Religion and the Battlefield in the First English Civil War (1642–1646): Instructing Soldiers and Dehumanising Enemies
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Faculty of Arts University of Helsinki RELIGION AND THE BATTLEFIELD IN THE FIRST ENGLISH CIVIL WAR (1642–1646): INSTRUCTING SOLDIERS AND DEHUMANISING ENEMIES Antti Taipale DOCTORAL DISSERTATION To be presented for public discussion with the permission of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Helsinki, in Festive Hall, Language Centre, on the 3rd of June, 2021 at 4 o’clock. Helsinki 2021 Copyright © Antti Taipale 2021 ISBN 978-951-51-7306-5 (pbk.) ISBN 978-951-51-7307-2 (PDF) Unigrafia Helsinki 2021 ABSTRACT This thesis examines how religious arguments, concepts and viewpoints were used as instruments to instruct soldiers and dehumanise enemies in the first English Civil War (1642-1646). I argue that religion had an important role in encouraging soldiers, enforcing military discipline and creating group cohesion and comradery. Furthermore, I suggest that religion was used to delegitimise the enemy and thus prepare the soldiers to fight their fellow countrymen in an efficient and bloody manner. The differences between the ways in which the King and Parliament understood religious warfare form the main argument of the thesis. The Royalist ministers and Puritan preachers had quite opposite views on the use of religion as a tool of war. Whereas the King’s clergymen underlined peaceful aspects of the Christian faith and merciful and compromising attitudes of its practitioners, the Parliamentarian chaplains thundered harsh words and black-and-white images of an eschatological battle between God and the anti-Christ, which left room for neither peace nor compromise. The Royalists took the nation’s sins on their shoulders, accepting God’s wrath and judgement and praying for the calamities to end with the passive submission of a martyr. The Puritans, by contrast, portrayed themselves as actively participating in Christ’s battles against the Devil as saints. They did not hesitate to frame the conflict in religious terms and use the martial aspects of the Protestant faith to advance their cause. I examine printed sermons and pamphlets to produce a comprehensive view on the public press and its significance in propagating these different ideas about the relationship between religion and war. The more radical, revolutionary approach of the Parliamentarian ministers and authors is evident from the beginning of the conflict, and I suggest that, even though the pinnacle of religious-martial education was reached when the New Model Army was formed in 1645, in itself it was not exceptional in its religious character compared to earlier Parliamentarian armies. The Royalist clergymen, for their part, were equally constant in combatting the sins of the King’s soldiers instead of preparing them to fight the war. Similar differences manifested in the dehumanisation of the enemy. On the one hand, the Puritan ministers stressed the judgemental, uncompromising work that they had to do in order to wash the nation’s sins away with blood. They juxtaposed the King’s men with the Catholic Irish, who had rebelled in 1641 and who had been very harshly treated both in publications and in battle. On the other hand, the Royalists were hesitant to condemn the Parliamentarians to an equal extent; they were rather trying to reclaim the Parliamentarians from their revolt back to the good graces of the King by offering mercy and pardon in exchange for repentance. The thesis re-evaluates the role of religion in the English Civil War by focusing on military preaching and publishing. In this way it contributes to the debates about the significance of religion in the political and societal landscapes of the period. Furthermore, I seek to show that religion was an important instrument of war, whose different uses by the Royalists and Parliamentarians played a part in how the conflict proceeded and culminated. CONTENTS Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................................... 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................... 2 Part I: Instructions ........................................................................................................................................... 18 1. Discipline, Practical Instructions and Iconoclasm ................................................................................ 18 2. Prayer and Religiosity .......................................................................................................................... 40 3. Sins and Courage ................................................................................................................................. 62 4. Saints and Martyrs ............................................................................................................................... 84 5. Military Sermons in the New Model Army ........................................................................................ 107 6. Reception of Religious Instruction ..................................................................................................... 122 Part II: Dehumanisation ................................................................................................................................. 143 7. The Irish Rebellion ............................................................................................................................. 143 8. The Beginning of the War .................................................................................................................. 155 9. The Popish Army of the Earl of Newcastle ........................................................................................ 171 10. The Religious Dehumanisation of the King’s Armies ..................................................................... 185 11. The Delegitimization of the Parliamentarians ............................................................................... 204 12. Blood Guilt, Judgement, and Washing away the Nation’s Sins ..................................................... 222 13. Dehumanising Propaganda for Soldiers ........................................................................................ 241 14. The Effects of Dehumanisation: Shrewsbury, Bolton, Hopton Castle, Naseby and Basing House 251 Conclusions .................................................................................................................................................... 268 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................................... 275 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis has been a few years in the making. My deepest gratitude goes to my supervisor, Professor Markku Peltonen. Without his endless patience, expert guidance and unstinting encouragement this dissertation would not have been completed. As a matter of fact, I would not probably even have started it if he had not supervised my MA thesis and subtly pushed me to embark upon this path. Writing a PhD is a solitary activity. However, having Markku as my mentor has made the whole effort much easier. I also want to thank my second supervisor, Kari Saastamoinen, for his honest criticism of and thorough comments on my thesis. The feedback I received from him has been very valuable, especially in that it helped me to concentrate on the core of my research. The thesis would have turned out to be much weaker (and, at the same time, even longer) achievement without his input. In addition to my Helsinki advisors, I am immensely grateful to my preliminary examiners, Professor Thomas Cogswell and Professor Edward Vallance, for their constructive criticism and helpful suggestions. Their advice has already proved very useful for further, post-doctoral, research on my topic. Research is hard without financial support. Therefore, I would like to thank the Emil Aaltonen Foundation and the University of Helsinki for funding my work. I also thank my employer Kalliolan Setlementti Ry for giving me the possibility of working flexibly while completing my thesis – at times, it has been a relief to escape the English Civil War in the comfortable silence of Kalliola’s basement archive. My peers and colleagues have been an invaluable source of help, advice and support. The members of the General History Seminar at the University of Helsinki have patiently read my drafts and commented on their merits and weaknesses. In particular, I would like to thank Cesare Cuttica and Melike Çakan for not only spending their time to help me improve my thesis but also for multiple conversations about various other matters ranging from politics to boxing. I also want to express my gratitude to my old friends from the student days, who have helped me to polish my argumentation and debating skills with topics completely unrelated to the thesis. I am especially indebted to Inka Rantakallio for giving an outsider’s opinion on the crucial parts of my work and lending her academic expertise to me for improving it. Sometimes a break from work is necessary, preferably at regular intervals. My brothers and sisters in Fen Lan Tang Lang Men have forced me to put my mind into completely different matters and, by so doing, they have maintained my mental welfare at the cost of physical pain and effort. Finally, I want to thank my parents for their unwavering support and faith in me throughout all these years, and my wife, Josefina, for her