Historians and the passing of time

From Christopher Thompson

I ought to begin by saying that I have become increasingly fond of Keith Livesey's blog, A Trumpet of Sedition. He and I do not agree on the origins and causes, the course and significance and the consequences of the struggles in the British Isles (or the Civil Wars or Revolution) of the 1640s and 1650s. I believe that the existence of differing views is a good thing because it stimulates debate and new research. He is attached to the views of figures like Christopher Hill and Brian Manning, both Marxists and both figures from my youth. Their approaches were superseded with the rise of the mis-named 'revisionism' of the mid-1970s.

Christopher Hill ceased to shape the course of historiographical debates at that time: it is doubtful whether Brian Manning, whose views had been formed in the early-1950s and which changed remarkably little, ever had. 

This process - of once fashionable views going out of fashion - happens to everyone. It happened about twenty years ago to Conrad Russell. He no longer shapes historiographical debates about these events. So, I hope Keith Livesey will forgive me when I say that there is no group of revisionists controlling academic or any other forms of discussion about the 1640s and 1650s in these islands. The debate has moved on: Christopher Hill like Conrad Russell is 'old hat'. Historians now wear different headgear and will change it again in the future.

My Reply

I would like to return the compliment made by Christopher Thompson on my blog and take up briefly a few of his points. I enjoy his blog. It is the first blog I read and contains extremely valuable information and insight into Early Modern England. As he has mentioned above we do not see eye to eye on the origins and causes of the English Revolution but that is life. If everybody agreed on everything History would be a very boring subject.

In fact I am of the opinion that through understanding contending views of the civil war we get a closer approximation as to its complexities. Christopher is of course right when he says that different generations throw up different types of historians and for that matter different types or schools of history. Perhaps I am wrong to say that the revisionist historians control current historiography. Control is too strong a word but they certainly do dominate. But I will allow a concession to Christopher and admit that I need to carry out a far more accurate analysis of their historiography and politics. If the new group of historians have moved beyond the term revisionists then what are they proposing and can a common theme be detected amongst them. The next few months will show.

Making the Radicals Safe: Bradstock’s Radical Religion in Cromwell’s England and the Revisionist Retreat from Revolution

Andrew Bradstock's _Radical Religion in Cromwell's England: A Concise History from the English Civil War to the End of the Commonwealth_ comes at a time when the historiography of the English Revolution has been increasingly stripped of its revolutionary elements. Since Christopher Hill's passing, academic narratives have shifted towards a revisionist view that dismisses the rise of the bourgeoisie, portrays the Civil War as an avoidable elite quarrel, and denies it as a true revolution. Simon Schama's claim of being a "born-again Whig" exemplifies this ideological retreat, highlighting the current trend away from revolutionary interpretations.

Bradstock's book is influenced—indeed limited—by this climate. Although it claims to be a "concise history," it functions more as a theological overview of radical Protestant sectarianism. Its interpretive approach mirrors the modern attempt to depoliticise the English Revolution and portray its commoner movements as harmless in the eyes of the current ruling class.

The Theological Frame: A Category Error

Bradstock, a trained theologian, naturally approaches 'Radical Religion in Cromwell's England' with his scholarly discipline. His previous book, 'Faith in the Revolution,' presented his view of the Levellers, Diggers, Ranters, Fifth Monarchists, and early Quakers as a recoverable tradition of radical Christian witness. In this new work, that perspective is not just evident—it forms the core of his analysis.

The issue is not that religion had no part in the English Revolution. As Engels noted in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, 17th-century bourgeoisie used religious language in their revolutionary efforts because a secular political language had not yet emerged. Calvinism supported the idea that the accumulation of wealth and the challenge to the feudal hierarchy were justified.

Bradstock challenges the usual view by reversing the relationship. Instead of seeing religious language as a medium for expressing class forces, he considers theology the core of the radical movements themselves. The Levellers are portrayed as radical Protestants; the Diggers as Christian communitarians; the Fifth Monarchists as millenarian dissenters. Their class content becomes obscured behind doctrinal analysis.

The Plebeian Wing of a Bourgeois Revolution

The radical sects Bradstock chronicles were not theological curiosities. They were the plebeian wing of the bourgeois revolution, representing the rural poor, the dispossessed, and the lower‑middle strata who sought to push the revolution beyond the limits acceptable to the grandees around Cromwell.

