EMH EarlyModernHistory

  I should like to make some points arising from a couple of the posts recently made on your blog, A Trumpet of Sedition. I am sure your readers will (or should) be aware that I am not a Marxist of any kind, so obviously I am starting from a very different position. The rise of 'revisionism' in the early to mid-1970s was not, in my view, a response to a range of 'Conservative' political impulses. Its criticisms of Whig and Marxist explanations of the origins of the events of the 1640s and 1650s in the British Isles arose from the weaknesses of the arguments of Tawney, Stone, Hill and others over the 'rise of the gentry': 'revisionism's' advocates were from a variety of political standpoints - Russell was then a Labour Party supporter before becoming a Liberal Democrat: John Morrill was not a Conservative and, in the early-1980s, was a Social Democratic Party member: Kevin Sharpe was no Conservative either nor, of course, was an American like Mark Kis...

 

  SAMUEL ARGALL AND THE RICH FAMILY Few, if any, figures in the early history of English colonization in Virginia have experienced quite such criticism, sometimes quite such a degree of vilification, as Samuel Argall and his patron and protector, Robert Rich, who was the 2 nd Earl of Warwick from March, 1619. Argall’s period as Deputy and then acting Governor in the colony from 1617 to 1619 attracted the hostility of the Virginia Company of London under the leadership of Sir Thomas Smith as its Treasurer at first and then of his successor, Sir Edwin Sandys and his allies including John and Nicholas Ferrar. Their allegations about Argall’s apparent expropriation of company property, his irregular granting of local patents, and willingness to assist in provisioning privateering ventures formed the basis for his pursuit by the Virginia Company after his return to England. They still crop up regularly in more recent historiography even though the surviving evidence is fragmentary and s...

 This discussion between Andrew Hopper (University of Oxford) and Michael O Siochru has just become available and can be read  here  It can also be listened to. 

 

  Thursday 21 November 2024 (6th Week, Michaelmas Term) 17:00  -  Francis Bacon and Stuart Foreign Policy, 1621-1626 Dr Samuel Zeitlin  (University College London) Thursday 28 November 2024 (7th Week, Michaelmas Term) 17:00  -  “An oare in every paper boat”: Thomas Lodge, Professional Writing and Rivalries in Elizabethan London Professor Cathy Shrank  (University of Sheffield) Thursday 5 December 2024 (8th Week, Michaelmas Term) 17:00  -  Writing An Accidental History of Tudor England Professor Steven Gunn  (Merton College)

 

 

  ICHS Seminar 2024, Remember Professor Raymond Gillespie, 11.30am Saturday 23rd   The Irish Conference of Historical Sciences will hold it’s biennial symposium on the topic of Professor Raymond Gillespie’s impact on local history. Prof. Gillespie’s 1998 book co-authored with Myrtle Hill,  Doing Irish Local History: pursuit and practice , opened up the field of local history to academic researchers and had an enduring legacy in educating generations of students in the field, and in encouraging academic rigour in the area of study. These points were reiterated in Prof. Gillespie’s paper to the ICHS symposium in Belfast in 2019 on the topic of public history. His contributions to many historical societies, including those affiliated with the ICHS, inspired engagement and excellence. To reflect Prof. Gillespie’s legacy to local history the symposium will consist of two papers. Dr. Brendan Scott deliver a paper titled ‘The Book of Fenagh: a case study in local history’. Prof....

  2025 MID-ATLANTIC CONFERENCE ON BRITISH STUDIES ANNUAL MEETING Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD Friday and Saturday, March 7–8 The MACBS—the mid-Atlantic affiliate of the NACBS, the main organization for British Studies in Canada and the United States—is soliciting proposals for papers and panels on all areas of British Studies for our annual conference. We will meet in-person at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore on Friday, March 7, and Saturday, March 8. We welcome participation from scholars of Britain, the British Atlantic World, and the British Empire broadly defined, and we are open to proposals ranging from the ancient to the contemporary and from scholars of history, anthropology, literature, art, politics, economics and related fields. Scholars of any seniority level, including students, are encouraged to participate. Proposals for both individual papers and full panels are welcome. Paper proposals should include a title, an abstract of no more than 250 words, and a one-p...

