Hessayon, A. & Finnegan, D. 'Reappraising Early Modern Radicalism'

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introduction
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reappraising early modern radicals and
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radicalisms
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ariel hessayon and david finnegan
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errours’
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thomas hobbes, Leviathan
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The Meaning of Words and the Problem of Anachronism

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radical was originally a word relating to a root or roots which, by the early
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modern period, was used particularly in philosophy, astrology and philology.

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question was one put forward when ‘the lord of the ascendent, and lord of the
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hour are of one nature and triplicitie’. similarly, philologists divided the letters
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that made up hebrew words into root and functional letters, the radical or radix
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being the essential and permanent part of the word form. By extension, radical
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essence of a person or thing.1 as Conal Condren has observed, however, radical

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only became a political term associated with thorough or far-reaching political and
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social reform towards the end of the eighteenth century. indeed, it was apparently
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not until autumn 1819 – shortly before lord Byron thought radical might mean
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uprooting – that ‘radicalism’ was coined by Jeremy Bentham. nor was it a

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univocal word for within a decade radicalism meant not only the political views
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characteristic of radicals but thoroughness of method as well. Condren’s point

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1
Oxford English Dictionary LEME: Lexicons of Early Modern
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English, http://leme.library.utoronto.ca/.
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2 Varieties of 17th- and Early 18th-Century English Radicalism
need to be particularly fastidious about our interpretive vocabulary’.2 Jonathan
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applicable to ‘a fusion of universal suffrage, ricardian economics and programmatic
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atheism’.3 as glen Burgess notes in a recent debate on radicalism and the english
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or nominalist approach: radicalism did not exist until it was named.4
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this is not something we agree with. if we remove anachronisms from
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our discourses we should be consistent – though to be fair to Condren he
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seems primarily and almost invariably concerned with purging the language
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historians use to explain early modern politics.5 By this reasoning, if one were
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to write about the world depicted in geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales,
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using words that came into the english language after 1400 would be out of the
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the period’s
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neologisms such as milton’s ‘pandemonium’ would only complicate matters. it

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seems that in their desire to expurgate anachronism from our texts nominalists
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would have us ignore the lesson of Jorge luis Borges’s short story ‘Pierre menard,
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author of the Quixote

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that is not to say, as Condren highlighted with his caveat against bad practice, that
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of post-structuralism, and its impact on historical and literary studies, it is an

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2
Jeremy Bentham, ‘radical reform Bill’ and ‘radicalism not dangerous’, in
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The Works of Jeremy Bentham

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political thought: a case of sandwich islands syndrome’, History of Political Thought, 10

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The Politics of Language in Seventeenth-Century England

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English Radicalism, 1550–1850 (Cambridge,

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4
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‘radicalism and the english revolution’, p. 63.

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English Radicalism Ehud’s Dagger. Class Struggle in the

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English Revolution
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OED.
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Introduction 3
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words depend upon each other to provide meaning – whether they are present
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or missing in texts. as context shifts so can the sense of a word. furthermore,
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because the meaning of certain english words has changed over time, something
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comparing the present political, social, philosophical and cultural meaning of
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radical with contemporary alternatives.
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in an exploration of late stuart radicals and their manifestos, richard greaves
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repeated a case – which had its trenchant critics – for the usefulness of the
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anachronistic term radical in discussing various groups of an otherwise disparate
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phrases’ to portray those in opposition to the post-restoration stuart regimes or
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and sectaries.7 the same holds true for the english revolution and earlier still in
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the seventeenth century. hence there was a profusion of generally derogatory and
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often new words applied to both religious communities and political movements
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tumultuous sort of people’.8 dippers or anabaptists were blasphemous, confused,

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distinctions and private ownership of property, of levelling men’s estates and

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introducing anarchy. they were also defamed as atheists, devils, mutineers, rebels
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magistrates, disparaging accounts of their assemblies conveying chaotic scenes of

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ecstatic posturing attributed to either diabolic pacts or epilepsy. ranters – those who
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libertines who had scandalously defected from the bosom of the Church.
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employed in a polemical context, must necessarily be synonymous with what we

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now call radicalism. after all, anti-Catholic stereotypes and pamphlets targeting
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7
r.l. greaves, ‘“that Kind of People”: late stuart radicals and their manifestoes, a
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English Radicalism, pp. 87–94.

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8
a. hessayon, ‘restoring the garden of eden in england’s green and Pleasant land:
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the diggers and the fruits of the earth’, Journal for the Study of Radicalism, 2, no. 2
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bishops, barbarous, bloodthirsty, cruel and cussing Cavaliers, as well as evil
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counsellors remind us of the ubiquity of propaganda. it does, however, alert us
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century it does not necessarily follow that the phenomena were also absent.9
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indeed, effacing the term radical from our analyses does not seem a practicable
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substitute would be equally problematic. moreover, for more than a century – at
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least since george gooch’s pioneering The History of English Democratic Ideas
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in the Seventeenth Century
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radical and radicalism have been used with ever increasing regularity to ascribe
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particular characteristics to individuals and the ideas they espoused during our
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period.10 that is long enough for them to have become part of the discourse even
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‘doing without the category of radicalism’ is a forlorn hope.11
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as for how we should understand radical and radicalism, we would do well both
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The
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Radical
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which will go to the radix, or root of the national disease. he will physic, purge,
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bleed, – he will eradiCate, – he will be a radiCal.

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this resonates with John stuart mill’s 1836 depiction of Philosophic radicalism as:
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a radicalism ... which is only to be called radicalism inasmuch as it does not

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palter nor compromise with evils, but cuts at their roots.12

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9
Cf. C. hill, The Experience of Defeat. Milton and Some Contemporaries (london,
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Cromohs Virtual Seminars, 1, http://

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10
g. gooch, The History of English Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century
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11
HJ, 50
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12
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Introduction 5
in the same vein, Karl marx maintained that ‘to be radical is to grasp the root of
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the matter’, though according to marx, for man, that radix was man himself.13 the
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means going to the root of things in political action’, to the real causes of social
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unrest.14
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was not extirpation, but pruning and renewal:
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radicalism is not tearing things up by the roots, but getting down to the roots of
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15
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added to this was the belief that nineteenth-century english political radicals
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were ‘pioneers of progress ... alive to the necessities of the future’.16 this led to
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what Condren has rightly – at least in an early modern context – recognised as a
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‘whole penumbra of unstable associations’ of the term radical with ‘democratic,
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laudable, edifying, progressive and worthy’.17
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turning to exponents from other disciplines, since they tended to precede te.
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historians in their theorising about rather than application of the term, the american
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destruction of what is hated, and its replacement by an art, a faith, a science or a

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18
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explaining that radicalism’s function was to transform a normal, common-sense

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in Bittner’s opinion, ensuring an individual’s ideological purity and continued

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membership in an organised radical movement was achieved by the group’s

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English Radicalism, p. 218.

