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Professional biography

My research focuses on politics and government, both local and national, in Elizabethan England. In the past, I studied these issues by way of the problems posed to the early modern polity by warfare, focusing on the Elizabethan wars against Spain (1585-1603); this was the subject of my doctoral thesis and my first book, War and Politics in the Elizabethan Counties (2012).

More recently, I have shifted to looking at politics in the context of the religious division of post-Reformation England. The long-term aim of this is to produce a book reassessing the impact of religious change on Elizabethan politics. In the shorter term, and as part of that larger project, I have recentlyÌýpublishedÌýa book on the life and career of Sir Christopher Hatton. This project investigates how a politician with very strong links to Catholics worked (and succeeded) within the ostensibly Protestant regime of Elizabeth I.

I would be happy to discuss supervising postgraduate research in any of these areas. I am currently supervising PhD students working on government in early modern Oxford, the emotional content of Elizabethan royal ceremonies, and the creation of William Camden'sÌýAnnals.Ìý

I am convenor of the research group.

Publications

Books

• Ìý(Manchester University Press: Politics, Culture and Society in Early Modern Britain series, 2022).Ìý
• War and Politics in the Elizabethan CountiesÌý(Manchester University Press: Politics, Culture and Society in Early Modern Britain series, 2012).

Articles

• ‘New light on Henry Lanman, owner of The Curtain’,ÌýEarly Theatre, 25:1 (2022), 117-25.Ìý
• ‘How Protestant was the Elizabethan regime?',ÌýEnglish Historical Review, 133:564 (October 2018), 1060-92.Ìý
• ‘Drama, politics and news in the Earl of Sussex’s entertainment of Elizabeth I at New Hall, 1579’, Historical Journal, 58:2 (June 2015), 343-66.
• ‘The practice and politics of troop-raising: Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex and the Elizabethan regime’,ÌýEnglish Historical Review, 127:526 (June 2012), 566-91.
• ‘Securing the monarchical republic: the remaking of the lord lieutenancies in 1585’ (winner of the 2008 Sir John Neale prize), Historical Research, 84:224 (May 2011), 249-65.
• ‘William Lambarde on the politics of enforcement in Elizabethan England’,ÌýHistorical Research, 83:219 (February 2010), 69-82.
• ‘If the Armada had landed: a reappraisal of England’s defences in 1588’,ÌýHistory, 93:311 (July 2008), 328-54.

Book chapters

• 'Warfare' in Understanding Early Modern Primary Sources, ed. L. Sangha and J. WillisÌý(Routledge, 2016).
• ‘Henry Herbert, second earl of Pembroke and noble leadership in the Elizabethan provinces’ inÌýLeadership and Elizabethan Culture, ed. P. Kaufman (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2013).

Edited sources

• ‘The Correspondence of William Lambarde and John Leveson’, Staffordshire Archive Service, 2008 ().

Other publications

• 'The other favourite',ÌýHistory TodayÌý73:7 (July 2023), 76-83.Ìý
• (with Janet Dickinson) ‘Just how nasty were the 1590s?’, History Today 64:7 (July 2014), 10-16.
• ‘Robert Peake (c1551–1619) and the Babington Plot’,ÌýBritish Art JournalÌý14:2 (2013), 65-7.
• ‘The Tudor state’,ÌýState Papers Online, 1509-1714, Cengage Learning EMEA Ltd, 2008.
• Reviews forÌýEnglish Historical Review,ÌýHistory,ÌýJournal of British Studies,ÌýMidland History,ÌýReviews in History,ÌýSixteenth Century Journal.

I am currently Qualifications Lead for History and also Deputy Module Team Chair of A113 '', anÌýinterdisciplinary Level 1Ìýmodule which looks at major turning points in the making of the modern world. I am also Deputy Module Team Chair of A223 'Early Modern Europe: Society and Culture, 1500-1780'. I have also contributed teaching material to A111 'Discovering the Arts and Humanities' and A328 'Empires: power, resistance, legacies'.Ìý

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I am a convenor of the Tudor and Stuart History Seminar, Institute of Historical Research.