Robert Bucholz - Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History

To our parents, with gratitude and love

Lillian Aguirre Bucholz in memory of Robert Edward Bucholz

Cornelia Buck Key
H. Newton Key

This second edition first published 2009

2009 Robert Bucholz and Newton Key

Edition history: Blackwell Publishing Ltd (1e, 2004)

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bucholz, R. O., 1958Early modern England, 14851714: a narrative history / Robert Bucholz and Newton Key. 2nd ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4051-6275-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Great BritainHistory Stuarts, 16031714.

2. Great BritainHistoryTudors, 14851603.

3. EnglandCivilization. I. Key, Newton. II. Title.

DA300.B83 2009

942.05dc22

2008030352

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

1 2009

Diagram of an English manor

Henry VII, painted terracotta bust, by Pietro Torrigiano

Henry VIII, after Hans Holbein the Younger

Diagram of the interior of a church before and after the Reformation

Mary I, by Moro

J. Foxe, Acts and Monuments title-page, 1641 edition

Elizabeth I (The Ditchley Portrait), by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, ca. 1592

First Encounter Between the English and Spanish Fleets, from J. Pine, The Tapestry Hangings of the House of Lords Representing the Several Engagements Between the English and Spanish Fleets, 1739

Hatfield House, south prospect, by Thomas Sadler, 1700

Tudor farmhouse at Ystradfaelog, Llanwnnog, Montgomeryshire (photo and groundplan)

Visschers panorama of London, 1616 (detail)

A view of Westminster, by Hollar

James I, by van Somer

George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, by William Larkin

Charles I, by Van Dyck

The execution of Charles I

Oliver Cromwell, by Robert Walker, 1649

The entrance of Charles II at the Restoration, 1660

Charles II asPatron of the Royal Society, by Laroon

James II, by unknown artist

Mary of Modena in Childbed, Italian engraving

Presentation of the Crown to William III and Mary II, by R. de Hooge after C. Allard

Queen Anne, by Edmund Lilly

The battle of Blenheim

Fighting in a coffee-house after the trial of Dr. Sacheverell

Castle Howard, engraving

Maps

The British Isles (physical) today

The counties of England and Wales before 1972

Towns and trade

The Wars of the Roses, 145585

Southern England and western France during the later Middle Ages

Europe ca. 1560

Early modern Ireland

Spanish possessions in Europe and the Americas

War in Europe, 15851604

London ca.1600

The Bishops Wars and Civil Wars, 163760

Western Europe in the age of Louis XIV

The War of the Spanish Succession, 170214

The Atlantic world after the Treaty of Utrecht, 1713

Preface to the Second Edition

The appearance of a second edition of Early Modern England is most welcome to its authors, not least because it allows them to correct the errors which inevitably crept into the first. The opportunity of a do-over is also a chance to bring the narrative up to date by incorporating exciting new material on the period which has come out since the first edition, not to mention older material which we had neglected previously. (The companion volume, Sources and Debates, has also been extensively revised in its 2nd edition.) In particular, the authors have attempted to take into account recent Tudor historiography and strengthen those sections which address Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. We have also become more conscious of the continental and Atlantic dimensions of this story and have adjusted accordingly. We have added a section on the historiography of women and gender, modifying our presentation of womens lives in light of a more nuanced history of gender, which sees the story of men and women as more intermingled, and which gives early modern women agency rather than pities them as perennial victims.

At the same time, your faithful authors have resisted the temptation to make of this story something that it is not: a history of the British Isles, the Atlantic world, of Europe as a whole, or even a transnational story of a very mobile people. We are deeply aware and appreciative of new historiographical currents which view England and the English within each of these four contexts. We have made a conscious effort to take account of those contexts, and to strengthen them for this edition. But we have not attempted to tell a trans-British Isles, Atlantic, Britain- in-Europe, or migrants story precisely because these are, in fact, many stories, the narrative threads of which inevitably become tangled and broken if contained within a single book. Indeed, Welsh and Irish historians have recently reacted with some skepticism to an all-embracing three kingdoms British Isles approach. Thus, we stand by our initial position that an English narrative retains a coherence that such wider perspectives lack; and that that narrative is of particular importance for the Western and Anglophone world. This last conviction has only been strengthened by the experience of the last few years, which have seen serious debates on our side of the Atlantic over the rights of habeas corpus and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, the parliamentary power of the purse, the role of religion in public life, and whether or not the ruler can declare himself above the law in a time of national emergency. These were themes well known to early modern English men and women. They remain utterly even alarmingly relevant to their political, social, and cultural heirs on both sides of the Atlantic.