ABSTRACT
This chapter places the Plowman case in the English political context. It illustrates the impact of the Glorious Revolution on England’s social fabric and shows how regime change deeply affected English diplomatic capabilities, with consequences for Anglo-Tuscan diplomatic relations. The chapter focuses also on the English community residing in Livorno. By analysing the figure of John Burrows, the English consul in Livorno, and that of the ambassador to Tuscany, Lambert Blackwell, it highlights the institutional frailty of the new Williamite regime. The correspondence both of the consul and of the English ambassador reveals the climate of mutual distrust and suspicion that reigned in those years between the English crown, its representatives and its citizens. The chapter also shows the bitter divisions within the English community in Livorno. Relations between its members were so tense that John Burrows went so far as to try to kill two Englishmen who were competing against him for the consulate of Livorno.
