AHA, Christmas . . .

I am currently sitting in my hotel room at the AHA conference in New Orleans. My wife and infant son (who is about the cutest baby in the whole world) are not with me, unfortunately. I have been reviewing old notes and lecture plans to prepare for an interview tomorrow. Now seemed as good a time as any to reflect on my own and the more general history.
To update on me, my wife and I had a wonderful baby boy, and we have been very happy despite the assorted troubles that go with having a newborn. He is generally quite happy and sweet. My work on my dissertation has slowed considerably, but I have been making progress in recent days, and plan to finish this school year. I have been teaching world history at Georgia Gwinnett College, and next semester, in addition to GGC, I will be picking up a class at Kennesaw State University.
To any relatively new grad students out there, I have some advice. 1. Make sure that you can teach world history. All the work I have been able to get has hinged largely on my ability to teach world history. Make sure that your fourth field and possibly your third are as eclectic as possible. My fourth field is Japanese history, and I am very grateful for it. My third field is Sci. Rev., which also has opened the door to places that lack anyone who does history of science. Make sure that you can teach broadly, because most departments are small and you are much more attractive if you can do many things. Being comfortable teaching world history also means that you can say something (if only one thing) to almost any historian which won’t sound entirely stupid or made up. 2. If at all possible, get some experience teaching writing. This is not possible at all institutions, but what interviews I have had have shown me that whether or not you intend to teach writing, people like to see that there. Most historians don’t actually know how to go about teaching writing, but it is very important to us. 3. If given the opportunity to teach a class, teach something at the edge of your abilities. It is very tempting to teach your major field, but being able to prove to potential employers that you can teach all the things you say you can is very helpful. They know you can teach your primary field; it’s the others that are in doubt. 4. Oh, and this is a bit of a side thought, but make sure to pay attention in your methodology class. You would be surprised how useful that will be. 5. Take copious notes on your computer and sign up for a cloud service. Make sure that those notes and all your teaching materials are up there, too. It never hurts to have easy access to those things when away from home. I recommend sugarsync.
That was all advice (except for the last) that I have received from a variety of people over the course of my graduate career, but considering the path of my career, I think they are among the most useful pieces of advice I have received.
My fingers are crossed for tomorrow, though I know that the odds are not in my favor. It is hopefully only the first of many such opportunities.
The title of this post comes from a pamphlet from 1647 (or possibly 1646, I don’t really feel like looking it up right now). I used to see it abbreviated as “Aha! Christmas . . . ” and it was connected to the Christmas riots that followed parliament’s attempt to halt the celebration of Christmas. It does not have much to do with this post, except that it includes the words “AHA” and “Christmas,” and the latter is only relevant because it was recently Christmas. I just thought it was a funny title/abbreviation.

Life continues

Wow, it has been half a year since my last post.  Well, life gets in the way sometimes.  It isn’t like I haven’t been doing a lot of writing anyway.  In short, my wife is pregnant and we are expecting in about a month, we bought a house about a month ago, and I have been working furiously on my dissertation to try to get as much done as possible.  It won’t be be done before the baby arrives, but I just have one chapter, an introduction, and revisions left. So there is that.

I recently (two days ago) made a rather significant discovery.  I’ll have more on that in the future, but for now I’ll just say that Mabbott made a very serious attempt to control the news industry during his career as licenser.  I would only call if half successful, but it was brilliant nonetheless.  And it really pissed off Henry Walker.

So I now have chapters 1, 2, 3, and 5 completed.  I am currently working on the chapter focusing on the Moderate and some of the other parliamentary newsbooks, looking for signs of news sharing or anything else that might be of interest.  This is somewhat worn territory, but since my interests are more specific, it will hopefully still yield something useful.  I am trying to track Mabbott’s political and career development in the period.

I will try to post something of what I’ve done for the other chapters in the next week or two.  Maybe I’ll review some of the articles I’ve read recently.  I had to do some thinking about the public sphere and its relation to my research, so that might interest somebody out there.

The Leviathan

I will try to upload some real content soon.  In the meantime, I will leave you with two items.  One: while looking through the Lords Journal for something else, I ran across the Lords debating a writ of error between a man named Kirke and a man named Bishop.  Got a good chuckle over that.  You can find those in Aug. and Oct. 1648.  Two: this is one of my favorite woodcuts yet.  Leviathan smiles.

Some quick images

I took a couple of screenshots of some items that made me laugh for one reason or another.  For the first, how often do you see that?  For the second, it wasn’t actually an emoticon, but wouldn’t it be great if it was?

