Description
Book SynopsisEarly modern Westminster is familiar as the location of the Royal Court at Whitehall, parliament, the law courts and the emerging West End, yet it has never been studied in its own right. This book is the first study to provide an integrated picture of the town during this crucial period in its history. It reveals the often problematic relations between the diverse groups of people who constituted local society - the Court, the aristocracy, the Abbey, the middling sort and the poor - and the competing visions of Westminster''s identity which their presence engendered.
Different chapters study the impact of the Reformation and of the building of Whitehall Palace; the problem of poverty and the politics of communal responsibility; the character and significance of the increasing gentry presence in the town; the nature and ideology of local governing elites; the struggles over the emerging townscape; and the changing religious culture of the area, including the problematic role
Trade Review
"'This is a work of real scholarship, based on a wealth of original archival research, addressing important questions in current historical debates, presented in a very accessible, readable and engaging form' Vanessa Harding, Birkbeck College, University of London"
Table of Contents
Introduction: Rediscovering Early Modern Westminster
1. Henrician Westminster: Corporate Life in a Time of Change, 1525-1547
2. The Impact of the Reformation in Westminster 1547-1562
3. Town, Cloister and Crown
4. Parish Elites
5. The Rise of a Fashionable Society
6. Space and Urban Identities
7. The Westminster Court of Burgesses: Neighbourhood, Disorder and Urban Expansion
8. Poverty, Plague and the Politics of Communal Responsibility
9. Religious Life and Religious Politics c.1558-1640
Conclusion
