Devil-Land: England Under Siege, 1588-1688

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The French government sanctioned subsidies to Charles’s court while simultaneously bribing republican factions in both London and Amsterdam, that sought to curb royal power of either Stuart or Orange hue. When it came to international relations, religion didn't matter. Oh, everyone spoke about defending their co-religionists, when when it came down to it, if Catholic France felt that an alliance with Protestant England was necessary, or Protestant Holland wanted an alliance with Catholic Austria, then they went for it. If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial?

It was, moreover, not only Charles and his ministers who were in receipt of covert foreign subsidies as Montague had himself been promised a French pension if he successfully engineered the anti-French Danby’s removal as Lord Treasurer. While this is a story told mostly from the perspective of ambassadors’ correspondence - both incoming and outgoing - and so to a great extent from a continental perspective, I felt the economic and technological dimensions were left a little under rehearsed as a result. It is, perhaps, churlish to expect everything, but the references there are left me wondering on several occasions. How, for example, did England manage to build so many ships in a couple of years under Cromwell - evidently as many as it had managed in a couple of decades before? And, I think, the English ships were superior to continental rivals - what advantage did that give the dysfunctional Stuarts when faced by larger French and Spanish adversaries? Then again: towards the end of the story, there is reference to William’s spending 74% of the national budget on military expenses - and there are tantalising references to the establishment of the Bank of England and “deficit financing” at that time. I wish there was a little more on that. Extraordinary ... one of those perception-changing books of British history which only come along every few decades' Andrew Marr Dissecting a nation’s endemic fears, anxieties and insecurities, Devil-Land’s account is bookended by two foreign invasion attempts. It opens in the late years of Elizabeth I’s reign which saw a vast Spanish fleet, comprising over 130 ships, 7,000 sailors, 17,000 soldiers and around 1,300 officials enter the English Channel in August 1588, hoping to rendezvous with Philip II of Spain’s nephew, Alexander Farnese, duke of Parma, who would bring an invasion force of 27,000 Habsburg soldiers across from Flanders to land in Kent. Spanish ambitions were frustrated by summer storms and poor communications, and the scattered Armada embarked on a circuitous return journey via northern Scotland, western Ireland and the Bay of Biscay, during which a third of its ships sank, and over half of its sailors and soldiers drowned or died from starvation or being lynched on beaches. Devil-Land concludes its account, a century later, with another foreign seaborn invasion that did succeed: when William of Orange’s force of around 400 ships, 15,000 soldiers and 3,000-4,000 horses landed at Torbay in Devon on 5 November 1688, prompting his Catholic uncle and father-in-law, King James VII & II, to flee to Louis XIV’s France.Another problem for the Stuarts was that, in spite of their persecution of Catholics, they were associated with ‘popery’. England was a leading Protestant kingdom – God’s chosen nation, according to puritans – and therefore vulnerable throughout this century of Counter-Reformation to the Catholic armies and missionaries who were reclaiming territory at an alarming rate. Between 1590 and 1690, the geographical extent of Protestantism was reduced from one half to one fifth of Europe’s landmass. Englishmen feared the return of human bonfires and, as one tract threatened, of ‘troops of papists ravishing your wives and your daughters, dashing your little children’s brains out against the walls, plundering your houses and cutting your own throats’. For many Protestants in England, the need to keep popery out, by fighting Catholics in Europe and stamping on creeping popery at home, trumped all other considerations. I’m delighted and deeply honoured to have won the Wolfson History Prize which recognises historical writing that combines academic scholarship with accessibility for a broad readership. It’s thrilling to join the hugely distinguished list of previous Prizewinners and to share in the celebrations of the Wolfson History Prize’s special 50 th anniversary year. b) the links (by marriage of course) of England and its throne with Holland and Germany - which explains the Hanoverians arriving and I suppose Prince Philip etc etc; since they were Protestant whereas France and Spain were Catholic My other opening thought, though, relates more generally to the human race and our study of history. For many years, the comment has been floating about that traditional history has focused too much on the kings, queens and aristocrats, overlooking the lives of the common people. I have ignored these complaints since the reality is that there is obviously far more documentation related to the former, and their actions and words have had an impact on vast numbers of people, whereas the same can very rarely be said about the underling classes. For cost savings, you can change your plan at any time online in the “Settings & Account” section. If you’d like to retain your premium access and save 20%, you can opt to pay annually at the end of the trial.

The book is so well-written and researched. I have no problem with that. The problem is with the narration of this audiobook. Sadly, it looks like no quality control was done of the pronunciation of some of the foreign names/words. The voice is good, but when you pronounce “Mainz” as ‘mairz’ intead of ‘minez’ for English speakers, this is a shame. Or “Rheims”, when you pronounce it ‘reems’, I nearly felt like crying. It should be pronounced ‘haarns’ for English speakers with the ‘n’ hardly being audible. This is as close in English spelling I could make that particular pronunciation. Or “particulier”, should not be ‘particulair’. It should be ‘particooliay’. Celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the Wolfson History Prize include a series of free events, in partnership with BBC History Magazine, which will see expert panels discuss key themes in history. Two live events, recorded for the HistoryExtra podcast, will explore ‘History and Science’ and ‘History, Empires and Global Histories’, with panellists including historians Olivette Otele and Sanjoy Bhattacharya, previous Wolfson History Prize winner Sudhir Hazareesingh, shortlisted authors, Toby Green and Lindsey Fitzharris, and chair of judges David Cannadine. Two further conversations on ‘History and the Holocaust’ and ‘History and Religion’ will also be released as exclusive episodes of the popular podcast. I am torn in rating this book, as it is insightful and makes unexpected connections. However, even as a general reader who has already read half a dozen histories of similar or shorter periods during this broadly seventeenth century period, I found this book hard going at times, as so many names are bandied about. I suspect that it is a specialist book dressed up as a general history. Finally, I was fascinated to read of the funeral arrangements of Prince Henry, the golden-haired eldest son of James I and Anna. During the body’s month of lying in state prior to the funeral, ten courtiers attended him throughout, bringing in three meals a day. All of which sounds remarkably like Bronze Age burials.Following an introductory chapter foreshadowing the alleged incomprehension with which English politics was viewed by foreign ambassadors and visitors in the period from 1588 to 1688, the first chapter discusses the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1587 after nineteen years’ imprisonment in England. This is described as the first regicide by royalty, with Mary, Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth I both being granddaughters of Henry VII, and Mary being a Scottish queen and widow of a French king, but considered ineligible to succeed to the English throne as she was Roman Catholic. I also had not taken on board (or remembered) that the king of Scotland, James VI, was Mary’s son (but Protestant) and that it had been agreed that he was to succeed Elizabeth upon her death (which he did in 1603). Elizabeth was reviled abroad as “an immoral, heretic bastard, responsible for Mary’s death.” I have a reasonable knowledge of the causes, key events and consequences of the Civil War but am ashamed to say my understanding of the later Stuarts is rudimentary, to say the least. That sums up quite helpfully the level of corruption and hypocrisy which seems to have been endemic in this group of people who believed their god had specially selected them to control the nation – unless, of course the opportunity arose to nudge someone else out of the way and move higher up the tree.