Reading and politics in early modern England: The mental world of a seventeenth-century Catholic gentleman

by Geoff Baker, Peter Lake (Editor), Anthony Milton (Editor), Jason Peacey (Editor), Alexandra Gajda (Editor)

Overview

This book examines the activities of William Blundell, a seventeenth-century Catholic gentleman, and using the approaches of the history of reading provides a detailed analysis of his mindset.

Blundell was neither the passive victim nor the entirely loyal subject that he and others have claimed. He actively defended his family from the penal laws and used the relative freedom that this gave him to patronise other Catholics. Not only did he rewrite the histories of recent civil conflicts to show that Protestants were prone to rebellion and Catholics to loyalty, but we also find a different perspective on his religious beliefs. Blundell’s commonplaces suggest an underlying tension with aspects of Catholicism, a tension manifest throughout his notes on his practical engagement with the world, in which it is clear that he was wrestling with the various aspects of his identity.

This is an important study that will be of interest to all who work on the early modern period.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780719080241
Publisher:	Manchester University Press
Publication date:	03/30/2010
Series:	Politics, Culture and Society in Early Modern Britain
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Geoff Baker is Senior Academic Advisor at the Centre for Integrative Learning, University of Nottingham

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ix

List of Abbreviations xi

Note on Dates and Style xiii

Introduction 1

Part I Family, Friends and Connections

1 William Blundell's family and friends 34

2 William Blundell and the wider world 76

Part II Reading and Reflections

3 Reading and the construction of commonplaces 102

4 Reading the confessional divide 136

5 A Catholic approach to the world 171

Conclusion 208

Appendix: Map of Little Crosby and surrounding area 213

Select Bibliography 214

Index 229

Editorial Reviews

a gripping, sensitive, and insightful account of its subject, which manages at once to enhance and to challenge many ideas found within the existing canon of “recusant history".'
Gabriel Glickman, Journal of British Studies, Vol. 51 No. 4

From the Publisher