17th century England

During the reign of James II/VII Stuart (1685-1688), the political, diplomatic and cultural relations between the British court and the Italian states flourished as never before. This was due above all to the Roman-Catholic faith of the king and the lively personality of his consort Maria Beatrice d’Este («Mary of Modena»), while the growing English economic power was acquiring commercial dominance in the Mediterranean area. With the help of thousands of unpublished papers, the book by Alessandro Cont reconstructs the British diplomatic network in Italy during this period, the personalities and orientations of the ministers of Italian princes accredited to the court of Whitehall, the queen’s dynastic policy and the peculiar characteristics of her Italian entourage of chaplains, servants, artists and musicians.

Il saggio intende dimostrare che, subito dopo la pubblicazione, da parte di Alberico Gentili, dei De iuris interpretibus Dialogi sex (1582) e delle Lectiones et Epistolae (1583-1584) i rapporti fra Jean Hotman e il giurista di San Ginesio divennero molto difficili e burrascosi. Lo dimostrano alcune epistole scritte da Hotman ad autorevoli giuristi (ad es. Bodin), e ad alcuni umanisti (Bergmann, Payne, Cuffe, Th. Savile) contenenti critiche molto dure e severe ai Dialogi gentiliani. Malgrado ciò, e malgrado le opposizioni dei puritani, Gentili riuscirà ad ottenere la cattedra di Civil Law a Oxford.Il saggio contiene anche notizie circa il tentativo compiuto, dal Gentili, di ottenere un insegnamento a Tubinga nel 1580.

This essay reappraises the origins of French Quakerism based on new archival research conducted on both sides of the Channel. It identifies 34 Quaker missionaries in 17th- and early 18C France, sheds new light on the French reception of Quakerism and suggests possible connections with non-violent, charismatic movements in Languedoc.

This article explores the early history of Kensington Palace gardens from the earliest reference in the Doomsday Book, to the purchase of the property by William and Mary in 1689 and the subsequent development of the gardens features, until 1702 when Queen Anne ascended to the throne.

The body of a short article published in the Token Corresponding Society Bulletin for December 2016 (Vol. 12, no. 1), numbered there pages 24-32. This article researches a 17th century token issuer from Great Yarmouth, Stephen Tracey, who was also a Pilgrim Father.

La Guerra Civil Inglesa de 1642 a 1651 fue un período de beligerancia social, disputas religiosas, experimentación política e inestabilidad en Inglaterra, Escocia e Irlanda. Sin embargo, se sabe menos, pero se debate mucho, sobre las causas ya que no parecían ser propensas a producir los conflictos, sólo el tipo de ellos. Algunos historiadores se han centrado en la sociedad y las masas, otros en las élites, otros en aspectos socioeconómicos y muchos más en el funcionamiento de la iglesia y el estado. Otros se quejan de los enfoques de arriba hacia abajo, de demasiado enfoque en Escocia e Irlanda, y de interpretaciones erróneas de los documentos dejados por realistas y parlamentarios. Hay quienes argumentan que fue un conflicto religioso, mientras que otros argumentan que fue retratado por algunos contemporáneos como una guerra santa. Aunque muchos todavía no están de acuerdo, existe un consenso creciente entre los historiadores de que la religión desempeñó un papel primordial en la causa de los conflictos. Los años que condujeron a la Guerra Civil fueron un período de errores de cálculo por parte de la realeza, revueltas escocesas e irlandesas debido principalmente a tensiones religiosas, discusiones religiosas entre realistas y parlamentarios, y celo religioso que produjo una guerra civil inesperada y no deseada. Si bien los agravios políticos y constitucionales parecían haber desencadenado los conflictos y aumentar la tensión, la religión fue el principal factor subyacente.

The political and religious symbolism of buildings is of enduring interest in historical archaeology. Similarly, ideal concepts in urban planning, and utopian communities have been of recent concern. This paper moves beyond iconography and ideology to examine how a new, post-Civil War English elite tried to implement a policy of reforming their town as a New Jerusalem. A group of merchant houses reveals an attempt to build Scripture into the physical environment, and establish the elite as Elect " watchmen " over the lives and souls of the townspeople. Contemporary sermons are integral to the analysis, as are the agency and interrelationships of a tightly-knit social group. There are two strands to this paper: one is the relationship between the iconography of buildings and their inhabitants; the other is the concept of ideal relationships at the heart of settlement planning. The two come together in the analysis of an extraordinary group of merchant houses built in the town of Newcastle upon Tyne in the NorthEast of England, in the mid-seventeenth century, in the period following the execution of King Charles I, when England was ruled as a republic and a severely Protestant or puritan Commonwealth under the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. The prominent external characteristics of the houses are the rows of windows in three horizontal bands, seemingly continuous, and giving the impression of a unifying, though not uniform, façade. The archaeological study of ideal urban forms ranges across the centuries. For example, Lilley (2004a, 2004b, 2007) has pursued a sustained project to examine the planning and iconography of medieval towns between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. He proposes that planned towns of this period were intended to represent ideals of the Heavenly Jerusalem on earth. However, these ideals were only apparent

