The Maid Who Restored Charles II
26 comments
·May 29, 2025lordleft
dhosek
I knew the 17th-century kings from a mnemonic that my world history teacher gave (Charlie the tuna in the middle of the sandwich≡James I-Charles I-Charles II-James II), but not much more than that. Most of my English history came by way of lit classes which had Milton the only author between the Cavalier poets from the early 17th century and Alexander Pope in the mid-18th century, so your anecdotal experience holds up with my Gen X education.
atombender
Louis XVI researched extensively about Charles I once he was imprisoned, including reading the protocols of the trial, which were minutely recorded, including transcripts of the exchanges between the king and the court [1]. Louis chose a very different strategy, which didn't help him in the end. As with the English civil war, the French revolutionists weren't sure what to do with the king, either, and execution wasn't the one option considered. It really does feel like history rhymes.
[1] https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_exact-and...
growlNark
I highly recommend reading about the Levellers. It might be the only democratic movement in Britain until the 20th century.
potato3732842
Britain had a habit of showing all its religious/political (can't really separate them at this point in history) minorities the door (and to be fair, some of them were basically lunatics) which is likely a large part of why things shook out the way they did. A bunch of ideologically opposed groups cast onto another continent had no choice but to learn how to self govern despite their differences.
ahmeneeroe-v2
>religious/political (can't really separate them at this point in history)
In the US this is still true (idk anything about other countries' politics)
wahern
Democratic in the modern sense. The past millennia of English history could be understood as a slow progression of the devolution of power. The actual politics were pretty messy, but the evolution in legal and political theory was more steady. Compare that to most other civilizations, where the evolution of democracy was much more abrupt and epochal, not to mention even bloodier and altogether much more recent.
There were democratic movements elsewhere, but almost all were squelched by king and tsars (domestic or foreign) and the legal and political environments reset to square 0.
Also, the modern notion of the history of democracy is the devolution of power to the masses. But I like to think of the evolution of English history, at least legally, as the (albeit slow and uneven) elevation of the masses to the aristocracy, and in that way something similar to how the Greek's viewed democracy--with power comes responsibility and stricture. Though, that was partially the product of the expulsion of certain groups from the island; yet, that process was carried over in the US where many of those groups landed.
rjsw
There was more than just the Levellers at the time, maybe read "The English Revolution, 1640" [1] by Christopher Hill.
[1] https://www.marxists.org/archive/hill-christopher/english-re...
growlNark
Very interesting. Cheers, thanks for the read!
vondur
"And do Englishmen so soon forget the ground where liberty was fought for? Tell your neighbours and your children that this is holy ground, much holier than that on which your churches stand. All England should come in pilgrimage to this hill once a year." John Adams wrote that while touring the site of the final battle of the English Civil War. I'd agree that the English Civil War is not covered in much detail in US Schools.
Xss3
It wasn't taught to me at all here in the UK.
notahacker
I did learn it, but at A-level (i.e an elective course after many kids had left school altogether)
tbf the English Civil War is, like most Civil Wars, pretty darned complicated in the motivations and actions of the key players, and dumbing it down gives lessons which are near, fit very nicely into modern tropes and are also almost entirely wrong in the messages they convey.
PontifexMinimus
Nor me.
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FridayoLeary
If modern democracy was conceived from the magna carta then this was its birth. It for once and all proved that the king rules by the consent of Parliament and not the other way round. Charles II was much more hesitant to interfere, and his successors increasingly delegated political matters, paving the way to one of the most stable and free democracies in the world.
The Brit in me is also smug that "our" revolution was so much less messy then the French one.
mistrial9
that period exactly touches the nerve of Catholic versus non-Catholic history.. The removal of that cause of war was a driver for the US Constitution religious liberty clauses.. so repeating in detail the drivers of the conflict is not taught in public schools in the USA generally, yes agree
vram22
Related historical novels about England, full of intrigue, passion, crime, and adultery, what else do you expect, like of any (feudal) period anywhere in the world, but a somewhat light, fun read, now and then. Gotta get those jollies out, and this is one way. Catharsis, IOW :) :
Jean Plaidy / Eleanor Alice Burford
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Alice_Burford
Georgette Heyer novels are another series in the same category. Some good writing and depictions there.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgette_Heyer
All fiction.
gbolcer
One tiny comment, I think the article meant "steward" not Stuart. LOL
dhosek
Nope, Stuart was the surname of the kings from James I–James II.
bell-cot
But actually, their surname did come from "Steward" -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Stuart
And they were monarchs of England, Scotland, and Ireland from King James IV-who-was-also-King James-I through Queen Anne.
Veen
James VI and I, not IV and I.
The English Civil War feels like a dress rehearsal for the upheavals of the late 18th century. Many of the impulses of the American and French Revolutions are there, in germinal form. Egalitarianism, freedom of thought, even the see-sawing from monarchy to republic to monarchy again (America excluded). It is criminally undertaught in US schools (from my anecdotal experience) even though it explains much of context the founders were working within. Excellent & illuminating article.