Disaffection and Everyday Life in Interregnum England
Title Details

300 Pages

23.4 x 15.6 cm

1 b/w illus.

Series: Studies in Early Modern Cultural, Political and Social History

Series Vol. Number: 29

Imprint: Boydell Press

Disaffection and Everyday Life in Interregnum England

by Caroline Boswell

  • Description
  • Contents
  • Reviews
A look at how ordinary English men and women responded to the transformations that accompanied the regicide, the creation of a republic, and the rise of the Cromwellian Protectorate.

How did ordinary English men and women respond to the transformations that accompanied the regicide, the creation of a republic, and the rise of the Cromwellian Protectorate? This book uncovers grassroots responses to the tangibleconsequences of revolution, delving into everyday practices, social interactions, and power struggles as they intersected with the macro-politics of regime change. Tussles at local alehouses, encounters with excise collectors inthe high street, and contests over authority at the marketplace reveal how national politics were felt across the most ordinary of activities.

Using a series of case studies from counties, boroughs, and the London metropolis, Boswell argues that factional discourses and shifting power relations complicated social interaction. Localized disaffection was broadcast in newsbooks, pamphlets, and broadsides, shaping political rhetoric that refashioned grassroots grievances to promote royalist desires. By uniting disparate people who were alienated by the policies of interregnum regimes, this literature helped to create the spectre of a unified, royalist commons that materializedin the months leading up to Charles II's Restoration. Such agitation - from disaffected mutters to ritualistic violence against officials - informed the broad political culture that shaped debates over governance during one of the most volatile decades in British history.

CAROLINE BOSWELL is Associate Professor in History at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay.
Introduction
Streets and Marketplaces
Drink and Disaffection
Meddling Soldiers
The "Unnatural" Excise-man
The Rise of the "Fanatic"
Conclusion
"A richly detailed volume that will be of interest to readers who seek to understand popular responses to unpopular political regimes." JOURNAL OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY
"Boswell's book will act as a catalyst for research which, like hers, takes evidence of disaffection seriously and illuminates political identity in its full intricacy." ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW
"[A] vivid portrait of manifest, manyheaded, multidirectional national disaffection. . . . This is a worthy contribution to the 'new' social and political history." AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
"A most impressive book, richly researched and written with clarity and precision." NORTHERN HISTORY
"Caroline Boswell's fascinating book follows [political] debates into places of everyday interaction and sociability, streets and marketplaces, inns and taverns. The result is always illuminating, and often fascinating." SIXTEENTH CENTURY STUDIES
"Disaffection and Everyday Life in Interregnum England wades into a complicated and contentious political environment. Generally Boswell does not avoid that complexity but instead provides a nuanced treatment of the issues raised by her selected stories of estrangement." H-NET
"Caroline Boswell's book . . . presents a wealth of vivid and valuable material, much of it drawn from local records and the underused Northern Assize records. It is a very welcome addition to the literature, and a fine example of how the new politics of the parish could be closely tied to the national story." CANADIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY
"It is about ordinary people living ordinary lives. This makes this book compelling reading..Where Boswell's book makes a powerful contribution to the existing literature on Interregnum England is not only in its analysis of everyday experiences in relation to larger political issues but also in its discussion of the transformative use of print." CERCLES
"Scholars of 17th-century Europe will appreciate this dense book." CHOICE
"[Boswell] demonstrates convincingly how local disputes and discontent were refashioned by pamphleteers and newsbook writers to present an image of popular disenchantment with the interregnum regimes. . . . This monograph should both provide much food thought for historians of later Stuart popular political culture and shed important light on the "popularity" of Charles II's restoration." Ted Vallance, Journal of British Studies

Hardcover

9781783270453

October 2017

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9781787441477

October 2017

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Title Details

300 Pages

2.34 x 1.56 cm

1 b/w illus.

Series: Studies in Early Modern Cultural, Political and Social History

Series Vol. Number: 29

Imprint: Boydell Press