‘Damn your authors, Courtage; women are the prettiest things we can fool away our time with.’
(Sir Fopling Flutter)
Sir George Etherege (1636-92) came from a middle-class family, may or may not have gone to Cambridge (the record is unclear), he definitely studied law at the Inns of Court then went to Paris with his Royalist father.
Etherege who wrote just three plays, but the first, The Comical Revenge or Love in a Tub, holds the distinction of being the first new play performed in London’s theatres after they were re-opened at the restoration of Charles II in 1660. It was premiered in 1664 and although most of it consisted of old-style heroic verse, it contained comic scenes depicting sophisticated banter between men and women which were entirely new and caught the spirit of the new age.
Etherege holds a distinguished place in English literature as one of the ‘big five’ in Restoration comedy – George Etherege, William Congreve, William Wycherley, George Farquhar, and Sir John Vanbrugh. He is credited as the playwright who invented the comedy of manners and led the way to the achievements of Congreve and Sheridan.
The second of Etherege’s plays, She Would if She Could, was performed in 1668. It is ‘a comedy of action, wit and spirit, although censured by some as frivolous and immoral’. In it Etherege first showed at length the fantasy version of contemporary London in which flirtation is the only serious business in life.
The Man of Mode was the third of his plays and the most celebrated.
The Man of Mode
The protagonist of The Man of Mode is Dorimant, a notorious libertine and man-about-town. He is said to have been based on John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, the most notorious debaucher in Charles II’s court of noted debauchers and by far the most obscene poet in English literature (but then, as such a notorious figure, Rochester’s name was easily attached to any fictional libertine).
Brief plot summary
The libertine Dorimant tries to win over the young heiress Harriet, and at the same time disengage himself from his previous affair with Mrs. Loveit. Despite the subtitle, the ‘man of mode’, Sir Fopling Flutter, is only one of several marginal characters.
Extended plot summary
Act I Dorimant’s chambers – The story opens with Dorimant addressing a billet-doux to Mrs. Loveit, with whom he is having an affair, to lie about his whereabouts. A working class orange seller, Foggy Nan, is admitted to his rooms and informs him about the arrival in London of grand Lady Woodvil and her beautiful heiress daughter, Harriet, who’s been watching and asking about Dorimant.
Dorimant‘s closest friend and fellow rake Medley arrives and offers more information about Harriet ‘vastly rich’. Dorimant expresses his wish to break off his relationship with Mrs. Loveit, being already involved with her younger friend Bellinda. The two friends plot to encourage Mrs. Loveit‘s jealousy by getting a woman acquaintance to talk up Dorimant‘s new affair so that when Dorimant visits her, Mrs L will be furious and it will be she who ends the relationship. Comic interlude with the poor shoemaker.
Young Bellair, the handsome acquaintance of both men, enters and relates his infatuation with Emilia, a woman serving as companion to his aunt, Lady Townley. His relatively innocent devotion is ridiculed. Admiration of Dorimant in his fine suit leads into news that the noted fop Sir Fopling Flutter has newly arrived in London from Paris. Bellair reports that he’s been attending the theatre and visiting Mrs Loveit.
This is perfect for Dorimant‘s plan because he can accuse Mrs Loveit of intriguing with Fopling. Bellair exits and returns with the news that his father has arrived in town and is lodging in the same place as his Emilia – i.e. at Lady Townley‘s. (Lady Townley and Old Bellair are sister and brother i.e. Bellair is Old Bellair‘s son and Lady Townley‘s nephew). Old Bellair informs his son that he has arranged a marriage for him and he must be obedient or be disinherited.
A letter arrives from a semi-literate whore Dorimant is ‘seeing’ begging for money, and Dorimant and Medley think it will be an excellent joke to give her some so she can go and lord it at the opera.
Act II Sc 1: At Lady Townley’s – Lady Townley and Emilia discuss the arrival of Bellair‘s father. Bellair pops by briefly to tell them his father insists he marries the rich heiress, Harriet. Old Bellair flirts with Emilia unaware his son is in love with her. (Young Bellair has acquiesced in his father’s wishes for the time being.) Medley arrives and entertains the ladies with the latest gossip from round town.
Scene 2: Mrs. Loveit and her servant Pert, who asks Mrs L why she likes Dorimant despite his ignoring her. Belinda arrives: if you remember, Dorimant‘s plan is to get Belinda to describe Dorimant paying excessive attention to a masked woman at the theatre, and so make Mrs Loveit mad with jealousy. The plan works perfectly and by the time Dorimant breezes in Mrs L is furious and accuses him of unfaithfulness.
In his defence, Dorimant a) accuses Belinda of libelling him (they both know this is play acting) and b) counter-attacks with the accusation that Mrs L is spending her time with Sir Fopling. She is scandalised at this lie but Dorimant storms out. Mrs L is livid and vows hellfire and revenge, that was part of the plan – not part of the plan is the way Belinda is unsettled at seeing how cynically Dorimant plays Mrs Loveit and, not unnaturally, wonders if he will behave the same when it comes to dumping her.
Act III Sc 1: At Lady Woodville’s – Harriet is stroppy and difficult with her servant, Busy. She is very similar to Hellena in The Rover i.e. she is a canny, scheming witty woman, as clever as any man, yet at the same time claims to know nothing of love, to be an innocent in the ways of love:
HELLENA: I wou’d fain know as much as you, which makes me so inquisitive; nor is’t enough to know you’re a Lover, unless you tell me too, who ’tis you sigh for.
FLORINDA: When you are a Lover, I’ll think you fit for a Secret of that nature.
HELLENA: ’Tis true, I was never a Lover yet…
(The Rover)HARRIET: I know not what ’tis to love, but I have made pretty remarks by being now and then where lovers meet. Where did you leave their gravities?…
DORIMANT: Where had you all that scorn and coldness in your look?
HARRIET: From nature, sir; pardon my want of art: I have not learnt those softnesses and languishings which now in faces are so much in fashion
(The Man of Mode)
Harriet is the young woman Old Bellair wants his son to marry but a) Bellair is in love with Emilia b) Harriet has taken a fancy to Dorimant. Realising that they are mismatched, Bellair and Harriet make a comically cynical vow to be unfaithful and not in love with each other, and this leads into a comic sequence where they then play-act being bashful young lovers, wryly commenting on each other’s performance of the cliches of love as they do so, for the benefit of their parents, ‘their gravities’ as they call them, Lady Woodvil and Old Bellair.
Scene 2: At Lady Townley’s Lady T and Emilia and Medley are gossiping when Belinda arrives and tells them how upset Mrs Loveit is, and has barely finished explaining her fury at Dorimant before Dorimant himself arrives. Bellinda complains about his behaviour but lets herself be talked into a) persuading Mrs L to go to the Mall later so Dorimant can contrive a meeting between her and Fopling b) agreeing to a romantic rendezvous with Dorimant.
