The REAL History of Early-Modern Britain
Module Convenor: Yuefo Asch
This module will explore new findings in British governmental records which claim to undermine much of what we currently know about early-modern British history and offer radically new perspectives on the post-Stuart era.
You can review the lecture content via the links below, but please remember this is NOT a substitute for physical attendance!
The REAL History of Early-Modern Britain - Week 1
Module HST344 - Lecturer: Yuefo Asch - Lecture One: Introduction
________________________________________________________________________
I’m sure many of you took last year’s module on the English Civil War, and I’m sure even more of you will know some things about it from our discussions in the Early-Modern Europe module and from your own studies. However, what I’m about to reveal in this module is that much of what we know about the formation of early-modern Britain could be based on lies and biased accounts. The research that I have conducted in pursuit of my doctorate has unearthed a cache of files, preserved by a family of civil servants known as the Pilkentens, who were so worried about the rewriting of history that their governments were undertaking that they dared to keep documents and records which were ordered destroyed, and to collect accounts which were banned on pain of death. They risked their lives to preserve this record, and with good cause, for these documents show us that the WHOLE HISTORY OF BRITAIN AS WE KNOW IT IS WRONG.
So we’ll just recap for anyone who didn’t take HST234 last year, the story of how the English Civil War came about. So this chap on the slide here, Charles the First, believed in the ‘divine right of kings’ which, as those of you who took the ‘the Russian Revolution’ last semester will know, isn’t something that goes well with parliaments or diets. On top of this Charles’ wife, Henrietta of France, was a staunch Roman Catholic in a time when Catholics were particularly reviled and hated in the lands of England, tainting Charles’ name as well. Many believed him to be secretly Catholic himself, and regardless of the truth the influence of a Catholic Queen upon the crown was frowned upon by many Englishmen. Henrietta was said to be a patron of drama, in more ways than one. She disdained any perceived poor treatment at the hands of Charles’ advisors and encouraged a similar attitude in Charles towards his subjects. Henrietta was never crowned by the Church of England due to her Catholicism, and Charles’ attempts to make her more appealing to the English often failed miserably, not only due to the reactions of the people but also because of her unwillingness to alter her public image in any way.
So Charles clearly had a lot on his plate, and furthermore the encroachments of Scottish Covenanters and Irish Catholics meant that Charles needed to summon parliament in order to raise some taxes, a concept he quite dreaded. He was right to dread it, too, because as soon as parliament reconvened (the first time in four years) it began denouncing Charles’ advisors and was promptly dissolved. Unfortunately, however, Charles’ saviour in Ireland, the Earl of Strafford Thomas Wentworth, who had managed to rout the Irish forces in the King’s name, failed to achieve the same results when sent to Scotland, and thus the King was forced to reconvene parliament again the same year. This time, parliament had Charles cornered, as he needed the taxes more desperately than ever. But when the parliament ordered Wentworth’s execution, passed reforms refuting the King’s right to dismiss parliament and abolished Charles’ trusty privy Star Chamber, old Charles could no longer take it. Charles I, urged on by his wife, led four hundred troops into parliament, in a failed attempt to arrest its worst members. Thus the political conflict became a civil war.
Battle of Edge Hill
Many of you may already know this much, but the new evidence found in the Pilkenton files indicates a host of deviations you may not have heard about, starting with the Battle of Edgehill. The reports in that cache indicate that the Battle of Edgehill happened as late as 1643, and the fall of Bristol much earlier than 1645. By these reports Prince Rupert, who had held the City of Bristol for the whole war until then, moved his troops from Bristol to go north and join with the King’s own forces in a unified push toward London. Thus, it was after the Fall of Bristol that the Battle of Edgehill occurred, according to these reports.
The numbers, too, appear to have been higher than Parliamentarian accounts imply. As high as double the 30,000 participants implied by other histories. Regardless, the accounts of soldiers from both sides which were preserved in the Pilkenton Cache show that, although the initial engagements took place at the small town of Edgehill, the Royalist forces under Rupert promptly pulled back to the other side of the River Avon, where the battle then continued the next day.
