Civil War: The history of England, Volume III
Peter Ackroyd
Macmillan £20
(978-0-230-70641-5)
Church Times Bookshop £18 (Use code CT292
)
THE public's appetite for narratives of British history, of the
doings of kings and queens, prelates and politicians, continues
unabated. Here, Peter Ackroyd, a writer of genius, reaches the
years 1603-88. They are of special interest to Anglicans,
witnessing in the 1650s the lowest ebb of the Church of England (at
least, until the present).
Why, then, did the Stuarts fail? Successive interpretations have
evaporated: the rise of the middle class, Parliament's bid for
ascendancy, the first Communist revolution. Three leading options
remain: the "three nations" dynamic of England, Scotland, and
Ireland; religious conflict; and the personal failings of
rulers.
All are present here, including the "Bishops' Wars" of 1639-40
that erupted in affirmation of Scots autonomy; and the Irish
backlash against Protestant settlers. Parliament's clashes with
James I, Charles I, and Cromwell receive their due. Religion, too,
is unavoidable; it "was, in this century, the principal issue by
which all other matters were judged and interpreted", and
Arminianism drew a battle line against Calvinism. Was the Church of
England so securely Calvinist, though? My sense is that future
research will qualify that scholarly orthodoxy.
But Ackroyd is most drawn to individual vice and misjudgement.
The foul-mouthed and angry James I drove his unwelcome subjects
away from court; was profligate towards his favourites; was
"acutely aware that his temperament and behaviour were not always
impeccably regal".
Charles I's "piety, and sense of divine mission . . . rendered
him humourless and strict"; he "seemed to lack both moral and
physical courage"; he "could never see the point of view of anyone
but himself"; he could be "wily and secretive"; "he feared to
appear weak."
By contrast, Cromwell emerges well, despite the Drogheda
massacre. Charles II, again, behind his "assumption of good
humour", was "calculating and even cunning", "an adept at the arts
of dissimulation and hypocrisy". James II was "a staunch, and
indeed almost hysterical [Roman] Catholic", in practical matters
"the very model of a retired naval officer of moderate
abilities".
How could it all have ended otherwise? Ackroyd writes with
invariable skill, explaining complex matters in lucid prose,
enlivening everything with telling detail. But I wonder whether a
different story could be told, giving equal weight to the
extraordinary religious bigotries with which these hapless rulers
were surrounded.
Dr Jonathan Clark is Hall Distinguished Professor of British
History at the University of Kansas.