The English Civil War

Is it really not taught in English schools? I find that shocking.

There is a Richard Harris film.

There are loads of books, both factual and fictional.

Some people called The Sealed Knot Society regularly re-enact battles; I suspect most of them are teachers.

I have been to, I think, Cromwell's schoolhouse (a museum in Huntingdon). Perhaps it wasn't his schoolhouse. I have aslo seen the house what where he lived in Ely.

The King who got his block chopped off stopped to see his children for the last time at the Maidenhead branch of NatWest. They have a plaque up outside.

Anyway, 'o' level history (which I didn't do) is all modern stuff like Bismarkie, I don't know about 'a' level.

English Civil War is a bit of a misleading name, yes. 'First British Revolution' has better ring to it (second being 1688 and third being that nasty business in North America).

it is not a very good film. Not merely does it feature the following as the first lines of dialogue:

"I fear the King means war"

"What? A Civil war?"

it also adopts a ridiculously ahistorical view of Cromwell's motivations. Cromwell as an advocate of "democracy"? I think not.

I highly recommend this book.

The ECW should not be known as such since it was largely sparked by fear of 'papist' Irish armies being brought over by the Earl of Stafford and hinged, until Cromwell finally defeated them, on the position of the Scots. My ex-stepfather, who was a history professor, caught me reading Christopher Hill's 'Century of Revolution' and referred to him as "that communist".

The fact that this piss-poor knig deposing and wanky statutory settlement with parliament tells you all you need to know.

ECW - it might have had revolutionary potential, but the upshot was that it wasn't revolutionary by the end - the King came back. By decent, I mean a revolution that achieves the expulsion of hereditary, aristocratic interests from the political firmament as basic starting point (Monarchy, Peerage etc) and achieves land reform.

William was already married to Mary btw xpost up above.

Actually, the French monarchy committed suicide. Henri, Comte de Chambord (Charles X's grandson) was offered the throne by the leaders of the National Assembly in the early 1870's after the Franco-Prussian War, the abdication of Napoleon III, and the Commune, but he had one insurmountable condition, that the Assembly renounce the drapeau tricolore in favor of the white Bourbon flag, which, in light of three revolutions since 1789, they could not do.

he was already married to her.

I'm inclined to think that one of the reasons Britain still has a monarchy stems from the failure of the dour, fun-hating Commonwealth and the blatant tyranny of the Protectorate.

the fun-hatingness of the Commonwealth was greatly exaggerated in retrospect by the degenerate counter-revolutionaries who surrounded Charles II.

The blatant tyranny of the Protectorate... well, blatant despotism I'll give you, but it was probably no worse than the personal rule of King Charles.

DV, I'll take corrupt fornicators who re-open the theaters anyday over people who ban Christmas and I think your anti-monarchism has has unduly colored your comparison of living under Ollie or Chuck.

When it happened we walked through all the estates, from
Manchester right to, er, Newcastle. In Darlington, helped a large
man on his own chase off some kids who were chucking bricks and
stuff through his flat window. She had a way with people like that.
Thanked us and we moved on.

'Junior Choice' played one morning. The song was 'English
Scheme.' Mine. They'd changed it with a grand piano and turned
it into a love song. How they did it I don't know. DJs had
worsened since the rising. Elaborating on nothing in praise of
the track with words they could hardly pronounce, in telephone
voices.

I was mad, and laughed at the same time. The West German
government had brought over large yellow trains on Teeside docks.
In Edinburgh. I stayed on my own for a few days, wandering about
in the, er, pissing rain, before the Queen Mother hit town.

I'm Joe Totale
The yet unborn son
The North will rise again
The North will rise again
Not in 10,000 years
Too many people cower to criminals
And government crap
The estates stick up like stacks
The North will rise again X4
Look where you are
Look where you are
The future death of my father

Shift!

