 In the 1920s Trotsky wrote an important work called where is Britain going. In this work he gave a very good piece of advice. He insisted that the British Marxists must study the revolutionary history of Britain. Many people think that Britain doesn't have a revolutionary history but that's false. And he specifically insisted on a careful study of the Chartist movement and above all the English revolution of the 17th century. Now it's a regrettable fact that very few Marxists have really studied this question seriously. It's a great shame because in my opinion the English revolution of the 17th century is every bit as important and every bit as inspiring and fascinating as the French revolution. And in point of fact if you look at it it follows the same patterns. As a matter of fact all great revolutions if you study them carefully including the Russian revolution follow the same patterns. It's an absolutely striking proof of the correctness of historical materialism. The nonsense of the postmodernists will say that you can't draw any lessons from history. It's entirely false. History has clearly defined patterns if you care to look for them. And the patterns of the revolution are always the same. The laws are always the same. Even the personalities involved are the same. If you compare for example the characters of Tsar Nicholas of Russia and his wife, his German wife, you compare them to Louis XVI and his Austrian wife and Charles I of England and his French wife which we deal with. They're strikingly, they're almost the same. And the reason is of course similar circumstances demand similar results, even similar personalities one might say. So I have to reduce my remarks. I've got 46 pages of notes here which is obviously too much for one lecture but I will be doing a book on this. And by the way I must say that in my research on this question I've come to the following conclusion. There's not one single solitary book about the English Revolution from a Marxist point of view that is acceptable. There was of course the writings, the copious writings of Christopher Hill, who was a member of the Communist Party, but his books frankly, there is Dreyer's Dash. It's like chewing sawdust reading those works. Typical dry academic stuff and academic Marxist, you know my opinion of those animals. Above all it's completely and absolutely lacking in any revolutionary spirit. You compare that for example, compare these writings to the marvellous works of Trotsky particularly the history of the Russian Revolution which is a scrupulous work of history but at every page it blazes with revolutionary spirit. The French Revolution if you know more people have studied that and there's some more or less decent works about that. Trotsky was very fond of, you know, the book that he recommended on the French Revolution was not the works of Marxist socialists like Jolet and so on. He recommended the work by Kropotkin, the anarchist, called The Great French Revolution. I also recommend that book. Of course it contains, it's written from an anarchist perspective, but Trotsky admired that book for one reason. It revealed clearly the role, the crucial role of the masses, the movement from below which impelled the French Revolution forward in all its stages. But you see in the English Revolution this is lacking, but it's not lacking. A serious study of the English Revolution shows exactly the same thing, it's the role of the masses that's key to any understanding of this revolution. But let's start because you know, I think it's been stated here, all great revolutions tend to start at the top, not at the bottom. The first indication of the development of a revolution is a split at the top, splits in the ruling class, which is unable to rule in the same way as it did in the past. Now what period are we dealing with? I would like to have dealt with the historical background, the rise of English capitalism, I have to say, at this stage. There's no time for that. I therefore regretfully will have to leave the economic and the history of British development of British capitalism to one side. Let's deal here with some of the personalities involved, because by the way Marxism, historical materialism has never denied the role of individuals in history. Oh no, no, no, no, no. Individuals and personalities can play a powerful role in history. Yes, what is not true is that they determine everything. That's false. The individuals and the personalities concerned are conditioned and restricted by the historical context in which they have to operate. Let's deal with some of the dramatic person. I'm starting with Charles I, King of England, the son of James I, who was the founder of the Stuart dynasty. He came from Scotland as a matter of fact. James, of course, I would like to deal with him, that's a separate question, but he was quite a smart character, James I. He was a cunning old fox. He came from Scotland, of course Scotland was very poor, England was very rich. He came with all his mates, his courtiers to London and of course he must have thought he'd landed in paradise. And therefore, of course, he was quite prepared to accept certain things, for example Protestantism and so on and so forth. Because of course there was a lot of money involved, which he could spend as much as he liked on a lavish lifestyle, lavish court, his favourites at court and so on and so forth. He spent a pile of money and therefore he left his son Charles I with a pile of debts. Also the little detail of foreign wars, which tended to be expensive in those days, because armies were mercenary armies. Charles I came to power with a bank of treasury in effect. By the way, there are certain parallels, even today and in the French Revolution, the same thing. The treasury was empty. This is like austerity today, it poses certain problems, it restricts the conduct of the ruling class. What sort of man was Charles I? You know, you can find out very easily. Don't bother to read books. Go to the National Gallery, it's free of charge, just down the road into Falcons Square. And look for the portraits of King Charles I by the great Dutch artist van Dyck, van Dyck, I think is probably the correct pronunciation. You see the character of the man there, the arrogance, the opulence, the idea that I am king and you are my subjects. Oh yes, Charles I was a very arrogant man who firmly believed in the principle of the divine right of kings. That he and he alone had the right to rule without any restriction or control whatsoever. The problem that Charles faced is that it wasn't true. In England he could not do just what he liked because here we come to the historical materialism, the historical aspect. This was the period of the rise of the bourgeoisie. Capitalism had already in effect triumphed in England for a period of maybe a century or two centuries before. And therefore Charles, there was one power if you like, state was divided, put it that way. One power based on the court, the monarchy and the clique around the monarchy. And the other power of course was