The “Rump Parliament” purged nine-tenths of the
House of Commons in order to try King Charles I,
who was beheaded on January 30, 1649.
On the same day they declared that
he would have no successor.
The next day John Owen gave them his sermon
Righteous Zeal Encouraged by Divine Protection.
This Parliament was led by Oliver Cromwell
and other “Grandees” of the Army.
They decided to abolish the monarchy on February 6
and the House of Peers (Lords) the next day
and enacted them into law on March 17 and 19.
On February 13 John Milton published The Tenure of Kings
and Magistrates: proving that it is lawful, and hath been
held so through the ages, for any, who have the Power,
to call to account a Tyrant, or wicked King, and after due
conviction, to depose, and put him to death;
if the ordinary Magistrate have neglected,
or deny’d to do it, a justification of the regicide.
He argued that all men are naturally born free in the image
of God and are privileged above all creatures
to command and not obey.
The king does not have the right to make his subjects
into his slaves, and not to hold kings accountable
is to overturn all law and government.
A king or magistrate only has authority over people
for their good, and the people may choose or reject him.
In mid-February the Parliament nominated and elected
a Council of State for administration with 41 members
of which 31 were in the Rump Parliament.
They were to be elected each year.
On March 6 The Council reported that England had
an army of 32,000 plus 12,000 for Ireland
that would cost £120,000 a month.
Three days later three convicted royalists were beheaded.
On March 15 the Council appointed Cromwell commander
in chief and John Milton the Secretary of Foreign Tongues,
and he corresponded with other governments in Latin and
knew Italian, French, and Spanish as well.
Roger Williams taught him Dutch
and in exchange learned other languages.
On March 28 the Council asked Milton to respond to
“Articles of Peace” made and concluded with the Irish rebels
and papists in January by Earl James of Ormonde
in behalf of the late King.
Milton denounced the articles for making Ulster Presbyterians
into “inhumane rebels and papists,” and he justified
Cromwell’s impending invasion of Ireland.
Milton also replied to the Eikon Basilike (King’s Image:
The Portraiture of His Sacred Majesty in His Solitudes
and Sufferings) that was later claimed to have been written
by John Gauden, Bishop of Worcester.
Milton wrote a reply twice as long
which he published as Eikonoklastes in October.
He criticized Presbyterians for turning
from fighting the King to supporting him.
He noted that kings usually have weak arguments
because they usually use their will
more than their reason.
Milton easily showed the falseness of the King’s pious claims
because most people knew the facts.
Also in March 1649 the Parliament began assessing a monthly
tax of £90,000 and continued the excise tax.
On March 17 the Commons abolished the House of Lords,
and two days later the monarchy.
On April 2 the Parliament deprived the Lord Mayor of London
of his office, fined him £2,000, and imprisoned him for a month,
and five aldermen were also replaced.
Excessive rain had ruined crops,
and limited food was sold at famine prices.
Some soldiers followed the Leveller “Freeborn” John Lilburne
who in February published England’s New Chains.
Milton refused to criticize it; but Parliament declared this book
seditious on March 28, and the next day they detained Lilburne,
William Walwyn, Richard Overton, and the Levellers’
Treasurer Thomas Prince in the Tower.
Cromwell and others feared that a freely elected parliament
by manhood suffrage would let the poor govern
the rich and would destroy private property.
Yet Lilburne and most Levellers wanted a democratic
parliament with individual freedom, and they were concerned
that Cromwell was moving toward military despotism.
On April 16 Lilburne and the Levellers issued a new manifesto
declaring that “every man” has a right to his own property.
Robert Lockyer was executed on April 27,
and thousands attended his funeral.
On May 1 Lilburne issued a revised Agreement of the People
showing that he distrusted the Parliamentary government
as much as he had the monarchy.
News arrived that three regiments were refusing
to leave England to fight in Ireland.
Cromwell spoke to two regiments in Hyde Park on May 9
and promised that soldiers owed pay
would get former Crown land.
Armed forces led by Cromwell and General Thomas Fairfax
suppressed the Leveller mutinies by May 14, the day of the
new Treason Act which added provoking mutiny in the ranks.
William Thompson wrote England’s Standard Advanced,
and his brother Cornet James Thompson was condemned
to death by a court martial for inciting mutiny and was
executed on the 17th with two corporals.
On May 19 Parliament declared England
a Free Commonwealth.
The True Levellers (called “Diggers” by their enemies)
led by Gerrard Winstanley on April 16, 1649 organized
a commune on St. George’s Hill at Weybridge in Surrey.
They used public land to grow and share food;
but General Fairfax’s troops dispersed them by the 19th.
Winstanley and William Everard were summoned
and refused to remove their hats.
Everard published a manifesto on April 26 calling landlords
“thieves and murderers,” and he was committed
to the Bridewell prison for the insane.
Wealthy neighbors forced Diggers
to abandon their experiments by August.
In 1650 Winstanley published his New-Years Gift for the
Parliament and Army in which he emphasized the power
of human community in the unity of the spirit of love
which leads to truth and the community of the earth
for livelihood in food and clothing without using force,
and he called Jesus Christ the greatest
and truest Leveller ever.
Lilburne managed to publish more pamphlets from prison
including an impeachment of Cromwell and his son-in-law
Henry Ireton for treason in August and his
Outcry of the Young Men on September 1, which was
such an incitement that he was prosecuted for treason.
In October he was acquitted by twelve jurors,
but by then the Leveller movement had been repressed.
On September 20 Parliament required a license
to print any book or pamphlet.
On the 27th they repealed all statutes
enforcing church attendance.
Lilburne was voted a Common Councilor on December 21,
but five days later Parliament quashed his election.
On January 2, 1650 Parliament passed the Act for Subscribing
the Engagement which required all men 18 and older to declare
and promise that they “will be true and faithful to the
Commonwealth of England as it is now established,
without a king or House of Lords.”
They also ordered all law courts to use English and no Latin.
On May 10 they imposed the death penalty for adultery,
fornication, and incest to suppress the nonconformists.
However, juries refused to convict, and the only person
convicted of adultery was not executed.
Marchamont Nedham had been arrested for editing
a royalist newspaper in 1649,
but on June 6, 1650 he started Mercurius Politicus
as the government newspaper.
On August 1 Cromwell formed an Economic Council.
Matthew Hale published Analysis of the Civil Law,
proposing how the laws of England could be codified.
The Puritan Richard Baxter published
The Saints’ Everlasting Rest in 1650.
That year England suffered from a typhus epidemic,
and in 1659 physician Thomas Willis would be
the first to describe typhoid fever.
In 1650 London’s population reached 350,000,
and the first coffee house opened in Oxford.
Also in 1650 Parliament passed the Act for the Better
Promotion of the Gospel in Wales
which gave the Welsh more religious independence.
In the next three years commissioners removed 278 clerics,
and they hired many itinerant preachers
and established schools in the urban areas of Wales.
The independents and Baptists increased,
and Presbyterians thrived in Flintshire.
Morgan Llwyd’s Book of the Three Birds
(Llyfr y Tri Aderyn) was published in 1653.
The Commonwealth attempted to supervise the colonies
and passed the Navigation Acts of October 1650
and October 1651 to try to take carrying trade
from the Dutch, provoking a naval war which
caused a government deficit of £870,000 in 1652.
The economic crisis of 1649 stimulated
much publishing of reform ideas.
London bookseller George Thomason collected
more than 18,000 publications between 1640 and 1655
and 3,000 more by 1660.
Censorship began in 1649 with the seizing
of an edition of the Koran in London.
John Milton was in charge of propaganda and censorship
from December 1649 until January 1653
when he had to resign because of blindness.
His vision had deteriorated over the previous eight years
until glaucoma caused him to see only white (not black),
but he continued to work as a translator for the government
through 1659 with the aid of secretaries,
one of whom was the poet Andrew Marvell.
In November 1649 the French Claudius Salmasius had
published Defensio Regia pro Carolo I at the behest
of the exiled Charles II, and in response Milton published
his Defensio pro Populo Anglicano
(Defense of the English People), his first defense of the
Commonwealth that was registered on December 31, 1650
and printed twice in England and eleven times
abroad in the next two years.
Milton railed against tyranny and superstition
which he considered most fatal to virtue.
He commended Cromwell for refusing to become king
and wrote that whoever attacks the liberty of others
will lose one’s own freedom and deserves that fate.
Milton still acted as censor for the Mercurius Politicus
newspaper edited by Marchamont Nedham,
and he contributed his ideas on justice.
He also wrote on theology and British history,
translated psalms, wrote short poems,
and began his Biblical epic.
General Thomas Harrison favored religious zealots.
Fifth Monarchists believed that the books of Daniel
and Revelations prophesied that the four great empires of
Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome would be followed
by the reign of Jesus and his saints.
On October 15, 1651 they had published a
Model of a New Representative urging the
election of a parliament by the Churches of the Saints.
Jeremy Taylor (1613-67) had served as chaplain
to Archbishop William Laud and King Charles I,
and he was imprisoned several times during the Commonwealth.
By 1648 he had written Of the Liberty of Prophesying
as a plea for tolerance.
He was a popular preacher and published his sermons.
He wrote The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living in 1650
and The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying in 1651.
Also in 1651 William Harvey published
On the Generation of Animals, showing how animals
and humans are generated from an egg and thus beginning
the study of embryology.
That year Francis Glisson published his Treatise on Rickets,
though he did not understand the nutritional cause.
On July 16 Parliament authorized the sale of 70 estates
confiscated from royalists.
