23 results
Rebellion: Britain’s First Stuart Kings, 1567–1642. Tim Harris. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. xvii + 588 pp. $45.
- Diana Newton
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- Journal:
- Renaissance Quarterly / Volume 69 / Issue 1 / Spring 2016
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 20 November 2018, pp. 311-312
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- Spring 2016
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St Cuthbert: Durham's Tutelarie Deitie
- Diana Newton
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- Journal:
- Recusant History / Volume 31 / Issue 3 / May 2013
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 16 February 2015, pp. 439-459
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- May 2013
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The cult of St Cuthbert was central to the regional identity of north-eastern England with its inhabitants termed the haliwerfolc, or ‘people of the saint’ (Cuthbert). The saint became crucial to the liturgical practices and celebrations of Durham's clerical and secular communities as well as being a guarantor of martial victories; usually against the Scots. However, with the cult of saints an early victim of the Reformation launched by Henry VIII in the 1530s, the outlook for St Cuthbert's legacy became increasingly uncertain. Attachment to the saint's memory became inextricably entwined with Durham's pre-Reformation history as commemoration of the cult, rather than the saint, took on more significance. This article looks at how St Cuthbert's historians and other antiquaries regularly manipulated his legend to satisfy different purposes and circumstances; so that completely different perspectives on Cuthbert and his cult have emerged over the centuries since the Reformation. But, throughout the changing interpretations of St Cuthbert's story his significance in Durham remains unchallenged.
Anna Rossiter, Hexham in the Seventeenth Century: Economy, Society and Government in a Northern Market Town. Hexham: Hexham Local History Society, 2010. viii + 302pp. 29 tables. 17 maps and illustrations. 8 figures. Bibliography. £25.00 hbk, £15.00 pbk. £10.00 digital download.
- Diana Newton
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- Journal:
- Urban History / Volume 37 / Issue 3 / December 2010
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 15 November 2010, pp. 483-484
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- December 2010
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Contributors
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- By Rose Teteki Abbey, K. C. Abraham, David Tuesday Adamo, LeRoy H. Aden, Efrain Agosto, Victor Aguilan, Gillian T. W. Ahlgren, Charanjit Kaur AjitSingh, Dorothy B E A Akoto, Giuseppe Alberigo, Daniel E. Albrecht, Ruth Albrecht, Daniel O. Aleshire, Urs Altermatt, Anand Amaladass, Michael Amaladoss, James N. Amanze, Lesley G. Anderson, Thomas C. Anderson, Victor Anderson, Hope S. Antone, María Pilar Aquino, Paula Arai, Victorio Araya Guillén, S. Wesley Ariarajah, Ellen T. Armour, Brett Gregory Armstrong, Atsuhiro Asano, Naim Stifan Ateek, Mahmoud Ayoub, John Alembillah Azumah, Mercedes L. García Bachmann, Irena Backus, J. Wayne Baker, Mieke Bal, Lewis V. Baldwin, William Barbieri, António Barbosa da Silva, David Basinger, Bolaji Olukemi Bateye, Oswald Bayer, Daniel H. Bays, Rosalie Beck, Nancy Elizabeth Bedford, Guy-Thomas Bedouelle, Chorbishop Seely Beggiani, Wolfgang Behringer, Christopher M. Bellitto, Byard Bennett, Harold V. Bennett, Teresa Berger, Miguel A. Bernad, Henley Bernard, Alan E. Bernstein, Jon L. Berquist, Johannes Beutler, Ana María Bidegain, Matthew P. Binkewicz, Jennifer Bird, Joseph Blenkinsopp, Dmytro Bondarenko, Paulo Bonfatti, Riet en Pim Bons-Storm, Jessica A. Boon, Marcus J. Borg, Mark Bosco, Peter C. Bouteneff, François Bovon, William D. Bowman, Paul S. Boyer, David Brakke, Richard E. Brantley, Marcus Braybrooke, Ian Breward, Ênio José da Costa Brito, Jewel Spears Brooker, Johannes Brosseder, Nicholas Canfield Read Brown, Robert F. Brown, Pamela