Haileigh Robertson (Author)
In 1667, ‘The History of Saltpetre and Gunpowder’ by Thomas Henshaw was published in Thomas Sprat's The History of the Royal Society. Three years later, Henshaw's work was subject to a scathing review by the notorious anti-Royal Society pamphleteer, Henry Stubbe. I argue that, for Stubbe, Henshaw was not merely a passive representative of the Royal Society through which he could direct his ire, but gunpowder, the subject of Henshaw's research, was important. Both Henshaw and Stubbe employed gunpowder deliberately and strategically. In this article I explore the reasons behind the Royal Society deciding to publish a ‘Baconian history’ of gunpowder. First I argue that the high status of gunpowder was used as a justification for experimental pursuits, and it provided a direct connection to the Society's forebear Francis Bacon. But Stubbe, who was already a critic of the Royal Society, happened to have knowledge that made him uniquely placed to write animadversions against Henshaw's paper. Secondly, gunpowder can shed light on the Baconian histories and the challenges faced by Baconian scholars in putting this project into practice.
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Book
Cressy, David;
(2013)
Saltpeter: The Mother of Gunpowder
(/isis/citation/CBB001201311/)
Article
Hyeok Hweon Kang;
(2022)
Cooking Niter, Prototyping Nature: Saltpeter and Artisanal Experiment in Korea, 1592–1635
(/isis/citation/CBB231312398/)
Article
Dickson, Donald R.;
(1998)
The hunt for red elixir: An early collaboration between Fellows of the Royal Society
(/isis/citation/CBB000077694/)
Chapter
Jacob, James R.;
(1980)
Aristotle and the new philosophy: Stubbe versus the Royal Society
(/isis/citation/CBB000006700/)
Article
Filip A. A. Buyse;
(2020)
Boyle, Spinoza and Glauber: on the philosophical redintegration of saltpeter—a reply to Antonio Clericuzio
(/isis/citation/CBB902217592/)
Article
Francesco Luzzini;
(2013)
La sofferta chiusura del cerchio. Il contributo di Edmond Halley all’idrologia
(/isis/citation/CBB810604430/)
Article
Brick, Greg;
(2012)
Le Sueur's Saltpeter Caves at Lake Pepin, Minnesota, and Wilderness Gunpowder Manufacture
(/isis/citation/CBB001211604/)
Thesis
Quincy Marie Washa;
(2019)
Philosophical Saltpeter: The Origins and Influence of Gunpowder Technology and the Paracelsian Aerial Niter
(/isis/citation/CBB516048417/)
Article
Mordechai Feingold;
(2020)
An Anatomy of a Religio-Scientific Polemic: The Wilkins-Ross Controversy Revisited
(/isis/citation/CBB973483524/)
Article
Dana Jalobeanu;
(2022)
Dissecting Nature ad vivum: Parts and Wholes in Francis Bacon’s Natural Philosophy
(/isis/citation/CBB815665162/)
Book
Jacob, James R.;
(1983)
Henry Stubbe, radical Protestantism, and the early Enlightenment
(/isis/citation/CBB000022726/)
Article
Michael Hunter;
(2021)
Thomas Henshaw's strange séance in Venice, circa 1648: a coda to Robert Boyle by himself and his friends
(/isis/citation/CBB603868472/)
Article
Dickson, Donald R.;
(1997)
Thomas Henshaw and Sir Robert Paston's pursuit of the red elixir: An early collaboration between Fellows of the Royal Society
(/isis/citation/CBB000071961/)
Thesis
Caryn Maureen O'Connell;
(2017)
Vegetal Life From Bacon to Milton: Incarnate Science
(/isis/citation/CBB946145704/)
Article
Jed Buchwald;
Chen-Pang Yeang;
Noah Stemeroff;
Jenifer Barton;
Quinn Harrington;
(2021)
What Heinrich Hertz discovered about electric waves in 1887–1888
(/isis/citation/CBB521367913/)
Book
Jean-François Stoffel;
(2022)
Introduction à la lecture des célèbres articles duhémiens de la Revue des questions scientifiques (1892-1896)
(/isis/citation/CBB499374940/)
Article
Knight, Harriet;
Hunter, Michael;
(2007)
Robert Boyle's Memoirs for the Natural History of Human Blood (1684): Print, Manuscript and the Impact of Baconianism in Seventeenth-Century Medical Science
(/isis/citation/CBB000773973/)
Article
Yeo, Richard;
(2007)
Between Memory and Paperbooks: Baconianism and Natural History in Seventeenth-Century England
(/isis/citation/CBB000771563/)
Chapter
Hotson, Howard;
(2005)
The Instauration of the Image of God in Man: Humanist Anthropology, Encyclopaedic Pedagogy, Baconianism and Universal Reform
(/isis/citation/CBB000773818/)
Article
Nils Roll-Hansen;
(2018)
Revisiting the Pouchet–Pasteur Controversy Over Spontaneous Generation: Understanding Experimental Method
(/isis/citation/CBB624613411/)
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