This is a major survey of how towns were governed in late Stuart and early Hanoverian England. England's civil wars in the 1640s broke apart a society that had been used to political consensus. Though all sought unity after the wars ended, a new kind of politics developed--one based on partisan division, arising first in urban communities, not at Parliament. This book explains how war unleashed a long cycle of purge and counter-purge and how society found the means to absorb divisive politics peacefully. Legal changes are explored with reference to the rarely-studied court records of King's Bench, to which local competitors turned for help in resolving their differences.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Preface; List of abbreviations; Part I. Corporate Ideal and Partisan Reality: 1. The paradox of partisan politics; 2. 'The best of politics'; 3. From purge to purge: Civil War, Interregnum, and Restoration in the corporations; 4. Partisan politics, 1663-1682; Part II. The King and his Corporations, 1660-1688: 5. The corporations and their charters, 1660-1682; 6. Quo warranto and the King's corporations, 1682-1685; 7. Revolution in the corporations, 1685-1688; Part III. Partisan Conflict and the Law in a Dynamic Society: 8. The legacy of the 1680s; 9. Partisan conflict and political stability, 1702-1727; 10. 1660, 1688, 1727, and beyond; Select bibliography; Index.
