HI3404 Revolutionary Britain 1678-1715

Module Organiser: Prof. Robert Armstrong
Duration: All year
Contact hours: 3 hours per week
Weighting: 20 ECTS
Assessment: 20% essay, 80% examination

Description: This module focuses upon the years considered by later generations as establishing the British constitution upon ‘revolutionary principles’. The period saw the political turmoil of the ‘popish plot’, the first age of party, the revolutionary events of 1688-90 in England and Scotland, the Treaty of Union between those two kingdoms, and the birth of the Jacobite movement. In each case, analysis will emphasise the interplay between high politics and popular politics, whether the struggle to control the street politics of procession, demonstration and riot; the harnessing of partisan energies through the development of ideology, propaganda and the public arena; persistent conspiracy and the intermittent adoption of the politics of violence across the political spectrum from republican to Jacobite. Sources studied will reflect this agenda, with particular emphasis upon the political thought and propaganda generated in this age of Marvell, Locke, Defoe and Swift.

Leaning Outcomes

On successful completion of this module students should be able to:

• Recognise the principal political developments in English and Scottish history in the period 1678-1707 and its dominant modes of political thought
• Identify and contextualize the main interpretative trends in historical writing on politics, religion and political ideas for the period
• Construct an individual reading programme among the leading interpretative accounts of the period
• Undertake an advanced analysis of a wide range of primary sources relating to the principal interpretative problems of the period
• Apply different techniques of evaluation and interpretation to these sources
• Critique the leading scholarly contributions to the field in the light of those sources
• Provide an individual synthesis based on a reading of the primary sources and secondary commentaries
• Defend such a synthesis in written and oral presentations