Thomas
Hobbes
"I
would rather have a plain russett-coated captain that knows what he fights for
and loves what he knows than that which you call a gentleman and nothing
else."
Oliver
Cromwell
When
history moves with the speed of a cart-this is itself rationality and itself
regularity. When the popular masses themselves, with all their virgin
primitiveness, their simple crude decisiveness, begin to make history, to bring
to life directly and immediately "principles and theories", then the
bourgeoisie feels fear. And cries out that "rationality is receding to the
background".
Vladimir
Lenin
Ian
Gentles new book is the definitive account of how the New Model Army became an
armed party and was the motor force of the English Bourgeois revolution. The
book is meticulously researched and extremely well written.
The
military history of the New Model Army is well known, but where Gentles book
differs is that it is a political history of the rise and fall of the world-famous
17th-century army. As the book title suggests, it was truly an
"agent of the Revolution". While one of the most formidable fighting
forces ever put together, it was also one of the most radical apart from the
army led by Leon Trotsky after the Russian Revolution. Formed in 1645, it played
a crucial role in the aristocracy's overthrow and brought to power one of the
finest representative of the English bourgeoise.
Leon
Trotsky said of the New Model Army "the parliamentary army has converted
itself into an independent political force. It has concentrated in its ranks
the Independents, the pious and resolute petty bourgeoisie, the craftsmen and
farmers. This army powerfully interferes in social life, not merely as an armed
force, but as a Praetorian Guard and as the political representative of a new
class opposing the prosperous and rich bourgeoisie. Correspondingly the army
creates a new state organ rising above the military command: a council of
soldiers' and officers' deputies ("agitators"). A new period of
double sovereignty has thus arrived: that of the Presbyterian Parliament and
the Independents' army.
This
leads to open conflicts. The bourgeoisie proves powerless to oppose with its
own army the "model army" of Cromwell – that is, the armed plebeians.
The conflict ends with a purgation of the Presbyterian Parliament by the sword
of the Independents. There remains but the rump of a parliament; the
dictatorship of Cromwell is established. The lower ranks of the army, under the
leadership of the Levellers – the extreme left wing of the revolution – try to
oppose the rule of the upper military levels, the patricians of the army, their
own veritably plebeian regime. But this new two-power system does not succeed
in developing: the Levellers, the lowest depths of the petty bourgeoisie, have
not yet, nor can have, their historic path. Cromwell soon settles accounts with
his enemies. A new political equilibrium, and still by no means a stable one,
is established for a period of years.[1]
Gentles,
a leading authority, examines every aspect of the New Model Army. It killed a
King and carried out pioneering military tactics occupying London three times, creating
a republic and keeping Cromwell in power as Lord Protector until his death. The
book has been expanded to 1660, which means it covers the expedition to the
West Indies in 1655 and the Restoration in 1660, which, paradoxically, the NMA
made happen.
The
army was a hotbed of radical and religious ideas and beliefs. Gentles is no
stranger to this subject. His new book is touted as a fully revised version of
his 1992 work, but in reality, it is a different book.
As Gentles explains in an interview: "The first edition has been condensed to about half its original length. It assimilates much new research, particularly on the Levellers and army politics (by David Scott, John Rees, Rachel Foxley, Philip Baker, Elliot Vernon, Jason Peacey and others), as well as important new work on the army's military history by James Scott Wheeler, Glenn Foard, Andrew Hopper, Malcolm Wanklyn, Ismini Pells and others). The new edition adds chapters on the Protectorate (1653-9) and the Restoration (1659-60). It adds substantial new material to the chapters on Ireland and Scotland, extensively using the recently published correspondence of Cromwell's son Henry to illustrate the army's increasing dissatisfaction with the Protectoral regime. For Scotland, it illuminates the role of Robert Lilburne and George Monck in bringing that nation to heel, using a previously undeciphered manuscript to add vividness to the narrative of Glencairn's uprising in 1654. It also provides an in-depth, shocking account of the New Model's disastrous expedition against the Spanish Caribbean colony of Hispaniola, from which Oliver Cromwell never recovered his confidence. Finally, it provides a detailed, and significantly different interpretation of the army's role in the Restoration, explaining how that epochal event was brought about without bloodshed."[2]
As
Gentles states, the book contains the latest historiography from the last three
decades on the radical groups inside the New Model Army. He does not go along
with the various revisionist historians who have deliberately downplayed the
influence of groups such as the Levellers inside the army.
