ABSTRACT
In considering the working of politics and government, I have stressed the elements of participation and negotiation. In a society where individuals differed greatly in wealth and power, some participated and negotiated more effectively than others, so those with limited influence sought the support of the more powerful. The habit of resolving disputes and achieving goals through political or legal channels helped create an internalized and ingrained respect for law, which explains the relatively low level of disorder, despite the state’s limited means of coercion. We have seen the pervasive concern for consensus and conciliation – in the processes of parliamentary legislation, in decisions about criminal prosecutions, in the rhetoric about the relationship between king and Parliament, king and people. But could this survive the fratricidal divisions of civil war? Would the political and religious issues of the 1640s divide the nation to a point where a return to the old ways was impossible? Kishlansky is one of many who have argued that this was indeed the case. In the second part of this book, we shall consider the process and extent of political division under Charles II. First, however, it is necessary to look at the ideological legacy of the civil wars, in terms first of politics and then of religion.
