The Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow

In the vast manuscript 'A Voyce from the Watch Tower', the former regicide Edmund Ludlow left advice about what should happen to it after his death:

If the Lord please to put a period to my pilgrimage, before I have brought this

narrative to its perfection, it's my desier, that my deare wife, if liveing, if not, those

of my deare friends, and relations, into whose hands by providence it shall fall, will

take care that if it, or any part of it, bee thought of use unto others, it may not bee

made publique, before it hath ben perused, rectifyed, and amended by some one, or

more judicious friends, who have a fluent style, and of the same principle with

mee, as to civill, and spirituall governement, the liberty of men, and Christians, and

well acquainted with the transactions of the late times, to whome I give full power

to deface what hee, or they conceive to be superfluous, or impertinent, or what they

know to bee false, to change and alter what they find misplaced in respect of time,

or other circumstances, to adde what they conceive to bee deficient, or may conduce

to render it more usefull, and agreable, and to that end to cloth it with a more full,

and liquid stile, and to illustrate what is therein asserted with such reasons,

similes, examples, and testimonys, as they shall thinke fit. Provided that in the

maine, they make it speake noe other then my principle (which as I judge is

according to the minde of the Lord) in relation to the gouvernement of church, and

state, and Christ's ruleing... (Edmund Ludlow: A Voyce from the Watch Tower, ed. Blair

Worden. London, 1978, pp. 54-5).

Ludlow's request that something be done with his manuscript was soon fulfilled. An edition, entitled The Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow, was published in 1698, one of several civil war-related tracts to be produced by John Toland and John Darby. It proved popular, going through at least four editions by the end of the eighteenth century and being translated into French and Dutch. Moreover, as Professor Blair Worden reminded us in his opening presentation at our workshop on 'Edmund Ludlow - The Memoirs of a Regicide in Exile', the text was used to teach generations of history undergraduates and future historians.

Yet Ludlow's other stipulations were ignored. This was revealed by Blair himself after he analysed the Ludlow manuscript, which was discovered at Warwick Castle in the 1970s, and compared it to the published version of the Memoirs. In the latter, Ludlow was, as Blair put it, 'taken to a literary barber'. The alterations changed the text from the work of a deeply committed protestant to that of an admirer of ancient republicanism.

In 1978 Blair produced an edition of the portion of the text covering the period 1660-62, which has remained a crucial source for historians ever since. He is, then, an editor of the text as well as an historian of the period. Given the complex history of the text, the role of editors was one key theme of our discussions.

The various editors of Ludlow's manuscript have exerted control over how Ludlow and his text have been understood by future generations. Yet the situation has been complicated by the fact that we only have the manuscript for the period 1660-77, both the later portion (covering 1677-85) and the earlier part - on the civil wars themselves - have been lost. In his paper, Ted Vallance paid particular attention to one important episode that is treated rather perfunctorily in the Memoirs, but which one might have expected Ludlow to dwell on more deeply - the regicide. The account of the trial and execution of Charles I in the Memoirs is very brief and, as Ted noted, this is at odds with later portions of the manuscript where Ludlow frequently returns to that event and expresses his views on it. Moreover, the account does not follow other known primary sources, raising the possibility that elements of it were invented.

Later editors and translators of the work were equally influential. As Claire Gheeraert-Graffeuille noted in her paper, the 1794 French edition of the Memoirs published as Histoire de la République d'Angleterre d'après les Mémoires d'Edmond Ludlow turned Ludlow into a French republican and his opponents, the Cavaliers, into French-style aristocrats. C. H. Firth, who produced an edition of the Memoirs in 1894, was equally influential in his insistence that the text accurately reflected Ludlow's views.

Edmund Ludlow by Giovanni Battista Cipriani, after Thomas Simon. National Portrait Gallery, NPG D28923. Reproduced under a creative commons licence. This is one of several images of Civil War figures commissioned by Thomas Hollis.

Of course, in some respects, these editors were simply doing their job in framing or shaping the text to suit their audience. This point was brought home to me by our discussions at the end of the day about the possibility of producing a new edition of the Ludlow manuscript. Our colleague (and experienced editor) Ruth Connolly insisted that our first step must be to establish what people currently read Ludlow for and what we think they ought to read him for. Our answers to these questions, she said, would dictate all our editorial decisions. Toland and Darby no doubt began by asking themselves the same questions and acting in the same manner. While we might argue that the invention of key passages took their actions beyond editing to rewriting, the question of exactly where that boundary lies is not clear.

In the past, the mid-century civil wars were generally seen as a purely English affair. When I was an undergraduate in the 1990s, even the notion that they should be understood in a wider British context was novel. Now, thanks to the work of various historians including Jonathan Scott and Gaby Mahlberg, the idea that the British civil wars should be viewed in a European - even a global - context is shaping and directing research. Analysis of the manuscript allows us to see Ludlow as a European - not just an English - figure. Exploring this wider European context constituted a second theme of our workshop.

Geneva in 1630. Image Rachel Hammersley.

