Download or read book John Maitland of Thirlestane and the Foundation of the Stewart Despotism in Scotland written by Maurice Dupont Lee, Jr. and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-12-08 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When John Maitland accepted the office of Secretary of State to James VI of Scotland in 1584, he accepted the challenge of three of the most extraordinary and persistent threats to the power of the crown that a king's principal advisor ever faced: the Scottish aristocracy, the Kirk, and Queen Elizabeth of England. By the time of his death eleven years later, Maitland had succeeded in helping his king break the power of the nobility, secure the support of both the Kirk and Elizabeth, and prepare the way for an absolutism of the Stewart kings of Scotland that was not finally destroyed until the Revolution of 1688. This investigation of how Maitland constructed his political coalition and how he held it together is a superb study in Renaissance politics. Originally published in 1959. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Download or read book Elizabeth I written by Wallace T. MacCaffrey and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-13 with total page 612 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Acclaimed for their dramatic rendering of the personalities and forces that shaped Elizabethan politics, Wallace T. MacCaffrey's three volumes thoroughly chronicle the Queen's decision making throughout her reign in a way that combines pleasurable reading with subtle analysis. Together in paperback for the first time, these books will find a wide readership among those interested in debunking Elizabeth's many mythic images and in following the steps of Elizabethan policy-makers as they grapple with the most crucial political problems of their day. MacCaffrey completes his analysis by investigating how Elizabeth and her ministers governed in the years between the Armada of 1588 and her death in 1603. In light of the Queen's desire to uphold her popularity through the maintenance of peace and prosperity, the author explains why she pursued war with Spain by only half-measures and how the brutal conquest of Ulster and the destruction of Tyrone came to be seen as prerequisites for the incorporation of Northern Ireland.
Download or read book The Literary Culture of Early Modern Scotland written by Sebastiaan Verweij and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-03-24 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study presents a history of the literary culture of early-modern Scotland (1560-1625), based on extensive study of the literary manuscript. It argues for the importance of three key places of production of such manuscripts: the royal court, burghs and towns, and regional houses (stately homes, but also minor lairdly and non-aristocratic households). This attention to place facilitates a discussion of, respectively, courtly, urban or civic, and regional literary cultures. Sebastiaan Verweij's methodology stems from bibliographical scholarship and the study of the 'History of the Book', and more specifically, from a school of manuscript research that has invigorated early-modern English literary criticism over the last few decades. The Literary Culture of Early Modern Scotland will also intersect with a programme of reassessment of early-modern Scottish culture that is currently underway in Scottish studies. Traditional narratives of literary history have often regarded the Reformation of 1560 as heralding a terminal cultural decline, and the Union of Crowns of 1603, with the departure of king and court, was thought to have brought the briefest of renaissances (in the 1580s and 1590s) to an early end. This book purposefully straddles the Union, in order to make possible the rediscovery of Scotland's refined and sophisticated renaissance culture.
Download or read book The Succession Debate and Contested Authority in Elizabethan England 1558 1603 written by Elizabeth Tunstall and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Modern Historians on British History 1485 1945 Routledge Revivals written by G.R. Elton and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-12-10 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The twenty-five year period following the Second World War saw an enormous expansion of activity in the writing of the history of modern Britain, and with that expansion a major transformation of the state of knowledge in many parts of the area. First published in 1970, this Revivals reissue, which includes an extensive coverage of books and a reasonable selection of articles, endeavours both to survey the work done and to reduce it to some comprehensible order. It indicates achievements and probable lines of development, and collects the materials that have grown around the main controversies. Omitted are local history (in the main) and the history of empire and commonwealth, except where the latter really arises out of the affairs of the mother country. There are special sections on social history, the history of ideas, Scotland and Ireland.
Download or read book The Reign of James VI written by Julian Goodare and published by Birlinn Ltd. This book was released on 2000-01-11 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The reign of James VI (1567–1625) remains one of the most enigmatic in Scottish history. There are long periods within it that resemble black holes in our knowledge. This study is a concerted attempt by a group of ten scholars of the reign, drawn from three different disciplines, to shed light on its politics and government, viewed through various perspectives. These include the royal court, which is analysed through its literature, architecture and ceremony; noble factionalism; relations with England; a revised model of tensions between church and state; and the relationship between the government and the Highlands, the Borders and the south west, a future region of opposition to Charles I. This study also analyses James as a literary author, correspondent, husband and 'universal king'. The book offers alternatives to accepted views of the reign, dismissing both Melvillianism and 'laissez faire monarchy' as useful tools. It sees the centre of politics as the interaction between an expanded and increasingly expensive royal court and a phenomenal growth of the state, based on a huge increase in legislation and the business of the Privy Council.
