England’s civil war can’t be classed a revolution because the Restoration complicates its departure; yet its religious and political upheaval exceeds military rebellion; and cultural memory was enduring and polarized. It was fought on the ground of constitutional ambiguity, of good-faith disagreement about sovereignty, with persisting suspicions of one another’s sociopolitical motives.
Contingencies figured in the events of 1640-49 but the efficient causes included the Tudor seizure of Catholic Church lands, the rise of Puritanism out of the Reformation, conflict with the Calvinist Scottish Church, crown administration little changed since circa 1560 (e.g., persistence of monopolies and cartels in agriculture, tradecrafts, and transport – all Puritan milieu – plus chartered trading companies), disputes with the Old Irish and Anglo-Irish, and obviously the extended failings of James I, Charles I, Laud, Wentworth, etc.
Owing to the Bishop’s War, both the Scottish and Caroline armies were unpaid, exposing the king’s grasp of events. The Short Parliament of 1640 complained of religious policy (i.e., Laud’s administration), civil administration (notably Strafford in Ireland), and Parliamentary privilege (i.e., its role in granting supply). Commons saw itself as defending ancient rights, Lords failed to mediate. The former’s willingness to separate the proxy Strafford from Charles indicated it sought reform not confrontation. But its resolution was evident: the following year, its committees expanded to religion, trade, ‘grievances’, Ireland (Catholicism as a threat to all English Protestants, and the cost of suppression), courts of justice, before finally the ‘state of the kingdom’ – a sea change that produced the Grand Remonstrance.
Reform tipped into rebellion in March 1642 with the passage of the Militia Ordinance establishing Parliament’s right to appoint military commander. The country divided, loosely speaking, between the royalist north and west and the Parliamentarian south and east. The rivalry was often inter-or even intra-county, prosecuted by rival garrisons or between competing elites or broader socioeconomic interests; but this is not to demonstrate class interests. Puritanism set the tone but as a movement did not precipitate events; in some ways the war was a contest between Westminster and the City. The explosion of sermons and pamphlets, especially in the City, evidenced polarization.
Marston Moor having denied the royalists northern England’s manpower in July 1644, it was evident by 1645 military victory was all but impossible save for Parliament’s falling out with the Scots. (Irish forces were little help to the royalists.) The Scots, however, seeking a full Calvinist settlement, were not entirely aligned with Pym’s Presbyterian-minded Parliamentary center-left. Abolition of the Anglican episcopacy did not unify the Puritans, for democracy in church might lead to democracy in government, threatening the entire social order. Further, the extent of the Presbyterian system, while insufficiently doctrinal for the Scots, was too intolerant for the Congregationalists, the Baptists, etc. The sale of bishops’ lands were also contentious. This phase, described as three-party affair by JH Hexter (the other two being ‘conservative’ and Independents comprising Puritan-Congregationalists and republican-radicals), is alternately seen by revisionists as a two-party affair, Holles’ preeminence over 1646-47 seeming to simplify divisions.
Failed negotiations in Oxford (1642-43) and Uxbridge (early 1645), though both more favorable to the King than the 19 Propositions of 1640, as well as Charles’ absolutism, maladroit politics, and general duplicity ruled out restoration as a focus on settlement. Denouement often depends on context as much as content.
Preceded by the February 1645 reorganization of Parliamentary forces as the New Model Army, Cromwell’s championing the Self-Denying Ordinance before exempting himself is conventionally seen as hypocritical; but Carlisle’s subsequent publication of his letters and speeches refutes the charge. The April 1647 election of army representatives (‘agitators’) was the signature moment in the army’s politicization; many officers resigned, tilting the corps still further.
Parliament had been slow to create a central executive to replace the Privy Council, the effects most obvious in military funding. Holles belatedly offered indemnity, pay in arrears, a halt to drafting units to serve in Ireland, and mass demobilization; but Army demands were now extended to religious freedom and reform of legal privileges. In May 1647 a City (i.e., Presbyterian) mob forced Parliament, driving MPs to the Army, which then advanced on Westminster, detaining Holles and ten associates. Pride’s Purge almost inevitably followed in November. It’s easy for military forces to act against elected bodies, and once done readily becomes habitual.
The Putney debates among the NMA’s general council in October-November 1647, chaired by Fairfax (and seconded by Cromwell in the former’s illness), matched the conservative Ireton against Rainsborough, Sexby, and Wildman. Premised on the Levellers’ Agreement of the People, the discussions advanced democratic views – many officers were willing to go part way – but Leveller-agitator influence had peaked the prior summer.
In the second phase of fighting, a short burst between February and April 1648, the Army came to hold Charles personally responsible and hence condemnable; whereas Parliament, though thinkingly similarly of his role, mostly hoped yet for reconciliation.
The war’s destruction of Anglican churches was modest compared with Henry VIII’s time. Anglican clergy drew back from overt political roles, become an adjunct of the peerage and gentry. The Commonwealth era was more favorable to enterprise while also promoting mercantilism, especially amid the Dutch wars. Yet there a nebulous limit to the decline of deference.
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After Charles’ execution, Ireland and Scotland were quickly subdued by English troops. Cromwell didn’t seek military rule but his intent cannot be shown as his bill for narrowing Parliament has not survived. The mostly Presbyterian Rump was the primary threat to Cromwell’s backers, the ‘gentry republican’ and ‘populist millenarian’ factions in the Army, who eventually provoked dissolution.
Cromwell was a Puritan Congregationalist and a mixed constitutionalist – no dictator. The Protectorate’s foundational instrument combined the Heads of Proposals, the Levellers’ Agreement of the People, and the lost Rump Parliament bill, its main features being rule by a single person supported by a council (5 of the first 14 being military types) and periodic parliaments. Though ad hoc, it is as close to a written constitution as England has had but was never put to popular consent nor turned into a formal charter. It did claim the right to rule without Parliament from April 1653 to September 1654. This was unusually legalistic authoritarianism.
The Commonwealth’s administrative focus was taxation to sustain the military, most continued from the Civil War or raised by sale of royal properties. Still the state could not cover its needs including naval war with the Netherlands and by decade’s end, public debt had grown quite large, notwithstanding piracy of Spanish shipping.
At any rate, the Commonwealth could not survive its founder’s demise. The military couldn’t agree with Hesilrige and other civilian republicans nor lead a fully radical reconstruction. The country’s elite disliked the prospects of further social upheaval, were worn out. Monck, duplicitous, ultimately steered the Army’s withdrawal from politics. His crossing the Tweed rallied English landed classes and urban elites to meetings and petitions calling for a ‘free Parliament’, meaning (but not stating) restoration of the Stuarts. London, which had remained Parliamentarian, resenting the rise and rise of taxes, had already turned royalist and the general’s arrival there brought out survivors of the Rump. Monck’s subsequent withdrawal without further fighting, much credited by historians, and largely due to the Commons’ sensible restoration of county militias, is less remarkable that Charles II’s accession with so few conditions, for Parliament retained control of the state, its church, and local government.
NB: ‘When evidence is lacking and the historian has to weigh probabilities, it is normally sensible to prefer the simpler explanation of the alternatives available’ (p.89)