John Pocock's Life, Legacy, and Languages of Historical and Political Thought

When I was invited in 2019 to tweet a book a day for a week I had no hesitation as to what my first book would be. John Pocock's The Machiavellian Moment was probably the single biggest influence on me as a student, directly affecting the direction my research has taken. For this reason I was thrilled later that year when, just before the publication of my Intellectual Biography of James Harrington, I received one of John Pocock's beautiful handwritten letters expressing his interest in my forthcoming book, which initiated a brief correspondence between us. Following Pocock's death at the age of 99 in December 2023, I was honoured to be invited by John Marshall to contribute to 'John Pocock's Life, Legacy, and Languages of Historical and Political Thought', which was held simultaneously at Johns Hopkins University and online on Tuesday 5th March 2024.

Having initially reassured John Marshall that I relished the challenge of saying something meaningful about 'Pocock's Harrington and the history of republicanism' in less than five minutes, I did subsequently question my initial enthusiasm. The reality of drafting something worthwhile that did not breach the time constraint was tough. It was, though, very illuminating to hear the other speakers perform equally impossible tasks of summarising Pocock's thoughts on a range of topics including the Italian Renaissance, the Enlightenment, Edward Gibbon, and Edmund Burke in less than five minutes each. Papers were presented by scholars at all levels, from PhD students to Emeritus Professors; and the event closed with three excellent questions by graduate students currently studying at Johns Hopkins. The organisation of this event was largely down to John Marshall (though with a supportive team around him). His vision for the event and his dedication to making it a success were impressive. What follows, provides a taste of what I gained from this ambitious celebration. Anyone who missed the event, and would like access to the recording, can contact John Marshall directly.

What came across more than anything else was John Pocock's phenomenal intelligence and the breadth and depth of his scholarship. Eliga Gould, speaking on behalf of Pocock's students, put it well when he referred to the capaciousness of his work and vision. During the course of his lifetime, Pocock offered groundbreaking insights on a whole host of individual figures while also making significant contributions to broader fields of study. These included the Enlightenment - where he put a persuasive case for thinking in terms of a plurality of Enlightenments rather than a single Enlightenment. He also contributed to the transformation of British History by challenging the dominant Anglocentric emphasis, calling for the inclusion of the histories of Scotland and Ireland, but also Wales, Cornwall, the Channel Islands, America (pre-1776) and, of course, his native New Zealand. Equally important was his stress on the tensions and interplay between metropolitan zones of law and marcher zones of war. In addition, Pocock set the terms for the study of the history of republicanism: emphasising and unpicking the ancient legacy; highlighting the centrality of the conception of time to republican thinking; and prioritising the vocabulary or language of republicanism over institutions.

Despite the breadth, it is possible to identify consistent threads that run throughout Pocock's thought. One was his robust approach to historical research, which - as was noted by David Bromwich (in relation to Burke) and John Marshall - involved reading all the works available by a particular author in order to enter into the thinking of those who interested him. He also adopted a broad approach to sources, consulting manuscripts as well as printed material, treating style as important (David Womersley commented on this in relation to Gibbon), and recognising that political 'sources' could take a variety of forms including literature and - as Anna Roberts noted - even artefacts.

Central among the sources Pocock himself deployed were histories. His first work The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law was a major achievement in the field of historiography. As Colin Kidd explained, it documented ideological uses of the past, treating historical thinking as political thinking. For Kidd this exposed a space between politics and the history of political thought in the form of the history of political argument. Pocock returned to this territory in the magnum opus of his later years, the multi-volume account of the thought of Edward Gibbon, Barbarism and Religion. Both here, and in his works on other individual thinkers, Pocock sought to identify and understand the political and intellectual battles in which those thinkers were engaged.

While The Ancient Constitution and Barbarism and Religion are the works that most obviously treat historical writings as political thought, the preoccupation with history and time also lay at the heart of Pocock's other major work The Machiavellian Moment. In the first place, the conception of time is presented as crucial to republics in that they exist in time and are, therefore, subject to corruption and decay. This was what Pocock meant by the 'Machiavellian Moment'. He argued that Machiavelli was particularly concerned with 'the moment in which the republic confronts the problem of its own instability in time' and explored how this idea played out in the writings of others in Renaissance Italy, seventeenth-century England, and eighteenth-century Britain and America. In adopting this broad chronology, the book also examines the survival - and transformation - of ideas over time. While there is continuity in terms of the central problem being confronted and the vocabulary deployed to address it, the republican language at the heart of the book was adapted to fit different circumstances and Pocock was sensitive to the particular historical contexts that prompted the production of specific texts. The adaptations are especially evident in the case of James Harrington. He drew on Machiavellian ideas to construct an immortal commonwealth - which Machiavelli would have declared an impossibility - and his ideas were in turn deployed by those Pocock labelled 'neo-Harringtonians' in ways directly contrary to Harrington's intentions.

Pocock's intelligence, and the breadth of his scholarship, could make him appear intimidating, yet he tempered this with a deep humanity - and this also came out strongly in the presentations. Again and again, contributors spoke of the personal impact he had had on them and commented on the fact that, while he was challenging, he was also generous, encouraging, and fun (the last being exemplified by the fact that his sons Hugh and Stephen chose to begin their contribution with a song). Eliga Gould spoke of him having a personal and unique relationship with each of his graduate students, but it is clear that his intellectual relationships extended well beyond those who had the special privilege of being taught by him. Indeed, it was striking that one of the older contributors, Orest Ranum, who had been on the committee that appointed Pocock to his position at Johns Hopkins in 1974, described him as a constant teacher - instructing not just students but all those with whom he came into contact. Another Johns Hopkins colleague, Christopher Celenza spoke for many when he described the privilege of being taken seriously by Pocock - even when this meant disagreement. The possibility that polite disagreement could co-exist alongside friendship and respect, was also highlighted by perhaps Pocock's closest intellectual companion, Quentin Skinner, who admitted in his talk that he never succeeded in convincing Pocock on the subject of liberty. He was, then, as Jamie Gianoutsos articulated, not only a careful student of republican vocabulary, but also a model citizen himself.

I hope I have conveyed the fact that this event was deeply moving, instructive, and inspiring. I was, though, left with a slight sense of regret. Skinner recalled that in 1973 Pocock announced that he had a plan for a huge new project. It would explore all of British historical and political thought from Bede to Bertrand Russell. The scale and ambition of such a project reflects the massive breadth of John Pocock's vision and the strength of his drive, but perhaps also explains why it never came to fruition. I don't suppose I was the only person at the event who took a moment to lament this fact. I would have loved to read it.

Translating English Republicanism in the European Enlightenment

I feel lucky that we have so many excellent early modern intellectual and cultural historians based at Newcastle with whom I can talk and collaborate. One of these is my friend and colleague Gaby Mahlberg who currently holds a Marie Sklodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellowship with us. In late June, Gaby organised a workshop as part of her fellowship which brought a number of excellent scholars who work on the translation of political texts to Newcastle. The workshop explored a number of themes, including: the purpose of translations; the roles of the individuals involved in producing them; the building of canons; and free speech.

As someone who has worked on translations since the very beginning of my research career, I have often reflected on their purposes. We tend to assume that the main aim of a translation is to disseminate the ideas contained within the text and that those involved in producing the translation identify the text as relevant to their own cultural and political context and audience. Yet, some of the examples discussed at the workshop suggested that this is not always the case.

Plaque commemorating Thomas Paine’s time in Lewes, East Sussex, which appears on the wall of the White Hart Inn. Image by Rachel Hammersley.

Elias Buchetmann briefly discussed the partial translation of Thomas Paine's Rights of Man, which appeared in Leipzig in 1791. Though it made available part of Paine's famous work to a German audience, the aim appears to have been less to disseminate Paine's ideas than to contain them, reinforcing instead the position of Paine's antagonist Edmund Burke. This is evident in the way in which the footnotes are used to contradict and correct Paine's views, so that the reader does not receive Paine's ideas in isolation but via a Burkean lens.

Ariel Hessayon's paper on the translation of Gerrard Winstanley's New Law of Righteousness raised a different question: whether a translation is always produced for circulation. We know about this German translation of Winstanley's text from the catalogue of the library of Petrus Serrarius, though no copy of the translation survives. The translator was probably Serrarius himself. We might assume that since he could read English he must have translated it to circulate among others who could not, but in the discussion we noted that this is not necessarily the case. Katie East reminded us that translation was a long-established pedagogical technique for those learning classical languages and that this could equally apply to the learning of European languages. It was also noted that translating a work could be used to develop a deeper understanding of it.

A title page from Cato’s Letters. Taken from the Internet Archive.

Several papers challenged the assumption that a translated political text is necessarily seen as relevant to the political context into which it is translated. The transmission of English republican ideas into France, which has been explored in detail by several of the workshop participants, certainly seems to fit this model. The Huguenots, who were particularly concerned with justifications for resistance, translated works by Algernon Sidney and Edmund Ludlow. Whereas Harrington's works, as Myriam-Isabelle Ducrocq's paper reminded us, came into their own during the French constitutional debates of the 1790s. Several papers, however, made clear that the translation of English texts into German tells a rather different story. Both Felix Waldmann in his account of the German translations of John Locke's works and Gaby Mahlberg in her discussion of the German reception of Cato's Letters highlighted a sense among both translators and reviewers that those texts applied specifically to England, and that their insights and models could not easily be applied in a German context. Of course, this could be a rhetorical device to distance the translator, editor, or printer from potentially controversial ideas, but it is certainly true that the German states in the eighteenth century were very different from that of early modern England.

As well as thinking about the purpose of translations, several speakers touched on the role of the individuals involved in their production. Thomas Munck's paper drew attention to the fact that, despite being in France during the Revolution, Thomas Paine contributed very little to debates and events there. Though he was a member of the Convention, he hardly ever spoke, he did little while in France to promote his own works, and though he advocated certain proposals - such as a fairer tax system - he had little to say about the practical means of achieving them. In the discussion that followed we reflected on how we should classify Paine. Was he a political thinker, a politician, an activist, or more like a journalist or observer (at least during his time in France)? It was also noted that political thinkers and writers do not always make good politicians.

Similar questions were asked about Pierre Des Maizeaux who was the focus of Ann Thomson's paper. He was not an original thinker, nor was he much interested in political discussion - being more of an erudite scholar. Yet he was crucial to the dissemination of political ideas thanks to his role as an intermediary, editor and populariser.

These examples point towards a wider question of the connection between theory and practice. Today it often seems as though politicians engage very little with political thought, while academics engaged in political thinking have little influence on practical policy. Yet, it might be argued, both are necessary if improvements are to be made. Thinking about the channels that exist - or could be developed - between the two, and celebrating the intermediaries and popularisers who forge and sustain them, has potential value for us all.

Algernon Sidney by James Basire after Giovanni Battista Cipriani, 1763. National Portrait Gallery NPG D28941. Reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence.

The role or identity of key thinkers was approached from a different perspective in Tom Ashby's paper on the reception of Algernon Sidney's ideas in eighteenth-century Italy. Tom's account of the figures Sidney was associated with by different Italian thinkers at different times prompted much discussion. Initially he was linked, as one might expect, to natural law thinkers such as Samuel Pufendorf and Locke. But the Italian Jacobin Matteo Galdi associated Sidney, instead, with a more eclectic list of thinkers including Francis Bacon, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the baron de Montesquieu, Gaetano Filangieri and Giambattista Vico. Galdi presented these figures as advocates of what he called 'new politics' (presumably building on Vico's 'new science'). Similarly, Christopher Hamel reminded us that the marquis de Condorcet associated Sidney with René Descartes and Rousseau in his Esquisse, and Sidney was also regularly linked in the eighteenth century with his contemporary John Hampden as examples of patriotic martyrs. While some of these links appear bizarre, and while it can be difficult to understand the thinking behind them, they do offer another potential avenue by which we can explore the tricky question of reception.

Finally, some of the papers touched on issues of free speech and toleration. Christopher Hamel drew attention to the idea of 'disinterested historians' in his paper on the French reception of Thomas Gordon's Discourses on Tacitus. Reviewers praised Gordon's tactic of simply describing, for example, 'the flattery which reigns at the court of tyrants' without feeling the need explicitly to pass judgement. It was noted that the Royal Society had emphasised the idea of disinterested scientists who would develop conclusions purely on the basis of reason, observation, and experimentation. The suggestion was presumably that historians could do something similar.

Ann Thomson reflected in a similar way on the approach of Huguenots such as Des Maizeaux and Jean Le Clerc. Des Maizeaux has sometimes been seen as advocating irreligion on account of his willingness to circulate free thinking works, but Ann suggested that his aim was really the promotion of toleration. This was reflected in the fact that he invested a great deal of time and energy into producing an edition of the works of William Chillingworth, who was a latitudinarian Anglican. Similarly, in a review of John Rushworth's collection of documents from the civil wars, Des Maizeaux noted a republican bias in the selected texts and suggested that royalist texts should be published as a complement. Jean Le Clerc also seems to have been concerned with offering a balanced account of the mid-seventeenth-century conflict. When reviewing the Earl of Clarendon's History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England in Bibliothèque choisie he noted that it was 'very zealous' for the King's party and suggested that Edmund Ludlow's Memoirs be read to provide a contrast or comparison.

These examples reminded me of Thomas Hollis. As I have discussed previously in this blog, Hollis published not just works that he favoured but also those expressing opposing views - on the grounds that readers needed to read both and judge for themselves. Moreover, Hollis also picked up specifically on Clarendon's History, though his suggestion was that it should be read alongside the works not of Ludlow, but of John Milton.

In short, the workshop provided much stimulation for thought about the role and importance of translations and translators in adding to our understanding of early modern political cultures, and the relationship between ideas and practical action. At the same time, it prompted thought about that relationship today. What means can be used to bring the rich political thinking of academics to bear on contemporary political issues? And what specific role might 'disinterested historians' play in this task?

British Republicans 2: Richard Carlile

The first volume of Richard Carlile’s periodical The Republican. Bodleian Library: Johnson e.3662 Photograph by Alex Plane, courtesy of the Bodleian Libraries.

On Friday 27 August, 1819, there appeared the first issue of a journal entitled The Republican edited by Richard Carlile. Its publication was a direct response to the Peterloo Massacre that had occurred just under two weeks before. Despite the header declaring it to be 'No. 1. Vol. I.', this was not, in fact, an entirely new journal but, as the editorial explained, the continuation of Sherwin's Weekly Political Register, which had been appearing for several years.

The change of title was, however, deliberate. Carlile was publicly identifying as a 'republican'. In his address to readers that prefaced the first volume he took pains to explain his understanding of the term. Noting that 'it has been the practice of ignorant or evil-minded persons' to associate republicanism purely with 'the horrors of the French Revolution' he urged his readers to look more closely at the etymology of the word. A republican government, he explained, is one 'which consults the public interest - the interest of the whole people' (The Republican, I, 'To the Readers of the Republican'). This, as I have argued in a previous blogpost, accorded with the traditional understanding of the term dating right back to ancient times. Yet, because Carlile was writing in the early nineteenth century, he was well aware of the additional connection that had been forged between republicanism and anti-monarchism. He engaged directly with this point, arguing rather cleverly that: 'Although in almost all instances where governments have been denominated Republican, monarchy has been practically abolished; yet it does not argue the necessity of abolishing monarchy to establish a Republican government.' In truth, Carlile believed that securing government in the public interest required a proper system of representation and that if this were to be introduced the abolition of monarchy was likely to follow. Nevertheless, his understanding of the double meaning of 'republican', and his emphasis on establishing government in the public interest rather than simply abolishing the monarchy, indicates continuity with the longer history of English republican thought.

Thomas Paine by Laurent Dubos, c. 1791. National Portrait Gallery. NPG 6805. Reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence.

Carlile also associated his ideas more directly with those of earlier English republicans. He was a committed disciple of Thomas Paine and was responsible for printing and disseminating Paine's works. He was also an admirer of Thomas Spence, declaring that Spence's Land Plan was 'the most simple and most equitable system of society and government that can be imagined' and that it was 'a subject' about which it was 'worth thinking, worth talking, worth writing, worth printing' (Richard Carlile, Operative, 3 March 1839 as cited in Malcolm Chase, '"The Real Rights of Man": Thomas Spence, Paine and Chartism', in Rogers and Sippel (eds), Thomas Spence and His Legacy: Bicentennial Perspectives, special issue of Miranda 13 2016, pp. 3-4). Spence was himself a disciple of the seventeenth-century English republican James Harrington, and Carlile too made frequent reference in his writings back to the period of the Stuarts. He implied that the tyranny enacted by his own government at Peterloo and in its aftermath was similar to that performed by Charles I and his sons. In an open letter to the Prince Regent, which appeared in the second issue of The Republican, he warned the Prince that if he failed to deal justly with the perpetrators of the Peterloo massacre then 'the fate of Charles or James, is inevitably yours. And justly so.' (The Republican, No. 2 Vol. 1. 3 September 1819). Carlile also celebrated the heroic martyrs of the period, including John Hampden and Algernon Sidney.

Carlile repeatedly demonstrated his willingness to act as a martyr to liberty and to sacrifice his own personal freedom in the greater cause by stoically enduring repeated prison sentences. He was imprisoned for his role in publishing Paine’s works in 1819 soon after launching The Republican. This image was produced to celebrate his release six years later. ‘On his liberation after six years of imprisonment’ (Richard Carlile) by an unknown artist, 1825. National Portrait Gallery. NPG D8083. Reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence.

More substantively, The Republican echoed earlier English republican works in celebrating both civil and religious liberty, and in emphasising the interrelationship between the two. In the very first issue, Carlile explicitly declared his willingness to submit to martyrdom 'in the cause of liberty' and in the second issue he accused the despots of Europe of seeking to: 'abridge and destroy the liberties of their subjects, and to make their own authority absolute' (The Republican, No. 1 Vol. 1, 27 August 1819 and No. 2 Vol 1, 3 September 1819). Of particular importance to Carlile were the liberties of free speech and freedom of association. What was particularly galling about the Peterloo Massacre was that the individuals who had been killed had simply been enacting their right, under the British constitution, 'to assemble together for the purpose of deliberating upon public grievances as well as on the legal and constitutional means of obtaining redress' (The Republican, No. 5 Vol. 1, 24 September 1819). Such actions were necessary in Carlile's eyes because, like earlier British commonwealthmen, he believed that the British constitution had become corrupt and its balance disturbed. Echoing the late seventeenth-century thinker Henry Neville, Carlile argued that the balance of the constitution lay too much with the monarch and that too little power was wielded by the House of Commons. It had once dominated the other branches 'but that controul is quite destroyed, and through the influence of Boroughmongering, they are become the base and contemptible tools of every vicious faction that can get into power' (The Republican, No. 4 Vol. 1, 17 September 1819).

Richard Carlile, by an unknown artist. National Portrait Gallery, NPG 1435. Reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence.

