Month: April 2022

Cressy, David. England’s Islands in a Sea of Trouble. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. 

Outcrops in the English Channel are battered by waves as the sparse inhabitants brace against the raids by pirates and privateers. The small islands off the coast of England were outcrops of the Empire and possessed unique economic and political institutions. Throughout the history of the archipelago around England, the islands served as targets of opportunity for pirates and tax havens in the modern era. All of the islands suffered from isolation from the mainland and were often an afterthought of the central government in London. However, during moments of crisis, the islands could be used by warring factions as a safe retreat from enemy forces. In the early modern period, the islands were difficult to govern from London due to their isolated nature and the terrain around the islands. How the Islands were governed is the central question that David Cressy tries to answer in England’s Islands in a Sea of Trouble. 

David Cressy is a professor of early modern England at The Ohio State University. He has written extensively on social aspects of England in the early modern period. Alongside this book, Cressy has written numerous works on early modern Egland. He focuses on the time of the Tudor and Stuart dynasties and the social revolution that followed those periods. Cressy is an expert in early modern England and throughout his number of books, he provides a complex analysis of society in early modern England.

The layout of England’s Islands is easy to follow and provides a well-structured book that provides case studies of some of the islands and moves into larger social and cultural impacts on the islands. The first section of the book includes two case studies of the Island of Lundy off the coast of Wales and the Channel Islands between England and France. The second half of the first section examines the natural conditions that made the islands hard to govern and the economies that allowed the islands to maintain a population. The second section examines the social and everyday life of the islands starting directly after the English Civil War. Cressy dedicates chapters to the English Civil War, the Interregnum, and the Restoration of Charles II. Section two covers the islands of England during the revolutionary time during the early modern period. 

The third section examines the use of the islands as a prison starting with Charles I. Charles I used some of the islands as prisons for religious dissidents that threatened his power. The following chapter explores the year-long imprisonment of Charles I after the royalists lost the English Civil War. The following two chapters investigate the prison island system through the Interregnum and the Restoration. The third section explores the ways that the central government used the islands as a resource to cure their political problems. 

Cressy writes a wonderful book that examines a part of the English empire that remained outside of England proper but still benefited from the rights of English citizens. During the early modern period, the government in London wanted to create a unified state that was organized around their power. The Islands around England proved resistant to incorporation into England. Some of the islands, such as Lundy, did not have resources or a strategic position for London to be concerned about their incorporation. Other islands, such as the Isle of Wight and the Channel Islands, were very important strategically to England due to their proximity to their lifelong rival France. London needed to control the islands to project their power into the English Channel and to prevent the spread of French influence towards England. 

Some islands had a strong cultural tradition that conflicted with the wishes of London. The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands were traditionally part of different governments. The Isle of Man was settled by Norse conquerors that traveled throughout the British Isles. The traditional government has remained in power on the island and they did not speak English but rather spoke a Norse tongue. The Channel Islands also had established cultural ties that traced back to the days of William of Normandy. The Islands were a part of the Kingdom of Normandy and they spoke a form of French. The Channel Islands were right off the coast of France and were threatened by invasion. The military governors of the Channel Islands were appointed by the Crown. Throughout their history, the Channel Islands were a thorn in the side of England by resisting central authority.  Both islands resisted the tide of centralization emanating from London. 

Many of the islands around England were used as prisons by the central authority in London. During the reign of Charles I, religious dissidents were moved to the islands to isolate them from the rest of the population. Charles I also spent a year as a prisoner on the Island of Wight. During his time on the island, Charles constantly devised ways to escape and rally loyal forces to overthrow Parliament. During the Interregnum, the islands were used to house a number of prisoners, including royalist army officers, religious dissidents, and conspirators against the regime. The stance towards the periphery islands was similar in both the reign of Charles I, the Interregnum, and Charles II. 

David Cressy is an expert in early modern England and provides another well-researched book that examines a subject that is gaining traction in historiography. More work is needed to bring the islands around England fully into the history, but Cressy provides a wonderful example of how to bring an oft-overlooked subject into the wider field of English history. The book has many strong points, including strong research and a compelling argument. Cressy does a great job at compiling a number of sources that back up the argument that the author is making. One aspect of the book I believed that detracted from it was the format of the book. The book is not organized chronologically and it made it difficult to follow each island through time. Each section is organized thematically and multiple times I had to reread paragraphs to follow the time jump. Overall, Cressy delivered a good book that adds to previous works. He is bringing to light a missed part of the history of the British Isles. 

Reviewed by Tyler Thompson, Student at George Mason University. 

