Tudor and Stuart Suffolk

This superb contribution to UK history covers topics as varied as population, government, the Church, witch-hunting, the Interregnum, the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and the Restoration. Throughout Suffolk the legacy of the events of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is still clear. In towns such as Lavenham it is there in the architecture; picturesque wool halls tell of the economic activity which sustained the county; grand houses are testament to the numerical rise of the gentry during the period; and there are many ecclesiastical monuments to the devout religious beliefs of the local population. However, these surviving reminders of the period tell of only a small part of the story. In this important book, which is the fruit of many years of research and writing, eminent historian Dr Gordon Blackwood looks at what made Suffolk unusual, comparing it with other English counties, and how the period helped to shape the county we see today, and to maintain a sense of perspective, events and personalities are placed in a national context. Dr Blackwood's book uses a wide variety of sources and the text is complemented throughout by 76 illustrations and 21 maps. `Tudor and Stuart Suffolk' makes a significant contribution to the body of literature on the early modern history of England and is intended to appeal to the general reader as well as to the specialist of the period.