State Formation and the Historiography of Early Modern England

Abstract

The history of the state was once at the core of academic history and university curricula. In English history, the revolution of 1649 was said to be of epochal significance and influential analyses of its causes sought to tie together disparate fields of study in a single explanation. Over the last thirty years, however, such accounts have been heavily criticised and, partly as a consequence, the historiography of Stuart England became much more fragmented. Recent histories of ‘state formation’ however, promise to overcome some of the effects of that fragmentation. They explore the organisation, institutionalisation, representation and expression of political power rather than the more or less conscious efforts of particular individuals or groups to transform the state. This emphasis on the broader social and cultural processes which shaped the state reconnects important elements of recent social, economic, cultural, intellectual and political histories. Moreover, it may help to forge connections between medieval, early modern and later modern histories, and the integration of English experience into wider comparative histories.

Gevallen vazallen : De integratie van Oranje, Egmont en Horn in de Spaans-Habsburgse monarchie (1559-1567)

“…Braddick spreekt in zijn werk over de staatsvorming onder de Tudors en Stuarts uitdrukkelijk over de staatsvorming in Engeland, niet van de vorming van een Engelse staat, juist omdat die staat, met zijn centrum in Londen, ook macht uitoefende in Schotland, Wales, Ierland en Noord-Amerika. 132 Vanaf 1559 kan men stellen dat, analoog aan de redenering van 136 Karel keerde in 1531 terug naar de Nederlanden, waar hij de bestaande Grote Raad splitste in een Raad van State en een Geheime Raad en de drie raden -ook de Raad van Financiën -een plaats gaf naast de nieuwe, jonge landvoogdes Maria van Hongarije. 137 De 'collaterale raden' hadden het licht gezien.…”

Between Revolutions: Re‐Appraising the Restoration in Britain

“…Political power was, thus, shared in a complicated 'network of agencies' by stake-holders drawn from the spectacularly rich to the almost poor. 21 The crown's freedom of action in coordinating this governing apparatus was limited by the expectations of the governed, by its dependence upon local office-holders as partners in maintaining order, and by the accountability of local governors to community expectations about harmony and neighbourliness.…”

From Whitehall to Jedburgh: Patronage Networks and the Government of the Scottish Borders, 1603 to 1625

“…5 This was partly a xenophobic reaction no doubt, in 1612 Chamberlain observing that 'here have happened two or three accidents of late very unluckely, that make some boyling twixt the Scottes and our nation '. 18 Ireland was more problematic. Brown's conclusions that there was remarkably little anglicization of Scottish nobles or integration of them into English society demonstrate the underlying friction.…”

“…6 Neil Cuddy's article on the antagonism stimulated by the creation of a Scottish-dominated bedchamber links this discontent to wider English resistance to fuller union, as does the work of Jenny Wormald and Keith Brown on the simmering anti-Scottish sentiment at court. 19 The working relationship that existed between the Catholic Old English elite in the Pale and the English crown was undermined by the stridently Protestant Elizabethan conquest from the 1570s, the Old English increasingly looking towards Gaelic elites for support. 7 Similarly, the English parliament's debates of 1607 over the naturalization of Scotsmen indicated considerable English resistance to Scottish intrusion.…”