English Civil War / War of the Three Kingdoms

The civil war between Charles I and his parliament broke out in England in 1642; rebellions were already underway in Scotland from 1637, and in Ireland from 1641. The conflict culminated with the trial and execution of the king in 1649. Through the 1650s Britain was governed as a republic, then as a Protectorate under Oliver Cromwell from 1653. But the regime unraveled after Cromwell’s death in 1658, ultimately leading to the Restoration of monarchy under Charles II in 1660. The civil wars were fought on the page as intensely as on the battlefield, producing an outpouring of rich and diverse literature, including (to barely scratch the surface): the poetry and prose of John Milton, Andrew Marvell, the cavalier poets, Katherine Philips, Margaret Cavendish, Lucy Hutchinson, Gerrard Winstanley, Thomas Hobbes, the Earl of Clarendon, Marchamont Nedham. This vibrant and important body of writing was, for much of the 20th century, neglected and poorly understood. The closure of the theaters in 1642, the collapse of royal court culture, and a critical fashion that dismissed writing sullied by political engagement: these factors all produced the illusion of a hiatus in the literary tradition, a “cavalier winter.” These misplaced assumptions, however, have been overturned since the 1980s by a new wave of scholarly interest, galvanized by a renewed recognition of the value and excitement of politically engaged writing. Scholarship informed by different branches of historicism, combining literary criticism variously with New Historicism, with the history of political thought, with social history, and with book history, have all transformed our appreciation of civil war literature. As such, work by historicist critics—and by historians—is inescapably central to this bibliography, and fundamental to our understanding of the period’s literature. But, as will become apparent, plenty of space remains for a diversity of approaches including gender studies, queer studies, critical theory, reception studies, and formalism. This bibliography is organized thematically, rather than around major individual authors, of whom there are many, most of whom appear in multiple sections. For this reason, no attempt has been made to include scholarly editions, though reader-friendly anthologies are listed, many of which make valuable scholarly contributions. Key studies on politics and literature appear in Literature and Politics: Essential Studies, followed by more focused sections on royalism, cavalier poetry, republicanism, and Cromwellian writing. Other sections cover scholarship on printing and pamphleteering, on radicalism, on women’s writing, on gender and sexuality, on drama, and on international and colonial contexts.

Winstanley's “Righteous Actors”: Performance, Affect, and Extraordinary Politics in the Seventeenth Century

On the first day of April 1649, on the predominantly rural manor of Walton, Surrey, the sight of people preparing land for the plow was unremarkable. To see men up at dawn, dressed for the field in broad-brimmed hats, homespun waistcoats, and short breeches, loosening or breaking up clods with their spades, stooping to toss aside root and rock, was typical. What did raise eyebrows, however, was the sight of such busyness on a Sunday, the Sabbath, and on no less remarkable ground than George Hill, with its “very barren,” sandy soil. When questioned, Gerrard Winstanley reframed this performative break with religious, social, and agricultural norms as he did in his soon to be published manifesto, The True Levellers’ Standard Advanced. To work this land was to “declare . . . by action,” as well as by word, that Winstanley, the self-described “prophet” William Everard, and a small number of others had been sent by the Creator to begin their mission of transforming “the Earth [into] a common Treasury for all, both Rich and Poor.” Rural, religious, and resource poor, the Digger collective has not received substantial attention from performance studies scholars. Even some historians of the seventeenth century have questioned the significance of this small, nonviolent agrarian group in the intensely “charged political atmosphere of the 1640s,” but as a collective whose theatrical social performances raised them from obscurity to national visibility, Diggers are in some ways the epitome of this era.

Rights in the English Revolution

This chapter examines discussions of rights in the English Revolution of the mid-seventeenth century, focusing in particular on the Putney Debates and on the ideas put forward shortly afterwards by Gerrard Winstanley and his fellow Diggers. A key issue in the Putney Debates was the extension of the right to vote to men without property. That was also important for the Diggers, but in addition they argued for the right of all to direct access to the means of subsistence. The earth was a common treasury for all, wrote Winstanley, and could not justly be turned into a particular treasury for some.

The Pen and the Spade: Gerrard Winstanley and the Digger Movement

In the wake of the English Civil Wars of the 1640s, increased religious tolerance gave rise to unprecedented religious radicalism. While most emerging religious sects adopted unorthodoxinterpretations of the Bible, some sects were more radical than others. The Diggers, led by Gerrard Winstanley, were unique in that their biblically inspired focus on private property’s inherent corruption drove them to establish an agricultural commune in Surrey in 1649. By setting an example for the rest of the world and encouraging others to adopt their methods, they hoped to ultimately restore the Earth to a state of ‘Common Treasury.’ Drawing on scriptural precedent and personal interpretation of the Bible, Winstanley offered an eloquent, politically charged justification for the Diggers’ program of communal living in The True Levellers Standard (1649), which became the Digger manifesto. It pointedly critiquedseventeenth-century English society, had both a positive and negative impact on the Diggers’ reception at the time, and survived the movement’s violent suppression and subsequent collapse. Today, it continues to offer great insight into the origins, development and fate of the Digger movement, while at the same time inspiring modern scholars to delve deeper into the movement’s significance, and raising questions about property and equality that remain highly relevant in this day and age.