Enter Sir Fopling Flutter but Dorimant cautions Medley not to mock him – he needs him for his plan. So Dorimant and Medley slyly encourage Sir Fopling to play up, to exaggerate his knowledge of Paris, fashion, his fine clothes, and his ornate way of speaking. Mistaking their encouragement for genuine friendship, Fopling falls for the idea that Mrs Loveit fancies him.
Scene 3: The Mall A complex scene of multiple encounters and conversations, the chief of which are: Dorimant for the first time meets Harriet; her guardian Lady Woodvil is there, scared of this wicked devil Dorimant she’s heard so much about, but she is led by the other characters to mistake Fopling for Dorimant. Fopling turns out to be a genuine hit with Mrs Loveit, at least she pretends so, and as she and Fopling leave amid much laughter, Medley ribs Dorimant that seeing her laughing and happy has made him jealous. Dorimant tries to deny it, but it’s true.
Act IV Scene 1: at Lady Townley’s – A big dance. Old Bellair has asides to the audience in which he makes it plain he is in love with Emilia. Dorimant is there, masquerading as one ‘Mr Courtage’ because Harriet’s guardian, Lady Woodvil, has an exaggerated fear of ‘Dorimant’. In this guise of Courtage, Dorimant enjoys politely playing up to old Lady Woodvil‘s prejudices about the good old days and these horrible modern times.
DORIMANT: Forms and ceremonies, the only things that uphold quality and greatness, are now shamefully laid aside and neglected.
LADY WOODVIL: Well! this is not the women’s age, let ’em think what they will; lewdness is the business now, love was the business in my time.
It is a bravura display of disguise and play-acting, a core ingredient of Restoration comedy.
Dorimant engages in extended repartee with Harriet and, in an aside, tells the audience that he loves her. Sir Fopling turns up in masquerade, with a retinue of French musicians and nearly gives the game away by calling Dorimant by his name, till Dorimant tells him he is here under the pseudonym Mr Courtage.
All the characters encourage Sir Fopling to boast about his time in Paris and then encourage him to dance, not realising they are guying him. Dorimant becomes impatient because he had made an appointment with Belinda who – we have seen in some asides – didn’t like his way of putting off Mrs Loveit. Dorimant now scares Lady Woodvil by claiming that the wicked Dorimant is present in disguise, proceeds to see the ladies to their coaches, then heads off home, these latter (offstage) activities reported by young Bellair as he enters to see Old Bellair and Medley.
Scene 2: Dorimant’s lodgings Seems like Dorimant and Belinda have had sex. She is regretting it and begging Dorimant not to tell anyone, and never to see Mrs Loveit in private again. In the middle of this semi-argument, the servant announces the arrival of Bellair, Medley and Fopling. Mortified, Belinda exits down the backstairs.
Once the men have entered, Fopling makes a fool of himself, singing a new song he has written, and the others encourage his ‘love’ of Mrs Loveit, before departing. Dorimant confides to the others he’s quickly off to Mrs Loveit‘s.
Scene 3: The men carrying the chair Belinda is escaping from Dorimant‘s lodgings in take her to Pall Mall instead of home. As she gets out of the chair, she is spied by Mrs Loveit‘s footman who is nearby. Damn! The first night she’s spent with Dorimant and she bumps someone who’ll tell his former – and vengeful – lover.
Act V Scene 1: Mrs Loveit’s Belinda’s arrival is announced by the very same servant who saw her being set down in Pall Mall by ‘Ambling Harry’ who Mrs Loveit knows is the chairman who plies from Dorimant‘s house i.e. Mrs Loveit immediately guesses that Belinda is having an affair with Dorimant. In the same moment, she suspects the part Belinda played in making her angry with Dorimant in Act 1 i.e. that she conspired with Dorimant against her.
MRS LOVEIT: There is no truth in friendship neither. Women as well as men – all are false, or all are so to me at least.
But Belinda just about manages to save the day. She had threatened the chairman with the sack unless they lie and say they picked her up in the Strand. When Mrs Loveit sends her man to interrogate the chairmen, they duly tell this lie – that they picked Belinda in the Strand, not at Dorimant‘s – and as a result Mrs Loveit decides Belinda was telling the truth after all and feels guilty at suspecting her.
At that moment Dorimant is announced, as visiting Mrs Loveit and now Belinda is horrified to discover that the man she’s just slept with and swore faithfulness to her, is, within the hour, paying a visit to his old lover. As a result Belinda feels faint and Mrs Loveit‘s servant, Pert, takes her into the other room to lie down. Pert delivers some pretty ripe double entendres about something lying heavy on her stomach (i.e. she detects that Belinda has recently had sex).
Enter Dorimant and he and Mrs Loveit proceed to have a terrific quarrel circling round the idea that by being seen laughing with Fopling she has debased herself and humiliated him. He throws the love letters she sent him back in her face.
Dorimant is just telling Mrs Loveit that, if it’s true she has no feelings for Fopling, she should meet him one more time in Pall Mall and laugh him to scorn – when Belinda is brought back into the room.
Dorimant is thunderstruck to see her, realising she will realise he is there to pay court to Loveit. Belinda joins Mrs Loveit in scorning Dorimant, through only he and the audience know that there is the real animus of a scorned lover behind her words. When even Pert joins in the chorus of women damning him, Dorimant knows it’s time to leave.
Mrs Loveit orders a servant to follow him and exits breathing fury and revenge. Leaving Belinda solo wondering why on earth she ever slept with Dorimant.
Scene 2: Lady Townley’s Things come to a head. Medley and Bellair and Mrs Townley have invited a chaplain who has already married Bellair and Emilia – but they have barely kissed before Old Bellair arrives with Harriet and a chaplain who he has hired to marry Bellair to Harriet — so they bundle chaplain 1 into a hiding place!
While things are on hold, Emilia teases Harriet that she loves Dorimant, which Harriet denies. Dorimant promptly arrives and he and Harriet have an extended dialogue in which she matches him point for point, as he declares his true, unironical love and she refutes, rejects and disbelieves him.
Chaplain 1 is released from his hiding place as Old Bellair returns onstage and amazes the old man by announcing that his son is already married!
Enter Belinda and Mrs Loveit. Now the entire cast is onstage. Dorimant sort of makes it up to Mrs Loveit by explaining ‘the other woman’ is Harriet who he is motivated to marry because her fortune will patch up his ruined estate. Dorimant tries to make it up to Belinda i.e. sleeping with her and promptly marrying someone else…
Meanwhile, Harriet rebels against Lady Woodvil and announces that she loves Dorimant. Fopling turns up and Mrs Loveit rebuts him. He doesn’t care; he is writing a wonderful ballet which will entrance the entire sex!
