WEBVTT 1 00:00:12.839 --> 00:00:16.760 This is Stuart England The Civil Wars episode two point one hundred and seven, 2 00:00:17.079 --> 00:00:22.280 as hot as they can suffer it. On the thirteenth of October sixteen fifty 3 00:00:22.359 --> 00:00:26.679 nine, the complex at Westminster played host to an armed standoff. The night 4 00:00:26.719 --> 00:00:31.480 before, Parliament had voted to reorganize England's army. Charles Fleetwood was removed as 5 00:00:31.480 --> 00:00:36.159 Commander in Chief and numerous high ranking officers were purged. Authority over the army 6 00:00:36.200 --> 00:00:40.799 passed to a seven man commission dominated by dedicated rumpers like Thomas Scott, Edmund 7 00:00:40.840 --> 00:00:46.159 Ludlow and most of all, Arthur Hasselrigg. But while parliamentary supremacists like Hasselrigg 8 00:00:46.159 --> 00:00:49.320 considered the House of Commons to be the final voice on such matters, not 9 00:00:49.479 --> 00:00:53.320 everyone in the army agreed. When the new commission called on troops to defend 10 00:00:53.359 --> 00:00:58.439 Westminster against a possible coup, only a handful of soldiers showed up. Neither 11 00:00:58.479 --> 00:01:02.079 did the London militia rally to the cause of the rump Since the summer, 12 00:01:02.200 --> 00:01:04.840 Parliament had been trying to cultivate these cities militia as a rival military force to 13 00:01:04.879 --> 00:01:08.760 the army, but popular sentiment within London was not sympathetic to the rump. 14 00:01:10.400 --> 00:01:12.840 Just two weeks earlier, Parliament's attempt to extend the tenure of its ally, 15 00:01:14.040 --> 00:01:18.840 Lord Mayor John Ireton had failed in the face of popular protests. In the 16 00:01:18.879 --> 00:01:22.079 dispute between the army and the rump, the people of London stood more or 17 00:01:22.159 --> 00:01:26.920 less aloof neither side seemed likely to deliver the free Parliament that was increasingly seen 18 00:01:26.920 --> 00:01:30.439 as the only path out of England's perpetual turmoil. As Parliament assembled its defense 19 00:01:30.480 --> 00:01:34.200 force overnight, the army leaders they sought to protect themselves from gathered their own 20 00:01:34.200 --> 00:01:38.719 troops. John Lambert, the hero of the recent counterinsurgency and one of the 21 00:01:38.760 --> 00:01:44.680 men targeted by Parliament's purge, took command. Hasserig claimed that Lambert was the 22 00:01:44.719 --> 00:01:49.400 mastermind behind yet another army coup, and as his troops surrounded the Westminster Complex 23 00:01:49.400 --> 00:01:52.319 in the early hours of the thirteenth, it seemed like a hard charge to 24 00:01:52.359 --> 00:01:57.879 refute. Had Hasserigg sniffed out a dastardly army plot or had he merely delivered 25 00:01:57.879 --> 00:02:01.480 a self fulfilling prophecy. The tenth standoff that followed offered little in the way 26 00:02:01.519 --> 00:02:07.719 of clarity. What's curious about the confrontation is that both major players, Hasselerigg 27 00:02:07.760 --> 00:02:12.960 and Lambert, seemed to have acted counterintuitively. Hasselerigg remained defiant even as his 28 00:02:13.000 --> 00:02:16.400 poultry military forces melted away over the course of the day. Meanwhile, Lambert, 29 00:02:16.439 --> 00:02:21.199 who seemed to hold the dominant position at Westminster, didn't simply seize control 30 00:02:21.240 --> 00:02:23.879 of government as you would expect of a man leading a coup. There is 31 00:02:23.919 --> 00:02:30.120 more going on here than a simple fight over power. Hasselerigg's intransigence is perhaps 32 00:02:30.159 --> 00:02:32.840 the most explicable on the surface. On multiple occasions in the build up to 33 00:02:32.840 --> 00:02:38.680 the confrontation, Hasserigg was given opportunities to de escalate or compromise with army leaders, 34 00:02:38.879 --> 00:02:42.439 especially Charles Fleetwood, and yet he continued to go out of his way 35 00:02:42.439 --> 00:02:46.719 to provoke the armymen. The folly of that policy became apparent on the thirteenth 36 00:02:46.719 --> 00:02:50.840 of October, when the men with guns chose loyalty to their commanders over hastily 37 00:02:50.879 --> 00:02:55.719 passed parliamentary resolutions. But that outcome was thoroughly predictable. Why at hasselrigg Force 38 00:02:55.800 --> 00:03:01.199 day confrontation he was almost guaranteed to lose? That question becomes even more perplexing 39 00:03:01.240 --> 00:03:05.439 when you consider that it was a mistake Hasserig had made before. In sixteen 40 00:03:05.479 --> 00:03:09.199 fifty three, despite repeated warnings from officers, he had pushed