Again like earlier English republican authors, Carlile was adamant that citizens should enjoy religious as well as political liberty. Echoing John Milton and other so-called 'godly republicans' of the mid-seventeenth century, he insisted on a clear and complete separation between church and state: 'I maintain on this head, that no government should legislate as to what shall or shall not be the religion of its subjects; or what differences should exist in their creeds' 'an established priesthood, of whatever tenets, is incompatible with civil liberty' (The Republican, I 'To the Readers of the Republican'). Yet in terms of his own personal religious convictions, Carlile had less in common with the 'godly republicans', instead taking the path previously developed by John Toland and his associates at the turn of the eighteenth century, whereby rabid anti-clericalism morphed into deism and even atheism. All forms of religion, Carlile declared, are 'an imposture and fraud practised by base and designing men on the credulous part of mankind' (The Republican, No. 2 Vol. 1, 3 September 1819). By publishing the controversial theological works of Paine, Carlile hoped to be able to emancipate minds from the slavish fears associated with Christianity (The Republican, No. 6 Vol. 1, 1 October 1819). Carlile's readers expressed similar views. In a letter that appeared in the second issue, Joseph Fitch of Old Road Academy, Stepney, praised Carlile for the patriotic firmness with which he faced tyranny after being charged with sedition for publishing the theological works of Paine. He urged those who saw the views voiced by Carlile as a threat to the state to stop being 'the voluntary dupes of priestcraft and corruption' and he ended by urging support for the cause of 'civil and religious liberty' (The Republican, No. 2 Vol. 1, 3 September 1819).

While the continuities between Carlile's understanding of republicanism and that of his predecessors are striking, he also introduced new elements. He was more critical than most earlier English republicans (with the exception of Spence) of the unjust inequalities between rich and poor. In issue six he attacked the 'Prince and Ministers, Sinecurists and Pensioners, Borough-mongers and Fundholders, Bishops and Parsons, Judges and Lawyers' for attacking the lower orders and seeking to keep them down (The Republican, No. 6, Vol. 1, 1 October 1819). He also championed the rights of other marginal groups within society, even asserting that women ought to be accorded political rights (The Republican, No. 5. Vol. 1, 24 September 1819).

Carlile's writings, and the continuity of his arguments with earlier English republicans, challenge the common assumption that the English have no sustained republican tradition. In fact, there is a rich and vibrant vein of republican thinking in this country, one that has been flexible enough to adapt to a variety of different circumstances and issues. The optimism and energy of Carlile's writings stemmed from his firm conviction that the unjust political system of his own day could be completely overturned if only the franchise were extended and the poor were given the vote. On this point history has proved Carlile wrong, which poses challenging questions for democratic republicans today. 

British Republicans 1: Charles Bradlaugh

When writing Republicanism: An Introduction I had to address what happened to republican ideas during the nineteenth century (beyond my usual area of expertise). I chose to focus on France, Britain and the United States. In the process I discovered several interesting nineteenth-century British republicans. I am continuing to investigate some of these characters for other projects. In this blogpost, and some that follow, I will offer brief sketches showcasing these figures and their ideas.

Charles Bradlaugh (1833-1891) was a self-confessed republican who established the National Republican League in 1873. Yet despite not being afraid of controversy and firmly owning his republican views, Bradlaugh's The Impeachment of the House of Brunswick addresses the question of republican politics in an oblique fashion.

Charles Bradlaugh by Sydney Prior Hall. National Portrait Gallery: NPG 2313. Reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence.

In his preface to the second edition, Bradlaugh stated explicitly: 'This is not ... a Republican pamphlet' (Charles Bradlaugh, The Impeachment of the House of Brunswick. 4th edition. London, 1874, Preface). What he meant by this is that rather than calling for the abolition of the monarchy, he was simply pointing out that the British monarchy is elective and that the British people have the right to choose different rulers should they wish to do so. He based this argument on legislation from the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It was the Parliament of the English Commonwealth, meeting on 25 April 1660, that gave the Crown to Charles II. Similarly, it was the Convention, meeting with all the authority of Parliament, which on 22 January 1688 took the Crown away from James II and passed over his son the Prince of Wales, bestowing the throne instead on James's Protestant daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange. Furthermore, in various statutes passed under the later Stuarts, the right to accede to the throne was limited, first, to members of the Church of England, and then to the heirs of Princess Sophia of Hanover. Given this history, Bradlaugh insisted, Parliament in his own time had the right, both to deprive a living monarch of the Crown and to treat the heir to the throne as having no claim to the succession.

While Bradlaugh insists that he is not advocating a republican regime, but the replacement of one monarch (or dynasty) by another, his hostility to the Brunswicks is vitriolic. He condemns them for their extravagant expenditure (which he charts in detail), for their hostility to the welfare of the ordinary people, and - more uncomfortably for a twenty-first-century reader - for being foreign. Indeed, what he appears to be advocating is the replacement of the current dynasty - after the death of Queen Victoria - with an English alternative.

Given the history of republican arguments, this position is an interesting one. Bradlaugh is harsh in his condemnation of the Brunswick rulers, but despite admitting his own preference for republican rule, in this work at least he is willing to accept the continuation of the British monarchy under another line.

Alongside his republican writing and campaigning, Bradlaugh was also strongly committed to the issue of land reform. He was involved with the Land Tenure Reform Association, the Land and Labour League and the Commons Protection League and in 1874 he wrote The Land, The People, and The Coming Struggle. Indeed, in the 1870s he presented the Land Question as the key political issue of the day.

James Harrington after Sir Peter Lely, published by William Richardson 1799. National Portrait Gallery: NPG D29116. Reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence.

Bradlaugh was by no means the first republican to take an interest in land. James Harrington's argument as to why England was ripe for republican government in the mid-seventeenth century was grounded in his theory that land provides the foundation of political power, and that in order to secure allegiance and stability the form of government should fit the distribution of land within the nation. Harrington believed that changes introduced by the Tudor monarchs had brought a shift in land ownership away from the aristocracy and towards commoners. The civil war, on Harrington's account, adjusted politics to the economic reality, making England ripe for republican or commonwealth government. Later republicans accepted Harrington's understanding of the relationship between the ownership of land and the exercise of political power. By the late eighteenth century, Thomas Spence was using Harrington's argument to put a radical case for the abolition of property rights in England and for a sweeping redistribution of land in order to ensure the subsistence of ordinary citizens.

Bradlaugh too saw land as crucial to political power, and he shared Spence's profound concern for the poor. However, his assessment of the situation in his own time was an inversion of Harrington's original theory. 'The bulk of the land', Bradlaugh insisted, 'is in the hands of comparatively few persons, and these monopolise the House of Lords, and materially control the House of Commons.' (Charles Bradlaugh, The Land, The People and The Coming Struggle, 3rd edition. London, 1877, p. 3). Indeed, Bradlaugh insisted that it was actually the aristocracy, rather than the monarch, that exercised real political authority within the country. This had negative consequences not only for politics, but also for subsistence. It was in the interests of landowners to keep rents high and the wages of agricultural workers low, resulting in poverty and poor living conditions for many people. Moreover, members of the aristocracy liked to keep vast swathes of their land uncultivated for their own recreation - for example in the form of grouse moors. This had resulted in 'The diversion of land in an old country from the purpose it should fulfil - that of providing life for the many' to instead providing pleasure for the few. (Bradlaugh, The Land, The People and The Coming Struggle, p. 13). This, Bradlaugh insisted, was a 'crime'. Similarly he described the game laws as 'a disgrace to civilisation' and as proof of the influence of the landed aristocracy over the legislature, and the negative character of that influence. Bradlaugh's solution was not to abolish property rights, as Spence had advocated, but rather to compel landowners to act more responsibly. As he argued in a speech in the House of Commons in 1888: 'the ownership of land should carry with it the duty of cultivation or utilisation'. The authorities should, therefore, 'compel the possessors of land to use it for the general welfare' (Charles Bradlaugh, 'The Compulsory Cultivation of Waste Lands' in Speeches by Charles Bradlaugh, ed. J. M. Roberts, 2nd edition. London, 1895, p. 116). Most of the land may no longer lie with the commoners, but it should still be used for the public good.

Charles Bradlaugh by Harry Furniss, 1880s-1900s. National Portrait Gallery: NPG 3555. Reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence.

As well as being a founder member of the National Republican League and a member of various land reform groups, Bradlaugh also helped to establish the National Secular Society and acted as its president from 1866 to 1871 and again from 1874 to 1890. Bradlaugh was particularly critical of the hypocrisy of the aristocracy who exploited and crushed the poor for their own ends, but then listened to the sermons of bishops, endowed churches, and talked of the importance of saving souls. Bradlaugh was keen to defend both the truth and the morality of secularism. While uncompromising in his atheism, Bradlaugh made reference back to the more subtle freethinking commonwealthmen of the early eighteenth century. In 1877 he established 'The Freethought Publishing Company'. The notion that this may have been an allusion to Anthony Collins's A Discourse of Freethinking of 1713 is reinforced by the fact that Bradlaugh also wrote his Half hours with the freethinkers under the pseudonym Anthony Collins.

Bradlaugh's philosophy, then, involved a critique of the key institutions of the Crown, the Aristocracy, and the Church. While he addressed these issues separately, he was well aware of the connections and overlap between them, and the threat that all three could pose to the people. Throughout his career Bradlaugh worked to uphold the public good, and to place the interests of ordinary people at the heart of politics, he had every claim to be a republican.

Radical Republicanism

As I acknowledged in my recent book, the term 'republicanism' means different things to different people. Adding the adjective 'radical' to the term only complicates matters further, especially when the focus is the early modern period. The term 'radicalism' was not in use until the early nineteenth century, leading some scholars to argue that it should not be applied before that time. Yet 'Radical Republicanism in Early Modern Europe' was the title of an excellent conference organised by Anna Becker, Nicolai von Eggers, and Alessandro Mulieri in late June 2021. The conference organisers did not shy away from the difficulties with the terminology, indeed Nicolai von Eggers opened the proceedings by asking whether it is valuable to speak of 'radical republicanism'. What followed was a rich and lively discussion about what we mean by that label, what role the people should play within a republic, and why radical republicans are so often neglected within the historiography.