In January 1652 a Parliament’s committee ordered
John Lilburne to pay £7,000 for criticizing Arthur Hesilrige
and the committee and banished him, provoking protests
by thousands of London citizens.
Also in January judges were given salaries
to replace fees and perquisites.
After the Racovian Catechism was published in London with
the doctrines of Poland’s Socinian (Unitarian) Churches,
the Parliament on February 18 established the Committee
for the Propagation of the Gospel.
The next week the Oblivion Act granted a general pardon
to royalists, but it was followed by two more acts
for the sale of confiscated estates.
Also in 1652 the Parliament set up a commission led by
Judge Matthew Hale that adopted many ideas of the Levellers,
but the lawyers who dominated the House did not implement
any of the report’s proposals
submitted on January 20, 1653.
Many new social experiments and new religious groups
included Particular and General Baptists, Ranters,
Grindletonians, Muggletonians, and Quakers.
General Baptists preached that grace is available to all,
but Particular Baptists held that only the “elect”
were predestined for salvation.
Ranters were noncomformists who were pantheistic
in finding God in all creatures.
They were considered antinomians because they did not obey
the laws of Moses; but they had no leaders nor any organization.
Grindletonians were Puritans in Lancashire who believed the
Holy Spirit is most important and that a true Christian
who has that Spirit within does not sin.
Lodowicke Muggleton and his cousin John Reeve claimed
they were commissioned by God as the last prophets,
and they appealed to Ranters and opposed Quakers.
Muggletonians did not participate in religious rituals, worship,
or preaching, but they met for discussions; they were peaceful,
believed in equality, and avoided politics.
Since no state Church existed,
most congregations elected their own ministers.
Radicals opposed tithes that went to landowners as rent,
and some advocated that women could participate
in Church government and even preach.
After a naval victory off Dover on May 29, 1652
the Parliament declared war against the Dutch on June 30.
English ships captured by the enemy meant losses for
the owners, but Dutch vessels taken benefited the State.
On November 24 Navy Commissioners reported
mutinies on three ships, and in elections that day
the peace party gained seats.
On August 2 the Army had rejected the Perpetuation Bill
and petitioned Parliament.
On December 10 Parliament increased the monthly tax
assessment from £90,000 to £120,000.
The English navy led by Captain Robert Blake
inflicted severe losses on the Dutch.
Their Admiral Maarten van Tromp won a naval battle
against the British at Dungeness on November 30
but lost at Portland on February 20, 1653.
On June 3 off the Gabbard Sands the English Navy
led by George Monck sank eleven Dutch ships
and captured seven with 1,350 prisoners.
On July 31 Monck’s naval forces at the battle of
Scheveningen defeated the Dutch again and
killed Van Tromp, though the Dutch broke the blockade.
On September 5 the Assembly learned
that the Navy had a deficit of £515,000.
Unpaid sailors mutinied in October,
and on the 27th a riot near Whitehall was
put down by a cavalry charge;
one leader was hanged.
After many months of debate Cromwell, having the support
of the army and navy, on April 20, 1653 dismissed
the Rump Parliament by occupying
the chamber with about 25 soldiers.
Then he ordered General Harrison to pull down
the Speaker and remove his mace.
Cromwell proposed that the House of Commons
nominate a new constituent assembly.
General Harrison had persuaded Cromwell to accept
proved Puritans for an Assembly of Saints.
Two days later an Army Declaration explained their reasons.
The new government was to reduce taxes, make peace
with the Dutch, pay the debts of the previous Parliament,
and reform laws in order to give justice to the poor.
On April 25 Cromwell pardoned several prisoners
on their way to being executed for murder.
Four days later seven military officers and three civilians
were appointed to form a Council of State
(called the “Decemvirate” by royalists),
and Cromwell’s proclamation was issued on May 6.
General Cromwell and the Council of the Army sent letters to
congregational churches asking for nominations to Parliament.
On May 28 the Army Council began selecting some
nominations but substituting names for others.
By June they had 129 representatives from England,
five from Scotland, and six from Ireland, though all those
from Scotland and Ireland were English or favored England.
Cromwell was also on the Council
which was increased to thirteen.
The Nominated members assembled on July 4, 1653, and
the House named itself Parliament and appointed committees.
Cromwell declared that Jesus Christ would help them
usher in what God had promised.
They tried to replace the Common Law with
the Law of Moses and repealed the hated excise tax.
On the 9th Levellers published The Fundamental Laws
and Liberties of England, arguing that only
annually elected parliaments were lawful in England.
On August 5 the Parliament abolished the
complicated and delaying Court of Chancery which
had 23,000 cases pending and had issued 500 orders.
Fees and costs had been expensive,
and many had been ruined and landed in debtors’ prison.
Another Act declared that only marriages registered with
a Justice of the Peace would be recognized by the State.
The Assembly of Saints stopped the execution of thieves
for their first offense and the burning of women
while relieving creditors and poor prisoners.
They promoted primary education
and passed 26 acts in five months.
Cromwell repealed the Engagement
that had required a loyalty oath.
A petition presented by six youths, complaining the Parliament
had not been legally elected but suggesting they could redeem
themselves by being just to the oppressed,
resulted in their imprisonment.
John Lilburne on August 1 published The Upright Man’s
Vindication asserting that the military
had imposed this Parliament by conquest.
He was tried for the capital crime of returning to England
and was acquitted again on August 20, 1653,
but Parliament kept him imprisoned until his death in 1657.
Lilburne was allowed to visit his family occasionally
and became a Quaker in 1656.
In early December 1653 moderates in the Assembly protected
the legal ownership of tithes and did not want the issue discussed.
On the 6th the House voted 83-81 to confirm
the power of the Lord Protector.
On the 12th young Charles Worsley, a supporter of Cromwell,
condemned the abolishing of tithes as an attack
on property and criticized the Assembly.
Two days later the Council of the Army adopted
General John Lambert’s draft of the
Instrument of Government that made Cromwell the power
in the Commonwealth with a new Parliament of 140 members.
He declined to be king, and on the 16th Oliver Cromwell
was inaugurated as Lord Protector
and began signing his documents “Oliver.”
He retained twelve judges and replaced two
who had treated royalists unjustly.
The Instrument guaranteed liberty of conscience for Christians
who did not follow “popery or prelacy”
and did not “practice licentiousness.”
The Protector could suspend laws for twenty days.
The new Parliament was to include 400 members from
England and Wales and thirty each from Scotland and Ireland.
Those with property worth at least £200 could vote.
Those who had fought against Parliament were barred
from voting or serving for four years,
and all Roman Catholics were excluded.
After taking 1,700 prizes from the Dutch during
three years of negotiations, on April 5, 1654
England made a peace treaty at Westminster.
Cromwell insisted that the 3-year-old Prince William of Orange,
grandson of Charles I, be excluded
from high office in the United Netherlands.
On the 11th England made a commercial treaty with Sweden,
and the next day Parliament proclaimed English union
with Scotland and Ireland with free trade
and representation in Parliament.
Oliver Cromwell and his family
moved into Whitehall on April 14.
John Milton published his Second Defence of the English
People on May 30, 1654 against the anonymous
Cry of the King’s Blood that was published at The Hague
in 1652 and had been written
by the Anglican royalist Pierre du Moulin.
Most of Milton’s book is biographical or a discussion
of the current political situation in England.
He defended Cromwell’s career
and praised his leadership qualities.
He argued that truth should be defended by reason
which is most appropriate for humans.
He warned that if elections and offices are dominated
by those with the largest purses,
then the fight for freedom will be in vain.
To avoid slavery one must learn to obey
right reason in order to master oneself.
In 1655 Milton would publish a Defense of Himself
using biting satire.
Portugal had agreed to a commercial treaty with the British
in 1653, and in July 1654 the Portuguese transferred
the Dutch monopoly on trade with
the Portuguese empire to the British.
By 1660 English merchants had sixty houses
in Lisbon and only two in Spain.
The Protectorate and Union with Scotland had been
proclaimed at Edinburgh by Monck on May 4, 1654,
and an attempted royalist invasion of Scotland
was easily suppressed in August.
England made a commercial treaty
with Denmark on September 15.
In November the silk merchant George Cony refused
to pay a duty on Spanish wine because
it was ordered by the Protector, not Parliament.
The Instrument of Government had given such power
to the Protector, and Cromwell ordered Cony
and his lawyers imprisoned until they dropped the case.
Two judges had been dismissed for challenging the
authority of the Instrument, and now a Chief Justice
resigned because of Cony’s treatment.
Local governments operated on their own enforcing
poor laws by granting outdoor relief, educating and
apprenticing poor children, and providing workhouses,
hospitals, and almshouses for the ill and aged.
The economy, road maintenance,
and law enforcement functioned as usual.
Ministers and schoolmasters were monitored by clerical Triers
and lay Ejectors who could expel them for “scandalous living.”
More than 300 members of Parliament met on
September 3, 1654, and Cromwell made
a speech criticizing extremists.
Arthur Haselrig and the judge Matthew Hale argued
that Parliament should be free and have more power,
and General Harrison said he had petitions signed
by 20,000 people calling for Cromwell’s arrest.
On September 12 Cromwell had London’s mayor
surround the House with guards.
On September 12 he forced 240 members to sign
a “Recognition” that they would not alter the government.
His principles included liberty of conscience,
and neither the Protector nor the Parliament
was to have complete control over the military.
Two days later Lilburnians in London
accused him of high treason.
They demanded an election on October 16,
and on that day the Fifth-Monarch preacher
Edmund Chillenden was attacked by apprentices.
On November 17 Parliament abolished lay patronage
of church livings, and on December 10
they rejected a committee report to retain tithes.
