"For really I think that the poorest he that is in England bath a life to
live, as the greatest he; and therefore, truly, Sir, I think it is clear that
every man that is to live under a government ought first by his consent to put
himself under that government. "
Colonel Rainborowe – New Model Army Soldier-Putney
Debates
"the necessitous people [the poor] of the whole kingdom
will presently rise in mighty numbers; and whosoever they pretend for at first,
within a while, they will set up for themselves, to the utter ruin of all the
nobility and gentry of the kingdom."
Quoted in Christopher Hill The English Revolution 1640
"thus were the agricultural people, firstly forcibly
expropriated from the soil, driven from their homes, turned into vagabonds, and
then whipped, branded, tortured by laws grotesquely terrible, into the
discipline necessary for the wage system."
Karl Marx [Capital]
"This Commonwealth's freedom will unite the hearts of
Englishmen together in love, so that if a foreign enemy endeavour to come in,
we shall all with joint consent rise to defend our inheritance, and shall be
true to one another. Whereas now the poor see, if they fight and should conquer
the enemy, yet either they or their children are like to be slaves still, for
the gentry will have all. Property divides the whole world into parties, and is
the cause of all wars and bloodshed and contention everywhere." When the
earth becomes a common treasury again, as it must, then this enmity in all
lands will cease."
Gerrard Winstanley, Digger Leader
When it comes to the matter of the poor during the English
Revolution, there have primarily been two trends in the English Revolution
historiography. The first is either to ignore them entirely or to place them in
the forefront of the leadership of the English revolution alongside radicals
from previous centuries representing an unbroken thread of radicalism that goes
right up to the present day. I do not claim that there was no "revel, riot
and rebellion" during the English Revolution, but the English revolution
was made by the bourgeoisie, not the working class which was still in its
infancy.
There was, however, a significant radicalisation of the poor
during this time. As Christopher Hill points out "Against the king, the
laws and religion were a company of poor tradesmen, broken and decayed
citizens, deluded and priest-ridden women, . . . there rode rabble that knew
not wherefore they were got together, tailors, shoemakers, linkboys, etc. on
the king's side. .all the bishops of the land, all the deans, prebends and
learned men; both the universities; all the princes, dukes, marquises; all the
earls and lords except two or three; all the knights and gentlemen in the three
nations, except a score of sectaries and atheists".[1]
It was these sectaries and atheists that conservative
thinkers like Richard Baxter sought to warn the ruling elite about when he
wrote "A very great part of the knights and gentlemen of England . . .
adhered to the king. And most of the tenants of these gentlemen, and also most
of the poorest of the people, whom the others call the rabble, did follow the
gentry and were for the king. On the Parliament's side were (besides
themselves) the smaller part (as some thought) of the gentry in most of the
counties, and the greatest part of the tradesmen and freeholders and the middle
sort of men, especially in those corporations and counties which depend on
clothing and such manufactures…Freeholders and tradesmen are the strength of
religion and civility in the land, and gentlemen and beggars and servile
tenants are the strength of iniquity".[2]
Baxter was one of the most politically astute commentators on the English
revolution. His writing expressed a general fear amongst the ruling elite of
growing social unrest.
It is not in the realm of this essay to examine every single
piece of historiography connected with the poor during the English revolution.
It is however hard not to disagree with the words of Lawrence Stone who
described the history of the 17th century 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".
A large number of these ferocious scholars have ignored the
radicalisation of the poor during the English Revolution or when they did
comment on it was done so coupled with a persistent attack on Marxist
historiography, with figures like Christopher Hil and Brian Manning taking the
brunt of this assault.
While it is clear that up until the late 1960s, there
appeared to be a consensus amongst historians studying the English revolution
that a study of the poor had to be linked with socio-economic changes that were
taken place in the 17th century.
The late 1970s, saw this disappear and was replaced with a
consistent attack on Marxist historiography. During an interview by John Rees
and Lee Humber, the left-wing Christopher Hill was asked this question
"There is a marked trend to separate various aspects of the revolution, so
that cultural development is seen in isolation to, say, economic ones, a trend
which is part of a much wider debate taking in the arguments around
postmodernism. Would you agree that this is also a great challenge to the economic
and social interpretation of history?.
