Soldiers and Statesmen

The General Council of the Army and its Debates 1647-1648

By: Austin Woolrych

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Hardcover | 4 June 1987

At a Glance

Hardcover
376 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
21.59 x 13.97 x 2.54

Hardcover

$190.25

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Within a year of its victory over King Charles I in 1646, the New Model Army became a powerful force in English politics when it defied Parliament's orders to disband and set up its own democratic institution, the General Council of the Army. Its soldiers elected "agitators" as their spokesmen, who met with the generals to discuss not only the grievances of the army but also the settlement of the kingdom--contesting the very foundations of political authority. Shedding new light on the origins and proceedings of the agitators, Soldiers and Statesmen offers a reinterpretation of a critical turning point in the Great Rebellion, and suggests that the army which eventually brought the king to the scaffold would have restored him to his throne if he had given more weight to its offers.

Industry Reviews

'carefully and meticulously researched; it argues cogently and shrewdly; it is cautious and courteous in overturning accepted views; and it is beautifully written' The Times Literary Supplement 'another impeccably researched and admirably presented monograph on the earlier climacteric of the English Revolution in the later 1640s ... There is so much to praise and so little to criticise here ... Here is a book that any historian could justly be proud to have written.' G.E. Aylmer, St Peter's College, Oxford The Historical Association 'This is a book of meticulous scholarship which gives the soldiers the consideration they so richly deserve.' Brian Lyndon, Society for Army Historical Research 'No one before Austin Woolrych ... has composed a full account of its activities, set the Putney Debates in such a detailed and careful context, or shown so clearly their place in the army's protracted discussions about the settlement of the kingdom after the First Civil War ... all will surely admire the skill and scholarly precision with which he recounts the history of the General Council.' David Underdown, Yale University. Parliamentary History 'Written with clarity and controlled enthusiasm, emphatically scholarly but never ponderous, Soldiers and Statesmen is a work of major importance, innovative and modifying equally long-standing and more recent reviews of not only military but of parliamentary and kingly politics.' History and Archaeology Review

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