scholarly journals John Prestall: A Complex Relationship with the  Elizabethan Regime

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Michael Devine
Keyword(s):  
Belief System ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Elizabeth I ◽  
Tudor England ◽  
Catholic Faith ◽  
Alternative Perspective ◽  
Print Material ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Court Politics ◽  
Inherent Part

<p>This thesis is the biography of John Prestall (c.1527-c.1598) an unsavoury, nefarious, spendthrift, Catholic gentleman from Elizabethan England. A conspirator, opportunist informer, occult conjurer, conman and alchemist, Prestall's biography provides an alternative perspective from which to view Elizabethan history, exposing the dark fringe of the Elizabethan Court and the murky political underworld it attracted. In the polarised politico-religious ferment of late Tudor England, Prestall perennially in debt, utilised his occult powers for his own ruthless self-interest and preservation. Always looking for the best deal, he oscillated between using sorcery and astrology in conspiracies against both Mary I and Elizabeth I, and then traded alchemical promises with members of the Elizabethan establishment for patronage, pardons, and returns from exile. Through an examination of the surviving manuscript correspondence and contemporary print material, this thesis situates Prestall in the broader context of Elizabethan England and uses his life as a conduit linking together a sequence of previously unrelated plots, conspiracies and patronage relationships. Prestall's life, as documented in the manuscripts, was not primarily directed by his Catholic faith which played a secondary role to his search for the best deal and cure for his debt-ridden circumstances. This presents an interesting contrast to members of the Elizabethan regime whose Protestant ideological view of the Catholic-Protestant clash directed many of their actions. This biography explores Prestall's use of conjuring and alchemy to demonstrate the important influence magic had in Elizabethan political conspiracies and Court politics. Within a society whose belief system held magic to be an inherent part of the natural world, Prestall unscrupulously used his astrological and alchemical talents to whatever ends he thought would provide him the biggest payoff.</p>

scholarly journals John Prestall: A Complex Relationship with the Elizabethan Regime

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Michael Devine
Keyword(s):  
Belief System ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Elizabeth I ◽  
Tudor England ◽  
Catholic Faith ◽  
Alternative Perspective ◽  
Print Material ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Court Politics ◽  
Inherent Part

<p>This thesis is the biography of John Prestall (c.1527-c.1598) an unsavoury, nefarious, spendthrift, Catholic gentleman from Elizabethan England. A conspirator, opportunist informer, occult conjurer, conman and alchemist, Prestall's biography provides an alternative perspective from which to view Elizabethan history, exposing the dark fringe of the Elizabethan Court and the murky political underworld it attracted. In the polarised politico-religious ferment of late Tudor England, Prestall perennially in debt, utilised his occult powers for his own ruthless self-interest and preservation. Always looking for the best deal, he oscillated between using sorcery and astrology in conspiracies against both Mary I and Elizabeth I, and then traded alchemical promises with members of the Elizabethan establishment for patronage, pardons, and returns from exile. Through an examination of the surviving manuscript correspondence and contemporary print material, this thesis situates Prestall in the broader context of Elizabethan England and uses his life as a conduit linking together a sequence of previously unrelated plots, conspiracies and patronage relationships. Prestall's life, as documented in the manuscripts, was not primarily directed by his Catholic faith which played a secondary role to his search for the best deal and cure for his debt-ridden circumstances. This presents an interesting contrast to members of the Elizabethan regime whose Protestant ideological view of the Catholic-Protestant clash directed many of their actions. This biography explores Prestall's use of conjuring and alchemy to demonstrate the important influence magic had in Elizabethan political conspiracies and Court politics. Within a society whose belief system held magic to be an inherent part of the natural world, Prestall unscrupulously used his astrological and alchemical talents to whatever ends he thought would provide him the biggest payoff.</p>

scholarly journals John Prestall: A Complex Relationship with the Elizabethan Regime

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Michael Devine
Keyword(s):  
Belief System ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Elizabeth I ◽  
Tudor England ◽  
Catholic Faith ◽  
Alternative Perspective ◽  
Print Material ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Court Politics ◽  
Inherent Part

