This is a collection of documents on English history. Editorial comment is directed towards making sources intelligible rather than drawing conclusions from them. Full account has been taken of modern textual criticism. A general introduction to each volume portrays the character of the period under review and critical bibliographies have been added to assist further investigation. Documents collected include treaties, personal letters, statutes, military dispatches, diaries, declarations, newspaper articles, government and cabinet proceedings, orders, acts, sermons, pamphlets, agricultural instructions, charters, grants, guild regulations and voting records. Volumes include genealogical tables, lists of officials, chronologies, diagrams, graphs and maps.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Those sixteen words, scratched on parchment in 1789, open the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. From this spare expression, numberless interpretations have been drawn. The Supreme Court has been vigorously debating the meaning of this text for decades. Legions of students, law clerks, and historians have also dedicated themselves to the task. It has become something of an American pastime. Because of that work, an astounding variety of activities in modern America-from prayer after football games and Bible reading in classrooms, to funding for private religious schools and company healthcare policies, the baking of wedding cakes and the display of the Ten Commandments-have been alternately sanctioned, prohibited, or modified. Free Exercise is an innovative contribution to both United States constitutional history and the history of religious toleration in the United States. It traces the routes by which Americans arrived at the First Amendment's religious clauses, the cultural currents that shaped their meaning, and the consequences that flowed from them. The book also demonstrates how white women, African Americans, Jews, Roman Catholics, and nonbelievers expanded the application of religious liberty-and illuminated its boundaries. Each chapter demonstrates how protections for religious freedom were forged from both vague memories and intimate experiences, an emergent respect for individual autonomy and a refusal to materially alter the condition of women and the enslaved. Subsequent chapters examine their relationship to memories of religious violence, free market practices, religious civility, gender and racial exclusion, and unbelief. Each probes what America was at the time and what it was becoming. Free Exercise sheds light on this audacious and deeply flawed effort to reconcile liberty, faith, and equality.

British history in the period from the restoration of 1660 to the revolution of 1688, no less than in other periods, has been subject to 'revisionism'. This volume examines and analyses some of the challenging new theories relating to politics, society, religion and culture that have attracted attention in recent years. It provides both a wide-ranging survey of the principal themes of the post-restoration era, and a series of insights derived from the detailed research of individual contributors.

The first study of Restoration England from the point of view of both rulers and ruled, this volume offers a vital reappraisal of seventeenth century England. The civil wars had a traumatic effect on the English people: memories of bloodshed and destruction and the ultimate horror of the execution of Charles I continued to be invoked for decades afterwards. It is often argued that the political and religious fissures created by the wars divided English society irrevocably, as demonstrated by the later bitter conflict between the Whig and Tory parties. After the Civil Wars proposes instead that although there was political conflict, Charles II's reign was not a continuation of the divisions of the civil wars.

Explores dramatic, narrative and polemical versions of the 'taming of the shrew' story, from the Middle Ages to the Restoration, in light of recent historical work on the position of early modern women in society. Its essays address shrew narratives as an extended cultural dialogue debating issues of gender and sexual politics.

The Routledge History of Monarchy draws together current research across the field of royal studies, providing a rich understanding of the history of monarchy from a variety of geographical, cultural and temporal contexts. Divided into four parts, this book presents a wide range of case studies relating to different aspects of monarchy throughout a variety of times and places, and uses these case studies to highlight different perspectives of monarchy and enhance understanding of rulership and sovereignty in terms of both concept and practice. Including case studies chosen by specialists in a diverse array of subjects, such as history, art, literature, and gender studies, it offers an extensive global and interdisciplinary approach to the history of monarchy, providing a thorough insight into the workings of monarchies within Europe and beyond, and comparing different cultural concepts of monarchy within a variety of frameworks, including social and religious contexts. Opening up the discussion of important questions surrounding fundamental issues of monarchy and rulership, The Routledge History of Monarchy is the ideal book for students and academics of royal studies, monarchy, or political history.