ABSTRACT
Part III of this volume considers Harrison’s years of ‘power’, 1642-53. Harrison’s prominence in 1660 and his influence before 1660 derived from the success of his military career as part of Parliament’s armies. How he was viewed in 1660 remained in the context of what he had done in the years 1642-53. He was put on trial and executed in 1660 for what he did in those years, and notably the regicide of 1649, rather than for who he became after 1653, or anything he did after 1653. He was put on trial and executed in 1660 for what he still symbolised: the religious radical soldier of relatively low social status who became a revolutionary and a leading statesman. His emergence as a radical millenarian and leading political officer in the years 1646-53 derived from his military career. It was, as with others, the experience of war in its broadest sense, fighting, living and praying among the godly as a member of the Eastern Association and New Model armies that reshaped Harrison to be a noted radical, to become a soldier-politician more formally from 1646, which is the focus of Chapters 5 and 6. In 1642, Harrison was confident enough to commit himself as a parliamentary activist. It is likely that key to this was whatever religious views he held by this stage, as religion, in general, was central to such activism.1 Yet to more fully understand Harrison’s religious and political outlook and why he was prepared to publicly call for regicide and meet his own death in 1660 so bravely, it is necessary to consider his experience of war as a member of Parliament’s armies as a starting-point. This chapter therefore provides a brief outline of the numerous engagements of Essex’s lifeguard, the Eastern Association and the New Model Army that Harrison experienced to establish the context for the forces that reshaped the young London puritan into the radical millenarian who, from his position as a godly warrior, had the platform and confidence within army circles to vocalise a demand for regicide and to take a leading role in that process. The numerous skirmishes and battles in which Harrison was involved should reinforce what a traumatic experience he and other soldiers went through. That he not only survived but was part of remarkable success on the battlefield forged a bond not only with his fellow officers and soldiers politically and religiously, but also emotionally. Harrison’s experience as a soldier in its broadest sense needs to be considered, as it shaped a mentality that empowered him when taking a political and religious stance and enabled him to envisage and enact
millenarian saints, in an attempt to model a hagiocracy.