the parliament. Parliament also was divided into two houses, which is still the case now. That shows by the way the botched nature, the incomplete nature of the English revolution we still have to put up with the consequences today. The House of Commons and the House of Lords. Well I stated the House of Lords was the House of Lords. The aristocrats, the wealthiest layers of society. The House of Commons was dominated mainly by the bourgeoisie, the rich merchants, the bankers, the capitalists, the nascent bourgeoisie. And therefore the two forces came into collision. Charles, to put it bluntly, needed cash. A lot of cash. Partly because like his father he was interested in a lavish lifestyle. You see this in the portrait. Look at his dress, extravagant dress, pearls, jewels, all kinds of things. And also wars with Spain, with France and so on. He didn't have the money. The House of Lords didn't have much money. The aristocracy was in a state of decline. All the money, all the wealth of the kingdom was in the hands of the House of Commons, the parliamentarians. Now another question which you have to understand is the question of religion. Which confuses people when they look at the English revolution. Oh well yes it was the Puritans versus the Presbyterians and so on. It was a religious question. Now that's not wrong. Religion played a huge role in the English revolution because it took place early on. Over a century later in the French revolution the bourgeoisie is more advanced. They are the atheists. They fight for the kingdom of reason. Yes, but this was an early period. It was the period internationally of a Titanic struggle between two forces, two elemental forces. The force represented by the Roman Catholic Church which represented the status quo. That's fundamentally the defence of the feudal system, the privileges of the aristocrats of the monarchy and so on. And Protestantism which erupted on the scene with the defiance of Martin Luther and later Calvin and other people who challenged this church. And it was necessary. There was no question of a fight to change society unless the power of the Catholic Church was destroyed, was overthrown. With all its trappings and extravagance and so on and so forth. And therefore you could say at this time Protestantism represented the rising bourgeoisie. You must understand this. When you look at the English revolution you see a bewildering array of different groups and sects and churches and so on. Yes, what you have to understand in those days, two things. First of all, religion then was not the same as now. Nowadays most people are indifferent to religion. Don't believe in it or at least don't practice it, don't go to church, don't go to the mass and so on. Not the case at this time. You're coming out of the middle ages where the church occupied an absolute spiritual dictatorship. The church dominated every aspect of life. You had to go to church. You couldn't be sitting in an IMT meeting in those days on a Sunday morning. You'd go to jail. You had to attend church. It was the law. And people believed in this. People believed passionately in religion, in God, in the devil, in heaven and hell, in your immortal soul. This was not a secondary matter. It was a fundamental importance. Don't you believe it? And therefore, what you must understand, there were no political parties because there was no political life as you would understand it. No democracy, no genuine elections. Parliament was completely unrepresentative. It represented those layers I've described. The upper house was the aristocracy. The lower house was the bourgeoisie fundamentally. Yes, but you see the different religious trends were political parties. That's what they were. Let's go through them. On the extreme right wing, of course, you have the Catholics who'd been defeated in Britain. The British Reformation took place before this under Henry VIII. You know, the fat guy with the beard. You've probably seen pictures of him. But yes, but the Reformation in England was different to the continent. It wasn't the same as Germany. It wasn't the same as the Netherlands and so on. In England, Henry broke with the church only from a dynastic point of view, as a manoeuvre, because he wanted to divorce his Spanish wife, who was naturally Catholic, fervent Catholic, and Mary Ann Bullen, who, by the way, was a fervent Protestant. And in order to do this, he had to break with Rome. The Pope wouldn't allow it, also for political reasons. Therefore, a struggle took place. But if you think about it, when Henry VIII broke with Rome and set up the Anglican Church, the Protestant Church, if you like, the only real difference, people don't understand this, the only real difference is that instead of the Pope being the head of the church and choosing the bishop, it was Henry, it was the king. As far as the actual ritual of the church was concerned, there was very little change. It wasn't really, it wasn't a thoroughgoing reformation, as took place in Germany and in Geneva with Calvin and so on. Not so. So that the Roman Catholics were there as a tendency, but in Britain they were a minority, they were a persecuted minority for this reason. They were persecuted because the king insisted that he was the head of the church, not the Pope, and therefore the Catholics were, in effect, persecuted. Then you had the Anglican Church, yes, but the Anglican Church also was divided. There was the High Church, Charles I belonged to the High Church, which maintained the same rituals, the same incense, the same priests, the same bishops, the same images as before. They were the right wing, the conservative party if you like. And then of course you had other Protestant movements like the bourgeois, there was the Presbyterians who represented, if you like, the Blairites, the right wing of the revolutionary bourgeois, if you like, the moderate opposition to the king, his Majesty's loyal opposition. Yes, that was in parliament, the Presbyterians were quite dominant in parliament, but there were others, the Calvinists, the Lutherans, and outside parliament there was a bewildering array, a myriad of sets which were based on the poorer layers, on the middle class, the independence, for example. Cromwell was, where is it, his statue was there somewhere, bring your statue over here so you can see. Since I will mention Cromwell more than once, here he is. Cromwell, who was Oliver Cromwell? Oliver Cromwell was not a poor man, he was a member of the middle class, he was a small farmer to the east of London, he was not far from Cambridge in East Anglia, he was a squire, a small landowner, and he was an independent, a Protestant, a more extreme Protestant than the Presbyterians, and then to the left, because we were going from right to left, to the left, there's a myriad of groups like the Anabaptists, the fifth monarchy men, you've never heard of them but they were around, and all kinds of other sects, right? Each one more radical and more Protestant, more anti-Catholic than the rest, okay? Ultimately you get the