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In 1672 John Evelyn, Restoration courtier, diarist and polymath, formed a platonic soul union with Margaret Blagge (later Godolphin), a young maid of honour in Queen Catherine's household. Both were devout Anglicans whose religious practices were shaped by their love of 'recesse'. For four years they enacted a spiritual solitude à deux in an emotionally charged relationship lived out through private prayer and epistolary devotional exchanges, until Margaret's marriage and death in childbirth. Solitude was then, as it had long been, highly contentious. In the 1660s Evelyn had debated it with a Scottish lawyer named George Mackenzie. In a spirit of mock argument common at the time, Evelyn had taken the anti-solitude side. Yet despite the playfulness of the debate, it highlighted tensions in Evelyn's love of solitude that played out across his life, reaching an emotional peak in his soul union with Margaret. For Margaret, too, life with Evelyn was fraught as she struggled with melancholic miseries long associated with solitude, compounded by a conflict between her reclusive devotional life with him and her engagement to the courtier Sidney Godolphin. Tracking the story of this complex spiritual partnership provides intimate insights into the psychological stakes of the solitude tradition and its varying implications for women and men in Restoration Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The significance of the wreck of the Gloucester on 6 May 1682 en route to Scotland, with James Stuart, duke of York, later James II and VII, on board, is poorly understood. Based on new archival research, this article places the event in its political, cultural and naval contexts in order to re-evaluate its importance to British history and to correct a number of inaccuracies in recent historiography. The wreck occurred at a sensitive political moment when, within the maelstrom of the Exclusion Crisis (1679–81), the Duke was hopeful of securing his place in the succession. However, thanks in part to the cultural vigour of the 'ship of state' trope, the disaster risked James being regarded as a pilot and commander unable to steer the nation. Because his political enemies could use the shipwreck as propaganda to undermine his position as heir to the throne, the event in general, and especially the Duke's behaviour, became popular topics which were debated and contested from Whig and Tory viewpoints. Since the tragedy occurred at sea, one arm of early modern state apparatus that was especially responsive to these debates was the English navy, which was itself in the midst of a power struggle between Crown and admiralty for control over its future direction. The article sheds new light on the far-reaching implications for James's reign of the sinking of the Gloucester , and argues afresh for the centrality of maritime history to Restoration political history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extraordinary mission of Lord Fauconberg to some of the Italian states in 1669–1671 took place at a pivotal moment in early modern diplomatic relations, and is a most evocative case-study of the relationship between Restoration England and Europe in the last decades of the seventeenth century. This article will provide a close analysis of the mission and its protagonists, aiming to re-evaluate English diplomacy through cross-referencing English and Italian documentary evidence, but with a special attention to the Italian side of the story. By analysing how the Republic of Venice and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany—the major Italian trade partners of England––perceived and interpreted English trade policy, it provides an original analysis of Caroline diplomacy and trade in the early Restoration era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the circumstances behind the slaughter of a royalist garrison in Nottinghamshire in November 1645, using the case study as a window into wider issues regarding the relationship between the memorialization of the British civil wars and the fragility of Charles II's regime in the years following the Restoration. Contemporary sources illustrate how the factors which led to the massacre gave both parliamentarian and royalist leaders impelling motives to wipe the incident from their respective narratives of the conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the resistance petition campaigns of 1664 and 1665 in the Massachusetts Bay colony and how it exhibits the history of political activism. The author discusses constitutionalism, explains the relations between the American colonies and British king Charles II during this time, and examines the influence of the English Restoration.

