Devil-Land: England Under Siege, 1588-1688

Product Information

The way in which decisions in London were shaped, and often determined, by events in France, Spain and the Dutch Republic, among others, is clearly driven home here, to good effect. This dazzling, original and hugely engaging book tells the story of a nation in a state of near continual crisis.

Dissecting a nation’s endemic fears, anxieties and insecurities, Devil-Land’s account is bookended by two foreign invasion attempts. Sometimes the novels chosen are new, often they are from the backlist and occasionally re-issued from way back.As one of these observers notes, James VI came to the throne ‘as quietly as could possibly be desired’. Since dynastic, diplomatic and economic decisions were invariably inflected by confessional choices, ‘get that wrong, and the nation would literally go to the Devil’. United in condemnation they may have been, but Spanish disapproval could be far removed from Dutch criticism, and the differences in these people’s identities and political agendas is at times rather lost to sight as the litany of disasters unfolds.

If you are looking for an update on the political and military history of seventeenth century England / Britain, this book is not for you. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. To many foreigner observers, 17th-century England was 'Devil-Land': a country riven by political faction, religious difference, financial ruin and royal collapse.Bewilderment at the doings of the English may be the kindest way to describe their response to what they observed - certainly then, maybe still. As an unmarried heretic with no heir, Elizabeth I was regarded with horror by Catholic Europe, while her Stuart successors, James I and Charles I, were seen as impecunious and incompetent, unable to manage their three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland. Clare Jackson offers some acute insights on an era of failure and ferment , weaving together an impressive narrative of a time when the English seemed suddenly to have lost their minds.

The negative tone of the book as a whole is heavily influenced by the fact that such judgements tended to be of the more gloomy variety. As an unmarried heretic with no heir, Elizabeth I was regarded with horror by Catholic Europe, while her Stuart successors, James I and VI of Scotland and Charles I, were seen as impecunious and incompetent, unable to manage their three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland.Starting on the eve of the Spanish Armada's descent in 1588 and concluding with a not-so 'Glorious Revolution' a hundred years later, Devil-Land is a spectacular reinterpretation of England's vexed and enthralling past. If foreign observers found 17th-century Britain infuriating, ‘its political infrastructure weak, its inhabitants capricious and its intentions impossible to fathom’, it was at least in part because they did not really know what they were talking about. But to keep ourselves on our toes, we have a rule that author gender is alternated, girl-boy-girl-boy, and the continents always rotated (with occasional glitches).