Tag: Political History
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Toppling Tyrants: Early Medieval Approaches to Regime Change
By Harry Mawdsley “[He] had very little sense. He conducted all his affairs without paying the slightest heed, till at length, employing a heavy hand against [his subjects], he was the cause of violent hatred and outrage among them” Such was the damning description of Childeric II’s reign in Francia by one early medieval chronicler.…
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Celebrating the Accession Day of Elizabeth I of England, 1558 and Beyond
By Aidan Norrie On 17 November 1558, Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, succeeded to the throne of England and Ireland upon the death of her half-sister Mary I. She was England’s fourth monarch in eleven years (or fifth, if Jane Grey is counted), and it is not unreasonable to claim that her…
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Healing the Whig schism: 300 years on
Robin Eagles Fractures within political parties are nothing new. In 1717, the apparent unity that the Hanoverian accession had instilled in the Whigs came to an end amid infighting over direction of policy and disagreement over who was to hold what post in the new administration.[1] It was a fissure that was to last almost…
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How to run a country: Early modern style.
C. Annemieke Romein Let us assume you are governing an early modern ’country’: how should you provide order? How do you keep its inhabitants safe? And how might you organise governance and policy-making? Most researchers who deal with these questions tend to focus on principalities or kingdoms. With this blog post I would like to…
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