Dr Robin Eagles
Editor, House of Commons, 1660-1832
Current Research/Role
I am the Editor of the House of Lords 1660-1832 section, having joined the History in 2001. Before that, I taught for a few years after completing my doctorate at Oxford. I have written articles for volumes on the House of Lords 1660-1715. I am currently editing the next phase of the project, covering the Lords 1715-1790, and have written articles on Robert Harley, earl of Oxford, the tragic Richard Lumley, 2nd earl of Scarbrough, and Laurence Shirley, 4th Earl Ferrers: the last peer to be hanged for murder.
Research Interests
My wider research interests include politics and society in the long eighteenth century. I have a particular interest in the old Palace of Westminster, Frederick, Prince of Wales and the opposition court of Leicester House, and the radical MP John Wilkes. I have also written articles on the Lords in the Revolution of 1688 and crowds and the Palace of Westminster. My most recent books are a biography of Wilkes and a co-edited collection on the social and cultural world of the Georgian Assembly Room. I have also co-edited collections on Charles II’s secretary of state and lord chamberlain, Henry Bennet, earl of Arlington, and on scribal news in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. I have co-supervised a PhD student working on Black participation in British politics. I serve as secretary to the Parliamentary History Yearbook Trust and am also the Editor of the ‘Georgian Lords’ blog series.
Publications
Books
Bath and Beyond: The Social and Cultural World of the Georgian Assembly Room (London: Routledge, 2025) [co-edited with H. Burlock and T. LeBoff]
Champion of English Freedom: the Life of John Wilkes, MP and Lord Mayor of London (Stroud: Amberley, 2024).
Scribal News in Politics and Parliament, 1660-1760 (Wiley-Blackwell, 2022) [co-edited with M. Schaich].
Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington, and His World: Restoration Court, Politics and Diplomacy (London: Routledge, 2020) [co-edited with C. A. Dennehy].
The Diaries of John Wilkes, 1770-1797 (Woodbridge: London Record Society, 2014) [edited]. Francophilia in English Society, 1748-1815 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000).
Chapters in Books
‘Middlesex 1769’, in I. Dale (ed.), British By-Election 1769-2025: The 88 By-Election Campaigns That Shaped Our Politics (London: Biteback, 2025)
‘British Politics and Impeachment in the Eighteenth Century’, in M. Flinders and C. Monaghan (eds.), British Origins and American Practice of Impeachment (London: Routledge, 2023), pp. 64-84.
‘Reporting Trials and Impeachments in the Reign of George I: The Evidence of the Wigtown and Wye Newsletters’, in R. Eagles and M. Schaich (eds.), Scribal News in Politics and Parliament, 1660-1760 (Wiley-Blackwell, Parliamentary History Book Series 41:1, 2022).
‘Sir Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington’, in I. Dale (ed.), The Prime Ministers (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2020).
‘“The Inkhorn Lord”? Locating Arlington’s Connexions’, in R. Eagles and C. A. Dennehy (eds.), Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington, and His World (London: Routledge, 2020)
‘“Opening the door to truth and liberty”: Bowood’s French connection’, in N. Aston and C. Campbell Orr (eds.), An Enlightenment Statesman in Whig Britain: Lord Shelburne in Context, 1737-1805 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2011)
‘The House of Lords, 1660-1707’, in C. Jones (ed.), A Short History of Parliament: England, Great Britain, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Scotland (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2009).
‘“The Only Disagreeable Thing in the Whole”: the Selection and Experience of the British Hostages for the Delivery of Cape Breton in Paris, 1748-49’, in K. H. Doig and D. Medlin (ed.), British-French Exchanges in the Eighteenth Century (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2007). ‘Beguiled by France? The English aristocracy, 1748-1848’, in L.W.B. Brockliss and D, Eastwood (eds.), A Union of Multiple Identities: the British Isles, 1750-1850 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), pp. 60-78.
Journal Articles
‘“Old and unfit for other service?” Maintaining the Fabric of Parliament c.1660-1760’, Parliamentary History, 42:2 (2023), pp. 174-94.
‘“A Reward for so Meritorious an Action?” Lord Hervey’s Summons to the House of Lords and Walpole’s Management of the Upper Chamber (1727-42)’, Parliamentary History, 39:1 (2020), pp. 143-58.
‘“Got together in a riotous and tumultuous manner”: Crowds and the Palace of Westminster, c.1700-1800’, Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 43:3 (2020), pp. 349-66.
‘Frederick, Prince of Wales, the ‘Court’ of Leicester House and the ‘Patriot’ Opposition to Walpole, c.1733-1742’, Court Historian, 21:2 (2016), pp. 140-56.
‘“I Who Speak Always Unpremeditately”: The Earl of Mulgrave’s Speeches Against Corruption and in Defence of His Honour, 1692 and 1695’, Electronic British Library Journal (2016).
‘“I have Neither Interest nor Eloquence Sufficient to Prevaile”: The Duke of Shrewsbury and the Politics of Succession during the Reign of Anne’, Electronic British Library Journal (2015).
‘Loyal Opposition? Prince Frederick and Parliament (1729-51)’, Parliamentary History, 33:1 (2014), pp. 223-42.
‘“If he Deserves it”: William of Orange’s Pre-Revolution British Contacts and Gilbert Burnet’s Proposals for the Post-Revolution Administration’, Parliamentary History, 32:1 (2013), pp. 128-47.
‘The Missing Official Proxy Records of the House of Lords for 1661-2’, Jones, Parliamentary History, 32:1 (2013), pp. 237-52 [with C. Jones].
‘Geoffrey Holmes and the House of Lords Reconsidered’, Parliamentary History, 28:1 (2009), pp. 15-26.
‘“No more to be said”? Reactions to the death of Frederick Lewis, Prince of Wales’, Historical Research, 80:209 (2007), pp. 346-67.
‘“Unnatural Allies?” The Oxfordshire Elite from the Exclusion Crisis to the Overthrow of James II’, Parliamentary History, 26:3 (2007), pp. 346-365.
Specialisms: The Old Palace of Westminster, John Wilkes, Frederick, Prince of Wales, Parliament in the Long Eighteenth Century, the Eighteenth-Century House of Lords.
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