Cressy, David. England’s Islands in a Sea of Troubles. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.

Great Britain is an island world, separated from mainland Europe and comprised of a diverse group of nations – England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. But even this mixture of different lands contains its own island fringe, smaller places surrounding the main islands that contain a heterogeneous assortment of people groups who, along with the physical islands on which they live, have made important contributions to British history. In England’s Islands in a Sea of Troubles, David Cressy focuses his attention on a number of these islands – primarily the islands of Man, Anglesey, Scilly, Wight, Guernsey, and Jersey – to show how they were noteworthy factors in the early modern history of Britain. A Humanities Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the Ohio State University, Cressy has written widely on the history of early modern England, and describes himself as an early modern social historian. For England’s Islands, he is expressly interested in relations between the center and periphery, and delves into multiple types of history, from the social to the legal, political, religious, military, maritime, and economic. He draws from a large range of documents, from manuscripts and letters of people involved in island history to government papers from groups such as the Privy Council and Parliament. Arguing that England’s islands are an under-served subject in the historiography, Cressy shows that the islands were diverse and complex places with varying degrees of autonomy that presented both challenges and opportunities for the central state government in London.

Cressy’s book does an excellent job of detailing the diversity among the different islands, showing how their locations, people, and histories impacted their particular cultures. On a number of the islands very few inhabitants spoke English, there were different religious practices, and distinct cultural differences from the mainland existed. There was also what Cressy refers to as a ‘legal pluralism’ in the islands’ relationships with the state, involving differing jurisdictional arrangements between particular islands and the central government. An apt example of this is evident in the contrasts among several of the islands. Anglesey, while heavily Welsh, was connected to the central state through having representation in parliament, being subject to English courts, and owing various subsidies and taxes to the state. The Isle of Wight had a similarly close relationship to mainland England, being politically and socially integrated with nearby southern England. But residents of Wight also enjoyed certain exemptions, such as not having to serve on juries, not paying rates for the county house of corrections, and their mariners being free from impressment. The Channel Islands of Guernsey and Jersey provide a strong contrast in that they were practically independent (almost French) satellites of England. The islands essentially traded their loyalty to England, in the form of military and commercial assets, in return for privileges and immunities from English interference in their affairs. The Channel Islands did not contribute to parliament, nor were they subject to English Common Law. They were not answerable to English courts or English taxes, and were not restricted in their choice of trading partners. As Cressy sums up, “they were under the English crown, but not controlled by the English state” (43). Taking all the peripheral islands into account, a view develops of the challenge faced by the central government in administering and dealing with numerous islands, each with a different relationship and set of rules and exceptions that favored their own liberties, traditions, and the status quo.

Even as the metropole had to manage the challenges of the periphery, there were simultaneous benefits provided by the island fringe that the state could take advantage of. First, the islands provided a certain degree of security to the mainland by essentially serving as maritime outposts of defense. Though Cressy points out that, at the same time, using the islands as defensive outposts presented its own challenges, such as push-back from islanders and the cost of providing and maintaining defensive structures and equipment. Arguably, the greatest benefit provided by the islands was their usefulness as prisons, a subject to which Cressy dedicates an entire section of his book. In the discussion of islands as prisons, he particularly focuses on the eras of the civil wars, the interregnum, and the Restoration to highlight how different leaders and governments all took advantage of the islands to isolate their enemies. The usefulness of this practice is seen in Cressy’s examination of several political prisoners who, while imprisoned in London, could still participate in the public sphere through the ability to meet with visitors and could write and publish pamphlets to spread their ideas. By imprisoning these types of government enemies on islands, the state could isolate them from almost all connections; as Cressy writes, “island prisons were intended to cut them off forever from the business of the world” (219). The state was able to hold its enemies in these prisons due to the paradoxes of the island fringe; they were connected to the state, but they were also somewhat extra-legal areas where normal legal codes, such as the writ of habeas corpus, did not reach. Governments could arbitrarily lock their enemies away in island prisons and those prisoners had no recourse to legal rights. Leaders from the Commonwealth to the Protectorate to the Restoration used this method to deal with enemies; even Charles I was a prisoner on the Isle of Wight.

Cressy notes that some of the islands have retained a measure of autonomy and distinct privileges into the present, but a major arc of his book shows a slow, steadily increasing hegemony of the center over the periphery. Through the shake-ups of the civil wars and changing governments there was a growing state power over the islands and a diminishing ability for them to go back to all the liberties of the past. Cressy lays out this argument by outlining many of the principal and high-profile actors in island events, but the perspectives of ordinary island residents are mostly absent. This could very well be due to a lack of documentation produced by or about these individuals, but it becomes a noticeable gap in the history of these islands. The inclusion of the viewpoints of ordinary people would have made this very good book into an excellent one.

