Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- III PARLIAMENT
- 21 Studying the History of Parliament
- 22 ‘The Body of the Whole Realm’: Parliament and Representation in Medieval and Tudor England
- 23 Parliamentary Drafts 1529–1540
- 24 The Evolution of a Reformation Statute
- 25 The Commons' Supplication of 1532: Parliamentary Manoeuvres in the Reign of Henry VIII
- 26 An Early Tudor Poor Law
- 27 The Stuart Century
- 28 A High Road to Civil War?
- 29 The Unexplained Revolution
- IV POLITICAL THOUGHT
- General Index
- Index of Authors Cited
29 - The Unexplained Revolution
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- III PARLIAMENT
- 21 Studying the History of Parliament
- 22 ‘The Body of the Whole Realm’: Parliament and Representation in Medieval and Tudor England
- 23 Parliamentary Drafts 1529–1540
- 24 The Evolution of a Reformation Statute
- 25 The Commons' Supplication of 1532: Parliamentary Manoeuvres in the Reign of Henry VIII
- 26 An Early Tudor Poor Law
- 27 The Stuart Century
- 28 A High Road to Civil War?
- 29 The Unexplained Revolution
- IV POLITICAL THOUGHT
- General Index
- Index of Authors Cited
Summary
Among the unsolved puzzles of English history, the Civil Wars of the seventeenth century stand high. There we have, on the face of it, a series of enormous events – war in England, between Englishmen, a king publicly beheaded, twenty years of violent upheaval. Something, surely, was badly wrong with the body politic, or so it would appear. Revolutionary situations and civil wars do not happen without good cause, and the good causes of those events have been passionately hunted ever since. But the hunt turns up more mythical unicorns than usefully edible prey. Did the factions divide over the true nature of the constitution: was it a conflict between royal absolutists and parliamentary constitutionalists? A supposition hallowed by tradition: but it has been shown that the leaders and spokesmen of all shades of opinion really held fundamentally identical views. Was it a war for puritanism, for liberty of conscience against a repressive anglican uniformity? Such issues grew prominent as the war advanced, but revolutionary puritanism is rarely found before 1640, and in the early years of the Long Parliament the one thing that prevented Pym's party from breaking up was his careful avoidance of the religious issues. Or was it, as all major revolutions are supposed to be, the outcome of a deep-rooted social split, between classes or within the governing class?
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Studies in Tudor and Stuart Politics and GovernmentPapers and Reviews 1946–1972, pp. 183 - 190Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1974
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