How Did Contemporaries Explain Side Taking?

Front 1

Richard Baxter, 1642

Back 1

• based upon class interpretations
• wherever the King went, he attracted supporters: if he had gone to places like Essex or Cambridgeshire, people would have supported him
• "poorest of the people", the "rabble", tradesmen, freeholders and the "middle sort of men" followed Parliament
• Lords, many Commons, knights and gentlemen followed the king

Front 2

Lucy Hutchinson, 1642

Back 2

• "each country had the civil war within itself"
• most counties had a predetermined side
• some where already wholly decided upon one side
• used example of Nottinghamshire

Front 3

Thomas May, 1642

Back 3

• class interpretations
• gentry supported king while "freeholders and yeomen" adhered to parliament
• "common people" in Huntingdon and Cambridgeshire supported parliament and the gentry were "disaffected"

Front 4

John Weare

Back 4

• parliamentarian viewpoint
• originally Royalist but other royalists put him off
• cites religious reasons for joining parliamentarians

Front 5

Henry Slingsby

Back 5

• against bill for exclusion of bishops
• common people stick to things that are traditional, regardless of whether they are wrong or not
• if people saw "what they venerated so easily subverted" they would think themselves "loose and absolved" from all forms of government

Front 6

Nehemiah Wharton, 1642

Back 6

• religious zealot
• burnt altar rails and prayer books
• mentions sermons given to army

Front 7

Thomas Paske, 1642

Back 7

• troops and soldiers motivated by religious zeal
• "began a fight with God himself"
• "miserable spectacle to every good eye"
• probs Royalist

Front 8

Earl of Bath, 1642

Back 8

• laity revolted against the gentry
• women blocked access

Front 9

John Ashe, 1642

Back 9

• parliamentarian volunteers "marched together"
• many volunteers "best armed"
• "gentry and yeomanry and lastly youths"

Front 10

Minute books Exeter, 1642

Back 10

• people condemned for speaking against parliament or for the king

Front 11

Clarendon, 1642

Back 11

• in Cornwall, "wonderful and superstitious reverence" shown to Parliament
• "full submission and love of the established Church...Book of Common Prayer...general object of veneration...principal advancement of the king's service"
• divisions in the county
• class-based

Front 12

Adam Martindale, 1642

Back 12

• Royalist family
• trade disrupted owing to way
• example of localist/neutralist feelings