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The Independents Reconsidered*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2014

David Underdown
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Extract

It seems impossible to begin an article these days without invoking, either as saint or devil, the shade of Sir Lewis Namier. Those who inhabit regions remote from the classic years around 1760 are absolved from acquiring more than a general understanding of the reversionary interest, the Court and Treasury party, and the rest of the Namierite stock in trade. Yet the merits and limitations of the methodology must concern and fascinate scholars who reassess the traditional interpretations of other periods of English history. They should not, as the Master of Peterhouse has warned, swallow the Namier method whole. But used with due caution, it may offer valuable insights for other centuries besides the eighteenth. The rigorous compilation and analysis of biographical data, the penetration of ideological smokescreens to the deeper motives behind them, the ruthless discarding of outworn shibboleths like “party,” the careful use of sociological criteria: at their best the Namierites have much to offer historians of other periods. Sir John Neale has applied the method, with modifications, to the reign of Elizabeth I, Norman Gash has carried it into the age of Peel, while the authentic members of the school proceed with their task of cleaning up the eighteenth century.

The winds of Namierite change have begun to blow only fitfully, however, in the seventeenth century. One reason for this, perhaps, is that historians of the Stuart period have generally been absorbed in destroying each other on the gentry battlefield, or attempting in more constructive ways to solve the politico-economic problems of the “Century of Revolution”; there has been less effort applied to the details of parliamentary affairs.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , May 1964 , pp. 57 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1964

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Footnotes

*

Completion of this paper was assisted by a grant from the Research Committee of the University of Virginia, which I acknowledge with gratitude. D. E. U.

References

1. This is all the more surprising in view of the mass of evidence unearthed and published by Wallace Notestein and his collaborators. Besides the books on the Long Parliament mentioned below there are of course others which show signs of “Namierite” inspiration; e.g. Moir, Thomas L., The Addled Parliament of 1614 (Oxford, 1958)Google Scholar.

2. Keeler, Mary F., The Long Parliament, 1640-1641 [Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, XXXVI] (Philadelphia, 1954)Google Scholar.

3. Brunton, D. and Pennington, D. H., Members of the Long Parliament (London, 1954)Google Scholar. The book was subjected to some searching criticism (marred by a crude application of Marxist categories) by Brian Manning in Past and Present, Nos. 5 and 6 (1954).

4. Brunton, and Pennington, , Long Parliament, pp. 38–39Google Scholar.

5. Hexter, J. H., The Reign of King Pym (Cambridge, Mass., 1941)Google Scholar.

6. Ibid., pp. 39, 66.

7. Hexter, J. H., “The Problem of the Presbyterian Independents,” A.H.R., XLIV (1938–1939), 29–49Google Scholar.

8. Yule, George, The Independents in the English Civil War (Cambridge, 1958)Google Scholar.

9. Ibid., p. 39.

10. Hexter, J. H., review of Yule, George, The Independents in the English Civil War, A.H.R., LXIV (1958–1959), 362–63Google Scholar. Hexter qualifies this concession slightly in Reappraisals in History (London, 1961), p. 184nGoogle Scholar. It is, however, relevant to point out that Yule's thesis was a more acceptable one to the Hexter of “Storm Over the Gentry” than to the Hexter of “The Problem of the Presbyterian Independents.”

11. Yule, , Independents in the English Civil War, p. 77Google Scholar.

12. Made unnecessarily difficult to use, however, by alphabetical irregularities (Ewers after Eye [correctly Eyre], Stockdale after Strickland); use of uncommon spellings (Thomas Malovers for Sir Thomas Mauleverer); inconsistency in use of family names or titles (the brothers Algernon and Philip Sidney are separated by fourteen pages, the latter appearing under his title, Lord Lisle); omissions and errors in constituencies (Gratewicke sat for Hastings, Philip Smith for Marlborough, not Southwark).

