EMH EarlyModernHistory

 

  The periodical, Red Pepper, is not my usual reading matter but, at the end of last month, it carried a laudatory review by John Rees of Norah Carlin’s book on petitioning by civilian and military radicals in the final months of 1648. Rees thought it made a notable contribution to the understanding of “the role of ordinary people in the climax of the English Revolution.” Radicals in the New Model Army and across the country sent a wave of petitions to the Long Parliament demanding justice against King Charles I, that “man of blood”, and for a fundamental transformation of the English state. He links this petitioning campaign to the role of the Leveller movement in organising its ‘large petition’ of 11 th September, 1648, which inspired in part, at least, some of the subsequent petitions and forced the army’s commanders into action at Pride’s Purge and the trial of the King that followed. He also has observations on essays by David Como and Clive Holmes which bear on the issues then u