This Optional Subject is concerned with the English nobility and gentry in a century when the landed classes played a critical role in the political, religious and social life of the nation.  It uses family papers, letters and biographies as the primary sources to study the élite’s own attitudes and its diverse experience in this disturbed period.  There will be an opportunity to investigate the political allegiances of the nobility and gentry, their pattern of office-holding, attitudes towards the court, and to study the divisions generated by religion and civil war.  The private life of the upper orders, their education, marriage patterns, family life and estate management will be major themes of the course, and there will be specific sections on architecture and portraiture to provide a brief insight into the cultural activities characteristic of the propertied.  Several of the texts used are by, or related to, noble women, and offer some entry into their mental world as well as that of their husbands.  It is hoped that the course will provide an introduction both to a fascinating period of English history and to various aspects of the study of history.