The Trials Of John Fowke

A link post of the story so far

Matt Osborne

Nov 12, 2022

I am scheduled to present the following paper at the Southern Historical Association conference in Baltimore today. It is not about John Fowke. However, as I kept researching the topic intending to write a thesis based on the paper, I noticed this very interesting fellow lurking around every corner of English Civil War London. Once I opened The Court Minutes of the East India Company, I found him right where I was looking for a gunpowder plot device. I have been struggling through Chancery Court documents ever since.

Polemology Positions

The Gunpowder Reason, A Plot

Listen now (135 min) | Before I go any further with the John Fowke project, I would like to present subscribers with a podcast version of the original term paper that started me down this rabbit hole. It’s above the picture. I was curious to understand why the British “military historians” dominating the previous generation of English-language historiography were so dismissive…

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2 years ago · 1 like · Matt Osborne

Below the subscription button are all my previous posts on John Fowke of London. Future posts about him will be subscriber-only, so be sure to sign up if he interests you as much as he interests me. The grueling work of document interpretation has been slowed by the distractions of war and work this year, but there are finally fruits coming ripe on the vine, and they will be juicy.

Polemology Positions

John Fowke Versus the British East India Company

Less known than his contemporary Wallenstein, John Fowke was a merchant adventurer in an era of military entrepreneurship. A tax protester, he was also sent to the fleet for refusing to pay tonnage and poundage. After forking over a literal king’s ransom for his release, Fowke became a constant irritant to the court of Charles I and a leader in the grow…

2 years ago · Matt Osborne

Polemology Positions

John Fowke and the Invention of News

The Mercurius Aulicus newspaper was published in Oxford and within London during the English Civil War. Like everything else organizational to the royalist war effort, it peaked in 1643 and disintegrated during 1645, lasting down the ages as an alternative view to the military victors of the conflict — and inspiring the creation of news as an industry. …

2 years ago · Matt Osborne

Polemology Positions

John Fowke and the Invention of News (Audio Version)

Listen now (6 min) | This is another podcast version of a selected post. I will be doing this for all of my posts about Fowke from now on, as the chair of my thesis committee is blind. (Have you ever seen someone give a 60-minute lecture on English Civil War historiography without notes? I have, and it’s amazing!) I will begin recording posts on other topics soon enough. Do…

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