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The Protectorate saw various attempts, especially by Oliver Cromwell and his army allies, to use Parliament as a means to introduce radical religious reforms. These included efforts to improve the quality of the ministry and to extend liberty of conscience more widely. However, all three Protectorate Parliaments contained numerous members who sought a much more structured national church with penalties for those who refused to conform to it, and who therefore wished to frustrate the more libertarian aspects of the army's religious agenda. In the bitter debates that ensued about liberty of conscience, and particularly over the cases of John Biddle and James Nayler, the collision between Cromwell's religious vision and the attitudes and preferences of many within the Protectorate Parliaments became starkly apparent. This chapter will examine the causes and consequences of that collision, and the ways in which it destabilised the Protectorate Parliaments and forced changes within the Protectorate. THE FIRST PROTECTORATE PARLIAMENT The heart of the problem lay in Cromwell's desire to use a body designed as ‘the representative of the whole realm’ to advance what remained a minority agenda, ‘liberty of conscience’. In the end his wish to liberate the godly proved incompatible with the determination of many members to prevent the spread of heresies and blasphemies. The principal source of disagreement between Cromwell and a majority of members seems not to have been over whether religious reform was necessary, but over what sort of religious reform was desirable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the most revolutionary aspects of parliamentary history during the Protectorate was the Instrument of Government's empowering of the council to scrutinise election returns and to exclude any members whom it deemed to fail certain political, religious, and moral criteria. As we shall see, these qualifications were defined sufficiently vaguely – for example, members had to be ‘of known integrity, fearing God, and of good conversation’ – as to leave wide open the possibility of very extensive use and even abuse. In the event, somewhere between seven and eleven members of the first Protectorate Parliament were excluded before it met, and perhaps another fifty to eighty absented themselves rather than take the Recognition that Cromwell imposed as a condition of re-entering the House on 12 September 1654. The exclusions that preceded the second Protectorate Parliament were on a far larger scale and removed just over a hundred elected members, while a further fifty or sixty promptly withdrew in protest. This chapter will examine these exclusions of members from the first two Protectorate Parliaments, where responsibility for them lay, and what their impact was on those Parliaments. It will also consider the fact that the second sitting of the second Protectorate Parliament (1658) and the third Protectorate Parliament (1659) saw no such exclusions, and will assess what implications this had for parliamentary proceedings during those sittings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Looking back … upon England, as it was before the Reformation, we find that … the religion of the country, by means of its forms and ceremonies, was interwoven with the whole business of life … The diseased growth of parishes frustrated the political as well as the religious purposes of our old parochial system, if we may be permitted to consider apart things which are, strictly speaking, inseparable. Of late years, an abundant shower of curates has fallen upon the north of England. The parochial system is, no doubt, a beautiful thing in theory, and is of great value in small rural districts; but in the large town it is a mere shadow and a name. INTRODUCTION The 1911 national census highlighted a remarkable fact. By that date about 8,322 parishes in England and Wales (58 per cent of the total) were not coterminous for civil and ecclesiastical purposes. This phenomenon, which the census report emphasised as a matter of great concern, also raised apprehensions in earlier censuses. It stood in contrast to the situation in the late eighteenth century or earlier, when the very large majority of parishes had been co-extensive for civil and ecclesiastical matters. At that earlier time, as throughout the medieval and early modern period, civil and religious affairs had been closely bonded together in parish life. Yet this was far less the case by 1911. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Of all the many controversies which have been fought upon Poor Law questions the most persistent and irreconcilable has been that upon the respective merits of ‘indoor’ and ‘outdoor’ relief. It has always seemed to me a grievous error in the national economy to shut people within workhouse walls because they sought employment and could not get it … To me it has seemed cruel, terribly cruel, to take the aged and infirm from the cottages they have laboured to keep above their heads, and which they have sanctified with their affections, and shut them up in the workhouse, drilling them in their old days under the discipline of a barrack-yard … terribly cruel to break up ‘the old house at home’ of an old couple whose eyes see ‘home’ written in every corner of it. For every one in-door pauper, there are, on the average, more than twelve out-door. Such is the result of the endeavour so severely made, by the administrators of the Poor Law Amendment Act, for some time after its passing in 1834, to make the workhouse the only place of relief for the poor! INTRODUCTION At first glance, the title of this chapter might be thought self-contradictory. We are so accustomed to associate the new poor law with the union workhouse, both in popular and academic discussions, that a consideration here of out-relief in people's own homes and parishes after 1834 might seem a misplaced emphasis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social conscience of a rural people is limited by the parish bounds. Once men begin to feel cramped in their geographical, social and mental habitat, they are in danger of being tempted by the simple solution of denying one section of the species the right to be considered as human. ‘Who's 'im, Bill?’ ‘A stranger!’ ‘Eave 'arf a brick at 'im.’ This chapter is on the theme of local identity, exclusion and what I am calling ‘the culture of local xenophobia’. ‘Xenophobia’ is an unattractive word, although perhaps that suits its meaning – it is defined as a fear or dislike of things foreign or strange. I shall use it here as prefaced by ‘local’. In other words, this chapter is not dealing with anti-foreigner or anti-outsider sentiments in the more modern international, ethnic or religious senses. In fact, the word ‘foreigner’ was widely used in the past, even as late as the 1940s, to refer to somebody from another parish or locality, and I will normally use it in that local historical way. Such usage connects back to, and further justifies, the term ‘local xenophobia’. Wider national xenophobic attitudes, whether racist, religious or nationalist, have been much analysed by historians and other academics. Given modern problems, it is very important that study of these issues should occur. By comparison, almost nothing has been written by historians about the subject of local xenophobia, even though that subject bears so much on how, and when, humanitarian attitudes broached parochial confines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is now little doubt that during the early modern period England saw the development of a precocious statehood. It is some years since Patrick Collinson drew our attention to the covenant which sought to ensure continuity in the regime should Elizabeth perish, and since David Norwood highlighted the elements of republicanism in the aristocratic thought of the early seventeenth century. More recently, Sean Kelsey has argued that the interregnum saw creative and effective developments in the ideology and iconography of English republicanism. For our purposes here, all this is significant, but the context of this manifestation of a close alignment between state, nation and power, more or less independent of monarchy, was the complex one of the multi-ethnic British Isles. This chapter seeks to examine the interaction not of English state and English nation, but of English state and nation with the non-English communities of Britain and beyond. I will be less concerned with Ireland and Scotland, where there has been significant work already on the interactions between power and nation. Rather I want to look at some of the others in this situation who were in some sense territorially defined. All possessed some ethnic, cultural or jurisdictional distinction from the rest of England, in varying measures. Language and Celtic cultural identities mattered in Wales, in Cornwall and in the Isle of Man; Norman-French language and identity in the Channel Islands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS In this essay I consider the claims that nations existed in pre-modern history and that political arguments appealing to such communities were significant. I argue that the limited evidence available from the pre-modern period suggests two principal ways in which the term ‘nation’ was used: ethnographically, to describe ‘barbaric’ societies, and as political self-description, usually of a territorial kingdom. The nation was subordinated to values associated with civilisation and monarchy. Strong claims for the nation as a ‘whole society’ with a widespread and continuous sense of national identity elide this ethnographic/political distinction and ignore the subordinate value nation plays in both kinds of discourse. Furthermore, those arguing for a significant pre-modern sense of nationality conflate fragmented pieces of evidence in which ‘nation’ and cognate terms are used, investing these with a coherence, continuity and political importance they did not possess. I argue that national identity, understood as the processes of maintaining, reinterpreting and transmitting the values associated with the nation, has weak force in the pre-modern period because it operates discontinuously and does not fuse cultural identity with political interest, and its impact – often highly opportunistic and contingent – is confined to court, noble and Church elites. Finally, in this critical part of the essay, I suggest that nation and national identity (though not nationalism) become significant in specific parts of Europe during the confessional disputes of the early modern period but that this can be accommodated within a modernist framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INTRODUCTION: THE CITY WITHOUT PARLIAMENT, 1681–1682 The Oxford Parliament was over on 28 March 1681, but the Restoration Crisis was not. Too many historical accounts have depicted Oxford as a climax to the crisis in which the opposition was decisively out-maneuvred by the crown. Still other writers have moved quickly from Oxford to the Whig conspiracies of 1682–3, leaping over the evidence for a party confrontation in London and elsewhere in 1681–2. In fact, however, the parliamentary opponents of a Catholic succession were even more determined after Oxford to ensure a Protestant succession and to promote a church resettlement for the benefit of Reformed Protestants. For their part, Charles II and Anglican royalists resolved, after Oxford, to resecure the existing settlement in church and state by all means necessary. The result of these political positions was an eighteen-month extra-parliamentary confrontation between the crown and loyalists, on the one hand, and the opposition, on the other. Contemporaries did not prejudge the outcome of this confrontation, and historians need to be more faithful in capturing the political uncertainty of 1681–2. John Dryden and other loyalist authors drew attention to the king's newfound resolution when they proclaimed the beginning of a “second restoration” after Oxford. Rhetorical strategies employed by the crown and by loyalists in 1681–2 to redirect public opinion have been the subject of recent study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

