13 - The Politica and the Allegiance Controversy

Summary

In 1689 some nineteen works were reprinted from earlier times. Buchanan's De iure and the Vindiciae contra tyranos reappeared from the sixteenth century; five works originally printed in the period of the Monmouth Rebellion set a precedent for Locke's Two Treatises; Hunton's Treatise of Monarchy was reprinted twice; works by Ascham and Milton from 1649 reappeared together with ones by Sancroft, Sexby and Hammond from 1657. But from the largest print year of them all, only Lawson's Politica reappeared in a new quarto format.

All these works had a role somewhat different from the bulk of materials directly generated by the controversy. Obviously the most immediate question of the controversy concerned allegiance to the new regime. Answering this, however, depended largely on the prior characterisation of the various royal comings and goings; and indeed even on the question of who had acted, with God always lurking off-stage left or right (delete according to political prejudice). Any specification of events more informative than exit pursued by an Orange carried with it a range of ethical and political injunctions and pre-empted answers to those immediate questions of allegiance, legitimacy and settlement, which have attracted so much attention. It was largely the predication of events that divides the literature of allegiance, and the older, republished works are important because they helped provide conceptual frameworks through which the very recent past could be assimilated in a way appropriate to one's cause.