Category Archives: liberty

England: the mother of modern politics

I was tempted to entitle this essay “England – the mother of modern democracy” because  the political structures of any state which calls itself democratic today owe their general shape to the English example. In addition, many modern dictatorships have considered it expedient to maintain the form of representative democracy without the content.

But democracy is a slippery word and what we call by that name is very far removed from what the Greeks knew as democracy. The Greeks would probably have described our system as oligarchy – rule by the few. Many modern academics would agree, for they tend to describe representative government as elective oligarchy, a system by which the electorate is permitted to select between competing parts of the political elite every few years, but which has little other direct say in how they are governed.  It is also true that England developed her political system not on the basis of democracy but on notions of who needed to be represented and by criteria such as property qualifications.

If democracy today is a debatable concept, the very widespread modern institution of elected representative government is an objective fact. Elected representative government is an institution of the first importance, for it is a truism that the more power is shared the less abusive the holders of the power will be. Imperfect as it may often be as a reflector of the will and interests of the masses, representative government is still by far the most efficient means of controlling the naturally abusive tendencies of elites and of advancing the interests of the ordinary man or woman, by imposing limits on what those with power may do, either through legal restraints in the form of constitutional law which is superior to that of the legislature, or through fear of losing office in an election. Indeed, no system of government other  than elected representative government manages that even in principle as they all fail to place meaningful restraints on an elite.

Whether democratic or not in the Greek sense, representative government is undoubtedly the only reliable and non-violent means by which the democratic will may gain at least some purchase on the behaviour of an elite. Yet however much utility it has an organising political idea, the fact that we have representative government today is something of a fluke for if  it had  not developed in England we should probably not have it all. In the non-European world nothing of its nature ever developed before the Western model was imported and in Europe the many nascent parliaments of the later Middle Ages either never went beyond the  embryonic form of assemblies which offered advice to and petitioned monarchs or were crushed or simply ignored by autocratic rulers,  for example the Estates-General of France were not called between 1614 and 1789.  By contrast, England has  had continuous parliamentary development for the better part of eight centuries.

The  distinction of the English parliament is not that it  is  the oldest such assembly in the  world (although it is one of  the  oldest),  nor that it was  unusual at its inception  for parliaments  were widespread in mediaeval Europe. The English parliament’s uniqueness lies in the fact that from the first it served roughly the area covered by England today  – no other mediaeval parliament corresponded to the territory of any national state existing today –  its longevity  and the nature of its development. No  other  parliament in a country of any size was meaningfully maintained by  regular  meeting through seven  or  eight  centuries, its only competitors for endurance  being the tiny Icelandic  assembly and the federal arrangements of the Swiss.  Most importantly, before  England  created  such an  institution to  act  as  a model,  no  other parliament in the world developed  into  an fully fledged executive – practising what we know today as cabinet government – as well as a legislature.

The  English  parliament  made a very gradual  progression to the  place  we know today. It  began  as an  advising and  petitioning  body in the 13th century  and  before the end of the  14th  century had come  to exercise  considerable  power  over  any taxation which was considered over and  above the king’s  normal  and  rightful  dues, such  as  the  excise. 

Gradually, this power  transmuted into what was effectively  veto  over  most taxation.  Parliament  also added the  power to propose  and pass  laws subject to their acceptance by the  monarch.  These  developments  meant  that executive  power  gradually  drained  from the King. From  this came cabinet government as the monarch was more and more forced to take  the advice of his ministers and by the end of the  18th century  the  struggle  between  Crown  and  Parliament for  supremacy had been emphatically decided.

As the  Parliament  gained  power, the  Lords gradually diminished in importance and  the Commons became by the  latter half of the 18th century, if not before, the  dominant House, although its power of obstructing Commons Bills other than money Bills lasted till 1911.   The  final  act in the play  was  a  century long extension of the  franchise culminating  in  a government dominated  by  an  assembly elected under full adult  suffrage from 1928 onwards.

By  1600 Parliament  had become important  enough  to  the governing  of  the country  for  Guy Fawkes and  his fellow plotters to think it necessary  to  blow up Parliament rather  than  simply killing the king and his  ministers. In  any  other  major  European  country of the time, the  idea of  destroying  Parliamentary  representatives  rather than  just  the  monarch and his more powerful friends would have  seemed rather odd,  either because a parliament did not exist or was  considered of little account because  European monarchs had by then  been  generally very successful in abolishing  or  curtailing  the  powers  of  mediaeval assemblies  and  preventing  their  political development.

A corrupted Parliament

Parliament,  although growing in power and ambition,  was suffering the ills of any ancient institution.  There  were accretions  of privilege and it had failed to keep pace  with the  changing  times. In 1600 it  neither  represented  the country  as  it was not  satisfied the  growing wish  of  its members,  especially the elected ones, to have a greater  say in the  management  of  England, or at least to restrict the power of the monarch considerably.   This dissatisfaction eventually escalated into the  English Civil War, an event which forced the Parliamentary side to assume  sole executive power  whilst continuing to govern through Parliament. This created the blueprint for Parliament to move from being a legislature to a legislature with an executive within it which was responsible to Parliament.  (The Civil War also gave birth to a short-lived but  powerful  proto-democratic movement  given the derogatory name of Levellers by their enemies.  Had the Levellers  succeeded – and for a couple of years they loomed large in  Parliamentary thoughts because of their wide support amongst the Roundhead Army – England might have had a Parliament far more representative than that  elected after the Great Reform Act of 1832.  But they failed and after   Cromwell’s  establishment  of  the  Protectorate,  democratic ideas  did not gain  serious political currency in  England for  more  than  a  century. )

The Restoration in 1660 did not result in serious legal  abridgements of  the  power  of the monarch, but  Charles  II  was  in practice  much  restricted  by  a  Parliament  unwilling to adequately open  the purse strings for a monarch  who,   ironically,  was expected to do more and more as the formal power of the state grew.  It was in this period that political parties in the modern sense have their beginnings, with the names of Tory and Whig emerging from their origins as derogatory epithets to become the names of the two parties who were to dominate English and from 1707 politics until the latter half of the 19th century.     

The “Glorious  Revolution” of  1689 produced a true constitutional sea-change.  From then on the English  monarch ascended  the throne only with the acceptance  of  Parliament and  the  Bill of Rights (1690) placed  restrictions  on  the monarch.  Amongst  the  long list of things  the  king  was forbidden to do were:

Dispense with and suspend of laws,  and the execution  of  laws, without consent of  parliament.

Levy money for and to the use of the crown,  by  pretence of prerogative,  for another time,  and in other  manner, than the  same was granted by parliament.

To raise and keep a standing army within England  in time of peace,  without consent of parliament,  and quartering soldiers contrary to 4.

To  violate the freedom  of election of members to  serve in parliament.

To  demand excessive  bail of  persons  committed  in criminal  cases,  “to elude the benefit of the laws  made for the  liberty of the subjects.”

To impose  excessive  fines and  illegal  and cruel  punishments.

The abuses of power by the crown listed in the Bill of Rights  are  described  as being ” utterly and directly  contrary  to  the  known  laws and statutes, and freedom  of  this  realm.”   That old reliance on the law and the traditional freedoms  of  the Englishman.

From 1689  began the century long decline of the monarchy  as an executive power.  Cabinet government  gradually emerged in the course of  the 18th century and although George III attempted to revive the executive power of the monarch, the American War of Independence  and the loss of the American colonies sealed the subordination  of  the monarchy to Parliament.

Americans  forged  a  new version  of  the  English  political  model,  with  a  formal separation  of powers and a written constitution to  restrict what governments and legislatures might do. For King, Lords and Commons, read President, Senate and   House of Representatives; for the English Bill of Rights of 1690 read the US constitution.   The novelties, compared to England, was the removal of the executive from the legislature,  the creation of constitutional law which was superior to ordinary law and a Supreme Court whose purpose was to ensure that the actions of President and Congress were compatible with the constitution.  

The received academic opinion on the  American constitutional settlement is that it was primarily the offspring of John Locke’s political philosophy. In fact, it had at least as much  affinity  with the  ideas  of the Levellers. There is no direct intellectual link,  but the most important popular propagandist on the American side, the Englishman  Tom Paine,  shared much of his ideology with  the  Levellers. The  Constitution is a balancing act between Locke  and Paine, granting  a large degree of popular  involvement  in politics,  whilst  tempering  it with  restrictions  such  as  electoral  colleges and granting through the Bill  of  Rights  (which was inspired by the English Bill of Rights of  1690) constitutional  protections  for the individual  against  the  state.

If the American  Revolution  owed its  shape  and inspiration  to England, the French Revolution was inspired by both English constitutional development and the  America revolutionary example. Most political  revolutions  resulting in  an  attempt at representative  government,  have been  touched,  consciously or not, by the legacy of the American and French revolutions. 

England through control of the British Empire, ensured that the Westminster  model of government was  transplanted  with widely differing success,  to approximately  a quarter of the   world’s population,  when the empire dissolved in the  twenty years after 1945. 

The astonishing  upshot of the English example,  the American and French Revolutions and the British Empire, is that  the political structures of most modern states are broadly  based on  the English constitution of King, Lords  and Commons, the  overwhelming majority having  a  head of state  plus two assemblies.  In addition,  the widespread practice of a  written  constitution derives from the example of the  United  States,  which of course drew its form and inspiration from   English  settlements in North America, English history  and  political practices. These political structures  apply as  readily to  dictatorships as they do to liberal democracies. 

Of course, the  balance  of  power between the  head of state and the  assemblies varies widely and there is  much difference between Parliamentary and Presidential government, but  they all  have  their ultimate origin in the example  of the English system of representative government.

One last thing.  Look around the world.  How many countries can be  said  even  today to have  accepted elected representative  government  and  the rule of law as  a  banal fact of life, the norm of their society?  Britain,  the  USA, Australia, Canada, New Zealand  certainly,  Switzerland and Scandinavia  possibly.  But where else?  Not France which  as  recently  as  1958 overthrew the  Fourth  Republic. Not Germany which embraced Hitler  nor Italy  the  land  of Mussollini.  Not  Spain  so  recently loosed from Franco.  As for the rest of the world, that tells a sorry tale of  elites who  generally have  such  a  lack  of respect  for the individual and a  contempt  for the masses that the  idea  of shared power  with and for the people  is simply  alien  to them.

The  fact  that the only really  stable examples  of  elected representative  government  in countries of any size  are  in  those countries  which  have their  origins  in English colonisation  strongly suggests that  it was no accident that it was in England that the institution evolved. There  must be something highly unusual about English society for it both to  develop in a manner so different from any other  country and to export this rare and valuable  difference to those  colonies which were firmly rooted in English manners and customs.

English liberty and the Peasants’ Revolt

Nothing  demonstrates the Englishman’s  long held lack of deference  and desire to be his own man better than the Peasants’  Revolt in 1381. General resentment  of  privilege  and  particular  hostility  to  the imposition  of  a  tax  (the  Poll Tax) considered  to  be both unreasonable  and illegitimate,  was given  unambiguous  voice.  For  a brief period the  fog  of  obscurity which  ordinarily  covers  the  masses  in  the mediaeval world  clears. A remarkable  scene meets the  eye for we find not a cowed and servile people but a robust  cast of  rebels  who far from showing respect  for  their  betters display  a  mixture of contempt and hatred for everyone  in  authority bar the boy-king Richard II.

Perhaps  most surprising to the modern reader is the  extreme  social radicalism of their demands which might,  without  too  much exaggeration,  be described as a demand for  a classless society.  The  Revolt may have had its origins in  the  hated Poll  Tax  but it soon developed into a series  of  general political demands. One  of  the  revolt’s  leaders, the  hedge-priest John Ball, reputedly preached “  Things cannot go  right in England  and never will until goods are held  in common  and there are no more villeins and gentlefolk but  we are  all  one  and  the  same”, and the  anonymous  and  revolutionary  couplet “When Adam delved and Eve span/who was then  the gentleman?”  was in men’s mouths.  The  mediaeval chronicler Jean Froissart  has Ball preaching:

Are we not descended from the same parents, Adam and Eve? And  what can they sow or what reason can they give why they  should be more masters than ourselves?  They  are  clothed  in velvet and rich stuffs ornamented in  ermine and  other  furs while  we  are  forced  to  wear  poor  clothing.  They have wines and fine bread while  we  have  only rye and refuse of straw and when we drink it must be water. They have handsome manors…while we must have the wind  and rain in our labours in the field and it  is  by  our  labours that  they…support their  pomp.  We  are called slaves  and if we do perform  our services  we are beaten and  we  have  no  sovereign to  whom  we  can complain…let  us go to the King  and remonstrate  with him; he is young  and from him we may obtain a favourable answer,  and if not we must seek to amend our  conditions ourselves. (Simon Schama  A History of Britain p 248)

Whether  or not these  words  bore any resemblance to  Ball’s actual words,  whether or not  they were black propaganda (on behalf  of  the  elite)  by Froissart  to  show  the  dangers society  faced  from  the  Revolt,  we  may  note  that the sentiments are  compatible with the demands  made by  the rebels in 1381.