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13
Karl marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right
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n. rotenstreich, ‘on radicalism’, Philosophy of the Social Sciences

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172–5.
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14
J.m. robertson, Practical Radicalism
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Proceedings of the
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American Political Science Association

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16
The English
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Radicals, an Historical Sketch

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17
Condren, Politics of Language
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revolution’, p. 64.
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18
Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences
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discipline, isolation, deception and manipulation.19 more recently, radicalism has
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institutions and reconstruct new ones’, and as ‘any stance, practical, intellectual,
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or both, that goes to the root of existing practices, beliefs, or values’. in addition,
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‘since the term is relative, any fundamental criticism of or assault on existing
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practices can be reasonably termed radical’. indeed:
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particular character is, therefore, dependent on the historical circumstances in
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which it is used.20
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the sociologist dennis Wrong has also emphasised the connection between
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substantive content’ and is therefore more indicative of disposition: an ‘extreme,
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absolute, uncompromising commitment’. given its ‘abstract and formal nature’ as
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well as its changeable ideological characteristics that are inextricably bound up sh
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always to be relative and context-bound’.21

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these philosophical and sociological perspectives offer an interesting and

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studies. for sixteenth-century europe the most important contribution was

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george huntston Williams’s distinction, developed in the late 1950s, between the
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‘magisterial reformation’ and a ‘radical reformation’. the latter was ‘a loosely

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interrelated congeries of reformations and restitutions’ which grouped together

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the various types of anabaptists, spiritualists and evangelical rationalists all of

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whom, despite their many differences, were nonetheless united by their desire
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they regarded as the suffocating growth of ecclesiastical tradition and magisterial

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prerogative’. Williams’s etymologically precise construction had grown out of

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an earlier terminology favoured by roland Bainton that discerned a ‘left wing of

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the reformation’, and ernst troeltsch’s older still application of sociology to the
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19
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e. Bittner, ‘radicalism and the organization of radical movements’, American

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Sociological Review
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International Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences

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pp. 294–300.
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20
d. anthony, Rethinking Radicalism
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International Encyclopedia of the Social &

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Behavioral Sciences
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21
The Blackwell Dictionary
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of Modern Social Thought

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g978063122164721_ss1-3>
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Introduction 7
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and the sect-type.22 his critics, however, maintained that the supposed unifying
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forces underpinning this vision of an ‘extremely capacious’ radical reformation
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were undercut by sectarian subdivisions and inconsistencies, by heterogeneity
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23
then during the mid-1980s adolf
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laube, an east german marxist historian who, in common with his compatriots,
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sought to legitimate the german democratic republic by emphasising bourgeois
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and popular revolutionary antecedents together with the wider european
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Reich
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reformation and the german Peasants’ War, questioned the appropriateness of
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the term radical to encompass disparate sixteenth-century phenomena, arguing
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the norm and hence moderated.24 agreeing with laube that the meaning of
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the existing societal order on the basis of religion’. having outlined common
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denominators as well as essential points of divergence, hillerbrand concluded

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that a radical – or as he preferred, ‘alternate’ – reformation occurred because

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of ‘a general yearning for change and a desire for renewal’.25 yet, despite all
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the vocabulary of early modern historians even though it has since undergone
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an evolution from its basis in Church history and concomitant theological and
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denominational concerns to accommodate growing historical awareness of the

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social and cultural impact of religion.26

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22
Spiritual and Anabaptist Writers: Documents
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Illustrative of the Radical Reformation

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since 1939’, CH The Radical Reformation (3rd edn,

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reformation’, Journal of Religion

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23
The Radical Reformation, in P&P
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24
P. Peachey, ‘marxist historiography of the radical reformation: Causality or
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Covariation?’, Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies

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Radical Tendencies in the Reformation: Divergent Perspectives, special issue of Sixteenth

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Century Essays & Studies Radical

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Reformation
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25
h. hillerbrand, ‘radicalism in the early reformation: Varieties of reformation in
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Radical Tendencies, pp. 28–30, 40–41.

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26
J. roth, ‘recent Currents in the historiography of the radical reformation’, CH,
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regarding the extensive literature on seventeenth-century england, it is
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noteworthy that there are parallels with trends in reformation historiography. here
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ascription of a centre with left and right wings to Protestantism in general and
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Puritanism in particular. used since at least 1900, but not fashionable until the
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later 1930s, the categories were most fully elaborated by a.s.P. Woodhouse in
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his introduction to the Putney and Whitehall debates, supplemented with other
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important contemporary texts, entitled Puritanism and Liberty
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the left, where the Puritan sect-type prevailed, consisted of the levellers – the
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‘one genuinely democratic party’ of the ‘Puritan revolution’ – together with a
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‘heterogeneous company’ of religious and political sectaries that included the
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millenarian fifth monarchists and the diggers.27 remaining in vogue, albeit with
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1960s, left-wing puritanism sometimes became interchangeable as a category with ga
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radical sectarianism. hence l.J. trinterud claimed that:
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the radical left-wing Puritan groups, the fifth monarchy men, the levellers, the
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the road of radical revolution through the destruction of all old authorities, and
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a return to the state of nature.28

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thereafter, however, this typology largely fell out favour except in the eyes of a
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terms radical and radicalism in a seventeenth-century english context have provided

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a heated debate about the appropriateness of certain labels to describe political

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national church on religious principles, and others – levellers, diggers, fifth

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27
a.s.P. Woodhouse, ‘Puritanism and democracy’, Canadian Journal of Economics
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and Political Science Puritanism and

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Liberty, Being the Army Debates (1647–49) from the Clarke Manuscripts
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28
l.J. trinterud, ‘the origins of Puritanism’, CH
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Introduction 9
monarchists, ranters, etc. – whose opposition was part of a more general
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political, social and economic programme.29
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or practice, to subvert the status quo and replace it, rather than simply to improve
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or amend it’.30 again, drawing on the word’s original relationship with roots
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and fundamental qualities, the editors of the Biographical Dictionary of British
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Radicals in the Seventeenth Century considered radicals to be:
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the proper historic roots.
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they too grasped the episodic nature of radicalism and its connection with
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situational, a seizure of the possibilities of the moment for substantive change’.31 a te.
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little later frances dow equated radicals with those who ‘sought to transform the
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social class, she distinguished between assorted types of radicals including certain
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Parliamentarians, classical republicans, levellers, diggers and religious radicals

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32
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Barry reay radical religion during the english revolution consisted of ‘religious
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institutionalized, established religion and theology’.33

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smith, following geoffrey nuttall’s seminal The Holy Spirit in Puritan Faith and
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Experience
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29
C. hill, ‘the radical Critics of oxford and Cambridge in the 1650s’, in C. hill,
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Change and Continuity in Seventeenth-Century England

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C. hill, The English Bible and the Seventeenth-Century Revolution (harmondsworth,

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30
J.C. davis, ‘radicalism in a traditional society: the evaluation of radical thought
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in the english Commonwealth 1649–1660’, History of Political Thought

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p. 203.
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31
Biographical Dictionary of British Radicals in the
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Seventeenth Century
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lives’, Political Science

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32
f.d. dow, Radicalism in the English Revolution 1640–1660
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57.
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33
Radical
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Religion in the English Revolution

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upon any individual’.34
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gerald aylmer also gave us, in an address on the ‘varieties of radicalism’,
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seventeenth-century england:
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anyone advocating changes in state, church or society which would have gone
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the long Parliament and the Westminster assembly of divines.35
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anachronistic terms’ distinguishing, at least in theory, between a radical and
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a reformer: ‘a radical aims at nothing less than the replacement of the status
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be’. Consequently, British radicals in the early 1660s were effectively ‘a dissident
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“community” loosely held together by common animosities’.36

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Krey preferred the ‘somewhat anachronistic and historicist’ designation radical

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“fanatic” or “oliverian” into contemporary analytical categories’. Concentrating

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on the ‘exceptional political community’ of london, he suggested that historians of

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seventeenth-century political ideas needed to ‘recognize the existence of a variety

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of radicalisms’.37 de Krey subsequently differentiated between the radical ideology,

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activities and civic experiences of london dissenters – who in upholding freedom of

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conscience sought to undermine the persecuting restoration state – and republican

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principles.38 elsewhere he reiterated the point, proposing that london dissenters

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34
n. smith, Perfection Proclaimed. Language and Literature in English Radical
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Religion 1640–1660
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35
g.e. aylmer, ‘Collective mentalities in mid seventeenth-Century england. iii.
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Varieties of radicalism’, TRHS

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36
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r. greaves, Deliver Us from Evil: The Radical Underground in Britain, 1660–1663