The Parliamentarian forces, under Cromwell’s direct command (a fact brushed out of later historical renditions) faced heavy musket fire as they clambered through the soggy ground near the river, but quickly regained themselves. Outnumbering the Royalists 2:1, the Roundhead forces just about managed to equalise their posture, despite heavy initial losses. It was only when the cavalry under Prince Rupert crushed and routed the Roundhead cavalry at Stratford Bridge (not Perwick Bridge!), that the tide of battle truly turned against the Parliamentarians. With the muskets fired and the pikes a-clashing rather than, as Parliamentarian accounts have often suggested happened, chasing the fleeing Roundhead cuirassiers off the field, Rupert did in fact bring his Cavaliers back ‘round to bear against the Roundhead infantry and inflicted a crushing defeat of the Parliament’s forces. In fact, after the battle had ended, Prince Rupert was himself seen arranging for the treatment of the wounded, according to the cache’s contents.
This was likely brushed over and watered down in the manner that it was afterwards due to the Parliament’s humiliation of suffering such a huge defeat by such a smaller force. Those Roundhead troops who fled last were cut down by Cromwellian faithfuls, never able to tell the true tale of the Edgehill catastrophe, the extent of which only they had fully seen. The Parliamentarians, having suffered such a loss, would not meet the Cavaliers in such a large-scale action again. The remaining battles, such as the overbloated reputation of ‘Naseby’, were little more than skirmishes with localised Royalist forces, while Charles’s main armies marched on London. Furthermore, Edgehill was the last time Cromwell would be allowed direct command of the full army, as the Roundhead generals began to realise Cromwell’s reputation was worth more than his actual skill at commanding. He would spend most of the war being given credit for the victories of Sir Thomas Fairfax and others.
Unfortunately… with the countryside now set ablaze by parliament forces, and with London unwilling to open its gates to the King (believing his forces to be weak and defeated due to Cromwellian propaganda to that effect), Charles’s men began to lose morale. The final blow came when, with news of Fairfax’s forces marching in from the west, the London militias came out to attack the Royal forces from the east. The Cavalier troops, tired and dejected from a long siege, now proved unenthusiastic in combat and the skirmish soon ended, with Charles’ capture by Parliament.
“But Sir”
“Yes?”
“This is still mostly the same as in the Civil War module. I mean sure, maybe other accounts have the battles going differently, but so what? That doesn’t really mean ‘the whole history of Britain as we know it is wrong’, does it?”
Well, that may be true
But one thing you don’t know is…
That CROMWELL was an incompetent, inept, and militarily overrated leader!
*gasp*
Yes! It is true! Cromwell is often variously glorified as a hero, hated as a ruthless conquerer, praised as a champion of early democracy or upheld as a righteous man of religious virtue. But the fact of the matter is that what traits he had in this vein were faded strongly by the time he became Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. His reputation was strong thanks to his shadowing of Fairfax, and his popularity high due to his founding of the New Model Army, but nothing could mask to his colleagues in the parliament, that this man was little more than a stubborn, ill-tempered religious zealot with a superiority complex and a couple of warts.
Furthermore, his conquests in Ireland too were misattributed. It was Lord Fielding, under Cromwell’s orders, who successfully turned the tide against the Irish forces which had successfully besieged Ulster. Charles I had tried but failed to come to terms with them at the height of the civil war, in order to secure the western kingdom and perhaps enlist their aid in England. But now it was Fielding’s turn, and at Cromwell’s urgings he made great violence against them. However, despite Cromwell’s appetite for destruction, Fielding managed to secure a peace treaty with them which stopped somewhere short of full vassalisation, allowing the Irish Catholics to manage their own land. As Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, he worked to keep relations steady through constant attention and assurances with them, first against the will and temper of the bigoted Oliver Cromwell, and then under the indifference of his successor.
So urm… that’s about all we’ve got time for this week… feel free to come to my office hours if you’ve got any questions..
Next week we’ll be talking about the end of Cromwell’s term in government and his successor, Shady Saunders.