This work analyses the public perception of the role of privateers and their transition to pirates and examines both negative and positive outcomes in various areas like diplomacy, international trade, legal, racial and gender issues. The entire topic is examined through various cases of pirates including Bartholomew Roberts, Sir Henry Morgan, Thomas Tew, William Kid, Jack Rackham, Stede Bonnet, Edward Teach, Samuel Bellamy, Mary Read, Anne Bony or Henry Avery as well as historical records including letters, trials and pamphlets. Further, this essay discusses an interesting development of piracy from state-funded expeditions into utterly illegal activity driven by various reasons. Particularly the transition between legal, semi-legal and illicit separates England and Great Britain (from 1707 onwards) from other colonial powers such as France, Spain or Dutch. Despite the fact that they all issued privateering licenses and therefore they had to face similar problems connected to privateering, the outburst of piracy in the case of England was so dangerous that England (Great Britain) during the late 17th and early 18th century was called a “nation of pirates”. Hence, this work analyses both legal and practical actions against pirates in British colonies and their effectiveness after 1715. The last part of this essay is dedicated to piracy regarding an alternative way of life for disadvantaged social groups in the 17th and 18th century and contemporary negative or positive portrayal of piracy. The role of liberated “Negroe” and “Mullato” slaves is also examined throu

Michel Foucault argued that the development of morbid anatomy, which he located in late eighteenth-century France, led to a great increase in the power of doctors over patients. The use of autopsy findings to confirm the cause of death and to provide information for systematic pathology had a prior history, however. When introduced into England, in the seventeenth century, the practice was already well established in Europe, notably in connection with the embalming of the French kings. Several highly controversial autopsies, conducted on royalty and politicians, publicized the procedure and helped to make it socially acceptable. English anatomists were then able to draw on the results of autopsies conducted on their patients to correlate normal anatomy with the post-mortem signs. Most patients did not feel threatened by this procedure because it was undertaken privately and with consent, as a final act of clinical care. English physicians abandoned autopsies to the surgeons towards the end of the century in pursuit of a more genteel style of self-presentation. The connection between power and morbid anatomy seems to arise not from the practice of autopsy itself but from the impersonal authority of late eighteenth-century hospital doctors over poor patients.

This paper examines whether ceramicist John Dwight’s documented discovery of English stoneware, and his relationship with architect and scientist Robert Hooke, makes either man the plausible originator of the widespread use of fired artificial stone in architecture in the eighteenth century that culminated in Coade stone after 1769, itself essentially a stoneware. Interrogating the evidence of the Hooke-Dwight relationship within its wider scientific context for the first time with this particular question in mind, the paper also offers a case study in the interaction between the natural philosophers of the Royal Society, and architectural and artisanal practice in the late-seventeenth century, placed within the wider context of the Society’s History of Trades project. A critical eye is also cast over Dwight’s metropolitan claim to be the true and only discoverer of stoneware in England.

ABSTRACT
The Jacobean era's infamous witchcraft trials are recalled after reservoir repairs close to Pendle Hill reveal a buried cottage with bricked‐up cat. Interpretations of the building as the site of Malkin Tower, recorded in court records as the venue of a witches coven are critically evaluated in the light of archaeological and historical evidence.