Niccolò Machiavelli by Santi di Tito. Taken from Wikimedia Commons.

The constitution of the citizen body and the role its members should play have been key questions for those discussing republican rule ever since ancient times. As Alessandro Mulieri noted in his paper, Aristotle argued for the wisdom of the many over that of the few, insisting that as a collective body the many (understood as the middle orders rather than the poor) would have greater expertise, prudence, and virtue when it came to the selection of magistrates and the judgement of their actions. Niccolò Machiavelli famously expanded Aristotle's assessment to incorporate the plebs and to include lawmaking as well as the selection of magistrates. John McCormick has drawn attention to this aspect of Machiavelli's thought in his published work on the Florentine's democratic credentials. He developed this idea further in his paper at the conference, by exploring in greater detail the aristocratic republicanism of Francesco Guicciardini, which was in large part a response to Machiavelli's democratic republicanism. McCormick convincingly demonstrated that Machiavelli had got under Guicciardini's skin, leading him to adopt awkward positions (such as justifying genocide).

Plans that appeared in the Revolutions de Paris for platforms designed to make it possible for orators to be heard in a large assembly that was part of the wider proposals made by radical republicans during the early years of the French Revolution discussed by Nicolai von Eggers. Source gallica.bnf.fr/BnF.

One feature of the more aristocratic form of republicanism advanced by Guicciardini is the mixed constitution. Both Markku Peltonen and Annelien de Dijn questioned its dominance within the republican tradition, showing that many seventeenth- and eighteenth-century republicans explicitly rejected that model, opting instead for a purer form of democratic rule. One of the key claims of Peltonen's excellent paper was that not only were republican arguments boldly made by a large number of English commentators during the period of the Commonwealth and Free State (1649-53), but that many described the government under which they were living positively as a democracy. De Dijn cited another seventeenth-century radical republican, Pieter De la Court who insisted that freedom would only be secure in a true democracy where decision-making power lay firmly with the people. Moreover, De Dijn argued that De la Court (along with his contemporary Baruch Spinoza and, later, Jean-Jacques Rousseau) took Aristotle's argument to its logical conclusion, insisting that the people were more likely to rule in the common good than the elite and arguing, therefore, that there should be no restraint on popular power but only a strict form of majoritarian rule.

In the discussion, Camilla Vergara articulated the distinction being explored very clearly: one form of republicanism involves the sharing of power between the elites and the plebs; whereas the other (democratic or plebeian republicanism) involves giving power to the people. Of course this raises further questions about how popular power can and should be exercised (especially in large modern states). This issue was broached in the two papers on the French Revolution. Ariane Fichtl explored the influence on the French revolutionaries of ancient institutions such as the popular tribunes. Nicolai von Eggers focused on those radicals who adopted an intermediate position between representative and direct democracy by calling for the use of imperative mandates that would bind deputies or delegates to act only on the instructions of those who had elected them.

Samuel Hayat's paper on the recent 'gilets jaunes' protests in France, opened up a further question of whether 'the people' speak with a single voice. This is certainly the impression the 'gilets jaunes' seek to present, but to do so they must downplay differences of opinion based on race, sex, or class. A further issue raised by Hayet's paper is the thorny relationship between the terms 'popular' and 'radical'. The importance of distinguishing the 'popular' from the 'radical' has long been acknowledged by historians of the British civil wars - not least John Morrill. Moreover, not only in that Revolution but also in France in 1793 and again in 1848, the revolutionary authorities were presented with a dilemma. Should free and fair elections be suspended if the outcome of such elections was likely to be a rejection of the revolutionary regime? 

Portrait of Pieter de la Court by Abraham van den Tempel, 1667. Taken from Wikimedia Commons.

Regardless of the different ways in which it has been defined, radical republicanism has long been obscured or even neglected. Throughout the conference we heard papers calling for the rehabilitation of important figures as diverse as Ptolemy of Lucca, Pier Filippo Pandolfini, and Pieter De la Court, as well as for recognition of the republican implications of the works of figures such as Étienne de La Boétie (examined in an interesting paper by Saul Newman). Selective borrowing has been in operation throughout history. In papers by Miguel Vatter and Alessandro Mulieri, Machiavelli was shown to have rejected Platonism and Aristotelianism while simultaneously taking on board certain ideas from them. In my own paper I showed that selectivity was also in operation in the use of James Harrington's ideas by eighteenth-century British thinkers.

This selectivity has continued in later scholarship. Jérémie Barthas noted that Rudolf von Albertini was crucial in downplaying the significance of radical republicans like Pandolfini, because of the perceived connection between his ideas and those of the Jacobins. Following John McCormick's account of the brutal side of Guicciardini's thought, Anna Becker posed the leading question of where the more positive reading of him had originated. Similarly, Markku Peltonen argued that radical republican writings of the early 1650s have largely been ignored by recent republican scholars.

Gaby Mahlberg and Anna Becker both wondered whether part of the reason for the dominance of a more elitist reading of the republican tradition arises from the source material that tends to be used - in particular the focus on a range of printed canonical texts. Gaby's exploration of translations, reviews and networks - along with Anna's work on women and republicanism - have the potential to offer an alternative view. While source material may be part of the problem, political attitudes and priorities no doubt also play their part. For this reason, radical republicanism not only offers a rich vein for future historical research, but also a potential source of valuable material to help us to understand the nature of the political system we have inherited and the means by which it might be improved in the future.

Myths Concerning Republicanism 4: Republican Government and Commercial Society

Justin Champion delivering the first annual Christopher Hill memorial lecture at the National Civil War Centre, Newark, November 2018.

This month's blogpost, the latest in a series I have written on the myths surrounding republican government, is dedicated to the memory of the inspirational historian Justin Champion, who died last month, and whose research has fed directly into my thinking on this issue - and so many others.

The recent Covid-19 pandemic has raised important questions regarding the role of the state - particularly in times of crisis. In the UK, government intervention has been crucial in the form of the furloughing scheme and in providing cash injections to support small and medium sized businesses. At the same time, the high death rate in this country and the difficulties faced by the NHS have been blamed on decades of underfunding. On a broader scale it is self-evident that at a time when there is a high demand for Personal Protective Equipment and coronavirus testing kits in countries across the world, a market economy will operate in the interests of the richest and most powerful countries at the expense of poorer ones, bringing increased risks for their citizens and for the world.

This therefore seems a good moment to pay attention to another 'myth' relating to republicanism: that it either has little to say about twenty-first century economic matters or that it offers an unrealistic approach to economics that is antagonistic towards the market - regarding it, in Gerald Gaus's words, as 'inherently unfree and immoral' (quoted in Richard Dagger, 'Neo-republicanism and the civic economy', Politics, Philosophy and Economics 5:2, 2006: 158). In the same vein Gordon Wood, the historian of revolutionary America, has described republicanism as 'essentially anti-capitalistic' (Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787. Chapel Hill, 1969, p. 418). This attitude has led some to conclude that republicanism can have no place in the politics of the twenty-first century.

However, this is open to serious question. As is the case with many of these modern myths, its roots are to be found deep in history - or perhaps more accurately in historiography. In 1975 the great intellectual historian John Pocock produced a groundbreaking book The Machiavellian Moment, which traced the journey of republican ideas from the ancient world, via Renaissance Italy and early modern England, to their zenith in revolutionary America. Pocock paid particular attention to how those ideas faired in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Britain, highlighting the inevitable tension between the republican emphasis on virtue and the rise of commerce, and presenting republican authors as antagonistic to the new commercial society that was emerging around them. This fed into a wider argument about an incompatibility between liberalism and republicanism that was central to Pocock's book.

The Ponte Vecchio which spans the Arno river in Florence and has been the location for shops since the thirteenth century. Image by Rachel Hammersley.

While the distinction between liberalism and republicanism was challenged from the outset, the notion of republican virtue as inherently at odds with commercial society and a market economy proved more persistent. Nonetheless, recent research has begun to reveal it too to be a false dichotomy.

In a 2001 article Mark Jurdjevic took issue with Pocock's account of Renaissance Italy, arguing that Florentine civic humanism (the underpinning of the republican arguments of that time) was in fact the ideology of an 'ascendant merchant class'. He went on to suggest that commerce and private wealth were not a threat to the republic, but rather were crucial to its survival (Mark Jurdjevic, 'Virtue, Commerce, and the Enduring Florentine Republican Moment: Reintegrating Italy into the Atlantic Republican Debate', Journal of the History of Ideas, 62:4, 2001: 721-43).

The dedicatory letter at the beginning of John Toland’s edition of The Oceana and Other Works of James Harrington (London, 1737), one of the texts cited in Justin Champion’s article. Here Toland celebrates the wealth and riches of London, which he attributes to English liberty, and likens Harrington’s constitution to that of the Bank of England. Copy author’s own.

Jurdjevic's conclusion chimes with the findings of Steve Pincus on seventeenth-century England, which at that time was already experiencing an expansion of trade. Pocock had focused on figures like James Harrington and John Milton who were hostile to commercial culture. Yet, as Pincus shows, there were plenty of supporters of commonwealth government prepared to defend the new commercial society (Steve Pincus, 'Neither Machiavellian Moment nor Possessive Individualism: Commercial Society and the Defenders of the English Commonwealth', The American Historical Review, 103:3, 1998: 705-36). The author of The Grand Concernments of England, for example, declared that 'trade is the very life and spirits of a common-wealth' (Anon., The Grand Concernments of England Ensured... London, 1659, p. 32).

