The plan of this blog

As I mentioned yesterday, I am not qualified to guide a tour through the Britain of the 1600s. We will need a professional guide. I plan to proceed sequentially, starting about 1603, and to follow the narrative set out by Samuel R. Gardiner in his series of books on the period, which include

• History of England from the Accession of James I. to the Outbreak of the Civil War, (10 volumes), originally published 1863-1881, then revised and republished 1883-1884.
• History of the Great Civil War, (3 volumes), originally published 1886-1891, then republished in 4 volumes, 1893.
• History of the Commonwealth and the Protectorate, (2 volumes, interrupted by Gardiner's death), completed by Charles H. Firth.

If you want to read ahead, I have collected links to page images of Gardiner's works.

I haven't yet given much thought to how to proceed through the Restoration and the Glorious Revolution (should we ever get so far), but that is a decision that can be safely deferred.

Gardiner considered the subject broadly and meticulously. Nevertheless, he was mainly concerned with constitutional and political history and the history of ideas. There are paths, I am sure, that we will want to follow where other guides will add local color. Fortunately there are many volunteers. I plan to supplement Gardiner with material from various letters and diaries, from the State Trials, from the Dictionary of National Biography, and later from John Rushworth's Historical Collections and Clarendon's History of the Rebellion

I believe the entries in this blog will usually fall into one or more of these catagories:

1. Introduction, like most of the entries this week. These entries will be meta-discussion about the blog itself, and I'll try to keep them to a minimum.
2. Strolls through particular narratives. There are any number of stories that I find interesting and that I want to explore. These walks will undoubtedly involve following branches off the main trail.
3. Admiration of vistas. Once we have a clear view of an area in front of us, I suspect we will want to ask questions about it: why is it appealing or appalling? How did it get that way? How does the same prospect look 400 years later?
4. Queries. I have a lot of questions. I'll be asking them here, trying to answer them from the sources I have available, and hoping that others will be interested enough also to contribute answers.

The emphasis will be on history rather than historiography (although I do have an historiographical post in mind for next week); and on political, constitutional, social, economic and military aspects of history, with an occasional diversion into literature and geography.

Next entry: Meet the tour guide, Samuel R. Gardiner.