English Civil War Research Articles

Response to an article in issue 50.1 of this Journal by Elizabeth Edginton: ‘Country house poetry of the English Civil War: a metaphorical exploration of contemporary debates in UK child and adolescent psychoanalytic psychotherapy research and an update on TIGA-CUB’

Response to an article in issue 50.1 of this Journal by Elizabeth Edginton: ‘Country house poetry of the English Civil War: a metaphorical exploration of contemporary debates in UK child and adolescent psychoanalytic psychotherapy research and an update on TIGA-CUB’

London, Newcastle’s Coal, and the Weaponisation of Energy in the British Civil Wars, 1642–1646

During the British Civil Wars, London suffered a severe energy shortage. By the mid-seventeenth century, the English capital was highly dependent on supplies of coal from the North-East of England. However, during the civil wars, the predominantly Parliamentarian city’s access to coal was restricted when the Royalists secured control of Newcastle and its coal reserves. The constriction of the coal supply of London caused an energy crisis in the capital, forcing the Parliamentarians to introduce price controls and seek alternative supplies of fuel. This article argues that ‘weaponisation of energy’ and ‘energy policy’ are appropriate terms to describe London’s coal supply in this period, given the clear parallels with modern energy policies and conflict. This article will further argue that the use of this term makes historians engage with the importance of energy even in premodern conflicts, and acknowledge that contemporaries were aware of its paramount strategic importance.

The Enlightenment prophet: Muhammad in early modern Europe

This article examines the place of Islam in the intellectual history of the European Enlightenment. In 1649, the English civil war resulted in the establishment of the Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell and the execution of King Charles I; in the same year, the first English translation of the Quran was published in London. For some royalists, the two events were linked: they both signalled the moral demise of the kingdom, and indeed some polemicists depicted Cromwell as a ‘new Mahomet’ seeking to gain power by attacking the moral and religious foundations of the nation. Authors writing in English, such as Henry Stubbe, John Toland and George Sale, embraced the comparison, presenting the Muslim prophet as a reformer who preached pure monotheism and who abolished the powers of a corrupt clergy. They used the prophet and Islam to argue for the curtailing of the power of the Anglican Church; 18th-century French authors similarly lionised him as a polemical tool against the Catholic church. Muhammad, seen as an imposter or a reformer, was at the centre of European debates on the proper relations between Church, Crown and people. The article arises from a British Academy Lecture delivered on 18 May 2023.

‘천사적 결합(Angelical Conjunction)’: 17세기 뉴잉글랜드 식민지 사역자-의사(ministerphysicians) 의 의료 활동에 대한 고찰, 1620-1720

Many ministers in early colonial America served concurrently as physicians. Drawing primarily on surviving medical literature, this study examines the medical theories and practices upon which minister–physicians in the New England colonies relied. While the vast majority of minister–physicians were “unauthorized” and had not undergone “orthodox” or “regular” medical training, their “angelical conjunction” as minister– physicians played a significant social role and filled a health care void in the colony. In seventeenth-century New England, both Galenic and Paracelsian medical theories and treatments coexisted and converged, competing with one another and influencing both physicians and the general public. These two philosophies not only provided a theoretical background for understanding disease and medical practices but also encompassed religious discourse. New England colonists regarded disease as manifestations of God’s “divine judgment” and, as such, believed that caring for the soul as well as the body was the key to preventing and remedying physical ailments. In addition to scripture, minister–physicians relied on supernatural practices such as astrology, witchcraft, and magic to determine pathological causes and select appropriate medical treatments. They also tended to practice herbal medicine rather than surgery for healing. During the English Civil Wars (1642–1651), medicine served as an alternative income for some unsettled British ministers whose lives had been rocked by religious and political strife. Medical practitioners were in short supply in the New England colonies; therefore, it did not matter whether physicians had undergone formal or “orthodox/regular” medical training. At the patient’s bedside, neither medical expertise nor religious sincerity was more important than the ardent social desire to alleviate both spiritual and physical suffering.

