Course summary

Home of the two-year degree, the University of Buckingham, based in the South East of England, is ranked 6th for Student Satisfaction in the UK (National Student Survey, 2020). We are proudly independent and not-for-profit, and offer courses in Allied Health, Business, Computing, Education, Humanities, Law, Medicine, Psychology and Security and Intelligence. We are one of the few universities in the UK that offer September and January start dates for almost all of our courses. Based in Buckingham on a riverside campus, we are only 20 minutes’ from Milton Keynes central station and a short drive from Bicester, Aylesbury, Banbury and Northampton. There is free parking on-site and we are within easy reach of London and Oxford. Our award-winning small class tutorials ensure every student is known by name and supported throughout their studies, including by dedicated personal tutors. As pioneers of the two-year degree, we offer a condensed version of the traditional three-year degree, meaning you can gain a full honours degree and complete your studies a whole year earlier. Alternatively, you can complete both your undergraduate and master’s degree with us in just three years: saving you time and money. The PhD in Stuart History – which incorporates the history of the Civil War and the English Republic (1649-1660) – is an advanced research degree, awarded on the basis of a thesis and an oral viva voce examination. The primary purpose of the PhD is the preparation and presentation of a substantial piece of independent and original academic research, completed in three years if studying full-time and usually six years if studying part-time. There is also the possibility of early submission in cases where the student makes particularly rapid progress. There is an enormously broad range of possible thesis subjects in British History during the ‘long’ seventeenth century: the age of Stuart rule from the accession of James VI of Scotland as James I of England and Ireland in 1603 through to the death of Queen Anne, the last of the Protestant Stuart monarchs, in 1714. Theses in the recent past have ranged from Anglo-French relations in the early seventeenth century, to the political career of the second Earl of Warwick, one of the towering figures of the parliamentarian leadership in the English Civil War, through to the financial underpinnings of British government after the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688. The University encourages applications from those who are interested in all aspects of the social, religious, political and cultural history of Stuart Britain. Given sufficient evidence to illuminate it, almost any aspect of the history of Britain in the ‘long’ seventeenth century may potentially form an appropriate focus of study. Your supervisors (or prospective supervisors) are on hand to offer advice. The definition of the PhD subject is an iterative process, and it is usual for the candidate’s first thoughts on the topic to be modified in the course of the first year of study.