Dr Andrew Thrush

Editor, House of Lords 1558-1603

athrush@histparl.ac.uk

Current Research/Role

I am the Editor of the Elizabethan House of Lords Section, having previously headed the 1604-1629 House of Commons and 1604-1629 House of Lords sections. After spending two years in school teaching, I joined the History in 1992. Awarded the Julian Corbett Prize in Naval History in 1988, I was Junior Caird Research Fellow at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich in 1989-90 and was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 2001.

As well as overseeing the writing of entries on the lives and careers of all 246 Elizabethan peers, I am compiling a detailed list of dates of each session for every Parliament (English and then British) which sat between 150 and the present day, for inclusion on the History’s website.

Research Interests

My wider research interests are primarily parliamentary and political and cover the period 1558-1642, though I also retain an interest in the early Stuart Navy. I currently have two essays in the pipeline: one on the importance of parliamentary considerations in the creation of new peers under Elizabeth (part of the published proceedings of a conference at St John’s College, Cambridge in 2021 to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Lord Burghley’s birth), the other on Parliament’s right to debate matters of religion, 1566-1629.

Publications

Books

The House of Lords, 1604-1629: Introductory Survey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021) being vol. 1 of The History of Parliament: The House of Lords, 1604-1629 (3 vols., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021)

Conrad Russell, King James VI and I and his English Parliaments (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011) [co-edited with R. Cust] 

The House of Commons 1604-1629: Introductory Survey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), [volume 1 of The History of Parliament, The House of Commons 1604-1629 (6 vols., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010)] 

Vice Admirals of the Coast (Kew: List and Index Society, vol. 321; 2007) [with J. C. Sainty]Henry VII (3rd edition) (London: Routledge, 1997) [with R. Lockyer]

Contributions to Books of Essays

‘The Jacobean Union Revisited, 1603- 7’ in A. Courtney and M. Questier (eds.), James VI and I: Kingship, Government and Religion (London: Routledge, 2025). 

‘The French Marriage and the Origins of the 1614 Parliament’, in S. Clucas and R. Davies (eds.), The Crisis of 1614 and the Addled Parliament: Literary and Historical Perspectives ed. S. Clucas and R. Davies (London: Routledge, 2003)

‘The Personal Rule of James I, 1611-18’, in T. Cogswell, R. Cust and P. Lake (eds.), Politics, Religion and Popularity in Early Stuart Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)

‘The Bottomless Bag? Sir James Bagg and Navy, 1623-8’, in M. Duffy (ed.), The New Maritime History of Devon, Volume 1 (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1992)

Part III, in J. B. Hattendorf, R. J. B. Knight, A. W. H. Pearsall and N. A. M. Rodger (eds.), British Naval Documents 1204-1960 (Navy Records Society, 1993) [co-edited Part III (1603-48) with N.A.M. Rodger] ‘Naval Finance and the Origins and Development of Ship Money’, in M. C. Fissel (ed.), War and Government in Britain, 1598-1650 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991).

Edited Documents

Part III, ‘1603-1648’ [co-edited with N.A.M. Rodger] in J. B. Hattendorf, R. J. B. Knight, A. W. H. Pearsall and N. A. M. Rodger (eds.), British Naval Documents 1204-1960 (Navy Records Society, 1993)

Journal Articles

‘Lords in the Light’, History Today, vol. 71 (2021)

‘Elizabeth Finch, Countess of Winchilsea’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (published online, 2019) 

‘The Fall of Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk and the Revival of Impeachment in the Parliament of 1621’, Parliamentary History 37 (2018)

‘King versus Commons’, History Today 61 (2011)

‘The Government and its Records, 1603-1640’, State Papers Online 1603-1714, Cengage Learning (2010)

‘Commons v. Chancery: The 1604 Buckinghamshire Election Dispute Revisited’, Parliamentary History 26 (2007)

‘The Men who Foiled Fawkes’, History Today 55 (2005)

Twenty articles for Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004) including Robert Bertie, 1st earl of Lindsey; Martin Bond; Nathaniel Boteler; Sir Thomas Button; William Feilding, 1st earl of Denbigh; Sir Thomas Moulson; and Sir John Penington.

‘The Parliamentary Opposition to Peace with Spain in 1604: A Speech of Sir Edward Hoby’, Parliamentary History 23 (2004)

‘The House of Lords’ Records Repository and the Clerk of the Parliaments’ House: a Tudor Achievement’, Parliamentary History 21 (2002)

‘The Ordnance Office and the Navy, 1625-40’, The Mariner’s Mirror 77 (1991)‘In Pursuit of the Frigate, 1603-42’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 64 (1991)

Specialisms:  Parliament, House of Commons, House of Lords, Personal Rule, impeachment, Lord Burghley, duke of Buckingham