William Tyler
Brother Versus Brother: The English Civil War
William Tyler - Brother Versus Brother: The English Civil War
- Oh dear, okay well I am so looking forward to hearing brother versus brother upon brother the English Civil War.
Okay.
[Wendy] Right?
I’m looking forward to doing it as well.
Thank you very much. So over to you. Thanks, thanks Judi.
So thank you and welcome to everybody whatever time you’re listening, I’m talking about the English Civil War, although very often now historians call it the British Civil War because it was fought across the four nations, England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. Civil wars are by their very nature, divisive society with brother fighting brother, father fighting son, wife fighting husband, and friend fighting friend. And the English Civil War between 1642 and 1651, nearly a decade of fighting, was no different in this respect. One of the things I’ve always felt is overlooked with the civil war is the sheer scale of the casualties. When I was much younger, when I was at school even, I never thought about there being large casualties. I knew about World War I of course, and I knew about the horrendous casualties. And when I was a child there were still men around who fought in the first world war. But the figures of a civil war are really rather striking. It’s been estimated that in England the population came down by 3.7%. In Scotland by 6%, and wait for it, in Ireland by a staggering 41%, only to be equaled in the time of the famine in the 19th century. Now if you compare Britain as a whole in World War I the number of deaths went to only 3% of the population, only 3% of the population in World War I, but in the civil war 3.7% in England, 6% in Scotland, and 41% in Ireland. Now these are not small figures. Of course we do not have accurate figures as we do for the first world war, but we have an indication of how people at the time thought about the statistics even if they weren’t clear about the actual numbers in the statistics. There was a book written by a gentleman called Richard Goff. And Richard Goff lived in a village called Middle in the county of Shropshire, and he wrote a history of Middle. In fact it’s the first local history ever written in England about a locality Middle, this little village. And he wrote this in about 1701, so that’s not a great deal of time after the civil war was over, by any means 100 years or so, sorry 50 years or so.
It’s a small period of time. And he commented that from his home parish, he wrote, “and out of these three villages, "of Middle, Mark, and Newt, "there went no less than 20 men "of which number 13 were killed in the wars.” And he concluded, “and if so many died "out of these three villages, we may reasonably guess "that many thousands died in England in that war.” One of the important things to emerge from that, even if they didn’t have the statistics, was I think a view that civil war was not something we should ever contemplate going down again. It left a memory in society, that was a negative of the war. One of the positives of the war, as husbands and sons went off to join armies, it was often the wife and the mother who was left behind in the castle or in the manner house. And often it was the wife mother that had to defend the family home militarily. And that had an impact I’m sure in the latter part of the 17th century where the story of the gradual emancipation of women begins. I think you can actually date it from the civil war. You could no longer dismiss the wife and the mother as being as it were not involved in main events, when they fought for their families and literally fought and commanded troops. So that’s another important element of the civil war and that we don’t often talk about. There’s another element that I should like to talk about at the beginning, and that is how did it affect those English who had emigrated to North America? Now not all of them were by any stature of the imagination by the 1640’s Puritans. Of course there were Puritans in Massachusetts, and Massachusetts was definitely for parliament. But they didn’t take the war into North America, nor did many people from North America volunteer to go back to Britain to fight in the wars, not even the Puritans, why should they? They’d escaped all of that, and they were making a new life in a new land. But there is an extraordinary exception to that or two.
First of all, many islands, British islands, English islands in the Caribbean were for the king. And so parliament in the 1650’s sent a naval squadron to reposes these islands, islands like Barbados and Antigua and Bermuda. And then there was actually a clash in America in Maryland near the modern city of Annapolis, and it was called the battle of the seven. There’s a river there named after the river in Britain. And at the battle of the river seven it was fought in 1655 by Puritans within Maryland against the royalist governor. It was only a skirmish and it didn’t really lead anywhere. And one American historian says, “well actually because it was fought in 1655 "we can count that as the very last battle "of the English Civil War.” But in truth, I think it’s part of a different story, and the different story being that there was always tension in the colonies between those who had come from Britain as colonial governors, against the individual townships which elected their own leadership. And that was the problem in Maryland and not the problem in Massachusetts which is a different story. But I don’t think it’s really anything much to do with the English Civil War or the British Civil War, but it’s an interesting point. And then I suppose the first thing you’re going to ask me is what were the causes of this war? Well the causes of the conflict are many, and as you might expect, complex, but in essence they boil down to the fact that the kings view of the constitution and parliaments view of the constitution differed. The king believed he was appointed by and answerable only to god. And actually between 1629 and 1640 he ruled without calling parliament. The 11 years of tyranny the parliamentarians called it. Parliament on the other hand believed that the ancient traditions of England were that the king ruled with parliament and not without, and he took parliaments advice. So there was a big division.
There was a further division, and the further division was over religion, what a surprise. Many or most of the parliamentarians were Puritan including Oliver Cromwell himself. Whereas the king who was Anglican, church of England, was married to Henrietta Maria of France who was Catholic and was allowed to go on practising her Catholicism in London. And London itself was very Puritan. The Puritan’s disliked Henrietta Maria like poison. Not only was she French, she was Catholic, that doesn’t go down well in England. And they were suspicious of Charles the first and of his Archbishop of Canterbury William Lord, because they thought he was pushing the church of England back towards Rome. And that they couldn’t stand. The Puritan’s belief that everything had to be grounded in the Bible was challenged by Charles’ Anglicanism let alone by Henrietta Maria’s Catholicism. And so I suppose the important point is that this civil war was both political and religious, it’s a heady mix. So when they went to war eventually in 1642 it was parliament that took them to war. Did they have any idea what they wanted? If you compare it with the American revolution, it’s absolutely clear what the British in America wanted, independence from the motherland, very straight forward. This was less straightforward. They were not aiming to replace a monarchy with a republic, what they wanted to do was to put pressure on the king and say to him, “look you must go back "to the traditional forms of ruling. "We cannot have you ruling by dictate "without calling parliament.” In fact, Oliver Cromwell at one point in his life said, “no one rises so high as he who knows "not wither he is going.” They didn’t now where they were going.
