***Once Again On The Causes Of The English Revolution- Professor Lawrence Stone’s View

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for English historian, Professor Lawrence Stone.

Book Review

The Causes Of The English Revolution, 1529-164, Lawrence Stone, Harper Torchbooks, New York 1972

The last time that the name of Professor Lawrence Stone came up in this space was a review of his magisterial study of the rise and triumph of bourgeois family structure and its mores in England, The Family, Sex And Marriage In England 1500-1800(the study centered on English changes, which as the vanguard of capitalism made a study of the bourgeois family structure quite sensible) from 1500 to 1800 so the good professor is certainly familiar with the period under discussion in this book. The bourgeois family study, some 500 pages, abridged, is contrasted here by a much shorter work of less than two hundred pages. But don’t be thrown off by the shortness of this work, given the expansiveness of the subject, because this is a serious concise work that lays out for the beginner and the more knowledgeable a very nice grab bag of causes for the 17th century English revolution that gives one a jumping off point for further investigation. For the more advanced devotees of the study of the English revolution there are plenty of footnotes and a bibliography at the end that will provide helpful for that further study.

Of course any speculation on the cause or, more correctly, the causes of the English revolution (like any revolution, or other world historic event) is, for the most part, a matter of hindsight, and therefore ready material for an historian’s “cherry-picking” to suit his or her predilections. And also a cause, as in the English case described here by Professor Stone in the first section of the book, for all sorts of “flare-ups” back in the 1950s and 1960s in British academic circles. From such questions as whether the 1640-60 events were even a revolution ( a question pretty much now resolved in favor of revolution) to which class lead and benefited from it to more esoteric questions about whether the gentry (the big landowners, for the most part) benefited from the revolution or not there was something of a field day on this period and Professor Stone seems to have been right in the middle of it along with such English revolution luminaries as Professors Tawney and Trevor-Roper. And as long as it is kept to the academic milieu ( as is the usual situation) such infighting can, and in this case did, produce some useful insights.

After the academic “fireworks” settle down from the first section Professor Stone, in the second and third sections, gets to his laundry list of causes for the revolution, some worth further investigation, some that seem more speculative (like the question of the rise and fall of the gentry, or parts of it, in the rush to revolution). He breaks down the period from 1529 to 1642 into smaller segments in order to separate longer term causes from shorter and more direct causes. Obviously any study of long term trends toward revolution in England in this period has to include changes in agricultural production toward more capitalist methods of growing for the market, the role of demographic spreads and population growth (especially London’s growth) and, probably most importantly, the fall out from the Protestant Reformation as it played out in there. Shorter term reasons include the rise of Puritanism in the wake of the religious and political policies the James I and Charles I regimes, the vast increase in literacy, education, and lay authority in church matters, changes in the legal and state church structure, particularly by Charles I promoting a more authoritarian regime in the face of more democratic church movements, and, as always, the personal factor, of Charles I’s eagerness to shoot himself in the foot every time some controversy came up so that in the end he alienated, and made indifferent or hostile , the elements of society that stool closest to him, especially the merchants and nobility. This is hardly exhaustive of Professor Stone’s presentation but should be enough to whet the appetite.

Of course for revolutionaries, as well as thoughtful historians, the causes of revolution and the pre-revolutionary period are important in their own right. Just as today we can see, even if we cannot right this minute do anything about it, that conditions in America and Europe are ripe for revolution, a socialist revolution, and we can point to unemployment, the gaps between the rich and poor, extensive deindustrialization, cuts in public social welfare budgets and the like as the precursors we can look at the English, French Russian and Chinese revolutions for some insights. The English revolution, as the first great Western one, is particularly important to study because of the links to America and because something in the English-American psyche (at least in the past) has acted almost as a barrier to further revolutions among English-speaking Anglo-American people.

Once Again On The Question Of Abolishing The British Monarchy- “The Madness Of King George”- A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for The Madness Of King George.

DVD Review

The Madness Of King George, Nigel Hawthorne, Helen Mirren, 1994

Frankly, I like my kings (or queens, for that matter), especially 18th and 19th century kings, to be villainous and inept. And, of course, we descendant American rebel supporters of the revolutionary war against King George III of England have more than a few unkind things to say about his use of Red Coats and Hessians to deny our forebears their right to an independent state. However, apparently good King George had an afterlife, well except a little fetish about still calling us his colonies (which Prime Minister Pitt insistently, if futilely, reminded him was not the case any longer), guiding Britannia and the empire to rule the waves, being a good and gentle husband, a fine father (cough) and all-around jack-of-all trades in his tidy island kingdom. Except that little question of his madness (temporary though it was). And the maneuvers, by family and political foes, to get him out of the way, are what drive the core of this film. Oh, and a very disturbing inside view of the norms of medical practice in those days, as well.

