The Executions of British and French Royalty: The Lives of the Royals Who Were Put to Death in England and France by Charles River Editors

Author:Charles River Editors
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Charles River Editors
Published: 2023-11-24T00:00:00+00:00

Ireton

At the same time, there were many radical agitators in the army, men pushing for a more substantial change in the country than most MPs and the gentry officers of the New Model Army would ever endorse. These proposals were presented in two successive documents, The Case of the Armie Truly Stated and its successor The Agreement of the People. The radicals wanted more than just to use Parliament to curb the King. Having fought and bled for Parliament, they now wanted to be represented within it, with equal representation for all men in Parliament, rather than the existing system which only gave votes to a wealthy minority.

The Putney Debates, a series of meetings between army officers and representatives of the common soldiers, took place in October and early November 1647 with the aim of finding common ground between these two approaches to reform, both radical by the standards of the era and yet somehow at odds with each other. Cromwell took a leading part in these debates, chairing meetings, supporting the Head of Proposals and trying to achieve reconciliation. He used prayer as a way of creating bonds between men with very different views but a shared and fervent Protestant faith. In line with his own beliefs, he also encouraged all involved to seek guidance from God in their prayers. It was indicative of the challenge he faced that these men, who shared his strong faith in a personal relationship with the divine, could return to the meetings after a night of prayer with their opposing beliefs reinforced rather than reconciled. This radicalism showed no signs of abating with its flames fanned by agitators from outside the army, and Cromwell and Fairfax eventually came to see it as a form of mutiny. They gathered the army in a series of separate mass meetings, used force of will to achieve unity in place of divisive radicalism, and court-martialed nine leading mutineers.

Though he was a reformer and has gone down in history as the man who led the forces of representation against an authoritarian monarch, it would be a mistake to view Cromwell as a democrat in the modern sense. As the Putney Debates showed, he was a man with a deep sense of right and wrong, and one who was only so willing to listen to dissenting voices. He despised the tyranny he associated with Charles, but he did not see all men as equally worthy of participation in the business of running the country. He wanted leadership by a group of God-fearing, property-owning men who shared his Protestant convictions and who were as uncomfortable with the unruly mob as with an untrustworthy monarch. While radicals sought to do away with Charles, Cromwell sought a way to achieve a stable reconciliation with the King, though on more radical terms than those favored by his parliamentary colleagues.

It is a sign of just how badly King Charles misjudged his position that he went from this point, when Cromwell would execute his own

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