Conflict, Consensus, and the Willingness to Wink: The Erosion of Community in Charles I's England

Abstract

E . ngland in 1641, in sixteenth year of reign of Charles I, was a country in crisis, beset by fears and dangers. Correspondents wrote uneasily of divisions and distractions afflicting their disjointed and distempered kingdom.' Both public and private utterances of time evince an accumulation of menace, a loss of civility, a fracturing of community, an ungluing of elements as country teetered on edge of confusion. But gloom was illuminated by hope that balance of order might again be restored if people of good will came together. Even as opposing armies gathered in August 1642 there were reasons to believe that civil war might be averted, as crises had been resolved and difficulties smoothed before. English culture provided a self-regulating mechanism of consensus that normally prevented crises from erupting into open conflict. This essay examines how part of that mechanism failed. How were demands of orthodoxy and diversity balanced in a complex and pluralistic society? How were disagreements between neighbors settled, conflicts over religion deflected, and all sorts of political and ideological difficulties prevented from getting out of hand? The simple answer, which obtained until late in 163os, was by not demanding too much or pressing too hard. Then as now, society worked best under principles of moderation, and foundered when zealots or true believers insisted on exercising their power. Keith Thomas's observation that the amount of compromise, accommodation, and complaisance required to make any human society run smoothly has always placed a heavy strain on those who believe it is necessary to follow an upright course applies as much to Laudian episcopate of 163os as to its Puritan opposition.2