In this 1907 work, H. Munro Chadwick (1870 1947) re-examines the early history of the English nation from a new perspective. By training a philologist, he uses the tools of ethnology, history, tradition, language, customs, religion and archaeology, to understand how the various Germanic tribes established themselves in Britain, founding new kingdoms. Despite an almost total lack of English historical documents from the period, Chadwick uses a range of historical and literary sources, from both sides of the English Channel, which relied on oral traditions. By close linguistic analysis he shows how the Saxon and other invaders retained close cultural ties with their continental kinsmen. He shows that although the Dark Ages may be obscure due to lack of contemporary sources, careful scholarly analysis of later texts can reveal a great deal about the history, culture and society of the earlier period.

Jonathan Swift was the most influential political commentator of his time, in both England and Ireland. His writings are a major source for historians of the eighteenth century, as well as including some of the greatest works of satire in verse and prose. This volume presents wide-ranging new perspectives on Swift's literary and political achievement in its English and Irish contexts, bringing together some of the most energetic current scholarship on the subject in both historical and literary studies. The essays consider Swift's attitude to Dissenters, his relationship with Walpole, and his place in, and understanding of, the political demography of colonial Ireland. They also examine Swift's poems and pamphlets, and his hoaxes and satires, showing his extraordinary versatility in a wide variety of genres. Full of original insights, this volume offers a rich and important new treatment of Swift's central role in eighteenth-century political and literary culture.

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE starring Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie. A biography "as enthralling as a detective story," of the woman who reigned over sixteenth-century Scotland (New York Times Book Review). In Mary Queen of Scots, John Guy creates an intimate and absorbing portrait of one of history's most famous women, depicting her world and her place in the sweep of history with stunning immediacy. Bringing together all surviving documents and uncovering a trove of new sources for the first time, Guy dispels the popular image of Mary Stuart as a romantic leading lady--achieving her ends through feminine wiles--and establishes her as the intellectual and political equal of Elizabeth I. Through Guy's pioneering research and superbly readable prose, we come to see Mary as a skillful diplomat, maneuvering ingeniously among a dizzying array of factions that sought to control or dethrone her. It is an enthralling, myth-shattering look at a complex woman and ruler and her time. "The definitive biography . . . gripping . . . a pure pleasure to read."--Washington Post Book World First published in 2004 as Queen of Scots

Colonising New Zealand offers a radically new vision of the basis and process of Britain's colonisation of New Zealand. It commences by confronting the problems arising from subjective and ever-evolving moral judgements about colonisation and examines the possibility of understanding colonisation beyond the confines of any preoccupations with moral perspectives. It then investigates the motives behind Britain's imperial expansion, both in a global context and specifically in relation to New Zealand. The nature and reasons for this expansion are deciphered using the model of an organic imperial ecosystem, which involves examining the first cause of all colonisation and which provides a means of understanding why the disparate parts of the colonial system functioned in the ways that they did. Britain's imperial system did not bring itself into being, and so the notion of the Empire having emerged from a supra-system is assessed, which in turn leads to an exploration of the idea of equilibrium-achievement as the Prime Mover behind all colonisation-something that is borne out in New Zealand's experience from the late eighteenth century. This work changes profoundly the way New Zealand's colonisation is interpreted, and provides a framework for reassessing all forms of imperialism.

This book focuses on the career of Sanskrit in British India. Europe's discovery of Sanskrit was a development of far-reaching historical significance in terms of intellectual curiosity, evangelical considerations, colonial administrative requirements, and political compulsions. The volume critically analyses this interplay between Sanskrit texts and the imperial and colonial presence in India. It goes beyond the question of what the discovery of Sanskrit meant for the West and examines what this collocation meant for India. The author looks at how the British needed Sanskrit for dispensation of Hindu civil law; how learned Pandits were cultivated; and how scholarship was developed transcending utilitarianism. He also studies the extent to which Sanskrit in pre- and non-British India had a bearing on Europe and explores themes such as Jesuit Sanskrit, Hinduism in practice, scripturism, Aryan Race Theory, seductive orientalism, and the introduction of archivalism in India. Rich in archival sources, this unique book will be useful for scholars and researchers of colonial history, modern Indian history, Indology, linguistics, history of education, Sanskrit studies, post-colonial studies, and cultural studies.

