Professor Clare Jackson

Honorary Professor of Early Modern History
Walter Grant Scott Fellow in History, Trinity Hall
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Dr Clare Jackson

My particular interests lie in the rich and complex history of seventeenth-century Britain. My most recent book, Devil-Land: England under Siege 1588-1688 (2021) won the Wolfson History Prize 2022 and is available in hardback, paperback and Audible editions.

 

Wolfson History Prize 2022

After attending school in Edinburgh, I read History at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge and researched an MPhil in History at the University of Aberystwyth in Wales. I returned to Cambridge to complete a PhD on royalist ideas in late-seventeenth century Scotland at Sidney Sussex College, where I was later a Research Fellow. I moved to Trinity Hall in 2000 and served as the College's Senior Tutor from 2013 to 2023.

I presented The Stuarts (2014) and The Stuarts in Exile series for BBC2 (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01lkn5l); these films have been repeated extensively on the BBC, London Live, PBS, SBS and other channels, and are available for purchase as DVDs.

Clare Jackson appears regularly at history and literary festivals and is available for consultancy. More information is available via Clare's personal website at https://www.clare-jackson.com/

A historian with particular interests in the rich and complex history of Tudor, Stuart and Georgian Britain, Clare is the prize-winning author of Devil-Land: England under Siege 1588-1688 (2021) and also presented the landmark TV series on The Stuarts and The Stuarts in Exile on BBC2. She is currently writing a life of King James VI & I which will be published by Allen Lane/Penguin in March 2025 on the 400th anniversary of James's death.

Clare Jackson welcomes enquiries from prospective students wishing to work on all aspects of early modern British history, c.1500-c.1800. PhD theses supervised include:

  • Amy Blakeway, Regency in Sixteenth-century Scotland (2009)
  • Alexander Campbell, The Political and Religious Thought of Robert Baillie (1602-1662) (2014)
  • Will Ferguson, Scottish-Irish Governmental Relations, 1660-1690 (2014)
  • Jade Jesty, Constructions of Royalism in the Three Kingdoms 1625-1660 (in progress)
  • Ian King, Anglo-Saxon Descent, Antiquarian Scholarship and Germanic Englishness, c.1560-c.1620 (2023)
  • Alice O'Driscoll, Women, Language and Agency in the British Civil Wars, 1638-1660 (2021)
  • Elly Robson, Property, Custom and Conflict in seventeenth-century Fenland Drainage (2018)
  • Tom Tyson, The Persecution of Gypsies in Scotland 1571-1707 (in progress)

MPhil dissertations supervised include:

  • Evan Adair, The Covenants in Scottish Political Thought, 1660-1669 (2019)
  • Amy Blakeway, Vernacular Political Poetry in Scotland, 1540-1584 (2007)
  • Basil Bowdler,Sovereignty, Patriotism and Xenophobia in Public Debate under William III, 1688-1702 (2021)
  • Emma Buchanan, Anonymity and Pseudonymith in Restoration England, 1675-1685 (2018)
  • Alec Burt, Miscarriages of Justice and the Reputation of the Old Bailey Criminal Bench, 1695-1720 (2015)
  • Alexander Campbell, The Intellectual Context of the Scottish Engagement, 1647-1648 (2011)
  • Beth Cowen, James VI of Scotland, the ‘Association’ and the English Succession, c. 1578-1586 (2019)
  • Oliver Dickie, Succession, Kingship and Constitution in Histories of Plantagenet England, 1660-1685 (2022)
  • Will Ferguson, The Scottish Influence on Irish Politics and Religion, 1649-1661 (2011)
  • Caroline Fish, Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, Count of Gondomar, and the Promotion of Spanish Interests at the Court of James VI & I (2017)
  • Jamie Gianoutsos, Cultivation as a Metaphor in Early Modern English Pedagogical Literature, 1531-1644 (2009)
  • Jade Jesty, The Conduct and Reputation of Prince Maurice, Prince Palatine of the Rhine, in the British Civil Wars (2022)
  • David Kearns, Sir Matthew Hale, the common law and 'blasphemous words' in Rex v. Taylor (1675) (2015)
  • Kate McGregor, Court Festivities and Ceremonial during the Adult Rules of James V, King of Scots (1528–1542) and Mary, Queen of Scots (1561–1567) (2021)
  • Sophie Nicholls, Divine Right, Natural Law and Corporation Theory in the Political Thought of William Barclay (2007)
  • Kate Palmer, George Savile, Marquis of Halifax's 'Glorious Revolution', 1685-1695 (2014)
  • Jamie Park, National History and Civic Patriotism in Scottish Enlightenment Urban Histories, c.1745-1832 (2019)
  • Priya Ramdas, Patriotism in English Political Discourse, 1726-1742 (2004)
  • Susannah Randall, Roger L’Estrange, John Nalson and ‘Proto-Tory’ political ideas, 1677-1680 (2004)
  • Emily Rhodes, Female Petitioning to Monarchs and the Criminal Process in England, 1660-1702 (2020)
  • Daniel Rignall, The Political, Dynastic and Religious Significance of Mary II (2018)
  • Elly Robson, Turning Land to Profit: Surveyors, Private Property and Contested Geographies in early seventeenth-century Enclosure (2014)
  • Thomas Schacht,Jacobean Political Legitimacy, Roman Catholicism, and the Trial of John Ogilvie SJ (2022)
  • Max Straus, Precedent and Reform in the Upper Bench, 1649-1658 (2013)
  • Tom Tyson, The Scots’ Experience of Incivility c.1590-1610 (2016)
  • Xiang Wei, Presbyterianism and Scottish Military Identity, 1688-1715 (2020)
  • Alice Whitehead, ‘“Perhaps I am not worthy of a son”: Maternity, Manhood and Expectant Fathers in England, 1650-1690(2020)

