Introductory description

This second-year early modern option module will explore the attempts of early modern monarchs and governments to gain hegemony over the British Isles and establish an imperial dominion beyond the Atlantic. It will focus on the connections between the kingdoms, and show how relations across the British Isles were affected by conflicts over the powers of crown and church, and challenged by splits between rival religious communities. These tensions, as the module will highlight, were grafted onto ancient national, cultural and ethnic fault lines. The module will look at how the experience of civil war, unrest and revolution took place within a larger international setting, studying the impact of civil and religious divisions on the development of the overseas empire, and highlighting the competing European affinities that impinged upon subjects of the three kingdoms.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

1. Introductions: A New British History
2. Elizabeth, Mary and the Politics of Religion in the British Isles
3. ‘A Perfect Union’?: James VI and I and his three kingdoms 1567-1625
4. The Gaelic world 1558-1625
5. The Creation of British America
6. Wales and the Making of the British Nation
7. Charles I and the road to Civil War
8. Radicalism, rebellion, revolution and regicide 1642-1649
9. Religion and National Identity in the Three Kingdoms
10. One Nation, One Republic? 1649-1660
11. Charles II and the tensions of the Restoration Monarchy, 1660-1685
12. The Restoration and the bid for empire
13. James II and the 1688 Revolutions in Britain and America
14. Crown, Parliament, and the 'Revolutionary' Settlement
15. Race and the British empire
16. The Darien Design and the Context of Scottish Imperialism
17. The Act of Union and the Birth of the British State
18. Conclusions: British National identities
19. Revision

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate a detailed knowledge of the historical dynamics that connected the three British kingdoms and the emergent empire in America.
• Communicate ideas and findings, adapting to a range of situations, audiences and degrees of complexity.
• Generate ideas through the analysis of a broad range of primary source material exploring the relationship between religion, politics and national identity.
• Analyse and evaluate the contributions made by existing scholarship, drawing upon studies from the ‘New British History’ and theories of nationhood and national identity.
• Act with limited supervision and direction to explore topics and themes of interest within defined guidelines, accepting responsibility for achieving deadlines.

Indicative reading list

• David Armitage, The Ideological Origins of the British Empire (2000) (e-book)
• Brendan Bradshaw and John Morrill, The British Problem 1504-1707: State formation in the Atlantic Archipelago (1996)
• B. Bradshaw and P. Roberts (eds.) British Consciousness and Identity: the making of Britain (1998) (ebook).
• S. Ellis & S. Barber (eds.) Conquest and Union: Fashioning a British State, 1485–1725 (1995) (ebook)
• Glenn Burgess, The new British history: founding a modern state 1603-1715 (1999)
• Nicholas Canny, Making Ireland British 1580-1650 (2001)
• Nicholas Canny, ed., The Oxford History of the British Empire: I, The Origins of Empire (1998)
• Tony Claydon and Ian McBride, Protestantism and National Identity: Britain and Ireland c. 1650-c.1850 (1998) (e-book)
• Barry Coward, The Stuart Age (2014) (ebook)
• Barry Coward, A Companion to Stuart Britain (2007) (ebook)
• T.M. Devine, Scotland’s Empire 1660-1815 (2003)
• J.H. Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830 (2007)
• J. H. Elliott, 'A Europe of Composite Monarchies', Past & Present, 137 (1992) (JSTOR)
• Colin Kidd, British Identities before nationalism: ethnicity and nationhood in the Atlantic World 1600-1800 (1999) (e-book)
• Clare Jackson, Devil-Land: England Under Siege, 1588-1699 (2022)
• M. Kishlansky, A Monarchy Transformed: Britain 1603-1714 (1996)
• Bruce Lenman, England’s Colonial Wars 1550-1688: Conflicts, Empire and National Identity (2001)
• Carla Pestana, The English Atlantic in an Age of Revolution, 1640-1661
• J.G.A. Pocock, ed., Three British Revolutions: 1641, 1688, 1776 (1980)
• John Robertson, ed., A Union for Empire: Political Thought and the Union of 1707 (Cambridge, 1995)
• Laura Sangha and Jonathan Willis, Understanding Early Modern Primary Sources (2016)

View reading list on Talis Aspire

Subject specific skills

See learning outcomes.

Transferable skills

See learning outcomes.