COLLEGE OF LIBERALARTS

History 512

England Under the Stuarts

“This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England…”

Dr. Melinda Zook Spring 2014

Phone: 494-4134 Univ. Hall 310

Email: MWF, 9:30-10:20

Office: University Hall 327

Office hours: Wednesdays, 10:30-11:30 & by appointment

Course Description

This course is an examination of the history of England during the period of the Stuart dynasty, 1603-1714. We begin, however, by exploring the events and unresolved issues created by the English Reformation in the mid-sixteenth century. Religious inspiration, disputes, and intense controversy, both political and theological, will play fundamental roles throughout the stormy years of the Stuart monarchs. Another major focal point will be era of the Civil War, regicide, Revolution, and the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. The tumultuous politics of the latter Stuart era will also figure prominently in our investigation as well as the development of modern political ideologies and political parties. This course is also interested the daily lives of ordinary English people; the roles of class and gender; and popular culture and belief systems.

Required Texts

Mark Kishlansky, A Monarchy Transformed: Britain, 1603-1714 (Penguin, 1997)

Mary E. Fissell, Vernacular Bodies: The Politics of Reproduction in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2004)

William Shakespeare, Macbeth (Folger Shakespeare Library edition, 2013)

Blair Worden, The English Civil Wars, 1640-1660 (Phoenix, 2010)

Aphra Behn, Oroonoko (Penguin, 2003)

Requirements

All students will take three in-class essay exams based on the lectures and readings and complete two short (3 or 4 page) essays based on the readings. Graduates must complete three additional short essays based on primary source readings in consultation with me.

Grades will be calculated as follows:

Attendance & Discussion 15%

Exams 15% each

Short Essays 15% each

Attendance at all class meetings is MANDATORY. Each class missed will result in the loss of a half-grade.

Rules of the Game:

Never walk into class late. Turn off all gadgets once you enter the class room. If you use a laptop during class,you may only use a word processing program (absolutely no internet).

Use proper email etiquette (an email should begin with a salutation such as “Dear Professor X;” and end with a proper closing, such as “Sincerely” or “Yours.”).

Students who plagiarize any portion of their written assignments will be removed from this course and the incident will be reported to the Dean of Students.

Schedule of Readings, Lectures & Discussions

M/Jan. 13Introduction to the Course

W/Jan. 15Where does our story begin?

England prior to the Sixteenth Century

F/Jan. 17Kingship at the outset of the Sixteenth Century

W-F/Jan. 22-24Henry VIII’s dynastic matter &

The English Reformation

M-W/Jan. 27-29The Little Tudors & further Reformation

F/Jan.31Discussion of Fissell, Vernacular Bodies

Read Introduction & Chapters 1 & 2

M/Feb. 3The Virgin Queen

W-F/Feb. 5-7 Elizabethan Legacies

Read Kishlansky, Chapters 1 & 2

M/Feb. 10The Reign of James IV & I

Read Kishlansky, Chapters 3 & 4

W/Feb. 12James I & the Historians

F-M/Feb. 14-17Read & Discuss Macbeth

W/Feb. 19Watch Macbeth

F/Feb. 21First Exam

M-W/Feb. 24-26Charles I & the Road to War & Revolution

Read Kishlansky, 5 & 6

F/Feb. 28The Civil War & the Historians

Read Kishlansky, 7

M/March 3Discussion of Worden, The English Civil Wars

W-F/March 5-7 Cromwell

Read Kishlansky, 8

M/March 10Discussion of Fissell, Vernacular Bodies

Read Chapters 3, 4 & 5

W/March 12Second Exam

F/March14Library Day: No Class

M-W/March 24-26The Restoration Settlement & the Trials of the Regicides

Read Kishlansky, 9

F/March 28One Restoration Life: Aphra Behn

M/March 31Discuss Oroonoko

W/April 2The End of Charles II's reign

Kishlansky, 10

F/April 4The Popish Plot & the Exclusion Crisis

M/April 7The Life and Theories of John Locke

W/April 9James II's Reign & Monmouth's Rebellion

Kishlansky, 11

F/April 11 Library Day: No Class

M/April 14The Glorious Revolution & the Bill of Rights, 1689

W/April 16Discussion of Fissell, Vernacular Bodies

F-M/April 18-21The Reign of William III

Kishlansky, 12

W-F/April 23-25The Reign of Queen Anne

Kishlansky, 13

M-W/April 28-30Great Britain in the Eighteenth Century

F/May 2Review

Hist 512: Graduate Student Reading Assignments

Please read three of the following primary sources. After you have read each, read four or fivesecondary readings about each source. Write a three to four page essay discussing the following:

1)begin with a proper introductory paragraph

2)Devote 2 or 3 paragraphs to discussing the content of the primary work

3)Discuss the scholarly interpretations of the work

4)Conclude by discussing the work’s significance in Stuart history

Choose from:

James I, The True Law of Free Monarchies

Francis Bacon, New Atlantis

Francis Bacon, The New Organon

Shakespeare, The Tempest

Robert Filmer, Patriacha

Margaret Cavendish, duchess of Newcastle, The Blazing World

John Milton, Paradise Lost

Henry Neville, The Isle of Pines

John Bunyan, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners

John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress

Richard Baxter, Saints Everlasting Rest

Margaret Fell Fox, Women’s Speaking Justified

Aphra Behn, The Roundheadsor The Widow Ranter

John Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel (to the reader, parts 1 and 2)

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

Algernon Sidney, Court Maxims

John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration

John Locke, Two Treatises of Government

Daniel Defoe, A Free Born English Man

Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year

Mary Astell,A Serious Proposal to the Ladies

Mary Astell, Reflections upon Marriage

Please be sure to read a variety of works (religious, literary, political/philosophical). Inform me of your choices. Your papers aredue any time prior to the last week of classes. I may ask for revisions.

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