Their end game was right up to 1648, was to bring the king. They would’ve said to bring the king to his senses. They had no wish to establish a republic. The war itself really began on the fourth of January 1642 when Charles the first went down to the House of Commons. And I read to you from James Hall’s “History of England” and he writes, “on the fourth of January 1642 "Charles entered the House of Commons with armed soldiers "to arrest the five leading members. "He was too late, "the birds as Charles himself put it, had flown. "Fearing the London populous,” they are Puritan, and in fact the five members have fled into the core of the city, the square mile, the City of London for protection. “Fearing the London populace "Charles fled to the north to York.” A huge huge mistake. He is not to return to London again until he is a prisoner, he’s not to return to London again until he is a prisoner. And by going to York he’s abandoned the financial capital of England and you need money to fight a war. You need a lot of money to fight a war. But one of the interesting things about that event in the House of Commons on the fourth of January, Charles went in and he was accompanied, interestingly enough, by law students who were loyal to the crown, about the only group of people he could find in London who were loyal to the crown. They came in armed with him into the chamber of the house of Commons and he asked the speaker of the house, speaker at length, to identify them. And he said in words which resound through history, some of the most incredible words spoken in parliament. He said simply, “may it please your majesty, "I have neither eyes to see, "nor tongue to speak in this place, "but as this house is pleased to direct me "whose servant I am here, "and I humbly beg your majesties parliament "I cannot give any other answer than this "to what your majesty is pleased to demand of me.”
He refused to say where they were, in fact they weren’t there as we know. And Charles is made to look a complete fool, a complete fool. In fact he I don’t think he would even have gone to the House of Commons to attempt to arrest them except he’d been bullied into it by his wife who called him a fool and weakling, and that’s what his response. But it’s the speaker whose words we remember, not those of the king. The first battle between the king and parliament was fought in the midlands of England between the town of Banbury and Stratford-upon-Avon at a place called Edge Hill. Now if any of you, I’ve got lots of people who aren’t British, maybe some British people, but I’ve gotten a lot of people who aren’t British but come on holiday to Britain, once we can go on holidays again. And if you do and you go to Edge Hill, the secret of it is go to the pub on the top of Edge Hill. Choose a summer day, go into the garden, have a pint of beer, have a pub lunch, and you overlook the battlefield of Edge hill. And there’s a plaque and it shows you, and you can see where the armies were. It’s not been destroyed. A lot of it for a time was part of a belonged to the Ministry of Defence. When years ago I was the inspector for adult education and head of service in Warwickshire, a friend of mine organised a visit to the battlefield, and we had to get insurance. And muggings here had to phone up the county treasurer, and said, “could I have a million pounds worth "of insurance for a group of adult education students "visiting the battlefield of Edge Hill?” I must say, to the treasurers credit, I did get insurance for a million pounds, and everyone went, and no one was killed and no moneys had to be spent. But do go and see it if you’re ever in the area, the pub’s a good one, the last time I went anyhow. It was a drawn battle, that’s how it taught in English schools.
There was indecisive. Well there’d been no experience of fighting, and they didn’t, it was a mess really. The parliamentary forces withdrew north to the town of Warwick, to the castle of Warwick which was a very foolish thing to do, because by so doing they left the road through Banbury which lead to London, open. So what the king should’ve done was to advance as fast as possible down the London road from Banbury and retake his capital. Instead of which, he decided to advance on London slowly and not by a direct route, but from the west. And by the time he got near London, the parliamentary army had seen sense and had reoccupied London. So he never did retake London, it was an opportunity lost. I suppose after the battle people thought what’s on the parliamentary side, what have we done? How does this end? We don’t know where we’re go, we didn’t think it would come to war. We thought the king would negotiate, and we fought a battle. We’re now seriously at war. And there is a conversation recorded by the Earl of Manchester who was a parliamentary general, and Oliver Cromwell, fact not fiction. And the Earl of Manchester said, “the king need not care how often he fights. "If we fight 100 times and beat him 99 times "he will be king still. "But if he beats us but once or the last time, "we shall be hanged. "We shall lose our estates our posteriorities be undone.” Cromwell replied, “if this be so, "why did we take up arms in the first place?”
Now I think Cromwell had changed his position somewhat. Now that war has started, which they didn’t want and they didn’t really expect, now Cromwell says, we’re engaged in it, then we must go on to the end, there’s no other way forward but to win this war. And parliament and Oliver Cromwell were to do something about how to win this war. Parliament put money forward to remodel the parliamentary army, or at least half the parliamentary army into what was called the new model army, which was much better officer-ed and much better armed and better trained. And it was this new model army that delivered the decisive blow in the middle of June 1645 at the Battle of Naseby where they inflicted the final defeat on Charles the first. Naseby is an annoying site as a battle site to visit today because it’s spread over a lot of part of the countryside. It has been improved by signage. There’s almost no pubs around, it’s a bit of a depressing desolate place in Northamptonshire. Worth seeing, but you have to be prepared to drive and walk quite long distances between various points. There are plaques which explain very carefully where and how the battle was fought. You can follow it, but it’s not laid out, for example like some of the battle fields in the American civil war. In many respects, the English tried to forget about the English Civil War in terms of preserving battlefield sites. In fact they drove a road through Naseby which didn’t help. But again, it is worth going to and standing. And at one point you can stand and you can see where Cromwell’s cavalry defeated Rupert’s cavalry. And because the ground hasn’t really changed, and you can see the nature of the ground, and you can see why Rupert was on the wrong ground and Cromwell was on the right coming down a hill, and he’s Rupert’s in a sort of bog marsh pit.
