EMH EarlyModernHistory

 This assessment published in May, 2025 can be read  here  . It is an important piece. 

One of the things that surprised me until ten or so years ago was the record of history departments and universities in ensuring that proper collections were made of the work of historians. Admittedly, plenty of collections of correspondence survive but there was much less material available in the form of audio recordings or film or video evidence. This always struck me as strange. I was reminded of this issue last week when I found a long forgotten letter from Hugh Trevor-Roper in 1967 in a file dealing with the affairs of the Providence Island Company in the years between 1629 and 1641. (How it had got there is still a puzzle.) It had some characteristically perceptive comments to make on the Parliamentary politics of the 1640s and some observations on how he thought John Pym's career might have evolved had he lived beyond late-1643. His ability to suggest new ideas to explore was unrivalled and what made him so stimulating a supervisor. It also differentiated him from some of t...

 

 

 

 

 

 I found my copy of Valerie Pearl's book on the City of London from 1625 to 1643 yesterday together with a copy of her interview in The Times Higher Education Supplement dated 12th September, 1975. I was, however, puzzled by Frances Gibbs's claim that Dr Pearl had spent six weeks decoding the shorthand system Walter Yonge's had used in his diaries on proceedings in the House of Commons between 1642 and 1645. There must have been some misunderstanding  on this issue. Yonger provided a list of his symbols at the start of his volumes as the photographs below show.        

 For an appreciation of the significance of this festival in a local newspaper, follow the link  here  .

 For a discussion of this defeat for the Long Parliament's forces and its consequences, follow the link  here  .

 

 This interesting description  of  the transfer of Parliament from Westminster to Oxford in the summer of 1625 can be read  here  .

  Making the invisible visible: women’s ownership of early modern medical knowledge – Royal College of Physicians LAHP and Royal College of Physicians 21st July, 13.30–16.30    As part of her LAHP CDA project  ‘Women’s Ownership of Medical Knowledge in Tudor and Stuart England, 1485-1714’ at the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), Catherine James, Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, has surveyed 6,759 early printed books in the RCP’s heritage library. In this workshop, participants will have the opportunity to learn from the practical and methodological expertise Catherine has developed during this undertaking. They will hear from Catherine and her supervisors – Elizabeth Savage, School of Advanced Study, University of London, Katie Birkwood, rare books and special collections librarian, Royal College of Physicians, and Laura Gowing, King’s College London – about the benefits to research of engaging with early printed books as mate...

  The fifth Early Modern British and Irish Catholicism conference - EMBIC V Talks, training, seminars & conferences Theology and Religion The call for papers is now open for the fifth Early Modern British and Irish Catholicism conference. The fifth Early Modern British and Irish Catholicism conference - EMBIC V Conference Director: James Kelly (Durham University) Conference Secretary: Maddy Keightley-Phillipps (Durham University) Conference Organizing committee: John McCafferty (University College Dublin), Susannah Monta (University of Notre Dame), Liam Temple (Durham University) Confirmed speakers include: Liam Chambers (Mary Immaculate College) Freddy Domínguez (University of Arkansas) Jaime Goodrich (Wayne State University) John McCafferty (University College Dub...

It is in my experience all too easy to lose track of works one has already downloaded. That was certainly the case yesterday when I was in search of books I had thought I had succeeded in finding and saving on the elections to early Stuart Parliaments. However, what has been found once can be found again. I was able to find online copies of (1) Derek Hirst, The Representative of the People (2) J. Gruenfelder, Influence in early Stuart Elections 1604-1640 and (3) Mark Kishlansky, Parliamentary Selection. Gruenfelder's argument is interesting because it testifies to the attempts by Charles I's regime to secure the return of as many supporters of the 'Court' to the Short Parliament, which argues for the partisan nature of the elections in the spring of 1640 denied by Kishlanky, and helps to explain the electoral reaction of that regime's opponents.

 This review can be read  here  .

 I have read the late Mark Kishlansky's essay on the Short Parliament of 1640 a couple of times in recent days. He was at pains to stress Charles I's integrity in his dealings with the House of Commons in April and May of that year. What he did not mention was the king's simultaneous attempts to acquire funds for his military ventures against Scotland from the Spanish Habsburg monarchy. No doubt he would have regarded it as contingency planning but his critics, had they known, would have viewed this as rank hypocrisy.  This is difficult to reconcile with Kishlansky's argument.

 Stephen Roberts was the editor of the History of Parliament's volumes on the House of Commons between 1640 and 1660. Does anyone know what his new e-mail address may be, please?

 There is a podcast involing Professor Hunt's book on this subject to be seen on Youtube  here  .

When the Covid pandemic began, I started to sit in on seminars on the early modern period which were then becoming available on the internet. I was surprised to find in the chat box at the first or second one I was present at an enquiry as to whether I was who I am. Did the enquirer think I had passed away? Anyway, I suspect I ought to try to publish rather more and, right now, am considering whether to publish my transcript of the account of proceedings in the House of Lords at the start of the Long Parliament. Conrad Russell attributed it to John Warner, Bishop of Rochester, but overlooked the one authentic account by Warner in BL Additional Ms,28,000 whch had actually been published by Dorothy Gardiner in her 1937 edition of the Oxinden letters. 

 I see that apple.com has a podcast by Paul Lay on this subject. Sadly, I am unable to post a link but its existence is worth knowing about.

 

 

John Gallagher has an intriguing review of this book in the latest issue of History Today, It is a topic upon which one needs to learn more.

The World Turned Upside Down website has a new interview with Alice Hunt on her book on the period between 1649 and 1660. It can be read  here  . 

 

  In the spring of 1967, Professor Hugh Trevor-Roper, then the Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford, wrote to me to ask if I would assist Dr Pearl in her work by transcribing Walter Yonge’s diaries held (in Additional Mss.18,777-18,780) in the Manuscript Department of the British Museum at that time. I agreed and it was settled that I would be paid £150 per volume by the History Faculty of the University. I duly transcribed the first of these volumes in 1967 and the remaining three by 1973. I was not her “assistant” in this task but undertook it myself. I did not, moreover, keep copies of the first three volumes. In mid-1975, I read in The Times Higher Education Supplement that she was preparing the Yonge volumes for publication. But nothing happened. By 1984, seventeen years after I had transcribed the first volume and eleven years after finishing the last one I was puzzled by this failure to proceed and, having asked several academic friends if they th...