ABSTRACT An assessment of recent scholarly work treating the literature of the Restoration and Eighteenth Century and some general observations on the state of the profession. A full bibliography and price list of works received by SEL for consideration follow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines petitions submitted by royalist widows to the House of Lords during the first few months of the Restoration. The husbands of these women had been tried and executed for treason during the 1640s and 1650s for their perceived loyalty to the royalist cause, prompting their spouses to demand retribution against their judges and jurors. As the Convention Parliament deliberated over the Act of Indemnity during the summer of 1660, these aggrieved widows were presented with an opportunity to ensure that the men they held responsible for their husband’s deaths were brought to account. By assessing the petitioning strategies adopted by these women and the government’s responses to their demands, the article throws light on a group of war widows who have received little scholarly attention. It is argued that whilst these women were largely unsuccessful, their efforts represent a significant aspect of female activism during the seventeenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay proposes an explanation for the shift in Katherine Philips’s work after the Restoration: she moved to Dublin. In the Dublin of the early 1660s, Philips found herself in what Mary Louise Pratt calls a “contact zone”. With a large domesticated but physically imposing animal, Philips hit on a metaphor for a new relationship between Ireland and Britain. “The Irish Greyhound” embodies this new relationship and reflects her ability to build relationships between the two islands. In this way, she took an “archipelagic” approach to English literature,avant la lettre, and she has recently been recuperated in these terms by John Kerrigan, Marie-Louise Coolahan, Sarah Prescott and others. Philips’s poetry formed part of the process of finding a new vocabulary for inter-island understanding. Although she wrote poems and letters about the leading families of contemporary Dublin, her “shaggy dog” poem has the advantage of being legible without decoding noms de plume or the political standing of her many Dublin friends. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article profiles Dudley North who was a political merchant in Great Britain in the 17th century and highlights the historiographical treatment of merchants in politics. North's political career is explored as well as his role in the Restoration Crisis, his entrance to public office through a controversial election, and his shrievalty. Also discussed are North's political achievements, the development of political parties, and Tory politics.

Folger MS V.a.345 is an early seventeenth-century English manuscript of about 500 poems, with some additional prose pieces. It is one of the largest surviving manuscript anthologies from the period, drawing its contents from both manuscript and print sources, pointing to the two-way traffic between the two systems of literary transmission. Compiled by someone with Oxford (probably Christ Church) connections, it has not only an unusual number of pieces from printed volumes from the period, especially from books of epigrams, but also a very large number of apparently unique copies of poems that do not appear in any other surviving manuscript or print documents. Reflecting the collecting habits of well-educated gentlemen, who carried over from their university years into their later (typically metropolitan) careers a taste for witty verse and prose that were marks of social distinction as well as of political interests, this collection, like some other contemporary large anthologies which incorporate texts from a field of writing larger than that defined by traditional literary history, engaged in anthologizing practices that were imitated in print culture from the 1640s through the Restoration period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article attempts to show that both the Restoration era law reform efforts (1660-1688) were part of a long term tradition. It examines reforming efforts that began as least as early as the reign of Henry VIII and extended well into the eighteenth century. Whether or not law reform proposals became law, and most did not, early modern English parliaments were at the center of law reform efforts. It emphasizes the continuity of complaints, the similar nature of reform bills offered and the difficulty of transforming them into statutes. It argues that the desire for and the inability to achieve law reform was a characteristic of the entire early modern period, rather than a lamentable failure of the revolutionary era. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines changes in content and tone in some polemical exchanges between Anglican conformists and Nonconformists in the reign of Charles ii. In response to the Dissenters' pleas for comprehension and/or toleration because of shared Protestant beliefs, some conformists accused them of holding an antinomian doctrine of justification that undermined morality and political order – and Dissenters retorted with accusations of Socinianism. The disputes were complicated by divisions over justification within rather than between Anglican and Nonconformist groups, and by the late 1670s the perceived threats from papists brought renewed emphasis on common ground [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While the official reports of the Jesuit mission to Ireland during the Restoration period depicted an impoverished, desolate existence at the periphery of Europe, the personal correspondence of the missionaries paints quite a different picture. Financial questions were of overwhelming importance. The article demonstrates that it was not the shortage of money that impeded the mission's long-term success. Instead, the missionaries' reliance on different networks with opposing norm expectation shindered a unified effort and left the mission unprepared for the political changes of the late seventeenth century. After the Cromwellian conquest most of the Irish Jesuits fled to the continent where they made active use of a variety of connections provided to them by three major network domains: as Jesuits they profited from the multiple ties of the globally operating order, which facilitated investments. As Irishmen in Europe they formed part of an international British exile network where they found refuge and sources of income. Without much difficulty, Irish Jesuit exiles could conform to the role patterns attached to both these networks and meet the respective norm expectations. Problems arose when the missionaries returned to their native environment after the Restoration. The national clan-network in which they were originally rooted was much less compatible with the role patterns expected from them by the order. Irish Catholic families expected their members to work first and foremost for the benefit and survival of the clan, while the Society of Jesus demanded respect for the hierarchy and investment of money for the good of the mission. During the 1650s, profits from investments and donations were acquired through the networks of exiles and the order. These would have provided a comfortable starting point for the re-establishment of the mission, but the opportunity was missed. Torn between the norms of their diverging network domains, the opportunity to establish the mission on safer ground was lost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines travel within a group of Protestant families from Ireland over three generations after the Restoration. It offers both a case-study through which to reassess continental educational voyages, exploring a neglected period between the royalist exile of the 1650s and the mid-eighteenth-century heyday of the Grand Tour, and a contribution to current work on Irish elite formation. Histories of travel often begin as undifferentiated Englishmen or Britons arrive on the French or Dutch coast, but this study is the first to prioritize where travellers came from. Backgrounds, outlooks, and networks from home shaped experiences abroad. The article uses manuscript journals, letters, and financial accounts to locate travel within family educational strategies and to reconstruct preparations and advice. It explores how connections and identifications from home informed interactions with fellow travellers, expatriate communities, and foreign hosts. Travellers pursued two-sided interactions with hosts and destinations, returning with objects, accomplishments, and connections that fed into Irish elite formation. Continental links often feature in explanations of how Catholic Ireland survived, but this article shows that European encounters also contributed to Protestant hegemony. It demonstrates the importance of origins, as well as destinations, to understandings and experiences of educational travel. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A literary criticism of the book "Essai sur les moeurs," by French historian Voltaire is presented. Topics cited include the limitations in Voltaire's interpretation of the English Civil War, the Protectorate from 1653 to 1659 and the Restoration Period from 1660, his failure to write about the folkways of common men and women and his conceptions of history and political science.

