Several decades ago, Alan Everitt argued in his study of the county of Kent that its rulers formed a community of their own, that this community was distinct from that of other counties and that, when its leaders spoke of their ‘country’ they meant Kent rather than England. It was in reaction to the demands of the King and his Privy Council that the community of Kent shaped its political and religious responses and that this form of localism helped to explain the antecedents and outbreak of the English Civil War or Revolution.
There is no doubt about the
stimulus that this hypothesis gave to the investigation of county histories
across the period. The works of Anthony Fletcher, John Morrill and the late
Clive Holmes testify to its impact. In historiographical terms, it was highly
significant in the late-1960s and 1970s, even though its influence has now
faded.
At that time, I was
sceptical partly because this argument did not appear to have medieval
antecedents and did not feature in the case of the counties I was then
studying. What I had not appreciated was that, in some respects, Everitt’s
argument had been anticipated by S.R.Gardiner in his volume on the History of
England between 1639 and 1641. He had written there that, in 1639. Both Charles
and Wentworth under-estimated the strength of the opposition against their
policy too much, to make them even think of recurring to violence. Nor is it at
all likely that even those who felt most bitterly against conscious the
Government were aware of how strong was their position in the country. In the
seventeenth century, when Parliament was not sitting, our ancestors were a
divided people. Each county formed a separate community, in which the gentry discussed
politics and compared grievances when they met at quarter sessions and assizes.
Between county and country,
there was no such bond. No easy and rapid means of communication united York
with London, and London with Exeter. No newspapers sped over the land, forming
and echoing a national opinion from the Cheviots to the Land's End. The men who
begrudged the payment of ship-money in Buckinghamshire could only learn from
uncertain rumour that it was equally unpopular in Essex or in Shropshire. There
was therefore little of that mutual confidence which distinguishes an army of
veterans from an army of recruits, none of that sense of dependence upon
trusted leaders which gives unity of purpose and calm reliance to an eager and
expectant nation.
Gardiner’s claim anticipated
the arguments that Everitt was to put seven decades later. I am not sure that
either was correct. Similar demands were made of each county from the
‘political Court’ at the centre and were the subject of bargaining and
negotiation, of compromise and conflict. These common experiences were felt
across England and Wales. Newsletter writers like Mede, Pory and Rossingham
made them widely known as the testimonies of men like John Rous and Walter
Yonge showed. The carriers of goods and people conveyed news more widely than
Gardiner appreciated in this passage.
When I was a postgraduate, I
was often doubtful about the analysis of the past in the works of previous
generations of historians. Since then, I have come to understand how perceptive
they often were and that important insights remain to be found in their works.
Gardiner and Everitt may not have been precisely right in their conclusions but
it is striking how similar their formulations were. I shall go on reading the
works of previous historians in the hope of gaining better insights into the
lives of early modern people in the future.
16 July, 2023
