Night of the Hats

  England Under The Stuarts Subtitled The political, constitutional, and social history of England in the seventeenth century , this was first published in 1902, later revised in 1925, and a new edition in 1960 (the one I read) which reading between the lines of Preface is essentially the 1925 version with an expanded bibliography. Somewhat old-fashioned it’s aim is to demonstrate how England (and thus Britain and to an extent America, Europe etc) broke through to religious toleration, economic liberalism, democracy, free speech, civil rights etc. To do this we get an overview of England at the end of Elizabeth’s reign, and how her cousin James VI of Scotland inherited, discovering the differences and difficulties of his new realm. From there we note how the now James I of England attempted to make the country his own, and his son Charles I failed to turn England and Scotland into “despotisms” on the continental model (I think we prefer Early Modern Absolute Monarchies as ter...