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Lectures on Stuart England and the Civil War

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Greg
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Lectures on Stuart England and the Civil War

Post by Greg » Sat April 30th, 2011, 12:17 pm

To historical fiction
Please accept my apologies if this is in the wrong place. Recently I came across an excellent series of lectures downloadable from the Yale University youtube site. Since I'm in the far distant Antipodes I find it very difficult to get access to first class lectures so this naturally drew my attension I'm putting the link up here for the series on Tudor and Stuart England.

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=.../0/e3uBi2TZdUY

Regards Greg

http://rednedtudormysteries.blogspot.com/

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Post by Misfit » Sat April 30th, 2011, 12:35 pm

Thanks Greg for sharing the info.
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MLE (Emily Cotton)
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Post by MLE (Emily Cotton) » Sat April 30th, 2011, 2:17 pm

The link isn't working. Is this the Teaching company series of lectures, 'from the Tudors to the Stuarts'? I have that, and it is excellent.

Greg
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Post by Greg » Sat April 30th, 2011, 2:57 pm

[quote=""MLE""]The link isn't working. Is this the Teaching company series of lectures, 'from the Tudors to the Stuarts'? I have that, and it is excellent.[/quote]

Here is the youtube yale link to their lectures online the tudor and stuarts are under early modern england
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=Yal ... id/uploads

or here
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=Yal ... id/uploads

Regards Greg

http://rednedtudormysteries.blogspot.com/

SGM
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Post by SGM » Sat April 30th, 2011, 5:19 pm

No the link doesn't work for me either.

However, you might enjoy these:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/podc ... ellian.htm

Above is link to Barry Coward (now retired prof of Early Modern History at Birkbeck College, University of London) lecture given at Foyles a few years ago on - Was Cromwell a Military Dictator. He wrote a number of books on Stuart England and Oliver Cromwell and who I have just discovered died a week or so ago.

if you search YouTube for Geoffrey Robertson or Tyrannicide Brief or the Trial of Charles I you will find a lecture GR gave in China somewhere which is basically about his book, The Tyrannicide Brief. He is a lawyer of quite some note and not a historian and although I have issues with his potted summing up of the causes of the civil war he does go onto interesting legal matters that arise. He also published a book on the Putney Debates. It's not the best one on that subject but it is definitely the cheapest. I could find you the link but I am more than sure you are capable of finding it.

I have some links to lectures by Mark Kishlansky but cannot lay my hand on the immediately but will do so later. MK has written some memorable stuff on the New Model Army etc. His "The Monarchy Transformed" is a series of articles covering the whole of the revolutionary period in 17th British Isles. He is an American who lectures at Harvard (or did) but came to the UK for research purposes at a time when academic attitudes were beginning to take a rather different approach to the issues of the civil war, (ie the revisionists were breaking out). And here is the link:

http://athome.harvard.edu/programs/kish ... eoset.html

YouTube has loads of stuff, including from Ireland on Cromwell himself. Unfortunately, Channel 4 has blocked any content of their "Cromwell and the English Civil War" which I watched when it originally aired sometime in the 90s (I think) and have been trying to get my hands on ever since.
Last edited by SGM on Sat April 30th, 2011, 5:52 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Currently reading - Emergence of a Nation State by Alan Smith

Greg
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Civil War information

Post by Greg » Sun May 1st, 2011, 3:42 am

To SGM
thank you for that list I will happily pillage it, sometime next year I hope to move onto a series of novels loosely based on the end of the Civil War and the rule of Cromwell. I fear that after my younger romantic fling with the colourful and gaudy Royalists and Montrose, I'm now firmly in the ranks of Parliament. Damn and I like Christmas!
As for the Yale Lectures I suggest do a youtube search for Early Modern England, the lecture series pops up pretty well first in the list

Regards Greg

http://rednedtudormysteries.blogspot.com...

SGM
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Post by SGM » Sun May 1st, 2011, 8:39 am

[quote=""Greg""]To SGM
I fear that after my younger romantic fling with the colourful and gaudy Royalists and Montrose, I'm now firmly in the ranks of Parliament. http://rednedtudormysteries.blogspot.com...[/quote]

Spontaneously, my support has to be for parliament and I could never have been a Royalist but allegiance is really not quite so straightforward particularly when knowing that the New Model Army didn't take people with my ethnic background. I might have had to be a clubman. But I am still looking to be convinced (and believe me I really want to be).

The English civil war is my thing. Having spent many many years studying the history and politics of the post-1815 period, I have really had enough of it. But I went back to studying in the early 90s, although politics and not history, one of my courses took me back to the 17th century and introduced me to Chistopher Hill's The World Turned Upside Down and some of the works by Keith Thomas and I was hooked.

But researching Cromwell has meant that I needed to overcome a few obstacles and I still have to say that I don't really get him.

I am sure you already know about Gardiner's copious narrative works starting from 1603 and continuing almost to the end of the Protectorate which was then finished off by Firth. It is surprising how many modern academics on the subject still refer to him. He still ended up being a Whig historian but at least he was aware of the problem and his research so extensive as to nearly mitigate it.

You might find his: Cromwell's Place in History interesting. The link is here:

http://www.archive.org/details/cromwell ... 00gardrich

Tom Reilly's Cromwell: An Honourable Enemy helped me a lot as well. Adrian Little's Cromwell: New Perspectives was exceptionally useful too.

Of the doyen, John Morrill's works, I found The Nature of the English Revolution a delightful book.