Gaby's paper offered a sense of Ludlow's daily life in Switzerland: how he kept in touch with people in England and his knowledge of current affairs. She identified some of his key contacts in Switzerland including the Genevan politician and minister Charles Perrot, the chief minister of Bern, Johann Heinrich Hummel, and the Bernese politician Sigmund von Erlach. She also pointed out that Ludlow had religious contacts that stretched right across Europe. Vivienne Larminie's paper complemented Gaby's in deepening the exploration of the Swiss context and reinforcing the point that contacts between England and Switzerland were complex. For example, she showed that some of Ludlow's ties to Swiss figures came via his neighbours in Wiltshire the Earls of Pembroke and their involvement with the French Church in Westminster. Anglo-Swiss connections are being explored on a larger scale via the SwissBritNet project that Ina Habermann introduced to us at the end of the day.

In his paper, Jason Peacey, broadened our sense of the context beyond Switzerland to the wider Protestant world and, in particular, the Dutch Republic. His account of the experience of English exiles in the Netherlands shed light on the probable experience of those in Switzerland. Jason noted how the complexities of the Dutch system meant that the authorities were often more willing to offer help in capturing the regicides than to take concrete action. His paper also highlighted interesting (and topical) questions around the status of refugees in relation to their home country and country of residence.

Claire's paper addressed the European context from a different perspective in exploring the reception of Ludlow's Memoirs in nineteenth-century France. The historian and politician François Guizot included Ludlow's text in a series entitled Collection des Mémoires relatif à la Révolution d'Angleterre. These effectively acted as sources for his Histoire de la Révolution d'Angleterre (1826-7). Guizot's belief that these were valuable works to publish in French at this time tells us something about the place of the British revolutions within European history.

The third theme that was highlighted for me during the workshop was intertextuality. Gaby drew our attention to the Ludlow manuscript's status as a composite text. While published as a Memoir, it not only drew on Ludlow's own experiences and memories, but also on a range of sources including letters, newsletters (both manuscript and print), official documents (including Acts of Parliament and proclamations), and pamphlets (in English, French and Latin). While not all the sources are acknowledged, many are still visible within the text. This theme was deepened by Verônica Calsoni Lima, who concentrated on a set of pamphlets used not only in the manuscript but also in Ludlow's printed pamphlet on the regicides, Les Juges Jugez. Many of these were produced by a group of radical stationers in London which included Livewell Chapman, Thomas Brewster, and Giles Calvert. In this way the sources out of which the manuscript is woven tell us something not only about Ludlow's reading habits, and the sources of information available to him in Switzerland, but also about his networks and connections.

One of the first decisions we need to make if we are to produce a new edition of the Ludlow manuscript is whether it should be print or digital. Print is more durable as it is not at risk of obsolete technology rendering it inaccessible. Yet the potential offered by the digital is enticing. In a digital edition it would be possible to highlight the intertextuality of the text, perhaps even offering direct links to original sources. Visualisations of Ludlow's networks of European contacts, and the locations of editions and translations of the Memoirs, could be produced to accompany and contextualise the text. Of course, in producing a more interactive edition, and taking advantage of the possibilities provided by the latest digital technology, we would be transforming the text into something way beyond Ludlow's original vision and perhaps highlighting elements of it that he would have preferred to keep hidden. Would this, I wonder, make us as guilty of transgressing Ludlow's wishes as the editor of the Memoirs.

[Gaby Mahlberg has produced her own excellent report on the workshop, which can be read here.]

Early Modern Political Thought and C21 Century Politics: A Workshop

As part of my British Academy Fellowship I organised a workshop at Newcastle's Literary and Philosophical Society on Wednesday 16 May 2018, on the relationship between early-modern political thought and twenty-first-century politics. The Lit and Phil is an ideal place to host such a discussion, having been a vibrant centre for thought and learning in the heart of Newcastle for more than 200 years. Although its founders eschewed discussion of religion and politics, its forerunner - the Philosophical Society - debated such issues as 'Whether a National Religion, or a variety of Sects, is of greater advantage to the State?', 'Whether the Civil War in the reign of Charles I and the present conflict with America be similar?' and 'Which is the better form of government, a limited monarchy as in Great Britain, or a republic?' 

I invited four distinguished speakers to the workshop each to speak on a different theme. 

Image of Thomas Rainsborough from a mural in the Ouseburn Valley, Newcastle. Image by Rachel Hammersley.

John Rees, author of The Leveller Revolution, talked about political organisation and mobilisation during the Civil War. He focused on the Putney Debates arguing that it was in that forum that some of the arguments deployed ever since for and against democratic change were laid down. Thomas Rainsborough set out his famous plea for the right to representative government and democratic accountability. He argued that: 'the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest he' and therefore that 'every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government' (The Clarke Papers, ed. C. H. Firth, London: Royal Historical Society, 1992, p. 301). Against him General Henry Ireton asserted that only those with property should have the vote. Moreover, as Rees noted, the organisation of those debates themselves hinted towards a more direct notion of democracy, with ordinary soldiers acting as the voices of their regiments. Drawing on his own experiences in opposing the regime of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, Rees showed that these arguments retain relevance and resonance today.

