The dissertation takes the modern business technique/concept of brands and branding, applies them to a historic case study, the creation by James VI and I of Great Britain from 1603 to 1625, and by doing so throws new light on both. It compares two distinct approaches to branding, unidirectional and social interactionist, postulating that the latter would prove better at explaining the success of the brand Great Britain/British. The case study reveals that neither approach is supported by the evidence. Content analysis shows that there was a lack of awareness of the brand Great Britain/British and an inconsistency in its use, hence neither approach can be sustained. However, the same analysis does show that an alternative brand, England/English, existed in the same time and that this brand provides some limited support for the social interactionist view of brands and branding. The lack of success of the brand Great Britain/British during his reign does not appear to have prevented James VI and I from establishing himself as the legitimate King of England in addition to Scotland although the contribution of the brand to this was marginal at best.

Urban festival actively sought to transform the early modern city, creating an idealised space that was deemed to be a more suitable site for celebration. This dissertation shows how urban festival marked both the conjuncture and disjuncture between a rhetorical ideal and the challenges inherent in its practical realisation in London and Paris between 1660 and 1715. Celebrations were located in the real early modern city‐ a space that posed all manner of design problems for those responsible for designing, devising and choreographing festival. While the ideal celebratory city did exist in the rhetoric that informed preparations for events and their representation, festival also constituted a series of performances in real space and time that were subject to uncontrollable factors, such as poor weather, injury, uncooperative workforces and imperfect audience response. Only those charged with commemorating festival had full control over the event, producing the books, chronicles and illustrative material that are most often consulted as sources by festival historians. By means of a tripartite structure, this dissertation will interrogate how the deployment of the spectacular aspired to create the ideal celebratory city at three key moments in the narrative of every celebration. The first section focuses on the practical and legislative preparations made before events. The second section considers the evidence of what actually happened during the performance or realisation of the events. The third, and final, part of the dissertation looks at the representation of celebrations in printed textual descriptions and visual images. Starting from the evidence of objects, including viewing platforms, fireworks, temporary architecture and bonfires, it will suggest the extent to which the ideal was achieved and the ways in which it influenced the practice of those involved in its production. Moreover, as a single event could be informed by more than one version of the ideal celebratory city, evidence of preparation, performance and representation will also demonstrate how far celebrations were the product of contested ideals.

Bibliography: leaves 315-363.

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This is a study of the political prophecy in England in a period delimited by the accession of King James I (1603) and the end of the Interregnum (1660). It combines the analysis of hitherto obscure manuscript texts with that of printed works to provide a nuanced account of the uses and reception of prophecies in this period. Chapter One (which focuses on the first decade of James's reign) and Chapter Two (which covers the period 1613-19) approach the analysis of dramatic treatments of political prophecy through the study of prophecy both as a rhetorical buttress to the Jacobean state and as a protest genre. Attentive to the elite bias of the legal documents wherein allegedly oppositionist uses of prophecy are recorded, these chapters heed the counsel of historians who have found literary scholars insufficiently suspicious of the rhetoric of these materials. A focus on dramatic texts, neglected by the historians, reveals that Jacobean playgoers were encouraged to regard both official prophetic rhetoric and official rhetoric about prophecy with scepticism. Chapter Three considers how native and continental prophetic traditions were expanded and repurposed in England around the beginning of the Thirty Years' War, when belief in the purportedly inspired status of prophecies was rare but recognition of their utility as a vehicle for political discussion was nonetheless widespread. Chapter Four explores the adaptation and tendentious exposition of medieval, sixteenth-century, and Jacobean manuscript prophecies in printed propaganda for both the royalist and parliamentarian causes in the mid-seventeenth century. This study of literary and archival sources finds that previous scholarship has overestimated the extent of popular faith in the authenticity of allegedly ancient and inspired prophecies in the early Stuart period. The longevity of purported prophecies, it concludes, was ensured through the recognition, appreciation, and exploitation of their rhetorical affordances.

