The ‘Royal Independents’ in the English Civil War

1968 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 69-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valerie Pearl
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Public Safety ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Religious Movement ◽  
English Civil War ◽  
Religious Change ◽  
New Model ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Rump Parliament

Few historians of the Long Parliament would regard the form of Church government as the first concern of the parliamentary leaders in their negotiations with the king. Contemporary historians considered that the early struggle was not about religion. The royalist Clarendon, the parliamentarian Thomas May, even Richard Baxter, a deeply religious Puritan, were unanimous. To the aristocracy and gentry, it was essentially a conflict over political power and public safety. Religious fervour would inspire the New Model Army, rouse the London citizens, and stimulate the printing presses. But how many members of Parliament or of the gentry in 1640 supported fundamental religious change? Sir Edward Dering told the Commons on 20 November 1641 that he had heard no one there declare themselves for either Presbyterianism or Independency. When Baxter described the composition of the Rump Parliament, he did not see it as the culmination or fulfilment of a religious movement, the expression of Independency.

The Manipulation of Committees in the Long Parliament, 1641-1642

1965 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lotte Glow
Keyword(s):  
Critical Period ◽  
English Civil War ◽  
Privy Council ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Grass Roots ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
Vital Functions ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Peace Negotiation ◽  
Parliamentary Politics

Historians of politics of the English Civil War have until recently studied the behaviour of members of Parliament through their speeches on the floor of the Houses. This practice led to the view that parliamentary policy was determined by the ascendancy of one of two opposing factions, composed of the most outspoken and influential members. J. H. Hexter's analysis of the tellers in divisions during the critical period of peace negotiation with the King in 1642 and 1643 expanded this rigid dichotomy and showed that political opinion in the House of Commons was divided into three “Parties,” the less committed centre being most susceptible to the winds of political change. He also showed that policy decisions did not depend solely upon the persuasiveness and stature of the leading politicians, but were shaped according to the temporary allegiances of a body of enthusiastic, though inconsistent, followers. The work of M. Frear Keeler, and of D. Brunton and D. H. Pennington shifted the emphasis further from the leadership to the rank and file by their interest in the background and grass roots of the most insignificant member alongside his more illustrious colleagues.The aim of this article is to examine another aspect of the dynamics of parliamentary politics. It seeks to show how the leadership of the Commons gained control over the members by skilfully delegating vital functions to carefully chosen committees, for the committee system, as it evolved during the early months of the Long Parliament and as it developed during the years of war, met the challenge of the absent Privy Council in providing Parliament with a new and responsible executive.

Oliver St. John and the Middle Group in the Long Parliament, 1643-1645: A Reappraisal

1982 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
William G. Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
English Civil War ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
Middle Group ◽  
Military Commander ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
Civil War Era ◽  
Earl Of Essex

Since the publication of J.H. Hexter's Reign of King Pym in 1941 the idea of a middle group has been a lynchpin of English Civil War historiography. Before Hexter historians believed that with the coming of the Civil War members of Parliament split into two factions, the war party and the peace party. Hexter, however, demolished this crude dualism by demonstrating the existence of a middle party in the early days of the Long Parliament, a group of hybrid of M.P.s who seemingly defied classification. Members such as John Glynn and John Clotworthy supported measures from both the war and peace parties.While the composition of the middle group, especially on the fringes, shifted periodically, it maintained a basic core of members and a discernible ideology. Its outlook was moderate and best expressed in the Grand Remonstance and the Nineteen Propositions. The members identified with this middle group steadfastly upheld the constitution and the monarchy, but believed that specific limitations on the monarch must be implemented to preserve the constitution.Perhaps inspired by the work of Hexter, other historians approached the Civil War era in similar fashion. Hexter believed that the middle group collapsed with Pym's death in 1643; yet Valerie Pearl has argued that it lingered oh through 1644 under the leadership of Oliver St. John. Following Pym's death, Pearl contended, St. John followed the moderate path prescribed by Pym in supporting measures from both the war and peace parties and by supporting the earl of Essex, the consensus choice for military commander.

The New Model Army and the problems of siege warfare, 1648–51

1990 ◽  
Vol 27 (105) ◽  
pp. 1-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Burke
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
English Civil War ◽  
The Political ◽  
Henry Viii ◽  
The South ◽  
New Model ◽  
Siege Warfare

