Few families have contributed as much to English history and literature-indeed, to the arts generally-as the Sidney family. This two-volume Ashgate Research Companion assesses the current state of scholarship on family members and their impact, as historical and literary figures, in the period 1500-1700. Volume 1: Lives, begins with an overview of the Sidneys and politics, providing some links to court events, entertainments, literature, and patronage. The volume gives biographies to prominent high-profile Sidney women and men, as well as sections assessing the influence of the family in the areas of the English court, international politics, patronage, religion, public entertainment, the visual arts, and music. The focus of the second volume is the literary contributions of Sir Philip Sidney; Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke; Lady Mary Wroth; Robert Sidney, Earl of Leicester; and William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke.

The Sidneys rank amongst the most influential families in early modern England, and can count amongst their number many leading lights of the Tudor and Stuart period. From the Elizabethan poet and soldier Philip, to the republican Algernon, the Sidney family were intimately bound up with the political, cultural and courtly life of early modern England. Taking a broadly chronological approach, this volume offers an overview of the Sidneys across several generations. By analysing various individuals and their writings, an intriguing new perspective is offered, not only on the culture of English politics, but also on the self-perception and ambitions of a leading renaissance family. During the Tudor period their long and fruitful (but sometimes problematical) association with the Dudley family in court and royal affairs is reassessed with regard to their relations with Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I. During the Stuart period the Sidneys intimacy and loyalty to James I, Queen Anne and Charles I is contrasted to their more neutral (even hostile) attitudes to Charles II and James II. Against the backdrop of this shifting royal favour and religious and political upheaval, the Sidneys' political and domestic tactics used to preserve the family's reputation, estates and property are explored. The first book length study of the Sidney family's relationship with the English monarchy, this work will be welcomed by all those with an interest in English political and cultural history. Drawing upon both historical and literary sources it offers an absorbing insight into the self-perceptions of a leading renaissance family and how they adapted to the vicissitudes of the sixteenth and seventeenth century world.

Recent years have witnessed a revival of interest in the history of the Huguenots, and new research has increased our understanding of their role in shaping the early-modern world. Yet while much has been written about the Huguenots during the sixteenth-century wars of religion, much less is known about their history in the following centuries. The ten essays in this collection provide the first broad overview of Huguenot religious culture from the Restoration of Charles II to the outbreak of the French Revolution. Dealing primarily with the experiences of Huguenots in England and Ireland, the volume explores issues of conformity and nonconformity, the perceptions of 'refuge', and Huguenot attitudes towards education, social reform and religious tolerance. Taken together they offer the most comprehensive and up-to-date survey of Huguenot religious identity in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

This volume brings together ten distinguished scholars of history, literature, music, theatre, and art to explore the political and cultural implications of the court's transgressive new character.

Frederick Herman von Schomberg was born into a prominent noble family in the Palatinate in 1615. He was a truly international figure: his father negotiated the marriage of Britain's Princess Royal (James I's daughter, Elizabeth) to the Elector Palatine of the Rhine. Having an English mother and a German father, he would go on to marry a French Huguenot lady, and fight in the armies of more than six nations. His career spans the mercenary system of the Thirty Years' War (1618-48) through to the formation of Europe's first true standing national armies during William III's wars in the 1690s. He was involved in the international politics and diplomacy of Louis XIV's reign, and that king's relations with Britain and the Netherlands in particular. He was also deeply concerned in the plight and exile of the Huguenots in France, and their later international presence in the armies of William of Orange. As a committed Protestant, he suffered the same prejudices in France as they, and his feeling for them is a vital comment on the strength of religious feeling among many high-ranking military leaders at the time.