TWO HUNDRED people came to hear Tony Benn MP and Peter Purton of the Socialist Outlook Editorial Board OUR HISTORY speak on the English Revolution earlier this year in London. Opening with this instalment from PETER PURTON, we start a new series. ON THE SURFACE of it, the history of the English revolution has a tempting similarity to the crisis of the Conservative party caused by the Poll Tax and deepened by the resignation of Thatcher. Three and a half centuries ago the landlords were sold the right to enclose the land for their own profit. There was a major social and political crisis beginning in 1640. The government had been in power for eleven years unchallenged. Parliament hadn't met singe 1629.
King Charles governed the nation throuch ruthless and autocratic ministers and made himseif hated amonest all secthat the government sacrificed its chief minister in 109l Unlike Mrs Thatcher, who went to the House of Lords, Lord Stratford went to the execution block on Tower Hill, watched by cheering crowds so vast they couldn't be counted. Losing was rather more expensive in those days.
The touchpaper had been lit in Scotan Anglican High Church prayer book on the Presbyterian Scottish church. Rather than wait for the English opposition to do something the Scots launched an armed revolt. The King's finances didn't extend to paying for an army: the Scots marched into Newcastle and Durham Poor Charles was forced by imminent bankrupicy and pontear casis to con voke a parliament which was dominated by the opposition which had been gathering in resistance to mis poucies Here, I'm afraid, the parallels with thatcher's easts ena. Not only was ine opposition in the mid-17th century willing to make a fight, they were prepared to do so with the ultimate extra-parliamentary action - a civil war. In the procunleashed a veritable revolution. In your school history, if you can remember, I expect this was called the English Civil War.
Dashing cavaliers fighting dour Puritan Roundheads. The King tried to make himself absolute. The freedom-loving English people, represented by their parliament, had to fight to defend the liberties first won by the Magna Charta 426 years before. Things got a bit out of hand, the King lost his head, Cromwell had to take over.
He took on the 'unruly Irish' and the "ungrateful Scots". He trounced the 'uppity Dutchmen' at sea and refounded the navy. Then he died, and was replaced by that merry monarch, Charles the Second. Popular reloicing... which makes you wonder whether it was all worth it.
Sanitised
Well of course that's a carefully sanitised version. History is decided by those in a position to write it. Our rulers are cret macca to avo the foca that i was a revolution occause, like uncir predecessors in the parliament of the 1640s. there was one actor in the play they wanted written out: which is why the only reference to the common people in most teaching about the English Civil war is now incy natco the Furlans wak tried to abolish Christmas.
For early Marxist historians all this was really quite simple, Here was absolutist monarchy trying to defend the interests of a feudal ruling class being challenged by the progressive bourgeoidominance. A backward looking state blocked their access to real decision making" sie represented by parliament, which enlisted the workers on its side, overturned feudalism and established a bourgeois state.
Then along came some researchers, with a couple of uncomfortable facts. There was no working class at the time. The vast matority of the 500 members of the House of Commons were gentry, not Those who weren't landed gentry were mainly lawyers. On top of thar, all the big financiers allied with the King!
However, if we examine the truth behind those facts, we will find that the difficulty is more apparent than real. It is but recognising the differences between then and now is vital.
The total population of England and Wales in 1640 was about six million, the population of Scotland about one milon. London however was one of the largest cities in Europe, with a gigantic population of up to half a million people. No other city in Britain had anything more than 25,000.
Weaving and spinning were the main industries has recently begun to grow. There were tiny concentrations of people deriving their main livelihood from such nothing resembling a working chiss But there was capital accumulated through the centuries. This capital had trade and finance, as had been traditional through the feudal period, but in land. textiles, in the new industries.
So was England feulal in 1642? Capital had permeated into every comer of the economy. There were survivals of feudal relatons of prooucton. In ine toen-back ward north and west of the country, peasants were still tied to the land and to their lords.
The rural poor of these outlying regions supported the monarchy through the war, but even there, money relations. such as rents, had replaced the performance of feudal duties. Labour was legally free to move around. Elsewhere it would be fair to say that English aenculture. tied in closely with the wool trade and textile industries, was massively commercialised.
But there were few merchants in the House of Commons. The reason why the few really big financiers backed the King was quite simple: he owed them a fortune! Only if he won would they collect So it's clear that in the economy, unike the polical sonere, ine relatons were capitalise. This young, expansive. enterpnising class lackea tne pontical power to express its dominance. A backward looking state blocked their access When neither side was prepared to make concessions it came to use of force, not of lawyers' ink.
Tied in with the physical civil war. there is a battle to justify the new political a turning back - as a "wheel revolves". not as a revolution. in the hope that others would be more reluctant to demand any future change. The bourgeoisified gentry that won the Civil War was able to invite back the monarchy by parliamentary invitaton. Dy the same oody that nao overtumed the monarchy. • NEXT ISSUE: *Making the earth a common treasury.
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No. 46, July 10 1993. Page 13