The year before Naseby, and that is the same 1644, another battle had been fought in which the royalist forces and the king not present, were defeated at Marston Moor which is outside the City of York in the north, where a combined English and Scottish army defeated the royalist army. And it was at Marston Moor for the first time I think one can say, that Cromwell showed himself a man of military, I don’t know what to use, I’m tempted to say “genius,” but military competence at least. A lot of arguments back how good a general Cromwell was, because he didn’t really come up against the great generals in Europe at the time. But he was better than anything else here during the civil war. And he had created a cavalry unit called the iron sides, and he himself was given the name iron side. Now he isn’t a young man, he was born in 1599. And although he’d been an MP he was very much an obscure MP. He was a country gentleman really, a farmer, gentry, really not a man of great substance. And yet, rather like Klotski after the Russian revolution, he turned out to be a army commander and tactical and strategic well genius. I’m going to use that word, I think he was. And he was self taught, it came naturally to him. He was one of these people I think who was generally a natural leader. Put him in any situation and tell him to lead and he would, and he would have a plan. Whether it was military or political. And he wasn’t frightened, which of course many generals have been and many more politicians have been of making the hard decisions. No, Cromwell was tough. And he’d won the battle in Marston Moor in 1644 pretty well on his own. And he was the decisive element in the defeat of the king a year later in 1645 at Naseby. He was tough.
After Marston Moor he wrote in a letter to a friend, “god made them as stubble to our swords.” He’s deeply religious. He had an evangelical conversion early in his life, he’d seen the light if you like, and he nearly, those of you listening from America, you’re damn lucky, he nearly came over to you. He nearly left England with all the others, but he didn’t and he stayed. And in by staying he changed English history. After the battle of Marston Moor in 1644 he went back to parliament. And this is a new book which has only just come out, it’s on my blog, you can look it up, called “The Making of Oliver Cromwell” by Ronald Hutton. Ronald Hutton is the Professor of History at the University of Bristol. And he’s, I think a really top rate historian, and this book is top rate. He’s in retirement now and he’s obviously decided to write this book, spending enormous amount of time in research. It’s really up to the end of the civil war, doesn’t take into account Cromwell ruling in England but talks about the civil war. So this is him talking about after the battle of Battle of Marston Moor. And he goes into back to parliament. “Marston Moor itself was fought in July of 1644. "On the 13th of September Cromwell made his reentry "into the commons and was formally thanked by the house "for his services, especially at Battle of Marston Moor,” quote and this is what they said in the house commons, “‘where god made him a special instrument.’ "This formula left open the possibility "that others had also contributed to the victory, "but it highlighted Cromwell as the hero of the occasion.”
What fantastic PR. Cromwell was always good with PR, he knew how to manipulate politicians, and he manipulated them and got the other commanders weren’t MP’s. Parliament with their own man praise him to the gutters. He’s beginning to make it big time after 1644. And after the victory at Naseby he has definitely made it. And again, it’s said that he was the victor. There are others who were equally instrumental in the victories, but it’s Cromwell who has the PR on his side. And after Naseby the first period of this war was over. The king has been defeated, there’s frankly little hope for him. I’d written on my notes here, the new man of the hour is not the king but Oliver Cromwell. Militarily if not a genius, certainly the greatest commander in the war. And politically a man of substance and political acumen. I think that’s absolutely true. Charles, knowing he was defeated, left his capital at Oxford and went to Nottinghamshire to the small town of Southville, in Nottinghamshire Southville near Newark. And there he surrendered to the Scottish army which was still in England after the battle of Battle of Marston Moor. And he surrendered to the Scott’s because he thought that the Scott’s would hate the English more than they would hate him, and he got it wrong, why? Because the Scottish parliament had sent Scottish army to help the English parliament, and had been promised that the English parliament will pay for it. And the English parliament hadn’t paid for it. So the Scott’s say now, “we’ve got the king. "No no no we’re not going to hand him over "unless you pay up the cash.” The royalists said, “traitor Scott sold his king for a grot,” a grot forms, it was a hell of a lot more than forms they sold him for. So Charles is now effectively a prisoner, first of parliament and then of the army in England. He attempted to escape from captivity in London.
Now a little bit of a tip here, if you’re ever a prisoner in London, don’t escape to the Isle of White. It’s not really a rather sensible move. If you’re going to escape, for goodness sake get to France at least. But Charles, although his wife is in France, Charles went to the Isle of White. And he thought he would be welcomed by the commander of the castle Carisbrooke Castle, who instead virtually locked the front door. And he’s under house arrest. Now parliament Cromwell attempted to negotiate with him, they still want him to accept the traditional means of government in England. He was terrible. Yes he said, “I’ll negotiate,” and he prolonged negotiations or time for them, but he was never serious, he led them along. And all the time he was in secret negotiation with the Scott’s to invade England, which they did. But in what is called the second Civil War, Cromwell defeated the Scott’s in the Northwest of England at the Battle of Preston on the 17th of August 1648. After this, Cromwell in particular but parliamentarians in general didn’t trust Charles. From this point on they call him the man of blood, the man of blood, because in their view he had started the civil war, and in their view he had started this second civil war which was only going to end in disaster they said, and he refused to negotiate. There’s been a new book published very recently by Clare Jackson. And it’s again on my list, called “The Devil Land”. It’s a story of England between 1588 and 1688.
