During the remarkably long period (1724-1754) that Thomas Pelham-Holles, Duke of Newcastle, served as England's secretary of state, private interests and the exigencies of domestic politics rather than a rational assessment of England's stake in America determined colonial policy. As no purposeful effort was made to administer the colonies" political life, they enjoyed in effect relatively little interference in their internal affairs. The reasons for this "salutary neglect" and the lack of a vigorous colonial program arc analyzed now by James Henretta. His study, though focusing on the politics and patronage of the Duke, brings into view the entire range of men and agencies that had a hand in making colonial policy and dispensing patronage. It thus illuminates the political and administrative system that developed in England during the first half of the century and continued in effect at the time of the American Revolution. Originally published in 1972. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Margaret Cavendish was one of the most original, loveable and eccentric of women writers. Pepys called her "mad, ridiculous, and conceited" but when she paid her famous visit to London in 1667 he ran all over town to see her. And many of her other contemporaries were no less fascinated. Posterity has continued to feel the attraction; to her many admirers she has always been "the incomparable Princess," and Lamb enthusiastically praised her as "the thrice noble, chase, and virtuous—but again somewhat fantastical, and original-brain'd, generous Margaret Newcastle." This biography is the first full-length study entirely devoted to the Duchess of Newcastle. It shows Margaret's metamorphosis from an imaginative, bashful child into a romantic public figure, and how, after living at home among a family unusual in its loyalties, she served as lady-in-waiting to Queen Henrietta Maria during the Civil War and in exile married William Cavendish, the "Loyal" Duke of Newcastle, before emerging as the first woman writer of her times—"Margaret the First" as she wished to be known. Her poetry, fiction, drama and natural philosophy, along with her many other writings, are treated as facets of her extraordinary personality delightful in itself and also valuable as an illustration of the spirit of the age. The illustrations are unusually good and include a fine unpublished portrait of the Duchess, a photo of her effigy in Westminster Abbey and reproductions of several of the ornate engraved title-pages of her works.

The lives of William Cavendish, first duke of Newcastle, and his family including, centrally, his second wife, Margaret Cavendish, are intimately bound up with the overarching story of seventeenth-century England: the violently negotiated changes in structures of power that constituted the Civil Wars, and the ensuing Commonwealth and Restoration of the monarchy. William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle, and his Political, Social and Cultural Connections: Authority, Authorship and Aristocratic Identity in Seventeenth Century England brings together a series of interrelated essays that present William Cavendish, his family, household and connections as an aristocratic, royalist case study, relating the intellectual and political underpinnings and implications of their beliefs, actions and writings to wider cultural currents in England and mainland Europe.

William Cavendish, first Duke of Newcastle, was a man of great enthusiasms. A devoted Royalist and English Civil War General, his passions included women, music, writing, theatre and the finest horses. He was a widely acknowledged expert in the art of the riding house, which laid the foundations for classical dressage, and was the mark of a graceful and accomplished gentleman amongst the European nobility of the seventeenth century. Newcastle published two horsemanship manuals in 1658 and 1667, setting out his method for training the horse and, while he has been seen as a dilettante, his manuals reveal a level of dedication and precision which prove that to be untrue. In this first comprehensive study of Newcastle's manuals, Elaine Walker explores the insights they offer into his writing practice, personal philosophy and motivation, alongside their surprising relevance to the modern rider or any reader interested in the long history of human interaction with the horse. Through consideration of the manuals in their cultural context, Walker analyses Newcastle's contribution to the development of riding as an art and the way in which the texts were important to Newcastle himself during a turbulent life.