Stuart History

In the historiography of early modern England ‘democracy’ is conspicuous for its absence. The observation that since back then it did not exist, pre-nineteenth-century criticisms of democracy are not worth exploring has led historians to neglect some major questions: why was this so? How was such widespread criticism of popular government articulated? In what ways did different authors and genres depict the people and their power? Which political concerns, social prejudices and clusters of values informed this anti-democratic paradigm? What was democracy actually thought to stand for? In order to address these points my essay analyses how anti-democratic ideas were elaborated in various sources from ca. the inception of the Jacobean reign (1603) up to the killing of Charles I (1649). In particular, my work offers a panoramic view onto the variegated landscape of anti-democratic thought to show the remarkable continuity informing its rhetoric. It also reveals how political and religious debates as well as events were defined by concerns surrounding democracy – not republicanism – and opposition to it. So much so that we can speak of democracy as an omnipresent challenge at a plurality of levels in early modern English public life. In fact, a multiplicity of discourses (not just political or ecclesiastical but broadly cultural too) was employed to make democracy shine in all its monstrosity. Democracy was a dirty word and remained so in the 1640s, which contrary to much scholarship did not see the dawn of a new democratically-inclined era. Inevitably selective, the chronologically-ordered sections of this chapter provide thus a hopefully innovative illustration of an important but overlooked topic as well as an examination of the long-term relevance of principles that are still much debated today.

This thesis examines the connection between the personal and political ideologies of King James VI of Scotland, his involvement in the two mass witch panics which took place during 1590-1 and 1597, and the writing of his treatise, Daemonologie, all of which occurred at a time of religious, social and political turmoil during the late sixteenth century.
King James believed in the theory of divine right, and that he was accountable only to God. This belief led to conflict between James and his Kirk, with the Presbyterian ministers overtly questioning his ability to rule effectively.  The witch-hunts which occurred in 1590-1 reflect James’ reaction to this conflict, and illustrate his ability to manipulate the existing events in order to further his own aims; namely to reinforce his divine right to rule, as well as assert the legitimacy of his throne.
James’ treatise, Daemonologie, which is unique in that it is the only work of its kind written by an early modern European monarch, reflects both his involvement in the witch trials, as well as his views regarding kingship.  Ultimately, James’ involvement in the trials and the writing of Daemonologie served to affirm his authority by underlining his belief in his God-given right to rule, and legitimized his unstable regime by reinforcing his authority over both the Kirk and his government. 
During the course of this research, numerous sixteenth-century documents, including personal correspondence, trial records and contemporary accounts were examined in order to determine the many intricacies connecting James, the witch trials, and Daemonologie, as well as the complex nature of their relationship.  This thesis is organized chronologically, with individual sections highlighting the events which gave rise to the witch panics, the political climate at the time, the trials, and Daemonologie itself.

This conference investigates the cultural, religious, foreign and domestic politics surrounding the Anglo-Spanish and Anglo-French marriage negotiations that dominated Early Stuart policy. Registration is now open via the website.

Keynote speakers include: Prof. Thomas Cogswell; Prof. Steve Murdoch; Prof. Manuel Rivero; and Prof. Malcolm Smuts.

This article argues that William Shakespeare's King Lear anticipates core political dynamics of the English Civil War (1641-49), and philosophical tenets of the British Enlightenment in John Locke and David Hume. It analyzes three principle and competing paradigms of public authority in King Lear: theodicy, nature, and the autonomy of thought. The play is historically contextualized within the 16 th century. King Lear, moreover, portends revolutionary new thought patterns: the centerless universe of modern astronomy, and human embeddedness in fluid nature without fixed identity. Three variants on the concept of " nothing " – existential, social, and philosophical-interweave the cosmic and political threads, based on a circular temporality. Shakespeare's character, Cordelia, affirms the everyday over the cosmic, and the sociological over the metaphysical. King Lear depicts a profound moral trans-valuation in early modern history, whose shifting temporal horizons remain central also to contemporary politics.

