A Monarchy Transformed: Britain, 1603 - 1714

399 Pages·1997·22.813 MB·English

by  Mark A. Kishlansky

PENGUIN BOOKS
A MONARCHY TRANSFORMED
Mark Kishlansky is Professor of English and European History at
Harvard University. He is the author of The Rise of the New Model
Army, Parliamentary Selection: Social and Political Choice in Early
Modern England, Civilization in the West and Societies and Cultures
in World History, and the editor of Political Culture and Cultural
Politics in Early Modern England, as well as numerous other works.
Further acclaim for A Monarchy Transformed:
‘This sweeping, dramatic chronicle of a century of Stuart rule will
rivet even the general reader with no particular interest in British
history ... There are magisterial, incisive portraits of Oliver
Cromwell... Catholic zealot James II... and peacemaker
Queen Anne ... Kishlansky freshly delineates an age that opened with
the public whipping, branding and mutilation of vagrants and closed
with a newly defined interdependence of King, Parliament and the
people’ - Publishers Weekly
‘He sets out the social scene clearly and concisely in terms which
enable us to comprehend that foreign country, the past... I see
no reason to disagree with the publisher’s claim that the Penguin
History of Britain series “will furnish the definitive history of Britain
for our day and generation’” - Sarah Bradford in The Times
‘Lucid, spirited and uncompromised, as history should be’ - Adam
Philips in the Observer Books of the Year
THE PENGUIN HISTORY OF BRITAIN
Published or forthcoming:
I: DAVID MATTINGLY Roman Britain: 100-409
II: ROBIN FLEMING Anglo-Saxon Britain: 410-1066
III: DAVID CARPENTER Britain 1066-1314
IV: MIRI RUBIN Britain 1307-1485
V: SUSAN brigden New Worlds, Lost Worlds: Britain 1485-1603
VI: MARK kishlansky A Monarchy Transformed: Britain 1603-1714
VII: LINDA COLLEY A Wealth of Nations? Britain 1707-1815
VIII: DAVID cannadine The Contradiction of Progress:
Britain 1800-1906
IX: PETER CLARKE Hope and Glory: Britain 1900-1990
MARK KISHLANSKY
A Monarchy Transformed
BRITAIN 1603—1714
PENGUIN BOOKS
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
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www.penguin.com
First published by Allen Lane The Penguin Press 1996
Published in Penguin Books 1997
10
Copyright © Mark Kishlansky, 1996
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Printed in England by Clays Ltd, St Ives pic
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject
to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,
re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s
prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in
which it is published and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
To Eddie and bis godfath
for their inspiration
Contents
List of Maps viii
Preface ix
Prologue i
1 The Social World 6
2 The Political W'orld 34
3 The Scottish Accession, 1603-1618 65
4 The Duke of Clubs, 1618—1628 89
5 The Reign of Charles I, 1629—1637 113
6 Rebellion and Civil War, 1637—1644 134
7 Civil War and Revolution, 1645-1649 158
8 Saints and Soldiers, 1649-1658 187
9 The Restoration Settlements, 1659—1667 213
10 For Church and King, 1668-1685 240
11 A Protestant Succession, 1685-1689 263
12 A European Union, 1689-1702 287
13 Great Britain, 1702—1714 313
Epilogue 338
For Further Reading 343
Index 362
List of Maps
England and Wales: Principal Towns in the Seventeenth Century 15
Scotland: Principal Towns in the Seventeenth Century 46
England and Wales: Parliamentary Boroughs 58
Battles of the Wars of Three Kingdoms 182-3
Ireland: Catholic Landholding, 1641 and 1688 297
Britain and its Colonies 336-7
I was first introduced to the political history of seventeenth-century
Britain thirty years ago in an undergraduate survey course. Since then I
have never wanted to study anything else. I found it the most fascinat¬
ing combination of personalities, events and problems that I had ever
encountered. I still do. In those days history was taught as a narrative,
and for those, like me, who didn’t know the story of the seventeenth
century it was nothing short of amazing. I heard a sequence of lectures
describe the collapse of an entire system of government; the creation of
a revolutionary new one based on zeal and Utopian vision; its fail¬
ure; the restoration of the older system; yet another collapse, followed
by a foreign invasion; still another revolution; and finally Britain’s
absorption into and domination of the European state system. Each
chapter was more remarkable than the last, a wheel of transformation
in perpetual motion.
Over the past thirty years the movement of that wheel has become
blurred. The mid-1960s inaugurated a quarter-century of scholarly
productivity probably unrivalled in recorded time, and most of it was
devoted to microscopic examination by highly trained professionals.
Learned monographs, passionate historiographical debates, self¬
consciously debunking essays have filled a cornucopia of writing on the
Stuart period of British history. Historians have learned much more
about seventeenth-century politics and are much more secure in what
they know now than in those days when they could confidently general¬
ize about the movements of entire social classes or the causes of the
English Revolution. If local archives, the British Museum and the
Public Records Office are not exactly the Garden of Eden, the fruit to
be found in them has nevertheless proved irresistible. But, as in Eden,