Ireland’s Lord Lieutenant James FitzThomas Butler,
Marquess of Ormonde, supported King Charles II
and led the Anglo-Irish royalists and the native Irish
with a few Scots in Ulster.
On January 17, 1649 Ormonde and the Catholics agreed
on a treaty at Kilkenny that protected freedom of religion,
independence of the Irish Parliament, and other reforms.
The Catholic confederates promised to supply Ormonde
with 15,000 infantry and 500 cavalry.
Prince Rupert, Count Palatine of the Rhine,
brought eight ships to Kinsale on January 29.
Parliamentary commander Col. George Monck made a secret
armistice in May with Owen O’Neill of the Ulster Irish,
but 5,000 Parliamentarians led by Col. Michael Jones
defeated Ormonde’s force of 11,000 at Rathmines near Dublin
on August 2, causing about a thousand casualties
and taking 2,500 prisoners with few losses.
By June 20, 1649 Parliament had appointed Cromwell
commander in chief and Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland.
He arrived on August 15 with 130 ships carrying
8,000 foot soldiers and 4,000 horsemen,
and they joined 8,000 men commanded by Jones.
The English army moved from Dublin
to squelch the Irish royalists.
On September 3 they besieged Drogheda in Leinster.
The garrison refused to capitulate, and after the assault
on the 11th Cromwell ordered those bearing arms killed,
and most friars and priests died too.
Cromwell’s army lost 150 men while
killing about 3,000 and capturing 200.
On October 11 a similar result occurred at Wexford.
In Munster two garrisons fled, and on December 4 the siege
of Waterford was abandoned to go into winter quarters.
Kilkenny was besieged on March 22, 1650
and surrendered after six days.
Clonmel, the largest town in Tipperary, was besieged
and fell in May, but about 2,000 English were killed.
Cromwell left his son-in-law Henry Ireton in command
as President of Munster and departed from Ireland on May 26.
Parliament appointed four commissioners to govern Ireland
on October 4, and they were instructed
to promote Protestant religion.
Ormonde turned his command of the royalists over to
Ulick Clanricard and left Ireland on December 11, 1650.
The English besieged Limerick in October
until winter and then again in June 1651.
Hugh Dubh O’Neill surrendered Limerick on October 27
after about 700 soldiers and 5,000 civilians had died.
Some 2,000 English soldiers died, mostly from disease,
and Ireton succumbed to the plague on November 26.
The English fleet led by Robert Blake
defeated Prince Rupert’s ships.
The war went on during a 9-month siege until the Irish
finally surrendered at Galway in May 1652.
Cromwell wanted to punish the Irish for their rebellion of 1641.
In the Adventurers’ Act of 1642 the English Parliament had
declared 2,500,000 acres of Irish land of the rebels forfeited.
Ten years later on August 12 they would be given to the English
to repay them for the £306,708 raised for the conquest
which actually cost about £3,000,000.
The Act for the Settlement of Ireland took over two-thirds
of the land and ordered the Irish in the counties of Dublin, Cork,
Kildare, Carlow, and ten other counties to move to Connaught.
This land was given to officers, soldiers, and capitalists
who had loaned money for the war as compensation,
but most of the soldiers sold their land to their officers.
Most of the Irish were pardoned, but Catholic priests were
hunted down and killed;
a law offered $5 for the head of a wolf or a Catholic bishop.
In October a high court of justice was established
to try those accused of murder.
Those who fought for the Confederacy lost two-thirds
of their estates, sympathetic landowners one-third,
and lesser ones one-fifth.
Of the 34,000 soldiers expelled many later
fought in the war between France and Spain.
Those who refused to leave were transported to Barbados.
About 44,000 people were “transplanted” west of the
Shannon River by March 1655;
but the poor Irish had remained to work for the new owners.
In 1652 Samuel Hartlib published
The Natural History of Ireland by Gerard Boate
to help educate the new planters.
Two-thirds of the investors had not claimed their land by 1653.
On September 26 the Act of Satisfaction distributed forfeited
Irish land to soldiers and adventurers.
William Petty conducted the Down Survey in 1654.
The county of Wexford lost 77% of its Catholic landowners.
In 1654 James Ussher, Bishop of Armagh, using Biblical
scholarship calculated that the creation of the world
took place in 4004 BC.
In 1656 Quakers were oppressed with 92 arrested
and six banished, and that year
Catholic priests began returning cautiously.
Cromwell allowed Ireland free trade
with England and foreign markets.
Mixed marriages were prevented by prohibiting English soldiers
from marrying Irish women unless they were Protestants.
During the Commonwealth period as many as a hundred
Catholic priests may have been killed in Ireland,
and more than a thousand were exiled.
Catholics held about 60% of the land in Ireland in 1641,
but by 1660 they had only about 9%.
During the 1650s these wars and oppression
caused the population of Ireland to fall
from 1.3 million to less than one million.
News of the execution of Charles I reached Edinburgh
on February 4, 1649, and the next day the Parliament
of Scotland proclaimed his son King Charles II;
but led by Archibald Campbell, the 8th Earl of Argyll
they refused to let him in Scotland
until he swore to uphold the Presbyterian Covenant.
Charles named Marquis James Graham of Montrose
Lieutenant Governor and Captain-General of Scotland.
He tried to help the King but was defeated
at Carbisdale on April 27, 1650.
Montrose escaped but was captured and sentenced to death
by the Scottish Parliament and hanged at Edinburgh on May 21.
After negotiation Charles agreed to the Breda Treaty on May 1,
and he arrived in Scotland on June 23.
General Fairfax opposed war with Scotland
and resigned on June 26, 1650.
That day Parliament replaced him as commander-in-chief
with Cromwell who had just returned from Ireland.
Cromwell met with Lilburne and led an army north to Scotland.
At Berwick on July 19 he mustered an army of 16,000 men
that included 5,500 horsemen,
and they crossed the Scottish border three days later.
On August 1 at Musselburgh
he proclaimed “Jesus Christ as our King.”
Lt. General David Leslie commanded the Scottish army
of 27,000 foot soldiers and 5,000 horsemen
and had to defend Edinburgh.
Clergy feared an uprising in the army, and Commissioners
for Purging dismissed 80 officers and over 3,000 soldiers.
King Charles II signed
the Covenanters’ Declaration on August 16.
Cromwell withdrew to Dunbar, where on September 3
his 11,000 veterans defeated Leslie’s army of 12,000 Scots;
only 20 English were killed while the Scots lost
about 2,000 men with about 8,000 taken prisoners.
Cromwell besieged Edinburgh which surrendered
in December as Scottish leaders retreated to Stirling.
Argyll crowned Charles II king in a church
at Scone on January 1, 1651.
After his illness Cromwell’s army occupied Perth
on August 2 as the Scottish army fled
across the border and invaded England.
Cromwell and his 31,000 men pursued them.
Stirling capitulated to the Commonwealth forces
on August 14, and on September 1 General Monck’s
forces killed 2,000 of Dundee’s 12,000 inhabitants.
Two days later Cromwell’s army at Worcester
overwhelmed about 16,000 Scots by killing 3,000
and taking 10,000 prisoners and 15,000 weapons.
One week later the English Parliament offered
a reward of £1,000 for the capture of Charles II
and the penalty of treason for anyone sheltering him.
Cromwell’s army occupied Edinburgh and besieged the castle
as Charles II fled across the channel to France in October.
That month the English Parliament reduced the army to save
£423,000 after having spent £1,410,000 on the military,
and they appointed commissioners to administer Scotland.
On November 19 they banned public meetings.
On December 14 the Scottish Parliament
acknowledged their sins, and ten days later
the Edinburgh castle finally surrendered.
Scotland and Ireland were each allowed thirty representatives
in the British Parliament that now had more than 200 members.
In January 1652 the commissioners instructed
the burghs and shires to elect deputies for the union,
but 23 from shires and 37 from burghs
learned they were only there to receive information.
The English took over the Scottish legal system
under seven commissioners
with four English and three Scots.
In July 1654 General Monck’s army of occupation defeated
a rebellion in Scotland instigated by Charles II and led by
the 9th Earl of Glencairn and General John Middleton.
More than 500 men were transported to Barbados.
The English army occupying Scotland had been reduced
from 36,000 to about 11,000 in 1653,
but now they increased it to 18,000.
A Council of State began operating in Scotland in September
1655, but only two of the nine members were Scots.
That month the burgesses regained the right to hold elections,
and in 1656 justices of the peace
were appointed in every sheriffdom.
In 1651 the barony courts and heritable jurisdictions
had been suspended, and they were abolished in 1657.
Between 1657 and 1659 Scotland had 102 witchcraft cases.
The first Protectorate Parliament met from September 3, 1654;
but they failed to pass any of the 84 bills proposed,
and after being in session for five lunar months
Cromwell dissolved the Parliament on January 22, 1655.
John Penruddock on March 12 led a royalist uprising
at Salisbury in Wiltshire that opened the jail
and arrested two judges and the high sheriff.
Major General John Desborough had it suppressed.
Of the 26 who pleaded guilty or were convicted at Exeter
nine including Penruddock were executed,
and five were transported to Barbados.
Council Secretary John Thurloe was in charge
of government spies who uncovered plots.
On February 8 the monthly tax assessment in England
was reduced from £90,000 to £60,000 with £10,000 each
from Scotland and Ireland, and one week later
the Protectorate proclaimed religious liberty.
Yet Cromwell made censorship more effective in 1655.
