The Election of Jeremy Corbyn and “The rebirth of the Levellers”

It would not be an overstatement to say that the election to the leadership of the Labour party of Jeremy Corbyn is an event of some significance. Corbyn has been the unwitting benefactor of the enormous social hostility aimed at the growing enrichment at the expense of millions of working people by a handful of the super-elite. There is, without a doubt, something rotten in the state of Britain. 

A tremendous amount of newspaper columns, most of it pretty puerile has drawn attention to Corbyn's left-wing politics.  As Julie Hyland correctly points out "Corbyn's history is steeped in opportunist petty-bourgeois politics. For all his votes against aspects of Labour policy, he has been a loyal defender of the party throughout his 32 years on Labour's backbenches. No one can seriously propose that this party—which, in its politics and organisation and the social composition of its apparatus, is Tory in all but name—can be transformed into an instrument of working-class struggle. The British Labour Party did not begin with Blair. It is a bourgeois party of more than a century's standing, and a tried and tested instrument of British imperialism and its state machine. Whether led by Clement Attlee, James Callaghan or Jeremy Corbyn, its essence remains unaltered".[1]

 One of the more interesting articles which appeared as a byproduct of Corbyn's election victory was by the historian Edward Vallance in the Guardian newspaper.[2] The purpose of my article is to tackle the issues raised by Vallance's article rather than a polemic against Corbyn's politics. As in politics so in history, principled considerations need to guide any analysis.  

 His article took note of an interview with the New Statesman in which Corbyn sought to trace his radicalism back to mid-17th-century England.  The interviewer asked Corbyn what historical figure he most identified with. It was not surprising that he named John Lilburne.

 I am not against modern-day political figures identifying with historical figures or having a good grasp of history, but much historical water has passed under the bridge since 1640 and secondly to compare Corbyn's opportunist petty-bourgeois politics with the revolutionary Levellers. Their leader John Lilburne is a little disingenuous.

John Lilburne was the de facto leader of the Levellers who appeared in the mid-1640s and were England's first radical political party. They were responsible for many of modern-day political techniques such as mass demonstrations, collecting petitions, leafleting and the lobby of MPs. Their strength mainly lay in London and other towns and had quite considerable support in the army. The MP Henry Marten described Lilburne saying "If the world were emptied of all but John Lilburne, Lilburne would quarrel with John and John with Lilburne."

 The 'movement' contained other smaller groups of radicals such as the Diggers known as the True Levellers and Ranters who were on the extreme left wing of the Leveller movement. As Valance correctly points out "Lilburne would forge a career as one of the most prominent radical figures of the period. Along with the works of other writers, notably Richard Overton, William Walwyn and John Wildman, Lilburne's ideas formed the intellectual basis for what came to be known as the Leveller movement".[3]

 How radical were the Levellers has preoccupied historians and some politicians for centuries?  This task has been more difficult with the Leveller's legacy being claimed by fascists such as the BNP[4], and the semi-fascist UKIP[5] have adopted them as their own.  UKIP MP Douglas Carswell wrote on his blog that he thought the Levellers were proto-Conservatives who favoured the small government, low taxes and free trade. 

Would, for instance, would Carswell agree with the egalitarian sentiment of Thomas Rainborowe a leading Leveller at the Putney debates who said "I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest he, and therefore ... every man that is to live under a government ought first, by his consent, to put himself under that government; and I do think that the poorest man in England is not at all bound in a strict sense to that government that he hath not had a voice to put himself under." I doubt it somehow.

It was correct for the early Marxists to look at the early plebeian movements as precursors of the modern socialist movement. What needs to be clarified is what a modern socialist movement looks like. The Communist Party Historians Group (CPHG) alongside numerous radical groups such as the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) tend to glorify the spontaneous movement of the "middling sort" and to link it to working-class struggles today as if there was some unbroken radical and democratic thread that would supersede the need for a scientifically grounded Marxist revolutionary party.

If there is to be a rebirth of the Leveller historiography, it must be done with a substantial appreciation of the historians and political figures that flowered during the Russian revolution. One such figure was Evgeny Pashukanis.[6] His area of expertise was legal history. His writings on the radical movements of the 17th century are perceptive and well worth a study but have been neglected by even today's left-leaning historians. He rejected crude historicism and opposed historians who saw the Levellers democratic demands as utopian.

Pashukanis saw the English Levellers and Diggers as "primitive precursors of Bolshevism". In the introduction to his Revolutionary Elements in the History of the English State and Law, one writer said "These movements were primitive because they articulated their demands chiefly in terms of bourgeois notions of distributive justice, yet they were also precursors of Bolshevism because they attacked existing property relations and recognised the necessity of forging political alliances with the urban workers and rank and file soldiers. In praising the informal nature of the Levellers' demands, and the democratic nature of their organisations, Pashukanis is drawing an explicit parallel between the Levellers' organisation and the structure of the Soviets of Soldiers' and Workers' Deputies of 1917. The Levellers' failure lay in the fact that they were betrayed by the upper strata of the peasantry, and that they were insufficiently prepared to resist the authoritarian opportunism of Cromwell and his generals".[7]

 What is any serious student of the subject of the Levellers to make of all this? Anyone who knows the history of the Levellers this is not a simple question. It is very complex. You would search in vain amongst the MPs mentioned including Corbyn of any sense of the revolutionary process (which the Levellers took part in) that brought Oliver Cromwell to power as England's first non-royal head of state. Many MPs would lack any kind of historical knowledge on this matter, and they would certainly downplay the revolutionary nature of the Levellers. And more importantly, they would stay deathly silent on their social writings.

