Over the summer I agreed to review two books on the English civil wars. One Blair Worden’s God’s Instruments (2012), the other Ann Hughes’s Gender and the English Revolution (2012). The first, aside from a few fleeting references to Lucy Hutchinson, deals almost exclusively with Oliver Cromwell and other men who fought in the Civil War… Continue reading Men and Women in the English Revolution
Category: Early Modern
An English republican exile in Florence
Why would a protestant English republican take refuge at the Tuscan court? The answer does not seem obvious. Ferdinando II, Grand Duke of Tuscany when Henry Neville made his way to Italy in 1664, was a staunch Catholic as well as a prince. The Civil War republican Neville (1619-94) was known for his unorthodox views… Continue reading An English republican exile in Florence
On research in Paris
One of the perks of studying the English republican exiles in Europe is that I get to travel a lot. This is nice, not just because it gets me out of the daily grind of university life but also because I get to see how other people in other countries do things. One of the… Continue reading On research in Paris
The Archive Closes for Lunch
If you want to do research in Switzerland, you better learn to get up early. I always thought I was an early riser, but compared to the average Swiss person I’m clearly a sleepy head. Arriving at the Berne State Archive just after 8am on a Tuesday morning, I found that most of the other… Continue reading The Archive Closes for Lunch
Elizabeth Ludlow: The Exile’s Wife
As I am doing my research on the English republican exiles in Europe, I notice more and more what an important role was played by their wives. In particular the regicide Edmund Ludlow (1617-92), who fled to Switzerland after the Restoration of Charles II, on many occasions relied on the help of his wife Elizabeth… Continue reading Elizabeth Ludlow: The Exile’s Wife
The First Actresses and some of Charles II’s mistresses
I finally managed to see the First Actresses exhibition on a late Friday evening trip to the National Portrait Gallery after a hard day’s work at the British Library. It was entirely worth it. The NPG has a number of beautiful pictures of Nell Gwyn, Moll Davis, Hester Booth, Lavinia Fenton, Sarah Siddons, Mary Robinson… Continue reading The First Actresses and some of Charles II’s mistresses
The Fascination of The Isle of Pines (1668)
Henry Neville’s utopian travel narrative The Isle of Pines (1668) is one of my favourite pieces of literature. It tells the story of the shipwreck of an English trading vessel during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and of the subsequent survival of one man and four women on a lonely island near terra Australis… Continue reading The Fascination of The Isle of Pines (1668)
God Save the Queen in Gotha: Early Modern Research in a German Town
The brass band on the market square is playing God Save The Queen. It’s Gotha on a Saturday night, a sleepy little German town in the former East. Overlooking the town, just up the hill from the market, is Friedenstein Castle. Built during the Thirty Years’ War by Ernest the Pious (1601- 1675), the Lutheran… Continue reading God Save the Queen in Gotha: Early Modern Research in a German Town
Property and Power: On James Harrington’s 400th birthday
Power is founded on property. Few people nowadays would deny this doctrine. The political philosopher James Harrington formulated it in the mid-seventeenth century. Living in per-industrial England he still considered land, not money, the most important form of property. The social group that held most of the country’s land also held the largest amount of… Continue reading Property and Power: On James Harrington’s 400th birthday
Eric Nelson’s Hebrew Republic and the Importance of Jewish Sources
In his book on The Hebrew Republic, Eric Nelson sets out to refute the commonly held assumption in early modern historiography that political science came to be separated from religion over the course of the seventeenth century. Instead, he argues that the concept of the respublica Hebraeica was seen as authoritative by many political thinkers,… Continue reading Eric Nelson’s Hebrew Republic and the Importance of Jewish Sources
