The World Turned Upside Down - Christopher Hill

...citizens, a world away from the violent revolutions and enthusiasms of Continental Europe. A pleasant enough image - but nothing could be further from the truth.

In this magisterial work the legendary Oxford historian Christopher Hill reveals the radical traditions that burst out into the open between the years 1649 and 1660. Centuries earlier Wat Tyler led the Peasants' Revolt with the rallying cry of "When Adam delved and Eve ...
...flow, the radical, anarchic and democratic traditions in English society had gone deep underground. Now suddenly, and unexpectedly, they erupted. The kingless decade saw a sudden profusion of wild, subversive and counter-cultural movements - such as Ranters, Levellers and Diggers. For a moment, it really seemed as if the world would be turned upside down.

Deep in medieval tradition was the idea of Shrove Tuesday, the Feast of Fools ... more

Lie back and think of Olde Englande - a conservative, traditional and unchanging nation, full of deferential and contented country folk. Imagine a gentle country of loyal and obedient citizens, a world away from the violent revolutions and enthusiasms of Continental Europe. A pleasant enough image - but nothing could be further from the truth.

In this magisterial work the legendary Oxford historian Christopher Hill reveals the radical traditions that burst out into the open between the years 1649 and 1660. Centuries earlier Wat Tyler led the Peasants' Revolt with the rallying cry of "When Adam delved and Eve span, who then was the gentleman?" Like a long-buried lava flow, the radical, anarchic and democratic traditions in English society had gone deep underground. Now suddenly, and unexpectedly, they erupted. The kingless decade saw a sudden profusion of wild, subversive and counter-cultural movements - such as Ranters, Levellers and Diggers. For a moment, it really seemed as if the world would be turned upside down.

Deep in medieval tradition was the idea of Shrove Tuesday, the Feast of Fools and All Fools Day - little days of anarchy and chaos when the established order of things was overturned in carnival jest. With the Civil War, it seemed for a decade as if time slipped off its hinges and history juddered off the rails. God's anointed - the King of England - was beheaded like a criminal. The bishops were cast out, Parliamentary supremacy established. And some had grander plans. Why stop now?

Hill shows that suddenly everything was up for grabs: property, the class system, belief in God. Cromwell himself feared that by killing the king he had unleashed a maelstrom; hence his dissolution of the Parliament of Saints and his reversion to old-style military rule under the Major-Generals.

Hill's genius is in analysing the many and varied causes and manifestations of these proto-revolutionaries. He looks at the phenomenon of "masterless men", or vagrants and vagabonds in a London whose population grew eightfold between 1500 and 1650. He looks at the radical Leveller movement in the Army, which reached its crescendo in the Putney Debates of 1647 and the "Agreement of the People" which called for a virtually universal male franchise. Of course the movement was suppressed at Corkbush Field and Burford, and so democracy in England was not achieved 350 years ahead of schedule.

Hill describes this surge of anarchic freedom as the ultimate logic of the Calvinist Reformation. This quote also, incidentally, showcases his inimitable writing style: "Men felt free: free from hell, free from priests, free from fear of worldly authorities: free from the blind forces of nature, free from magic".

This book is at its most engaging when describing the Diggers who failed in their brief experiment with a soviet style collective farming in Weybridge, Surrey. Winstanley declared "The poorest man hath as true a title and just right to the land as the richest he." He continues with an examination of all the religious mystics, madmen and prophets who flourished in a "let a thousand flowers bloom" explosion of religious freedom.

Of course there is an extent to which Hill's own enthusiasm, as a Marxist historian, governs his writing. This work has been criticised for overplaying and over-romanticising the radical cause, for as the Restoration showed, the majority of the population favoured property, Anglicanism and a limited monarchy. In fact recent historiography has made out Charles 1 to be the real radical - he tried to set up a very un-English absolute monarchy and essentially cooked his own goose.
Nevertheless there is real power and poetry in Hill's work, which for a serious historical monograph is an accessible and very absorbing read.

So what happened? Hill recounts the story: the King returned and the sober age of Reason was installed. "The great period of freedom of movement and thought was over... Milton's nation of prophets became a nation of shopkeepers".

In a final twist of irony, the very land where the Diggers established their primitive, utopian commune - St. George's Hill in Surrey - is now one of the most exclusive private estates in England. It's the kind of place where rock stars, once radical in their youth, come to count their fortunes. Perhaps the old radical Gerrard Winstanley looks down on them, and smiles.

(c) Paul/Westocean. Review also on Dooyoo as Eastern Star. 

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