THE ALIENATION OF THE CITY The disposal of Richard Cromwell and his parliament by the leaders of the New Model Army in April 1659 was the most significant turning-point in the English Revolution since 1649. As Protector, Richard had been supported in parliament and in the localities by broad and somewhat ambiguous coalitions of pragmatists, Presbyterians, and “royalists.” He had been the hope of all those who saw in the Cromwellian church and in the last Protectorate parliament the best prospects for stable government and an enduring parochial establishment. But now the entire post-1653 Cromwellian endeavor to achieve political and religious reconciliation had been destroyed. The nation's affairs had fallen again into the hands of those who had purged the Long Parliament in 1648, who had abrogated the Solemn League and Covenant, who had killed the last king, and who had ever since (in the minds of their critics) threatened national ministry. The hostility of most London citizens and their leaders to the revived republican regime would prevent a successful resettlement of the nation and instead contribute to a rapidly enlarging national crisis. The Commonwealth's inability to control its capital was at the heart of its failure. The opposition movement that developed in the Corporation of London and that inspired opposition elsewhere sprang from an unexpected and ambiguous convergence of two broad groups dedicated to the pre-1649 constitution in church and state, Reformed Protestants and Anglican loyalists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oh what a difference there is between this country and home for poor folks. I know I would not go back again – I know what England is. Old England is a fine place for the rich, but the Lord help the poor. The convict system was replaced by two methods of recruiting labour – free emigration and assisted passages. Free settlers were often able to finance themselves and their workers and dependants. They could secure land grants through the patronage system which was the basis of English politics. Frequently, land was acquired without any payment, especially in Western Australia. While settlement in New South Wales was initially confined, many moved outside the boundaries to become squatters, eventually consolidating their originally illegal hold on the land. The squatters were the equivalent of an upper class in colonial Australia but became the subject of criticism and land tenure reforms from the 1860s. This method of settlement was not, of course, open to the average English immigrant. Many early families came with landowning farmers who saw better opportunities in the colonies. All land was held by the Crown and allocated to these pioneers either by sale or without cost. Land not taken up was treated as ‘waste land’ and remained with the Crown, much being later allocated on leases to pastoralists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Emigrants must belong to the class of Mechanics and Handicraftsmen, Agricultural Labourers or Domestic Servants. The largest numbers of men in England during the formative years of Australia were labourers with limited skills and education. The largest number of women were either unpaid wives and daughters or domestic servants, who were even less likely to be literate than the men. Those coming to Australia before 1850 fully reflected this pattern. Labourers and agricultural workers made up about 40 per cent of the male convicts. The English were more likely to be industrial workers than the Irish, especially those sent to Western Australia between 1850 and 1868. Women were harder to classify, but of those who had employment a large proportion were servants. Labourers and servants were even more strongly represented among assisted emigrants after 1831. Public policy deliberately encouraged the immigration of a manual working class for at least a century after settlement. This distinguished the Australian colonies from the West Indies – which depended on slaves – or from Africa or India, which relied on the local population. Social conditions in the large cities and the new industrial towns created massive social problems, which were tackled by deterrence and severe sanctions but with limited efficiency. Unlike Europe, England did not have organised police forces until the 1830s, following the creation of the London Metropolitan Police in 1829. