A theatrical portrait is an image of an actor or actors in character. This genre was widespread in eighteenth century London and was practised by a large number of painters and engravers of all levels of ability. The sources of the genre lay in a number of diverse styles of art, including the court portraits of Lely and Kneller and the fetes galantes of Watteau and Mercier. Three types of media for theatrical portraits were particularly prevalent in London, between c.1745 and 1800 : painting, print and book illustration. All three offered some form of publicity to the actor, and allowed patrons and buyers to recollect a memorable - performance of a play. Several factors governed the artist's choice of actor, character and play. Popular or unusual productions of plays were nearly always accompanied by some form of actor portrait, although there are eighteenth century portraits which do not appear to reflect any particular performance at all. Details of costume in these works usually reflected fashions of the contemporary stage, although some artists occasionally invented costumes to suit their own ends. Gesture and expression of the actors in theatrical portraits also tended to follow stage convention, and some definite parallels between gestures of actors in theatrical portraits and contemporary descriptions of those actors can be made. Theatrical portraiture on the eighteenth century model continued into the nineteenth century, but its form changed with the changing styles of acting. However the art continued to be largely commercial and ephemeral, and in its very ephemerality lies its importance as a part of the social history of the eighteenth century.

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This thesis concerns Catholics in north-western England in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, in particular the Layburne family of Cunswick, Cumbria. It examines their role in local society and at the courts of the Stuart queens in London and St Germains. It traces their growing commitment to the Jacobite cause and their hopes of thereby regaining positions of influence at court and in the country. The north-western Tory gentry's sympathy with their Catholic counterparts is contrasted with the treatment given to the Quakers in the same area. The latter were regarded as a danger to the fabric of society, representing an economic and political threat to the government. As an example of how integrated the Catholics were, the services in Kendal parish church were more Papist than non-conformist, even under the Protectorate. At the Restoration the Catholics continued to contribute to the upkeep of the church and were well-regarded in the area. The Layburnes occupied positions during the reign of James II, both in the north-west and at court. Bishop John Laybume acted as James II's Catholic bishop, and had also been involved in the Secret Treaty of Dover in 1670, under Charles II. during James II's reign bishop Layburne had organised the funding of Catholic chapels, clergy and education. This activity was discovered and used in the prosecution of Catholic gentry in the trials following the Lancashire Plot (1694). On acquittal, the Jacobites vigorously renewed their plotting in Lancashire. Planning for a Jacobite invasion reached its culmination in the 1715 Rising, only to end with the siege of Preston. Despite some executions and the forfeiture of estates, many Catholic Jacobite families survived the 1715 rising. Few rose in 1745 and many Catholic families, with the exception of the Layburnes, prospered and continue to this day.

The Way to True Excellence: The Spirituality of Samuel Pearce is a dissertation that seeks to understand why and how the late eighteenth century pastor, Samuel Pearce (1766–1799) was a model for spirituality. Pearce was the pastor of Cannon Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, England from 1790 until death in 1799. Pearce only lived to be thirty-three years old, but he had a very successful ministry in Birmingham, was sought after as a preacher through Great Britain, and was an integral part of the Baptist missionary movement that helped bring about a sea-change in evangelicalism. For decades after his death, John Ryland and other Baptist leaders referred to Pearce as the “seraphic Pearce.” One year after his death Andrew Fuller published Pearce’s memoirs, Memoirs of the late Rev. Samuel Pearce, and the latter became a model of eighteenth-century Baptist piety. In this thesis, three areas of his piety are examined against the backdrop of eighteenth-century evangelicalism: his preaching as a model for a spirituality of the word, his marriage and friendships as a model for a spirituality of love, and his commitment to the Great Commission as a model for a spirituality of mission. With the examination of these three areas, this thesis seeks to show to what extent Pearce’s spirituality captures the quintessence of late eighteenth-century Baptist spirituality.

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