aBurntShip

                                Neutralism in a Revolution  If you offer to take our cattle, be assured we will bid you battle. Dorset Clubmen slogan  1645  The Clubmen of the British Civil Wars are still quite a neglected subject for research. Possibly because they were local movements operating  only in  certain counties, armed neutralists who were determined to protect their communities from rampaging soldiers fighting for either side. Sometimes relegated as being merely a 'product of the war'. It is possible to write whole histories of the British Civil Wars and omit them.  Yet their activity is a potent reminder of war. Of communities  having bands of soldiers foisted upon them, demanding supplies, horses, money, sometimes plundering and abusing, and deserve not to  just be relegated into some sort of footnote . This book reminds us that forced conscription was another unwelcome consequence of the conflict. For example one reads of the Royalist commander Sir Thomas Lunsfo

                                           Volpone ( first performed  1606 )  Have been reading'Ben Jonson, Volpone  and the Gunpowder Plot' by Richard Dutton (Cambridge University Press, 2008). In some respects, such a study is a paradox :Volpone's greatest strength is that it is basically a fable that exposes greed and folly, therefore has a timeless appeal . I am not necessarily convinced that 'Volpone' is directly connected to the Gunpowder Treason. But a valuable work nevertheless.                                  ' Volpone'  Illustration by Aubrey Beardsley,1898. Courtesy Wikipedia Netherlands,   Ben Jonson was quite a personality.  A scholar, a builder's apprentice, a soldier, actor, playwright, poet. An Anglican who became a Catholic for a number of years, then changed his mind. He killed at least two other men, one who was  fellow actor Gabriel Spencer in 1598. Jonson was nearly executed as a result, but plead benefit of clergy and got away wit