‘Forget not the wombe that bare you, and the brest that gave you sucke’: John Cotton’s sermons on Canticles and Revelation and his apocalyptic vision for England

John M. Collins presents the first comprehensive history of martial law in the early modern period. He argues that rather than being a state of exception from law, martial law was understood and practiced as one of the King's laws. Further, it was a vital component of both England's domestic and imperial legal order. It was used to quell rebellions during the Reformation, to subdue Ireland, to regulate English plantations like Jamestown, to punish spies and traitors in the English Civil War, and to build forts on Jamaica. Through outlining the history of martial law, Collins reinterprets English legal culture as dynamic, politicized, and creative, where jurists were inspired by past practices to generate new law rather than being restrained by it. This work asks that legal history once again be re-integrated into the cultural and political histories of early modern England and its empire.

Martial Law and English Laws, c.1500–c.1700

........................................................................................................................ i Acknowledgements .................................................................................................... iii Chapter One: Introduction – The Problem of Familiar Alterity and the English Evasion of Britain ......................................................................................................... 1 Chapter Two: Imagined Polities, Failed Dreams, and the Beginnings of an Unacknowledged Britain ............................................................................................ 31 Chapter Three: The Bishops‟ Wars and the Elusiveness of National Borders ......... 83 Chapter Four: The Interregnum and Experimentation with an Incorporating Union ......................................................................................................................... 129 Chapter Five: Contemplating the Chimera – Discourses about Scotland during the Popish Plot and Exclusion Crisis ........................................................................ 181 Chapter Six: Seen but not Heard – The English Vision of Union in 1707 ............. 229 Chapter Seven: Conclusion – Persistent Evasion and the Dawning of a New Age .................................................................................................................... 280 Bibliography ............................................................................................................ 291

Talking Scot: English Perceptions of the Scots During the Regal Union

In December 1654 the English fleet, under the joint command of Generals William Penn and Robert Venables, set sail across the Atlantic in what would become known as the ‘Western Design’. The goal was to attack the Spanish empire, beginning with Hispaniola, and seize territory in the name of the English commonwealth. Coming as it did on the heels of the English conquests of Ireland and Scotland and the successful conclusion of the first Anglo-Dutch war, the Design aimed to enhance the growing international reputation of Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate government as a major military power. The mission did not go as planned: in the spring of 1655 the English forces suffered defeat at Santo Domingo and moved on to capture Jamaica instead. It was a bittersweet triumph. Though the English forces claimed military victory, strategic miscalculations early on hindered the development of the Jamaica colony. Yet the dismal state of the Design was not immediately apparent. Indeed, for the first seven months, the target and progress of the Design were something of a mystery. When the fleet departed its objective was not disclosed publicly, and even the Protectorate government received no confirmation of the Hispaniola defeat and conquest of Jamaica until the following July. Nevertheless the news media – on both sides of the Atlantic and on either side of the English Channel – were far from silent. Despite the lack of communication from official quarters, word spread that the Spanish empire was under English attack. Newsbooks printed gossip and uncorroborated information, ambassadors exchanged rumours and assessed the implications for international affairs, and royalists earnestly debated the possibility of an alliance between the exiled Stuart king Charles II and Philip IV of Spain against the English commonwealth. Speculations ran wild. Contradictory reports crediting the English forces with numerous victories clashed with those claiming the fleet had been destroyed. The Protectorate government was just as much in the dark as everyone else, and no one could say for sure what lay in store in the weeks and months ahead: would there be an open war between England and Spain, and if so, what alliances would be brought to bear? What were the potential

News and the Politics of Information in the Mid Seventeenth Century: The Western Design and the Conquest of Jamaica

This paper examines David Hume’s vision of how maritime trade opened up new strategic prospects and challenges for England in the Stuart age. It shows that his emphasis in the History of England was not simply European, as most Hume scholars have believed, but, more importantly, trans-Atlantic. He maintained that England’s maritime trade in America and the West Indies from the seventeenth century onward tied her fortunes to the opaque and uncertain destiny of imperial politics. This had important implications for the dynamic relationship between Britain and its American colonies as well as for the resulting contest of European powers around the world. This paper shows that maritime trade served as the focal point for Hume in explaining England’s role in the European balance of power. Although some attention has been drawn to this aspect, no systematic study has investigated his Stuart history as an important text for understanding his views on foreign policy. This paper fills the gap by explaining the connections between his views on political economy and foreign policy It shows how he explained the crucial importance of trading interests in the English strategic thinking as well as why the European balance of power was significant for England’s maritime security and national interests.

Maritime Trade as the Pivot of Foreign Policy in Hume's History of Great Britain

Foreword - Preface - Cromwell's Foreign Policy: the Historical Assessment - The Decision-Making Apparatus: Council, Secretary, and Ambassadors - Cromwell's Approach to the 'Two Crowns', 1651-4 - The Verge of a Breach with France: July 1654-March 1655 - The 'Western Design' - Leda's Mission and the 'Vaudois Massacre' - Spain's Breach of Relations with England - 1656-England delays an Offensive Alliance with France - The French Alliance of March 1657 - England, France, and Dunkirk 1657-8 - Cromwell and the Dutch, 1653-4 - The Uneasy Peace: England and the Dutch, 1654-8 - Cromwell and the Baltic, 1654-6 - Cromwell and the Baltic, 1656-8 - Cromwell and Russia, 1653-8 - Cromwell, the City, and Trade: Venice and the Turks - The Financial Aspect of Foreign Policy - Conclusions - Notes - Bibliography - Index

Cromwellian foreign policy

Any analysis of seventeenth-century foreign policy must bear in mind its relative importance to the national leadership. The concept of international relations was not highly developed (at least outside Italy), and the English government had only sporadic interest in European power-politics before 1689. Intense diplomatic activity under Elizabeth, when the survival of the regime was at stake, can be contrasted with a more leisurely approach by Charles I after 1628. In any case, the permanent personnel of government was small compared to later centuries and concentrated on those issues which were most important, such as taxation and security. Foreign rulers were only of sustained interest when they were seen as of particular importance to England, as was usually the case with neighbours such as Scotland (until 1603) and France. Foreign policy was pursued at the personal initiative of the monarch, assisted by interested ministers.

Cromwell’s Foreign Policy: The Historical Assessment

A Compendium of Medieval World Sovereigns

National security determined that the ‘Two Crowns’ were of more importance to the Protectorate than Sweden or even the Dutch. France was the nearest and strongest power in Western Europe and was also the one with the closest links to the Stuarts. From 1648 the chain of revolts known as the Frondes weakened the French government, providing the regency of Anne of Austria with more pressing problems than the regicide heretics across the Channel. France’s aristocratic generals, especially Conde, were preoccupied with trying to displace her Italian adviser, Cardinal Mazarin. Cromwell did not take all this as proof that France was permanently weakened, though a better knowledge of French affairs would have suggested the unlikelihood of serious trouble for him during a regency. On the contrary, he feared France’s capacity to overcome these problems and sought to prolong them for as long as possible, aided by the coincidence that Protestants and republicans were numbered among the rebels. Spain, France’s great European rival, was also seeking to assist the rebels in order to recover the strength which she had lost as a result of French successes in the early 1640s, both in Flanders and the Iberian peninsula.

Cromwell’s Approach to the ‘Two Crowns’, 1651–4

A Compendium of World Sovereigns: Volume III Early Modern

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