K. Brubaker, Walter Brueggemann, Bishop Colin O. Buchanan, Stanley M. Burgess, Amy Nelson Burnett, J. Patout Burns, David B. Burrell, David Buttrick, James P. Byrd, Lavinia Byrne, Gerado Caetano, Marcos Caldas, Alkiviadis Calivas, William J. Callahan, Salvatore Calomino, Euan K. Cameron, William S. Campbell, Marcelo Ayres Camurça, Daniel F. Caner, Paul E. Capetz, Carlos F. Cardoza-Orlandi, Patrick W. Carey, Barbara Carvill, Hal Cauthron, Subhadra Mitra Channa, Mark D. Chapman, James H. Charlesworth, Kenneth R. Chase, Chen Zemin, Luciano Chianeque, Philip Chia Phin Yin, Francisca H. Chimhanda, Daniel Chiquete, John T. Chirban, Soobin Choi, Robert Choquette, Mita Choudhury, Gerald Christianson, John Chryssavgis, Sejong Chun, Esther Chung-Kim, Charles M. A. Clark, Elizabeth A. Clark, Sathianathan Clarke, Fred Cloud, John B. Cobb, W. Owen Cole, John A Coleman, John J. Collins, Sylvia Collins-Mayo, Paul K. Conkin, Beth A. Conklin, Sean Connolly, Demetrios J. Constantelos, Michael A. Conway, Paula M. Cooey, Austin Cooper, Michael L. Cooper-White, Pamela Cooper-White, L. William Countryman, Sérgio Coutinho, Pamela Couture, Shannon Craigo-Snell, James L. Crenshaw, David Crowner, Humberto Horacio Cucchetti, Lawrence S. Cunningham, Elizabeth Mason Currier, Emmanuel Cutrone, Mary L. Daniel, David D. Daniels, Robert Darden, Rolf Darge, Isaiah Dau, Jeffry C. Davis, Jane Dawson, Valentin Dedji, John W. de Gruchy, Paul DeHart, Wendy J. Deichmann Edwards, Miguel A. De La Torre, George E. Demacopoulos, Thomas de Mayo, Leah DeVun, Beatriz de Vasconcellos Dias, Dennis C. Dickerson, John M. Dillon, Luis Miguel Donatello, Igor Dorfmann-Lazarev, Susanna Drake, Jonathan A. Draper, N. Dreher Martin, Otto Dreydoppel, Angelyn Dries, A. J. Droge, Francis X. D'Sa, Marilyn Dunn, Nicole Wilkinson Duran, Rifaat Ebied, Mark J. Edwards, William H. Edwards, Leonard H. Ehrlich, Nancy L. Eiesland, Martin Elbel, J. Harold Ellens, Stephen Ellingson, Marvin M. Ellison, Robert Ellsberg, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Eldon Jay Epp, Peter C. Erb, Tassilo Erhardt, Maria Erling, Noel Leo Erskine, Gillian R. Evans, Virginia Fabella, Michael A. Fahey, Edward Farley, Margaret A. Farley, Wendy Farley, Robert Fastiggi, Seena Fazel, Duncan S. Ferguson, Helwar Figueroa, Paul Corby Finney, Kyriaki Karidoyanes FitzGerald, Thomas E. FitzGerald, John R. Fitzmier, Marie Therese Flanagan, Sabina Flanagan, Claude Flipo, Ronald B. Flowers, Carole Fontaine, David Ford, Mary Ford, Stephanie A. Ford, Jim Forest, William Franke, Robert M. Franklin, Ruth Franzén, Edward H. Friedman, Samuel Frouisou, Lorelei F. Fuchs, Jojo M. Fung, Inger Furseth, Richard R. Gaillardetz, Brandon Gallaher, China Galland, Mark Galli, Ismael García, Tharscisse Gatwa, Jean-Marie Gaudeul, Luis María Gavilanes del Castillo, Pavel L. Gavrilyuk, Volney P. Gay, Metropolitan Athanasios Geevargis, Kondothra M. George, Mary Gerhart, Simon Gikandi, Maurice Gilbert, Michael J. Gillgannon, Verónica Giménez Beliveau, Terryl Givens, Beth Glazier-McDonald, Philip Gleason, Menghun Goh, Brian Golding, Bishop Hilario M. Gomez, Michelle A. Gonzalez, Donald K. Gorrell, Roy Gottfried, Tamara Grdzelidze, Joel B. Green, Niels Henrik Gregersen, Cristina Grenholm, Herbert Griffiths, Eric W. Gritsch, Erich S. Gruen, Christoffer H. Grundmann, Paul H. Gundani, Jon P. Gunnemann, Petre Guran, Vidar L. Haanes, Jeremiah M. Hackett, Getatchew Haile, Douglas John Hall, Nicholas Hammond, Daphne Hampson, Jehu J. Hanciles, Barry Hankins, Jennifer Haraguchi, Stanley S. Harakas, Anthony John Harding, Conrad L. Harkins, J. William Harmless, Marjory Harper, Amir Harrak, Joel F. Harrington, Mark W. Harris, Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Van A. Harvey, R. Chris Hassel, Jione Havea, Daniel Hawk, Diana L. Hayes, Leslie Hayes, Priscilla Hayner, S. Mark Heim, Simo Heininen, Richard P. Heitzenrater, Eila Helander, David Hempton, Scott H. Hendrix, Jan-Olav Henriksen, Gina Hens-Piazza, Carter Heyward, Nicholas J. Higham, David Hilliard, Norman A. Hjelm, Peter C. Hodgson, Arthur Holder, M. Jan Holton, Dwight N. Hopkins, Ronnie Po-chia Hsia, Po-Ho Huang, James