Re-fighting the English Revolution: John Nalson (1637–1686) and the Frustrations of Late Seventeenth-Century English Historiography

Abstract

The English Revolution of the mid-seventeenth century went on being re-fought and reinterpreted long after the original events were over. In the later part of the reign of Charles II, fuelled by the Exclusion Crisis and the Popish Plot and the early strivings of Whigs and Tories, histories of the Civil Wars, Interregnum and Restoration took on a new lease of life and gained added purpose and relevance. John Nalson (1637–1686) is firmly anchored in this period and took up his pen in the re-drawn political and religious battle-lines. This article offers a reassessment of this neglected polemicist and historian, placing him within the context of his times and the intense rhetoric and rivalries to which it gave rise. It examines Nalson's output in relation to other writers of the age—Hobbes, Filmer and Rushworth among them—and takes stock of his changing reputation.

Résumé: La révolution anglaise du mi-dix-septième siècle demeura un sujet de controverse bien après les évènements. Dans la seconde partie du règne de Charles II, dans la tourmente des complots et des conflits entre Whigs et Tories, les histoires de la guerre civile, l'inter-regnum et de la restauration prirent une nouvelle importance. John Nalson (1637–1686) est de cette époque et ses écrits appartiennent aux conflits de cette époque. Cet article se penche sur cet historien et polémiste négligé en le recadrant dans son contexte et au sein des rivalités auxquelles ses écrits donnèrent lieu tout en le comparant avec les autres auteurs de cette époque: Hobbes, Filmer et Rushworth entre autres.

Notes

 [1] On the historiography of this subject see Richardson, English Revolution, Worden, Roundhead Reputations and Hutton, Debates on Stuart History.

 [2] Woolf, Idea of History, Reading History in Early Modern England, Social Circulation of the Past; Knights, Politics and Opinion, 165–66.

 [3] MacGillivray, Restoration Historians, 109.

 [4] Oxford DNB , Nalson. C. E. Whiting in his Puritanism from the Restoration to the Revolution 1660–1688, 1931, London: Cass, 1968, 514 wrongly states that Nalson was not a clergyman.

 [5] Harris, Politics under the Later Stuarts; Knights, Politics and Opinion; Marshall, Age of Faction; and Montano, Courting the Moderates. Earlier contributions to this discussion include Feiling, Tory Party, 1640–1714, Jones, The First Whigs and Kenyon, Revolution Principles.

 [6] Glassey, Reigns of Charles II and James II; Kitchin, Sir Roger L'Estrange; Weber's Paper Bullets concentrates only on representations of Charles II.

 [7] Montano, Courting the Moderates, 19; Glassey, Reigns of Charles II and James II, 139; Harris, London Crowds in the Reign of Charles II; Harris, Politics under the Later Stuarts, 187.

 [8] Knights, Politics and Opinion, 164. This was Nalson's Letter from a Jesuit in Paris, 1679. It was a clumsy diatribe, published anonymously and with no dedication, aimed at both Presbyterians and Roman Catholics. Its authorship was quickly detected and, with the Whigs soon in the ascendant after its publication, Nalson was briefly imprisoned. Danby endured a longer confinement after 1679. Browning's Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby is the standard biography. It passes over the party press in this period, however, and contains no mention of Nalson.

 [9] Nalson, The Countermine, 2nd ed., 1677, 234. Here ‘Hackney’ is probably another rendering of ‘hack’ though it could refer to the place Hackney in Middlesex, on the fringes of London and with a reputation for Dissent.

[10] See Parry, The Trophies of Time and Sweet, Antiquaries.

[11] The chief accumulation of Nalson's notes forms part of the Portland Mss and was catalogued by the Historical Manuscripts Commission in the late nineteenth century (HMC, Portland Mss, I, 1891). The collection is now housed at the British Library. Some of Nalson's other manuscripts found their way into the Tanner Collection at the Bodleian Library, Oxford. (Tanner, like Nalson before him, held a prebend at Ely between 1713 and 1724.) Others were printed in Francis Peck, Desiderata Curiosa, 1732.

[12] Nalson, The True Protestant's Appeal to the City and Country, 1681, 1; Nalson, True Liberty of the Dominion of Conscience, 1677, 66, 69.

[13] Nalson, Toleration of Liberty of Conscience Considered, 1685, 7, 40.

[14] Oxford DNB, L'Estrange.

[15] Nalson, The Character of a Rebellion and what England can expect from one, 1681, 1.

[16] Nalson, Character of a Rebellion, 8.

[17] Nalson, The Common Interest of King and People, 1677, 154.

[18] Nalson, The Common Interest of King and People, 1677, 64.

[19] Nalson, The Common Interest of King and People, 1677, 143; Nalson, Reflections upon Coll. Sidney's Arcadia, 1684, 5.

[20] Louis Maimbourg, History of the Crusades. Englished by John Nalson , 1685, To the reader, 2.

[21] This work, too, like An Impartial Collection, employed the familiar pictorial frontispiece and poem combination.