KEYWORDS
WITCH, PENDLE WITCH TRIALS, PENDLE HILL, MALKIN TOWER, FOLK BELIEF, MAGIC, LANCASTER ASSIZES, WISE WOMEN, CUNNING FOLK, ARCHAEOLOGY, HISTORY, SEVENTEENTHCENTURY, ALIZON DEVICE, SALEM WITCHES, THOMAS POTTS, LOWER BLACK MOSS, ELIZABETH SOUTHERNS, DEMDIKE, ELIZABETH DEVICE, JAMES DEVICE, ANNE WHITTLE, CHATTOX, ANNE REDFERNE, JANE BULCOCK, JOHN BULCOCK, ALICE NUTTER, KATHERINE HEWITT, ALICE GRAY, JENNET PRESTON, GUNPOWDER PLOT, CAT

Pela sua localização privilegiada no meio do Oceano Atlântico, os Açores desempenharam a partir do século XV um importante papel como porto de apoio aos navios que rumavam a novos territórios.
Nas suas águas ficou o registo histórico-arqueológico desses tempos, nos naufrágios e no diverso espólio identificado a partir da segunda metade do século XX.
O desenvolvimento da arqueologia de âmbito subaquático nos Açores e em particular na baía de Angra do Heroísmo na ilha Terceira, tem sido um importante meio de estudo na compreensão da História Marítima portuguesa e internacional a vários níveis. Destaca-se a importância dos seus naufrágios para o estudo da construção naval, da vida a bordo, do comércio e das rotas marítimas, das actividades e organização portuária e o
seu papel fundamental como escala do Atlântico.
O presente artigo pretende fazer uma síntese dos trabalhos desenvolvidos, em sete das nove ilhas, integrados em diferentes projectos – Estudos de Impacte Ambiental (EIA), Açores Shipwreck Survey, Carta Arqueológica Subaquática dos Açores (CASA), ProjectoPIAS entre outros.

An examination of the historiography of the Glorious Revolution, the differing interpretations offered of the event by historians, and a brief examination of just what exactly happened in 1688. Also included is a discussion on the modern relevancy of the Glorious Revolution.

The English Civil War from 1642 to 1651 was a period of social belligerence, religious disputes, political experimentation and instability in England, Scotland and Ireland. However, less is known but much is debated about the causes since they did not seem likely to produce the conflicts, just the type of it. Some historians have focused on society and the masses, others on elites, others on socio-economic aspects and many more in the running of the church and the state. Others complain about the top-down approaches, too much focus on Scotland and Ireland, and misinterpretations of documents left by royalists and parliamentarians. There are those who argue it was a religious conflict, while others argue that it was portrayed by some contemporaries as a holy war. Although many still disagree, there is a growing consensus among historians that religion did played a paramount role in causing the conflicts. The years leading to the Civil War were a period of royal miscalculations, Scottish and Irish revolts due mainly to religious tensions, religious discussions between royalists and parliamentarians, and religious zeal which produced an unexpected and unwanted civil war. While political and constitutional grievances seemed to have triggered the conflicts and build up tension, religion was the primary underlying factor.

The aim of this chapter is to investigate the artistic and architectural exchanges associated with the massive influx of immigrants from the Low Countries during the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth centuries in the specific context of the culture of the gentry and their manor houses.

This is an overview of the English division viol, assembling the information available from first hand sources. What are its roots? How and when does it appear in contemporary sources? Was it really a small size viol? Is the six-string violin-shaped division viol portrayed in Simpson’s book one and the same instrument as the six-string bass violin described in James Talbot’s manuscript?
The study of the early sources reveals a picture quite different from the one we are used to.

In this paper we investigate how magic participated in the construction of the new natural philosophy as it was formed in the second half of the 17th century in England.  First of all, our claim is that in this new landscape the discussion between the natural philosophers included the phenomena of magic; and this inclusion was not in terms of rejection or contradiction, but rather in terms of appropriation and incorporation of rules and methods of magical tradition. Dealing with the phenomena of magic, was not an irrelevant matter among natural philosophers. Magic was an important aspect of the new natural philosophy. Also, magic was present in the public sphere, since it, portrayed and included different ideological, social and intellectual layers. The focus of this study is the work of Joseph Glanvill, a member of the Royal Society, who in the middle of the 17th century proposed the study of witches and spirits in terms similar to any other field of natural philosophy.