13. Yule apparently follows Brunton and Pennington's appendix for the names of active members of the Rump. Brunton and Pennington include three of the above as Independents, but omit Popham, who makes several appearances in the Journals.

14. If these two, why not the Independent Aldermen Foote, Packe. and Wollaston?

15. Ogle, O.et al. (eds.), Calendar of the Clarendon State Papers (Oxford, 1869–1932), IV, 222Google Scholar.

16. Walker, Clement, The Mystery of the Two Juntoes, Presbyterian and Independent (London, 1661), pp. 4, 15Google Scholar. I have modernized spellings in passages quoted in this article.

17. Walker, Clement, The History of Independency (London, 1661), I, 141Google Scholar. This seems more convincing than Hugh Trevor-Roper's attempt to establish continuity between the Civil War Independents and the later independent country gentry, or Tories.

18. The examples given are culled from several of Prynne's pamphlets. I am grateful to William M. Lamont for confirming, out of his unrivalled knowledge of Prynne, my impression that Prynne used the term Independent very sparingly. I know of only one instance after 1647 in which Prynne uses the word in a political sense: in his Sad and Serious Political! Considerations, Touching the invasive War against our Presbyterian Protestant Brethren in Scotland (London, 1650)Google Scholar.

19. [Bate, George], A Compendious Narrative of the Late Troubles in England (1652), p. 112Google Scholar.

20. Walker, , Mystery of the Two Juntoes, p. 12Google Scholar; Walker, , History of Independency, I. 122Google Scholar.

21. Yule, , Independents in the English Civil War, p. 64Google Scholar. To treat this, as Yule does, as an analysis of a single Independent party, instead of a description of three distinct but overlapping groups, seems to me to be taking liberties with an important piece of evidence.

22. Firth, C. H. (ed.), Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson … By his Widow Lucy (London, 1906), p. 268Google Scholar; quoted by Hexter, , “Problem of the Presbyterian Independents,” A.H.R., XLIV (1938–1939), 47nGoogle Scholar. [My italics.].

23. Firth, C. H., “Cromwell and the Expulsion of the Long Parliament,” E.H.R., VIII (1893), 526–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Clarendon, Lord, History of the Rebellion, ed. Macray, W. D. (Oxford, 1888)Google Scholar, Bk. XII, § 71; Bk. XIV, §§ 1-2; and Abbott, Wilbur C., The Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell (Cambridge, Mass., 1937–1947), II, 544, 610–48Google Scholar.

24. Brunton and Pennington, on the other hand, seem to regard active membership of the Rump as the sole test of Independency. This is even less satisfactory, leading to the classification of the undoubtedly Independent William Pierrepont and Sir John Evelyn of Wiltshire as Presbyterians because they retired after the Purge.

25. Pearl, Valerie, London and the Outbreak of the Puritan Revolution (Oxford, 1961), pp. 320–21Google Scholar. See also Rutt, J. T. (ed.), Diary of Thomas Burton (London, 1828), II, 334Google Scholar.

26. Coate, Mary, “William Morice and the Restoration of Charles II,” E.H.R., XXXIII (1918), 367–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Price, John, The Mystery and Method of his Majesty's Happy Restauration, in Maseres, Francis (ed.), Select Tracts Relating to the Civil Wars (London, 1815), II, 716, 776Google Scholar, for Morice's reputation as a Presbyterian.

27. Journals of the House of Commons 1547-1714 (London, 1803), VI, 93–97Google Scholar. Prynne, William, A Full Declaration of the True State of the Secluded Members Case (London, 1660), pp. 14–18Google Scholar.

28. Abbott, , Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, II, 189-90, 328, 453.Google Scholar

29. Walker, , History of Independency, II, 48–49.Google ScholarPrynne, , A Full Declaration, pp. 21–25Google Scholar.

30. Two Charges, As they were delivered by T. E. [dgar] Esquire, Justice of the Peace for the County of Suffolke (London, 1650)Google Scholar. See also Diary of Thomas Burton, I, Intro., p. xxxvi, for similar arguments used to justify sitting in Cromwell's purged Parliament in 1654.

