A Chronological History of the British Civil Wars, in England, Scotland and Ireland, covering all of the battles and other events. An easy to use interactive ready reference covering the turbulent period between 1639 -1661. .

This biographical history of the English Civil War profiles the lives and ultimate fates of the nearly 60 men who sentenced their king to death. On January 30th, 1649, King Charles I was executed on a scaffold outside the Banqueting House of Whitehall. The parliamentarian High Court of Justice declared him guilty of treason, disregarding the Divine Right of Kings. Fifty-nine commissioners signed his death warrant. These killers of the king were soldiers, lawyers, Puritans, Republicans—and some mere opportunists—all brought together under one infamous banner. In Charles I’s Executioners, James Hobson explores the lives of these men, shedding new light on their backgrounds, ideals, and motives. Their stories are a powerful tale of revenge and clashing convictions; their futures determined by their one fateful decision. When Charles II was restored, he enacted a deadly wave of retribution against the signatories. Some pleaded for mercy, many went into hiding or fled abroad, while others stoically awaited their sentence.

This major work, written by one of the leading historians of France's ancien regime, is the first in-depth study of the French upper clergy during the key period of the Catholic Reformation following the Council of Trent. In describing the creation, character, and role of these early French bishops, it also sheds light on social mobility, education, the career patterns and prospects of particular groups, the workings of patronage and clientage networks, and the wider dimensions of royal policy and patronage at this time. Joseph Bergin begins by analysing the structures of the French church and the process by which individuals were nominated and confirmed as bishops. He then presents a collective profile of these bishops in terms of their social and geographical origins, educational attainments, and pre-episcopal careers. Bergin examines royal patronage in relation to episcopal office, tracing the successive pressures with which the crown had to deal in the wider social and political world. In particular he shows how the crown painfully and gradually recovered control of church patronage after the low point of the religious wars, reducing the grip of the nobility on large numbers of dioceses. He also examines how reforming pressures were brought to bear on the crown to appoint bishops who met the standards of the counter-reformation church and how the crown became increasingly in tune with these reformist pressures. He concludes by explaining particular features of the French episcopate within a wider European context. The book, the result of years of research in French and Italian archives, includes an extensive biographical dictionary that will make it an invaluable reference for allFrench historians of the period.

十五世紀末，歐洲人開始駕著船，帶著航海家、冒險家、傳教士、商人、軍人等航向不知名的世界各地。影響所及非三言兩 語可以道盡。台灣的地理位置正處於歐洲人由印度洋東航太平洋尤其到遠東的必經之地。1544年葡萄牙航海家從台灣附近的海域 遙望這個連綿青山綠水的海島，給了它「Ilha Formosa」（美麗島）後，Formosa遂成為西方人對台灣的稱呼了。從此也影響了台灣 歷史的發展。 在歐洲對外擴張及殖民政策影響下，十七世紀荷蘭人（1624−1662）與西班牙人（1626−1642）先後在台灣南部、北部佔領並 統治過台灣。之後，世界霸權由英國人取代，而中國在經過清初盛世後衰象逐漸出現。所以，英國逐漸取代荷蘭、西班牙、葡萄 牙在遠東積極擴張勢力尋求打開中國門戶，終於爆發中英鴉片戰爭（1840）開啟了中國淪為世界列強的次殖民地國家的一頁。與 此並行發展的是西方人積極瞭解並介紹東方的民族、語言、習俗、歷史、地理、宗教等等給自己同胞，便於傳教、經商、辦 理外交甚至統治。所以在鴉片戰爭前後於中國境內或香港等地創辦了幾份英文報紙、期刊。其中包括The Chinese Repository (1832 −1851), The Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal (1867−1941)及The China Review (1872−1906)。 三種刊物均創刊於十九世紀。內容上，The Chinese Recorder比較偏向基督新教在中國的傳教活動報導與討論，其他兩種除了時 勢報導外，有比較多學術性的研究專文。三種刊物的體例不僅彼此間不同，各刊物的體例長期下來亦各自有所增減。無論如何， 這三種刊物為後世留下西方人以英文書寫當時有關中國或鄰近地區的紀實；也留下十九世紀西方人對這些地區各方面的研究成 果，而且從他們選擇的題材與用字遣詞也可觀察到他們對東方民族與文化所抱持的意識型態。然而，三種刊物有一共同現象及與 當時中國行政版圖各省作比較（包括1895年台灣割讓日本到1900年為止），Formosa的報導及研究專文佔著相當大的比重。似乎在 十九世紀西方人心目中，Formosa所代表的是一個非常特別而單獨的一個地理區域。本書即是此三種刊物中有關Formosa的相關 報導及研究專文的集子。為免浪費人力與紙張，三種刊物中有四篇G. Taylor的文章被G. Dudbridge收入Aborigines of South Taiwan in the 1880s , 另一篇Rev. W. Campbell,“The Early Dutch Missionin Formosa”是作者的An Account of Missionary Success in the Island of Formosa 的第一章，所以這五篇不再重覆編入本集子。 三本刊物中Formosa的資料，大致分為專題性文章，旅行或航行錄，關於Formosa的出版品介紹或書評，通訊（Correspon dence）與日誌（Journal）等四類。內容包括：台、澎的地理，台灣的歷史、物產，國姓爺的生平，原住民的族群、語言、宗教、迷信、醫病方式，台灣沿海發生的船難及交涉，天災與動亂，中法戰爭（1884）甲午戰爭（1894−95）期間及戰後台灣的狀況，基督 新教在台灣的傳教活動及遭遇的困難、信徒人數的統計、淡水偕醫館（Mackay Mission Hospital）與牛津學堂（Oxford college）的成 立與年度報告，有關Formosa的新書出版訊息與書評等等，堪稱包羅萬象可補台灣史研究資料不足。 The Chinese Repository, The Chinese Recorder及The China Review僅僅是十九世紀西方人探討東方之刊物的一部份。個人精力有 限，期待後進者能從其他西方刊物著手將Formosa的研究資料編輯出來，讓研究十九世紀台灣史的資料更集中，研究成果更客 觀、更豐碩。

