The story begins in 1980 with a chance find on John Dixwell in the British Museum, then resumes in New England several decades later with an old key handed over to the author in a plastic bag. Sarah Dixwell Brown had resolved to ask her father about the ancestor whose name always seemed to produce… Continue reading Passing on a regicide’s key
Category: Early Modern
Too many book reviews?
I sometimes wonder if I write too many book reviews, especially academic ones. I write about two a year, so that does not seem a lot. But they are a lot of work. After all, you have to read several hundred pages of often dense academic prose to produce a review of about 1,000 words.… Continue reading Too many book reviews?
Algernon Sidney in Context
I’m very pleased to see the swift progress of a collection on Algernon Sidney’s work in context I’m contributing to due to appear with Classiques Garnier later this year. It is edited by my colleagues Tom Ashby and Christopher Hamel and based on several workshops on Sidney they had organised with Gilles Olivo at the… Continue reading Algernon Sidney in Context
Whose Voice?
The text known as The Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow was long considered an authentic account of the English Revolution – until Blair Worden discovered Ludlow’s manuscript and recovered the regicide’s real voice. At a workshop in Newcastle we discussed the feasibility of a complete edition of this manuscript.
WS: Edmund Ludlow – The Memoirs of a Regicide in Exile
We are planning a small workshop on Edmund Ludlow’s Memoirs and his MS ‘A Voyce from the Watch Tower’ to gather ideas for a new edition of the text. You can join us at Newcastle University on 2 July – in person or via Zoom. Just get in touch.
The death of the Special Collections reading room
On a recent researcht trip to Germany I wanted to look at some German editions and translations of English republican works from the seventeenth and eighteenth century at a university library. And for the first time in my career as an early modern historian, the Special Collections librarian asked me if it was really necessary… Continue reading The death of the Special Collections reading room
Hunting the regicides in America – Robert Harris’s Act of Oblivion
The Act of Indemnity and Oblivion passed after the Restoration of the Stuarts to the English throne in 1660 was a general act of pardon for those who had acted against Charles I in the English Civil War and its aftermath. It was intended as a reconciliation between the incoming King Charles II and his… Continue reading Hunting the regicides in America – Robert Harris’s Act of Oblivion
WS: ‘Translating English republicanism in the European Enlightenment’
22 June 2023, Newcastle University, Armstrong Building ARMB 1.06 This workshop addresses the significance of translation for the dissemination of English republican ideas in the European Enlightenment. The contribution of English republican ideas by thinkers such as John Milton, Marchamont Nedham, James Harrington, Edmund Ludlow and Algernon Sidney to the European Enlightenment has been a… Continue reading WS: ‘Translating English republicanism in the European Enlightenment’
Beyond the Old White Men: Women in English Republicanism
‘The history of old white men is on its way out’, a friend of mine and I agreed on a recent Zoom call. He is working on seventeenth-century English royalist thought, I’m working on republicanism. We’re both interested in gender issues and wondering how to make our research more inclusive and relevant. Old-white-men history should… Continue reading Beyond the Old White Men: Women in English Republicanism
Risk and Controversy – The Life of Mary Wortley Montagu
The story of a woman who has her children inoculated against the smallpox at a time when most people, including the medical establishment, were highly sceptical towards such foreign practices certainly makes for timely reading during a pandemic. Sometimes it is worth taking a small risk to avoid a larger one. Mary Wortley Montagu learnt… Continue reading Risk and Controversy – The Life of Mary Wortley Montagu
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