W. A. Speck has been Professor of Modern History at the University of Leeds since 1983. He has taught at the universities of Exeter, Newcastle upon Tyne and Hull, and held visiting professorships at Portland State University and the College of William and Mary in the USA. He is currently engaged on research into England's North American colonies in the eighteenth century. His previous books include Stability and Strife: England 1714-1760 (Arnold, 1977); The Butcher: The Duke of Cumberland and the Suppression of the '45 (Blackwell).