Drink-hards

I am fairly busy these days, so I haven’t had much time to blog much.  However, I just ran across this pamphlet, and thought it was worth sharing.  I’m not sure why I find it so funny, but the guy passed out with everyone watching just kills me.

The unfortunate Moss family

This is the story of how I depressed myself one day:

The other day I was trying to track down Elizabeth Moss.  The Moss(e) family was connected to William Clarke and Gilbert Mabbott, though the relationship is still unclear to me.  One HMC editor thought that Clarke may have been adopted into the Moss family, though there isn’t enough proof for that kind of assertion.  Certainly, Clarke does receive a letter from someone he calls “Mother Mosse.”

I found that there were a John and Elizabeth Moss who were having children, also named John and Elizabeth, in the later 1640s and early 1650s, this would have made them around the same age as Gilbert and William.  The baptisms were held at St. Margaret’s, the same place that Mabbott would have his children baptized.

My next piece of evidence was a letter (29 October 1650) from Mabbott’s and Clarke’s brother-in-law, Hilliard Kympton, to Clarke.  He said that he was “from my hart sorry for Mr. Moss” and that Elizabeth was “like a woman distracted” and a “miserable wretch.”  He then says the kinds of things that a person says when something terrible had happened.  At this point, I was excited by the mystery, and dug into my materials to see what I could find.

From there I found in an HMC volume two letters, drafted by Clarke, in which Elizabeth was trying to negotiate with the royalists for the release of her husband.  They were dated 1 January 1651.  Okay, so it looks like she was upset because John had been captured by royalists.  It is also clear that Elizabeth and Clarke had been trying to arrange some kind of prisoner transfer, but Cromwell decided that Moss was not worth the trade offered.  Elizabeth then tried to offer money.

I’m still not sure what exactly John Moss did, but it was apparent from the above letters that he was not part of the army, but he was connected to the war effort.  I found in the CSPD that there had been a John Mosse who brought some news to the Committee of Both Houses about the capture of Col. Powell.  At this point, I wonder about this whole family group.  Since I know that Hilliard was also involved with the New Model, it’s clear that there was a whole series of connected families that made their livings as civilian support for the military.  I guess I shouldn’t find that surprising, but I do.

Now I finally find the last piece of the puzzle.  On 25 June 1652, Elizabeth Mosse received £50 from the Council of State, “her husband having lost his life in the service.”  It looks like John was captured by royalists, held for negotiations, and when Clarke and Elizabeth couldn’t convince Cromwell to make a trade and couldn’t put together enough money to make it worthwhile, the royalists executed him.

For some reason, I just keep imagining how painful that must have been.  Can you imagine?  So much anger and pain and guilt.  I don’t know why, I just can’t shake it.  I think it might be because of that letter by Hilliard Kympton.  I just imagine how distraught Elizabeth must have been.  Then, she had the hope of some kind of prisoner exchange. Everything was going to be alright!  Then Cromwell said no, and they didn’t have the resources to pay the ransom.  It’s just awful.

Well, now I’ve gone and depressed myself again.  On a more positive note, Kympton married a Susan Moss, who, I’m guessing, was the offspring of John and Elizabeth.  However, since I know that Kympton remarried once, if not twice, Susan probably didn’t last all that long either.  I still have more looking to do in the parish registers, but at least I’ve figured the broad outlines of the Moss family tragedy.  Now I need a drink.

Last trip to the Huntington

I just made my final trip to the Huntington Library for a while. It was not a particularly productive afternoon. I could not hunt down anymore information on Kympton Mabbott’s will. I did verify that he got a marriage license in March 1703. His new wife’s name was Elizabeth. I am wondering if it is possible that either this or the Ellen Mabbott, widow of Kympton in Cornwall, was mistranscribed. Elizabeth and Ellen could be mixed up, right? Otherwise, there is either a third wife or a second Kympton Mabbott running around. It’s possible that there were two Kymptons, but the name is very odd. No offense intended to any Kympton Mabbotts running around out there right now. Actually, if you are named Kympton Mabbott, and Kympton is a family name, you are probably related to Gilbert in some way. Drop me a line.

I have also been having trouble finding an index for wills proved at Canterbury between 1700 and 1750. Does such a thing not exist? I’ve found indices on either side, just not for the 50 years I need. I’ve long since given up on finding Gilbert’s will, but I was hopeful for Kympton’s.