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Consensus Politics and the Structure of Debate at Putney

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

Mark A. Kishlansky
Mark A. Kishlansky*
Affiliation:
The University of Chicago
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Extract

The debates of the Army Council held at Putney church during October and November 1647 have not suffered neglect at the hands of historians and political theorists. Such an explicit examination of the fundamental tenets of government as occurred in the discussion of the franchise is a pivotal event in the history of political thought and it has been treated as such ever since Sir Charles Firth uncovered William Clarke's notes of the meetings. Emphasis upon the content of the dispute over the franchise has served to elevate the Putney debates into a symbolic event, a milestone in the struggle between privilege and liberty which dominated English history for two and a half centuries and English historiography ever since. Rainsborough's dictum that “the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest he” encapsulates this theme and has passed into the common stock of historical quotations. Indisputably, succeeding generations of scholars and students will grapple with the meaning of the debate on the franchise and of its place in English political thought.

The universal importance that the conflict over the franchise has assumed for political theorists and historians of the longue durée has created some difficulties for students of événement who need to understand the precise historical situation in which the meetings occurred. When abstracted the debates may have sharp contours and poetic proportions; but when viewed more narrowly they take on different, and occasionally changing, shapes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , Spring 1981 , pp. 50 - 69
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1981

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References

This paper was presented at the conference on Anglo-American Radicalism sponsored by the Institute for Research in History held in New York November 5-6, 1980 where Lawrence Stone freely offered comments. G.E. Aylmer, B. Donagan , and J.S. Morrill all read previous drafts and made helpful corrections for which I am grateful. D.E. Underdown provided extensive criticisms of both style and content. Regrettably, there is no consensus on the views expressed in the essay.

1 MacPherson, C.B., The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism (Oxford, 1962)Google Scholar is by now the classic account of the importance of the debates in the transformation of English political theory. A more recent study, which elevates the debates to an even higher plane is Hanson, D.W., From Kingdom to Commonwealth: The Development of Civic Consciousness in English Political Thought (Cambridge, Mass., 1970)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Historians have concentrated almost exclusively upon the portion of the second day's debate that dealt with the franchise. Since MacPherson's work this has obviously become an historiographical necessity as K.V. Thomas has noted amidst caveats that the franchise proposal was only a small part of the Leveller program. It was equally a small part of the debates that Clarke recorded and, as Thomas has also noted, that portion which generated the most conflict. Thomas, K.V., “The Levellers and the Franchise,” in Aylmer, G.E., ed., The Interregnum: The Quest for Settlement (London, 1972), pp. 57–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Woodhouse, A.S.P., Puritanism and Liberty (London, 1938)Google Scholar: Wolfe, D.M., Leveller Manifestoes of the Puritan Revolution (N.Y., 1967)Google Scholar; Brailsford, H.N., The Levellers and the English Revolution (Stanford, 1961)Google Scholar; Aylmer, G.E., The Levellers in the English Revolution (Ithaca, N.Y., 1975)Google Scholar; Hill, J.E.C., The World Turned Upside Down (N. Y. 1972)Google Scholar; Manning, Brian, The English People and the English Revolution (London, 1976)Google Scholar.

4 Woodhouse, Introduction p. 11.

5 Davis, J.C., ‘The Levellers and Democracy,” Past and Present, 40 (1968)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 It is necessary to stress again that efforts to achieve unanimity do not imply the absence of conflict. Sharp ideological conflict arose during the debates and the emphasis, in this essay, on the attempts to overcome conflict at Putney is not intended to downplay its importance or to deny its existence.

7 For discussion of aspects of consensus politics see Kishlansky, M.A., “The Emergence of Adversary Politics in the Long Parliament,” Journal of Modern History, 49 (1978)Google Scholar; The Rise of the New Model Army (N.Y., 1979)Google Scholar; and Russell, C.S.R., Parliaments and English Politics 1621-29 (Oxford, 1979)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Kishlansky, M.A., “The Army and the Levellers: The Roads to Putney,” Historical Journal, 22 (1979)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Rushworth, John, Historical Collections, 8 vols. (London, 1721), 7, 804Google Scholar; Journal of the House of Commons, Vol. 5, 298Google Scholar.

10 Wolfe, , Leveller Manifestoes, p. 218Google Scholar.

11 British Library, Thomason Tracts, E. 412 (6) “Two Letters from the Agents of the Five Regiments.”

12 British Library, Thomason Tracts, E. 518 (47) Perfect Diurnal No. 221 Oct. 18-25,1647.

13 British Library, Thomason Tracts, E. 412 (6) “Two Letters from the Agents of the Five Regiments.”

14 Although none of the several available editions of the debates is wholly satis-factory for the purposes of this essay, all quotations will derive from Woodhouse, Puritanism and Liberty which is the most readily available full edition. All expressions in brackets are Woodhouse's interpolations unless otherwise noted.

15 Whether the restricted franchise that excluded servants was a plank in the platform of the Case of the Army is unclear. The statement is thoroughly ambiguous: “that all the freeborn at the age of 21 years and upwards, be the electors, excepting those that have or shall deprive themselves of that their freedom, either for some years, or wholly by delinquency.” MacPherson has never stressed this statement and I. Hampshire-Monck states flatly that this is a position of male suffrage. Yet it is possible to read the categories of exclusion to be two: those who are deprived by delinquency and those that shall give up their freedom for some years, i.e. servants. The critical word is shall, for delinquents could only be referred to in the past tense. Wolfe, , Leveller Manifestoes, p. 212Google Scholar; MacPherson, , Possessive Individualism, p. 118Google Scholar; Hampshire-Monck, I., “The Political Theory of the Levellers,” Political Studies, 24 (1976), pp. 405–06 n.5Google Scholar.

