Preface: Ann Hughes as historian, friend and mentor – Peter Lake
Introduction: rethinking public politics in the English Revolution – Peter Lake and Jason Peacey
1 ‘Great conformitants’ and ‘right ambidexters’: puritans, conformity and the challenge of Laudianism – Anthony Milton
2 Killing (Catholic) officers no crime? The politics of religious violence in England in 1640 – John Walter
3 Anatomy of the General Rising: militancy and mobilisation in London, 1643 – David Como
4 ‘In the hollow of his wooden leg’: the transmission of civil war materials, 1642–9 – Karen Britland
5 Puritanism, parish and polemic in civil war London: the case of Thomas Bakewell – Elliot Vernon
6 William Walwyn’s Montaigne and the struggle for toleration in the English Revolution – David Loewenstein
7 An accursed family: the Scottish crisis and the Black Legend of the House of Stuart, 1650–2 – Thomas Cogswell
8 Indemnity, sovereignty and justice in the army debates of 1647 – Sean Kelsey
9 Milton and Winstanley: a conversation – Thomas N. Corns
10 Women, print and locality: Richard Culmer and the practices of polemic during the English Revolution – Jason Peacey
11 ‘Threshing among the people’: Ranters, Quakers and the revolutionary public sphere – Kate Peters
Index

Insolent proceedings explores new directions in the history of the English Revolution. Driven by the idea that historians have focused more on the causes of the Revolution than on its course and consequences, the collection rethinks the dynamics of the revolutionary decades.

Addressing the transformative effects of political and religious upheaval during the 1640s–50s, the chapters revise our understanding of public politics in terms of the practices, debates and communicative strategies associated with the print revolution, polemic and the mobilisation of opinion. Bridging the divide between elite and popular politics, they develop new approaches to participation: by soldiers and members of the parliamentarian army, ordinary Londoners and provincial parishioners. Critically, they analyse the involvement, agency and treatment of women from all walks of life in both activism and debate.

Building on and honouring the work of Ann Hughes, who has transformed scholarship on the mid-seventeenth century, this interdisciplinary collection provides fresh perspectives on political and religious radicalism, from canonical authors to sectarian activists, as well as on relations between centre and locality, and on connections between ideological endeavour and everyday politics.