Hudnut-Beumler, Jennifer S. Hughes, Leonard M. Hummel, Mary E. Hunt, Laennec Hurbon, Mark Hutchinson, Susan E. Hylen, Mary Beth Ingham, H. Larry Ingle, Dale T. Irvin, Jon Isaak, Paul John Isaak, Ada María Isasi-Díaz, Hans Raun Iversen, Margaret C. Jacob, Arthur James, Maria Jansdotter-Samuelsson, David Jasper, Werner G. Jeanrond, Renée Jeffery, David Lyle Jeffrey, Theodore W. Jennings, David H. Jensen, Robin Margaret Jensen, David Jobling, Dale A. Johnson, Elizabeth A. Johnson, Maxwell E. Johnson, Sarah Johnson, Mark D. Johnston, F. Stanley Jones, James William Jones, John R. Jones, Alissa Jones Nelson, Inge Jonsson, Jan Joosten, Elizabeth Judd, Mulambya Peggy Kabonde, Robert Kaggwa, Sylvester Kahakwa, Isaac Kalimi, Ogbu U. Kalu, Eunice Kamaara, Wayne C. Kannaday, Musimbi Kanyoro, Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Frank Kaufmann, Léon Nguapitshi Kayongo, Richard Kearney, Alice A. Keefe, Ralph Keen, Catherine Keller, Anthony J. Kelly, Karen Kennelly, Kathi Lynn Kern, Fergus Kerr, Edward Kessler, George Kilcourse, Heup Young Kim, Kim Sung-Hae, Kim Yong-Bock, Kim Yung Suk, Richard King, Thomas M. King, Robert M. Kingdon, Ross Kinsler, Hans G. Kippenberg, Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan, Clifton Kirkpatrick, Leonid Kishkovsky, Nadieszda Kizenko, Jeffrey Klaiber, Hans-Josef Klauck, Sidney Knight, Samuel Kobia, Robert Kolb, Karla Ann Koll, Heikki Kotila, Donald Kraybill, Philip D. W. Krey, Yves Krumenacker, Jeffrey Kah-Jin Kuan, Simanga R. Kumalo, Peter Kuzmic, Simon Shui-Man Kwan, Kwok Pui-lan, André LaCocque, Stephen E. Lahey, John Tsz Pang Lai, Emiel Lamberts, Armando Lampe, Craig Lampe, Beverly J. Lanzetta, Eve LaPlante, Lizette Larson-Miller, Ariel Bybee Laughton, Leonard Lawlor, Bentley Layton, Robin A. Leaver, Karen Lebacqz, Archie Chi Chung Lee, Marilyn J. Legge, Hervé LeGrand, D. L. LeMahieu, Raymond Lemieux, Bill J. Leonard, Ellen M. Leonard, Outi Leppä, Jean Lesaulnier, Nantawan Boonprasat Lewis, Henrietta Leyser, Alexei Lidov, Bernard Lightman, Paul Chang-Ha Lim, Carter Lindberg, Mark R. Lindsay, James R. Linville, James C. Livingston, Ann Loades, David Loades, Jean-Claude Loba-Mkole, Lo Lung Kwong, Wati Longchar, Eleazar López, David W. Lotz, Andrew Louth, Robin W. Lovin, William Luis, Frank D. Macchia, Diarmaid N. J. MacCulloch, Kirk R. MacGregor, Marjory A. MacLean, Donald MacLeod, Tomas S. Maddela, Inge Mager, Laurenti Magesa, David G. Maillu, Fortunato Mallimaci, Philip Mamalakis, Kä Mana, Ukachukwu Chris Manus, Herbert Robinson Marbury, Reuel Norman Marigza, Jacqueline Mariña, Antti Marjanen, Luiz C. L. Marques, Madipoane Masenya (ngwan'a Mphahlele), Caleb J. D. Maskell, Steve Mason, Thomas Massaro, Fernando Matamoros Ponce, András Máté-Tóth, Odair Pedroso Mateus, Dinis Matsolo, Fumitaka Matsuoka, John D'Arcy May, Yelena Mazour-Matusevich, Theodore Mbazumutima, John S. McClure, Christian McConnell, Lee Martin McDonald, Gary B. McGee, Thomas McGowan, Alister E. McGrath, Richard J. McGregor, John A. McGuckin, Maud Burnett McInerney, Elsie Anne McKee, Mary B. McKinley, James F. McMillan, Ernan McMullin, Kathleen E. McVey, M. Douglas Meeks, Monica Jyotsna Melanchthon, Ilie Melniciuc-Puica, Everett Mendoza, Raymond A. Mentzer, William W. Menzies, Ina Merdjanova, Franziska Metzger, Constant J. Mews, Marvin Meyer, Carol Meyers, Vasile Mihoc, Gunner Bjerg Mikkelsen, Maria Inêz de Castro Millen, Clyde Lee Miller, Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, Alexander Mirkovic, Paul Misner, Nozomu Miyahira, R. W. L. Moberly, Gerald Moede, Aloo Osotsi Mojola, Sunanda Mongia, Rebeca Montemayor, James Moore, Roger E. Moore, Craig E. Morrison O.Carm, Jeffry H. Morrison, Keith Morrison, Wilson J. Moses, Tefetso Henry Mothibe, Mokgethi Motlhabi, Fulata Moyo, Henry Mugabe, Jesse Ndwiga Kanyua Mugambi, Peggy Mulambya-Kabonde, Robert Bruce Mullin, Pamela Mullins Reaves, Saskia Murk Jansen, Heleen L. Murre-Van den Berg, Augustine Musopole, Isaac M. T. Mwase, Philomena Mwaura, Cecilia Nahnfeldt, Anne Nasimiyu Wasike, Carmiña Navia Velasco, Thulani Ndlazi, Alexander Negrov, James B. Nelson, David G. Newcombe, Carol Newsom, Helen