Devil-Land: England Under Siege, 1588-1688

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Mind you, the abuse could travel in both directions, and not necessarily over a great distance. Apparently there is a thing known as bdelygmia (my Shorter Oxford does not confirm it, but Wikipedia does), and apparently a good example was written about the Scots: 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.

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. This dazzling, original and hugely engaging book tells the story of a nation in a state of near continual crisis. To many foreigner observers, seventeenth-century England was 'Devil-Land': a country riven by political faction, religious difference, financial ruin and royal collapse. Now in its 50th year, the Wolfson History Prize is awarded annually by the Wolfson Foundation to a work of historical non-fiction which combines excellence in research and writing with readability for a general audience.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.

It is apparent that Cromwell was regarded as even more of a bumpkin by the courts of Europe: he had, after all, no connection to the high aristocracy and was apparently monolingual (although as a student of Sydney Sussex College, Cambridge, he must have had functional Latin). A very interesting view of a very turbulent time in (mainly) English history, from the viewpoint of our European neighbours. Spoiler alert - they mainly regarded the country as being chaotic and ungovernable. 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 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.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. 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. 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’.