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Ian Schlom's List: English Revolution

  • English Revolution

  • At pg. 44 in The Stuarts,  Kenyon describes how the monarchy lost control of the House of Commons, and how, in the earlier chapter, the monarchy didn't control much of England anyway.  Does this factor of not controlling the institutions of the State and society have sometyhing to do with the chances for revolution?  Does the State not having control over its institutions and organisation give the outrage experienced by the people the air to ferment into a widespread revolution?

    In the fall of the USSR, Gorbavech had to institute Perestroika before the Berlin Wall collapsed; In the Russian Revolution, WWI had to destroy stability by psuedo-modern warfare; and in the Spanish Revolution, the fascists had to upset the Republic for revolutionary measures to be instituted.

    What does a lack of absolute control have in fomenting Revolution?  Is it that the State's institutions are failing/declining that naturally prompts Revolution?  Or is it just that declining control gives outrage the chance needed to ferment into rebellion?

    The specificity is, of course, always necessary when considering these questions.  At least in the English Revolution, The monarchy had lost control of local provinces and was mostly centralised (where the gentry, having this local power, were mostly decentralised and could not easily become centralised), the gentry, mistreated by the monarchy, had the chance to disobey the king's commands and foment revolt among the suffering people.  The monarchy losing control of the House of Commons gave more autonomy to the gentry, allowing the gentry to make gains and pursue their own interests.  Not quite like the chaos of 1917 in Russia, although, 40 years leater in the crazy time of the late 40's and early 50's, there would be more spontaneity in the vacuum of a monarchy on hiatus, like the Diggers or the Levellers.

    16 November 2011

    P.S. I just read in The English Revolution 1640 by C. Hill, 3) b), that Strafford being executed, Ireland was no longer so strongly oppressed and the English Government was no longer so strong in 1641.  Once this was so, "the Irish seized the opportunity to attempt to throw off the English yoke."  Again we see the lack of control and loosening of oppression as a factor in the sparking of Revolution.

     

    Side note: Didn't Cromwell and Parliament say they crushed the rebellion because the Irish might side with Charles I.  This is my initial uninformed thought, but didn't the  Irish rebel against the English government in the first place?  Sure they were Catholic and Charles' wife was Catholic, but Charles I and Parliament both wanted the yoke to be on Ireland.  Surely any Irish considering sympathies with the royalists realised this.  The campaign against the Irish was only for an English colony to thrive.

    26 November 2011

     

  • Nov 14, 11

    Has a collection of primary sources and some secondary sources on the time period.

  • Oct 22, 11

    citation: "Biography of Oliver Cromwell." Archontology.org. Archontology.org, 13 Mar 2010. Web. 22 Oct 2011. <http://www.archontology.org/nations/uk/england/commonwealth/cromwell1a.php>.

  • Oct 22, 11

    "Commonwealth of England: Council of State: 1649-1660." /Archontology.org/. Archontology.org, 13 Mar 2010. Web. 22 Oct 2011. <http://www.archontology.org/nations/uk/england/commonwealth/cromwell1a.php>.

  • The church was incredibly important. This institution was very different than today. It was an incredibly important institution in the governance of a country, which is why it would be an institution to fight over. Were a ruling class a different religion than the church of the country, there would be a conflict and the ruling class would be vulnerable to a new ruling class of the "correct" religion.

    The revolution wasn't about religion so much as it was about control of the church as an institution. Although the fighting over religious purity no doubt came into play, as it does in all times of conflict, the struggle between Anglicanism and Puritanism was more about which group (class) would control the English church. This sphere was a conflict between classes, not a jihad of religions. This was a power struggle, not a jihad.

    The equivalent today of battles fought over the church would be battles fought over the television and the internet.

    Catholicism wouldn't have been able to enter because it would have been excluded by all power bases. No one in England stood to gain from money going from ENgland to Rome.

    Religions were only facets of the class agendas, parts of the society the classes wished to institute to aid security.

    See notes on The English Revolution 1640 by C. Hill "Introduction" made 7-8 Oct'11.

    note made 8 October 2011

  • As an inclination to the capitalist utilisation of rural areas was developed, mainly benefitting the emerging bourgeois trading and small manufacturing classes (and the "rural capitalist" classes which supplied the wool to textiles, etc.) it ran into the obstacle of the feudal legal restrictions which were composed of feudal laws and political institutions. This obstacle to the development of capitalism stood to the advantage of the Crown, the landed gentry (perhaps mainly in the North and West), and in some ways the peasantry. This shows the 2 sides that would be fighting in the civil war, the bourgeoisie in the land Southern and Eastern parts of England and the town, which held sway in parliament, and the feudal landed aristocracy and monarchy, who could appeal to the peasantry through their fears of growing insecurity in capitalism.