An analysis of a complex stitch used in 16th and 17th Century English Embroidery which critiques previously published work (Grace Christie, Samplers and Stitches) and offers a mode of working which is closer to original practice for the first time in 400 years.

This chapter explores some of the ancient traditions being drawn upon at the turn of the seventeenth century, notably the development from elective, clan-based monarchy to primogeniture, and the development of the apanage system to recompense the loss of power to cadet members of the dynasty. It also explores how this system foundered in the early seventeenth century, with the increasing tightening of French ‘absolutism’, and how subsequent younger siblings in France modified their behaviour to resituate themselves into a new form of centralized ‘modern’ monarchy. Historians have long recognized that the last decades of the sixteenth century and the first years of the seventeenth were particularly anxious times, especially in terms of dynastic politics. The junior lines continued to be separated from the main line as late as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and were only held together by a House strategy of keeping all of the dynastic territories within one of the Imperial Circles.

Before he became Secretary of State and Lord Chamberlain of Charles II, Sir Henry Bennet (future earl of Arlington) had been an important member of the Stuart court in exile. Indeed, his difficult relationship with the duke of York seems to have earned him a second exile as the king’s representative in Madrid. On one level this essay considers Bennet’s interactions with the Spanish nobility at the court of Philip IV. On another, it is concerned with his efforts to persuade Charles II to make overtures to Pope Alexander VII. Bennet’s experiences in Madrid led him to believe that subtle promotion of Stuart Catholicity was necessary if the king’s cause were to be taken seriously at the papal and Spanish courts. In the process he made some extraordinary assertions to the papal nuncio Carlo Bonelli and brought to an end his previously good relationship with the Lord Chancellor Sir Edward Hyde. Yet the part that Bennet played in engineering the Stuart king’s visit to the Pyrenees in 1659—where the pair of them revelled in the hospitality of the Catholic Monarch—served to enhance his relationship with Charles II and establish the basis for his future career.

The paper deals with a lost picture of King James II of England and VII of Scotland with his daughter, Princess Louisa Maria. They are portrayed with an open Psalter, and the initial objective of my investigation was to figure out which Psalter version is presented in the portrait, with a view to assessing the position of the Psalter translated in 1700 by John Caryll and David Nairne at James's exiled court. In the course of the research, it turned out that the accounts of the picture available in English do not quote the passage supposedly visible in the portrait verbatim but instead silently translate the original French description of the portrait. This discovery shifted the focus of the investigation towards setting the record straight with recourse to, and in full appreciation of, interdisciplinarity.
Key words: Psalter, translation, interdisciplinarity, the Stuarts.

Sometime before the middle of the twelfth century, an anonymous English writer composed the Leges Edwardi, a treatise purporting to contain the laws that had been in force under the Anglo-Saxon King Edward the Confessor (1042-1066), cousin of William the Conqueror. The laws were said to have been spoken to William shortly after the Conquest by “English nobles who were wise men and learned in their law,” recounting “the rules of their laws and customs” for the invading Norman king. When they had finished, the king wondered whether it might not be better for all of them to live under the law of his Viking ancestors; the English, however, protested that they preferred to live by their own preconquest laws. The king acquiesced, and thus, goes the story, were the laws of King Edward the Confessor authorized.

Looking through the lens of this important—if spurious—treatise, God’s Peace and King’s Peace offers the first ground-level view of English law during the century in which the common law was born. Bruce R. O’Brien compares the Leges Edwardi to other memorials of legal policy and practice from before and after 1066, in both Normandy and England, and advances conclusions about the treatises’ reliability on specific points of law. He also shows how the Laws of Edward the Confessor, taken as a record of English law at the conquest, came to be used as authoritative evidence behind the Magna Carta that the king was under the law, and how it was eventually declared a notorious forgery by seventeenth-century antiquaries and Enlightenment historians.