¹ Stone, Lawrence, ‘The revival of narrative: reflections on a new old history’, in , Stone, The past and the present (Boston, 1981), ch. 3Google Scholar.

² In particular they were trying to modernize it by seeking to discover what the reality behind such terms as ‘liberty’ and ‘the people’ – terms beloved by the great whig historians – really was. Liberty for whom? Did the people really include servants? Or wage-earners? What were the social realities behind parliamentary claims to represent all of the people?

³ For an introduction to the gentry controversy, see Stone, Lawrence, Social change and revolution in England 1540–1640 (london, 1965)Google Scholar.

⁴ Stone, Lawrence, The crisis of the aristocracy 1558–1641 (Oxford, 1965; abridged edn, 1967)Google Scholar. For some reactions to the book, see Hexter, J. H., On historians: reappraisals of some of the makers of modern history (London, 1979), ch. 4Google Scholar; and the reviews by Ashton, Robert, ‘The aristocracy in transition’, Economic History Review, 2nd series, XXII (1969), 308–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Coleman, D. C., ‘The “gentry” controversy and the aristocracy in crisis, 1558–1641’, History, LI (1966), 165–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵ Hexter, J. H., Reappraisals in history: new views on history and society in early modern Europe (Chicago, 2nd edn, 1979), p. 141Google Scholar.

⁶ Brunton, D. and Pennington, D. H., Members of the Long Parliament (London, 1954), esp. conclusion, pp. 176ffGoogle Scholar.

⁷ Hill, Christopher, ‘Recent interpretations of the Civil War’, in Hill, , Puritanism and revolution: studies in interpretation of the English revolution of the 17th century (Harmondsworth, 1986; original edn, 1958), ch. 1, at pp. 28–9, 32, 37, 38–9Google Scholar.

⁸ Ladurie, Emmanuel Le Roy, ‘History that stands still’, in Ladurie, Le Roy, The mind and method of the historian, trans. S., & Reynolds, B. (Chicago, 1981), ch. 1Google Scholar.

⁹ The point to emphasize is that what social change occurred had little effect on altering contemporaries' perceptions of the society they inhabited. For an introduction to social change in the period see Wrightson, Keith, English society 1580–1680 (London, 1982)Google Scholar. See also the suggestive remarks in Zaller, Robert, ‘Legitimation and delegitimation in early modern Europe: the case of England’, History of European Ideas, X (1989), 641–65, esp. 647–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰ A claim argued most directly in Macfarlane, Alan, The origins of English individualism: the family, property and social transition (Oxford, 1978)Google Scholar.

¹¹ Laslett, Peter, The world we have lost (London, 2nd edn, 1971)Google Scholar. It should be noted here that this is not a criticism of Laslett's work in itself. I am merely pointing out the incapacity of his approach to deal with the questions the political historian might ask, something Laslett himself recognizes when he says ‘the historian… is something of a nuisance to the sociological enquirer’ because of the type of question he habitually asks (Laslett, , The world we have lost, p. 160)Google Scholar. There is nothing ‘wrong’ with Laslett, the Marxists, et al. The problem is how their work can be used as a basis for political history (other than to assert the unimportance or superficiality of political history).

¹² Hill, Christopher, ‘A one class society?’, in Hill, , Change and continuity in seventeenth-century England (London, 1974), ch. 9, esp. pp. 215–17Google Scholar.

¹³ This aspect of the book is pointed to in Elton's review, reprinted in Elton, G. R., Studies in Tudor and Stuart politics and government, vol. 3 (Cambridge, 1982)Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Worden, Blair, ‘In a white coat’, New Statesman, 4 08 1972, pp. 167–8Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Cf. Christianson, Paul, ‘The causes of the English revolution: a reappraisal’, Journal of British Studies, XV (1976), 40–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar. At one point Christianson explicitly signals that his fundamental concern is working out a new social context for Stuart political history: he indicates that an assumption of ‘natural social inequality’ underlies his argument (p. 55).

¹⁶ See for example the remarks in Kishlansky, Mark, ‘Ideology and politics in the parliamentary armies, 1645–9’, in Morrill, J. S. (ed.), Reactions to the English Civil War 1642–1649 (London, 1982), p. 164Google Scholar.

