“Emissary of Charles the First, second governor of Massachusetts, pillar of the Protectorate, and victim of Charles the Second, servant to a God of his own definition, humble and arrogant, atypical Puritan and passionate lover, Sir Harry Vane was a man of peace who initiated genocide in the New World and found martyrdom in the Old. His life in New and Old England, and on the continent, spanned eras of conformity, revolution and libertinism. His experience reaches from Indian wigwam to royal palace. This is an unparalleled picture of a formative age which is with us yet. Vane served Charles I well, if not wholly faithfully, and yet was one of the leaders of the parliamentary rebellion that led to the king's execution and the establishment of the Protectorate. Then, second only to Cromwell-and there were those who said he was even more powerful-Vane pursued his devious and dangerous path through the years of the Protectorate until he finally acquiesced in the restoration of Charles II. When Vane himself was executed in 1662, clearly the victim of judicial murder, the age of Puritan revolt was over. Sir Harry is one of the most elusive and tantalizing figures ever to have played an important part in both English and American history. He was as much a puzzle to his contemporaries as he has been to historians. Anthony Wood described him as "the Proteus of his Age"; Clarendon, less charitably, declared that "he was chosen to cozen and deceive a whole nation which excelled in craft and cunning"; and a commemorative statue of him in New England calls him "a true friend ...and a man of noble and generous mind." The few threads of consistency in his life emerge as belief in freedom of conscience, personal horror of violence, and loyalty to the integrity of Parliament. Adamson and Folland approach the paradox of Sir Harry face on and, placing their subject against a detailed background of his times, present us with a subtly shaded portrait that is both dramatic and convincing. Sir Harry lived in an age of great intellectual ferment and naked violence, of momentous political upheavals in England and the formation of an American character. By reflecting these turmoils in the life of their subject, the authors do much to resolve the enigma of his career and to rescue from the past one of the most fascinating and imposing figures of his time.”-Publisher.

Well-known to students of history as a leading political figure during the English Civil War and beyond, Vane is presented in this book as a formidable and articulate thinker. Author David Parnham sees Vane as a fascinating occupant of the rich intellectual world of the mid-seventeenth century.

Between 1640 and 1660, England, Scotland, and Ireland faced civil war, invasion, religious radicalism, parliamentary rule, and the restoration of the monarchy. Carla Gardina Pestana offers a sweeping history that systematically connects these cataclysmic events and the development of the infant plantations from Newfoundland to Surinam. By 1660, the English Atlantic emerged as religiously polarized, economically interconnected, socially exploitative, and ideologically anxious about its liberties. War increased both the proportion of unfree laborers and ethnic diversity in the settlements. Neglected by London, the colonies quickly developed trade networks, especially from seafaring New England, and entered the slave trade. Barbadian planters in particular moved decisively toward slavery as their premier labor system, leading the way toward its adoption elsewhere. When by the 1650s the governing authorities tried to impose their vision of an integrated empire, the colonists claimed the rights of freeborn English men, making a bid for liberties that had enormous implications for the rise in both involuntary servitude and slavery. Changes at home politicized religion in the Atlantic world and introduced witchcraft prosecutions. Pestana presents a compelling case for rethinking our assumptions about empire and colonialism and offers an invaluable look at the creation of the English Atlantic world.

Misunderstandings between races, hostilities between cultures. Anxiety from living in a time of war in one's own land. Being accused of profiteering when food was scarce. Unruly residents in a remote frontier community. Charged with speaking the unspeakable and publishing the unprintable. All of this can be found in the life of one man--William Pynchon, the Puritan entrepreneur and founder of Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1636. Two things in particular stand out in Pynchon's pioneering life: he enjoyed extraordinary and uniquely positive relationships with Native peoples, and he wrote the first book banned--and burned--in Boston. Now for the first time, this book provides a comprehensive account of Pynchon's story, beginning in England, through his New England adventures, to his return home. Discover the fabric of his times and the roles Pynchon played in the Puritan venture in Old England and New England.

In First Among Friends, the first scholarly biography of George Fox (1624-91), H. Larry Ingle examines the fascinating life of the reformation leader and founding organizer of the Religious Society of Friends, more popularly known today as the Quakers. Ingle places Fox within the upheavals of the English Civil Wars, Revolution, and Restoration, showing him and his band of "rude" disciples challenging the status quo, particularly during the Cromwellian Interregnum. Unlike leaders of similar groups, Fox responded to the conservatism of the Stuart restoration by facing down challenges from internal dissidents, and leading his followers to persevere until the 1689 Act of Toleration. It was this same sense of perseverance that helped the Quakers survive--the only religious sect of the era still existing today. Firmly grounded in primary sources and enriched with gripping detail, this well-written and original study reveals hitherto unknown sides of one who was clearly "First Among Friends."