To save money the army was reduced and replaced
by militia paid for by imposing a “decimation” tax of
ten percent on the estates of known royalists
worth more than £100 in land
and £10 for every £1,500 in goods.
When the Commonwealth began in 1649,
few foreign ambassadors were in London;
but by 1655 representatives of 32 nations resided there.
In late April the British Admiral William Penn and General
Robert Venables led an attack on Santo Domingo
with 34 ships and more than 13,000 soldiers,
but the expedition failed with the loss of 3,000 men.
To try to redeem themselves on May 19 they invaded
and occupied the undefended Spanish colony of Jamaica.
The Council of State objected to their acting
without orders and sent them to the Tower.
The Spanish Ambassador Alonso de Cardenas registered
a vehement protest, but Jamaica became a British colony.
On May 24 a month after the Vaudois massacre of
1,700 Waldensians in Piedmont by the Duke of Savoy,
Cromwell sent letters to European rulers
that were translated by Milton.
Cromwell also contributed £2,000
to relieve Waldensian survivors.
The Instrument of Government called for reduction
of the army from 57,000 men to 30,000.
On August 9, 1655 Cromwell nominated major generals
to command what turned out to be
eleven districts in England and Wales.
They enforced the laws, public morality, and collected taxes.
Royalists were taxed 10% on their rentals
and could not have weapons.
Horse races, cock fights, bear-baiting, plays, gambling,
and brothels were banned.
Major-General Charles Worsley
closed 200 alehouses in Lancashire.
John Biddle had spent much time in prison for being a Unitarian,
and on October 5 Cromwell sent him to the Scilly Isles
beyond
the reach of Parliament with an allowance of 100 crowns.
On October 26 Cromwell formed a defensive alliance
and made a commercial treaty with France before issuing
a manifesto complaining about violent actions by Spaniards.
That month use of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer
was forbidden again.
This continued to make it dangerous to use it
for baptisms, weddings, and funerals.
On November 24, 1655 Cromwell banned Anglican services
and prohibited the employment of a
sequestered minister as a chaplain or schoolmaster.
Menasseh ben Israel (1604-57) was a Portuguese rabbi
who founded the first Hebrew printing press
in Amsterdam in 1627.
He wrote and printed Hope of Israel in Hebrew and Latin
in
Amsterdam, and in 1652 it was published in English in London.
Menasseh came to London in September 1655
when a Jew in Amsterdam reported that a large convoy
with 11,000 men had left Spain.
On November 13 Menasseh petitioned England’s
Council of State to admit Jewish refugees
from Spain and Portugal.
On December 4 Cromwell made a speech to his Council
praising Menasseh, and on June 25, 1656 they granted
Jews the right to hold public services in London.
Menasseh defended Jews in his
Humble Addresses to the Protector.
He also wrote On Human Frailty, the treatise
Nishmat Hayim, in Hebrew on the reincarnation of souls,
and In Defense of the Jews (1656).
In 1657 Samuel Dormido became the first Jew
to trade on the London Stock Exchange.
On April 22, 1656 Charles II in Brussels allied with Spain’s
Felipe IV, who promised 4,000 infantry and 200 cavalry
for the English Royalists to seize a port they could use.
In July writs were issued for the second Protectorate
Parliament for 375 English, 24 Welsh, 29 Scottish, and 31 Irish.
The major generals tried to influence the August elections,
but many were elected
who opposed the military and Cromwell.
He and the Council excluded more than a hundred members,
and about sixty others withdrew before the second
Protectorate session began on September 17.
About 200 members remained, and on January 30, 1657
they voted £400,000 for the war against Spain.
On September 8, 1656 Captain Richard Stayner’s
squadron had destroyed a Spanish treasure fleet
capturing prizes worth £600,000.
On April 27, 1657 the fleet of 23 warships led by Admiral
Blake and Stayner by Tenerife of the Canary Islands
destroyed another Spanish treasure
convoy from the West Indies.
That year the East India Company began selling tea
in London with lower prices than the Dutch,
and tea was served at Thomas Garraway’s coffee house.
Another shop began selling chocolate drinks.
Durham University was founded.
Also in 1657 Brian Walton completed his 6-volume
Polyglot Bible using Hebrew, Chaldee, Samaritan,
Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Ethiopic, Greek, and Latin.
On February 23, 1657 the former London Mayor
and successful member of the Merchant Adventurers,
Christopher Packe, had presented the
Humble Petition and Advice to the Second Protectorate
Parliament suggesting the monarchy of Cromwell
with Parliament controlling taxes
and an independent council advising the King.
On March 13 the Anglo-French alliance became offensive
against Spain at Dunkirk, Mardyke, and Gravelines,
and after a month-long siege the British gained control
over Dunkirk in June 1658.
On March 25, 1657 two-thirds of the Parliament voted
to make Cromwell king, but on May 8 he declined.
On May 25 a New Humble Petition created a new
House of Lords and increased Cromwell’s power.
He was invested again as Lord Protector
on June 26 in Westminster Hall.
The East India Company regained its charter
with permanent joint stock in 1657.
The annual revenue of the government was £1,300,000
but spent a total of £2,500,000
including £1,000,000 on the army and navy.
The army was reduced from £60,000 a month to £35,000.
The Parliament based on the Humble Petition
met on January 20, 1658.
Cromwell appointed 42 men who accepted, including thirty
who were elevated from the House of Commons,
to join one of the old peers in the revived House of Lords
which was called the “Other House.”
The republican opposition had gained strength
and criticized the Other House.
Cromwell worried that they would join with
discontent soldiers, and he went to Parliament,
criticized both houses and dissolved them.
The government was deeply in debt.
Cromwell suffered from malaria and kidney and
urinary “stones” and died on September 3, 1658
after naming his son Richard Cromwell as his successor.
Although the Cromwell expert Maurice Ashley noted,
“Oliver Cromwell died hated by all save
a few intimate friends and admirers.”1
His achievements have been recognized by posterity.
The interregnum 1649-60 allowed greater liberty of
conscience especially for the Puritans who attempted
to implement the development of religion by the free choice
of each individual rather than by a state church.
The Commonwealth tolerated radicals like the Quakers
and Jews but not the Roman Catholic or Anglican churches.
The greatest religious authority in England
during this era was the Bible.
Thurloe got the Post Office to serve
private and public customers,
and regular coach services began in this era,
which began with a political and economic crisis
and also ended with one.
During these crises many pamphlets were published
suggesting ways of relieving poverty.
During the 1650s the British Navy added more than 200 ships.
Coal production at Newcastle had increased from
32,951 tons in 1654 to 529,032 tons in 1658.
Roger Crab (1621-80) fought for the Parliamentary Army
during the Civil War and was arrested for preaching in 1646,
but General Fairfax came to his defense in Parliament.
After the war Crab sold hats for three years.
Then in 1652 he sold his hat business and property
and gave the money to the poor.
He became a hermit near Uxbridge and grew his own food.
He lived as a vegetarian and believed that
eating meat made people cruel.
His knowledge of herbs and nutrition enabled him to give
helpful health advice that included avoiding meat and alcohol.
He claimed that he had 120 patients.
Crab wrote several pamphlets,
and in 1655 he published his autobiography,
The English Hermit, or The Wonder of the Age.
He recommended using the soul
to master the body to avoid sin.
He criticized private property because it causes
murderers to kill and thieves to steal.
He asked how a man can love his neighbor
if he has more land and possessions,
and he opposed the death penalty.
Crab also criticized mandatory tithing and required
church attendance as prostitution and idolatry.
By 1657 he had been arrested four times for breaking
the Sabbath, and he was put in the stocks in front of
Ickenham church and was held in Clerkenwell Prison.
Also in 1657 William Coles published Adam in Eden
to promote the vegetarian diet as the way to health
and longevity, and in 1650 Thomas Browne in his
Pseudoxia Epidemica or Vulgar Errors had wondered
if God used the great flood to punish mankind
for eating the flesh of animals, and he suggested that
a vegetable diet could prolong one’s life.
By 1659 Crab’s group was called “Rationals” or “Rationalists.”
Many people attended Crab’s funeral on September 14, 1680,
and a large monument was erected that includes
the following words:
So in kind Nature’s Law he stood,
A Temple undefil’d with Blood:
A Friend to ev’ry Thing that’s good.2
The late Protector’s son Henry Cromwell was appointed
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland on October 6, 1658,
but he was replaced by five commissioners in May 1659.
A diversely divided Parliament met on January 27, 1659.
John Milton in mid-February published
A Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical causes:
Showing That it is not lawful for any power on earth
to compel in matters of Religion.
He argued that no one should be punished or harassed
for practicing one’s religious beliefs according to
conscientious persuasion; but he made an exception
for Catholics because their religion is also a Roman principality
trying to maintain its universal dominion.
Protestants generally agree that no one should be considered
a heretic who maintains one’s opinions based on scripture,
and Milton disagreed with Quakers who believe that
the Light of the inner Spirit takes precedence over the Bible.
Outside Parliament on February 15, 1659 republicans
presented The Humble Petition of Many Thousand Citizens
to the Parliament, and the General Council of Army Officers
presented their humble petition on April 6, asking
Lord Protector Richard Cromwell to oppose the royalists.
That week a Commons committee on public revenue
reported that the government had a debt of nearly
£2,500,000 with an annual deficit of £333,000,
and they owed the soldiers nearly £890,000 in arrears.
This Cromwell was a country gentleman
who had never been in the army.
His Parliament opposed military rule and on April 18
voted that the Army General Council should not meet
without permission of the Protector and Parliament,
but within five days the army forced the Parliament to dissolve.
On April 16 the House of Commons had rejected
a petition from Quakers asking for relief from persecution.
