Political

D.G.C. Allan introduces the eleven Secretaries of State employed by Charles II, who reflect in the variety of their personalities, the social brilliance and the shifting policies of the Restoration Age.

J.H. Burns writes that few men have had a more decisive influence on the history of Scotland than John Knox. At what point in his career did he make up his mind to use his religious authority for political purposes, in order to bring down the “idolatrous sovereignties” that he saw around him? And why did he thus, almost unwittingly, become a revolutionary?

Edmund Baker describes how Cromwell's principal assistant in foreign affairs and his most devoted friend, Thurloe, saw in the Protectoral system “a mean between two intolerable extremes of unrestrained anarchy and reaction.”

It is difficult to estimate how many English During the resplendent reign of Louis XIV, many English travellers explored Versailles—among them a philosopher, a famous bishop, a great architect and a gifted diplomatist-poet. Claire-Elaine Engel describes how each has left some vivid personal impressions of the court that revolved around the Sun King.

E. Badian writes that the efforts of Antiochus Epiphanes to Hellenize his dominions led to a revolt in Judaea under the leadership of the Hasmonaean house, known as the Maccabees, who succeeded in re-asserting Jewish law and the Jewish religion in traditional form.

Dorothy Margaret Stuart introduces a grandee at the court of Edward IV, a warrior both on land and sea, and the first patron of English printing; Earl Rivers, who met his death in the sinister Castle of Pontefract at the orders of Richard III. 

Meyrick H. Carré studies the reasons that led Francis Bacon, the distinguished philosopher and man of letters, to become in his political career a vehement upholder of absolute royal authority.

Cecil secured the peaceful accession of the Stuarts and strove with near success, Joel Hurstfield writes, to solve the vexatious problems that confronted the new dynasty in England and upon the European scene.

Dorothy Margaret Stuart gives the political background of the career of Joan of Arc, when France was enfeebled by foreign invasion and civil strife, and the Duchy of Burgundy had almost achieved the status of an independent European power.

Twenty-three crucial years in English history were covered by the arch-episcopate of Thomas Cranmer, whose most enduring monument is the English Book of Common Prayer. By H.A.L. Rice.