England's Colonial Wars 1550-1688: Conflicts, Empire and National Identity

by Lenman; Bruce

• ISBN13: 9780582062962
• ISBN10: 0582062969
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2000-12-06
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

 Bruce Lenman's hugely ambitious study explores three interacting themes: the growth of England's sprawling colonial empire; its military dimension; and the impact of colonial warfare on national identity. He starts in Ireland, with the renewed assault of English settlers on the Irish Gaeltacht. Under the (Scottish) Stuarts, England then began a dramatic expansion across the North Atlantic. In America, the 'Indian Wars', fought with minimal Crown support, helped forge an independent military capability among the colonists; while, in the West Indies, slave numbers and French intervention forced English settlers into a new dependency on the Crown. In India, the East India Company achieved ascendancy by sepoy armies under British control. These were very different kinds of empire; and a showdown became inevitable. The climactic conflict, the American Revolution, would not only dictate the future shape of colonial expansion, but also decisively reshaped the identities of all the participants.

Table of Contents

List of Maps	vii
Acknowledgmements	ix
Introduction: Give war a chance	1	(22)
PART ONE. THE TUDOR CROWN, THE ENGLISH NATION, AND THE HERITAGE OF ANGLO-NORMAN EXPANSIONISM c. 1550-1603
Colonial Englishmen face up to the Tudors	23	(18)
The Gaidhealtachd and the colonial enterprise	41	(32)
The Gaidhealtachd, the Lordship, and the Crown of England and Scotland to 1558	41	(18)
Making a bad situation worse: early Elizabethan Ireland	59	(14)
Feeding frenzy: marginal courtiers and perceived opportunities, 1578-1590	73	(27)
The New English, asset seizure, and instability on the land frontier	73	(9)
Entrepreneurial violence on the sea frontier after 1568	82	(18)
Nadir of statesmanship: the origins of the last Elizabethan colonial war	100	(25)
The bankruptcy of Elizabethan imperialism and the fatal fracturing of the Englishry	125	(22)
PART TWO. THREE-KINGDOM MONARCHY AND EMPIRE 1603-1688
Reluctant warriors: James I, Charles I, appeasement and the aborting of a three-kingdom overseas empire	147	(35)
The shaping of a triple monarchy after 1603	147	(21)
The aborting of the overseas dimension of triple kingship	168	(14)
No enthusiasts for empire: the English East India Company and the struggle for maritime trade in seventeenth-century Asia to 1689	182	(35)
Breaking in or the East India Company as the trader armed before 1660	182	(14)
The rise and fall of Stuart imperialism in Asia after 1660	196	(21)
War in the New English marchlands in North America 1607-1676	217	(38)
The violent genesis of plantation society on the Chesapeake 1607-1644	217	(18)
The bankruptcy of integration in New England by 1676	235	(14)
Conclusion	249	(6)
The Clash of European states and the rise of the imperial factor in the Caribbean and North America	255	(28)
The Caribbean cockpit 1586-1688	255	(17)
Anglo-Dutch and Anglo-French competition in North America 1664-1688	272	(11)
Conclusion: The fracturing of the Englishry, the marginality of colonial enterprise, and the erratic impact of war	283	(11)
Further reading	294	(5)
Imperial context	294	(1)
Military background	294	(1)
Naval	295	(1)
Regional studies	295	(4)
Index	299