And I must say, it is an outstandingly good history book. And she writes this about the moment when he’s launched this second civil war, and the Scott’s have been defeated by Cromwell. “Cromwell said deeming Charles’ most recent duplicity "Cromwell said, ‘a more prodigious treason ”’ than any that have been perfected before.‘ “By doing this Cromwell acknowledged "that earlier hostilities had risen "over whether,” quote, “Englishmen might rule "over one another. "But Charles’ new alliance with the Scott’s "denoted a clear attempt "to vassalize us to a foreign nation.” If there’s one thing the English would disapprove of even more strongly than French rule, it would be Scottish rule. And that’s how Cromwell sees it. Interestingly when Cromwell is in power he keeps an English army of occupation in Edinburgh. Now Scotland was never a colony of England, whatever the Scottish nationalist party wished to say in imperial days. But at this particular juncture in the late 1640’s and 1650’s it was to all intents and purposes. Despite the royal family being Scottish, Cromwell saw the Scott’s as an enemy and saw Charles as an enemy by trying to deploy them against England. And Cromwell saying, “this is an English argument "between parliament and the king. "What have the Scott’s to do with it? "Keep out of it!” Well he can say that now having paid for the Scott’s to come in and help win the Battle of Marston Moor, but that’s in the past. Don’t expect Cromwell to be consistent in his views, he’s a politician, he takes the moment and explains it.
Oliver Cromwell now decides he’s got to act. And on the sixth of December 1648 almost certainly he, but he was very clever to keep his hands clean as it were. And they don’t have blood absolutely on them, they’re hidden. But what did he do? Well there is a coup d'état, a more successful one than the one the king attempted in 1642. On the sixth of December 1648 it’s a very different situation indeed. Colonel Thomas Pride, “later one of the signatories on the king’s death warrant, "aided by Lord Grey of Groby "and Edmond Ludlow, member of parliament, "turned away from the House of Commons "about 140 MB’s considered antagonistic to the army. "What remained of the commons thereafter "became known as the rump.” So Cromwell has gotten troops outside the House of Commons and I go forward as the MP for Bristol, and they say, “name?” “William Tyler, member of parliament for Bristol.” “No!” I’m not allowed in because I’m not a supporter of Cromwell. My friend, John Smith, member of parliament for Gloucester, “Oh do come in.” So he has a House of Commons which has been culled of anyone who might conceivably be supporters of the king and not of Cromwell. The House of Commons is set up as a judiciary, as a court. There is no precedent for that at all, this is revolution. They try the king, that is revolution. He’s accused of treason against his own people by waging war against them. And of course, what a surprise, he’s found guilty. He’s found guilty. And they pronounce the sentence of death for treason.
And the story goes that they were called into a room to sign and they sign, but at the beginning they hesitated. And according to accounts of people who were there, Cromwell grasped the hand of an MP and said, “sign damn you, sign!” And they signed. This is revolution. A king brought to trial, a king found guilty of treason against his own people, and a king condemned to death. Not a death in private, not a dagger in the back which might’ve happened in aristocratic state in Italy or anywhere else for that matter in Europe. Not even an execution in private as happened with his grandmother, Mary Queen of Scott’s. This was going to be done openly in the name of the people. And less than 10 days after the verdict of guilty, the punishment is to be undertaken, and it’s to be undertaken in London at Charles’ own palace at White Hall in the banqueting house built by his father James the First, the architect being Inigo Jones. For those of you aren’t British and maybe visiting London, do go and see the banqueting house, it is open in White Hall. It’s a public property, you can go, you pay, you go in and you can see the exact room in which Charles was brought through, and the doors which were opened, the windows, great huge things. And Charles went out and they built a scaffold so you walk out on this temporary scaffold. And it had been delayed, the execution itself had been delayed largely because parliament hadn’t decided the two stop the monarchy. Because the moment the king dies his son will be king. They suddenly realised they haven’t got the legislation for it. And one of the problems was most of the MP’s were in pubs. They may have been Puritan but they certainly liked their drink. And it took a while to get them back into parliament to vote. So the actual execution was delayed. And they tried to get Charles to eat again but he wouldn’t eat after he’d received holy communion. They got him to drink a little bit of wine. It was bitterly cold, there was snow on the ground, he’d put two shirts on so that he wouldn’t shiver because he thought if he shivered people would think he was frightened.
And it was a public event. There were lots of people turned up to watch. They were sort of brought their sandwiches, sat back as it were, waiting for the show to begin, what horrendous. This is a eyewitness account of the execution of Charles, and it goes like this. “On the day of his execution "which was Tuesday January the 30th, "I stood amongst the crowd "in the street before White Hall gate "where the scaffold was erected, "and saw what was done but was not so near "as to hear anything. "The blow I saw given and can truly say with a sad heart, "at the instance whereof I remember well, "there was a groan by the thousands and present.” Everyone who was there remarks on the groan from the crowd at the moment the axe fell. “So such a groan by the thousands and present "as I never heard before and desire may never hear again. "There was a calling toward one troop "immediately marching from words "carrying across Westminster "and another from Westminster to towering across "purposely to scatter the people.” But not before some of the people dashed forward with their hanker chiefs to dip in the kings blood which was dripping off the scaffold. And they got their hanker chiefs with the blood on it. And they say later that day, hanker chiefs with genuine king’s blood were being sold in the markets in the east end of London. Well they’d done it, but what had they done? They weren’t quite sure. They’d established a republic and then they had diplomats arrive, ambassadors, and they didn’t know who received them. So they decided the speaker at the House of Commons should receive them. The Navy sent a message, “what flag do we fly?” They’d flown a royal flag, they were told to fly the cross of Saint George.