¹⁷ A general indication of common views about revisionism might be had from the textbook account in Richardson, R. C., The debate on the English revolution revisited (London, 1988), pp. 169–72Google Scholar. Note particularly that the discussion is in a chapter subtitled ‘Political history – continuity and revisionism’; it could as well be discussed under the heading of another chapter: ‘Society and revolution’.

¹⁸ Russell, Conrad, ‘The British problem and the English Civil War’, History, LXXII (1987), 395–415CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Russell, , ‘The British background to the Irish rebellion of 1641’, Historical Research, LXI (1988), 166–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁹ Hirst, Derek, The representative of the people? Voters and voting in England under the early Stuarts (Cambridge, 1975)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Russell, Conrad, Parliaments and English politics 1621–1629 (Oxford, 1979), pp. 18ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Russell, , ‘Parliament and the king's finances’, in Russell, (ed.), The origins of the English Civil War (London, 1973), ch. 3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁰ Sharpe, Kevin, Criticism and compliment: the politics of literature in the England of Charles I (Cambridge, 1987)Google Scholar; Sharpe, , Politics and ideas in early Stuart England (London, 1989)Google Scholar; Christianson, Paul, ‘Young John Selden and the Ancient Constitution, ca. 1610–18’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, CXXVIII (1984), 271–315Google Scholar; Christianson, , ‘John Selden, the five knights' case, and discretionary imprisonment in early Stuart England’, Criminal Justice History, VI (1985), 65–87Google Scholar; and Christianson, , ‘Political thought in early Stuart England’, Historical Journal, XXX (1987). 955–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²¹ Cf. Hirst, Derek, ‘The place of principle’, Past and Present, XCII (1981), 79–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar. It should be noted in all fairness that Hirst's article is largely a cogent critique of revisionism narrowly defined as involving only parliamentary and constitutional history.

²² In what follows I am particularly indebted to Dray, William, ‘J. H. Hexter, Neo-whiggism and early Stuart historiography’, History and Theory, XXVI (1987), 133–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dray, , ‘Presentism, inevitability and the English Civil War’, Canadian Journal of History, XVII (1982), 257–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wilson, Adrian & Ashplant, T. G., ‘Whig history and present-centred history’, Historical Journal, XXXI (1988), 1–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Ashplant, & Wilson, , ‘Present-centred history and the problem of historical knowledge’, Historical Journal, XXXI (1988), 253–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²³ For this see Butterfield, Herbert, The whig interpretation of history (London, 1931), p. 22Google Scholar

‘The historian seeks to explain how the past came to be turned into the present but there is a very real sense in which the only explanation he can give is to unfold the whole story and reveal the complexity by telling it in detail. In reality the process of mutation which produced the present is as long and complicated as all the most lengthy and complicated works of historical research placed end to end, and knit together and regarded as one whole.

The fallacy of the whig historian lies in the way in which he takes his short cut through this complexity. The difficulty of the general historian is that he has to abridge and that he must do it without altering the meaning and the peculiar message of history.’

Not much comment is required on this passage. Butterfield has set up in opposition to whig narratives the quite naive ideal of a true narrative that is an abridgement of the historical process, yet an abridgement that carries the real meaning of the process itself. But does the historical process as such have any meaning of this sort? How can you abridge without altering the meaning unless, (a) you know the whole meaning first (whatever that might mean), and therefore (b) you have grasped the complete historical process in all its detail before you begin to abridge it? Given this, only God can be a true historian.

²⁴ This claim is more difficult to demonstrate briefly, but it is really a consequence of the previous point. The problem with whig history is that it is ‘abridgement… based more or less consciously upon some selective principle’ (Butterfield, , Whig interpretation, p. 101)Google Scholar:

‘The whig method of approach is closely connected with the question of the abridgement of history; for both the method and the kind of history that results from it would be impossible if all the facts were told in all their fullness. The theory that is behind the whig interpretation – the theory that we study the past for the sake of the present – is one that is really introduced for the purpose of facilitating the abridgement of history and its effect is to provide us with a handy rule of thumb by which we can easily discover what was important in the past, for the simple reason that, by definition, we mean what is important “from our point of view”’ [ibid. p. 24].

