Ambition and Failure in Stuart England : The Career of John, 1st Viscount Scudamore

A lay follower of Archbishop William Laud, Viscount Scudamore was an ambitious politician.

This study examines how he sought power and prestige through his support of the Crown's financial, religious and military policies; it also examines how he manipulated concepts of honour to present himself on various stages. Through the career of one man, it illuminates much recent work on Laudianism, the Personal Rule of Charles I, Caroline foreign policy, royalism and the outbreak of the civil war.

This study explores the nature of implemented often unpopular Crown policies; it also investigates his failure as an ineffectual ambassador and a disastrous royalist commander.