London 1640-1642 transcript

 

From wars to weddings, painting to politics, faith to family, wards and all. So today, we're talking about London's role as the epicenter of revolution in the build up to and early years of the civil war. But before we get into that and introduce our special guest, I feel, Paul, like London in our period is having a real moment. Don't you think? Yes.

I do. If 17th century is having a moment, then London in the 17th century is having its moment too. It's true. I'm thinking of Margaret Lincoln's book of last year, London in 17th century, for instance. Well, that's a fantastic read, but Margaret Lincoln's books always are.

Not least as I'm concerned because, there's a lot about gardens there and, London's a surprisingly green city even in 17th century. Well, we should cover on to talk about gardens actually in another episode, shouldn't we? Yes. We, certainly should. But yes, you're right.

London's a really important, fascinating topic. The role of the capital city, all the tumult, change and creativity of this century is absolutely crucial. And when we think about this period, so often when you break it down, we're thinking of London. We're imagining London scenes, aren't we? We're thinking about Guy Fawkes in the cellars under parliament during the gunpowder plot or Samuel Pepys buzzing in and out of coffee houses.

And I suppose most momentously, Charles the first stepping onto the scaffold outside the banqueting house in Whitehall. And, of course, the flames of the great fire engulfing some calls. Shakespeare directing his plays at the original Globe Theatre. Indeed. But there were other amazing scenes in London in this century that are perhaps less well known than they deserve to be.

It was a time when ordinary Londoners shaped events at the heart of government, and it could be said that they changed the course of history. And here to tell us all about these extraordinary events, we're delighted to welcome Michael Stirzer, historian and activist, and author of a new book, The London Revolution 1640 to 1643, Carst Goggles in 17th Century England. Welcome, Michael. Thanks very much for having me. So the book focuses on the dramatic years of the short and long parliament and the outbreak and opening years of the civil war.

Before we get into all of that and and the role of London in it, could you set the scene for us a little by talking about the forces that had shaped London in the previous centuries? What was the London of 16/40 like? Well, under Elizabeth, there was a great increase in trade and manufacture. And so that by the time she died, England was an economically capitalist country. The franchise and trade policies were liberalized during the 16 twenties by parliaments.

But many of these got reversed during the 16 thirties personal rule of Charles the first when no parliaments were called. And so London in 16 40 was the largest and richest city in the British Isles. But it was also a hotbed of discontent. There's a long history, of course, in the 16 twenties of the gentry in the House of Commons, trying to make changes to the feudal political system. But they weren't very successful at all because they really didn't have the power to do so.

It's only when in 1640, 41 that the militant Puritan movement in support of the House of Commons, brings a new element, a new force, into the equation that's symbolized by this first petition, which is kind of its almost its opening statement. You're so good in this book on the role of the people and how they are working together with the House of Commons, which as you say is normally the focus of histories of this time. But you're putting these sort of, this Puritan, force from the city of London into the picture. Yes. And I think it's it's very important.

It not only refutes the, conservative and revisionist historians who were attacking Christopher Hill back in the day, who have a a flaw in his presentation of of the process. But I think it answers them and provides a more coherent history from, you know, that's very consistent with the Marxist viewpoint. We should just say for our listeners who may not be familiar that Christopher Hill, was a very famous historian who wrote a book called The World Turned Upside Down, which was a very sort of seminal volume on, the history of the English Civil War from a well, from a broadly Marxist viewpoint. But your work is is in direct dialogue really with Christopher Hill's Marxist interpretation and taking on the revisionists who've been interacting with him since as well. Yes.

As I said, I think this this answers, Hill's critics. And it also takes a critical look at Hill. You know, I don't think everything Christopher Hill wrote was was gospel. But he he contributed enormously to a better and clearer understanding through Marxist class analysis of this whole period. In particular, in he oriented, or reoriented historians to, history from below.

What were the people doing? What was going on in the shops, in the streets, in the neighborhoods, in the churches, and so on? Why did they come together the way they did in a social movement? All of this is very important. And even though he was forced to retreat on some of his ideas, about the period, he was always very, correctly insistent that the period as a whole, the entire civil war and and, interregnum decades, had been overall, one of great change in a progressive, manner.