The problem with this is that Butterfield never distinguishes between (a) history written as the story of how the present came to be what it is (‘weak’ teleology – see below – but not necessarily anachronism); and (b) the use of present-day categories to organize our accounts of the past (which is anachronistic). Whig history might be either of these things (the phrase ‘for the sake of the present’ is particularly ambiguous): my argument is that only the latter of them is inherently reprehensible. Butterfield's failure to make clear which of them he is condemning has been of unfortunate influence.

²⁵ Condren, Conal, ‘From premise to conclusion: some comments on professional history and the incubus of rhetorical historiography’, Parergon, new series, VI (1988), 5–18, at p. 18Google Scholar.

²⁶ Kishlansky, Mark, Parliamentary selection: social and political choice in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1975), p. 225Google Scholar.

²⁷ Tönnies, Ferdinand, Community and association, trans. Loomis, C. P. (London, 1955, 1974)Google Scholar.

²⁸ Further support for such a claim might be drawn from Derek Hirst, ‘Court, country, and politics before 1629’, in Sharpe, Kevin (ed.), Faction and parliament: essays on early Stuart history (Oxford, 1978)Google Scholar.

²⁹ Kishlansky, , Parliamentary selection, p. xiGoogle Scholar. Patrick Collinson has also recently pointed to Hirst's ‘whiggishness’: Collinson, , ‘Puritans, men of business and Elizabethan parliaments’, Parliamentary History, VII (1988), 187–211, at p. 211Google Scholar, n. 97.

³⁰ Russell, , Parliaments and English politics, pp. 18ffGoogle Scholar.

³¹ Kishlansky, , Parliamentary selection, pp. 73Google Scholar.

³² To make the matter worse, one recent scholar has labelled Kishlansky a ‘revisionist’ and Hirst a ‘post-revisionist’: Richardson, R. C., The debate on the English revolution revisited, pp. 169, 171Google Scholar.

³³ A sampling of the sort of works I have in mind might include Sommerville, J. P., Politics and ideology in England 1603–1640 (London, 1986)Google Scholar; Cust, Richard, The forced loan and English politics 1626–1628 (Oxford, 1987)Google Scholar; Hughes, Ann, Politics, society and civil war in Warwickshire 1620–1660 (Cambridge, 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cust, & Hughes, (eds.), Conflict in early Stuart England: studies in religion and politics 1603–1642 (London, 1989)Google Scholar; and Hexter, J. H., ‘The early Stuarts and parliament: old hat and nouvelle vague’, Parliamentary History, I (1981), 181–216Google Scholar.

³⁴ For a forceful rejection of the term ‘revisionism’ see Kishlansky's, Mark review of Clark, J. C. D., Revolution and rebellion, in Parliamentary History, VII (1988), 331–2Google Scholar. I am in full agreement with Kishlansky's remarks. Collinson, too, has recently referred to ‘revisionism’ as ‘a tired, overworked term’ (Collinson, , ‘Puritans, men of business, and Elizabethan parliaments’, p. 187)Google Scholar.

³⁵ I allude of course to Elton, G. R., ‘A high road to civil war?’, in Elton, , Studies in Tudor and Stuart politics and government: papers and reviews 1946–1972 (Cambridge, 1974), vol. II, ch. 28Google Scholar.

³⁶ Morrill, J. S., The revolt of the provinces: conservatives and radicals in the English Civil War 1630–1650 (London, 1976, 1980), p. xGoogle Scholar.

³⁷ For an account of Gardiner's methods see Richardson, , The debate on the English revolution revisited, pp. 82–6Google Scholar. See also Hinton, R. W. K., ‘History yesterday: five points about whig history’, History Today, IX (1959), pp. 720–8Google Scholar. Anyone who reads the ‘preface’ to the final consolidated edition of Gardiner, , History of England from the accession of James I to the outbreak of the Civil War 1603–1642 (London, 1895), I, v–ixGoogle Scholar, will be struck immediately by the fact that Gardiner was the ‘revisionist’ of his own day, insisting on narrative method and the avoidance of anachronism (he names Macauley, Seeley and Forster as historians who looked at the seventeenth century with their own present-day political concerns in mind). There is indeed something quite unnerving in the philosophical similarities between Gardiner and Jonathan Clark.

³⁸ Hirst, Derek, Authority and conflict: England 1603–1658 (London, 1986), esp chs. 6 and 7Google Scholar; Fletcher, Anthony, The outbreak of the English Civil War (London, 1981)Google Scholar.