Module Convenor: Yuefo Asch
This module will explore new findings in British governmental records which claim to undermine much of what we currently know about early-modern British history and offer radically new perspectives on the post-Stuart era.
You can review the lecture content via the links below, but please remember this is NOT a substitute for physical attendance!
- Lecture One: Introduction
- Lecture Two: The Saunders Era
- Lecture Three
The REAL History of Early-Modern Britain - Week 1
Module HST344 - Lecturer: Yuefo Asch - Lecture One: Introduction
________________________________________________________________________
I’m sure many of you took last year’s module on the English Civil War, and I’m sure even more of you will know some things about it from our discussions in the Early-Modern Europe module and from your own studies. However, what I’m about to reveal in this module is that much of what we know about the formation of early-modern Britain could be based on lies and biased accounts. The research that I have conducted in pursuit of my doctorate has unearthed a cache of files, preserved by a family of civil servants known as the Pilkentens, who were so worried about the rewriting of history that their governments were undertaking that they dared to keep documents and records which were ordered destroyed, and to collect accounts which were banned on pain of death. They risked their lives to preserve this record, and with good cause, for these documents show us that the WHOLE HISTORY OF BRITAIN AS WE KNOW IT IS WRONG.
So we’ll just recap for anyone who didn’t take HST234 last year, the story of how the English Civil War came about. So this chap on the slide here, Charles the First, believed in the ‘divine right of kings’ which, as those of you who took the ‘the Russian Revolution’ last semester will know, isn’t something that goes well with parliaments or diets. On top of this Charles’ wife, Henrietta of France, was a staunch Roman Catholic in a time when Catholics were particularly reviled and hated in the lands of England, tainting Charles’ name as well. Many believed him to be secretly Catholic himself, and regardless of the truth the influence of a Catholic Queen upon the crown was frowned upon by many Englishmen. Henrietta was said to be a patron of drama, in more ways than one. She disdained any perceived poor treatment at the hands of Charles’ advisors and encouraged a similar attitude in Charles towards his subjects. Henrietta was never crowned by the Church of England due to her Catholicism, and Charles’ attempts to make her more appealing to the English often failed miserably, not only due to the reactions of the people but also because of her unwillingness to alter her public image in any way.
So Charles clearly had a lot on his plate, and furthermore the encroachments of Scottish Covenanters and Irish Catholics meant that Charles needed to summon parliament in order to raise some taxes, a concept he quite dreaded. He was right to dread it, too, because as soon as parliament reconvened (the first time in four years) it began denouncing Charles’ advisors and was promptly dissolved. Unfortunately, however, Charles’ saviour in Ireland, the Earl of Strafford Thomas Wentworth, who had managed to rout the Irish forces in the King’s name, failed to achieve the same results when sent to Scotland, and thus the King was forced to reconvene parliament again the same year. This time, parliament had Charles cornered, as he needed the taxes more desperately than ever. But when the parliament ordered Wentworth’s execution, passed reforms refuting the King’s right to dismiss parliament and abolished Charles’ trusty privy Star Chamber, old Charles could no longer take it. Charles I, urged on by his wife, led four hundred troops into parliament, in a failed attempt to arrest its worst members. Thus the political conflict became a civil war.
Battle of Edge Hill
Many of you may already know this much, but the new evidence found in the Pilkenton files indicates a host of deviations you may not have heard about, starting with the Battle of Edgehill. The reports in that cache indicate that the Battle of Edgehill happened as late as 1643, and the fall of Bristol much earlier than 1645. By these reports Prince Rupert, who had held the City of Bristol for the whole war until then, moved his troops from Bristol to go north and join with the King’s own forces in a unified push toward London. Thus, it was after the Fall of Bristol that the Battle of Edgehill occurred, according to these reports.
The numbers, too, appear to have been higher than Parliamentarian accounts imply. As high as double the 30,000 participants implied by other histories. Regardless, the accounts of soldiers from both sides which were preserved in the Pilkenton Cache show that, although the initial engagements took place at the small town of Edgehill, the Royalist forces under Rupert promptly pulled back to the other side of the River Avon, where the battle then continued the next day.
