Gresham's Law

Gresham's Law

Author: John Guy

Publisher: Profile Books

Published: 2019-06-20

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13: 1782835415

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Thomas Gresham was arguably the first true wizard of global finance. He rose through the mercantile worlds of London and Antwerp to become the hidden power behind three out of the five Tudor monarchs. Today his name is remembered in economic doctrines, in the institutions he founded and in the City of London's position at the economic centre of the earth. Without Gresham, England truly might have become a vassal state. His manoeuvring released Elizabeth from a crushing burden of debt and allowed for vital military preparations during the wars of religion that set Europe ablaze. Yet his deepest loyalties have remained enigmatic, until now. Drawing on vast new research and several startling discoveries, the great Tudor historian John Guy recreates Gresham's life and singular personality with astonishing intimacy. He reveals a calculating survivor, flexible enough to do business with merchants and potentates no matter their religious or ideological convictions. Yet his personal relationships were disturbingly transactional. He was a figure of cold unsentimentality even to members of his own family. Elizabeth I found herself at odds with Gresham's ambitions. In their collisions and wary accommodations, we see our own conflicts between national sovereignty and global capital foreshadowed. A story of adventure and jeopardy, greed and cunning, loyalties divided, mistaken or betrayed, this is a biography fit for a merchant prince.


Calum's Road

Calum's Road

Author: Roger Hutchinson

Publisher: Birlinn

Published: 2011-05-01

Total Pages: 202

ISBN-13: 0857900021

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'An incredible testament to one man's determination' – The Sunday Herald Calum MacLeod had lived on the northern point of Raasay since his birth in 1911. He tended the Rona lighthouse at the very tip of his little archipelago, until semi-automation in 1967 reduced his responsibilities. 'So what he decided to do', says his last neighbour, Donald MacLeod, 'was to build a road out of Arnish in his months off. With a road he hoped new generations of people would return to Arnish and all the north end of Raasay'. And so, at the age of 56, Calum MacLeod, the last man left in northern Raasay, set about single-handedly constructing the 'impossible' road. It would become a romantic, quixotic venture, a kind of sculpture; an obsessive work of art so perfect in every gradient, culvert and supporting wall that its creation occupied almost twenty years of his life. In Calum's Road Roger Hutchinson recounts the extraordinary story of this remarkable man's devotion to his visionary project.


Rebellion and Savagery

Rebellion and Savagery

Author: Geoffrey Plank

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2015-06-30

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 0812207114

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In the summer of 1745, Charles Edward Stuart, the grandson of England's King James II, landed on the western coast of Scotland intending to overthrow George II and restore the Stuart family to the throne. He gathered thousands of supporters, and the insurrection he led—the Jacobite Rising of 1745—was a crisis not only for Britain but for the entire British Empire. Rebellion and Savagery examines the 1745 rising and its aftermath on an imperial scale. Charles Edward gained support from the clans of the Scottish Highlands, communities that had long been derided as primitive. In 1745 the Jacobite Highlanders were denigrated both as rebels and as savages, and this double stigma helped provoke and legitimate the violence of the government's anti-Jacobite campaigns. Though the colonies stayed relatively peaceful in 1745, the rising inspired fear of a global conspiracy among Jacobites and other suspect groups, including North America's purported savages. The defeat of the rising transformed the leader of the army, the Duke of Cumberland, into a popular hero on both sides of the Atlantic. With unprecedented support for the maintenance of peacetime forces, Cumberland deployed new garrisons in the Scottish Highlands and also in the Mediterranean and North America. In all these places his troops were engaged in similar missions: demanding loyalty from all local inhabitants and advancing the cause of British civilization. The recent crisis gave a sense of urgency to their efforts. Confident that "a free people cannot oppress," the leaders of the army became Britain's most powerful and uncompromising imperialists. Geoffrey Plank argues that the events of 1745 marked a turning point in the fortunes of the British Empire by creating a new political interest in favor of aggressive imperialism, and also by sparking discussion of how the British should promote market-based economic relations in order to integrate indigenous peoples within their empire. The spread of these new political ideas was facilitated by a large-scale migration of people involved in the rising from Britain to the colonies, beginning with hundreds of prisoners seized on the field of battle and continuing in subsequent years to include thousands of men, women and children. Some of the migrants were former Jacobites and others had stood against the insurrection. The event affected all the British domains.


The Prince Who Would Be King: The Life and Death of Henry Stuart

The Prince Who Would Be King: The Life and Death of Henry Stuart

Author: Sarah Fraser

Publisher: HarperCollins UK

Published: 2017-05-04

Total Pages: 374

ISBN-13: 0007548095

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Henry Stuart’s life is the last great forgotten Jacobean tale. Shadowed by the gravity of the Thirty Years’ War and the huge changes taking place across Europe in seventeenth-century society, economy, politics and empire, his life was visually and verbally gorgeous. NOW THE SUBJECT OF BBC2 DOCUMENTARY The Best King We Never Had


Culloden Tales

Culloden Tales

Author: Hugh G. Allison

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2011-04-08

Total Pages: 150

ISBN-13: 1845968336

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Culloden was the last battle on British soil. It marked the end of clan culture and was the harbinger of the Highland Clearances. It ensured the inevitability of the American Revolution and increased the outpouring of Scots across the globe. It is the only battle that British Army regiments are not permitted to include in their battle honours; the only battle that Bonnie Prince Charlie ever lost; and the only battle that the Duke of Cumberland ever won. Culloden is a battlefield, a graveyard and an iconic site that draws people from all parts of the world. And as they come, they bring with them their stories and their father's father's stories. These stories tell of civil war, of love, of the unexpected and even of the supernatural. They are peopled by the second-sighted, by clan chiefs and by others who have kept family secrets for centuries. The battlefield is a poignant location, resonant with past deeds and emotive memories. These Culloden tales are offered as a unique record to the power of the place.


The Highlander

The Highlander

Author: Kerrigan Byrne

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2016-08-02

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 1250076072

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A reckless highlander lord and warrior falls for the beautiful governess with a dark past that comes to care for his children.


The Fraser Clan in America

The Fraser Clan in America

Author: Deirdre Duff Johnson

Publisher: Franklin Classics

Published: 2018-10-14

Total Pages: 42

ISBN-13: 9780342941063

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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.


The Appin Murder

The Appin Murder

Author: James Hunter

Publisher: Birlinn

Published: 2021-09-01

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 1788853229

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On a hillside near Ballachulish in the Scottish Highlands in May 1752, a rider is assassinated by a gunman. The murdered man is Colin Campbell, a government agent traveling to nearby Duror where he’s evicting farm tenants to make way for his relatives. Campbell’s killer evades capture, but Britain’s rulers insist this challenge to their authority must result in a hanging. The sacrificial victim is James Stewart, who is organizing resistance to Campbell’s takeover of lands long held by his clan, the Appin Stewarts. James is a veteran of the Highland uprising crushed in April 1746 at Culloden. In Duror he sees homes torched by troops using terror tactics against rebel Highlanders. The same brutal response to dissent means that James’s corpse will for years hang from a towering gibbet and leave a community utterly ravaged. Introducing this new edition of his account of what came to be called the Appin Murder, historian James Hunter tells how his own Duror upbringing introduced him to the tragic story of James Stewart.