Justin Champion has gone even further, drawing on little known published writings and unpublished manuscripts produced by John Toland and Robert Molesworth to show that these eighteenth-century 'commonwealthsmen' had a more subtle and sophisticated attitude to commerce than they have been given credit for. While they were certainly worried about the corruption that might be introduced by speculation, paper stocks, and credit, they drew an important distinction between schemes in which these mechanisms served only private interests and those that operated for the benefit of the public. While they condemned the former, they accepted that the latter could perform an important function in a well-organised republican state (Justin Champion, '"Mysterious politicks": land, credit and Commonwealth political economy, 1656-1722' in Money and Political Economy in the Enlightenment, ed. Daniel Carey. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2014, pp. 117-62).

Thomas Paine, copy by Auguste Millière after an engraving by William Sharp, after George Romney, c.1876, based on a work of 1792. Reproduced under a creative commons license from the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, NPG 897.

Could that notion of an economy operating in the interests of the public good, rather than in private interests, provide the basis for a republican political economy in the twenty-first century? The political philosopher Richard Dagger certainly thinks so. In a 2006 article he sketched out the key features of a neo-republican economy where the market would be preserved but be directed towards the service of the public good. This would require that certain values be allowed to trump the unfettered operation of the market. Efficiency in the production and distribution of goods and services would certainly be valued, but the interests and well-being of citizens would be deemed more important. For example, there would be constraints on managerial decision-making and institutional guarantees for workers to be able to contest managerial directives. Similarly, the market would be curbed to secure the protection and flourishing of communities, which might mean giving careful consideration to the impact of economic decisions on the environment or on particular groups within society. Dagger also proposes several mechanisms designed to secure greater financial equality and a better redistribution of wealth among citizens. These include a robust inheritance tax, a progressive consumption tax, and a minimum level of financial support for all citizens to help make financial security - and therefore self-government - possible for all, regardless of background. Options for the delivery of this financial support could include a basic income, of the kind advocated recently by the economist Guy Standing, or a basic capital grant, an idea originally proposed by the eighteenth-century revolutionary Thomas Paine in The Rights of Man.

If Dagger is right then perhaps it would be possible to build on republican arguments of the past to develop an economic system in which the market can be directed towards advancing the public good. The current crisis provides an incentive for us to do so, and perhaps also the opportunity.

Myths Concerning Republicanism 3: Republics Require Virtuous Citizens

The events of the last two weeks have brought to the fore the relationship between the individual and society. The spread of Covid-19, as well as our ability to access food and other basic necessities, depend on whether people behave in their own or the public interest. Moreover, many commentators have noted that this crisis has brought out both the best and worst in people. Though this blogpost was written before the Coronavirus situation in the UK escalated and we were confined to our homes, exploring the role that virtue can and should play in society now seems particularly pertinent.

Those who have written about the history of republicanism tend to agree that two key concepts lie intertwined at its heart: liberty and virtue. Recent scholarship has placed greater emphasis on the former. Particularly influential has been Quentin Skinner's argument that there is a distinctive understanding of liberty popular with past republican thinkers, which insists that freedom requires not just the absence of physical restraint (as the liberal understanding would suggest) but also not being dependent on another person's will. This understanding of liberty as non-dependence is central to Philip Pettit's influential attempt to establish neo-republicanism as an alternative to modern liberalism today. It is no doubt easier for current advocates of republican government to emphasise liberty, which remains a fundamental and respected value in the twenty-first century, than to try to argue in favour of virtue, a value that, aside from aficionados of virtue ethics, brings with it connotations of ancient self-sacrifice and Christian moralising.

Another myth about republican government that potentially amounts to an objection to its revival in the present, then, is that it requires the exercise of an unreasonable degree of virtue on the part of citizens. As with the other myths that have been explored in this blog, there is some justification for this.

Jacques-Louis David, ‘Brutus and the Lictors’ reproduced thanks to the Getty’s Open Content program.

The ancient philosopher Cicero did much to cement the importance of virtue within the republican tradition. In his book De Officiis (On Duties) he took from Plato's Republic two crucial pieces of advice for those taking charge of public affairs: 'first to fix their gaze so firmly on what is beneficial to the citizens that whatever they do, they do with that in mind, forgetful of their own advantage. Secondly, let them care for the whole body of the republic rather than protect one part and neglect the rest' (Cicero, On Duties, ed. M. T. Griffin and E. M. Atkins, Cambridge, 1991, p. 33). Elsewhere in the work he voiced the idea that makes such behaviour seem impossible. Noting that, of the many fellowships that bind humans together, the most precious is the republic, he went on: 'What good man would hesitate to face death on her behalf, if it would do her a service?' (Cicero, On Duties, p. 23). 

This idea that republican virtue requires the subordination of one's private interests to the public good, and that a good republican must be prepared to make immense sacrifices for the good of the whole, was reiterated in the eighteenth century. Perhaps the most powerful reflection of it is to be found in the art work of the French revolutionary painter Jacques-Louis David. His painting Brutus and the Lictors (1789) drew on a famous story from Roman history to explore the central themes of patriotism and the sacrifice of the individual for the good of the state. Lucius Junius Brutus, who had been responsible for expelling the Tarquins from Rome and thereby establishing the republic, discovered that his sons had been acting to restore the monarchy. He prioritised the good of the state over his own family by sentencing his sons to death for treason. While David's picture captures the enormous weight of Brutus's sacrifice, the message is clear that he made the right decision.

This understanding of 'virtue' is still in evidence today in the respect shown to veterans and their families. Moreover it is currently on display among those working in the NHS, care homes, supermarkets, and other essential services who are continuing to attend work despite the risks to their own health. Nevertheless few would welcome the notion, under normal circumstances, that civilian citizens should regularly be expected to put their lives or those of their family on the line for the public good.

I want to offer two thoughts in response to this myth. First that if we understand what is required in less extreme terms we can perhaps find some value in grounding our society more firmly in virtue - in a concern for the public good rather than mere private interests. Secondly, that some republican theorists were well aware that expecting human beings willingly to make huge sacrifices for the good of the public was unrealistic. They suggested, instead, that laws and systems of rewards and punishments could be used to create a situation in which people could be motivated by self-interested concerns to behave in a way that benefited the public as a whole. This approach might offer some possibilities for future policy.

To some degree those of us living in countries with a welfare state already accept the principle of sacrificing individual advantages for the good of the whole. The National Health Service in the UK, for example, is premised on the belief that free health care at the point of need is a public good and that individual citizens must sacrifice a portion of their income in order to pay for it. Similarly, here in the UK taxes ensure that free primary and secondary education is available to all children up to the age of 18, and this is paid for by all citizens regardless of whether they themselves have children, or indeed whether they choose to send their children to state schools.

We could extend this idea to other aspects of society. In an article that I linked to in last month's blogpost, George Monbiot argues that the choice we have to make is between 'public luxury for all, or private luxury for some'. He encourages us to imagine a society in which the rich sacrifice their private swimming pools and the middle class their private gym membership, reinvesting that money in high quality public sports facilities that are open to all. A society where a purpose-built public transport system provides swift, efficient, and comfortable travel for everyone, making it rational for individuals to leave their cars at home or abandon them altogether. One in which private gardens of varying sizes are exchanged for vast public parks complete with imaginatively thought out, well constructed, and properly maintained playgrounds that provide opportunities for all children to play and have fun, while in the process improving their health and wellbeing

Portrait of Pieter de la Court by Abraham Lambertsz van den Tempel (1667). Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons.

The problem is how we persuade people to make such sacrifices. We can find some answers by examining republican arguments of the past. While some republicans - particularly those of a strongly religious bent such as John Milton and Algernon Sidney - insisted on the need for genuine virtue on the part of rulers and citizens alike, others - including the Dutch thinkers Johann and Pieter de la Court, the Englishman James Harrington, the Frenchman the Abbé Mably, and the American John Adams - did not have such high expectations of the human capacity for virtue. They accepted that the majority of people would not be willing to make sacrifices for the public good unless it was clearly in their interests to do so. Consequently they argued that laws should be designed so as to direct people towards virtuous behaviour or that other incentives - such as honours and rewards - could be used to induce people to act in the public interest.

Harrington's whole constitutional system was designed with this end in mind. His most famous articulation of the argument was his story of two girls dividing a cake between them. If one girl cuts the cake, but the other gets first choice as to which piece she wants, the first girl will be led by her own self-interest (in this case understood as her desire to get the largest piece of cake) to divide the cake as evenly as she possibly can. Harrington used this as a metaphor for the organisation of legislative power within the state. He insisted on a bicameral legislature and argued that the upper house or senate should make legislative proposals, but the lower house should have the final say as to whether to accept or reject them. By this means the senate would be induced only to propose legislation that was in the public interest, since if they put forward measures in their own interests, the lower house would reject them.

Portrait of Gabriel Bonnet de Mably. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons.

A different method was proposed by Mably. He insisted that human reason and virtue were too weak to act alone  and that only a small proportion of people in any society would be capable of being led by reason at all times. Yet, he believed that even some of the strongest passions, if carefully orchestrated, could become virtues by being directed towards the public good. Offering rewards for public-spirited behaviour could ensure that ambition or the desire for fame and glory could be channelled towards positive ends. There is a close link between these methods and what modern behavioural scientists call nudge theory.

