Although Shakespeare dubbed it “this sceptered isle,” England is not, itself, an island. It is, however, ringed with small islands, and those insular appendages of England’s royal state during the early modern period form the subject of this book. Cressy seeks not only to integrate these often-overlooked places (Holy Island in the north, the Isles of Man and Scilly in the west, Wight and the Channel Islands in the south, et al.) into the narrative of English events but also to complicate our understanding of center and peripheries in the period. He argues that England’s islands were increasingly incorporated into the strengthening early modern state, though, in some ways, they retained their island apartness.
England’s Islands engages with a wide range of historical perspectives—political, religious, social, economic, maritime, legal-constitutional, and literary. Informed by the interdisciplinary “island studies” approach, Cressy emphasizes the islands’ spatial and jurisdictional ambiguity and uniqueness, their complicated...