Thomas Cogswell – författare

James's reign marked one of the very rare major breaks in England's monarchy. Already James VI of Scotland and a highly experienced ruler who had established his authority over the Scottish Kirk, he marched south on Elizabeth I's death to become James I of England and Ireland, uniting the British Isles for the first time and founding the Stuart dynasty which would, with several lurches, reign for over a century. Indeed his descendant still occupies the throne. A complex, curious man and great survivor, James drastically changed court life in London and presided over such major projects as the Authorized Version of the Bible and the establishment of English settlements in Virginia, Massachusetts, Gujarat and the Caribbean. Although he failed to unite England and Scotland, he insisted that ambassadors acknowledge him as King of Great Britain and that vessels from both countries display a version of the current Union Flag. He was often accused of being too informal and insufficiently regal - but when his son, Charles I, decided to redress these criticisms in his own reign he was destroyed. How much of the roots of this disaster were to be found in James's reign is one of the many problems dramatized in Thomas Cogswell's brilliant and highly entertaining new book.

A year after the death of James I in 1625, a sensational pamphlet accused the Duke of Buckingham of murdering the king. It was an allegation that would haunt English politics for nearly forty years. In this exhaustively researched new book, two leading scholars of the era, Alastair Bellany and Thomas Cogswell, uncover the untold story of how a secret history of courtly poisoning shaped and reflected the political conflicts that would eventually plunge the British Isles into civil war and revolution. Illuminating many hitherto obscure aspects of early modern political culture, this eagerly anticipated work is both a fascinating story of political intrigue and a major exploration of the forces that destroyed the Stuart monarchy.

This book examines the background to the English military intervention in the Thirty Years War. Blending accounts of diplomacy and factional in-fighting at Court with parliamentary and popular politics, it aims to illuminate the 'revolution' of 1624 when the Palatine crisis forced James I to abandon his long-held dream of an Anglo-Spanish dynastic alliance in favour of a more aggressive policy against the Habsburgs. In studying the English polity in a period of crisis, Professor Cogswell challenges many of the revisionist assumptions about early seventeenth-century England and highlights the dangers in confusing the history of Court faction with the broader political history of the period. In particular, the author stresses the vital importance of Parliament, an institution which in 1624 had no trouble delaying the passage of the subsidy bill until the government redressed a long list of grievances. Indeed, the 'blessed revolution' celebrated the evolution of Parliament into what many contemporaries regarded as its proper role in the state as much as it did the collapse of the longstanding Anglo-Spanish entente.

Revisionism has had a far-reaching impact upon the history of politics and religion in early Stuart Britain. The essays collected here were originally published in 2002, and set out to assess this impact and develop further some of the central themes highlighted in the work of the historian Conrad Russell, and address a series of themes arising out of recent debates on the causes of the English Civil War. The subject-matter ranges from high-political narrative to the study of rumour, gossip, and print culture. Topics covered include the character of Charles I's kingship, the place of Parliament in the political system, the divisive legacy of the English Reformation, and the problems posed by trying to unite England with Scotland and Ireland. The collection will interest readers concerned with the political and religious history, and also the literature, of early seventeenth-century Britain.