The Revolution and Its Enemies (AQA A-Level History): Revision Notes

The Revolution and Its Enemies

Introduction: The Commonwealth and its challenges

The execution of Charles I in January 1649 represented a revolutionary break with England's monarchical past. This act of regicide (the killing of a king) shocked contemporaries across Britain and Europe, yet it marked only the beginning of a turbulent period. The term Interregnum describes this era when England existed "between reigns", without a monarch. Two distinct governmental forms emerged during this period: the Commonwealth, referring to the people and nation as a collective entity, and later the Protectorate, a system managing public affairs without electing or accepting monarchical rule.

The new regime faced immediate and profound difficulties. Charles's execution provoked hostile demonstrations across Europe. Domestically, the response was equally hostile: the moment that Pride's Purge had dissolved Parliament and the Levellers were sidetracked by discussions of a new Agreement of the People raised expectations among radicals that action against the King would form part of a broader settlement.

The legacy of regicide

The arrangements adopted to govern England following the King's execution in 1649 reveal how hastily the regicide was planned and executed. Ireton had initially intended to dissolve Parliament and call fresh elections, but was persuaded that this would merely produce a Royalist majority, and consequently agreed to purge Parliament instead. Governance therefore defaulted to the MPs who remained, who became known as the Rump. When the few remaining Lords refused to cooperate with regicide, the Rump declared itself the sole legislative authority.

After Charles's execution, the same body elected a Council of State to take charge of government, whilst reserving legislative and supervisory powers to the Rump as a whole. The monarchy and House of Lords were not abolished until March 1649, and England was not declared a Commonwealth until May. This piecemeal process, combined with intense opposition during the early years, exposed certain features that shaped the following decade.

Supporters of the new regime consequently held vastly different visions of what the Commonwealth should become. The Rump aimed to ensure stability and calm conservative fears, whereas the army and its radical supporters envisioned far greater social transformation accompanying the political changes.

Constitutional instability and minority support

The problem was compounded by the regime's ability to command support from only a minority of the population. Within weeks of the execution, threats emerged from enemies at home and abroad. The first two years of the Commonwealth's existence were primarily occupied by a struggle for survival. While this struggle prevented the army from directly interfering in politics, it also demonstrated that the regime could not survive without military support.

This fundamental problem grew in significance throughout the Interregnum. The events of 1649 quickly revealed that the new government had little choice in the short term.

The Leveller Challenge, 1649

Angry at being outmanoeuvred and denied influence at such a critical time, the Leveller leaders launched a bitter attack on Cromwell and Ireton, accusing them of ambition and deceit. More dangerously, they sought once again to use the army as a power base, encouraging the rank and file to petition against martial law now that the war was over. By March 1649 this had become an attempt to incite mutiny in the army, and it was undoubtedly this that motivated Cromwell to act against them.

At his instigation, the Rump ordered the arrest of the leaders and they were imprisoned in the Tower of London. In response, the Levellers sought to exploit discontent among the regiments over arrears of pay and the prospect of service in Ireland, by calling for the restoration of the Agitators and the General Council. Their demands were ignored by army leaders, but in April the Baptist churches, hitherto their most reliable allies, publicly disassociated themselves from the movement as a result of the campaign.

Army mutinies and suppression

In the same month, a minor mutiny over pay by troopers of Colonel Whalley's regiment in London led to the execution of one mutineer, Robert Lockyer, and a large demonstration at his funeral. May produced a brief mutiny at Salisbury among some of the men due for embarkation for Ireland, and a more serious outbreak at Oxford led by William Thompson, who called on other regiments in the area to join him in rebellion.

The Leveller impact

The 1647 case, in which Leveller influence was curtailed, revealed their limitations, although they retained the power to frighten many in authority. In October 1649, John Lilburne was tried for treason, but acquitted amid popular celebration. He was exiled on the orders of the Rump and rearrested on his return despite his promises of good behaviour. From 1654 he was imprisoned "for the peace of the Commonwealth" in Jersey, where he appears to have found some personal fulfilment through conversion to the Quaker faith.

The renewal of censorship by the Rump, whilst never completely successful, did much to curtail their impact, and the imprisonment of the leaders destroyed the developing party organisation. After 1649 there were demands for radical reforms from within the army and a radical threat to the existing hierarchy was posed by new religious groups such as the Ranters, Diggers and Quakers, but overt political radicalism had effectively ceased. Its legacy was to some degree taken up by the Quakers, with whom a number of leading radicals found a spiritual home.

The Royalist threat, 1649-51

Context and Prince Charles's position

While the Second Civil War of 1648 had effectively destroyed any military threat posed by the Royalists in England, the execution of the King and his courage in the act of martyrdom had done much to restore his reputation and the image of the monarchy. This was enhanced with the publication of Eikon Basilike, containing the martyr King's supposed last thoughts. His son, Prince Charles, had escaped to France, and already claimed that, in God's eyes, he had succeeded to the throne at the moment of his father's death.

To make this a reality, however, he would need to build on the support that existed in the more outlying regions of the three kingdoms, in Ireland and Scotland, where the Royalist armies were still active and effective. For the Commonwealth, the first task in consolidating its power was to extend that power across Britain.

The military campaign in Ireland, 1649

The Irish rebellion, which had continued since 1641, was not in itself a threat to stability in England. However, the news of Charles's execution had united Irish Anglicans and Catholics and enhanced the possibility of invasion by Charles II with foreign help. While the commander of Parliament's forces in Ireland, Michael Jones, had done much to contain the threat, there were Royalist garrisons in many major towns and abundant opportunities for foreign troops to land in the numerous ports along the Irish coast.