J. Nicholson, George W. E. Nickelsburg, Tatyana Nikolskaya, Damayanthi M. A. Niles, Bertil Nilsson, Nyambura Njoroge, Fidelis Nkomazana, Mary Beth Norton, Christian Nottmeier, Sonene Nyawo, Anthère Nzabatsinda, Edward T. Oakes, Gerald O'Collins, Daniel O'Connell, David W. Odell-Scott, Mercy Amba Oduyoye, Kathleen O'Grady, Oyeronke Olajubu, Thomas O'Loughlin, Dennis T. Olson, J. Steven O'Malley, Cephas N. Omenyo, Muriel Orevillo-Montenegro, César Augusto Ornellas Ramos, Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator, Kenan B. Osborne, Carolyn Osiek, Javier Otaola Montagne, Douglas F. Ottati, Anna May Say Pa, Irina Paert, Jerry G. Pankhurst, Aristotle Papanikolaou, Samuele F. Pardini, Stefano Parenti, Peter Paris, Sung Bae Park, Cristián G. Parker, Raquel Pastor, Joseph Pathrapankal, Daniel Patte, W. Brown Patterson, Clive Pearson, Keith F. Pecklers, Nancy Cardoso Pereira, David Horace Perkins, Pheme Perkins, Edward N. Peters, Rebecca Todd Peters, Bishop Yeznik Petrossian, Raymond Pfister, Peter C. Phan, Isabel Apawo Phiri, William S. F. Pickering, Derrick G. Pitard, William Elvis Plata, Zlatko Plese, John Plummer, James Newton Poling, Ronald Popivchak, Andrew Porter, Ute Possekel, James M. Powell, Enos Das Pradhan, Devadasan Premnath, Jaime Adrían Prieto Valladares, Anne Primavesi, Randall Prior, María Alicia Puente Lutteroth, Eduardo Guzmão Quadros, Albert Rabil, Laurent William Ramambason, Apolonio M. Ranche, Vololona Randriamanantena Andriamitandrina, Lawrence R. Rast, Paul L. Redditt, Adele Reinhartz, Rolf Rendtorff, Pål Repstad, James N. Rhodes, John K. Riches, Joerg Rieger, Sharon H. Ringe, Sandra Rios, Tyler Roberts, David M. Robinson, James M. Robinson, Joanne Maguire Robinson, Richard A. H. Robinson, Roy R. Robson, Jack B. Rogers, Maria Roginska, Sidney Rooy, Rev. Garnett Roper, Maria José Fontelas Rosado-Nunes, Andrew C. Ross, Stefan Rossbach, François Rossier, John D. Roth, John K. Roth, Phillip Rothwell, Richard E. Rubenstein, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Markku Ruotsila, John E. Rybolt, Risto Saarinen, John Saillant, Juan Sanchez, Wagner Lopes Sanchez, Hugo N. Santos, Gerhard Sauter, Gloria L. Schaab, Sandra M. Schneiders, Quentin J. Schultze, Fernando F. Segovia, Turid Karlsen Seim, Carsten Selch Jensen, Alan P. F. Sell, Frank C. Senn, Kent Davis Sensenig, Damían Setton, Bal Krishna Sharma, Carolyn J. Sharp, Thomas Sheehan, N. Gerald Shenk, Christian Sheppard, Charles Sherlock, Tabona Shoko, Walter B. Shurden, Marguerite Shuster, B. Mark Sietsema, Batara Sihombing, Neil Silberman, Clodomiro Siller, Samuel Silva-Gotay, Heikki Silvet, John K. Simmons, Hagith Sivan, James C. Skedros, Abraham Smith, Ashley A. Smith, Ted A. Smith, Daud Soesilo, Pia Søltoft, Choan-Seng (C. S.) Song, Kathryn Spink, Bryan Spinks, Eric O. Springsted, Nicolas Standaert, Brian Stanley, Glen H. Stassen, Karel Steenbrink, Stephen J. Stein, Andrea Sterk, Gregory E. Sterling, Columba Stewart, Jacques Stewart, Robert B. Stewart, Cynthia Stokes Brown, Ken Stone, Anne Stott, Elizabeth Stuart, Monya Stubbs, Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, David Kwang-sun Suh, Scott W. Sunquist, Keith Suter, Douglas Sweeney, Charles H. Talbert, Shawqi N. Talia, Elsa Tamez, Joseph B. Tamney, Jonathan Y. Tan, Yak-Hwee Tan, Kathryn Tanner, Feiya Tao, Elizabeth S. Tapia, Aquiline Tarimo, Claire Taylor, Mark Lewis Taylor, Bishop Abba Samuel Wolde Tekestebirhan, Eugene TeSelle, M. Thomas Thangaraj, David R. Thomas, Andrew Thornley, Scott Thumma, Marcelo Timotheo da Costa, George E. “Tink” Tinker, Ola Tjørhom, Karen Jo Torjesen, Iain R. Torrance, Fernando Torres-Londoño, Archbishop Demetrios [Trakatellis], Marit Trelstad, Christine Trevett, Phyllis Trible, Johannes Tromp, Paul Turner, Robert G. Tuttle, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Peter Tyler, Anders Tyrberg, Justin Ukpong, Javier Ulloa, Camillus Umoh, Kristi Upson-Saia, Martina Urban, Monica Uribe, Elochukwu Eugene Uzukwu, Richard Vaggione, Gabriel Vahanian, Paul Valliere, T. J. Van Bavel, Steven Vanderputten, Peter Van der Veer, Huub Van de Sandt, Louis Van Tongeren, Luke A. Veronis, Noel