Yes. Well, thinking about that great change or series of great changes, tell us a little bit about the events in London in the crucial winter of 16 41, 42. Maybe could you sort of tell the story of how London is the epicenter of the, well, the the events that led up to the outbreak of the civil war? The revolution itself really began with kind of a dress rehearsal in the spring of 16/41. There were weeks of mass demonstrations by the middling class people, which ended with the execution of one of Charles' top advisers, the much hated Earl of Stratford.

And this was really the people's first victory. Then in November of that year, there was a Catholic rebellion in Ireland, which ironically brought matters to a head in England. Everyone in England agreed it was necessary to raise a new army, to suppress the Catholics and re and relieve the Protestants. The problem was, who was going to control it? The, the House of Commons certainly couldn't trust the king.

And there were widespread fears that if the king did control it, he would attempt a coup d'etat against parliament. There were mass demonstrations going on in December, against bishops in the house in the House of Lords. In the middle of all this, Charles appointed a disreputable royalist officer as lieutenant of the tower, which provoked disturbances in the city at Whitehall Palace. An MP was killed by gentleman guards when they attacked a crowd. This is a very, you know, this is a very tense situation going on.

And then, of course, in the most famous scene of the period, Charles personally led a 100 royal officers to arrest 5 leading MPs on the floor of the commons. But the MPs escaped. They had been warned and, so they hid in a radical district of London. Charles then demanded the London government turn over the turn them over for trial and charges of high treason. But the newly elected Puritan government in London created a committee of safety, which coordinated some 100000 peep middling people, arms in hand, who occupied the streets to defend parliament.

And they were joined by the militia without the Lord Mayor's permission. 4 days later, Charles fled London with his family. And the next day, the MPs returned to Westminster, cheered by crowds all along the way. It's quite an amazing story, isn't it? And and again, just for our listeners' benefit, that event of the attempted arrest of the 5 members in the House of Commons is is so important, isn't it?

It just echoes down the centuries. And, what shapes, the relationship between the monarch and the parliament to this day? It's why we have Blackrod, don't we, banging on, the the commons door to seek entry when, a new parliament, sits because the monarch cannot just walk into the House of Commons, because of this very incident. It's nice to be reminded, isn't it? And we always try and do this on 1666 and all that about how, resonant and still relevant these events in the 17th century are to us today.

So all of this tension is building and bubbling up, isn't it? And eventually, the king leaves London. Do you think that civil war, actual armed conflict between the king and parliament is inevitable at that point? Do you think it was always going to happen or or or is it all down to a series of, mistakes and accidents? There was no one event, even even the arrest of the or the attempted arrest of the 5 members that made the civil war inevitable.

The problem was it was a question of which social class would ultimately hold political power. So could the escalation have been avoided? Well, yes, for a time. But sooner or later, the central issue of the monarchy's absolute rule is going to come to a head. Yes.

Well, absolutely. And and that's so interesting, isn't it? The the relationship between these forces between, the interest groups of different classes and groups of people, but also the impact of individuals. I mean, perhaps you could, tell our listeners something about John Pym who, as you say, basically invents the role of leader of the opposition and also, other key figures like Isaac Pennington who's the lord mayor. John Kim was, in 16/40, was actually, a very senior member of the House of Commons.

He had first been elected, I believe, in 16/21. He he was absolutely committed to, putting, limits on the king and also bishops, and and and making sure that members of the church could not also be members of the government. These these are the kind of reforms that, he was aiming for. And he also played a role, Michael, in the early days of what became the British Empire. Because John Pym was the treasurer of the Providence Island company.

That played quite an interesting, role in binding this opposition of parliamentarians like Pin as well as nobles like Essex, Lord Sayan Seed as well. So you have this, quite interesting kind of global perspective to what could seem like a fairly, parochial, localized, political crisis in England. He was, on the whole, too far removed from the city, and too preoccupied with parliamentary matters to engage directly, for the most part, with the Puritan movement. He largely did this through people like Pennington. Isaac Pennington was a, a fairly radical Puritan.

He was an independent and very devout and very popular. And he was, he was an alder he became an alderman, I think, in 16/40. And then later in the year, he became one of London's MPs. So he was kind of the bridge, that tied the Puritan movement to the House of Commons, which facilitated, on the one hand, their, their acting in tandem. And but also it politically subordinated the social movement to the gentry.

