Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction: English republicanism
- Part I CONTEXTS
- Part II ANALYSIS
- Part III Chronology
- 11 Republicans and Levellers, 1603–1649
- 12 The English republic, 1649–1653
- 13 Healing and settling, 1653–1658
- 14 The good old cause, 1658–1660
- 15 Anatomies of tyranny, 1660–1683
- 16 Republicans and Whigs, 1680–1725
- Appendix: ‘a pretty story of horses’ (May 1654)
- Bibliography
- Index
11 - Republicans and Levellers, 1603–1649
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction: English republicanism
- Part I CONTEXTS
- Part II ANALYSIS
- Part III Chronology
- 11 Republicans and Levellers, 1603–1649
- 12 The English republic, 1649–1653
- 13 Healing and settling, 1653–1658
- 14 The good old cause, 1658–1660
- 15 Anatomies of tyranny, 1660–1683
- 16 Republicans and Whigs, 1680–1725
- Appendix: ‘a pretty story of horses’ (May 1654)
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
“[W]hat the greatest and choycest wits of Athens, Rome, or modern Italy, and those Hebrews of old did for their country, I in my proportion with this over and above of being a Christian, might doe for mine: not caring to be once nam'd abroad, though perhaps I could attaine to that, but content with these British Ilands as my world, whose fortune hath hitherto bin, that if the Athenians, as some say, made their small deeds great and renowned by their eloquent writers, England hath had her noble atchievements made small by the unskilfull handling of monks and mechanicks.'
John Milton, Reason of Church-governement (1641)1603–1641: COMMONWEALTH PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE
Explicit advocacy of a republic was rare in England before 1648. Yet as the primary ingredients of republican moral philosophy were already in place, so the accusation of republicanism was frequently levelled by early Stuart kings and their supporters. The attribution to JPs and MPs of ‘anti-monarchical’ motives was a staple of Jacobean rhetoric: ‘[I]n every cause that concerns prerogative … [they] give a snatch against monarchy, through their puritanical itching after popularity.’ The ‘imagined democracy’ of Presbyterianism also derived from ‘the turbulent humors of some that dream of nothing but a new hierarchy (directly opposite to the state of monarchy)’. Charles I attributed his early problems to parliaments ‘whose members wished to reduce his power to nothing’. These people were ‘puritans’, ‘republicans’ and ‘enemies to monarchy’.
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- Commonwealth PrinciplesRepublican Writing of the English Revolution, pp. 233 - 251Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004