“Now Designed to the Worst”

“Now Designed to the Worst”

‘Oliver Cromwell is a Devil!’ Religious Radicalism and Political Turmoil in Geneva during the English Civil Wars

ABSTRACT When King Charles I was beheaded in 1649 it incited a series of events in the Reformed city of Geneva. The Civil Wars and Regicide uncovered the political and religious tensions within Geneva during the English Civil Wars. In Geneva, two important bodies, the Small Council of civil magistrates and the Company of Pastors jockeyed for an appropriate response from their diverse members. Additionally, the leaders of Geneva had to respond to English and Continental rumours that they were to blame for England’s woes. Utilizing archival research, this article examines the transnational implications of the English Civil Wars and it shows that the Genevans had far from a unified view of the Civil Wars. Ultimately, the primary fear for the leaders in Geneva was not necessarily the death of a king, but instead that they would be associated with the worst aspects of the Radical Reformation: Anabaptism.

‘Prudence, Foresight, Courage, Oeconomy’: glass beehives and English society, 1650–1680

ABSTRACT During the English Civil War and subsequent Restoration, beekeeping provided a ready set of moral examples for those seeking answers about the ‘natural’ structure of society. The practice itself also underwent a number of substantial changes, moving from a traditional craft practice to a more knowledge-focused, technologically complex one. The advent of glass-windowed hives in the latter half of the sixteenth century allowed intellectuals from across the political spectrum to directly observe bees as a way of gathering knowledge about how to understand the divine plan and, with that understanding, improve human society.

Prisoner, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Hobbes on Coercion and Consent.

This article examines Thomas Hobbes's notorious claim that "fear and liberty are consistent" and therefore that agreements coerced by threat of violence are binding. This view is to a surprising extent inherited from Aristotle, but its political implications became especially striking in the wake of the English Civil War, and Hobbes recast his theory in far-reaching ways between his early works and Leviathan to accommodate it. I argue that Hobbes's account of coercion is both philosophically safe from the most common objections to it and politically superior to the seemingly commonsensical alternatives that we have inherited from Hobbes's critics.

Ian Ward. The Play of Law in Modern British Theatre

Ian Ward’s The Play of Law in Modern British Theatre offers readings of major dramatic works of the last half century, focusing on an array of legal themes and legal histories, from the constitutional crises of the English Civil War to sexual violence and violation in the age of technology.

Visions for Merrie England: A Survey Examination of Royalist Views and Beliefs in the English Civil War

The English Civil War was the outlet for years of frustration against the status-quo political regime, and allowed, in the chaos, the expression for a variety of beliefs and values. One of the many factions in the conflict were the Royalists, those for one reason or another, supported the rule of Charles I. Despite the vast amount of research in the English Civil War, little attention is given to the Royalist views and beliefs and the common image that arises is a group defined by nepotism, elitism, and corruption. This survey seeks to recover a more complete image of Royalist perspective in the era of conflict by examining a variety of primary published sources, such as books, pamphlets and poetry, from a variety of people with differing statuses and lives. This analysis of said primary sources yields the Royalists own views and conceptions of beliefs that complicate and challenge the typical assumptions about Royalism and its adherents. In doing so, it adds to a growing body of work examining all levels and sections of belief within England and provides a more nuanced image of the political situation at the time. 

The impact of the British Civil Wars on the meanings and uses of the urban topography of Colchester in the long nineteenth century

Abstract Although many towns repaired, restored or destroyed the ruins of Civil War sieges, there are a number of towns, villages and hamlets which still clearly bear marks of the conflict. By focusing on Colchester, this article will highlight how sites affected by the wars remained and survived in the local consciousness throughout the following centuries. This article traces the uses of such sites in the urban landscape in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to assess the long-term impact of the war on towns in the British Isles. By examining Colchester in 1648, the article will show how political parties, parishes, tourists and businesses all derived value from the sites of the siege centuries after it had ended.