General Charles Fleetwood led the forces
that occupied London on April 21.
The next day Richard Cromwell agreed
to dissolve
the Parliament, and Fleetwood recalled 42 members
of the Rump Parliament on May 7.
Six days later a Council of State met consisting of
15 army officers, including Lambert, Desborough,
and Fleetwood, and 16 civilians that included
Arthur Haselrig, Henry Vane,
Thomas Scot,
James Harrington, and Henry Neville.
That day they suspended Nedham from editing
the government’s most useful newspaper,
Mercurius Politicus; but his replacement John Canne
was so bad that Nedham was reinstated in August.
On May 25 Richard Cromwell resigned
as the Parliament agreed to pay his debts.
Baron George Booth, military commissioner in Cheshire,
was excluded, and he issued a manifesto suggesting
that people fight for Charles II on August 5.
They gained control of Chester; but Thurloe had discovered
the plot earlier, and Lambert’s army defeated them
near Northwich, capturing Booth on August 23.
Milton in August published Considerations touching the
likeliest means to remove Hirelings out of the church
to discourage mandatory tithes, church fees,
and other church revenues.
At this time they began calling the members of the
Purged Parliament, which had begun in 1649,
the “Rump Parliament.”
General Lambert’s officers at Derby
wrote a petition in September.
On October 11, 1659 the Parliament declared it treason
for anyone but Parliament to levy a tax, and the next day
they resolved to remove nine senior officers including Lambert
and Fleetwood; but on the 13th Lambert used troops
to dissolve the remnants of the Rump Parliament.
One week later General George Monck,
who had fought for the royalists before he was captured
in January 1644, sent a letter to Lambert, General Fleetwood,
and William Lenthall supporting Parliament.
The Council was replaced on October 27
when
Fleetwood set up an interim government by army grandees.
The next day the Committee of Safety sent Lambert
with 12,000 soldiers to fight Monck,
and they left on November 3.
The Scottish assembly granted General Monck £50,000,
and on the 24th the Republican Council of State
appointed him commander in chief.
General Fairfax and his army in Yorkshire
also supported Parliament as did the Navy in Downs.
Hesilrige raised an army and occupied Portsmouth.
On December 5 troops killed two boys during a riot.
That day London’s Common Council called for a
free Parliament as did Monck on the 16th.
On that day Vice-Admiral James Lawson
led a fleet into the Thames.
On December 24, Fleetwood resigned and two days
later the Purged Parliament reconvened.
The next day Lambert tried to restore order
in London, but his army dispersed.
By the end of the year taxpayers in London were on strike;
most shops were closed, and law courts did not operate.
Monck and his army marched south, crossed the Tweed
on January 2, 1660, reached York on the 11th,
and entered London on February 3.
On the 21st Monck’s forces enabled the Rump Parliament
members to meet, and they recalled
Presbyterian members excluded in 1648.
Monck dismissed Secretary of State Thomas Scott
and replaced him with Thurloe.
On March 5 Parliament ordered a reprinting of the
Solemn League and Covenant, and eight days later
they annulled the Engagement of 1650 which required
all men to promise loyalty to the Commonwealth
without a king or House of Lords.
The Parliament raised a tax to pay the soldiers’ arrears
and then on March 16 dissolved itself,
issuing writs for a new Parliament to meet on April 20.
On April 4 Charles II, advised by Edward Hyde,
issued his Declaration of Breda, promising liberty
of conscience and Parliamentary government.
The Convention Parliament met on April 25.
A mission led by Fairfax went to Holland in May
to invite
his return, and Charles II arrived in London on May 29.
In late February 1660 Milton published The Ready and Easy
Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, and the
Excellence thereof Compar’d with the inconveniences
and dangers of readmitting kingship in this nation.
He argued that republican government provides better service
and is more economical compared to wasteful and irrational
monarchy, though he admitted that a majority of the nation
believed in vain that only kingship could restore trade.
He also explained how county assemblies and governments
could counterbalance the State Council.
He noted that Venice and the United Provinces
of the Netherlands had successful republics.
Milton also sent similar ideas in a letter
to General Monck in early March.
On March 25 Dr. Matthew Griffith had given a strong sermon
favoring a royal government, and Milton wrote a reply
suggesting that a temporary protectorate under General Monck
urged by Thomas Scot and Arthur Haselri
might be needed for a time.
On April 2 the Council of State issued a warrant to
arrest Milton and burned his Defenso and Eikonoklastes.
He managed to hide with friends until August
when the Act of Oblivion provided a general amnesty.
Then in the fall he was imprisoned.
Andrew Marvell had defended Milton in the Commons,
and William Davenant, whom Milton had helped free in 1650,
secured his release from prison on December 15.
Thomas Hobbes was born on April 5, 1588 prematurely
because his mother was frightened about
the expected invasion by the Spanish armada.
Thus he recognized fear as his twin.
He went to a church school at the age of 4
and at 15 entered Oxford.
After earning his bachelor’s degree in 1608 he tutored
young William Cavendish and went with him
to France and Italy in 1610.
There Hobbes found Aristotelian philosophy
declining because of scientific discoveries.
In the first half of the 1620s he served Francis Bacon
as a secretary and helped him translate
some of his essays from Latin.
Hobbes translated the history by Thucydides and published
it in 1629 to show the problems of Athenian democracy.
Traveling in Europe again he discovered Euclid’s
Elements of Geometry and realized that the method
of proofs could be applied to science and philosophy.
Hobbes was a materialist who believed that the body
and other physical things are the basic reality
along with their motion.
He planned a comprehensive philosophy on the body, man,
and the state; but because of the impending civil war in England
he decided to begin with the latter
and published in Latin De Cive (On Citizenship) in 1642.
In this book he considered democracy the first commonwealth
but that a social contract would create monarchy or
aristocracy in order to provide security,
which he believed is fundamental to human happiness.
He was an agnostic, and his social contract theory alienated
those believing in the divine right of kings while his
advocating monarchy
antagonized the Parliamentarians.
So before the Civil War began in 1642, he was one of
the first to flee to Paris, where he joined the circle
of the Abbé Mersenne and wrote 16 objections
to the Meditations of Descartes.
In 1646 he tutored the exiled Charles II
in mathematics until he became seriously ill.
In 1651 Hobbes published in English his most popular work,
Leviathan, or the Matter, Form, and Power of a
Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil.
He believed that a subject had the right to abandon
a ruler who did not protect him, and Charles thought
that he was trying to gain favor with Oliver Cromwell.
By the end of the year Hobbes had returned to England
and accepted the British Commonwealth,
and many criticized his views.
Hobbes published in Latin De Corpore (On the Body)
in 1655 and De Homine (On Man) in 1658.
In 1666 the House of Commons was working on a bill
regarding atheism, and their committee
began investigating Leviathan.
Hobbes then wrote dialogs on heresy and its punishment.
Parliament did not pass a bill on atheism,
but they would not let Hobbes publish
anything related to human conduct.
About 1668 Hobbes wrote Behemoth, The History of the
Causes of the Civil Wars of England and of the Counsels
and Artifices by which they were carried on from the
year 1640 to the year 1662,
which was first published as a pirated edition in 1679.
At the age of 84 Hobbes wrote an autobiography in
Latin verse, and by 1676 he had completed and published
his verse translations of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.
Hobbes was believed to have had a natural daughter
for whom he provided, and he died at the age of 91.
In the introduction to his Leviathan Hobbes used that term
to describe a commonwealth or state which he compared
to an “artificial man” of greater strength
designed for protection and defense.
Its sovereignty is like an “artificial soul” which gives
“life and motion to the whole body.”
Thus he ignored the real souls and spiritual consciousness
of people and leaped to the despotic conclusion that
the only way to keep the peace
was by an authoritarian government.
He did write that whoever would govern a whole nation
should consider mankind even though that is difficult.
As a materialist in the first part “Of Man” Hobbes based
his understanding of humans on the body,
its sense perceptions, and basic appetites and desires.
From these he derived feelings,
thoughts, speech, reason, and virtues.
He based freedom on motion
but refused to recognize will.
From the laws of nature come contracts.
Because he believed that humans have a natural tendency
to compete against each other which can result
in a “war of all against all,” he considered
peace and security the most important goals.
Thus those who mediate peace should be allowed safe conduct,
and controversies should be submitted
to the judgment of an arbitrator.
Hobbes did recognize the golden rule as a law of nature:
“Do not that to another which
thou wouldest not have done to thyself.”
The second part of Leviathan is “Of Commonwealth”
where Hobbes wrote,
For the laws of nature, as justice, equity, modesty, mercy,
and in sum, doing to others as we would be done to,
of themselves, without the terror of some power
to cause them to be observed,
are contrary to our natural passions
that carry us to partiality, pride, revenge, and the like.
And covenants, without the sword,
are but words and of no strength to secure a man at all.3
Thus he proposed that each person should say,
I authorize and give up my right of governing myself
to this man, or to this assembly of men, on this condition;
that thou give up thy right to him,
and authorize all his actions in like manner.4
This is his Leviathan, and thus he would give all political power
to a monarch or one group of absolute rulers
so that people could live peacefully
and be protected against others.
He even argued that the sovereign monarch or government
could do anything without breaching this covenant
nor should any of the subjects be free
to disobey its absolute power.
No subject should ever accuse the sovereign of injustice.
Acquiring dominion by conquest is despotism,
but Hobbes also argued that such a person
is also sovereign over those subjected.
He wrote that liberty is consistent with fear and necessity,
but in his commonwealth only the sovereign is politically free.
