I knew Conrad Russell quite well in the late-1960s and early-1970s following our first meeting in the tea room of the Institute of Historical Research in the autumn of 1968. We then shared an interest in the major figures who were critical of King Charles I's regime in the late-1620s and during the 1630s. Despite his subsequent work on the career of John Pym, Russell later lost interest in these people and came to the view in the latter stages of his academic research that there was little or no wish to use force against the King's rule in England at least before c.1642. I was therefore interested to read in his work on The Causes of the English Civil War published in 1990 (Pp.10-11) his claim that England was the last of Charles I's kingdoms to resist him and that the revolutionary propensities there were so weak, a problem that he sought to address.
Russell's view that such evidence could not be found or had not yet been found was, in my view, fallacious. He was apparently unaware of the decision of the rulers of Massachusetts in 1634 when faced with the prospect of losing their charter and of an expedition from England to reduce that colony to obedience of employing force to resist royal authority. The colonists were English people in exile but they had the support of important figures in England in this exercise. John Winthrop the elder noted in his journal in June, 1634 the arrival of a vessel carrying money and munitions from the godly in England and proposals from two men, later known to be Viscount Saye and Sele and the 2nd Lord Brooke, to migrate to the colony. These supplies and proposals were almost certainly brought by John Humphry, who, by then, was the 4th Earl of Lincoln's brother-in-law: Lincoln was Saye and Sele's son-in-law. Three months later, in September, 1634, Winthrop noted in his journal the receipt of a letter from the 2nd Earl of Warwick offering his support to Massachusetts. The implication of these overtures is clear: these men were prepared, in principle, to support the use of force against Charles I's rule, admittedly at a great distance from England, and thus to commit what was treason under the Statute of 1351. It was thus amongst Charles I's critics that this willingness to resist was first evident.
Russell's obiter dicta then and now repay carefull attention.
(My argument was later set out in greater detail in my paper on The Saybrook Company and the Sigificance of its Colonising Venture. )
