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The story of Catholic Emancipation begins with the violent Anti-Catholic Gordon Riots in 1780, fuelled by the reduction in Penal Laws against the Roman Catholics harking back to the sixteenth century. Some fifty years later, the passing of the Emancipation Bill was hailed as a 'bloodless revolution'. Had the Irish Catholics been a 'millstone', as described by an English aristocrat, or were they the prime movers? While the English Catholic aristocracy and the Irish peasants and merchants approa...

The reign of Queen Anne (1702-1714) saw a remarkable boom in political journalism and newspaper culture in London, in which some of the leading literary lights of the age, Swift, Defoe, Addison, Steele, were heavily involved. While scholars have dealt at length with the physical development and circulation of these newspapers and with their literary contribution, much less has been done to trace the evolving ideologies of London's political newspapers in this period. In this major contribution...

At the core of this book are the stories and life-cycles of the poor themselves. Drawing on sources (pauper letters, petitions, vestry minutes, newspaper reporting and accounts) collected over the last twenty years, Steven King poses three key questions: How did the dependent poor experience and talk about such variables as housing, family, medical care, or the makeshift economy? How were such experiences related to situational matters such as ethnicity, belonging, kinship, family size and struc...

Disaster on the Spanish Main unveils and illuminates an overlooked yet remarkable episode of European and American military history about a land-sea venture to seize control of the Spanish West Indies that ended in ghastly failure. Thirty-four years before the Battles of Lexington and Concord, a significant force of American soldiers deployed overseas for the first time in history. Colonial volunteers, 4,000 strong, joined 9,000 British soldiers and 15,000 sailors in a bold amphibious campaign a...

"The surprising, deliciously dramatic, and ultimately heartbreaking story of King George III's radical pursuit of happiness in his private life with Queen Charlotte and their 15 children. In the U.S., Britain's George III, the protagonist of A Royal Experiment, is known as the king from whom Americans won their independence and as "the mad king," but in Janice Hadlow's groundbreaking and entertaining new biography, he is another character altogether--compelling and relatable. He was the first of...

The impeachment trial of Warren Hastings lasted from 1788 until 1795. Hastings was the first Governor-General of Bengal and his trial had a formative impact on the British Empire. Chiara Rolli shows that in an age when British education consisted mainly of classical studies, it was antique views of rhetoric and imperial governance that permeated the trial. Prosecutor Edmund Burke was figured as a modern-day Cicero fighting corruption in the colonies, while Hastings was Verres, the corrupt propra...

Lancelot Brown changed the face of eighteenth-century England, designing country estates and mansions, moving hills and making flowing lakes and serpentine rivers, a magical world of green. This English landscape style spread across Europe and the world. At home, it proved so pleasing that Brown's influence spread into the lowland landscape at large, and into landscape painting. He stands behind our vision, and fantasy, of rural England. In this vivid, lively biography, based on detailed researc...

New York Times bestselling author Jane Feather brings to life the glamour, sophistication, and intrigue of Regency-era London in this captivating novel of unexpected passions and dangerous secrets. A perfect book for fans of Mary Balogh, Eloisa James and Stephanie Laurens. Aurelia Farnham believes she is happy living in London's stylish Cavendish Square. But with her friends Livia and Cornelia both married now, Aurelia is the only one still husbandless, and sometimes she longs for more. The...

We are facing a world food crisis of unparalleled proportions. Our reliance on unsustainable dietary choices and agricultural systems is causing problems both for human health and the health of our planet. Solutions from lab-grown food to vegan diets to strictly local food consumption are often discussed, but a central question remains: how did we get to this point? In Diet for a Large Planet, Chris Otter goes back to the late eighteenth century in Britain, where the diet heavy in meat, wheat,...

Immerse yourself in the vanished world inhabited by Austen's contemporaries. Packed with detail, and anecdotes, this is an intimate exploration of how the middle and upper classes lived from 1775, the year of Austen's birth, to the coronation of George IV in 1820. Sue Wilkes skilfully conjures up all aspects of daily life within the period, drawing on contemporary diaries, illustrations, letters, novels, travel literature and archives. Were all unmarried affluent men really 'in want of a wife?'...