The publications of the Hakluyt Society (founded in 1846) made available edited (and sometimes translated) early accounts of exploration. The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. Volume 1, published in 1847, contains Sir Richard Hawkins's account of the voyage by which in 1593 he planned to sail to 'the Ilands of Japan, of the Phillippinas, and Molucas, the kingdomes of China, and the East Indies, by the way of the Straites of Magelan, and the South Sea'. The version of the book printed in 1622 was edited for the Hakluyt Society by Captain C .R. Drinkwater Bethune of the Royal Navy, and includes an editorial preface, explanatory footnotes and an index.

John Massey's story is unique. Having spent a childhood in Borstals and children's homes, he was arrested and charged with murder in 1975. At large during the 1960s and early 1970s, Massey was a member of a notorious group of bank robbers, as well as being one half of a criminal duo the Flying Squad dubbed Laurel and Hardy. His career of crime saw him hijack a police car after stealing GBP25,000 from a bank in Romford, steal a huge sum of money from the Sunday Mirror's weekly payroll, undertake two daring prison escapes, both of which made front page headlines, and live a life undercover in the Costa del Sol working for drug smugglers. He has served time, 43 years in total, in almost every prison in the country and has known every notorious gangster and villain from the 1960s to the present day, including members of the IRA. In Locks, Bolts and Bars, Massey, star of Channel 4's What Makes A Murderer and Britain's longest-serving prisoner, reveals the day-to-day realities of spending five decades inside, what it takes to escape, and is a heart-breaking account of what life on the inside can teach us about life on the outside.

Winner of the Saltire Society Scottish History Book of the Year 2019 Presiding over an age of relative peace and prosperity, Alexander III represented the zenith of Scottish medieval kingship. The events which followed his early and unexpected death plunged Scotland into turmoil, and into a period of warfare and internal decline which almost brought about the demise of the Scottish state. This study fills a serious gap in the historiography of medieval Scotland. For many decades, even centuries, Scotland's medieval kingship has been regarded as a close likeness of the English monarchy, having been 'modernised' in that image by the twelfth- and thirteenth-century kings, who had close relationships with their southern counterparts. Recent research has cast doubt on that view, and this examination of Alexander III's reign is based on a view of Scottish kingship which depends on much firmer continuity with its earlier, celtic past. It challenges accepted truth, revealing that the nature of state and government, and the relationships between ruler and subject, were quite different from the previous 'received view'. On the cusp of a dynastic catastrophe which led to economic and political disaster, Alexander III's reign captures a snapshot of Scotland at the end of a period of sustained peace and development: a view of the medieval state as it really was.

First survey of one of the most important pre-modern farming systems, and its effects on society and landscape. A landmark volume... essential reading for all those interested in social, agricultural and landscape history, as well as in East Anglia's past. Professor Tom Williamson, University of East Anglia. England in the medieval and early modern periods was farmed under a wide range of agrarian regimes, each of which was both engendered by, and had in turn a determining influence upon, innumerable aspects of society and landscape. Reconstructing the complex history of these systems - how they actually worked on the ground, how and why they first developed and how they evolved over time - is thus crucial for our understanding of the lived experience of past generations and the physical environments which they inhabited. But studies of past agricultural regimes which are detailed enough to highlight their full social, economic and environmental character and implications, are surprisingly thin on the ground. This innovative book dissects the character of one key example - the foldcourse system of East Anglia - from its genesis in the early Middle Ages to its demise in the nineteenth century. It casts a mass of new light on an institution that structured rural life in one region of England, over many centuries. But it also provides important new insights into the nature of early farming systems more generally, and the intricate balance of human agency, and environmental structures, that shaped and sustained them.