Στην παρούσα εργασία ερευνούμε τη θέση που είχε η μαγεία στη διαμόρφωση της νέας φυσικής φιλοσοφίας, όπως αυτή διαμορφώθηκε το δεύτερο μισό του 17ου αιώνα στην Αγγλία. Καταρχάς τεκμηριώνουμε τη θέση ότι, στο νέο τοπίο που διαμορφωνόταν, ο διάλογος μεταξύ των φυσικών φιλοσόφων εμπεριείχε τα φαινόμενα της μαγείας ως αναπόσπαστο κομμάτι του και ότι αυτή η συμπερίληψη δεν γινόταν με όρους απόρριψης ή αντιδιαστολής αλλά, απεναντίας, γινόταν με όρους οικειοποίησης και ενσωμάτωσης κανόνων και μεθόδων της μαγικής παράδοσης. Η ενασχόληση με τα φαινόμενα της μαγείας δεν ήταν μια παράπλευρη, άνευ σημασίας εμπλοκή των πρωταγωνιστών της περιόδου, ανεξάρτητη από την δημιουργία της νέας φυσικής φιλοσοφίας. Ήταν παρούσα σε όλο το πλέγμα της δημόσιας σφαίρας διατρέχοντας κάθε σημείο του σώματος της συζήτησης. Αποτελούσε ένα ερευνητικό πεδίο που αποτύπωνε και ενσωμάτωνε ιδεολογικές, κοινωνικές και διανοητικές διαστρωματώσεις. Η μελέτη αυτή γίνεται, επικεντρώνοντας την προσοχή μας στο έργο του Joseph Glanvill, μέλους της Βασιλικής Εταιρείας, ο οποίος στα μέσα του 17ου αιώνα πρότεινε την μελέτη των μαγισσών και των πνευμάτων με όρους όμοιους με κάθε άλλο τομέα της φυσικής φιλοσοφίας.

The aim of this thesis is to clarify the role that female interpreters in Britain played at an early stage in the canonisation of William Shakespeare. Shakespeare, one of the popular playwrights in English Renaissance theatre, became increasingly famous during the first half of the eighteenth century, and the Shakespeare Jubilee in 1769 marked the climax of the popularisation of his works. It is said that since then, he has maintained his position as the ‘national poet’ of England (or Britain). Although women had supported Shakespeare even before his works had established their canonical status, the extent to which female interpreters contributed to the canonisation of Shakespeare, how they participated in the process, and why they played the roles that they did have not yet been sufficiently visible. In this thesis, I illustrate women’s engagement in the process of the popularisation of Shakespeare by examining the early reception of his works, and to document how individual women’s pleasure of reading and playgoing relates to their intellectual activities. I adopt three approaches to provide answers to my research questions in this thesis: reading critical and fictional works by women; analysing the descriptions of female readers and playgoers by male writers; and conducting a large-scale survey of the ownership history of pre-mid-eighteenth-century printed books of Shakespeare’s plays.
      This thesis is divided into four chapters. In the first chapter, I analyse women’s engagement with theatre in Renaissance England, and consider Shakespeare’s popularity amongst them based on records about female audiences. The second chapter discusses female readers and writers in Renaissance England and their responses to Shakespeare’s works. Chapter 3 focuses on Restoration Shakespeare and female interpreters from 1642 to 1714. The fourth chapter discusses women’s playgoing, play-reading, writings, and their participation from the early eighteenth century to the Shakespeare Jubilee in 1769.

Il s'agit des deux chapitres consacrés au Léviathan de Hobbes dans ma thèse de doctorat, intitulée "Mélancolie, scepticisme et écriture du pouvoir à l'âge baroque" et soutenue à Bruxelles en juin 2014.

