Royalists and Royalism During the Interregnum

by McElligott, Jason; Smith, David L.

• ISBN13: 9780719081613
• ISBN10: 0719081610
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-03-31
• Publisher: OXFORD UNIV PR

Summary

There has long been an unfortunate tendency to dismiss those who were loyal to the Stuarts as, in the immortal words of 1066 and all that, ‘wrong but romantic’, or as the products of unthinking political and religious reaction. Until we know far more about those men and women from all levels of society who supported the king, we can never hope to unlock the essential characteristics of the conflict which engulfed Britain during the 1640s and 1650s.In recent years, scholars have begun to explore the phenomenon of royalism during the 1640s. Yet, we still know next to nothing about those who were loyal to Charles II during the 1650s. This volume brings together essays by established and emerging historians and literary scholars in Britain, Europe, the United States and Australia, sketching the difficulties, complexities, and nuances of the Royalist experience during the Commonwealth and Protectorate. It examines women, religion, print culture, literature, the politics of exile, and the nature and extent of royalist networks in England.This ambitious and innovative book sheds important new light on the experience of those who were loyal to the Stuarts. It argues for the need to re-orientate, re-invigorate, and re-invent the study of those who detested Cromwell and his ‘rebels’; and it forces us to examine the decade as a whole from a new perspective. It will be essential reading for anyone interested in the culture, history or literature of the English Revolution.

Author Biography

Jason McElligott works for the Trinity Long Room Hub, the Arts and Humanities research institute at Trinity College Dublin
David L. Smith is Fellow and Director of Studies in History at Selwyn College, Cambridge

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. vi
Notes on Contributors	p. vii
Preface	p. ix
List of Abbreviations	p. x
Introduction: Rethinking Royalists and royalism during the Interregnum	p. 1
Episcopalian conformity and nonconformity, 1646-60	p. 18
Seditious speech and popular royalism, 1649-60	p. 44
Artful ambivalence? Picturing Charles I during the Interregnum	p. 67
'Vailing his Crown': Royalist criticism of Charles I's kingship in the 1650s	p. 88
Royalists in exile: the experience of Daniel O'Neill	p. 106
Gender, geography and exile: Royalists and the Low Countries in the 1650s	p. 128
Dramatis Personae: royalism, theatre and the political ontology of the person in post-Regicide writing	p. 149
Shakespeare for Royalists: John Quarles and The Rape of Lucrece (1655)	p. 171
'The honour of this Nation': William Dugdale and the History of St Paul's (1658)	p. 194
Atlantic royalism? Polemic, censorship and the 'Declaration and Protestation of the Governour and Inhabitants of Virginia'	p. 214
The Earl of Southampton and the lessons of Interregnum finance	p. 235
Index	p. 257
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