Harriet is blunt to Mrs Loveit, saying Dorimant has been her god long enough. Mrs Loveit vows to go home and never go out again. Why not go to a nunnery? says Harriet rudely.
Lady Woodvil now discovers that the man she thought was named Mr Courtage is none other than the wicked Dorimant, but everyone speaks in his favour and he was so sweet to her earlier that her heart has softened and she almost approves of him marrying her (rich) niece. She doesn’t agree to their wedding straight away, but Dorimant breaks the habits of a lifetime and promises to come and visit Harriet in her big empty country house.
Harriet then has a speech making it sound empty and lonely, echoing to the sound of rooks. It’s an odd and powerful image in what is otherwise such an urban, London play.
The play ends with music and dancing and Old Bellair encourages the audience to congratulate his son and Emilia.
Cynical manipulation of others
The entire plot consists of the rake Dorimant’s attempts to juggle his various love affairs. There is genuinely heartless cynicism in the way he plans to simply dump Mrs Loveit simply because he’s bored of her. Dorimant’s entire life is devoted to toying with women:
‘Next to the coming to a good understanding with a new mistress, I love a quarrel with an old one; but the devil’s in’t, there has been such a calm in my affairs of late, I have not had the pleasure of making a woman so much as break her fan, to be sullen, or forswear herself these three days.’
Presumably these attitudes were deliberately exaggerated, their heartlessness and cynicism played up, to make them more ‘shocking and comic.
Cynicism about people’s behaviour, specially round sexual morality
‘I have known many women make a difficulty of losing a maidenhead who have afterwards made none of a cuckold.’
When you ponder statements like this you realise there is nothing funny about them except insofar as they are wilfully cynical, the humour derives from the conveying of an entire worldview about love and sex and men and women which is elaborately, exaggeratedly, cynical and superficial.
The cultivation of sin and immorality
The aristocratic figures seek to promote licentiousness and drunkenness at every available opportunity. Thus when Dorimant dismissively orders Medley to give the shoemaker half a crown, Medley insists it is only on condition that the shoemaker uses it to get ‘bloody drunk’.
Conservative moralists had, for centuries, thought a chief defence of having an aristocratic class was that they should provide models of morality for the masses to copy. Clearly, there is a cynical pleasure to be had in puffed-up aristocrats behaving in exactly the opposite manner, spitting in the faces of Puritans and other earnest social reformers, mocking any attempts to take more or less anything seriously.
The reversal of values
In this upside-down world it is virtuous to womanise, to drink to get drunk, to gamble away fortunes, to toy with women’s affections, to cynically manipulate all around you. Religion – real genuine religious faith – is ridiculed, and education is scorned as leading to the production of shallow fops.
‘[Fopling] is like many others, beholding to his education for making him so eminent a coxcomb; many a fool had been lost to the world had their indulgent parents wisely bestowed neither learning nor good breeding on ’em.’
Parents and the older generation are mocked for their seriousness. Harriet ironically refers to her and Bellair’s parents as ‘their gravities’. In fact, everything is mocked.
Wit and repartee
Shakespeare’s comedies are full of banter and word play, which can, admittedly, sometimes get knotted and dense. Sometimes the flow of puns and double meanings in Shakespeare confuses even the people exchanging them (which can then be another cause of humour).
Restoration comedy uses much plainer language in the sense that it is more purely factual. There is occasional wit and set pieces of repartee, particularly between the rake figure and the clever female lead, but even here the play is between ideas more than words, as such. Overall there is a greater focus on elegance of expression, on a kind of melliflousness. The kind of clever word play which clots Shakespearian comedy is largely absent.
Gamini Salgado in his introduction to the Penguin edition of the play says of Etherege’s prose style, compared to that of the first half of the century, that it has a more orderly and elegant rhythm, but is harder and less resonant. I would add that the language has lost almost all its poetic force. Metaphors of sin and redemption and love’s flames etc feel mechanical, have become an empty social conventional rhetoric.
Anyway, that’s how language was used between knowing aristocrats, at any rate. Regarding the rude mechanicals or working classes, there is a lot more of what you could call simple abuse. Dorimant casually insults all the lackeys, servants and tradespeople he comes into contact with, describing the orange woman and shoemaker as ‘vermin’, ‘double tripe’, ‘a cartload of scandal’ and other amusing insults. His footman he describes as ‘eternal blockhead and sot’.
The class-based nature of his arrogance is combined with ultra-cynicism when he tells the shoemaker:
‘Whoring and swearing are vices too genteel for a shoemaker’
Who in turn makes the comic point that the aristocracy will soon monopolise all the sins and vices so completely that there’ll be none left over for poor folk.
Fopling may be absurdly mannered but expresses the same upper-class prejudices as the other toffs. When a servant tells him his name is Trott, Fopling bursts out:
SIR FOPLING: Oh, unsufferable! Trott, Trott, Trott! there’s nothing so barbarous as the names of our English servants.
Insulting marriage
Salgado in his introduction makes the point that one of the clumsiest aspects of Restoration comedy is the way all the characters cynically abuse the institution of marriage for the first four acts, before suddenly converting to thinking it the most perfect state of being, in the fifth.
There are certainly some choice insults of marriage here:
‘’Zbud, there’s never a man i’ the town lives more like a gentleman with his wife than I do. I never mind her motions, she never inquires into mine; we speak to one another civilly, hate one another heartily, and because ’tis vulgar to lie and soak together, we have each of us our several settlebed.’
Old Bellair explains to his son:
OLD BELLAIR: You need not look so grum, sir; a wife is no curse when she brings the blessing of a good estate with her.
Elsewhere, Medley comments:
‘Your nephew ought to conceal it for a time, madam, since marriage has lost its good name.’
References to ‘this age’
It is part of the mystique or worldview of the plays that they are being staged in a specially depraved time:
- DORIMANT: An antiquated beauty may be allowed to be out of humour at the freedoms of the present.
- OLD BELLAIR: I like her countenance and her behaviour well, she has a modesty that is not common i’ this age.
- LADY WOODVIL: The depraved appetite of this vicious age tastes nothing but green fruit, and loathes it when ’tis kindly ripened [i.e. prefers young girls to mature women]
1. There’s a kind of self-regarding, self-satisfaction with living in such a very depraved time. 2. Every age has considered itself especially fallen and corrupt – you can find the same kind of references in literature from the ancient Greeks, through Chaucer and Shakespeare.
Gender stereotypes
Feminist critics generally have it in for all these male Restoration writers. Jane Spenser in her introduction to The Rover repeatedly refers to the ‘misogyny’ of the Restoration literary world, and there is, without doubt, an enormous amount of anti-women rhetoric, and cynical manipulation of women characters.