³⁹ Trevelyan, G. M., England under the Stuarts (Harmondsworth, Penguin edn, 1960; original edn 1904)Google Scholar; and Stone, Lawrence, The causes of the English revolution 1529–1642 (London, 1972, rev. edn, 1986)Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ In addition to works cited above see Elton, Studies, chs. 27–9; Russell, Conrad, ‘Parliamentary history in perspective, 1604–1629’, History, LIX (1976), 1–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Russell, , ‘The nature of a parliament in early Stuart England’, in Tomlinson, Howard (ed.), Before the English Civil War: essays on early Stuart politics and government (London, 1983), ch. 6Google Scholar; Russell, , ‘The parliamentary career of John Pym, 1621–9’, in Clark, Peter, Smith, Alan & Tyacke, Nicholas (eds.), The English commonwealth 1547–1640: essays in politics and society presented to Joel Hurstfield (Leicester, 1979), ch. 8Google Scholar; and Kevin Sharpe (ed.), Faction and parliament, esp. ch. 1.

⁴¹ Major county studies are Everitt, Alan, The community of Kent and the Great Rebellion 1640–60 (Leicester, 1966)Google Scholar; Underdown, David, Somerset in the Civil War and interregnum (Newton Abbot, 1973)Google Scholar; Morrill, J. S., Cheshire 1630–1660: county government and society during the ‘English Revolution’ (Oxford, 1974)Google Scholar; Fletcher, Anthony, A county community in peace and war: Sussex 1600–1660 (London, 1975)Google Scholar; Hunt, William, The Puritan moment: the coming of revolution in an English county (Cambridge, Mass., 1983)Google Scholar; Holmes, Clive, Seventeenth-century Lincolnshire (Lincoln, 1980)Google Scholar; and Ann Hughes, Politics, society and civil war in Warwickshire. For some critical assessment or comment on the local histories see Holmes, Clive, ‘The county community in early Stuart historiography’, Journal of British Studies, XIX (1980), 54–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Underdown, David, ‘Community and class: theories of local politics in the English revolution’, in Malament, B. (ed.), After the Reformation: essays in honour of J. H. Hexter (Manchester, 1980), pp. 147–65Google Scholar; Herrup, Cynthia, ‘The counties and the country: some thoughts on seventeenth-century historiography’, Social History, VIII (1983), 169–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Manning, Brian, ‘Parliament, “party” and “community” during the English Civil War 1642–46’, in Cosgrove, A. & McGuire, J. I. (eds.), Parliament and community (Historical Studies XVI) (Dublin, 1983), pp. 97–119Google Scholar; Anthony Fletcher, ‘National and local awareness in the county communities’, in Tomlinson (ed.), Before the English Civil War, ch. 7; Richardson, The debate on the English revolution revisited, ch. 8; and Clark, J. C. D., Revolution and rebellion: state and society in England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Cambridge, 1986), ch. 4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴² Perhaps this judgement will need to be modified in the light of recent work by Ann Hughes, see esp. her ‘Local history and the origins of the Civil War’, in Cust & Hughes (eds.), Conflict in early Stuart England; also Hughes, , 'The king, the parliament, and the localities during the English Civil War', Journal of British Studies, XXIV (1985), 236–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴³ This theme comes across very strongly in Morrill, , Revolt of the provinces, pp. 34–42Google Scholar and ch. 3.

⁴⁴ I have based this interpretation of Russell's main line of explanation on his brief synthetic article, Russell, , ‘Why did Charles I fight the Civil War?’, History Today, 06 1984, pp. 31–4, esp. 32–3Google Scholar. Russell sees Charles' opponents as doing much the same sort of thing as Simon de Montfort. This argument picks up themes developed in his early work on the 1620s and on the king's finances. However, it is clear that there are more strands to Russell's account of the years 1638–42 than just this. Two in particular deserve mention. (1) Russell places particular importance on the personal style of Charles I himself. It was Charles's lack of any sense of the pragmatic limits on his actions, and his constant tendency to engage in a dangerous game of threat and counter-threat that contributed much to the escalation of tension from the meeting of the Long Parliament onwards (see esp. Russell, Conrad, ‘Why did Charles I call the Long Parliament?’, History, LXIX (1984), 375–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Russell, , ‘The army plot of 1641’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th Series, XXXVIII (1988), 85–106)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. (2) Russell has recently begun to emphasize ‘the British problem’, by which he means the structural difficulties Charles I faced in governing three separate kingdoms (see Russell, ‘The British problem’; and Russell, ‘The British background to the Irish rebellion’). How these various strands will be woven together in Russell's final account of the subject is not yet fully apparent. I have concentrated my attention on the baronial rebellion because it is this aspect of Russell's work that deals with the intentions and actions of Charles I's opponents – the rebels. Both this and the ‘wars of religion’ thesis are intended as explanations of the behaviour of Charles's opponents, and are comparable on this level. But it should not be forgotten in what follows that Russell has indicated plainly enough that any full account of the years before 1642 must deal with more than this: the intentions and reactions of the king are crucial; so too are the structural problems of the British kingdoms – finance and the difficulties of achieving governmental and religious uniformity over three separate realms.