Tony was a business friend
Of RT XVIII
And was an opportunist man
Come, come hear my story
How he set out to corrupt and destroy
This future Rising

The business friend came round today
With teeth clenched, he grabbed my neck
I threw him to the ground
His blue shirt stained red
The north will rise again.
He said you are mistaken, friend
I kicked him out of the home

Too many people cower to criminals
And that government pap
When all it takes is hard slap

But out the window burned the roads
There were men with bees on sticks
The fall had made them sick
A man with butterflies on his face
His brother threw acid in his face
His tatoos were screwed
The streets of Soho did reverberate
With drunken Highland men
Revenge for Culloden dead
The North had rose again
But it would turn out wrong
The North will rise again

So R. Totale dwells underground
Away from sickly grind
With ostrich head-dress
Face a mess, covered in feathers
Orange-red with blue-black lines
That draped down to his chest
Body are a tentacle mess
And light blue plant-heads
TV showed Sam Chippendale
No conception of what he'd made
The Arndale had been razed
Shop staff knocked off their ladders
Security guards hung from moving escalators

And now that is said
Tony seized the control
He built his base in Edinburgh
Had on his hotel wall
A hooded friar on a tractor
He took a bluey and he called Totale
Who said, "the North has rose again"
But it will turn out wrong

When I was in cabaret
I vowed to defend
All of the English clergy
Though they have done wrong
And the fall has begun
This has got out of hand
I will go for foreign aid
But he Tony, laughed down the phone
Said "Totale go back to bed"
The North has rose today
And you can stuff your aid!
And you can stuff your aid!

xpost

These are my favorites:

They call me the upstart monstrous lawyer
A mere legend of lies,
And I can pretend it was worth the war
If I cover up my eyes
And I walk in blindness, 'cross the stones
And down to Traitors Gate.
Here we go again, it's still the same
ENGLAND'S NEW CHAINS

I've been the willing soldier
And I've fought the bloody years
And I can pretend it was worth the war
If I cover up my ears
And I walk in silence, 'cross the stones
And down to Traitors Gate.
Here we go again, it's still the same
ENGLAND'S NEW CHAINS

Only time will tell who survives the fire
Only time will tell why we've been fighting all this while

I am the Free-born Englishman
I am any mother's son
I can pretend it was worth the war
If I cut out my tongue
And I walk in silence, 'cross the stones
And down to Traitors Gate.
Here we go again, it's still the same
ENGLAND'S NEW CHAINS

By Rev Hammer, inspired by John lilburne's Pamphlet of the same name http://www.constitution.org/lev/eng_lev_10.htm

The World Turned Upside-Down

In 1649 to St. George's Hill
A ragged band they called the Diggers came to show the people's will
They defied the landlords, they defied the laws
They were the dispossessed reclaiming what was theirs

We come in peace, they said, to dig and sow
We come to work the lands in common and make the waste ground grow
This earth divided we will make whole
So it may be a common treasury for all

The sin of property we do disdain
No man has any right to buy or sell the earth for private gain
By theft and murder they took the land
Now everywhere the walls spring up at their command

They make the laws to chain us well
The clergy dazzle us with heaven, or they damn us into hell
We will not worship the God they serve,
a God of greed who feeds the rich while poor folk starve

We work and eat together, we need no swords
We will not bow to masters, nor pay rent to the lords
Still we are free, though we are poor
Ye Diggers all, stand up for glory, stand up now!

From the men of property the orders came
They sent the hired men and troopers to wipe out the Diggers' claim
Tear down their cottages, destroy their corn
They were dispersed - only the vision lingers on

Ye poor take courage, ye rich take care
This earth was made a common treasury for everyone to share
All things in common, all people one
They came in peace - the order came to cut them down

Words and music © Leon Rosselson, 1975

The World Turned Upside Down
To the Tune of, When the King enioys his own again.
Listen to me and you shall hear, news hath not been this thousand year:
Since Herod, Caesar, and many more, you never heard the like before.
Holy-dayes are despis'd, new fashions are devis'd.
Old Christmas is kickt out of Town.
Yet let's be content, and the times lament, you see the world turn'd upside down.

The wise men did rejoyce to see our Savior Christs Nativity:
The Angels did good tidings bring, the Sheepheards did rejoyce and sing.
Let all honest men, take example by them.
Why should we from good Laws be bound?
Yet let's be content, &c.

Command is given, we must obey, and quite forget old Christmas day:
Kill a thousand men, or a Town regain, we will give thanks and praise amain.
The wine pot shall clinke, we will feast and drinke.
And then strange motions will abound.
Yet let's be content, &c.

Our Lords and Knights, and Gentry too, doe mean old fashions to forgoe:
They set a porter at the gate, that none must enter in thereat.
They count it a sin, when poor people come in.
Hospitality it selfe is drown'd.
Yet let's be content, &c.