Bradstock's theological framework fails to account for several historical events: Cromwell's suppression of the Levellers at Burford in 1649, which was driven by bourgeoisie counter-revolution rather than religious doctrine; the Diggers' occupation of St George's Hill, which was more a protest against enclosure and primitive accumulation—key aspects of early capitalist development—than a utopian Christian project; and Winstanley's shift from a mystical visionary to a critic of property, which only makes sense when viewing class dynamics as central.

By viewing these movements as chapters in Christian dissent, Bradstock hides the revolutionary ambitions of the petty bourgeoisie and rural poor. His "concise history" is brief because it leaves out the crucial element: the class struggle.

The Political Function of Revisionism

The revisionist view of the English Revolution's collapse isn't just an academic curiosity; it's a political tool today. By claiming Britain never underwent a bourgeois revolution, the ruling class sustains the myth that the country's history is marked by gradual reforms, compromise, and constitutional stability. As a result, Marxism appears as an outsider, disconnected from English history.

Hill's work significantly challenged this mythology. However, "Radical Religion in Cromwell's England," despite its narrative strengths, does not advance that challenge. Instead, it depoliticises the radical sects, portraying them as a safe, sanitised religious heritage, which ultimately renders them acceptable to the very establishment they once challenged. The subtitle—"A Concise History from the English Civil War to the End of the Commonwealth"—reveals this approach. Here, "concision" is not a virtue but a limitation, as it narrows the focus and omits class dynamics that are essential to understanding the radical sects.

Conclusion

Bradstock provides a clear and organised overview of seventeenth-century radical religion. However, it is the religious perspective that makes the book politically ineffective. At a time when the ruling elite aims to erase revolutionary history from Britain, Radical Religion in Cromwell's England—despite its sincerity—tends to mask the class forces behind the English Revolution and to diminish its radical impact. A truly historical perspective must start where Bradstock leaves off: recognising that groups such as the Levellers, Diggers, Ranters, and Fifth Monarchists were not just religious dissenters but the working-class leaders of a bourgeois revolution whose lessons remain highly relevant today.

 

Barry Coward’s Oliver Cromwell: A Revisionist Evacuation of History

Barry Coward’s Oliver Cromwell (1991), released at the peak of revisionist influence in British scholarship, exemplifies a systematic tendency to diminish the driving forces of history. The biography emphasises moderation, balance, and empirical rigour, but these qualities conceal a deeper political and methodological conservatism. Coward portrays Cromwell as a man shaped by circumstances rather than class, a figure overseeing revolutionary events without fully understanding or embodying their revolutionary significance. Consequently, the narrative remains factually accurate yet lacks any true engagement with the historical revolutionary content.

Coward’s framing clarifies this point. His main argument is that Cromwell was not a revolutionary in any deliberate or systematic way. The biography supports this perspective by portraying Cromwell’s actions as pragmatic responses to immediate pressures: the king’s obstinacy, the army’s demands, and the disintegration of parliamentary alliances. His serious religious beliefs are the primary explanation. Providence substitutes for political strategy; conscience replaces class conflict. This approach is not merely interpretive but is central to revisionist understanding.

The Revisionist Method: Contingency as Ideology

Revisionism emerged in the 1970s as a deliberate rejection of the Marxist interpretation of the English Revolution, which viewed it as a bourgeois revolution involving a fundamental shift in property, state, and ideology. Scholars like Conrad Russell, John Morrill, and their followers argued that the Civil War was not a true revolution, but rather a tragic clash caused by misunderstandings, religious fears, and constitutional concerns. Coward’s biography offers a gentler version of this view but stays closely aligned with its main ideas.

The revisionist approach is based on three main principles: first, rejecting the idea of long-term social causes, viewing tensions such as those between Crown and gentry, landlord and tenant, or capitalist agriculture and feudal remnants as outdated or insignificant. Second, simplifying class to mere factions, with Parliament seen as a gathering of personalities and interest groups rather than a reflection of a rising social order. Third, emphasising contingency, suggesting that events happen simply because they happen and decisions are made because they are; thus, history is seen as a series of accidents.

