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The English Civil War: the Declaration of 14Th June 1647 And History 7A, Merritt College, Instructor John Holmes The English Civil War: The Declaration of 14th June 1647 and the Putney Debates “We were not a mere mercenary Army, hired to serve any arbitrary power of a state, but called forth and conjured by the several declarations of Parliament, to the defence of our own and the people’s just rights and liberties. And so we took up arms in judgment and conscience … and are resolved … to assert and vindicate the just power and rights of this kingdom in Parliament, for those common ends premised, against all arbitrary power, violence and oppression.” So the Army justified its intervention in politics.… The soldiers were citizens in uniform, who had regained the rights of freeborn Englishmen. Christopher Hill, The Century of Revolution, 1603-1714, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 1982, page 110. The Declaration was issued by the Army Council of Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army. The New Model Army had just won the Civil War, defeating the royalist forces. The Army Council was an historically unprecedented body, because it was elected. Officers and rank and file soldiers were represented together. It was formed after the Army, in defiance of the majority of Parliament which wanted to disband the Army and restore the King, marched on London and seized Charles I’s royal person. The Declaration further called for a purge of Parliament, its dissolution, and new elections. Many historians regard this Declaration as the commencement of modern politics founded on popular sovereignty. The English Civil War, its impact on the American colonies, and the relationship between it and modern concepts of freedom and democracy are discussed in your textbook on pages 81-86. This Army Council debated a new draft constitution for England, the Agreement of the People, at Putney, in October 1647. It is document 13 in your sourcebook, on pages 41-45. Everybody must at least read this document and pages 81-86 of the textbook before we do the exercise. The Agreement was the first democratic constitution proposed for a nation in human history. General Cromwell’s counter-proposal, the Heads of Proposals, called for a limited monarchy. Cromwell forcibly terminated this debate when King Charles escaped the Army’s custody, threatening the renewal of the Civil War. Excerpts from minutes of the Putney Debates are posted to Canvas. In 1648, the royal forces were defeated again. The compromise-minded parliamentary majority was excluded in Pride’s Purge, and King Charles was executed as a traitor on January 30, 1649. In March, the leaders of the radical party, the Levellers, were imprisoned, and Leveller mutinies in the army were repressed shortly thereafter. Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector of England. The execution of a sitting monarch by divine right was highly unpopular. Charles I became a martyr for the royalist forces. But it was also a tremendous blow to Absolutism and the Divine Right of Kings. We are going to repeat the Putney Debates in class. We will have a panel discussion, and there will be two questions to consider: I. Should Charles I, King of England, be executed as a traitor? II. Should the “Agreement of the People” become the English Constitution? Each discussion group is assigned readings, including from groups of visitors to and outside participants in the Putney Debates who arrived through teleportation and/or time machines. You must read the relevant documents in the sourcebook for your group in advance, as well as the Putney Debates posting for groups Six and Seven, the actual participants (recommended for other groups as well). In class you will meet to discuss the questions and pick people to report on their personages/domements, one for each, and two spokespersons to participate in two panel discussions, speaking in the name of their groups. For some groups, different personages might have different opinions, so you are welcome to have additional spokespeople in the panels reflecting this. There will be two panels, one to discuss the first question and one to discuss the second. There will follow a question, answer, and general discussion period, in which all class members will have the full opportunity to participate. From the sourcebook: Group One, what it’s all about Give Me Liberty, pages 81-86 Agreement of the People (document 13) Group Two, European visitors from other places and times: Adam Smith (document 1) Bartolomé de las Casas (document 3) The Jewish petitioners to the Dutch (documents 6) Group Three, Native Americans and their friends: Thomas Morton (document 2) Joseph and Pedro of the Pueblo rebels (document 4) Father Jean de Brebeuf (document 5) Group Four, New England Puritans John Winthrop (document 10) Anne Hutchinson (document 11) Roger Williams (document 12) Group Five, Virginia and Maryland non-Puritans John Smith (document 7) Women in Virginia (document 8) Maryland Catholics (document 9) From the minutes of the Putney Debates: Group Six, the radicals Colonel Rainsborough John Wildman Group Seven, the moderates Oliver Cromwell Commisar-General Henry Ireton .
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