| The revolutionary crisis of 1649-53 (between the execution of Charles I and the establishment of the Cromwellian Protectorate) inspired new explanations of disorder in English political thought. This essay examines how various writers conceptualized and explained the unique political conditions of the period and the events leading up to them. These writers explained the existence of disorder, an unnatural state in their political universe through the use of a number of concepts. These concepts served to explain the present state of England, the causes of the Civil War and ongoing disorder, and the possibilities for political and religious reordering.;This essay is a contextual and textual analysis. I first examine concepts used to explain disorder current in English politics and political thought prior to the execution of Charles I. I then examine several writers' reactions to the perceived breakdown of political and social order in this period. In examining the works of Robert Filmer, Gerrard Winstanley, Oliver Cromwell, John Milton and Thomas Hobbes, I show their shared assumptions about disorder, bring forward the differences between them, consider how each was influenced by older conceptualizations of disorder, determine how they modified those older explanations, and finally interpret their new explanations of political and religious strife. This essay has two main purposes. First, it is a contribution to our understanding of the English Revolution. Second, it is a contribution to understanding the use of political concepts in political debate and therefore to the enterprise of conceptual history. I suggest that historians of political thought must exercise care in assigning the origin of modern liberal and democratic theory to these years. The conclusions about disorder reached by these authors show that the ideas and concepts we now see as part and parcel of theories of expanded freedom (such as natural equality or religious toleration) can be used as explanations of disorder and thereby justify a narrowing of freedom. These explanations can also be seen as part of a political and religious outlook that differs from modern liberal-democratic theory in its fundamental goals. |