The destruction of the Royalist field armies at Naseby and Langport in 1645 did not end the English Civil War. Althought the king had suffered irreversible military defeats, Parliament was unable to govern effectively while politically important towns and fortresses remained in enemy hands. To ensure political stability Parliament’s army was forced to besiege and reduce a large number of strongholds in England, Ireland and Scotland, a task that was not finally completed until the surrender of Galway in 1652. In particular the war in Ireland was to test the army’s siege-making capacity more severely than any previous campaign. To complete the political conquest of Britain and Ireland the army and its generals were compelled increasingly to practise an aspect of warfare that had been traditionally neglected by English soldiers. In contrast, siege warfare was an area in which their continental counterparts had excelled.In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, European wars produced few set-piece battles. Conflicts were more frequently resolved by the assault and defence of fortified cities and towns. Consequently the art of siege warfare evolved rapidly. England’s political and military insularity during this period detached the country from advances in siege technology that had transformed the conduct of European warfare. No major siege had been undertaken by an English army since Henry VIII had invested Boulogne in 1544, and as there had been no siege of English towns or fortresses since medieval times, there had been little innovation in defensive fortifications. What improvements did occur were sporadic and unco-ordinated. In the sixteenth century a great fortress was built at Berwick-on-Tweed to counter Scottish infiltration and a number of coastal towns in the south-east were refortified against the threat of Spanish invasion. However, by the outbreak of civil war in 1642, even these were obsolete by contemporary continental standards.

scholarly journals The Meanings of “Malignancy”: The Language of Enmity and the Construction of the Parliamentarian Cause in the English Revolution

2014 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 835-858 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Leng
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
English Civil War ◽  
New Model ◽  
English Revolution ◽  
War Effort

AbstractThis article deconstructs a character that was ubiquitous within parliamentarian pamphlet literature in the English civil war: the “malignant,” whose “party” had been identified in the Grand Remonstrance of December 1641 as conspiring to destroy parliament and the true religion. Thereafter, the existence of this party became central to parliamentarian justifications of the war effort and to the activities of radical extra-parliamentary activists. The malignant thus became bound up in contests within the parliamentarian coalition, something reflected by the issuing of new remonstrances by London's Presbyterians, Levellers, and the New Model Army, each of which hinged on the identification of a new enemy. Despite these efforts, the specter of the malignant continued to haunt parliamentarian discourse after the regicide, although its meaning became increasingly ambiguous, symptomatic of the challenges facing the post-regicidal regimes as they sought to transcend the ideological parameters of the civil war in the name of “settlement.”

Ingle’s Rebellion, 1638–1650

2020 ◽  
pp. 7-30
Author(s):  
Noeleen McIlvenna
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
English Civil War ◽  
New Model

This chapter describes events in Maryland and England in the 1640s.The settlement of Maryland as a Catholic colony by the Calvert family began in the 1630s. After the English Civil War broke out in 1642, an English trader, Richard Ingle, brought Parliament’s ideology to Maryland in 1644. Local rebels joined him to cast out the Catholic lords and would govern themselves until 1647. This was known as Ingle’s Rebellion, or the Plundering Time. Meanwhile in England, Cromwell’s New Model Army grew revolutionary, as the Leveler movement pushed for a wide franchise. In 1649, King Charles was executed.

THE ‘NORTHERN GENTLEMEN’, THE PARLIAMENTARY INDEPENDENTS, AND ANGLO-SCOTTISH RELATIONS IN THE LONG PARLIAMENT

1999 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 347-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID SCOTT
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Profound Impact ◽  
New Model ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Parliamentary History

Although sometimes seen as a bastion of royalism, the northern counties supplied some of the most militant members of the Long Parliament. Northern MPs and peers figured prominently in the war party, played a key role in negotiating the Solemn League and Covenant, and comprised an important element within the anti-Scots, pro-New Model Army faction at Westminster. Anglo- Scottish relations in the Civil War period were intimately linked with the parliamentary history of the northern counties during the 1640s. This article examines the development and structure of the northern interest in the Long Parliament, and in particular its collaboration with the parliamentary Independents. Analysis of the drafting of the Newcastle peace propositions and of the Commons' efforts to reduce the size of the Covenanting forces indicates that the Independents relied heavily on evidence of abuses committed by the Scottish army in the northern counties to advance their own programme for settlement and to frustrate that of the Scots and their English allies. It is also argued that the Independents' exploitation of the northern reaction against the Scots had a profound impact upon the relations between all three Stuart monarchies.

Excavations at Basing Grange, Basing House, Hampshire, 1999–2006

2020 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
pp. 323-378
Author(s):  
David Allen ◽  
Briony A. Lalor ◽  
Ginny Pringle
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
English Civil War ◽  
Historical Society ◽  
Tobacco Pipes ◽  
House Site ◽  
Early 18Th Century

This report describes excavations at Basing Grange, Basing House, Hampshire, between 1999 and 2006. It embraces the 'Time Team' investigations in Grange Field, adjacent to the Great Barn, which were superseded and amplified by the work of the Basingstoke Archaeological & Historical Society, supervised by David Allen. This revealed the foundations of a 'hunting lodge' or mansion built in the 1670s and demolished, and effectively 'lost', in the mid-18th century. Beneath this residence were the remains of agricultural buildings, earlier than and contemporary with the nearby Great Barn, which were destroyed during the English Civil War. The report contains a detailed appraisal of the pottery, glass and clay tobacco pipes from the site and draws attention to the remarkable window leads that provide a clue to the mansion's date of construction. It also explores a probable link with what was taking place on the Basing House site in the late 17th and early 18th century.

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