When  the Kentish men  led by Wat Tyler,  an Essex man, met the  14-year-old king Richard at Mile End  on 14  June,  they demanded  an  end to serfdom and a flat rent of  4  pence  an acre.  The  king  granted the plea.  When the  king  met  the  rebels  a second time Tyler shook the king’s hand and  called him  “brother”. Tyler demanded a new Magna  Carta  for  the common people which would have  ended serfdom,  pardoned  all outlaws, liquidated all church property  and declared  that all men below the king were equal,  in effect abolishing  the peerage and gentry. Richard, much to the rebels’  surprise, accepted  the  demands,  although  cunningly  qualifying  the acceptance  “saving  only the regality of the crown”.  A  few minutes later Tyler  was  mortally wounded, supposedly after he had attempted to attack a young esquire in the royal  party who had  called him a thief. His death signalled  the beginning of  the end of the  revolt for without  Tyler  the Revolt  lost direction and  those who  remained  willing  to resist were pacified in the next few weeks.

During the Revolt the rebels  did not  run riot, but acted in a controlled  manner, attacking  the  property of tax collectors, other  important  royal servants and  any property belonging to the king’s uncle,  John of Gaunt. Any identifiable Exchequer document was ripe for destruction.  

The revolt  began in  Essex when  the commissioners attempting  to  collect  the Poll Tax were  surrounded  by  a  hostile  crowd  on 30 May 1381.  Physical threats  were  made  against  one  of the commissioners,  and  the  commissioners retreated  from the immediate task  of attempting to  collect the tax.  This  brought in the Chief Justice  of the  Court of Common Pleas to restore order. He was captured by an  even larger  crowd  and made to  swear on oath that  no  further  attempt  would  be made to collect the  tax  the  area. The  names of informers  who  had provided  names to the commissioners was discovered and the culprits beheaded.

The spirit of rebellion soon spread. By 2 June a  crowd  in the village of Bocking  had sworn  that they would “have  no law  in England except only as  they themselves moved  to  be  ordained.” 

The rebellion  had infected Kent by the end of the first week in June.  By the time Wat Tyler,  an Essex man by birth,  had  been elected to lead the Kentish  men  the demand was for the heads  of the king’s uncle John of Gaunt,  the Archbishop  of Canterbury Simon Sudbury and the Treasurer Sir Robert  Hales. After Tyler’s first meeting with Richard,  Sudbury and  Hales were  captured and beheaded by the rebels. No deference  or want of ambition there.

The  extent  to  which the Revolt frightened  the  crown  and nobility can be seen in the violence of Richard’s words  when he addressed  another group of rebels at Walthamstow on  22 June,  by  which  time the danger was felt  to  have  largely passed:

You wretches,  detestable on land and sea ;  you who seek equality  with  lords  are unworthy to  live.  Give  this message to your colleagues.  Rustics you were and rustics you are still:  you will remain in bondage  not as before  but incomparably  harsher. For as long as we live we will  strive  to  suppress you ,  and your misery  will  be  an example  in  the eyes of posterity .  How ever,  we  will spare your lives if you remain faithful. Choose now which you want to follow .  (Simon Schama  A History of Britain p 254 )

The roots of English democracy

The beginnings of English democratic thought

 Contents

INTRODUCTION

THE FRANCHISE BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR

THE DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE

PHILOSOPHICAL AND OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

SERVANTS AND ALMSTAKERS

CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION

The Civil War changed English politics utterly. It brought the end of claims by the English crown to Divine Right and absolute monarchy. It promoted the political interests of the aristocracy and gentry as a class. It forced those on the Parliamentary side to effectively exercise power on their own responsibility. It created a political class which saw politics as something they could control rather than merely be part of as a adjunct to the crown. It began the constitutional process which resulted in cabinet government. It laid the foundations for the formation of political parties. In short, it sowed seeds of modern representative government.

But something else occurred which was to be even more momentous in the long run. It was during the 1640s that the belief that men should only be ruled by those they had themselves elected first became a serious political idea, not merely in England but anywhere. Amazing as it may seem now, the idea that every man (but not woman) should have an active voice in choosing those who would represent and govern them was a novel concept in the middle of the 17th  century. A form of male-only democracy existed in the ancient world, but it was never inclusive because the citizens were always greatly outnumbered by the unfree and other non-citizens.

Why was the idea of every man being an elector so revolutionary? The enfranchisement of a wide electorate is perhaps the most fundamental political change a society can undergo. It forces the elite to take note of the masses in a way that no other system does. Even the humblest man must be considered as a man in his own right, a person with a vote and needs and wishes. Those needs and wishes may be heeded and met to varying degrees, but what the majority needs and wants cannot be ignored completely when each man has a vote.

The democratic spirit was surprisingly widespread in the 1640s. By this I do not mean that men were commonly calling for full manhood suffrage, much less the emancipation of women. Rather there was a sense that the social order had been rearranged by the war, that men were on some new ground of equality and had a right to a public voice. In particular, there was a feeling that those who had fought for Parliament had won the right to enfranchisement. There was also a more widespread feeling which penetrated all social classes that the existing franchises (which varied greatly) were frequently too narrow and that the towns, particularly those most recently grown to a decent size, were grossly under-represented.

The group which gave representation to democratic feelings most successfully was the Levellers. They were a disparate and ever shifting crew, drawing their support primarily from the ranks of the Parliamentary armed forces (especially after the New Model Army was formed), small tradesmen, journeymen and apprentices. However, they also included  those from higher social classes, their most famous leader, John Lilburne, being the child of minor gentry.

To call them a political party in the modern sense would be misleading. Yet they were the closest thing to it both then and arguably for several centuries. Their tactics and organisation were modern – the use of pamphletering and newspapers, the ability to get large number of supporters onto the streets (especially in London) at the drop of a hat, the creation of local associations. They also developed an increasingly sophisticated political programme in a series of documents known as The Agreements of the People. These Agreements dealt extensively with political representation and structure. The levellers were also very successful in creating an enemy and sense of grievance. They did this by portraying 1640s England as having declined from a golden age of freedom under the heel of the Normans and their French successors.

Led for the most part by a man of preternatural obstinacy, courage and unreasonableness, John Lilburne (“freeborn Jack”), the Levellers frightened the Parliamentary leaders sufficiently to force various negotiations and discussions. These culminated in the Putney Debates in 1647 when Parliamentary and Army leaders including, Cromwell and his son-in-law Henry Ireton, met with a variety of people on what might broadly be called the democratic side.  Unfortunately Lilburne was not able to attend. Nonetheless,the Leveller position was strongly represented. Most importantly, much of the debate was taken down in shorthand. It is a most intriguing document. The sheer range of political ideas it displays is impressive. It shows clearly that in the 1640s there was a very high degree of sophistication amongst the politically interested class. The ideas run from the monarchical to the unreservedly democratic. This document together with the Leveller pamphlets provide ample evidence of Leveller thinking.

How far did the Levellers reach in their search for political inclusion? Did they go the whole hog and seek a full manhood franchise or were they much more cautious? That is the question which I shall now examine with the aid of Prof C.B. Macpherson.

Macpherson contends in his ‘Theory of Possessive Individualism’ that the Levellers were  never advocates of universal manhood suffrage, but, rather, sought a  restricted franchise which excluded servants (to be equated with wage-earners) and almstakers (or beggars).

He is extremely emphatic in his conclusions. As we shall see, there are substantial reasons for doubting his certainty, both on the question of universal manhood suffrage and on the extent to which a more restricted suffrage was accepted by the Levellers.

To answer the question I shall begin by describing the  attitude  taken towards the franchise before the  Levellers.

I will then cover, in much the same order as  Macpherson, the documentary evidence he puts before us.

Having done this, I shall examine the philosophy he attributes to the Levellers in order to explain their  motivations and to bring forth  any  further evidence and observations.  

Lastly, I will deal with the definition of servants and almstakers,  plus the  nature of Macpherson’s statistics.

 Chapter 1

 THE FRANCHISE BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR

Discontent with electoral qualifications, provisions and practices was not an infant of the Civil War and  its aftermath, although it was greatly increased by those events,  Rather it was the end of a trail which began in Elizabeth’s reign and reached  its highest pitch, prior to the 1640s, during the years 1621 to 1623.

The discontent was provoked primarily by the situation in the boroughs rather than the counties, Since 1430, the county electorate had been restricted to the forty shilling freeholder, which qualification had become almost sacrosanct by the end of the sixteenth century –  only one proposal outside the ‘Great Rebellion’ (1621) was made to raise or lower it.  Tudor inflation had  greatly lowered the barrier it represented (40 shillings in 1600 was worth perhaps 15 shillings at 1430 values) and it is reasonable  to suppose this considerably increased the rural electorate. Also, there is evidence to suggest that the qualification was not always enforced1 and some county electorates may have had a very broad manhood franchise indeed prior to 1640.

Borough franchises were anything but uniform. In some the whole ‘commonalty’  (all householders) or  even all ‘potwallers’ (men with their own  hearths) voted. In others the vote was restricted to all taxpayers (‘scot and lot’), freemen of the town, or those in possession of burgage property. In extreme cases the vote might be restricted to the ruling corporation. Such discrepancies of representation were aggravated by a distribution of borough seats which took insufficient  account of the demographic changes of the past two centuries, during which time England’s population increased very substantially, perhaps by as much as a third. All this meant that there was fertile soil for agitation for more equal borough representation, both in terms of the breadth of the franchise and in the number of seats.

Tudor monarchs, not unnaturally, did not favour larger electorates2. The existence of ‘rotten boroughs’ was a source of patronage and, if the monarch could control the oligarchies who returned the MP, a means of reducing opposition to the Crown. As there was a significant number of such boroughs, this was no small advantage to the monarch.

The attitude of Parliament to the franchise was mixed. The Lords had a similar interest to the Crown in distrusting broad franchises. The peers often effectively controlled seats in the Commons. They also had a natural inclination to deny the ‘commonality’ any voice in the affairs of the kingdom. Conversely, it was obviously in the Commons’ interest to increase electorates, where such increases reduced the Monarch’s’ and the Lord’s opportunities for patronage.

There is particular evidence that the Puritans favoured larger electorates, at least in so far as it suited their own purposes. At Warwick in 1586 Job Throckmorton was  elected after he threatened to invoke the right of the ‘commonality to vote. In 1587 John Field remarked to  colleague ‘seeing we cannot compass these things by suit or dispute, it is the multitude and people that must  bring the discipline to pass which we desire.’3 As Puritans displaced many court nominees and the creatures of aristocrats, this is significant in view of  the attitude of the Commons towards electoral qualifications  between 1621 and 1628.

By 1621, the Commons had gained the right to decide disputed elections and to revive lapsed borough seats and  even make new creations, The tendency until 1628 was to  ecide in favour of wider franchise and to allow  all the ‘commonality’ to vote. At Bletchingly (1624) and Lewes (1628) ‘all the inhabitants ,’ were to be  electors’, and at Cirencester (1624) all ‘resients:’.  n the case of Pontefract in 1624 a general principle was formulated:

‘There being no certain custom nor prescription, who should be the electors and who not, we  must have recourse to common right which, to this purpose was held to be, that more than the  freeholders only ought to  have  voices  in the election, namely all men,  inhabitants,  householders resient within the borough.’4

Further, in the case of Boston (1628) it was asserted that the election of burgesses belonged by common right to the   commoners and only prescription or ‘a constant usage  beyond all memory’ could rob them of this.5

It is true that when the Commons revived or created borough  seats, they concentrated, as the Tudors had done, on small towns to promote their own advantage. But,  even so,  they granted ‘scot and lot’ franchises in every case (except Weobley) which meant  that even small towns such as Great Marlow or Hilbourne Port had electorate of around 200.

Bills  were  introduced to  regulate  elections and standardise, the franchise in 1621, 1623, 1625, 1628  and 1640, The 1621 Bill is of particular interest because it proposed that the 40/- freeholder qualification be increased to œ4 and to admit œ10 copyholders by  inheritance. The borough proposals add no more than the various decisions on individual cases (in fact even less), for electors were to be freemen except where they numbered less than twenty-four, in which case all  inhabitants  not in receipt of alms were to be included,

In 1640 the franchise was raised again by Sir Simonds D’Ewes. It was he who first uttered the idea later made famous by Thomas Rainsborough ‘that the poorest man in England ought to have a voice, that it was the birthright of the subjects of England and all had voices in the election of Knights etc. previously.’6

In 1641 a bill had reached second reading but was then lost. D’Ewes favoured its contents except that he ‘desired that whereas it was provided in the bill that none that took alms should have voices in elections, which I well allowed, we would  likewise provide that no more monopolizing elections might be in cities and boroughs, that all men resients might have voices.’7

It is also noteworthy, both for its own sake and the part it played in Leveller literature, that many believed that the Statute of 1430 had disenfranchised  people. William May, in 1621, said ‘Anciently, all thecommonality had voice, but because such a multitude made the election tumultuous, it was after reduced to freeholders’.  William Prynne put it even more plainly, ‘Before this  Petition and Act every inhabitant and commoner in each county had voice in the election of Knights, whether he were a freeholder or not, or had a freehold only of one penny, six pence or twelve pence by the year as they now claim of late in most cities and boroughs where popular elections are admitted’8. It is a sobering thought that if the Statute of 1430 did disenfranchise large numbers of county electors, the county franchise may have been wider in medieval England than it was to be again before the end of the nineteenth century and conceivably wider than the Franchise before the 1918 Representation of the People Act.

