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Radicalism in the English Revolution 1640-1660 (HI312) - Topic 7

Topic 7: The Republic from the Execution of Charles I to the Protectorate

 

Seminar Themes
  • Why was the king executed (when no one had anticipated this)?
  • How did the regicides justify it?
  • Was the 'Rump' a success or failure, and by what criteria should we judge?
  • Why was the 'Parliament of Saints' (or Barebones) called in 1653, and why did rule by the godly prove a failure?
  • Was Cromwell the driving force in these years, or simply carried along by the tide?
Background
  • D Hirst, England in Conflict (1989).
  • R. Hutton, The British Republic 1649-1660 (1990) chap 1.
  • I. Roots, The Great Rebellion, chps 15-19.
  • T. Barnard, The English Republic 1649-1660 (1982) (pamphlet).
Main Reading
  • P. Baker, 'The Regicide', In Braddick, ed, The Oxford Handbook of the English Revolution (2014, e-book))
  • P. Crawford, 'Charles Stuart': that "Man of Blood", Journ. British Studies xvi (1977).
  • S. Baskerville, 'Blood Guilt in the English Revolution', The Seventeenth Century, 8 (1993).
  • J. Morrill, ed, Revolution and Restoration. England in the 1650s (1992), chap. 2.
  • C. Hill, The English Bible (1993), chap. 15 ('That Man of Blood).
  • SRC B. Manning, 1649 The Crisis of the English Revolution (1992), chaps 1,5*.
  • R. Ashton, The English Civil War (1978) chaps 11,12.
  • Sarah Barber, Regicide & Republicanism (1998) chaps 4-5 on the King’s trial.
  • D. Underdown, Pride's Purge (1971), esp. chaps 5-11 (note esp. chap. 10 on the impact on the provinces, and the level of republican support).
  • B. Worden, The Rump Parliament, (1974), esp. chaps. 1-3.
  • I. Gentles, The New Model Army (1992), chaps. 9-13.
  • A. Woolrych, Britain in Revolution 1625-1660 (2002). chaps. 13-17.
  • D. Underdown, Honest Radicals in the Counties' in D. Pennington & K Thomas, eds.,Puritans and Revolutionaries.
  • R. Ashton, 'Revolutionaries and Rumpers', Hist. Journal, xviii (1975).
  • S. Kelsey, Inventing a Republic. The Political Culture of the English Commonwealth, 1649-1653 (1997) - on attempts to promote the new regime.
  • C M Williams, 'The Anatomy of a Radical Gentleman: Henry Marten', in Pennington & Thomas, as above.
  • B. Worden, 'Classical Republicanism in the Puritan Revolution', in H L Lloyd Jones ed., History and Imagination.
  • P. Zagorin, History of Political Thought in the English Revolution (1965) chaps. 5-7, 9-12.
  • J. Sanderson, But the People's Creatures (1989) chap 7.
  • A. Woolrych, 'The Calling of Barebone's Parliament', HER 80 (1980) and his Commonwealth to Protectorate (1982) (a full study of Barebones).
  • A. Woolrych, 'Oliver Cromwell and the Rule of the Saints' in I. Roots, ed., Cromwell: a Profile and also in R H Parry, ed., The English Civil War and After.
  • B S Capp, The Fifth Monarchy Men (1972) ch. 3.
  • G D Heath III, 'Making the Instrument of Government', Journ. British Studies, vi (1967); reprinted in Roots, ed., Cromwell: a Profile.
  • On Cromwell in this period see also the relevant sections in the biographies by C. Hill etc.
The Provinces
  • In addition to Underdown (above), consult also:
  • A. Fletcher, A County Community in Peace and War: Sussex 1600-1660, chaps. 13-15.
  • J. Morrill, Cheshire 1630-1660, chaps. 5-7.
  • G F C Forster, 'County Government in Yorkshire during the Interregnum', Northern History 12 (1976).
  • C. Holmes, Seventeenth-Century Lincolnshire, chap. 12.
  • D. Underdown, Somerset in the Civil War and Interregnum chaps. 8,9.
  • D. Underdown, 'Settlement in the Counties 1653-8', in G. Aylmer, ed., The Interregnum (1972).