Stuart

James I was a firm believer in Christian unity; Dorothy Boyd Rush describes his distrust of extremists, Catholic or Protestant.

William Seymour describes how a large area of Dorset and Wiltshire, abounding in deer, was hunted by King John and granted to Robert Cecil by James I.

C. Northcote Parkinson describes the life and times of Jeffery Hudson of Oakham, Rutlandshire, a remarkable member of Charles I's court who nonetheless measured under three feet tall.

After the excommunication of Queen Elizabeth, writes M.L. Clarke, Rome became a centre of her enemies, and every English traveller was apt to be regarded with suspicion.

William Seymour describes how there was royal displeasure when a near cousin of the Tudor and Stuart monarchs married in secret.

The secret treaty of Dover, which concluded with the diplomatic aid of the King’s sister, Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, has been much denounced by Whig historians. A.A. Mitchell asks, what is the truth about the King’s intentions?

In the Elizabethan Age feminine extravagance was often satirised by English dramatists and poets. During the seventeenth century, writes Brenda Gourgey, it rose to even more fantastic heights.

J.P. Kenyon describes how the Exclusion movement of 1679-81 revealed a widespread frustration among the Parliamentary classes, their distrust of Charles II, and their hatred of Popery. You can find the first part of this article here.

Although Pepys often refers in his Diary to Thomas Hill, he remains a somewhat shadowy figure. It is now possible to reconstruct his portrait. Hill emerges as a man after the diarist’s own heart—learned, inquisitive, sociable, garrulous. D. Pepys Whiteley recalls their friendship, which had begun in 1664 and continued until the merchant left England for Portugal.

Maurice Ashley describes how, divided by a vast gulf from the prospering gentry, seventeenth-century cottagers and labourers lived a poor and harsh life. After 1660, their standard of welfare seems to have declined.