Murder and Monarchy

Robert Von Friedeburg is Professor of History, Erasmus University Rotterdam, and Co-Founder of the Erasmus Center for Early Modern Studies. He was Visiting Fellow at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Harvard, Cameron Faculty Fellow at St. Andrews and Member of the Institute for Advanced Study, School of Historical Studies, Princeton. He has recently published Self-Defence and Religious Strife in Early Modern Europe: England and Germany, 1530-1680 (St. Andrews Studies in Reformation History, 2002) and edited Patrioten und Patria im Europa der fruhen Neuzeit (Wolfenbutteler Forschungen, 2004). He is currently writing a history of Early Modern Europe (Fischer Weltgeschichte, Neue Folge) and working on the history of monarchy in Early Modern Germany.

• PART I: CONCEPTUAL QUESTIONS Introduction; R.Von Friedeburg The Office of Rule and the Rhetorics of Tyrannicide in Medieval and Early Modern Europe; C.Condren PART II: MEDIEVAL KINGS AND THE MAKING OF MONARCHY Murder and Monarchy in the Visigothic Kingdoms; J.Hillgarth Murdering the Anointed; J.P.Genet PART III: REX INUTILIS: THE DEFENCE OF MONARCHY AGAINST ITS KINGS IN LATE MEDIEVAL EUROPE Resisting and Deposing Kings in England in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries; C.Carpenter France in the 15th Century; N.Bulst Limitations to Monarchical Power; W.Blockmans PART IV: 'NEW MONARCHY - NEW MONARCHS?' THE PUNISHMENT OF TYRANTS, HERETICS AND TRAITORS 'Pro me si mereor in me': Kingship and Tyranny in Scotland, 1437-1587; J.H.Burns The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots; D.Loades The French Monarchy and the Assassination of Henry III; M.Greengrass PART V: RELGIOUS TURMOIL AND THE DEFENCE OF ORDER BY MONARCHICAL MEANS Murder and Monarchy in France; L.Bely Regicide: The Execution of Charles I and English Political Thought; G.Burgess PART VI: THE DAWN OF EARLY MODERN MONARCHY Medieval and Early Modern Constitutionalism and Autocracy: Monarchy in Sweden and Russia and the Eighteenth Century Regicides; K.Zernack The Breakdown of the Rule of Law: A Comparative View of the Depositions of George III, Louis XVI and Napoleon I; V.Sellin PART VII: VISIONS OF MONARCHY, OLD AND NEW Conclusion; J.Morrill Index

'This thought-provoking volume ranges far beyond regicide to encompass deposition, and, especially in Robert von Friedeburg's impressively learned introduction, the larger context of political thought, including the notion of citizenship, the relationship of state and monarchy, and the desire to enforce government accountability.' - Ralph Houlbrooke, University of Reading, Mortality