But reading these plays without the blinkers of feminist ideology, it’s just as obvious that all the characters are stereotyped, manipulated and mocked. The most manipulated and mocked person in this play is a man, Sir Fopling Flutter, who exists solely to be laughed at. Other entire groups are mocked; for example the entire older generation are ridiculed, all servants and the entire working class are ridiculed.
And, in these plays, men are subject to just as much withering criticism and virulent stereotyping as women. In fact the plays work through the systematic stereotyping of both genders:
Stereotyping women
- ‘Faith, women are i’ the right when they jealously examine our letters, for in them we always first discover our decay of passion’
- MEDLEY: I wait upon you, and I hope (though women are commonly unreasonable)…
- YOUNG BELLAIR: ’Tis not unnatural for you women to be a little angry if you miss a conquest, though you would slight the poor man were he in your power.
- EMILIA: There are afflictions in love, Mr. Dorimant.
DORIMANT: You women make ’em, who are commonly as unreasonable in that as you are at play… - MRS LOVEIT: Those noisy fools, however you despise ’em, have good qualities, which weigh more (or ought at least) with us women than all the pernicious wit you have to boast of…
- DORIMANT: There is an inbred falsehood in women which inclines ’em still to them whom they may most easily deceive.
- MEDLEY: Besides, ’tis a common error among women to believe too well of them they know and too ill of them they don’t.
- MEDLEY: Like a woman, I find you must be struggled with before one brings you to what you desire…
- HARRIET: Did you not tell me there was no credit to be given to faces? that women nowadays have their passions as much at will as they have their complexions, and put on joy and sadness, scorn and kindness, with the same ease they do their paint and patches—Are they the only counterfeits?
If you only quote these kinds of statements, then the plays can be made to look monstrously misogynist. But they need to be balanced with the scores of times when men are mocked, stereotyped and ridiculed.
Stereotyping men
- MRS LOVEIT: There’s nothing but falsehood and impertinence in this world; all men are villains or fools.
- DORIMANT: Indeed, the little hope I found there was of her, in the state she was in, has made him by my advice contribute something towards the changing of her condition. [enter YOUNG BELLAIR] Dear Bellair, by heavens I thought we had lost thee; men in love are never to be reckoned on when we would form a company.
- HARRIET: The sordidness of men’s natures, I know, makes ’em willing to flatter and comply with the rich, though they are sure never to be the better for ’em
- HARRIET: Mr. Bellair! let us walk, ’tis time to leave him; men grow dull when they begin to be particular.
- MEDLEY: But I have known men fall into dangerous relapses when they have found a woman inclining to another.
- HARRIET: Men are seldom in the right when they guess at a woman’s mind; would she whom he loves loved him no better!
- HARRIET: In men who have been long hardened in sin we have reason to mistrust the first signs of repentance
- MRS LOVEIT: There’s nothing but falsehood and impertinence in this world; all men are villains or fools.
Mocking both sexes
And then there are plenty of places where characters mock both sexes equally, in effect ridiculing the human race.
- HARRIET: That women should set up for beauty as much in spite of nature as some men have done for wit!
- MRS LOVEIT: He bring her! His chair stands near Dorimant’s door, and always brings me from thence – Run and ask him where he took her up; go, there is no truth in friendship neither. Women as well as men – all are false, or all are so to me at least.
- MRS LOVEIT: The man who loves above his quality does not suffer more from the insolent impertinence of his mistress than the woman who loves above her understanding does from the arrogant presumptions of her friend.
Stereotyping the old and their silly laments for the good old days
- LADY WOODVIL: Well! this is not the women’s age, let ’em think what they will; lewdness is the business now, love was the business in my time.
- LADY WOODVIL: Unsufferable at thirty! That they are in the wrong, Mr. Courtage, at five-and-thirty there are living proofs enough to convince ’em.
DORIMANT: Ay, madam, there’s Mrs Setlooks, Mrs Droplip, and my Lady Lowd; show me among all our opening buds a face that promises so much beauty as the remains of theirs…
Stereotyping Jews
- MEDLEY: Is it not great indiscretion for a man of credit, who may have money enough on his word, to go and deal with Jews who for little sums make men enter into bonds and give judgments?
Stereotyping the lower classes
- HARRIET: She [Harriet’s servant, Busy] has a voice will grate your ears worse than a cat-call, and dresses so ill she’s scarce fit to trick up a yeoman’s daughter on a holiday.
Stereotyping the dullness of the countryside
YOUNG BELLAIR: Are you in love?
HARRIET: Yes, with this dear town, to that degree I can scarce endure the country in landscapes and in hangings.
YOUNG BELLAIR: What a dreadful thing ’twould be to be hurried back to Hampshire?
HARRIET: Ah! name it not!
Or:
BELINDA: Pity me rather, my dear, where I have been so tired with two or three country gentlewomen, whose conversation has been more insufferable than a country fiddle.
Or:
MRS LOVEIT: Where do these country gentlewomen lodge, I pray?
BELINDA: In the Strand, over against the Exchange.
PERT: That place is never without a nest of ’em; they are always as one goes by fleering in balconies or
staring out of windows.HARRIET: This is more dismal than the country, Emilia; pity me who am going to that sad place.
In other words, the entire play is a tissue of stereotypes. The characters repeat almost nothing but stereotypes, cliches and truisms, which the audience are intended to recognise with a knowing smile, and applaud. Picking out only the anti-women sentiments seems to me to miss the bigger picture of the generally misanthropic cynicism of the total worldview.
P.S. A mirror up to society
The verse prologue, written by the improbably named Sir Car Scrope, contains a particularly clear expression of the age-old doctrine that the theatre holds up a mirror to society.
For, heaven be thank’d, ’tis not so wise an age
But your own follies may supply the stage.
Though often plough’d, there’s no great fear the soil
Should barren grow by the too frequent toil,
While at your doors are to be daily found
Such loads of dunghill to manure the ground.
’Tis by your follies that we players thrive,
As the physicians by diseases live;
And as each year some new distemper reigns,
Whose friendly poison helps t’increase their gains,
So among you there starts up every day
Some new unheard-of fool for us to play.
Books & Boots 
Political documents of the British civil wars
Political documents of the civil wars
What follows are summaries of some of the key political documents produced between the start of Charles I’s conflict with Scotland in 1637 and the Restoration of Charles II in 1660. Instead of a chronological or thematic approach to the period, this is a different angle from which to consider events, a record of the proliferation of plans and constitutions cooked up by all sides in their attempts to find a solution to the nation’s deep divisions.
Lining them up like this brings out one of the central ideas of Mark Kishlansky’s history of the 17th century, namely the collapse of consensus, the collapse of belief in a central set of political and religious values which characterised the era, and the countless attempts made by different political players to rebuild it.
In the last few documents of the series you can see the realisation emerging that the late-medieval idea of a hierarchical and completely homogeneous society was permanently broken and that only a system which allowed for some measure of tolerance and pluralism could replace it.
