Faction Displayed

Faction Displayed: Reconsidering the Impeachment of Dr. Henry Sacheverell features a collection of essays that examine the turbulent partisan culture during Queen Anne’s reign that ensued as a result of the 1710 parliamentary trial of English clergyman Henry Sacheverell.

• Features several essays originating from a 2010 conference held at the Palace of Westminster to mark the tercentenary of Sacheverell’s impeachment
• Links events in Parliament to the public that was both fascinated and enraged by them
• Explores the nature of the public sphere and critiques Habermas’s notion of it
• Offers a form of cultural parliamentary history and addresses the many forms of partisanship evident in the ‘rage of party’

Mark Knights is Professor of History at the University of Warwick. His research focuses on political culture in the early modern period. His most recent publication, The Devil in Disguise: Deception, Delusion and Fanaticism in the Early English Enlightenment (2011), includes a chapter about the Sacheverell trial.