Villalba, Ramón Vinke, Tim Vivian, David Voas, Elena Volkova, Katharina von Kellenbach, Elina Vuola, Timothy Wadkins, Elaine M. Wainwright, Randi Jones Walker, Dewey D. Wallace, Jerry Walls, Michael J. Walsh, Philip Walters, Janet Walton, Jonathan L. Walton, Wang Xiaochao, Patricia A. Ward, David Harrington Watt, Herold D. Weiss, Laurence L. Welborn, Sharon D. Welch, Timothy Wengert, Traci C. West, Merold Westphal, David Wetherell, Barbara Wheeler, Carolinne White, Jean-Paul Wiest, Frans Wijsen, Terry L. Wilder, Felix Wilfred, Rebecca Wilkin, Daniel H. Williams, D. Newell Williams, Michael A. Williams, Vincent L. Wimbush, Gabriele Winkler, Anders Winroth, Lauri Emílio Wirth, James A. Wiseman, Ebba Witt-Brattström, Teofil Wojciechowski, John Wolffe, Kenman L. Wong, Wong Wai Ching, Linda Woodhead, Wendy M. Wright, Rose Wu, Keith E. Yandell, Gale A. Yee, Viktor Yelensky, Yeo Khiok-Khng, Gustav K. K. Yeung, Angela Yiu, Amos Yong, Yong Ting Jin, You Bin, Youhanna Nessim Youssef, Eliana Yunes, Robert Michael Zaller, Valarie H. Ziegler, Barbara Brown Zikmund, Joyce Ann Zimmerman, Aurora Zlotnik, Zhuo Xinping
- Edited by Daniel Patte, Vanderbilt University, Tennessee
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- Book:
- The Cambridge Dictionary of Christianity
- Published online:
- 05 August 2012
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- 20 September 2010, pp xi-xliv
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2 - Borders and Bishopric: Regional Identities in the Pre-Modern North East, 1559-1620
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- By Diana Newton
- Edited by Adrian Green, Durham University, A. J. Pollard
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- Book:
- Regional Identities in North-East England, 1300-2000
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 10 March 2023
- Print publication:
- 16 November 2007, pp 49-70
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Summary
An anonymous appraisal ‘concerning the abused government and afflicted estate of Northumberland’, written to the queen late in 1597, opened dramatically and graphically by referring to the county's ‘gastlie visage, her feared hart, and wasted lyms, so tattered and consumed that no man hathe art no[r] no arte hathe tearmes to unfold her diseases’. Even so, the reporter managed a further four pages, cataloguing shortcomings in every aspect of Northumberland life. The Church and religion were inadequately catered for; there was minimal provision of education at all levels; local justice was discharged irregularly and unsatisfactorily; the conduct of trade was not properly regulated; felons were inappropriately bailed; fines were not levied; sheriffs, wardens and their deputies were defrauding the crown of its dues, while the recent commission appointed to inquire into conditions in the middle march was composed of the worst offenders in that respect; the custodians of castles were not resident in them; Scots held tenements in England; days of truce were not held; and the English warden was openly colluding with his Scottish counterpart, to the detriment of the county. Above all, it declared that ‘our deseases are manifold & grievous bothe in bodye, sowle, and abylitie, seaminge tedious to all men, strange to many, and uncurable to the moste; and therefore it is that they are not undertaken, but desparatelie left as unknowen maladies to amend by tyme and leasure, which will destroye the whole bodye’. It was a woeful portrayal of a wretched and beleaguered part of England, which threatened the well-being of the entire kingdom.
The approaches to Durham were regarded by those from further south as similarly dire, albeit expressed in less sensational terms. An account of Toby Matthew's journey from Oxford to take up his appointment as dean of Durham, in 1583, recorded that the excruciatingly awful night spent at an inn in Northallerton confirmed every rumour heard about the North. The noise, the dirt, the hardness of the beds and what was in the beds left the author feeling that three days in prison would have been preferable to that single night.
