Augustan England: Professions, State and Society, 1680-1730

Holmes, Geoffrey S.

History

Harpercollins

The Sacheverell Affair, one of the causes célèbres of English history, began at the height of the Whig supremacy of Queen Anne's reign. At St Paul's Cathedral on Guy Fawkes's Day, 1709, Dr Henry Sacheverell, a high Tory parson and Oxford don, preached a seditious sermon on the text, 'In peril among False Brethren'. The sermon sold a hundred thousand copies, and 'the Doctor' was impeached and brought t trial in Westminster Hall before the House of Lords in March 1710.\nThe dramatic atmosphere of the trial—charged with religious emotion, political fanaticism and public hysteria—and its unexpected outcome, had far-reaching consequences for the political parties, the Church and Dissent, for the people at large, and even for Europe. As a political trial it made possible Robert Harley's coup d'état of 1710, which brought down the Whigs, together with the Duke of Marlborough and Lord Godolphin, and set up the last truly Tory ministry Britain was to see for a hundred years.\nBut the trial not only illuminates a great political crisis. It is the centrepiece of the bizarre story of Sacheverell himself, and also of the history of the Church of England in its gravely troubled years between the 1688 Revolution and the heyday of Walpole (who had been one of Sacheverell's prosecutors). The clergy's feverish search for political solutions to their problems, of which the Sacheverell Affair was the culmination, ended amid frustrated hopes and the spiritual inertia associated with the Age of Reason.\nGeoffrey Holmes, who, as the author of British Politics in the Age of Anne, is one of the leading historians of the period, has drawn on important new evidence for this study. A notable feature is his vindication of the Whigs from the charge that the impeachment of Sacheverell was reckless act of folly. His whole account is unfolded with authority and panache; it includes a vivid description of the riots in London during the trial, and of the extraordinary seven-week 'Progress' in the summer of 1710 of the High Church's unlikely champion, Dr Sacheverell himself.

The Trial of Doctor Sacheverell

Methuen Publishing, Ltd.

"Foundations of Modern Britain", presents a history of "Britain" from the point at which she first became a recognisable entity down to modern times, and traces the earlier foundations of the British state in the development of England from the late 14th to the early 18th century. A general history of mid-Georgian Britain, exploring all aspects of domestic and foreign affairs on the threshold of the Industrial Revolution. It shows how the newly-united and politically-stable nation exploited its expanding wealth, its hard-won social cohesion at home, and its increasing influence abroad. It traces Britain's rise to imperial greatness and examines the repercussions of the spectacular disaster - the loss of the American colonies - with which the book closes. It deals with social, economic, religious, cultural and intellectual history, as well as politics. It is the independent and self-sufficient sequel to Geoffrey Holmes's The Making of a Great Power: Later Stuart and Early Georgian Britain 1660-1772 (published simultaneously). Together they fill the last remaining gap in this key series. The eighteenth century has become one of the most active areas of current historical research: this book takes into account the findings of the new revisionist historiography while retaining what still seems valid from the old. It has a student-friendly presentation with good reference apparatus: covers every aspect of the period in 22 essay-focused chapters, with full chronological "frameworks of events", a compendium of factual information at the end, and extensive bibliographies. A book for fellow accademics as well as the student and general reader.

The Age of Oligarchy: Pre-Industrial Britain, 1722-1783 (Foundations of Modern Britain)

Szechi, Daniel

Addison-Wesley Longman Ltd

The Making of a Great Power: Late Stuart and Early Georgian Britain, 1660-1722 (Foundations of Modern Britain)

Foundations of Modern Britain has established itself as perhaps the standard modern student history of Britain. Only the General Editor's own eagerly-awaited contribution has been needed to complete the sequence through from 1370. Now it is here. Published as two linked but self-sufficient volumes (the second is The Age of Oligarchy: Pre-industrial Britain 1722-1783, by Geoffrey Holmes and Daniel Szechi), it presents an incomparably rich portrait of late seventeenth and eighteenth-century Britain. The Britain of the 1720s - constitutionally united, tempered by a generation of warfare with France, and newly established as a major European power - offers an astonishing contrast with the England of the 1660 Restoration, shakily emerging from the upheavals of the Civil Wars and Interregnum. How that transformation came about is the subject of this first volume. The foundations on which it rested were a spectacular commercial advance; wealth great enough to finance not only Britain's growing armed forces, but also those of her continental allies in the struggle against the France of Louis XIV; sophisticated new financial institutions; an upsurge of national pride, in which scientific and intellectual developments of lasting significance played their part; and a new and remarkable degree of social cohesion. All of which, as Geoffrey Holmes shows, made it possible for the country to weather the Jacobite rebellion of 1715 and the potentially disastrous South Sea Bubble with which the book ends. The later years of this period, culminating in the bitterly fought 1722 election, also foreshadowed a remarkable political change - the ending of the 'rage of party' in politics and religion which had threatened to tear the country apart, and the coming at long last of constitutional stability. But although the basic prerequisite of this development - the 'abdication' of James II, with his authoritarian ambitions and his unpopular religious beliefs - was achieved by the 1688 Revolution, it took two major wars and three rebellions (two in Scotland and one in Ireland), before the Protestant Succession was made unchallengeable. The fruit of a lifetime's work by one of the country's leading historians, this is history writing on the grand scale.

Europe

Longman Pub. Group

The fruit of a lifetime's work by one of the country's leading historians, this is history writing on a grand scale. By the 1790s Britain was constitutionally united and newly established as a major European power - in marked contrast with the England of the 1660 Restoration, shakily emerging from the upheavals of the Civil Wars. Geoffrey Holmes' important study shows how this transformation came about.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Holmes, Geoffrey S.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Holmes, Geoffrey S.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Holmes, Geoffrey S.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Augustan England: Professions, State and Society, 1680-1730

The Trial of Doctor Sacheverell

The Age of Oligarchy: Pre-Industrial Britain, 1722-1783 (Foundations of Modern Britain)

The Making of a Great Power: Late Stuart and Early Georgian Britain, 1660-1722 (Foundations of Modern Britain)

The Making of a Great Power: Late Stuart and Early Georgian Britain, 1660-1722 (Foundations of Modern Britain)