 For a Radio Prague International programme in English on the educationalist Jan Comenius, follow the link  here  .  The Church Life Journal has an article by James Ungureanu on 'Sir Isaac Newton as Religious Prophet, Heretic and Reformer' (14 November, 2024)  here  .

  Living through civil war sieges in Newark – the civilian experience In the seventeenth century the market town of Newark sat at the lowest bridging point across the River Trent astride the Great North Road which linked London with the north and Scotland. Unsurprisingly, control of this town became a strategic objective for both sides during  First Civil War . Besieged not once but three times, by parliamentarian and Scots armies, Newark was fought over for years and in the words of the diarist, John Evelyn writing in 1654, it earned the reputation for being a “brave towne and garrison”. But the cost for its people was high because behind its medieval walls and more modem earthwork siege defenses, Newark was more than a military strongpoint. It was also home to more than 2,000 citizens – men, women and children – who struggled to survive the dangers and hardship that came with siege warfare. For more than 20 years historian and author, Dr. Stuart Jennings has worked to uncove...

An afternoon happily spent downloading twenty letters from Holland to Essex in the 1630s. All I need now is to find a copy of the Sotheby's sale catalogue of 14th December, 1992.

One of the persistent problems I have faced over the years has been in following the research being undertaken in early modern history generally and in seventeenth-century history specifically in Canada and the United States. I do have contacts there and can search on the websites of learned societies and universities to try to discover what work is currently under way. Even so, this tends to be very much of a hit and miss affair and I am well aware that historians of interest and items of significance get missed. Each time I use Google or Facebook or X (formerly Twitter), I find work I have not previously heard of and historians unknown to me. Yesterday, I found the programme for the American Historical Association's forthcoming conference in New York next January: five of the sessions do offer papers on subjects I am interested in. I should very much like to find better sources and well-informed historians with whom to keep in touch. Do let me know if they are to be found.

  This account of the dissolution of the Short Parliament comes from the pen of Brampton Gurdon in a letter to John Winthrop in Massachusetts. It was published in Volume 4, Pp.243-244 of Volume 4 of the Winthrop Papers and, to the best of my knowledge, has only been noticed by the late Clive Holmes in his study of the Eastern Association.

  Monday 11 November, 5:30pm London time; at the IHR, Wolfson NB01, and on zoom: Kathleen Commons (Sheffield), '“Precluded from your dominion”: law, citizenship, and migration in early modern England c.1540-c.1625'. Despite the fact that there was no “immigration system” in early modern England, migrants were subject to significant “internal” borders. This paper will explore the substantial body of law - common law, statute, and prerogative instruments - the governed migrants in England. This paper will also examine the responses of migrants and subjects to legal restrictions and possibilities. Exploring legal sources and texts sheds important new light on the experiences of early modern migrants to England. At the same time, reconstructing the legal status of migrants enables us to better recover rights and responsibilities that adhered to English subjects.  Book Here:   https://www.history.ac.uk/events/precluded-your-dominion-law-citizenship-and-migration-early-mod...

  I am extremely sorry to report that Simon Healy, who worked for the History of Parliament Trust's 1604-1629 section for many years,  has died. I remember him as a very cheerful and engaging conversationalist. My condolences go to his widow and their two children.

 

 For an entertaining and illuminating piece by David Scott of the History of Parliament follow the link  here  .

There is an interesting discussion on this project between Richard Marsh and Ismini Pells (University of Oxford) to be found on The World Turned Upside Down website  here  . 

  'The Material Culture of Wills' - CALL FOR TRANSCRIBERS, and a Seminar Outline for tutors   'The Material Culture of Wills: England 1540-1790'   is a Leverhulme-funded research project based at The University of Exeter and The National Archives. We're at an exciting point in our research: we've just launched our  Zooniverse   site and are now looking for a large number of volunteers to help us check and correct automatically-generated transcriptions of 25,000 wills.    To get involved all you need to do is visit our ‘Zooniverse’ website, where you will be shown handwritten lines from an early modern will, alongside a transcription of the line which has been automatically-generated by our Handwritten Text Recognition model. If there are transcription errors you will be asked to correct them, before you move on to a new line from another will. Volunteers can correct as many lines as they like, fitting in transcription around other commitments, perhaps ...