Parties, Parliament and Pride's Purge: David Underdown as Political Historian

Abstract

AbstractThis piece reassesses the work of the late David Underdown, one of the most important historians of the early modern period of the last 50 years. In particular, it concentrates upon his work on political history, with specific reference to what is probably his most important book, Pride's Purge (1971). This book has had a profound effect on the historiography of the civil wars, and the aim of this article is not to question its overall narrative relating to the Independent faction, to the events surrounding the trial of Charles I, and to the broader Puritan revolution, but rather to assess Underdown's approach and methodology, and his treatment of sources. It discusses and critiques his prosopographical methodology, while at the same time arguing that scholars still have much to learn from the way in which Underdown analysed parliament and high politics, from the way in which he connected local and national aspects of the revolution and the disciplines of social and political history, and from his willingness to adopt a creative approach to the use of contemporary pamphlets and newspapers.