The Parliamentarian forces, under Cromwell’s direct command (a fact brushed out of later historical renditions) faced heavy musket fire as they clambered through the soggy ground near the river, but quickly regained themselves. Outnumbering the Royalists 2:1, the Roundhead forces just about managed to equalise their posture, despite heavy initial losses. It was only when the cavalry under Prince Rupert crushed and routed the Roundhead cavalry at Stratford Bridge (not Perwick Bridge!), that the tide of battle truly turned against the Parliamentarians. With the muskets fired and the pikes a-clashing rather than, as Parliamentarian accounts have often suggested happened, chasing the fleeing Roundhead cuirassiers off the field, Rupert did in fact bring his Cavaliers back ‘round to bear against the Roundhead infantry and inflicted a crushing defeat of the Parliament’s forces. In fact, after the battle had ended, Prince Rupert was himself seen arranging for the treatment of the wounded, according to the cache’s contents.
This was likely brushed over and watered down in the manner that it was afterwards due to the Parliament’s humiliation of suffering such a huge defeat by such a smaller force. Those Roundhead troops who fled last were cut down by Cromwellian faithfuls, never able to tell the true tale of the Edgehill catastrophe, the extent of which only they had fully seen. The Parliamentarians, having suffered such a loss, would not meet the Cavaliers in such a large-scale action again. The remaining battles, such as the overbloated reputation of ‘Naseby’, were little more than skirmishes with localised Royalist forces, while Charles’s main armies marched on London. Furthermore, Edgehill was the last time Cromwell would be allowed direct command of the full army, as the Roundhead generals began to realise Cromwell’s reputation was worth more than his actual skill at commanding. He would spend most of the war being given credit for the victories of Sir Thomas Fairfax and others.
Unfortunately… with the countryside now set ablaze by parliament forces, and with London unwilling to open its gates to the King (believing his forces to be weak and defeated due to Cromwellian propaganda to that effect), Charles’s men began to lose morale. The final blow came when, with news of Fairfax’s forces marching in from the west, the London militias came out to attack the Royal forces from the east. The Cavalier troops, tired and dejected from a long siege, now proved unenthusiastic in combat and the skirmish soon ended, with Charles’ capture by Parliament.
“But Sir”
“Yes?”
“This is still mostly the same as in the Civil War module. I mean sure, maybe other accounts have the battles going differently, but so what? That doesn’t really mean ‘the whole history of Britain as we know it is wrong’, does it?”
Well, that may be true
But one thing you don’t know is…
That CROMWELL was an incompetent, inept, and militarily overrated leader!
*gasp*
Yes! It is true! Cromwell is often variously glorified as a hero, hated as a ruthless conquerer, praised as a champion of early democracy or upheld as a righteous man of religious virtue. But the fact of the matter is that what traits he had in this vein were faded strongly by the time he became Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. His reputation was strong thanks to his shadowing of Fairfax, and his popularity high due to his founding of the New Model Army, but nothing could mask to his colleagues in the parliament, that this man was little more than a stubborn, ill-tempered religious zealot with a superiority complex and a couple of warts.
Furthermore, his conquests in Ireland too were misattributed. It was Lord Fielding, under Cromwell’s orders, who successfully turned the tide against the Irish forces which had successfully besieged Ulster. Charles I had tried but failed to come to terms with them at the height of the civil war, in order to secure the western kingdom and perhaps enlist their aid in England. But now it was Fielding’s turn, and at Cromwell’s urgings he made great violence against them. However, despite Cromwell’s appetite for destruction, Fielding managed to secure a peace treaty with them which stopped somewhere short of full vassalisation, allowing the Irish Catholics to manage their own land. As Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, he worked to keep relations steady through constant attention and assurances with them, first against the will and temper of the bigoted Oliver Cromwell, and then under the indifference of his successor.
So urm… that’s about all we’ve got time for this week… feel free to come to my office hours if you’ve got any questions..
Next week we’ll be talking about the end of Cromwell’s term in government and his successor, Shady Saunders.
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