What about the way in which they communicated these these ideas? Both religious and political, which was pretty much the same thing in the, mid 17th century. How important, for example, was the end of censorship here, this really dynamic, print culture that takes over there? There's this whole profusion of pamphlets. What was the connection between these people like Bim and those circles and what you might call the masses, in London itself, this this kind of real, carnal house of ideas, particularly religious ideas?

Well, yes. The collapse of censorship had a big impact. Very rapidly, cheap pamphlets suddenly appeared on all manner of religious and political subjects. And as the situation became more polarized, there was a kind of pamphlet war that occurred with both sides attempting to influence the population. The and many I mean, many of these were very sophisticated with with long arguments on, sovereignty.

And did the people have a right to overthrow their leaders? And if so, under what conditions and all kinds of different, issues. What the communications in terms of of mobilizing people came through sort of more traditional areas such as the as the, parish churches and in shops and neighborhoods, sermons, and, things like that. There's a good degree of Puritan organization that more or less already existed by 16/40. There had been a, a Puritan subculture that the that the, livery men and the and middling people in general had been supporting for at least 25 years.

And so the pulpit is very important, isn't it, in in revolutionary London, as you say? Yes. It is. Puritans, of course, had always tried to, gain access to the, to the pulpits to be officially, recognized by the church. This wasn't usually very easy because there were not that many bishops who were sympathetic to to puritanism.

But there were certainly were some, and there were a few churches, for various reasons which were able to choose their own. And some of those became centers of puritanism. But for many, it was also an education, and it was not unusual for literate Londoners to take notes. Puritans wanted people to think for themselves and to not just passively accept what they were told by the authorities in trying to understand their world. Most people took religious ideas quite seriously.

So sermons were also a way to keep the people informed about what was going on, particularly in parliament. And they were used to urge people to sign petitions and bring out crowds of demonstrator and demonstrators when needed. So, yeah, they they played a vital part in shaping people's political ideas and mobilizing them for political purposes. You're listening to 1666 and All That. The podcast devoted to all things 17th century.

Michael, can you tell us a little bit now about, London's role once the war begins. I'm thinking, for instance, to see about the, amazing defenses that the ordinary citizens of London construct themselves. Overwhelmingly, these were people from the middling class who were volunteering. The other, major event that you alluded to, was that in, the fall of 42 and, completed in the early spring of 43, there were defenses built all around the city and the suburbs. They went on for something like 18 miles, complete with watchtowers, thick high walls.

And these were built by, the people. They were mobilized, particularly by, Isaac Pennington, who was now the Lord Mayor, in addition to being an MP. 20,000 people or so a day turned out. They were they got no pay, just food. And they were mobilized either by their livery company or by parish.

Just about, you know, everybody, no matter who you were, even people from, the staff and clericals and so on from parliament, were at one point or another spent a day or 2 being mustered and and provided with the tools and marched out and contributed their day of service. Particularly in the early part in November of 42, this got started right after the inconclusive battle of Edge Hill. Royalist troops were very close to London at that point, before and after, and were carrying out depredations, even as close as 8 miles away from, the city of London as it then, you know, its then border. This is what, has became known as as the Battle of Turnham Green. Where not only did, the, the militia, the trained bands, which had now been completely reorganized by the revolutionary London government, by the way, and expanded, and put under, competent command of livery men or merchants.

And they they marched out to meet, to defend the city, and they were joined by the, by the train bands, and by auxiliaries, just everyday common people who are very hastily recruited, to join them. And they formed an army about twice the size of the kings who decided that, this the better part of valor perhaps was to withdraw. That's what he did. But he never came anywhere near that close to taking London again. And that's when, we have the first real, sergeant Philip Skipper, who'd become a major infantry commander of the New Model Army.

He was also famous for his tie, about the brave boys defending London. There's a great fear at the time of what they've read about the 30 years war, that what happens to say Magdeburg or the the awful things that happened in the 16 thirties, they think the king's forces are disinced for them. And that's why there's such a desperate and very large resistance to the King's army as you say. Skippen and the people, around him managed to raise a very substantial militia and apprentice force, to resist the the Royalist forces. Well, they certainly had reason to fear the king's army.