The first Student's Guide to the University of Cambridge was published in 1863, and there were subsequent editions in 1866, 1874 (the version offered here), 1880, 1891 and 1893. There is no authorial name on the title page, but the initials J. R. S. on the preface to the first edition are those of Sir John Robert Seeley (1834 95), the distinguished historian who became Regius Professor of Modern History in 1869. The book was 'written for the benefit not of actual students only, but of all persons who may contemplate entering the University'. It was designed to provide in advance information which the student might otherwise acquire only 'by his own experience and mistakes', and also 'the Studies and Examinations of the University', described by the appropriate professors or examiners. As well as the curriculum, the book provides fascinating details of student daily life in mid-Victorian Cambridge.

Exam board: OCR Level: A-level Subject: History First teaching: September 2015 First exams: Summer 2016 Target success in OCR AS/A-level History with this proven formula for effective, structured revision; key content coverage is combined with exam preparation activities and exam-style questions to create a revision guide that students can rely on to review, strengthen and test their knowledge. - Enables students to plan and manage a successful revision programme using the topic-by-topic planner - Consolidates knowledge with clear and focused content coverage, organised into easy-to-revise chunks - Encourages active revision by closely combining historical content with related activities - Helps students build, practise and enhance their exam skills as they progress through activities set at three different levels - Improves exam technique through exam-style questions with sample answers and commentary from expert authors and teachers - Boosts historical knowledge with a useful glossary and timeline

Commemorating the Irish Famine: Memory and the Monument presents for the first time a visual cultural history of the 1840s Irish Famine, tracing its representation and commemoration from the 19th century up to its 150th anniversary in the 1990s and beyond. As the watershed event of 19th century Ireland, the Famine's political and social impacts profoundly shaped modern Ireland and the nations of its diaspora. Yet up until the 1990s, the memory of the Famine remained relatively muted and neglected, attracting little public attention. Thus the Famine commemorative boom of the mid-1990s was unprecedented in scale and output, with close to one hundred monuments newly constructed across Ireland, Britain, the United States, Canada and Australia. Drawing on an extensive global survey of recent community and national responses to the Famine's anniversary, and by outlining why these memories matter and to whom, this book argues how the phenomenon of Famine commemoration may be understood in the context of a growing memorial culture worldwide. It offers an innovative look at a well-known migration history whilst exploring how a now-global ethnic community redefines itself through acts of public memory and representation.

This monograph makes a major new contribution to the historiography of criminal justice in England and Wales by focusing on the intersection of the history of law and crime with medical history. It does this through the lens provided by one group of historical actors, medical professionals who gave evidence in criminal proceedings. They are the means of illuminating the developing methods and personnel associated with investigating and prosecuting crime in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when two linchpins of modern society, centralised policing and the adversarial criminal trial, emerged and matured. The book is devoted to two central questions: what did medical practitioners contribute to the investigation of serious violent crime in the period 1700 to 1914, and what impact did this have on the process of criminal justice? Drawing on the details of 2,600 cases of infanticide, murder and rape which occurred in central England, Wales and London, the book offers a comparative long-term perspective on medico-legal practice - that is, what doctors actually did when they were faced with a body that had become the object of a criminal investigation. It argues that medico-legal work developed in tandem with and was shaped by the needs of two evolving processes: pre-trial investigative procedures dominated successively by coroners, magistrates and the police; and criminal trials in which lawyers moved from the periphery to the centre of courtroom proceedings. In bringing together for the first time four groups of specialists - doctors, coroners, lawyers and police officers - this study offers a new interpretation of the processes that shaped the modern criminal justice system.

Despite widespread interest in Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, little has been written about him in decades past. In Elizabeth I's Last Favourite, Sarah-Beth Watkins brings the story of his life, and death, back into the public eye. In the later years of Elizabeth I's reign, Robert Devereux became the ageing queen's last favourite. The young upstart courtier was the stepson of her most famous love, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Although he tried, throughout his life, to live up to his stepfather's memory, Essex would never be the man he was. His love for the queen ran in tandem with undercurrents of selfishness and greed. Yet, Elizabeth showered him with affection, gifts and the tolerance only a mother could have for an errant son. In return, for a time, Essex flattered her and pandered to her every whim. But, one disastrous commission after another befell the earl, from his military campaigns, to voyages seeking treasure, to his stint as spymaster. Ultimately, his relationship with the queen would suffer and his final act of rebellion would force Elizabeth I to ensure her last favourite troubled her no more.