16 Aylmer's suggestion that “a cynic might argue that Rainsborough espoused the popular cause out of pique or thwarted ambition,” does not exclude the possibility that the cynic would be right. Aylmer, , Levellers in the English Revolution, p. 28Google Scholar.

17 Woodhouse, p. 2.

18 Woodhouse, p. 25.

19 Woodhouse, p. 44.

20 Woodhouse, p. 85-6.

21 Woodhouse, p. 83.

22 Woodhouse, p. 27.

23 Woodhouse, p. 41.

24 See M.A. Kishlansky, The Rise of the New Model Army, chapters 7 & 8.

25 Firth, C.H., ed., The Clarke Papers, 4 Vols. (London, 1891–1901), I, 209Google Scholar.

26 Wolfe, , Leveller Manifestoes, p. 218Google Scholar.

27 Woodhouse, p. 75. The words deleted are Woodhouse's interpolation.

28 Woodhouse, p. 8.

29 Woodhouse, p. 14.

30 Woodhouse, p. 90; Rainsborough expressed the same sentiments: “I do verily believe they are so far from a disunion that they will be advised by this Council in general, or by any honest man of this Council in particular.” Woodhouse, p. 33.

31 Woodhouse,p.75; 114.

32 Woodhouse, p. 40.

33 Woodhouse, p. 99.

34 Woodhouse, p. 42.

35 “The spirit of God are the same in both, and the principles of both are the same,” Captain Merriman concluded when urging moderation. Woodhouse, p. 35. “I cannot see but that we all speak to the same end… to deliver this nation from oppression and slavery,” was Cromwell's similar assertion. Woodhouse, p. 104.

36 See below part III.

37 Thus Cromwell's suggestion early in the first day's debate: “that we may seek God together; and see if God will give us an uniting spirit.” Woodhouse, p. 17.

38 Woodhouse, p. 124. The deleted words are Woodhouse's interpolation.

39 Woodhouse, p. 17.

40 Rainsborough, in an obscure reply to Cromwell's offer to withdraw, may have issued one of his own. Woodhouse, p. 74.

41 Woodhouse, pp. 73-74.

42 Woodhouse, p. 20.

43 Wildman, defending the new agents, stated “they desire to be excused, that it might not be thought any arrogancy in them.” Woodhouse, p. 25.

44 Woodhouse, p. 57; Cromwell claimed dissatisfaction over a statement by Sexby “because it did savor so much of will.” Woodhouse, p. 73.

45 Woodhouse, p. 50. (Ireton).

46 Woodhouse, p. 21. (Ireton).

47 Woodhouse, pp. 74-75; 70.

48 Woodhouse, p. 59.

49 Woodhouse, pp. 35-36.

50 Woodhouse, p. 9.

51 Woodhouse, p. 99.

52 Woodhouse, p. 100.

53 Woodhouse, Introduction, p. 28.

54 British Library, Thomason Tracts, E. 409 (25) “A Declaration of the Engagements … of the Army.”

55 Woodhouse, p. 31. The deleted words are Woodhouse's interpolation.

56 Woodhouse, p. 49.

57 Woodhouse, p. 52.

58 Woodhouse, p. 48. (Cromwell).

59 Woodhouse, p. 60.

60 Woodhouse, p. 31.

61 Woodhouse, p. 6.

62 Woodhouse, p. 33.

63 Woodhouse, p. 48.

64 Woodhouse, p. 5. (Ireton).

65 Woodhouse, p. 95; 62; 122.

66 Woodhouse, p. 68; 75; 80.

67 Woodhouse, p. 32. (Cromwell).

68 Woodhouse, p. 2.

69 It is noteworthy that of the ten new agents only Everard appears to have participated in the debates.

70 Woodhouse, p. 21.

71 Woodhouse, p. 84.

72 Woodhouse, p. 46.

73 Woodhouse, p. 59.

74 Woodhouse, p. 83.

75 Woodhouse, pp. 59-60; 68; 74.

76 Woodhouse, p. 78.

77 Woodhouse, pp. 79-80.

78 Woodhouse, p. 81.

79 Woodhouse, p. 19.

80 Woodhouse, p. 13.

81 Woodhouse, p. 37.

82 Woodhouse, p. 43. The deleted words are Woodhouse's interpolation.

83 Woodhouse, p. 44.

84 Woodhouse, p. 68; 73; 74.

85 Woodhouse, p. 100.

86 Woodhouse, p. 112.

87 Woodhouse, p. 124. There remains confusion on what was decided in the committee and Clarke's fragmentary notes do not provide much information. The final record of the aftermath of the debates is the appointment of yet another committee on November 9 which included the main proponents. Woodhouse, p. 455.

88 See M. A. Kishlansky, The Rise of the New Model Army, Chapter 8.

89 British Library, Thomason Tracts, E. 421 (19) “Putney Projects.”

90 Woodhouse, p. 71. That this was said sarcastically is apparent from Ireton's reply.

91 Woodhouse, p. 68. (Peter).

92 I read the second sentence as [only] if we would have no difference. The bracketed phrase is mine. Woodhouse, p. 76.

93 Woodhouse, p. 81.

94 Woodhouse, p. 78.

95 British Library, Thomason Tracts, E. 413 (18) “A Copy of a Letter.”

96 British Library, Thomason Tracts, E. 412 (21) “An Agreement of the People for a Firm Peace.”

97 Woodhouse, p. 81.