Spanning over 2 centuries, James Gregory's Mercy and British Culture, 1760 -1960 provides a wide-reaching yet detailed overview of the concept of mercy in British cultural history. While there are many histories of justice and punishment, mercy has been a neglected element despite recognition as an important feature of the 18th-century criminal code. Mercy and British Culture, 1760-1960 looks first at mercy's religious and philosophical aspects, its cultural representations and its embodiment...

A loving homage to the era celebrated by the hit Netflix series Bridgerton—and the cocktails that shaped its high society As a society doyenne and undercover libertine, Lady Thornwood knows what makes a drink perfect. In The Regency Book of Drinks: Quaffs, Quips, Tipples, and Tales from Grosvenor Square, this respectable cocktail connoisseur presents a guide of over 75 cocktail recipes shaped by the Regency era in both refinement and ingredients—and served alongside a heaping dose of high-socie...

If you love Poldark, you'll love Jane Feather's dazzling Georgian romantic trilogy, the Blackwater Brides, which concludes with An Unsuitable Bride.Perfect for fans of Eloisa James, Liz Carlyle and Stephanie Laurens.Only desperation would drive a lady to disguise herself in hopes of employment, but the twenty thousand pounds that their father promised beautiful Alexandra Douglas and her invalid younger sister has vanished into the hands of the greedy cousin who inherited the estate. Alexandra...

For over a century of turmoil, upheaval and scandal, Great Britain was a Georgian land. From the day the German-speaking George I stepped off the boat from Hanover, to the night that George IV, bloated and diseased, breathed his last at Windsor, the four kings had presided over a changing nation. Kings of 18th Century Great Britain offers a fresh perspective on the lives of the four Georges and the events that shaped their characters and reigns. From love affairs to family feuds, political wran...

Navigating Neutrality explores the unexpected role George Washington's 1793 Neutrality Proclamation played in energizing the U.S. government's constitutional responsibilities to support and promote America's commercial and sovereign interests. Designed to avoid warfare as Great Britain and France battled in the Atlantic during the French Revolutionary Wars, neutrality encompassed a wide range of issues, including diplomacy, law, defense, commerce, and domestic politics. Proclaiming neutrality p...

This fluent, accessible and richly informed study, based on much previously unexplored archival material, concerns the history of Gibraltar following its military conquest in 1704, after which sovereignty of the territory was transferred from Spain to Britain and it became a British fortress and colony. Unlike virtually all other studies of Gibraltar, this book focuses on the civilian population. It shows how a substantial multi-ethnic Roman Catholic and Jewish population derived mainly from t...

If you love Julia Quinn's Bridgerton, you'll be enchanted by Sabrina Jeffries' Sinful Suitors!'Anyone who loves romance must read Sabrina Jeffries!' Lisa Kleypas, New York Times bestselling authorThe Study of Seduction is the second book in the Sinful Suitors series by New York Times bestselling author Sabrina Jeffries. Sabrina's witty, sexy historicals will be loved by fans of Sarah MacLean, Eloisa James and Julia Quinn, which a marriage of convenience ignites into a passionate love affair...Wh...

The Royal Navy of Nelson's time was not short of heroes, nor of outstanding achievements, but even in this crowded field the career of Captain John Quilliam stands out - so often the right man in the right place at the right time, he was justly described by a contemporary as 'the favourite of fortune'. Born on the Isle of Man 250 years ago, Quilliam has until now evaded detailed study of his extraordinary life. Indeed, while celebrated as a Manx hero, in the wider world beyond the Island one of...

Sex, fame and scandal in the theatrical, literary and social circles of late-eighteenth-century England. One of the most flamboyant women of the late-eighteenth century, Mary Robinson's life was marked by reversals of fortune. After being raised by a middle-class father, Mary was married, at age fourteen, to Thomas Robinson. His dissipated lifestyle landed the couple and their baby in debtors' prison, where Mary wrote her first book of poetry and met lifelong friend Georgiana, the Duch...