Charles I and the People of England

by David Cressy

Overview

The story of the reign of Charles I - through the lives of his people. Prize-winning historian David Cressy mines the widest range of archival and printed sources, including ballads, sermons, speeches, letters, diaries, petitions, proclamations, and the proceedings of secular and ecclesiastical courts, to explore the aspirations and expectations not only of the king and his followers, but also the unruly energies of many of his subjects, showing how royal authority was constituted, in peace and in war - and how it began to fall apart. A blend of micro-historical analysis and constitutional theory, parish politics and ecclesiology, military, cultural, and social history, Charles I and the People of England is the first major attempt to connect the political, constitutional, and religious history of this crucial period in English history with the experience and aspirations of the rest of the population. From the king and his ministers to the everyday dealings and opinions of parishioners, petitioners, and taxpayers, David Cressy re-creates the broadest possible panorama of early Stuart England, as it slipped from complacency to revolution.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780191018008
Publisher:	OUP Oxford
Publication date:	04/23/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	416
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

David Cressy was born in England and educated at Cambridge, but built his career in the United States. He has taught at colleges and universities in California, Ohio, and New Mexico, and has won numerous fellowships and awards. His work is driven by curiosity about the relationships of central and local authority, elite and popular culture, official and unofficial religion, and ordinary men and women, a curiosity that ranges from kinship to book-burning, from cross-dressing to Gypsies. When not engaged in historical research he may be found exploring the deserts and beaches of the American West.

Table of Contents

Preface
Prologue: Lucy Martin's Message
Introduction
1. The Commonwealth of England
2. The Oath of a King
3. Sacred Kingship and Dutiful Subjection
4. Unprosperous Wars
5. An Accessible Monarch?
6. Importunate Petitioners
7. The King's Religion and the People's Church
8. The King's Declaration and the People's Sports
9. Sacred Kingship Eclipsed
10. The Blindness of Charles I
Bibliography
Notes
Index

Editorial Reviews

"There is much to learn from Cressy's richly textured account..."—Journal of Modern History

"Cressy brings many fresh archival illustrations to bear on his presentation of this 'tortured relationship between King Charles and his people'..."—Renaissance Quarterly

"Cressy has done sterling work showing how popular discontent magnified the restiveness of the gentry like a vast echochamber. His is the best book on the Civil War that I've read for a while." - BBC History Magazine

"This is a rich account, brimming with details culled from a huge range of original sources" - Noel Malcolm, The Telegraph

"A brilliantly evocative account of the life and times of Charles I, as seen primarily from the perspective of the millions of ordinary English men and women who lived under his rule. Drawing on an impressive array of archival and printed sources, Cressy is able to recreate the concerns and reactions of those usually hidden from history to provide a fresh perspective on the shortcomings of the Caroline regime and the origins of the English revolution." —Tim Harris, author of Rebellion: Britain's First Stuart Kings

From the Publisher