Le premier chapitre (qui correspond au 8ème chapitre de ma thèse) s'intitule "Léviathan ou l'ascèse de la condition historique-naturelle" ; le chapitre suivant s'intitule 'Léviathan ou l'ordre et l'autonomie non imaginaires". Ces deux chapitres analysent le motif de l'autonomie non imaginaire telle que Léviathan en dessine le projet. Cette autonomie serait, en effet, ce à quoi Hobbes aspirait lui-même, comme sujet (comme citoyen et comme individu considéré en son for interne ou dans la sphère privée), ainsi qu'en attestent sa théorie de l'écriture - littéraire et philosophique - et ses démêlés personnels autant qu'intellectuels avec les auteurs de son temps ou des temps passés. C'est le citoyen comme auteur (autonome) du cadre de la représentation politique et juridique et l'individu comme auteur (autonome) d'énoncés littéraires ou philosophiques que Hobbes convoquerait sur une scène jusqu'alors inédite. Et Hobbes aurait vu dans la conversion de certaines peurs imaginaires, des peurs présidant notamment à la rivalité mimétique entre les individus, le ressort de l'existence autonome et de l'institution civile. Il en irait, dans cette perspective, d'une auto-institution du sujet et de la souveraineté modernes, le sujet moderne aspirant à l'autonomie non imaginaire ou le plus possible concrétisée dans le temps du séjour terrestre, à l'abri de la puissance souveraine instituée pour préserver la paix civile et la possibilité de l'autonomie non imaginaire dans la sphère privée – telle serait la raison d’être du contrat dont Léviathan formule les mécanismes.
Plutôt que l'expression d'une sereine ironie, la célèbre formule de Hobbes à propos du « spectre du défunt Empire romain » (4ème partie de Léviathan) signalerait la détermination du philosophe à voir dissiper, dans l'ordre civil et dans les esprits, les assujettissements infinis à des voix elles-mêmes indéfinies, invisibles, inassignables, comme telles spectrales, pour qu'advienne le « vif » ou la possibilité de vivre ce qu'il est réellement permis de vivre (notamment ce qu'il est possible d'apprendre, d’enseigner, de posséder, de transmettre et d'accomplir) dans le temps du séjour terrestre. Il en irait d'un nouveau pacte d'intelligence entre les individus, lequel serait un nouveau pacte de lecture, d'interprétation, d'identification et d'expression - ou de signification - dans l'ordre civil. Celui-ci entérinerait la « société de marché » naissante et le libéralisme des voix ou des énoncés dans la condition sociale naturelle (par opposition à la condition sociale politiquement construite et établie par le contrat), mais dans le but de préserver constamment la possibilité de l'autonomie réelle des individus (qui doit précisément être construite grâce à l'institution de la société civile / politique, à l'issue d'une première conversion salutaire en tant qu'elle provoque le contrat qui institue la société civile / politique). Loin du « panoptikon mélancolique » que constitue la souveraineté baroque dans la perspective de C. Buci-Glucksmann, Hobbes projetterait une scène civile dont l'organisation, structurée par la notion de « représentation », doit favoriser le dés-assujettissement continu - ou continué - à l'égard des puissances imaginaires, via l'assujettissement à la « voix visible » d'un seul souverain (d'une seule autorité juridique et politique). Ainsi, mon travail souligne l'importance de cette autre projection, corrélée à la projection de la scène de la « représentation politique et juridique », que constitue l'expulsion « hors de soi » des « spectres », « démons » et « phantasmes » (qui n'ont, précisément, pas d'existence « hors de l'imagination »).

La pagination, les références et les renvois sont ceux du document original de ma thèse de doctorat (https://www.academia.edu/8177973/M%C3%A9lancolie_scepticisme_et_%C3%A9criture_du_pouvoir_%C3%A0_l%C3%A2ge_baroque). Aussi, l'annexe de documents et la bibliographie succèdent-elles à ces deux chapitres, pour qu'on ne soit pas contraint de consulter la thèse proprement dite.

This paper is the final outcome of my MA Thesis research, carried out at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid throughout 2010.

Diplomacy played a key role during the troubled period of the Thirty Years’ War. Diplomats were chosen for their vital missions from among the social and intellectual elites because of their training and their capability to manage with ease in a hostile environment such as a Prince’s Court. This research focuses on the figure of Peter Paul Rubens, who developed a crucial role in the European political scene even though he was not the archetypal ambassador. This aspect of his career has not been entirely overlooked by historiography, but due its political importance it deserves a deeper review. This essay does not intend to analyze the figure of the painter and diplomat in depth, but to outline -from an updated scholarly approach, based on archival and printed contemporary sources, as well as supplementary bibliography- not only the course of events but also the circumstances in which he conducted his work, the reasons that led him to it and the role his personality played in it.

Protestantism is a religion based on an anthology: the Bible.  English Protestants, however, generally accepted fewer holy books than Catholics.  Scripture alone, rather than the Papacy or Church councils, was paramount for them.  Yet which scriptures were to be accepted and which rejected was no straightforward matter.  This chapter begins with a brief account of how and why certain Jewish writings came to be regarded as apocryphal, highlighting the crucial contribution Jerome’s contentious canonical theory would ultimately play.  It also underscores the fact that the Apocrypha was a Protestant construction, one moreover that reflected the privileging of Jewish texts available in Hebrew over those then extant in Greek.  For the gradual evolution of the Apocrypha as a distinct corpus was partially a by-product of the Humanist return to the sources – specifically Hebrew.

