Gerald Aylmer was a distinguished historian of Stuart
England. He had been an undergraduate and postgraduate at Oxford, a lecturer at
the University of Manchester, head of the History Department at York and,
finally, Master of St Peter’s College, Oxford. His major contributions covered
the bureaucracies of mid-seventeenth century England but he was also a careful
contributor to specialised debates on the more technical issues of the period
as well as being the author of a valuable textbook.
I was fortunate enough to meet him in Balliol in the
autumn of 1967 and to correspond intermittently with him until the mid-1980s.
What he had to say was always well-informed and instructive. Coming across his
contribution to the volume on three British Revolutions published in 1980
reminded me of these virtues. He was concerned with changes in the composition
of political elites in England between the period of Personal Rule in the 1630s
to that of the Restoration in 1660 and just afterwards. Inevitably, even in a
relatively short piece, he had observations to make on the debates amongst
early modern historians on subjects like Court versus Country conflicts, on the
role of localism, on a fundamental breakdown at the centre and the significance
of religion as causes and explanations of the English Civil War.
Aylmer was clear that the events of 1640-1660 did
constitute a revolutionary upheaval. But there were then areas - e.g. about
demographic changes, on the development and size of the economy, and on popular
opinions - upon which knowledge was lacking. Even so, it was evident that the
composition of the ruling elite changed. By and large, most peers and upper
gentry had either been excluded or withdrawn by 1649. Men of lower status -
parish gentry or yeomen - were in charge of local government in the counties.
Army officers were important too in local and national affairs. After 1660,
however, there was a new ruling coalition composed of Royalists and former
political Presbyterians in the main. Puritanism, republicanism and military
rule were totally discredited. There was deep hostility on the part of the
Church of England towards Nonconformists as heirs of the Puritans. Control over
the press and censorship was more stringent than it had been in the 1630s.
Local government too was more readily manipulated by the Privy Council than
thirty years before. And there was no return to the levels of spending and
taxation experienced in the 1640s and 1650s until after 1688-1689.
Much of this analysis remains sound. But the
historiographical debates have moved on. Significantly more is now understood
about population changes and popular opinion thanks to the work of CAMPOP and the studies of historians like John
Walter. But it is less clear that Aylmer, who appears, prima facie, to have
been influenced by the speculative works of Lawrence Stone, was right about the
fortunes of the landed elite. It is arguable
that the peers and upper gentry were in a better position in 1640 than they had
been in 1560 or 1600. If so, then on the basis that political arrangements
necessarily reflected underlying economic realities, then the restoration of
the monarchy and its attendant institutions in 1660 was to have been expected.
(Marxists and other determinists shy away from addressing this issue.)
Nor is it readily apparent that central control over
local government was less effective in the 1630s than post-1660: local
officials like the Justices of the Peace or Lords and Deputy Lieutenants were
engaged in bargaining and negotiations with their rulers at the centre in both
periods. Apart, moreover, from one reference to Scottish resistance to Charles
I’s rule, the problems of ruling ‘multiple kingdoms’ which faced Charles I, the
Commonwealth and Protectorate and Charles II and which now figure prominently
in British and Irish historiography, were missing. Perhaps, in an essay on
political elites in England composed in c.1979, that is comprehensible.
Personally, I am doubtful about whether the term ‘Revolution’ is the right one
for the uprisings - les grand soulevements - of the 1640s and 1650s. But that
cannot detract from the abiding interest of Aylmer’s observations.
