*Another Look At The Underside Of The English Revolution-Professor Underdown’s View- “Revel, Riot, And Rebellion”

Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for the late Marxist historian, Professor Christopher Hill.

Book Review

Revel, Riot, And Rebellion, David Underdown, Oxford University Press, New York, 1985

No question, to my mind at least, that the late Professor Christopher Hill did yeoman’s, no, more than yeoman’s work in opening up the subject of the English revolution of the mid-1600s beyond the disputes between the various upper classes who defended and opposed the rule of Charles I. Professor Hill brought to life all sorts of information about the plebeians masses, their religious (and irreligious) seekings, their support to new political ideas and their attempts to eke out a space for themselves in the upheavals of those times. Of course Hill’s long-lived ground-breaking work was just that, a start.

Naturally the vast amount of material on the English revolution that Professor Hill wrote about in his long career from the religious and literary interpretations of the Bible, the infant democratic political struggles by the Levellers and Diggers, the embryonic emergence of primitive communist doctrine around the figure of Gerrard Winstanley, the unraveling of the myriad religious sects and quasi-sects from Quakers to Shakers, the reaction against the plebeian masses in the post-Restoration period under the guidance of Charles II, and above all, the place of poet and revolutionary propagandist, John Milton, in the scheme of Commonwealth politics and the literature of defeat begged for more work. And Professor Underdown’s work here reflects one aspect of that scheme. Here the good professor looks at popular politics at a level below the surface and in more localized detail that Professor Hill only got a chance to sketch out.

Revolutions, as a rule, produce more varied and exotic ideas in a short period than are produced in decades during less turbulent times. Some of the more outlandish ones never even see the light of day during peaceful times. Thus, Professor Underdown’s task would have been rather daunting if he hadn’t limited his investigation to a few counties, and those in a particular geographic area that permits both a close analysis of why one side or the other went with Parliament or the crown and of the thinking of the plebeian masses. Moreover, he has grounded his work in an understanding of the way inhabitants of different locales (forest lands, arable land, urban clothing-producing areas, etc.) created there own political traditions from church-ales, to “skimmingtons”, to all manner of local customs, church-based or secular, including popular sports. This work is not for a reader who is not already somewhat familiar with the period of the English revolution. If you are not go read a little of Professor Hill then come back here for an in-depth view of what the fuss was all about.