Any serious student of the Levellers would have to contend with is the fact that modern-day historiography is still partially dominated by Fabianism.  In Putney, there is an exhibition on the Putney Debates of 1647. The information on Leveller involvement in the debates (which was considerable) was largely dominated by politicians and historians with close association with the British Labour Party and more precisely the Fabians.

Any debate over the Levellers has been dominated certainly over the last century by figures in or around Social Democracy. Perhaps the most important figure has been Tony Benn. Who before his death spoke at a commemoration of Lilburne's birth?. As Julie Hyland noted "Benn prides himself on his "historical viewpoint". 

Through his father, the experiences of the 1930s became a formative influence on him politically. From this tumultuous decade of fascism, defeated revolutions, depression and war, he developed a loathing for class conflict. This reinforced his belief that parliamentary democracy and social reform were all that stood between Britain and chaos. [8]

Fabians such as Benn present the English revolution, not as a revolution and the Levellers are not seen as revolutionaries but mere radicals. Speaking about British Fabianism, Leon Trotsky wrote: "Throughout the whole history of the British Labour movement there has been pressure by the bourgeoisie upon the proletariat through the agency of radicals, intellectuals, drawing-room and church socialists and Owenites who reject the class struggle and advocate the principle of social solidarity, preach collaboration with the bourgeoisie, bridle, enfeeble and politically debase the proletariat."[9]

To conclude  "The interest in the radicalism of the English revolution is indicative of the current crisis in British political life ". This is certainly the most interesting and accurate sentence in the whole of Vallance's article. Can a study of the Levellers tell us anything about politics today? Firstly the fact that we are talking about the 17th-century English revolution and its radical wing at all is because the issues like what kind of democracy do we want, the rise of social inequality and how to tackle it and in general what kind of society do we want are contemporary. Given the explosive political situation today, it is understandable that the bourgeoisie is a little nervous over a discussion of the revolution of 1640. 

In many ways, the answer given to all these questions in many ways mirror the answers given by Cromwell and other bourgeois leaders of his day are similar to today's politicians both Labour and conservative. Cromwell opposed the abolition of private property and had no solution to the rise in social inequality other than to send his army against anyone that proposed it. For example, on May 17th, 1649, Cornet Thompson, Corporal Perkins and Private Church rank and file Levellers were shot at the hands of Oliver Cromwell troops.  Like in the 17th-century real wealth and the power that goes with it are still in the hands of a tiny, extremely wealthy elite who call the shots.

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[1] The political issues posed by Corbyn's election as UK Labour Party leader14 September 2015-wsws.org

[2] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/20/levellers-corbynmania-jeremy-corbyn

[3] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/20/levellers-corbynmania-jeremy-corbyn 

[4] See Edward Vallance's book-A Radical History of Britain: Visionaries, Rebels and Revolutionaries - the men and women who fought for our freedoms

[5] http://ukiptruth.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/how-ukip-is-crippling-our-chances-of.html

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evgeny_Pashukanis-see

[7] https://www.marxists.org/archive/pashukanis/1927/xx/english.htm 

[8] The end of Fabianism in Britain- https://www.wsws.org

[9] Where is Britain Going?Chapter IV -The Fabian “Theory’of Socialism

The Adventures of Sir Thomas Browne in the 21st Century by Hugh Aldersey William 352 pages Granta (7 May 2015) ISBN-10: 1847089003

The Adventures of Sir Thomas Browne in the 21st century is not an orthodox biography of the 17th-century scientist, antiquarian and prose writer. In many ways, this book is more a comment on everyday life in the 21st century than in the 17th century. To say that the science writer Hugh Aldersey-Williams has an obsession regarding Browne would be an understatement. 

The author who lives in Browne's home town of Norwich is aggrieved how few people recognize Browne's name and reacts with unrestrained anger at the fact that Browne's private meadow, where he studied wild plants, is now a car park. Browne's former house is now a Pret a Manger.

The book is a required taste but is not without merit. Readers who get to the end will be pushed well out of their comfort zone. The book has generally been well received except by the Spectator Magazine.[1] Given the fact that nearly every major newspaper and magazine in Britain has carried a review of the book, Granta must have exceptional publicity department. The book would have been something of a gamble for Granta given Aldersey-Williams constant comparing the debates over political and religious differences of the 17th century with similar phenomena from our times.

As the Scotsman reviewer put it "It is a high-risk strategy to segue from the Civil War and the Restoration of Charles II to Jimmy Savile and Richard Dawkins, the MMR vaccine and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Morgellons and the Mass Extinction Monitoring Organization, George Monbiot and Amanda Knox, Mercedes hubcaps and the IgNobel Awards.[2]

The book has caused people who have read it to delve deeper into the subject matter. The scientific and philosophical questions that Browne grappled within the seventeenth century are still with us today. William's to his credit has recognized this.

