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Presidential Address: Collective Mentalities in mid-Seventeenth-Century England: IV. Cross Currents: Neutrals, Trimmers and Others

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

G. E. Aylmer
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Extract

Among the most striking changes from the text-book generalisations of my school days is the emphasis given nowadays to those who were not committed to either side in the Civil War, those who tried and in some cases succeeded in keeping clear of the conflict altogether. Indeed so great has been the stress on neutrals and neutralism and on the general reluctance to take sides and to begin fighting at all in 1642, that we are in danger of having to explain how a mere handful of obstinate or fanatical extremists on each side contrived to drag the country down into the abyss of Civil War. I have said enough in my previous addresses in this series to make my own position clear on that. Among Royalists, including the King himself, there were enough who believed that rebellion must be put down, whether they were more concerned to defend the constitutional prerogatives of the Crown, the government and liturgy of the Church, or the whole existing fabric of society. Correspondingly there were enough Parliamentarians who believed that religion, liberty and property were in deadly peril, through the design for Popery and arbitrary government. If these beliefs had been confined to a few dozen or even score of men on each side, it is not credible that a war would have begun in 1642, where fighting broke out be it noted in Lancashire, Yorkshire and Somerset before the preparations and manoeuverings of the two main armies led up to the campaign and battle of Edgehill.

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Research Article
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Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 39 , December 1989 , pp. 1 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1989

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References

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38 For these totals, see Twigg, ‘Parliamentary Visitation’. The Oxford purges of the 1640s and 1660s are much the more fully documented: see The Register of the Visitors… 1647–58, ed. Burrows, M. (Camden Soc., new ser.xxix (1881)Google Scholar, and The Restoration Visitation…, ed. Varley, F.J. (Camden 3rd ser., lxxix, 1948, Camden Miscellany, xviii)Google Scholar. For Barlow, see The Genuine Remaines of that learned prelate Dr Thomas Barlow (1693), Wing B832; DNB and refs. in numerous other works, including histories ofThe Queen's College, Oxford, and the Bodleian Library.

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45 For a bibliography down to the early 1980s, see Shapiro, Barbara J., Probability and Certainty in 17th-century England: A Study of the Relationship between Natural Science, Religion, History, Law and Literature (Princeton, 1983), notes to ch. ii, pp. 273–87, & ch. iii, n. 2, pp. 287–8Google Scholar.

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48 There is a voluminous bibliography, Digby having attracted numerous biographies; the most recent scholarly study is Foster, M., ‘Sir Kenelm Digby (1603–65): as man of religion and thinker’, Parts I & II, The Downside Review, (01 & 04 1988), pp. 35–38, 101–25Google Scholar.

49 Among relatively recent studies see Bradley, R. J., SJ, ‘Blacklo and the Counter-Reformation…’, in Carter, C. H. (ed.), From the Renaissance to the Counter-Reformation (N.Y., 1965; London, 1966), pp. 348–70Google Scholar; Jones, H. W., (ed. & transl.), Hobbes, Thomas, Thomas White's De Mundo Examined (Bradford, 1972)Google Scholar; T. A. Birrell (ed.), R. Pugh, Blacklo's Cabal 1680 (Farnborough, 1970); Jones, H. W., ‘Thomas White (or Blacklo), 1593–1676; New Data’, Notes & Queries, 218, new ser. XX (1973), 381–8Google Scholar; South-gate, B. C., ‘”That Damned Booke”: The Grounds of Obedience and Government (1655), and the downfall of Thomas White’, Recusant History, xvii (1985), 238–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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51 Besides the numerous editions of his works, older biographies and critical studies, see in particular Wallace, J. M., Destiny His Choice: The Loyalism of Andrew Marvell (Cambridge, 1968)Google Scholar; Smith, D. I. B. (ed.), Marvell, Andrew, The Rehearsal Transpros'd and The Rehearsal Transpros'd The Second Part (Oxford, 1971)Google Scholar; Patterson, A. M., Marvell and the Civic Crown (Princeton, 1978)Google Scholar; Kelliher, H. (comp.), Andrew Marvell Poet and Politician 1621–78 An Exhibition to commemmorate the tercentenary of his death (British Library Reference Division, 1978)Google Scholar; in addition I am most grateful to Professor Caroline Robbins for copies of articles and other help, back in the 1970s. I hope that my having been an undergraduate pupil of Dr Christopher Hill and a colleague of the late C. A. Patrides may almost qualify me as an honorary Marvellian.