Parochial Activism and the Clubmen of 1645: Anglo-Welsh responses to conflict during the First English Civil War

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• Tim Gray, Jesus College
• Wednesday 15 October 2014, 17:00-19:00
• Wolfson Room South, Trinity .

If you have a question about this talk, please contact kdb29.

During 1645, at the height of the First Civil War, a series of regional uprisings occurred in the counties of western England and south Wales. These mass mobilizations were collectively identified as ‘Club-men’ by contemporary observers. The Clubmen insurrections were recognised as a reaction to the real and perceived depredations inflicted by both Royalist and Parliamentarian forces. Regional groupings of Clubmen represented themselves as collections of associated parishes, responding to the activities of regular military forces. The Clubmen associations of Devon, Dorset, Glamorgan, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, Monmouthshire, Somerset, Wiltshire and Worcestershire represented a broad spectrum of contemporary political activism. In addition to acting as irregular defensive militias, individual associations issued autonomous petitions and articles of association which contained a diverse range of administrative, religious and political demands.

The diversity of these programmes has long been acknowledged in the works of Hutton, Morrill, Stoyle and Underdown. Despite this, there is a risk of labelling individual Clubmen associations as collections of either Royalist or Parliamentarian partisans. Whilst the study of the Clubmen has developed from interpretations based upon romanticised rural county neutralism and popular apathy, a disproportionate focus upon allegiance neglects the activist identities of the associations as the guarantors of the integrity of the parish community alongside the implications of their far-reaching administrative demands. Jonathan Scott’s depiction of ‘moments’ of radical socio-political activity in seventeenth century England can be used to re-interpret the parochial activism of the Clubmen. The associations extended and rearticulated the administrative, confessional, social and physical boundaries of the parish community. This can be seen in the Clubmen petitions and articles that demanded the extension of associational authority over county administration. These programmes were centred upon a series of institutional appropriations and structural reconfigurations which were seen as necessary to manage the impact of armed conflict upon the fabric of the parish community. This attempt of the Clubmen to appropriate what they viewed as legitimate military and civil authority can be viewed as a distinct ‘moment’ of contemporary socio-political activism.

This talk is part of the Violence and Conflict Graduate Workshop, Faculty of History series.

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• Violence and Conflict Graduate Workshop, Faculty of History
• Wolfson Room South, Trinity

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