1 - Introduction: questions of regional identity
- Diana Newton
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- Book:
- North-East England, 1569-1625
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 18 March 2023
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- 17 August 2006, pp 1-21
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Summary
In the final, long, drawn out days of Elizabeth I's life, Sir John Carey, the deputy governor of the garrison town of Berwick, appealed urgently to Sir Robert Cecil, the queen's principal secretary. ‘What should I do here,’ he demanded, ‘not knowing how or for whom to keep this place, being only in the devil’s mouth, a place that will be first assailed, and I not being instructed what course to hold.’ These were perilous times. With no heir to the English throne formally nominated, he was terrified that he would be an early victim should the Scottish king James VI attempt to take England by force on the death of the aged and ailing queen. He was not alone in his unease, for King James himself was conscious that his forces should be in readiness should he need to defend his interest, while rumours were circulating throughout Europe. Sir John, not a native Northumbrian, was also articulating contemporary estimations about the character of north-east England, as remote from central government, ignorant, fiendish, volatile and extremely vulnerable.
In the event King James's entry into England was accomplished remarkably smoothly. It was Sir John Carey's younger brother, Sir Robert, who carried the news of Elizabeth's death (on 24 March 1603) from London to James VI – in a dramatic ride taking less than three days. He took the opportunity to proclaim the new king at Morpeth and Alnwick before calling in on his brother at Berwick who promptly gathered the garrison, mayor, aldermen and burgesses together to hear his ‘short and pithie Oration’ proclaiming the new king of England.
One of James's first acts was to secure Berwick through the agency of the bishop of Holyroodhouse, it being ‘the gate that opened into all his dominions’. James himself progressed into Berwick on 6 April. As he approached, he was met by such a ‘peale of ordinance’ that it set ‘the houses and towers staggering’ while the consequent smoke engulfed the entire town completely obliterating it from view. But, just ‘as all darknesse flyes before the face of the sunne, so did these clouds of smoake and gunpowder vanish at his gracious approach’. The inference may perhaps be drawn that, from a southern perspective, King James would bring enlightenment to a corner of England that was all too capable of plunging itself into darkness and chaos.
Abbreviations
- Diana Newton
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- Book:
- North-East England, 1569-1625
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 18 March 2023
- Print publication:
- 17 August 2006, pp viii-ix
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7 - Cultural identities
- Diana Newton
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- Book:
- North-East England, 1569-1625
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 18 March 2023
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- 17 August 2006, pp 143-162
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According to Mervyn James, the diocese of Durham was ‘saddled’ with a ‘sense of history’. He explained that ‘inevitable decline and “decay” ‘meant they turned to their ancient traditions as a means of escape from the uncertainties of the world in which they lived, and, instead, contemplated the glories of their antiquity. This coincided with a growing interest by the county gentry at large in antiquarian studies, led by scholars such as William Camden, who began compiling his Britannia in the 1570s. In part, the elites’ heightened regard for the ‘past’ was driven by a determination to validate (or even create) their own pedigrees, and was often appropriated by them for precisely that purpose. In county Durham, for example, William Claxton of Wynyard had also been collecting material for a history of Durham since the 1570s, and he was closely involved with the work of the visitation heralds in 1575. However, Claxton was a prominent Catholic, who had been a follower of the earl of Westmorland, and his interest reflected the concerns of many of those of a similar disposition in the diocese of Durham, which had at their heart the cult of St Cuthbert. This, more than anything else, underpinned their conscious memory, from 1569, through the 1590s, into the 1620s, and beyond. But it was not the only manifestation of a distinctive sense of identity experienced by those living in the north-eastern parts of England. The urban centres celebrated religious festivals which simultaneously demonstrated their civic pride and yet another sense of particularity. Increasingly, travelling players came from London to Newcastle, bringing from the metropolis to the north-eastern reaches of the kingdom a version of national culture that commemorated a much wider sense of the ‘past’. Moreover, it has been observed that the people of Northumberland ‘prided themselves on being different from other English folk, projecting their menfolk as a warrior elite’, most notably in ballads – some of which were known throughout the kingdom – which venerated their chivalrous heroism.
Collective memories
In his ‘Apologie for Poetrie’, which appeared in 1595, the widely travelled Sir Philip Sidney noted that it was customary in Hungary for ‘songes of their Auncestors valour’ to be a feature of their ‘Feasts, and other such meetings’. When he came to provide an English equivalent he turned to the kingdom’s north-eastern extremities.