formation, the crystallisation of in effect political trends who also had a strong religious flavour, don't make any mistake about this, the levelers who were the extreme revolutionary Democrats, and finally the diggers, the true levelers as they call themselves, they're our spiritual ancestors, they're our political ancestors, the first communists in Britain were the diggers, but we'll come to those trends later, let's go back to the main conflict. Charles needed money and there was a permanent tussle, a permanent struggle between the monarch and the bourgeoisie in parliament over the question of money. Of course the bourgeoisie was not against providing subsidies to Charles on condition that he would grant them more power. What we're dealing with is a struggle for the possession of state power between two rival classes, bear that strictly in mind. And this led of course to very sharp conflicts, very bitter conflicts in which repeatedly Charles dissolved parliament, he could do this, he had absolute power, he said alright, you won't give me money for my wars, I dissolve you, you don't exist anymore, this happened on several occasions. There was also of course as always a religious component in this. Charles I think in 1625 he got married, first of all he tried to get married to, he was pushed into a marriage with a Spanish princess, that didn't work, it ended very badly. He got married to a French princess, the daughter of the French king, Henrietta Maria, who of course was a Catholic, not just a Catholic, a devout Catholic. Bear in mind Catholicism in Britain was prohibited but he was allowed by special rules, special dispensation to carry on a religion, Catholic religion in private, in her own chapel by the way, you can see that chapel today, I visited it with Anna a few months back, it was a very, not anymore but it was a very lavish. She turned this into a lavish alternative centre of religious power. She filled this chapel every Sunday, the mass was celebrated, she was constantly accompanied by her father, confessor, and she flaunted her Catholicism, went into the streets and so on and so forth. And of course this provoked, this rankled, this was more than annoying for ordinary people. It's quite a good film actually, not a bad film made years ago called Cromwell with Richard Harris playing Cromwell, it's not a bad film, it's just the typical what you'd expect but it's not bad. It's a scene where Cromwell visits the royal palace, he sees the queen and he sees there's a crucifix on the wall and he really, you can see the fury on his face as he sees this papist abomination, the cross and so on and so forth, all this was an abomination. By the way, incidentally there's a reason for this. Asceticism is present in every revolutionary movement because the poor people have nothing and they're against wealth. The ruling class sow off their wealth and their riches ostentatiously as they do today and it rankles with ordinary people, same with religion. This high church business with stained glass windows and images and statues and so on to a period and this was an abomination. You see, unlike the Catholics who don't read the Bible, the Protestants did read the Bible. Yes, it was a democratic thing. The extreme Protestants were against all priests, bishops, all ostentation in the churches, singing, statues, stained glass windows, whenever they could they smashed it up. Even on the 108th they did that. Iconicalism. That reflects the burning anger. It's not very nice works of art were destroyed. You get these characters, art historians weeping tears over this but you've got to understand the ordinary people. To them this is an abomination. It's in the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not bake unto thee any graven image. It's in the Ten Commandments. And therefore these images and saints and so on. An absolute abomination. They smashed them up as often as they could. So there was a class. And therefore the conduct of the queen was a permanent source of, to say, irritation is putting it mildly. Charles of course, all these monarchs, there's always a clique in the Russian Tsarist setup. You had Rasputin and the queen who was very close to Rasputin and so forth. Charles had this clique led at that time by the Duke of, the first Duke of Buckingham. Charles Villiers' name was. It's also the favourite of his father. And of course this man was hated. There's a common feature very often with monarchies of this type that you don't attack the monarch, don't attack the king, but you attack his favourites, you attack his ministers. They're responsible. Buckingham was held responsible for unpopular foreign wars. There's one particular incident where in France, by the way you must bear in mind the international context, this is the period of the Thirty Years' War, another subject which is not generally known. Marx and Engels explained that in Germany, the peasant war in Germany could have led to a bourgeois revolution after that time. It failed because of the betrayal of the bourgeois, the conduct of the princes and also the betrayal of Luther himself. That failure was an absolute catastrophe for Germany, which then became the centre of an atrocious, bloody Thirty Years of Massacres, of slaughterers, of wars with foreign interventions of Spanish armies, Swedish armies, all kinds of armies rampaging through the country, destroying everything. Germany was reduced to a wasteland with terrible massacres. The stories of these massacres, where whole cities were wiped out, men, women and children slaughtered by the Catholic armies in particular, did this, they weren't alone in their atrocities, but they played the main role. This was known, this is the period of the printing press. People knew about these things, Pamphleth circulated, or the Saint Bartholomew's massacre in France, where in Paris the whole of the Huguenot Protestant population, men, women and children were slaughtered on the streets. Streets were running with blood, people knew about this, and therefore there was a burning hatred of Roman Catholicism, and an extreme suspicion of anything that smelt of Catholicism, and also, yes, a fear of Catholicism. People were frightened, people were scared. This is going to come here, we're going to be massacred, and therefore we can't have this. The Duke of Buckingham actually tried to pull a stunt, he led a naval expedition, which was supposed to help the French Huguenots, the French Protestants who controlled the city of La Rochelle, in effect he was going to support the French King. This was known to the sailors, the sailors mutinied. The sailors, like most people at this time in Britain, were Puritans of one sort or another, these poor sailors were Puritans, when they discovered that they were going to betray the Protestants of France, they rebelled, and this was known also, it rankled. So they took their revenge. The Duke of Buckingham, this handsome cavalier, went to Portsmouth one day to review his fleet, and he was stabbed to death by a man, I think his name was John Felton. Stabbed