A scholarly and original study of the Church of England in the reign of Charles I, Davies's detailed analysis of religious policy and ecclesiastical practice offers a bold new interpretation of the Caroline Church, firmly based on documentary evidence. Davies examines the roles of Charles I and of Archbishop Laud, demonstrating both Laud's essential conservatism in religious matters and Charles's highly personal notion of sacramental kingship which he was attempting to realize through his prerogative as Supreme Governor of the Church. As a vital arm in the political apparatus of the state and as the vehicle for Caroline ideology, the established church under Charles I became more highly politicized than ever before. Julian Davies reassesses the significance of doctrinal Arminianism in the seventeenth-century church, taking issue with a number of scholars. He brings to the forefront of the debate constitutional issues which have recently been underplayed. His book makes an important contribution to a controversial area of historical study.

***A Best Book of 2022, The Times*** ***Book of the Year, Spectator*** A myth-busting biography of Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I, which retells the dramatic story of the civil war from her perspective Henrietta Maria, Charles I's queen, is the most reviled consort to have worn the crown of Britain's three kingdoms. Condemned as that 'Popish brat of France', a 'notorious whore' and traitor, she remains in popular memory the wife who wore the breeches and turned her husband Catholic - so causing a civil war - and a cruel and bigoted mother. Leanda de Lisle's White King was hailed as 'the definitive modern biography about Charles I' (Observer). Here she considers Henrietta Maria's point of view, unpicking the myths to reveal a very different queen. We meet a new bride who enjoyed annoying her uptight husband, a leader of fashion in clothes and cultural matters, an innovative builder and gardener and an advocate of the female voice in public affairs. No bigot, her closest friends included 'Puritans' as well as Catholics, and she led the anti-Spanish faction at court linked to the Protestant cause in the Thirty Years' War. When civil war came, the strategic planning and fundraising of his 'She Generalissimo' proved crucial to Charles's campaign. The story takes us to courts across Europe, and looks at the fate of Henrietta Maria's mother and sisters, who also faced civil wars. Her estrangement from her son Henry is explained, and the image of the Restoration queen as an irrelevant crone is replaced with Henrietta Maria as an influential 'phoenix queen', presiding over a court with 'more mirth' even than that of the Merry Monarch, Charles II. It is time to look again at this despised queen and judge if she is not in fact one of our most remarkable. 'this is revisionist history at its absolute best' ANDREW ROBERTS 'beautifully written and endlessly fascinating' ALEXANDER LARMAN 'popular history of the finest kind' RONALD HUTTON

A Chronological History of the British Civil Wars, in England, Scotland and Ireland. Covering all of the battles, events of the first Civil War leading up to the Regicide of King Charles I, the Second Civil War, the Third Civil War, the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, the Irish Confederate War. The Establishment of the Commonwealth and the Protectorate under Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector. The Cromwellian Conquest of Ireland, the first Anglo- Dutch war, the Anglo Spanish War, the colonizing of the New World, and the death of Oliver Cromwell and the events that lead to the Restoration of King Charles II in 1660. . This book endeavors to provide you with something refreshing and new. An easy to use interactive ready reference covering the turbulent period between 1639 -1661 all in chronological order. . Twenty Two Turbulent Years 1639-1661. The turning point that changed Britain forever, detailing all the events ( over130 battles with the Commanders) during the Bishops War 1639-40, The Irish Rebellions, 1641-49. The First English Civil War, 1642-46. The Wars of the Three Kingdoms, 1644-51, The Second English Civil War,1647-48, Events leading to the Regicide of King Charles I on January 30th. 1649. The Third English Civil War, 1648-51. The Scottish Civil War 1649-51. Oliver Cromwell's Conquest of Ireland, 1649-51. The establishment of The Commonwealth 1649-53, and the Protectorate under Oliver Cromwell. 1653-58. after Oliver Cromwell's death in 1658, succeeded by his son Richard Cromwell, as Lord Protector and his subsequent removal nine months later, leaving the way clear for the restoration of King Charles II in 1660. Expansion of the English Navy, with the First Anglo Dutch War 1652-54. The Anglo Spanish War and conquest of the Caribbean colonies 1654-60. English Commonwealth Navy in the Caribbean. ( Barbados). The Americas: June 9th.1650 The Harvard Corporation. Colony of Maryland and the English Civil War. Colony of Massachusetts. Rhode Island passes the first law in North America making slavery illegal. May 18th. 1652. New Haven Colony, Connecticut. Virginia Colony ( 1653). Influence on the American constitution. The Barbary Corsairs, sometimes called Ottoman Corsairs or Barbary Pirates. Civil War Commanders. Parliamentarians. Civil War Commanders. Royalists. Commanders Irish and Covenanters.

Tracing the interwoven traditions of modern welfare states in Europe over five centuries, Thomas McStay Adams explores social welfare from Portugal, France, and Italy to Britain, Belgium and Germany. He shows that the provision of assistance to those in need has faced recognizably similar challenges from the 16th century through to the present: how to allocate aid equitably (and with dignity); how to give support without undermining autonomy (and motivation); and how to balance private and public spheres of action and responsibility. Across two authoritative volumes, Adams reveals how social welfare administrators, critics, and improvers have engaged in a constant exchange of models and experience locally and across Europe. The narrative begins with the founding of the Casa da Misericordia of Lisbon in 1498, a model replicated throughout Portugal and its empire, and ends with the relaunch of a social agenda for the European Union at the meeting of the Council of Europe in Lisbon in 2000. Volume 1, which focuses on the period from 1500 to 1700, discusses the concepts of 'welfare' and 'tradition'. It looks at how 16th-century humanists joined with merchants and lawyers to renew traditional charity in distinctly modern forms, and how the discipline of religious reform affected the exercise of political authority and the promotion of economic productivity. Volume 2 examines 18th-century bienfaisance which secularized a Christian humanist notion of beneficence, producing new and sharply contested assertions of social citizenship. It goes on to consider how national struggles to establish comprehensive welfare states since the second half of the 19th century built on the power of the vote as politicians, pushed by activists and advised by experts, appealed to a growing class of industrial workers. Lastly, it looks at how 20th-century welfare states addressed aspirations for social citizenship while the institutional framework for European economic cooperation came to fruition

Few philosophers are more often referred to and more often misunderstood than Machiavelli. He was truly a product of the Renaissance, and he was as much a revolutionary in the field of political philosophy as Leonardo or Michelangelo were in painting and sculpture. He watched his native Florence lose its independence to the French, thanks to poor leadership from the Medici successors to the great Lorenzo (Il Magnifico). Machiavelli was a keen observer of people, and he spent years studying events and people before writing his famous books. Descended from minor nobility, Machiavelli grew up in a household that was run by a vacillating and incompetent father. He was well educated and smart, and he entered government service as a clerk. He eventually became an important figure in the Florentine state but was defeated by the deposed Medici and Pope Julius II. He was tortured but eventually freed by the restored Medici. No longer employed, he retired to his home to write the books for which he is remembered. Machiavelli had seen the best and the worst of human nature, and he understood how the world operated. He drew his observations from life, and he was appropriately cynical in his writing, given what he had personally experienced. He was an outstanding writer, and his work remains fascinating nearly 500 years later.

Edmund Spenser's innovative poetic works have a central place in the canon of English literature. Yet he is remembered as a morally flawed, self-interested sycophant; complicit in England's ruthless colonisation of Ireland; in Karl Marx's words, 'Elizabeth's arse-kissing poet'- a man on the make who aspired to be at court and who was prepared to exploit the Irish to get what he wanted. In his vibrant and vivid book, the first biography of the poet for 60 years, Andrew Hadfield finds a more complex and subtle Spenser. How did a man who seemed destined to become a priest or a don become embroiled in politics? If he was intent on social climbing, why was he so astonishingly rude to the good and the great - Lord Burghley, the earl of Leicester, Sir Walter Ralegh, Elizabeth I and James VI? Why was he more at home with 'the middling sort' - writers, publishers and printers, bureaucrats, soldiers, academics, secretaries, and clergymen - than with the mighty and the powerful? How did the appalling slaughter he witnessed in Ireland impact on his imaginative powers? How did his marriage and family life shape his work? Spenser's brilliant writing has always challenged our preconceptions. So too, Hadfield shows, does the contradictory relationship between his between life and his art.

An authoritative selection of the writings of one of the most important early American writers "A brilliant collection that reveals the extraordinary range of Cotton Mather's interests and contributions-by far the best introduction to the mind of the Puritan divine."-Francis J. Bremer, author of Lay Empowerment and the Development of Puritanism Cotton Mather (1663-1728) has a wide presence in American culture, and longtime scholarly interest in him is increasing as more of his previously unpublished writings are made available. This reader serves as an introduction to the man and to his huge body of published and unpublished works.