God's Fury, England's Fire_ A New History of the English Civil Wars - Michael J. Braddick [353]
Nathaniel Butter and Nicholas Bourne, editorializing on a report of a spectacular volcanic eruption in the Azores in July 1638, wrote: ‘Let the speculative ponder, and the philosopher search out the cause of so portentous an effect, in as much as the mathematician seeks rects for his judgement, and the historian knowledges for his discourse’.15 It was no easy task to discover the meaning of meaningful events.
For those who lived through the civil wars it was no easier, and many continued to feel betrayed by the cause they had felt they were fighting for. At the same time, opportunities were taken up by networks of activists, creating effects that were not at first thought of, or aimed at. Experiences of these portentous events were confused and diverse: startling creativity arose alongside great trauma. It had no single voice and no single significance; it transcended the immediate practical problems of political settlement, and was not definitively expressed in any of the subsequent constitutional solutions. This story, of creative confusion, was relevant not only to the 1640s and not only to the English – it inflected the revolutions in America and France, fostered the rise of a great power, was significant to the history of European republicanism and to the roots of the Enlightenment. Experiences of these conflicts were plural, ambiguous, divided and contrasting; their potential meanings equally diverse. In the end, events so portentous as the sufferings of the 1640s, and the multiple responses to them, deserve to be remembered not for a single voice or consequence, but because they provide many knowledges for our discourse.
Acknowledgements
In a profession marked by generosity and collegiality it is not possible to acknowledge all debts, but it is important to try. How this book is written owes a lot to Peter Lake, whose mark is on both the overall approach and much of the detail; Ann Hughes, a generous colleague whose work in this field exercises a much greater influence on my approach than is evident simply from the footnotes; John Walter, once teacher and now colleague, whose example and advice have informed and improved everything that I have written, particularly on popular politics; John Morrill, under whose supervision I first studied this period; and Mark Greengrass, with whom I taught and thought about the Hartlib circle for several years.
Karen Harvey, as booster and helpful critic, has no equal and she has read or talked about almost everything in this book. Ann Hughes, Tom Leng, Anthony Milton and Simon Winder all read the manuscript, which was much improved as a result. For their generosity with advice, references and their own work in progress I am particularly grateful to Alastair Bellany, Katherine Braddick, Dan Beaver, Bill Bulman, Ann Carmichael, Justin Champion, Tom Cogswell, David Como, David Cressy, Brian Cummings, Richard Cust, Barbara Donagan, Carol Gluck, Julian Goodare, Genevieve Guenther, Ariel Hessayon, Steve Hindle, Andrew Hopper, Sean Kelsey, Linda Kirk, Mark Kishlansky, Irving Lavin, Tom Leng, Keith Lindley, Jason McGelligot, Anthony Milton, John Morrill, Marcus Nevitt, Jason Peacey, Jill Pritchard, Joad Raymond, Steve Renshaw, Gary Rivett, Mary Robertson, Quentin Skinner, Nigel Smith, Laura Stewart, Alex Walsham, John Walter, Laura Weigert and Phil Withington. Some of my central arguments were first trailed as papers or lectures at the universities of Leicester, Pennsylvania, Princeton, Sheffield and Yale, at University College London, the School of East European Studies, University of London, the European University Institute in Florence, the Semin´rio de História do Instituto de Ciěncias Sociais, Universidade de Lisboa, the Université Paris