Powerful preacher, political negotiator for New England in the halls of Parliament, president of Harvard, father of Cotton Mather, Increase Mather was the epitome of the American Puritan. He was the most important spokesman of his generation for Congregationalism and became the last American Puritan of consequence as the seventeenth century ended. The story begins in 1639 when Mather was born in the Massachusetts village of Dorchester. He left home for Harvard College when he was twelve and at twenty-two began to stir the city of Boston from the pulpit of North Church. He had written four books by the time he was thirty-two. Certain he was God's chosen instrument and New England God's chosen people, he disciplined mind and spirit in service to them both. Tempted to "Atheisme" and unbelief, afflicted early by nightmares and melancholy, then by hope and joy, he was a pioneer in recognizing the excitement of the new sciences and sought to reconcile them to theology. This well-wrought biography, the first of Increase Mather in forty years, draws on the extensive Mather diaries, which were transcribed by Michael Hall.

The 1st duke of Hamilton played an important role in the politics and life of Britain in the first half of the seventeenth century. Born in 1606 into the Scottish ancient noble family of Hamilton, who enjoyed a blood connection with the royal Stuarts, he was well placed to take full advantage of the union of the crowns in 1603 which opened up substantial opportunities in England and Ireland. The centre of that new world was the recently established Stuart court in London. Following his father, Hamilton entered that courtly world in 1620 at the age of fourteen and was executed on a scaffold outside Whitehall Palace in March 1649. During that period, he was involved in some of the most momentous events in British history, the wars of the three kingdoms and the collapse of the Stuart monarchy. His story casts a distinctive light on the period and allows a fresh account of the slowly unfolding crisis that saw an anointed king put on trial and publicly executed. The book is structured in three parts. Part one is a cluster of five studies concentrating on events in Scotland, England, Ireland and mainland Europe prior to 1638. Part two presents three chapters on Hamilton’s role in the three kingdom crisis between 1637-1643. Part three covers the remarkable final phase in Hamilton’s life detailing the Engagement, defeat at Preston and his execution in London. This biography of the 1st duke cuts a unique and distinctive path through one of the most heavily researched periods in the history of Britain. In a period of kingly personal rule, Hamilton stood at the shoulder of the king, cajoling, persuading and ultimately failing to steer him away from civil war in his kingdoms. The main source for this account is the Hamilton Papers brought into the public domain in the last few decades and used extensively for the first time.