During her father's forced absence she vows to hold their home against marauding forces from both camps.More threatening to her peace of mind than the actions of either the Parliamentarians or the Royalists is her growing attraction to the diabolically clever and irresistibly magnetic goldsmith and usurer, Luciano del Santi.Hampered by the battling English, Luciano is fighting a fierce campaign close to his own heart - to avenge his father's execution at the hands of false accusers and to repay the loan which has financed the venture. Failure will result in ruin, perhaps even death; but success will allow him to reclaim the Black Madonna - the carved obsidian symbol of his heritage and his vendetta...

    “Issues about separation of church and state, the scandalous idea of thinking for oneself, etc., are thoughtfully raised here and would provide provocative discussions in the social studies classroom.”--School Library Journal

    Viewed from the perspective of Princesse Marie Adelaide, this book captures the events of the day and the political maneuvering of the times. Photographs.

    This anthology offers a broad selection of its poetry, and includes a wide range of works by the great poets of the age - notably Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Sepnser, John Donne, William Shakespeare and John Milton. Poems by less well-known writers also feature prominently - among them significant female poets such as Lady Mary Wroth and Katherine Philips. Compelling and exhilarating, this landmark collection illuminates a time of astonishing innovation, imagination and diversity.Selected and with an introduction by David Norbrook, and edited by H.R. Woudhuysen.

    Among the aspects of Powhatan life that Helen Rountree describes in vivid detail are hunting and agriculture, territorial claims, warfare and treatment of prisoners, physical appearance and dress, construction of houses and towns, education of youths, initiation rites, family and social structure and customs, the nature of rulers, medicine, religion, and even village games, music, and dance.Rountree’s is the first book-length treatment of this fascinating culture, which included one of the most complex political organizations in native North American and which figured prominently in early American history.

    

    Milton wrote Paradise Lost, Donne composed his Metaphysical verse, and Shakespeare his late Romances, not to mention the work of Dryden, Marvell, Jonson, and many others. Now, this remarkable quantity of extraordinary literature has been brought together in one large volume, The New Oxford Book of Seventeenth-Century Verse. Like the previous edition, all of the best known works are present, but this new edition also responds to considerable changes in scholarship and perspective in recent years. Popular and minor poets take a place alongside their more well known peers. Alastair Fowler, the collection's distinguished editor, has also included a generous portion of poetry by women (virtually for the first time), as well as a sampling of American colonial verse. In responding to new demands for inclusiveness, in striking a balance between Metaphysical and Jonsonian poetry, and in preserving the already recognized canonical works, The New Oxford Book of Seventeenth-Century Verse will be recognized as the finest collection of poetry from a century of exceptionally fine literature.

    The popular fashion for Indian calicos in the seventeenth century and the genesis of the British cotton industry in the eighteenth century reflected new consumer forces at work withinBritain. The East India trade encouraged new patterns of domestic demand, patterns which were not eradicated even with the prohibition of most Indian fabrics in 1721. Parliamentarians and clergy decried the spread of popular fashions that diminished visible social distinctions and undercuttraditional manufactures. Nevertheless, the demand for cottons persisted, supporting Britain's cotton manufacturers. Beginning with the East Indian commerce and ending with the thriving industrial production of British manufacturers, this study assesses the social and economic factors of fashionand commerce which sustained the cotton trade for over 140 years.

    

    Within four years he had transformed the political landscape of Britain, dissolved parliament, and begun a period of eleven years of personal rule. The nature of the King's government and the circumstances of its eventual collapse are central to an understanding of the origins of the English Civil War that followed. Kevin Sharpe's massive and authoritative analysis, based on a decade of research across a vast range of manuscript and printed sources, amounts to the most significant contribution to the history of early Stuart government since Gardiner's four-volume classic work in 1877.Sharpe presents an entirely fresh picture of Charles I and his annexation of power. He analyzes the personality, principles, and policies of a monarch who, after summoning more parliaments in his first year of rule than his predecessors had for a century, determined to govern without them. He assesses Charles' program of reform in central and local government and in church and state, and he discusses the years of peace and prosperity it engendered. He also examines priorities in foreign affairs and their impact on domestic policy. Sharpe subtly evaluates the degree of cooperation and opposition elicited and provoked by personal rule, and he analyzes the Scottish rebellion of 1637 that occasioned its undoing.The book yields rich new insights into the history of the reign, politics and religion, foreign policy and finance, the court and the counties, and attitudes and ideas. It provides a substantial reevaluation of the character of the king, the importance of parliaments, and the process of government without them. And it represents a critical new perspective on the origins of the political struggle that ended on the battlefields of the English Civil War.