This series introduces individual works or small groups of related works in the Museum's collections to a broad public. Each monograph includes a close discussion of its subject as well as a detailed analysis of the broader context in which the work was created, considering relevant historical, cultural, and chronological issues.
Brides from Bridewell is the story of the female felons from England and France who were sent to Colonial America to serve their prison sentences. It sets forth the harsh, often inhuman, penal conditions then prevailing in those lands, and the fact that these thousands of feminine felons constituted one of the primary marital elements in the mothering of early America. Many women whose offenses were minor were deported. Others were confessed criminals. The facts constitute one of the neglected (or hidden) retrospects to the American past. Descent from the Mayflower lineage is stressed by genealogists; but the fact is forgotten that many unknowing present-day Americans of colonial descent derive their American beginnings from female prisoners sent against their will. Says the author: "Many of the transported felons after their servitude had expired, became reputable dwellers in the new environment; and if not they, then their offspring. No stigma attaches to their descendants. But the tale needs telling."
Blown by the Spirit traces the story of the Antinomians, the most important puritan radical group of the English civil war. Most historians have been skeptical about the existence of this group, or any group like it. This book provides proof of the existence of the Antinomians as well as the important role they played in the pre-history of the English civil-war.
First published in 1982, Northampton is a modern study of Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton, privy councillor to James I. Dr. Peck convincingly challenges the traditional eminence grise who stirred factional strife at court, undermined relations between king and parliament, and stopped at nothing, including murder, to secure his family’s advancement. Drawing extensively on Northampton’s papers, Dr. Peck offers a more balanced assessment of this important Jacobean courtier who shaped policy and pursued administrative reform as avidly as he sought his own patronage and profit. Unlike traditional biographies, this study is organized topically in order to examine larger issues of policy making and administration in the Jacobean period. This book will be of interest to specialists in Stuart studies, to historians of England, to social scientists concerned with development of early bureaucracy, and all those with a more general interest in Tudor Stuart history.
Decades before the Salem Witch trials, 11 people were hanged as witches in the Connecticut River Valley. The advent of witch hunting in New England was directly influenced by the English Civil War and the witch trials in England led by Matthew Hopkins, who pioneered "techniques" for examining witches. This history examines the outbreak of witch hysteria in the Valley, focusing on accusations of demonic possession, apotropaic magic and the role of the clergy. Although the hysteria was eventually quelled by a progressive magistrate unwilling to try witches, accounts of the trials later influenced contemporary writers during the Salem witch hunts. The source of the document "Grounds for Examination of a Witch" is identified.