Mercy and Authority in the Tudor State

by K. J. Kesselring

Overview

Using a wide range of legal, administrative and literary sources, this study explores the role of the royal pardon in the exercise and experience of authority in Tudor England. It examines such abstract intangibles as power, legitimacy, and the state by looking at concrete life-and-death decisions of the Tudor monarchs. Drawing upon the historiographies of law and society, political culture, and state formation, mercy is used as a lens through which to examine the nature and limits of participation in the early modern polity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521037556
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	07/12/2007
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.94(w) x 8.98(h) x 0.55(d)

About the Author

K. J. Kesselring is Assistant Professor of History, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements; Abbreviations and conventions; 1. Introduction: mercy and the state; 2. Changing approaches to punishment and mitigation; 3. Changing approaches to the pardon; 4. Patronage, petitions and the motives for mercy; 5. Public performances of pardon; 6. Protest and pardons; 7. Conclusion; Appendix I: sources; Appendix II: benefit of the belly; Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"...fascinating and well done. Kesselrig's research is extensive and current." History

Kesselring's highly integrated use of contemporary examples makes an exiciting read, and illustrates a compelling thesis." Renaissance Quarterly

"This is a thought-provoking book...which must surely stimulate further work by Tudor social and legal historians...there is much of interest here to those concerned with crime and deterrence, power, authority, and governance in all ages, including our own." - Law and History Review, N.G. Jones, Magdalene College

"this is in many ways a model monograph. It is thoroughly grouned in the archives, tightly structured, and clearly written; it sheds valuable light on the operation of power relationships within the law and on the complex relationship between state and community in modern England." - The Journal of Modern History Ian W. Archer, Keble College, Oxford University

From the Publisher