him in the back his last words, the rogue has killed me. This deeply upset Charles, as you can imagine, he was shaken by it. Yes, but the people were delighted. John Felton became a national hero, people were singing ballads in his praise all over the country. This is the red light, this is the warning light. If only Charles could have seen it, this is the warning light to the monarchy that things were coming to a head. Now the fall of Buckingham, of course, leads to the formation of another court clique, involving three persons, a trio, the queen naturally who played an important role in this, same as the wife of Nicholas and Mary Antoinette played an important role, the same kind of thing, egging on, pushing their husbands into conflict with Parliament, conflict with other people. What's the matter with you? Are you a man or a mouse? Why didn't you grow a pair of balls, they would tell them in private? Not exactly with those words, but the equivalent. Undoubtedly it played a role. Charles was a weak individual, it played a role. So there was the queen, then there was the new favourite, the Earl of Thomas Wentworth, quite a smart individual who originally had been a left winger, but they bought him over. The Earl of Strafford he subsequently became. He was sent to Ireland then to squeeze the Irish to raise taxation for the monarchy. He was very popular in Ireland, he earned a nickname, Tom Tyrant they called him, he was the king's representative in Ireland. And the third, perhaps the most important representative, Archbishop William Lord, L-A-U-D, Archbishop of Canterbury. He was a man from a humble origin, quite a smart guy. He rose to this high position, he was the second in command in the state in effect and he controlled the Anglican Church with an iron rod. And he, same as the king, controlled the state. By the way, by this time he dissolved parliament yet again. And Charles now was ruling on his own for 11 years. 11 years of tyranny as the people would say. He ruled the state with an iron rod and Archbishop Lord ruled the church with an iron rod. And the two were linked. You must see the connection. Charles understood the connection very clearly. His father James understood this, he told us, and look, the church is the basis of the state. The church is the basis of your power. Without the church, the church falls, the monarchy falls. And that wasn't a bad analysis, he was quite sharp. Charles understood this. And therefore for him, the same way the state should be ruled on hand, complete and absolute control, the same for religion. No descent, no Puritans. He was a bit more lenient with the Catholics. Although they weren't allowed, it had to be the Anglican Church, not the Anglican Church, and the Archbishop Lord. It had to be the High Anglican Church, which in essence was the same as Catholicism. The same rituals as this. If I had the time I could read very interesting, very amusing descriptions of the actions of Lord, who turns up and prostrates himself in front of the images and incense and all kinds of stuff like that. Everyone with priests had to wear these rich garbs and so on and so forth. All this was anathema to the Protestant, but it was imposed. You had to support the state religion, which is the Anglican religion. You don't do that, it's the equivalent of, not just blasphemy, it's the equivalent of betrayal. You're a traitor, and traitor's death was not a very nice, not a very present spectacle. Yes, you rule with an iron hand. Of course, this, as they say in physics, every action is an equal and opposite reaction. People did react violently. There were different elements involved. There was an economic element. Charles again, he still needed to raise castles without parliament, and this was illegal. The king was supposed to get the permission of parliament to pass taxes. But the king introduced, well, he didn't exactly introduce it because it existed before actually. It was an old law called sip money. This meant that all coastal towns and cities had to pay a tax, a special tax, allegedly for the upkeep of the Royal Navy, the fleet for the protection of the ports, shipping, commerce, and so on. He then extended this tax to inland cities who were not on the coast at all. Nothing to do with the naval questions, which provoked a furious reaction. People like Pym and Hamden and so on refused to pay the tax. Many people refused it. Many towns refused to pay the tax, and it was the elements there of revolt. And on the religious question, this really hurt. It hit people where it hurt most. You're talking about my eternal soul. I'll be damned by this business. And people resisted, refused to conform. And they were brutally treated. Any priest that refused to carry out these measures was kicked out of the church. And any ordinary people that resisted were subject to the most savage punishments you could imagine. They had their nose cut off, their ears cut off, a nail driven through their tongue, whipped until they were almost dead. This happened to many people. And it became, of course, an absolute scandal, an example of absolute tyranny which it was. There was one person, one young man, probably the same age as most of you, who was, because he was distributing, because this was happening, there was resistance, he was distributing leaflets in the street, same as you would distribute leaflets or sell the paper in the street, he was distributing leaflets and attacking these abuses. He was caught and tried by the Star Chamber. The Star Chamber again was something left over from the past, a bit like the Inquisition, outside of all legal restraints and all laws and all restrictions and so on. This young man, I'm just taking the one, there's a reason I'm picking on this example, was sentenced to be whipped through the streets of London, from the centre of London right to Whitehall for his crime of expressing criticism. He was whipped until he bled, the blood was streaming down his back and he got so bad at one stage, he collapsed as he was sitting in the gutter covered in blood and dust and represented to the Star Chamber, I don't know whether he took pity on him, he came up and said, look, give us your word that you'll stop doing this and this will stop, he refused. He was then put in the pillory, which is a terrible torture of being stuck in wooden stocks and he'll treat it as he still refused. All the time he was going through the streets, being beaten, he still shouted his ideas to the passersby. A huge number of people gathered, this is the point, wasn't just one individual, a huge multitude of people of Londoners gathered to give support to this man, whose name you might have heard of him, was John Lilburn. John Lilburn was subsequently the head of the levelers, which is the extreme left wing of the English Revolution. He refused, point blank, to make any concession, that was typical of him. He was then loaded with chains thrown into a dirty, dark, filthy dungeon. He said subsequently that was far worse than being whipped, this terrible dungeon full of rats, where he was