At present, I am trying to chase back the constitutional arguments put forward by parliament and that, of course, is taking me back into the mists of time and again, strangely, it is the 19th century writers who are proving most useful to me.

I have also recently been reading around the rather more underwritten parliamentaries: Fairfax, Ireton and Lambert (the constitutional thing again).

I am sure you know of the reams of stuff now written on the subject. But the wonderful thing, I have found, is the vast amount of diaries etc written at the time of the civil war that is so easily available and still very easy to read. The Rushworth Papers and the Diary of John Burton, being the ones that stick uppermost in my mind.

I will look forward to reading your piece, most particularly because I have found the vast majority of the recent novels set in the ECW to be exceptionally disappointing.
Last edited by SGM on Sun May 1st, 2011, 8:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
Currently reading - Emergence of a Nation State by Alan Smith

Greg
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Civil War sources

Post by Greg » Sun May 1st, 2011, 1:04 pm

To SGM
Thank you for that list of books and resources, yes I have come across a few of them, Chistopher Hill's The World Turned Upside Down is also a favourite of mine. Though as any researcher know you cannot have enough sources. I admit to doing a single course of Tudor and Stuart England way back in my old uni days and found the course brief and unsatisfying (despite an even for then excellent essay I got a bare fingernail scrapping pass, so maybe I’m biased). However that is now all so ironic since I’m now mired into the Tudor age, up to my eyebrows with my current series of novels. I have (for the Antipodes) a decent Civil War library though it is currently hindered by a) lack of money b) lack of space and c) as for any writer-time. Although I do have at ready hand the Antipodean Civil War think tank via the Green Band of the Trayned Bandes (Trained Bands) of London.
http://theroutiers.org/

Who are more than keen to supply me with further information and the minute detail of Parliamentarian life. As for diaries they do provide an excellent insight to the thoughts and attitudes of the participants and wonderful fodder for characters.

But thank you for your kind suggestions, if by chance you know of any good quality studies of Ireton, Fairfax and Thurloe I would appreciate it if you could send me a note on them.

Regards Greg
http://rednedtudormysteries.blogspot.com...

To those who may be interested my Liberties of London has passed just passed the first stage of Smashwords publication check here.
http://www.smashwords.com/books/search? ... +of+London

SGM
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Post by SGM » Sun May 1st, 2011, 5:18 pm

[quote=""Greg""]if by chance you know of any good quality studies of Ireton, Fairfax and Thurloe I would appreciate it if you could send me a note on them.

Regards Greg
http://rednedtudormysteries.blogspot.com...

To those who may be interested my Liberties of London has passed just passed the first stage of Smashwords publication check here.
http://www.smashwords.com/books/search? ... +of+London[/quote]

Sorry, if I appeared to be making suggestions, I was just sharing some of the ones that I had enjoyed, as you know the list is huge in some respects and poor in others and my particular interests in the time are peculiar.

As far as Fairfax is concerned, there is not a lot considering, but in this case I really would suggest that you approach the most recent one by Andrew Hopper first for reasons which become obvious really quickly. To my knowlege there is the 19th century volume by Clements Markham which is available free. There is one by a woman whose name I can't remember written in the 30s and one by David Wilson written in the 50s. The Markham one is of its time and the same is true of the middle one. I found the David Wilson one tedious but that is probably more my problem than the book.

I haven't really got into Ireton yet but the one that I am approaching is by Ramsey.

John Lambert is, of course, my favourite but there are only two, the most recent of which is by David Farr. The earlier one by [someone] Dawson Harbutt (actually, I think that may be somebody Harbutt Dawson) but you are hard put to find very much about Lambert in at all -- although better about the end of Cromwell's time than at the beginning of the civil war.

The Clarke Papers are invaluable on all of them and anything written by C H Firth.

Luckily I live in London so info on the Trained Bands is not a problem for me, although getting hold of the Farr book on Lambert was a bit tricky because the British Library has lost it! But luckily I found it in the University library.

The English civil war - my favourite subject.

Oh, yes -- Thurloe. I did read one about him a couple of years ago but again I can't remember who wrote it (I will have to go and check) but I know that the National Archives has a list of his correspondence and documents. And you have just reminded me about the Julian Whitehead book Cavalier and Roundhead Spies which I keep intending to get hold of but haven't yet. Thanks for reminding me.

I couldn't remember the name of the Thurloe book I read but I do remember which library I got it from so I looked it up. It has moved from the particular branch I got it from to the reference library and they have two, which of the two it was I read I confess I do not know. However here are the two they now have:

Cromwell's master spy : a study of John Thurloe by Daisy Lucie Hobman
Mr Secretary Thurloe : Cromwell's Secretary of state, 1652-1660 by Philip Aubrey

and, I was reminded about the Collection of State Papers of John Thurloe but they are free online now anyway
Last edited by SGM on Sun May 1st, 2011, 9:28 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Reason: Adding Thurloe details
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Greg
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Re Civil War Sources

Post by Greg » Mon May 2nd, 2011, 4:25 am

To SGM
Thank very much for getting back to me so rapidly with that latest update. I believe it will prove very useful in my research, it is always handy to have someone else's opinon on research sources. It definately helps sort the wheat from the chaff.
I'll look up your suggestions as soon as I get an chance. Once again thanks.


Regards Greg
http://rednedtudormysteries.blogspot.com...

To those who may be interested my Liberties of London has passed just passed the first stage of Smashwords publication check here.
http://www.smashwords.com/books/sear...ties+of+London

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