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This book aims to revisit the county study as a way into understanding the dynamics of the English civil war during the 1640s. It explores gentry culture and the extent to which early Stuart Cheshire could be said to be a ‘county community’. It investigates the responses of the county’s governing elite and puritan religious establishment to highly polarising interventions by the central government and Laudian ecclesiastical authorities during Charles I’s Personal Rule. The second half of the book provides a rich and detailed analysis of the petitioning movements and side-taking in Cheshire during 1641-42. This important contribution to understanding the local origins and outbreak of civil war in England will be of interest to all students and scholars studying the English Revolution.
the purpose of this book to investigate the occupations of two of these territories, Lorraine and Savoy, both of which were occupied twice during the course of Louis’s personal rule: Lorraine in 1670–97 and 1702–14, Savoy in 1690–96 and again in 1703–13. Part of the reason for the neglect of this topic lies in the curious nature of military occupation: a product of warfare but distinct from the conduct of hostilities.2 This is especially true for the early modern period, when military occupation was a relatively new concept and its definition still imprecise. After
Arminian positions on predestination. Skinner’s sermons have a similarly depressing effect on the notion that Arminianism, and indeed the theology of grace tout court , had little or nothing to do with the course and content of ecclesiastical policy under the Personal Rule. Now it is important to emphasise that the point being made here is not that the authorities were simply ‘cheating’. Rather, let us accept that both Charles I and Archbishop Laud, and indeed their acolytes like Skinner, meant what they said when they claimed that they wanted to enforce a moratorium
communication, government and power at a distance.6 This chapter uses Ipswich and its struggle with Wren to investigate the spatial politics of Laudianism, the Caroline Personal Rule and early Stuart England more generally. What follows has five parts. The first two discuss how Ipswich fitted into early Stuart England’s geographies of power, and briefly narrate the troubles of the early 1630s – the visitations of Corbett (1633) and Brent (1635) and the deprivation of the town preacher, Samuel Ward, by the High Commission (1634–35). The third section discusses the impact of
were occupied either wholly or partly on two separate occasions during the personal rule of Louis XIV. This chapter examines the background to the conquest and occupation of these territories during the reign of the Sun King. It begins with a brief exploration of French Government policies on the eastern frontiers of the kingdom in this period, with the aim of identifying the priorities and mindset of the king and his ministers. This context is essential in understanding the occupations of Savoy and Lorraine. This chapter also seeks to establish the political, social
command operations as the ancient structures of government were adapted for his personal rule. His policies and reliance on a handful of ministers to carry them out, however, meant that France began to suffer increasing financial difficulties worsened by an ineffective administration. The Burgundy Circle in which Fénelon was the renowned figure, offered a way to adjust the state’s model of absolutism under the leadership of a new king: the duc de Bourgogne. This chapter will chart the development of seventeenthcentury French absolutism and its ideological expression
and therefore looks forward to finding a reasonable ground for reconciliation. Ascham’s support of parliamentary ‘usurpation’ has to be understood in the broader context of the parliamentary uses of the concept of tyranny during the Civil Wars. Charges of tyranny were thrown at Charles I’s personal rule in the 1640s, and paved the way for his trial and execution in 1649. Yet
3 The structures of occupation A number of territories bordering on France were subject to military occupation during Louis XIV’s personal rule. If strategic necessity dictated that the French army occupy a territory, it was up to the king and his ministers to devise a suitable system to administer it. Chapter 2 identified France’s strategic aims in the occupied territories and how these aims changed over time; this chapter analyses the way these aims were manifested in administrative policy. Conquest brought the need to replace or adapt the existing regime
, shortcomings in French foreign policy and diplomacy meant that the south-eastern marches also became a significant cause for concern.1 The Sun King’s personal rule therefore witnessed an almost obsessive focus on frontier security, which was to consume a huge proportion of the state’s resources and energies. The monarchy’s concern for the frontier, though born principally out of a defensive impulse, provoked intense unease among contemporaries: each new territorial acquisition was seen as the precursor to further incursions into neighbouring territory, which would ultimately
4 The burdens of occupation Over the course of the early modern period, a clear evolution took place in the way occupied territories were treated by conquering powers, particularly in terms of the material and financial burdens imposed on the territory, and of civil-military relations. While military occupations of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth century were usually horrific for the affected populations, those in the eighteenth century tended towards lighter exactions and better discipline.1 Louis XIV’s personal rule can be seen as