The Return of a Revolution Without Its Content
Nicholas Tyacke’s edited collection, The English
Revolution c.1590–1720: Politics, Religion and Communities, promises to
restore the English Revolution to its rightful place in historical debate. For
decades, the dominant academic tendency, revisionism, has denied the very
existence of a revolution, reducing the mid‑seventeenth century to a crisis of
governance, administrative strain, and political miscalculation. Tyacke’s
volume appears to challenge that orthodoxy. It revives the vocabulary of
revolution, adopts the long chronological frame associated with Marxist historiography,
and gestures toward the structural transformations that shaped the period. Yet
the gesture is largely rhetorical. The book resurrects the language of
revolution while quietly discarding the analytical framework that once gave
that language explanatory force.
The English Revolution was not a constitutional accident. It
was the political expression of profound social change: the erosion of feudal
relations, the rise of capitalist agriculture, the expansion of overseas
commerce, and the emergence of new social groups whose interests collided with
the Stuart monarchy's absolutist ambitions. Any serious attempt to explain the
revolution must confront these processes. Tyacke’s contributors do not. The
result is a collection that borrows the temporal architecture of Marxist
historiography while rejecting the materialist analysis that made that
architecture meaningful.
Tyacke’s introduction is the volume's most substantial attempt to reclaim the term “revolution.” He summarises the Whig and Marxist
traditions with clarity and fairness, and he acknowledges the limitations of
revisionism. But he does not confront the intellectual consequences of
revisionism’s dominance. The likely reason is simple: most contributors remain
too close to the revisionist worldview to mount a serious challenge. The
book thus occupies an ambiguous position: post‑revisionist in rhetoric,
revisionist in substance.
The Long Seventeenth Century Without Its Engine
The chronological sweep from 1590 to 1720 places the volume within the tradition of the
“long seventeenth century,” a concept forged by Marxist historians. Eric
Hobsbawm’s general crisis thesis argued that the seventeenth century marked a
decisive stage in the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Hugh Trevor‑Roper’s
counter‑argument, though hostile to Marxism, accepted the need for structural
explanation. Christopher Hill’s Century of Revolution treated the
English Revolution as the pivot of the entire period.
Tyacke’s contributors adopt the temporal frame but abandon
the structural analysis. The result is a long seventeenth century drained of
its meaning: a chronology without causality. The revolution becomes a prolonged
episode of ideological quarrelling and constitutional improvisation, rather
than the political expression of deep social transformation.
This is not merely an intellectual shortcoming. It reflects
a broader trend in early modern historiography: a retreat from economic history, a suspicion of class analysis, and an elevation of micro‑politics
and localism. The discipline has become increasingly capable of describing the
revolution in exquisite detail while increasingly unable to explain it.
Revisionism and Its Post‑Revisionist Shadow
Revisionism, associated with Conrad Russell, Kevin Sharpe
and John Morrill, insisted that the civil war was an accident: the product of
short‑term misjudgements, provincial grievances, and the administrative
difficulties of ruling three kingdoms. It denied any connection to long‑term
economic or social change. Tyacke acknowledges this, but he does not confront
the consequences. The contributors’ focus on high politics, religion, print
culture, and elite manoeuvres remains comfortably within the revisionist
comfort zone. The book’s post‑revisionist stance is therefore limited. It
restores ideology to the centre of the period, but ideology without class
becomes abstraction. It recognises conflict, but conflict without material
roots becomes theatre. It speaks of revolution, but revolution without social
forces becomes metaphor.
High Politics Without Social Foundations
The strongest chapters address the revolutionary decades.
Even here, however, the focus remains overwhelmingly on elite politics,
religious conflict, and print culture. Sean Kelsey’s chapter on Eikon Basilike
is meticulously researched and revealing. It shows that royalism was not a
monolithic bloc but a coalition divided by social tensions. This is precisely
the kind of research that could challenge revisionist assumptions, yet the book
never draws out its implications. Richard Cust and Ann Hughes helped restore
ideology to the centre of early Stuart studies.