“My Soul, Why Art Thou Full of Trouble”: Hester Pulter’s Apostrophe to the Soul

Abstract The poems of Hester Pulter (1605–1678) provide insight into the religion and politics of a woman writing through the English Civil Wars and Republic. This paper focuses on Pulter’s use of the apostrophe to the soul and on her abstention from employing disciplinary metaphors that so often characterise devotional poetry. In merging the devotional apostrophe to the soul with complaint, Pulter effectively jettisons the penitential aspects of these approaches, creating a hybrid form in which her body provides comfort to her grieving soul. Pulter thus creates a form of devotional poem that relies on an aesthetics of comfort instead of discipline. By utilising the affordances of the apostrophe – its ability to bring the speaker and its addressee into a relation with one another – Pulter enacts a spiritual unification and in so doing makes implicit claims about the emotional and spiritual efficacy of poetry.

Country house poetry of the English Civil war: a metaphorical exploration of contemporary debates in UK child and adolescent psychoanalytic psychotherapy research and an update on TIGA-CUB

ABSTRACT Using the country house poetry of the English Civil War as a metaphor, this article traces some of the key debates in child and adolescent psychoanalytic psychotherapy (CAPPT) research over the last 25 years. It identifies three main trends: initial confidence that child and adolescent psychoanalytic psychotherapists (CAPPTs) could apply their existing theoretical methods to empirical research; recognition of the need to use qualitative methodology and to engage with quantitative approaches; and a period of retrenchment, with particular questioning of the use of randomised controlled trial (RCT) methodology. The article also reports the results of a service evaluation undertaken subsequent to the feasibility Trial on Inter-Generational Attachment and Children Undergoing Behaviour problems (TIGA-CUB) to determine whether to proceed to a large-scale, definitive trial, and the inclusion of TIGA-CUB in an on-going, innovative research project on RCT methodology. The article concludes that, if CAPPTs want RCT methodology more appropriate to their ways of working, the profession and the Association of Child Psychotherapists (ACP) will need to develop a more pro-research environment, as well as career pathways which combine clinical work and publicly funded research.

The enlightenment.

The period begins with the work of Richard Wiseman who was associated with royalists in the English Civil War. A little later Dionis was the first to note a relationship between a disturbance of consciousness and extravasation of blood. This notion was continued and expanded by Le Dran, Pott, and Benjamin Bell, with Pott providing a pathophysiological explanation of the phenomenon. Daniel Turner commented on how confusing Galenic teaching was on the topic of consciousness. Heister further emphasized the relationship between clinical disturbance and the extravasation of blood. Le Dran stated that symptoms following cranial trauma related to cerebral injury, an opinion supported by Pott and never subsequently challenged. Latta noted the importance of meningeal arteries in the development of hematomas. Benjamin Bell considered trepanation only appropriate for a clinical deterioration consistent with hemorrhagic extravasation. The two Irish surgeons made it clear that the presence of periosteal separation was not in fact a reliable indicator of an extravasation. The most striking change of instruments was disappearance of simple straight trepans with non-perforating tips for making small holes safely. The use of scrapers gradually declined as did that of lenticulars. There was a great debate about the value of a conical rather than a cylindrical crown. The former was said to be safer. But this opinion faded and the cylindrical crown became preferred. Another improvement in technique involved the use of constant probing to check the depth of the drilled groove.

Regional Book Distribution and Political Participation in the English Civil War

ABSTRACT Regional book distribution was central to political mobilization in the localities during the English Civil Wars. A contextual approach, building up a picture from print and manuscript sources such as journals, reveals the multiple ways in which books circulated, through a case study of Devon and the south west. In contrast to recent emphasis on activist publishers, these sources highlight the significance of book distribution by puritan clergy. Book distribution in Devon was dominated by the unmatched south-western network of the London publisher Francis Eglesfield (publisher of Robert Herrick’s Hesperides). However, the political agency of book distribution lies beyond the conventional book trade with the activities of local ministers, exemplified by John Bond of Exeter, Thomas Larkham of Tavistock, and John Syms of Sheepstor and Plymouth. Their distribution efforts provided multiple routes by which books reached their political audiences and created opportunities for political participation in parish communities.

