This is a study of the politics of a county community during the Civil Wars and Interregnum. The leaders of Kent, the gentry, were not newcomers, as might be supposed, but descendants of families indigenous to the county — conscious of its history, rooted in their lands, and insular and anglican in outlook. Their opposition to Charles I in 1640 was therefore moderate. When, in 1642, parliament attacked the church and opposed the king by farce, they withdrew their support. A military expedition from London secured control of the county, however, and during the next few years a number of then, anxious to preserve order, supported the county committee set up by parliament. But the tendency of the Houses to extremes, and the ascendancy of Sir Anthony Weldon and his uncompromising adherents in the committee, made their position increasingly difficult. By 1648 their alienation was complete and they led the county in revolt. The parliamentarian government was re—established only by the military arm of Fairfax. The greater gentry remained aloof during the Interregnum, and their place was taken by the minor gentry. But the latter were unable to control the county, and the moderates, though unwilling to oppose a government which promised security, and unsympathetic towards the cavaliers, were antagonised by the tendency to centralisation. The liberties of their county and church and the stability of an agrarian economy were undermined. In 1660 they voted for the restoration, and in restoring the king they regained their own position as county leaders.

No description available.

In the summer of 1643 a series of catastrophic defeats brought the parliamentarian war effort to the brink of disaster. The scale of the emergency precipitated a political crisis in which the House of Lords attempted to orchestrate a negotiated surrender. This thesis sets out to understand the reasons for parliament's military collapse and to examine in detail the dynamics of the ensuing political crisis. It will be argued that the events of summer 1643 came much closer than is generally recognised to bringing the civil war to an end, and that the unexpected survival of the parliamentarian cause fundamentally shaped the subsequent course of the conflict. At the heart of this thesis is a day-by-day analysis of events at Westminster during the first week of August 1643. Parliament's military disintegration prompted the House of Lords to draw up a series of peace proposals amounting to capitulation. Fear that the king would accept these terms induced militant activists in the City of London, led by Lord Mayor Isaac Pennington, to unleash an unprecedented campaign of threats and intimidation aimed at their defeat. The battles that raged in the House of Commons to decide the fate of the peace proposals marked the high watermark of parliament's crisis. Had the proposals been carried it was rumoured that leading members of the peace party would be arrested and the City would take control of the war effort. These truly extraordinary developments indicate the enormity of parliament's military failure and the pivotal nature of the resulting political struggle. This is a new interpretation of a neglected moment in the history of the English Civil War, one that seeks to re-establish the true significance of parliament's 1643 crisis.

This thesis explores the career of Lord Broghill, one of the most important politicians of the Civil War and Interregnum period. The first chapter looks at his political 'apprenticeship' in the late 1630s and early 1640s, and his place in the Boyle dynasty, which had a profound affect on his later career. Chapters two and three consider his experience of the Irish rebellion in the 1 640s; his involvement in the factionalism of his home province of Munster; and his contact with the political parties at Westminster. Chapter four evaluates Broghill's relationship with Oliver Cromwell, and charts his rise to the head of a distinct Irish Protestant party, with its own coherent political strategy for the 'settlement' of all three nations. From 1655 until 1656 Broghill was president of the council of Scotland, which is the subject of chapter five. There he tried to create a moderate, civilian administration, and to make compromises with the 'Resolutioners' within the Scottish Kirk. His activities can be seen to parallel the attempts of Henry Cromwell to bring stability to Ireland. In chapter six there is an attempt to step back from the narrative, and to examine two important influences on Broghill's political career in the 1650s: the perilous state of his finances, and the strength of his religious convictions, both of which encouraged him to push for 'settlement'. Chapter seven provides a detailed analysis of Broghill 's role in the 1656-7 parliament, his importance in framing the Humble Petition and Advice and the offer of the crown to Cromwell, and his skill in marshalling English, Irish and Scottish MPs in support of his reform programme. With so much at stake, Cromwell's refusal of the crown was a personal as well as a political disaster for Broghill and his allies. Chapter eight, which takes the form of an epilogue, follows Broghill's decline in influence and enthusiasm at the end of the decade, and suggests reasons for his support of the Restoration in 1660.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Developing from the recent surge of interest in the Royalist cause during the Civil Wars, this thesis explores the question of how Royalists were portrayed in the press between 1637 and 1646. It addresses the question through textual analysis and specifically examines printed material in an effort to investigate the construction of Royalist identity as well as the peculiarities of Royalist discourse. At its most fundamental level, this thesis seeks to address the issue of Royalist identity, and in doing so suggests that it was predicated on an inconsistent and problematic form of English patriotism. According to the argument presented here, Charles I led a cause that was supposed to protect and champion the core institutions and cultural norms upon which the very nature of Englishness rested. Royalism existed to preserve England from what were perceived as the foreign and anti-English agendas of Parliament. An underlying argument in this thesis is that Royalist print aspired to define and anchor language, with the implication that textual meaning was solidly formed and unquestionable. Royalist text, unlike that of Parliament, was supposed to represent truth, effectively rendering Royalist print a force for stability in an increasingly chaotic world. Alongside its focus on the ways in which the Royalist press tried to fashion an English identity for the King’s supporters, this thesis also explores the image of the cavalier stereotype. It aims not to debunk such a stereotype, but to explore the implications behind it and show how they challenged and undermined the Royalists’ Englishness.

No description available.