It would be naïve to think that society could be transformed overnight, but it would also be wrong to think that governments are impotent in these matters. Changes can be made by those courageous enough to do so. On 29 February 2020 the government of Luxembourg introduced free public transport  across the entire country. In addition to seeing public transport as a public good, this is also a move designed to bring an even greater public benefit - that of improving the environment. There is evidence to suggest that this move alone may not be sufficient to encourage car users to make fewer journeys. But when pull factors - such as free public transport - are combined with push factors - an increase in parking fees, congestion charging, and increased fuel taxes - the desired outcome can perhaps be achieved. The pertinent question, then, is not whether citizens are virtuous enough to put the public good before their own private interests, but rather whether politicians are courageous enough to put in place the measures that would induce them to do this.

Myths Concerning Republicanism 2: Republican Government has always been Aristocratic

January's blogpost explored the myth that republican government is necessarily anti-monarchical. This month I want to consider another myth: that republican government is inherently aristocratic or élitist in character and therefore unsuited to the democratic nature of twenty-first-century states.

Print of Geneva in 1630. Image by Rachel Hammersley.

There is some justification for this characterisation. In the ancient world republican government was associated with slavery, the exclusion of women from the political sphere, and the restriction of political participation to certain groups. Indeed, the exercise of citizenship depended on the work carried out by non-citizens (including slaves, women, servants, and foreigners), which made it possible for citizens to devote their attention to political matters. Moreover, later republican governments were criticised for descending into oligarchy. Venice's Grand Council was initially composed of all male inhabitants but due to citizenship being restricted to the descendants of those original citizens, by 1581 it was accorded to just over 1% of the population. In the Genevan republic the cost of claiming citizenship became more expensive over time, restricting who could take it up. In addition, power was increasingly moved away from the General Council - comprising all citizens - and towards smaller bodies that were dominated by a few families.

Frontispiece to The Federalist Papers. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons.

The rise of the modern representative republic proved a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it undercut the need for citizens to be supported by non-citizens by making citizenship a less onerous activity. Yet, at the same time, it created a political élite distinct from the wider citizen body whose role it was to govern. For some thinkers this was a positive move. They saw representation not simply as a necessary evil in the large states of the modern world, but as a good in itself. In The Federalist Papers James Madison insisted that in a representative government 'public views' would be 'refined' and 'enlarge[d]' by being passed through 'the medium of a chosen body of citizens' who would be wiser than the rest and therefore better able to determine the true interest of the nation. He went on: 'Under such a regulation, it may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves, convened for the purpose.' (Publius, The Federalist Papers, X).

Yet, as debates at the time make clear, this was not the only way of organising representative government. Anti-Federalists in America, and various individuals and groups in Europe, proposed representative systems that maintained a closer connection between elected delegates and those they represented. The mechanisms they advocated included short terms and regular rotation of office, powerful local assemblies, binding mandates, and even the popular ratification of laws. The way in which the modern representative republic was organised did serve to create a narrow political élite, but that was a deliberate choice rather than the only option available.

Where the Federalists chose to build on the aristocratic tendency within republican thought, an alternative more democratic strand also existed

Portrait of James Harrington from The Oceana and Other Works of James Harrington… ed. John Toland (London, 1737). Image by Rachel Hammersley.

Some republicans insisted that popular participation (rather than anti-monarchism) was the defining feature of republican government. William Walker argues that the ancient historian Sallust saw the establishment of the tribunate as more important to the Roman Republic than the displacement of the monarch by consuls (William Walker, 'Sallust and Skinner on Civil Liberty', European Journal of Political Theory, 5:3, 2006). Likewise, for James Harrington it was not the presence or absence of a single figurehead at the apex of the system that determined whether or not a regime was a commonwealth, but rather whether or not the people (via their popular assembly) had the final say over which legislation was passed and enacted (Rachel Hammersley, James Harrington: An Intellectual Biography, Oxford, 2019). Similarly, John P. McCormick has argued that Niccolò Machiavelli offered an anti-élitist critique of republican practice. In contrast to Francesco Guicciardini's "senatorial" model of politics, he favoured a "tribunate" model which embraced popular deliberation and employed extra-electoral methods to secure the accountability of those in power (John P. McCormick, 'Machiavelli Against Republicanism On the Cambridge School's "Guicciardinian Moments", Political Theory, 31:5, 2003, 615-43).

Both Machiavelli and Harrington were also advocates of the idea that extremes of wealth and poverty would pose a direct threat to the survival of the republic. Machiavelli famously argued that if the system was well-constituted the public should be rich, but the citizens poor (Machiavelli, The Discourses, ed. Bernard Crick. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970, p. 475). This idea has a modern echo in the notion that we must choose between public luxury for all or private luxury for some. Other thinkers called for balance and moderation. Harrington claimed that: 'There is a mean in things: as exorbitant riches overthrow the balance of a commonwealth, so extreme poverty cannot hold it nor is by any means to be trusted with it.' (James Harrington, The Commonwealth of Oceana, ed. J. G. A. Pocock. Cambridge, 1992, p. 77). A similar view was endorsed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau who insisted that in order to secure civil freedom: 'no citizen [can] be so very rich that he can buy another, and none so poor that he is compelled to sell himself.' (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Social Contract, ed. Victor Gourevitch. Cambridge, 1997, p. 78). The problem with wealth and luxury, Rousseau insisted, was that they exerted a corrupting influence, encouraging the citizens to put their own private interests above those of the republic.

The Leaders of the Knights of Labour with Terence Powderly in the centre. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons.

It is also evident that even after the emergence of representative republics, the language of republicanism could be used by marginalised or excluded groups against their oppressors. As Alex Gourevitch has demonstrated, this tactic was deployed to great effect by 'The Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor', the first labour organisation in the United States of America to admit both white and black workers (Alex Gourevitch, From Slavery to the Cooperative Commonwealth. Cambridge, 2015). Its leaders deliberately used republican arguments to criticise wage labour. George McNeill spoke of the 'inevitable and irresistible conflict' between the system of wage labour and republican governance (p. 100). The reason for this, as Terence Powderly explained, was that the wage labour system generated economic inequalities that were translated into political inequalities. Drawing directly on the understanding of liberty as non-dependence, and on arguments that had been used in the seventeenth century to insist that subjects were unfree even under a mild and gentle monarch, the Knights insisted that a worker would be a slave even if employed by 'the gentlest man in the world' 'if he must obey his commands and depend upon his will' (pp. 14-15). The solution, they argued, was to establish cooperatives so that workers could collectively own and manage the factories in which they worked. By applying the conception of liberty as non-dependence to the economic as well as the political sphere, these labour republicans succeeded in making republican arguments applicable not just to independent property owners, but to all workers - white and black, male and female.

While republicanism has taken an aristocratic form in both theory and practice in the past this was often a deliberate strategy rather than a necessity. The history of the republican tradition can provide arguments in favour of popular participation in government, warnings against excessive inequalities among citizens, and evidence of the importance of economic as well as political inequalities (and of the relationship between the two). Rather than dismissing republicanism as inherently aristocratic, then, it might be more profitable to draw on these resources to create a version of republicanism suited to the democratic states of the twenty-first century.

Myths Concerning Republicanism 1: Republicanism is simply the Antonym of Monarchy

Republicanism is not a major political discourse in the UK today. In the recent parliamentary elections no candidate standing on the express ticket of republicanism was elected to power. Some might, therefore, conclude that my forthcoming book with Polity Press - Republicanism: An Introduction - is of merely academic interest. But, in fact, the arguments of the republican tradition are of direct relevance to us today, and their neglect has less to do with the ideas themselves than with the persistence of several common myths. The beginning of a New Year - and indeed a new decade - has prompted me to start a fresh series of posts which will explore these myths and suggest some lessons that might be learned from historical research on the republican ideas of the past.

In common parlance the very definition of a republic is that it is not a monarchy; so America and France are republics because both have a President as their head of state, whereas the United Kingdom and Holland are monarchies because their heads of state are a Queen and a King, respectively. Yet the differences between how these countries are actually governed on a day-to-day basis are relatively small. Moreover, the American President wields far more extensive powers, and is therefore closer to being a monarch, than the British or Dutch heads of state, and more power than these countries' Prime Ministers, who are more closely bound by their governments and parliaments.

Bust of Cicero. Image courtesy of Dr Katie East.

This blurring of the distinction between republics and monarchies reflects the history of the terms. The original meaning of 'republic' did not contrast it with monarchy, that contrast gradually emerged between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. Before that, republican government was simply understood as a form of rule that operated in the interests of the public or common good (res publica means public thing) rather than in the private interests of rulers. This understanding was reflected in the Roman statesman and political writer Cicero's claim in De Republica 'That a commonwealth [republic] (that is the concern of the people) then truly exists when its affairs are conducted well and justly, whether by a single king, or by a few aristocrats, or by the people as a whole'. (Cicero, On the Commonwealth and On the Laws, ed. James E. G. Zetzel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, p. 59). For Cicero, republican government was simply good government, and monarchies could not meet this requirement.

Ironically, given their current political systems, the Dutch and the English were at the forefront of overturning this definition, making anti-monarchism the touchstone of republican rule. The Dutch were unusual among sixteenth-century republicans in their insistence that anti-monarchism is a crucial component of republicanism. Similarly, it was in England in the mid-seventeenth century that practical expression was given to the idea that only a government that is grounded in the will of the people can be legitimate and that, therefore, all forms of non-elective monarchy and hereditary political privilege had to be rejected.

The Execution of Charles I. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons.

Today, attacks on the monarchy tend to focus on its public funding, which in the UK operates via the Sovereign Grant, or on scandals involving members of the royal family - such as the recent debacle over Prince Andrew's involvement with Jeffrey Epstein. While royal scandals are certainly embarrassing for us as a nation, they do not directly threaten the government of the country. By comparison, the question of whether the state is being run in the public interest (including the uses to which public expenditure is put) is far more pertinent. On this question, so-called republics are as much at risk as monarchies. On 4 December 2019 the House Intelligence Committee of the US Congress approved an impeachment report against President Trump. In that report Trump is accused of abusing his power for personal gain by pressuring Ukraine to investigate his political rivals and obstructing Congress's investigation into his actions: the President is being accused of putting his own private interests before the public good.