What  of the position of servants,  wage-earners and almstakers in all this? Resident household servants were generally considered beyond the pale, although  ‘servants’ were said to have voted in the Worcestershire county election of 1604. Wage-earners certainly did so, for those in the ‘potwaller’ and ‘scot and lot’ constituencies were granted the right to vote. Almstakers were excluded in the 1621 and 1640 bills, yet at Great Marlow in 1604 77 of the 245 voters were said to be almstakers, nine of  them inmates of the almshouse. In 1640 the right of the Bember inmates to vote was said to have been sustained  and in 1662 the St. Albans almsmen were said to have ‘had voices time out of mind’.

It is clear from all this, that the Levellers did not enter untilled ground when they broached the question of the franchise. There are also, for our purposes, three points of particular interest. First, the Commons,  or at least an influential  part of it,  was not unduly disturbed by the prospect of an enlarged electorate. Second, people whom Macpherson claims the Levellers would have excluded – servants and almstakers – were ncluded in the franchise long before the Civil War. Third, that there existed even gentlemen (such as Sir Simonds D’Ewes) who had an active and unambiguous democratic spirit. The latter point is particularly pertinent because the chief Leveller, John Lilburne, was also of gentle-birth, a fact he never ceased to emphasise. Democratic ideas were not thus foreign bodies suddenly introduced by the Levellers.

 Notes

 I. K. Thomas. The Levellers and the Franchise answer p.62

 2. J.H, Plunb. The Growth of the electorate 1600-1715

 3. Ibid

 4. Ibid

 5 K. Thomas, The Levellers and the Franchise p.62

 6. Ibid p.63

 7. Ibid p.64

 8 Ibid p.64

Chapter 2

THE DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE

The roots of Macpherson’s conclusions lie in the Putney Debates. Prior to Putney, the franchise received relatively little attention in Leveller writings, Those statements which do exist do not explicitly exclude servants and almstakers, and have the appearance of demands for universal  manhood suffrage.  Post  Putney  statements on the other hand consistently advocate, for whatever reason, the exclusion of servants and almstakers. The evidence  of  the Putney  debates provides  Macpherson  with his main means of resolving, at least to his mind, this apparent inconsistency.

The question of the franchise occupied most of the second day’s debate at Putney. The first article of the (First) Agreement demanded ‘That the People of England,.,. ought to be more indifferently proportioned according to the number of inhabitants.’ This provoked Cromwell’s son-in-law, Henry Ireton to say:

‘The exception that lies in it is this. It is said, they are to be distributed according to the number of  inhabitants, ‘The People of England’ etc. And this  doth make me think that the meaning is that every man that is an inhabitant is to be equally considered, and to have an equal voice in the election of those representors, the persons that are for the general representative…’2

Thus Ireton, whatever his motives, charges the Levellers atthe earliest possible opportunity, with seeking universal suffrage. Petty is the first Leveller to answer: ‘We judge that all inhabitants that have not lost their birthright should have an equal voice in elections’,3

Macpherson thinks it significant that Petty does not state in plain words whether he is for or against universal suffrage. Yet why should he have felt obliged to do so? Ireton has asked a plain question and Petty’s reply, no matter what construction is put upon the phrase ‘all inhabitants that have not lost their birthright’, is an adequate and reasonable answer. Surely more significant is the fact that those with Leveller sympathies did not recoil from the suggestion with horror. However, there is a note of ambiguity in Petty’s answer and it is possible, as A.L.Morton suggests4, that Rainsborough’s famous speech which follows immediately (the poorest he that is in England etc.)5 was intended to clarify the situation.

But by far the most significant passage for Macpherson occurs when the debate has turned to considering the particulars rather than the general issue of the franchise, Cromwell in what appears to be a state of some impatience suddenly says:

‘If we should go about to alter these things, I do not think we are bound to fight  for every  particular  proposition. Servants while servants, are not included. Then you agree that  he that receive alms is to be excluded?’

The first to reply is Lt. Col. Thomas Reade, who, although more progressive in spirit than Cromwell, was no Leveller:

 ’I  suppose it’s concluded by all,  that  the  choosing of representatives is a privilege: now I see no reason why any man that is a native ought to be excluded that privilege, unless  from  voluntary  servitude.’ ‘

 Then follow the critical words of Petty:

 ’I  conceive  the reason why we would exclude  apprentices or servants, or those who take alms,  because they depend upon the will of other  men and should be afraid to displease (them). For servants and apprentices, they are included in their master, and so for those  that receive alms from door to door’6

This passage is remarkable for a number of reasons. First, Cromwell assumes general agreement  that servants were to be excluded, although, up to this point in the debate, there appears little, if any, justification for doing so. This may indeed support  Macpherson’s contention that all parties, including, the Levellers were strong for exclusion. But there  are  alternative explanations. Cromwell’s impatience may have got the better of him  and he could have made such a statement in order to  browbeat any opposition. It is after all a common debating trick, and we have ample evidence from Putney and elsewhere that Cromwell was prone to behaving in a domineering and high-handed manner.

Second, what of Petty’s reply? In the first place it may merely be as J.C. Davis7 suggests, a statement of what Petty considered the grounds on which Cromwell would advocate exclusion, rather than an endorsement of them. Alternatively, if we accept that Petty was in agreement with Cromwell, which might be suggested by the alacrity of his reply, other considerations  rise. Macpherson considers Petty to have been the main Leveller spokesman at Putney and by implication, fully representative of Leveller opinion.

This is a dangerous road to travel. Petty, apart from his appearance  at Putney  and on a number of Leveller-Independent committees, was a somewhat obscure figure in the Leveller camp, Perhaps significantly, he was involved in the drafting of the compromise Second Agreement and in later years became a member of Harrington’s aristocratic-republican Rota Club.8 None of this of course does more than suggest that Petty may have been less than representative of Leveller thought, particularly that of Overton and Lilburne.

Petty may have been an opportunist willing to support a movement whose aims and ideals he did not necessarily consider sacrosanct but merely convenient. Or he may have turned his coat  when the movement  failed.  Whatever the truth of the matter, we may join with A.L. Morton in wishing that if Lilburne had been at Putney and in thinking that the position might well be clearer if he had been able to do so.

Then there is the position of Rainsborough at Putney, where he unambiguously embraced adult manhood suffrage. It is true that Rainsborough had, as far as is known, no direct connection with the Levellers prior to Putney, but his sympathies were clearly with the Levellers and he enjoyed a considerable reputation in the Party after Putney, His contribution to the franchise debate was by far the most forceful  on the Leveller side (in the sense that Rainsborough agreed with the Leveller arguments rather than those of Cromwell et al) and greatly outweighed that of Petty. If Rainsborough’s ideas were so acceptable to Levellers after Putney, why not before and during Putney?

Macpherson uses Petty’s reply to Cromwell as a springboard to launch his theory. He  admits that  further sustaining evidence to support his proposition is necessary. The says quite correctly, that Levellers did believe that the right to elect could be forfeited by (freeborn) men. Up until Putney, delinquency was commonly cited as being sufficient reason, However, it must be remembered that the Levellers were in favour of reconciliation with the royalists (delinquents). The fact that they proposed to exclude them for a relatively short period of time from the franchise, (provided their behaviour was satisfactory)is scarcely surprising, for the situation was exceptional. It is reasonable to see such exclusion as simply an extraordinary measure to settle the country after a civil war. One would be very rash to assume that this attitude was indicative of Leveller opinion in general on the loss of birthright.

Macpherson  continues by quoting the  franchise  clause (section ll) of the Petition of January 1648:

‘Whereas  it hath been the ancient liberty of this  nation, that all the  freeborn  people have freely elected their representers  in Parliament,  and their sheriffs and Justices of the Peace, etc. and they were abridged of that their native liberty by a statute of the 8.H.6,7. That, therefore, the birthright of all English  men be forthwith restored to all which are not,  or shall not be legally disenfranchised for some  criminal  cause,  or are under 21 years of age, or servants or beggars .’9

Of this Macpherson says there could scarcely be a clearer indication that the Levellers assumed that those who became servants or beggars thereby forfeited their birthright to a voice in elections (p.124). We may well agree that at this time the Levellers were willing to do so, but as the whole point of Macpherson’s task is to establish a consistency in Leveller thinking, we are really no further down the path of enlightenment. If the Levellers from Putney onward did compromise at various points, it does not prove that they wished for anything other than a full manhood suffrage. More probably, such compromises are simply reluctant adjustments to the political realities of the time.

The  seems to be on firmer ground when he turns to a letter sent from several Agitators of the Army to their respective Regiments (llth November, 1647) concerning the franchise debate at Putney. This tells us that ‘it was concluded by vote in the affirmative:  viz, that all soldiers and others, if they be not servants or beggars, ought to have voices in electing those which shall represent them in Parliament, although they have not forty shillings per annum in freehold land And there were but three voices against this your native freedon’lO.

It does at first glance seem strange that the exclusion of servants and beggars should be linked with the phrase ‘this your native freedom’. However, it must be remembered that the Agitators’ prime concern was for  the soldiers  they represented. If it is accepted that the leading  Independents were willing to include all  soldiers, regardless of their status, in the franchise, it  then  becomes possible that the phrase ‘this your native freedom’ applied to the soldiers rather than the whole  population.

‘The Grand Designe’ of John Harris (the agitators’ pointer) which appeared in December, 1647, and the Third  Agreement of May, 1649, present similar problems. In the former, Harris explained that the intent of the First Article (which provoked the franchise debate at Putney) was that the electors should be:

  ’all  men that are not servants or  beggars, it being pure  equity, that as all  persons are bound to yield obedience to the decrees of the  Representative or Parliament, so they should have a  voice in  the  electing their Representatives or Members of Parliament’ 11,

While the franchise clause of the latter stated that the electors would be:

‘(according to natural right) all men of the age of one and twenty years and upwards (not being servants or receiving alms, or having served the late King in arms or voluntary contributions) l2.

The equating of ‘all persons’, and ‘all men that are not servants or beggars’ in the former and ‘the according to naturall right’ in the latter seem to lend weight to Macpherson’s argument. Yet in both the authors were using well tried phrases and need not have considered the full implications of them. Also, in the latter case, as A.L. Morton says, the statement of general principle occurred before any of the exceptions were detailed.

Having come this far, Macpherson feels he is in a position to interpret, as he puts it, the apparent claims of the Levellers for an ‘unqualified manhood franchise’ and their opponent’s attribution of this to them at Putney, and  the lack  of  any explicit exclusion of servants prior  to Putney.  Thus, when the Levellers used phrases such as ‘every inhabitant’, ‘every person in England’ or ‘the poorest man in England’, Macpherson believes that we must assume that they really meant ‘all freeborn men who have not lost their birthright’, a loss of birthright toinclude servants and beggars. This is a great deal to read into the evidence.

Ireton and Cromwell, on the other hand, were so concerned to defend the existing franchise qualifications, Macpherson says, that for the purpose of debate they were indifferent to whether the Levellers sought an unqualified franchise  or merely a broader but still restricted one. When Ireton referred to ‘all persons’, ‘any man that hath a breath and being’ , ‘all inhabitants’, or Cromwell ‘men that have no interest but the interest  of breathing’13,  this  thinks  Macpherson was hyperbole by Cromwell and Ireton to sharpen the issue, Yet if it were hyperbole, why was it not resisted more vigorously and unambiguously by Petty et al?

Macpherson fastens on to the fact that, as he puts it, “even after Cromwell had explicitly recognized that the Levellers’ proposal excludedservants and almstakers, he still spoke of it as tending to anarchy because it would give a vote to ‘all those who are in the Kingdom’”14. Now, as we have seen, it is by no means certain that Cromwell’s statement was accepted by the Levellers (p above). The fact that he continued to impute to the Levellers this position may reasonably be taken as an indication that the Levellers had not accepted it, that it was an agreed position and Cromwell words thus exaggeration. The same reasoning may be applied to the fact that the Levellers did not bother to refute these ‘apparent’ imputations of manhood suffrage. Indeed, it would seem more significant that they did not do so.

The reason why they refrained from answering such claims directly, says Macpherson, was because it would not have helped their case to have done so, being more concerned to refute the charge that their proposals would destroy property. This is conceivable yet unlikely, unless we accept that the Levellers were only concerned with a limited franchise along  Macpherson’s lines. Moreover, one cannot divide the questions of the franchise and the feared destruction of property, for one stems from the other.

