Project blog
How can people without official political power push the authorities to act? Historically, one of the most common tactics was to create a petition or supplication.
In seventeenth-century England, petitioning was ubiquitous. It was one of the only acceptable ways to address the authorities when seeking redress, mercy or advancement. As a result, it was a crucial mode of communication between the 'rulers' and the 'ruled'. People at all levels of society – from noblemen to paupers – used petitions to make their voices heard.
The project will create a valuable new resource by transcribing and digitising a corpus drawn from seven key collections of petitions held at national and local archives, totalling over 2,000 manuscripts. This corpus, when combined with careful contextualisation, allows us to offer new answers to crucial questions about the major social and political changes that unfolded in this formative period.
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Now Online: New Investigations into late Elizabethan and Jacobean Petitioners
1 June 2020
During the reign of James I, the king and his councillors received hundreds of petitions every year. As part of ‘The Power of Petitioning’ project, we have transcribed and...
The Penruddock Petitions: The Aftermath of a Royalist Revolt, 1655-166
12 May 2020
Sarah-Jayne Ainsworth [This blogpost examines the petitions written by Wiltshire woman Arundell Penruddock and her family between 1655 and 1660. These are housed at the Wiltshire and...
1620, the drapers of Shrewsbury and Oswestry seek to protect their trading privileges
9 May 2020
The drapers of Shrewsbury and Oswestry. SP 14/112 f. 72 (1620) To the right honourable the lords and others of his majesties most honourable previe counsell: The humble peticion of...
8 May 2020
The Commissioners of Sewers for Cambridge and Ely. SP 14/105 f. 72 (1619) To the right honourable the lordes and others of his majesties most honourable privie counsell. The humble...