The question of just how much pluralism and tolerance could be permitted and society remain, in some sense, united or coherent, remained an open question – in fact, arguably, it’s one of the main threads of British social and political history right up to the present day.
To me what this proliferation of documents indicates is how very difficult it is, once you abandon tradition and precedent, to draw up a new political constitution in a period of crisis. It’s one of the reasons revolutions are so tumultuous. Getting rid of the ancien regime, especially if it’s embodied in one hated ruler (Charles I, Louis XVIII, Czar Nicholas II, the Shah of Iran, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi) is relatively easy. Finding a successor system which all the competing factions can unite behind… almost impossible.
Which is why revolutions often become uncontrollable by all except the most ideological, ruthless and uncompromising: Cromwell, Napoleon, Lenin, Ayatollah Khomeini. Or collapse into civil war: Iraq, Libya.
I’m aware that the documents are in a broad range of genres – from constitutions enacted by central government to the manifestos of fringe groups (the Levellers and even more so, the Diggers), from religious oaths to political treaties. A proper study would take this more into account. I am concerned simply to give an indication of a) the sheer number of them b) their range and variety, and – as said above – the way they show how, once a shared consensus has collapsed, it is so very difficult to create a new one.
1638 The Scottish National Covenant
In 1637 King Charles I and Archbishop Laud tried to bring the separate churches of England and Scotland closer together, firstly by the introduction of a new Book of Canons to replace John Knox’s Book of Discipline as the authority for the organisation of the Kirk, and secondly by the introduction of a modified form of the Book of Common Prayer into Scotland. Charles and Laud consulted neither the Scottish Parliament or the Assembly of the Kirk with the inevitable result that the proposals met with outrage from Scots determined to preserve their national and religious identity.
At the first service where they were introduced, on 23 July 1637 in St Giles’s cathedral in Edinburgh, Jenny Geddes flung her prayer stool at the dean as he read from the book, and started a riot. Similar demonstrations took place in churches all across Scotland where the new liturgy was introduced.
This spontaneous protest was soon organised by Presbyterian elders and aristocrats into a campaign of petitions denouncing the Laudian prayer book and the power of the bishops. These coalesced into a committee which drew up a National Covenant to unite the protesters. The Covenant called for adherence to doctrines already enshrined by Acts of Parliament and for a rejection of untried ‘innovations’ in religion.
In February 1638, at a ceremony in Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh, large numbers of Scottish noblemen, gentry, clergy and burgesses signed the Covenant, committing themselves under God to preserving the purity of the Kirk. Copies were distributed throughout Scotland for signing on a wave of popular support. Those who hesitated were often intimidated into signing and clergymen who opposed it were deposed. By the end of May 1638, the only areas of Scotland where the Covenant had not been widely accepted were the remote western highlands and the counties of Aberdeen and Banff, where resistance to it was led by the Royalist George Gordon, Marquis of Huntly.
An Assembly was held at Glasgow in 1638 where the Covenanter movement became the dominant political and religious force in Scotland.
In 1643 the objectives of the Covenant were incorporated into the Solemn League and Covenant which formed the basis of the military alliance between the English Parliament and the Scottish Covenanters against the Royalists.
1641 The Grand Remonstrance
A Remonstrance against King Charles I was first proposed by George Digby, MP for Dorset, soon after the Long Parliament assembled in November 1640. The idea was taken up by John Pym in 1641. Pym planned to use it as part of his campaign to transfer control of the armed forces to Parliament by undermining confidence in the King and his ministers and by demonstrating the integrity of Parliament.
The Remonstrance was drafted between August and November 1641 by Pym and his supporters. These included John Hampden, John Glynn, Sir John Clotworthy, Arthur Goodwyn and others who later formed the ‘Middle Group’ that was associated with Pym’s efforts to bridge the parliamentarian ‘War’ and ‘Peace’ parties during the early years of the English Civil War.
The Grand Remonstrance was a long, wide-ranging document that listed all the grievances perpetrated by the King’s government in Church and State since the beginning of his reign. Rather than blaming the King himself, the Remonstrance emphasised the role of bishops, papists and ‘malignant’ ministers and advisers who were alleged to have deliberately provoked discord and division between King and Parliament.
In contrast, the Remonstrance described the measures taken by the Long Parliament towards rectifying these grievances during its first year in office, including the abolition of prerogative courts and illegal taxes, legislation for the regular summoning of Parliament, and a partial reform of the Church. Thus the House of Commons was presented as the true defender of the King’s rightful prerogative, of the Protestant faith, of the privileges of Parliament and the liberties of the people.
In order to continue its work, the Remonstrance called for the setting up of an Assembly of Divines, nominated by Parliament, to supervise ongoing reform of the Church; furthermore, it demanded that the King’s ministers should be approved by Parliament, with the right of veto over those it considered unsuitable.
On 22 November 1641, after a stormy debate that lasted long into the night, the House of Commons passed the Remonstrance by a narrow margin of 159 votes to 148. The King’s supporters who tried to enter a protest were shouted down in a bad-tempered confrontation that almost ended in a riot. Oliver Cromwell is said to have remarked that if the Remonstrance had not been passed he would have sold all he had and gone overseas to America.
Opponents of the Remonstrance, who included Viscount Falkland and Edward Hyde, formed what was, for the first time, a recognisable Royalist party in Parliament. The Remonstrance was presented to the King on 1 December 1641. He ignored it for as long as possible, so Parliament took the unprecedented step of having it printed and circulated in order to rally outside support. On 23 December, the King finally presented his reply. Drafted by Edward Hyde, it rejected the Remonstrance but in reasoned and conciliatory tones calculated to appeal to moderate opinion.
1643 The Solemn League & Covenant
The alliance between the English Parliament and the Scottish Covenanters was sealed with the signing of the Solemn League and Covenant by both Houses of Parliament and the Scottish commissioners on 25 September 1643. It was a military league and a religious covenant. Its immediate purpose was to overwhelm the Royalists, who in 1643 seemed in a strong position to win the English Civil War.
An alliance between Parliament and the Scots was first proposed by John Pym early in 1643. Parliament was anxious to secure military help from Scotland in order to counter Royalist victories in England. The Convention of Estates in Edinburgh favoured the alliance after the discovery of the Earl of Antrim’s conspiracy to bring over an Irish Catholic army to support a projected uprising of Scottish Royalists. However, the Covenanters regarded the alliance principally as a religious union of the two nations. They hoped to unite the churches of Scotland and England under a Presbyterian system of church government.
In August 1643, the four commissioners appointed by the House of Commons arrived in Edinburgh. They were Sir Henry Vane, Sir William Armyne, Thomas Hatcher and Henry Darley. They were accompanied by two clergymen, the Presbyterian Stephen Marshall and the Independent Philip Nye. Although the House of Lords had voted in favour of the alliance, no peers were prepared to go to Scotland to take part in the negotiations. Sir Henry Vane emerged as the leading spokesman of the English delegation.
