THE WORCESTERSHIRE CLUBMEN IN THE ENGLISH CIVIL WAR

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to make a detailed examination of one of the so-called ‘Clubman’ movements of the Great Civil War. These movements, associations of countrymen formed to resist the depredations of an unruly soldiery, have been detected in Worcestershire, Shropshire and Herefordshire in early 1645, and in Worcestershire, Wiltshire, Somerset, Dorset, Devon, Berkshire, Sussex, Hampshire and South Wales later in the same year. Although long known to historians, they have only recently attracted their close attention, as part of the new interest in the provincial history of the Civil War. Within the last few years they have been discussed at length by D. Underdown in his study of Somerset and J.S. Morrill in his general work upon the Great Rebellion and have been made the subject of a thesis by G.J. Lynch which is now considered the standard work upon them. Mr Lynch and Dr Morrill differ from Professor Underdown in stressing the positive and clearsighted aspects of the Clubman movements, but all agree in emphasising their nature as one huge provincial reaction against the war. The object of this study is to enquire whether this general perspective is not a distorting one.