31. Whitelocke, Bulstrode, Memorials of the English Affairs (Oxford, 1853), II, 187-94, 467–524Google Scholar; IV, 367-68, 384.

32. Memoirs of Denzil, Lord Holies, in Maseres, Select Tracts, I, 308Google Scholar.

33. Diary of Thomas Burton, III, 207–09Google Scholar.

34. Underdown, David, Royalist Conspiracy in England, 1649-1660 (New Haven, 1960), p. 218Google Scholar. See also Ibid., pp. 117, 192, 224, 242, 261, 310, for further light of Popham's behavior. The Earl of Denbigh is another example of a Commonwealth supporter who turns up as a “Presbyterian” in the 1650's.

35. Birch, Thomas (ed.) Collection of the State Papers of John Thurloe (London, 1742), VII, 387Google Scholar.

36. Thomas Hobbes, Behemoth, in Maseres, Select Tracts, II, 587, 615Google Scholar.

37. State Papers of John Thurloe, VI, 580, 616–17Google Scholar.

38. The best discussion of Fairfax's position is to be found in Firth's article in the Dictionary of National Biography, rather than in the biographies by Markham and Gibb. See also Underdown, Royalist Conspiracy, passim., and Woolrych, A. H., “Yorkshire and the Restoration,” Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, XXXIX (1958), 483–507Google Scholar.

39. Prynne gives lists of secluded members and of those “now sitting” in 1659, in his A Full Declaration, App.; A True and Perfect Narrative of What was done … the 7. and 9. of this instant May (London, 1659), pp. 34–35Google Scholar; and Conscientious, Serious Theological and Legal Quaeres (London, 1660), pp. 45–48Google Scholar. The lists contain slight variations; compare the list in Masson, David, Life of John Milton (London, 1859–1894), V, 453–54Google Scholar.

40. Pearl, , London and the Outbreak of the Puritan Revolution, pp. 309–11Google Scholar. Yule's supporting citation, Cong. Hist. Soc. Trans., XIII, 151ff.Google Scholar, refers to an article by J. C. Whitebrook, “Sir Thomas Andrewes, Lord Mayor and Regicide.”

41. See Underdown, , Royalist Conspiracy, p. 119Google Scholar, and references there cited.

42. Shaw, W. A., History of the English Church … 1640-1660 (London, 1900), II, 17, 424, 426Google Scholar. Calendar of State Papers Domestic, 1650, p. 147. Calendar of Slate Papers Domestic, 1651, p. 12. Journals of the House of Commons, VII, 221Google Scholar. Diary of Thomas Burton, III, 123Google Scholar; IV, 173. The Mystery of the Good Old Cause Briefly Unfolded (London, 1660)Google Scholar, in Hotten, J. C. (ed.), Sarcastic Notices of the Long Parliament (London, 1863), pp. 9, 12Google Scholar.

43. Journals of the House of Commons, V, 280;Google Scholar VII, 751, 778. State Papers of John Thurloe, III, 304Google Scholar; V, 313. Diary of Thomas Burton, II, 58, 80Google Scholar. Coate, Mary (ed.), Letter-Book of John Viscount Mordaunt [Camden Society, third series, LXIX] (London, 1945), p. 71Google Scholar.

44. Abbott, , Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, I, 590.Google ScholarUnderdown, , Royalist Conspiracy, pp. 218, 223, 240Google Scholar.

45. Abbott, , Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, I, 590.Google ScholarA second Narrative of the late Padiatnent, (London, 1658)Google Scholar, in Oldys, W. and Park, T. (eds.), Harleian Miscellany (London, 1808–1813), III, 485Google Scholar.

