Edward Stockley

edward.stockley@history.ox.ac.uk

Research Topic: The Body Political: Disability, Masculinity, and Bodymind in the British Civil Wars

Supervisors: Andrew Hopper and Ismini Pells

My research investigates the disabled, sick, and suffering male body as an object of both political and material significance in the British Civil Wars. Many of the most influential figures on both sides of the conflict experienced disability and pain which was often not only a result of, but had a direct impact upon, the political situation in the mid-century. My thesis takes an interdisciplinary approach, combining disability, gender, and political history, to explore the fundamental yet hitherto unexamined relationship between the suffering body and the politics of the period, not merely as a metaphor for civil war but as a determining factor in the conflict itself.

I completed my BA at King’s College, Cambridge (2020-23), and my MSt at Harris Manchester College, Oxford (2023-24). I am originally from Yorkshire.

Publications

I have a specific interest in the Parliamentarian general Sir Thomas Fairfax. My article ‘Sir Thomas Fairfax and the Politics of Pain’, which assessed the impact of chronic pain and illness on his political career, was published in The Seventeenth Century in 2024 and is available (open access) here.

Prizes and Funding

My research is very kindly supported and enabled by Magdalen College.