Collections of documents that address the political and administrative history as well as the legal and constitutional matters include G.R. Elton (ed.), The Tudor Constitution, 2nd ed. (1982); and G. Bray, Documents of the English Reformation 1526–1701 (1994). The best introductory surveys are J.S. Morrill (ed.), The Oxford Illustrated History of Tudor and Stuart Britain (1996); S. Brigden, New Worlds, Lost Worlds: Britain 1485–1603 (2000); M. Nicholls, A History of the British Isles 1529–1603: The Two Kingdoms (1998); and (making rather higher demands in terms of foreknowledge) J.A. Guy, Tudor England (1988). K. Wrightson, Earthly Necessities: Economic Lives in Early Modern Britain (2000), supercedes all previous works on economic and social development; although D.C. Coleman, The Economy of England 1450–1750 (1980); and C.G.A. Clay, Economic Expansion and Social Change 1500–1700, 2 vol. (1984), are important supplements. At a more detailed level, G.R. Elton, Reform and Reformation 1509–1558 (1977), is a classic statement of an influential interpretation; and P. Williams, The Later Tudors 1547–1603 (1995), is also informative. The best biographies of the Tudor monarchs are S.B. Chrimes, Henry VII (1972); J.J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, new ed. (1997); D. Starkey, The Reign of Henry VIII (1985), a pitiless dissection of the king; J. Loach, Edward VI (1999); D. Loades, The Reign of Mary Tudor (1979); J. Hurstfield, Elizabeth I and the Unity of England (1960), a short positive account among the hundreds written about the queen; and C. Haigh (ed.), Elizabeth I (1984), a negative view. Books that bring particular periods, events, and subjects to life include B. Thompson (ed.), The Reign of Henry VII (1995); S. Thurley, The Royal Palaces of Tudor England (1993); J. Guy, Thomas More (2000); D. MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer (1996); E. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars (1992); C. Haigh, English Reformations (1993); R. Rex, Henry VIII and the English Reformation (1993); D. MacCulloch, Tudor Church Militant (1999); P. Collinson: The Religion of Protestants: The Church in English Society 1559–1625 (1982); S. Alford, The Early Elizabethan Polity: William Cecil and the British Succession Crisis (1999); P. Collinson, Elizabethan Essays (1994); J.A. Guy (ed.), The Reign of Elizabeth I: Court and Culture in the Last Decade (1995); A. Walsham, Church Papists: Catholicism, Conformity and Confessional Polemic in Early Modern England (1993); T. Watt, Cheap Print and Popular Piety: 1550–1640 (1991); F. Heal and C. Holmes, The Gentry of England and Wales 1500–1700 (1994); J. Thirsk (ed.), The Agrarian History of England and Wales (1967); K. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971); M. Spufford, The World of Rural Dissenters 1520–1725 (1995); D. Cressy, Birth, Marriage, and Death: Ritual, Religion, and the Life-Cycle (1997); B. Bradshaw and J. Morrill (eds.), The British Problem c. 1534–1707 (1996); J. Burns, The Trew Law of Kings: Concepts of Monarchy in Early Modern Scotland (1999); J. Wormald, Mary Queen of Scots (1988); and S.G. Ellis, Ireland in the Age of the Tudors, 1447–1603: English Expanison and the End of Gaelic Rule (1998). Britain in the 17th century
Selections of documents that explore the political and administrative history as well as legal and constitutional history include J.P. Kenyon (ed.), The Stuart Constitution, 2nd ed. (1985); and J. Thirsk and J.P. Cooper, Seventeenth-Century Economic Documents (1972). D. Wootton, Divine Right and Democracy (1986), is a thoughtful collection of extracts from a wide range of polemical texts. The best introductory surveys are J.S. Morrill (ed.), The Oxford Illustrated History of Tudor and Stuart Britain (1996); M.A. Kishlansky, A Monarchy Transformed: Britain 1603–1714 (1996); and B. Coward, The Stuart Age: England, 1603–1714, 2nd ed. (1994). D. Hirst, England in Conflict 1603–1660: Kingdom, Community, Commonwealth (1999); G. Holmes, The Making of a Great Power: Late Stuart and Early Georgian Britain 1660–1722 (1993); and