The article deals with the decision of theologians John Owen and Lucy Hutchinson to conform with the doctrines of the Anglican Church in England during the Restoration era in the 1670s. Owen's attack on scholastic theology, support of Calvinist theology, Protestantism and King Charles I are expressed in the Puritanical works "Theologoumena pantodapa" in 1661, "Animadversions on a treatise entitled Fiat lux" in 1662 and "A Vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat lux" in 1664.

The article argues, through a comparison of Milton's play with Vondel's Holy Revenge and in canvassing and organizing some of the more consequent recent readings of Samson Agonistes, that two of Milton's narrative choices make for an especially reflexive typological play: (1) his rendition of Samson as a non-governing judge, a judge who leads his people not by organizing them but by acts of exemplary individual violence against the enemy; and (2) his historicist focalization of the tragic action -- that is, his historicization of the Chorus along with the protagonists. This results in the synchronic inflection of the typological opposition between old and new dispensations, issuing in a narrative analysis of religious-social over-determination rather than simple succession. I then argue, in a close analysis of the pattern of inspirations or intimate impulses in the play, that Milton's tragic plot tracks continuing Christian universalization and privatization and attributes this ongoing reform to the revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on the “Memorialls for Mrs Affora”, the instructional document issued by the Secretary of State's office to Aphra Behn in advance of her spying mission to the Low Countries from July to December 1666, this article explores the culture and conventions of Restoration espionage, and Behn's role within it. In doing so, it seeks to position Behn's role and correspondence in relation to both the practices of her male and female contemporaries, and the textual aesthetics that characterized correspondence related to espionage—both overt and clandestine—in the latter half of the seventeenth century. Whereas Behn is often seen by literary scholars to occupy a curious position as a female spy for Charles II's government, this article argues that knowledge of the networks and subtleties that sustained espionage activity during the Restoration complicates that view. Its observations about the textual strategies deployed by Behn and other spies in espionage materials also prompt further thinking about her use elsewhere of the letter form and character development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including the restoration and the 18th century, the Enlightenment, and the relationship between historical study and literary.

The article explores the political influence of theologian Moïse Amyraut and his advice for King Charles II of England on religious issues. Emphasis is given to topics such as Amyraut's relations with the French monarchy, divisions between Huguenots and French Catholics, and the Restoration of the episcopal Anglican Church. An extract from the dedication to the publication "Commentary on the Psalms of David" is also presented.

