The Progresses, Processions, and Royal Entries of King Charles I, 1625-1642 is the first study to focus on the history, and the political and cultural significance, of the travels and public profile of Charles I. As well as offering a much fuller account of the king's progresses and Caroline progress entertainments than currently exists, this volumes throws fresh light on the question of Charles I's accessibility to his subjects and their concerns, and the part that this may, or may not, have played in the political conflicts which culminated in the English civil wars and Charles's overthrow. Drawing on extensive archival research, the history opens with an introduction to the early modern culture of royal progresses and public ceremonial as inherited and practiced by Charles I. Part I explores the question of the king's accessibility further through case studies of Charles's three 'great' progresses in 1633, 1634, and 1636. Part II turns attention to royal public ceremonial culture in Caroline London, focusing on Charles's spectacular royal entry to the city on 25 November 1641. More widely travelled than his ancestors, Progresses reveals a monarch who was only too well aware of the value of public ceremonial and who did not eschew it, even if he was not always willing to engage in ceremonial dialogue with his subjects or able to deploy the propaganda power of public display as successfully as his Tudor and Stuart predecessors.

About the Author
Siobhan Keenan is Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature at De Montfort University, Leicester, where she is also Associate Dean Research and Innovation for the Faculty of Arts, Design and Humanities. Her research focuses on early modern theatre history, regional performance culture, and royal progress entertainments. She is the author of several books, including Travelling Players in Shakespeare's England (2002) and Acting Companies and Their Plays in Shakespeare's London (2014), as well as the editor of two politically topical seventeenth-century manuscript plays, The Emperor's Favourite (2011) and The Twice Chang'd Friar (2017).

Reviews
Siobhan Keenan's interdisciplinary monograph makes a substantial contribution to a surprisingly under-researched area. [...] this is an important book that establishes a foundation for other researchers to start filling in the gaps (Charles's more numerous 'minor' progresses or Henrietta Maria's separate tours), as Keenan herself recommends. * Sarah Poynting, English Historical Review *
The Progresses, Processions, and Royal Entries of King Charles I adds substance and subtlety to our understanding of political culture in the early Stuart period. It is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the notoriously fraught, ultimately fatal conversation between Charles and his people. * Andrew McRae, The Seventeenth Century *



Book Information
ISBN 9780198854005
Author Siobhan Keenan
Format Hardback
Page Count 260
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 1g
Dimensions(mm) 242mm * 165mm * 22mm