What does the English Revolution mean for you? Did it change anything or, was John Dryden right when he wrote in 1670, ‘Thy wars brought nothing about’? Although they clearly left business which would take until 1689 to finish, their impact was considerable – even if much of it was unintended or unforeseen. And why not get in touch with your favourote character from the period? Come and join us at the History of England Podcast Facebook group

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Transcript

This week feels like a historic moment; it is my last publishing foray into the first phase of the English Revolution, 1640-1660. That’s just a plot spoiler to point out that there’ll be more trouble coming along, and this time it will be glorious, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

Any who, I have two jobs one is to part company with some of the folks at whose side we were standing when the Restoration balloon went up, finish off their stories a bit, wave to them from the key as they sail out onto the sea of historical oblivion with a hankie and a tear. You’ll find that in the Afterlives episode. The other is to ask – did it achieve anything, did it change anything?

Now I figured some of you might not be interested in one or other of these topics, and so instead of one big episode, this I have split them into two shorter ones, and also to issue the warning that these don’t take us chronologically forward through out story of England, so you can just skip one of both of them and you won’t miss out. Odd? Possibly! But that’s the way I did it. So, this episode is about the question – was it all for nought?

Blair Worden is one of those historians whose quite extraordinary intelligence and insight hits you in the face, and his conclusions have been in the back of my head all through this. He’s the one who quotes Dryden, and Dryden had walked with Cromwell’s funeral cortege, but whom later years had turned into a Tory and a Jacobite, and concluded in 1700 ‘Thy wars brought nothing about’. And indeed, in practical and constitutional terms, the king returned without any formal restrictions – he was head of the Militia. There was no Bill of Rights to limit his prerogative; the Cavalier parliament annulled all legislation since 1642, on the principle no king had assented to them. What that meant was that the triennial bill remained, a parliament every three years – though even that was soon emasculated by Charles. And the courts of Star Chamber and the High Commission remained deleted, which is something. It’s not worth all that death and destruction. So; what did the Revolution change in Britain?

I would contend that in Scotland the whole process broke the unity of the church which had emerged from the Reformation with a remarkable uniformity of which the National Covenant was the peak; a peak that would never be achieved again. Episcopalianism came back in force and the Presbyterians found themselves associated with the humiliation of defeat by Cromwell, they were persecuted under Charles and James; then they’d back a comeback with the Glorious Revolution, so the Episcopalians would make common cause with Jacobites. The Scots had been the first and the most politically radical initially, the English had copied many of their restrictions on royal authority. Conversely, after 1660 Scotland was far closer to an absolutist state than its southern neighbour, as the returning lairds and nobles swore they’d never again suffer the humiliation of being rules by the ordinary man, until William and Mary, and the Claim of Right in 1689. It’s also interesting how the whole period affected the idea of Union. The idea of a fuller political union was back, with the Commonwealth. There are a couple of lines of enquiry as regards that; a traditional approach from the likes of Alan McInnes is to argue that defeat at the hands of Cromwell deflated Scottish self-confidence, and made them vulnerable to union.  A more recent line from Laura Stewart and Ronald Hutton is to suggest that Union remained in the air, but that it became clear that an effective union could be achieved not by force, but only by negotiation.

In Ireland of course, the impact of the wholesale seizure of land, ownership of which went from 60% Catholic to 22% Catholic was the latest stage in an injustice that would dominate Irish society for 300 years, and with which we still live. Catholicism would not die there, and although Catholics would utterly lose political authority, the religion was still dominant and practised among the people; and indeed priests returned in large numbers from the end of the war, well before the Restoration. But it would be practiced in the fields and hills not in the parish churches that should have been their right, and the elite, at least publicly became Protestant, a situation Charles would do almost nothing to reverse. The impact of the revolution is entirely negative in Ireland, can’t think of as good word to speak for it, would have been so much better if it had never happened, such a horrid blemish is it in English history.

In England, religion was also transformed. Puritans were out, puritanism became very and enduringly unpopular and the Cavalier parliament would visit their vengeance on non Anglican Ministers, and 25% of them would lose their jobs. Bishops were back, baby, Bishops were back.

