Early Modern Britain

The period between c.1500 and c.1750 was a dramatic and tumultuous chapter in the history of the British Isles. Against the backdrop of the dynasties of the Tudors and Stuarts, it witnessed transformative changes in government and administration under Henry VIII, descended into bitter civil wars that culminated in the execution of King Charles I and the declaration of a republic, and underwent a constitutional revolution which ejected James II from the throne and replaced him with William and Mary. This was also an era of religious Reformation, a movement that had diverse consequences and disruptive and lasting effects in Britain’s constituent kingdoms. The tensions engendered by the advent of Protestantism within Europe as a whole framed foreign policy and international relations and fostered the spread of confessional prejudice and sectarian violence. They also helped to foster new theories about the power of the state and the legitimacy of political resistance. Meanwhile, overseas exploration and colonial settlement in Ireland and the Americas created new markets and opportunities, widened horizons, and helped to alter senses of identity and belonging.

A time of rising population, natural disaster and subsistence crisis, the early modern period saw deepening poverty and deprivation, but also increasing commerce, consumption and upward mobility. The result was social polarisation. This spilled out into everyday life in the guise of deviance, crime, and riot and fostered conflicts that found expression in the growth of personal litigation and in accusations of witchcraft. Rural society and the environment were in the process of shifting under the impact of agricultural change, while cities, especially London, were swelling in size as people migrated from the countryside in search of employment. The state stretched its tentacles into localities, but power and authority were also negotiated in dialogue with ordinary people and remote communities. All of this coincided with profound intellectual and cultural changes. The world of learning was remodelled by Renaissance humanism and the introduction of printing and the spread of literacy transformed communication. These developments served to unsettle some traditional assumptions about nature and God and to enrich and complicate popular practice and belief. Within the intimate sphere of the household and family, hierarchies of gender and age were both reinforced and tested, even as the enduring realities of birth, marriage and death continued their inexorable cycle. And against the backdrop of female and minority rule by Edward VI, Mary I, Mary Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth I, these were issues that entered the public sphere too. 

This Outline explores these processes in all their rich variety, providing students with an overview of political, religious, cultural, intellectual, social, and economic developments that made the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries a formative period in the history of Britain, its European neighbours and the Atlantic world.