The Stanleys, Lord Stanley and Earls of Derby, 1385-1672

For all the alleged concentration on elites, the aristocracy remains one of the most neglected aspects of early modem English history. Indeed Dr Coward's The Stanleys is the first full-length study of a noble family to be published since the debates over the rise of the gentry and the publication of Lawrence Stone's magisterial The Crisis of The Aristocracy . Dr Coward traces the history of the Stanley estates and family through fortune and misfortune, posing three major questions: what was the relationship of the Stanleys, Earls of Derby, to the crown? What was the extent of the family influence in Lancashire and Cheshire? Is it right to describe the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as a period of crisis in the economic fortunes and political influence of the family? The answers do not emerge easily – partly because this is a cautious book and the author is admirably scrupulous in handling difficult, scrappy and intangible evidence; partly because Dr Coward is unnecessarily timorous about venturing a view, or any sort of generalisation. But the tentative conclusions that do emerge sensibly question the orthodoxy of crisis.