Both sides were eager to defeat the Royalists so the negotiations proceeded quickly. The Westminster Parliament ratified the new covenant within two weeks of receiving it at the end of August 1643. Certain alterations were made to avoid an immediate commitment to strict Presbyterianism and these were accepted by the Convention of Estates.
The Scots agreed to send an army into England on condition that Parliament would co-operate with the Kirk in upholding the Protestant religion and uprooting all remaining traces of popery. Although it was implied that Presbyterian forms of worship and church government would be enforced in England, Wales and Ireland, the clause was qualified to read that church reform would be carried out ‘according to the Word of God’ – which was open to different interpretations.
Reform of the Anglican church was debated at the Westminster Assembly, but a Presbyterian religious settlement for England was strongly opposed by Independents and others. The settlement that was eventually imposed was regarded as a compromise by the Covenanters.
In January 1644, the Army of the Covenant marched into England to take the field against the Royalists. Parliament decreed that the Covenant was to be taken by every Englishman over the age of eighteen. Although no penalty was specified, the names of those who refused to sign were to be certified to Parliament. Signing the Covenant became a prerequisite for holding any command or office under Parliament until King Charles I made his own alliance with the Scots in 1648.
After the execution of Charles I, Kirk leaders pressed the Solemn League and Covenant on his son Charles II at the Treaty of Breda (1650). However, the defeat of the Royalist-Scots alliance at the battle of Worcester in September 1651 ended all attempts to impose Presbyterianism in England.
1646 The Newcastle Propositions
The Newcastle Propositions were drawn up by the Westminster Parliament as a basis for a treaty with King Charles I in July 1646 after the defeat of the Royalists in the First Civil War. The King had surrendered to Parliament’s Scottish allies rather than to Parliament itself and was held in semi-captivity at Newcastle.
There was resentment among English Parliamentarians that the King was in the hands of the Scots, and tension had increased after an intercepted letter revealed that secret negotiations had passed between the King and the Scots earlier in the year. Fearing that the alliance with Parliament was under threat, the Committee of Estates in Edinburgh instructed the Scottish commissioners in London to consent to Parliament’s proposals, even though they fell short of the Covenanters’ ideals in the settlement of religion.
The Propositions put to the King consisted of nineteen clauses. The main points were:
1647 The Heads of the Proposals
These were a set of propositions intended to be a basis for a constitutional settlement after King Charles I was defeated in the First English Civil War. The document was drafted by Commissionary-General Henry Ireton and Major-General John Lambert. during the summer of 1647 when the Army was engaged in a political power struggle with Presbyterian MPs over the settlement of the nation. The proposals were termed the ‘Heads’ to indicate that they were a broad outline, to be negotiated in detail later.
Although the Army proposals were more lenient than the terms offered in Parliament’s Newcastle Propositions, the King regarded them as too restrictive and rejected them outright. During the negotiations, Ireton and Cromwell lost the support of the Army radicals, who were disappointed that the proposals made no concessions to Leveller demands for a wider franchise, and who criticised the Grandees’ ‘servility’ in their dealings with the King.
Meanwhile, Charles continued his attempts to play off the Army and Parliament against one another. He also began secretly negotiating with a faction among the Scots, which was to lead to the Second Civil War in 1648.
At the Putney Debates (October-November 1647), where the Army Council discussed a new constitution for England, Ireton promoted the Heads of the Proposals as a moderate alternative to the Leveller-inspired Agreement of the People.
Six years later, elements of Ireton’s proposals were incorporated into the Instrument of Government – the written constitution that defined Cromwell’s powers as Lord Protector. The religious settlement proposed by Ireton in 1647 was virtually identical to that finally adopted in the Toleration Act of 1689.
1647-49 An Agreement of the People
The Agreement of the People was the principal constitutional manifesto associated with the Levellers. It was intended to be a written constitution that would define the form and powers of government and would also set limits on those powers by reserving a set of inalienable rights to the people. It would take the form of a contract between the electorate and the representative, to be renewed at each election. The Agreement developed over several versions between October 1647 and May 1649.
Original Draft, 1647 An Agreement of the People for a firm and present peace upon grounds of common right was first drafted in October 1647 when Agitators of the New Model Army and civilian Levellers collaborated to propose an outline for a new constitution in the aftermath of the First Civil War. It was probably drafted by John Wildman though its authorship is not known for certain. Stating that sovereign power should reside in the people of England rather than with the discredited King or Parliament, the original Agreement consisted of four clauses:
Certain constraints were placed on Parliament: it was not to interfere with freedom of religion; it was not to press men to serve in the armed forces; it could not prosecute anyone for their part in the recent war; it was not to exempt anyone from the ordinary course of the law; all laws passed by Parliament should be for the common good.
The proposals were debated at the Putney Debates of October and November 1647 where the Grandees Cromwell and Ireton tried to curb Leveller extremism, particularly over a proposal to extend the franchise to all adult males. Parliament denounced the Agreement as destructive to the government of the nation and ordered Fairfax to investigate its authorship. Attempts to gain wider Army support for the Agreement at the Corkbush Field rendezvous were forcibly suppressed by the Grandees.
The Whitehall Debates, 1648-9 During 1648, civilian and military supporters of the Agreement continued to debate and refine its proposals. The Armies Petition or a new Engagement was drafted by a group of Agitators at St Albans in April 1648 and was published in tandem with a related civilian broadside, A New Engagement, or Manifesto. These documents expanded upon the original Agreement to include more specific proposals for legal and economic reform.
After the King’s defeat in the Second Civil War, John Lilburne promoted an extended version of the Agreement which was discussed by a committee of Levellers, London Independents, MPs and army Grandees at Whitehall in December 1648. These discussions took place in the aftermath of Pride’s Purge when the King’s trial was imminent.
Lilburne wanted to secure Parliament’s acceptance of the Agreement before the King was brought to trial so that the trial would have a basis in a legitimate and legal constitution. However, Lilburne and his colleague Richard Overton walked out of the discussions when Army officers led by Henry Ireton insisted upon making further modifications to the Agreement before it was presented to Parliament.
The discussions continued in Lilburne’s absence. While Ireton appeared to make concessions to the Levellers over the franchise, it is probable that he was playing for time to distract the Army Levellers while preparations for the King’s trial went ahead. The revised Agreement was finally presented to the House of Commons as a proposal for a new constitution on 20 January 1649, the very day that the public sessions of the High Court of Justice began. As Ireton had calculated, MPs postponed discussion of the Agreement until after the trial, and it was never taken up again by Parliament.