They were making this revolution up as they went along. Of course 1649 is the year that Cromwell went to island, and we see he massacres of 2,000 people in both Droid and Wexford. It was an appalling massacre. I’m not going to go into the ins and outs of that, I’ll do that next week when we talk about Oliver Cromwell. But suffice it to say, you can take two muse, it was horrendous, women and children were butchered to death, people who’d taken sanctuary in churches were butchered, but on the other hand, neither George nor Wexford surrendered. And according to the rules of law of the 17th century, if you didn’t surrender then it was on your own heads. But in truth, Cromwell lost control of his troops, or to put it another way, if Cromwell had tried to stop it he would’ve lost total control of his troops. We’ll come back to that. In 1650 Oliver Cromwell is made Commander in Chief of the army but he still remained a member of parliament. And there’s one final war to fight, the third civil war. Charles the second, this young man, had arrived in Scotland. And in 1651 he led a Scottish army right sack as far as Worcestershire in the English midlands. And there on the third of September 1651 through the very streets of Worcestershire was the battle fought. And Charles the second army is defeated by Cromwell. And then there’s a twist to the story that every school child in Britain knows. That Charles the second hid in an oak tree in Boscobel and made his escape all the way through the West of England down here just down the coast from where I’m sat tonight in near Shoreham in Sussex. At times dressed as a woman. And he made his escape in a fishing boat from near Shoreham to France. And he dined out on that story as Samuel Peep’s tell us time and time again, for the rest of his life. It was a high adventure but it game him a je ne sais quoi, it gave him kudos, it gave him an aura around him. And Charles the second was not like his father. He was outgoing, confident, a lad about town, and the English rather liked that. One king, now Charles the first is dead, a second king Charles the second is in exile.
Parliament had won. What were they to do with their victory in terms of the constitution of the country? Various constitutional attempts were achieved, sorry various constitutional attempts were tried in the ensuing time between 1649 and 1653. And I’ll talk about more of them next week. And all of them failed. This is not the American Revolution where they knew exactly where they were going and what they were doing. They hadn’t a clue, they hadn’t a clue what they were doing. There’s over 100 years between this event and that of America, and a lot of intellectual water has gone under the bridge in that 100 and 30 odd years, water of the enlightenment, of people writing about constitutions. But here, nothing. And in 1653, Oliver Cromwell becomes the law protector of England. I suppose in modern jargon we’d call him president I guess. But he’s not a president like an American president, he had enormous power. And five years later in 1658 his power increased substantially. He’s given even more power, they offered him the crown, they offered Cromwell the crown of England. And Cromwell was tempted, Cromwell was tempted. And we’re told he walked through the gardens in London thinking about it. But he realised if parliament would accept him as king the army would not. And it was the army that had been victorious, and it was the army that was his. And he believed that if he said “I’ll take the crown,” the army would have rebelled and removed him. Goodness knows what would’ve happened next, but it didn’t because he said no to the crown. Did it make any difference? Well judge for yourself. He’s inaugurated as this lord protector of England, his highness the lord protector in a new ceremony.
This is 1658. And there’s a ceremony. “Once beneath his cloth of state "and on his ornate dase "it was time for the speaker to invest the law protector "with his purple ermine trimmed robe "to gird him with his sword and hand him his sceptre. "Thus royally it is hard to use any other word, "thus royally attired Cromwell took a solemn oath, "beginning, ‘I do in the presence ”'and by the name of god almighty, “'promise and swear that the uttermost of my power ”'I will uphold and maintain the true reform, “'protestant Christian religion in the purity thereof ”'and is contained in the holy scriptures “'of the old and new testament. ”'To the utmost of my power and then “'and encourage the profession and professors of the same.’” It also included the words, “‘I will endeavour as chief magistrate ”'of these three nations, the maintenance of,’“ that is England, Scotland, and Ireland, ”‘the preservation of the peace, and safety, “'and just rights and privileges of the people thereof.’” But this is not an American president, this is an autocratic president. He was even allowed to name his successor, and he named his son Richard, known to the people as tumble down Dick, a complete dot dot dot, was Richard Cromwell. On the anniversary of his victory at Worcestershire third of September in that same year of 1658, he died. It’s said on a terrible night of storms and lighting and thunder and the royalists said god had come, or rather sorry, the devil had come to reclaim his own. They tried to embalm his body, and in typically English bureaucratic way messed the whole thing up, and thereby had to bury it pretty quickly. But he was going to lie in state, and there was going to be a grand funeral. So they made a wax effigy and they put glass eyes in, but then they closed the eyelids, probably a good thing. And the wax did begin to melt, not a good idea was a wax effigy, but that’s all they had. And people came to the lying in a state as people will go to the lying in the state of Elizabeth the second and due courts, ordinary people. He wasn’t unpopular you see.
And then there was this grand funeral in London. And Antonia Fraser in what I think is the easiest most populace and best biography of Cromwell, right and it’s again a book that’s on my list. And she writes this, “the waxen picture as the wax body was described, "was initially to be found lying on its back "like a huge monstrous dull it wore an exact replica "of the protectors most imperial clothes. "A rich suit of black velvet, "another robe of purple decorated with gold lace, "ermine to adorn the coat, "and finally an outer robe of purple velvet, "once again laced with gold, and deferred with ermine. "Round the waist of the curtail "was class and embroidered belt "to which was fastened "an impressively gilded engraved sword. "In the right hand of the effigy "was cast a sceptre, in the left a globe.” Well the globe is actually an orb of the coronation service today, that’s what it means. “The effigy’s head was covered with a purple velvet cap, "once more trimmed with ermine. "Beneath which the protectors waxen cheeks were painted "and the eyelids were closed over the glass eyes "to simulate death. "Behind the head was placed a dull encrusted chair. "And on top of that and placed high up,” quote, “from the time, so the people could see it.” Was the imperial crown in England is buried as a king. We’ve come full circle from a war against a monarch who had too much power, to his highness the law protector buried with the full honours of a king of England with a crown, the orb, and the sceptre. And with powers probably greater than those held by Charles the first. What a strange revolution this is because it isn’t a revolution in the American sense of a revolution. It certainly isn’t the working class revolution. It’s very different from all of that. In May 1660, General Monk, commanding officer in Scotland, advanced on the parliament in London which was absolutely hopeless. Richard Cromwell had resigned, the parliament didn’t know what the heck it was doing, and Monk came and forced them to invite Charles the second back from exile.
