Abstract
Revolutionary governments are usually centralising governments. In all three of the great European revolutions of modern times, determined minorities — English Puritans, French Jacobins, Russian Bolsheviks — having seized the power of the State promptly used it to impose their will on the regions of their still provincially structured nations. In all three cases the conflict between national and provincial loyalties accounts for an important part of the history of the revolution: in none of the three is this more evident than in the revolution of seventeenth-century England.
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Bibliography
The essays by Roots, Everitt and Pennington in The English Revolution, 1600–1660, ed. E. W. Ives (1968) together provide a brief, general introduction to the relationship between the State and the local communities during the Civil War. The outstanding work is Everitt’s Community of Kent, though its coverage of the Protectorate is disappointing. Everitt’s other works (see note 2 to this chapter)
should also be consulted. A. H. Dodd, Studies in Stuart Wales (Cardiff 1952) includes a valuable discussion of the Welsh committees. David Underdown, Pride’s Purge: Politics in the Puritan Revolution (Oxford 1971) has two chapters on the revolution and the localities. Older county histories offer little guidance, though Mary Coate, Cornwall in the Great Civil War and Interregnum (Oxford 1933) and Alfred C. Wood, Nottinghamshire in the Civil War (Oxford 1937) are suggestive.
F. P. and M. M. Verney, Memoirs of the Verney Family (1892–9), iii, in spite of naïve and chaotic editing, is still the best source for the day-to-day life of the Cavalier and non-partisan gentry. Paul H. Hardacre, The Royalists during the Puritan Revolution (The Hague 1956) surveys all but the Royalists’ conspiratorial activities. The major-generals’ system is examined in detail by D. W. Rannie, ‘Cromwell’s Major-Generals’, EHR, X (1895), 471–506. See also the chapter by Roots in The English Civil War and After, 1642–1658, ed. R. H. Parry (1970). Paul J. Pinckney, ‘The Cheshire Election of 1656’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, xlix (1967), 387–426, throws interesting light on the state of gentry opinion at this time.
Abbot, Writings and Speeches contains many basic documents. Quarter sessions records where published often provide fascinating illustrations of local government at work. On the poor law and other social problems, see above Chapter 5, and the further reading suggested there.
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© 1972 G. E. Aylmer, Valerie Pearl, Keith Thomas, Quentin Skinner, Claire Cross, J. P. Cooper, Ivan Roots, David Underdown, Austin Woolrych
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Underdown, D. (1972). Settlement in the Counties, 1653–1658. In: Aylmer, G.E. (eds) The Interregnum. Problems in Focus Series. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-02419-3_8
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