Publications

Books

The Early Parliaments of Henry VIII, 1510–1523 (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2025).

The Little History of England (Cheltenham: The History Press, 2024). 

The Tudor Sheriff: A Study in Early Modern Administration (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022).

Praise for The Tudor Sheriff

'In McGovern's trenchant commentary, industrious research, and explanatory clarity, The Tudor Sheriff is an Eltonian book' –  Paul Cavill, Journal of British Studies

'This could, like so much institutional history, have been a somewhat dry book, but McGovern has skilfully leavened his discussion with a plethora of colourful examples . . . McGovern has produced a valuable addition to the literature, based on extensive archival work in both national and local repositories, and one that is not only informative, but readable and even enjoyable. This is administrative history at its best, and a book that should be essential reading for anyone concerned with the government or politics of the long 16th century' –  Hannes Kleineke, Parliamentary History

'Drawing upon impressively wide-ranging archival work in administrative and legal records . . . the book ably succeeds in its central ambition of demonstrating in comprehensive detail the workings of the shrieval system under the Tudors' –  K. J. Kesselring, English Historical Review

'Anyone who has worked on the administrative history of Tudor England has glimpsed the sheriff, a key figure in regional governance. Dr McGovern's book offers the most comprehensive effort so far to survey and summarise the work of these officers . . . [A]n exhaustively detailed study . . . attests to the capacity for painstaking administrative reconstruction to be valuable in its own right' –  Laura Flannigan, Northern History

'[P]erhaps what is most striking about this book is the confidence and flair with which it is written . . . there is much to commend, from the depth and breadth of archival research on display, to the comprehensive and ambitious nature of the study . . . At a fair price, there is no reason why this book should not occupy a valuable space in university libraries across the kingdom. Perhaps this publication will inspire others and pave the way for a series of new studies into the other various key offices of local administration in early modern England' –  Simon Lambe, History: Reviews of New Books

'The greatest strength of this work is the incredibly wide range of sources from multiple archives on which McGovern draws . . . Through a forensic investigation of a wide range of source material he provides a much-needed study of an important official which has to date been neglected. This book should, and undoubtedly will, become an important text for legal and political historians working on early modern England' – Spike Gibbs, Agricultural History Review

Selected Articles

‘A New Manuscript Witness of William Fleetwood’s "Instruccions coment et en quell maner Statutes serrount expoundes" (c. 1578)’, Journal of Legal History 46, no. 3 (2025), 299–314.

‘An Early Draft of John Hooker’s The Order and Usage How to Keep a Parliament in England in These Days (c. 1571)’, Parliamentary History 44, no. 2 (2025), 188–202.

‘The Official Career of Sir Christopher Hales, Attorney-General and Master of the Rolls under Henry VIII’, Historical Research 98, no. 279 (2025), 37–50.

‘State of the Field: The New Administrative History’, co-authored with Kirsty Wright and Connor Huddlestone, History: The Journal of the Historical Association 109, no. 388 (2024), 422–444. 

‘The Parliament of Birds and the Fall of Cardinal Wolsey: A Case Study of Political Allegory in Early Modern England’, co-authored with Yuxuan Tao, Studies in Philology 121, no. 4 (2024), 465–478.

‘Parliamentary Procedure in the Reign of Henry VI: New Light on Pilkington’s Case (1455)’, Parliamentary History 43, no. 3 (2024) 266–275. 

‘The Practical Historical Approach: A Review of the Principles and Methods of Fact-First History’, World History Studies 9, no. 2 (2022), 1‒14.

‘Royal Counsel in Tudor England, 1485–1603’, The Historical Journal 65, no. 5 (2022), 1442–1469.

‘The Development of the Privy Council Oath in Tudor England’, Historical Research 93, no. 260 (2020), 273–285.

‘Was Elizabethan England Really a Monarchical Republic?’, Historical Research 92, no. 257 (2019), 515–528.

For a full, up-to-date list, see my Google Scholar profile.