EMH EarlyModernHistory

  Conrad Russell's review of Lawrence Stone, The Causes of the English Revolution Conrad Russell’s review of Lawrence Stone, The Causes of the English Revolution 1529-1642 (The English Historical Review. Volume 88, No.349 October, 1973. Pp.856-861) I recently re-read this review in the EHR and was struck by a number of its claims. One might have expected Russell to have been highly critical of this work which reflected many of the assumptions, whether Whig or Marxist, upon which early modern historians had been constructing their analyses of the origins and causes of the English Revolution since Tawney’s work in the 1920s and 1930s. In fact, Russell proved to be surprisingly complimentary, describing Stone’s work as ‘brilliant’ and praising him for his contribution to the production of “a high proportion of our most interesting new ideas” on Tawney’s century (i.e. from 1540 to 1640). Indeed, he welcomed the synthesis of Stone’s ideas that he now offered and the careful qualificatio...

 One of my favourite pastimes is looking for works in foreign languages on the events of the 1640s and 1650s and how they have been interpreted by historians. Dr Timofeeva's thesis in Russian is of considerable interest in itself and can be seen  here  .

 

  Tawney, Trevor-Roper and the ‘Storm over the Gentry’ The dispute over the fortunes of the aristocracy and gentry in England in the period before the Civil War was one of the features of academic life in the 1950s. The protagonists were in their different ways historians of fame and distinction, figures like R.H.Tawney, Lawrence Stone, Hugh Trevor-Roper, J.P.Cooper, J.H.Hexter and others. Their exchanges are still used to illustrate the problems of linking economic and social changes to the explanation of political and religious events. Needless to say,academic history has moved on a long way since then but it is interesting to read the views of Natalia Stanislavovna Krelenko in a thesis submitted to Saratov State University in 2010. She had clearly read the bulk of the secondary works on this subject in English and also used the verdicts of Russian works on the period. Most of the latter – people like M.A.Barg, M.I.Bazer and T.A.Pavlova – were not known or, at best, barely kno...

  Charles I's financial estimates for 1641-42 In 1985, the Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research (Volume 58 (1985), Pp.109-120) carried an article by Conrad Russell which reproduced from Edward Nicholas's papers in the British Library (Egerton Ms.2541 fols.266-271) estimates for Charles I's anticipated income in the following financial year 1642-43. It has since been reprinted in Russell's collection of essays, Unrevolutionary England, 1603-1642 ((1990), Pp.165-176). He was quite right to think of it as important and interesting in itself. What he apparently overlooked was the fact that this document had already been published by W.R.Scott in 1911. (See W.R.Scott, The Constitution and Finance of English, Scottish and Irish Joint-Stock Companies to 1720. Volume III, Pp.528-529(Cambridge University Press. 1911))

 

  A Virginian's view of the Levellers To John Winthrop "..... The Adiutators (2 chosen out of every company to assist in consultation at the head quarters) are baptizd levellers: proiecting to bringe allmost a parity upon all persons in the kingdome, none to excede 400 lbs. per annum: noe freman, to be without 10 lbs. yearly rents, etc. This designe (if it be not a chimaera, formd & forgd only in malignant braines, whose well knowne fruitfullnes in furnishing the world with such Minervas, makes me still suspect, though I see it mentioned & called the Levellers doctrine by the Kinge himselfe, in his letter left upon the table when he escaped from the army, & since published to the kingdome) this proiect I say found many, even innumerable approvers & abettors, I mean all those who had little or nothing to loose or liue on, none but such exempt from painefull & pannicke fears. Bookes entitled Appeales to the people are put forth by Lilburne & others, infor...