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay represents an early step on what may prove a long road. That English society and economy changed greatly in the early modern period is evident, and that towards the end of the period it had become very different from its continental neighbours is also abundantly clear. One aspect of change which, given suitable sources, is in principle quantifiable, was that reflected in the occupational structure of the country. The character of a country's economy at a point in time and the nature of any changes taking place over time are necessarily reflected in its occupational structure. Employment is shaped by aggregate demand. The structure of aggregate demand in turn is largely determined by the income levels of consumers. Demand for the basic necessities will always predominate where most of a population lives miserably, and it is not therefore surprising that agriculture provides employment for three-quarters or more of the labour force where poverty is deep and widespread. Food always takes priority over other requirements and among the poorer sections of society often claimed the bulk of their household budgets. But the income elasticity of demand for necessities is normally less than unity and therefore if real incomes rise there is a disproportionately rapid rise in the demand for other goods and services and a parallel rise in the percentage of the workforce which is employed in producing them. The secondary and tertiary sectors expand at the expense of primary employment, at least when expressed as percentages of the labour force rather than in absolute numbers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction It is now commonly understood that for most of the first half of the twentieth century England (and Wales) was socially divided along simple geographical lines to a degree that has not quite recurred since and to a degree that had not occurred so starkly before. The truth of this statement lies in the meaning of the terms. By socially divided I mean the variation in people's life chances. These chances range from a person's chance of being ill and dying, to finding work, to the kind of work they do. It does not take a great leap of imagination to assume that if such fundamental chances as these were strongly polarised then much else that is much harder to measure was also starkly polarised during most of this period – ranging, for example, from the distribution of wealth, to opportunities for recreation and education. By ‘along simple geographical lines’ I mean very simple – in fact involving simply one line: the line that divided the North from the South. There have always been geographical divides – between streets within cities, between town and country and so forth – but I would argue that there has not been, at least since this period, such a simple line to be drawn across the map of England. The North–South divide is still very much apparent today, but it is now more an echo, and perhaps largely a product of the divide which grew so great in these years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early modernity Generally known as ‘the early modern period’, this span of time is identified by the onset of ‘modernity’: that is, the deployment of instrumental human reason in relationships with nature and people, eventually to create an incomparably more materially productive, intricately ordered and expansive world (Graham and Nash 2000: 1–7). Human lives, livelihoods and geographies began to change profoundly as people and institutions deliberately set out to improve material life and its natural, social and political settings. This quest for improvement required the communication of both abstract and instrumental knowledge, in written and other forms. Modernity is therefore not only a state of being, but also, necessarily, a communicated state of knowing: a text about itself. Because we can only deliberately maintain and sustain, or improve and progress, through the elucidation of relationships between past, present and future, modernity's texts are inevitably historical. People began to recount what others wanted (and what they wanted others) to know about their world as it actually was, and to explain how it was changing for better or worse. Of course, such profound structural and conceptual changes cannot happen suddenly or synchronously, and a ‘late’ something else must also have existed in the period: which would be ‘feudalism’ according to conventional historical tags. What that and its geography were are the subject of the next chapter, but it is necessary in this one to be wary of looking only for the beginnings of what later became general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Late-medieval England was a land of dichotomies. The most conspicuous were those between upland and lowland, dispersed and nucleated settlement, woodland and champion, weak and strong lordship, free and customary tenants and tenures, remoteness and proximity to major markets, and between the marches and the metropolitan core. Some of these contrasts were inherent in England's climate and topography, others sprang from deep-rooted human institutions such as field systems, manors, and property rights, while yet others derived from the centralising and differentiating forces of governments and commercial exchange. Many of these dichotomies had a strong north–south dimension but this does not necessarily mean that there was such a thing as a ‘North–South divide’ or that distinctions between the North and the South should be privileged above other spatial and regional differences. The strength and nature of these dichotomies also varied over time, depending upon whether centripetal or centrifugal tendencies were more to the fore. Any systems shift in the balance between these two tendencies was likely to heighten the tensions between core and periphery thereby giving rise to expressions of northern (and southern) consciousness (Jewell 1994). This is what seems to have happened at the close of the Middle Ages. It was then that the dichotomy between North and South in the medieval period was probably at its most pronounced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]