⁴⁵ Adamson's major work on the continuing importance of the Lords in the 1640s is still awaiting publication, but notice of it is taken in Woolrych, Austin, Soldiers and statemen: the General council of the army and its debates 1647–1648, (Oxford, 1987), pp. vi, 7 n. II, 152 n. 40CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In the meantime see Adamson, John, ‘The Vindiciae veritatis and the political creed of Viscount Saye and Sele’, Historical Research, LX (1987), 45–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Adamson, , ‘The English nobility and the projected settlement of 1647’, Historical Journal, XXX (1987), 567–602CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁶ I have of course slightly exaggerated the contrast between Russell and Morrill here: one should note that Russell sees religion as a key aspect of the British problem – it was almost impossible for Charles I to achieve religious uniformity throughout his three kingdoms. However, within England itself Russell would seem to give religious issues a lesser role (Russell, , ‘The British problem’, pp. 399ff.)Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ In what follows I have concentrated my attention on Morrill rather than Fletcher. For a brief statement of Fletcher's conclusions see Fletcher, , Outbreak of the English Civil War, pp. 415–19Google Scholar: ‘The heart of parliamentarian ideology was the connection in men's minds between the struggle against popery and the preservation of true religion’ [p. 415].

⁴⁸ Morrill, J. S., ‘The attack on the Church of England in the Long Parliament, 1640–1642’, in Beales, Derek and Best, Geoffrey (eds.), History, society and the churches: essays in honour of Owen Chadwick (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 105–24Google Scholar, at p. 105. The major statement of Morrill's position is Morrill, , ‘The religious context of the English Civil War’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, XXXIV (1984), pp. 155–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Collinson, Patrick, The birthpangs of proteslant England: religious and cultural change in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Basingstoke, 1988)Google Scholar, ch. 5.

⁴⁹ Nicholas Tyacke, ‘Puritanism, Arminianism and counter-revolution’, in Russell (ed.), Origins of the English Civil War, ch. 4. See now the fuller statement in Tyacke, , Anti-Calvinists: the rise of English Arminianism c. 1590–1640 (Oxford, 1987)Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ Lake, Peter, ‘Calvinism and the English Church 1570–1635’, Past and Present, CXIV (1987), 32–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Lake, , Anglicans and Puritans? Presbyterianism and English conformist throught from Whitgift to Hooker (London, 1988)Google Scholar.

⁵¹ Stone, , Causes of the English revolution, pp. 47–8Google Scholar.

⁵² Cf. Russell, , Introduction to Russell, (ed.), Origins of the English Civil War, pp. 3–4Google Scholar.

⁵³ Russell, Conrad, ‘The army plot of 1641’, p. 100Google Scholar, n. 58.

⁵⁴ Ibid. pp. 100–1.

⁵⁵ Compare the record of the Short Parliament in Cope, Esther S. and Coates, Willson H. (eds.), Proceedings of the Short Parliament 1640, (London, Camden fourth series, XIX, 1977)Google Scholar; and Maltby, Judith D. (ed.), The Short Parliament (1640) diary of Sir Thomas Aston (London, Camden fourth series, XXXV, 1988)Google Scholar; with the religious activities of the Long Parliament recorded in Morrill, ‘The attack on the Church of England’; and Fletcher, Outbreak of the English Civil War, esp. chs. 3 & 6. Note also Cope's claim that the Short Parliament was prepared to subordinate its concern with religious grievances and concentrate on questions of Parliamentary liberties: Cope, Esther S., Politics without Parliaments 1629–40 (London, 1987), p. 188Google Scholar.

