Ideology and Politics in the Parliamentary Armies, 1645–9

Abstract

M UCH has been written in a general way about the ideology of the officers of the New Model Army. In historians’ changing interpretations of the English Revolution the Army has always held a central place. Representation of its role and of its underlying motivations are as varied as those of the Revolution itself. The Army was composed of Saints in Arms whose aspirations were the culmination of the Puritan movement; 1 or of men from the forests and the fens who represented the hopes of the dispossessed in their struggle with the privileged few. 2 Service in the Army was a career open to the talents, accelerating the replacement of status by ability; 3 or it was the prototype for the armed citizenry, taking the first unsteady steps on the path towards participatory democracy. 4 In each explanation the New Model has been used as a symbol for a larger process of social change through which the meaning of the Revolution is revealed. It is many things to many men and this diversity mirrors the true heterogeneity of the Army’s composition and conduct.

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