God’s FURY, England’s FIRE Read online

  Three years after his surrender to the Scots, Charles chose martyrdom to an ideal of the Anglican church and sacred monarchy rather than a deal with his English subjects. A powerful minority among his subjects, supported by the army, chose to execute him and establish a kingless government, rather than try any longer to get a deal from him. Fired both by a Reformation certainty (that God had called them to take charge of the commonwealth) and by an idea more associated with the Enlightenment (that the purpose of government was the good of the people, and should be answerable to their representative), these militants put their king on trial, then abolished the monarchy and the House of Lords. Like many modern revolutionaries they made this a year zero: according to their supporters this was the first year of England’s freedom.

  Out of a chaos of opinion and anxiety, and of the catastrophe and trauma of civil war, had come ideas about freedom and citizenship, religious toleration and the exclusion of secular power from matters of conscience. These arguments had deeper roots in the English past but were newly public, and newly in power. These English discussions about the origins and limits of political power were of profound significance for Enlightenment Europe – indeed, to the more celebrated revolutions in eighteenth-century America and France. But they were not, as far as we know, representative of average opinions: others sought resolutions to the crisis in astrology, the prosecution of witches, or the restoration of older forms of religious and political authority. Neither did this minority remain united, or command political power for very long – in 1660 a monarch was restored who indulged freely in the practice of touching for the King’s Evil, curing a tubercular disease by virtue of his divinely sanctioned power. In that sense the revolution was of limited significance, and civil peace might have been established on other terms sooner than 1660.

  It is conventional to tell that constitutional story – of a republican failure ending in restoration – but to do so is to limit the significance of the 1640s to that single constitutional question. There is much more to say, and to remember, about England’s decade of civil war and revolution. Political and religious questions of fundamental importance were thrashed out before broad political audiences as activists and opportunists sought to mobilize support for their proposals. The resulting mass of contemporary argument is alluring to the historian since it lays bare the presumptions of a society very alien to our own. At the same time, by exposing those presumptions to sustained critical examination, this public discussion changed them. This was a decade of intense debate and spectacular intellectual creativity – not just in politics and religion, but in understandings of the natural world and in how political opinion was mobilized. The implications of this English experience reverberated around the world of the Enlightenment and English politics were permanently changed by the experience of popular mobilization: much more was at stake than the fate of Charles I and hence the restoration of his son did not settle the arguments, or erase the memory of what had been said.

  England’s civil wars were components of a larger crisis, of all three Stuart kingdoms. Nonetheless, although English experience cannot be understood outside that British context, this is a book about the distinctive English experience of that shared crisis. England was the last of Charles’s kingdoms to rebel, and the one with the most spontaneous royalist party, but also the one with the most radical and creative politics. Part of the resolution of that apparent paradox is to study the conditions which made this extraordinary creativity possible. Crucial among them was the appeal to ordinary people, often those without a vote, to support particular platforms, and the creative dialogue between activists, opportunists and their wider publics. In this fluid and confused political world public support was courted, opinions were mobilized and, in the name of the people, a revolution was carried out. My aim here is to understand that political process in England, to capture the anxiety and trauma of civil war, the plurality of responses and the creative confusion to which it gave rise. To say that God’s fury had caused England’s fire was in these circumstances to start an argument rather than end one. Therein lay the crisis of Reformation politics.

  The Crisis of the Three Kingdoms, 1637–1642

  1

  From the Bowels of the Whore of Babel

  The Scottish Prayer Book Rebellion and the Politics of Reformation

  It was more like a procession than an invasion. When a large Scottish army passed through Flodden in 1640, their progress was ‘very solemn and sad much after the heavy form showed in funerals’. Trumpeters decked with mourning ribbons led the way, followed by one hundred ministers and, in their midst, the Bible ‘covered with a mourning cover’. Behind the ministers came old men with petitions in their hands along with the military commanders, also wearing black ribbons or ‘some sign of mourning’. Finally came the soldiers, trailing pikes tied with black ribbons, accompanied by drummers ‘beating a sad march such as they say is used in the funerals of officers of war’.1

  This was a forceful demonstration about the death of the Bible, a complaint about the fate of the true, scriptural religion in Scotland. The origin of their protest was revulsion at a new Prayer Book, introduced in 1637 and described by the Earl of Montrose as ‘brood of the bowels of the whore of Babel’. ‘[T]he life of the gospel [had been] stolen away by enforcing on the kirk a dead service book’, he said.2 Here was its funeral. In fact the army was not, strictly speaking, the army of the Scots but of the Covenanters, men who had entered a mutual bond before God to defend the true religion. Even at this stage there were Scots who were not Covenanters, and that distinction was to become extremely significant in the coming years – Montrose, for one, was later to abandon this version of the cause and become the champion of armed royalism in Scotland.