The godly lives of Samuel Clarke and the ‘national church’ in the 1650s

ABSTRACT The godly lives of Samuel Clarke have traditionally been consulted by historians of early Stuart puritanism for biographical information, particularly anecdotal information, about many of the most famous puritan divines of the age. But, in fact, the lives, and the martyrologies and ecclesiastical histories in which they were contained, were a product of the events of the English civil war and revolution; and more particularly of the disastrous defeat suffered at the end of the 1640s and early 1650s by the Presbyterians at the hands of the Independents and the sects. The first versions of Clarke’s collection of lives, which were published between 1650 and 1652, represented a response to that crisis. This article sets out to explain how and why that was, and, having set the lives in that context, and explained the precise apologetic, polemical and edificational purposes they were designed to serve, it concludes by explaining what light such a contextual reading of Clarke’s text might shed on the dynamics of the 1650s and the fate therein of the ‘national church’.

The contribution of the parliamentary press to Oliver Cromwell’s image as a military hero of the first English Civil War

Abstract This article examines the parliamentary press’s role in promoting Oliver Cromwell’s heroic image during the first civil war, a topic that has received relatively little scholarly attention. Based on a detailed study of contemporary pamphlets and newsbooks, it suggests three phases of press coverage that correspond to the conflict’s campaigning seasons. It shows that Cromwell’s image in print was greatly assisted by his close relationship with the Independent leadership at Westminster, and their expertise in the manipulation of the press. For them, Cromwell’s successes in the field were essential for securing victory. His military reputation, initially nurtured by the civil war press, laid the foundations for his eventual role as lord protector.

Roundhead Reputations Twenty Years On: Cultural Memory Studies and the English Civil Wars

Roundhead Reputations Twenty Years On: Cultural Memory Studies and the English Civil Wars

Religion as a Means of Political Conformity and Obedience: From Critias to Thomas Hobbes

This study identifies common perceptions between Thomas Hobbes’ approach to religion with that of Critias the sophist. Despite the distance that separates the social environments within which each of these authors lived and wrote, in their political philosophy we can spot a shared set of concerns, whose importance transcend the historical and political contexts in which the authors lived and wrote: in the state of nature, where no organized commonwealth (or civil society) exists, capable of repressing the innate greed of men and women, savagery and conflict reign supreme; life is threatened by violence and extreme aggression. It is only the state of society that guarantees stability and good life. For both thinkers, belief in immaterial spirits protects the state of society; belief in God promotes obedience to civil law and guarantees human co-existence. In Critias’ mind, religion is a necessary means to avert aggression, even when the State’s executive powers are unable to punish offenders, using all necessary tools to prevent hostility and conflict. While civil law is the hallmark of peace and stability, belief in a transcendent entity that influences collective and individual modes of living, is an important addition to the pursuit of social peace. A few centuries later, Hobbes (influenced by the misery of the English Civil War) developed viewpoints that also highlight the role of religion in defending social peace. Nonetheless, in Hobbes’ mind religion could safeguard stability only (A) when ecclesiastical authorities submit to the judgment of an omnipotent Sovereign and (B) when the coercive mechanisms of the State supress religious pluralism, prohibiting different interpretations of the Bible, which Hobbes himself considered one of the main causes of conflict.

John Harris, the Oxford Army Press, and the radicalizing process

ABSTRACT This paper aims to reconstruct the life, networks, and experiences of the Caroline actor-turned-printer and journalist, John Harris, the pen behind Mercurius Militaris, the most radical newsbook of the civil war period. It provides the first extensive biography of Harris’s life, shedding new light on the role of his ‘Oxford Press’ in New Model Army politics in the crucial summer of 1647. The analysis of Harris’s experiences in this paper supports the growing body of scholarship which has sought to redefine the interpretation of ‘radicals’ and ‘radicalism’ during the British civil wars; it stresses the importance of fluidity, uncertainty, and compromise in terms of both ideas and allegiances. But it also argues that Harris did undergo a radicalizing process, one which was anchored to his broader experiences and his engagement with print in particular. The collaborative and creative processes of producing printed texts, the amalgamating, compromising, and finessing of different ideas, as well as refining positions in response to other printed texts, forced Harris to think creatively about his own intellectual and political outlook. Harris’s experiences, at least, drove him to adopt more and more extreme solutions to the political crises which he perceived to be afflicting the body politic.