Dr John Spurr is Professor of History and Head of the College of Arts and Humanities at Swansea University. He has written extensively on seventeenth-century Britain and has made particular studies of its religion, culture and language. In time stolen from his managerial responsibilities, he is working on a variety of topics from the high politics of Charles II’s reign to a comprehensive account of the role of swearing in our history.

'This is an exciting and valuable collection of new viewpoints on one of the most controversial and enigmatic of Stuart politicians. The contributors are chosen from among the best scholars currently expert in the period, and between them, they cover the whole of Shaftesbury's career and each aspect of his activities and preoccupations. The results represent interventions in a number of different debates, and some promise to settle those discussions for good.' Ronald Hutton, University of Bristol, UK 'A collection of essays that befits the stature of the Earl of Shaftesbury.' Mark Kishlansky, Harvard University, USA 'Spurr’s Anthony Ashley Cooper is a great book about a very important British figure... I warmly recommend it not only to early modern British historians but to all early modern European historians as well.' Sixteenth Century Journal 'This volume provides a valuable introduction as it helps orient an unfamiliar student into the larger historiographical issues and arguments of the last four decades. It is also a useful refresher to those who are already familiar... Shaftesbury’s life, and this version of it, has provoked new interest, which will lead to fruitful new avenues of inquiry into seventeenth-century British political life.' The Historian 'This collection is in fact a veritable treasure trove... if I have been made to revisit some hazy thoughts from a long abandoned project, it is because of just how stimulating this collection is - precisely that, full of insights that set the reader off, mind buzzing to think through their implications. We are much closer now to penetrating the silences with which this most public of men concealed his private thoughts.' John Morrill in Britain and the World

• Chapter 1 Shaftesbury and the Seventeenth Century, John Spurr; Chapter 2 'Mechanic Tyrannie': Anthony Ashley Cooper and the English Republic, Alan Marshall; Chapter 3 Shaftesbury and the Royal Supremacy, Paul Seaward; Chapter 4 Annual Parliaments and Aristocratic Whiggism, Mark Goldie; Chapter 5 Shaftesbury's Aristocratic Empire, Thomas Leng; Chapter 6 Shaftesbury and the Politics of Religion, John Spurr; Chapter 7 The Unscholastic Statesman: Locke and the Earl of Shaftesbury, J.R. Milton; Chapter 8 England's 'little sisters without breasts': Shaftesbury and Scotland and Ireland, Tim Harris; Chapter 9 Shaftesbury and the Exclusion Crisis, Lionel K.J. Glassey; Chapter 10 Shaftesbury and the Rye House Plot, Philip Milton;

Dr John Spurr is Professor of History and Head of the College of Arts and Humanities at Swansea University. He has written extensively on seventeenth-century Britain and has made particular studies of its religion, culture and language. In time stolen from his managerial responsibilities, he is working on a variety of topics from the high politics of Charles II’s reign to a comprehensive account of the role of swearing in our history.

'This is an exciting and valuable collection of new viewpoints on one of the most controversial and enigmatic of Stuart politicians. The contributors are chosen from among the best scholars currently expert in the period, and between them, they cover the whole of Shaftesbury's career and each aspect of his activities and preoccupations. The results represent interventions in a number of different debates, and some promise to settle those discussions for good.' Ronald Hutton, University of Bristol, UK 'A collection of essays that befits the stature of the Earl of Shaftesbury.' Mark Kishlansky, Harvard University, USA 'Spurr’s Anthony Ashley Cooper is a great book about a very important British figure... I warmly recommend it not only to early modern British historians but to all early modern European historians as well.' Sixteenth Century Journal 'This volume provides a valuable introduction as it helps orient an unfamiliar student into the larger historiographical issues and arguments of the last four decades. It is also a useful refresher to those who are already familiar... Shaftesbury’s life, and this version of it, has provoked new interest, which will lead to fruitful new avenues of inquiry into seventeenth-century British political life.' The Historian 'This collection is in fact a veritable treasure trove... if I have been made to revisit some hazy thoughts from a long abandoned project, it is because of just how stimulating this collection is - precisely that, full of insights that set the reader off, mind buzzing to think through their implications. We are much closer now to penetrating the silences with which this most public of men concealed his private thoughts.' John Morrill in Britain and the World

• Chapter 1 Shaftesbury and the Seventeenth Century, John Spurr; Chapter 2 'Mechanic Tyrannie': Anthony Ashley Cooper and the English Republic, Alan Marshall; Chapter 3 Shaftesbury and the Royal Supremacy, Paul Seaward; Chapter 4 Annual Parliaments and Aristocratic Whiggism, Mark Goldie; Chapter 5 Shaftesbury's Aristocratic Empire, Thomas Leng; Chapter 6 Shaftesbury and the Politics of Religion, John Spurr; Chapter 7 The Unscholastic Statesman: Locke and the Earl of Shaftesbury, J.R. Milton; Chapter 8 England's 'little sisters without breasts': Shaftesbury and Scotland and Ireland, Tim Harris; Chapter 9 Shaftesbury and the Exclusion Crisis, Lionel K.J. Glassey; Chapter 10 Shaftesbury and the Rye House Plot, Philip Milton;