Coward’s Cromwell exemplifies this worldview: he is devout, adaptable, courageous, and often conflicted—yet never placed within a specific historical context. He takes action, but these actions lack social significance. He leads, but not on behalf of any particular class. His destruction of the monarchy occurs only because Charles I leaves him with no other choice. This is not an analysis; it is a rejection of analysis.

Cromwell Without Revolution: A Hollow Centre

Coward’s biography is most compelling in its factual aspects, where revisionism poses minimal risk. His descriptions of the Protectorate’s constitutional experiments are clear, his portrayal of Cromwell’s military career is proficient, and his treatment of providentialism is respectful and earnest. As noted, “He presents Cromwell as a figure of genuine complexity: capable of both extraordinary political courage and brutal repression.” However, complexity without explaining causes leads only to confusion.

Coward’s narrative omits the English Revolution. The Levellers and Diggers—who advocated for popular sovereignty, broader voting rights, and communal land—are pushed to the sidelines. The New Model Army, historically the most politically aware military in England, is portrayed as a professional fighting force instead of a class-based tool. The Irish campaign, where Cromwell’s forces massacred thousands at Drogheda and Wexford, is seen as a tragic mistake rather than as colonial violence by a rising bourgeois state. Coward’s portrayal of Cromwell reflects his era, but the revolutionary spirit of that period has been largely erased.

Hill vs Coward: Two Histories, Two Worlds

The contrast with Christopher Hill is clear. Hill’s book, ‘God’s Englishman’ (1970), remains the most insightful Marxist analysis of Cromwell because it recognises the dialectical unity of ideology and class. Cromwell’s view of providence is not a personal obsession but the ideological framework through which the bourgeoisie interpreted its historical role. His purges of Parliament were not merely personal outbursts but deliberate class actions. Similarly, his suppression of the Levellers was not an inconsistency but a necessary step, as the revolution had reached the limits tolerable to property interests.

Coward dismisses all of this. His depiction of Cromwell is not that of a revolutionary leader but an accidental figure. Cromwell is shaped by events rather than shaping them. This approach isn't just a different interpretation—it abandons interpretation entirely. It shifts focus from structure to personality, from class to conscience, and from revolution to improvisation. Hill describes why the English state changed, while Coward explores Cromwell's personal feelings about these changes.

The Political Moment: 1991 and the Ideological Offensive

Coward’s biography was published in 1991, a year that marked the dissolution of the Soviet Union. This timing is notable because many scholars saw the collapse of Stalinism as proof that Marxism had been invalidated historically. As revisionist ideas gained influence, they became the prevailing view. Scepticism and even hostility toward the concept of revolution increased. To deny that the English Civil War was a bourgeois revolution was, in effect, to deny the legitimacy of revolution as a whole. "It was the product of an intellectual climate in which the very concept of revolution was under sustained assault.”

Coward is not a polemicist; he is a meticulous scholar. However, his biography is influenced by this atmosphere. His moderation reflects his political stance, and his caution reveals an ideological perspective. His reluctance to interpret acts as an interpretation itself suggests that history lacks driving forces, class lacks agency, and revolution lacks significance.

Conclusion: A Useful Book, and a Useless One

Coward’s Oliver Cromwell provides a solid factual overview suitable for students. However, it doesn't serve as a guide to the English Revolution. It doesn't explain why the monarchy collapsed, how the state was transformed, or why the 1640s stand out as one of history’s major revolutionary upheavals. To understand these aspects, one must look to Hill—and beyond Hill, to the Marxist approach, which uniquely captures the dialectic of ideology, class, and historical necessity. Coward presents Cromwell as a person. Hill presents Cromwell as a historical actor. Only the latter represents Cromwell as he truly was.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

• Cromwell, Oliver. Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell. Edited by W.C. Abbott. 4 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1937–47.
• Gardiner, Samuel Rawson. History of the Great Civil War, 1642–1649. London: Longmans, Green, 1886–91.
• The Clarke Papers. Edited by C.H. Firth. 4 vols. London: Camden Society, 1891–1901.
• The Putney Debates, 1647. Edited by Michael Mendle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Marxist Historiography & Social Interpretation