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Albion, 29
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37
g.s. de Krey, ‘the london Whigs and the exclusion Crisis reconsidered’, in a.l.
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The First Modern Society: Essays in English

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history in Honour of Lawrence Stone

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Krey, ‘Political radicalism in london after the glorious revolution’, Journal of Modern
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History
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38
g.s. de Krey, ‘the first restoration Crisis: Conscience and Coercion in london,
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1667–73’, Albion
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Albion
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Introduction 11
and Whigs were radical because intellectually they ‘got to the roots’ in a distinctive,
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conventions of their day, the intellectual rationales that legitimate those norms
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or conventions, and the structures of authority that maintain them.39
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a decade ago Jonathan scott declared that radicalism was ‘the demand for
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fundamental change’. english radicalism, he suggested, ‘came to question
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customary religious, social, legal, economic and political arrangements’. such
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a ‘large-scale demand for change’ in a pre-modern, traditional society was
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extraordinary.40 for scott, the overarching category here was ‘unity-in-variety’,
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the ‘concerns the radicals held in common’ over time. it was these ‘unities within
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the variety of civil war radicalism’, he insisted, that would enable us to apprehend
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it ‘as a single process rather than as a series of discrete groups’. Connections,
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more, scott discerned three phases of the english radical process (complementing
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timothy morton and nigel 41

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smith also privileged homogeneity over heterogeneity, stressing the ‘common

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conditions and characteristics’ of english history between 1640 and 1832

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that gave consistency to the various political and religious visions enunciating
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‘extreme change’ and alternative lifestyles.42

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‘radicalism’ in order to convey:

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the notion of axiomatic political, constitutional, religious, social, economic

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or cultural change ... encompass[ing] a number of ideologies that challenged

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existing arrangements for different reasons and ends.

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39
g.s. de Krey, ‘radicals, reformers, and republicans: academic language and
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A Nation
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Transformed: England after the Restoration

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40
J. scott, England’s Troubles: Seventeenth-century English Political Instability in
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European Context
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41
scott, England’s Troubles, pp. 6, 37–8, 230, 239–42.
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42
Radicalism
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in British Literary Culture, 1650–1830. From Revolution to Revolution

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pp. 1–2.
ww
m
is nonetheless vulnerable to criticism: namely that, in the attempt to facilitate
co
te.
comprehension, a category has been constructed with elastic bounds, one that
ga
sh
w.a
ww
m
co
‘fundamentally challenged contemporary arrangements’ leaves open the wider
te.
ga
sh
w.a
ww
43
m
co
te.
much of this debate on the validity of radical and radicalisms as descriptors
ga
sh
and their continued usage as explanatory categories therefore hinges on several
w.a
ww
important issues: our ability to accurately comprehend and reconstruct the reality
m
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
dependency of radicalism on context has been correctly highlighted by, among
ww
others, Wrong, laube, hillerbrand, scott and Burgess. Context is naturally also
m
co
te.
ga
demand for fundamental, revolutionary transformation and, at the other, gradual,

sh
w.a
evolutionary change. yet, contrary to davis and greaves, who have both at times
ww
m
co
te.
ga
sh
static and oppositional.44 neither term, for example, entirely captures either the
w.a
ww
disposition or the full agenda of all participants at every moment during the english
m
co
revolution.45
te.
ga
must be determined entirely by context, rendering it a situational or relationship

sh
w.a
term rather than something indicative of content.46

ww
synonymous with extremism, moderation with restraint, and conservatism with

m
co
te.
preservation can at times be unnecessarily restrictive (radicalism’s relationship

ga
sh
47
otherwise what
w.a
ww
m
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
ww
43
m
co
te.
ga
sh
44
Deliver Us from
w.a
ww
Evil Politics of Language, p. 152.

m
co
45
Cf. aylmer, ‘Collective mentalities’, pp. 7, 15, 22–4.
te.
ga
46
Biographical Dictionary
sh
w.a
Politics
ww
of Language
m
co
revolution’, pp. 63, 69–70, 73.

te.
ga
47
Politics of
sh
w.a
Language
ww
Introduction 13
Catholic radicals,48 royalist radicals,49
m
co
Clubmen?50
te.
ga
sh
w.a
conventional boundaries in complex ways.
ww
m
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
ww
m
radical and radicalism give us with one hand – comprehensibility, coherence, and
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
heterogeneity. We turn now to how scholars have approached writing about people
ww
considered to be radicals or individuals who were radicalised at moments in their
m
co
te.
ga
be thought of as radicalisms rather than radicalism.
sh
w.a
ww
m
co
Writing Radicalisms te.
ga
sh
w.a
ww
it is a commonplace that the past is at the mercy of the present and that in every
m
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
modern england, and particularly during the english revolution (with which this
ww
m
co
manufacture and invention. there have been several important studies documenting
te.
ga
sh
this process,51
w.a
52
all the same, this
ww
m
was a malleable tradition and consequently one readily appropriated for political
co
te.
purposes. indeed, although the nineteenth century witnessed the piecemeal

ga
sh
w.a
ww
m
co
48
m. Questier, Catholicism and Community in Early Modern England. Politics,
te.
ga
Aristocratic Patronage and Religion, c.1550–1640

sh
w.a
49
C. hill, ‘two radical royalists’, in C. hill, The Collected Essays of Christopher
ww
Hill. Volume One. Writing and Revolution in 17th Century England

m
co
te.
ga
Radical Religion, p. 184.

sh
w.a
50
dow, Radicalism in English Revolution Revolt in the Provinces.
ww
The People of England and the Tragedies of War 1630–1648 (2nd edn, london and new
m
co
te.
ga
51
sh
r.C. richardson, The Debate on the English Revolution: Revisited

w.a
The Rise and Fall of Revolutionary England. An Essay

ww
on the Fabrication of Seventeenth-Century History M. Caricchio,

m
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
52
Burgess, ‘matter of Context’, 2.
ww
rediscovery or recovery of what is now generally called english radicalism, that
m
process was predominantly associated with two broad historiographic currents.
co
te.
one was bourgeois and liberal, essentially concerned with tracing the growth of
ga
sh
w.a
democratic and republican ideas in response to acute social and economic tensions
ww
as well as drawing parallels between the english and french revolutions. the
m
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
ww
to effectively integrate denominational history – traditions of religious dissent
m
co
te.
– within their conception of radicalism.53
ga
sh
w.a
ww
century by certain north american-based scholars concerned with the development
m
of individual liberties and constitutional restraints on the authoritarian exercise of
co
te.
ga
power, as well as the intellectual antecedents of the american revolution, the latter
sh
w.a
became particularly associated with, among others, Protestant nonconformists,
ww
Jewish-born intellectuals, members of the fabian society and Communists. for it
m
co
te.
ga
historians’ group of the Communist Party such as Christopher hill, rodney hilton,
sh
w.a
a.l. morton and e.P. thompson who were instrumental in creating a ‘progressive
ww
m
rationalist tradition’ of marxist history that was severely critical of ‘non-marxist

co
te.
history and its reactionary implications’. noted for its ‘moral exhortation’, their
ga
sh
w.a
ww
plays an important part in the battle of ideas today’. furthermore, hill underlined
m
co
the political value of a marxist approach, believing that it alone could ‘restore
te.
ga
to the english people part of their heritage of which they have been robbed’.54
sh
w.a
hence, while morton penned A People’s History of England

ww
The Making of the English Working Class Bond Men Made

m
co
te.
Free: Medieval Peasant Movements and the English Rising of 1381

ga
sh
w.a
ww
a supposed ‘english bourgeois revolution’ during the mid-seventeenth century

m
co
te.
from below’: The World Turned Upside Down. Radical Ideas during the English
ga
sh
w.a
ww
m
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
53
ww
Cromohs Virtual Seminars

m
co
html>.
te.
ga
54
e. hobsbawm, ‘the historians’ group of the Communist Party’, in m. Cornforth
sh
w.a
Rebels and Their Causes. Essays in Honour of A.L. Morton

ww
New Left Review,

m
co
The British Marxist Historians: An

te.
ga
Introductory Analysis Rise and Fall of

sh
w.a
Revolutionary England, pp. 79–87, 101–21.