Hill's answer was "Yes, all this linguistic stuff of
the literary historians ignores the social context. I think that is a very
unfortunate phase that literary criticism seems to be going through. I had
thought that one of the good things of the last few decades was the way
historians and literary critics seemed to be coming together on the 17th
century and producing some sort of consensus. This is now in danger with all
this linguistic guff. I suppose it is quite difficult for people trained in one
discipline to take on board the lessons learnt in others, but any new consensus
will have to be one based on looking at society as a whole including literature
and religion".[3]
As the Marxist economist, Nick Beams also points out
"One of the most frequently employed caricatures of Marxism is the claim
that it argues that ideology is just a cover for the real economic motivations
of social actors. Accordingly, Marxism is "disproved" by the
discovery that individuals act, not according to economic motives but based on
powerful ideologies. Marxism does not deny that historical actors are motivated
and driven into action by their ideological conceptions, and it does not claim
that these ideologies are simply a rationalisation for the real economic
motivations. However, it does insist that it is necessary to examine the
motives behind the motives—the real, underlying, driving forces of the
historical process—and to make clear the social interests served by a given
ideology—a relationship that may or may not be consciously grasped by the
individual involved".
While it is essential to understand what motivated the poor
to "revel, riot and rebellion" it is even more critical to understand
the relationship between the poor and its leaders, which on this occasion
during the English Revolution were the various radical groups such as The
Levellers and Diggers and to a certain extent the Ranters.
As Leon Trotsky wrote "In reality leadership is not at
all a mere "reflection" of a class or the product of its free
creativeness. A leadership is shaped in the process of clashes between the
different classes or the friction between the different layers within a given
class".[4]
The Levellers, while being sympathetic to the poor, their
perspective of bringing about deep-seated change was hampered by their class
outlook that being of small producers, conditioned by their ideology. This
contradiction caused some tension between their concern for the poor and their
position of representatives of small property owners. They had no opposition to
private property, and therefore they accepted that inequalities would always
exist, they merely argued for the lot of the poor to be made more equitable. As
John Cooke, a regicide and sympathetic to the Leveller cause explained 'I am no
advocate for the poore further then to provide bread and necessaries for them,
without which, life cannot be maintained, let rich men feast, and the poore
make hard meale, but let them have bread sufficient'.[5]
In order to overcome their contradiction, knowing full well
that they could not come to power through the presently constituted electorate
or through the control of the army, the Levellers attempted to find not a a revolutionary solution to their problem but a constitutional one.
A draft constitution produced in 1647 called the Agreement
of the People declared that the state had broken down in civil war and must be
reformed based on certain fundamental 'native rights' safeguarded even from a
sovereign parliament: religious toleration, no tithes. The attack on Parliament
as sovereign went against one of the most fundamental reasons for the war in
the first place. The agreement amongst other demands, called for biennial
parliaments, franchise reform, only those who contracted into the new state by
accepting the agreement were to have the vote.
While this was extremely radical for the time 'freeborn
Englishmen' excluded servants and the poorer sections that did not constitute
'the people'. As Christopher Hill wrote: "The Leveller conception of free
Englishmen, was thus restricted, even if much wider, than that embodied in the
existing franchise. Their proposals would perhaps have doubled the number of men
entitled to vote. However, manhood suffrage would have quadrupled it. The
generals, generally horrified, pretended at Putney that the Levellers were more
democratic than they were".[6]
The generals deliberately exaggerated the radicalism of the
Levellers in order to label them extremists and to mobilise their supporters
against them. Oliver Cromwell correctly recognised that if the franchise was
widened, it would threaten his majority in Parliament. As Hill explains
'Defending the existing franchise, Henry Ireton rejected the doctrine
"that by a man being born here, he shall have a share in that power that
shall dispose of the lands here and of all things here". The vote was
rightly restricted to those who "had a permanent fixed interest in this
kingdom". Namely, the persons in whom all lands lies and those
incorporation's in whom all trading lies.'[7]
The other substantial leadership of the poor came from the
Diggers. Hill, in his seminal study, The World Turned Upside Down, believed
that Winstanley and his Diggers, "have something to say to
twentieth-century socialists". In this, he meant that they were an
anticipation of future struggles. Hill was cognizant that despite their
radicalism, the social and economic conditions had not yet matured for them to
carry out a "second revolution" which would have seen the overthrow
of Cromwell and broader use of the popular franchise.