Neither do I find the fact that only Colonel Rich mentioned the Levellers’ ‘supposed ‘ intention to include servants necessarily indicative of a general consensus of opinion. It is surely significant that he mentioned it at all in the light of Macpherson’s position. Nor do I think he was contradicted by Rainsborough as Macpherson believes. Rich said:

 ’If the master and servant shall be  equal electors, then clearly those that have no interest in the Kingdom will make  it their interest to choose those that have no interest. It may happen, that the majority may by law,  not in confusion, destroy property;  there may be a law enacted,  that there shall be an equality of goods and estate’

He then proceeds to point out the danger that the poor night, as in Rome, set up a dictator15. Rainsborough replies:

‘I think it is a fine gilded pill. But there is much danger,  and it may seen to some that there is some kind of remedy [possible]. I think we  are better as we are [if it can be really proved] that the poor should choose many [and] still the people be in the some case, be over voted still,  But of this and much else, I am unsatisfied… and the[first] thing that I am unsatisfied in is how it comes about that  there is such propriety in some freeborn Englishmen and not [in] others.’16

Now this is, to say the least, a messy passage, but its meaning, if we accept Woodhouse’s additions, is surely plain enough. Rainsborough is rejecting  Rich’s suggestion and when he speaks of ‘being better as we are’ he is merely saying that if he was certain this would be the result of an unqualified franchise, he would reject it, but that, in fact, he does not believe this would be the result. He sees it in other words as a red herring. Indeed, if we were to accept that he did not take this position, we are forced to conclude that Rainsborough was in favour of no change at all, which would be a howling nonsense in view of his explicitly democratic ideas.

There is another passage from Putney which suggests that servants were not automatically excluded by all present. Captain Rolfe appeals for greater moderation, saying, ‘I shall desire that a medium or some thoughts of composure, [may be had] in relation to servants or to foreigners, or such others shall be agreed upon.’ Captain Clarke , who possessed Leveller sympathies, replied first, stating that he too ‘shall desire [that] before the question be stated it may be moderated as for foreigners’17. It is noteworthy that  Clarke,  although  agreeing  that foreigners should  be excluded, does not mention servants and that Rolfe believes too much heat is being generated by the subject, scarcely an indication that all concerned agreed that servants were beyond the pale.

The pre-Putney documents receive similar treatment from Macpherson. The case of ‘the Army truely stated’(15th October, 1647), which ha originally accepted as a demand for full manhood suffrage18, asked that:

‘all  the freeborn at the age of  twenty-one years and upwards,  be the electors,  excepting those that have or shall deprive themselves of that their freedom either for some  years or wholly by delinquency.19

This the  sees as excluding servants  and almstakers. This seems a most peculiar conclusion. Why on earth should servants or almstakers be described as delinquent? Delinquency in the seventeenth century meant much what it does today, namely antisocial acts(particularly criminal ones). Being a servant or almstaker could not denote delinquency, for the former was in useful employment and the latter more often than not had to prove that they were of good character before being in receipt of alms (This particularly applied to those in almshouse). Moreover, the common objection to granting the vote to servants and almstakers was one of dependency. Yet it is not mentioned here.

It is just possible that the temporary exclusion referred to apprentices. This  Macpherson rejects as most of such would be under 21, but K. Thomas is favourable to the idea on the grounds that the legal age for the end of apprenticeship was 24. Again, the question arises: why should apprentices be described generally as delinquents?

For my own part, I think it probable that the exclusion of delinquents referred solely to royalists, or just possibly to civilian delinquents, that is, common-criminals. The term delinquent has a special and technical meaning in the context of the civil war, namely a royalist who was considered to be both recalcitrant and to have been a serious and persistent supporter of the King (the practical application of this definition was inconsistent, but that was the theory).

It is true that permanent exclusion seems to run contrary to the Leveller desire for reconciliation with royalists, but it is not necessarily certain  that the authors of ‘The Case’ shared such sentiments. They may for instance  have believed that certain royalists were so responsible for the troubles of the war, that no leniency could be extended. Such an argument could also be advanced in the case of common criminals.

Of the other documents, Lilburne’s ’England’s Birth-right Justified’ (October 1645), ‘London’s Liberty In Chains Discovered’ (October 1646), ‘The Charters of London’; or,  ‘The  Second Part  of  London’s  Chains  discovered’ (December,  1646), and ‘Rash Oaths Unwarrantable’ (May, 1647)20, all fall foul of Macpherson because  they contain such terms as ‘freeborn’, and ‘freemen ‘, in connection with the franchise. This is another case when we must beware of reading too much into regular Leveller phraseology, which would be more suitably viewed as rhetoric, an affirmation in this case that all men were born possessed of the same birthright, and should enjoy the same, There are many instances where such phrases were used in connection with other matters, such a religion or civil liberties, which Macpherson  claims  the Levellers believed were inalienable, and he presumably would not wish to argue that the use of ‘freeborn’ in these contexts did not mean all men, (and indeed women).

 ’London’s Liberty in Chains’ is of particular  interest to ship Macpherson because it bases  its  claim for a broader franchise on the fact that the statute of 1430 (8′H’6’7) had disenfranchised many who  had previously had the vote.  This, says Macpherson, cannot be a claim for manhood suffrage for it is merely a claim to remove the forty shilling qualification which does not necessarily mean servants and almstakers would be included. This is correct, but neither does it mean that it was only a plea for tenant farmers and non-corporate traders and craftsmen, if we bear in mind the evidence of the previous chapter, particularly Poynnes’ words (see above ).

The other two documents that Macpherson examines are ‘The Remonstrance of Many Thousand Citizens, and Other Freeborn People of England’ (July, 1646), and ‘Jonah’s Cry out of the Whale’s Belly’ (July 1647). The former requests that every year in November elections should take place and that ‘all men that have a right to be there, not to fail upon a great penalty, but no summons to be  expected’21. This Macpherson this significant for it states that voting would be by ‘all men that have a right’, not simply all men. Yet, in view of the circumstances of 1646 when the position of  royalists had to be considered, should we expect that no exclusions would be thought reasonable then? The answer is surely no.

The latter document is concerned with the right of soldiers to vote. It states that ‘according to the principles of safety, flowing from Nature, Reason and Justice…  every individual private soldier, whether Horse or Foot, aut freely to have their vote, to chuse the transactors of their affairs.’ This does not necessarily imply that the soldiers desired the same for civilians. However, we know that documents which either originated from or involved the Army, expressed concern for the population as a whole.

The documentary evidence is, to put it politely, less than conclusive. In the absence of even one unassailable statement, Macpherson is forced to rely on building up his argument  by interpretation.  The disadvantage of this is that in so many instances an equally plausible interpretation can be made to prove the contrary. This is not, however, to suggest that  Macpherson has been proven completely mistaken, for we must not fall into the trap, which he himself falls into, of insisting on consistency to the extent where  every statement must be interpreted  in a certain fashion.

 Notes

 1 D. H ‘Wolfe, Leveller .Manifestoes .226

 2 A,S.P Woodhouse, Puritanism and Liberty , p.52

 3 Ibid, p.55

 4. A,L. Morton, Leveller Democracy p.205.

 5 A,S.P. Woodhouse, Puritanism and Liberty p.53

 6. Ibid, pp. 82-3

 7. J. Davis, The Levellers and Democracy ,

 8. K. Thomas, The Levellers and the Franchise p.67,

 9 D.H. Wolfe, Leveller Manifestoes P,269.

 10. ASP Woodhouse, p.452.

 11. C .B, Macpherson, p125

 12. D.H. Wolfe, p.403

 13. A.S.P. Woodhouse, pp, 57, 70, 63, 77.

 14. C.B. Macpherson, p.126.

 15. A,S.P. Woodhouse, pp.63, 64.

 16. Ibid, p,64.

 17.A.S.P. Woodhouse, p,30.

 18.K.Thomas, p. 212

 19. D.H. Wolfe, p.212.

 20. England Birthright Justified’ is printed in Haller  ’Tracts on Liberty in  the  Puritan Revolution’, ‘London in Chains’, ‘The Second Part of London  Chains  discovered’ and  ’Rash  Oaths  Unwarrantable’, are not readily available. See Macpherson  pp. 131-135.

 21. ‘The Remonstrance’ is printed in H.H. Wolfe , p.129, but ‘Jonah’s Cry’ is not readily available. See Macpherson,  p.135,

 Chapter 3

PHILOSOPHICAL AND OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

The philosophy which Macpherson  attributes to the Levellers to explain why they proposed  to exclude servant and almstakers derived from the view of a man’s capacities (i.e.  his own labour) as a commodity which  could be sold, This Macpherson believes was the dominant ideology in 17th Century England. Thus, although the Levellers believed that all Englishmen were born with the same  birthright, certain parts of this birthright could be forfeited. Religious, civil and even  possibly economic rights could not be alienated justly, and as such should be protected constitutionally.  The  right  to elect, however, could be forfeited by entering into a condition of dependence, either by taking wages or alms. In such  cases, a just dependence resulted and the  subservient individual’s voice was deemed to be included in that of his master or benefactor, as far as a voice in elections was concerned, jut as that of a wife was deemed to be included in that of her husband.

That this could be  considered just  is further explained by what Macpherson deems to be the general contemporary opinion of what the functions of government should be. The primary function of 17th Century government, Macpherson informs us, was ‘to make and enforce the rules within which men could make the most of their own energies and cpacities’ and the secondary function, derived from the first, was ‘the protection of property in goods and estate’ (p.144). Servants and almstakers had lost the ‘property in their own had labour’ and, therefore, had presumably no land or capital, and as such could have no interest in either function of government,

At first glance this line of argument is both plausible and attractive. We are dealing with an openly acquisitive society which judged a man in large part on the basis of his material estate, and which was still pronouncedly hierarchical. Add in Man’s natural tribal inclinations, and it would not have been  unreasonable for the Levellers in such a situation to be  concerned with advancing those with whom they had most sympathy, the small men, while neglecting the needs of other  groups. Also, the exposition is alluring because it  purports to provide us with a means of assessing all Leveller aims and of removing inconsistencies using a system which is logical and neat. Yet, like all intellectual schemes which purport to show Man as a consistent political animal, the cracks soon begin to appear when compared to the reality.

First let us examine parts of Overton’s ‘An Arrow against all Tyrants’ (19th October, 1646) and his ‘Appeale’ (July, 1547):

‘No man hath power over my rights and liberties, and I over no man’s….for by naturall birth all men are equally and alike borne to like propriety, liberty and freedom,  and as we are  delivered of  God by the hand of nature  into this world, everyone  with a naturall, innate freedom and propriety….even so are we to live, every one equally and alike to enjoy his birthright and privilege…. [no more of which may be alienated]  than is conducive to a better being, more  safety and freedome….[for] every man by nature being a King, Priest and Prophet in his own naturall circuit and compasse, whereof no second may partake,  but  by deputation,  commission and  free  consent from  him,  whose  naturall right and freedome it is.’1

In the ‘Appeale’ 0verton adds to this splendid statement of individual liberty, the duty of all men to protect themselves ‘from all things hurtful, destructive and obnoctious thereto to the utmost of [their] power’. It is difficult to accept that any man who could express such sentiments would willingly have allowed that large numbers of men be excluded from the franchise simply because of their position in life.

However, what concerns Macpherson is ‘the proprietorial quality of the Leveller individualism’. The essence of  Man to the Levellers was freedom which meant the proprietorship of one’s own person and capacities (P.142).

From this Macpherson deduces that certain rights were considered inalienable while the right to elect was not. Thus, ‘property in one’s own mental and spiritual  person required freedom of  speech, publication and religion’ (P.142). These rights, apart from their justification by natural law, were demanded for  all because in Lilburne’s words ‘what is done to any one, may be done to every one’3. Similarly, economic rights must be demanded for everyone or monopolists would return, arbitrary taxation and regulation, introduced, even though only those had retained the disposal of their own labour could benefit from them directly,

It is a pity that Macpherson does not extend this line of reasoning to the right to elect. For surely in this  case  as  well, provision against arbitrary disenfranchisement would be necessary and what better method, on Lilburne’s reasoning, than to extend it to all. To this, of course, Macpherson will reply that the functions of government did not concern ‘those who had lost their birthright’, Yet, neither apparently did economic rights  and there would be as much reason to claim the right to elect for all on expedient grounds as there was in the case of economic rights. Further, if we examine the extent to which the Third Agreement especially shackled Parliament, what possible harm, by way of anarchy, levelling of estates etc. could come of it,

The likely answer as to why the Levellers did exclude servants and almstakers after Putney is expediency, either for the reason Petty gave, that dependant men would be afraid to displease their masters, or because they were made aware of political realities.  Macpherson doubts whether the Levellers would have excluded nearly two-thirds of the adult male population on the grounds of expediency, because he believes that they were such committed idealists they could not have brought themselves to such a business.

This is a rather surprising conclusion for, as J.C. Davis4 points out, the Levellers did compromise on the tithes, an issue of principle if ever there was one for them. The March Petition of 1647 and the July Appeale demanded abolition of tithes without provision for compensation. It was not mentioned in the first Agreement5, and deliberately left out from the January Petition of 1643 so as not to ‘disengage any considerable party, and so continue our distractions’. It returned in the Humble Petition (September , 1648) and the Second Agreement, but now with provisions for satisfying all impropriations.

Also, we must remember that the Levellers compromised on the franchise,  even by Macpherson’s account,  in the Second  Agreement. Of course,  Macpherson would be quick to point out the difference between the ratepayer franchise  (adopted in the Agreement) of 375,300,  and the non-servant franchise he says the Levellers wanted (416,700), was so small to be scarcely worth mentioning,  In that case, why  should the matter have raised so much consternation  at Putney.  Macpherson  says the dispute at Putney arose because Ireton and Cromwell wanted nothing more than the freeholder franchise. Yet Cromwell at Putney admitted he was willing to allow that ‘perhaps  there are a very considerable part of copyholders, by inheritance, that ought to have a voice’6.