The defeat of the Levellers allowed Cromwell to lead troops from the New Model Army to Ireland in July 1649, under pressure to achieve a rapid pacification because of the gathering threat from Scotland. This may partly explain the brutality with which his army stormed Drogheda, to the north of Dublin, and slaughtered the garrison for its refusal to surrender. Inevitably, some civilians died in the process. This was followed by a similar attack on Wexford.

Historiographical debates

While Cromwell's behaviour was undoubtedly and uncharacteristically harsh, it was well within the rules of war used at the time, in which a garrison that had refused to surrender was at the mercy of the victors if it was subsequently taken by storm. Civilian casualties may well have occurred in the heat of battle or because of the anti-Catholic attitudes of the rank and file, but recent research by Irish historians using local records has suggested that the later accounts of the massacre of civilians were exaggerated, if not invented.

The military campaign in Scotland

By the spring of 1650, Cromwell was able to return to Britain to counter the Scottish threat, leaving others to complete the pacification of Ireland, a process that involved the seizure of land and consequent famine for the population. In August, after Fairfax had resigned as Lord General, Cromwell was promoted and dispatched by the Rump to Scotland to counter the threat of invasion from the north.

Although the Scottish Covenanters and nobility had divided over the Engagement with Charles I in 1648, they still possessed a formidable army under the leadership of David Leslie, which they now placed at the disposal of Charles II. Cromwell faced a difficult task, since Leslie had established a strong defensive barrier south of Edinburgh. Initially he hoped to rally support from the Presbyterians and come to an agreement through negotiation, but the leaders of the Kirk were deeply hostile to the Independents and Baptists with whom the army was associated and whom they regarded as responsible for the spread of radical ideas.

Worcester and the defeat of Charles II

The Royalist threat, however, was not yet extinguished. Charles turned to the west of Scotland and raised new forces for an attack on England itself. By building up a new force and entering England from the north-west, there was every prospect of raising support as he marched south. It is a reflection of the war-weariness in the main Royalist areas through which he passed that his hopes proved unfounded.

Cromwell moved to cut him off and, with greatly superior numbers, destroyed the Royalist army at Worcester on 3 September 1651, the anniversary of Dunbar. With this "crowning mercy", as he described it in dispatches, he had secured the new regime for the foreseeable future.

The survival of Royalism

While Royalist armies could be dealt with, Royalist sentiment was another matter. If the political revolution of 1649 was to succeed in establishing a successful alternative to the Stuart monarchy, it would have to rely on more than military strength. The army could keep the regime in place, but it could not generate positive support. It was also a political liability.

Religious radicalism

While the older "Puritan" radicals such as the Baptists and Independents accepted the authority of the Bible as a restraint on individual freedom, a newer generation of radicals had refused to accept even that. The argument that God spoke to the individual spirit directly had been interpreted to suggest that the voice of God within the individual was the supreme authority in religion. The execution of a reigning monarch suggested that anything was possible, and while millenarian groups confidently awaited Christ's return to rule in person, others argued that He had already returned in the human heart and mind to justify complete individual freedom.

Timeline: Constitutional experiments of the Interregnum

The Commonwealth (1649-1653)

1649:

• March: Monarchy and House of Lords abolished
• May: England declared to be a Commonwealth
• August: The Pacification of Ireland began

1650:

• June: Fairfax resigned as Lord General and was replaced by Cromwell
• August: Outbreak of the Third Civil War (between England and Scotland)

1651:

• September: Charles II defeated at Worcester

1653:

• April: Cromwell dissolved the Rump and the Council of State; Army Council of State appointed
• July: Nominated Assembly met and declared itself a Parliament; dissolved itself in December

The Protectorate (1653-1659)

1653:

• December: Cromwell established as Lord Protector under the Instrument of Government; government by a Single Person, Council of State, and a single-chamber Parliament

1654:

• September: First Protectorate Parliament met; MPs forced to sign a "Recognition" of the Instrument – about 100 refused and were excluded

1655:

• January: First Protectorate Parliament dissolved
• August: Establishment of eleven military districts and governors – the Major-Generals

1656:

• September: Second Protectorate Parliament met

1657:

• January: Sindercombe Plot to assassinate Cromwell; ending of the Decimation Tax and the Major-Generals
• February: Remonstrance (Humble Petition and Advice) introduced in Parliament
• March: Humble Petition and Advice presented to Cromwell with the offer of the Crown
• April: Cromwell refused the Crown
• May: Cromwell accepted the revised Humble Petition and Advice, with a Lord Protector, Council and two-chamber Parliament; installed in June

1658:

• February: Second Protectorate Parliament dissolved
• September: Death of Cromwell; Richard Cromwell proclaimed Lord Protector

1659:

• January: Third Protectorate Parliament met
• April: Army Council began meeting again and forced Richard to dissolve Parliament
• May: Richard Cromwell resigned as Lord Protector; Rump Parliament recalled

The Commonwealth (1659-1660)

1659:

• October: The army dissolved the Rump and set up an Army Committee of Safety
• December: Rump restored after intervention by General Monck

1660:

• February: Monck recalled the MPs excluded in 1648, restoring the Long Parliament on condition that it dissolved itself and called new elections
• April: Convention Parliament assembled, voted for government by King, Lords and Commons
• May: Charles Stuart returned as Charles II