  This was not the first time that a Scottish army had taken this road, inland from the fortified town of Berwick and crossing the river Tweed, which marks the border between England and Scotland at its eastern end, just south of Coldstream. The last time, in 1513, it had ended in disaster: perhaps 5,000 Scots died, among them the Scottish king, eleven earls, fifteen lords, three bishops and much of the rest of Scotland’s governing class.3 Fear of the arrival of armed Scots in the north had caused centuries of concern in England. Indeed tenants in the Borders had enjoyed unusual freedoms in return for an obligation to offer armed resistance to Scottish incursions, and the prevalence of cross-border cattle raiding had given rise to something like clan society. When James VI of Scotland ascended to the English throne in 1603, the Borders had, in his vision, become middle shires, and the problems had receded somewhat. Nonetheless, armed Scots were not regarded with equanimity in northern England.4

  This time, however, they were barely opposed and the march past Flodden was the prelude to a successful occupation of northern England, achieved more or less without a fight. Alexander Leslie’s Covenanting army were faced by 10,000 English troops with more in reserve further south. But this English force was easily discouraged. At Newburn on 28 August, just over a week after they had crossed the border, a short action saw the English routed and on 30 August the Scottish army marched unopposed into Newcastle, one of the nation’s most significant cities.

  This, then, was a very peculiar occupation: many Englishmen seem to have felt that the Scots had right on their side, or at least that the English army did not. When they reached Heddon-on-the-Wall, one of the invaders later recalled, ‘old mistress Finnick came out and met us, and burst out and said, “And is it not so, that Jesus Christ will not come to England for reforming abuses, but with an army of 22,000 men at his back?”’5 Certainly English forces, locally and nationally, were half-hearted in their responses. The Scottish party had actively courted, and clearly expected to receive, the sympathy of local people, and they were not disappointed.

  England and Scotland were separate kingdoms under the same king – their churches, law, administration and representative institutions remained distinct. Like his father, who had first possessed the two crowns tog
ether, Charles governed Scotland from London, but he now hastened north. He intended to ‘contain the Northern Counties at his devotion’, fearing, it was said, that local people might ‘waver’ in their support for him. Opinion there had apparently been ‘empoisoned by the pestilent declaration cast among them’ by the Covenanters.6 In their propaganda campaign of the summer of 1640, in print and in circulating manuscripts, the Covenanters had made it clear that they had no quarrel with England but were forced to take these actions in order to defend their religion and liberties. Some of their papers and publications went further, suggesting that they intended to help England to complete its own Reformation, and that they were an instrument of God’s providence in that respect.7 Charles’s government was palpably anxious about this propaganda effort.8 Without the ‘awe of his Majesty’s presence’ it was feared that local people might ‘easily be tempted to fall to the Scottish party, or at leastwise, to let them pass through them without resistance or opposition’. It even seemed necessary to issue a proclamation that the Covenanters were ‘Rebels and Traitors’. Only a nervous government would have felt it necessary to say so, or to add: ‘so shall all they be deemed and reported that assist or supply them with money or victual, or shall not with all their might oppose and fight against them’.9

  Many English soldiers were said to be more sympathetic towards the Scots than to the King’s cause in 1640

  These fears about local loyalties were not groundless. The Covenanters had been amazed that Newcastle was surrendered without a fight10 and within a week or so of arriving had made the town defensible, something the townspeople had neglected to do over the previous summer.11 Prior to the crossing of the Tweed there had clearly been contacts with highly placed English politicians and the decision to invade had involved a careful calculation about the effect of crossing onto English soil on English sympathies.12

  Although this episode is often described as a Scottish invasion it is better understood as a forceful demonstration of grievances by the Covenanters appealing to potential sympathizers in England. The royal proclamation had tried to obscure that distinction, but this was a religious protest intended to make common cause with fellow travellers in one of Charles’s other kingdoms. It enjoyed some success in that respect and there are persistent suspicions about active collusion. Certainly a willingness to accept that the Covenanters were rebels (rather than, say, loyal petitioners with right on their side) became something of a political litmus test in England.13 Reformation politics did not necessarily respect national borders or dynastic loyalties.

  The Covenanting movement arose from attempts to harmonize religious practice in England and Scotland, which eventually raised fundamental issues in Reformation politics. In 1629, at the suggestion of William Laud, then Bishop of London, Charles had considered the introduction of the English Prayer Book into Scotland. The concerns of his Scottish bishops, however, had been sufficiently clear, and sufficiently substantial, to persuade him to back off.14 Scottish practice was more rigorously Calvinist in its doctrine, liturgy and church government, and this purity of practice was defined in part in contrast to the ‘halfly reformed’ English church. Moreover, the influence of bishops and recent trends in Protestant practice in England seemed to threaten the Calvinist inheritance. These threats could be understood as differing facets of ‘popery’, a polemical escalation which made it hard to limit discussion to the specific measures being proposed. Ceremonial tinkering became emblematic of threats to the identity and future of Scottish Protestantism, which in turn raised questions about who should be custodian of that future, and the relations between church and state.