ww
Introduction 15
Revolution 55
the fruit of this largely co-operative venture was what can
m
co
be termed the canonical english radical tradition: a single, continuous narrative
te.
ga
spanning from the Peasants’ revolt of 1381 to the Chartists and the modern
sh
w.a
56
yet it appears that these histories also had another,
ww
self-serving, purpose as Burgess has most recently observed:
m
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
ww
m
not an alien, foreign and unpatriotic implant into the green and pleasant lands of
co
te.
ga
the sceptred isle but a suppressed, native tradition.57
sh
w.a
ww
since this canonical english radical tradition was, as several British marxist
m
co
historians believed, a consequence of the class struggles that ensued during the
te.
ga
transition from feudalism to a developed form of capitalism, it is instructive to
sh
w.a
ww
– regardless of whether they exhibited class-consciousness in the sense that they
m
co
were aware of ‘shared interests in the process of struggling against common te.
ga
sh
enemies’.58 according to John lilburne, leveller support was drawn not from the
w.a
ww
dregs of english society but ‘the hobnails, clouted shooes, the private souldiers,
m
co
the leather and woollen Aprons, and the laborious and industrious people’.59 in
te.
ga
hill’s earliest formulation, therefore, the levellers were the petty bourgeoisie’s
sh
w.a
ww
to be able to achieve their aims’. the most radical and egalitarian ‘opponents
m
co
of the feudal social order’, however, were the diggers who represented a ‘small
te.
ga
sh
w.a
their leaders.60
ww
m
depicted as the ‘most advanced democratic group’ on the european political stage,
co
te.
‘appealing to the small proprietors in town and countryside’ against the survivals
ga
sh
w.a
ww
m
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
55
C. hill, ‘soviet interpretations of the english interregnum’, Economic History
ww
Review The English Revolution 1640. An Essay

m
co
Debate on the English Revolution, pp.

te.
ga
Rise and Fall of Revolutionary England, pp. 46–7, 55–63.

sh
w.a
56
C. hill, ‘from lollards to levellers’, in C. hill, The Collected Essays of Christopher
ww
Hill. Volume Two. Religion and politics in 17th century England

m
co
The World of the Ranters: Religious Radicalism in the English

te.
ga
Revolution
sh
w.a
57
ww
maclachlan, Rise and Fall of Revolutionary England, pp. 39–40.

m
co
58
Kaye, British Marxist Historians, pp. 126, 232–41.
te.
ga
sh
59
John lilburne, The Upright Mans Vindication
w.a
60
hill, English Revolution 1640
ww
of feudalism that underpinned their bondage to the ruling class.61 Class hostility
m
and the propertied class’s ‘thinly concealed’ contempt for the ‘rude’, ‘unruly’ and
co
te.
‘giddy-headed’ multitude’ – that ‘rascal company’ of the ‘meaner sort of people’
ga
sh
w.a
and masterless men – was the focus of another essay on ‘the many-headed
ww
monster’ and the ‘fear of lower-class revolt’.62 this supposed ‘class antagonism’,
m
co
together with a long-standing tradition of ‘plebeian anti-clericalism and irreligion’,
te.
ga
sh
w.a
threatened the propertied in The World Turned Upside Down.63 here, on the ‘left
ww
wing of radical Puritanism’, the levellers, following soviet theory, comprised both
m
co
te.
a ‘moderate, constitutional wing’ that upheld existing property relationships, and
ga
sh
‘a more radical wing in the army and among the london populace’ that defended
w.a
ww
poor commoners against the rich. further along the continuum was the untainted
m
communism of the diggers, seemingly ‘only the visible tip of the iceberg of true
co
te.
ga
levellerism’, with gerrard Winstanley representing the interests of ‘those whom
sh
w.a
the “constitutional” levellers would have disfranchised – servants, labourers,
ww
paupers, the economically unfree’. antinomianism was regarded as ‘Calvinism’s
m
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
by lower-class radicals.64 in the same vein, morton had portrayed the ‘aggressive
ww
m
radicalism’ of the ranters – which ‘formed the extreme left wing of the sects’ – as
co
te.
a primarily urban movement appealing to the ‘defeated and declassed’, drawing

ga
sh
support from london’s ‘impoverished artisans and labourers’ as well as ‘wage

w.a
ww
earners and small producers’ in numerous towns.65 so, too, hill’s former pupil
m
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
ww
m
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
ww
m
61
Puritanism and Revolution
co
te.
British Marxist Historians, pp. 120–22.

ga
sh
62
C. hill, ‘the many-headed monster’, in hill, Change and Continuity, pp. 183, 186,
w.a
ww
Rise and Fall of Revolutionary England, p. 135.

m
63
co
C. hill, The World Turned Upside Down. Radical Ideas during the English
te.
ga
Revolution
sh
w.a
64
hill, World Turned Upside Down, pp. 14–16, 97, 114, 121, 138, 162, 202–3, 280,
ww
British Marxist Historians

m
co
Reviving the English Revolution:

te.
ga
sh
w.a
ww
Reviving the English Revolution Rise and Fall of

m
co
Revolutionary England, p. 189.

te.
ga
65
morton, World of the Ranters Rise and
sh
w.a
Fall of Revolutionary England, p. 71.

ww
Introduction 17
powerful and privileged on the one hand, and the ‘poorer peasants and landless
m
co
labourers’ beloved of the diggers on the other.66
te.
ga
sh
w.a
ww
the marxist preoccupation with class struggle may understandably have found
m
co
te.
little support among the wider community of historians of seventeenth-century
ga
sh
england,67 but it did raise the associated question of the extent of radicalism’s
w.a
ww
appeal.68 hill’s The World Turned Upside Down, for example, tended in effect
m
co
te.
the popular’.69 similarly, although aylmer accepted that ‘popular and radical
ga
sh
w.a
were not identical’, he still insisted that neither were they antithetical or mutually
ww
exclusive.70
m
co
sentiments during the english revolution prevent reay and mcgregor from
te.
ga
claiming that they were nonetheless ‘popular in the sense of articulating the hopes
sh
w.a
and grievances of those outside the ruling groups of english society’.71 for even
ww
hill eventually conceded that while the radical ideas of the period remained of
m
co
te.
ga
sh
russian revolutionaries – were a minority during the mid-seventeenth century.72

w.a
ww
m
co
others never exceeded 3.85 per cent of an estimated population ranging from
te.
ga
5.09 to 5.28 million people between 1641 and 1661: perhaps as many as 25,000
sh
w.a
ww
m
co
te.
ga
sh
66
B. manning, The English People and the English Revolution
w.a
ww
1649: The Crisis of the English

m
Revolution Rise and Fall of Revolutionary

co
te.
England, pp. 140–42.

ga
sh
67
w.a
Cf. g.e. aylmer, ‘gentlemen levellers?’, P&P

ww
English People
m
co
te.
ga
davis, ‘afterword: reassessing radicalism in a traditional society: two Questions’, in

sh
w.a
English Radicalism, pp. 349–50, 354.

