of the Civil War, this study of English forests and hunting from the late sixteenth century to the early 1640s explores their significance in the symbolism and effective power of royalty and the nobility in early modern England. Blending social, cultural and political history, Dan Beaver examines the interrelationships among four local communities to explain the violent political conflicts in the forests in the years leading up to the civil war. Adopting a micro-historical approach, the book explores how local politics became bound up with...

This is the first detailed study of the political significance of the seventeenth-century's most notorious and sensational court scandal--the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury. Insisting that images of the scandalous court had serious political importance, the book retells the tale of Overbury's rise to power, his fall and murder in 1613, and the public revelation of the murder two years later. The book examines the production and circulation of news about the scandal and assesses the political significance of contemporary depictions of the affair.

This book looks at popular religion in early modern England, using detailed accounts of local conflicts to bring the religion of ordinary people to life. Unlike other studies, it examines not magical beliefs but orthodox religion. It counters the view that popular and elite culture in Europe and Britain became polarized by showing how the gentry and people cooperated in regulating religion. But while the clergy did not deserve their poor reputation, their defensiveness also prevented them from fulfilling popular religious needs.

This is the first biography in ninety years of Reginald Pole (1500SH1558), one of the most important international figures of the sixteenth century. Pole's career is followed as protege and then harshest critic of Henry VIII, as cardinal and papal diplomat, legate of Viterbo, a nearly successful candidate for pope, and finally as legate to England, archbishop of Canterbury, architect of the English Counter-Reformation, and victim of both Pope Paul IV and of himself.

This book is the first modern intellectual biography of the Scottish theologian and political theorist Samuel Rutherford (c. 1600-1661). Its main purpose is to provide a thorough discussion of Rutherford's religious and political ideas, and their role in the ideology of the Scottish Covenanters whose rebellion against Charles I marked the beginning of the British troubles in the mid-seventeenth century. The book also constitutes an important multidisciplinary case study in the Calvinist and Puritan traditions.

This book explores the culture of conformity to the Church of England and its liturgy in the period after the Reformation and before the outbreak of the Civil War. It provides a necessary corrective to our view of religion in that period through a serious exploration of the laypeople who conformed, out of conviction, to the Book of Common Prayer. These "prayer book Protestants" formed a significant part of the spectrum of society in Tudor and Stuart England, yet until now they have remained an almost completely uninvestigated group.

This unique history of the printed pamphlet in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Britain traces its rise as an imaginative and often eloquent literary form. Using a broad range of historical, bibliographical and textual evidence, the book shows the coherence of the literary form and the diversity of genres and imaginative devices employed by pamphleteers. Individual chapters examine Elizabethan religious controversy, the book trade, the distribution of pamphlets, pamphleteering in the English Civil War, women and gender, and print in the Restoration.

Religion, and Puritanism in particular, was a crucially important influence in seventeenth-century England. This book attempts to trace the way in which Puritan clergymen saw themselves and the world in which they lived. It discusses the changes they wanted to make to the Church of England in terms of services and in terms of how they wanted to replace bishops. By looking at such matters through the networks of friendship and alliances made by the ministers, a new picture emerges of the role played by Puritans in the decades leading up to the English Civil War.