And Charles the second returned from exile in 1660, and as he came into London the populace went mad, the same populace that had dipped their hanker chiefs in his fathers blood. And Charles was heard from market at the end of that day, “if I’d known I was so popular "I would not have stayed away quite so long.” I think the English approved of his sense of humour. So who won, parliament or the king? Well parliament won the war without a doubt, but the king returned, the monarchy was restored, but in truth it was parliament that won and set this country on the long path to modern democracy with a parliamentary monarchy. We don’t have a constitutional monarchy, we have a parliamentary monarchy. Which means that parliament can get rid of the royal family like that. All it has to do is have a majority in the House of Commons. Even the House of Lords can’t delay it for long. And we’ve already done that, we got rid of Edward the eighth like that. And we could get rid of the royal family within a week or so. Of course today there would have to be some sort of support for parliament maybe even a referendum. But in the end the power rests with parliament. It was parliament that invited George the first to come in 1714. It’s parliament that got rid of Edward the eighth. We have a parliamentary monarchy, not a constitutional one. And by that means, the powers that the queen wields today are a mere shadow of those wielded by Charles the second, George the first, or even Queen Victoria. They’ve become icon for the country yes, doers of good charitable works yes, and politically zilch, politically zilch. Technically they can refuse to sign an act of parliament.
They haven’t done so since the reign of Queen Anne, and were they to try to do so today it would lead to their demise as an institution or god forbid to civil war. So who won the war? Well the English middle class of course. Cromwell talking about the soldiers he recruited into his cavalry unit of the iron side said, “I’d rather have a plain russet coated captain "that knows what he fights for and loves what he knows "than that you call a gentleman and is nothing else.” This was not a working class revolution, wasn’t an aristocratic revolution some historians claim, it was a middle class revolution, ordinary men of the middle-ing sort, people like Cromwell himself. “I’d rather have a plain russet coated captain "knows what he fights for and loves what he knows "than that which you call a gentleman "and is nothing else.” It’s an authentic English voice there. I just got time to share two things with you, I want to share two. 68 years after Oliver Cromwell’s death, 66 years after Charles the seconds return, Clare Jackson in the book that I mentioned just now, “Devil Land” ends with this about the civil wars. And she writes in the whole of her book, “in Jonathan Swift’s ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ "published in 1726, Lemuel Gulliver attempted something "when he recounted recent events in England "to the king of Brobdingnag, "after which the king pronounce himself,” quote, “this is Swift, "perfectly astonished with the historical account "I gave him of our affairs during the last century. "To the king’s mind it was only a heap of conspiracies, "rebellion, murders, massacres, revolutions, banishments. "The very worst effects that abhor-ist faction "hypocrisy, perfidious ness, cruelty, rage, madness, hatred, "envy, lust, malice, and ambition could produce.” But we did make it, we made it out of the 17th century into the quieter waters of the 18th century and democracy grew little by little until we live as you listening in America live, we hope so all of us, in a liberal democracy.
Yours was English from the same root as ours, R-O-O-T, but the roots R-O-U-T-E-S, that America and britain took in the 17th and 18th centuries diverge. And I’m going to talk about that in a fortnight’s time I think. And I’m going to finish, I told you you’re not going to escape tonight, we’re going to finish with a poem by Kipling about the battle of Edge Hill. And Kipling writes about this battle, the opening battle of the civil war. “Naked and grey, the Cotswolds stand "beneath the autumn sun. "And the stubble-fields on either hand "where Stour and Avon run. "There is no change in the patient land "that has bred us, every one. "She should’ve passed in cloud and fire "and saved us from this sin of war, red war, "twixt child and sire, household and kith and kin, "in the heart of a sleepy Midland shire. "With a harvest scarcely in. "But there is no change as we meet at last, "on the brow head or the plain. "And the raw astonished ranks "stand fast to slay or to be slain "by the men they new in the kindly past "that shall never come again. "By the men they met at dance or chase "in the tavern or the hall, "at the justice bench and the marketplace, "at the cudgel-play or brawl.
"But their own blood and speech and race, "comrades or neighbours all. "More bitter than death this day must prove, "which ever way it go. "For the brothers and the maids we love "make ready to lay low their sisters sweethearts "as we move against our dearest foe. "Thank heaven. "At last the trumpets peal before our strength gives way, "for king or for the commonweal. "No matter which, they say. "The first dry rattle of new drawn steel "changes the world today. "First dry rattle of new drawn steel "changes the world today.” And it changed Britain forever. Thanks for listening. Expect I’ve got some questions or comments.
Thanks William. That’s fantastic.
Shall I have a look and see what I’ve got?
[Wendy] Yeah.
Woops hang on here we go.
I’m jumping off. I also want to thank you for that outstanding presentation. I have to jump onto another Zoom.
Oh right.
So I’m going to leave now.
Okay.
[Wendy] We’ll speak soon.
[Judi] And I’m here William, you can go over the, you can do the questions with me.
[Wendy] Thanks Judes.
Right.
Thanks Wendy.
Bye everybody, thanks for joining us.
Q&A and Comments:
- I’ve got a question here, no this is a question about what have I got on my lapel. No it isn’t how dare you, I’m not French. It’s the order of the British Empire.
