scholarly journals Lucy Hutchinson and Margaret Cavendish: Civil War and Enemy Commiseration

Humanities ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 43
Author(s):  
Yousef Deikna
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Human Life ◽  
British History ◽  
Margaret Cavendish ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Upheaval ◽  
Victorian Period ◽  
Lucy Hutchinson ◽  
Difficult Times

Lucy Hutchinson (1620–1681) and Margaret Cavendish (1623–1673), prolific writers from the seventeenth century, came of age in one of the most difficult times in British history. Blair Worden, an eminent historian, writes, “The political upheaval of the mid-seventeenth century has no parallel in English history,” and none of the previous conflicts “has been so far-reaching, or has disrupted so many lives for so long, or has so imprinted itself on the nation’s memory” (2009, p. 1). Hutchinson and her husband, John, were on the side of the parliamentarians in the Civil War while Cavendish and her husband, William, were stout royalists. Instead of showing aggressive stances against their enemies, Hutchinson and Cavendish engaged expansively in a language of empathizing with the enemy in order to lessen the extreme partisanship of that period. Focusing specifically on Hutchinson’s Memoirs of the Life of Colonel John Hutchinson, and Cavendish’s Sociable Letters, among other writings, I argue that during the political impasse which characterized the English Civil War writings, the perspectives advanced by Hutchinson and Cavendish highlight the valuation of human life regardless of political allegiance, augmenting the odds for peaceful co-existence, in which empathy is foregrounded over, and at times alongside, loss and agony as a result of the Civil War aftermath. Suzanne Keen’s groundbreaking research in Empathy and The Novel draws upon examples from the Victorian period to illustrate her understanding of empathy, but she also states that “I feel sure they also pertain to the hopes of authors in earlier periods as well” (2007, p. 142), which is a position taken wholeheartedly in this article. Using a cognitive literary approach where authorial empathic constructions are analyzed, Hutchinson’s and Cavendish’s closely read texts portray an undeniable level of commiseration with the enemy with the goal of abating violence and increasing cooperation and understanding.

Writing History: Domestic Papers, Biographical Writing, and Public Histories

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret J. M. Ezell
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Family Member ◽  
English Civil War ◽  
Margaret Cavendish ◽  
Lucy Hutchinson ◽  
History Of ◽  
Life Writings

Many who lived through the English Civil War penned memoirs of their experiences, some of which were published after their deaths, such as Richard Baxter’s life writings and Thomas Fuller’s accounts of the worthies of England, or wrote and published topical public histories, including John Milton’s history of Britain. Samuel Pepys’s and John Evelyn’s diaries are among the most important sources about the Restoration years. Others such as Lucy Hutchinson wrote memoirs for their family or, like Margaret Cavendish, to defend the reputation of a family member. There was also interest in the history of foreign cultures, past rulers, and antiquarian topics.

John Bramhall and The Theoretical Problems of Royalist Moderation

1971 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. W. Daly
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
British History ◽  
English History ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Limited Government ◽  
Conscious Level

It is a truism that the most distinctive features of the peculiarly English genius in politics are moderation and compromise. The sources of this spirit must be sought throughout the whole fabric of English history, but it should be easier to examine some of the stages by which it emerged onto the conscious level of political thought. How long have Englishmen spoken of political moderation as a good in itself? Herbert Butterfield awards to the Whigs the honor of contributing to modern British history their instinct for compromise. Locke has often been thought of as doing the same. But Toryism has come in for its share of the credit, and a student of John Dryden's thought has suggested that the Tory Dryden well illustrates the tradition of avoiding political extremes and reconciling liberty and authority. This is a fruitful suggestion, and it may be carried further by seeking evidence of this tradition in the predecessors of the Tories, the royalists of the Civil War period. These latter, far from being diehards or extremists, were the advocates of a political mean, and tried to defend at once the king's authority and the subject's liberty. In some degree, this is now widely conceded, but the significance of this moderation is not as clear as it ought to be, because its nature is not understood. When it is understood, it will be possible to say that the most important characteristic of seventeenth-century English royalism was not its defense of the king, but its defense of political moderation and limited government.

A New Sion? Reform, Rebellion, and Colonization c. 1625–1640

The Puritans ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 206-251
Author(s):  
David D. Hall
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
British History ◽  
The Political ◽  
Charles I ◽  
Unique Event ◽  
Sequence Of Events ◽  
Politics Of Religion ◽  
History Of ◽  
Civil Politics ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter studies how, in the aftermath of his failure to subdue the Scottish insurgency by military means, Charles I authorized the election of two new parliaments. Its policies were so at odds with Charles I's understanding of monarchy and the true church that the outcome was civil war in England between supporters of the king and supporters of Parliament. Explaining this sequence of events tests every historian of 1630s and 1640s Britain. The puzzles are many. In the context of this book, the most significant of these is the relationship between civil politics and the politics of religion. Intertwined throughout the history of the English and Scottish reformations, their relationship tightened in the practice and rhetoric of Charles I and the party he favored, here known as the Laudians. Like his immediate predecessors, the young king took for granted that opposition to his version of true religion was equivalent to challenging his authority as king. At once, the religious and the political become inseparable. Before 1640, the political and the religious in Scotland had also become intertwined, but in a quite different manner. There, it was being argued that a monarch's policies were corrupting a perfect church. And there a unique event in British history unfolded.