As I say, there were depredations being carried out where where, you know, homes and being destroyed and and civilians being arrested or or impressed not very far away. And and, I mean, after all, the revolution had driven the king out of the city of his capital. They had every reason to believe, that if he marched back in, he was he was going to take his vengeance on on the city. Absolutely, there you know, whatever rules of war existed, there was certainly nothing to say that they were going to be adhered to. And so, you know, we we know those names of Edge Hill and Mastermore and Maysby.

But the Battle of Turnham Green was every bit as important as they were. Yeah. Except it wasn't really a battle because the king chose to withdraw, not not, not attack. But it's you know, you're absolutely right. I fully agree.

It it's no less important. What makes it in particular of such importance is that it demonstrated that the revolution had changed and affected, the consciousness of the revolutionary class, that is the middling class, who were absolutely dedicated to the parliament. And the fact that they showed up, that they enlisted in Essex's army, that the train bands felt it was absolutely necessary to march out with Essex, because militias, of course, in those days were not expected to go beyond the boundaries of of their local areas. So this was this was really a transgressive and revolutionary, decision. And, it's one that occurs again.

So the trained bands again, joined Essex's army, to, relieve the siege of, Gloucester, and were forced into battle on the way back in the First Battle of Newberry, where, witnesses, gave them full credit, for winning the day. So these were these were the most dedicated people, who deeply believed in the revolution and that they were helping to build a new society. And, from then on, you have London as Securly parliamentarian. Oh, yes. Does that change the nature of the city?

Does the city change itself because it's secure, it it identifies itself almost explicitly now with the parliamentarian side. We have to remember that in revolutionary situations like this, the situation is very volatile. While everything we were just talking about in terms of support for the revolution is all completely true, There were also, people in the city of London who didn't support the war. You know, the war brought deprivations. Taxes were extremely high because they were needed to pay for the war and and for the soldiers.

And this made a lot of people very unhappy. So that there was actually a polarization inside the city that, was spearheaded by the peace party, which was very influential in the house of lords and, also in, to a lesser extent in the House of Commons on, as its right wing. They they wanted the war to end even if they had to give in to the king, basically. And, of course, to the revolutionary section of the of the of the city, this was an asthma. This was this was betrayal.

They certainly weren't going to to put up with it. And so there had to be a certain amount of political repression, brought into the city. But the, as as the war ground on, particularly in its in its early years, when there really was, very little fighting because the aristocratic leadership of of the parliamentary army was afraid to fight the king. They were afraid they might be defeated. And they so they kind of only played at at moving the army around and and so on.

Of course, Oliver Cromwell, who by this time was was a, also a leader, was very critical of this. There's a famous exchange between him and, the Duke of Manchester with Cromwell saying, well, my lord, this is against fighting forevermore. Why did we take up arms in the 1st place then? So where's that effect? This play acting on the battlefield prolonged the war totally unnecessarily.

And all it did was to risk defeat and stoke reaction, making the conditions in London, but and also elsewhere in the country, that much worse. Had had they listened to Cromwell much earlier and gone for the jugglers soon as possible, things might never have gone on as long as they did. And, of course, thinking about, those conditions and the worsening conditions that the populace were suffering as the war ground on, they were being suffered by by the women as well. And, you know, it's notable in London in particular how involved women are, with some of these, key moments. I'm thinking of the, the march on parliament by 6000 women wearing white ribbons clamoring for peace.

Or the 1,000 fish wives from Billingsgate who, who marched through London as well. Women are really becoming, very active in this, aren't they? And this tends to happen in revolutionary periods. Absolutely. Women played an important role in the revolution.

At the height of the struggle in 16/42, while the middling class men were occupying the streets with their arms in hand, women were building barricades and preparing pots of boiling water to use against the king's officers if they attacked. Poor women delivered a petition to the House of Commons, a few weeks later, demanding bread. And they demonstrated the next day and got into a tussle with the Duke of Richmond. When he told them to go home, they broke his staff. You're right, of course.