But without much of their coercive power, it has to be said, despatched with the departure of the court of High Commission. And non Conformism was now here to stay, that cat was out of its bag, there was no putting her back, and no one could even try; they could be removed from social power, and churches and political power, but everyone recognised that at least some of the groups – the Baptists and Congregationalists in particular – they would remain a vibrant part of English life. Even the Quakers, the most feared and persecuted of all, even they would thrive.

The Quakers themselves recognised that they also needed to learn the lessons of the civil war. In February 1661 George Foxe published the Quakers ‘Peace testimony’, ‘A Declaration from the Harmless and Innocent People of God called Quakers’. By this, they became the quietist and pacifist community who would have such a positive impact in so many areas of English history.

 

 

 

 

One further change though, affected by the form of settlement imposed by the Cavalier parliament more than the revolution itself, was wrought by political disempowerment of the non conformists. Only Anglicans could wield political influence, and thus started a social separation. Because if you had money and social status, you wanted to be able to wield political influence too, at a national leve. So you made sure you were Anglican, and your immediate social inferiors liked to go to the same church so they could bend your ear, and hope some of your lustre would rub off on you. And so is born a social separation between church and chapel which would be a defining aspect of English society while England remained a God fearing nation. I may be pushing it, but I would argue that the strength of non conformism created a network of support among working people which sustained a spirit of social equality that would remain strong and vibrant, and fuel radical political and social change in the 19th century, as well as adding critical ethical force to debates such as slavery and the slave trade.

As far as political impacts are concerned, there is another fact which has lived in the back of my mind for the last two years. I keep a running document of references to readings and so on, and it’s a bit of a beast so I need to keep culling it as I cover them off, but this one has been impossible to delete because I noted it right at the start from an In Our Time podcast, and how only just now got to be able to use it. On the face of it, this is not a particularly positive thing; it’s about the enormous increase in public income. The proportion of National income controlled by the state was doubled. This is a trend that will continue; by 1700 government income was about 10 times higher than in 1600.

There are a couple of aspects to this. One is that Robert Cecil, the Earl of Salisbury, had finally achieved his great  contract; remember that in 1610, the attempt to trade unacceptable royal privileges for an assured royal income? The crown, or the state, would now be properly resourced. State revenue was transformed, from £600,000 a year to over £2m. England would now increasingly join the European model of the fiscal military state. Through the revolution, the military, or navy at least, had been transformed, properly resourced un a way that meant now England would punch her weight on the European stage.

A second point that Worden also makes is that this also saw the transformation of the size of the state. The apparatus of government in England has always been tiny by comparison with continental standards – which, incidentally also meant that the level of patronage available to central government was relatively small. That would present an unpopular threat, as complaints about government ‘placemen’ in parliament grow; but also because the state became much more prevalent in peoples’ lives. None of this was an objective of the likes of John Pym or John Hampden – neither went into the Commons shouting ‘More taxation! More state!’ But Hate it or loathe it, the British revolutions were part of the process that created the modern state.

The other aspect of all this, is that the money came through parliament. In 1640, 40% of state revenue came from parliament, in direct taxation and customs and so on. By 1660 that was 90%. And the battle to confirm that parliament controlled revenue was conclusively won – the Ship Money debate had finally been settled. Charles might not like it, and he didn’t, but that was sorted. So although Worden compares the political achievements of the 1640-1660 revolution unfavourably to the 1688 Glorious Revolution, I would argue the latter could happen because, in addition to James II’s Catholicism, he runs up against parliament’s new assertiveness and scope of control. In addition, the argument that sovereignty derived from the people and was represented by the Commons of parliament, that was now hugely strengthened. There would still be absolutists, the Jacobites for tall their dodgy modern reputation as fighters for freedom, were big advocates of royal absolutism, but the philosophy of popular sovereignty, so much talked about, from Henry Parker onwards, that was now a given for many politicians – whom we’ll soon be calling whigs. So, as Woolrych comments, the political achievements were not lost for long; the English revolution is 1640 to 1689, not 1640 to 1660.