J. Hoppit, A Land of Liberty? England 1689–1727 (2000), are more advanced surveys. C. Hill, The Century of Revolution, rev. ed. (1990); and J. Scott, England’s Troubles: Seventeenth-Century English Political Instability in European Context (2000), are brilliant and controversial overviews. S.R. Gardiner History of England from the Accession of James I to the Outbreak of the Civil War, 1603–1642, rev. ed., 10 vol. (1883–84), History of the Great Civil War, rev. ed., 4 vol. (1893), and History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate, new ed., 4 vol. (1903), 18 stellar volumes of narrative written in the second half of the19th century, still provide absolutely fundamental coverage of the years 1603–56 (except for the reign of James I). C.H. Firth, The Last Years of the Protectorate 1656–58, 2 vol. (1909), written by a friend of Gardiner’s, continues the narrative to the death of Oliver Cromwell. Thematic books covering the century include M.J. Braddick, State Formation in Early Modern England (2000), and The Nerves of State: Taxation and the Financing of the English State 1558–1714 (1996); D.L. Smith, The Stuart Parliaments 1603–1689 (1999); G. Burgess, Absolute Monarchy and the Stuart Constitution (1996); J. Spurr, English Puritanism 1603–1689 (1998); J. Ohlmeyer, Political Thought in Seventeenth-Century Ireland: Kingdom or Colony (2000); K. Brown, Kingdom or Province? Scotland and the Regal Union 1603–1715 (1992); K. Wrightson, Earthly Necessities: Economic Lives in Early Modern Britain (2000); C.G.A. Clay, Economic Expansion and Social Change 1500–1700, 2 vol. (1984); and J.A. Sharpe, Early Modern England: A Social History 1550–1760 (1987). There are few biographies of Stuart monarchs, but M. Lee, Great Britain’s Solomon: James VI and I in His Three Kingdoms (1990); C. Carlton, Charles I, the Personal Monarch, 2nd ed. (1995); R. Hutton, Charles II: King of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1989); F.C. Turner, James II (1948); S.B. Baxter, William III (1966); and Edward Gregg, Queen Anne (1980), have all stood the test of time. In some ways the vignettes in J.P. Kenyon, The Stuarts: A Study in English Kinship (1958), are the most penetrating word portraits of all. The vast array of studies of particular problems and events includes such representative and evocative selections as C. Russell, The Causes of the English Civil War (1990); K. Sharpe, The Personal Rule of Charles I (1992); T. Webster, The Godly Clergy in Early Stuart England (1997); J. Morrill, The Nature of the English Revolution (1993), and Revolt in the Provinces: The People of England and the Tragedies of War 1634–1648 (1999); M. Bennett, The Civil Wars in Britain and Ireland (1997); B. Coward, Oliver Cromwell (1991); C. Hill, God’s Englishman: Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution (1970), and The World Turned Upside Down (1972); T. Harris, Politics Under the Later Stuarts (1993); J. Spurr, The Restoration Church of England 1646–1689 (1991); N.H. Keeble, The Literary Culture of Nonconformity in Later Seventeenth-Century England (1987); J.R. Western, Monarchy and Revolution: The English State in the 1680s (1972); J.I. Israel, The Anglo-Dutch Moment: Essays on the Glorious Revolution and Its World Impact (1991); J.H. Plumb, The Growth of Political Stability 1675–1725 (1967); G.V. Bennett, The Tory Crisis in Church and State 1688–1730 (1975); P. Laslett, The World We Have Lost, 3rd ed. (1983); E.A. Wrigley and R.S. Schofield, The Population History of England and Wales 1541–1871 (1981); P. Slack, The Impact of Plague (1985); Sara Heller Mendelson and P. Crawford, Women in Early Modern England, 1550–1720 (1998); K. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971); J.A. Sharpe, Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in England, 1550–1750 (1996); D.E. Underdown, Fire from Heaven: Life in an English Town in the Seventeenth Century (1992), a study of political and religious struggle in Dorchester; and R. Hutton, The Rise and Fall of Merry England: The Ritual Year, 1400–1700 (1994). John S. Morrill Britain, 1714–1815