• Hill, Christopher. God’s Englishman: Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution. London: Penguin, 1970.
• Hill, Christopher. The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution. London: Penguin, 1972.
• Hill, Christopher. The English Revolution 1640. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1940.
• Hill, Christopher. Puritanism and Revolution. London: Secker & Warburg, 1958.
• Hill, Christopher. The Century of Revolution, 1603–1714. London: Nelson, 1961.
• Brenner, Robert. “The Agrarian Roots of European Capitalism.” Past & Present 97 (1982): 16–113.
• Dobb, Maurice. Studies in the Development of Capitalism. London: Routledge, 1946.
• Morton, A.L. A People’s History of England. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1938.
• Manning, Brian. The English People and the English Revolution. London: Heinemann, 1976.
• Manning, Brian. The Far Left in the English Revolution, 1640–1660. London: Bookmarks, 1999.
• Manning, Brian. Revolution and Counter-Revolution in England, 1658–1660. London: Bookmarks, 2003.

Revisionist Historiography

• Coward, Barry. Oliver Cromwell. London: Longman, 1991.
• Coward, Barry. The Stuart Age: England, 1603–1714. London: Longman, 1980.
• Russell, Conrad. The Causes of the English Civil War. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990.
• Russell, Conrad. Parliamentary History in Perspective, 1603–1660. London: Hambledon Press, 1981.
• Morrill, John. Revolt of the Provinces: The People of England and the Tragedies of War, 1630–1648. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1976.
• Morrill, John. “The Religious Context of the English Civil War.” Like the English Revolution, edited by Morrill. London: Longman, 1993.
• Woolrych, Austin. Britain in Revolution, 1625–1660. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
• Sharpe, Kevin. The Personal Rule of Charles I. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.
• Hexter, J.H. The Reign of King Pym. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1941.

General Scholarship on Cromwell and the English Revolution

• Durston, Christopher. Cromwell’s Major-Generals: Godly Government During the English Revolution. London: Bloomsbury, 2001.
• Durston, Christopher, and Judith Maltby, eds. Religion in Revolutionary England. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006.
• Gentles, Ian. The New Model Army in England, Ireland and Scotland, 1645–1653. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992.
• Gentles, Ian. Oliver Cromwell: God’s Warrior and the English Revolution. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
• Hughes, Ann. The Causes of the English Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1991.
• Hughes, Ann. Gangrene and the Struggle for the English Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
• Reid, John G. Cromwell and Scotland: Conquest and Religion, 1650–1660. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018.
• Lenihan, Pádraig. Consolidating Conquest: Ireland 1603–1727. London: Routledge, 2014.

Contextual Works: Ideology, Revolution, and Historiography

• Anderson, Perry. Lineages of the Absolutist State. London: Verso, 1974.
• Anderson, Perry. Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism. London: Verso, 1974.
• Thompson, E.P. The Making of the English Working Class. London: Gollancz, 1963.
• Kaye, Harvey J. The British Marxist Historians. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1984.
• Hill, Christopher, et al. The Communist Party Historians’ Group: Its Work and Legacy. Various essays.
• Talbot, Ann. “Christopher Hill and the Socialist Tradition.” World Socialist Web Site, 2003.
• North, David. The Russian Revolution and the Unfinished Twentieth Century. Oak Park: Mehring Books, 2014.
• Deutscher, Isaac. The Prophet Armed. London: Oxford University Press, 1954.
• Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Revolution, 1789–1848. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1962.

Works on Historiographical Method

• Carr, E.H. What Is History? London: Macmillan, 1961.
• Marx, Karl. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. 1852.
• Marx, Karl. Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. 1859.
• Trotsky, Leon. History of the Russian Revolution. 1930–32.
• Bloch, Marc. The Historian’s Craft. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1953.

 

Conrad Russell and a case of suppressio veri?

( This is reprinted from Christopher Thompson’s blog by kind permission. His blog can be found at http://earlymodernhistory1.blogspot.com/

I first met Conrad Russell when I became a Fellow of the Institute of Historical Research in the autumn of 1968. He was engaging company with a dry sense of humour and a wide knowledge of arcane references. We became friends and remained in touch in the early-1970s. The intellectual parting of our ways came in the mid-1970s with the publication of his works on Parliamentary history between 1604 and 1629, on the foreign policy debates in the House of Commons in November, 1621 and the publications in 1979 of his book on English Parliaments between 1621 and 1629. I regarded these as unsound, highly inaccurate and misleading. I still do. To the surprise of many of my friends, I was not and never have been a follower of Russell.