In the summer of 16 43, it was noblewomen who led violent demonstrations at parliament for peace and the return of the king, which the city government had to disperse by force. So I just wanna make the point that although the special form of oppression that women suffer, even to this day, is very real, the role of women is not inherently revolutionary or reactionary. It depends on the context of the class struggle. Just ask the nurses at the NHS. Periods of war and upheaval like this, well, they give they give opportunities to women often to show strength in different ways.

And and they're they're forced to go out into the public sphere. I mean, I'm thinking of the women who petition parliament about royalist states that have been confiscated from them or or for pensions or for pay, you know, if their husbands have been wounded, that kind of thing. I mean, whenever you have upheaval and dislocation on such a grand scale I mean, the, you know, the number of people killed in the English Civil War, was enormous. Let's also remember that, the armies, all of the armies were living off of the land. I mean, they didn't you know, they couldn't very well carry it all with them.

You know, as a result, the prolongation of the of the war, which, of course, at the beginning, nobody really expected to last anywhere near that long. Revolutionary leadership in the city, particularly Isaac Pennington himself, lost office. And the revolutionaries were slowly but surely purged from the city government. From about 1643 to, 45, moderates or or moderate reactionaries took over. And it wasn't until the new model army, returned to London in 1647 and 48, that this was reversed.

Michael, you don't seem to have any concerns about calling this a revolutionary situation. That's mainly what she believed it is. But there's always, around this period a certain ambiguity about that word revolution in terms of whether it's a rupture, whether it's a break or a bust, in the way we traditionally think of a revolution such as the French revolution or the Russian revolution, for example. And other historians, I mean, I think of Austin Woolridge here, but there there are others think of this revolution as a kind of cyclical event, a turning of the wheel, a much more gradual period of change. And you've been very critical of revisionist historians who have denied the truly revolutionary nature in that sense of rupture, to this period.

Could you tell us something about why you opposed those revisionist historians? The most famous revisionist was was Conrad Russell, and he was followed by many others, such as John Laurel and, Mark Kyshlansky, quite a quite a number. And they didn't all have exactly the same ideas. But they all were looking to, write revolution out of history, and particularly the English revolution. So I wanted to write a book that would, refute them, which is what I hope I did.

It's a matter of how do we understand history. For the revisionists, history is composed of events that happen to happen. They occur accidentally, by chance, or as unintended consequences. At most, they are the result of decisions made by individuals at the highest levels of society. So they rejected history as an ongoing process with a trajectory on principle.

And this meant that they were unable to explain how or why societies change over time. Despite the unpopularity of Marxism among most academics today, I believe that Marxist methodology solves these problems and accounts for the push and pull, conflict and resolution that occurs throughout history. The course of the actual events show the development of a discernible historical pattern, and this is the approach I followed in my book. In the case of the English Revolution, which began in London, what it did was, most fundamentally, was to abolish feudal constraints and interference in the capitalist economy, which eventually made possible the industrial revolution in Britain. But seeing that, you wouldn't deny, presumably that within those economic forces that are plainly at play, you wouldn't deny the role that the individual plays within those contexts today.

Of course. As I just said, you know, there are always leading figures. Some you need a leadership in revolutions, whether that's, you know, Cromwell or Robespierre or Lenin. There are always going to be leading figures. But they presumably don't, don't guide a revolution.

The revolution affects them as much as they affect the revolution. There's a kind of mix that up presumably is what you mean by dialectic, I presume. We have to remember, these are very fluid situations. You know, somebody, does it affect them? Yes.

Of course. Because they're the ones who are coping with, questions of of political strategy and, tactics on a on a day to day basis. They're the ones who are trying to, go someplace and who are most basically, putting forward a political program that some portion of the population, for whatever reasons, finds appealing and and and want to support. And it's when you have that, dialectical, yes, relationship, between the leadership and and the followers and the class of of people who, respond to that political program, that's, when change can occur. Now that doesn't all mean that all change, of course, is progressive.

Some of it can go backwards. You know, people follow Hitler too. But in any a revolutionary situations, going taking it knowing how to take advantage of them to move history forward is, tricky. And, obviously, you know, the further back one goes in history, the less experience they and examples they had. And let's, if we accept that it is a revolution, up to to what extent does this revolution, if that's what it is, to what extent does it succeed in its aims?

