For almost 20 years, Bloomsbury Square has been the home to the History of Parliament. In the latest post for the Georgian Lords, Dr Robin Eagles considers the history of the square in one of its most turbulent periods. Bloomsbury Square, and its immediate surroundings, have long been associated with prominent political figures. In 1706, several peers had residences in the square, notably the (2nd) … Continue reading Bloomsbury Square and the Gordon Riots
In this blog, Dr Alex Beeton reviews a fascinating colloquium, held recently at the History of Parliament’s office in Bloomsbury Square. In the early modern period, both England’s Church and its Parliament changed. A Catholic country split from Rome and the importance and prominence of the two Houses of Parliament dramatically increased. These two seismic shifts were not isolated from one another. Parliament’s role in … Continue reading Parliament and the Church, c.1530-c.1630
Today (13 April) marks the anniversary of the Roman Catholic Relief Act gaining royal assent in 1829, which removed many of the barriers restricting Roman Catholics from sitting in Parliament. However, as Dr Philip Salmon of the Victorian Commons explores, hostility to Catholics continued despite their emancipation … It may seem surprising to some that popular anti-Catholic sentiment continued to flourish in the decades after … Continue reading Catholics in the Commons after emancipation
The Shropshire church of Kinlet stands isolated in parkland, the village it once served re-sited in the early-eighteenth century on the building of the still-extant Kinlet Hall. It contains a fine series of memorials, the two earliest of which mark the end of one Kinlet dynasty, the Cornwalls, and the beginning of another, the Blounts. The first commemorates an early-fifteenth century heiress of the manor, … Continue reading The story of a manor in memorials: the early tombs in the Shropshire church of Kinlet
In this guest post, Dr Jonathan Fitzgibbons of Lincoln University, looks at a constitutional issue from the 1650s with obvious contemporary relevance: the place of the House of Lords. As politicians continue to debate the House of Lords’ future, including legislation to eliminate its remaining hereditary peers, they might draw lessons from its past. Particularly instructive are the events of the English Revolution, which saw … Continue reading Oliver Cromwell’s ‘Other House’ and the perils of Lords ‘reform’
Henry Benedict, Cardinal York (1725-1807), born 300 years ago this March, was the last member of the royal family to take an active role in a papal Conclave, when he participated in the election of Pope Pius VII at Venice in 1800. Dr Robin Eagles investigates how he found himself in that position… On 6 March 1725, Pope Benedict XIII (1724-30) was roused from a … Continue reading The Last of the Jacobites: Henry Benedict
On 6 April 1580, as Queen Elizabeth I was taking the air in the fields around Whitehall, south-east England experienced its greatest seismic event for two hundred years. Dr Andrew Thrush, editor of our Elizabethan House of Lords project, explains… On a clear, calm evening in April 1580, south-eastern England, as well as the Low Countries and parts of northern France and Germany, were struck … Continue reading The 1580 Dover Straits Earthquake
In our first ‘Revolutionary Stuart Parliaments‘ article of 2025, Editor of the 1640-60 House of Lords section, Dr David Scott, considers the leading parliamentarian peer, Viscount Saye and Sele, and his relationship with the archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud. ‘The Warre was begun in our streets before the King or Parliament had any Armies’ concluded the renowned church leader Richard Baxter about the outbreak of … Continue reading Lord Saye and Sele and the Battle for Oxford
For the first article of 2025, Dr Simon Payling of our Commons 1461-1504 Section, explores the use of a unique form of medieval defamation law in the early 16th century. Hugh Oldham (c.1450-1519), bishop of Exeter from 1505, has had a good press from historians. Described by the Exeter MP and chronicler, John Hooker alias Vowell (d. 1601), ‘as a great favourer and a friend … Continue reading Hugh Oldham, bishop of Exeter, ‘hath more poison in that grete fowle bely of hys then all the Bysshoppes in Englond’: scandalum magnatum in early-sixteenth century England
Richard Bancroft is well known to students of late Elizabethan and Jacobean England. A relentless enemy to nonconformist puritans, Bancroft served first as bishop of London (1597-1604) and then as archbishop of Canterbury (1604-1610). However, towards the end of Elizabeth’s reign this familiar prelate’s ecclesiastical career was briefly interrupted by a little known diplomatic episode, as Dr Andrew Thrush, the editor of our Elizabethan House … Continue reading Richard Bancroft and the English mission to Emden, 1600
