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January Topic: 'Lord Brooke, Warwick Castle and the English Civil War' by Ann Hughes

Robert Greville, 2nd Lord Brooke, was the adopted heir of the first lord, the poet and courtier Fulke Greville. He was nonetheless a determined opponent of Charles I, and a significant popular parliamentarian leader until his premature death (aged 35) from a freak shot fired from the spire of Lichfield Cathedral in May 1643.

The first half of this talk discusses Brooke's distinctive position as a religious radical and intellectual, and assesses his importance in rallying support for the parliament in Warwickshire and in the city of London.

The second half will focus on the impact of civil war and Brooke's premature death on the Castle itself, transformed from an aristocratic home into a military garrison, and on some members of the idiosyncratic household Brooke had gathered around him. Many of Brooke's servants and officials served the parliament, developing contrasting and independent positions and opinions. Examples will range from the gardener George Medley, and cook Constantine Heath, to the chaplains, secretaries and lawyers, including John Sadler, John Bryan, and Joseph Hawksworth, and the extended Bridges family from Alcester, whose fortunes were made in service of the Grevilles and the parliament.

Date/Time: Thursday 15th January | 6pm - 8pm (Doors open at 5:45)

Tickets: £30.00

Includes: Presentation, a light supper (See website for Menu), first drink.

About the Speaker

Ann Hughes is retired from Keele University, where she worked as Professor of Early Modern History for almost 20 years after earlier positions at the Open University and the University of Manchester.

Throughout her career she has addressed the English Civil War or Revolution of the mid-seventeenth century. Her research focuses on the religious, cultural, and political implications of the crisis, with recent interests in print culture and modes of communication, preaching, gender, and the complex engagements of men and women with the parliamentarian war-time state.

Robert, 2nd Lord Brooke featured in her PhD thesis and subsequent book Politics, Society and Civil War in Warwickshire 1620-1660 (Cambridge, 1987), and she has returned more recently to him through an edition of the household accounts of Brooke and his widow, co-edited with Stewart Beale and Andrew Hopper: The Household Accounts of Robert and Katherine Greville, Lord and Lady Brooke, at Holborn and Warwick, 1640 -1649, (Camden Society 5th Series, 68: Cambridge University Press for the Royal Historical Society, 2024). Her other publications include Gender and the English Revolution (London, 2011); Gangraena and the Struggle for the English Revolution (Oxford, 2004); The Causes of the English Civil War (Basingstoke, 2nd edition, 1998), and a co-edited edition of the works of Gerrard Winstanley (Oxford, 2009).

Tickets are also available to purchase in the Lord Leycester Ticket Office during opening hours