Since nobody, or at least nobody shown in the film, had a serious clue as to the king’s malady (except those telltale urine samples).least of the “doctors” the old tried and true try anything and everything, quack or sound, to see if the king can recover was the order of the day. However not everyone was committed to that recovery, or a safe and speedy recovery, and that is where the family and political plots thicken. Son George (the heir apparent) was linked with the so-pictured nefarious Whigs (led by Mr. Fox) to declare a regency on his behalf. The Tory Mr. Pitt was linked with keeping his job and that depended on the king’s speedy recover. Pitt moved might and main to insure that recover, and to insure a delay in a parliamentary vote on the regency question. All of this is done with a certain wit, including by the king in his lucid moments. But all’s well that ends well, the king recovered, his family is reconciled with his longevity, and he continued to rule those Britannia waves.

A word on the acting here. Nigel Hawthorne shines as the lucid, reflective, just momentarily mad, witty farmer King George. Except, again, on that little buggy issue of the colonies. His performance here is the best public relations the old king has had in a couple of centuries. And, of course, Helen Mirren (who else?) as his steadfast queen and main champion (beyond Mr. Pitt) is well, queenly. Apparently she has the lock on playing British queens, and playing them with a certain style. Finally, since everybody and their brother weighed in on the nature of the king’s malady, I will give it a parting shot. I am convinced, and I believe all reputable sources will confirm this diagnosis, that old King George suffered from advanced imperialitis and those “colonists” who formed these United States caused him his reflex attack. By the way is it not about time for starters, among other things, to abolish that deadweight monarchy over there in Great Britian. This film is prima facie evidence for that proposition,

In the Time of the Rump Parliament

BOOK REVIEW

The Rump Parliament, Blair Worden, Cambridge University Press, 1974

Most historians, especially Marxist historians, have recognized the great English Revolution of the mid-17ht century, a revolution associated with the name of Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans as the first great modern revolution. Moreover, this writer would argue that as with all great revolutions the fate of the English Revolution had many lessons to impart to later generations of revolutionaries. Professor Worden’s little book on a specific part of that revolution is filled with such lessons concerning the period that has become known as the rule of the Rump Parliament (1648-53). That is the period from Pride’s Purge (the exclusion by the Army of those parliamentarians who wanted to continue to treat with King Charles I despite his various acts of treachery) until the time of the Barebones Parliament and the personal rule of the Army General-in-Chief Cromwell.

The Rump Parliament, as the derogatory designation implies, has not been treated kindly, at least not before Professor Worden’s book, at the hands of historians. This nevertheless was a period where dear King Charles I lost his head and scared the crowned heads of Europe out of their wits, leaving them ready for armed intervention against the English revolution. Furthermore, this period, despite confusion about what form of executive power to establish, firmly confirmed the rule of parliament supremacy. However, in retrospect it has also been seen as a sluggish period in the revolutionary saga where no serious reforms were implemented; to the relief of many conservatives and the dismay of the radicals- civilian ones like the Levelers and the various religious sects as well as Army ones, especially in the ranks.

Worden does a fine job of analyzing those conflicts and the basis for those claims of sluggishness. In his hands that reputation for sluggishness is exposed to be false as the work done by this body at that time was as good (if that is the correct word in this context) as any 17th English Parliament as far as dealing with the serious questions of religious toleration, land reform, tax reform, political exclusions, army grievances, extension of the political franchise, law reform and finances. Moreover, in the context of that above-mentioned threat of foreign intervention early in this period it held its own against the internal forces that wanted to make a truce with the European powers.

I have argued elsewhere in this space, in reviewing the books of Professors Hill, Underdown and others who have written about this period, that the shadow of the New Model Army hovers over this whole period. Its periodic interventions into the political events of the time are key to understanding how the revolution unfolded, as well as its limitations and its retreats. There is almost no period where this is truer than the rule of the Rump. Pride’s Purge, an army intervention, set the stage for who would govern (and who would not) for the period.

The early period of Rump rule, beset by constant military needs in order to defend the Commonwealth is basically an armed truce between civilian and military forces. In the later period of the Rump’s rule when there are more dramatic clashes between the Army’s needs and attempts to maintain civilian control the balance shifts in the Army’s favor. From that point Army rule is decisive. Some argue that the defeat of the civilian Leveller forces and their army supporters in 1649 was the watershed. I am not so sure now, although certainly the democratic, secular forces represented there were those modern revolutionaries would support.

I believe that there was no question that Army intervention was definitely necessary at the later time (1653). Moreover the New Model Army represented the best of the plebeian classes that fought for and then defended the revolution. It therefore represented the sole force that could consolidate the gains of the revolution. That it could not retain power over the long haul in the face of a conservative counter-revolution is a separate question for another day. For more insights about this period read this little gem of a book.