Thomas Browne was born in London in 1605. He studied medicine in three different places starting at Oxford then Padua and Leiden.  When he finished these studies, he moved to Norwich in 1637, where opened a practice and was a physician until he died in 1682. Before moving to Norwich Browne started to put his thinking on scientific matters down on paper his published work, Religio Medici was written around 1635 but not printed until 1642.

The book sought to reconcile Browne's belief in scientific reason with his religious belief. He did not see science as a barrier to belief saying "is no vulgar part of faith to believe a thing not only above, but contrary to reason, and against the arguments of our proper senses".[3]

This contradiction between scientific objectivity and religion would be a recurring theme throughout Browne's work. The writer E J Merton says of this contradiction "Here is Browne's scientific point of view in a nutshell. One lobe of his brain wants to study facts and test hypotheses on the basis of them, the other is fascinated by mystic symbols and analogies." "The eclecticism so characteristic of Browne... Browne does not cry from the housetops, as did Francis Bacon, the liberating power of experience in opposition to the sterilizing influence of reason. Nor does he guarantee as did Descartes, the intuitive truth of reason as opposed to the falsity of the senses. Unlike either, he follows both sense experience and a priori reason in his quest for truth. He uses what comes to him from tradition and from contemporary science, often perhaps without too precise a formulation".[4]

With his next book Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646), Browne went on an offensive. It challenges what Browne called "vulgar errors".  Browne challenged false belief and superstition. As the reviewer in the Guardian points out "That combination of curious learning, reserved judgment, credulity and proto-scientific method runs through his other major works. Hydriotaphia, Urn-Burial (1658) meditates on death and cremation in the light of an archaeological discovery of a cluster of urns containing burned bones in a field near Walsingham. "Who knows the fate of his bones?" Browne reflects. The Garden of Cyrus (1658) explores the benefits of planting trees in a lattice-like arrangement and muses on the "mystical mathematics" of the number five. Browne also wrote a glorious inventory of a fictional museum (Musaeum Clausum) full of lost and impossible objects, such as "The Skin of a Snake bred out of the Spinal Marrow of a Man" and a letter from Cicero's brother describing Britain in the age of Julius Caesar".

Among several surprising things that Aldersey-Williams's extremely detailed book digs up is that Browne was an extraordinary inventor of new words. The editors of the Oxford English Dictionary have him as the first person to use the word "electricity". It is a pity that the modern-day new words such as "selfie" are not a patch on the words invented by Browne. Browne's new words show preciseness and beauty missing in today's new additions to the English language. But before we get carried away, he did invent words such as "alliciency" or "zodiographer" which are not so catchy. It is also disputed how many new words can be attributed to Browne.

I am not sure that I agree with Aldersey-Williams, who believes that Browne's "tolerant and forgiving" style provides a model for writing and thinking about science today. Both Browne and Aldersey-Williams are Deists in their philosophical outlooks. A strange omission from the book is the belief that Browne was an early member of the Enlightenment.

The Enlightenment, according to Jonathan Israel, was "the unprecedented intellectual turmoil which commenced in the mid-seventeenth century, "and was closely linked with the scientific discoveries of people like Galileo. Whose scientific innovations paved the way for "powerful new philosophical systems" producing a profound struggle between "traditional, theologically sanctioned ideas about Man, God, and the universe and secular, mechanistic conceptions which stood independently of any theological sanction?".[5]

Aldersey-Williams also tends to view Browne and his thought in a very national framework.  While it would have been next to impossible for someone like Browne to see the connection between his scientific and philosophical ideas and the political upheavals of the mid-seventeenth century. Someone from the 21st century should have. Aldersey-Williams has like Browne very little to say on the English Civil war.

According to the ODNB (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography) "Little trace remains of Browne's life, during the civil war and the interregnum, other than as author and family man. His post-Restoration letters to his sons show awareness of public events and strong opinions about the killing of Charles I, but the only political act during the civil war and the interregnum of which evidence survives is his refusal in 1643 (along with 431 other members of the gentry and professions) to subscribe money to parliament for the recapture of royalist-held Newcastle. After 1660, however, he played a more open role in the establishment. In Religio medici (I.30) he had declared: 'I have ever beleeved, and doe now know, that there are Witches' (a belief shared by Bacon, Harvey, and Boyle). The anonymous account of A tryal of witches, at the assizes held at Bury St. Edmonds for the county of Suffolk; on the tenth day of March, 1664 (1682, 41–2), 'in the sixteenth year of … Charles II', reports that Browne was: clearly of Opinion, that [the seven alleged child-victims] were Bewitched; … he conceived, that these swouning Fits were Natural, and nothing else but that they call the Mother, but only heightned to a great excess by the subtilty of the Devil, co-operating with the Malice of these which we term Witches, at whose Instance he doth these Villanies.[6]

The English revolution which largely passed Browne by was a world event and should be seen in broad international context within which the political ideas associated with this war developed. According to C Talbot "Israel in his book Radical Enlightenment suggests that the Fronde in France and the Masaniello rising in Naples were just as important in terms of their influence on European consciousness as the English Civil War".