 

 

 

A related point to the financial turmoil concerns trade and more generally the city of London. The Commonwealth built the navy to a power that would transform England and the British Isles’ role in the world, not just for security but very consciously to trade. The leaders of the Commonwealth and later, Cromwell, understood how important trade was to national success and put it at the centre of national policy. The Protectorate signed a number of commercial treaties, but the key was the Commonwealth’s 1651 Navigation Acts, which will have an enormous impact on the future.

Another financial consequence, very much unintended , but in the long run again hugely important, was about the financial power of the City of London. The financial flexibility, experience and access to capital of the city was enhanced through the sheer weight of business it handled through the period. The wealthiest Nobles and Gentry in the land were forced to manage sequestrations and fines, and they did so by mortgaging their estates. In the process, lands was put up for sale and changed hands. All those transactions created a bunch of liquidity for City merchants, and helped the city grow. I am again pushing it., but one of the reasons usually cited for the early industrial revolution, is the availability of capital and the sophistication of the English banking system.

In the short term though, the growing love for the Navy was very much offset by a fear of standing armies. The spectre of that huge and seemingly irremovable revolutionary army would stay with the English, and they would set their faces firmly against it again, and the call of no standing army would dog governments. Although it is worth noting that the famous Redcoat of the New Model would survive. But there could be no repeat of a military state, and no emulation of the military absolutist states across the channel.

Sadly, it is argued that the more revolutionary ideas and the social levelling that became associated with the New Model were erased. The Levellers became bogeymen, not heroes, although for a while the likes of Ashley Cooper would keep some their ideals alive in his Green Ribbon club. But other political ideas remained consistently and presently strong; James Harrington’s Oceana, particularly, remained well known. They played a central part in the attempt to exclude James in the 1670s; all the way through to influencing the constitution offered to the French National Assembly in 1793[1].

But I would argue that they have a long life which unlike all the religious controversies may be proving to be increasingly relevant. I was reading a book by the quite brilliant and also politically inspiring Caroline Lucas, called Another England; I can’t quite wholeheartedly recommend it to you, because it’s very politically oriented and I have made it as principle to ban modern political debate here, but she speaks of the English radical tradition, and how important that is in charting a English future based on that, and cultural history, rather than a future based on prioritising empire and military and all that sort of thing. In that, the words and views of Gerald Winstanley play a powerful part top this day, and the Levellers particularly inspired the Chartists in the 19th century, for example. But for me it’s the Putney Debates that are at the heart of that tradition and empower it and remain relevant; the sight of a mix of radical and conservative opinions, working together to try to hammer out a future that was both radical and practical.

 

 

 

So where are we then? My general thesis is that when they looked down from wherever their spirits floated, the fathers of English liberty, your John Pyms and John Hampdens or Earls of Warwick or Saye and Sele, would have looked at many of them with bemusement; the banishment of puritanism, the split in to church and chapel, enormous state revenue, a powerful navy, commercial treaties and international trade – I’m not saying they wouldn’t have approved of some of them, but they are not why they opposed the king in 1640. Despite that, the British revolution fundamentally changed society.

However, I do not think all of these, significant though they are, constitute the biggest reason for remembering or celebrating the English revolution. For me that is cultural rather than political, or financial; it is in the cloud of ideas released by the disruption and freedoms of the revolutionary period.

One of these was to be seen on 28th November 1660 at Gresham college, when the meeting of 12 fellows formed the Royal Society. Now, it would be absurd of me to claim that the English scientific revolution was caused purely by the civil wars; of course the reasons are diverse, long, and very much international. But the pace of scientific enquiry made a great leap forward in the Oxford Experimental Society, Wadham College and Gresham College. Charles II obviously deserves his share of the credit for the money, passion and support he puts behind it; but he was helping harvest seed sewn in the 1640s and 1650s.

