Abstract
In 1647, after the end of civil war in England, partisans in the peace process competed to attain narrative hegemony over the interpretation and meaning of the conflict. At the forefront of these efforts were historical narratives. This essay exams an attempt by Joshua Sprigge to produce a history that would situate the New Model Army in a favourable position in settlement negotiations. The result was a history, Anglia Rediviva, that strived to demonstrate the necessary existence of the Army to safeguard the future peace of the kingdom. It combined providentialist reading of the Army’s military success with a tightly narrated account of its activities. Working with prominent members of the London print trade and drawing upon the technical skills of engravers to illustrate the text, Sprigge produced a monument to the Army that he hoped would shape and influence the course of the peace process.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ashton, Robert. Counter-Revolution: The Second Civil War and Its Origins, 1646–1648. (New Haven: Yale, 1994).
Atherton, Ian. “Remembering (and Forgetting) Fairfax’s Battlefields.” In England’s Fortress: New Perspectives on Thomas, 3rd Lord Fairfax, edited by Andrew Hopper and Philip Major, 95–116. (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014).
Becker, Howard S. Art Worlds. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982).
Braddick, Michael. God’s Fury, England’s Fire: A New History of the English Civil Wars. (London: Penguin, 2008).
Bulman, William J. “Hobbes’s Publisher and the Political Business of Enlightenment.” The Historical Journal 59, 2 (2016): 339–364.
Donagan, Barbara. “Codes and Conduct in the English Civil War.” Past and Present 118 (1988): 65–95.
Gaskell, Roger. “Printing House and Engraving Shop: A Mysterious Collaboration,” Book Collector 53, 2 (2004): 213–252.
Gentles, Ian. The New Model Army in England, Ireland and Scotland, 1645–1653. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).
———. “The Army and the Constitutional Crisis of the Later 1640s.” In The Agreements of the People, the Levellers and the Constitutional Crisis of the English Revolution, edited by Philip Baker and Elliot Vernon, 139–162. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).
Gordin, Michael D, Tilley, Helen, and Prakash, Gyan. “Utopia and Dystopia beyond Space and Time,” in Utopia/Dystopia: Conditions of Historical Possibility, Michael D. Gordin, Helen Tilley and Gyan Prakash eds., 1–18. (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2010).
Hughes, Ann. Gangraena and the Struggle for the English Revolution. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
Kishlansky, Mark. The Rise of the New Model Army (Cambridge, 1979).
Lindley, Keith and Scott, David A. The Journal of Thomas Juxon, 1644–1647, Camden, Fifth Series. 13. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
McKenzie, Donald F. Making Meaning: Printers of the Mind and Other Essays (University of Massachusetts Press, 2002).
Neufeld, Matthew. “From Peacemaking to Peacebuilding: The Multiple Endings of England’s Long Civil Wars.” American Historical Review 120, 5 (2015): 1709–1723.
Peacey, Jason. Politicians and Pamphleteers: Propaganda during the English Civil Wars and Interregnum. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004).
———. Print and Public Politics in the English Revolution. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).
Plomer, H. R. “A printer’s Bill in the Seventeenth century.” The Library 2, 25 (1906): 32–45, p. 35.
Raven, James. The Business of Books: Booksellers and the English Book Trade, 1450–1850. (New Haven (CT); London: Yale University Press, 2007).
———. Bookscape: Geographies of Printing and Publishing in London before 1800. (London: British Library, 2014).
Raymond, Joad. The Invention of the Newspaper: English Newsbooks, 1641–1649. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996).
Rivett, Gary. “‘Make use of things present and past’: Thomas May’s histories of parliament, printed public discourse and the politics of the recent past, 1640–1650,” Ph.D. Diss., (University of Sheffield, 2010).
———. “Peacemaking, Parliament, and the Politics of the Recent Past in the English Civil Wars.” Huntington Library Quarterly 76, 4 (2013): 589–615.
Vernon, Elliot. The Sion College Conclave and London Presbyterianism during the English Revolution. Ph.D Diss., (University of Cambridge, 1999).
Walsham, Alexandra. Providence in Early Modern England. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
Williams, Grant and Ivic, Christopher. “Introduction: sites of forgetting in early modern English literature and culture.” In Forgetting in Early Modern English Literature and Culture: Lethe’s Legacies, edited by Christopher Ivic and Grant Williams, 1–19. (London and New York: Routledge, 2004).
Woodhouse A.S.P. Ed. Puritanism and Liberty: Being the Army Debates (1647–49) from the Clarke Manuscripts. Second edition. (London: J.M. Dent and Sons, 1974).
Worden, Blair. “Providence and Politics in Cromwellian England.” Past and Present, 109 (1985): 55–99.
Woolrych Austin, Soldiers and Statesmen: The General Council of the Army and Its Debates, 1647–1648. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).
———. Britain in Revolution, 1625–1660. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Rivett, G. (2017). Revivifying and Reconciling the State: Peace-Making and Narrative Hegemony in Post-Civil-War England, 1646–1647. In: Deslandes, K., Mourlon, F., Tribout, B. (eds) Civil War and Narrative. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61179-2_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61179-2_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-61178-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-61179-2
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)