Issues in the House of Commons 1621–1629: Predictors of Civil War Allegiance

1991 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Conrad Russell
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Half Life ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
English Civil War ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Look Back ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Parliamentary Politics ◽  
Shed Light

My past attacks on the use of hindsight as a tool for explaining the parliamentary politics of the 1620s were not based on any desire to evade the task of explaining the English Civil War. They were based on the belief that it was necessary to understand what did happen in the 1620s before it could become possible to use those events to shed light on the English Civil War. The argument was that the search for the causes of the Civil War had impeded any attempt to see the 1620s as they actually were. That was why I attempted to find out what had happened in the 1620s as a task in its own right, before going on to investigate the coming and the causes of the English Civil War.It is only because I have already attempted both these questions, and provided answers at least to my own satisfaction, that I now feel free to look back again at the 1620s, and attempt to ask the question what issues, and what attitudes, distinguish a future Royalist from a future Parliamentarian during those years. This is, of course, a very different question from asking what were the key issues of the 1620s. Very often, the issues that transpire to be the best predictors of Civil War allegiance were, at the time, low-priority and poorly reported issues. Attempts to investigate them are not meant to endow them with an importance they did not necessarily possess at the time, nor to suggest any inevitability about the division of England along the lines they suggest. The Civil War was only one of many ways in which the English body politic might have been divided: under a different king, for example, quite different disagreements might have been forced to the surface as the agenda developed. Yet, once it is granted this is not the only way Englishmen might have been divided, it is still worth asking whether the division that actually surfaced corresponds to any visible division in the politics of the 1620s. None of this is an attempt to reopen the debate on “revisionism” in the 1620s. That debate has now acquired a half life of its own, and this article is not intended to take any part in it. It is, though, inevitably informed by thirteen years' work on the politics of the Long Parliament, and so incorporates perceptions of how different the 1620s were from the 1640s, which no other programme of work could have made equally intense.

“The unity based on memories of former intimacy is an attempt to warm up at a went out fire…” The letters from V.M. Chernov to O.S. Minor and M.I. Klyaver

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (04-1) ◽  
pp. 4-39
Author(s):  
Olga Konovalova ◽  
Vera Fedorova ◽  
Anna Dvoretskaya
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Social History ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
International Institute ◽  
Warm Up ◽  
History Of ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Foreign Delegation

In the publication, O.V. Konovalova, V.I. Fedorova, A.P. Dvoretskaya presented letters 1931-1932 of the leader and theoretician of the party of socialists-revolutionaries V.M. Chernov to a prominent figure of the party O.S. Minor and a representative of Harbin socialists-revolutionaries organization M. I. Klyaver regarding the split of the Foreign delegation of the socialists-revolutionaries. They are preserved in the collection of VM. Chernov of the International Archives and Collections at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam. The presented letters help to clarify VM. Chernov’s position on the key issues of the history of the SR party during the Russian revolution, Civil War, and emigration of the 1920s, and also shed light on the deep reasons for the split of the ZD AKP.

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.

Steps to War: the Scots and Parliament, 1642–1643

1970 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 50-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence Kaplan
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Military Occupation ◽  
English Civil War ◽  
Military Aid ◽  
Prayer Book ◽  
Parliamentary Politics ◽  
Church Government

The Scottish role in the English Civil War, although generally recognized by historians to be a major one, has never been investigated in depth. Every student of the period knows how the resistance in Scotland to the English prayer book impelled Charles to summon first the Short and then the Long Parliament, thereby setting in motion the events leading to the Great Rebellion. Yet the Scots did more than help to precipitate the conflict: just a year after the actual fighting between the King and his Parliament began, they entered the fray as allies of the latter and remained active combatants in the first Civil War until its conclusion. Military aid was just one facet of this alliance. Scottish commissioners in London became embroiled in parliamentary politics, influencing positions taken by the two houses, while Scottish ministers stimulated the religious debate which characterized these years and assisted (despite their annoyance with the outcome) in the establishment of a new church government in England. Quite obviously the English Civil War was never exclusively an English matter.The Scots' intervention in their neighbors' affairs is also recognized to have resulted in disaster. Not only did they fail to realize their original ambitions; they were eventually forced to endure the humiliation of a military occupation. How then did Scotland manage to become involved in the upheaval taking place in England? The answer usually given by historians is a simple one: the Scottish Kirk, desiring to export Presbyterianism, worked successfully for an alliance with Parliament as a first step toward making England a Presbyterian nation.

The Irish adventurers and the English civil war

1956 ◽  
Vol 10 (37) ◽  
pp. 21-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.R. MacCormack
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
English Civil War ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Charles I ◽  
Irish Rebellion

When the Irish rebellion broke out in October 1641, Charles I was in Scotland, where, closely watched by agents of his dissident English parliament, he was attempting, by a policy of tardy retreats and unwonted largesse, to make of the Scottish kirk a pillar of the throne, and to transform wily old enemies like Argyle, Hamilton and Leslie into trusty retainers. Accordingly, when the Scottish estates—then in close liason with Westminster—suggested that the English parliament be entrusted with the management of the Irish war, Charles quickly agreed and sent a message to that effect to London.In the house of commons, on November 1, the radicals, aware that Ireland formed a common focus of interest for the Scots, the London merchants and many of their supporters in the house, received the news of the rising with ‘smooth brows’. The well-known London interest in Ulster had long been shared by the Scots who had, indeed, attempted to supplant the Londoners in 1638. Hamilton himself appears to have fancied himself as Strafford’s successor.

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.

Presentism, Inevitability and the English Civil War

1982 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
William H. Dray
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
English Civil War
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