This book has had a long gestation. Its foundations were laid while I was still working primarily on early modern Cheshire and its palatinate. In that sense it owes something to those influences at school and college which inspired and provoked me to explore the centralist assumptions of English and British history: teaching such as that of Nick Henshall, and the chance to work with Penry Williams, Chris Haigh, Cliff Davies and Steve Gunn in particular. It has, however, largely been researched and written while I have had the good fortune to work for the University of Huddersfield, where I have been stimulated by teaching and administration in an institution committed to widening opportunities in education to think further not just about the mechanics of power and influence, and of the relationships of ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’, but those of past and future, and of elite and non-elite. The majority of the later research and writing up was achieved only thanks to a sabbatical granted by the University and made possible by the generosity of my colleagues in History there, supplemented by a Research Leave award from the then Arts and Humanities Research Board. Coming after an intense period of work as Head of History, that sabbatical was an opportunity I seized on with particular relish. During the earlier part of that period my former colleague Bertrand Taithe was a particularly stimulating influence on the development of my ideas; Professors Keith Laybourn, Bill Stafford and David Taylor have all been consistent in their support for this element of my work as an integral part of my role.