England’s Islands in a Sea of Troubles explains the significance and complexity of the relationship between the center and the periphery in the early modern period, but it also points toward themes and events in the subsequent modern era, particularly the development of the modern nation-state. Britain’s interactions with its nearby islands also provided experience for its future efforts with colonialism in the wider Atlantic world and beyond. In the same way the British state sought to use its islands to its own profit, in its colonies it strived to both impose British law and culture while simultaneously taking advantage of the colonies as legal gray zones to engage in behavior that was prohibited at home. Its island fringe had provided it with long involvement in seeking mastery over peripheries in pursuit of achieving the greatest benefit for the British state.

Reviewed by Matthew Inman, George Mason University

This is going to be a longer review because I think this format explains the chapters best, and because yes I liked the work!

Boswell, Caroline

Disaffection and Everyday Life in Interregnum England

Suffolk: Boydell Press

300 pp., $91.73, ISBN: 9781783270453

Publication date: 2017.

Disaffection and Everyday Life in Interregnum England is a work written by Caroline Boswell that dives into the problems happening in everyday life leading up to and going into the civil war. There is a bottom up socio-political perspective happening here that makes this easy to read. Even from the introduction, there is a political science feeling as Boswell compares life of common people to the royal of the time and the political occurrences. She has broken the book into two parts, Sites of Disaffection and Objects of Disaffection, The former is not literally physically, but more tangible than the ambiguity of the second.

In the first chapter, Boswell attempts to show how “sites” could mirror the issues happening above these citizens. Especially when there was no less than five major changes in (leadership) at this time. She goes on to say that the streets and the marketplace is where a lot of exchanges and tension happened. She asks the reader if the streets and marketplace were simply a “backdrop” for the conversation, or if it affected the conversation because it was a different type of forum was created? Boswell seems to believe it is micro examples of macro political issues. For example, this forum had a larger effect, especially to women. Boswell mentions that women sellers where arrested for being thieves and many other things but there was also the chance that women’s reputations may be put at risk if a man where to start “spitting at hir and calling hir whore.” (26-27) This reminds many that gender and reputation still mattered heavily at this time.
Chapter two looks into at alehouses and how any alcohol type drink was used at the time to ease the stress of poverty and other political discourse. This came with its pros and cons as it built a community, selling served as a job for struggling families, and became a culture point as the crafting of different beer grew (73). But this all connects back to the larger issues of the era. There was the aforementioned poverty, here and later Boswell talks about the excise-man, and others mentioned throughout the chapter. As drink became so ingrained in society and the crafting varied between “strong” and “weak” ale or beer, there became a class and cultural divide over who deserves the “good” drink. However, there is the classic inn setting happening also, as gender (for a short time) and class is not highly focused because it is mostly the working class visiting the inn or tavern. This is where much of the political discussion is happening. Finally, drink is also connected to religion and the culture related to religion in London. All of this comes back to Boswell’s original question to the readers, is it the “site” that made the issue or simply serve as a forum?

Section two starts to discuss specific “objects of disaffection,” as Boswell calls them. These are specific people or things that add to the tension. Chapter 3 is quite straightforward (name and contents) as the government attempts to quiet tensions of lower classes with “meddling soldiers” which made lower classes more upset. Then as the state failed to pay its own army, there is disarray as soldier begin seizing livestock and other provisions from citizens. The army seemed to have affected a bit of every issue also happening at this time, adding heat to the fire. Then chapter four shows the interwoven web of issues with the excise-man. Debt collectors were viewed by many citizens as the singular person that wrecked their society. There was a massive amount of hateridge put against this person appointed for the job by the government as they were called cruel and sinful. The citizens see the excise-man as the reason that they are suffering. Finally, chapter five focuses on the issue of religion with the dissolution of church and state connections (or lack thereof). This last chapter is massive in the sense that, most of the other issues really fall back to this. It seems to be the umbrellas that encapsulates it all. 

I think that this is a good and interesting writing style for the topic. There are a few sections where maybe too many citations and quotes happen, but it help to get the reader into the mindset of the time, Another strength of this work is the way Boswell broke up the two parts, I found this to be a massive strength because it feels like the reader starts with what is familiar and zoomed into the issue. But then discussing the taverns and alehouses still feel familiar, but start to zoom out and see how it is connected to previous issues mentioned. It felt easy to digest. There is also a good mix of secondary and primary sources, however the primary sources do not come in as much until part two. That adds to what I find to be almost a dialogue within the chapters in part two. Again, a little hard with so many citations and quotes but it did not ruin the book per say. Last minus for the book is that these chapters are so hard to explain! That is a bit of a joke and serious reflection. Each chapter handles such a complex issue that summarizing them is surprisingly difficult. 