kept for a couple of years, until he was freed by the revolution. You see, now here you have explosive elements taking place and yet, for 11 years Charles, he seemed to have got away with it. He seemed to be, he was in complete control, Lord was in complete control of the church. There was no problem, he was changing money out of people. Anyone that stepped out of the line would be sentenced to this kind of torture, which I would prefer to. And yet, and yet, and yet, it all came unstuck. He made a mistake, he went too far. These absolute monarchs tend to go too far, he went too far. He made one big mistake. Having complete control of the Church of England, he then tried to impose this system on the church in Scotland. Now, Scotland at that time was really part of, it wasn't yet the United Kingdom, it wasn't yet, it was formally an independent country, but under the stewards, the stewards, who don't forget were Scottish in origin, there was, shall we say, there was a close link. And Charles was confident that he would succeed in pushing through this reform of the Church of Scotland. Big mistake. You know the Scottish people? You know anything about the Scottish people? They are very stubborn people indeed. They are a very stiff-necked lot, if you like, and also an interesting point. The reformation in Scotland went far further than England, under people like John Knox. It was a Presbyterian country. It wasn't high Anglican at all. And yet they were forced now to accept this new system. I've forgotten the actual date, my notes are here, but I don't have time to consult them. But this would have been in 1640, I believe, or 1639. Imagine the scene. You're in Edinburgh Cathedral, imposing building. It's packed with people. Men and women, by the way, women played an important role in the English Revolution, not generally understood. And here you see the role of the masses. The Archbishop of Scotland now, in all his finary, mounts the lectern, mounts the... and takes up the new Book of Common Prayer and begins to read whereupon all hell was let out in the cathedral. People stood up, women, starting with the women, starting shouting and screaming. The masses, the masses among us, the Catholic mass, this is the mass. And they started to throw things at the Archbishop. Bibles, the Bibles in those are quite heavy objects, you know. Must have been a painful thing. The women started, this is a little pelted with Bibles. The poor man was dodging this and somebody at the back, I don't know who, threw a stool at him. Fortunately it missed his head or he would have been in hospital. The guards were called to keep order. This is a packed church. The guards struggled with the people. They finally managed to push people out whereupon there was a riot in the streets. The streets were full of a multitude of people. The role of the masses intervened decisively. We're not having this. No bishops here, no bishops, the cry went out. No bishops. The bishops were attacked everywhere all over Scotland. Bishops, the carriages were attacked, they were dragged out, beaten up, some of them were killed. In the end all of the bishops had to flee to England. Now one with a thought, wouldn't one, Scotland by the way was a initiative revolutionary ferment now. Everywhere. The tables were set up, same as we set up a table to sell out there, with what is known as the covenant. The covenant of the Scottish people refusing to accept bishops, refusing to accept any change in religion imposed from London. Thousands and thousands of people queuing up to sign the name to this petition. Scotland was aroused. Now one would have thought that if Charles I hadn't had an atom of sense, his father probably would have seen what the score was, he would have backed off. Okay, well you can argue a religion, leave it on, this is Charles I. Wasn't going to accept this humiliation. And therefore he decided that he would impose his position by military means. 1640, you know what's known as the bishops wars. This is the real beginning of the English Revolution. The bishops wars you've probably never heard of them. The wars over the bishops. He sent an army into Scotland, a mercenary army into Scotland, which was met by the Scottish army led by efficient officers who've been trained in the 30 years war that was composed of dedicated, serious, fervent Protestants. People were fighting for something that they believed in. On the English soldiers ran like rabbits. It was humiliating. Even before they ran like rabbits. They were defeated. Now Charles has got a problem. He still wants to invade Scotland, he hasn't got enough money to pay for an army. He therefore has to reconvene Parliament. In the firm belief, poor man, that the Parliament now would see reason because we're being invaded by a foreign army. That's how he characterised the Scots. And therefore we should all unite for patriotic purposes against the common enemy. Big mistake. Another big mistake. In fact, the Parliament was far more sympathetic to the Scottish Presbyterians than what they were to William Lord and King Charles. Furthermore, they grasped the opportunity. They said, okay, my friend, my fine feather friend, you want money from us? Deliver a list of demands. A list of demands with you. I like the transitional programme if you like. It's like Marlin Brando and the Godfather. You know the famous line? I made him an offer he couldn't refuse. Now they were making him an offer he couldn't accept. He said demands. Including punishment and trial of his most intimate collaborators of this ruling clique. Starting with the Earl of Strafford, he was the head of the army in Scotland, they blamed him. He was a close friend of Charles. Intimate close friend. But Charles, apart from his many other characters of arrogance and so on and so forth, was also a coward and a treacherous man. A weak treacherous man. He was quite prepared to sign the death warrant of his friend, his intimate friends that he signed. And Strafford was duly put on trial by the parlor but then executed as an enemy of the people. This was really the beginning. Now once Charles had time to collect his... By the way, the second army was also defeated. And the Scots advanced on the occupied Newcastle and Durham. You know? And the English were forced to negotiate with them. They were present on English side. They invaded England. Just imagine. And part of the demands, by this time that the Scots you can imagine were euphoric having defeated two English armies and advanced as far as Newcastle, they were quite pleased with themselves. They therefore put a list of demands in order to withdraw including, you must pay the way, the satisfactory settlement. The English parliament must pay all the wages of our soldiers that are occupying Newcastle and Durham. Not a bad deal. It's a bit like in a strike where we demand payment for the time we're on strike from the employers. So Charles was in a pickle. But of course, you realise now that the parliament was really refractory now. They put even more demands. This time demands for