⁵⁶ White, Peter, ‘The rise of Arminianism reconsidered’, Past and Present, CI (1983), 34–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Tyacke, Nicholas and White, Peter, ‘Debate: the rise of Arminianism reconsidered’, Past and Present, CXV (1987), 201–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists.

⁵⁷ Morrill, , ‘Religious context of the English Civil War’, pp. 165–6Google Scholar.

⁵⁸ Further problems with Morrill's account have been looked at recently in Lambert, Sheila, ‘Committees, religion, and parliamentary encroachment on royal authority in early Stuart England’, English Historical Review, CV (1990), 60–95, esp. pp. 90ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. Lambert denies Morrill's contention that there was a united opposition to Laudianism in the early months of the Long Parliament. Her account tends to make more serious the difficulties in Morrill's position touched on in my text.

⁵⁹ Perhaps the starkest expression of this might be had from a consideration of Morrill's portrait of William Brereton (Morrill, John, ‘Sir William Brereton and England's wars of religion’, Journal of British Studies, XXIV (1985), 311–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar). If Brereton is compared with someone who also ends up supporting parliament, but for constitutional rather than religious reasons, namely John Selden (on whom see Richard Tuck, ‘“The ancient law of freedom”: John Selden and the Civil War’, in Morrill (ed.), Reactions to the English Civil War, ch. 6), then the two appear almost as photographic negatives of one another. Each is absent from those parts of the story that the other inhabits. Brereton seems uninvolved in much of what is going on around him, but his interest revives whenever religious issues come to the forefront. Clearly, these two could fit into quite different but equally true narratives of the same years.

⁶⁰ This comparative perspective is well suggested in Davis, J. C., ‘Radicalism in a traditional society: the evaluation of radical thought in the English Commonwealth 1649–1660’, History of Political Thought, III (1982), 193–213Google Scholar; and Davis, , ‘Radical Lives’, Political Science, XXXVII (1985), 166–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶¹ A brief selection of works that raise essential issues might include Davis, J. C., ‘Gerrard Winstanley and the restoration of true magistracy’, Past and Present, LXX (1976), 76–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Davis, , Fear, myth and history: the ranters and the historians (Cambridge, 1986)Google Scholar; Pocock, J. G. A., ‘Authority and property: the question of Liberal origins’, in Pocock, , Virtue, commerce and history (Cambridge, 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; essays by Morrill and Kishlansky in Morrill (ed.), Reactions to the English Civil War; and Condren, Conal, ‘Radicals, conservatives and moderates in early modern political thought: a case of Sandwich Islands syndrome?’, History of Political Thought, X (1989), 525–42Google Scholar.

⁶² See especially Hill, Christopher, The world turned upside down: radical ideas during the English revolution (Harmondsworth, 1975)Google Scholar.

⁶³ As in the works of John Adamson: see references in n. 45 above.

⁶⁴ For example, Davis, J. C., ‘The levellers and Christianity’ in Manning, Brian (ed.), Politics, religion and the English Civil War (London, 1973)Google Scholar; McGregor, J. F. and Reay, B. (eds.), Radical religion in the English revolution (Oxford, 1984)Google Scholar; and Mulligan, Lotte, ‘The religious roots of William Walwyn's radicalism’, Journal of Religious History, XII (1982), 162–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁵ See for example Tolmie, Murray, The triumph of the saints: the separate churches of London 1616–1649 (Cambridge, 1977)Google Scholar; and J. F. McGregor, ‘The baptists: fount of all heresy’ in McGregor & Reay (eds.), Radical religion. More generally, Watt, M. R., The dissenters (Oxford, 1978)Google Scholar.

⁶⁶ From a growingly specialized literature one could pluck as introductions in this context, Lamont, William, Godly rule: politics and religion 1603–60 (London, 1969)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Capp, Bernard, ‘The political dimension of apocalyptic thought’, in Patrides, C. A. and Wittreich, Joseph (eds.), The apocalypse in English renaissance thought and literature (Manchester, 1984)Google Scholar; and Webster, Charles, The great instauration: science, medicine and reform 1626–1660 (London, 1975)Google Scholar.