Aldersey-Williams philosophical prejudices tend him to attack anyone who seeks to go further than him in his scientific understanding. For him, modern writers such as Richard Dawkins are too dogmatic in their insistence of separation between science and religious mysticism. Aldersey-Williams tends to gloss overs Browne's views on depression which are far from helpful. Browne believed that periodical periods of melancholia "are to be cherished as a proper response to the way we find the world".

Having said that Browne's dabbling with alchemy should be explained after all a much more famous scientist of the time delved into it.  Sir Isaac Newton it is true did devote more of his time to the subject than he did writing the Principia.

As Chris Talbot points out "Newton did not succeed in turning lead into gold, but he did succeed in discovering the law of gravity. The project of the alchemists was to discover the natural process that had created the elements such as lead and gold, to reproduce that process and to harness it for the benefit of mankind. Given the technology available to Newton, this was an impractical objective, but it took him two decades to find that out. There was, however, nothing "unscientific" or "mystical" about the objective. Alchemy was no more inherently mystical than algebra, which, as its name suggests, came from the same Arabic source".[7]

To conclude this book is a curious read, it is an unorthodox book, but it is a very good read. Not all of Aldersey-Williams comparisons of the 17th century with 21st century come off, but it is a legitimate literary exercise. I would like to recommend this  book. It is not for everyone's taste if it sparks an interest in the extraordinary political, scientific events of the 17th century then it deserves the wide audience it looks to have achieved.                             

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[1] http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/9558902/its-amazing-how-many-different-subjects-sir-thomas-brownes-latest-biographer-doesnt-care-about/

[2] http://www.scotsman.com/mobile/lifestyle/books/book-review-the-adventures-of-sir-thomas-browne-1-3761949

[3] Religio Medici https://archive.org/details/b24751182

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudodoxia_Epidemica

[5] Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-1750.J Israel

[6] Sir Thomas Browne 1605–1682 R. H. Robbins - http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/3702?docPos=4

[7] [8] Marxism and Science: An addendum to "The Frankfurt School vs. Marxism" http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2008/10/scie-o28.html

God, Duty and Community in English Economic Life, 1660–1720, by Brodie Waddell. The Boydell Press. 2012; pp. 273. £60.

In his first book, God, Duty and Community in English Economic Life, Brodie Waddell uses a combination of genre, "cultural turn" and "history from below" to explain the complex changes in the economy and politics of late Stuart England. However, the book offers a much watered-down version of both. Suffice to say Waddell rejects previous Whig And orthodox Marxist teleologies.  

Waddell's particular brand of people's history historiography is heavily influenced by historians who came from the Communist Party Historians Group. One of their many contributions to the study of Early Modern England was the historiographical genre "history from below" or 'people's history'. The influence of  E P Thompson's book the Making of the English Working Class is palpable.

Thompson's book and his other major works have a common theme in that they tend to obscure the class character of rebels, revolutionaries and popular leaders by regarding them all as representatives of a national revolutionary tradition.

Whether Waddell understands or cares where his influences come from is open to question, but as Ann Talbot writes, People's history was an attempt to give some historical foundation to the policies of Popular Front.

The historians inside the CPHG were guilty in one form or another of this political crime. Historians like David Parker have played down the influence of the Soviet Communist Party on the historians inside the CPHG. According to Parker the British Marxists were not "imprisoned in a straight jacket –either economistic or Stalinist-from which they later escape". This is a very generous evaluation. Parker would appear to operate a form of political blindness on this matter.

Despite being Waddell's first book, he has a significant body of work inside and outside academia. His blog contains numerous articles based on people's history genre. In 2013 along with other likeminded historians they held an Online Symposium titled "The Future of History from Below": Waddell along with over twenty like-minded historians recently announced on the blog[1] a follow up the online symposium, 'The Voices of the People'. The series of articles will further examine the history from below genre.

While this is an extremely useful exercise, I have several reservations. One is that at no time has an orthodox Marxist historian been invited to contribute to the subject and secondly none of the essays examine the political origins of the genre in any great detail.

The revival of the history from below genre seems to coincide with a growing dissatisfaction amongst some historians and the wider public with capitalism. It cannot be a coincidence that we have over the last six years witnessed the near-collapse of the capitalist system and growth of social inequality unprecedented in over a century and seen the rise of a new form of history from below historiography.

Like a large number of revisionist historians today Waddell sets out in his introduction a quite considerable task of seeking to overturn large swathes of the previous historiography on his chosen subject. However, his criticism of previous Marxist and Whig historiography gives succour to more conservative revisionist historians.

Waddell concedes that for a substantial part of the twentieth century early modern historiography in Britain and internationally has been dominated by a disparate number of historians who in one way or another profess to be Marxist or Marxist influenced. As Tom Leng points out "notions of early modern social change have been informed by a series of teleological transitions–from feudalism to capitalism, community to society, and so on".[2]

It is debatable how much Marx and Engels Waddell has read, but his book does not present their writings in any great detail. He does not agree with their politics or historiography. In his book and his blog, he rejects the notion that early modern society can be best understood as a transition from feudalism to capitalism.

