We often think of democratic ideas originating in the American Revolution. But more than a century before, radical thinkers in England were arguing for rights, representation, and a republic - Ideas which helped to shape the intellectual and political environment out of which emerged the Puritan migration and colonial polity. Historian Rachel Foxley explores the political thought of the English Revolution, highlighting the remarkable writings of Parliamentarians and three pamphleteers in the Levellers - and ideas that led to two revolutions.
This was the fourth lecture in our series Revolutions before the Revolution. Watch the first three presentations here.
In this illuminating presentation, Rachel Foxley explores the radical ideas of the English Revolution of 1640-1660, concentrating on the arguments made by the parliamentarians who resisted their own king, Charles I, in two civil wars. These events led to the king’s execution in 1649 and the coming of a republic. How did these men justify these extreme steps and their political and military resistance? What ideas did they draw on? What were their thoughts about law and the ancient origins of government?
Mainstream parliamentarians took it for granted that resistance must be led by Parliament itself, as an established part of the constitution, rather than being an extra-constitutional expression of the people’s will. They did invoke "the people" in justifying resistance against the king, and both they and their royalist opponents appealed to the people for support in the war, making extensive use of topical political print.
But there was a more radical political movement, too, seen in the more radical parliamentarians and the Leveller movement of the late 1640s who fought the king.
As Rachel Foxley relates, initially parliamentarians opposed Charles without challenging the monarchy as an institution (although they proposed to restrict his powers if they could broker a deal after the wars). But through a process of radicalisation, some parliamentarians came to question not just whether Charles I should remain as king at all, but whether monarchy itself was needed.
The Levellers, a group who put forward radical agendas for settling the nation in the later 1640s, argued that kings were unnecessary and tended to tyranny. They proposed a radically new constitution: one based on an annually elected chamber, the Representative, who would legislate alone (with no veto from a king or House of Lords). John Lilburne and other leading members of the Leveller movement drew on a range of ideas to justify their vision of political life, ranging from appeals to Magna Carta and the common law to appeals to natural and sometimes inalienable rights such as freedom of religious conscience. They radicalised parliamentarian arguments in fascinating ways, and ultimately suggested that the people might need to be ready to rise against Parliament itself.
Ultimately it was a military coup which led to the radicals (though not the Levellers themselves) taking control of the revolution and executing the king. But this did lead to a republic and a different kind of kingless constitution under Oliver Cromwell. In this new polity, republican writing flowered, both in defence and in critique of the new regimes. The final section of this presenttion explores this republican thought and compares it with the radical vision offered earlier by the Levellers.
Rachel Foxley is associate professor in early modern history at the University of Reading in Britain. She is the author of The Levellers: Radical Political Thought in the English Revolution (Manchester University Press, 2013), and of numerous articles and chapters on the radicals and republicans of the period. Her book traces the origins of the Levellers’ ideas in earlier parliamentarian thought during the civil war, and asks how far Leveller ideas fed into discussions of republicanism after the execution of Charles I. She is currently working on a book about English republicans of the 1650s and their negotiations with ideas of democracy.
Image: Woodcut of Leveller pamphleer and activist John Liliburne, or Freeborn John, as he was widely known, reading Edward Coke's Institutes of the Lawes of England, a foundational text of English common law, during his 1649 trial for high treason. After two days, the London jury acquitted Lilburne, whose freedom was celebrated throughout the city. Theodorus Varax, 1649. Wikimedia Commons.