The Civil Wars of England-John Kenyon - Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988 - xvi + 272pp

"A Civil War is not only the conflict of opposing principles but the shock of material forces."[1]

Sir Charles Firth.

The causes of the Civil war have been fought over by historians for centuries.  So much so that not for nothing did Lawrence Stone describe it as "a battleground which has been heavily fought over…beset with mines, booby-traps and ambushes manned by ferocious scholars prepared to fight every inch of the way."

Kenyon's book, which is one of the better military histories, does not confine itself to a straightforward, matter of fact description of the civil war. It is an excellent piece of history, with a deep understanding of the politics and economics of the conflict which he combined with his military understanding.

Kenyon's work was praised by Christopher Hill who said Kenyon's narrative was "orthodox Tawneyite: towns and cities 'solidly for Parliament', so much so that in 1643 Charles I insisted that he 'dared not trust his person inside any closed town'; the clothing areas were 'aggressively parliamentarian', Birmingham 'a solidly parliamentarian industrial town'. Kenyon grasps the fact which 'revisionist' historians ignore, that before 1642 social revolution was always potentially present"[2]. As we shall see later, Kenyon did not return Hill's compliment.

The book, while being well researched, has the pace of an excellent novel. It is methodically researched as to be expected of a historian of Kenyon's experience. As one writer states, he had "scholarly attention to detail and ability to extract every nuance from his sources. He distrusted fads and was sceptical of theories not fully backed by the historical fact". 

It is not for nothing he was described as "one of Britain's leading scholars of 17th-century English history". Kenyon sought to position himself between the two camps and tried to place his book within the context of the civil war being a product of a general European Crisis of the 17th Century. This view tends to cut across the mainly nationalist English view of the civil war. (See Eric Hobsbawm-The General Crisis of the European Economy Past and Present No 5 May 1954 pp 33-53).

Historiography

It is hard as regards historiography to fit Kenyon into a discernable category. Robert Ashton makes an interesting point on why some historians while not being Marxist did use Marxist ideas saying "The idea of religious, political and constitutional issues as an ideological superstructure based on foundations of material and class interests has been influential far beyond the ranks of Marxist historians. It has indeed been adopted, in part at least and with a radically different emphasis, by some of their more formidable and determined opponents".[3]

As Christopher Thompson forcibly wrote Kenyon was not a Marxist or fellow traveller but believed there was a "Great Rebellion" not an English revolution. However, Kenyon’s use of this quote from Sir Charles Firth that "a Civil War is not only the conflict of opposing principles but the shock of material forces." tends to confirm Ashton's perceptive analysis.

Kenyon's use of the quote by James Harrington, "the dissolution of this government caused the war, not the war the dissolution of this government"[4]  is further confirmation that Kenyon was a very thoughtful historian more than many have given him credit.

Harrington is a significant figure if you are looking for a materialist understanding of the English revolution. The writer and historian Gaby Mahlberg makes this perceptive point "'Good laws', Harrington believed, could give the country stability, and these laws had to be infallible, so that bad man would not be able to corrupt the state. Harrington never saw his dream come true. The Restoration of the Stuarts in 1660 meant a return of many of the old problems. However, his ideas of mixed government and a balance of power remained influential in the writings of the Neo-Harringtonians of the later 17th and early 18th century. They influenced both the American and French Revolutions, while his materialist theory of political change would also strike a chord with Marxists and modern economic and political thinkers"[5]. Kenyon was not a Marxist, but Harrington certainly struck a chord with him.

High Tide of Revisionism

The fact that Kenyon had no discernable historiography meant that many could claim him for their brand of history. Leading one obituary writer to say "When he appeared at Christ's in 1954, he cast himself in the role of mocking outsider, offering caustic criticisms from the fringes of college power in the confident and correct expectation that they would mostly be ignored. They were. College meetings would be punctuated by Kenyon's heavy sighs and even heavier disapproving sniffs and brief, dismissive comments, but the college men of affairs went about their efficient business untroubled by these background mutterings".

Kenyon's book appeared when writing about the English revolution was an extremely hazardous occupation. Kenyon was too independent of mind to call himself a revisionist, but this did not stop the dean of revisionism John Morrill claiming him for their side.