Of course, there are some fundamental questions lying beneath the older interpretation of republican government: What exactly is the public interest? How could it be rationally determined? Is the public interest the same as what is in the interests of the majority? Does this mean that the interests of minorities can be ignored? Is the public interest merely what is expedient, or does it take account of principles that are held to define the character of the nation; or perhaps ones that are universal in character - as the French would certainly claim in their case? There are no easy answers to these questions, but they need to be given a great deal more attention than they currently are if the UK and other countries today are to become genuine republics. From this point of view, what we do about the royal family is a sideshow

The Inspiration Behind Oceana: 6. Sir John Fortescue

James Harrington is often seen as an aristocratic republican who like others in that tradition placed power in the hands of a narrow political élite. It is certainly true that he believed that within every society there was a natural aristocracy whose members were 'wiser, or at least less foolish, than all the rest' (James Harrington The Commonwealth of Oceana and A System of Politics, ed J. G. A. Pocock, Cambridge, p. 23). For this reason, in his constitutional system, he insisted that only the senate should debate legislation, the lower house being restricted to voting to accept or reject the senate's proposals. Yet his views were more complicated than this might suggest. As noted in last month's post, he was explicitly committed, via the mechanism of an agrarian law, to ensuring that landed property within the country did not become concentrated in the hands of a few, but would in future be relatively evenly spread among the population. Moreover, he was emphatic that his natural aristocracy was determined not by birth, but by wealth and election, embracing the role that social mobility could play within society. 

Harrington's relative political inclusivity is encapsulated in his manipulation of the traditional idea of the body politic. He was innovative in how he used that metaphor, subverting an idea conventionally used to shore up kingship so as to support democratic government. (The full case for Harrington's democratic credentials is made in my forthcoming book). Yet, novel as his conception was, it was indebted to the ideas of the fifteenth-century legal and political theorist Sir John Fortescue.

Sir John Fortescue by William Faithorne, line engraving, published 1663. Reproduced under a Creative Commons License from the National Portrait Gallery - NPG D22739.

Fortescue, who lived c.1395-1477, was a key figure in the government and judiciary of fifteenth-century England, serving as MP eight times between 1421 and 1436 and being made Chief Justice of the King's Bench in January 1442. Exiled following the defeat of the Lancastrians under Henry VI at the Battle of Towton (1461), Fortescue ploughed his extensive knowledge and experience into works such as In Praise of the Laws of England. Having repudiated his former support for the Lancastrians following the Battle of Tewkesbury (1471), he was pardoned and presented his work The Governance of England to King Edward IV.

In his works Fortescue employed the metaphor of the body politic. Though the use of this idea dates back to Plato and Aristotle, the understanding of the concept in the early modern period owed much to medieval developments. An analogy was drawn between the human body and the state (and within it usually between the head and the king) and both were generally viewed as microcosms of a divinely inspired natural order

Fortescue was crucial in adapting the metaphor to fit the particularities of the English system. His major contribution to political thought was to contrast 'royal dominion', which he associated with continental nations, and especially France, with the 'political and royal dominion' of England. As he explained at the beginning of The Governance of England:

There are two kinds of kingdoms, one of which is a lordship called in Latin dominium regale, and the other is called dominium politicum et regale. And they differ in that the first king may rule his people by such laws as he makes himself and therefore he may set upon them taxes and other impositions, such as he wills himself, without their assent. The second king may not rule his people by other laws than such as they assent to and therefore he may set upon them no impositions without their own assent. (Sir John Fortescue, The Governance of England, in On the Laws and Governance of England, ed. Shelley Lockwood, Cambridge, 1997, p. 83).

This understanding required Fortescue to adapt the conventional notion of the body politic. He accepted that a people cannot constitute a body without a head, and therefore when a people 'wills to erect itself into a kingdom or any other body politic' it 'must always set up one man for the government of all that body' (Fortescue, In Praise of the Laws of England, p. 20). Nevertheless, he insisted that the body was prior to the head, drawing on Aristotle's theory about the heart being the first part of the body to be formed: 

And just as in the body natural, as the Philosopher said, the heart is the first living thing, having in itself the blood which it sends forth to all the members, whereby they are quickened and live, so in the body politic the intention of the people is the first living thing, having in it the blood, namely, political provision for the interest of the people, which it transmits to the head and all the members of the body, by which the body is nourished and quickened. (Fortescue, In Praise of the Laws of England, pp. 20-1).

The heart, representing the people, is then both prior to the head and crucial for giving life to the whole. Moreover, Fortescue likened the laws of a nation to the sinews of the physical body in their capacity to hold that organism together. And he argued that just as the head of a physical body cannot change its sinews 'or deny its members proper strength and due nourishment of the blood' so a king could not change the laws or deprive the people 'of their own substance uninvited or against their wills' (Fortescue, In Praise of the Laws of England, p. 21).

Harrington's articulation of the body politic analogy combined Fortescue's insights with observations based on William Harvey's theory regarding the circulation of the blood (which I discussed in more detail in an earlier post):

So the parliament is the heart which, consisting of two ventricles, the one greater and replenished with a grosser store, the other less and full of a purer, sucketh in and gusheth forth the life blood of Oceana by a perpetual circulation (Harrington, Oceana, p. 174).

The frontispiece to William Harvey, Exercitatio Anatomica Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus (Florence, 1928). Reproduced from a copy held in the Special Collections department of the Robinson Library, Newcastle University. Pybus X.v.09.

Here the heart represents not simply the people, but specifically the legislature. In addition Harrington, like Fortescue, emphasises the role of the blood, though he uses this to justify his theory of rotation of office. Just as blood moves around the body being constantly replenished but never completely replaced, so rotation ensures that the popular element of the political system is continually in existence and yet regularly renewed. Harrington's account of the body politic, then, builds on that of Fortescue, but pushes it in a more democratic direction through the emphasis on rotation and the associated idea that all should rule and be ruled in turn. At the same time, using that metaphor and associating the legislature with the heart, implied that there would still be a single figurehead at the apex of the system. In Oceana that position was to be held by the Lord Archon, a role that Harrington appears to have designed for Oliver Cromwell. Yet, just like Fortescue, Harrington insisted that such a ruler had to be constrained by the laws.

Harrington's body politic metaphor thus encapsulates the complexity of his system. While he was clearly influenced by classical and Renaissance thinkers from the republican tradition, their ideas were combined with native legal perspectives such as that offered by Fortescue. Similarly, Harrington's republicanism was not simply aristocratic, but also incorporated important democratic and monarchical elements. While some republicans were intent on securing the rule of a narrow political élite, the recent tendency to see that as the republican position and, consequently, to dismiss the insights that republicanism could offer us today is a mistake. The republican tradition was not uniform. Competing views were expressed by its exponents and it was flexible and adaptable. It has the potential to offer a more open and democratic vision of government, one that could serve us in the twenty-first century.

Republics v Monarchies

The Scottish National Party recently brought the question of the Monarchy back onto the political agenda by voting at their 2017 party conference in favour of cutting public funding for the Royal Family. Delegates supported overwhelmingly a motion calling for the repeal of the Sovereign Grant Act of 2011. While the vote will not bring immediate political change, since Westminster retains control of the Sovereign Grant, the vote has drawn attention once again to the alleged republicanism at the heart of the SNP and the idea that an independent Scotland might choose to replace the Queen as head of state. Such suggestions always produce strong views on both sides, usually labelled 'republican' and 'monarchist'.

On the surface, at least, the distinction between republics and monarchies is a crucial feature of our modern political landscape. Yet the history of these two constitutional forms is far more complex than this simple dichotomy would suggest. Indeed, according to one historical definition, Britain is and has long been a republic, whereas on the basis of another neither France nor the United States of America is worthy of that term. Monarchists and republicans alike might, therefore, benefit from a deeper understanding of the history of these political concepts.

Bust of Cicero. I am grateful to Katie East for providing the image.

The concept of republican government, in both theory and practice, dates back at least to ancient Rome. It was explored in a number of Roman texts, not least those of Marcus Tullius Cicero who was both a politician and a political thinker. In his De re publica Cicero did not define a republic or commonwealth in opposition to kingship, but instead argued 'that a commonwealth (that is the concern of the people) then truly exists when its affairs are conducted well and justly, whether by a single king, or by a few aristocrats, or by the people as a whole'. (Cicero, On the Commonwealth, ed. James. E. G. Zetzel Cambridge, 1999,  p. 59). The key distinction here, then, is between rule that serves the public interest and that which serves private interests. So, on Cicero's account, a monarchy, if properly organised and directed towards the public good, could be a kind of republic. That same idea was still being voiced as late as the mid-eighteenth century, when the Genevan-born political theorist Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote in his Social Contract:

I therefore call Republic any State ruled by laws, whatever be the form of administration: for then the public interest alone governs, and the public thing counts for something. Every legitimate government is republican.

The accompanying footnote might appear self-contradictory, if Cicero's position is not borne in mind:

Statue of Jean-Jacques Rousseau outside the Pantheon in Paris. Image by Rachel Hammersley.

By this word I understand not only an Aristocracy or a Democracy, but in general any government guided by the general will, which is the law. To be legitimate, the Government must be not confused with the Sovereign, but be its minister. Then monarchy itself is a republic. (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, ed. Victor Gourevitch, Cambridge, 1997, p. 67)

   But while the Ciceronian understanding of a republic survived well into the eighteenth century, from the late fifteenth century onwards a second understanding was developing. This saw monarchy not as one form of republican government, but as its direct opposite. Several historians have recently traced the development of this tradition of republican thought, emphasising its debt to the writings of Italian Renaissance thinkers as well as to a tradition of Jewish Biblical scholarship that offered a distinctive take on the Israelites' plea to God in I Samuel 8 that they be given a king like other nations.