the arrest of Archbishop Lord and so on. Which if they'd been met. And above all, a key demand. It tends to get lost. But it's key. Lenin said that in the last analysis, state power, is armed bodies of men in defence of private property. Armed bodies of men. That was the case at that time. Except that there was no real standing army in England. It didn't exist. But there was a militia. There were militias. Parliament demanded control of the militia. That means to say, we want control of the state. Now if Charles had accepted this, he'd already accepted the death of Stratford. If he'd have accepted that, it would have meant in effect the end of his power, the end of the absolute monarchy. He wasn't prepared to accept it. He had two choices. Either accept and lose everything or fight. So he chose. He entered Parliament at the head of a group of soldiers and announced in order to arrest the ringleaders of what he considered a conspiracy. Five members of Parliament due to be arrested. He turned up. He demonstrably sat in the speaker's seat. The speaker is the chairman of Parliament. He sat in the chamber and glared around the room demanding that the five offenders be handed over. Of course they'd gone. They'd been tipped off. See, such was the... Imagine the tension that exists now in society. It reached even the upper layers. It even must have reached its own circle. And somebody in Charles's circle must have tipped off the Parliament. Hey look, you better get these guys out of here because they'll be arrested. They were tipped off in time. Charles looked around the room and uttered the immortal phrase, I see the birds of flown. Which they had, they had gone. But this is generally known. Every school child has read these statements. What is not known is what happened afterwards. Imagine the tumult in Parliament you could imagine. But even greater than that was tumult on the streets of London. People don't know this. This is the role of the masses. The masses now were up in arms. And the focal point of their resistance to the monarchy was the Parliament, this resistance. Let's be clear how it goes. The Booze was either wealthy merchants, the moderate Presbyterians confronting Charles for their own benefit. Yes, but this split, look at the process. This split in the state, split in the middle, transmitted itself to the masses. It came on the streets. When Charles left Parliament, got into his royal carriage, went through the streets of London, through the city, he was mobbed by a mass of angry people, poor people, banging on the doors of his carriage and shouting, privilege, privilege. Meaning the Parliamentaries must have privilege against the rest. You can't go around arresting our Parliamentaries. That's the way that it will be seen. Charles was so terrified that he decided to leave London there and then. He had a palace in Whitehall he left with his wife. He was particularly concerned that his wife would be put on trial. They got stafford, then they got Lord, who was also executed. He thought that Maria, and yet Maria would be in action, therefore they had to clear out quickly. So he went north, where the monarchy thought had a more solid base. Now, this is all of the masses. It's not seriously dealt with in most history books. But I'm in the process of working through a marvellous book, actually. The best book you can read, but you find it difficult to get hold of. I've got an edition of 1805, which I got from a... I bought from an ex-library thing. Six hefty volumes written by the Earl of Clarendon, Douglas Hyde. It was Charles I's second in command. An aristocrat, a cavalier. I'll deal with the word cavalier at the moment. Yes, but he was also a very, very acute observer. Quite an objective man. I think that's the best, the most thorough work you can read on the English Revolution. The modern books, frankly, they... How shall I say this in scientific terms? Piss and wind, perhaps? Dry as dust, just like chewing sod. Reading this academic nonsense. And no understanding in the process. The Earl of Clarendon understood the process very well. Of course, he refers to the masses in terms like the mob, the rabble, and, above all, the persons of meaner sort, the poor people, in other words. But he mentions them, and he gives them the due weight. He explains what no other book explains. Parliament in those days was surrounded, every day, surrounded by a mass and angry crowd of people. As the parliamentarians would go in, they'd shout and curse them. They demand action against the king, demand the king be put on trial, and so on. This is fundamental, also women. This is a fundamental element in the equation. Of course, at this time, war was inevitable. You could say there was no question of resolving any of these questions by negotiation. And yet, now here you see another contradiction opening up. The booers of the parliament wanted to get concessions from the king, they didn't want to put the king on trial. They didn't want to fight, they didn't want to abolish the monarchy. They wanted a reasonable, nice, constitutional monarchy where they would have real control, but the king could keep his palaces and his wealth and his land and so on. They didn't want to break from the king. The king actually broke with them. He left. He went to York. He turned up outside the gates of Hull, which was a walled city at that time, because there was arms in Hull. He knew the arms deposit in Hull, left over from the bishops' war. He demanded entry. I am the king. Let me in. Whereupon the parliamentary governor of Hull said, well, I'm very sorry, Sire, but no deal. We are not letting you in. The king was shut out of Hull. This is another step in the direction of war. And the parliament immediately passed, again this is the most important step, it passed the Ordinance Act, the Militia Act, which gave them control effectively of all the armed forces in the country, and the right to raise an army without the permission of the king. This is war, and the war began. Now, I have no intention here, I haven't got the time or the inclination. I'll need a bit more time than that. To go into the details of the actual civil war. My answer to the question, frankly, is not the most important thing, except to say this is important. In the early stages of the conflict, it was, how shall I say, like a phony war. Northside struck a decisive blow. There was the Battle of Edgshire on my birthday, by the way. 23rd of October, bear it in mind. King had good cavalry under the charge of his nephew, Prince Rupert of the Rhine, who was a German, the nephew of Charles, that the royalist cavalry smashed through the parliamentary forces, led by the Earl of Essex, I'll say something about him in a moment. And the situation was only saved, because they would have lost, by the parliamentary infantry, which again was the poorer people. The cavalry were aristocrats, if you like. And therefore it ended, Edgshill ended as a kind of draw game. It wasn't a success. Then there comes an important point. Charles, after Edgshill, decided to march