There is further evidence that the Levellers compromised. When all seemed lost after Burford, ‘The Remonstrance of Many Thousands of the Free-people of England’ offered  amongst other things votes to ‘all that come unto us’. The  tone of the ‘Remonstrance’ is savage, reflecting the bitter anger felt by the author at the betrayal of the people’s iberties.  That it offered votes to ‘all that come unto us’ may merely be, in part at least, a reflection of this bitterness and also of the fact that it was a call to armed rebellion, Yet it is surely significant that such a statement should be made so soon after the ‘Third Agreement’ which although a partial compromise designed to appeal to moderate opinion, is none the less often viewed as the final position  of  the  Levellers. It is also interesting to note that it demanded ‘that  every free-commoner shall be put into a way and enabled with means for his natural subsistence’7, surely in this context meaning all commoners and thus giving added strength to the belief that the use of the word ‘free’ was merely a rhetorical device.

 A further pamphlet which was Leveller in tone was ‘A Charge of High Treason exhibited  against Oliver Cromwell’ (1653), which summoned all the people of England to the polls ‘as well  masters, sons of servants’ which, if nothing else, reflects a radicalism that, whatever the truth of Macpherson’s  case, reminds us that we have every cause to assume that the seeds of manhood suffrage were always there.

 Notes

 1. C.B. Macpherson, pp. 140-1

 2. Ibid, p.141.

 3. Haller and Davies, The Leveller Tracts, p.455.

 4 J.C. Davis , The Levellers and Democracy .

 5 The  Agreement was  concerned with short-term

 measures which may well explain the exclusion.

 6. A.S.P. Woodhouse, P.7.

 7. Levellers and the Puritan Revolution, p.575

 Chapter 4

 SERVANTS AND ALMSTAKERS

Macpherson  has calculated  (using Gregory King’s estimate of 1688) that universal manhood suffrage in 1648 would have enfranchised 1,170,400 men. The exclusion  of  servants and almstakers (by Prof Macpherson’s definition, and accepting that all soldiers regardless of status were to be enfranchised) would have reduced this figure to 416,700. Thus, the Levellers on this reckoning  were  committed  to excluding nearly two-thirds of the adult male  population from the franchise. That I would suggest is a palpable nonsense.

Various criticisms may be made concerning the manner in which Macpherson has  treated  King’s figures.  These ‘statistics’ were at best informed guesses, and  King himself considerably varied his estimates of the size of social classes.1 In addition, Macpherson takes no account of a probably significant rise in wage-earners between 1648 and 1688, It may  even be, as A.L. Morton suggests,2 that King’s figures are misleading for  1693, because they do not differentiate adequately between the many graduations of employment to be found between a simple wage-earner and independent producer or artisan.

However, such criticisms do not go to the heart of the matter. The crux of the problem lies in the meaning given to the terms servant and almstaker (or beggar)by the Levellers within the context of  the franchise. To  read Macpherson is to gain the impression that servant in  common  contemporary  usage was given the usual meaning which he ascribes to it, i.e. wage-earner.

Yet it would appear that contemporaries used the term variously to accommodate the semantic confusion arising from an attempt to apply a social vocabulary inherited from a feudal and patriarchal past to the needs  of a society in which the relationship of master and servant was steadily yielding to that of employer and wage-earner.3

In fact, as K. Thomas points out, none of the three contemporary economic writers to whom Macpherson refers, Andrew Yarranton, John Carey and Thomas Firrin (p.282), equated ‘servants’ with day-labourers, the latter actually distinguishing between single persons who earned money by pinning with ‘servants’, that is, apprentices or domestics .

The Statute of Artificers also distinguished between ‘servants ‘ who contracted for a year or similar period and ‘artificers and  labourers being hired for wages by the day or week’. Richard Mayo, the author of ‘Present for Servants’ (1693),  considered the normal usage concerned those who ‘….have voluntarily submitted  themselves, by  contract, for a certain time to the disposal of others, according to the word of God, and the laws of the realm’ 4.

Now let us refer back to the statement of Petty during the Putney debates. (p. ). His reason for exclusion was ‘because they depend upon the will of other men and should be afraid to displease then’. In the light of this, there was obviously a  considerable difference between a man contracted to serve a year or so, who could only break his contract by mutual agreement with his employer or by order of a J.P on application by master or servant alone, and a wage-earner who was employed more or less casually, who, in theory at least, could change  employer  frequently  and also could be dismissed at   will. (It might appear that the contracted servant was in  a vastly more secure position, but it must  be remembered  that unilateral application would be infinitely more likely to be granted to an employer than a  servant).

There is further evidence that the Levellers were, at worst, concerned with excluding only those who were really bound to one man. The franchise clause of the  Second Agreement states that electors ‘shall be Natives, or Denizen of England, not persons receiving Alms .,. not servants to,  and receiving wages from any particular person’5 . It is even possible that this ‘wage from any particular person’  represents a compromise on the part of the Levellers. Only in the Second Agreement  do  we  find  wage-earners specifically excluded from the franchise. As this document was the result of bargaining between the Levellers and their opponents, the exclusion of those who received ‘wages from a particular person’ may not have been proposed by the Levellers. It may rather represent a reduction of a more extreme position by their opponents, i.e. that all wage-earners were to be excluded. In itself the distinction made between ‘servants’ and ‘wage-earners’ is evidence that the two were thought of as separate groups.

At best, it would  seen that Macpherson’s definition is too broad, and that the Levellers were thinking in terns of personal servants, employees living in the master’s house and apprentices. If this was so, then the disenfranchisement of the groups would have been, for the most part, temporary. Apprentices would become journeymen and eventually masters (or  at least the Levellers wished to create a situation where this could happen). Of the two other groups, there is evidence that many were below voting age,  and their period of employment relatively short. At Ealing in 1599, 60 per cent of the population aged 15 – 19) were servants. At Claworth in 1676, there were 67 servants of whom only one remained by 1638, and at Cogenhoe again only one out of total of 31 in 1618 was still employed in 1628.6 The most likely explanation for this apparent mobility of labour is that when a man married he set up his own household.

If we then consider evidence suggesting that to be head of household was the mark of a man capable of voting, the significance of this is obvious. Thomas Cartwright  wrote ‘All men understand that where the election is most freest and most general, yet only they have to do which  are head of families’, and, John Eliot in his ‘Christian Commonwealth’ (1659) ‘servants, or sons living with their parents are in the condition of servants…. may not explicitly , politically, personally, choose public  rulers…. But, if they marry or live in the state of allowed public freedmen, then are they capable of the choice of their public rulers’7. If we can accept such views as representative, then the disenfranchisement of  servants in our restricted sense becomes, for at least a great part of then, a temporary affair.

The  Leveller  position on almstakers  is, rather easier to resolve. Until the Second Agreement, only  beggars were mentioned. The Putney resolution, ‘The Grande Designe’ (John Harris) and the ‘Petition of January’ 1648, used the terms ‘beggars’ rather than ‘almstakers’. This in itself might not be significant, for it is conceivable that ‘beggar’ was a term which included persons who begged casually, probably in an  itinerant fashion, and men who were forced to seek parish relief temporarily or permanently.  However, there are indications that this was not so. William Petty alone of the Levellers at Putney spoke of ‘those that  receive alms’. That he used this phrase may be accounted for by the fact that Cromwell had just  posed a question in a fashion which prompted such an answer. In any event, Petty qualified his statement by explaining that he meant ‘those that receive alms from door to door’, surely not a reference to those who received official parish relief.

Cromwell himself, according to John Say’s parliamentary diary, informed the Commons on 23rd November 1647, that the agitators ‘would exclude children and servants, Yet such as received alms they insisted on as persons competent for electors’. It could be argued that Cromwell was slandering them in the hope of discrediting the Levellers, yet in that case why not go further and say they would include servants as well?

We know also of the concern the Levellers showed for those impoverished by the war. It would seem  most unlikely that they would willingly have excluded such persons simply because they were forced to take alms.  Nor do they appear to have regarded almstakers in general as irresponsible. One of the demands of the January Petition of 1643 was that ‘the poor be enabled to choose their trustees’.

The inclusion of ‘almstakers’ alone, even if we are mistaken about ‘servants’, would have increased the electorate considerably. According to Macpherson, in 1643 there were 309,700 ‘almstakers’ and only 9,000 ‘beggars,’9 If we are correct in our interpretation of the term ‘servant’ then a position approaching universal manhood suffrage is in view. (Statistics for ‘servants’ as we understand the term present problems, but Peter Laslett 10 has estimated that 10-15 per cent would fall into this category,  many of whom would be only temporarily disenfranchised or under age,)

There is one further point to consider, namely the Levellers’ own conception of their society and what they wished it to be. Although supporters of property, their main concern was to protect the rights of the small man. For this protection they looked, as was the habit of mind then,  much to the past for answers and justifications and had constantly in their minds some  ideal of a Golden Age, If the master-servant relationship was giving way to that of employer-wage-earner, this was not obvious to them. The type of society which they desired was that of the  small independent man, and they believed that the  safeguards  they sought against monopoly and other  unwarranted interference with the individual  would  produce such a society, and thus the electorate, even if exclusions were made in their own time, would increase over the years. Whether this was  impracticable  or not, is neither here nor there in assessing their intentions,

 Notes

 1. K. Thomas, p. 71.

 2 A.L, ‘Morton , p.213.

 3. K. Thomas , p.72.

 4 Ibid, 3 ,71.

 5. D.H. Wolfe, p.403

 6 A.L. Morton, p,214.

 7 P. 72-73.

 8. D.H. Wolfe, p,82 ,

 9. Beware of making the same mistake as Thomas does

 by taking 1613 figures for 1543.

 l0. P. Laslett, The World We Have Lost.

CONCLUSION

There would appear to be three possible explanations of the Levellers’ attitude to the franchise. Firstly, that Macpherson is correct, namely that the Levellers were always in favour of a restricted franchise,  excluding servants and beggars. Secondly, that they  were from the first in favour of a full manhood franchise, but were forced to compromise when faced with political realities.  Thirdly, that the Levellers were not originally overly concerned with the franchise, or at least their ideas were not clear-cut, but came, through the trials of 1647-9, to a desire for full manhood suffrage but were then thwarted by political realities.

I suspect that the last comes closest to the truth. It is difficult to imagine most of those who followed the Levellers being content with anything less than full enfranchisement for themselves or for others like them. That being so the broad membership of the Leveller cause leads to the logical conclusion that a very wide franchise indeed must have been desired if not attained.  

Macpherson claims too much for his evidence. Firstly, the consistency which he attributes to the Levellers may, I think, be safely discounted. That some men of Levelling colour did think as Macpherson believes is most probably true, indeed almost certainly so, for it would be a strange party or group which did not contain differences of opinion on such a contentious issue.

Secondly, his broad definition of servants is dubious to say the least, particularly when we bear in mind the apparent  readiness of the Commons before 1640 to grant wider franchises than he claims for the Levellers, and the fact that on his definition many who voted previously would have  been excluded.

The position of the almstakers  is, I think, even  more clear cut, remembering that Petty spoke of ‘those that receive alms from door to door’, the use of  ’beggars’ until the Second Agreement , and the entry in John Bay’s diary (a piece of  evidence, incidentally , not available to Macpherson ).

Thirdly, the philosophy which he attributes to the Levellers has logical flaws when examined closely, and the system he constructs makes one wonder, with Peter  Laslett, whether Macpherson has not developed his theory before examining  his   evidence  and consequently  falls, albeit  unconsciously, into the mistake of attempting to sustain his theory by arguing a priori that all must thus be so. 

After the Restoration, democratic ideas did not gain serious political currency in England for more than a century. However, they found ready supporters abroad, most dramatically in the person of Thomas Paine, who although English made his name in the American Revolution. The received academic opinion on the Revolution is that it was the offspring of John Locke. In fact, it had at least as much in common with the ideas of the Levellers. The  Constitution is a balance between Locke and Paine, granting a large degree of popular involvement in politics , whilst tempering it with restrictions such as electoral colleges.

Why did the idea of democracy based on the active consent of all men arise in England rather than elsewhere? There were good reasons why it did. In the early modern period, England was an oddity amongst European states. Representative assemblies were commonplace in the mediaeval world. By 1600 all but a few had fallen to the growing power of rulers and either ceased to exist or had been emasculated to the point of insignificance. In England alone Parliament had increased  its power and status in the 16th century. Not only that, but elections were held to appoint MPs. The membership of most European assemblies was, like the House of Lords, dependent on social position.

There was also a long tradition of liberty in England. In the minds of the Levellers these went back to long before Magna Carta. They also, as mentioned in the introduction, saw this tradition as having been stifled by the Normans and their continental successors. These were and are powerful engines for action.

England was also odd in other ways. Serfdom had withered away early. Enclosure had driven men off the land and into the towns. The dissolution of the monasteries had both removed the incubus of Rome and redistributed land and property, much of which ended up in the hands of “new men”. The population had risen dramatically since 1500 and high inflation (by pre-modern standards) had caused considerable social dislocation. At the same time, the wealth of the country had grown and the foundations laid for the commercial revolution which was to lay the foundation for the industrial revolution. Stuart society was a world on the physical, economic and intellectual move and waiting to move faster if the right engine appeared. The Civil War was the right transporter.