“Wife fighting husband, nothing new there.” Oh I like that comment. John you can’t say that in this day and age.
Q: “Shouldn’t we call this a British civil war?”
A: I said at the beginning, yes a lot of historians call it British Civil War, but still a lot of us call it the English Civil War. You could have a quite lengthy debate. Technically it’s the British Civil War, but it is in essence the English Civil War.
“Compare the current prime minister view of parliament.”
I would rather not think about the current prime minister’s view of parliament.
“There is a plaque on the coast road in Barbados "recently placed by a small beach used for learning to surf "and it details the skirmish "between royalists and Cromwellian’s "who ended up in a stalemate negotiating in a pub nearby.”
Now that sounds a good way to resolve issues.
Q: “Did the queen go to York with the king, what was her fate?”
A: No she went abroad, she did, but she went abroad eventually to raise money. Well she flogged off, or anything that they had, including sort of crowned jewels and, she flogged the stuff off to raise money for the king ‘cause he’d left London. She did come back and she left again. And she spent her, the Cromwell years, the Commonwealth years in France. She comes back with her son Charles the second, and she was really the mother from hell because she tried to interfere and she’s still cackling, and it was really quite embarrassing for him. And she’s parked down at Greenwich. And they hoped she doesn’t do too much damage. But she was very unpopular. Oh that’s a good point, hadn’t thought about that.
“How poignant was Charles invasion of parliaments "on January the fourth, "so close to the attempted invasion of congress "on January the sixth.”
Q: “What happened to the queen after the king was beheaded?”
A: She was already in France.
Q: “Why must such a large percentage of the Irish killed?”
A: Because there were massacres of Catholic Irish because Puritan’s regarded them as well they regarded Catholics as beyond the pail, but they also regarded the Irish really as almost as sub human. Any of you who know Punch Magazine in the 19th century, the Irish were always portrayed in Punch as monkeys. It’s a dreadful racist thing.
“Cromwell’s a religious fanatic and made life intolerable "for the bulk of the population.” Now he, yeah I’ll buy that Cromwell was a religious fanatic, I think he well, it depends what you mean by fanatic. He was certainly what Evangelical Christian’s call a Born Again Christian, yes he was. He made it life intolerable for the bulk of the population. I don’t think it’s true to be honest, because I don’t think, people just got on with life. I’ll talk about more, that’s a good point, I’ll come back to that next week if I may.
Q: “What do you mean when you said "Cromwell won the battle on his own?”
A: I mean that they would’ve lost at Marston Moor had Cromwell not turned his cavalry round and come and attack the royalists from the rear. At Naseby his attack again on Prince Rupert’s cavalry, again defeating them and returning. You see the problem with Edge Hill was that the cavalry charge defeated the enemy in front of them and continued on and left the battlefield. Cromwell drilled his men so that they didn’t do that. They reformed and then hit the enemy in the rear.
Q: “Why is Cromwell painted usually in a negative light?”
A: Because the majority of the British, of the English, have remained pro monarchy.
No the movie “Cromwell” isn’t a bad movie actually, I don’t think. You don’t have to agree Rose, but I think the movie “Cromwell” is not bad.
No I was first talked about Cromwell and Charles the first at the age of about nine I think by my wonderful history master at my prep school, and I was like most of us, terribly royalist as he was. And it was only later that I came to regard Cromwell with a huge amount of respect. The failure of Cromwell was too, like many politicians of any sort, was to plan for their succession. And Cromwell simply couldn’t work out, he needed somebody like Jefferson. If he’d had Jefferson he’d have been all right, but that’s 130 years later. And remember, Jefferson is British, born British in the British Colonies in America. So there simply wasn’t, maybe you see, had he remember last time I was talking about the Constitution of Connecticut? Well had he had someone that could’ve written that, would that have worked? I’m not sure whether it would or it wouldn’t, but it didn’t happen like that. There’s a big big questions about that.
Ah this is a good point. John, “I’m a great fan of Oliver Cromwell, "and as a Christian I understand his Christian convictions,” as I understand them. But I don’t necessarily agree with them all, but I understand them. “I think his great mistake though "was to believe that England could become "a Christian Commonwealth run on Christian values. "The problem being that one "he was modelling the commonwealth on the nation of Israel, "Judah, with some new testament teaching thrown in, "until he was wrong to believe "that the people could be made "Biblically righteous by force.” I don’t think he was modelling it on Israel or Judah, but I think you have a real point, that people could maybe make Biblically righteous by force. “Again we have to recognise,” says John, “that religious England was still struggling "at a regional perspective modern is meant to be Christian, "salvation through personal repentance, "and a nation strongly influenced by Christianity.” Yeah.
Yeah some, “I thought people drank more air than beer "because water and stream .” Yes but my point wasn’t that, my point was that they went into the pubs, but yeah you’re quite right.
Q: “Did Charles,” this is Charles the first I assume Marshall, “did Charles leave any messages for the people "after his confinement?”
A: Well no, although others did on his behalf.
Q: “Did he die a Protestant or a Catholic?”
A: No he died a member of the Church of England. And he had Bishop Juxon who was Anglican with him on the block on the execution day. And he took off his garter, the order of the garter and gave it to Juxon with one word, which people have argued over forever. And he said to Juxon, “remember.” Later he Church of England made him a martyr which is the first step towards a saint. The Church of England don’t have any saints except Catholic ones, but Charles was made a martyr. And in the up until the reign of Queen Victoria there was a service in the prayer book of the Church of England for the 30th of January. And if you’re anti Cromwell it’s fantastic stuff, it’s terrible what it says about Cromwell, and Victoria had it removed.
