History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution of 1688, Volume 1F

Before David Hume became one of the defining philosophers of the Enlightenment, he rewrote how England understood itself. This volume traces the tumultuous decades following the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, through the reign of Charles II and his brother James II, culminating in the bloodless revolution of 1688 that forever altered the English constitution. Hume guides us through the Great Fire of London, the courtly intrigues and mistresses of the Merry Monarch, the religious panics of the Popish Plot, the failed attempts to exclude James from succession, and the delicate negotiations that finally displaced the Catholic king for the Protestant William and Mary. Written with the cool detachment and literary precision that characterizes Hume's best work, this is history as philosophical observation: the play of power, the follies of faction, the slow emergence of constitutional monarchy from the wreckage of civil war. For readers who want to understand the origins of modern British governance, this is where the story becomes essential.