Like modern materialistic behaviorists,
Hobbes hoped to control people’s behavior
by using rewards and punishments.
Although some behaviorists try to use only rewards,
withholding the reward can become
a punishment and is still manipulative.
In my opinion much better ways can make sure that
people obey laws rather than by inflicting pain or suffering,
and individuals can be made
to compensate victims of their crimes.
Hobbes defined punishment as
an evil inflicted by public authority on him that hath done
or omitted that which is judged by the same authority
to be a transgression of the law,
to the end that the will of men
may thereby the better be disposed to obedience.5
In his “Conclusion” Hobbes wrote,
“Every man is bound by nature, as much as in him lieth,
to protect in war the authority by which
he is himself protected in time of peace.”
Thus the sovereign rulers may go to war and force men to kill
and may punish them if they refuse.
Reward may be a gift or a contract with a salary or wages.
Hobbes considered sedition a poisonous disease of the
Commonwealth, but he clearly stated that the sovereign
is not subject to his own laws.
He also objected to dividing or distributing the power
of the government even though
that is a way of safeguarding against tyranny.
Hobbes was certainly upset by the Civil War
and the execution of King Charles I.
Yet he quickly abandoned his former student Charles II
to recognize the authority of the
reigning Parliament and Cromwell.
Solely because of fear of death and human conflict,
Hobbes proposed absolute authority, which history has
shown countless times is a recipe for rebellion and civil war.
As we shall see, much better political ideas would be
expressed by James Harrington and John Locke.
James Harrington was born January 3, 1611.
He attended Trinity College at Oxford and the Middle Temple,
but like many oldest sons he did not get a degree
before traveling widely in Europe where he served as a soldier
in English regiments in the Netherlands.
He especially liked the republic of Venice.
James did not believe in primogeniture
and helped provide for his younger siblings.
In late 1646 Parliament sent him to mediate with King Charles I
who in May 1647 chose him as one of four men
to accompany him until January 1649;
but he would not let James talk about republics.
According to Aubrey’s Brief Lives when Charles was executed,
Harrington was on the scaffold.
After that traumatic event Harrington withdrew
and suffered from melancholy.
In 1656 he published The Commonwealth of Oceana,
his magnum opus, and this was followed by
The Prerogative of Popular Government
in 1658 and The Art of Lawgiving in 1659.
After the restoration of Charles II, Harrington was arrested
on December 28, 1661 and charged with
conspiring against the King’s government.
He was mistreated in the Tower and before a writ of
habeus corpus arranged by his sisters could be enacted,
he was transferred to St. Nicholas Island.
His relatives got him released on a £5,000 bond.
After that he suffered from poor health, and he was immobilized
by a stroke one year before his death on September 11, 1677.
His ideas on agrarian democracy influenced the American
founding fathers, especially Thomas Jefferson,
and his antitrust policies affected
Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.
Harrington explained his political principles
in the first part of The Commonwealth of Oceana.
He admired the work on republican ideas in
Machiavelli’s Discourses but criticized the authoritarian
Leviathan of Hobbes.
Harrington agreed with Aristotle that immoderate wealth
by a few can destroy the equality of a commonwealth
and that sedition may lead to a monarchy or a
“dynastic oligarchy.”
Harrington believed in spiritual dominion and wrote,
The soul of man is the mistress of two potent rivals,
the one reason, the other passion, that are in continual suit;
and according as she gives up her will to these
or either of them, is the felicity or misery
which man partakes in this mortal life.6
Passion put into action by the will can bring one down to
“vice and the bondage of sin,”
but reason enacted leads one to
“virtue and the freedom of soul.”
He also believed that economic equality
is the basis for a democratic republic,
and he wrote,
Equality of estates causeth equality of power,
and equality of power is the liberty
not only of the commonwealth, but of every man.7
Harrington suggested that a senate
can be counselors of the people.
The wisdom of a commonwealth comes from the virtuous,
but the interest is in all the people.
After debate the senate may propose,
but the power of the people should enact a law.
Harrington observed that an unequal
commonwealth is divided into parties.
One party will try to preserve the eminence of the wealthy
while the other attempts to restore equality.
He suggested that the best way to do the latter is
by the “suffrage of the people given by the ballot.”
He described how empires gave land
to soldiers and established feudal systems.
He wrote,
No prince that is hated by his people can be safe.
Arms planted upon dominion extirpate enemies
and make friends, but, maintained by a mere tax,
have enemies that have roots
and friends that have none.8
Machiavelli noted that a corrupt people
is not capable of a commonwealth.
Harrington argued that if the people move from monarchy,
they become capable of commonwealth;
for moving to the popular diminishes the luxury of the nobility,
and enriching the people changes government from a more
private interest to a public one
which is nearer to justice and right reason.
When people are reduced to misery and despair,
they become their own politicians just like some sick animals
become their own physicians
and by natural instinct eat herbs as their cure.
Cicero observed that the people may not find out the truth
themselves and often follow custom into error;
but if they are shown the truth, they acknowledge it
and embrace it quickly and become
its constant and faithful guardians.
In his time Harrington believed that education occurred
in six ways: at school, in mechanics, at universities,
at inns of court or chancery (by laws),
in travels, and in military discipline.
He questioned the conquests of Alexander and wrote,
The sword of war, if it be any otherwise used
than as the sword of magistracy,
for the fear and punishment of those that do evil,
is as guilty in the sight of God as the sword of a murderer;
nay more, for if the blood of Abel, of one innocent man,
cried in the ears of the Lord for vengeance,
what shall the blood of an innocent nation?
Of this kind of empire, the throne of ambition,
and the quarry of a mighty hunter,
it has been truly said that it is but a great robbery.9
Oceana is to be based on fair distribution of land
in order to balance political power.
Harrington noted that the republic of Rome distributed land
fairly equally; but feudal Europe had a Gothic balance
that gave kings and nobles most of the land,
and they controlled the state.
After the Civil War of the Roses King Henry VII tried to
improve England’s constitution by taking much wealth
from the nobility, but Henry VIII by dissolving the monasteries
took land from the Church and gave it to the gentry.
Harrington suggested a written constitution
and hoped to share economic and political power.
As an example even children can understand,
he noted that in dividing cake one was to make the division,
and the other got to choose which piece to eat.
The Lord Archon paid most attention to making the agrarian
estates about equal in order
to plant the roots of the commonwealth.
After one year the army could be disbanded,
but taxes might continue for three and a half years.
After ten years the excise tax could expire
if the exchequer had enough funds to pay salaries.
Elections of representatives were to be by secret ballot,
and short terms were to allow the rotation of office holders.
Differences in religious beliefs were to be tolerated.
He suggested the building of two theatres
with the profits going to the government.
Harrington wrote The Prerogative of Popular Government
in 1658 to answer objections and further explain Oceana.
He discussed prudence, commonwealth, balancing dominion
in land, the balance of national and provincial power,
public rights compared to private interests,
the Roman Senate, the Ten Commandments,
monarchy and the balance of France, whether the agrarian
model can satisfy all interests,
and whether the rotation of offices is necessary.
He wrote The Art of Lawgiving in 1659 to show
the foundations and structure of government,
to study the commonwealths of Israel and the Jews,
and to propose another model for a popular government.
That year Harrington also published 120
Aphorisms Political, and here are a few:
The People having felt the difference between
a Government by Laws, and a Government by Arms,
will always desire the Government by Laws,
and abhor that of Arms. (6)Where the spirit of the people is impatient
of a Government by Arms,
and desirous of a Government by Laws,
there the spirit of the people is not unfit
to be trusted with their Liberty. (7)Assemblies legitimately elected by the People,
are that only Party which can govern without an Army. (14)The People are deceived by Names, but not by Things. (16)
Where Civil Liberty is entire,
it includes Liberty of Conscience. (23)It is not below the Dignity of the greatest Assembly,
but according unto the practice of the best Commonwealths,
to admit of any man that is able to propose to them,
for the good of his Country. (117)
George Fox was born in a small hamlet
in Leicestershire, England in July 1624.
His father was a weaver and a pious warden of the church.
George had little education other than
learning to read and write and study the Bible.
He was apprenticed to a shoemaker,
for whom he also tended sheep.
In an incident at the age of 19 George was disgusted
by tavern companions, who tried to get him
into a drinking match.
That night he had a vision from God, and the next day,
November 9, 1643, he left his family and trade
to wander in search of true religion.
Carrying his Bible, he slept in fields
or stayed with hospitable families.
He questioned priests and argued with them.
George searched for people he called “tender,”
who were loving and spiritually open.
He discovered that most of the priests were
not as open as those in the new sect of Seekers
who tried any church but were satisfied with none of them.
By 1647 he had realized his mission was
“to turn people from darkness to the light.”
George Fox experienced “openings” or revelations,
which told him that both Catholics and Protestants
could be sincere Christians, that universities like Oxford
and Cambridge bred vain and deceitful priests,
and that God did not dwell in church buildings
as much as in people’s hearts.
Fox called the man-made temples “steeple houses”
and considered the church to be
the community of believers in its original sense.
Although he considered the Bible a valuable reference point,
he believed the inner Light takes precedence
as the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Fox declared that revelation has not ended,
but the insights from within must be checked to see
that they are in harmony with the teachings of the Bible.
There was the danger that some would be led astray
by spirits of darkness or the devil; therefore someone
attuned to the inner Light must discern the difference
and George Fox apparently felt that he could.
Fox had a powerful personality and an inner conviction,
which he would not compromise.
Confident that the word of God was speaking through him,
he challenged priests and interrupted their sermons.