on London. They all thought, both the parliamentary, this is going to be over by Christmas, it will be over quickly. We'll strike a decisive battle that will be the end of the story. They marched on London, these puffed up cavaliers. By the way, the word cavalier, it means precisely a horseman, actually. Trotsky explains that the cavalry also is always based on the aristocracy. People who are going to afford to buy a horse, aristocrats, farmers, rich farmers and so on and so forth. Cavalier in Spanish, chevalier in French, horseman. Roundheads was the term of abuse directed at the parliamentary crowd, because they were like skinheads, if you like, in more ways than one. They were like skinheads and therefore the cavaliers had long curly locks, which they apparently found quite attractive. And the parliamentaries tend to shave their heads closely, the roundheads they were called, term of abuse. These cavaliers, these cavaliers, puffed up. Many of them, by the way, were professional soldiers, mercenaries, from the Thirty Years' War and so on. They were going to take London easily. They advanced. They captured Brentford. There must have been a panic in London at the time, the people must have been terrified. And then there was the first decisive battle of the Civil War. It's not generally known, it's the battle of Turnham Green. You go on the Piccadilly line, you pass through Turnham Green, it's to the west of London. Where this bunch of cavaliers puffed up with their arrogance, encountered a parliamentary force consisting of ordinary working-class Londoners, apprentice boys. That's what they were, the apprentice boys, who formed a militia, but of course they were fired up. They weren't professional soldiers, they had no experience of fighting, but they were prepared to fight and die in the course. They gave the cavaliers such a pasting, they ran like rabbits. They fled, the king furious of course, and he had to retire to Oxford, which then became his capital for the rest of the war. So here you've got two centres. The first expression of dual power, as Trotsky used that expression. London and the south was the basis of parliament. Oxford became the centre and the south west, and Wales unfortunately, became the basis of the royalists. But this meant a kind of stalemate existed. Now, really speaking, parliament should have had the advantage and should have easily defeated. The parliament should have won, they could not win. It's not that they could not, when they did not win, because of the officers of the Parliamentary forces, the Earl of Essex and the Earl of Manchester and others, were moderate booswa who had no interest in fighting. They had no interest in striking a decisive victory of the king, and they were probably more afraid of the masses behind them than they were of King Charles. And therefore there was one setback, one military setback after another, until eventually a new force appeared on the scene, which is decisive, formed particularly by Oliver Cromwell, this gentleman, and others, Fairfax and so on, the new model army. Now this is important from a political point of view. I think you all know Trotsky's theory of the permanent revolution, which in a way it implies that in the past, the bourgeoisie played a revolutionary role, but that's relatively true, only relatively true, because if you look at the French Revolution, but the English Revolution also, the revolution only succeeded to the degree that control of the war was taken out of the hands of the bourgeoisie and taken over by the radical petty bourgeoisie in religious terms, you're talking about the independence. Small farmers like Oliver Cromwell, who actually said, look, this is no good, we'll never win a war like this. We must pace ourselves, if you like, on the men of no property, on the poorest layers. I don't care who joins my army as long as they're good religious people and they're prepared to fight. And he built a powerful, disciplined force called the new model army. Incidentally, he understood very well the importance of cavalry and they had very good cavalry from that time onwards. Now, this new model army, I think a few words needs to be said, the new model army, in my opinion, was like a combination of the Bolshevik Party, the Russian Red Army and the Soviets, all rolled into one. It was a democratic institution, people debated, you had the famous Putney army debate which took place, in which the ordinary soldiers could debate questions of religion, questions of politics, questions of military strategy in front of the officers. The levelers, by the way, with the left wing controlled, had support of the majority of the new model army. And it was this army, this marvellous army of class fighters, by the way, they even had commissars. Oh yes, they were known as agitators, who was job it was to inspire the troops by quoting from the Bible, singing psalms and so on, before the battle. They also played a political role. This was an extraordinary instrument at a very early period. And that made all the difference. The decisive battle was the battle of Nesby, where the king's forces were shattered. They were shattered by this new, completely new thing. I mean, before that, the armies were mercenary soldiers. Here for the first time, he had a volunteer revolutionary army, and they sliced through the king's forces like a hot knife through. But the king had to flee. He voluntarily handed himself over to the Scots, hoping that he would intrigue among them. They nevertheless politely handed him over to parliament in exchange for a rather large sum of money. It has to be said. They sold him like a sack of potatoes to the other side. This marks the end of the first civil war, because there were two civil wars. Now at that time, incidentally, here you have a new dual power. A new dual power opens up now. The whole pendulum swings to the left, and now there's a struggle between the moderate bourgeois presbyterians in parliament and this therosis force, the new model army. In these pertinent debates which took place at that time, by the way, the question for the first time was of private property. The levelers were demanding something that nobody else was demanding. Political equality, that not everybody, but most people should have the vote. At least property owners should have the vote. Cromwell was horrified. People ask, what's the role of Oliver Cromwell? Was he a revolutionary? Cromwell was a great revolutionary, yes. But he was a bourgeois revolutionary. There was never any question of thought. He was a property owner. He believed in private property. What he thought, he was quite right. If we accept, for example, universal suffrage, it means anarchy. That was Cromwell's position. Furthermore, by questioning political inequality, you eventually will question private property and we can't have that. Therefore, Cromwell decided even at this stage that he had to crush the left wing. The very people that he'd based his self on, the very people the most courageous fighters, they had to be crushed because he was not