Lake, Peter G.

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Lake, Peter G.

PERSONAL:

Education: Clare College, Cambridge, B.A., 1973, Ph.D., 1978.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of History, Princeton University, 216 Dickinson Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544.

CAREER:

University of London, London, England, former instructor; Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, professor of history, 1992—.

WRITINGS:

Moderate Puritans and the Elizabethan Church, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1982, reprinted, 2004.

(Editor, with Marie Dowling) Protestantism and the National Church in Sixteenth-Century England, Croom Helm (New York, NY), 1987.

Anglicans and Puritans? Presbyterianism and English Conformist Thought from Whitgift to Hooker, Unwin Hyman (Boston, MA), 1988.

(Editor and author of introduction, with Kevin Sharpe) Culture and Politics in Early Stuart England, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 1993.

(Editor, with Michael Questier) Conformity and Orthodoxy in the English Church, c. 1560-1660 ("Studies in Modern British Religious History" series), Boydell Press (Rochester, NY), 2000.

The Boxmaker's Revenge: Orthodoxy, Heterodoxy, and the Politics of the Parish in Early Stuart London, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 2001.

(With Michael Questier) The Antichrist's Lewd Hat: Protestants, Papists, and Players in Post-Reformation England, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 2002.

(Editor and contributor, with Thomas Cogswell and Richard Cust) Politics, Religion, and Popularity in Early Stuart Britain: Essays in Honour of Conrad Russell, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2002.

Contributor to books, including Puritanism: Transatlantic Perspectives on a Seventeenth-Century Anglo-American Faith, edited by Francis J. Bremer, Massachusetts Historical Society (Boston, MA), 1993.

SIDELIGHTS:

Peter G. Lake is a historian whose special interests are Tudor-and Stuart-era British history and the Church during the reign of the Tudors. In Culture and Politics in Early Stuart England, Lake and fellow editor Kevin Sharpe provide a series of essays discussing the relationship between culture and politics in Stuart England. For example, one essay focuses on the writings of Ben Jonson within a cultural and political context while another essay examines the political aspects of architecture at that time. "The editors' introduction in particular is essential reading for historians of early Stuart politics," wrote Richard Cust in the English Historical Review. Cust went on to call Culture and Politics in Early Stuart England "a very important collection which should do much to define a fresh agenda for the study of early Stuart politics."

Lake also edited, with Michael Questier, Conformity and Orthodoxy in the English Church, c. 1560-1660. The volume's various essays focus on how to distin- guish the differences between "religious history" as opposed to the more narrowly focused church history. "The strength of this collection is to be found not only in its essays but also in its editorial shaping," wrote Lori Anne Ferrell in Church History. Ferrell also noted: "There's not a weak essay in the book." Journal of Ecclesiastical History contributor Arnold Hunt commented: "This is the second volume in a promised series, Studies in Modern British Religious History, and if future volumes live up to the high standard of this one, university libraries would be well advised to place a standing order for the whole series."

In The Boxmaker's Revenge: Orthodoxy, Heterodoxy, and the Politics of the Parish in Early Stuart London, Lake, according History: Review of New Books contributor Alice Tobriner, writes about "the communal contentiousness between a cleric and a layman living out the heterodoxy-orthodoxy conundrum of early Stuart London. "The focus of this contention was Stephen Dennison, an orthodox preacher, and John Etherington, an artisan who went to prison for heresy. The author uses the two-decades-long verbal battle that ensued between these two men to illustrate the debate over church reform. Writing in the Journal of British Studies, Paul S. Seaver called The Boxmaker's Revenge "a vehicle for exploring the nature of early Stuart Puritanism." Critics generally praised the book for its insights. "This substantive investigation of parochial politics is … a dynamic narrative about popular opinion in flux," wrote Tobriner. Journal of Ecclesiastical History contributor William Lamont concluded: "This is a brilliant book which only Peter Lake could have written."

Lake collaborated with Michael Questier to write The Antichrist's Lewd Hat: Protestants, Papists, and Players in Post-Reformation England. The book focuses on how various groups—from Protestants, Catholics, and Puritans to the press and popular stage groups—used for their own ideological and commercial purposes the extremely popular, lurid pamphlets about murders printed in Tudor England at the time. The book includes prints from various woodcuts that were used to illustrate the pamphlets. In a review for History Today, David G. Chandler felt that The Antichrist's Lewd Hat contains "many insights, revelations and conclusions" and also described the volume as "teeming, energetic and perceptive." Leah S. Marcus, writing in the Journal of British Studies, further reflected: "If Peter Lake's book requires an outrageous amount of effort on the part of readers who may struggle to make their way through its densely packed pages, it also provides, at its best, ample rewards in terms of a supple, labile methodology for dealing in a historically responsible way with the complexity of cultural dissonance and ambiguity."