I believe the book would have benefited from a closer study of Marxist methodology. In fact, like most modern history books Waddell's is very light on methodology. While not directly concerning the material in the book Engels work on the family would have given us a deeper insight into the lives of "ordinary  17th-century people, as Engels noted "According to the materialistic conception, the determining factor in history is, in the final instance, the production and reproduction of the immediate essentials of life. This, again, is twofold. On the one side, the production of the means of existence, of articles of food and clothing, dwellings, and of the tools necessary for that production; on the other side, the production of human beings themselves, the propagation of the species. The social organization under which the people of a particular historical epoch and a particular country live is determined by both kinds of production: by the stage of development of labour on the one hand and of the family on the other".[3]

Waddell rejects Engel's historical materialistic outlook. He instead leans heavily on the work of E. P. Thompson whose work for too long has been described as Marxist. Despite borrowing a few phrases or quotes from Marx or Engels Thompson's work is a negation of orthodox Marxism.

Terms like "moral economy" have been presented as a sort of Marxist analysis. The term "moral economy" has usually been attributed to Thompson. However, it was the Russian economist Alexander Chayanov who first expounded on this idea in the 1920s.

Waddell's book relies heavily on Thompson's "moral economy", but no matter how you try you wrap it up Thompson's theoretical mess, it has nothing to do with any Marxist concepts or methodology. Waddell tends to separate what people thought about religion, duty and community from the significant economic changes that took place in the seventeenth century. Waddell like Thompson rejects the relationship between base and superstructure.

As one reviewer put it "Waddell does not claim to be an expert on new forms of economic development that came about during the later Stuart period. In the latter half of the book, Waddell details the activity of the people. He cites numerous strikes, protests, and communal actions that took place across England between 1660 and 1720. Due to his political blindness, these events cannot be placed in relation to their political or social context. His tendency to separate base and superstructure means his observations are superficial at best and are treated only as manifestations of a more general sense of collective identity and agency."

This separation between base and superstructure has become the hallmark of several historians that write on the history from below genre. Despite being labelled as out of date and unfashionable what Marx wrote on base and superstructure is as relevant today as when it was written :"In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely [the] relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure, and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political, and intellectual life".

 "It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or — this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms — with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces, these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead, sooner or later, to the transformation of the whole, immense, superstructure. In studying such transformations, it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic, or philosophic — in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production".[4]

While Waddell correctly points out in the book that the lives of working people in early modern England, were to a degree influenced by the economic changes taking place after the revolution. But he rejects the premise that their social being determined their consciousness.

Again the book would have benefited from Marx's analysis in The German Ideology: "The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men, the language of real life. Conceiving, thinking, the mental intercourse of men, appear at this stage as the direct afflux from their material behaviour. The same applies to mental production as expressed in the language of the politics, laws, morality, religion, and metaphysics of a people. Men are the producers of their conceptions, ideas". [5]

Despite its shortcoming on the methodology, the book does have merit. It is to Waddell's credit that in order to present his ideas, he uses a wide range of sources, low priced pamphlets, Sermons, songs, broadsides. The books show his extensive use of archival sources such as court records, guild and company records, and parish registers.

The book is divided into three sections, and each examines the concepts in the title, God, duty, and community. One problem encountered by Waddell is the paucity of records that enable us to have a good idea of how "ordinary" people viewed the religious developments and how they impacted on economic life.

It is clear that during the English revolution traditional religious beliefs started to receive a beating as David north points out "Until the early seventeenth century, even educated people still generally accepted that the ultimate answers to all the mysteries of the universe and the problems of life were to be found in the Old Testament. But its unchallengeable authority had been slowly eroding, especially since the publication of Copernicus's De Revolutionibus in the year of his death in 1543, which dealt a death blow to the Ptolemaic conception of the universe and provided the essential point of departure for the future conquests of Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), Johann Kepler (1571-1630) and, of course, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). Intellectually, if not yet socially, the liberation of man from the fetters of Medieval superstition and the political structures that rested upon it, was well underway.[6]

Waddell can reject Marx, Tawney and even Weber all he likes but evidence point to large sections of society both poor and rich alike sharing similar if not the same attitude towards God and to some extent property.

To conclude, despite calling for a new approach to historical research, much of Waddell's ideas have been developed already by a body of writers and historians who advocated a "cultural turn". Like many "new" approaches Cultural Studies started life as an attack on revolutionary Marxism, It is hoped that Waddell's future work does not too far down this road.

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[1] https://manyheadedmonster.wordpress.com/

[2] https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=38233

[3] The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State: in the Light of the Researches of Lewis H. Morgan preface to the First Edition, 1884

[4] Marx, Karl (1977). A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Moscow: Progress Publishers: Notes by R. Rojas.

[5] German Ideology, 1.c. p. 13-4.

[6] Equality, the Rights of Man and the Birth of Socialism By David North 24

Writings of Exile in the English Revolution and Restoration: Philip Major, Ashgate March 2013

Phillip Major's new book is a welcome addition into areas of the English revolution that has been long neglected. Major's book on exile joins a recent number of books examining royalist exiles, including Geoffrey Smith's look into Royalist exiles during the Civil Wars and the Commonwealth, and by the same author The Cavaliers in Exile 1640–1660.

