J. C. Davis. Oliver Cromwell. London: Edward Arnold Publishers, 2001. 224 pp. $65.00 (cloth),
ISBN 978-0-340-73118-5.
Peter Gaunt, ed. The English Civil War: The Essential Readings. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers,
2000. viii + 360 pp. $64.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-631-20809-9.
Reviewed by Ronald Hutton (Department of Historical Studies, Bristol University)
Published on H-Albion (August, 2001)
This pair of titles provides a useful indication of the
current condition of studies of the English Civil War and
Revolution. Peter Gaunt’s brief reprints a set of fourteen articles and chapters which are intended to provide students with a sense of the major themes which
have characterised the historiography of the causes, nature, and consequences of the war over the past three
decades. The word “essential” is susceptible in this context to two quite different interpretations. The more customary would be to indicate the most important works
in the field, which attracted the most attention, formulated opinion, and provoked or resolved debate. Alas!
Caprices of copyright and practicalities of format make
such an enterprise very difficult, and this is not an example of it. To be sure, such celebrated works do make appearances, key essays by Conrad Russell and John Morrill
being notable examples. It is clear, however, any compendium on the Civil War which has nothing by Ann
Hughes or Kevin Sharpe, and includes pieces by much
less prominent authors, does not capture the essence of
its historiography by that reckoning. There is, however, a
different take on the word: that it indicates works which
sum up the spirit of moments in debate, and of particular
arguments, so well that they may be taken as representative of the whole. In that sense, Dr. Gaunt has managed
his task with sensitivity and imagination.
considerable value to students, and if they sound familiar to colleagues, then the great advantage of stating the
obvious is that one has an above average chance of being right. Peter Gaunt carefully avoids putting a personal
spin on the subject, or trying to suggest any overall sense
of where the study of it is going. Readers are told that experts differ markedly in interpretation, that the main debates are probably incapable of resolution and that most
specialists now avoid single or simple explanations for
events.
The only real problem with this approach is that what
in general seems fair and restrained, can at times just look
tired. To Gaunt the historiography concerned is very
much of a continuum, so that polemical work published
almost thirty years ago is portrayed as if it were part of
ongoing debates. In many ways the book belongs to the
1980s, in which most of its reprinted material appeared.
Only two of its fourteen pieces came out in the 90s, both
of which belong to the first half of the decade and neither of which, though well-researched, created much stir.
To attribute a lack of resolution to scholarly exchanges
which are still in progress is one thing, but to do so in
the case of debates which are going dead is to suggest a
failure of achievement. The greatest single recent development in the study of English history in the 1640s has
been its decline from Great Power status in the academy
to that of being just another area of historical research.
Whether this is simply because of changing fashion, as
interest has shifted from political to cultural studies, or
whether revisionism helped to destroy its own market,
by declaring that mighty metanarratives of social, economic, and ideological change did not in fact converge
He compounds it by providing his own overviews of
the historiography in four editorial introductions. These
lay out the story of the various debates in a manner which
is objective to a point at which virtually any participant
or observer would find them an acceptable portrayal. The
clarity and fair-mindedness of these summaries will be of
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on the period, is a question which a later historian may
be bold enough to attempt.
This is an excellent case, and superbly argued, but it
has weaknesses. They begin with a functional problem;
that, once again, this is a biography which does not rest
The figure of Cromwell has at least remained enig- on much original research. Davis has confined himself
matic and alluring enough to emerge into the new cen- to the secondary literature, a selection of mostly pubtury with scholarly interest in him still running high. The lished primary sources, and the famous editions of letters
1990s produced an important collection of essays edited
and speeches in which Cromwell presents and refashions
by John Morrill and two biographies, by Peter Gaunt himhimself. What is lost in this approach is the practical
self and by Barry Coward. All this work was charac- context of day-to-day warfare and politics. In the case
terized by a relative lack of new primary research (Pro- of military affairs, this results in trivial errors which do
fessor Morrill’s own contribution to his collection be- not affect the overall arguments (Donnington Castle was
ing the most notable exception) and a generally admir- a royalist not a parliamentarian fortress in 1644, Belton
ing attitude towards the man; indeed, this perpetuates
was the site of a local battle not the capture of a stronga love-affair between Cromwell and academic historians
point, etc). In political matters, the problem works the
which has lasted for over a hundred years and intensi- other way round: the facts are right, but interpretation
fied in the last fifty. This being so, the appearance of one-sided.
a new biographer in the field is of particular interest.
Colin Davis has made his name as a historian of political
Three aspects of Cromwell’s career need to be adand religious thought and as a brilliant and provocative dressed properly if Davis’s view of him is to be upheld.
iconoclast, weakening, or destroying the traditional cat- The first is the extent to which he was capable of mouldegories in which historians had grouped Civil War radi- ing the army on which he depended to his own will. Bicals. His record promises a man who can at once under- ographies tend to assume that he could, and that therestand Oliver better than any before and make a wreck of fore his own attitudes are crucial, but it needs to be
traditional perceptions.
demonstrated that his options were not in fact limited by
the men on whose support his power rested. The second
The first expectation is largely rewarded, the second is that in politics, as in war, Cromwell was tactically denot. Professor Davis brings two considerable strengths to
vious. A notorious episode ignored in this study is that in
his work. This first, unsurprisingly, is an ability to charwhich he not only abandoned his own Major-Generals in
acterize Cromwell’s religious mentality and language– the Parliament of 1656 but silently encouraged his clients
antiformalist, providentialist, and dedicated to the ser- to oppose them. Also untreated is the deliberate way in
vice of a capricious, all-powerful, and constantly inter- which he devised governments of men who were united
ventionist deity. The second is a knack for the recon- only by loyalty to himself, resulting in a paralysis of polstruction of networks, of those familial, religious, and
icy in Ireland under his rule and a riven power-base for
political alliances on which the man’s career always dehis successor. The third aspect concerns his achievement.
pended and to which he devoted much more regard than His policy of religious liberty could probably not have
to institutions and constitutions. Both enable us to un- been permanent, because sectarian tensions worsened in
derstand a key actor in English history better than be- England under his rule. The Restoration was precipifore, and so this takes its place as an important study. tated by the ex-royalist with no commitment to godly
It argues convincingly for a consistency to Cromwell’s
reform whom he had put in charge of a strategically vipolicies greater than that perceived before, centered on a
tal army. His disdain for constitutions meant that others
quest for the achievement of religious and civil liberties had to draw them up for him, and get the blame when
without social revolution, guaranteed by the government they failed; his death does not seem untimely so much
of a single presiding figure limited by Council and Par- as that of an exhausted man bankrupt of ideas. There
liament and imbued with an evangelical Protestant tone. is a darker Cromwell still awaiting his biographer, and
It concludes, moreover, that he achieved a great measure
another challenge presented to a historian: that of disof success in this, and might have made it permanent had
covering why the Victorian admiration of the man has
his death not cut short the process.
persisted unchallenged till the present.
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Citation: Ronald Hutton. Review of Davis, J. C., Oliver Cromwell and Gaunt, Peter, ed., The English Civil War: The
Essential Readings. H-Albion, H-Net Reviews. August, 2001.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=5388
Copyright © 2001 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work for
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