<p>This thesis is the biography of John Prestall (c.1527-c.1598) an unsavoury, nefarious, spendthrift, Catholic gentleman from Elizabethan England. A conspirator, opportunist informer, occult conjurer, conman and alchemist, Prestall's biography provides an alternative perspective from which to view Elizabethan history, exposing the dark fringe of the Elizabethan Court and the murky political underworld it attracted. In the polarised politico-religious ferment of late Tudor England, Prestall perennially in debt, utilised his occult powers for his own ruthless self-interest and preservation. Always looking for the best deal, he oscillated between using sorcery and astrology in conspiracies against both Mary I and Elizabeth I, and then traded alchemical promises with members of the Elizabethan establishment for patronage, pardons, and returns from exile. Through an examination of the surviving manuscript correspondence and contemporary print material, this thesis situates Prestall in the broader context of Elizabethan England and uses his life as a conduit linking together a sequence of previously unrelated plots, conspiracies and patronage relationships. Prestall's life, as documented in the manuscripts, was not primarily directed by his Catholic faith which played a secondary role to his search for the best deal and cure for his debt-ridden circumstances. This presents an interesting contrast to members of the Elizabethan regime whose Protestant ideological view of the Catholic-Protestant clash directed many of their actions. This biography explores Prestall's use of conjuring and alchemy to demonstrate the important influence magic had in Elizabethan political conspiracies and Court politics. Within a society whose belief system held magic to be an inherent part of the natural world, Prestall unscrupulously used his astrological and alchemical talents to whatever ends he thought would provide him the biggest payoff.</p>

scholarly journals John Prestall: A Complex Relationship with the  Elizabethan Regime

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Michael Devine
Keyword(s):  
Belief System ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Elizabeth I ◽  
Tudor England ◽  
Catholic Faith ◽  
Alternative Perspective ◽  
Print Material ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Court Politics ◽  
Inherent Part

<p>This thesis is the biography of John Prestall (c.1527-c.1598) an unsavoury, nefarious, spendthrift, Catholic gentleman from Elizabethan England. A conspirator, opportunist informer, occult conjurer, conman and alchemist, Prestall's biography provides an alternative perspective from which to view Elizabethan history, exposing the dark fringe of the Elizabethan Court and the murky political underworld it attracted. In the polarised politico-religious ferment of late Tudor England, Prestall perennially in debt, utilised his occult powers for his own ruthless self-interest and preservation. Always looking for the best deal, he oscillated between using sorcery and astrology in conspiracies against both Mary I and Elizabeth I, and then traded alchemical promises with members of the Elizabethan establishment for patronage, pardons, and returns from exile. Through an examination of the surviving manuscript correspondence and contemporary print material, this thesis situates Prestall in the broader context of Elizabethan England and uses his life as a conduit linking together a sequence of previously unrelated plots, conspiracies and patronage relationships. Prestall's life, as documented in the manuscripts, was not primarily directed by his Catholic faith which played a secondary role to his search for the best deal and cure for his debt-ridden circumstances. This presents an interesting contrast to members of the Elizabethan regime whose Protestant ideological view of the Catholic-Protestant clash directed many of their actions. This biography explores Prestall's use of conjuring and alchemy to demonstrate the important influence magic had in Elizabethan political conspiracies and Court politics. Within a society whose belief system held magic to be an inherent part of the natural world, Prestall unscrupulously used his astrological and alchemical talents to whatever ends he thought would provide him the biggest payoff.</p>

Ven. Robert Sutton of Stafford a Note on his Family and Early Life

1953 ◽  
Vol 2 (02) ◽  
pp. 150-166
Author(s):  
D.M. Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Present Note ◽  
Early Years ◽  
The Other ◽  
Elizabeth I ◽  
Catholic Faith

Robert Sutton is a name that occurs quite often in sixteenth century records. It was borne by two of the English martyrs under Elizabeth I, the only two, among the three hundred and sixty martyrs at present officially listed, to bear identical names. One of these was a layman, a school-master, hanged at Clerkenwell in October 1588 for being reconciled to the Catholic faith (1). The other was a secular priest hanged, drawn and quartered at Stafford a year earlier (2). The present note concerns the priest, but since further contemporaries of these two martyrs also had the same name, others, too, will be mentioned in the course of investigating the early years of the Ven. Robert Sutton, the priest martyr of 1587.

scholarly journals An Analysis of the Controversy Caused by Mary Ward’s Institute in the 1620s

2001 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 636-647 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence Lux-Sterritt
Keyword(s):  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Elizabeth I ◽  
Catholic Faith ◽  
Ambiguous Effect

During the reign of Elizabeth I, English Catholicism experienced a degree of persecution that was meant to ensure the extirpation of the old faith. However, Elizabethan anti-Catholic laws had an ambiguous effect upon the recusant population of England. Although the Roman Catholic faith initially suffered greatly, yet by the end of the reign it was rising again with force. The unique vocation of Yorkshirewoman, Mary Ward (1585–1645), can be seen as an eloquent illustration of this new English Catholic spirit and as the embodiment of an English missionary determination to further the Catholic cause.