Perhaps, I may be allowed to illustrate this with one example amongst hundreds. In July, 1974, I heard his paper on anti-Spanish sentiment between 1621 and 1624 at the Sheffield Conference on Sir Thomas Wentworth's career. It was subsequently published in The Political World of Thomas Wentworth, earl of Strafford 1621-1641, edited by J.F.Merritt (Cambridge University Press 1996, Pp.47-62.

Wentworth's speeches in the House of Commons on 26th, 27th and 28th November naturally attracted his attention. Russell rightly pointed out (ibid., p.56) that, on 26th November, Wentworth argued that the issue of supply to assist King James to support English forces in the Palatinate and, perhaps, for a wider war should be put off until the following Saturday and, before then, for the House to prepare for the end of the session, presumably by passing Bills.

He went on to claim that Wentworth had not detected any demand for war in his constituency of Yorkshire. When he turned to the debate in the lower House on 27th November, Russell argued that the "first shadow was again cast by Sir Thomas Wentworth, calling for a return to bills .... Wentworth's interventions now pass the test for 'enemy action'. (ibid., p.56) On the28th, Wentworth stated that he would not give his voice for a subsidy if he did not believe there was going to be a session (ibid., Pp.57-58) It was on the basis of these speeches that Russell argued Wentworth could be accounted an opponent of war in the autumn of 1621.

Russell was certainly right to point out that Sir Thomas Wentworth argued on 26th November for a discussion of supply to be deferred until the following Saturday and, in the meantime, for the House of Commons to concentrate upon the passage of Bills and preparations for the end of the session.

What he entirely failed to mention - other than in a passing reference to a demand on Wentworth’s part on the following day for a return to Bills - was Sir Thomas’s speech on 27th November. For that claim, he cited two sources, the 'X' diary and Sir Thomas Barrington's diary (ibid., p.56 n.19) both reproduced in the edition of the Commons' Debates for 1621 edited by Notestein, Relf and Simpson. The ‘X’ diary began its report by recording Wentworth as arguing in favour of “a covenant between the King and his seed and us and our seed. First, for a present supply. Secondly to a future war of the King’s part.”

 In return, Wentworth wanted an end to the session and Bills to pass into law: he was willing to “answer the King’s desire to give a sufficient sum before Christmas for supply … [and advocated] that we would declare that we would be ready to lay down our lives and estates at his feet.” Sir Thomas Barrington’s account was equally clear on Wentworth’s desire to preserve amity with the King; James had asked for supply to maintain an army in the Palatinate and to sustain a future war; Wentworth, therefore, sought an end to the present session and a new one in February whilst pledging to “answer the King’s first proposition for the Palatinate, to give before Christmas” and to “declare our selves that we will be ready to laye downe our lives and fortunes when the King shall make a warr.”

These were the two sources Russell cited for his claim that Wentworth was calling for a return to Bills and that his successive interventions on 26th and 27th November “pass the test for ‘enemy action’.” The Commons’ Journal reported the end of Wentworth’s speech as advising the House “1. To give a present Supply for the Army in the Palatinate. 2ly, A Request to the King, by some of the Privy Council, for an End of a Session before Christmas. 3ly, The Proportion of the present Supply, and the manner, as may add most Reputation to his Majesty’s Endeavours abroad. 4ly, Where War and peace in the King’s Hand, to declare, that we will be ready, in a Cause concerning Religion and the Commonwealth, we will be ready to second him.“

The other accounts - Pym, Smyth, Z and Howard - confirm Wentworth’s willingness to vote for an interim supply to keep the forces in the Palatinate in being and his desire for a further session in February. Edward Nicholas, furthermore, noted Wentworth’s suggestion of a conference with the House of Lords on the question of supply. On this basis, Wentworth was not just willing to fund military forces in the Palatinate but also to contemplate grants to pay for a wider war if necessary. Russell’s claims about Wentworth as an opponent of a war by 27th November cannot be reconciled with the surviving evidence.

The questions that inevitably arise are very serious. Did Russell read the sources he used or did he misread them or did he ignore their contents altogether in the service of his striking but unfounded hypothesis? I am afraid that there are not just dozens of examples of this kind but hundreds across his body of work. That is why I cannot agree that he was the foremost scholar of his generation working on the history of early Stuart parliaments and politics.