John Gurney, who was perhaps the foremost expert on the
Diggers recognised the leader of the Diggers Gerrard Winstanley was one of the
most important figures to appear during the English Revolution commenting
"the past is unpredictable.' So it has proved for Gerrard Winstanley. For
all but one of his 67 years, he lived in obscurity, and then he died forgotten.
Generations of historians passed over him either in silence or derision. He
entirely eluded the notice of the Earl of Clarendon in the 17th century and of
David Hume in the 18th. Even the Jacobin William Godwin, the first champion of
the Civil War radicals, judged his exploits' scarcely worthy of being
recorded', and S.R. Gardiner's comprehensive history of the Commonwealth
contained only two references to him, one a bare mention of his name.
Then in the early 20th Century, Winstanley was rediscovered,
and he has exerted a magnetic pull on left-leaning intellectuals ever since. He
is variously credited as the father of English communism, socialism or environmentalism,
depending on which is seeking paternity. His notice in the Victorian DNB was a
scant 700 words; in the new DNB, it has ballooned to more than 8000. Now he has
been canonised by the publication of an Oxford edition of his complete works, the
second complete works in a century, more than have been accorded either Hobbes
or Locke".[8]
While the Diggers were far more radical in their perspective
for the poor, they shared the same class position as the Levellers. No matter
how radical their ideas at no point could they overturn class society through
revolution. The only class that could have achieved their aims was still in its
infancy.
Historians such as John Gurney are a rare bread today in
that his study of the poor was done so from a relatively left-wing standpoint.
While Hill and Manning tended to dominate the study of the poor during the
English revolution, there were a group of historians that were less incline to
support a Marxist interpretation of the poor but were sufficiently influenced
to carry out important work.
One of many historians that fit the above criteria was D.C.
Coleman. While not being close to Marxism was undoubtedly influenced by
left-wing historians such as Hill.
Coleman was a multidimensional historian according to his
obituary he "was sceptical about politics and thought religion
was largely nonsense. He realised that people were subject to the motivation of
a variety of sorts and that economic rationality could provide only a partial
explanation. He made use, therefore, of economic theory, but did not regard it
as the be-all and end-all in the attempt to explain human social behaviour over
time, the essence of what he thought economic history should be about.[9]
Coleman points out in one of his writings that early capitalists
were conscious that profit could be made by exploiting the large and growing
working class. Coleman quotes J Pollexfen who writes, 'The more are maintained
by Laborious Profitable Trades, the richer the Nation will be both in People
and Stock and ... Commodities the cheaper".[10]
Perhaps the most striking aspect of Coleman's research was
his publishing figures on the levels of poverty which are stunning. The levels
of child labour that would not look out of place in a third world country today,
stating "If the economists and social pamphleteers wanted a larger body of
labouring poor, there is no lack of evidence that in mere numbers the poor
already formed a very substantial part of the total population. Contemporary
comment upon the numbers of poor stretches back into the sixteenth century, at
least, and forward into the eighteenth. To Bacon, labourers and cottagers were
'but house beggars'; to a writer of the 1640's it. Seemed reasonable to suppose
that 'the fourth part of the inhabitants of most of the parishes of England are
miserable, poor people, and (harvest time excepted) without any subsistence',
the comprehensive and well-known investigations of Gregory King in the 168o's
and 1690s tell an even grimmer tale. He classed 23 per cent of the national
population as 'labouring people and out servants' and a further 24 per cent as
'cottagers and paupers', estimating that both groups had annual family
expenditures greater than income".[11]
Another historian worth reading is Steve Hindle; he is
especially important and essential reading. Hindle's work should be read in
conjunction with that of Hill and Manning.