Lake, along with Thomas Cogswell and Richard Cust, also served as editor of and contributor to Politics, Religion, and Popularity in Early Stuart Britain: Essays in Honour of Conrad Russell. The book's various essays, according to Journal of Ecclesiastical History contributor Michael Questier, focus "on the considerable impact which Conrad Russell's own work has made on the field of early modern and, particularly, civil war historiography." Albion contributor Eric Josef Carlson remarked that Russell "certainly deserves, if anyone does, a volume of essays in his honor, and this is a volume worthy of its honoree."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Albion, fall, 2002, David Cressy, review of The Boxmaker's Revenge: Orthodoxy, Heterodoxy, and the Politics of the Parish in Early Stuart London, p. 479; summer, 2003, Susan Wabuda, review of The Antichrist's Lewd Hat: Protestants, Papists, and Players in Post-Reformation England, p. 280; spring, 2004, Eric Josef Carlson, review of Politics, Religion and Popularity in Early Stuart Britain: Essays in Honour of Conrad Russell, p. 124.

American Historical Review, December, 1989, Marvin A. Breslow, review of Anglicans and Puritans? Presbyterianism and English Conformist Thought from Whitgift to Hooker, pp. 1368-1369.

British Book News, November, 1982, James Atkinson, review of Moderate Puritans and the Elizabethan Church, p. 670.

Canadian Journal of History, December, 2002, Ian Gentles, review of The Boxmaker's Revenge, p. 530.

Catholic Historical Review, April, 2002, Keith Lindley, review of The Boxmaker's Revenge, pp. 363-364.

Choice, June, 1988, D.P. King, review of Protestantism and the National Church in Sixteenth-Century England, p. 1572; July, 1988, D.P. King, review of Anglicans and Puritans?, p. 1711; November, 2002, A. Kugler, review of The Antichrist's Lewd Hat, p. 542.

Church History, December, 2002, Lori Anne Ferrell, review of Conformity and Orthodoxy in the English Church, c. 1560-1660, p. 899; March, 2004, Cecile Zinberg, review of The Boxmaker's Revenge, p. 215.

English Historical Review, April, 1985, Christopher Haigh, review of Moderate Puritans and the Elizabethan Church, pp. 348-350; October, 1990, Claire Cross, review of Protestantism and the National Church in Sixteenth-Century England, p. 1021; April, 1991, Christopher Haigh, review of Anglicans and Puritans?, pp. 456-457; June, 1996, Richard Cust, review of Culture and Politics in Early Stuart England, p. 713; February, 2003, Christopher Haigh, review of The Antichrist's Lewd Hat, p. 147; September, 2003, Ivan Roots, review of Politics, Religion, and Popularity in Early Stuart Britain, p. 997.

Historical Journal, September, 1991, Nichols Tyacke, reviews of Protestantism and the National Church in Sixteenth-Century England and Anglicans and Puritans?, pp. 743-754.

History: Review of New Books, fall, 2001, Alice Tobriner, review of The Boxmaker's Revenge, p. 19.

History Today, December, 2002, David G. Chandler, review of The Antichrist's Lewd Hat, p. 54.

Journal of British Studies, April, 1996, John Kenyon, review of Culture and Politics in Early Stuart England, pp. 262-269; April, 2004, Paul S. Seaver, review of The Boxmaker's Revenge, p. 266; October 2004, Leah S. Marcus, review of The Antichrist's Lewd Hat, p. 514.

Journal of Ecclesiastical History, July, 2002, Arnold Hunt, review of Conformity and Orthodoxy in the English Church, c. 1560-1660, p. 609; January, 2003, William Lamont, review of The Boxmaker's Revenge, p. 174; January, 2004, Michael Questier, review of Politics, Religion, and Popularity in Early Stuart Britain, p. 195.

London Review of Books, September, 2002, Patrick Collinson, review of The Antichrist's Lewd Hat, pp. 15-16.

Religious Studies Review, October, 1983, Keith L. Sprunger, review of Moderate Puritans and the Elizabethan Church, p. 386.

Renaissance Quarterly, autumn, 2002, Stephen L. Collins, review of Conformity and Orthodoxy in the English Church, c. 1560-1660, pp. 1102-1106; fall, 2004, Renee Bricker, review of Politics, Religion and Popularity in Early Stuart Britain, p. 1124.

Review of English Studies, May, 1996, David Loewenstein, review of Culture and Politics in Early Stuart England, p. 244.

Sixteenth Century Journal, summer, 1996, Paul E.J. Hammer, review of Culture and Politics in Early Stuart England, pp. 602-604; fall, 2001, Dale Walden Johnson, review of Conformity and Orthodoxy in the English Church, c. 1560-1660, pp. 797-798.

Times Literary Supplement, September 3, 1982, Claire Cross, review of Moderate Puritans and the Elizabethan Church, p. 954; July 5, 2002, Euan Cameron, review of The Antichrist's Lewd Hat, p. 32.