Dr Neil Younger

Senior Lecturer In Early Modern History

neil.younger@open.ac.uk

Biography

Professional biography

I studied history at the University of Birmingham, receiving a BA in 2001, an MPhil in 2003 and a PhD in 2007. Since then I have taught at the universities of Birmingham, Durham and Essex, and Vanderbilt University in the US. I joined the Open University as a Lecturer in 2014.

Research interests

My research focuses on politics and government, both local and national, in Elizabethan England. In the past, I studied these issues by way of the problems posed to the early modern polity by warfare, focusing on the Elizabethan wars against Spain (1585-1603); this was the subject of my doctoral thesis and my first book, War and Politics in the Elizabethan Counties (2012).

More recently, I have shifted to looking at politics in the context of the religious division of post-Reformation England. The long-term aim of this is to produce a book reassessing the impact of religious change on Elizabethan politics. In the shorter term, and as part of that larger project, I have recently published a book on the life and career of Sir Christopher Hatton. This project investigates how a politician with very strong links to Catholics worked (and succeeded) within the ostensibly Protestant regime of Elizabeth I.

I would be happy to discuss supervising postgraduate research in any of these areas. I am currently supervising PhD students working on government in early modern Oxford, the emotional content of Elizabethan royal ceremonies, and the creation of William Camden's Annals.

I am convenor of the Medieval and Early Modern History research group.

Publications

Books

Religion and Politics in Elizabethan England: The Life of Sir Christopher Hatton (Manchester University Press: Politics, Culture and Society in Early Modern Britain series, 2022).
War and Politics in the Elizabethan Counties (Manchester University Press: Politics, Culture and Society in Early Modern Britain series, 2012).

Articles

‘New light on Henry Lanman, owner of The Curtain’, Early Theatre, 25:1 (2022), 117-25.
‘How Protestant was the Elizabethan regime?', English Historical Review, 133:564 (October 2018), 1060-92.
‘Drama, politics and news in the Earl of Sussex’s entertainment of Elizabeth I at New Hall, 1579’, Historical Journal, 58:2 (June 2015), 343-66.
‘The practice and politics of troop-raising: Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex and the Elizabethan regime’, English Historical Review, 127:526 (June 2012), 566-91.
‘Securing the monarchical republic: the remaking of the lord lieutenancies in 1585’ (winner of the 2008 Sir John Neale prize), Historical Research, 84:224 (May 2011), 249-65.
‘William Lambarde on the politics of enforcement in Elizabethan England’, Historical Research, 83:219 (February 2010), 69-82.
‘If the Armada had landed: a reappraisal of England’s defences in 1588’, History, 93:311 (July 2008), 328-54.

Book chapters

'Warfare' in Understanding Early Modern Primary Sources, ed. L. Sangha and J. Willis (Routledge, 2016).
‘Henry Herbert, second earl of Pembroke and noble leadership in the Elizabethan provinces’ in Leadership and Elizabethan Culture, ed. P. Kaufman (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2013).

Edited sources

‘The Correspondence of William Lambarde and John Leveson’, Staffordshire Archive Service, 2008 (http://www.sutherlandcollection.org.uk/contributors/1-8-5.asp).

Other publications

'The other favourite', History Today 73:7 (July 2023), 76-83.
(with Janet Dickinson) ‘Just how nasty were the 1590s?’, History Today 64:7 (July 2014), 10-16.
‘Robert Peake (c1551–1619) and the Babington Plot’, British Art Journal 14:2 (2013), 65-7.
‘The Tudor state’, State Papers Online, 1509-1714, Cengage Learning EMEA Ltd, 2008.
Reviews for English Historical Review, History, Journal of British Studies, Midland History, Reviews in History, Sixteenth Century Journal.

Teaching interests

I am currently Qualifications Lead for History and also Deputy Module Team Chair of A113 'Revolutions', an interdisciplinary Level 1 module which looks at major turning points in the making of the modern world. I am also Deputy Module Team Chair of A223 'Early Modern Europe: Society and Culture, 1500-1780'. I have also contributed teaching material to A111 'Discovering the Arts and Humanities' and A328 'Empires: power, resistance, legacies'.