our gains in knowledge have come with the loss of innocence. They
have also come at the cost of coherence, and this has deprived students
ix
PREFACE
and general readers of a glimpse of the wonders that the seventeenth
century holds.
My intention in this book is to recreate that fascination for another
generation. Of course, I cannot tell the story as it was told to me: most
of my professional life has been involved in making it difficult to put
Humpty-Dumpty back together again (a seventeenth-century nursery
rhyme about the siege of Gloucester, by the way). The running joke of
1066 and All That, one of the great historical satires, was that Britain
was destined to be ‘top nation’ and that everything memorable about
its history contributed to a foreordained goal. Much writing about
what were then called the Puritan and the Glorious Revolutions was
predicated on the same assumption, and not even the advent of Marxist
historiography, beginning in the 1940s, challenged this notion that his¬
tory is a process rather than a story. That challenge has come over the
last two decades and, paradoxically, it has made it difficult to create a
narrative about the seventeenth century without highlighting all of the
exceptions, the culs-de-sac and the dead ends. Modern historians may
once again believe that history is a story, but they no longer concede
that it has a beginning, middle or end. This makes the task of writing
narrative more challenging than ever, especially for those brought up on
a steady diet of analysis, nourished only by questions that begin with
‘Why?’ In this book I am equally interested in addressing ‘Who?’,
‘What?’, ‘Where?’ and ‘When?’
With apologies to colleagues whose work I admire in other contexts,
I believe that no synthesis of modern scholarship can result in a single,
coherent, up-to-date narrative, and I have not chosen to provide one.
There are a number of excellent detailed surveys of the period which
give full play to historiographical interpretation; acknowledge contra¬
diction, complexity and just plain muddle; and invite readers either to
resolve the matters themselves or to remain for ever mystified. This
work is intended only as an introduction, to stimulate curiosity rather
than to satisfy it. It assumes no foreknowledge on the part of its audi¬
ence, though those with some background may discover the many
things going on below the surface. I have tried to invigorate the drama
of the period with drama, the personalities with personality. If readers
can understand why for generations the history of the seventeenth cen¬
tury has held Britons in thrall, then this book will have succeeded in all
it sets out to do.
Every historical narrative is in some senses arbitrary, and this one is
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PREFACE
no exception. Considerations of space, of intended audience and of my
own interests have necessarily shaped the chapters that follow. Beyond
the opening chapter, there is nothing on social, economic or women’s
history; beyond the analytic discussion in Chapter 2, little on local
history and administration. The first can be explained on the grounds
that another series treats social history exclusively; the second on the
decision to explain events from the centre and to maintain an even
narrative across the entire century. The admirable studies of English
counties under the early Stuarts have few analogues for the reigns of
their successors and none for Ireland and Scotland. There is also no
treatment of intellectual life here - of literature, philosophy, science or
the fine arts. A cursory inclusion seemed potentially more offensive
than exclusion, and I was insufficiently skilled to weave these develop¬
ments into the core of political history. Though power operates on a
cultural as well as a political level, it is hard to instance this at any given
moment.
The narrative chapters all begin with the description of a dramatic
event — a device that will not be to everyone’s taste, especially those
who already know the details. My intention is to engage readers by
confronting them with how a particular historical moment unfolds,
how outcomes are not predetermined, and how events and personalities
galvanize a political nation. I hope, as well, that these descriptions
create the pleasure of a good story. They are followed by a brief ana¬
lytic section that highlights the themes of the ensuing chapter.
The title of this book, A Monarchy Transformed, is intended to
convey an impression of the three themes that are interwoven within it.
In the first place, and of paramount importance for the subsequent
political history of the western world, the constitutional position of the
English monarch was far different at the end of the century from at the
beginning. Though the form of monarchical government survived its
testing time, its practice had been revolutionized. Secondly, the particu¬
lar history of the Stuart monarchy was one of continual mutation as
the challenges of one generation overwhelmed the capacities of the
next. Thirdly, the estate that the Stuarts had inherited was far different
from the one they bequeathed: an empire in America; a toehold in
South Asia; strategically important Mediterranean ports; and, of
course, union with Scotland and political control over most of Ireland.
The significance of these changes is mostly evident at the end of the
dynasty, though both the North American plantations and East Indian
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