 Notes

 1. Market Society and Political Theory

  Bibliography

 C. B. Macpherson The theory of possessive individualism

 Primary Sources

 D.H. Wolfe, Leveller Manifestoes of the Puritan

 Revolution.

 A,S.P. Woodhouse, Puritanism and Liberty.

 W. Hall, Tracts on Liberty in the Puritan evolution, Vol. III.

 Secondary Sources

  C.B. Macpherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism

 K. Thomas, The Levellers and the Franchise (Chapter in the Interregnum The Quest for Settlement, Ed. G.E. Aylmer).

A.L. Morton, Leveller Democracy (In he world of the Rantors).

J.C. Davis, The Levellers ad Democracy : P. & P.X1 1968.

R. Howell and D. Brewster Reconsidering the Levellers, P. & P, 1970.

J.H. Plumb, The Growth of the electorate 1600-1715, P. & P. 1969

V.F. Snow, Parliamentary Reapportionment Proposals in The Puritan Revolution, E.H.R. 1959.

G.F. Aylmer, Gentlemen Levellers, P, & P. 1970.

P. Laslett, The World We Have Lost.

P. Laslett, Market Society and Political Theory, H.J. VII (1964).

J. Frank – The Levellers.

N.H, Brailsford – The Levellers and the English Revolution.

M.A. Gibb – John Lilburne The Leveller.

The great anti-patriot

The news that the singer-songwriter (I use the term with extreme laity) Billy Bragg has been the subject of  mail which has the temerity to point out the disjunction between his ostensible political views and his manner of life. Headed “The Village Idiot”  the letter ran:  

 ‘ Billy “BIGHEAD” Bragg can orate as long as he likes about his “England” but the message that comes from this bilious Marxist singer is that he has shunned the poor   embattled English he was raised amongst  to bask in celebrity style in Burton Bradstock overlooking the English Channel.    

 In his own words the only ‘person of colour’  in the area is the Asian who runs the local garage/store but Bragg is always harping onto people not to vote BNP.             

“ Billy ‘socialist leftist marxist’ moved out of multicultural London years ago to live in a mansion in Dorset which is just about the whitest part of England.

I would say that the man is a “hypocrite” to put it mildly. 

Racial attacks on white people in England (by mostly males) are now reaching something like epidemic proportions , and Billy “BIGHEAD”  wants this for Dorset.

He is a sad, sad apology for an Englishman. He even wants to pull down the Union Jack.

Bragg is useless as a singer and as a man, you traitor.’ (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1344406/Musician-Billy-Bragg-victim-malicious-hate-mail-attack-Dorset-village.html)

Not the most fluent or elegant piece of writing, but it does make its point which is an increasingly potent one, namely, that those who incessantly bang on about the joys of diversity invariably show a remarkable aversion to being one of its beneficiaries in their own lives.  

 Those unfamiliar with Bragg need a few facts about him to understand what the writer of the anonymous note is getting at.  Bragg has made his living and reputation as a political anima through his songs and ordinary political campaigning. He promotes both the idea of an England of allcomers – a subject he deals with in his book The Progressive Patriot (2006) – and traditional socialist values wrapped in what he fondly but mistakenly imagines are the roots of English socialism, namely, the Levellers who arose during the English civil. (He is mistaken because the Levellers were fighting not for economic but political change, for the right of most but not all men to vote with women completely  left out of the enfranchisement equation. The Levellers far from wanting socialist measures, developed ideas  which foreshadowed much of the political thinking of Locke, the arch political and economic individualist. )

Bragg’s socialism came before his  “ progressive patriotism” . He backed the miners’ strike of 1984 and became part of Red Wedge, a group of musicians who campaigned against Thatcher in the 1987 general election.  His interest in   what it is to be an English patriot is a relative latecomer with  his first serious public foray being his  2002 album England, Half-English.  Bragg’s  idea of what constitutes both patriotism and Englishness is distinctly rum, for what he calls his patriotism is a recipe for dissolving Englishness which in turn would render the idea of patriotism in an English context  an absurdity.

What does Bragg mean by Englishness?  Essentially whatever it evolves into.  He religiously promotes the idea of England as being a land of immigrants, even  citing the expression “Anglo-Saxon” as evidence of mixed roots.   Of course if you go back far enough all nations  are the creation of migrants., but that misses the point of nations, namely,  they are the tribe writ large. A nation only exists when  all those enclosed within it see themselves as  belonging to it and are accepted by the others in the nation as belonging.  What Bragg advocates is the inclusion within Englishness of any migrant from any background  regardless of whether or not they can realistically be accepted as English or think of themselves as English.  The  logical end of Bragg’s mentality is that it would not matter if not a single person who would now be considered unequivocally English existed provided there was a land called England filled by whomsoever.  This stands to patriotism as anti-matter stands to matter.

 In his “anti-racist” crusade Bragg advocates  the “re-claiming” of symbols of English patriotism such as the cross of St George from what he fondly imagines is “the extreme  Right”.  As polls relating to immigration and multiculturalism invariably show large majorities opposed at some level to both,  to say that those expressing concern about the way this is changing England represent “the extreme  Right” is clearly nonsense.  All Bragg is encountering is the entirely natural human resistance to the invasion of territory by those who do not belong to the nation.

Back to the complaints made by the anonymous writer. It is very odd indeed that someone who professes such a love of diversity should choose to live in a Dorset village which is probably as  white and English a place you could find these days.  If diversity  is such a wonderful thing why is Bragg not choosing to live amongst it? Tellingly, he has not moved to a village in the county of birth and upbringing, Essex.  Parts of Essex  are rural, so he could have found similar physical surroundings to where he now lives.   The difference with Dorset  of course is that  Essex is rapidly being filled with immigrants.  Writing in the Telegraph (12 4 2010) Ed West got to the heart of Bragg’s unspoken situation:

‘Laban Tall has an interesting take on it, pointing out that Bragg now echoes the revised Labour policy. The official line used to be “multiculturalism is great for everyone”; these days it’s “we realise now that mass immigration is actually pretty terrible for the poor, but we’ve gone this far, so you’ll have to put it up with it; or vote for a party founded by a man who used to spend his weekends dressing up in brown shirt uniforms.”

‘Many people considering that party are not, I suspect, very keen on “sending back” their ethnic friends, but on stopping the Government importing any more people. And they know Labour are not going to stop now – they’re too much in thrall to the race relations industry and too many MPs rely on ethnic minority votes. They’ve invested too much in mass immigration. To admit mistakes would be like a cult member entertaining the possibility that the guy who says we’re all going to be beamed up to heaven in a spaceship is not, after all, the reincarnation of Jesus, but a mental case.’ (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100033896/billy-bragg-battles-the-bnp-over-englands-soul-%E2%80%93-but-does-it-have-one-any-more/)

Bragg is doubly a hypocrite. Not only does he shun the joy of diversity, but he lives the life of a rich man. His house in Dorset is large with a fair sized garden. The Daily Telegraph value it at £1.5 million. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/music-news/8241614/Hate-mail-urges-villagers-to-drive-out-Billy-Bragg.html)  . It is more than a little difficult to see how someone living the life of a rich man can really understand what it is to be poor, especially poor, white and English in areas of heavy  immigrant settlement. He has a further problem. Someone who proclaims themselves to  be a socialist is faced with the moral question of why should I have so much when so many have so little? How does that fit into the socialist dictum of  “ to each according to his need”?  Frankly, it cannot. Moreover, Bragg makes a great thing of personal freedom.  As my old history teacher never ceased saying “Money is power”.  That being so, equality of material circumstances ought to be his aim.

Material success brings a change in mentality and experience. Bragg has gone from being one of the have-nots to the haves. His position is now essentially that of patron/leftist celebrity not  the grass roots “I’m defending myself and my class” red radical he appears to still imagine himself to be.

English education in saner times

I was born in 1947. Never, perhaps, has England (and Britain) been more of a coherent community.  The dramatic recent experience of the Second World War  filled the minds of everyone  and that  shared experience  bound together even more tightly  a very racially and culturally homogenous country.  It was rare to see a black or brown face even in London, and any suggestion that someone from a racial or cultural minority should do anything but  their best to assimilate into English culture would have been generally thought to touch the confines of lunacy. It was a very English, very British world. 

It was a time when Britain made most of the manufactured goods that it consumed, including its own cars, aircraft, ships, and it would have been thought extraordinary for a British Government to fail to protect British industry.  Great industrial names such as Austin (cars) and  Fry’s (chocolate) were not only English-owned and English made but leaders in the English market.  The shops which people used were generally owned by the English and more often than not family enterprises.  Every day an inhabitant of England  was reminded that  they were members of an advanced technological society which could make or grow what it wanted and that most of what they consumed was made in England (or at least Britain) or came from the Empire. 

The idea of Empire was still important – just. The fifties were the very last moment when an English boy could grow up with an  imperial consciousness as part of everyday life. There was no assumption that the Empire would collapse. India might have gone in 1947, but the assumption amongst both the general population and the political elite was that Britain would have to bear “the white man’s burden”  for many  a long year yet.  That will seem extraordinary to the point of fantasy now, but  it is true. In the forties and fifties  the Foreign and Colonial Office continued to  recruit and train young men for careers  as imperial servants such as District Officers and white  emigration from Britain to places such as Kenya and Rhodesia was officially encouraged. 

Against this background English schools taught as a matter of course a curriculum that extolled English and British values, history and culture.  History for the English child was British and imperial history first with  European history a poor second. Geography was concerned primarily with the physical and demographic demography of Britain.  English literature concentrated on the classic English texts from Chaucer through to Trollope.

But it was not simply English history and culture which was imparted. Whole class teaching was the norm with the teacher firmly in charge. Children were expected to acquire the factual knowledge of a subject as well as its process. Because discipline was not generally a problem, schools were primarily institutions to teach people rather than being the child-minding depots we all too often see today.  There is a good case for saying that the general standard of English education was never higher than in the quarter century between 1945 and 1970. This was not only because of the good overall educational standard, but because  all pupils, unlike the pre-war system, now got a secondary education as of right.

That is not to say everything in the post-war educational garden was lovely.  Before comprehensive education began under the first  Wilson Government,  English state education was divided between grammar schools, secondary moderns and a small number of technical schools – the last were intended as training grounds for artisans, to use an old fashioned word.  The consequence was to lower, irrevocably in most instances,  the social horizons and aspirations of those who did not  pass the 11-plus and go to grammar schools, because it was very difficult to move to a grammar school after the age of 11.  It also created a sense of inferiority and resentment amongst many 11-plus failures.

Despite these shortcomings,  the system was unreservedly to be preferred to what we have today. The grammar schools not only produced a  genuinely educated class, but provided  an escape  route  to something better for clever children from even the poorest backgrounds.  That opportunity grew with the significant expansion of university and polytechnic places in the fifties and sixties. In 1950 approximately  2 per cent of English school-leavers went on to higher education: by 1970, following the implementation of the Robbins Report (1963), the figure was approximately  7 per cent (and this was the age of the post-war baby-boomer generation, so there were more pupils in the age group in 1970 than 1950).  Most tellingly, in the 1960s, before the destruction of the grammar schools,  workingclass children in higher education  formed a greater proportion of the whole student body than it does now – there are more workingclass students now, but that is simply a consequence of the vast increase in those in higher education to more than 40 per cent.

England and the only bootstrapped Industrial Revolution

Of  all the social changes  which have occurred in human history,  none has been  so  profound as the process of  industrialisation.  The  two previous  great general  amendments  to  human  life  –  farming   and urbanisation – pale into insignificance. Before industrialisation,  man lived  primarily  from  the  land and  animals  whether  from  farming, husbandry or hunter-gathering. In the most advanced civilisations,  the vast majority of populations lived outside large towns and cities. Even in  industrialising England a majority of the population derived  their living  directly  from the land as late as the 1830s.  France  did  not become a predominantly urban nation until the 1930s.  

With  industrialisation  came  not  merely a  change  in  the  material circumstances, but profound social alteration. There arose much greater opportunity  to move from the small world of the village.  The  massive increase  in wealth eventually made even the poor rich enough  to  have aspirations.  Sufficient numbers of the wealthier classes became guilty enough  about  abject  poverty existing beside great  wealth  that  the condition  of  the poor was further mitigated  by  greater  educational opportunity,  welfare provision and legislation regulating the abuse of workers  by  employers.    Political  horizons  were  expanded  by  the extension of the franchise.  

The  industrial revolution altered the balance of power throughout  the world.  David Landes “In the wealth and Poverty of  Nations”  describes the effect succinctly:  “The industrial revolution made some  countries richer,  others (relatively) poorer; or more accurately, some countries made an industrial revolution and became rich;  and others did not  and stayed  poor.”(p168).  Prior  to industrialisation,  the  disparity  in wealth  between  states,  regions and even  continents  was  relatively small.  Come the Industrial Revolution and massive disparities begin to appear.  For  Dr  Landes,  it  is  to  the  success  or  otherwise   in industrialising  which is the primary cause of present  disparities  in national wealth.

