The State Versus the Trades Guilds: Parliament's Soldier-Apprentices in the English Civil War Period, 1642–1655

Abstract

During the English Civil War period, parliament freed apprentices who had left their masters to serve in parliament's armed forces, thereby nullifying the postwar efforts of companies to force disbanded soldiers to return and finish their seven years of training. In effect, legislation favoring apprentices undid the traditional cooperative relationship between the English state and the guilds. By freeing apprentices who had yet to complete labor contracts, parliament made more common the practice of renegade apprentices abandoning their masters to set up shop, a problem that had plagued the guild system since its inception. The many Civil War apprentices who took advantage of these innovative state benefits can remind us that we have been too inclined to associate the unraveling of the guild system and the rise of capitalism with the bourgeoisie rather than with the laboring classes.