Final version, May 1649 The Grandees’ modification of the Agreement of January 1649 was the Army’s last official involvement in its evolution. However, Lilburne and the civilian Levellers regarded Ireton’s intervention as a betrayal and continued to refine their proposals. A fully developed version of the Agreement – An Agreement of the Free People of England, tendered as a Peace-Offering to this distressed Nation – was published in May 1649, signed jointly by John Lilburne, Richard Overton, William Walwyn and Thomas Prince. Its proposals included:
The final version was published after the Leveller leaders had been imprisoned by order of the Council of State and a few weeks before the suppression of the Army Levellers at Burford on 17 May 1649, after which the Leveller movement was effectively finished.
1648 The Army Remonstrance
The Remonstrance of General Fairfax and the Council of Officers was a manifesto adopted by the New Model Army in November 1648 to justify its intention to abandon treaty negotiations with King Charles and to bring him to trial as an enemy of the people. Although it was issued under the authority of Fairfax and the Council of Officers, the Remonstrance was primarily the work of Henry Ireton.
In September 1648, Parliament opened negotiations for a settlement with King Charles at the Treaty of Newport. However, Army radicals demanded that the negotiations should be abandoned and the King brought to justice for inflicting the Second Civil War upon the nation.
Ireton wrote to General Fairfax proposing that the Army should purge Parliament of MPs who supported the Treaty. After Fairfax rejected the proposal, Ireton began drafting the Remonstrance. Several petitions from radical regiments demanding justice against the King were presented to Fairfax during the following weeks, possibly under Ireton’s direction. Under pressure from the radicals, Fairfax agreed to call a meeting of the General Council of the Army at St Albans to discuss the situation. In contrast to the Putney Debates of the previous year, representatives of the common soldiers were excluded from the discussions.
The General Council convened in St Albans Abbey on 7 November 1648. After discussion of the petitions and general grievances of the soldiers, Ireton presented the draft of the Army Remonstrance on 10 November. It was initially rejected by Fairfax and the moderate officers but their opposition evaporated after 15 November when the House of Commons voted to allow the King to return to London on completion of the Newport Treaty and to restore his lands and revenues.
Fearing that Parliament intended to grant an unconditional restoration, the Army united behind Ireton’s Remonstrance. After some last-minute amendments to ensure the support of the Levellers, the Remonstrance was adopted by the General Council on 18 November 1648.
Under the maxim salus populi suprema lex (‘the safety of the people is the supreme law’), the Remonstrance proclaimed the sovereignty of the people under a representative government. Divine providence would prove the righteousness or otherwise of the government’s actions, and would also thwart unjustified rebellion against authority. Thus, the defeat of King Charles in the Second Civil War vindicated the actions of the Army as the defenders of the people. It was argued that the King should be brought to account because he had broken the sacred covenant with his people and attempted to place himself above the law.
The Remonstrance also proposed a set of Leveller-inspired constitutional reforms, including the possibility of an elective monarchy. Parliament was to set a date for its own dissolution, to be followed by annual or bi-annual Parliaments elected on a reformed franchise. There was to be a written constitution with a declaration of parliamentary authority over the King and Lords. All office-holders, including the monarch, were to subscribe to the Levellers’ Agreement of the People.
A delegation of officers headed by Colonel Ewer presented the Remonstrance to Parliament on 20 November. After an initial flurry of opposition led by William Prynne, Parliament postponed further discussion until treaty negotiations with the King at Newport were completed. Meanwhile, the Army moved its headquarters from St Albans to Windsor. On 28 November, the General Council of the Army resolved to march into London. With Parliament still refusing to discuss the Remonstrance and apparently intent on implementing the Treaty of Newport, Ireton initiated the train of events that led to Pride’s Purge in December 1648.
1649 England’s New Chains Discovered
On 26 February one of the leading radicals in the army, John Lilburne, published this attack on the new Commonwealth, in which he asserted the illegality of the High Court of Justice, the Council of State (which, he pointed out ,rested solely on the diminished or Rump Parliament) and the Council of the Army, which he accused of having become an instrument for the rich officers against the rank and file.
His agitation did not go unnoticed. In March 1649, Lilburne and other Leveller leaders were arrested. In October, Lilburne was brought to trial at the Guildhall, charged with high treason and with inciting the Leveller mutinies. He conducted his own defence, during which he raised strong objections to all aspects of the prosecution and quoted directly from Sir Edward Coke’s Institutes, or commentaries on the laws of England. The jury found Lilburne Not Guilty, to enthusiastic cheers from crowds of his supporters and well-wishers.
April 1649 The True Levellers Standard Advanced
This was the manifesto of the splinter group of Levellers who decided to put theory into practice and claimed a patch of common land near Weybridge in Surrey and began digging it. It was written by their leader Gerard Winstanley who has gone down as a hero to Marxists and left-leaning liberals. They thought all hierarchy should be abolished, wealth should be redistributed to abolish poverty, that the land was a common treasury and all the land parcelled out to households who would have equal rights to cultivate them and share the proceeds. As a result they were nicknamed the Diggers. Within months they’d been driven from the original site by the local landowners, and attempted their communal experiment in various other locations until fading away.
1650 The Treaty of Breda
After the execution of Charles I in January 1649, the Scottish Parliament proclaimed his son the new king, Charles II. However, the government of Scotland was dominated by the covenanting Kirk Party, which was determined that Charles should take the Covenant and agree to impose Presbyterianism throughout the Three Kingdoms before he could be crowned King of Scots or receive Scottish help to regain the throne of England.
Initial negotiations between Charles and representatives of the Scottish government were held at The Hague in March 1649 but broke down because Charles did not accept the legitimacy of the Kirk Party régime. However, his hopes of using Ireland as a rallying ground for the Royalist cause were thwarted by Cromwell’s invasion in August 1649. Various European heads of state offered sympathy but no practical help for regaining the throne, so Charles and his council were obliged to call for another round of negotiations with the Scots.
Negotiations between Charles II and a delegation of Scottish commissioners opened at Breda in the Netherlands on 25 March 1650. Aware of Charles’ desperate situation, the demands made by the Scottish Parliament were harsh:
Bad-tempered wrangling continued through March and April. Charles tried to gain concessions that would allow a reconciliation with the Engagers, who were excluded from office in Scotland by the Act of Classes. He would not impose Presbyterianism in England nor would he annul the Irish treaty. But to the dismay of English Royalists, Charles finally agreed to take the Oath of the Covenant. Other contentious issues were to be discussed upon his arrival in Scotland. He signed the Treaty of Breda on 1 May 1650 and took the Covenant immediately before landing in Scotland on 23 June 1650.
Charles then led a Scottish army into England which was comprehensively crushed at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651, the final engagement of the war in England which had started in 1642. Charles escaped the battlefield and was on the run for 45 days till he managed to take ship to France and nine years of exile.