The serving men doe sit and whine, and thinke it long ere dinner time:
The Butler's still out of the way, or else my Lady keeps the key,
The poor old cook, in the larder doth look,
Where is no goodnesse to be found,
Yet let's be content, &c.

To conclude, I'le tell you news that's right, Christmas was kil'd at Naseby fight:
Charity was slain at that same time, Jack Tell troth too, a friend of mine,
Likewise then did die, rost beef and shred pie,
Pig, Goose and Capon no quarter found.
Yet let's be content, and the times lament, you see the world turn'd upside down.

speaking of fun-hating...

I remember liking that Kenyon fellow's book about the whole period.

Can anyone recommend a book that covers the Commonwealth, Protectorate, & Restoration?

no... it goes on forever and is biased, but in an overt and therefore handleable way?

when did he write it anyway? After being sacked by Cockfarmer II, or before?

Did anyone see that To Kill A King film? The trailer looked great but it never made the cinemas here.

he has 11/12ths of it, the rest is still at my house

it's OK, but her grasp of politics is nearly zero

I have heard that AF's problem is that she can only write hagiography, so she just goes overboard on whoever she writes about, no matter who they are.

I have to admit that I was vaguely disappointed with the documentary last night. OK, I know they were trying to do it from this whole "look, eyewitness accounts, how the *people* experienced it" and all angle, but it just felt like they left out too much of the actual story. No mention of the Short Parliament or the Long Parliament - and no mention either of the Scottish revolt which made Charles draw up an army in the first place.

Though some angles were quite interesting - I, for one, did not know that some of the "American" colonists came back to the UK to fight. The way that is represented in American history is that the Puritans went off and founded Massachusetts and never looked back. It was interesting to see the cross-polination in that way.

it's v.hard to keep this in mind, but america was still part of "england" until 1776, far-flung geographically but close in lots of other ways

cromwell and one of the other revolutionaries very VERY nearly emigrated across the atlantic in the late 1630s

also relevant: during the golden age of piracy - 1680s-1720s - the east coast ports in america were significant havens for piratical skulkage AND the political settlement on-board pirate ships = little nations of masterless men (and women), where the captain was in CONSTITUTIONAL CONTRACT w.his crew

these same ports of course supplied much (not all) of the revolutionary ideology that fired the third english revolution (=american war of independence)

They did mention that Charles recalled Parliament in order to raise an army because of problems with revolts in Scotland and ?Wales? (might not have been Wales, I can't remember).

I missed the second half off this but a friends kindly recorded it for me so I'll catch it over the weekend.

Also on Channel 4:
Cromwell
Sunday 13 February, 7.30pm

As England was plunged into civil war, from the turmoil one man emerged a hero: Oliver Cromwell. He rose from fenland farmer to become the most powerful commoner in British history, and he got there by very un-British means: revolution. His convictions led to the killing of a king, and gave Britain its only experience of republican rule.

However, there's more to Oliver Cromwell than the grim-faced Puritan of legend. This film, originally shown in 2001, reveals a troubled and contradictory man who dominated England as it underwent cataclysmic change in the bloodiest war fought on English soil.

The Trial of the King Killers
Sunday 17 February, 9pm

On 29 January 1649, the English Civil War reached a dramatic and bloody climax: 59 Members of Parliament signed Charles I's death warrant. The next day the king was publicly beheaded. and for the first and only time in its history, England became a republic.

When Oliver Cromwell died in 1658, the republic died with him. Two years later, when Charles's son was restored to the throne as Charles II, anyone who had signed the warrant or had assisted in its creation became a marked man. Quite a few fled abroad. Arrested and charged with the crime of regicide, the remainder were put on trial. The gripping exchanges that emerged as they argued for their lives in court reveal the very different motives of the group of men who reached the decision to kill the king.

Taken from the original trial transcripts, Trial of the King Killers is a fact-based drama with a cast led by Corin Redgrave. It tells the bloody story of the most revolutionary episode in all of English history, when a king was brought before a people's court accused of war crimes, and of what happened to his executioners when the wheel of history turned again and they were called to account for their actions.

Ireland.

x-post - yes, they mentioned the Irish uprisings. They did not mention the Scots, which were far more urgent and key.

I will probably miss the one on Saturday (anyone taping it?) but I'm much more interested in the Trial of the King Killers anyway. Cromwell seemed a bit like the original Fun Hater anyway.

(I loved the way they talked about the Puritans banning Xmas, and they saying "Suddenly, the Royalists were the official party of Fun!" It would be hillarious if the Torys tried to pull the same sort of stunt.)