Major's research into royalist exile both internal and external has according to one writer "contributed much new and original research and written work on the subject exile". Major's work should be read alongside numerous other studies which in the last five years have filled a large number of gaps in royalist historiography.

Whether this has changed, our understanding of royalism remains to be seen. Any increase in our understanding must be allied to a study of the previous historiography from both left and right-wing historians.

Given the amount of material that remains to be archived and written about on the subject of exile Major's book is an important contribution to this research.  The book is both austere in look and content. One problem is Major's use of nearly impenetrable language that would put even the most enthusiastic reader off. I understand that these type of books must have a certain academic tone; there is a danger that this type of language becomes understandable available to a select few.

The writer George Orwell hated this type of unnecessary language writing "The inflated style itself is a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age, there is no such thing as "keeping out of politics." All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer. I should expect to find—this is a guess which I have not sufficient knowledge to verify—that the German, Russian and Italian languages have all deteriorated in the last ten or fifteen years, as a result of dictatorship.[1]

The date range covered by Writings of Exile 1640-1680 is broad and difficult and is probably why Gaby Mahlberg felt that the book was a little "disjointed".Major's approach was defended by the publishers saying "it challenges conventional paradigms which assume a neat demarcation of chronology, geography and allegiance in this seminal period of British and American history. Crossing disciplinary lines, it casts new light on how the ruptures -- and in some cases liberation -- of exile in these years both reflected and informed events in the public sphere".[2]

Major's writing style is not for the faint-hearted. The academic tone and language that permeates the entire book is set in Chapter One Edward Hyde: Case Study of a Royalist Exile. Hyde was a significant figure both during the revolution and the restoration of the monarchy. His History of the Rebellion, according to one writer "served to formulate and crystallize the social philosophy soon to be known as Toryism. As a historical rhetorician and portrait painter, there can be no doubt that Clarendon ranks among the greatest; the strength and resilience of the Tory view of history may be estimated from its present prevalence and influence".[3]

Hyde's exile begun on Isles of Scilly, Jersey and other places during the 1640s and 50s. His second exile was in Montpellier in the late 1660s and 70s. His fall from power would have had a deep psychological impact on him. However, Major's book does not examine how politically Hyde dealt with what was tantamount to a political exile. I am not sure the best way to understand Hyde's political exile is through his writings' Contemplation of the Psalms.

During his periods of exile, Hyde attempted to form a broad spectrum of political and religious alliances. While he would have experienced a great deal of personal, psychological and family problems due to exile, he did not go quietly into the good night.

In many instances, he sought to form a myriad of alliances in order to pursue his political and social agenda. As Mahlberg said, looking into his ties with republican and Leveller activists abroad would be a very good research topic. She adds "There are intriguing links between Clarendon and his protégé republican Henry Neville exiled to Italy in 1664 for their mutual benefit, for instance, while the firebrand Algernon Sidney made various overtures for office to the Restoration regime before plotting to topple it. Further leads worth exploring point to Catholic Rome, where both royalists and republicans had their secret networks, and towards the Huguenot south of France, wherein the later 1660s we find both the fallen first minister Hyde and the fallen republican Sidney."[4]

While Major is within his right to study and research what he wants. One should not draw from this study of Clarenden's lesser religious writings a belief that these should be elevated above his political or literary writings.

Many Royalist exiles sought to ransack the bible in order to understand what had happened to them. For many protestant Royalists "both the Established Church and its liturgy remained decidedly alive, if maimed and disoriented. Gathering in the private chapel of Sir Richard Browne, the royalist diplomat in Paris, and under the chaplaincy of John Cosin, dean of Peterborough, many Protestant royalists recast their newfound hardship in familiar religious terms. Whether forced into exile by parliamentary ordinance or voluntarily following the Stuarts in hopes of restoration, those who attended services at Browne's chapel turned to Scripture and divine example in order to comprehend defeat".[5]

In Chapter two 'Ceremony and Grief in the Royalist Exile' Major continues his theme of royalist exiles seeking to continue their religious practices into exile. The chapter explores royalists' attitude 'to the death of fellow exiles, as well as friends and family left behind in England'.

According to Major "there is considerable evidence, much of it again found in Evelyn's Diary, for the continued observance by royalist exiles of the full panoply of Church of England services, including those of Holy Communion, christening, marriage and even the ordination of priests and consecration of bishops. Yet while, while each of these ceremonies played an important role in engendering a sense of cultural continuity amidst the rupture of exile, the rites of burial provide a particularly poignant and recurring motif in the extant contemporary literature. Exile is an extreme environment in which people experience an acute sense of change and behave in revealing ways".[6]

Chapter 3 deals with 'Royalist Internal Exile'. Major's focus is on the exile of royalists from London and their internment in the countryside. These royalists built up a network of friends who shared political and religious beliefs. The chapter is an elongated paper which appeared in the Review of English Studies. It is pretty clear from Major's work on the subject of internal exile that the subject has been heavily under-researched.  Parliament during the civil war, according to Major, developed a large number of measures to ensure large scale royalist exile.[7]

Again royalists refused to go quietly into internal exile. Many royalists responded by launching a barrage of poetry in order to understand their predicament. In (John) Berkenhead's poem, 'Staying in London', Major states, "provides a window into the royalist literary response to banishment from London, and also allows us to explore its nuanced relationship with other cavalier verse of defeat and exile. Communicating hope and fear, secrecy and indecision, and the sometimes surprising level of enervation which these combinations can generate, it also incorporates more unambiguous royalist literary notions, such as imprisonment, though even these are by no means always treated similarly.

