Johann P. Sommerville

English and European Political Ideas in the Early Seventeenth Century: Revisionism and the Case of Absolutism

The central argument of this article is that English political thinking in the early seventeenth century was not distinctively English. More particularly, we shall see that a number of English writers put forward political doctrines that were precisely the same as those of Continental theorists who are usually described as absolutists. If the Continental thinkers were absolutists, then so were the English writers. The theory of absolutism vested sovereign power in the ruler alone and forbade disobedience to the sovereigns commands unless they contradicted the injunctions of God Himself. It is with the theory of absolutism and not with its practice that this article is concerned. To claim that English and Continental ideas closely resembled each other, and that absolutism flourished on both sides of the Channel, is to challenge not only the old Whig interpretation of English history but also the newer views of so-called revisionists. True, the revisionists often say that they reject Whig ideas. But in fact they adopt some of the central contentions of the Whigs. In order to set what follows into a broad historiographical context, it may be worthwhile to elaborate a little on this theme. Whig historians of the nineteenth century were keen to emphasize the distinctiveness of Englands political development. The Anglo-Saxons, they argued, brought free and democratic institutions into England from their Teutonic forests. Elsewhere in Europe, liberty succumbed to the authoritarianism of popes, kings, and Roman lawyers, but the sea kept foreigners and their unpleasant ways out of England, and there freedom lived on. When the Conqueror came, the old English liberties were for a while in jeopardy.

History and Theory: the Norman Conquest in Early Stuart Political Thought

Orthodoxy maintains that English political thinking before Hobbes was based upon an unphilosophical, precedent-bound reading of history. According to J. G. A. Pocock, Sir Edward Coke typically held that English customary law was pre-historical and that the continuity of English traditions had never been broken by conquest. Conquerors possessed sovereign power; in England there had been no conqueror; so there was no supra-legal sovereign. English liberty was deducible from history. Pococks thesis is inadequate since Coke and many others admitted that there had been a conquest. Their claims rested not upon English history but upon theoretical premises characteristic of Continental thought. Cokes concept of custom was itself theory-laden. Rival theories were largely indifferent to the question of the Norman Conquest, a non-issue in political debate.

From Suarez to Filmer: A Reappraisal

English political thought in the early seventeenth century is often regarded in terms of the disagreements between the king and his parliaments, and of debates amongst lawyers on the nature and contents of the ancient constitution. But a large proportion of the political writings of early seventeenth-century English theorists was directed against the views of Catholic authors. Sir Robert Filmer devoted much of his Patriarcha to refuting the theories of those two great pillars of counter-reformation Catholicism, Bellarmine and Suarez. Suarezs Defensio fidei was burned at Pauls Cross on 21 November 1613. James I believed that by ‘setting up the People above their naturall King’ the political thinking of the Jesuits laid ‘ an excellent ground in Divinitie for all rebels and rebellious people’. One aim of this paper is to suggest that many of the most characteristic ideas on politics of English writers in the early seventeenth century can best be understood in the context of their polemical aim: the refutation of the seditious doctrines of the Papists. This is particularly true of patriarchalism, a subject on which Filmer was no innovator.

Hobbes and his Context

This book — as its title suggests — is about the political ideas of Thomas Hobbes and his contemporaries. Hobbes’ Leviathan is, of course, one of the greatest classics of political philosophy in the English language. It has much to say that is relevant to problems with which people have struggled through the ages, and which are still of the utmost concern today. It poses questions and offers answers on the nature of state power, and on the rights of women, minorities, and individuals. It is also, perhaps, the most stylishly written work of political theory in any language.

Samuel Rawson Gardiner and the Idea of History

This is a lively and interesting discussion of the place of Gardiner – the leading Victorian historian of England in the earlyand mid-seventeenth century – in the history of historiography. It is not a biography of Gardiner, though along the way it makes many important points about the historian’s life. The Introduction discusses – and assails – earlier commentators who wrote on Gardiner, including Lytton Strachey (who styled his multi-volume History of England between 1603 and 1656 ‘a very large heap of sawdust’ (3)), Roland G. Usher (who tried to destroy Gardiner’s reputation, and claimed that he singularly failed to apply the scientific method to which he paid lipservice), and J. P. Kenyon (whom Nixon convicts of uncritically following Usher). The first chapter is on Gardiner’s ‘historical theory’ (23). Nixon notes that analyzing this is somewhat problematic, as the Victorian ‘left behind no explicit statements of his historiographical theory’ (25-6). In consequence, we have to divine his theoretical preoccupations ‘indirectly from his work’ (26). Nixon interestingly suggests that Gardiner was no mere dull British empiricist. He notes and documents the influence on him of German Idealists. This is a theme that recurs frequently through the book. Fichte and Schiller feature especially prominently. Gardiner has often been seen as the English Ranke, but Nixon notes that he criticized the German for a lack of warmth and imagination (30). Nixon contends that Gardiner was ‘much more a historian of ideas than a historian of high politics’ (37). This is another central theme of the book as a whole. The second chapter is on Practice. It pays special attention to Gardiner’s short book on The Thirty Years’ War, published in 1874 (London: Longmans, Green, and Co.) (other chapters concentrate on theHistory of England, the historian’s major work). Nixon assimilates Gardiner’s attitude towards Wallenstein to the views of the poet and dramatist Schiller, rather than to those of Ranke. The next chapter surveys the role of Gardiner’s religious convictions in his historiography. Nixon argues that, although he is often seen as sympathetic towards puritans, he was ‘highly critical of puritanism’, though he praised particular puritans (86). Nixon connects Gardiner’s views with those of Richard Hooker and, to a degree, with Laudianism. In passing, he refers to Gardiner’s ‘critics, such as Conrad Russell’ (91). It is true that Russell differed from Gardiner on many points. He was also a great admirer of the Victorian, however, and took his writings with the utmost seriousness.