Complete side note and not really “review worthy.” A weird connection I thought of when reflecting on section one was the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I thought of the scene where the peasants are working in the field and asks how Arthur became King of the Britons without their vote. I kept thinking about the idea of the “backdrop” that is mentioned in this book and asked myself; is it weird for peasants to discuss politics in the field, but not a street/bar?

Reviewed by Emily Meyers – George Mason University

Caroline Boswell is an associate professor of Humanistic studies and European History at the University of Wisconsin. According to the university’s website, Boswell’s works focus on popular dissent and changes in government during times of political/social crisis. This is reflected in her book Disaffection in Everyday Life in Interregnum England, as the book is dedicated to unpacking the nuance and realities of popular movements during the tumultuous decade(ish) after Charles the first was executed, including the Interregnum, Protectorate, and the very beginnings of Charles the Seconds reign.

In writing this book, Boswell seeks to better understand and explore how popular action, protests, and everyday social interactions were used by ordinary people to influence the policies of the Interregnum government. By extension, Boswell demonstrates how the existence of these points of conflict between the state and its subjects could and often did undermine the states legitimacy when the people felt that their traditional rights were being violated by said state and its representatives; a process exploited by royalist authors to sway the public towards supporting Charles II’s bid for the throne. Whether discussing the relocation of marketplaces (21) or the Sectarian associations of soldiers and the Excise tax (130 and 165 respectively), Boswell emphasizes how disagreements and conflicts between the state and its subjects were used by royalist propagandists and authors to tie an idealized past where these issues did not exist to the return of the monarchy, regardless of the monarchies’ actual position on the issues or the common peoples involved stances on the matter of royal restoration.

Structurally, the book is divided into two parts that focus on the places where unrest occurred and the sources of that unrest respectively. The book is thus not chronologically based, as each development and concept is examined more or less in its entirety before moving on to the next topic; despite this, Boswell does manage to create a sense of continuity and interconnectedness however, as the later chapters are not only positioned in the very places discussed in the first chapters, they are also constantly referring to common principles and justifications established early on as the traditional means by which common people express dissatisfaction and resistance towards unpopular policies. For example, policies introduced in an attempt to police morality by the state discussed around page 80 are referenced in subsequent chapters dealing with the public perception and reception of soldiers as the ones tasked with enforcing these deeply unpopular policies.

The points the author chooses to focus on as areas of conflict between English citizens and Parliamentary leaders are all interesting and insightful into the mindset of those on both ends of government policy. I personally found the chapter on drinking to be the most interesting due to the unintentional parallels between the policies that attempted to regulate public consumption of alcohol described and those of the American government almost three centuries later (not so much in their implementation but in their perception by the public). One particular commonality between many of these government policies worth noting was the exacerbation of societal tensions and issues meant to be reduced by said policies. To put it another way, many of the states attempts to reduce unrest by regulating behaviors only increased popular dissatisfaction with the government, as these measures were seen as arbitrary interference within daily affairs by an incompetent and potentially illegitimate wielder of power. Boswell articulates this point most clearly when discussing later implementations of the much-hated excise tax as protests against this practice led formerly staunch Parliamentarian towns to oppose the governments efforts (197-198).

One area in which Parliamentarian policy was in direct and expected conflict with the will of the English people was the toleration of religious minorities in England, specifically in the New Model Army. Boswell shows how despite the small number of religious nonconformists actually present in England the imagined threat of heretical teachings that upended established norms and customs led to animosity and even violence against religious ‘Others’ and those associated with them by ordinary English citizens (206-209). While questions are raised at the end of the chapter on ‘Fanatics’ as to whether repression was as preferable as people evidently remembered it to be following the Restoration, this section nonetheless shows how dissatisfaction with the government did not need to be uniform in character (i.e. each town saw a different group as religiously ‘Other’) to be seen as evidence of royalist support by both Parliament and Royalists.

Overall, I would say that Boswell’s book is an interesting and very insightful look into the mindset of ordinary people during a very unordinary time. The book was not difficult to read nor was it overly long while simultaneously offering good arguments for its positions. This work makes me want to look into how the arguments made by common people during the Interregnum for resisting certain policies might’ve changed in the following years and how many of the ideas expressed by them made it into our own history.