Perhaps most singularly, the peculiar nature of exclusion from London during the English Revolution, with its concomitant anonymity and reduction in status, seems to turn the cavalier poet in on himself, to the brink of self-loathing, until, ironically, he eventually longs to leave the capitalç‘O tear me hence' çof his own volition. On this evidence, like their external equivalents, measures of internal exile such as the Act for Banishment have not only far-reaching physical but also psychological, repercussions, not least for those who attempt to defy them".

Chapter four 'William Goffe in New England' discusses the regicides exile in America. As Gaby Mahlberg mentioned in her review three royalist chapters to one parliamentary is a little one-sided. You get the feeling that if the other way around the author would be accused of undue bias. I find this chapter the best. In the sense that Major writes in a manner that is easier to understand without dumbing down history. Goffe was a significant figure in the English revolution, and Major does give him the respect due. As Major points out, there is a significant difference between royalist and parliament exiles in so much that many of the parliamentary exiles were regicides and were hunted down without mercy.[8]

Like Hyde in chapter one, Major tries to find similarities between Goffe's and Hyde's use of the Psalms and other Biblical texts in their exile writings. Like Hyde, earlier in the book Goffe spent large parts of his exile wondering how he lost power so quickly and very rapidly become exiled in a strange land. Major concentrates heavily on exiles turning to religious literature, but research can only take us so far. Republican revolutionaries like Goffe had no means of learning from past revolutionary struggles, so they turned to the bible. Historians should not limit their research to a man's religious proclivities.

To conclude, as was said earlier, this book is not for the faint-hearted. The book is part of a broad shift in the historiography of the English revolution. The last twenty or so years have seen a major shift away from the dominant Marxist historiography. One of the byproducts of this shift is over the last five years we have witnessed a proliferation of Royalist studies. Major's new book enters into this territory. Despite being well written and researched his use of language, which is largely impenetrable to the wider reading public could lead to this type of historiography being open to a select few.

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[1] Politics and the English Language George Orwell, 1946 

[2] "Writings of Exile in the English Revolution and Restoration"

[3] norton.com/college/english/nael/noa/pdf/27636_17th_U26_Hyde-1-3.pdf

[4] https://thehistorywoman.com/2014/12/27/the-english-revolution-and-its-patriotic-exiles/

[5] The Devotional Landscape of the Royalist Exile, 1649– 1660 Mark R. F. Williams

[6] Funerary Rites in the Royalist Exile: George Morley's Ministry in Antwerp, 1650-1653

[7] 'Twixt Hope and Fear: John Berkenhead, Henry Lawes, And Banishment from London during the English revolution

[8] See review- Killers of the King - The Men Who Dared to Execute Charles I Hardcover – 11 Sep 2014 352 pages Bloomsbury Publishing - ISBN-13: 978-1408851708ttp://keith-perspective.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/killers-of-king-men-who-dared-to_23.html

Review: The Crimson Ribbon by Katherine Clements ISBN-10: 1472204220 11 Sep 2014

The Crimson Ribbon is a very well written and researched debut historical novel by Katherine Clements.  The supreme test of a historical novel is how well the author blends fictional characters with real-life figures and events. The Crimson Ribbons passes that test.

The central character of the book is Ruth Flowers, a very believable creation of the author's imagination. Flower's life intersects with the real-life figures of Oliver Cromwell and Elizabeth Poole.

Clements treatment of Cromwell and Poole is very disciplined and accurate. It is always tempting for a novelist to play fast and loose with history and historical figures. Cromwell is a very well-known and written about figure and does not play a too greater part in the book. Poole, on the other hand, is not well known, and Clements has a bit more space to explore her life creatively.

The opening chapter of the book is very violent and explores the treatment of women who stepped out of line with the authorities. The English revolution brought about a significant politicisation of all sectors of society none more so than women. In the 17th century, England women were allowed to be seen but not heard.

While it was dangerous for men to question the existing political and economic setup, for women at the beginning of the 17th century, it was nearly impossible. But women of all classes managed to be heard, and some cases very loudly. The explosion of printing presses enabled women with little money to spread their ideas and propaganda to a wider audience than ever before.

But this had a severe price. The ruling elite correctly saw this radicalisation of women as a direct threat to their power and privileges. The women who spoke up, formed groups and joined the radical parties such as the Levellers Fifth Monarchists and even Baptists or Quakers were seen as a plague and in many cases labelled witches.

According to the writer John Carey "a woman could be publicly humiliated, ducked or bridled merely for scolding her husband, neighbours – or government". The book highlights the precarious nature of women who step outside the bounds of society. The descent into poverty, prostitution and sometimes death was all too real. Given the growth, today of young women who for one reason have left their family home and have descended into poverty and homelessness with little protection from the state shows that despite the novel being set in the 17th century it has a contemporary feel to it.