ww
68
maclachlan, Rise and Fall of Revolutionary England, p. 140.
m
co
69
Reviving the English
te.
ga
Revolution Crowds and Popular Politics in Early Modern England

sh
w.a
ww
70
aylmer, ‘Collective mentalities’, pp. 10, 20.
m
co
71
te.
Radical Religion,
ga
p. v.
sh
w.a
72
C. hill, Some Intellectual Consequences of the English Revolution (madison, Wi,
ww
m
Experience of Defeat
co
te.
Reviving the English Revolution

ga
sh
maclachlan, Rise and Fall of Revolutionary England England’s Troubles,

w.a
p. 35.
ww
m
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
and other sectaries.73 leaving aside the obvious methodological issues of counting
ww
youthful and adult radicals – as if shifting allegiances, signing petitions, supporting
m
co
political movements, membership of religious communities that had separated
te.
ga
sh
w.a
or some combination thereof at different moments during the turbulent years
ww
of rebellion in ireland, Civil Wars in Britain, regicide and republican rule were
m
co
te.
straightforwardly indicative of self-conscious radical identities – there is also the
ga
sh
question of geographical distribution.74
w.a
ww
m
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
ww
derbyshire – have explored the interrelated questions of whether environment
m
co
in combination with other factors such as social structure, economic activities, ga
te.
religious beliefs and literacy rates shaped regional cultures and identities, and
sh
w.a
ww
m
english revolution. While there were undoubtedly regional contrasts between

co
te.
settlement patterns in arable districts and those in the fens and forests, not to
ga
sh
mention a variety of colourful local customs, entertainments and sports, John

w.a
ww
morrill has rightly cautioned against placing too much weight on environment in
m
co
shaping political loyalties.75 similarly, although hill attempted to discern doctrinal

te.
ga
sh
w.a
ww
73
The Population History of England 1541–
m
1871. A Reconstruction
co
te.
Radical Religion Brave

ga
sh
Community. The Digger Movement in the English Revolution

w.a
ww
The Fifth Monarchy Men: A Study in Seventeenth-Century English

m
Millenarianism
co
te.
Radical Religion An impeachment of high treason

ga
sh
w.a
against Oliver Cromwel The Remonstrance Of many

ww
Thousands of the Free-People of England The

m
co
Levellers and the English Revolution

te.
ga
Radicalism in English Revolution

sh
w.a
The
ww
World of the Muggletonians The Quakers and the

m
co
English Revolution Fear, Myth and History.

te.
ga
The Ranters and the Historians

sh
w.a
74
ww
Politics of Language
m
co
te.
ga
75
d. underdown, ‘the Problem of Popular allegiance in the english Civil War’,
sh
w.a
TRHS Revel, Riot, and Rebellion:

ww
Introduction 19
m
co
particularly in pastoral, forest, moorland and fen areas where ecclesiastical control
te.
ga
sh
w.a
by aylmer as an unsophisticated form of ‘geographical determinism’.76 all the
ww
same, manifestations of ideas unquestionably radical in their context occurred,
m
co
te.
as several historians have pointed out, primarily in urban settings. london, ‘the
ga
sh
largest protestant city in europe by 1640’, was undoubtedly the most important
w.a
ww
m
radicalism’.77
co
te.
london’s densely populated intra-mural parishes and burgeoning suburbs,
ga
sh
w.a
continually depleted by high levels of mortality but swelled by a stream of
ww
migrants, provided the conditions conducive for extending pre-existing social
m
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
love. these interconnections in turn facilitated mustering political support through
ww
m
co
redress of grievances. the transition from passing around handwritten petitions te.
ga
sh
and from disseminating manuscript copies of texts more generally, to circulating

w.a
ww
m
co
literature indicates both the adaptability of the london print trade to changing
te.
ga
78
furthermore, following
sh
w.a
belated engagement with Jürgen habermas’s The Structural Transformation of

ww
the Public Sphere

m
co
examination of the variety of other ways through which debates were conducted
te.
ga
sh
w.a
newspapers, pamphlets, plays, proclamations, rumours, scribal publication,

ww
m
sermons, speeches and woodcuts. these are considered fundamental for

co
te.
bringing into being public spheres – envisaged as both modes of and spaces for
ga
sh
w.a
ww
Popular Politics and Culture in England, 1603–1660

m
co
or Paragons?”: images of the Cornish during the english Civil War’, EHR
te.
ga
sh
w.a
modern Cornwall’, JBS

ww
HJ
m
co
JBS, 26
te.
ga
sh
w.a
76
hill, ‘from lollards to levellers’, in hill, Collected Essays
ww
‘Collective mentalities’, pp. 4–5.

m
co
77
te.
B. reay, ‘radicalism and religion in the english revolution: an introduction’,

ga
sh
Radical Religion 1649

w.a
England’s Troubles HLQ

ww
m
co
te.
78
J. raymond, Pamphlets and Pamphleteering in Early Modern Britain (Cambridge,
ga
sh
JBS
w.a
pp. 26–50.
ww
m
other urban locations.79 Women too sometimes challenged patriarchal norms by
co
te.
playing visible roles as preachers, messengers, fund-raisers and petitioners, as
ga
sh
w.a
ww
80
m
co
as Jason Peacey has shown, propaganda techniques also became more
te.
ga
sophisticated, as new relationships developed between polemicists and political
sh
w.a
ww
behaviour. Consequently the methods of producing propaganda during what is
m
co
te.
now termed a ‘news revolution’ became increasingly ‘bureaucratised, centralised
ga
sh
and professionalised’.81 even so, despite what historians if not bibliographers
w.a
ww
now refer to as an explosion of print, not to mention hill’s claim that the english
m
revolution was a short-lived age of ‘freedom’ when relatively cheap and portable
co
te.
ga
printing equipment may have made it easier than ever before for radical ideas to
sh
w.a
see the light of day, the desire to censor – as is widely recognised – remained in
ww
many quarters.82 there were three effective ways in which this could be achieved:
m
co
through pre-publication, post-publication and self-censorship. yet, with the ga
te.
effective collapse of pre-publication censorship the licensing system upon which
sh
w.a
it had been built became increasingly used to protect the publisher’s copyright
ww
m
co
te.
strategy and inconsistent practice became a characteristic feature of licensing

ga
sh
during the later 1640s and 1650s. Without an equivalent to the Papal index of
w.a
ww
m
co
at the licenser’s discretion and as such was utterly ineffective. By contrast, post-
te.
ga
publication censorship proved most effective when implemented by those with

sh
w.a
ww
m
co
te.
for heresy in england since 1612, the published writings of blasphemers and
ga
sh
w.a
ww
resembled Protestant Autos da Fé by proxy.83

m
co
te.
ga
sh
79
The Politics of the Public Sphere in Early Modern
w.a
ww
England
m
80
K.V. thomas, ‘Women and the Civil War sects’, P&P
co
te.
manning, 1649
ga
sh
Political culture and Cultural Politics in Early

w.a
ww
Modern England. Essays presented to David Underdown

m
co
81
J. Peacey, Politicians and Pamphleteers. Propaganda during the English Civil
te.
ga
Wars and Interregnum

sh
w.a
82
C. hill, ‘Censorship and english literature’, in hill, Collected Essays, 1, pp. 34,
ww
World Turned Upside Down Experience of Defeat, p. 21.

m
co
83
c.1640–c.1660’, Cromohs
te.
ga
– Cyber Review of Modern Historiography

sh
w.a
it/12_2007/hessayon_incendtexts.html>.
ww
Introduction 21
over-dependence on accessible printed sources, however, such as the london
m
co
te.
ga
housed in the British library, meant that hill, morton, manning and others
sh
w.a
untrained in palaeography neglected a storehouse of archival records. nor was
ww
this point lost on the so-called revisionists, who tended to privilege manuscript
m
co
te.
materials in the assumption that these enabled the reconstruction of real rather than
ga
sh
perceived or supposed events.84 stressing consensus and contingency rather than
w.a
ww
m
this paradigmatic revisionist shift was accompanied – at least in the hands of
co
te.
some practitioners – by a renewed emphasis on religious beliefs rather than
ga
sh
w.a
ww
m
co
te.
ga
extreme opinions advocated for only a brief period of their lives (‘a mid-life crisis
sh
w.a
85
their impact upon society exaggerated
ww
m
co
property damage or cautioning against introducing religious toleration and its te.
ga
sh
corollary, moral dissolution. similarly, conventional forms of popular protest such

w.a
ww
as food, enclosure and tax riots were reduced in scale and scope and drained of
m
co
radical ideological content. instead these incidents were presented as sporadic,

te.
ga
sh
w.a
ww
John Walter has called a ‘public transcript of commonwealth: neighbourliness and

m
co
te.
ga
sh
indeed, if canonical radicalism was as popular as marxists and their