All  of this tremendous amendment to human existence occurred   because the  one  and  only bootstrapped Industrial Revolution  took  place  in England.  Why  England?  David Landes in the  “Wealth  and  Poverty  of Nations”  sees the  historical process of industrialisation as twofold. First,    comes     a  pre-industrial  preparatory  period   in   which  irrationality  of thought is  gradually replaced by scientific   method and what he calls “autonomy  of  intellectual inquiry”(p201),  that  is, thought    divorced   from   unquestioned   reliance   on    authority, irrationality,  especially superstition.   At the same  time  technology begins to be  something more than by-guess-and-by-God. This gives birth to industrialisation  by creating both the intellectual climate and the acquired knowledge,  both scientific and technological,  necessary  for the transformation from traditional to modern society. It is as good an explanation   as  any  and  fits  the  flow  of  England’s   historical development.

It is not utterly implausible to suggest that without England the world might have had no Industrial Revolution. Those who would scoff at  such a  proposition should consider the cold facts:  even with  England  and Britain’s   example to follow no other nation matched   her  industrial development until the 1870′s and  then the first  country to do so  was a  state  ultimately derived from  England,  namely the  USA.  Nor  did  England produce an industrial revolution only in England, they actively exported and financed it throughout the world, for example, most of the European  railway  building  of the years 1840-70  was  the  result  of British engineers and money.  

Some  may  point to scientific advance in Europe from 1600  onwards  as reason  to  believe  that industrialisation would  have  been  achieved without England. It is true that Europe advanced scientifically  in the seventeenth  and eighteenth centuries,  but scientific knowledge is  no guarantee  of  technological progress.  Moreover, a good deal  of  that scientific advance came from England.   Nor does  scientific  knowledge  have  any natural connection  with the severe social upheaval  required for  a transformation from the land-working  dominated   pre-industrial  state to capitalism.  Indeed,  the landowners of pre-industrial  Europe had  a vested interest in not promoting industrial advance.   Moreover, in many parts of Europe,  particularly the East,  feudal burdens became greater not less after 1500.  This was so even in as advanced a country as  France.   Consequently,  the   widespread  social  mobility   which historians  have generally thought necessary to promote a  bootstrapped  industrial revolution simply did not exist in  Europe at the  beginning of  the  British  Industrial revolution. Even  the  country  most  like England in its commercial  development, the Netherlands, became socially and politically  ossified in the Eighteenth century,  with a bourgeoisie developing  into an aristocracy and representative government  narrowed to what was in effect a parliament of nobles. 

There will be those – Scots in particular – who will chafe at the  idea that  the industrial revolution was dependent upon England.  The  facts are against them.

Scotland  before  the union with England (1707) was a  remarkably  poor state.  Nor,  despite its much vaunted educational system –  supposedly much   the  superior  of  England  –  had  it  produced  many  men   of international importance. Read a general  history of Europe, either old or  modern,   and you will  find precious few Scots mentioned on  their own account before the Union.    The names John Eringa and Duns  Scotus with  perhaps a nod to John Knox are the best the reader may hope  for, and  the former two had to leave Scotland to make their names.  If  any other  Scotsman who lived before the Union  is mentioned,  he  will  be noticed  only  because  of his connection with  another  country,  most commonly England.   It required the union with England to give Scots  a larger stage to act upon.  Without the union,  the likes of David Hume, Adam  Smith  and James Watt would in all probability  have  been  roses which  bloomed  unseen in the desert air.   That is not  to  decry  the talents and  contributions  of Scots, which are considerable, merely to describe a necessary sociological condition  for their realisation.

Let  me  demonstrate how much of an English enterprise  the  Industrial Revolution was by using the example of the development of steam  power. Contrary  to many a schoolboy’s imagining,  James  Watt did not  invent the steam engine. That was the province of Englishmen.  The Marquess of Worcester  may have produced a working steam engine on his  estates  in 1663;  James Savery certainly did in 1698. This was improved by another Englishman,  Thomas Newcomen.  Their machines were crude beam  engines, but the technological  Rubicon had been crossed.

It is true that the Scotsman Watt’s  improvements to the steam engine – the  conversion of linear to rotary action and  the introduction  of  a separate condenser – were profoundly important and provided the   means to  extend the use of steam engines from their limited applications  in pumping water from mines. But it should be noted that he had to come to England  to achieve his improvements through his association  with   an English  entrepreneur of genius,  Mathew Boulton,    who at  his   Soho works  in Birmingham had probably the best engineering facilities  then in  the  world.  It was also Boulton who pressed Watt  to  develop  the conversion  of linear to rotary action.  It is worth adding  that  Watt was  a timid,  retiring personality who left to his own  devices  would probably  have  achieved  little of practical  consequence.   Moreover, within  a  generation  of Watt’s improvements,  the  English  engineer, Richard Trevithick had greatly improved on Watt’s engine  by  producing a high pressure steam engine, arguably a more important advance than Watt’s innovations because without it steam engines would have remained large and seriously underpowered.. static installations unable to drive vehicles such as trains and ships..

But before steam could play its full role there had to be a  revolution in  iron  production.  This was accomplished  by   Englishmen.    Until Abraham Darby began smelting iron with coke made from coal in the early 1700s,  iron making was an expensive and uncertain business carried  on in small foundries using charcoal to fire the kilns (an ironmaker named Dudley claimed to have used coal successfully for smelting as early  as  1619  but died without establishing a business to carry the  work  on).  Compared with coal,  charcoal was in short supply.  Worse, it did  not produce  the same intensity of heat as coal converted into coke.  Darby and  his son solved the basic problem of smelting with coke  made  from coal. Henry Cort’s puddling process  allowed cast-iron to be refined to remove the brittleness. A little later Benjamin Huntsman improved steel making. In the middle of the next century the  Bessemer  revolutionised steel  production  to such a degree that its  price  fell  dramatically enough  to  make steel no longer a luxury but the  common  material  of construction.  All these advances were made by Englishmen.

Large scale organisation is also intellectually demanding.  If a  ready and cheaper supply of iron was a necessary condition for the industrial revolution,  so  was the very idea of large scale  manufactories  using machines.  Undertakings employing hundreds of men on one site were  not unknown before the 18th Century – a clothier named Jack of Newbury had  a factory employing 500 in Tudor times –   but  they were very rare.   In 18th  Century England  such enterprises became if not  commonplace,  at least   not  extraordinary.  By the next century they  were  the  norm.  Industry  became for the first time geared to a mass market.   Nor  was  this  new  method  of  manufacturing confined to  the  necessities  and banalities of life.   Factories such as  Josiah Wedgewood’s at  Etruria  manufactured  high quality and imaginative china directed  deliberately at  the growing middle classes.  All the most successful  18th  century machines for mass production were  developed by Englishmen. Arkwright’s water frame, Crompton’s mule, James Hargreaves spinning jenny. 

Once  the  first  blast of the industrial revolution  had  passed,  the fundamental fine tuning was undertaken by Englishmen,  with men such as Whitworth  leading  the  way with machine tools and  new  standards  of exactness in measurement and industrial cutting and finishing. All very boring to the ordinary man, but utterly essential for the foundation of a successful industrial society.

Many   vital industries since have originated in  England.  To  take  a few,  George  Stephenson  produced the  first  practical  railway  (the railway  probably  did  more  than anything  to  drive  the  Industrial Revolution because it allowed a true national market to operate  within England);   Brunel  issued in the age of the  ocean  going   steamship;   William  Perkins laid the foundation for the modern  chemical  industry by discovering the first  synthetic dye;  the first electronic computer was  designed  in  Britain,   after the  theoretical  foundations had been laid  by   the Englishman,  Alan Turing.  (In the previous century another Englishman, Charles  Babbage,  designed  but did not finished  building  the  first programmable machine.) 

Alongside the development of manufacturing ran that of agriculture. The enclosure movement was already well advanced by 1700. By the  middle of the   nineteenth  century  it  was  effectively  finished.  Not  merely feudalism but the peasantry were gone. The old,  inefficient open-field system was a dead letter. With enclosure came agricultural  innovation. In  the  eighteenth  century we have  Jethro  Tull,  whose  seed  drill greatly reduced the amount of seed needed for sowing,   Robert Bakewell  whose selective breeding greatly increased the size of sheep and cattle and “Turnip”  Townsend who greatly increased crop efficiency by various mean  such  as  the  marling of sandy soil.   The  importance  of  such developments cannot be overestimated because the population of  Britain rose so dramatically  in the next century. 

The  technological inventions and discoveries made by the English   are legion. The list below gives  some idea of their importance and range.

Thomas Savery (1650-1715). Invented the first commercial steam engine -a steam pump. 

Thomas  Newcomen (1663-1729).  Improved Savery’s engine by  introducing the piston.  

Richard  Trevithick  (1771 – 1833). Invented the  high  pressure  steam engine. Built the first steam locomotive.

George Stephenson (1781-1848). Made the railway a practical reality. 

Abraham Darby (1678-1717). Developed the process of smelting iron using coke.

Sir Henry Bessemer,  1813-1898. Devised a process for making steel on a large scale.

James Hargreaves (1722-1778). Invented the spinning jenny.

John Kay  (1733-1764). Invented the  flying shuttle.

Samuel Crompton  (1753-1827). Invented  the spinning mule.

Richard Arkwright (1732-1792) Invented the waterframe.

Edmund Cartwright (1743-1823). Invented the power loom.

John  Harrison  (1693-1776) First to build watches accurate  enough  to solve the longitude measurement problem.

Edward Jenner (1743-1823). Developed vaccination.

Joseph Lister (1827-1912). Developed  antisepsis.

Sir Joseph Whitworth (1803-1887) standardised  screw threads,  produced first true  plane surfaces in metal, developed ductile steel.

Henry Maudslay (1771-1831).   Invented the screw-cutting lathe and  the first  bench  micrometer  that  was capable of  measuring  to  one  ten thousandth of an inch. 

Joseph Bramah (1748-1814). Invented the hydraulic press.

John Walker (1781- 1859).  Invented the first friction matches.

John  Smeaton  (1724-1792) made the first  modern  concrete  (hydraulic cement).

Joseph  Aspdin  (1788-1855) invented Portland Cement,  the  first  true artificial cement.

Humphrey Davy (1778-1829).  Invented the first electric light,  the arc lamp.

Michael Faraday (1791-1867). Invented the electric motor.

Isambard  Kingdom  Brunel (1806-1859).   Built the first  really  large  steam ships – the  Great Britain, Great Western, Great Eastern.

Sir  Isaac  Pitman (1813-1897).  Devised the most  widely  used  modern shorthand.

Sir Charles Wheatstone (1802 – 1875).  Developed an electric telegraph at the same time as Samuel Morse.

Rowland Hill (1795-1879). Invented adhesive postage stamps.

John Herschel (1792-1871). Invented the blueprint.

William  Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877)  Invented the   negative-positive photography and latent image shorter exposure time.

Sir  Joseph  William Swan (1828-1914).  Invented the  dry  photographic plate.  Invented, concurrently with Edison, the  light bulb.

Sir William Henry Perkin (1838-1907). Created the first artificial  dye –  aniline  purple  or  mauveine – and  the  first   artificial  scent, coumarin.  

Alexander  Parkes  (1813-90).  Created the  first  artificial  plastic, Parkensine.

Sir   George  Cayley  (1773-1857).   Worked  out  the   principles   of aerodynamics,  his  “On  Ariel Navigation” showed  that  a  fixed  wing aircraft  with a power system for propulsion,  and a tail to assist  in the control of the airplane, would be the best way to allow man to fly. Also invented the caterpillar track.

Sir  Frank  Whittle  (1907-1996).  Took out the  first  patents  for  a Turbojet.

Sir Christopher Cockerell (1910-1999). Invented the hovercraft.

Charles  Babbage (1792-1871).  Worked out the basic principles  of  the computer. 

Alan Turin (1912-1954). Widely considered the father of modern computer science – worked out the principles of the digital computer. 

Tim  Berners-Lee  (1955-).  Invented the World Wide Web  defining  HTML (hypertextmarkup language), HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) and URLs (Universal Resource Locators).

Important English constitutional documents

The text of each of these important constitutional documents has been posted as pages on England Calling.  The links can be found at the top of the blog.

1. The development of Parliamentary Government

These documents show the gradual reduction of the power of the  monarch and the eventual development from this of Parliament and eventually the shift of the executive power from the monarch to the House of Commons.

1100 The charter of liberties of Henry (also known as the Coronation Charter)

This concerned primarily the relationship between the King and his nobles and foreshadows that part of  Magna Carta  which deals with things such as inheritance and the treatment of widows.

1215 Magna Carta

Apart from the  stating of rights and restrictions on what King John might do in certain situations, this was the first formal attempt to impose a council with powers to not merely advise the King but to restrain him (article 61).  This article was never implemented.

1258 The Provisions of Oxford and  1259 The Provisions of Westminster

These attempted to do what article 61 of Magna Carta  intended,  impose on Henry III a council with power to restrain the King.

1311 The Ordinances of the Lords Ordainers

These  vigorously  reiterated Magna Carta, bound Royal officials to obey the Ordinances and   in article 40 introduced a panel to have power to interfere with the king’s ministers, viz:  “ Item, we ordain that in each parliament one bishop, two earls, and two barons shall be assigned to hear and determine all plaints of those wishing to complain of the king’s ministers, whichever they may be, who have contravened the ordinances aforesaid.”