His work on the Levellers backs up my earlier assumption
that while Levellers such as John Wildman were sympathetic to the poor, there
was also a fear that the levels of poverty and a dearth of food could get out
of hand. Wildman states 'The price of food [is] excessive', wrote the Leveller
John Wildman from London in 1648, 'and Trading [is] decayed'. It would; he
thought, 'rend any pitifull heart to heare andsee the cryes and teares of the
poore, who professe they are almost ready to famish'. 'While our divisions
continue, and there be no settlement of the principles of freedom and justice',
he insisted: trading will but more decay every day: Rumours and feares of
Warre, and the Army coming now into the City, makes Merchants unwilling to
trust their goods in the City, and exchange beyond sea falles, and there will
be no importing of goods, and then there will be no exporting and so the staple
commodities of the kingdom which maintains the constant trade, will not tend to
the advantage of the labourers, and then most of the poore in the kingdom which
live by spinning, carding, & will be ready to perish by famine".[12]
Wildman was echoing a common fear and worry amongst sections
of the lower middle class that the impact of the failed harvests of 1647-1650.
According to Hindle "Wildman was accordingly convinced that 'a suddain
confusion would follow if a speedie settlement were not procured'.
Hindle goes on "Wildman's vivid analysis of the
relationship between harvest failure, economic slump, political crisis and
popular protest is proof enough that those who lived through the distracted
times of the late 1640s were well aware of the interpenetration of economic and
constitutional dislocation. It is surprising, therefore, that historians have
made so little attempt to take the harvest crisis of the late 1640s
seriously".
Another famous exponent of regional studies of the poor is
A. L. Beier. One of his studies was Poor relief in Warwickshire 1630-1660.
Beier presented in this essay a view that was supported by a significant number
of historins that the study of the regional poor was an important part of a
wider national study of the poor.
Beier warned about trying to read too much into these local
studies, but a study of such areas as Warwickshire was legitimate. He writes
"It would, of course, be dangerous to generalise from the example of one
county to the whole of England, but the degree of typicality of Warwickshire
and Professor Jordan's findings are encouraging. To study other counties from
this point of view may yield interesting comparisons and the discovery of new
variables, particularly if areas are found where relief administration in fact
collapsed. More generally, however, and assuming that poor relief did not
collapse in England during the Interregnum, of what significance was its
continued functioning? First, it is clear that the devolution towards local
control which took place in this period did not mean collapse or even falling
efficiency in administration whether the sort of zealous efficiency
characteristic of the Puritan rule was continued after I660 is another question
deserving of study.[13]
[1] Christopher Hill-The
English Revolution 1640-
https://www.marxists.org/archive/hill-christopher/english-revolution/
[2] https://www.marxists.org/archive/hill-christopher/english-revolution
[3] John Rees and Lee
Humber-The good old cause-An interview with Christopher Hill-
https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/isj2/1992/isj2-056/hill.html
[4] The Class, the Party-and
the Leadership-https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1940/xx/party.htm
[5] Unum Necessarium:John
Cooke, of Graies Inne,
Barrester.http://famineanddearth.exeter.ac.uk/displayhtml.html?id=fp_00502_en_unum
[6] The Century of Revolution:
1603–1714
[7] Christopher Hill-The
English Revolution 1640-
https://www.marxists.org/archive/hill-christopher/english-revolution/
[8] Gerrard Winstanley and the
Left-John Gurney-Past & Present, Volume 235, Issue 1, May 2017, Pages
179–206, https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtx017
[9] Professor D. C. Coleman-Obituary-https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-professor-d-c-coleman-1600207.html
[10] Labour in the English
Economy during the 17th
Century-https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-0289.1956.tb01570.x
[11] Labour in the English
Economy during the 17th
Century-https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-0289.1956.tb01570.x
[12] Dearth and the English
revolution:the harvest crisis of 1647–50-By Steve
Hindle-https://www.huntington.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/dearth-and-the-english-revolution-echr.pdf
[13] A. L. Beier Poor relief
in Warwickshire 1630-16601 – Past and Present 1966