“I often think that we British have a love "of tradition, quirkiness, and bumbledom.” Yeah well that’s true. Yet was Charles the second King of Scotland after 1649, more than that, he was King of England. He was proclaimed king on the island of Jersey, as soon as they heard news of his fathers execution, and he was crowned later in 1650 when he went back to Scotland. He was crowned on the stone of scone in Scotland. So but he was always, if the king dies the king, the successor is king from that moment. The moment the queen dies, Charles is king, whatever. That’s the constitution.
“Cromwell did allow the Jews back into England.” Absolutely, and that is going to be talked about by Trudy, but just let me say, hwy did he allow the Jews back into England? Because he wanted, they’d come from Amsterdam, he wanted their financial expertise because he needed to repair the finances of England after the civil war. Don’t think for one moment it’s because for some religious reason. He’d dressed up in religious languages, in religious language. And he said, “I’ve just suddenly found out,” he said, “that we have no Jews in England. "And of course the Bible says,” which it doesn’t, “the Bible says that Christ cannot come again "unless there are Jews in every country, "so we better do something about it.” And it just happens that they’re extremely wealthy.
Q: “He was buried in Westminster Abbey but for how long?”
A: Well he was dug up, the body was dug up in 1661 and he was, the body was hanged. The body was thrown away, the head is preserved at in a college in the University of Cambridge. And it’s, they were it’s very difficult to know quite where it is. It’s either in a box in the chapel, but probably not, probably buried in the grounds. Only the chaplain and the master of the college know at any given time know where it is, because they were frightened that royalists would.
Oh thank you for saying thank you.
Michael, “it seems societies need their father figures. "Here in the US the trappings of the presidential office "appear to have developed to the point "of fulfilling the requirements of the missing monarch.”
Spot on, and that’s exactly parallel to that of Cromwell. You can compare modern presidency in the United States with Cromwell because the president now has more power than they had intended in the 1770’s, and the whole entourage and all the rest of it. This is Cromwell. And how interesting is it that that’s gone that way and here the monarch has nothing. But we do have prime ministers that act as we say in Britain, with presidential style, in other words like American presidents.
Oh no that’s a very good, what a good point that is. This is from Irv. “I suggest that Canada has a constitutional monarchy.”
You’re spot on, because of course Canada has a written constitution which we don’t. What a very good point to make, that’s excellent.
Q: Irene says, “isn’t this somewhat similar "to the revolution as you destroyed the royal Romanov’s "only to replace the Czar’s with another dictator, "this time called a Communist, now Putin a modern Czar.”
A: Absolutely. I work for a charity which was doing work in post Communist Russia. And when Putin was elected president one of our Russian colleagues who was anti Communist, and we said, “who did you vote for?” And she said, “Putin.” And we said, “Putin, he was a Marxist, "why did you vote for Putin?” And her answer was, “he is the only Czar we have.” And I think that’s true.
Q: “If Cromwell had designated a better successor "would the monarchy have returned?”
A: No it would not, and it could,
Q: “what would’ve happened if he’d appointed Monk?”
A: I don’t know. Monk of course the general, managed to get himself a Dukedom out of Charles for bringing him back. But the funniest thing of all is that one of the ships the royal, well the naval ships, not royal navy of course in the Commonwealth, one of the English naval ships that went to bring Charles the second back was called the Naseby. Then they realised that they couldn’t pick up Charles the second on a ship called the Naseby, so as they’re crossing the channel they paint the name out.
Yes I’ve said that. Yeah, I’ve got. Oh well thank you people who said they enjoyed it, you know I enjoy talking about history. And I talk about I did if there was no, I don’t even know if there’s anyone there. I would talk about it if there was no one there.
Q: “Where were the Welsh through the wars?”
A: Well the Welsh are involved in the wars but only in a minor extent. Most of the Welsh were pro, were royalists in the north, south of Chester, and in the south as well. And if you travel on the motor way in the south towards Cardiff you pass Raglan Castle which was blown up by parliament so that it could never be used again. It’s a fantastic, a very interesting site to visit. Oh my.
Oh this is, Helen, “thank you for this interesting, "I grew up near Naseby in North Hamptonshire in the '70’s "and recall the it’s a pity "there isn’t some kind of monument or museum,” absolutely, “to the battle that took place there "and it’s relevance during this history.
"But I think there are some nice pubs or used to be.” Well I didn’t find them. I’m sure you’re right. It is better than in the '70’s, because there are plaques. And you can get a sort of walking guide to where to go. Yeah.
Oh, Lynn luck you. “I have some stump work of Charles the first martyr.” Stump work is a craft whereby it’s built up, so with thread, so it isn’t, it’s three-dimensional in other words.
Q: You’re saying, “which college in Cambridge harbours it?”
A: I’ve had a blank on that. It was where my brother-in-law went. Sydney Sussex, Sydney Sussex College Cambridge. Oh and somebody’s answered that.
Q: “Does the monarch not have parliament?”
A: No she doesn’t. The prime minister tells her when. That’s why we had a row, constitutional row on that.
Yes, that’s Valerie you’re quite right, the function of royalty today is to represent the country as a whole regardless of party. So that makes a huge difference in terms of us and the US or indeed really all of the English speaking countries.
Oh well thanks, I think I’ve probably come to the end of the questions, of actual questions Judi. And that would, well gone.
Perfect timing.
I think, I’m out of breath now, I think I’ve answered most of them. I’m just to say to everyone, I’m going to talk next Monday about the period of the republic of the Commonwealth when we were without a king. And that will involve Cromwell of course. And I hope you’ll join me for that.
[Judi] Super, thank you William, and thanks to everybody who joined us on this very cold evening. Thank you so much. Take care everybody.
Bye, bye bye.
Bye bye.