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024128581X

Devil-land : England under siege, 1588-1688.

Author: Jackson, Clare.

Publication year: 2021

Language: English

Media class: Hardback

Classification: 941.06

Publisher: uk : Allen Lane, 2021.

ISBN: 9780241285817 (hbk.) : £35.00

Notes:

Illustrations on lining papers.

This dazzling, original and hugely engaging book tells the story of a nation in a state of near continual crisis. To many foreigner observers, 17th-century England was 'Devil-Land': a country riven by political faction, religious difference, financial ruin and royal collapse. As an unmarried heretic with no heir, Elizabeth I was regarded with horror by Catholic Europe, while her Stuart successors, James I and VI of Scotland and Charles I, were seen as impecunious and incompetent, unable to manage their three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland. The traumatic civil wars, regicide and a republican Commonwealth were followed by the floundering, foreign-leaning rule of Charles II and his brother, James II and VII of Scotland, before William of Orange invaded England with a Dutch army and a new order was imposed.