Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction: experience other than our own
- 1 The shape of the seventeenth century
- Part I England's troubles 1618–89: Political instability
- 2 Taking contemporary belief seriously
- 3 The unreformed polity
- 4 Reformation politics (1): 1618–41
- 5 Counter-reformation England
- 6 Reformation politics (2): 1637–60
- 7 Restoration memory
- 8 Restoration crisis 1678–83
- 9 Invasion 1688–9
- Part II The English Revolution 1640–89: Radical Imagination
- Part III Restoration 1660–1702: Reconstruction and Statebuilding
- Sources cited
- Index
3 - The unreformed polity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction: experience other than our own
- 1 The shape of the seventeenth century
- Part I England's troubles 1618–89: Political instability
- 2 Taking contemporary belief seriously
- 3 The unreformed polity
- 4 Reformation politics (1): 1618–41
- 5 Counter-reformation England
- 6 Reformation politics (2): 1637–60
- 7 Restoration memory
- 8 Restoration crisis 1678–83
- 9 Invasion 1688–9
- Part II The English Revolution 1640–89: Radical Imagination
- Part III Restoration 1660–1702: Reconstruction and Statebuilding
- Sources cited
- Index
Summary
I doubt not, but many men, have been contented to see the late troubles in England, out of an imitation of the Low Countries; supposing there needed no more to grow rich than to change, as they had done, the forme of their Government … And as to Rebellion in particular against Monarchy; one of the most frequent causes of it, is the Reading of the books of Policy, and Histories of the antient Greeks, and Romans.
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651)INTRODUCTION: RESTORING THE SENSE OF POSSIBILITY
In the previous chapter we examined two sets of political fears. One was for the continuity, indeed survival, of parliaments. The other was for the efficacy, indeed survival, of royal power. Both existed across the century, and were central to every episode of the troubles.
The first step towards explaining the troubles is to recover the contexts within which these fears may be understood. It is critically important that they were accompanied by religious concerns. Fears for the survival of aspects of the civil polity in England were intertwined with fears for the survival of protestantism and the church. The relationship between these, complicated in itself, was also deeply influenced by events in and outside the kingdom.
Two broad contexts for these perceptions have already been identified. One was religious: the victories of the counter-reformation in Europe. The other was political: the military weakness of the Stuart crown. In the 1620s, as in the 1670s and 1680s, this combination had a devastating effect upon domestic political peace. The immediate result was that polarisation and conflict on the European continent became polarisation and conflict in England.
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- Information
- England's TroublesSeventeenth-Century English Political Instability in European Context, pp. 66 - 88Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000