Professor Wrightson reviews the events leading up to the outbreak of the English civil wars and assesses the various historiographical interpretations that have been advanced to explain the war. He notes that while it is essential to appreciate the various long-term causes of the conflict, we must also recognize the role of contingency in the period leading up to the war. He then describes tensions between the crown and the political nation under James I and Charles I with particular attention to the role of the Duke of Buckingham, growing dissatisfaction with royal policy and the increasingly acrimonious tone of parliaments in the 1620s. The fresh start represented by the period of "personal rule" 1629-40 is then considered, with an emphasis on the anxiety aroused by royal financial expedients (notably Ship Money) and religious policy. He ends with the violent response to the attempt by Charles I and Laud to impose prayer book worship on the Scottish church, which triggered the collapse of Charles attempt to rule without calling parliament.

Reading assignment:
Kishlansky, Monarchy Transformed, chapters 3-5

1. General Introduction
2. "The Tree of Commonwealth": The Social Order in the Sixteenth Century
3. Households: Structures, Priorities, Strategies, Roles
4. Communities: Key Institutions and Relationships
5. "Countries" and Nation: Social and Economic Networks and the Urban System
6. The Structures of Power
7. Late Medieval Religion and Its Critics
8. Reformation and Division, 1530-1558
9. "Commodity" and "Commonwealth": Economic and Social Problems, 1520-1560
10. The Elizabethan Confessional State: Conformity, Papists and Puritans
11. The Elizabethan "Monarchical Republic": Political Participation
12. Economic Expansion, 1560-1640
13. A Polarizing Society, 1560-1640
14. Witchcraft and Magic
15. Crime and the Law
16. Popular Protest
17. Education and Literacy
18. Street Wars of Religion: Puritans and Arminians
19. Crown and Political Nation, 1604-1640
20. Constitutional Revolution and Civil War, 1640-1646
21. Regicide and Republic, 1647-1660
22. An Unsettled Settlement: The Restoration Era, 1660-1688
23. England, Britain, and the World: Economic Development, 1660-1720
24. Refashioning the State, 1688-1714
25. Concluding Discussion and Advice on Examination

This course is intended to provide an up-to-date introduction to the development of English society between the late fifteenth and the early eighteenth centuries. Particular issues addressed in the lectures will include: the changing social structure; households; local communities; gender roles; economic development; urbanization; religious change from the Reformation to the Act of Toleration; the Tudor and Stuart monarchies; rebellion, popular protest and civil war; witchcraft; education, literacy and print culture; crime and the law; poverty and social welfare; the changing structures and dynamics of political participation and the emergence of parliamentary government.

Course Structure:
This Yale College course, taught on campus twice per week for 50 minutes, was recorded for Open Yale Courses in Fall 2009.