Was there an Alternative to Monarchy? Radicalism and Antiroyalism in the 1640s

Abstract

While republicanism in the 1650s is now well documented, relatively little scholarly attention has been paid to antiroyalism in the 1640s. This contribution aims to fill a gap by focusing on forms of antimonarchism in those seminal years in the history of the British Isles—a decade that culminated in the trial and execution of King Charles I. It teases out the complexity and inconsistency of Civil War radicals’ attitudes to monarchy as a political regime, and hence to the future political settlement of the kingdom, first after the king’s defeat in the first Civil War in 1646, second at the time of the radicalisation of the New Model Army in 1647, and then after the regicide in 1649 and the establishment of the republic. Writings by Leveller figures and New Model Army radicals are examined with reference to their authors’ positioning on the Stuart monarchy, King Charles in particular, and on monarchy at large. I discuss the possible alternatives to monarchy as envisaged by these radicals—or the actual lack of alternatives—and I argue that such attitudes were mostly context-based: they were prompted by historical circumstances, as much as they were shaped by the theoretical underpinnings of their discourse.