William Poulter

Email: hy20wap@leeds.ac.uk
Thesis title: The Rise of the English Nation-State: A Reconsideration of the Careers of Sir Christopher Hatton and William Cecil, Lord Burghley.
Supervisors: Professor Stephen Alford, Dr Sara Barker

Profile

I am a postgraduate researcher at the University of Leeds. I graduated with a first class BA (Hons) in History from Leeds in July 2023. My undergraduate dissertation (supervised by Professor Stephen Alford) explored Richard Hakluyt’s involvement in developing a North American colonial policy under Elizabeth I and James I.

I have most recently undertaken an internship at the University of Oxford, supervised by Professor Sarah Mortimer (Christ Church) and Dr David Scott (History of Parliament Trust), researching contemporary responses to the death of Lucius Cary, second Viscount Falkland, in the English Civil War.

I am a Postgraduate Member of the Royal Historical Society.

Research interests

My current research explores connections between social mobility and architecture in Elizabethan England. William Cecil, Lord Burghley and Sir Christopher Hatton represented a nascent meritocracy; their housebuilding programmes intended to legitimise their respective positions within the Elizabethan polity and demonstrate their power. Their architectural patronage will offer a unique assessment of England’s social and political evolution under Elizabeth I.

Qualifications

BA (Hons) History, first