A Freeborn People: Politics and the Nation in Seventeenth-Century England

by David Underdown

Written by one of the world's most distinguished historians of early modern history, A Freeborn People is a provocative exploration of the ways in which the political cultures of the elite and of the common people intersected during the seventeenth century.
David Underdown shows that the two worlds were not as separate as historians have often thought them to be; English men and women of all social levels had similar expectations about good government and about the traditional liberties available to them under the "Ancient Constitution". Throughout the century, both levels of politics were also powerfully influenced by prevailing assumptions about gender roles, and, especially in the years before the civil wars, by fears that the country was threatened by evil forces of satanic inversion.
This dramatic reinterpretation of the Stuart period, based on the author's acclaimed 1992 Ford Lectures, begins a new chapter in the continuing debate over the historical meaning of Britain's seventeenth-century revolutions.

Genres: History

192 pages, Hardcover

First published October 24, 1996

Reviews

[Zander Bedingfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Underdown challenges both traditional Whig as well as some revisionist accounts of popular politics before, during, and after the English Revolution. Based largely in linguistic methods of analysis, Underdown masterfully analyzes primary sources—from ballads to libels to newspapers— to support his persuasive argument that, contrary to both traditional and revisionist interpretations, there was actually much continuity and interaction in the popular politics of both the gentry and “lower orders” of society during this period. The most convincing part of Underdown’s argument is simply how he frames and understands popular politics which he understands as being expressed through a commonly held “political language” grounded in commonly held understandings of patriarchal authority and the “Ancient Constitution” of England. Overall, although written almost 30 years ago, a fantastic work— can’t wait to read more of Underdown’s work