Treason and the State

Orr, D. Alan

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511495960

Cited by 34 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 102 publications

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“…'Fathers of the Church' presumably meant bishops; and that bishops possessed their spiritual right or power directly from God was a common and sometimes controversial doctrine in English Protestantism from the reign of James I up to the trial of Archbishop Laud in 1644 and beyond. 33 Likewise, as Russell observed, the divine right of fathers was a staple of early seventeenth-century works on household management; and writing in early 1640 James Ussher pointed out that it was a right or power divinely instituted when God told Eve that Adam would rule her (Genesis 3: 16). 34 All that can be said is that the identity of those Protestants whom Radcliffe considered to be his opponents remains to be clarified.…”

Section: Irish Historical Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Select document: Sir George Radcliffe’s ‘Originall of Government’ (1639) and absolutist political theory in Stuart Ireland

Campbell

2014

Ir. Hist. Stud.

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A seventeenth-century manuscript miscellany, which once belonged to Archbishop James Ussher of Armagh, contains a short treatise on the origins of government by Sir George Radcliffe. Radcliffe was legal assistant to Sir Thomas Wentworth, lord deputy of Ireland (from January 1640 earl of Strafford and lord lieutenant). The treatise insisted on the divine origin of all human political power and implied that the best form of government was absolute monarchy, in which the monarch was free of all human law and subject to divine restraint alone. It will be suggested below that the composition of this treatise can be dated to the summer of 1639. This introduction will offer an outline of Radcliffe’s education and political career, explain the genesis of his treatise on government, point out some pertinent aspects of its argument, and finally assess the document’s significance.

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Section: Irish Historical Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Select document: Sir George Radcliffe’s ‘Originall of Government’ (1639) and absolutist political theory in Stuart Ireland

Campbell

2014

Ir. Hist. Stud.

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“…Despite the revolution, the new treason act and ordinance still defined treason as an attempt to usurp sovereign power, and both recognized that challenges to authority threatened the Commonwealth and Protectorate's sovereignty. 113 The 1654 ordinance against challenges, duels, and provocations similarly recognized the power of speech acts to destabilize social relations. It explicitly states that "disgraceful and provoking gestures" must be criminalized to "prevent all occasions of Challenges and Quarrells."…”

Section: Enacting the Ordinance: Prosecuting "Provocations" In Middlesexmentioning

confidence: 99%

Provoking Disorder: The Politics of Speech in Protectorate Middlesex

Boswell¹

2014

J. Br. Stud.

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This article explores the impact of the 1654 ordinance against challenges, duels, and provocations. Despite the Council of State's original intentions, this legislation offered non-elites the opportunity to prosecute threatening and abusive language as “provocations,” recasting interpersonal conflicts as dangerous to society rather than to an individual's “common fame.” Indeed, many of the cases prosecuted at the Middlesex sessions centered on “provocative” behavior that questioned normative social and gender relations, revealing how the Protectorate's anti-dueling legislation provided a new weapon in contests over social power. Comparing the creation and implementation of the 1654 ordinance, this article argues that the Protectorate's legislation exposed the connections between the regulation of social interactions and the preservation of the social and political order.

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The making of the political subject: subjects and territory in the formation of the state

Carvalho

2016

Theor Soc

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The article explores the historicity of political subjecthood, making the case that through a process of subjectification Bsubjects of the king^gradually became the political subjects of the state. This in turn contributed to reconstitute the state as an abstract notion that nevertheless was real through the allegiance owed to it by its subjects. Addressing the making of subjecthood in relation to state formation helps fill an important lacuna in the literature on state formation, namely the double oversight of subjecthood. Either studies of state formation have taken both territory and subjecthood-the two objects of state power-for granted, or, more recently, they have assumed that changes in subjecthood were a function of changes in territoriality. I propose to address this by inquiring into early modern subjecthood in its own right, through a historical exploration of the emergence of political subjecthood in English statutes during the Tudor period . Through gradual yet incremental changes in the relation between subject/ king and subject/state, the political subject's allegiance to the state changed and acquired a Btaken-for-grantedness^-maintained and reinforced through constant legal reiteration.Keywords State formation . Subjects . Subjectification . Territory . Territorialization . Early modern EnglandBBut there are no patients, Humphrey! … A brand new hospital with over five hundred administrators and no patients!^1Theor Soc (2016) 45:57-88 DOI 10.1007 From the television series Yes Minister (Season 1, Episode 2, BThe Compassionate Society^). The first time I approached the topic of state formation was as a graduate student at the New School for Social Research in 1998, where Gianfranco Poggi was teaching a class on the topic. The first thing he said to us then was that there were two ways of understanding politics and the state: reading Max Weber or watching Yes Minister. BCome and play with me,^proposed the little prince. … BI cannot play with you,^the fox said. BI am not tamed.^BAh! Please excuse me,^said the little prince. BWhat does that mean-'tame'?^BIt is an act too often neglected,^said the fox. It means to establish ties.^2Theories of state formation have paid little attention to individuals or people as subjects. In fact, states emerging from the long sixteenth century in command of both territory and subjects seem to acquire these in an unproblematic fashion. The focus of extant theories is largely on the emergence of a state apparatus, a bureaucracy, and a capacity to extract taxes and wage war, at the expense of explorations of the formation of the ties between state and subjects-the politicization of subjects, so to speak, or subjectification.To be sure, until recently this was the case with territory as well, until it was pointed out that the state formation literature was entrapped in its notions of territoriality-taking them for granted and not exploring their historical emergence. As a consequence, recent studies have historicized state and territory, resulting in historical...

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Treason and the State

Cited by 34 publications

References 102 publications

Select document: Sir George Radcliffe’s ‘Originall of Government’ (1639) and absolutist political theory in Stuart Ireland

Select document: Sir George Radcliffe’s ‘Originall of Government’ (1639) and absolutist political theory in Stuart Ireland

Provoking Disorder: The Politics of Speech in Protectorate Middlesex

The making of the political subject: subjects and territory in the formation of the state

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