Few historians would disagree with Paul Lay's comment that
"The English Civil War, the English revolution, the Wars of the Three
Kingdoms: call them what you will, they are the most important and perhaps the
most exciting period in British history, and they should be at the core of the
school curriculum throughout the UK".[1]
Lay correctly states that the civil war was such a seminal
event not just in British history but world history that every student should
have some knowledge and opinion on this event.
I would contend that without an understanding of at least the
fundamental issues that caused the war diminishes our understanding of history
in general.
However, a word of caution is needed. Before a study of the
history, a study of the historian is in order as Edward Hallett Carr said
"if, as Collingwood says, the historian must re-enact in thought what has
gone on in the mind of his dramatis personae, so the reader in his turn must
re-enact what goes on in the mind of the historian. Study the historian before
you begin to study the facts. This is, after all, not very abstruse. It is what
is already done by the intelligent undergraduate who, when recommended to read
a work by that great scholar Jones of St. Jude's, goes round to a friend at St.
Jude's to ask what sort of chap Jones is, and what bees he has in his bonnet.
When you read a work of history, always listen out for the buzzing. If you can
detect none, either you are tone-deaf, or your historian is a dull dog."[2]
Lay recently said, "I know my history and that it was
in the 17th century that the disparate national histories of these islands came
together to forge the modern world" if by that Lay means the English
revolution paved the way for capitalism to flourish in England, then I would
agree with him. However, several more right-wing historians such as Niall
Ferguson have used the curriculum debate to foster a very right-wing agenda
which defends the historical interests of British imperialism. Ferguson has
just called the current British Prime Minister David Cameron, a new Winston
Churchill.
Lay is a very conservative historian and his magazine
History Today is a very conservative Magazine. A list of his favourite
historians who write on the English revolution would confirm this. He writes "for
decades the 17th century has been the richest seam mined in Britain's history
departments, attracting scholars of the stature of Conrad Russell, Austin
Woolrych, Ann Hughes, Kevin Sharpe, John Adamson, Jane Ohlmeyer, John Morrill,
Barry Coward, Michael Hunter and many more".
There is nothing wrong with this list except for that the
majority of historians apart from Ann Hughes are revisionist historians. Like
Lay these historians believed there was no revolution, no clash of social
classes, and what radicals existed were not really that important.
For the Lay
what was important was that religion and witchcraft were the prime movers of
people he writes "In the aftermath
of the great conflict, we see the birth of Britain and the emergence of Today's
party political system; the British Army and Royal Navy come into existence in
recognisable form; the battle of ideas over monarchy and republic provides a
stimulating argument for the young; the importance of religion — and witchcraft
— is emphasised as a prime motive of people's actions; there is the beginning
of the modern financial system with the creation of the Bank of England and the
National Debt. Most important of all, though, this is the age when British
History runs into that of a wider world to be explored in all its variety by
minds prepared for the complexities and contentions of global history by their
engagement with the medieval and Early Modern Worlds. Not even our
much-maligned exam boards can make that annoying".[3]
Religion or witchcraft did indeed move people, but there was
a class struggle and for the benefit of objectivity
which student s of history should be presented with a different viewpoint such
as the one expressed by the Marxist writer Ann Talbot who writes that the
revolution" brought people of diverse social backgrounds into the struggle
against the King and who were well-grounded enough in history to identify new
and revolutionary ideas in the curious and archaic guise in which they
appeared—as the ideologists of the revolution ransacked the Bible and
half-understood historical precedent for some kind of theory to explain what
they were doing"
To conclude, the last word should be left to Lay, who
somehow manages to make a perceptive point when he says of history that "at
its best, calls everything into question. It offers no comfort, no shelter and
no respite, and it is a discipline of endless revision and argument. It forces
its students to confront the different, the strange, the exotic and the
perverse and reveals in full the possibilities of human existence. It is
unafraid of casting its cold eye on conflict, both physical and intellectual.
And there is more history than ever. It is his story, her story, our story,
their story, History from above and from below, richer, more diverse and increasingly
global. It has no end, as the benighted Francis Fukuyama discovered when the
permanent present ushered in by the fall of the Berlin Wall came crashing down
on September 11, 2001. History opposes hubris and warns of nemesis. It does not
value events by their outcome; the Whig interpretation of history expired long
ago".
