University of Alberta Narrating Troubled Times: memories and histories of the English civil wars and Interregnum, 1660-1705 by Matthew George Neufeld A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History Department of History and Classics Edmonton, Alberta Fall 2008 Library and Bibliotheque et 1*1 Archives Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-46397-0 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-46397-0 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives and Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, prefer, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans loan, distribute and sell theses le monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, worldwide, for commercial or non­ sur support microforme, papier, electronique commercial purposes, in microform, et/ou autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privee, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont ete enleves de cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. •*• Canada For Teresa Megli Gallagher 1958-1994 Not forgotten Abstract After 1660 aspects of England's recently ruptured past were openly remembered despite the 'forgetting' that was commanded by the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion. Remembering the civil wars and Interregnum in legal testimony, on petitions and wounded bodies, through historical writings, in letters and in public story-telling was shaped and constrained by the social and political circumstances surrounding these actions. Nevertheless, such acts of remembrance were also purposeful attempts to re­ shape the public contexts in which the troubled past was known and brought to bear meaningfully on local or the national community's present circumstances and future direction. Narratives about the troubled times were issued out into the public domain in the hopes either of transforming the English polity or of holding back ideas which might produce another descent into chaos. As the characteristics of the political landscape changed after 1660, so too did the reasons for remembering the wars; the same events or stories could serve different ends depending on the context, both social and temporal, in which they were related. The public memory of the late troubles times was therefore dynamic and in motion, driven by the dialectic of contexts which called forth remembrances and the recollections which attempted to alter those same contexts. In two important respects, however, England's civil wars were remembered in the same way throughout the late seventeenth century. First, stories were put abroad to vindicate one set of principles and its adherents, and to vilify the doctrines of its opponents. Secondly, the endurance of explanatory narratives to make sense of the wars demonstrates that while people recognized the present was derived from earlier events, they also continued to think that their past contained examples and figures relevant to and parallel with contemporary affairs. Remembering the troubled times after 1660 in print, in testimony, on damaged flesh and in epistles was to tell stories about the broken past and thus to become a Restoration historian. Acknowledgments A wise teacher once remarked to me about the vital importance of securing a material base for doctoral studies. I feel myself obliged, therefore, to thank first the two instutitutions whose generousity supported my work over the past five years: the University of Alberta and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The former funded the first and the final years of my program, initially with a Recruitment Scholarship and later with a Dissertation Fellowship; the latter carried me financially through the middle three years of the degree with a Canada Graduate Scholarship Doctoral Fellowship. Alberta's reciprocal relationship with Royal Holloway College, University of London, affored me the opportunity to spend the winter and spring of 2006 as a visiting post-graduate student in the UK. I must also thank the University's Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research for awarding me a Research Abroad Travel Grant, which allowed me to remain in the UK during the 2006-2007 academic year as a visiting student at the University of York. Preliminary research in England was conducted in the spring of 2005 thanks to a travel award from the Sir Winston Churchill Society of Edmonton. I would not have been able to write this thesis without the help and kindness of the staffs at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, the British Library, Durham University Library Special Collections, Leeds University Library Special Collections, the Borthwick Institute for Archives, York, York Minster Library, and the inter-library loan departments of the University of York and the University of Alberta. The assistance offered by the employees of the National Archives, Kew, the Devon Record Office, the Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office, the Cheshire and Chester Record Office, the West Yorkshire Archive Service, Wakefield, the North Yorkshire Record Office, and Doctor Williams Library, London was also extremely useful and much appreciated. For reading chapters of the thesis and offering their constructive criticism I would like to thank Nadine Lewycky, Christopher Baxfield, Jacqueline Rose, Matthew Jenkinson, Gary Rivett, Koji Yamamoto, Stephen R. Roberts, J. R. Jones, Stephen Taylor, and Blair Worden. While I was a visiting student at York I benefitted a great deal from the insights, suggestions and supervision of David Wootton. I must offer profound thanks to Katharina Megli, who spent hours pouring over my prose in order to make it lucid and readable. My meetings with her, during which times we went over four chapters page by page, saved me many solitary days of revising. Very special appreciation is due to the members of my supervisory and examining committees for reading and commenting upon full drafts of the thesis: Andrew Gow, Sylvia Brown, David Gay, and Mark Knights. The suggestions of these august collectives have made, and will make, my work immeasurably better. Two additional members of both these committees merit particular mention: Lesley Cormack for stimulating conversations about early modern British culture after the Reformations, and for judicious and careful readings of the thesis; and Daniel Woolf for exemplary supervision. There are many superlatives which might be used to describe Daniel's oversight of my intellectual formation here at Alberta as an early modern British historian, but I think 'first-class' sums it up well. As a Dean of Arts and as a historian of global historical writing Daniel is a very busy man, yet thanks to his diligence and the wonder of digital communications technology, he always answered my sometimes panicky questions, read my turgid prose, wrote letters on my behalf, and offered suggestions for improving my thinking about Restoration historical culture, with lightening speed. Final thanks go to the very special and select cohort which composes my spiritual base of support. Christine, Kent, Liam and Bronte Rygiel have provided food, shelter and joyful welcome on numerous occasions; Michael Neufeld's friendship and encouragement have helped me through many a solitary weekend. My parents, Arnie and Trudi Neufeld, were with me at the very beginning of this academic pilgrimage, and their love and prayers have sustained me throughout the journey beyond all hope and imagining. Nadine Lewycky, soon to be delivered of her own doctoral thesis, has provided incomparable intellectual and emotional companionship, which has made me a better scholar and a better human being. Ultimately, I must acknowledge the grace of the One for whom all things are possible: My soul doth magnify the Lord: and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour ...He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel: as he promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed for ever (The 'Song of Mary' as rendered by the Book of Common Prayer). Table of Contents I. Introduction 1 II. Restoration Remembrances: recollections of a pardonable past in the Answers of defaulting accountants, 1662-1664 26 III. Restoration Remembrancers: accounting for the civil wars and Interregnum in historical writing, 1661-1671 71 IV. Painful Memories: narratives of injury in the petitions and on the bodies of royalist veterans, 1660-1690 125 V. Memorable Re-presentations: civil war and Interregnum history in England, 1680-85 173 VI. Vindicators of Memory: civil war histories and the struggle for posterity in an age of parties, 1696-1705 226 VII. Memories of the True Martyrs: witnessing to Anglican civil-war suffering in letters to John Walker, 1704-5 284 VIII. Conclusion 331 Bibliography 341 Such, indeed, is the policy of civil war; severely to remember injuries, and to forget the most important services.