Dec 22, 2021 • 22M

The Piracies of John Fowke (Audio Version)

Merchant adventure on the high seas of London finance

Dec 22, 2021

Everything I produce related to London merchant adventurer and military entrepreneur John Fowke. My scholarship has centered on his role in the outbreak of the English Civil War, the parliamentary victory, and the birth of mass politics. Fowke and his Puritan partners shaped the nascent British gunpowder empire from the 1627 through the Restoration. No standalone volume about John Fowke exists. In fact, as far as I can tell I am the first person to ever write an essay focused on his career.

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I am now recording select posts as podcasts. First up is my long post from last week about John Fowke, a Puritan merchant of London whose personal war with King Charles I and the East India Company ignited a slow fuse that exploded into the English Civil Wars.

Polemology Positions

The Piracies of John Fowke

There are few solid facts about John Fowke before 1627. We know he was born at Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire some time around 1598 to William Fowkes and Alice Carr. We are sure that he was a merchant in the Haberdashers livery company, and that he was married to Catherine Briggs, daughter of Richard Briggs. The rest of what we know about Fowke before this…

2 years ago · Matt Osborne

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