Table of Contents

Introduction: classical humanism and republicanism in England before the Civil War; 1. Classical humanism restated; 2. Classical republicanism in the margins of Elizabethan politics; 3. Civic life and the mixed constitution in Jacobean political thought; 4. Francis Bacon, Thomas Hedley and the true greatness of Britain; 5. Thomas Scott: virtue, liberty and the 'mixed Gouernement'; 6. The continuity of the humanist tradition in early Caroline England; Epilogue; Bibliography.

Promotional Information

A new perspective on two seminal themes in English political thought before the Civil War.

Reviews

"Now Markku Peltonen assembles an impressive body of evidence that what he calls 'classical humanism' lived straight through to the outbreak of the Civil War and provides an important context for understanding the arguments put forward by seventeenth-century republicans." Sixteenth Century Journal "...this book is a well-written and forceful contribution to a very live topic of discussion in current English historiography." History "...the book's great value for scholars lies in its gathering together of a wealth of material relevant to its topic...Treatments of individual texts are lucid and perceptive. Peltonen has organized a body of evidence which should be taken into account in the ongoing analysis of this crucial period in the history of political thought." John F. McDiardmid, Renaissance Quarterly