Commonwealth Principles
Republican Writing of the English Revolution

A major contribution to our understanding of seventeenth-century England, from one of its foremost historians.

Jonathan Scott (Author)

9780521035736, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 28 May 2007

416 pages
22.8 x 15 x 2.3 cm, 0.622 kg

'… deserves to command the attention of a wide readership of early modern historians, and will asuredly stimulate further research into the ideological composition of seventeenth-century republicanism.' Journal of Ecclesiastical History

The republican writing of the English revolution has attracted a major scholarly literature. Yet there has been no single treatment of the subject as a whole, nor has it been adequately related to the larger upheaval from which it emerged, or to the larger body of radical thought of which it became the most influential component. Commonwealth Principles addresses these needs, and Jonathan Scott goes beyond existing accounts organized around a single key concept (whether constitutional, linguistic or moral) or author (usually James Harrington) to analyse this body of writing in full context. Linking various social, political and intellectual agendas Professor Scott explains why, when classical republicanism came to England, it did so in the moral service of an explicitly religious revolution. The resulting ideology hinged not upon political language, or constitutional form, but Christian humanist moral philosophy applied in the practical context of an attempted radical reformation of manners.

Preface
Introduction: English republicanism
Part I. Contexts: 1. Classical republicanism
2. The cause of God
3. Discourses of a commonwealth
4. Old worlds and new
Part II. Analysis: 5. The political theory of rebellion
6. Constitutions
7. Liberty
8. Virtue
9. The politics of time
10. Empire
Part III. Chronology: 11. Republicans and Levellers, 1603–49
12. The English republic, 1649–53
13. Healing and settling, 1653–8
14. The good old cause, 1658–60
15. Anatomies of tyranny, 1660–83
16. Republicans and Whigs, 1680–1725
Appendix: 'a pretty story of horses' (May 1654)
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX], Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], British & Irish history [HBJD1], Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD]