Laura Stewart

Laura Stewart is a Professor in Early Modern British History at the University of York, where she served as Head of the Department of History (2020-24) and Deputy Head (2018-2020). She previously taught at Birkbeck, University of London, and held a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship (2005-07). Her work focuses on early modern British history, particularly the Scottish Revolution, political culture, and Anglo-Scottish relations.

• MA (St Andrews)
• MSc by research (Edinburgh)
• PhD (Edinburgh)

Her research explores the civil wars of the mid-seventeenth century, popular political participation, post-Reformation religious cultures, manuscript/print circulation, petitioning, governance, taxation, and gender in political narratives. She co-leads the international project Early Modern Parliamentary Cultures and is involved in the ODEUROPA project on olfactory heritage.

Notable trends in her publications include comparative analyses of parliamentary engagement, Scottish constitutional reimagining, and intersections of gender and political polemics.

• Morris D. Forkosch Prize (2017)
• Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
• Fellow of the Royal Society of Antiquaries (Scotland)

Laura supervises PhD students in early modern British history, including Joe Ellis on James VI & I's progresses. She previously mentored William White (Leverhulme Trust, 2020-23) and advised Calum Wright's 2018 thesis on English and Scottish political thought. Grants include the Leverhulme Trust and White Rose College of the Arts and Humanities.

She co-convenes the Seventeenth Century British History Seminar at the Institute of Historical Research, serves on the editorial board for Parliamentary History, and contributes to media projects like BBC Radio 4's In Our Time.