He would speak for hours at a time, and sometimes
he would just glare at people for as long as two or three hours.
He could outshout just about anybody.
He criticized social injustices, such as the hiring fair in 1648
at Mansfield, where local justices
had fixed a maximum wage for farm labor.
He believed in human equality and was firm in practicing it,
even in seemingly trivial ways.
He would refuse to remove his hat before a judge or a king.
Following the admonition of Jesus in the sermon on the mount,
he refused to take oaths.
Because of these behaviors and his frank speech
he was arrested many times.
His first imprisonment at Nottingham in 1649 was because
he argued that the Holy Spirit is
more important than the scriptures.
As Jesus called his disciples friends, so Fox referred
to those who followed the inner Light as Friends of Truth;
but in 1650 he told Justice Bennet to
“quake in the presence of the Lord,”
and he gave them the name Quakers.
Critical of professional priests, Fox believed that each person
could relate to God directly and thus minister.
He defended the rights of women to equal spirituality
even against the views of other Friends.
Fox and his followers were continually persecuted
and often arrested for refusing to take oaths
or for holding unauthorized religious meetings.
In Derby two judges questioned him for eight hours
and sentenced him to six months on October 30, 1650.
All together in his life he spent seven years in jail,
often in filthy conditions, which he sought to reform.
In 1651 Fox went north to Yorkshire.
Following the teachings of the Christ closely, Fox was a pacifist,
and the Society of Friends to this day has remained
one of the most important pacifist religions.
In 1651 when Fox was in jail, some commissioners
and soldiers offered to make him a captain over the soldiers,
who were eager to be led by such a courageous man.
However, Fox told them that he “lived in the virtue of that life
and power that took away the occasion of all wars,”10
and he explained that all wars come from lust,
as James pointed out in the New Testament.
When they realized that his refusal was serious,
they threw him into a stinking dungeon for six months
without any bed among thirty felons.
Fox took to writing letters to judges against
the death penalty for stealing and minor offenses.
He also urged speedier trials
because many were being corrupted
by criminals in jails while waiting for their trials.
After his six months Justice Bennet offered him press-money
if he would be a soldier; but again Fox declined
and spent nearly six more months in jail.
The next year Fox was tried for blasphemy in Lancaster;
but the witnesses did not agree, and he was cleared.
Also in 1651 Fox converted Richard Farnsworth,
William Dewsbury, and James Nayler.
They had a great meeting at Synderhill in Yorkshire
in early 1652, and they became outstanding ministers.
After having a vision on Pendle Hill in May,
Fox wrote a paper for distribution.
In 1653 Francis Higginson published A Brief Relation
of the Irreligion of the Northern Quakers,
describing their provocative ideas and behavior.
That year Fox went into a “steeplehouse” in Carlisle
and spoke after the priest, causing people to tremble.
In early 1654 the first meetings of the Society of Friends
were held in London.
Fox spoke to thousands of Friends on top of a hill.
That year the Friends had the Valiant Sixty ministers who
left northwest England to take their message to the south.
While preaching Fox warned soldiers
not to do violence to any man.
In February 1655 he was arrested and sent to London.
Oliver Cromwell interviewed him and admitted that
he could not win these people
with gifts, honors, offices, or places.
Fox visited the midlands and wrote a letter
to the Lord Protector Cromwell, explaining,
I was sent of God to stand
a witness against all violence,
and against the works of darkness;
and to turn people from darkness to light;
and to bring them from the
causes of war and fighting,
to the peaceable gospel.11
Fox was brought before the Protector, and he later described
their conversation in his Journal.
Cromwell asked why he quarreled with ministers.
Fox said they quarreled with him and would not allow him
to preach in the same way as the prophets, Jesus,
and the apostles while they were greedy and covetous,
preaching only for filthy lucre.
Fox warned Cromwell not to harden his heart,
and the Protector wished they could talk every day
and set him free.
Fox wrote to Cromwell several times complaining
that he was persecuting God’s people.
Many Friends were losing their lands because
they refused to swear in court;
Cromwell would not believe that they were suffering in jails.
After they brought documents to him,
Cromwell still refused to order them released.
Then Thomas Aldam took off his cap and tore it in pieces,
prophesying that his government would be
torn from Cromwell, as it soon was.
During the twelve years of the Commonwealth three thousand
Quakers had been imprisoned, and 32 died in jail.
In 1655 William Prynne published his epigraph
The Quakers Unmasked.
Women began meeting to raise money for the poor in a box,
and these were called Box Meetings.
Women also began the Two Weeks’ Meetin
based on the Men’s Two Week Meeting.
In 1656 the Quaker James Naylor re-enacted the entrance
of Jesus in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday
by entering Bristol supported by Friends.
For this he was convicted of blasphemy, whipped, pilloried,
and had a hole burned through his tongue
and the letter “B” branded on his forehead.
Fox was also brought to trial in February 1656,
and he and two others were put in a filthy dungeon
with criminals without beds or straw for seven months.
Soon after this Fox had another interview with Cromwell,
and they discussed the Light of Christ.
Friends also took their message to Wales, Ireland, Scotland,
and the American colonies.
Fox was well received in Wales in 1657.
In 1658 a Yearly Meeting for all of England
was held in Bedfordshire.
In 1659 Fox wrote a letter to the Parliament asking that
they provide for the poor, blind, and lame
in the nation rather than the Lords of Manors who have enough.
Friends wanted mandatory tithes abolished,
religion tolerated, and laws reformed.
They did not attend churches and conducted their own weddings.
Margaret Fell led the first Women’s Petition and protested
the imprisonment of Fox in Lancaster.
She wrote to Princess Mary of Orange and Elizabeth of Bohemia.
When the Civil War began in 1642,
the Puritans closed the theatres.
During the Commonwealth 1649-60 the public
presentation of plays was prohibited.
Actors who put on even short comical scenes
could be arrested with spectators fined 5 shillings.
Publishing was less restricted,
and a few new plays were printed.
The tragicomedies The Just General and The Loyal Lovers
by Major Cosmo Manuche were published
after the first was registered in November 1651.
That year Edmund Prestwich published his translation
of Seneca’s Phaedra as Hippolytus.
In 1654 Richard Flecknoe dedicated his Love’s Dominion
to Cromwell’s daughter Elizabeth Claypole,
and that year he also published his
Ariadne Deserted by Theseus
and Found and Courted by Bacchus.
The royalist William Lower printed translations of Corneille’s
Polyeuctus in 1655 and Horatius in 1656.
In 1659 Flecknoe published his opera
The Marriage of Oceanus and Britannia.
In 1651 the anonymous Tragedy of that Famous Orator
Marcus Tullius Cicero was published based on Plutarch’s lives
of Marcus Antonius and Cicero, Roman History
by Dio Cassius, Appian’s Roman History,
books 3 and 4, and works by Cicero.
The play is set in 43 BC,
the year after the assassination of Julius Caesar.
Cicero favored a republic and opposed the oncoming
tyranny by Antony and Octavius Caesar.
The play was published during the republican Commonwealth
while Cromwell and his army were consolidating their power,
depicting events not covered by Shakespeare
in Julius Caesar or in Antony and Cleopatra.
The republican poet George Wither in The Modern Statesman
(1653) wrote that the history of Rome provided an example
of a commonwealth that grew by virtue
but decayed because of vice.
The Tragedy of Cicero has rhymed couplets only
in the first scene in which the ghost of Julius Caesar
says he must be revenged and that Roman pride
will be scourged by bloody proscriptions.
The rest of the play is in blank verse.
Cicero is hopeful that the death of the dictator Caesar
will bring back liberty
and the republican government by the Senate.
In 63 BC Cicero had helped squelch a conspiracy
led by Catiline by speaking in the Senate.
Cicero is supported by his brother Quintius Cicero.
Marcus Cicero prefers the Stoic philosophy to the Epicurean.
Quintius informs him that young Octavius Caesar has an army
at the gates of Rome and that he will probably help
Marcus Antony gain sovereignty and will thus revenge
his uncle Julius Caesar who was slain by senators.
Carnutius reports that Octavius has 10,000 soldiers;
but Cicero believes he has come to challenge Antony,
and thus the Senate should let him enter.
Antony learns of this and sends his army to Ariminum
to take the province from Decimus Brutus.
The chorus is made up of senators who fear that
Antony will inherit Caesar’s dictatorship.
Cicero says they sent three armies to aid Brutus
against Antony led by the consuls Hirtius and Pansa.
Cicero fears a civil war.
Their general Lepidus is pleading for peace,
though the Senate’s armies were sent against Antony.
A messenger reports that Hirtius was killed
and that Pansa was badly wounded.
Cicero goes to the Senate and favors fifty days of prayers
for their three generals, and they will reward
their victorious legions and the dead with pensions.
Antony and his army has crossed the Alps.
He wants to make Lepidus an ally,
and Octavius sends centurions to the Senate.
Cicero is concerned that the ambitious Octavius
wants to be consul, and Quintius warns that
Octavius will oppose those who killed his uncle.
Senators and the tribunes oppose Caesar’s proposal,
and his agent Cornelius threatens them with his sword.
Antony’s wife Fulvia learns that Octavius is marching
toward Rome with eight legions, and Piso notes that
Brutus and Cassius are far away in Macedonia.
Cicero regrets his supporting Octavius,
and Apuleius warns that Antony and Lepidus
have strong armies in Italy.
Cicero realizes they now are plagued by three tyrants.
He informs the Senate that legions have arrived from Africa.
Octavius sends Cornelius to tell the Senate
he comes with terms of peace.
