Loyalty, memory and public opinion in England, 1658-1727 / Edward Vallance.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Vallance, Edward, 1975- author.

Series:

Politics, culture, and society in early modern Britain.

Politics, Culture and Society in Early Modern Britain

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Public opinion--England--History--17th century.

Public opinion.

Public opinion--England--History--18th century.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (ix, 224 pages) : 1 map; digital file(s).

Place of Publication:

Manchester, UK : Manchester University Press, 2019

Language Note:

In English.

System Details:

data file

Summary:

This book makes an important contribution to the ongoing debate over the emergence of an early modern 'public sphere'. Focusing on the petition-like form of the loyal address, it argues that these texts helped to foster a politically aware public by mapping shifts in the national 'mood'. Covering addressing campaigns from the late-Cromwellian to the early Georgian period, the book explores the production, presentation, subscription and publication of these texts. It argues that beneath partisan attacks on the credibility of loyal addresses lay a broad consensus about the validity of this political practice. Ultimately, loyal addresses acknowledged the existence of a 'political public' but did so in a way which fundamentally conceded the legitimacy of the social and political hierarchy. They constituted a political form perfectly suited to a fundamentally unequal society in which political life continued to be centered on the monarchy.

Contents:

Introduction

1. Petitions, oaths and addresses: subscriptional activity during the civil wars

2. Cromwell's trunks: the origins of the loyal address, 1658-61

3. Addresses, abhorrences and associations: subscriptional culture and memory in the 1680s

4. Adversarial addressing, 1701-10

5. Who were the 'public'? Identifying the addressers

6. The performance of loyalty: ritual in loyal addressing

7. From subjects to objects: the language of loyalty

Conclusion

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print record.

ISBN:

9781526160232

1526160234

9781526117908

1526117908

OCLC:

1101100812