Mother Leakey and the Bishop: A Ghost Story - Softcover

Marshall, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0199532079 ISBN 13: 9780199532070

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2009

Synopsis

Halloween 1636: sightings of the ghost of an old woman begin to be reported in the small English coastal town of Minehead, and a royal commission is sent to investigate. December 1640: a disgraced Protestant bishop is hanged in the Irish capital, Dublin, after being convicted of an "unspeakable" crime.

In this remarkable piece of historical detective work, Peter Marshall sets out to uncover the intriguing links between these two seemingly unconnected events.

The result is a compelling tale of dark family secrets, of efforts to suppress them, and of the ways in which they finally come to light. It is also the story of a shocking seventeenth-century Church scandal which cast its shadow over religion and politics in Britain and Ireland for the best part of three centuries, drawing in a host of well known and not-so-well-known characters along the way, including Jonathan Swift, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Walter Scott.

A fascinating story in its own right, Mother Leakey and the Bishop is also a sparkling demonstration of how the telling of stories is central to the way we remember the past, and can become part of the fabric of history itself.

About this title

About the Author:

Peter Marshall is Professor of History at the University of Warwick, with a particular interest in the study of religious belief and practice in sixteenth and seventeenth-century England and the cultural impact of the English Reformation. He has published widely in the field, including a survey of the period, Reformation England 1480-1642, and The Catholic Priesthood and the English Reformation, also published by Oxford University Press.

Review:

"A marvelously fun work of historical detection....Remarkably readable and enticing. Marshall excels in his transparent methodology and graceful story-telling. He has written a work appealing to the scholar, the student, and the everyday lover of history."--Sammie McGlasson, H-Albion

"This is as fine an example of microhistory as is likely to be written. Marshall not only demonstrates convincingly the link between the stories of Mother Leakey and Bishop John Atherton, not only expertly and painstakingly unravels the strange world in which they occurred, but does so in a highly readable and often entertaining fashion....Marshall expertly weaves disparate pieces into a compelling whole, and finds links which were by no means obvious....He displays a lovely style....But good as Marshall is at the genre, he goes beyond where most of its practitioners dare tread."--Craig Harline, Church History and Religious Culture

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0199532079
• ISBN 13: 9780199532070
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352