     

    15 October 2011

    Drawn from notes on The English Revolution 1640 by C. Hill 2) a) "The Land"

  • The part where Simpson says that Christopher Hill was saying that the Bourgeoisie were Puritans (Simpson, Alan. Puritanism in Old and New England. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1972. Print. 11, ft. nt. 12) comes from "the opposition which faced Charles was organised and worked up to serve their own purposes by those business men who identified their interests with the House of Commons in politics and Puritanism in religion." (Hill, Christopher. The English Revolution 1640. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1940.  EPUB manufactured from Marxists.org.  Ref: 3.23).  He's just saying that the bourgeoisie were Puritan, which Simpson later validates citing people who say that those with liesure time had the chance to 'have salvation' in Puritanism.  The working people, the peasantry and farm and city labourers were not able to have that possibility because they were over-worked.  ...

  • Initially small agricultural feudal society, production was oriented toward the isolated village community.  This was starting to change.  There were bourgeois changes that were happening.  The urban centres were experiencing them, and in the South and the East of England farming practises were changing.  Courgeois techniques were being instituted in farming, and a land capitalist class was growing.  Though, to avoid confusion it is necessary to state that the actual practises of production remained the same, no innovations.  The only change was that the production was increased and the aims for production had changed, no longer maintianing social and military status, but the sole classic capitalist incentive, profit.

    The feudal aims of social and military power (domestically) changed into the finacial, profit-driven capiotalist aims.  This shift, however restrained it was by feudalism, was harmful to the commoners, who were threatened with even greater insecurity during a time of economic decline and stagnation, a depression. 

    Capitalism and its effects on the people was also disturbing to a culture based on human relations (Chomsky) and protections through the feudal contract.  The capitalism ethic was shocking to the people unindoctrinated to this system's mytholody and ideology.  As "the Puritan moralist, Stubbes" says, “Is not he a greater thief that robbeth a man of his good name for ever, that taketh a man’s house over his head, before his yea be expired, that wresteth from a man his goods, his lands and livings . . . than he that stealeth a sheep, a cow, or an ox, for necessity’s sake only, having not otherwise to relieve his need?"   This attack makes the capitalists what they really are to people who were never indoctrinated in the ideology of capitalism, criminals greater than common criminals, because they commit crimes for profit rather than survival.

    The land capitlaists turned the feudal copyholds into leaseholds, helping make the tenants into insecure positions, easy to evict.  During The depression, [somewhat due to the ludicrous affairs of the monarchs (Kenyon, Ch 1 & 2)], the land capitalists exacted a high rent from their tenants, ruthlessly evicting them to become vagabonds or rogues.

    This insecurity of tenant farmers, whom made up sugnificant portions of the population, not to mention the barbaric treatment of "vagabonds and rogues" must have contributed to a great outrage to both the changes taking place and the monarch, James I, [who didn't care for the commoners and didn't really do anything with their affairs.  He was very much a stranger to them (Kenyon ch 1)].  These factors contributed to the outrage of the commoners.

    The capitalists weren't able to fully develop themselves without the dismantling of the feudal restrictions.  This want of the capitalists for capitalist land reform contributed to their outrage and incentive for a rebellion and bourgeois revolution.

    If things stayed feudal, England wasn't going to develop and could face retrogression.  "State power was being used to prevent the growth of a national market."  Thus, the conflict between Monarch and bourgeoisie, who very much desired the national market.  '(TALK ABOUT REACTIONARY!)'

     

    p.s. The peasantry were reactionary in their wanting something more stable, like feudalism.  They didn't have a vision for something new, Not what the capittalists wanted nor what the old ways were.  A Revolution needs a new vision of a future society to be successful

  • Nov 20, 11

    The weird thing about this is that the info on James I giving rewards equally around the "political nation" contradicts Kenyon. Kenyon says that James I typically ignored the gentry and didn't give them rewards, like jobs, lands, or positions.

  • Nov 20, 11

    This is a description of several battle and the military strategy involved in the English Civil Wars

  • So far I know that the players in the civil war were the gentry, the land and urban capitalists forming the bourgeois revolutionaries, the commoners and the peasantry were usually against the king but I guess they could be anywhere.

    Since I'm doing an historical study I'll look at the factors that lead to civil war. What are formative in making the factors for civil war are vested interests and ideology/mythology. The factors which made the vested interests, ideologies and mythologies are political, economic, and religious.