Cicero reports that the African legions have also revolted,
and he decides to seek an alliance with Octavius
who tells the orator he is the last to welcome him.
Cicero realizes that Octavius has become
friends with Antony and Lepidus,
and Quintius believes they must die.
Soothsayers warn the Senate they will lose their freedom.
Quintius tells his brother they must expect death
from the three Roman furies.
Cicero believes that piety forbids suicide
as did Pythagoras, Plato, and Socrates.
Cicero reads a letter from Antony that demands Cicero
burn the Philippics he wrote against him, or Cicero will die.
Quintius suggests that people must remember that
Antony killed Cicero who decides to depart for Macedonia.
Soldiers behead the tribune Salvius, the Praetor Minutius,
and then Quintius and Cicero.
James Shirley wrote the masque Cupid and Death
for a private performance, but it was presented
for the Portuguese ambassador, the Count of Peneguiao,
in March 1653 and printed that year.
Portugal was one of the first nations to recognize
the Commonwealth, and the treaty was ratified in July 1654.
Shirley also published his play The Politician in 1655,
and he argued that plays could be presented without
“impudence and profanation.”
Cupid and Death is based on two fables by Aesop.
The masque was performed again in 1659 with music
by Matthew Locke and Christopher Gibbons
and has been called the first English comic opera.
Cupid and Death begins at an inn in a forest,
and the Host tells the Chamberlain that
Love can be called Folly and Madness.
Cupid comes in with Folly and Madness,
and they dance with the Host.
They go out, and Death is welcomed by the Chamberlain
who tells him that Cupid has been drinking.
Despair enters with a noose and says he is looking for Death.
Despair does not feel guilty and seeks Death
because he cannot repent.
The Chamberlain drinks wine with him and after partaking,
Despair says he will live to see the
Chamberlain hanged and gives him the halter.
They go out, and Death comes back singing.
While Cupid and Death are sleeping,
the Chamberlain switches their arrows.
In a pleasant garden a Lover dances with his mistress.
Ladies lament their lovers have been slain by Cupid,
and Nature arrives adorned with flowers.
Cupid strikes the Lover, and Death enters.
Two pairs of old men and women come in with crutches;
but when Death’s darts hit them,
they dance and court each other.
Six men are fighting in a field, but Death’s arrows cause them
to embrace and dance to Nature’s song.
The Chamberlain leads in two apes,
and Death’s dart makes him love them.
A Satyr strikes him and dances with the apes.
Mercury descends on a cloud and removes
the mist from Cupid’s eyes.
Death returns, and Mercury bans Cupid from palaces
and princely courts and persuades Death
not to strike down the honorable.
Nature says the gods are just,
and in Elysium the slain lovers dance.
William Davenant (1606-68) was the godson
(and according to rumor the natural son)
of William Shakespeare.
In 1638 Charles I appointed him Poet Laureate.
In the first civil war Davenant fought for the King as
Lt. General of Ordnance under William Cavendish,
the Earl of Newcastle;
but after the royalist defeat at Naseby in 1645,
Davenant retired to Paris, where he became
a Catholic and worked on his heroic poem Gondibert
which he never completed.
While on his way to serve as Lt. Governor of Maryland,
he was captured at sea and imprisoned
but released with the help of Milton.
He spent the year of 1651 detained in the
Tower of London working on Gondibert.
Davenant created a theatre in his home at Rutland House
for dramatic performances during the era
when English theatres were closed.
In 1653 he presented a copy of A Proposition for the
Advancement of Morality by a New Way of Entertainment
of the People to the Council of State in which he argued
that the lower classes could be educated
by reformed stage productions that could be censored.
In May 1656 Davenant presented
The First Day’s Entertainment at Rutland House by
Declamations and Music after the Manner of the Ancients
which was a debate between the Cynic philosopher Diogenes
and the comical playwright Aristophanes,
and it was approved for performance by the Council of State.
Next Davenant got permission to put on his heroic opera
The Siege of Rhodes in the same private residence.
The music was by five composers,
and it has been considered the first English opera.
The play is in rhymed poetry, and it broke the sex barrier
by casting Catherine Coleman as Ianthe.
The musical drama is set during the historic siege of Rhodes
by Sultan Sulayman and the Ottoman Turks in 1522
and is based on The General History of the Turks
by Richard Knolles.
Davenant published the libretto
of The Siege of Rhodes before its debut.
The Second Part of The Siege of Rhodes
was performed by 1659 and was published in 1663.
Davenant was imprisoned again for a while in 1659
and then fled to Paris, returning to England
after Charles II was restored as king in 1660.
In The Siege of Rhodes the Knights of St. John at Rhodes
are led by their Grand Master
Philippe Villiers de l’Isle Adam and the Admiral.
The knights were from France, Germany, Spain, Italy,
and
England with a large number from Auvergne in central France.
The invading Turks are led by Sultan Sulayman (r. 1520-66).
The Admiral warns Villerius to arm
because a Turkish fleet is approaching Rhodes.
Villerius laments that wealth is still being spent
on Christian wars, and Rhodes may be lost.
Duke Alphonso of Sicily has recently married Ianthe,
and he wants to stay and fight Solyman.
Villerius notes that Spain has left half its land untilled
while trying to subdue the old world
because they are not satisfied with the new world.
Solyman asks Pirrhus why their advance has stopped,
and he orders an assault on Rhodes.
Mustapha arrives with the captured Ianthe, who is veiled.
He says she courageously urged her men to fight,
and she gave her dowry and jewels
to relieve the Christian galleys.
Solyman notes that Christians
usually leave their ladies’ faces free.
He graciously offers to let her and her husband
safely return to Sicily.
In the third entry (act) Solyman orders Pirrhus to deploy
their army against Rhodes, and he tells Mustapha
to send a trumpet to urge Ianthe and her lord to go.
The scene changes to the siege of the town.
Ianthe tells Alphonso how she was taken
to Solyman and was there for two days.
Alphonso becomes jealous and refuses to leave
because of honor; he wants revenge.
Ianthe says they are in this war by fortune,
but Alphonso considers it providence that they are besieged.
The Admiral tells Villerius that a Turkish mine will soon explode.
The Turks assault the town,
and the Admiral tells Alphonso that Ianthe is wounded.
She is brought in wearing a nightgown,
and the Admiral says they withstood the assault.
Finally starvation forces the Christians to urge Ianthe
to ask for peace, and the magnanimous Solyman
allows the Christians to leave Rhodes.
The chorus of soldiers conclude that they will drink wine
while the Turks drink coffee.
This operatic drama initiated the English fashion
for heroic plays in rhymed poetry
that would be taken up by John Dryden.
After the English republic made peace with the Dutch
in April 1654, Cromwell sent an expedition to attack
the Spanish West Indies in December; but the attack on
San Domingo failed, and the admirals Penn and Venables
were imprisoned for invading Jamaica.
In 1655 Cromwell’s Latin secretary Milton wrote a manifesto
arguing that the Commonwealth should oppose the
“depredations of the Spaniards,” and in December 1656
Cromwell accused Spain of violating the rights of the English
and the native Indians to found their empire.
Davenant presented the opera
The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru at the Cockpit Theatre
on Drury Lane with music by Matthew Locke in 1658
based on a translation by Milton’s nephew John Philips of
A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies
by Bartolomé de Las Casas.
His version which had been published 1652 used the title
The Tears of the Indians and accused Spaniards
of slaughtering twenty million Indians.
Davenant also used The Royal Commentaries of Peru
by Garcilaso de la Vega which describes how the Spanish
used torture to make the Indians bring them gold;
if the natives fled, the Spaniards used dogs to hunt them down.
In Davenant’s play the English soldiers are dressed
in the red uniforms of Cromwell’s New Model Army.
The only named speaker in
The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru is the
Inca Priest of the Sun who refers to their happier and freer
empire under the twelve Incas before the Incas became divided
during the prophesied arrival of the bearded people on ships.
Since then they have suffered from war
and the exploitation by the Spaniards.
The Christians were supposed to make their converts free,
but that was deceit.
Spaniards are shown carrying Indian baskets filled with
gold ingots and silver wedges
as the English soldiers make the natives submit.
In 1659 Davenant’s masque The History of Sir Francis Drake
was also performed at the Cockpit Theatre and was based
on Sir Francis Drake Revived by Philip Nichols
which was published in 1628 and described
Drake’s voyage to the West Indies in 1572-73.
In fact on these raids Drake and his men captured the town
Nombre de Dios and about twenty tons of gold and silver.
They had to bury most of it because their ships
could not bear the weight.
However, Davenant’s romantic portrayal of the English
saving the natives from the Spaniards was propaganda.
The climactic scenes of the play are the English rescuing
a beautiful native woman from the Spaniards
before seizing ninety mules loaded with gold.
The Rump by John Tatham may have been performed
as early as February 1660 while the Rump Parliament
was breaking up, and it satirized the scramble for power
and the Cromwellian officers.
In these plays and from then on in England female roles
were played by women instead of by boys.
In France the heroic dramas by Pierre Corneille
were popular and influenced the revived English theatre.
1. England in the Seventeenth Century by Maurice Ashley, p. 104.
2. Quoted in The Bloodless Revolution: A Cultural History of Vegetarianism from 1600 to Modern Times by Tristram Stuart, p. 38.
3. Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes, chapter 17.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid, chapter 28.
6. The Commonwealth of Oceana in The Political Works of James Harrington ed. J. G. A. Pocock, p. 169.
7. Ibid, p. 170.
8. Ibid, p. 201.
9. Ibid, p. 345.
10. The Journal by George Fox, p. 128.
11. Ibid., p. 212.