Drawing on unique research based on the Parliamentary archives, government records and family history sources, Mari Takayanagi and Liz Hallam-Smith show how women touched just about every aspect of the life of Parliament, largely unacknowledged - until now. Along the way, we meet an array of impressive and life-affirming women: from the Rickman sisters eavesdropping on Parliamentary debates from the roof space above the Commons in the 1820s; to Jane, the doyenne of Bellamy's, purveyors of tea, chops, steaks, pies and wine to MPs in the 1840s; and to Jean Winder, the first female Hansard reporter, who fought for years after being appointed in 1944 to be paid the same as her male counterparts. As historians and Parliamentary insiders themselves, Takayanagi and Hallam-Smith bring these unsung heroes to life, charting along the way the changing context for working women within and beyond the Palace of Westminster.

Originally published in 1971 this book begins with the assumption that the Dissolution of the Monasteries was neither an integral nor an essential part of the English reformation. This book pursues the story chronologically and thus helps students re-discover what contemporaries knew was happening at each successive stage. An important part of this process consists in watching - with the help of a selection of surviving records - how the Court of Augmentation went to work not only centrally but in the field. The part played by Thomas Cromwell, in both the devising and the carrying out of the Dissolution is reassessed and particular attention is paid to the chronological relation between his career and the early stages of the dispersal of the crown's new resources among the King's subjects.

This book argues that Shakespeare and various cultures of celebrity have enjoyed a ceaselessly adaptive, symbiotic relationship since the final decade of the sixteenth century, through which each entity has contributed to the vitality and adaptability of the other. In five chapters, Jennifer Holl explores the early modern culture of theatrical celebrity and its resonances in print and performance, especially in Shakespeare's interrogations of this emerging phenomenon in sonnets and histories, before moving on to examine the ways that shifting cultures of stage, film, and digital celebrity have perpetually recreated the Shakespeare, or even the #shakespeare, with whom audiences continue to interact. Situated at an intersection of multiple critical conversations, this book will be of great interest to scholars and graduate students of Shakespeare and Shakespearean appropriations, early modern theater, and celebrity studies.

This volume examines the nineteenth century not only through episodes, institutions, sites and representations concerned with union, concord and bonds of sympathy, but also through moments of secession, separation, discord and disjunction. Its lens extends from the local and regional, through to national and international settings in Britain, Europe and the United States. The contributors come from the fields of cultural history, literary studies, American studies and legal history.

St. Margaret of Antioch was one of the most popular saints in medieval England and, throughout the Middle Ages, the various Lives of St. Margaret functioned as a blueprint for a virginal life and supernatural assistance to pregnant women during the dangerous process of labor. In her narrative, Margaret is accosted by various demons and, having defeated each monster in turn, she is taken to the place of her martyrdom where she prays for supernatural boons for her adherents. This book argues that Margaret's monsters are a key element in understanding Margaret's importance to her adherents, specifically how the sexual identities of her adherents were constructed and maintained. More broadly, this study offers three major contributions to the field of medieval studies: first, it argues for the utility of a diachronic analysis of Saints' Lives literature in a field dominated by synchronic analyses; second, this diachronic analysis is important to interpreting the intertext of Saints' Lives, not only between different Lives but also different versions of the same Life; and third, the approach further suggests that the most valuable socio-cultural information in hagiographic literature is found in the auxiliary characters and not in the figure of the saint him/herself.

Viewed by some as the saviour of his nation, and by others as a racist imperialist, who was Winston Churchill really, and how has he become such a controversial figure? Combining the best of established scholarship with important new perspectives, this Companion places Churchill's life and legacy in a broader context. It highlights different aspects of his life and personality, examining his core beliefs, working practices, key relationships and the political issues and campaigns that he helped shape, and which in turn shaped him. Controversial subjects, such as area bombing, Ireland, India and Empire are addressed in full, to try and explain how Churchill has become such a deeply divisive figure. Through careful analysis, this book presents a full and rounded picture of Winston Churchill, providing much needed nuance and context to the debates about his life and legacy.