46. Prynne, William, A True and Ful Relation of the Officers and Armies forcible seising of divers Eminent Members (London, 1648), pp. 4, 11Google Scholar. State Papers of John Thurloe, I, 750Google Scholar. Diary of Thomas Burton, III, 357-58, 404-05, 537–38Google Scholar; IV, 11, 337, 354, 405-07, 444. Calendar of the Clarendon State Papers, IV, 525, 564, 583–603Google Scholar. See also Davies, Godfrey, The Restoration of Charles II (San Marino, 1955), p. 304Google Scholar; and Williams, W. R., Parliamentary History of the County of Gloucester (Hereford, 1898), pp. 58–59Google Scholar.

47. Journals of the House of Commons, VII, 789–90Google Scholar.

48. See, for example, Certaine Considerations touching, the Present Factions in the Kings Dominions (London, 1648), p. 2Google Scholar; and [Bate], A Compendious Narrative, pp. 134-35. Walker's, statement is in History of Independency, I, 75.Google Scholar

49. Clarendon, , History of the Rebellion, Bk. VIII, § 260Google Scholar; Bk. XI, §§ 155, 180. Abbott, , Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, I, 674–79Google Scholar. Gardiner, Samuel R., History of the Great Civil War (London, 1886–1891), III, 512Google Scholar.

50. The negotiations are described in Firth, C. H., The House of Lords during the Civil War (London, 1910), pp. 276–79Google Scholar. For further details see Scrope, R. and Monkhouse, T. (eds.), State Papers Collected by Edward, Earl of Clarendon (Oxford, 1767–1786), III, 392Google Scholar; Calendar of the Clarendon State Papers, IV, 533–683Google Scholarpassim; Coate, , Letter-Book of John Viscount Mordaunt, pp. 48-49, 82, 95Google Scholar; Carte, Thomas (ed.), Collection of Original Letters and Papers (London, 1739), II, 130, 256Google Scholar; Warner, G. F. (ed.), The Nicholas Papers (London, 1886–1920), IV, 193-94, 205Google Scholar; and SirWarwick, Philip, Memoirs of the Reign of King Charles the First (Edinburgh, 1813), p. 465Google Scholar. For the move to recall Richard Cromwell, see also Pepys, Samuel, The Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. Wheatley, H. B. (London, 1893–1899), I, 77–83, Mar. 2-6, 1660Google Scholar.

51. A second Narrative in Oldys, and Park, , Harleian Miscellany, III, 478.Google Scholar

52. Calendar of the Clarendon State Papers, II, 217Google Scholar.

53. Pepys, , Diary of Samuel Pepys, I, 142, May 15, 1660.Google Scholar

54. Clarendon, , History of the Rebellion, Bk. XI, § 155.Google Scholar

55. Firth, C. H. (ed.), “A Letter from Lord Saye and Sele to Lord Wharton,” E.H.R., X (1895), 106–07Google Scholar.

56. State Papers of John Thurloe, VII, 4Google Scholar.

57. For the material in this paragraph, see also Firth, , House of Lords, pp. 271–84Google Scholar; and Davies, , Restoration of Charles II, pp. 305, 338Google Scholar.

58. Thomas May, A Breviary of the History of the Parliament of England, in Maseres, Select Tracts, I, 98Google Scholar.

59. Brunton, and Pennington, , Long Parliament, ch. iii, and p. 182Google Scholar.

60. I am not suggesting that socio-economic questions of this kind are the only ones that need answering, or that they are necessarily the most important. For instance, as Yule's book shows, there are still many uncertainties about the religious loyalties even of his Independents.

61. Everitt, A. M., The County Committee of Kent in the Civil War (Leicester, 1957)Google Scholar. Pennington, D. H. and Roots, I. A. (eds.), The Committee at Stafford, 1643-1645 [Staffordshire Record Society] (Manchester, 1957)Google Scholar, Intro. With characteristic caution Pennington is unwilling to draw the conclusions obviously warranted by his material. See Committee at Stafford, esp. Intro., pp. xxii-xxiii, lxxiv.