Papers based on those presented at a conference on the life and career of William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle, held at Bolsover Castle in Derbyshire on 14-15 April, 2012.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preliminary Material -- Introduction: Authority, Authorship and Aristocratic Identity in Seventeenth Century England: William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle, and his Political, Social and Cultural Connections -- 1 Setting the Scenes: The Pre-Civil War Building Works of William Cavendish in Context by Adrian Woodhouse -- 2 Whimsy and Medieval Romance in the Life and Writing of William Cavendish by James Fitzmaurice -- 3 ‘An After-Game of Reputation’: Systems of Representation, William Cavendish and the Battle of Marston Moor by Elspeth Graham -- 4 The Concealed Fancies and Cavendish Identity by Lisa Hopkins -- 5 Flogging a Dead Horse?: Margaret Cavendish and the Pursuit of Authority by Alison Findlay -- 6 Courtly Rivalry: The Context for William Cavendish’s Equestrian Buildings by Malcolm Airs -- 7 William Cavendish, Galileo, Hobbes and the Mechanical Philosophy by Timothy Raylor -- 8 The Role of Honour in the Life of William Cavendish and the Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes by Lisa T. Sarasohn -- 9 William Cavendish as a Military Commander by Andrew Hopper -- 10 The Double Edged Sword: William Cavendish’s Political Career 1644–1660 by Madeline Dewhurst -- 11 ‘The Epitome of Horsemanship’: William Cavendish’s Method ‘Anatomized’ by Elaine Walker -- 12 Embodying ‘Bonne Homme à Cheval’: William Cavendish and the Politics of the Centaur by Monica Mattfeld -- 13 ‘Manèging’ to Survive: Horsemanship and the Rehabilitation of the Exiled William Cavendish, Marquis of Newcastle by Peter Edwards -- 14 William Cavendish: Riding School and Race Track by Richard Nash -- 15 William Cavendish’s Horsemanship Treatises and Cultural Capital by Karen Raber -- Index.

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The lives of William Cavendish, first duke of Newcastle, and his family including, centrally, his second wife, Margaret Cavendish, are intimately bound up with the overarching story of seventeenth-century England: the violently negotiated changes in structures of power that constituted the Civil Wars, and the ensuing Commonwealth and Restoration of the monarchy. William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle, and his Political, Social and Cultural Connections: Authority, Authorship and Aristocratic Identity in Seventeenth Century England brings together a series of interrelated essays that present William Cavendish, his family, household and connections as an aristocratic, royalist case study, relating the intellectual and political underpinnings and implications of their beliefs, actions and writings to wider cultural currents in England and mainland Europe.

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