Read Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History Online
Authors: Robert Bucholz,Newton Key
Tories
English political party which arose in response to the
Exclusion Crisis
of the 1680s. The Tories began as a court party defending the hereditary succession in the person of James, duke of York. They favored the rights of the monarch and the Church of England. During the 1690s, as they became associated with Jacobitism and lost power, the Tories became more of a country party critical of the abuse of executive power.
Treaties
See first word of treaty (for example,
Utrecht, Treaty of, 1713
).
Uniformity, Acts of, 1549, 1552, 1559, 1662
Statutes mandating attendance at church and the use of the English Book of Common Prayer in its services.
Union, Acts of, 1536 with Wales, 1707 with Scotland
Statutes uniting the country in question with England as one state with one Parliament and one executive. The 1707 Union created Great Britain.
Utrecht, Treaty of, 1713
Treaty between Great Britain and France ending their hostilities in the War of the Spanish Succession. Britain acquired Gibraltar, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia, territory in the Caribbean, the
Asiento
, Louis XIV’s recognition of the Protestant succession, and the promise that the crowns of France and Spain would never be united.
Visitation
Inspection of ritual, vestments, etc., of a parish or, more usually, a diocese by a bishop or his representative.
Wardship
As feudal lord, the king had the right to administer the estates of underage or female heirs of deceased vassals. Moreover, he often assumed lordship of estates whose previous owners had died without heirs. This allowed him to collect feudal dues through the Court of Wards until the abolition of these rights and this court in 1646.
Welsh Marches
Borderland area between Wales and England including counties of Shropshire, Hereford, Monmouth, Montgomery, Radnor, Flint.
Whigs
English political party which arose in response to the
Exclusion Crisis
of the 1680s. The Whigs began as a country party demanding the exclusion of the Catholic James, duke of York, from the throne, emphasizing the rights of Parliament and of
Dissenters
, and championing a Protestant (pro-Dutch) foreign policy. In the 1690s they became a party of government and grew less radical.
Wyatt’s Rebellion
Rebellion led in 1554 by Sir Thomas Wyatt against Mary I’s intended marriage to Philip, soon to be king of Spain. Mary’s fledgling army beat back the rebels, many of whom were executed.
Select Bibliography
Introduction
Years ago, when the authors were themselves students, textbooks such as C. Hill,
The Century of Revolution,
1603–1714
(London, 1961) and C. Russell,
The Crisis of Parliaments: English History, 1509–1660
(Oxford, 1971) opened their eyes to the excitement and worth of studying early modern England (even if the occasional reference puzzled those not actually reared in the United Kingdom). More recently, the authors first began teaching their own students about British history by assigning C. Roberts and D. Roberts,
A History of England
, vol. 1,
Prehistory to 1714
(1st ed., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1980; 4th ed., with D. R. Bisson, 2001) or L. B. Smith,
This Realm of England, 1399–1688
(1st ed., Lexington, Mass., 1966; 8th ed., 2001). Such general surveys remain valuable syntheses of English history and we have learned much from them.
But we recognize that those just beginning to study this period will turn to this bibliography to learn the latest word about a person, place, or event mentioned in this text or to prepare a report or paper on a more specific subject. Much recent scholarship in early modern British history is to be found in articles (now in print and online, depending on your library’s subscriptions) in journals such as
Continuity and Change
,
English Historical Review
,
Historical Journal
,
History
,
Journal of British Studies
,
Past and Present
, and
Social History
. Our companion volume, N. Key and R. Bucholz, eds.,
Sources and Debates in English History, 1485–1714
, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 2009), includes references to specific articles and debates found in journals like these. Here, however, we list mainly books published in the last quarter-century. We deploy this somewhat arbitrary cut-off date in order to have room to note the many useful studies prepared recently for graduate and advanced undergraduate students, rather than the array of still excellent monographs from the 1960s and 1970s, many of which are referred to in the endnotes above. We cannot list all the works used in preparation of this text; after all, between us we have been reading in the history of this period for over a half-century. But we might single out a half-dozen general studies below which have been consistently valuable and seem particularly reliable, in particular Coward
(The Stuart Age,
2003), Guy (1988), Hirst (1999), Holmes (1993), Hoppit (2000), Kishlansky (1996), Lockyer (2004), Palliser (1992), Sharpe
(Early Modern England,
1997), Williams (1995), and Wrightson (2000).