Right. Well, I think that it failed it partially failed in the short term. The Commonwealth simply was never stable. The rump parliament never was able to address the many, reforms that were needed. It did almost nothing of of import that affected people's lives.

And and so Cromwell's protectorate, was really the degeneration of the revolution. It was a it was a buttress against royalism, but it couldn't at that point, it couldn't lead the revolution any further. And, of course, it led to the, partial counterrevolution of the restoration. But then comes 1688. And to me, that's the consolidation of the revolution on a permanent basis.

Even though it's a bit of a of a hybrid in that both the landed class and the capitalist class are kind of sharing power, which is an anomaly that's really interesting. Nonetheless, there is no question that from that point on, this is a capitalist country, a capitalist environment, and the entire, evolution of the country from that point on is based on bourgeois or capitalist principles. And we will be dealing with the glorious revolution of 1688, so called glorious revolution of 1688 in future episodes. It's very interesting listening to Michael talk about revolutionary London because I am really fascinated by this whole word revolution. This idea of it being this great break, or whether it's the slow revolving of the wheel in time, whether it's slow accretions of change rather than anything radical.

Absolutely. And of course, we talked about this with Jonathan Healy, didn't we? About, how revolutionary in in the case of his book, the whole 17th century was, and how many revolutions there were or weren't, what they meant, and, yes, the role of history from below and history from above. And although I'm far from a Marxist myself, it's very, very interesting. I knew Miranda.

We we were both at the recent conference on the 15th anniversary of Christopher Hill's, The World Turned Upside Down. You realize what a contribution, Marxist historians did make to this period. Particularly, I think, in the idea of incorporating lives that would otherwise be forgotten. It's true. And also, it's as you say, it's nice to have something to work with and to answer.

It's not a question of your old essay essay crisis, on the one hand this, on the other hand the other, and let's sit on the fence, which is always so tedious, for for, readers and list our listeners, I imagine. But I still think in a rather old fashioned way that those great figures, the Cromwells, the Pins, Charles the first even really, really matter in setting the tone there. I think one of the things that Hill said that I felt was really striking during that period is about completing the whole picture of the 17th century or indeed any time. Is that if you want to do history from below, you have to do history from above and vice versa. If you want to understand the history from above, the high political stuff, the military stuff, the diplomatic stuff, you also have to understand the role of ordinary people within that and the economic those slow economic drifts that take place as well.

So I think it's fascinating just over the last few weeks or so thinking about Marxist historians, like Michael, and, of course, the most famous of all of them in this period, Christopher Hill. But I guess that's what Michael was talking about. Wasn't he with that sense of a dialectic? And I was really struck by that thinking about someone like Oliver Cromwell. No surprises.

I always come back to Cromwell. But thinking about Cromwell, all the decisions that he makes in the late 16 forties and fifties, so many of them are responding to events changing and and and shifting coalitions. And, I mean, you know, he he wanted to do a deal with the king. So if the king had accepted the head's proposals or another set of the army's terms, we we wouldn't we wouldn't have had the trial and execution of the king. That's absolutely right.

And I think as well you always see people trying to place a pattern upon events over which they often don't have control. And it's almost as though when we think about Oliver Kahn, one in particular, but indeed this whole period, of the way they think providentially. They try to impose patterns, and this time, religious patterns to explain the world, to explain their successes, to explain their failures, to explain misfortune. In a way, there's a real parallel there, or perhaps a continuity with Marxism in the way that eating poses a pattern upon the past that at least is a pattern one can interrogate even if one doesn't buy into it. So it is very useful, and I feel quite nostalgic for Marxism because for those who oppose it, it is at least an attempt to be rational, other than, like, the touchy feely idea of my truth.

It is it is historic in trying to get to the truth and that's at least is admirable. So yes, really nice to have something to engage with. But I it makes me think also, Paul, that, just as our 17th century subjects are are looking for patterns, you know, so we we do that too and it's it's just human nature, isn't it? To try and find a pattern through which to explain otherwise inexplicable events. To create order out of disorder, I suppose.

Exactly. So we will keep trying to, make some order out of the chaos. The brilliant chaos which is the 17th century. So thank you for joining us and our thanks to to Michael Stirzer for his fascinating