He
writes, "The Levellers were very influential, despite what other
historians have said. As early as March 1647, they hitched their wagon to the
New Model Army, regarding it as their main hope for achieving their programme.
The Leveller leaders spent a good deal of time at army headquarters in the
mid-summer of 1647, striving to politicise it. In October and November, they
virtually won over the Council of the Army, with the exception of the
conservative Grandees, to back the Agreement of the People. A year later, when
the army was desperately in need of political allies, the Levellers got it to
adopt the Agreement of the People with the sole proviso that it be approved by
Parliament. The decisive falling out between Leveller and army leaders did not
occur until the spring of 1649, and even then, many officers remained
supporters of Levellerism, which they labelled 'The Good Old Cause', up until
the eve of the Restoration."[3]
As
Gentles's book shows, the study of the NMA is integral to understanding how the
English bourgeois revolution came about and succeeded. One surprising thing
about the book is how little of Gentles' historiographical proclivities are in
this book. He does not subscribe to a' Three Kingdoms' approach to the English
civil war – as Jasmin L. Johnson wrote, contained within this approach 'is a
tendency to bounce back and forth from country to country and from campaign to
campaign, causing confusion and obscuring the effects that developments in one
theatre of operations might have had on the others'.[4]
While
Gentles is not immune to the siren calls of revisionist and post-revisionist
historians, he places the actions of the NMA as part of a 'people's revolution.
This tends to indicate that the influence of Marxist historians such as
Christopher Hill and Brian Manning is not entirely dead.
As
was said earlier, Professor Gentles is one of the few modern-day historians who
does not downplay the influence groups such as the Levellers had inside the NMA.
His new book offers a fresh insight into the complex relationship between Oliver
Cromwell and Leveller leaders such as John Lilburne.
Gentles
does not spend much time on military matters in this new book, and he
acknowledges that Cromwell had no formal military training. Gentles, it seems,
does not rate him highly as an army figure which is a little strange because if
you read Royalist-supporting military historians like Peter Young, you get a
much more accurate picture of Cromwell's military prowess.
Gentles
believes that Cromwell's adventures in Ireland are a blot on his record and suggests
that Cromwell's overriding concern in Ireland was the neutralisation of
Royalist threat and that the attack on, and massacre of, Catholics was a
by-product of that action. Cromwell's hatred for Catholicism was prevalent
amongst the rising bourgeoisie of the 17th century. He further suggests that
Cromwell played a key part in developing Irish nationalism.
Quite
where the NMA fits into Gentles's belief that the leaders of the revolution belonged
to a 'Junto' is not explored. The definition of Junto is a group of men united
together for some secret intrigue', with the champion of this new
historiography being John Adamson. The main theoretical premise of his book The
Noble Revolt is to view the Civil War as basically a coup d’état by a group of
nobles or aristocrats who no longer supported the King. According to Diane
Purkiss, these nobles were 'driven by their code of honour. They acted to
protect themselves and the nation. Names such as Saye, Bedford, Essex and
Warwick move from the sidelines to occupy centre stage, as do their
counterparts among Scottish peers. They, not the rude masses, plucked a king
from his throne.
I
recommend this book to general readers and more academically minded students,
as it is intelligent and well-researched. It has extensive footnotes, a lengthy
bibliography, and excellent pictures, and it deserves a wide readership and
should be on every universities book list.
[1] From Chapter 11 of The History of the
Russian Revolution (1931)
[2] https://aspectsofhistory.com/author_interviews/ian-gentles-on-the-new-model-army/
[3]
https://aspectsofhistory.com/author_interviews/ian-gentles-on-the-new-model-army/
[4] Jasmin L. Johnson, ‘Review of Ian
Gentles, The English Revolution and the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, 1638-1652’,
H-War (February 2008)
