The Political World of Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, 1621–1641

A collection of major articles examining Stuart politics through the career of Thomas Wentworth.

J. F. Merritt (Edited by)

9780521560412, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 7 March 1996

308 pages
23.6 x 15.8 x 2.3 cm, 0.576 kg

' … the volume is … a very useful addition to the burgeoning literature on what has been called the 'new British history'. Historical Journal

This collection of essays re-examines the historical debates of the early Stuart period from a fresh vantage point: the career of Thomas Wentworth, first Earl of Strafford. Wentworth played a crucial role in virtually every disputed policy and debate of the 1620s and 1630s. A noted 'country' parliamentarian, then a Privy Councillor and President of the Council in the North, a controversial Lord Deputy of Ireland and a close ally of Archbishop Laud - Wentworth's career encapsulates many of the paradoxes and tensions in early Stuart politics. This collection boasts a series of major articles by some of the most prominent historians currently active in seventeenth-century political history. The essays explore the nature of the political world under Charles I through Wentworth's career, challenging some of the categories and presuppositions which characterise recent work on the pre-Civil War period.

Introduction: the historical reputation of Thomas Wentworth J. F. Merritt
1. Phaeton's Chariot: the parliament-men and the Continental Crisis in 1621 Thomas Cogswell
2. Sir Thomas Wentworth and anti-Spanish sentiment, 1621–4 Conrad Russell
3. Wentworth's 'change of sides' in the 1620s Richard Cust
4. The church triumphant? The emergence of a spiritual Lord Treasurer, 1635–6 Brian Quintrell
5. Power and communication: Thomas Wentworth and government at a distance during the Personal Rule, 1629–35 J. F. Merritt
6. Thomas Wentworth and the political thought of the Personal Rule Anthony Milton
7. The attempted anglicisation of Ireland in the seventeenth century: an exemplar of 'British history' Nicholas Canny
8. 'God Bless Your Free Church of Ireland': Wentworth, Laud, Bramhall and the Irish Convocation of 1634 John McCafferty
9. Strafford, the 'Londonderry Business' and the 'new British history' Jane H. Ohlmeyer
10. The public context of the trial and execution of Strafford Terence Kilburn and Anthony Milton
11. Retrospective: Wentworth's political world in revisionist and post-revisionist perspective Peter Lake.

Subject Areas: Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], British & Irish history [HBJD1]