86
w.a
fellow-travellers maintained, then why did so much of the ancient regime survive
ww
m
the english revolution, why was there a restoration of the monarchy, what
co
te.
happened afterwards to the defeated radicals, and why did several of the religious
ga
sh
communities and political movements of the period vanish almost without trace
w.a
ww
m
co
te.
ga
84
richardson, Debate on the English Revolution
sh
w.a
‘on revisionism: an analysis of early stuart historiography in the 1970s and 1980s’, HJ,
ww
Rise and Fall of Revolutionary England

m
co
Caricchio, Popolo e Rivoluzione?

te.
ga
Cromohs Virtual Seminars, 1, 3, <http://

sh
w.a
ww
85
A Monarchy Transformed. Britain 1603–1714 (harmondsworth,
m
co
te.
ga
sh
86
J.d. Walter and K. Wrightson, ‘dearth and the social order in early modern
w.a
england’, P&P
ww
m
Order and Disorder in early

co
te.
Modern England
ga
sh
Reviving the English Revolution Crowds and

w.a
Popular Politics
ww
until vestiges of their ideologies were rediscovered and refashioned in different
m
contexts during the second half of the eighteenth century?
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
the revolution’ was betrayed by the propertied bourgeoisie, whose Protestant ethic
ww
triumphed.87 according to davis’s method for evaluating radicalism, however, what
m
co
Burgess has termed the functional approach, canonical english radicalism failed
te.
ga
sh
w.a
ww
m
co
te.
nor was there an effective transfer mechanism to get from the displaced system to
ga
sh
its replacement.88 and it must be said that davis’s analysis is persuasive.
w.a
ww
thus the republic’s failure to fully legitimate itself can be seen in a missed
m
opportunity: notable events in Protestant english history interpreted as signs of
co
te.
ga
providential favour – the accession of Queen elizabeth, defeat of the spanish
sh
w.a
armada and discovery of the gunpowder plot – had been memorialised and
ww
commemorated for political purposes (as Charles stuart’s ‘martyrdom’ and his
m
co
te.
ga
french and russian revolutions, there was no national holiday celebrating a single
sh
w.a
Parliamentary military victory, only religiously based public fasting expressing

ww
m
communal solidarity.89 again, despite a fresh coat of arms and Parliamentary

co
te.
mace, manufacturing seals, minting coins and medals, commissioning portraits,

ga
sh
holding banquets, choreographing triumphal parades, state funerals and foreign

w.a
ww
ambassadors’ visits, not to mention using english in all public documents, the
m
co
oligarchic republic was supplanted by an uncrowned lord Protector presiding with

te.
ga
the aid of his council and successive Parliaments over a perpetual reformation
sh
w.a
implemented by an unsteady alliance of magistracy, ministry and military power.90

ww
m
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
ww
m
co
te.
ga
sh
87
hill, World Turned Upside Down
w.a
ww
Radical Religion, p. 21.

m
88
co
Deliver Us from
te.
ga
Evil Radical
sh
w.a
Tendencies in the Reformation

ww
m
co
341.
te.
ga
89
d. Cressy, ‘the Protestant Calendar and the Vocabulary of Celebration in early
sh
w.a
modern england’, JBS

ww
90
s. Kelsey, Inventing a Republic: The Political Culture of the English Commonwealth,
m
co
1649–1653
te.
ga
republic’, P&P Cromwell’s Major-Generals: Godly

sh
w.a
Government during the English Revolution

ww
Introduction 23
m
co
te.
ga
occasionally transgressed.91 yet in its aftermath there was nothing – at least on
sh
w.a
english soil – comparable to the brutality of la Terreur or the red terror. defeated
ww
royalists were imprisoned, disarmed, placed under surveillance and in exceptional
m
co
te.
ga
sh
belonging to the Crown, bishops, dean and chapters, so too a number also had
w.a
ww
their estates seized and sequestered.92 there were, however, no mass executions
m
co
te.
with antichrist, stigmatisation of Catholics (accusations of superstition, idolatry,
ga
sh
w.a
ww
widespread fear of Popish plots resulted only occasionally in assaults on worshippers
m
co
departing foreign embassy chapels, some rioting and several executions rather than
te.
ga
a Protestant equivalent to the st Bartholomew’s day massacre – again, at least
sh
w.a
on english soil.93
ww
m
co
local elites and Parliamentary commissioners a legalistic distinction between what te.
ga
sh
were considered superstitious and idolatrous artefacts, images and inscriptions

w.a
ww
on the one hand, and approved components of funeral monuments such as coats
m
co
of arms and sepulchral brasses on the other.94 even army mutinies over arrears
te.
ga
of pay together with arguably pro-leveller mutinies, had their counterpoint in

sh
w.a
microcosm with the diggers’ non-resistance. indeed, if a measure of canonical

ww
english radicalism’s transformative potential was not merely its ability to turn the
m
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
91
i. roy, ‘england turned germany? the aftermath of the Civil War in its european
ww
Context’, TRHS
m
co
english Civil War’, P&P

te.
ga
treason in the english Civil War’, American Historical Review

sh
w.a
m. stoyle, ‘the road to farndon field: explaining the massacre of the royalist Women at
ww
naseby’, EHR
m
co
92
te.
ga
interregnum’, Economic History Review

sh
w.a
93
r. Clifton, ‘the Popular fear of Catholics during the english revolution’, P&P,
ww
The Origins of
m
co
the English Civil War

te.
ga
the Protestant Belief in a Popish Plot during the english interregnum’, History Workshop
sh
w.a
Journal
ww
m
co
te.
Politics, 1603–42 Persecution and Toleration in

ga
Protestant England 1558–1689

sh
w.a
94
ww
m
Public Duty and Private Conscience in Seventeenth-Century England

co
te.
ga
sh
in eastern england, 1640–1642’, HJ Crowds and Popular

w.a
Politics, pp. 184–6.

ww
old world upside down but to eradicate it, then part of its failure was attributable
m
to moderation, compromise and restraint – the quest for settlement.
co
te.
another reason provided for canonical english radicalism’s failure was that
ga
sh
w.a
its modernising agenda was too advanced for a traditional, technologically limited
ww
society.95 sometimes, however, this has been reframed as criticism: the notion
m
co
that radicals were ahead of – or before – their time, with its obvious teleological
te.
ga
implications, has been frequently and effectively challenged.96
sh
w.a
ww
m
co
te.
to dampen down hostility, we are in danger of creating a paradox.97
ga
sh
preceding radical reformation, many of the various ideological manifestations
w.a
ww
m
to uncorrupted roots: the prelapsarian purity of adam and eve in the garden of
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
ww
m
co
and inalienable provisions of magna Carta buttressed by precedent, common law ga
te.
and custom. so too millenarian beliefs were based on the expectation of Christ’s
sh
w.a
ww
m
heralds, the prophets. again, the legacy of renaissance humanism coupled with
co
te.
the effective diffusion of texts by noted florentine syncretists stimulated interest

ga
sh
in a rediscovered ancient theology.

