Join the 17th Century
Explore the story of early Boston, Massachusetts, and the wider 17TH century world
No Kings? No Tyrants!
Charles I was a tyrant. Of that, English Puritans had no doubt. He ruled arbitrarily, imposing his personal will. He imprisoned dissenters and executed not a few. He taxed people, arguably illegally. He cancelled Parliament, and therefore representative government. And as for the Puritan practice of their faith… Archbishop Laud had the answer: imprisonment, loss of jobs, fines, and even execution.
Not until Cromwell’s rule did an English republic emerge. But if not No Kings, then certainly No Tyrants was the Puritan motto.
In the final two presentations of our series on the Revolutions Before the Revolution, learn how English and New England Puritans understood tyranny and its opposite, liberty and even - in the case of the Levellers - debated something we might consider democracy.
On November 6, historian Francis J. Bremer presented Resisting Tyranny, Defining Liberty, on why and how New England’s Puritans wrote a bill of rights for themselves, enshrining rights and liberties unprecedented in the English-speaking world. We’re still debating these rights today. Watch here.
Historian Rachel Foxley, University of Reading, Wednesday, November 19, time TBC, on the radicalism of early English political thought during the civil wars - and the political environment of pamphlets, protests and parliamentary might.
reading made quite easy
Autumn leaves are falling, the dark is closing in… It’s time to curl up with a book. What better way to find the perfect volume than to check our READ page, newly launched with book reviews written by yours truly (the Partnership of Historic Bostons) and members of our new virtual book club. If you haven’t had a look at our READ page, look now! You’ll find not only a Book of the Month but recommended reading on topics from witchcraft to slavery, the Puritan family to Indigenous people. PHB book club member Stephen Hahn has written a wonderful review of Squanto: A Native Odyssey, which you won’t want to miss. Check it out!
Events
rADICAL THOUGHT AND POLITICAL RESISTANCE
RACHEL FOXLEY
ONLINE, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2025, 5:30-7PM ET
We often think of revolutionary ideals as beginning in 1776. But more than a century before the American Revolution, English political thinkers were proposing representation, elements of democracy and an end to monarchy. Historian Rachel Foxley, University of Reading, explores the unexpected, even startling, radicalism of the English civil war, incuding the leading Leveller pamphleteer John Lilburne, pictured left. NOTE EARLY START TIME!
“We need a full and honest
reckoning with our history.”
— attendee, Tyranny vs Liberty series
Knowing the full picture
When we asked our audience why the 17th century mattered, they replied with gusto. “Knowing the whole picture can’t help but change what we think we are,” wrote one person. “The dispossession of Native nations has left a long painful legacy,” wrote an Indigenous woman. “We are today a ‘nation of rebels’,” wrote another person, “the outgrowth of radical protestantism.” What more did they say? Find out now!
a path not taken
We sometimes think of early New England as containing entirely separate people: white English Puritans; free and enslaved Black people; Indigenous people. A new book, Gathered into a Church, explodes this myth, showing how the heart of woodland New England - its faith - was an Indigenous-English creation, with Indigenous people not only embracing the faith but embodying its highest ideals.
surprising revolutionaries
New England Puritans insisted on self-government, bearing with them their charter. They drafted the first American bill of rights, enshrining liberties which far surpassed any in the English-speaking world. Who would have thought that Puritans could be so revolutionary? Francis J. Bremer explores the 1641 Body of Liberties and its guarantee of due process, the right to protest, and equality under the law.
“This talk opened a new world for me.”
— attendee, ‘I Pledge Allegiance’: Sovereignty and Sanctuary in the Dawnland