I now have a vision of Michael Howard shouting "DO YOU HATE FUN?!!?!?" at Tony Blair during PM'sQT.

x-post - that would actually be hysterical. But I suppose the current DO YOU HATE FUN?!?!? of conservatism (little c) is actually using Political Correctness as a stick to beat the Left with.

(the poster-child for this migration = tom paine)

two books which are good on it (both abt american war of independence and the roots of the US constition) = garry wills's "inventing america: jefferson's declaration of independence" and "explaining america: the federalist"

one of the things he does in these is trace eg jefferson's and madison's thinking back to the writings of the "scottish enlightenment" ppl, esp. hume and another less famous guy whose name i forget, and their interpretations of the constitutional implications of the 1688 "Glorious Revolution" (inc.i think the implication that the GR was not over, or fully realised)

something also worth remembering is that something like one in ten* of the english population died as a direct or indirect result of the English Civil War, so that the desire for STABILITY and relative peace after the 1640s hung huge over England for many decades, in the form of an unconscious fear of a return to war (actually i'd argue this fear is still with us, deep in the brit cultural subconscious)

*(i remember this from some recent TV prog abt the Civil War and may be misremembering this figure: it was LARGE though - i assume as much as anything courtesy refugee dislocation, disease and starvation)

*here = in the US *and* the UK

until c.1775 many - if not most - of the americans who took up arms against the Brits considered themselves loyal subjects of King George III; their compaint was that the colonies didn't have the same rights as "true-born englishmen" and this is what they originally felt themselves to be fighting for

but the fact of the war led to a radicalisation of the position, in effect realising the radical implications of the english constitution as ALREADY established (in unfinished form) in 1688

Factoid from last night's documentary: the death toll as a percentage of the population was higher than the First World War.

Which is to say: Cromwell was not a 'puritan' fun-hater. He was an experimental calvinist, possibly aligned to the Seeker sect, who loved art and nice clothes and who, as he became older, realised that in order to keep stability he had to clamp down more on the craziness that was an England rife with millenarianism, sometimes overstepping the mark as in 1655. Etcetera.

That said, they should bring back the Smithfield Mystery Plays.

(i have actual real work to do at work »:( so postin will be light till late afternoon)

http://www.sharpsbooks.co.uk/images/S7863.jpg

I think this is key, not only mass literacy but the punishments for pubishing radical literature were less severe in Briatin than i Europe. John Lillburne was sentanced to be whipped on the back of a cart dragged from the fleet prison to New Palace Yard but in Europe he would probably have been burnt at the stake. And of course there were much less sophisticated method of uncovering seditious pamphleteers etc. (i.e no inquisition)

Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England
Olé
Born in 1599 and died in 1658
September
Then he smashed
Ireland
Set up the Commonwealth
And more
He crushed the Scots at Worcester
And beat the Dutch at sea
In 1653 and then
He dissolved the rump Parliament
And with Lambert's consent
Wrote the instrument of
Government
Under which Oliver was Protector
at last
The end.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/blogphotos/Blog_Map_Slavery.gif

Key:
First English Revolution = 1642
Restoration = 1660
Second English Revolution ("Glorious") = 1688
Third English Revolution (now usually referred to as the American Revolution) = 1776

(i think the socio-political make-up of the south is more complex and indeed conflicted than than that: the final wave - if fischer is correct - would be the estranged puritan-ish poor who were betrayed by the compromise of 1688, which put the bourgeoisie in charge alongside the decaying aristocracy)

(the poor who liked the restoration would surely not have emigrated?)

(isn't part of the energy of the "anti-liberal/blue-state" rhetoric of the modern south an inherited echo of the disgust this group felt during the 18th century at England's set-up of OLD CORRUPTION etc - which BOTH embattled sides during the ECW ended up being compromised by after 1688?)

haha i'm not convinced that presbyterians represent cavaliers!

They don't, really, but they are in opposition (in both 17th Century Britain and in 17th-18th century America) to the Puritans and they lived in a region heavily settled by disaffected royalists during the interregnum.

Re: The American War for Independence. Let's not forget how many tories were chased out of what would become the U.S. to Canada, where veterans were promised something like 50 acres. "Better one Tyrant three thousand miles away, then three thousand Tyrants one mile away" - Dr. Mather Biles (Cotton Mather's grandson)