Description
Book SynopsisThis book makes an original contribution to the history of the English Revolution and to the meaning of crowd behaviour, recreating one of the most famous episodes in which crowds from Essex and Suffolk sought to 'ethnically cleanse' their communities by plundering the houses of the predominantly Catholic landed class.
Trade Review'Full of twists and surprises … John Walter has written the finest modern study of popular politics in the English Revolution.' Economic History Review
'This is an important book, and not only in terms of its conclusions. The methodological insights offered here … are in themselves worth the price of admission. This book is packed with the kind of insight born only of profound and prolonged engagement with the issues.' Social History
'This is a book which will be required reading for all students of the English Revolution and its causes. But for its analysis of class in early modern society, one of the finest now available, and for its deep contextualization of an episode of mass direct action, it also deserves to engage a much wider audience.' The Historical Journal
'A short review cannot highlight all of this work's merits. Suffice it to say that it does much to restore local history to the prominence which it once enjoyed in the balmier days of 'localism'.' Journal of Ecclesiastical History
'A book with major implications for the understanding of the Civil War and of popular culture.' Peter Furtado, History Today
'… a richly detailed, imaginative essay on families and communities in Essex and Suffolk … Walter's microhistory brings an awareness of the great crises of the 1630s to the scale of everyday life …' Journal of Modern History
'A short review cannot highlight all of this work's merits. Suffice it to say that it does much to restore local history to the prominence which it once enjoyed.' Thomas Cogswell, Journal of Ecclesiastical History
Table of ContentsIntroduction; Part I. The Event: 1. An event and its history; 2. The attacks; Part II. Contextualising the Crowd: 3. Contextualising crowd actions I: the micro-politics of the attack on Sir John Lucas; 4. Contextualising crowd actions II: the high politics of the attack on Sir John Lucas; 5. The confessional crowd I: the attack on ministers; 6. The confessional crowd II: the attack on Catholics; Part III. Reading the Crowd: 7. Reading the crowds I: cloth and class; 8. Reading the crowds II: anti-popery and popular parliamentarianism; 9. Conclusion.
