Devil-Land: England Under Siege, 1588-1688

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Imagine a version of chess with multiple, rather than just two, players - where the red pieces sometimes team up with the green, and later with the blue (against the green) - and possibly played star-trek-like in multiple dimensions. This is something like the impression you get of Europe during the period covered by this book; and with England as a particularly awful example of chaos, perfidy, and imbecility among other dysfunctional nations and quasi-states. Parallels with the present are for Devil-Land’s readers to discern. By coincidence, the book was commissioned by Penguin in the week that followed the referendum held on 23 June 2016 in which a majority of the United Kingdom’s electorate voted to leave the European Union and was completed in the week after the UK’s final departure from the EU, following expiry of the ‘transition period’ on 31 December 2020. Written in the shadow of Brexit speculation and debate, Devil-Land’s focus on the contingent mutability of seventeenth-century England’s relations with its Continental neighbours provides perspective, if scant comfort, for its readers. Celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the Wolfson History Prize include a series of free events , which will see expert panels discuss key themes in history. You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here.

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. I’m so grateful, not only to the Wolfson Foundation, but also to the large numbers of undergraduates and postgraduates with whom I’ve discussed seventeenth-century England over many years, as well as colleagues at Trinity Hall and in the Cambridge History Faculty for endlessly stimulating conversations and encouragement.”This is graphically demonstrated in the chapter covering 1678-1683, where the following information is provided. The period is bookended at one end by the beheading of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots and Englands’s 1588 narrow escape from the Spanish Armada. At the other end is the “Glorious Rebellion,” which deposed James Il and Vll and replaced him with his daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange. The centerpiece of the era is the violent and destructive English civil war resulting in the regicide of Charles I, something that caused tidal waves around Europe. 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.” However, the detail was completely beyond me .... and Im afraid I skimmed quite a lot of it as i couldnt retain so many names (especially as they were often the same names for different people).

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 This is a mammoth volume which tells, in great detail, the story of what is (for me) a less familiar period of British History- the 17th Century. 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. Alongside this basic geopolitical dimension, there are are other major dimensions of contention: not least religion (Catholicism, Protestantism, of course - but also Presbyterianism, a little Orthodox, and even Islam). But there are also the complications arising from economics - which was variously a constraint on action, but also used to fuel support and agreements - and intermarriages that cut across, compromise and complicate the geopolitics and religious commitments: the Stuart kings were married in sequence with the countries of Denmark, France, Spain, and Italy, for example. Constantijn Huygens would be particularly dismayed by the butchering of his surname! ‘Hogans’! What the hell is that?? It should sound in Dutch like ‘Howhens’. ‘G’ in Dutch is sounded like an English ‘h’ for many words. I’ll give one last terrible pronunciation which has made me end this book prematurely and sadly. It was “Bogusław Radziwiłł”, a Polish personage. The narrator pronounced it ‘Boguslore Radziwill’. It shoud be ‘Boguswaf Radgiview’ in English spelling pronunciation. The ‘ł’ has a notch across its length for a reason, Emma.I think, however, her account of Scotland’s James VI’s intrigues to become England’s James I (and of Elizabeth I’s opacity on the matter of her successor) is more complete than anything I have read elsewhere. Devil-Landis a masterpiece of historical writing: a gripping book that brings to life the drama of 17th-century England, a time of rebellion, regicide and civil war. A masterpiece that will change our view of the 17th century. Exciting and well-written, it provides fresh insights by looking at England through European eyes.'