Download or read book Bonnie Prince Charlie in Love written by Hugh Douglas and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2016-10-21 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Romantic hero of legend or charismatic self-seeker in love with himself and his cause? Which is the real Charles Edward Stuart? Hugh Douglas goes beyond the flaws of Bonnie Prince Charlie's character to prove that here was a man capable not only of deep and enduring passion, but also love.
Download or read book Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland written by Lawrence Normand and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2022-03-23 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides a valuable introduction to the key concepts of witchcraft and demonology through a detailed study of one of the best known and most notorious episodes of Scottish history, the North Berwick witch hunt, in which King James was involved as alleged victim, interrogator, judge and demonologist. It provides hitherto unpublished and inaccessible material from the legal documentation of the trials in a way that makes the material fully comprehensible, as well as full texts of the pamphlet News from Scotland and James' Demonology, all in a readable, modernised, scholarly form. Full introductory sections and supporting notes provide information about the contexts needed to understand the texts: court politics, social history and culture, religious changes, law and the workings of the court, and the history of witchcraft prosecutions in Scotland before 1590. The book also brings to bear on this material current scholarship on the history of European witchcraft.
Download or read book Secretaries and Statecraft in the Early Modern World written by Dover Paul M. Dover and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2016-06-07 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the prominent themes of the political history of the 16th and 17th centuries is the waxing influence officials in the exercise of state power, particularly in international relations, as it became impossible for monarchs to stay on top of the increasingly complex demands of ruling. Encompassing a variety of cultural and institutional settings, these essays examine how state secretaries, prime ministers and favourites managed diplomatic personnel and the information flows they generated. They explore how these officials balanced domestic matters with external concerns, and service to the monarch and state with personal ambition. By opening various perspectives on policy-making at the level just below the monarch, this volume offers up rich opportunities for comparative history and a new take on the diplomatic history of the period.
Download or read book The Power of Scripture written by Andreas Pečar and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2021-12-10 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In England, from the Reformation era to the outbreak of the Civil War, religious authority contributed to popular political discourse in ways that significantly shaped the legitimacy of the monarchy as a form of rule as well as the monarch’s ability to act politically. The Power of Scripture casts aside parochial conceptualizations of that authority’s origins and explores the far-reaching consequences of political biblicism. It shows how arguments, narratives, and norms taken from Biblical scripture not only directly contributed to national religious politics but also left lasting effects on the socio-political development of Stuart England.
Download or read book Scotland and England 1286 1815 written by Roger A. Mason and published by Birlinn Ltd. This book was released on 2021-11-01 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The relationship between Scotland and England has been critical in shaping the cultural and political history of Britain over many centuries, yet historians have rarely devoted much attention to it. This book recognises the importance of viewing the national histories of Scotland and England in a wider British context, and shows how rewarding this field of study is. Ranging from the consolidation of distinct Scottish and English kingdoms to the first formation of the modern British state, the essays examine a wide variety of aspects of Anglo-Scottish relations and demonstrate the value of exploring the British dimension of the national histories of both countries.
Download or read book Queenship and Counsel in Early Modern Europe written by Helen Matheson-Pollock and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-07-16 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The discourse of political counsel in early modern Europe depended on the participation of men, as both counsellors and counselled. Women were often thought too irrational or imprudent to give or receive political advice—but they did in unprecedented numbers, as this volume shows. These essays trace the relationship between queenship and counsel through over three hundred years of history. Case studies span Europe, from Sweden and Poland-Lithuania via the Habsburg territories to England and France, and feature queens regnant, consort and regent, including Elizabeth I of England, Catherine Jagiellon of Sweden, Catherine de’ Medici and Anna of Denmark. They draw on a variety of innovative sources to recover evidence of queenly counsel, from treatises and letters to poetry, masques and architecture. For scholars of history, politics and literature in early modern Europe, this book enriches our understanding of royal women as political actors.