For additional works, we recommend consulting relevant chapters of Key and Bucholz,
Sources and Debates
(above),
Historical Abstracts
online, or the
Royal Historical Society Bibliography: The History of Britain, Ireland, and the British Overseas
(
http://www.rhs.ac.uk/bibl/
). We also provide a sampling of recent collections of printed and online sources from the period.
General
Cannon, J., ed.
The Oxford Companion to British History,
rev. ed. Oxford, 2002.
Collinson, P., ed.
The Sixteenth Century, 1485-1603
. Oxford, 2002.
Coward, B., ed.
A Companion to Stuart Britain.
Oxford, 2003.
Davies, N.
The Isles: A History.
Oxford, 2000.
Heal, F. and Holmes, C.
The Gentry in England and Wales, 1500–1700
. Stanford, 1994.
Hindle, S.
The State and Social Change in Early Modern England, 1550–1640
. Basingstoke, 2000.
Inwood, S.
A History of London
. 1998.
Laurence, A.
Women in England, 1500–1760: A Social History
. New York, 1994.
Loades, D. M.
Politics and Nation: England, 1450–1660
, 5th ed. Oxford, 1999.
Lockyer, R.
Tudor and Stuart Britain, 1471–1714
, 3rd ed. Harlow, 2004.
Morrill, J., ed.
The Oxford Illustrated History of Tudor and Stuart Britain
. Oxford, 1996.
O’Day, R.
The Longman Companion to the Tudor Age
. London, 1995.
Sharpe, J. A.
Early Modern England: A Social History, 1550–1760
, 2nd ed. London, 1997.
Tittler, R. and Jones, N., eds.
A Companion to Tudor Britain
. Oxford, 2004.
Todd, M., ed.
Reformation to Revolution: Politics and Religion in Early Modern England
. London, 1995.
Wall, A.
Power and Protest in England, 1525–1640
. London, 2000.
Worden, B., ed.
Stuart England.
Oxford, 1986.
Wroughton, J.
The Longman Companion to the Stuart Age, 1603–1714
. London, 1997.
Pre-Tudor (1400s–1485)
Britnell, R.
The Closing of the Middle Ages? England, 1471–1529
. Oxford, 1997.
Carpenter, C.
The Wars of the Roses: Politics and the Constitution in England, c.1437–1509
. Cambridge, 1997.
Griffiths, R. A. and Thomas, R. S.
The Making of the Tudor Dynasty.
Gloucester, 1985.
Lander, J. R.
Government and Community: England, 1450–1509.
Cambridge, Mass., 1980.
Pollard, A. J., ed.
The Wars of the Roses.
New York, 1995.
Schama, S.
A History of Britain
, vol. 1,
At the Edge of the World, 3500 B.C.–1603 A.D
. London, 2000.
Thomson, J. A. F.
The Transformation of Medieval England, 1370–1529.
London, 1983.
See also Thurley (1993), below.
Tudor (1485–1603)
Biography
Ackroyd, P.
The Life of Sir Thomas More.
New York, 1999.
Chrimes, S. B.
Henry VII.
London, 1972; reprinted New Haven, 1999.
Cunningham, S.
Henry VII.
London, 2007.
Guy, J.
Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart
. Boston, 2004.
Gwyn, P.
The King’s Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of Thomas Wolsey
. London, 1990.
Haigh, C.
Elizabeth I
, 2nd ed. London, 1998.
Ives, E. W.
Anne Boleyn.
Oxford, 1986.
Kelsey, H.
Sir Francis Drake: The Queen’s Pirate
. New Haven, 2000.
Loades, D. M.
Mary Tudor: A Life.
Oxford, 1989.
Lockyer, R. and Thrush, A.
Henry VII,
3rd ed. London, 1997.
MacCaffrey, W.
Elizabeth I
. London, 1993.
MacCulloch, D.
Thomas Cranmer
. New Haven, 1996.
MacCulloch, D.
The Boy King: Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation
. New York, 2001.
Marius, R.
Thomas More: A Biography.
Cambridge, Mass., 1984.
Palmer, M. D.
Henry VIII,
2nd ed. London, 1983.
Scarisbrick, J. J.
Henry VIII
. Berkeley, 1968.
Starkey, D.
Elizabeth: The Struggle for the Throne
. New York, 2001.
Sugden, J.
Sir Francis Drake.
New York, 1990.