Brokerage and Networks in London's Global World

The Londoner John Blackwell (1624-1701), shaped by his parents' Puritanism and merchant interests of his iconoclast father, became one of Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army captains. Working with his father in Parliament's financial administration both supported the regicide and benefitted financially from the subsequent sales of land from those defeated in the civil wars. Surviving the Restoration, Blackwell pursued interests in Ireland and banking schemes in London and Massachusetts, before being governor of Pennsylvania. Blackwell worked with his son, Lambert Blackwell, who established himself as a merchant, financier and representative of the state in Italy during the wars of William III before being embroiled in the South Sea Bubble.
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The linked histories of the three Blackwells reinforce the importance of kinship and the development of the early modern state centred in an increasingly global London and illustrate the ownership of the memory of the civil wars, facilitated by their kin links to Cromwell and John Lambert, architect of Cromwell's Protectorate, by those who fought against Charles I.
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Suitable for specialists in the area and students taking courses on early modern English, European and American history as well as those with a more general interest in the period.

David Farr is a playwright, screenwriter and stage director, whose plays have been performed all over the world. He became Artistic Director of London's Gate Theatre in 1995, then at the Bristol Old Vic in 2002, London's Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, in 2005, then Associate Director of the RSC in 2009. In recent years, he has moved into film and television, working on the long-running BBC show Spooks and completing his first feature film, Hanna, for Focus Features in 2009.

Introduction / PART 1:1594-1660 / Puritan Activists, 1594-1642 / War, 1642-1646 / Revolution, 1646-1649 / Administrator and Politician, 1645-1660 / Speculators and Agents, 1646-1660 / PART 2:1660-1691 / Survival and new opportunities, 1660-1672 / Kin and Brokerage, 1647-1693 / Blackwell in America: Massachusetts, 1684-1688 / Blackwell in America: Pennsylvania, 1688-1690 / PART 3:1691-1727 / Blackwell and Lambert Blackwell: London and Italy, 1672-1701 / Lambert Blackwell in Italy: Merchant, Consul and Envoy, 1684-1705 / Lambert Blackwell in Italy: representative of the English state at war, 1690-1705 / Lambert Blackwell: Financier, MP and landed elite, 1705-1720 / Lambert Blackwell and the South Sea Bubble, 1711-1727 / Conclusion