Co-Convenor with Dr Paul Cavill of Part II Advanced Topic: The Rule of Law in early modern Britain: State Power, Criminal Justice, and Civil Liberties, c.1500-c.1800

for more information see https://www.hist.cam.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2021-03/Specified_Paper_%2812%29__-_The_Rule_of_Law_in_Early_Modern_Britain_Course_Description_2021-22.pdf

Contact

Tags & Themes

Address

Trinity Hall
Cambridge CB2 1TJ

Office phone: 01223 332511

Email
jclj1@cam.ac.uk
Links
Geographical

Key Publications

Other Publications

  • 'Compassing Allegiance: Sir George Mackenzie and Restoration Scottish Royalism' in Justin Champion, John Coffey, Tim Harris & John Marshall eds., Politics, Religion and Ideas in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Britain: Essays in Honour of Mark Goldie (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2019), 121-39
  • 'Jonathan Swift's Peace of Utrecht', in Render de Bruin, Kornee van der Haven, Lotte Jensen & David Onnekink eds., Performances of Peace: Utrecht (1713) (Brill: Leiden, 2015), 142-58
  • ‘Pepys and Religion’ in Margarette Lincoln ed., Samuel Pepys: Plague, Fire & Revolution (London: Thames & Hudson, 2015), 224-31
  • 'Religious latitude, secular theology and Sir Thomas Browne's influence in George Mackenzie's Religio Stoici (1663)', The Seventeenth Century, 29 (2014), 73-94
  • 'The later Stuart church as "national church" in Scotland and Ireland', in Grant Tapsell, ed., The later Stuart church, 1660-1714 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012), 127-49
  • 'Buchanan in Hell: Sir James Turner’s civil war royalism' in Roger Mason & Caroline Erskine, eds., George Buchanan: political thought in early modern Europe(Ashgate: Aldershot, 2012), 205-28
  • (with Patricia Glennie), 'Restoration politics and the advocates' secession, 1674-1676', Scottish Historical Review, 91 (2012), 76-105
  • 'Union historiographies', in T. M. Devine & Jenny Wormald, eds., The Oxford handbook of modern Scottish history (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 338-54
  • 'The Anglo-Scottish union negotiations of 1670', in Tony Claydon & Thomas N. Corns, eds., Religion, culture and the national community in the 1670s (University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2011), 35-65
  • 'Conceptions of nationhood in the Anglo-Scottish union debates of 1707', in Scottish Historical Review, 87 (2008), Supplement 2: The Union of 1707: new interpretations, 61-77
  • (with Mark Goldie) ‘Williamite tyranny and the Whig Jacobites’, in Esther Mijers & David Onnekink eds., Redefining William III. The impact of the King-Stadholder in international context, (Ashgate: Aldershot, 2007), 177-99
  • 'Judicial torture, the liberties of the subject and Anglo-Scottish relations, 1660-1690' in T. C. Smout ed., 'Anglo-Scottish relations 1603-1914', Proceedings of the British Academy, 127 (2005), 75-101
  • 'The rage of Parliaments: The House of Commons, 1690-1715' (Review Article), Historical Journal, 48 (2005), 567-87
  • 'Assize of error and the independence of the criminal jury in Restoration Scotland', in Scottish Archives, 10 (2004), 1-25. This article was awarded the Royal Historical Society's David Berry Prize for 2004; see http://www.rhs.ac.uk/berrywin.htm.
  • 'Optimism and progress', in Martin Fitzpatrick, Peter Jones, Christa Knellwolf & Iain MacCalman eds., The Enlightenment world, (Routledge: London, 2004), 177-93
  • 'Revolution principles, ius naturae and ius gentium in early Enlightenment Scotland: the contribution of Sir Francis Grant, Lord Cullen (c.1660-1726)', in Tim Hochstrasser & Peter Schröder eds., Early modern natural law theories: contexts and strategies in the early Enlightenment, (Kluwer: Dordrecht, 2003), 107-40
  • 'Natural law and the construction of political sovereignty in early modern Scotland', in Ian Hunter & David Sanders eds., Natural law and civil sovereignty: moral right and state authority in early modern political thought, (Palgrave: Basingstoke, 2002), 155-69
  • 'The political theory of non-resistance in Restoration Scotland 1660-1688', in Robert von Friedeburg ed., Widerstandsrecht in der frühen Neuzeit, (Duncker & Humblot: Berlin, 2001), 305-28
  • 'Restoration & union', in John Haywood & Simon Hall eds., The Penguin atlas of British and Irish history, (Penguin: Harmondsworth, 2001), 138-41
  • 'Restoration to revolution: 1660-1690', in Glenn Burgess ed., The New British History. Founding a Modern State 1603-1715, (Tauris: London, 1999), 194-216
  • 'The paradoxical virtue of the historical romance: Sir George Mackenzie's Aretina and the civil wars' in John Young ed., Celtic dimensions of the British civil wars, (John Donald: Edinburgh, 1997), 205-25https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/299123/devil-land-by-jackson-clare/9780141984575