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The Reflection of the Exclusion Crisis (1678-1683) in Contemporary Literature Kristýna Hoblová abstract This work of literary history analyses the reflection of the Exclusion Crisis (1678-1683) in contemporary literature across genres. It is based on the theory of the rise of the public sphere by Jürgen Habermas and on the theory of Michael McKeon, understanding the ideology of the late Stuarts as a last remnant of aristocratic ideology. The Exclusion Crisis is presented here as a period of unsettling negotiations between the declining Stuart ethos and the Whig ideology of the rising mercantile classes. The interpretation of chosen texts serves to discover creative transformations of the political discourse of the newly emerging political parties of Whigs and Tories, stressing the negotiations between genres, individual authors and political ideologies. The first chapter offers a brief overview of the socio-historical context, Habermas's theory of the rise of the public sphere and Michael McKeon's conception of aristocratic ideology. It also introduces the Tory political theory defending the Stuart divine right of kings on the basis of Robert Filmer's patriarchal household-state analogy and the Whig defence against absolutist tendencies of the Stuarts through asserting the priority of Law over the Royal...

Andrew Michael Ramsay fut un intellectuel écossais du Siècle des Lumières, à la fois "aventurier religieux", auteur politique et franc-maçon. Élevé dans le protestantisme, il rechercha un équilibre spirituel et une doctrine plus conformes à ses vœux. Il voyagea dans de nombreux pays pour atteindre ce but et finalement trouva auprès de Fénelon, archevêque de Cambrai, et de Madame Guyon, adepte du "Pur Amour", un père et une mère spirituels. Sous leur influence, il finit par adhérer à un catholicisme de nature gallicane caractérisé par un appel constant à l’intériorité. De son œuvre, émergent quatre traités : l’Essai sur le gouvernement civil(1721) dans lequel il démontre que la meilleure forme de gouvernement est la monarchie absolue, héréditaire, de droit divin. Fervent jacobite, il espérait le retour de la dynastie Stuart sur le trône d’Angleterre. L’Histoire de la vie de Fénelon (1727) traite principalement des péripéties de sa conversion par le prélat; Les Voyages de Cyrus (1727), roman didactique, apologétique et politique, raconte la formation d’un jeune prince accompli, rempli de sagesse et de piété. Son ouvrage central, Les principes philosophiques de la religion naturelle et révélée (1749), communément appelé le "Great Work" ne parut qu’après sa mort. Le franc-maçon perçait alors sous le philosophe. Son Discours (1737) fait remonter les origines de l’Ordre aux croisades et, surtout, fixe les obligations auxquelles est soumis tout franc-maçon, qui lui sont rappelées au moment de son initiation. Cet homme, complexe, mystique et politique réussit l’exploit de faire changer radicalement cette organisation très attachée à ses traditions qu’est la Franc-maçonnerie. / Andrew Michael Ramsay was a Scottish intellectual of the Enlightenment and was at the same time a "religious adventurer", a political author and a freemason. Born into a Protestant family, he undertook a search for spiritual stability and for a doctrine more in line with his aspirations. In this quest, he journeyed through several countries, and he eventually found in the company of Fénelon, archbishop of Cambrai, and of Madame Guyon, an advocate of the doctrine of "Pure Love", a spiritual father and mother. Inspired by them, he finally converted to a Gallican variety of Catholicism which was at the root of his call to a life of constant soul-searching. From his work four treatises emerge: An Essay upon Civil Government (1721), in which he sought to show that the best form of government is an absolute, hereditary monarchy, based on divine right. As a zealous Jacobite, he longed for the return of the Stuarts to the British throne. The Life of Fénelon (1727) deals mainly with the various stages leading up to his conversion by the prelate. The Travel of Cyrus (1727) is a didactic, apologetic and political novel which relates the education of a young accomplished prince endowed with wisdom and piety. His most considerable work is The Philosophical Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion (1749), commonly called the "Great Work", which was published posthumously. Here the freemason can be seen beneath the philosopher. His Discourse (1737) traces the origins of Freemasonry back to the crusades, and also sets out the obligations that every freemason must adhere to and which he is reminded of during his initiation. His success in radically changing this organization so deeply attached to its customs remains the lasting legacy of this complex, mystical and political figure who is Andrew Michael Ramsay.