“Houses and Families Continue by the Providence and Blessing of God”: Patriarchy and Authority in the British Civil Wars
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“Houses and Families Continue by the Providence and Blessing of God”: Patriarchy and Authority in the British Civil Wars by Sara Siona Régnier-McKellar B.A., University of Ottawa, 2007 A Master’s Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of History Sara Siona Régnier-McKellar, 2009 University of Victoria All rights reserved. This thesis may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author. 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The author retains copyright L’auteur conserve la propriété du droit d’auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protège cette thèse. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la thèse ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent être imprimés ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author’s permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformément à la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privée, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont été enlevés de thesis. cette thèse. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n’y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. ii Supervisory Committee “Houses and Families Continue by the Providence and Blessing of God”: Patriarchy and Authority in the British Civil Wars by Sara Siona Régnier-McKellar B.A., University of Ottawa, 2007 Supervisory Committee Dr. Andrea McKenzie (Department of History) Supervisor Dr. Sara Beam (Department of History) Departmental Member Dr. Simon Devereaux (Department of History) Departmental Member iii Abstract Supervisory Committee Dr. Andrea, McKenzie (Department of History) Supervisor Dr. Sara Beam (Department of History) Departmental Member Dr. Simon Devereaux (Department of History) Departmental Member The British Civil Wars were not just physical battles but ideological battles as well. Legitimate authority was hotly contested and each faction vied for public support by invoking a mandate meaningful to a heterogeneous audience: the safeguarding of the family and the patriarchal order. In early modern England and Scotland, the family was understood as emblematic of the social and political order; thus, the protection of the family – both private and political - was presented as the surest way of assuaging God’s wrath and re-establishing order in the three kingdoms. This thesis demonstrates the ubiquity of the language of patriarchy in the Civil Wars and the extent to which political and ideological debates centred on questions of legitimate patriarchal authority. iv Table of Contents Supervisory Committee...................................................................................................ii Abstract......................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ...........................................................................................................iv Acknowledgments...........................................................................................................v Introduction.....................................................................................................................1 “Gaine a Conquest Without Tyrannie”: Patriarchy and Self-Mastery ...............................9 The Patriarchal State..................................................................................................10 Domestic Violence and the Rational Man..................................................................16 Military Violence and the Valiant Soldier..................................................................28 “Was He Fit to Continue a Father of the People?”: Patriarchy and the Ideal Political Order.............................................................................................................................42 The Public Sphere .....................................................................................................43 Royalists and the Patriarchal Political Theory............................................................48 Republicans and the Social Contract Theory..............................................................58 Presbyterians and the National Covenant...................................................................66 “I Die, I Take it, for Maintaining the Fifth Commandment”: Patriarchy, Authority and Obedience in the Last Dying Speeches of Royalists and Regicides ................................77 Dying Well................................................................................................................80 Royalists, Charity and the Political Father .................................................................85 Regicides, Election and the Divine Father..................................................................93 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................106 Bibliography ...............................................................................................................111 v Acknowledgments I am thankful to my supervisor, Dr. Andrea McKenzie, for the wealth of thoughtful advice she provided me with as well as for her continued encouragement. Furthermore, I would like to thank my committee members, Dr. Sara Beam and Dr. Simon Devereaux, for generously volunteering their time to aid me in this endeavour, and my family and friends for so patiently listening to my ramblings on about the British Civil Wars. Finally, I wish to acknowledge the helpful advice provided by Professor John Walter and Dr. Laura Gowing. This project was facilitated by the generous financial support of the Hugh Campbell and Marion Alice Small Fund for Scottish Studies and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Introduction In 1657, John Knight, an English silk weaver’s apprentice, was savagely murdered by his fellow apprentice and “intimate bosom Friend,” Nathaniel Butler.1 Inordinately thorough, Butler cut Knight’s mouth and throat and then strangled him, for which crime he was hanged at Cheapside in view of the site of his crime.2 Edmund Calamy and fourteen other London ministers hoped that “some secure sinners may be a little startled and awakened by this terrible judicial hand of God” and took the opportunity to impress upon the citizens of London “the several duties, which do naturally result from this Providence.” It was explained that magistrates and ministers had little power to curtail sin when it was encouraged, or at least not reproved, in the household. The reformation of society must, therefore, begin within the family, as the first and surest safeguard against sin. Calamy exhorted “governours of families” to “Catechize your children and servants; instruct them in the fundamentals of religion…keep them from error in the Head, from loosness in the life.” It was the patriarch’s responsibility to instil religion and godliness in his dependents and to protect them from their own potential villainy. Conversely, it was the duty of dependents to honour their office by obeying their masters. Proper household government was prescribed as the remedy to society’s maladies. Had such orders been observed in 1 A Full and the Truest Narrative of the Most Horrid, Barbarous and Unpparalled Murder (London, 1657), 2 2 For more on murder pamphlets relaying Butler’s crime and on conversion narratives see Peter Lake, “Popular Form, Puritan Content? Two Puritan Appropriations of the Murder Pamphlet from Mid- seventeenth-century London” in Anthony Fletcher and Peter Roberts (eds.), Religion, Culture and Society in Early Modern Britain (Cambridge, 1994), 313-334 . 2 Butler’s household, he and his victim might have escaped the murderous consequences of vice and unrighteousness.3 Calamy’s instructions to the citizens of London typify early modern views on the household, often referred to as a microcosm of the social and political order.4 Robert Cleaver and John Dod compared the household to “a little Commonwealth, by the good gouernment whereof, Gods glorie may be advanced.”5 Similarly William Gouge believed that “a familie is a little Church, and a little Commonwealth, at least a liuely representation thereof, whereby triall may be made