John Morrill for one believed that Kenyon was close to the revisionists and made it abundantly clear in his obituary for the British Academy that Kenyon had the "fundamental disapproval of model-builders and systematisers. He had no time for social determinism as a tool of the historian for explaining the past or of social engineering as a tool of the politician in effecting the future". [6]

To say that Kenyon was a mass of contradictions would be an understatement but sometimes he went too far. His review of Christopher Hill's The World Turned Upside Down was not only wrong, rude and disrespectful as this quote shows:" I think we are entitled to ask where all this discussion of obscure left fanatics is getting us. That some of them were mad, we have always impatiently known, but Dr Hill positively glories in it. This was not a proletarian movement at all. It was an unexpected opportunity for failed shopkeepers, lazy artisans and eccentric historians to find their voice".

Kenyon rejected being dragged into the Revisionist or post revisionist camp as his article Revisionism and Post Revisionism in Early Stuart History[7] shows. His attack on Conrad Russell's reluctance to see the revolution as a clash of social classes scolding "to Russell, then, the crisis was one of central organisation: how to control the three kingdoms in a war situation; how to solve the church problem when each nation had a majority espousing a different faith from the other two, each with a substantial minority inclined toward the faith of another kingdom; and how to secure a financial settlement adequate for early modern government. The effect was to create a bewildering number of new axes of division. Russell has never allowed that this was a struggle between social classes, constitutionalism and absolutism, between Court and Country, or between "government" and "opposition".[8]

To conclude it is perhaps fitting and generous on my part to allow John Morrill to have the last word on Kenyon when he wrote" John Kenyon had the best historical intelligence of his generation. He understood men and women in the past and wrote about them with a rare precision, clarity and conviction. He was a productive scholar, and all his works except one wore their learning with a deep deceptive lightness. He fitted into no school, reacted against fashion, came to look old fashioned in his interests. He was a magnificent historian who could not quite build on the brilliance of his early promise, but who greatly underestimated the magnitude of his own achievement and the continuing appeal of his writing".[9]

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[1] Continuity and Anachronism: Parliamentary and Constitutional Development by P.B.M. Blaas

[2] The Civil Wars of England--John Kenyon - Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988 - xvi + 272pp- https://www.historytoday.com/christopher-hill/civil-wars-england

[3] The Civil War and the Class Struggle-Robert Ashton-1970

[4] A History of England, Volume 1: Prehistory to 1714- By Clayton Roberts, F David Roberts, Douglas Bisson

[5] https://thehistorywoman.com/tag/james-harrington/ 

[6]Proceedings of the British Academy (Volume 101 (1999), pages 441-461) https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/sites/default/files/101p441.pdf

[7] https://www.jstor.org/stable/2124903

[8] Review: Revisionism and Post-Revisionism in Early Stuart History- The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 64, No. 4 (Dec., 1992), pp. 686-699

[9] Proceedings of the British Academy (Volume 101 (1999), pages 441-461) https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/sites/default/files/101p441.pdf

David L. Smith’s Oliver Cromwell: Politics and Religion in the English Revolution, 1640–1658

The Political Function of Smith’s Revisionism

David L. Smith’s Oliver Cromwell: Politics and Religion in the English Revolution is more than just neutral scholarship. It serves as an ideological intervention aimed at denying the revolutionary aspects of the English Revolution, distancing Cromwell from the class forces that elevated him, and disguising—through claims of “moderation” and “balance”—the Marxist interpretation that sees the seventeenth century as a crucial phase in the shift from feudalism to capitalism.

Smith “dismisses both Whig and Marxist historiography as outdated and no longer fashionable.”¹ This is a core element of Smith’s project, not a mere aside. Rejecting Marxism isn’t just an academic choice; it’s a fundamental prerequisite for the entire revisionist effort.

Smith aligns with the school influenced by John Morrill and Geoffrey Elton, whose shared aim since the 1970s has been to dismiss the English Revolution as a valid category of history. They consistently argue—repetitively—that there was no rising bourgeoisie, that class struggles did not drive the conflict, and that Cromwell was merely a confused provincial gentleman instead of a leader embodying a new social order. This approach does not reflect proper history; it amounts to restorationist apologetics.