Previous studies of the Apocrypha in early modern England have tended to stress two points.  Firstly, that the removal of these books from the Old Testament was unauthorised, lacking explicit royal and ecclesiastical sanction.  Secondly, that their influence was greater than commonly recognised.  Both approaches dated from the turn of the twentieth century.  While the former may have been motivated by a desire to foster closer ties between Anglicans and Catholics, the latter was intended to rescue these writings from oblivion.  As Randall Davidson (1848–1930), Archbishop of Canterbury, put it, ‘a systematic effort should be made to extend the knowledge of people generally about the Apocrypha, and to encourage its more careful study’. Here I want to suggest that in addition the Apocrypha was important because of its inherent potential to exacerbate religious conflict – not just between Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists, but also between moderate churchmen and puritans.

Nicolas Poussin's "Hannibal Crossing the Alps," long considered one of his earliest surviving works, is here recognized as a portrait of a historical elephant who visited Rome in 1630 and re-dated accordingly. The article tells the story of this remarkable animal. It traces his passage from South Asia through Portugal, Spain, England, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Italy, and back again to France, and examines his encounters along the way with kings and courtiers, scholars, artists, and traveling showmen, giving insight into the diplomatic and economic uses of exotic animals in early modern Europe. Finally, returning to Poussin, it addresses the implications of the re-dating of the "Hannibal" for our understanding of the painter's biography and stylistic development.

Consideration is given to how elements of the occult: witchcraft, magic and sorcery may be identified in the archaeological record. Working definitions of occult terminology are established before proceeding to propose a new approach, which triangulates data from historic and folkloric sources with archaeological evidence, to establish contextual narratives that stand for the past. Excavation of an occult ritual site at Barway, Cambridgeshire is presented to demonstrate how the approach works in practice. Archaeological evidence, combined with local folklore and historic accounts of spells and sorcery, identify the site as the locus of occult activity performed by cunning folk, or ‘white’ witches, during the seventeenth-century.

KEYWORDS
OCCULT, CUNNING FOLK, WITCH, WITCHCRAFT, SPELL, MAGIC, SORCERY, FOLKLORE, EAST ANGLIA, ELY, SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY, GRIMOIRE, PENDLE WITCH TRIAL, MATTHEW HOPKINS, JOHN STEARNE.

This volume gives a concise but comprehensive overview of the rich diversity of prophecy, its role in major world religions as well as in new religions and alternative spiritualties, its social dynamics and its impact on individuals’ lives. Academic analyses are complemented with contextualized primary source testimonies of those who live and have lived within a prophetic framework.

This article considers the impact of English seizure of neutral Swedish vessels during the First Anglo-Dutch War, 1651–4. These actions were undertaken at a time when no bilateral diplomatic treaty existed between the two nations and thus the legal basis for such prize-taking was hotly disputed on both sides. Through an examination of extant sources in both England and Sweden, the article scrutinises a number of case studies in a period where the concept of any  meaningful international maritime law remained primitive. It concludes with a review of the
diplomatic machinations which sought to recover ships, goods or compensation in the years following the conclusion of the war.

UNDERGRADUATE DISSERTATION: This dissertation seeks to shed light on an overlooked, yet important, aspect of early-modern England: the influence of manuscript newsletters on the history of the written word, specifically the dissemination of information. It is an original, comparative analysis between manuscript newsletters and printed corantos. Looking particularly at their common foundations in Anglo-centricity on their reporting of the Thirty Years’ War, to determine their contributions and influence upon the formation and emergence of the newsbook. It uses a variety of archival sources, both printed and manuscript from a range of collections. It will pay particular attention to the correspondence of Viscount Scudamore, because it covers the majority of the twenty years under review and will give a sense of perceptible change throughout the period.

Manuscript newsletters were a premium service, exclusive to the elite of society. They provided superior information compared to that of regulated print. This dissertation will seek to determine why this monopoly on useful information largely came to an end by 1640. It will argue that the heavy regulation during the 1630s provided the environment to allow for printed news to reinvent itself, and subsequently adopt the successful aspects formerly attributed to manuscript newsletters. This reinvention also coincided with the repeal of stringent regulation in 1638 and of the ecclesiastical agenda by 1640. Furthermore, England’s disconnectedness from the Thirty Years’ War allowed for this change in focus in such a short time. All of these developments eventually resulted in manuscripts largely becoming redundant by 1640, yet their legacy held within the emergent newsbook testifies to its influence during this period. Ultimately it will use this comparison to demonstrate the popularisation of printed news; which was enabled by, further encouraged, and helped to enforce the increasing complexity of the social hierarchy in England during the long seventeenth-century.