Senior Research Fellow in Early Modern History
Sean Kelsey was awarded a scholarship to read history as an undergraduate at Balliol College, Oxford, and took his PhD from the University of Manchester. His doctoral dissertation was published under the title Inventing a republic: the political culture of the English Commonwealth, 1649 to 1653 (Manchester, UK, and Stanford, CA, 1997). As a post-doctoral fellow of the British Academy, Dr Kelsey studied the trial and execution of Charles I, the inauguration of the English Commonwealth, and the foundation of its principal executive agency, the Council of State. He has published a number of articles on these and related subjects in journals including the English Historical Review and the Historical Journal. His contributions to essay collections include his paper on “The kings’ book: Eikon Basilike and the English revolution of 1649″ written for the 2004 Neale colloquium. In 2007, Dr Kelsey was admitted to the roll as a solicitor of the supreme court of England and Wales (as it then was). Today, he works for the Government Legal Department.