Histories of 1650s England have witnessed a recent upsurge of interest, and Imogen Peck follows this trend with her meticulously crafted Recollection in the Republics: Memories of the British Civil Wars in England, 1649–1659, establishing how the civil wars were remembered in their immediate aftermath. Drawing on a rich variety of sources, Peck successfully breaks down the binaries of elite/popular and national/local to demonstrate the multiplicity of responses to the civil wars across the political and social spectrums.
At the same time, Peck situates the memorial culture of the English Republics in relation to other post-conflict societies to highlight the “consistency in some of the challenges that have confronted post-war states across time and space” (2). For the Commonwealth and Protectorate governments, the problem was the paradoxical need to remember the civil wars as a short-term political tool to legitimize the state's authority while also desiring to forget the immediate past to heal wartime divisions. The former won out, leaving behind a memorial culture worthy of consideration.
In chapter 1, Peck explores how supporters of the Commonwealth remembered the wars. Three themes were apparent in their narratives of the conflict: the tyrannical nature of Charles I, the providential nature of the Parliamentarian cause, and the duplicity of the Scots. The Republics, however, failed to monopolize memories of the civil wars, and in chapter 2 Peck investigates how opponents of the regime—“Royalists, Levellers, and proponents of the ‘good old cause’ (55)—contested pro-government narratives. Royalists inverted their opponents’ arguments by presenting Charles I as a martyr and placing the blame for the civil wars on a “group of factious men”: Puritans (72). Peck asserts that the strength of anti-Puritanism, which remained at the forefront of Royalist memories in the 1650s, proved crucial to influencing the repressive religious settlement formulated by the Cavalier Parliament in the early 1660s. Peck uses the final section to discuss how Levellers and supporters of the “good old cause” appropriated the Republic's narratives to castigate their erstwhile allies for betraying the Parliamentary cause that they fought for in the 1640s.
In chapter 3, Peck utilizes legal records to delve into the memories of ordinary people, demonstrating how the immediate past was co-opted by humble individuals for their own ends. Since civil war allegiances remained relevant to legal disputes, ordinary people had an incentive to strategically draw upon the past to benefit from the newfound political conditions under the Republics. Thus, accusations of Royalism or disloyalty to the Republics abound in numerous interpersonal disputes, as well as in complaints against local officials, ministers, and MPs. Peck emphasizes how individuals continued to view themselves and others in terms of “partisan identities that were rooted in the experience of conflict” (194). The nature of seditious speech during the period means that statements brought up in court settings were usually hostile to the government. However, Peck finds plenty of material from those more supportive of the regimes, demonstrating the possibility of a wider net of support for the Republics among non-elites than historians have previously considered.
In chapter 4 Peck considers how places acted as sites of memory. Although the Republics failed to establish a national commemoration of the wars, Peck produces a set of intriguing case studies of local remembrances. Annual celebrations were carried out in Gloucester on the date of the successful raising of the city's siege in 1643, and its local authorities reconstructed its south gate to reflect the city's godly Puritanism and commitment to the Parliamentary cause. Peck then discusses the material and psychological impact of the wars on the nation's memory. While individuals drew upon the physical damage of the wars to obtain financial assistance, sites such as battlefields and places of execution were also transformed into homes of the supernatural, usually interpreted in partisan terms, and reflective of contemporary political issues.
In the final chapter, Peck investigates how individuals narrated their own wartime experiences. She first analyzes the memoirs of Royalist exiles Sir Hugh Chomley and Sir Richard Grenville, both of whom sought to vindicate their past conduct and assert their Royalist credentials. She then considers the petitions of maimed soldiers and war widows whose recollections of the wars were influenced by the need to demonstrate their loyal service to the Parliamentary cause to receive pensions from the Republics. Peck's careful examination of these petitions not only reveals how individuals tactically drew upon their past experiences for financial gain but also follows recent trends among scholars of the mid-seventeenth century by elucidating how ordinary men and women possessed a clear understanding of legislative processes and contemporary political developments.
This is a carefully researched and well-conceptualized book that will be used by scholars of the English revolution and memory studies more broadly, and there are few problems to be found with Peck's interpretations. Occasionally, Peck overstresses the parallels between the memorial cultures of 1650s England and those of modern states, and at times these parallels break up the flow of individual sections. The book's structure, which includes individual conclusions for each chapter, sometimes leads to repetition. More familiar material, such as the discussion over Royalist martyrology of Charles I, could have also been omitted to provide room for more untapped material, such as Peck's compelling insights into civil war memories by ordinary people in legal settings.
Nevertheless, these are minor misgivings, and Peck brings together a series of neglected topics that adds much to hisotrians’ understanding of how the civil wars were remembered across English society. Peck demonstrates the depth of popular awareness in political affairs and the strength that wartime experiences held on individual identities. She also weaves two very important themes throughout the book: the belief in providence that ensured that the act of remembering was transformed into a theological duty, and the strength of anti-Scottishness among Parliamentarians and Royalists alike. This Othering of the Scots, which was found across the social spectrum, is something historians have yet to appreciate in enough detail. Therefore, Peck succeeds in writing the first comprehensive account of how the civil wars were remembered over the 1650s—a wonderful addition to the historiography of the period.
