Vol. 7 No. 1 Nevin • 29 the war, but also the post-war decisions made on radicals. Radical Parliamentarians were the ones who decided that they no longer needed a king,14 and this led eventually to the execution of Charles in 1649. The radicals were influential in Parliament, especially later on in the Civil War. Gary S. De Krey wrote concerning one major group of radicals known as the Levellers. This group supported broad expansion of government reform and natural rights, such as expanding the franchise among Englishmen, and De Krey argues that their platforms are quite similar to later influential philosophers, such as John Locke.15 The Levellers are also explored in James Kloppenberg’s Toward Democracy, in which he points to their role in attempting to establish a populist system of government whereby Parliament would be representative of the will of the people.16 John Walter writes of the Levellers in his book Covenanting Citizens, where he writes of their use of the Protestation Oath to support their cause during and after the war.17 Trevor Royle even points to similarities between the Levellers and the American revolutionaries, with their demands for representation, indicating that the ideas 14 Como, Radical Parliamentarians and the English Civil War, pg. 428 15 De Krey, Gary S. Following the Levellers. Vol I., “Introduction: The Levellers, Their Followers, and the Historians.” 16 Kloppenberg, James T. Toward Democracy, pg. 108 17 Walter, John. Covenanting Citizens: the Protestation Oath and Popular Political Culture in the English Revolution, pgs. 4, 249 18 Royle, Trevor. The British Civil War: The Wars of the Three Kingdoms, 1638-1660, pg. 821 of the Levellers at the very least had lived past their end.18 In spite of their failure to ultimately achieve their objectives, their ideas would one day take hold not only in England but also in much of the rest of the world. Thus, while they immediately failed, it can be said that their ideas eventually succeeded. Because of this (and also likely the fact that they share many of the values of modern Western scholars), they are extremely well-documented and written on by modern historians. Summary of the Literature The English Civil War is a well-researched topic in general, with plenty of scholarship already covering broad aspects of it. However, as one narrows down and focuses on the radicals, there is clearly less research available, especially when one excludes the Levellers. Many of the smaller, less influential radical groups have little modern research. One such group with very little modern scholarship is the Fifth Monarchists. Questions and Methodology In studying the Fifth Monarchists, it would be easy to assume that they were unimportant, having had little direct
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM4ODY=