    1.  Politically, there was dissatisfaction of the bourgeoisie with the State for economic reasons.  The gentry were dissatisfied with James I for in underestimating them as a powerful actor in English politics, didn't give them favours such as jobs and positions or much land.  The commoners and peasantry were dissatisfied with James I because he never made many public appearances with them.  He was a stranger to them, which must have increased their anxiety in him being a foreigner.
    2. Economically, England was undergoing a depression.  There was also a boom in industry and industrial production, and the urban bourgeoisie was on a rise.  Charles I kept asking for money to pay for unpopular wars.  The bourgeoisie couldn't fully develop with the taxation of Charles I and the feudal restrictions.
    3. Religiously, Puritans, seeing the Anglican church as too Catholic and not trying to achieve salvation, began to organise politically.  Anglicanism and Puritanism where somewhat contradictory.  Puritanism was the religion where "regeneration" was a personal process without involvement with a church, whereas Anglicanism, like Catholicism, depended on a church and, in Anglicanism, a monarch for salvation.  This could spur some religious conflict.  What will be certain is that since Puritans were organising themselves into classes and parties in Parliament, the religious conflicts would be present in the zones of political intrigue and economic transition (domination of certain system) or "dialectics" (historical dialectics or Marxist historical determinism).

    Brainstorm made 19th-20th November 2011.

  • Nov 21, 11

    Kessler, P. L. /The Heptarchy 7th Century./ Digital image. /The History of England./ TypePad, 1999. Web. 20 Nov. 2011. <http://historyofengland.typepad.com/blog/maps-500-1000.html>.

  • An industrial revolution took place the century before 1640. The industrial revolution was stimulated by the plunder of monastic lands, in the New World, and from Africa (the slave trade). Rather than selling raw materials to be manufactured elsewhere, England was selling more and more finished or semi-finished materials. England's coal mining industry was booming. "[By] 1640 England produced over four-fifths of the coal of Europe." Coal allowed for the development of other industries, furthering along the industrial revolution. As trade increased, England became more of a colonial power.

    This expansion in trade and industry allowed the bourgeoisie and the Crown to see each other. The Crown and the feudal nobility and landowners saw the expansion of the bourgeoisie becoming a powerful player in the country. The bourgeoisie saw the restrictions that feudalism set on it. In response to the Crown's restrictions, Parliament chastised the monarchy, the edifice representing feudalism and the feudal landowners. Note its Parliament which responds to the woes of the bourgeoisie.

    Merchants organised into companies controlled export. "Merchant middlemen" controlled internal trade. Merchant middlemen controlled the labourers of the "putting-out system." The putting-out system is where a merchant with raw materials subcontracts with a small artisan. By the 17th century, these small artisans or peasants were owners of their own means of production, however, they were dependent on the bourgeoisie for supplies and income. The general rise in prices made this small artisan/peasant class dependent on the bourgeoisie. This class was usually in debt to the larger capitalist class. This class of small artisans was a kind of petty-bourgeoisie, so says Christopher Hill. This "petty-bourgeois" class was a class with its own interests, like any other class. At times, in the interest of its preservation and maintaining an enjoyable life (the kind which one would deserve), joined the feudal landlords in their movement against "usury" or wage-slavery. But this class was also a bourgeois class and the areas where it existed, East Anglia and the South Midlands would become areas of uncompromising resistance to Charles I. So it sided with the bourgeoisie against the restrictive policies of feudalism to limit industrial growth. However, the interests of the bourgeoisie and this petty-bourgeois class of peasants and artisans were only temporarily linked. The aims of the bourgeoisie would dissolve the old agrarian and industrial relations and transform these peasants, small artisans, and journeymen into proletarians, and thus contradictory with the aims of this "petty-bourgeoisie."

    Feudalism kept great restriction on production, keeping high standards on production, regulating and restricting competition. The industrial bourgeoisie found the guild's high standards for quality as a great restriction to meeting demands of the expanding market. This disregard for quality or consideration of high standards as an obstacle speaks to the capitalist ethos rising in the society. However, the guild's power was only extended in the towns and villages. So as England became a unified economic unit, these restrictions were harder to maintain. The bourgeoisie then took capital into the countryside. In the countryside they employed the cheap labour of the peasants ruined by the new bourgeois farming changes.

    In response to this move to the country, the Crown imposed new restrictions on industry and trade. The feudal landowners became worried and threatened by these changes that were entering the countryside. The flow of capital into the countryside added competition and new business where there'd been for generations very traditional and static agrarian relations. The new bourgeois changes also took more power away from the Crown. The Crown deliberately instituted policy that'd be in favour of the feudal landowners, like declaring new monopolies etc..

    So these are again the incentives to use bloodshed to realise interests. We see the sides drawn, the bourgeoisie and at first the "petty-bourgeoisie" on the one hand, the feudal nobility and thir king on the other.

    The petty-bourgeoisie seem to me to be the heroes. They are siding with the bourgeoisie when it's the national interest, and they are defending themselves and the rest of the country when they see that the bourgeoisie would harm England with its "usury" or wage-slavery.

  • Nov 24, 11

    This is a weird thing on how Cromwell fucked up Ireland.
    In Calibre

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