Download or read book The Cradle King written by Alan Stewart and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-10-31 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the son of Mary Queen of Scots, born into her 'bloody nest', James had the most precarious of childhoods. Even before his birth, his life was threatened: it was rumoured that his father, Henry, had tried to make the pregnant Mary miscarry by forcing her to witness the assassination of her supposed lover, David Riccio. By the time James was one year old, Henry was murdered, possibly with the connivance of Mary; Mary was in exile in England; and James was King of Scotland. By the age of five, he had experienced three different regents as the ancient dynasties of Scotland battled for power and made him a virtual prisoner in Stirling Castle. In fact, James did not set foot outside the confines of Stirling until he was eleven, when he took control of his country. But even with power in his hands, he would never feel safe. For the rest of his life, he would be caught up in bitter struggles between the warring political and religious factions who sought control over his mind and body. Yet James believed passionately in the divine right of kings, as many of his writings testify. He became a seasoned political operator, carefully avoiding controversy, even when his mother Mary was sent to the executioner by Elizabeth I. His caution and politicking won him the English throne on Elizabeth's death in 1603 and he rapidly set about trying to achieve his most ardent ambition: the Union of the two kingdoms. Alan Stewart's impeccably researched new biography makes brilliant use of original sources to bring to life the conversations and the controversies of the Jacobean age. From James's 'inadvised' relationships with a series of favourites and Gentlemen of the Bedchamber to his conflicts with a Parliament which refused to fit its legislation to the Monarch's will, Stewart lucidly untangles the intricacies of James's life. In doing so, he uncovers the extent to which Charles I's downfall was caused by the cracks that appeared in the monarchy during his father's reign.
Download or read book The Early Life of James VI written by Steven J. Reid and published by Birlinn Ltd. This book was released on 2023-03-09 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: James VI and I was arguably the most successful ruler of the Stewart Dynasty in Scotland, and the first king of a united Great Britain. His ableness as a monarch, it has been argued, stemmed largely from his Scottish upbringing. This book is the first in-depth scholarly study of those formative years. It tries to understand exactly when in James' 'long apprenticeship' he seized political power and retraces the incremental steps he took along the way. It also poses new answers to key questions about this process. What relationship did he have with his mother Mary Queen of Scots? Why did he favour his kinsman Esmé Stuart, ultimately Duke of Lennox, to such an extent that it endangered his own throne? And was there a discernible pattern of intent to the alliances he made with the various factions at court between 1578 and 1585? This book also analyses James' early reign as an important case study of the impact of the Reformation on the monarchy of early modern Europe, and examines the cultural activity at James' early court.
Download or read book Satan s Conspiracy written by P. G. Maxwell-Stuart and published by Dundurn. This book was released on 2001 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Synthesizing the evidence for magic and witchcraft in 16th-century Scotland, this book profiles unpublished manuscripts, 19th- and early-20th-century transcriptions, and passing remarks in the histories of shires and boroughs. Preliminary suggestions are made about how these sources can be interpreted, so that nature scholars of Scottish witchcraft in particular will be able to more easily construct their theories with the analyses provided.
Download or read book Afterlife of Mary Queen of Scots written by Steven J. Reid and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2024-04-30 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mary Queen of Scots (1542-1587) was active as monarch of Scotland for just six years between 1561 and 1567, but her impact as a ruler in Scotland is much less important than her subsequent role in popular culture and imagination. Her story has enjoyed perpetual retelling and reached a global audience over the past four and a half centuries. This collection surveys the exceptionally varied range of objects, literature, art and media that have been produced to commemorate Mary between her own time and the present day. Why is her story so enduring, pervasive, and of such interest to so many different audiences? How have the narratives associated with these objects evolved in response to shifting cultural attitudes? The collection offers a much-needed novel perspective on the Queen of Scots, using an approach at the intersection of early modern, gender and cultural history, museum and heritage studies, and memory studies.
Download or read book James VI and I written by Jenny Wormald and published by Birlinn Ltd. This book was released on 2021-10-21 with total page 716 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The renowned historian Jenny Wormald was a ground-breaking expert on early modern Scottish history, especially Stewart kingship, noble power and wider society. She was most controversial in her book-length critique of Mary, Queen of Scots. Unfortunately, Jenny never got round to producing a similar monograph on a monarch she was infinitely more fond of, King James VI and I, before her untimely death in 2015. In the absence of such a book, this volume brings together all the major essays by Jenny on James. She wrote on almost every aspect and every major event of James' reign, from the famous Gunpowder Plot, the Plantation of Ulster, the Gowrie Conspiracy, to the witchcraft panics, as well as James' extensive writings. She wrote extensively on James' Scottish rule, but she was also keenly interested in James as the first king of all of Britain, and many of her essays unpick the issues surrounding the Union of the Crowns and James' rule over all three of his kingdoms. This book is an invaluable resource for any scholar on this crucial time in the history of the British Isles.
