Turncoats and Renegadoes

Over the past thirty years, studies of the nature of the English Civil War have changed focus and scale. Gone are the explanations in terms of major social and economic processes, which dominated in the mid-twentieth century and caused entire classes to rise or decline and made the war a rupture created by such seismic movements within the bedrock of society. One hears much less now of the cultural and ideological factors, of religious beliefs, political ideals and regional mentalities, which replaced the socio-economic models in the last quarter of the century as explanatory vehicles. Instead, questions of allegiance in the war are seen increasingly as a series of individual decisions, involving the taking of positions with regard to contending parties which were themselves ill-defined, mutable and fissiparous coalitions. Each of these three historiographical traditions reflects a stage in the development of modern Western society. The first was generated by a period in which class divisions and tensions were major forces, and Marxism a potent element in international power relations. The second was contemporary with the reappearance of religious fundamentalism as a leading factor in global affairs, and a new sensitivity to the nature of identity politics, and the manner in which communities—geographical or spiritual—construct self-images. At the present time, there is an increasing emphasis on the ability of individuals to create personae for themselves, in situations which allow of a wide spectrum of choice. It may hardly be a coincidence, therefore, that this is the moment when the first sustained study has appeared of those participants in the political and military events of the 1640s who not only found a choice of allegiance problematical, but chose to alter it

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