Exam board: OCR Level: A-History Subject: First teaching: September 2015 First exams: Summer 2016 Target success in OCR A-level History with this proven formula for effective, structured revision; key content coverage is combined with exam preparation activities and exam-style questions to create a revision guide that students can rely on to review, strengthen and test their knowledge. - Enables students to plan and manage a successful revision programme using the topic-by-topic planner - Consolidates knowledge with clear and focused content coverage, organised into easy-to-revise chunks - Encourages active revision by closely combining historical content with related activities - Helps students build, practise and enhance their exam skills as they progress through activities set at three different levels - Improves exam technique through exam-style questions with sample answers and commentary from expert authors and teachers - Boosts historical knowledge with a useful glossary and timeline

Exam board: AQA Level: A-level Subject: History First teaching: September 2016 First exams: Summer 2017 (AS); Summer 2018 (A-level) Target success in AQA AS/A-level History with this proven formula for effective, structured revision; key content coverage is combined with exam preparation activities and exam-style questions to create a revision guide that students can rely on to review, strengthen and test their knowledge. - Enables students to plan and manage a successful revision programme using the topic-by-topic planner - Consolidates knowledge with clear and focused content coverage, organised into easy-to-revise chunks - Encourages active revision by closely combining historical content with related activities - Helps students build, practise and enhance their exam skills as they progress through activities set at three different levels - Improves exam technique through exam-style questions with sample answers and commentary from expert authors and teachers - Boosts historical knowledge with a useful glossary and timeline

In the years 1803-5 Napoleon Bonaparte built 4 new harbours on his channel coast and assembled enough landing craft to put an army of over 165,000 men ashore on English beaches. Was this threat to Britain really serious and should we dismiss it as pure Bluff? Why was it never revived after Bonaparte's continental wars against the Russians, Austrians and Prussians? What did the English do about defending themselves? This book, originally published in 1973 tackles these questions. It shows why Bonaparte's flotilla was no Bluff but something the British were right to take seriously and also how their preparations to defend the beaches within reach of its bases made a revival of the flotilla after 1807 pointless. Though recognising the importance of Trafalgar the book rejects the fallacy that this victory ended Britain's danger. The book covers the background of the war, Britain's defence organisation, the Royal Navy's tasks, Bonaparte's preparations and how the British made ready to meet him.

This four volume collection looks at the essential issues concerning crime and punishment in the long nineteenth-century. Through the presentation of primary source documents, it explores the development of a modern pattern of crime and a modern system of penal policy and practice, illustrating the shift from eighteenth century patterns of crime (including the clash between rural custom and law) and punishment (unsystematic, selective, public, and body-centred) to nineteenth century patterns of crime (urban, increasing, and a metaphor for social instability and moral decay, before a remarkable late-century crime decline) and punishment (reform-minded, soul-centred, penetrative, uniform and private in application). The first two volumes focus on crime itself and illustrate the role of the criminal courts, the rise and fall of crime, the causes of crime as understood by contemporary investigators, the police ways of 'knowing the criminal,' the role of 'moral panics,' and the definition of the 'criminal classes' and 'habitual offenders'. The final two volumes explore means of punishment and look at the shift from public and bodily punishments to transportation, the rise of the penitentiary, the convict prison system, and the late-century decline in the prison population and loss of faith in the prison.

This four volume collection looks at the essential issues concerning crime and punishment in the long nineteenth-century. Through the presentation of primary source documents, it explores the development of a modern pattern of crime and a modern system of penal policy and practice, illustrating the shift from eighteenth century patterns of crime (including the clash between rural custom and law) and punishment (unsystematic, selective, public, and body-centred) to nineteenth century patterns of crime (urban, increasing, and a metaphor for social instability and moral decay, before a remarkable late-century crime decline) and punishment (reform-minded, soul-centred, penetrative, uniform and private in application). The first two volumes focus on crime itself and illustrate the role of the criminal courts, the rise and fall of crime, the causes of crime as understood by contemporary investigators, the police ways of 'knowing the criminal,' the role of 'moral panics,' and the definition of the 'criminal classes' and 'habitual offenders'. The final two volumes explore means of punishment and look at the shift from public and bodily punishments to transportation, the rise of the penitentiary, the convict prison system, and the late-century decline in the prison population and loss of faith in the prison.