England

The Wars of the Roses: Who Fought and Why?

Albert Makinson assesses the rival party claims of Lancaster and York, which afforded the pretext for a blaze of plebeian discontent and patrician lawlessness that filled England for the next one hundred and fifty years with a profound horror of civil war genealogy of the ruling family, and fewer still in the principles of parliamentary democracy.

William III: Part I

J.P. Kenyon profiles William III, of whom Hallam said: “It must ever be an honour to the English Crown that it has been worn by so great a man.”

Charles II’s Secretaries of State

D.G.C. Allan introduces the eleven Secretaries of State employed by Charles II, who reflect in the variety of their personalities, the social brilliance and the shifting policies of the Restoration Age.

John Thurloe: Secretary of State 1652-1660

Edmund Baker describes how Cromwell's principal assistant in foreign affairs and his most devoted friend, Thurloe, saw in the Protectoral system “a mean between two intolerable extremes of unrestrained anarchy and reaction.”

Puritans at the Font

J. Leslie Nightingale describes how, during the 17th century, Puritanism spread into English villages, with the twelve sons of Jacob and all the major and minor prophets to be found on the village greens. Names after the Christian graces and virtues—Patience, Honour, Faith, Hope, Charity—were also widely bestowed at Puritan baptisms.

Love and Marriage in Seventeenth-Century England

Church and State stood foursquare behind the superiority of man in seventeenth century England. It was only when a lady became a widow, writes Maurice Ashley, that a glorious opportunity for authority and freedom suddenly flooded in upon her.

Haydn: Music's Pater Patricius

Noel Goodwin remembers Joseph Haydn, who led a dedicated life of remarkable fertility and created “a method and style of musical architecture capable of such infinite variety that more than a century of orchestral music was directly based upon it.”