Professor Ann Hughes speaking at the workshop. Taken by Rachel Hammersley.

Ann Hughes, Emeritus Professor of History at Keele University, engaged with the question of religious liberty and toleration. The period of the mid seventeenth-century witnessed the articulation of arguments both for and against toleration. The Presbyterian Thomas Edwards rejected toleration, citing the dangers that full religious liberty would bring. By contrast, in Areopagitica, John Milton celebrated the acceptance and even encouragement of (moderate) division and variety. Hughes highlighted the fact that Edwards and Milton essentially had different conceptions of the truth. Edwards believed that he knew what the truth was and that the task was to enforce it. By contrast, Milton emphasised the need for openness in order to discover the truth. Once again, we can see how these two views remain in conflict among us today with figures on both sides of the secular-religious divide in danger of being closer to Edwards than to Milton.

Image from Dr Ariel Hessayon's talk at the workshop. Taken by Rachel Hammersley.

Ariel Hessayon, of Goldsmiths College, discussed environmental issues, noting that while we worry today about global warming and its implications for competition over scarce resources, people in the seventeenth century were anxious about the impact of a cooling climate in what has become known as the 'little ice age'. Building on Geoffrey Parker's important work on this topic, Hessayon considered the sources that seventeenth-century men and women used to make sense of what was going on, and their responses to environmental change and challenge.

Dr Gaby Mahlberg speaking at the workshop. Taken by Rachel Hammersley

Finally, the historian and journalist Gaby Mahlberg opened with Berthold Brecht poem Thoughts on the Duration of Exile in order to address the issue of refugees and exile. She reminded us that exile is generally a matter of necessity rather than choice, and explored the ways in which seventeenth-century English republican exiles were affected by the people and ideas with which they came into contact in the nations that gave them shelter. She also spoke of the difficulties they faced in attempting to maintain and pursue their political activities abroad.

The four papers were linked in my mind by the fact that fear seems to have been a pervasive and constant presence in mid-seventeenth-century England. Ireton was afraid of the social anarchy he thought would inevitably arise from giving the poor and propertyless the vote (while those poor and propertyless were of course endlessly fearful of what the authorities would do to them). Edwards was fearful that tolerating certain religious positions would be a slippery slope that would again result in anarchy. The idea of the religious sects of the time as a canker eating away at society is a powerful image of the intensity of this fear. At the same time, members of those religious sects must have been constantly fearful of repression. Extreme weather events and other natural phenomena then, as now, bred fear as human beings grappled with the question of how to deal with what is beyond their control. Finally, exiles and refugees today, as in the past experience great fear for their lives and prospects, and at the same time have the potential to provoke a fearful reaction in others: their 'otherness' makes them suspect and a threat.

Frontispiece from the pamphlet The World Turned Upside Down (1645) taken from https://open.conted.ox.ac.uk/resources/images/early-media-role-woodcuts and shared on the basis of a creative commons license.

It is perhaps not surprising that a period of great change and revolution was marked by fear. Thomas Hobbes commented that he and fear were twins (it was said that his mother went into labour on hearing news of the Spanish Armada) and fear certainly played a central role within his political thought. Similarly the title and frontispiece to the pamphlet The world turned upside down of 1645 reflects the sense of fear and strangeness that seems to have been palpable at the time. Historians typically focus on the changes that were introduced, the debates that were played out, and the ideas that emerged, but perhaps refocusing on the fear would prove fruitful. 

Image said to be of Gerard Winstanley from a mural in the Ouseburn Valley, Newcastle. Image by Rachel Hammersley.

It is also important to remind ourselves that fear need not always provoke a violent, destructive or exclusive response. On this point I was struck by Ariel Hessayon's comment that Gerrard Winstanley's answer to the climactic problems of the seventeenth-century (and indeed to those of poverty and division too) was in essence peaceful, communal and constructive. He set about planting beans and turnips on St George's Hill in Surrey in a bid by himself and the members of his community to feed themselves.

Speaking of Winstanley brings me back to the poster I produced for the event and the image on it depicting a slightly quirky quartet of figures. Winstanley and Rainsborough are there joined by the nineteenth-century Chartist William Cuffay and the "King of the Hippies" Sid Rawle, under a banner stating 'This Land is your Land' 'Take it'. This mural can be found painted on to an artists' studio at the top end of the Ouseburn Valley in Newcastle. It would seem that I, and those attending the workshop, are not the only current residents of Newcastle who can see the relevance of seventeenth-century political ideas.

Ouseburn Valley mural with our four speakers: Gaby Mahlberg, Ann Hughes, John Rees and Ariel Hessayon.

You can find another blogpost on this event by Liam Temple, complete with audio recordings of the papers at:http://theosophicaltransactions.com/conference-report-early-modern-political-thought-and-twenty-first-century-politics-16th-may-2018/