Clements character Ruth is well written and believable. The fact that real-life characters similar to Flowers existed during the war has largely passed historians by. Another aspect of the war that has only recently been addressed is the tremendous growth of printing presses during the revolution. Clements's book appears to be the first novel to broach the subject.[1] Much the way the internet has given a voice to people who would never be heard so did the illegal printing presses in the 17th century.

Having read her writings, it is clear that  Elizabeth Poole was a very political young woman. She was close to a few of the radical groups that were prevalent at the time and was close to the Fifth Monarchists.

The story of Ruth Flowers is used by Clements to keep the novel ticking over. However the most interesting real-life character is Elizabeth Poole. It is clear from extensive research on Poole that not much is known about her life; even her birth and death are not agreed. According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, she was born 1622? died in or after 1668.

Poole's main claim to fame was her intervention into the debate over the fate of Charles 1st. According to Manfred Brod "It was into this situation that Elizabeth Poole entered towards the end of December as a kind of consultant prophetess. After some preliminary hearings of which little is known, she was received in a plenary session of the council of officers on 29 December. She told of a vision she had had, in which the army, as a healthy young man, cured the nation, as a sick woman, of its disease. [2]

The power of the army, she explained, came from God and must not be given away. Several officers, including Ireton, spoke to approve of her presentation. Immediately afterwards, Lilburne came in with a petition, A Plea for Common-Right and Freedom, which contained detailed proposals for the conversion of the council of officers to a national executive body. Poole had been brought in to play a mediating role between officers and Levellers.

There appears to be no proof that Poole met Lilburne but is clear that she was very sympathetic towards him and the Levellers and used their documents in her arguments against Cromwell and Ireton.

"I Have considered the agreement of the people that is before you, and I am very jealous lest you should betray your trust in it (in as much as the Kingly Power is faln into your hands) in giving it up to the people; for thereby you give up the trust committed to you, and in so doing you will prove your selves more treacherous then they that went before you, they being no wayes able to improve it without you. You justly blame the King for betraying his trust, and the Parliament for betraying theirs: This is the great thing I have to say to you, Betray not you your trust".[3]

She then according to Brod in 1653 "Poole forced her way into the pulpit of the chapel of Somerset House in London and preached in favour of Lilburne, then on trial for his life. The congregation was a socially prominent one, and the action was widely and sensationally reported in the newsbooks".[4]

Despite being strong on plot and history, there is an overriding weakness in the book, which is the near absence of politics.  Clements use of real figures such as William Kiffin (1616–1701), while being historically accurate leaves out his political relationship with figures like Poole.

Kiffin in Clements book is correctly portrayed as being extremely hostile to Poole's indiscretions. However his real hostility is her perceived association with the radical groups, especially the Levellers and Fifth Monarchists, according to Michael A. G. Haykin "During the late 1640s and 1650s Kiffin emerged as a skilled spokesman for the fledgeling Baptist movement. In 1646 Kiffin and Knollys were involved in a public debate in Coventry with two paedobaptists, John Bryan and Obadiah Grew. Kiffin was a signatory to the dedication in Walwins Wiles (1649), an attack on the Levellers usually attributed to John Price".[5]

According to Brod "Kiffin also played a prominent role in the expansion of the movement beyond London. Extant documents from places as far afield as Wales and Northumberland, Ireland and the Midlands reveal Kiffin's involvement in planning the establishment of new churches and associations, then in giving them advice and counsel, and generally in providing stability to the Baptist cause during these early days of the movement. One critical moment came in May 1658, when, at the meeting of the western association of Baptist churches in Dorchester, some individuals who were sympathetic to the potentially subversive politics of the Fifth Monarchy movement sought to convince the representatives of the churches in the association to espouse publicly the ideals and goals of this party. Kiffin, who was present with other representatives from the churches in London, successfully persuaded the western association not to commit itself in this direction. While some of the Fifth Monarchy movement appears to have been relatively harmless students of the Bible, others had definite revolutionary tendencies and were convinced that they should take an active, even violent, role in the fulfilment of the prophecies of Daniel. Open and widespread adherence to these views by the Particular Baptists would have had harmful and serious repercussions for the Baptist movement."[6]

Historical novels are notoriously hard to place within the current historiography of the English revolution. Academic work is easier. While researching her novel, Clements mentions Christopher Hill as one of her influences. Hill, despite being an academic historian belonged to a group of Communist Party historians who pioneered the history from below genre.  Clements book is a historical novel from below.

I liked the book. It works on two levels; it is a very well written book, and the storyline is plausible. The history is well researched and accurate up to a point. An examination of the politics of the characters in the book would have made the book a better read.

Apart from this nitpicking, I would recommend the book to those interested in the subject. The Crimson Ribbon has been extensively reviewed both in the mainstream media and given the number of blogs mentioned in the blurb quite heavily in the blogosphere deserves a wide readership.

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[1]  See also Gutenberg's Apprentice - 2014 by Alix Christie

[2] http://www.oxforddnb.com

[3] From the writings of Elizabeth Poole http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebogroup/index.html

[4] http://www.oxforddnb.com

[5] http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/15521- Michael A. G. Haykin

[6] Kiffin, William (1616–1701), http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/15521