scholarly journals COURTS, COURTIERS, AND CULTURE IN TUDOR ENGLAND

2003 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 703-722 ◽  
Author(s):  
NATALIE MEARS
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Cultural Influences ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Tudor England ◽  
Political Role ◽  
Methodological Problems ◽  
Court Politics ◽  
The Relationship

Geoffrey Elton's model of Tudor politics, which emphasized the importance of political institutions and which dominated our understanding of Tudor politics for much of the second half of the twentieth century, has been challenged by a number of historians for over twenty years. They have re-emphasized the importance of social connections and cultural influences and turned attention away from studying the privy council to studying the court. In doing so, they have gone back to re-examine earlier approaches by Sir John Neale and Conyers Read which Elton had challenged. Yet, these new socially and culturally derived approaches, recently labelled ‘New Tudor political history’, remain varied and its practitioners sometimes at odds with each other. Focusing on both established seminal works and recent research, this review considers the different elements of these approaches in relation to Tudor court politics. It assesses the methodological problems they raise and identifies what shortcomings still remain. It demonstrates that Tudor politics are increasingly defined as based on social networks rather than institutional bodies, making issues of access to, and intimacy with, the monarch central. Our understanding has been further enhanced by exploration of political culture and its relationship to political action. However, the review points to the need to integrate more fully the political role of women and the relationship between the court and the wider political community into our understanding of Tudor politics, as well as place England into a European context.

scholarly journals The Christian Environmental Ethic of the Russian Pomor

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Brain
Keyword(s):  
Belief System ◽  
Environmental Ethic ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Daily Basis ◽  
Business Community ◽  
Western World ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Resource Exploitation ◽  
Interpretive System ◽  
Siglo Xix

This article revisits Lynn White's famous 1967 article that placed the blame for environmental problems in the Western world on the Judeo-Christian belief system, and discusses the case of the Pomor, a Russian sub-ethnicity who settled on the shores of the White Sea in the twelfth century. Although maintaining their Orthodox faith after migrating to the edge of the Slavic cultural zone, the Pomor adopted an entirely new way of life suited to the climate of the far north. Rather than concentrating on agriculture, which proved unreliable at the extreme northern latitude, they turned their attention to the exploitation of marine resources: fishing, sealing, and whaling. Contending with the harsh elements on a daily basis, the Pomor developed a worldview called "sacral geography," which fused animism with Christian eschatology. Sacral geography, in addition to providing an interpretive system for the natural world, also obligated the Pomor to observe and respect the natural world by limiting their economic strategies. The result was a unique environmental ethic. In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, the Pomor environmental ethic came under direct criticism from larger social forces-first the local business community and then the Soviet state-because of its low productivity. Ultimately, Stalin's aggressive economic and political policies succeeded in eliminating the Pomor environmental ethic as an effective curb on resource exploitation.  Este artículo se propone revisar el famoso artículo de Lynn White de 1967, en el que culpa al sistema de creencias judeocristiano de los problemas medioambientales en el mundo occidental, y analizar el caso de los Pomor, una sub-etnia rusa asentada a orillas del Mar Blanco en el siglo XII. A pesar de mantener su fe ortodoxa después de migrar a la orilla de la zona cultural eslava, los Pomor adoptaron una nueva forma de vida adaptada al clima nórdico. En vez de concentrarse en la agricultura, que resultó ser poco fiable a tal latitud, centraron su atención en la explotación de los recursos marinos: la pesca, la caza de focas y la caza de ballenas. Al lidiar con unos elementos tan duros diariamente, los Pomor desarrollaron una visión del mundo llamada "geografía sagrada," que aunaba el animismo con las creencias cristianas. La geografía sacra, además de proporcionar un sistema de interpretación de la naturaleza, también obligaba a los Pomor a observar y respetar el mundo natural mediante la limitación de sus estrategias económicas. El resultado fue una ética del medio ambiente única. A finales del siglo XIX y principios del XX, la ética del medio ambiente de los Pomor fue criticada por fuerzas sociales más grandes, primero por la comunidad empresarial local y luego por el estado soviético, debido a su baja productividad. En última instancia, los agresivos principios económicos y políticos de Stalin lograron acabar con la ética medioambiental Pomor como freno eficaz a la explotación de los recursos.

Why Cooperate?