[22] Nalson, A True Copy of the Journal of the High Court of Justice for the Tryal of King Charles I, 1683, x.

[23] Nalson, Common Interest, 230.

[24] Nalson, Coll. Sidney, 15; Nalson, Impartial Collection, II, 536.

[25] Nalson, The Project of Peace, 1678, 119–20; Nalson, Impartial Collection, II, 527; Nalson, Common Interest, 234.

[26] Nalson, Common Interest, 201. Hughes, Gangraena deals comprehensively with Thomas Edwards.

[27] Nalson, Coll. Sidney, 16.

[28] Nalson, Coll. Sidney, 15.

[29] Nalson, Countermine, 206, 215, 109.

[30] Nalson, Countermine, 310.

[31] Nalson, Project of Peace, 166.

[32] Nalson, Tryal of King Charles I, lxiii, lxiv.

[33] Nalson, Project of Peace, 46–47, 49, 52, 53, 51. Nalson's readers would have readily grasped the comparison with Massaniello, the short-lived hero of an anti-Habsburg popular uprising in Naples in 1647. He was hailed as king by some of his followers. For a contemporary account see A. Giraffi, An Exact History of the Late Revolution in Naples, London, 1664.

[34] Nalson, Common Interest, 45–46.

[35] Nalson, Tryal of King Charles I, To the Reader, 125.

[36] Nalson, Project of Peace, 217.

[37] See Kenyon, Popish Plot; Miller, Popery and Politics; Hibbard, Charles I and the Popish Plot.

[38] Nalson, Common Interest, Chap. 1, passim; Bowle, Hobbes and his Critics.

[39] Nalson, Common Interest, 6.

[40] Nalson, King's Prerogative and the Subject's Privileges, 150.

[41] On Filmer see Laslett, ed., Patriarcha, Zagorin, Political Thought in the English Revolution, and Burgess, Absolute Monarchy and the Stuart Constitution.

[42] The final volumes of Rushworth's work appeared posthumously in 1691 and 1701.

[43] Oxford DNB, Rushworth.

[44] Bodleian Library, Oxford. Mss Tanner, 34, 80. Quoted in MacGillivray, Restoration Historians, 118.

[45] Oldmixon, Critical History, I, 148. On seventeenth-century impartiality see Dear, ‘From Truth to Disinterestedness’, Preston, ‘English Ecclesiastical Historians and the Problem of Bias’, Shapiro, A Culture of Fact: England 1550–1720, Woolf, Social Circulation of the Past, 372.

[46] Nalson, The Countermine, 315.

[47] Rushworth, Historical Collections, I, 157; IV, 269 et seq.; V, 839 et seq.; VII, passim.

[48] Rushworth, Historical Collections, I, 157; IV, 269 et seq.; V, 839 et seq.; VII, passim, I, preface, unpaginated.

[49] Rushworth, Historical Collections, I, 157; IV, 269 et seq.; V, 839 et seq.; VII, passim, II, preface, unpaginated.

[50] Bodleian Library, Oxford, Mss Wood, F39, f.383v. Quoted in Oxford DNB, Rushworth.

[51] See Oxford DNB, Rushworth; MacGillivray, Restoration Historians, 96–109; Henderson, ‘Posterity to Judge’; MacGillivray, Restoration Historians, 101.

[52] Oxford DNB, Danby.

[53] The terms ‘Whig’ and ‘Tory’ which came into common parlance in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries as descriptions of political parties had disreputable origins. ‘Tory’ was an Irish slang word meaning robber or bandit, hurled at Charles II's court ‘party’ by its opponents. The Scottish slang word ‘Whig’, meaning cattle thief, was the abusive label hastily thrown back by the ‘Tories’.

[54] Dugdale, Short View of the Late Troubles; Clarendon, History of the Rebellion; Echard, History of England; Carte, General History of England; Hume, History of Great Britain. The catalogue of Tory publications on the history of the English Revolution is examined in Richardson, English Revolution, 20–56.

[55] Nalson, Complaint of Liberty and Property, 1681, 6.

[56] Woolf, Reading History, 172.

[57] Oldmixon, Review of Dr Zachary Grey's Defence, 74, 75; Oldmixon, Critical History, I, 150, 135, 209. On Oldmixon see Rogers, ed., The Letters, Life and Works of John Oldmixon.

[58] Deed, ed., Plume Library; Woolf, Reading History, 184–87; Heidenreich, ed., Libraries of Daniel Defoe and Phillips Farewell; Korsten, ed., The Library of Thomas Baker.

[59] Harrison and Laslett, The Library of John Locke; Watkin, ed., Libraries of Eminent Persons. IV: Architects.

[60] Parks, ed., Libraries of Eminent Persons, V: Poets and Men of Letters; Amory, ed., Libraries of Eminent Persons, VII: Poets and Men of Letters; Keynes, ed., The Library of Edward Gibbon.

[61] Woolf, Reading History, 327–45.

[62] British Library, booksellers' catalogues (1730s) 618.a.36, (1740s) C.186.dd.6 (1–4), (1760s) 128.i.17(1–5).