in favour of proceeding any further than the strict limits of bourgeois world. As a matter of fact, at this stage, I think he honestly wanted to do a deal with the king himself. The king was playing Parliament against the army, he was trying to... Typical devious menul ring. Cromwell, to some extent, went along with this. And then you had this debate. A polarisation now within the army itself, between the left and the right wing. And therefore, Cromwell decided there was a meeting of the army council, apparently, where he pounded the table and he said, you must understand the only way we can deal with these men is to crush them mercilessly. Which he did. I won't go into all the details, but there was a minor war broke out between Cromwell and the Leblers who eventually crushed mercilessly. The last remnant was defeated in a place called Berford, just outside of Oxford. Nice place you can visit it. In the church, by the way, in Berford, if you go up to the place, the front, where people are baptized, you will see carved a name. One of the Leblers, they were held there, 300 of them, were held in the church overnight as prisoners, and in the morning, I think six of the ringleaders were taken out in shot. And one of these guys actually carved his name on the front, you can still see that. It's an interesting bit of history. With this, of course, the English Revolution, from the standpoint of the poor people, was virtually at an end. It was finished. But the revolution itself was not finished. You still had this conflict between the Parliament, the moderate bourgeois and the army. Parliament was desperately trying to get the king back. They were negotiating a sellout. They were desperately trying to get Charles back on the throne. Of course, if only he would agree to conditions which he wasn't prepared to do. And in the middle of all this, Charles typically escapes. And you have a second civil war. It didn't take long to eliminate. It was quite a bloody affair. By the way, the civil war in general was quite a bloody affair. It wasn't a few little skirmishes. Thousands and thousands of people lost their lives. Soldiers and civilians, which is not generally realised. However, Cromwell and the radicals in the army were determined that the king this time was not going to get away with it. Cromwell now stood for the trial and punishment of the king. This man of blood, he called it, this man of blood, which he was. And of course, eventually he took action against the Parliament. There was a struggle, dual power between the new model army and the bourgeoisie in Parliament, which again had to be settled by force. It was settled by force. What was known as Pride's Purge. The name of a Colonel in the new model army. Colonel Pride turned up with a group of troops and dispersed, but no, I tell a lie. They didn't disperse Parliament, but all those MPs that did not support the new model army, all those trying to do a deal with the king would be expelled. They would be kicked out. And they were kicked out, leaving quite a small Parliament. That's why it's known as the Rump Parliament. And of course, that in effect almost was the end of the Civil War. Cromwell had defeated the right wing, he defeated the left wing. Only the army was left, armed, and therefore a question of bonapartism is raised. Bonapartism in essence is rule of the sword. And of course Cromwell had the power, he had the army in his hand. He therefore declared himself the Lord Protector. And in effect he was king in all but name. And with that, if you like, the revolution was defeated. He remained in power until he died. After which the Buiswar in Parliament got what they wanted. Incidentally, in the meantime he also dissolved the Rump Parliament. He turned up with his hat on his head and said, well look, you guys are wasting my time. Finish. How I'd like to do that now, wouldn't it be great, to turn up in the Parliament with his hat on his head, his shoulders at his back, and said like you lot, piss off. He did, with so many words, you know. And of course they did. And as Marx once commented, as these guys sheepishly went through the door. Oh, there was an incident. The speaker stood up and he held up the mace. The mace is an instrument which if you hold it up everyone is supposed to be silent and sit down, this is parliamentary rules. He held up the mace, Cromwell looked around and said to yourselves, take away that bobble, that toy, take away that bobble. That was his idea of so-called parliamentary authority. And as they sheepishly crept through the door, he cursed every single one of them by name. There goes an adulterer. There goes a thief. Which of course must have aroused considerable tears from the assembled soldiery. That was the end of the the run parliament, the end of the English Civil War. Yes, not quite, I must say a PS to this. You see the English Civil War ended from the standpoint of the masses. It ended in defeat, but it had to end in defeat. It was too early to pose the question of socialism and communism at the time, but it was posed. It was posed implicitly by the levelers in the army and people like John Lilbur, a very courageous man. But also by another tendency where I mentioned earlier. A small tendency, a bit like ourselves if you like, who called themselves the true levelers. The true levelers known historically as the diggers, because they turn up in history in an area of the south of England. They went to an area and they began to dig the land, private land. They began to dig it as collective property, plant their crops. They stood for communism, they stood for the abolition of private property. The leader was Gerald Winston, a great man, a marvellous writer who wrote a whole series of very interesting books and pamphlets. The title of one of which sticks in my mind is a marvellous title. The world turned upside down and that's what they wanted. You know these heroic people, they were heroic people. The soldiers in the new moral army, the poor artist, the apprentices in London, the women and so on. What were they fighting for? I'll tell you what they were fighting for. They were fighting for the establishment on earth. Not in heaven, God's kingdom right here on earth. They were Democrats, no priests, no bishops, democratic churches. These are, if you like, the essence of a struggle of the masses for a fundamental change of society and the most advanced of them were the diggers who are our spiritual and political ancestors. We stand on their shoulders of these heroic people who as a minority were prepared to suffer persecution, imprisonment, whipping, death, anything in the great cause of the struggle for the emancipation of the human race. That's a source of eternal inspiration for ourselves and I'll end on that note. We are fighting today to finish what the levelers and the diggers began so many years ago. A struggle for a better world purged of priests, bishops, kings, capitalists, generals. A world fit for men and women to live in. A world of true leveler principles. A world of international communism.