3 - The governance and governors of north-eastern England
- Diana Newton
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- Book:
- North-East England, 1569-1625
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 18 March 2023
- Print publication:
- 17 August 2006, pp 44-65
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It has been argued that, from the tenth century onwards, the English had a strong sense of regnal identity that was predicated on loyalty to a monarch from whom they derived justice and protection. In the sixteenth century this sense of Englishness was made more explicit, as church and state were fused, parliament devised new local structures designed to integrate England economically, socially and legally, and liberties and franchises were abolished. Traditional analyses of Tudor state formation have concentrated on the southern and eastern parts of England and concluded that their centralising policies were ultimately successful. A reassessment of this Tudor policy, however, has disclosed grave shortcomings. The abiding paradox faced by successive monarchs was that ‘[l]ocal conditions demanded a devolution of power, but political experience, ideology, and administrative practice all suggested increased centralization’. The imposition of the highly centralised administrative structures of lowland England on the borderlands led to serious and continuous tensions between central government and local political communities. How this manifested itself in the north-eastern corner of England is the subject of this chapter, together with an analysis of those who were prepared to serve their towns and counties in the capacity of local administrators and agents of central government. For, notwithstanding Braddick's argument that regional identities must be sought outside the frames set by institutional records, the records can be investigated in such a way as to reveal something about the extent to which elites identified with their town and county and whether or not such identification involved any kind of regional dimension. At the same time, it should be noted that the medieval county of Northumberland – created out of the earlier earldom of Northumbria in 1377, which, in turn, emerged out of the ancient kingdom of Northumbria – embraced all those territories between the rivers Tweed and Tees. What emerged as county Durham was technically just one of the liberties within the county. Therefore, when early modern commentators remarked upon Northumberland, it is reasonable to suppose that, on occasion, they might be referring to all, or a swathe, of the two later counties, which continued to be regarded as a convenient whole by the central authorities. All this adds to the difficulties but also to the potential importance of getting to grips with the kaleidoscopic nature of the north-eastern parts of England, then and thereafter.
Acknowledgements
- Diana Newton
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- Book:
- North-East England, 1569-1625
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
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Appendix: Elites of and in the north-eastern counties of England
- Diana Newton
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- North-East England, 1569-1625
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Summary
Family names and places of residence: compiled principally from contemporary heraldsâ visitations and lists of office holders.
Map
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Contents
- Diana Newton
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Frontmatter
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5 - Civil society in north-eastern England
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The Tudors had endeavoured to achieve state formation through the imposition of a general ‘English civility’ upon the whole kingdom. Yet Steve Ellis has argued that their ambitions ultimately were doomed to failure in the marcher societies of the borderlands, especially in Northumberland: a failure, explained by Tudor officials, because its inhabitants were not really civil Englishmen at all. These negative observations were not confined to Northumberland. Mervyn James claimed that it took early modern Durham almost a hundred and fifty years for a (Hobbesian) ‘civil society’ to emerge out of the more archaic society that obtained there: a society which had been dominated by ‘great families’ who exercised authority over the gentry and their dependants. Such dependencies and allegiances were to be replaced by the concept of a hereditary gentility. With its emphasis on order and decorum, it came to be the defining feature of local ascendancy. The defeat of the northern rising, and the removal of the county's most powerful family, the Nevilles, advanced the process, but, even so, it was long and drawn out. Thus, both the north-eastern counties continue to be considered in the historiography as out of step with the rest of the kingdom, although not necessarily in precisely the same respect. Variations within the area may have been more nuanced, or finely drawn, than a simple dichotomy between the administrative counties of Northumberland and Durham, however. Nor can it automatically be assumed that Newcastle conformed to either, or any, of those impressions. At the same time, King James VI of Scotland was encouraging his nobility to adopt the kind of behaviour that was more suited to a Christian and civil society and to abandon their ‘barbarous feidis’, as an ‘exampill to the far Hielandis and Bourdouris, quhair sic forme of unquheit is usit’. On either side of the Anglo-Scottish border, the official discourse stressed the incivility of those living in the vicinity of the borders.
Negative impressions of the north-eastern parts were not confined to the borders: they extended to include the southernmost tip of the bishopric. An account of Toby Matthew's journey from Oxford to take up his appointment as dean of Durham, in 1583, recorded that the excruciatingly awful night spent at an inn in Northallerton confirmed every rumour heard about the North.
8 - Conclusion: regional identity and the elites of north-eastern England
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When William Cuningham wrote his Cosmographical glasse, in 1559, to help readers understand and use astronomy and mathematics for geographical computations, he promised that ‘Regions, Prouinces, Ilandes, Cities, Townes, Villages, Hilles: also the commodities of euerye Countrye, the natures of the Inhabitauntes, Lawes, Rightes, and Customes’ would be ‘exactlye described’. The region, thus, was just one of the geographical terms current in the sixteenth century and only one of several manifestations of the physical space by which the elites of the north-eastern parts of England might have identified themselves. However, the notion of regions was not yet given widespread application. Holinshead dismissed regions as the basis for his Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1576, because they ‘are not yet verie perfectlie knowne unto the learned of these daies’. Not until the later seventeenth century were regions defined spatially according to landscapes. Until then they were regarded as units of regnum, or rule. And, certainly, it was as local governors, in their capacity as justices of the peace, aldermen, deputy lieutenants, sheriffs, mayors and (peculiar to the county and towns of Northumberland) members of parliament that the county gentry and urban oligarchies of England's north-eastern parts engaged with their territory.