By the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there were certainly those who saw republican government as requiring the destruction of monarchy. The English Civil War of the 1640s prompted some parliamentarians to attack not simply Charles I, or even just tyrants, but all kings. Marchamont Nedham was one of several figures who challenged the very distinction between kings and tyrants: 'Had they [the English] but once tasted the sweets of peace and liberty both together, they would soon be of the opinion of Herodotus and Demosthenes that there is no difference between king and tyrant and become as zealous as the ancient Romans were in defence of their freedom.' (Marchamont Nedham, The Case of the Commonwealth of England Stated, ed. Philip A. Knachel, Charlottesville, 1969, pp. 127-8). This view had practical import too. The 'Act Abolishing the Office of King', which was passed on 17 March 1649, declared the office of king to be 'unnecessary, burdensome, and dangerous to the liberty, safety, and public interest of the people' and the ensuing 'Act Declaring England to be a Commonwealth and Free State', which was passed in May 1649, insisted that this government was to be 'without any King or House of Lords'.

John Milton, by unknown artist, National Portrait Gallery, NPG4222. Reproduced under a creative commons license.

Yet even this does not present the full complexity of the concept, since those who agreed that republicanism was, by definition, anti-monarchical, could nevertheless disagree over precisely what institutional form should replace the office of king. Most significant was the distinction between those who insisted merely on the absence of a monarch, and those who outlawed any form of single-person rule. Thus a third definition of republic required that the government was not headed by a single figure, but by a group or council. As John Milton asserted in The Readie and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth: 'I doubt not but all ingenuous and knowing men will easily agree with me, that a free Commonwealth without single person or house of lords, is by far the best government, if it can be had.' (John Milton, The Readie and Easy Way, in Selected Prose, ed. C. A. Parties, Harmondsworth, p. 338). Milton's formulation ruled out both monarchy (as in the reign of Charles I) and a Protectorate (as under Oliver Cromwell).

Moreover, the English revolutionaries had attempted to institute such a form a decade earlier. When Charles I was executed on 30 January 1649 he was replaced not by another single person, but rather by the Rump Parliament, which ruled together with its Council of State, until April 1653. Yet as its short life - and the rise of Oliver Cromwell - would suggest, experiments involving a purely conciliar government have often proved unsuccessful in practice. The experiments in France in the 1790s with the Committee of Public Safety, and later the Directory, further confirmed this conclusion.

Evidently, it is the second definition of a republic outlined above that is most common today, so that a republican wishes to abolish the Monarchy. According to the first definition, that of Cicero, modern Britain could, despite having a Queen as head of state, be counted as a republic so long as government decisions were made in the public interest. Indeed, there were those in the eighteenth century who made precisely that argument. In 1700, the controversial political thinker and activist John Toland declared that 'if a Commonwealth be a Government of Laws enacted for the Common good of all the People' and if they had some means to consent to those laws 'Then it is undeniably manifest that the English Government is already a Commonwealth, the most free and best constituted in all the world.' (John Toland, The Oceana and Other Works of James Harrington, London, 1737, p. vii-viii). According to the third definition, by contrast, which requires that a single person must not be given considerable power, neither France nor the United States of America (both of which have a President), would be deemed worthy of that label.

Viewed historically, 'monarchy', is no easier to define than 'republic'. We can see this if we consider precisely what features make a monarch. Hereditary rule might be thought of as one key element, but this does not hold in the case of the early-modern Polish monarchy, which was elective. We might, then, say that a monarch generally holds his or her position for life. This would work for the Polish system, but it was also true of the Doge of Venice during the same period, and yet most people would argue that the Doge was the head of a republic rather than being a monarch.  Instead of thinking about the nature of the position, then, we might consider the extent of the power wielded. But this seems no more satisfactory as a basis for distinguishing monarchies from republics, since from the late eighteenth century to the present the President of the United States of America has tended to wield far greater powers than the English monarch. While part of the problem here is that the modern British Monarchy is in some ways a misnomer, since our Queen is a hereditary figurehead rather than a power-wielding head of government, even in the late eighteenth century George Washington already enjoyed greater powers in certain respects than George III. (For an interesting exploration of the royal tendencies in the American system see Eric Nelson, The Royalist Revolution, Cambridge Massachusetts, 2014).

John Lilburne, England's New Chains Discovered, London, 1649. http://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/leveller-tracts-6. 18.10.17. Taken from the Online Library of Liberty [http://oll.liberty.org] hosted by Liberty Fund, Inc.

This is not to say that important differences between what are conventionally labelled as monarchies and republics do not exist. The expenditure of public money on the Royal Family and the upkeep of royal palaces has always been one of the stronger arguments in the British republican arsenal (though of course presidential systems and legislative assemblies also incur costs). But we must also be careful not to assume that all our political problems can be solved by establishing a republic. It did not take long even for those seventeenth-century English revolutionaries who had called for an end to the monarchy to realise that many problems remained in its wake. Perhaps the best illustration of this is the fact that, less than a month after the regicide, the Leveller leader John Lilburne published a pamphlet which he entitled England's New Chains Discovered.

One year on - an intellectual biography of James Harrington

Given that this is my twelfth monthly blog, it seems a good moment to reflect on where I have got to, and on plans for the year to come. The blog posts have been anchored in the twin themes of Harrington and grief, but have ranged widely, exploring such topics as: the origins of modern democratic government; the life of the Queen of Bohemia; seventeenth-century wills and grave monuments; and the origins and uses of the Virgilian phrase 'Mens Molem Agitat'. In the course of the year my Harrington project, originally inspired and gifted to me by my late husband John Gurney, has blossomed. At the end of this month I will embark on a Mid-Career fellowship, kindly funded by the British Academy, which will provide me with the opportunity to complete my research on Harrington and to finish writing an intellectual biography of him. This will be published by Oxford University Press. Having spent the last two posts considering intellectual biography as a form, I want to say a little more here about my plans for my intellectual biography of Harrington and the work that I will do more generally during my fellowship.

James Harrington by an unknown artist c. 1635. National Portrait Gallery, NPG513. Reproduced under the National Portrait Gallery's Creative Commons Licence.

As I noted in last month's blog, one reason why I see the intellectual biography as a useful form, and one particularly appropriate to Harrington, is the opportunity it provides to acknowledge the interconnection between the external life and actions of the subject and the internal life of the mind. This seems particularly appropriate to a political thinker who was keen for his writings to have an impact on the politics of his own day. Much of the focus on Harrington to date has been on his writings rather than his life, largely because no personal papers have survived, making reconstruction of that life difficult. Yet information about his life can be gleaned from other sources and, as I argued in my paper at the workshop, integrating discussion of Harrington's life and works complicates and enriches our understanding of both. In particular, uncovering details of his life before 1656, not least his positive relations with members of the Stuart family, raises questions about the nature and extent of his commitment to republican government. Thus, one of the key arguments of my book will be that while Harrington did advocate republican government to some degree, the nature of his republicanism was not typical of the time; and he challenged, and even subverted, conventional republican ideas and practices.

James Harrington after Sir Peter Lely, based on a work of c. 1658. National Portrait Gallery, NPG41090. Reproduced under the National Portrait Gallery's Creative Commons Licence.

As well as complicating our understanding of the precise kind of republican government that Harrington was committed to, the book will also argue that a more comprehensive account of Harrington's life and thought can be produced if we move beyond the recent obsession with his republicanism. During my fellowship I will explore Harrington's contribution to four other fields of thought. First, there is his status as an historian. Harrington might be seen as rather traditional in his attitude to history, given his belief that past (particularly ancient) models can be utilised in the present. Yet, in fact, his approach was dynamic. Rather than simply seeking to revive and apply such models in the present, he approached them as a basis for future innovation. Harrington was also innovative in being one of the first thinkers to address the causes of the English Civil War, offering a distinctive long-term explanation for the outbreak of that event. Secondly, I will examine Harrington's contribution to religious debates of the age, particularly those concerning the Hebrew Commonwealth and the method of ordination within the church. Here, too, Harrington adopted a novel position, combining religious toleration with a national church, and Erastianism with democratic church government. Thirdly, I will pay attention to Harrington's philosophical thinking. His complex understanding of the relationship between body, reason and spirit underpinned his entire political model, but also set him at odds with leading thinkers of the day, particularly those associated with the Royal Society. Finally, it is my contention that Harrington was innovative not just in the content of his works, but also in their form and style. His literary interests, including his translations of the works of Virgil, have largely been ignored by historians of political thought; and the fundamental importance of the interaction between form and content in The Commonwealth of Oceana is only just beginning to be uncovered. Yet just as Harrington's philosophical thinking underpinned his politics, so the content of his works was reflected in and demonstrated by the form in which it was expressed.

Harrington's playfulness when it comes to the form and style of his work is not just something I plan to investigate, but also something I have been attempting to imitate, not least through this blog. During the fellowship, then, I will continue my monthly posts, but the focus will shift slightly. In each one I will use Harrington's ideas as a springboard for approaching contemporary political issues. The topics may evolve as the year progresses, but are likely to cover such topics as: republics versus monarchies; what is democracy?; holding representatives to account; and popular initiative in a parliamentary system.

The fellowship begins in October and these posts will start in November, once the project is properly underway. For October I have a final more anecdotal post about coinage, which seems appropriate to the month in which the version of the pound coin that has been in circulation since 1983 will cease to be legal tender, being replaced by a new twelve-sided design.