The timing of this historiographical counter-revolution is deliberate. Revisionism functions as “the academic wing of the wider ideological offensive that occurred alongside the dissolution of the USSR.”² The goal is to undermine the very idea of revolution by portraying history as a sequence of misunderstandings among elites and denying the masses' ability to act as aware agents. Smith's book is a small but illustrative part of this ideological reaction.

The Erasure of Class Struggle

Smith’s approach is straightforward: reject the idea of class forces, reduce political conflict to matters of personal faith, and portray Cromwell as a tragic moralist rather than a revolutionary leader. He accomplishes this by sharply narrowing the evidence, favouring gentry manuscript collections—such as private letters, estate documents, and correspondence from the political elite—while dismissing the proliferation of printed pamphlets, sermons, and mass political debates as either insignificant or deceptive. This classic revisionist tactic effectively eliminates the people's role, making the revolution vanish along with them.

Christopher Hill’s achievement was the opposite. He showed that the mid-1600s marked a time when the “lower orders” became active political participants, censorship broke down, and new social forces undermined the ideological framework of feudalism. Hill “made the published sources his own,” which is why revisionists “have had to seek new material.”³

Smith’s unwillingness to participate in this widespread political culture isn't just cautious methodology; it’s a form of political evasion. Recognising the radical changes of the 1640s would mean confronting the class forces driving them.

 

 

Cromwell as Revolutionary Leader—Not Confused Country Gentleman

Smith’s Cromwell is portrayed as a man of conscience, caught between different loyalties, striving for godly reform while longing for constitutional stability. However, this depiction is not only inaccurate but also driven by ideological bias. Cromwell was the military and political leader of the revolutionary bourgeoisie, who repeatedly purged Parliament (such as Pride’s Purge, the dissolution of the Rump, and the expulsion of the Barebones Assembly), suppressed the Levellers when they threatened to extend the revolution beyond acceptable limits for property owners, and established a military dictatorship to secure the interests of his class.

Hill’s 'God’s Englishman' is an essential corrective. Cromwell was not reinstating an ancient system; he was dismantling feudal political structures. The execution of Charles I was not merely an accidental procedural event, as revisionists suggest, but a deliberate act of world-historical significance—an intentional overthrow of the old order by a class that had outgrown it. Smith’s failure to recognise this is not a simple oversight but the core purpose of his book.

IV. The Political Stakes: Why Revisionism Must Deny Revolution

“If the seventeenth century was not a revolution, then perhaps revolutions never really happen.”⁴ This is the political essence of revisionism. If the English Revolution was merely a tragic misunderstanding, then the French Revolution was a blood‑soaked aberration, the Russian Revolution a criminal conspiracy, and the very idea of revolutionary transformation a dangerous illusion.

Smith’s historiography is well-suited to an era where the ruling class aims to convince the working class that collective action is useless. The denial of the English Revolution fits into a wider ideological campaign: asserting that history is shaped by elites, that the masses are passive, and that capitalism is eternal. This explains why Smith must dismiss Marxist historiography as “unfashionable.” It’s not unfashionable because it’s incorrect; it’s unfashionable because it’s dangerous—because it exposes that capitalism arose through revolutionary violence and can be overthrown through revolutionary means.

V. Conclusion: Smith’s Book as an Ideological Artefact

Smith’s Oliver Cromwell is essentially a reactionary interpretation disguised as scholarship. It adds little to our understanding of the seventeenth century, merely rehashing the revisionist ideas that have dominated academia since the Thatcher-Reagan era: denying class struggle, revolution, the agency of the masses, and the Marxist tradition. In contrast, Hill’s Marxist historiography—and the broader tradition of historical materialism—remains essential. It fully explains why the English Revolution happened, which social forces influenced it, and why Cromwell made the choices he did.

Smith’s dismissal of Marxism comes at a price. It is not a sign of scholarly sophistication. It is a sign of political reaction.”⁵

Footnotes

1. “Smith dismisses both Whig and Marxist historiography as outdated and no longer fashionable.”
2. “This is not scholarship… It is a political project… that accompanied the dissolution of the USSR.”
3. “Hill made the published sources his own… Hill’s detractors have had to look for new material.”
4. “If the seventeenth century was not a revolution, then perhaps revolutions never really happen.”
5. “It is not a sign of scholarly sophistication. It is a sign of political reaction.”