A close study of those who elected to serve their communities, by actually turning up to sit on the magisterial bench, or by contributing to parliamentary debates on behalf of their constituents, has demonstrated a clear affinity with, and commitment to, the areas for which they were responsible. But this was firmly based on the county or town, with any sense of identity thus engendered defined accordingly. The concept of regions as a foundation upon which to construct identities remains problematic and would confirm Braddick’s scepticism that regional identity and regionalism (which he takes to mean the mobilisation of such identities for political purposes) can be found in early modern England. His concerns are based on the fact that potential forms of identity are likely to have been ‘transactional and situational’, and therefore indiscernible through ‘institutional structures’. It is precisely because these were expressed in terms of county (or parish or hundred, for those further down the social scale), not region, that problems remain. Broader configurations, such as the Council of the North, and the roughly coterminous ‘province’ or archbishopric of York, might be instructive about northern, but not specifically north-eastern, identities.
Index
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2 - Elites of and in north-eastern England
- Diana Newton
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Elites are the more privileged members of society exercising the greatest authority or enjoying the highest standing. They are the people who govern and command, who regulate, sanction and discipline others, and who receive concomitant privileges and acquire exclusivity amongst their fellows in return. In the mid-sixteenth century this tended to be those of gentry status and above. But identifying precisely who constituted the gentry ‘plunges us immediately into a quagmire’. Applying modern methodologies to assess its precise composition based on perceptions, legal definitions, or even land-holding and wealth, ‘inevitably involves building “guestimates” upon one another’, so that it is difficult to argue with Heal and Holmes's conclusion that ‘the task of evaluating the total size of the group is well-nigh impossible’. Added to this, the emergent urban groupings in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries make for an analysis increasingly fraught with difficulties. Taking Marshall's prescription as a guide, that ‘a cardinal task’ for historians is ‘attempting to discover how contemporaries saw their own … social grouping’, this investigation will be conducted in reference to early modern categorizations. Yet even contemporaries were perplexed. ‘What a gentleman is, tis hard with us to define’, wrote the legal historian and antiquary, John Selden, early in the seventeenth century. In the 1560s, Sir Thomas Smith, Queen Elizabeth's secretary of state, had attributed gentlemanly status to anyone who ‘studies the laws of the realm, who studies at the universities, who professes liberal sciences and to be short, who can live idly without labour’. One of the definitions of gentlemanly status offered by Selden was ‘he that is reputed one’, specifically in Westminster Hall, which housed the courts of law and was one of the chief centres of London life. This confirmed Smith's much quoted test of gentility as a willingness to display appropriate ‘port’ (that is, deportment), ‘charge and countenance’. In other words, gentlemen and women ultimately were defined as those who were acknowledged as such by others.
Qualitative judgements are important: but how do they translate into actual numbers? An alternative criterion provided by Selden for establishing gentility was ‘he that hath arms’ as determined by the Court of Honours, and confirmed in the regular heraldic visitations to establish families’ armigerousness. This suggests a firmer footing for constructing aggregates of gentlemen; but it, too, has its limitations.
Bibliography
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4 - North-east elites and the crisis of border government
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This chapter looks at how contemporaries regarded the north-eastern corner of England, which, from at least the fourteenth century, and into the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, was consistently portrayed in negative terms. In particular, it was maintained that the far north of Northumberland, together with the western parts of Durham, was unusually subject to external threats, whilst also being virtually ungovernable. But how did central government respond to these characterisations, especially in the troubled 1590s, when the country was simultaneously facing economic distress and involved in expensive foreign wars? Then, in March 1603, the northeastern parts were fundamentally affected by the accession of the king of Scotland to the throne of England, for, at a stroke, the border between the two sovereign states of England and Scotland was set to vanish. King James made plain his perception of the changed status of the borders in one of his final charges to his Scottish privy council before he left for England on 5 April. He declared that ‘the pairt of baith the cuntreyis quhilk of lait wes callit the “Mairches” and “Bordouris” and now be the happie unioun is the verie hart of the cuntrey’. For those required to govern the north-eastern counties it was envisaged that their role would be transformed from one of policing a troublesome international frontier to that of administering a peaceful heartland.
Policing the frontier
The North, especially the far North, had long been conceived in terms of its proximity to Scotland: indeed, this was probably its single most defining feature. But, despite the Tudors’ efforts at state formation and reform, Queen Elizabeth was faced with a decline in standards of border defence at the end of the sixteenth century. Although this was largely a consequence of economic and tenurial change, it was cause for concern and was often linked by the central authorities to the particular nature of the north-eastern reaches of the kingdom. On 3 September 1585, Queen Elizabeth herself drew attention to its diabolical character, when she issued a warrant to inquire into the events at a day of truce, held at Cocklaw, in the middle march, on 27 June. There, Francis, Baron Russell, son of the earl of Bedford, ‘by devilishe and sinister practises and devises [was] then and there most horribly murdered’.