This essay examines the changing views of John Egerton, second Earl of Bridgewater, of the emerging consumer economy of late seventeenth-century England. Robin Hermann analyzes the earl's accounts, correspondence, and other manuscripts to explore a revealing case of the post-Restoration encounter between the customary values of the aristocracy and the commercial interests of the merchant. Of particular interest is a "debt document," a memorandum in which Bridgewater explains to himself and to his progeny the reasons for his crippling indebtedness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the prominence of religious issues in the historiography of Restoration Scotland, understanding of the position of the Kirk in the Highlands remains sparse. This article seeks to address this lacuna through analysis of two related themes. Firstly, it looks at provision, discussing the Kirk's financial, material and manpower resources, as well as the challenge posed by Gaelic. Secondly, it traces the extent of Nonconformity, both Presbyterian and Roman Catholic, with a view to judging the degree of adherence to the established Episcopalian structure. It concludes that the Kirk, while facing challenges, retained a position of unrivalled religious dominance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An essay is presented that discusses political aspects of criticism of the work of poet and playwright William Shakespeare during the Restoration era and the early 18th century. Topics include the appreciation of Shakespeare's work in relation to aesthetic views of the era, the opinions of Whig-sympathizing literary critics on Shakespeare, and the views of poet John Dryden on Shakespeare.

The article focuses on the seventeenth-century texts by English writer William Godwin and argues that if his books "Political Justice," and "Caleb Williams," form a textual pair and a similar relationship exists between novels "Mandeville," and" The History of the Commonwealth." Topics include both the books set in the civil war to Restoration, the dialectic in civil war texts, and the marriage of a Presbyterian to an Episcopalian in "Mandeville," symbolic to expediencies in Restoration.

This article calls attention to the political and social significance of the military during the first decade of Charles II's reign. The "Old Army" of the Commonwealth continued to be a sensitive issue long after 1660, and its disposal was neither as unproblematic nor as bloodless as oft-quoted sources such as Pepys might suggest. The redeployment of thousands of troops in Portugal, Tangier and Bombay is presented as a decisive episode in the consolidation of royal power. This redeployment, together with the great demobilisation of 1660–1662 had a significant impact on local communities, where demobilised veterans, maimed soldiers and war widows (both royalist and parliamentarian) had already become catalysts for economic and cultural tension. The author argues that the various issues concerning veterans were inextricably intertwined with wider political issues and had far-reaching consequences for the Restoration regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A critique is presented of the 17th century pamphlet "The Isle of Pines" by Henry Neville, focusing on the interpretation of the work as a Restoration era court satire and on the frontispiece. The historical context of the ascension of King Charles in 1660, the Dutch naval attack at the Medway river, and the exile of politician Lord Clarendon are discussed, as well as anachronisms in the frontispiece illustration.

The article discusses the origins of the term "Glorious Revolution" to describe Great Britain's Revolution of 1688-1689. It examines usage of the term that predates the revolution, particularly in the case of the Restoration of English King Charles II, and also notes its Anglican and anti-Catholic connotations. The author also notes that the term was used in the 1690s by clerics and propagandists to legitimize the rule of English King William III, noting the so-called "allegiance controversy" in which church officials refused to swear allegiance to him.

This essay speculates about the degree to which a counter-image of Europe imagined by Romantic period writers showed them to be transforming an inherited idea of the republic of letters for political purposes. While Anglophone romanticists recognise that the French Revolution is an indisputable agent in shaping the contemporary English literary imagination, they then usually ignore the role played by the Restoration which followed. Romantic criticism can perhaps learn an appropriate sensitivity here from the work of critics of English Restoration writing of the seventeenth century. That epochal uncertainty, when the regicides beheaded the King and then wondered what to do politically, was succeeded in the Restoration by a kind of Dissenting determination to continue under or memorialise that uncertainty, not as a dilemma but as the experience of political opportunity. A similar pattern of pursuing revolution by other means is visible in the political revisionism and literary experimentation of post-Revolutionary Romantic radicals. In my picture, then, the Romantic transformation of the republic of letters recovers an older literary republicanism. In what is here dubbed Realpoetik the battle for what is to be political reality is fought on a rhetorical field whose free speech is exemplary of what politics should be like. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

John Aubrey's contributions to antiquarianism and archaeology helped to shape the development of several disciplines in English scholarship. This paper looks at the educational milieu that produced his pioneering work, following him from his Wiltshire gentry background through school at Blandford Forum, Dorset, to Trinity College, Oxford, the Middle Temple, and beyond as a young gentleman with a scientific turn of mind in Commonwealth London. It substantially clarifies and revises previous estimates of the extent and nature of his education and offers a case study in the early training of a Restoration 'virtuoso'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates the number of doors in Restoration era English playhouses, particularly focusing on the Duke's Theatre, Lincoln's Inn Fields (LIF). It addresses and rebuts previous research into the number of doors at LIF, noting the use of doors in stage directions. Other topics explored include debates over doors and wing entrances, conventions in 17th century English theatre, and the design of the proscenium.