Michael Braddick’s effort to connect 1640 with 1688 is
genuinely valuable. But ideology without class becomes abstraction. The “long
revolution” Braddick describes lacks the social interests that made 1688 a
settlement favouring property, Parliament, and the rising bourgeoisie. John
Walter’s chapter stands out. His work on popular politics, riots, and
crowd action continues the “history from below” tradition of Hill, Thompson and
Manning. But even Walter stops short of treating the lower orders as decisive
actors. Manning demonstrated that they were not merely a backdrop but a driving
force shaping events in London, the counties, and within the New Model Army
itself.⁹ Walter’s reluctance to follow Manning’s lead reflects the volume’s
broader limitations.
What the Book Cannot
Explain
The most glaring omission is
economics. Across 212 pages, the book offers no sustained discussion of enclosure, the
rise of capitalist agriculture, the expansion of the cloth trade, colonial
commerce, the emergence of a powerful merchant bourgeoisie, or the transformation
of London into a capitalist metropolis.
These were not peripheral
developments. They were the material processes that produced the social groups
whose interests collided with the Stuart monarchy's absolutist ambitions.
Without them, the English Revolution becomes inexplicable: a constitutional
quarrel that somehow ended in regicide, a republic, and military dictatorship.
The avoidance of economic history is not accidental. It
reflects a broader trend in revisionist and post‑revisionist scholarship: a
retreat from structural analysis toward micro‑politics, localism, and
ideological nuance. The result is a discipline that can describe the
revolution in exquisite detail while increasingly unable to explain it.
Conclusion: A Useful Collection, But Not a Sufficient One
Tyacke’s volume is well written, well researched, and often
illuminating. It will be useful to students and general readers. But it is not
a serious attempt to restore the English Revolution as a category of historical
explanation. It revives the vocabulary of revolution while quietly discarding
the Marxist analysis that made the term meaningful.
Anyone who wants to understand why England had a
revolution in the seventeenth century rather than simply how it unfolded
will still need to return to Hill, Manning, and Hobsbawm. Tyacke’s collection
supplements that tradition, not replaces it.
Bibliography
Braddick, Michael, ‘The English Revolution and its
Legacies’, in Nicholas Tyacke (ed.), The English Revolution c.1590–1720:
Politics, Religion and Communities (Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 2007), pp. 189–212.
Cust, Richard, and Ann Hughes (eds.), Conflict in Early
Stuart England (London: Longman, 1989).
Hill, Christopher, The Century of Revolution, 1603–1714
(London: Nelson, 1961).
Hobsbawm, Eric, ‘The General Crisis of the European Economy
in the 17th Century’, Past and Present, 5 (1954), pp. 33–53; 6 (1954),
pp. 44–65.
Kelsey, Sean, ‘The King’s Book: Eikon Basilike and
the English Revolution of 1649’, in Nicholas Tyacke (ed.), The English
Revolution c.1590–1720: Politics, Religion and Communities (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 2007), pp. 63–84.
Manning, Brian, The English People and the English
Revolution (London: Heinemann, 1976).
Morrill, John, ‘The Causes and Course of the English Civil
War’, in John Morrill (ed.), The Oxford Illustrated History of Tudor and
Stuart Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 279–307.
Russell, Conrad, The Causes of the English Civil War
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990).
Sharpe, Kevin, The Personal Rule of Charles I (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1992).
Trevor‑Roper, Hugh, ‘The General Crisis of the Seventeenth
Century’, Past and Present, 16 (1959), pp. 31–64.
Tyacke, Nicholas (ed.), The English Revolution
c.1590–1720: Politics, Religion and Communities (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 2007).
Walter, John, ‘Politicising the Popular? The “Tradition of
Riot” and Popular Political Culture in the English Revolution’, in Nicholas
Tyacke (ed.), The English Revolution c.1590–1720: Politics, Religion and
Communities (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), pp. 113–140.
