The politics of court scandal in early modern England
Subtitle: news culture and the Overbury affair, 1603-1666
By: Alastair Bellany.
Series: Cambridge studies in early modern history
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2002
Place of publication: Cambridge, UK; New York, NY
Language: eng
Number of pages: 312
Subjects: Overbury, Thomas Sir, 1581-1613 -- Death and burial.; Somerset, Frances Howard Carr, Countess of, 1593-1632.; Somerset, Robert Carr, Earl of, d. 1645.; Journalism -- Great Britain -- History -- 17th century.; Scandals -- Great Britain -- History -- 17th century.; Murder -- Great Britain -- History -- 17th century.; Nobility -- Great Britain -- Biography.; Great Britain -- Court and courtiers -- History -- 17th century.; Great Britain -- History -- James I, 1603-1625.
Genres: Biography.
Description: "This is the first detailed study of the political significance of the seventeenth century's most notorious and sensational court scandal, the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury. The book rejects earlier approaches to the history of court scandal, assuming neither that scandal inevitably undermined royal authority nor that courtiers' salacious behaviour was politically irrelevant. Instead, the book adopts a multilayered, interdisciplinary approach to the Overbury affair and its complex political meanings. It explores the factional politics that made and destroyed Overbury and his murderers, reconstructs the news culture through which information about the scandal circulated, analyses the creation and composition of the early Stuart 'public', and decodes the representations of the affair that were produced and consumed during 1615-16 and in subsequent decades. By situating the Overbury case in both short- and long-term political contexts, the book suggests that court scandal deserves a place among the cultural origins of the English revolution."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 279-301) and index.