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas N. Sherratt ◽  
David M. Wilkinson
Keyword(s):  
Kin Selection ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Selfish Gene ◽  
The Social ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The World ◽  
Vampire Bats ◽  
The Common

An altruistic act is one in which an individual incurs a cost that results in a benefit to others. Giving money or time to those less fortunate than ourselves is one example, as is giving up one’s seat on a bus. At first, one might consider such behaviour hopelessly naive in a world in which natural selection seemingly rewards selfishness in the competitive struggle for existence. As the saying goes, ‘nice guys finish last’. Yet examples of apparent altruism are commonplace. Meerkats will spend hours in the baking sun keeping lookout for predators that might attack their colony mates. Vampire bats will regurgitate blood to feed their starving roost fellows, while baboons will take the time and effort to groom other baboons. Some individuals, such as honeybee workers, forego their own reproduction to help their queen and will even die in her defence. The common gut bacterium Escherichia coli commits suicide when it is infected by a bacteriophage, thereby protecting its clones from being infected. If helping incurs a cost, then surely an individual that accepts a cooperative act yet gives nothing in return would do better than cooperators? What, then, allows these cases of apparent altruism to persist? In his last presidential address to the Royal Society of London in November 2005, Robert M. May argued, ‘The most important unanswered question in evolutionary biology, and more generally in the social sciences, is how cooperative behaviour evolved and can be maintained’. In this chapter, we document a number of examples of cooperation in the natural world and ask how it is maintained despite the obvious evolutionary pressure to ‘cheat’. We will see that, while it is tempting to see societies as some form of higher organism, to fully understand cooperation, it helps to take a more reductionist view of the world, frequently a gene-centred perspective. Indeed, thinking about altruism has led to one of the greatest triumphs of the ‘selfish gene’ approach, namely the theory of kin selection. Ultimately, as the quote from Mandeville indicates, we will see that cooperation frequently arises simply out of pure self-interest—it just so happens that individuals (or, more precisely, genes) in the business of helping themselves sometimes help others.

The Shenzi Fragments

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eirik Lang Harris
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Warring States Period ◽  
Warring States ◽  
Political Theories ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Han Fei ◽  
Chinese Intellectuals ◽  
Complete Translation ◽  
Lushi Chunqiu

The Shenzi Fragments is the first complete translation in any Western language of the extant work of Shen Dao (350–275 B.C.E.). Though his writings have been recounted and interpreted in many texts, particularly in the work of Xunzi and Han Fei, very few Western scholars have encountered the political philosopher’s original, influential formulations. This volume contains both a translation and an analysis of the Shenzi Fragments. It explains their distillation of the potent political theories circulating in China during the Warring States period, along with their seminal relationship to the Taoist and Legalist traditions and the philosophies of the Lüshi Chunqiu and the Huainanzi. These fragments outline a rudimentary theory of political order modeled on the natural world that recognizes the role of human self-interest in maintaining stable rule. Casting the natural world as an independent, amoral system, Shen Dao situates the source of moral judgment firmly within the human sphere, prompting political philosophy to develop in realistic directions. Harris’s sophisticated translation is paired with commentary that clarifies difficult passages and obscure references. For sections open to multiple interpretations, he offers resources for further research and encourages readers to follow their own path to meaning, much as Shen Dao intended. The Shenzi Fragments offers English-language readers a chance to grasp the full significance of Shen Dao’s work among the pantheon of Chinese intellectuals.

England's Maritime Empire: Seapower, Commerce and Policy, 1490–1690. By David Loades. London: Longman, 2000. Pp. xi, 277. $17.80, paper.

2001 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 1106-1107
Author(s):  
G. V. Scammell
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Elizabeth I ◽  
Political Regimes ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Tudor England ◽  
Empire Building ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Overseas Expansion ◽  
Imperial State ◽  
Maritime Empire

To the vast and burgeoning literature on the rise, fall, and consequences of European empire-building, David Loades, a distinguished historian of Tudor England, adds this brief and stimulating book on the origins and course of the country's overseas expansion in the two centuries after 1490. He is not concerned with models or with the analysis of global balances of power. Taking a more modest perspective, he argues that between 1490 and 1690 England changed from being the decayed remnant of a once-formidable expansionist power on the Continent to a nascent oceanic and imperial state. By the mid-1500s, he claims, the foundations of the country's subsequent maritime and colonial achievements were already in place. He identifies the vital elements as the creation of a standing specialist fighting navy; the development, from the mid-sixteenth century, of an interest in long-distance voyages and trading ventures, sustained under Elizabeth I by an “enterprise partnership” between the queen and some of her subjects; and the emergence, in the years of the Commonwealth and the Cromwellian Republic, of the navy as an instrument of state rather than dynastic ambition. However, as the argument unfolds he admits the importance of other factors, not least the pursuit of profit and the desire of some of England's populace to escape from religious or political regimes they found intolerable.

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