Royalists and Royalism during the Interregnum

There has long been an unfortunate tendency to dismiss those who were loyal to the Stuarts as, in the immortal words of 1066 and all that, ‘wrong but romantic’, or as the products of unthinking political and religious reaction. Until we know far more about those men and women from all levels of society who supported the king, we can never hope to unlock the essential characteristics of the conflict which engulfed Britain during the 1640s and 1650s.

In recent years, scholars have begun to explore the phenomenon of royalism during the 1640s. Yet, we still know next to nothing about those who were loyal to Charles II during the 1650s. This volume brings together essays by established and emerging historians and literary scholars in Britain, Europe, the United States and Australia, sketching the difficulties, complexities, and nuances of the Royalist experience during the Commonwealth and Protectorate. It examines women, religion, print-culture, literature, the politics of exile, and the nature and extent of royalist networks in England.

This ambitious and innovative book sheds important new light on the experience of those who were loyal to the Stuarts.  It argues for the need to re-orientate, re-invigorate, and re-invent the study of those who detested Cromwell and his ‘rebels’; and it forces us to examine the decade as a whole from a new perspective. It will be essential reading for anyone interested in the culture, history or literature of the English Revolution.

Contents:-

Preface
List of abbreviations
List of illustrations
Notes on contributors
1. Introduction: rethinking Royalists and Royalism during the Interregnum - Jason McElligott and David L. Smith
2. Episcopalian conformity and nonconformity, 1646-1660 - Kenneth Fincham and Stephen Taylor
3. Seditious speech and popular Royalism - Lloyd Bowen
4. Artful ambivalence? Picturing Charles I during the Interregnum - Helen Pierce
5. ‘Vailing his Crown’: Royalist criticism of Charles I’s kingship in the 1650s - Anthony Milton
6. Royalists in exile: the experience of Daniel O’Neill - Geoffrey Smith
7. Gender, geography and exile: Royalists and the Low Countries in the 1650s -
Ann Hughes and Julie Sanders
8. Dramatis personae: Royalism, theatre and the political ontology of the person in post-regicide writing - James Loxley
9. Shakespeare for Royalists: John Quarles and The Rape of Lucrece (1655) - Marcus Nevitt
10. ‘The honour of this nation’: William Dugdale and the history of St Paul’s (1658) - Jan Broadway   
11. Atlantic Royalism? Polemic, censorship and the ‘Declaration and Protestation of the Governour and Inhabitants of Virginia’ - Jason McElligott
12. The Earl of Southampton and the lessons of interregnum finance - D’Maris Coffman
Index