The first thing that strikes you about John Morrill's
lecture was that it was a rare treat to hear a man with such erudition. Whether
you agree or disagree with his historiography, he is a man worth going out of
your way to see and listen to.
Anyone who knows Morrill's work will know that he rejects
the premise that a revolution took place in the 1640s'. He seems to have spent
most of his academic career opposing this conception. Wednesday night's lecture
was no different. Morrill believes there was a series of civil wars which fits
into his support for the war of three Kingdoms historiography.[1]
Morrill avoided a search for the origins of the English
Civil War'. He has recently written, that this 'is the early modern historian's
Holy Grail.' Early on in his career, Morrill opposed the Marxist approach to
the English revolution. He rejected the "rather triumphalist claim that
you could now produce a kind of social determinist view of the long-term causes
and origins of the English revolution. It was that I think, which several
people quite independently reacted against". Morrill characterized the
Civil Wars as England's 'Wars of Religion'.
He rejects the conception of a bourgeois revolution, and he
certainly does not believe that this period witnessed a transition from
feudalism to Capitalism. At one stage, he quipped that the Socialist Workers
Party(SWP) had asked him to lecture on the English revolution. He told them
that the only revolution whereby land was transferred in any great amount took
place in Ireland. They were not interested.
Joking aside Morrill's work on Ireland is worth a look at.
The massive land grab that was undertaken by the English bourgeoisie was
staggering. This smash and grab raids were done brutally.
At least half of Morrill's lecture was given over to how
non-revolutionary the events of 1640s England were. However, even he did not
deny how much savagery was involved.
During his talk, the subject of the Clubmen arose.
His
studies on the Clubmen movement is another indicator of his attempt to downplay
the revolutionary events. John Morrill was emphasizing the apathy felt by most during
the conflict, arguing previously that "A
majority had no deep-seated convictions behind their choice of side."
Many in England simply chose to support the faction they felt gave them
the best opportunity to preserve the status quo; whether it be royalists,
parliamentarians, or local neutralists such as the Clubmen".
Morrill believes that many "ordinary" Englishmen
were unconcerned with fomenting revolutionary ideas. During his lecture, it was
not surprising to hear that Morrill rejected any social understanding of the revolution.
This was a strange comment to make since even a cursory look
at his work shows he was influenced by the New Social history historiography in
an interview he describes his attitude towards those historians who were in the
forefront of the group "So there came along the new social history which
opened up a whole range of types of evidence, and so one of the most important
things to happen for my period was the work which is most obviously associated
with Keith Wrightson (who trained in Cambridge, spent many years in St Andrews,
returned to Cambridge and then moved to Yale). And the Wrightson revolution, in
the way in which social history is done, had a huge impact on those of us who were
more interested in high politics. I mean popular politics, constructed high
politics. Wrightson's importance for my work is again something that people
might be a bit surprised to hear about, but I personally, in my mid-career, saw
it as absolutely fundamental".
To conclude Morrill is worth listening to and his work read.
It is also hoped that his major project on the works of Oliver Cromwell is
finished and that it reaches a wider audience.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wars_of_the_Three_Kingdoms