w.a
ww
Where a strong case can be made for the innovatory nature of the radicalisms
m
co
under discussion was in several of the methods adopted by people who were
te.
ga
radicalised to achieve their ends, and in the distinctive ways that ideologies which
sh
w.a
were radical in particular contexts could be expressed. the latter has led to a literary
ww
m
co
te.
ga
sh
argued that ‘the radicals, as churches, sects, and individuals ... created their own
w.a
ww
distinctive language usages, their own habits of expression and communication,

m
co
te.
ga
sh
95
w.a
Cf. hill, World Turned Upside Down Winstanley: The Law

ww
of Freedom and Other Writings

m
co
of gerrard Winstanley’, in hill, Collected Essays

te.
ga
mentalities’, p. 12.
sh
w.a
96
ww
Biographical Dictionary Politics of Language England’s

m
co
Troubles
te.
ga
97
Biographical Dictionary
sh
w.a
Politics of Language,
ww
England’s Troubles
m
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
p. 204.
ww
Introduction 25
their own literature and culture’. despite davis’s caveat against treating the speech
m
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
interdisciplinary approach.98
ww
ultimately, the inescapable conclusion that canonical english radicalism failed
m
co
te.
in the short term has been glossed over by its advocates, who emphasise instead
ga
sh
w.a
ww
m
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
ww
privileging only those ideas which were carried through the enlightenment to our
m
co
modern age.
te.
ga
sh
w.a
ww
Our Contributors’ Central Concerns
m
co
te.
ga
sh
the essays in this volume originated at a conference held at goldsmiths, university

w.a
ww
of london, which invited consideration of individuals, movements, ideologies and

m
co
events that challenged the fundamental political, religious or social axioms of their
te.
ga
sh
w.a
ww
together with the impact of the movement of people, ideas, images and texts
m
co
across and within geographical boundaries, as well as over time. addressing

te.
ga
sh
w.a
ww
m
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
ww
we believe there to be an emerging consensus that consolidates recent important

m
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
usefulness as an explanatory category in scholarly discussions of the early

ww
modern period. this suggests that the nominalist approach, for all its thought-
m
co
te.
ga
sh
have emphasised the need for sensitivity to context and consequently the
w.a
ww
situational, episodic and variegated nature of radicalism. moreover, by widening

m
the scope of what constituted radicalism our contributors have not only opened
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
98
C. hill, ‘radical Prose in 17th Century england: from marprelate to the levellers’,
ww
m
in hill, Collected Essays Perfection Proclaimed

co
te.
davis, ‘Puritanism and revolution: themes, Categories, methods and Conclusions’, HJ,
ga
sh
w.a
revolution’, p. 68.
ww
up unexpected new directions for research but also contributed towards the
m
gradual process that is shattering the canonical english radical tradition and the
co
te.
marxist foundations upon which it was constructed. for even though vestiges of
ga
sh
w.a
radicalism recovered in manuscripts and rediscovered in printed texts did (and
ww
m
co
the substantive approach to the study of radicalism is problematic – and indeed
te.
ga
arguably no longer sustainable.99 so much so, that, of the remaining alternatives,
sh
w.a
the functional approach seems generally closest to a number of the methodologies
ww
adopted here.
m
co
te.
turning from methods to recurrent themes, sarah hutton’s essay is one of
ga
sh
several highlighting the softening effect of the passage of time and the necessity
w.a
ww
of relocating ideas within their original context. hence, although the Cambridge
m
Platonists’ mild disposition now appears to us as ‘divorced from the political
co
te.
ga
sphere, and anything but radical’, they were, for all their ‘sweet reasonableness’,
sh
w.a
decidedly radical in their detractors’ eyes. although hutton cautions against
ww
m
co
te.
ga
of prominent autodidactic artisans, the Cambridge Platonists’ radicalism was

sh
w.a
ww
m
theirs developed from higher learning. this accords with nicholas mcdowell’s
co
te.
ga
sh
army chaplain John saltmarsh: rather than equating radical with popular culture,
w.a
ww
‘radical ideas and texts’ need to be situated within ‘the context of a continuous
m
co
interaction between humanist and vernacular, “elite” and “popular”, traditions’.

te.
ga
he maintains that ‘radical ideas’ can as easily be found in ‘mainstream political,

sh
w.a
ww
chapter on the poetics of biblical prophecy illustrates how a ‘radical discourse’

m
co
te.
could be fashioned from Judaic materials, in this instance abiezer Coppe’s

ga
sh
w.a
ww
scriptural texts into a millenarian declamation which combined warnings about

m
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
with ‘a prophetic voice simultaneously imitative and radically new’. all of which
ww
also chimes with Jason Peacey’s claim that ‘radical ideas ... proved capable of
m
co
migrating into unexpected areas of the political nation, and across the political
te.
ga
sh
w.a
early modern radicalism was situational since it ‘was intrinsically conditioned

ww
by factors relating to time, place, author, and context, as well as literary form’.
m
co
te.
moreover, by demonstrating that ‘what was mundane in one moment and one
ga
sh
medium could be dangerous at another time and in a different context’, Peacey is

w.a
ww
able to suggest that ‘late 1640s “radicalism” became a phenomenon in some ways
m
co
te.
ga
99
Cf. edward Vallance, A Radical History of Britain. Visionaries, Rebels and
sh
w.a
Revolutionaries: The Men and Women who Fought for Our Freedoms
ww
Introduction 27
m
co
te.
ga
it is also noteworthy that a number of essays tend to focus on individuals
sh
w.a
ww
that gerrard Winstanley’s heterodox religious views were not an unexpected
m
co
te.
ga
sh
phases. hessayon argues that ‘the imprint of distinctive general Baptist tenets,
w.a
ww
m
for understanding the development of his ideas’ and that these are recoverable
co
te.
through reminiscences, citations, allusions, suggestive parallels and circumstantial
ga
sh
w.a
evidence. yet if Winstanley’s religious radicalism was more deep-rooted and of
ww
longer duration than the brief hiatus currently allowed by revisionists, then it
m
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
ww
m
co
radical: rather they could be radicalised or deradicalised by a combination of te.
ga
sh
personal experience and wider political, social, economic, intellectual, cultural

w.a
ww
m
co
symbiotic relationship between orthodoxy and heterodoxy brought out notably

te.
ga
in mcdowell’s discussion of how saltmarsh ‘forged his radical theology’, so

sh
w.a
radicalism was determined as much by hegemonic attitudes and constraints as

ww
its situational characteristics. thus hynes suggests that, in light of the religiously
m
co
‘moderate’ Boyse’s sensitivity to the treatment of dissenters, ‘it was often the
te.
ga
sh
w.a
of radicalism and orthodoxy’. similarly, although a leading exponent of the

ww
m
‘radical enlightenment’, Collins repeatedly hid his identity when ‘intervening

co
te.
in the theological, philosophical and political controversies of his age’ so that to

ga
sh
all intents and purposes his public life was largely uneventful. hone too, once ‘a
w.a
ww
m
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
given our contributors’ interest in printed texts, it is worth observing that

ww
the Cambridge Platonists, Boyse, thoresby and Collins were bibliophiles, while
m
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
ww
m
in this collection, including Coppe, saltmarsh and Winstanley. according to

co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
ww
that the core of Calvert’s authorial stable can be considered ‘an offshoot of the
m
co
“radical” wing of the reformation’ and that at the height of the english revolution
te.
ga
sh
w.a
ww
and religious toleration from a shared antinomian and spiritualist standpoint’.
m
moreover, through ‘unity and diversity, publicity and political capability’,
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
ww
m
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
ww
contexts and tracing these texts’ intermittent afterlives have together often formed
m
co
te.
ga
sh
that the canonical english radical tradition is no longer viable as an historical
w.a
ww
enterprise, hessayon has nonetheless suggested that ‘it is fruitful to consider
m
the diggers as an offshoot from the main branch of the general Baptists, with
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
that for all the resonances and parallels between Winstanley, his contemporaries
ww
m
co
te.
ga
material for radical discourses in suitable contexts. similarly, mcelligott accepts

sh
w.a
ww
m
for which radicals in each and every age struggled against the same, unchanging
co
te.
enemy’. even so, he stresses ‘that radicals of the english revolution and the
ga
sh
early-nineteenth century (and, one suspects, radicals in every other era of human
w.a
ww
m
co
is more, although ‘all traditions – whether radical or conservative, left or right

te.
ga
– are shaped, moulded and manufactured’, that does not in mcelligott’s view
sh
w.a
ww
in his examination of Protestant apocalyptic ideas after the revolution of 1688–

m
co
te.
89, arguing that all the main elements of early- and mid-seventeenth century
ga
sh
apocalyptic thought were still present. in addition, he notes that apocalyptic

w.a
ww
m
by mainstream anglicans and moderate dissenters. Consequently, for Johnston as

co
te.
well, context is paramount: ‘a belief can be either radical or not depending on the
ga
sh
w.a
purpose to and the circumstances within which it is used’.