Political ideas are clearly another, as we have already touched on – from the levellers, to Harrington, to Hobbes – these are extraordinarily fertile times, and they take place  in an atmosphere of supercharged public debate; the debates of the coffeeshop, seen so much as a feature of the 18th century, come to life in the 1650s. Those in turn had been energised by the furious debates and pamphlet wars which had taken place in the 1640s,and the thirst for news. We have to talk about publishing and journalism don’t we? The destruction of Star Chamber and High Commission, and loss of governmental control generally, led directly to the explosion of the scope for pamphlets and sharing and furious debating of ideas. Often that was about religion; but those often contained deeply radical social ideas too – Catherine Chidley’s view than anyone of any status could start a congregation, that women were the equal of men in matters of conscious, those sorts of things. That freedom helped royalists as well as parliamentarians, such as Margaret Cavendish’s launch into the publishing world in London in 1653.

And of course there’s the birth of English journalism, all those newsbooks banging away at each other, and debate at a very national level about national concerns. The censorship regime began to return with the Protectorate and came back with full force with the Licensing Act and the controlling hand of  Roger L’Estrange, but the devil was loose, and the freedoms felt and expressed through the revolution would win out in the end.

So culture, ideas, debate, these are among the most significant impacts of the English Revolution for me. It’s been pointed out that the careers of famous folk like Marvell, Davenant, Margaret Cavendish, John Dryden, John Evelyn, John Milton, John Bunyan, Robert Boyle, Robert Hooke, Christopher Wren and even John Locke all took root in the 1650s.

I quite like Alice Hunt’s search for a person who’s a sort of symbol of the period. She goes for Samuel Hartlib, for his ceaseless commitment to improvement and progress in all areas, absolutely tirelessly sharing and compiling, building bridges and connections, bringing people together to harness all talents, a truly revolutionary spirit of change  – without firing a shot. To which I’d add the fact that he’s an immigrant, and like the scientific advances, absolutely believed in a network that extended all over the Europe, improvement was a collaborative, international effort.

For my own choice, I was tempted to cheat by going for the Boyle Family; Roger, Katherine and Robert. I mean – what a bunch! In the end I have gone for Marchamont Nedham, partly because he is a difficult, ambivalent sort of hero, and that says so much of the revolution itself, which is always challengeable, never perfect or entirely idealistic, which will never quite fit a modern sensibility. Difficult in a way that most of English history and indeed most history wherever is never quite what we would like it to be. Nedham came from an ordinary background, the period gave him the perfect environment in which to flourish and exercise his skills and creativity. He’s at the core of the explosion of print, he is shamelessly flexible about who side he’s on and plays the system with cast-iron gall and panache.  But he’s also thoughtful and full of ideas; at core of him you know there is a serious passion for ideas that might make the world a better place – whether it be constitution or reforming education. And by ‘eck doesn’t he get out there – from pub kid to being best mates with John Bradshaw and John Milton.

It would be lovely to hear from you about the people who have stood out for you in the story of the last 20 years, there are plenty to choose from. Get in touch, on the website or better Facebook actually, what ever you think of it, but it’s perfect for putting up polls and adding your own idea for everyone to discuss. I’ll go right from here to the FB site and set up[ a post and poll for discussion

Anway, that is officially it, done. Though of course the British revolutions are by no means over, not by the longest of chalks. Classically, revolution in England found no alternative form of government to the one they had. So it might well be said that one of the great outcomes and impacts of the British Revolutionary period is that it confirmed to this day the British commitment to the Monarchy. But it also confirmed that the monarchy must conform to the ideals present since Magna Carta, and energized and enlarged from 1640, and there were too many people who could not accept going back to the old one monarch of 1640. So there is unfinished business. Which we will get on to next…though with a pause for a few weeks if you don’t mind, just for a bit of a breather. But I will see you on the other side – the other side of said breather!

Though, a bit of good news; Philip Marlow of the European History podcast has done another excellent guest episode on the survival of theatre to the Restoration, and will join you in a couple of weeks so that’s definitely something to look forward to. Philip Marlowe? Sorry, I mean Philip Rowe. I can’t get that out of my head! Philip Rowe, who also did an episode on Christopher Marlowe a while ago. Anyway…

Until then, I hope you have enjoyed the English Revolution, sorry for going on but I was so determined to do it justice. Thank you for sticking with it, thank you for your comments and reviews and so on, good luck everyone, and have a great week.

[1] Hunt, A: ‘Republic’, p385