This article examines the dispute between the faculty of advocates and the lords of session in February 1674 which led to most advocates being debarred from practice for eighteen months. Provoked by an attempt to appeal a decision from the court of session to parliament, the dispute rendered both institutions potential rivals for judicial supremacy. In addition to providing a narrative reconstruction of events, this article argues that the significance of the advocates' secession lies not in any resultant jurisprudential clarification or innovation. Rather, it reveals that the dispute is best interpreted in terms of Restoration party politics, since the main outcome of any appeal permitted against a decision of the session would have been to ensure that parliament became a permanent constitutional fixture. Furthermore, events in the mid-1670s vividly demonstrated the destabilising potential for differences of opinion within the court of session to become a proxy for broader political concerns in parliament's absence, whilst also ensuring that the issue of appellate jurisdiction remained a contested matter in the decades preceding Anglo-Scottish union in 1707. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the 'hat controversy' that split the Quaker movement in the early 1660s. When John Perrot urged his fellow Quakers that the men reject the habit of removing their hats to pray, a habit that maintained an unwarranted distinction between men and women, a division opened within the movement. This article seeks to contribute to discussions about the nature and reasons for the changes within Quakerism at the time of the Restoration, arguing that the hat controversy reveals a tension within early Quakerism between a universalism premised on the fundamental sameness of all individuals and a communalism, or separatism, that abstracted the spiritual from the social in ways that maintained difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Around 1670, a group of moderate Restoration puritans published extended explanations of their movement at a particularly tense and pregnant time, when the recently erected, unstable barriers between the institutional Church of England and puritanism were under extreme pressure. Their efforts are important and revealing for their analyses of Restoration puritanism's contemporary situation and its historical roots. These publications, however, have received little scholarly attention. Restoration scholars tend to use the term ‘puritan’ in a static even perfunctory way that bears little resemblance to the self-conscious, fluid approach of historians of earlier puritanism. This usage also bears little resemblance to how Restoration puritans understood themselves. A close examination of these treatises helps to locate Restoration puritanism as the latest evolution of a century-old movement and helps to evaluate and refine the analytical frameworks within which historians attempt to make sense of that movement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article examines the use of restoration history in "The Musgrave Ritual," by Arthur Conan Doyle. It is said that Doyle created allusions in the story that have to do with Charles' escape to France and his Restoration in 1660 as the King of England. Doyle reportedly used the context of Restoration through the character Sherlock Holmes, who used his sleuthing skills to restore the lost crown of England.

The article discusses the relationship between politics and physiology in seventeenth century England, particularly in the period of the restoration of the monarchy. It comments on the participation of physicians and physiologists in debates on politics and reflects on ideas about the relationship between civic bodies and natural bodies. The author particularly examines the work of natural philosopher and physician Walter Charleton, reflecting on his views on rationality, political and religious authority, and the laws of nature.

This article analyses the complications arising from the sale of the property of the dean and chapter of Lichfield after the English Civil War in so far as they involved the Gells of Hopton in Derbyshire, long-standing tenants and collectors for the chapter. It argues that political and administrative change challenged pre-existing social hierarchies as officials gained authority from their relationship to a newly powerful state, and from ideological commitment to parliamentary regimes, and shows how Civil War divisions interacted in complex fashion with tense pre-existing relationships. The power of the Gells was somewhat eclipsed, although their energetic defence of their interests enabled them to survive the strains of the Interregnum and the resurgence of the Episcopal church at the Restoration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Male friendship, as a motif, pervades John Dryden's works. Through it he confronts problems of stability and continuity that he would ameliorate by means of his poetic powers and the revered institutions behind them. The sexual element of the relationships, which critics invariably treat anachronistically, is crucial to the succour Dryden finds in them. It derives from the traditions he evokes—real or imagined—of male aristocratic bonds (in which the poet has a share) that he revivified in order to negotiate contemporary politics and curtail the disintegration, as he perceived it, of the monarchy. The problem for Dryden and his contemporaries lay in manipulating existing paradigms in the face of Charles II's profligacy and its attendant chaos, the increase in popular power in the Restoration, and the Glorious Revolution. For Dryden, who closely associated poetic and monarchic continuity, the bonds he presented and the institution they perpetuated offered a fortifying power in the face of assaults upon sacrosanct traditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]