  At the heart of the Reformation message was a rejection of the power of individual believers, or of the church acting on their behalf, to affect God’s judgement about who should be saved and who should be damned. Martin Luther had been convinced, like Augustine, of the powerlessness and unworthiness of fallen humanity, and struck by the force of God’s mercy. Good works could not merit this mercy, or affect a sovereign God: instead individual sinners were entirely dependent on God’s mercy and justified (saved) by faith alone. Jean Calvin, a generation later, developed more clearly the predestinarian implications – since some men were saved and some were damned, and since this had nothing to do with their own efforts, it must mean that God had created some men predestined for salvation (the elect). This seemed to imply that He must also have predestined other men for damnation (double predestination), a line of argument which led into dangerous territory. Some theologians, Calvin’s close associate Beza among them, went further and argued that the entire course of human history was foreordained prior to Adam and Eve’s fall in the Garden of Eden. These views (particularly the latter, ‘supralapsarian’ arguments) seemed to their opponents to suggest that God was the author of the sin, both in Eden and in those who were subsequently predestined for damnation. They also raised a question about Christ’s sacrifice on the cross – had that been made to atone for the sins of all, or only of the elect? Because of these dangers many of those with strong predestinarian views were unsure about whether or not the doctrine should be openly preached. Clever theologians, like expensive lawyers, are adept at failing to push arguments too far and there were many respectable positions short of the one adopted by Beza. But predestination was for many Protestants a fundamental – retreat from this doctrine implied a role for free will expressed in works rather than a justification by faith. It thus reopened the door to the corruptions of late-medieval Christianity.15

  In defending these views Luther and subsequent reformers took their stand on scripture, the Word, rather than the accumulated tradition and wisdom of the church. This too became central to Reformation argument. It led to an emphasis on the relationship between the individual believer and God, mediated by scripture rather than a priesthood interceding on behalf of the flock, and elevated preaching of the Word at the expense of many forms of shared ritual. Scriptural warrant was found for only two sacraments – baptism and communion. Much of the rest of the ceremonial life of the church gave way to exposition of scripture. Placing the Word at the centre of the religious experience led to a suspicion of potentially distracting ritual or imagery and practices which had previously been regarded as central to worship. What had previously been seen as important for fostering a sense of fellowship or edifying the believer was now often seen as superstitious or idolatrous.16

  Emphasis on the Word therefore had implications for forms of public worship, and controversy over matters of faith frequently centred around these visible expressions of religious belief: these questions were of much more widespread and immediate significance to ordinary Christians. They also drove the roots of these theological controversies very deeply into European society. What happened at each moment of each occasion of religious worship in every corner of Europe could provide the focus for a debate which was literally more important than life or death. More than Luther, Calvin and his followers tended towards an austere view of the role of ritual and image in communicating religious truth, placing great emphasis on scripture, expounded by ministers who were expected to be effective preachers.

  There were differences of degree and opinion on these matters, which divided not only Protestant from Catholic, but Protestant reformers from one another. Predestination was urged with caution, and although religious practices were tested more stringently against scripture this did not lead to the abandonment of all traditional practices. Importantly, it was possible to defend ‘harmless’ practices which were not specified in scripture, but which were not counter to it. In particular a residual role was reserved for edification – sensitizing the believer to the saving message – which allowed for the preservation of parts of the medieval tradition.

  Similarly, respectable reformed opinion was not anti-clerical. Most reformers believed that scripture was not self-explanatory, and needed to be expounded by those with a gift for such exposition. There were good reasons to be careful about pushing the argument a
gainst an intercessory priesthood too far – it might entail standing idly by while misinformed brethren with a poor understanding of God’s Word pursued their own damnation. Equally, there were concrete fears about the consequences for this world of allowing misinformed brethren to follow what they mistakenly understood to be their conscience. The Münster Anabaptists who had held property in common or the German peasants who had engaged in social protest during the 1520s were remembered as the exemplars of the dangers of ungoverned spiritual life. The pursuit of reformation often entailed a reduction in the space allowed to clerical authority, therefore, but almost always stopped short of allowing individual believers complete freedom to define their own relationship with God.17 Priest became minister and teacher; the individual believer was by no means left isolated.

  At the centre of the Reformation message was the view that individuals were saved (justified) by faith, not works; a greater emphasis on scripture as a guide to the Christian life; and a pared-down sacramental and ceremonial worship focused more clearly on the Word. These issues, although fundamental, were not without ambiguities – over the doctrine of predestination and its implications, over which elements of the received tradition were acceptable, and over which particular practices edified, or were superstitious, idolatrous and distracting. The Reformation was not a completed event but a process and the Protestant faiths were recovered rather than founded: Reformation politics were not driven by a desire to establish a new church but the urgent need to purify the old one. This might mean stripping out of the liturgy, ritual and physical fabric of the church those corruptions which were counter to the true scriptural religion, or removing the vestiges of the papal corruption of the constitution of the church which had allowed errors to flourish. But in Scotland, as everywhere else, the nature of the task and its limits were contested.