1628 The Petition of Right

This was a direct challenge to the attempt of Charles I to extend the Royal Prerogative, or more unkindly, to simply assume that he could do anything, in the early years of his reign. The primary complaint  was Charles’  raising of money without Parliamentary approval.  It set in train the events which led eventually to the proroguing of Parliament for 11 years(1629-1640).  The Petition relies heavily on citing documents such as Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest, as well as the usual insistence of the restitution of English liberties.

1641 The Grand Remonstrance

This was another attempt to persuade  Charles I to do Parliament’s will by what had the form of a traditional petition to the King but the content of demands with unspoken menaces .  The King was not blamed personally – the failings were ascribed to a Papist conspiracy – but the tone of the petition was much more robust than the Petition of Right and left no doubt that Parliament was not pleading for Royal indulgence but insisting that Charles did their bidding.

It listed 204 separate points of objection, including a call for the expulsion of all bishops from Parliament and a  Parliamentary veto over Crown appointments. Charles refused to agree to all Parliament’s demands  in December 1641 and the first Civil War began a few months later.

1653 The Instrument of Government

This document  is in content if not formal description a written constitution. It created Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector, stipulated that the office of Lord Protector was not to be hereditary, required regular Parliaments,  and  laid down a mesh of obligations and restrictions on government.

1689 The Bill of Rights

Further formal restrictions on the monarch, a list of rights to protect the liberty of all English men and women, the protection of MPs, regular Parliaments  and the assumption of the English crown to be in practice dependent upon the support of Parliament, thus driving the final nail into the coffin of the  doctrine of the divine right of kings.    This opened the way for the development of the executive in Parliament.

1789 The American Constitution and Bill of Rights

The influence of English constitutional development can be clearly seen in the Constitution and Bill of Rights (the first  ten amendments).  The short lived US Articles of Confederation is  placed below the Constitution and Bill of Rights to allow comparison between the documents.

2. The unification of Britain

1535 The unification of England and Wales

There was no formal Act of Union between England and Wales but the 1535 Act   – “An Acte for Lawes & Justice to be ministred in Wales in like fourme as it is in this Realme” –  was the most important  piece of legislation in the piecemeal process of  administrative incorporation of Wales into England which took place  in the latter years of Henry XIII. The text of  this Act  is in England Calling.

Why are the British political elite so Hell-bent on denying England a Parliament?

The Scots have a parliament; the Welsh have an assembly; the implacable factions of Ulster shall run their own affairs if they can but remove their hands from one another’s throats; yet the English, the most politically mature of all peoples, shall possess no such means of political expression and  control over their own affairs, neither now nor ever. So runs the curious view of our political masters.

When I say our political masters I mean the entire British political elite,  for no mainstream party  advocates an English  parliament or gives any sign that it will do so.  This is more than a little strange, because a English parliament is not merely the most just but also the most obvious and economical solution to the inequality of democratic representation and opportunity wrought by devolution..

Why is our political class so  utterly determined that England shall be given no voice? The obnoxious truth is that our political elite  oppose an English  parliament  for Anglophobic  and  self-serving reasons, both domestic and supra-national. There is a general  terror amongst them of what they describe as English nationalism, but which in reality is a dread of English interests being realised and fought for. To that general motive may be added two particular reasons,  the knowledge of Euroenthusiasts that  a strong self-confident England would subvert their federalist plans and the Labour Party’s fear that an English parliament could  mean a near permanent Tory majority in England. Those things are obvious enough.  But there is something deeper, more subtle, more poisonous, whose acid growth has slowly corroded our entire public life, namely  elite sponsored Anglophobia which has its roots in the currently dominant elite ideology of the West, liberal internationalism.

For more than a generation there has been assiduously nurtured amongst our elite a habit of public belittlement of England and the English. The disease spreads far beyond politics and infects the worlds of mediafolk, academics, public servants, pressure groups and important businessmen.  These people I shall call the Public Class.  The habit has become so ingrained and so widespread, that gratuitous insult by public figures of all things English  and the energetic promotion of all peoples and cultures other than the English, has become the norm rather than the exception. Things have come to such a pass that it is now commonly suggested by the Public Class that Englishness does not exist and any attempt to protect English interests is treated as at best chauvinism  and at worst racism. We have the unsavoury spectacle of a native ruling elite actively denigrating their own culture and generally acting against the interests of the mass of their people. Historically, such behaviour is commonly found in monarchies, aristocracies and despotisms. In a supposed democracy, it is best described as bizarre.

This dangerous habit of mind for England extends to the one parliamentary  party, the Conservatives, which might be expected to rebel against it.  William Hague, an Englishman born and bred, gave the game away in an interview in the Daily Telegraph (8/7/98) when he stated “I am not an  English nationalist” and declared that he “is determinedly British rather than English” and was “dismayed to see so many  St George Crosses at the world cup.” It comes as no surpriseto learn that he has since rejected an English parliament on the ground that “it could prove a decisive step in the break-up of the United Kingdom” (translation:  Mr Hague is unreservedly willing to subordinate England’s interests to  preserving the union at all costs).

The bogus nature of the claims made by those who scream blue murder at the slightest public expression of English pride or defence of English interests is shown by the uncritical support the same people give to Scotch, Welsh and Irish nationalism. They also give the game away when they argue that England is so large in comparison with the other parts  of the UK that a Federation would be unbalanced. In other words, their fear is really that England would naturally dominate a federation. The argument about federal imbalance can be simply shown up for what it is, a demonstrable nonsense, by referring to the examples of the USA, Canada and  India. There are sixty Californians to every Alaskan; seventy bodies  in Ontario for each person in Prince Edward Island and one hundred and eleven inhabitants of Uttar Pradesh for every human being in Goa.

What exactly is this terrible danger our political elite see in their misnamed English nationalism? It is not that England would oppress her Celtic neighbours. It is not that England would engage in any form of aggressive action against the rest of Britain. The fear quite simply is that an England with its own voice and political focus would attend to its own interests. The political fat would then would be in the fire.

The prime political fact of the UK is that England  enjoys such a preponderance in population, wealth, educational opportunity, industry and commerce  that she inevitably dominates the other parts of Britain. In fact, England has such a predominant position that she could, if she but  had the political will, utterly dictate the terms of any future  Union or dismantlement of the Union. She has five sixths of the population. She has more than five sixths of the wealth, commerce and industry. An English parliament with the same powers as the Scots would account for approximately three quarters of total UK state expenditure. Most pertinently the English taxpayer pays massive subsidies to the rest of the UK.  An English parliament would eventually mean an end to these  subsidies. It is this fact above all others which frightens those who oppose such an assembly. The effect of ending these English payments to the Celts  would  be profound.

The Eurofederalists  share the fears of English interests being realised and defended, but their reasons are different. They understand that a strong, self-confident England would spell the end of their plans to embed Britain within the EU. That Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland should have a means of national political expression is nothing to them, because these countries are too insignificant and above all too poor to resist the march of Eurofederalism. England with fifty million people and the third or fourth largest economy in the EU is a different kettle of fish. It is also a fact that opinion polls show the English to be considerably more Eurosceptic than the rest of the UK, many of whose peoples  harbour fantasies of being given massive subsidies by the EU  in the manner of the Irish Republic, as “nations within Europe”.

Before the 2010 election the Tory position was for “English votes on English laws”, a misnomer because what they really meant was all MPs except those sitting for Scottish seats voting, the Welsh and Northern Ireland Assemblies not have the same depth of devolved powers as the Scots’   “Wee pretendy parliament”, as Billy Connolly described the largely English-taxpayer funded edifice in Edinburgh.  Since the formation of the Big LibCon coalition, Cameron has made no mention of this. It is a fair bet that the proposal is dead while the coalition exists. If the proposal to shift from first-past-the-post to the Alternative Vote system for general elections becomes law, then Britain will probably be cast into a situation of perpetual coalition, one at least of the partners in which would be the LibDems or Labour. Neither would countenance a move to any measure which would give the English any political voice.  Hence, it is difficult to see how either English-votes-for-English-laws or any other move short of an English Parliament such as an English Grand Committee will be on the agenda for the foreseeable future.

The English-votes-for-English laws or anything else short of would have been of little use in immediately changing the disadvantage under which England constantly suffers, not least because the Welsh and Northern Irish MPs would be voting on much of the legislation because it would apply to them. However, it would be of great utility in forcing MPs to publicly address the imbalances produced by the present devolution settlement. That in turn could spill over into the question of our immersion in the EU which is the other end in the pincer movement between Westminister and Brussels to Balkanise the UK .

Of what has England to be ashamed?

Of what has England to be ashamed? There are wars of aggression such as the Hundred Years War, but these are the common currency of history. As with the history of all peoples there are massacres, such as that of approximately 150 Jews at York in 1190 or the several thousand deaths  which followed the storming of Drogheda in Ireland in 1649 , but they are precious few in England or abroad. Moreover, in the case of Drogheda, the killing took place after the town had refused to surrender and the convention at the time was that the lives of those who had refused to surrender were forfeit if the victor choose to take them.  There is nothing to compare with the mass killings of men such as Genghis Khan or  the frightful slaughter of the  Thirty Years’ War.

England’s immediate Celtic neighbours have had on the whole a good deal from their association with England. Those Celts who imagine that England has exploited their countries in a peculiarly gratuitous, vicious and avaricious fashion should look at the general historical (and, indeed, present) fate of small countries faced with powerful neighbours. That general fate includes occupation by force, the reduction of conquered populations to a servile state, wholesale  depredations, chronic legal disadvantages, the refusal of free trade – even with the occupying power, the absolute  exclusion from government and, at the worst, genocide.

Compare such behaviour with that of England’s towards Scotland, Ireland and Wales for the past century and a half  (at least). During that time all Celts have shared absolute legal equality with Englishmen, have enjoyed the immense  benefits of free trade with England, had an inside track to the first industrial revolution, have been able to export their surplus populations to England, have received greater parliamentary representation than the English, have been given the privilege of national parliaments, a privilege denied England as I write,  have benefited – particularly since 1945 – from preferential government spending paid for by the English, and, most important for small peoples, have received the protection of the British state which would be nothing without England. As for the Irish Famine, that most prized price of victimhood for Irish nationalists, it was caused not by deliberate British policy but by the administrative inadequacy of the British state to deal with such a calamity.  

In truth, it is a very long time since the English behaved with gratuitous harshness or deliberate unfairness to even Ireland, despite the fact that Fenians remain to this day a source of provocation which would bring condign punishment in most parts of the world as it is now and which would have guaranteed such punishment everywhere at any time in history prior to the nineteenth century. If Celts had an ounce of intellectual and emotional honesty they would stand amazed at England’s moderation not shout their unreasoning hatred or bleat imagined wrongs.

As for the British Empire, although it is an obnoxious thing to be a subject people, it is reasonable to consider the condition of those who became imperial subjects before they were part of the empire. Apart from those taken forcibly to the colonies as slaves, all the native populations who came within the Empire lived either in despotic states such as those in the Indian sub-continent or in tribal societies where they were subject to the commonly brutal conditions of such a life. It is also true that many lived under foreign rule before they became subjects of the British Crown, most notably those living with the Mughal Empire. The fact that Britain was able to establish the Raj in India points to the fact that the native populations were far from happy with their rulers before Britain took control. That control was only established, as happened with the Spaniards and Portuguese in America, because sufficient of the native population was willing to support the would-be colonial powers.

On the plus side, Britain brought much of value to  the Empire. Playing the “What did the Romans ever do for us” game, Britain can point to the rule of law, parliamentary government, large scale administration, modern armed forces, access to European intellectual life, organised education and modern technology.  Most importantly, being ruled by Britain meant having an inside track to modernity. It is also true that from the second half of the 19th century official British imperial policy was predicated on the principle of putting the interests of the native population first.

To modern eyes the slave trade is the grossest blot on England’s name. I am repelled by both the idea of slavery and the particular cruelties of the Triangular Trade, but then I am a man living in an advanced industrial state with all the conditioning and prejudices that implies. Placed in the context of human history it looks rather different.  Forms of legal and customary bondage from full blown chattel slavery where the slave is simply property to the indentured  labourer who binds himself to an employer for a legally set period, have been the norm rather than the exception everywhere at every time. Where formal bondage did not exist, informal bondage through economic circumstances has been the fate of most men and women who have ever lived.

It should also be remembered that the trade could not have been carried on without the cooperation of native Africans.  Until the 19th Century European involvement in Africa was very limited, being mainly restricted to coastal settlements, many of which were no more than forts. Had the African not been so eager to sell his fellows, the trade could not have existed. The balance of power was unarguably with the African slavers not the European buyers.

England also made amends. Not only did Britain abolish the slave trade much earlier than most, she maintained an  antislavery patrol for more than sixty years in the Atlantic. In the 1830s, She also ended slavery in the Empire at the immense cost to the British taxpayer of £20 million in compensation payments to slave owners at a time when UK GDP was only £453 million (http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/).                

Put in the context of contemporary behaviour, at any point in her history, England’s behaviour,  both domestically and abroad, will, at worst, stand comparison with that of any other nation or state and, at best, be seen as morally superior at most times and places.  A first rate example of this is the fact that England was the first state to provide general support for the poor by the Poor Law Acts of 1597 and 1601. The operation of the Poor Laws may have bad reputation today, but they did provide the means of subsistence at a time when the common European experience was to depend on private charity or starve.