By Chris Thompson
How the events of the 1640s and 1650s and their consequences
are to be assessed is one of the enduring issues that historians of the British
Isles have to face. The analysis of their varying interpretations is in itself
a subject of continuing interest. By and large, historians based in these
islands and in English-speaking countries overseas have shown less interest in
and devoted less time to the studies undertaken by historians, by historical
sociologists and political scientists in other countries. Nonetheless, such
studies do exist and throw an interesting light on how these events were seen
and are now interpreted elsewhere.
Mateo Ballester Rodriguez’s essay published in 2015 is one
such example. It is partly a bibliographical description of the limited printed
publications that appeared in the Iberian peninsula and the apparently exiguous
manuscript material dealing with the conflicts in England in the period from
1640 to 1660. But it has some opening remarks by Rodriguez himself on the
significance of the disputes over sovereignty in England and some further
remarks covering the observations of figures from the world of political
science on the same subject. Many of the latter like Liah Greenfeld or Hans
Kohn or John Breuilly have not appeared on my horizon before.
Rodriguez’s formulation of his own analysis is relatively
straightforward. He held that there was a struggle between the supporters of
traditional beliefs in the divine rights of monarchs who stood at the apex of
English society and the adherents of novel ideas about the location of national
sovereignty in the institution of Parliament. On the whole, Anglicans and
Catholics supported King Charles I while radical Puritans were committed to
religious toleration and thus to Parliament’s cause.Absolutist political
theorists like Thomas Hobbes were rejected by advocates of legal equality like
the Levellers and, later, by John Locke. Admittedly, the conflicts of the first
and second Civil Wars divided English people of all ranks but Parliament’s
victory on the battlefields ensured that the new concept of authority resting
in the nation and embodied in Parliament was secured. Kings and the Church of
England were disposed of. One or two echoes of Christopher Hill’s work were
clearly reflected.
Liah Greenfeld apparently argued that the idea of the nation
as the repository of political authority, as the basis of political authority
and the object of loyalty was first embraced in England during its Revolution.
Hans Kohn came to the view that the Revolution represented the first example of
modern religious, political and social nationalism. On the other hand, John
Breuilly thought that it was difficult to make the nation the repository of the
principle of sovereignty or to figure out how that principle could be
institutionally embodied in the Rump and the Parliaments of the Protectorate.
In any case, the phenomenon disappeared when political stability was
re-established after the Restoration in 1660. Very little of the intriguing and
intense debates in the British Isles ever found their way into the hands of the
subjects of the Iberian Habsburgs in print or in manuscript as Rodriguez went
on to show. Ideological considerations and the practice of self-censorship
undoubtedly played a part in this outcome even though, in Holland and Venice,
interest in such events was much more obvious.
It is tempting to criticise some of these contentions. How
far printed publications in the British Isles reflected the balance of
contemporaries’ opinions is difficult, perhaps impossible, to determine. Highly
interesting though they are, the views of groups like the Levellers and Diggers
may not be as indicative of wider political opinions as their admirers in more
modern times believe. Puritans were not in any event all of one kind nor were
they uniformly advocates of religious toleration. All the regimes in England
after 1646, in Scotland and Ireland after 1651 depended on military force to
remain in power. Once the confidence of the soldiery was lost and the
supporters of Protectoral or republican rule became too divided, the return of
monarchical rule and of the pre-1640 state churches was increasingly likely.
Historical sociologists and political theorists alike need to look more closely
at the historical evidence before they venture onto the turf of
historians.
