DEVIL-LAND ENGLAND UNDER SIEGE 1588-1688
CLARE JACKSON
Allen Lane, 684pp, £35
Clare Jackson claims that England in the 17th century was a ‘failed state, a byword for seditious rebellion, religious extremism and regime change’ – in the words of a Dutch pamphleteer in 1652, no longer ‘Angel-land’ but ‘Devil-land’.
‘Much of that century’s political devilry, Jackson contends, derived from a single source: the question of England’s proper relationship with Europe,’ John Adamson noted in the
Sunday Times. ‘Jackson rises ably to the challenge.’ Leanda de Lisle in the
Times agreed, describing the book as ‘a wonderfully clear and original history’.
‘ Devil-land works as a history of English foreign policy in the 17th century,’ Rhys Jones observed in the
Financial Times. ‘But, really, it is about how Europeans, their ambassadors and envoys, found the English both baffling and infuriating.’ Jessie Childs in the London Review of Books and Lucy Wooding in the
Literary Review both argued that this approach has its limitations. ‘Their utterances are undeniably fascinating,’ Wooding wrote, ‘but the individuals concerned were highly partisan, often ill-informed and generally shaped their comments to fit a particular agenda at home.’
Although Childs maintained that ‘for most of the century England was nothing like a failed state’, she conceded that ‘the research is impressive, the writing lucid and every page thought-provoking. It is also tremendously entertaining.’ ‘Parallels with the present are
Europeans found the English both baffling and infuriating
obvious,’ Jones wrote. ‘But it sometimes reads like a history of English exceptionalism, even though the intention is clearly to characterise the English as exceptionally dysfunctional.’ Ronald Hutton in the Times
Literary Supplement observed that English interest in their most dysfunctional century has tended to peak at moments like the present, ‘as the place of England in the world, in Europe, and in its own archipelago, seems once more to be in question’.