1653 The Instrument of Government
England’s first written constitution, the Instrument of Government was a constitutional settlement drafted by Major-General John Lambert during the autumn of 1653 and adopted by the Council of Officers when the Nominated Assembly surrendered its powers to Oliver Cromwell in December.
Lambert’s original intention had been that the old constitution of King, Lords and Commons should be replaced by one of King, Council and Parliament. In discussion with a few trusted advisers after the abdication of the Nominated Assembly, Cromwell amended the Instrument to avoid reference to the royal title, which was likely to be unacceptable to the Army.
Under the terms of the Instrument of Government, executive power passed to an elected Lord Protector, in consultation with a Council of State numbering between thirteen and twenty-one members. Cromwell was declared Lord Protector for life, though it was stressed that the office was not hereditary. He was required to call triennial Parliaments consisting of a single House of 400 members from England and 30 each from Scotland and Ireland, to remain in session for at least five months.
Parliamentary constituencies were re-arranged in an attempt to lessen the influence of the gentry in favour of the emerging middle class who, it was hoped, would be more inclined to support the Protectorate government. The number of MPs from towns and boroughs (where voting was traditionally influenced by the local gentry) was significantly reduced and representation of the universities was limited. To balance the representative, the number of MPs from the counties was correspondingly increased.
In a direct repudiation of Leveller ideas, the county franchise was restricted to persons with land or personal property valued at £200 or more. The borough franchise remained with aldermen, councillors and burgesses. Furthermore, Roman Catholics and known Royalists were declared ineligible to vote or seek election.
Under the Instrument, Parliament was charged with raising revenue for establishing and maintaining a standing army of 10,000 horse and dragoons and 20,000 foot for the defence of England, Scotland and Ireland.
Liberty of worship was granted to all except Roman Catholics and those guilty of ‘licentiousness’ (i.e. the extreme sectarians).
The Instrument of Government was England’s first written constitution. It was adopted by the Council of Officers on 15 December 1653 and Cromwell was installed as Lord Protector the next day. The First Protectorate Parliament duly assembled on 3 September 1654. However, the abrupt termination of Parliament in January 1655 meant that MPs never finished revising the Instrument of Government and so it was never legally endorsed. Doubts regarding its legal authority led to the resignation of the Lord Chief Justice Henry Rolle in June 1655.
The Instrument was superseded in 1657 by the Humble Petition and Advice.
1657 Humble Petition and Advice
The Humble Petition and Advice was a constitutional document drawn up by a group of MPs in 1657 under which Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell was offered the Crown. It represented an attempt by civilian Parliamentarians to move back towards traditional forms of government after the imposition of various army-led constitutional experiments, in particular the unpopular Rule of the Major-Generals.
The offer of the Crown was intended to limit Cromwell’s power rather than extend it, because as King his power would be defined by precedent. The Humble Petition aimed to legitimise the constitution since it came from an elected Parliament, unlike its predecessor the Instrument of Government.
The first version of the Humble Petition was known as the Humble Address and Remonstrance. It was drafted by a small group which included Lord Broghill, Edward Montagu and Oliver St John. The Remonstrance was brought before the Second Protectorate Parliament on 23 February 1657 by Sir Christopher Packe, a former lord mayor of London. It included proposals for the re-introduction of a second House of Parliament and for the establishment of a national church regulated by a Confession of Faith, but its most controversial proposal was that the Protector should be invited to assume the office and title of King.
This proposal was supported by most lawyers and civilian MPs but was fiercely opposed by Major-General Lambert and other army officers as well as by republicans and religious radicals.
Cromwell agonised over the decision for several months and finally declined the offer of the Crown on 8 May. A revised version of the proposal, which avoided reference to the royal title, was adopted on 25 May. Cromwell was re-installed as Lord Protector in a ceremony still reminiscent of a royal coronation on 26 June 1657.
Under the new constitution, Cromwell was to remain Lord Protector for life and could now choose his own successor. He was required to call triennial Parliaments which were to consist of two chambers: the elected House of Commons and a second chamber, or Upper House (referred to only as the ‘other house’), of between forty and seventy persons nominated by the Protector but approved by Parliament. The Upper House was intended to mediate between the Lower House and the Protector. It had the right to veto any legislation passed in the Lower House and was roundly condemned by republicans as too reminiscent of the old House of Lords. The Council of State was to become the Protector’s privy council, consisting of 21 members chosen by the Protector and approved by Parliament.
After the Instrument of Government, the Humble Petition and Advice was England’s second – and last – written constitution. It differed significantly from the Instrument in that it was drawn up by civilian parliamentarians rather than by army officers and also in that it was legally endorsed by Parliament. It remained in force throughout the remainder of the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell and during the brief jurisdiction of his successor Richard Cromwell.
1660 The Declaration of Breda
This was a manifesto issued in April 1660 by the exiled Charles II in which he outlined his initial terms for the Restoration of the monarchy. The Declaration was drawn up by Charles himself and his three principal advisers, Sir Edward Hyde, the Marquis of Ormond and Sir Edward Nicholas.
In March 1660, shortly after the final dissolution of the Long Parliament, General George Monck entered into secret negotiations with Charles’ representative Sir John Grenville regarding the possibility of the King’s return to power. Grenville was authorised to offer Monck high office in return for his help, while Monck himself claimed to have always been secretly working towards the Restoration – a view that came to be widely accepted later.
Monck’s terms were geared primarily towards satisfying the material concerns of the army:
Following Monck’s advice to move from Spanish territory to Breda in the Protestant Netherlands, Charles and his principal advisers prepared a conciliatory declaration that touched upon the major issues of indemnity, confirmation of land sales and the religious settlement. A free pardon and amnesty was offered to all who would swear loyalty to the Crown within forty day of the King’s return.
However, Charles skirted around all points of contention by referring the final details of the Restoration settlement to a future Parliament. Charles was aware that any legislation passed by the forthcoming Convention Parliament would have to be confirmed or refuted by a later Parliament summoned under the King’s authority, and that the blame for inevitable disappointments in the Restoration settlement would then be borne by Parliament rather than by the Crown.
Smart thinking.
The Declaration was signed by Charles on 4 April 1660. Copies were prepared with separate letters to the House of Lords, the House of Commons, the army, the fleet and the City of London. Monck was offered a commission as commander-in-chief of the army. When Sir John Grenville delivered the Declaration to the newly-elected Convention Parliament on 1 May, both Houses unanimously voted for the Restoration.
Sources
The period 1649 to 1658 is covered by pages 189 to 212 of A Monarchy Transformed: Britain 1603 – 1714 by Mark Kishlansky. I’ve also sourced information from Wikipedia. But the main source for a lot of this information was the excellent British Civil Wars, Commonwealth & Protectorate website, which covers all aspects of the subject and includes really excellent maps.
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Posted by Simon on August 30, 2020
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2020/08/30/political-documents-of-the-civil-wars/