ww
interpreting signs of god’s providence and apocalyptic rhetoric connects

m
co
Johnston’s essay with Jim smyth’s exploration of english republican empire-

te.
ga
building. going beyond the conventional emphasis ‘on immediate political and
sh
w.a
military contingencies as the thrust behind english expansion in 1649–53’, smyth

ww
argues that Protestant providentialists, classical republicans and defenders of de

m
co
te.
facto political authority, among others, shared ‘an ingrained and impregnable sense
ga
sh
of english superiority’ that more often than not was underpinned by their ‘belief
w.a
ww
in england’s destiny as an elect nation’. again, context – the supposed military

m
threat posed by ireland, anti-popery, the desire to avenge the 1641 massacres and
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
The
ww
Introduction 29
Commonwealth of Oceana
m
co
republic for preservation and found an “immortal commonwealth”’. as smyth
te.
ga
reminds us, it was machiavelli in his Discourses on Livy that distinguished
sh
w.a
ww
clearly favouring the former. machiavelli brings us to stefano Villani’s chapter
m
co
te.
on the widespread italian interest in the english revolution. overwhelmingly
ga
sh
and unambiguously sympathetic to the defeated royalists, italian diplomats and
w.a
ww
m
co
te.
a ruse intended to disguise political ambitions, commentators were nonetheless
ga
sh
w.a
‘astonished by the proliferation of sects in england’. Curious travellers enumerated
ww
these with wonder in textual equivalents of curiosity cabinets, while certain
m
co
heresiographers compiled baroque bestiaries of the spirit that were ultimately
te.
ga
derived from thomas edwards’s Gangraena
sh
w.a
ww
blows to dismember polities and so, vindicated in their belief that these were the
m
co
rotten fruits of separation from rome’s spiritual authority, they too warned of te.
ga
sh
the dangers of introducing religious toleration. furthermore, when confronted by

w.a
ww
m
co
governing elites frequently dismissed them as extravagant, deluded and ignorant

te.
ga
proselytisers.
sh
w.a
the ‘enormous distance that separated revolutionary england from Counter-

ww
reformation italy’ draws our attention to the question of whether the english
m
co
experience was exceptional, since the prevailing view is that what mainly
te.
ga
sh
distinguished the english revolution from baronial revolts, religious wars,

w.a
rebellions and the ‘general crisis’ destabilising mid-seventeenth-century ireland,

ww
m
france, Catalonia, Portugal, naples and elsewhere, was radicalism. We hope

co
te.
that, despite this volume’s anglocentric focus, there are enough indications of
ga
sh
transnational contexts – the transmission of texts in their original language or

w.a
ww
m
co
te.
ga
varieties of irish and scottish radicalism, but on continental european variants as

sh
w.a
ww
both within and beyond the chronological span of this collection. finally, because
m
co
te.
the conference from which this volume derives aimed to offer new perspectives
ga
sh
on radicals and radicalisms, and because its aspirations are explorative rather than
w.a
ww
m
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
ww
gone against the spirit of this enterprise. the essays have therefore been presented
m
co
te.
ga
sh
w.a
done on radicals and radicalism in early modern england and beyond.

ww

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The Meaning of Words and the Problem of Anachronism

modern period, was used particularly in philosophy, astrology and philology.

essence of a person or thing.1 as Conal Condren has observed, however, radical

uprooting – that ‘radicalism’ was coined by Jeremy Bentham. nor was it a

characteristic of radicals but thoroughness of method as well. Condren’s point

neologisms such as milton’s ‘pandemonium’ would only complicate matters. it

author of the Quixote

of post-structuralism, and its impact on historical and literary studies, it is an

The Works of Jeremy Bentham

political thought: a case of sandwich islands syndrome’, History of Political Thought, 10

The Politics of Language in Seventeenth-Century England

English Radicalism, 1550–1850 (Cambridge,

‘radicalism and the english revolution’, p. 63.

English Radicalism Ehud’s Dagger. Class Struggle in the

tumultuous sort of people’.8 dippers or anabaptists were blasphemous, confused,

distinctions and private ownership of property, of levelling men’s estates and

magistrates, disparaging accounts of their assemblies conveying chaotic scenes of

employed in a polemical context, must necessarily be synonymous with what we

English Radicalism, pp. 87–94.

bleed, – he will eradiCate, – he will be a radiCal.

a radicalism ... which is only to be called radicalism inasmuch as it does not

palter nor compromise with evils, but cuts at their roots.12

Cromohs Virtual Seminars, 1, http://

destruction of what is hated, and its replacement by an art, a faith, a science or a

explaining that radicalism’s function was to transform a normal, common-sense

in Bittner’s opinion, ensuring an individual’s ideological purity and continued

membership in an organised radical movement was achieved by the group’s

English Radicalism, p. 218.

n. rotenstreich, ‘on radicalism’, Philosophy of the Social Sciences

American Political Science Association

Radicals, an Historical Sketch

always to be relative and context-bound’.21

these philosophical and sociological perspectives offer an interesting and

studies. for sixteenth-century europe the most important contribution was

‘magisterial reformation’ and a ‘radical reformation’. the latter was ‘a loosely

interrelated congeries of reformations and restitutions’ which grouped together

the various types of anabaptists, spiritualists and evangelical rationalists all of

they regarded as the suffocating growth of ecclesiastical tradition and magisterial

prerogative’. Williams’s etymologically precise construction had grown out of

an earlier terminology favoured by roland Bainton that discerned a ‘left wing of

e. Bittner, ‘radicalism and the organization of radical movements’, American

International Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences

International Encyclopedia of the Social &

of Modern Social Thought

denominators as well as essential points of divergence, hillerbrand concluded

that a radical – or as he preferred, ‘alternate’ – reformation occurred because

denominational concerns to accommodate growing historical awareness of the

social and cultural impact of religion.26

Illustrative of the Radical Reformation

since 1939’, CH The Radical Reformation (3rd edn,

reformation’, Journal of Religion

Covariation?’, Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies

Radical Tendencies in the Reformation: Divergent Perspectives, special issue of Sixteenth

Century Essays & Studies Radical

Radical Tendencies, pp. 28–30, 40–41.

a return to the state of nature.28

terms radical and radicalism in a seventeenth-century english context have provided

a heated debate about the appropriateness of certain labels to describe political

national church on religious principles, and others – levellers, diggers, fifth

and Political Science Puritanism and

Parliamentarians, classical republicans, levellers, diggers and religious radicals

institutionalized, established religion and theology’.33

Change and Continuity in Seventeenth-Century England

Hessayon, A. & Finnegan, D. 'Reappraising Early Modern Radicalism'

Hessayon, A. & Finnegan, D. 'Reappraising Early Modern Radicalism'