Vladko Maček, the Croatian Peasant Party and the Spanish Civil War

2007 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-246
Author(s):  
VJERAN PAVLAKOVIĆ
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
The Press ◽  
Left And Right ◽  
Kingdom Of Yugoslavia ◽  
Difficult Times ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Moral Stance

AbstractIn summer 1936 Vladko Maček's priorities lay with rebuilding the Croatian Peasant Party after its six years of illegality under King Aleksandar's dictatorship in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Yet the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) was to have a polarising and radicalising effect on Croatian society. Both communists and supporters of the fascist Ustaša movement looked to Spain as a model for resolving the ‘Croat question’ at a time when Croats were becoming increasingly frustrated with Maček's passivity. As a propaganda war raged in the press of the radical left and right, the Croatian Peasant Party tried to ignore the conflict. Maček's failure to realise the impact of the war in Spain on the political situation in Croatia is indicative of some of his weaknesses as a leader in difficult times. The Croatian Peasant Party missed the opportunity to take a strong moral stance against fascism during the Spanish conflict, and Maček's fence-sitting from the 1930s onwards permitted the more extreme ideological movements in Croatia to take advantage of the rapidly changing conditions of a Europe engulfed in war.

The Economic Impact of the Nigerian Civil War

1972 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Wayne Nafziger
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Economic Impact ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Economic Structure ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Variable ◽  
Political Variable ◽  
Political Upheaval ◽  
Nigerian Civil War ◽  
Coups D'etat

Few events alter the socio-economic structure of a country as radically as the convulsions and displacements concomitant with war and political upheaval. In Nigeria the two coups d'état of 1966 and the civil war of 1967–1970 have had a profound effect on economic activity, and in turn have been affected by economic variables. In this study the political variable will generally be treated as independent and the economic variable as dependent, despite the fact that in the period after independence in 1960, tendencies towards political and economic disintegration reinforced each other.1

Toward an Understanding of the Political Ideas in Ivan Timofeev’s Vremennik

2020 ◽  
pp. 23-53
Author(s):  
Daniel B. Rowland
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Foreign Intervention ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Thought

This chapter examines the Vremennik of Ivan Timofeev and describes the disasters that then engulfed Muscovite Rus´, such as famine, civil war, and foreign intervention that stimulated historical thought. It identifies writers who set themselves the difficult task of integrating the disturbing events, particularly the virtual collapse of the “God-established tsarstvo” with the earlier history of Rus´. It also considers Timofeev's Vremennik as the single-best source for investigating how early seventeenth-century Muscovites thought about their own history and politics. The chapter explains how Timofeev, like a number of other smuta tale authors, did not write primarily to promote a particular political point of view or a particular set of ideas. It reveals that the Vremennik is closer to a diary than a polemical work based on the remarks of Timofeev.

1652

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Parrott
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Little Ice Age ◽  
State Building ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
The Political ◽  
Louis Xiv ◽  
Political Upheaval ◽  
Global Cooling ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Two Sides

This book offers a re-evaluation of the last year of the Fronde—the political upheaval between 1648 and 1652—in the making of seventeenth-century France. In late December 1651 cardinal Mazarin defied the order for his perpetual banishment, and re-entered France at the head of an army. The political and military crisis that followed convulsed the nation, and revived the ebbing fortunes of a revolt led by the cousin of the young Louis XIV, the prince de Condé. The book follows in detail the unfolding political and military events of this year, showing how military success and failure swung between the two sides through the campaign, driving both cardinal and prince into a progressive intensification of the conflict, while simultaneously fuelling a quest for compromise and settlement which nonetheless eluded all the negotiators’ efforts. The consequences were devastating for France, as civil war smashed into a fragile ecosystem that was already reeling under the impact of the global cooling of the ‘Little Ice Age’. 1652 raises questions about established interpretations of French state-building, the rule of cardinal Mazarin and his predecessor, Richelieu, and their contribution to creating the ‘absolutism’ of Louis XIV.

scholarly journals RUMOUR, NEWS AND POPULAR POLITICAL OPINION IN ELIZABETHAN AND EARLY STUART ENGLAND

1997 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 597-620 ◽  
Author(s):  
ADAM FOX
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Civil War ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Court Records ◽  
Printed Media ◽  
Current Affairs ◽  
Stuart England ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Shed Light

This essay explores the circulation of rumour and news among those at the lower levels of society in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century England. It does so through an analysis of the court records in which people were indicted for spreading false reports or speaking seditious words and which are now preserved in assize files or amid the state papers. These sources reveal the networks of communication by which information was disseminated nationwide and shed light upon the relationship between oral, manuscript and printed media. They show how wild stories could be whipped up in the act of transmission and were fuelled by the political insecurities of this period. At the same time a more sophisticated awareness of current affairs is evident in some illicit conversations which suggest that even humble people were participating in the arguments which anticipated the Civil War.

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