Religious Politics in Post-Reformation England: Essays in Honour of Nicholas Tyacke (review)

This is a Festschrift for Nicholas Tyacke, a wide-ranging and meticulous scholar, who was and continues to be one of the most important modern historians of early modern Britain. His main field of interest is the religious and ecclesiastical history of England, especially in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. All the essays in this book are on topics that lie within that field.The contributors are a distinguished team,and the quality of the essays is far higher than is often the case with such collections. In a relatively short review it is possible to pick out only a few highlights.

God, Religion and Toleration

Throughout the seventeenth century much ink was spilled in debating the question of church-state relations in England. Hobbes contributed to the discussion in Leviathan and elsewhere. A problem which was closely associated with church-state relations was that of toleration — and this topic also aroused heated discussion, not least in the 1640s. Independents made common cause with Erastians and with the sects to prevent the institution in England of a rigid Presbyterian system on the Scottish model. But the Independents and their allies were themselves divided on just what degree of toleration should be introduced. A number of issues underlay the debate. One was the extent to which the civil magistrate possessed the authority to interfere in religious affairs. Another was the question of whether individuals have a right to worship God according to the dictates of their consciences. A third was the problem of the nature of heresy and of what if any punishment it merited. Finally, some writers (including Chillingworth and Falkland) argued that there were very few essential Christian doctrines and that it would be wrong to persecute anyone for maintaining (or failing to maintain) a religious belief which the bible neither condemned nor prescribed.

Hobbes on Sovereignty and Law

Sir Robert Filmer found much to criticise in Hobbes’ account of how government arose. But he was far more happy with Hobbes’ treatment of the powers which rulers held once it had arisen: ‘[w]ith no small content I read Mr. Hobbes’s book De Cive, and his Leviathan, about the rights of sovereignty, which no man, that I know, hath so amply and judiciously handled. I consent with him about the rights of exercising government, but I cannot agree to his means of acquiring it’. As we have seen, Filmer was an absolutist who welcomed many of Hobbes’ doctrines on the power of sovereigns. Both men set down their thoughts on this subject before Civil War broke out in England, for Filmer had completed a version of his Patriarcha by 1632, and Hobbes finished the Elements of Law by 1640. In Leviathan, Hobbes did indeed add to his discussion a number of references to events and debates that took place in the 1640s. But the broad contours of his argument are much the same as in the Elements. The immediate historical context of Hobbes’ central teachings on the powers of sovereigns is to be sought in the disputes on the royal prerogative which took place in England before the Long Parliament met in November 1640.1

The Law of Nature and the Natural Condition of Mankind

Hobbes held that the universe consists of nothing but matter in motion — or at rest. He claimed that human psychology may be reduced to physical laws. The opening chapters of Leviathan are devoted to illustrating and confirming this thesis. He also held that people can understand human nature by introspection, arguing (as Montaigne and Descartes had argued) that by examining our own thoughts and passions we may discover truths about the thoughts and passions of everyone (Lev Introduction 2). His political doctrines were based upon his theory of human nature — a theory which De Corpore (on body, or matter) and De Homine (on man) were intended to vindicate, but which (in Hobbes’ opinion) was sufficiently confirmed by self-examination and by everyday experience. It was because his political theory was grounded in principles evident from experience that Hobbes felt able to publish De Cive before the other two parts of his philosophical trilogy (DC preface to the reader, 10, 19).

The Origins of Government and the Nature of Political Obligation

Hobbes held that the earliest states had been families. ‘It is evident’, he said, ‘that the beginning of all Dominion amongst Men was in Families’, and that the father ‘was absolute Lord of his Wife and Children’ (Dialogue 159). He also thought that commonwealths could begin through conquest. But he spent most space on the commonwealth by institution, which he treated as the paradigm case of how government arises. The same emphasis on commonwealths by institution was characteristic of most contractualists or contractarians — that is to say, of thinkers who grounded government upon the consent of the governed. Many such theorists drew the conclusion that rulers are now bound by the conditions of the original contract and may be resisted if they breach them. Among medieval Roman lawyers, however, it was commonly argued that the original contract was an absolute transference of power from the people to its ruler. A number of Hobbes’ French contemporaries — including Cardin le Bret and Edmond Richer — likewise argued that the people originally consented to absolute monarchy, and that kings were irresistible. Hobbes similarly claimed that the people’s consent instituted absolute sovereignty. But he added a novel argument, asserting that government by institution arises through a contract between individuals excluding the sovereign, and not between the people and its ruler.