Parliament towards a 41 00:03:09.240 --> 00:03:14.479 confrontation with the army, which led to Oliver Cromwell storming into Westminster and shutting 42 00:03:14.520 --> 00:03:19.039 the rump down. After patiently waiting six years for return to politics, why 43 00:03:19.080 --> 00:03:22.680 would Hassig immediately make the same choice that had left him banished in the first 44 00:03:22.680 --> 00:03:28.360 place. One answer might be Hasserigg's ideology and character. No one could question 45 00:03:28.360 --> 00:03:31.080 the man's principles, the key one being the absolute supremacy of the people as 46 00:03:31.120 --> 00:03:35.759 represented in the House of Commons. Well, you could question why his principles 47 00:03:35.759 --> 00:03:38.439 directed him to put absolute authority in this House of Commons rather than a new 48 00:03:38.439 --> 00:03:43.240 one which would be more representative of the people. But to keep things simple 49 00:03:43.240 --> 00:03:46.120 for now, Hasseigg was devoted to the idea that Parliament, not army officers, 50 00:03:46.240 --> 00:03:52.400 ruled England. From this perspective, Hasserigg is an uncompromising idealocke. He 51 00:03:52.520 --> 00:03:55.000 provoked the army because he had no other choice. They demanded to say in 52 00:03:55.039 --> 00:04:00.840 governance, and in Hasselrigg's world that was impossible. A constitution that sacrificed its 53 00:04:00.879 --> 00:04:04.639 fundamental principles was no constitution at all. Of course, the other side of 54 00:04:04.639 --> 00:04:09.879 the coin is that Hasserigg was simply a stubborn stubborn man, which would explain 55 00:04:09.919 --> 00:04:14.960 why he had always clashed with the consummate pragmatist Oliver Cromwell. But there's another 56 00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:19.160 explanation for Hasselerigg's defiance, one that doesn't rely on psychological analysis. In the 57 00:04:19.240 --> 00:04:24.600 hours before the arms standoff, debate at Westminster centered around the impending army coup 58 00:04:24.759 --> 00:04:28.759 and the need to prepare for a violent confrontation. But just as influential on 59 00:04:28.839 --> 00:04:32.079 the course that confrontation would take was a private note hasselrig received during the course 60 00:04:32.120 --> 00:04:36.319 of the day. It came via courier directly from George Monk, the commander 61 00:04:36.319 --> 00:04:41.240 of the army in Scotland. The contents of that letter are crucial to understanding 62 00:04:41.279 --> 00:04:45.839 Hasselrigg's decision making in the hours and days that followed, which means its past 63 00:04:45.839 --> 00:04:48.240 time we visit Scotland and get to know this shadowy figure who's been lurking in 64 00:04:48.279 --> 00:04:51.720 the background of the story for the past few episodes. Who was George Monk 65 00:04:51.839 --> 00:04:56.439 and what was he up to. Monk's role in the events of sixteen fifty 66 00:04:56.519 --> 00:05:01.079 nine sixteen sixty have long bred speculation among contemporaries historians, in large part because 67 00:05:01.120 --> 00:05:04.879 there's very little evidence to go on. The general kept his cards close to 68 00:05:04.920 --> 00:05:09.839 his chest. It's a testament to Monk's cagunists that nearly everyone thought they could 69 00:05:09.839 --> 00:05:13.680 win him over to their side. Monk's name was included in the Derby petition. 70 00:05:13.920 --> 00:05:15.800 He was one of the officers the soldiers demanded to be immune from any 71 00:05:15.800 --> 00:05:19.920 parliamentary purge. Meanwhile, Arthur Hesselrigg made sure to include Monk in the seven 72 00:05:19.959 --> 00:05:25.279 man commission to run the Army that Parliament created in October, and finally, 73 00:05:25.480 --> 00:05:29.560 Royalist agents continually reached out to Monk in this period, hopeful that an alliance 74 00:05:29.560 --> 00:05:33.279 could be struck. The ambiguity surrounding Monk's intentions have led some to see him 75 00:05:33.279 --> 00:05:38.240 as an unprincipled mercenary. Rather than making a stand, he held out for 76 00:05:38.279 --> 00:05:42.560 the most personally advantageous outcome. Certainly you can frame his career in those terms. 77 00:05:42.879 --> 00:05:46.439 As you may recall, Monk entered our narrative fighting for the crown first 78 00:05:46.439 --> 00:05:49.240 in Ireland, then briefly in England. It was only after he was captured 79 00:05:49.279 --> 00:05:55.319 by Parliamentary forces at the Battle of Nantwich that Monk changed his allegiances. But 80 00:05:55.439 --> 00:06:00.000 that explanation is too neat. Changing sides in the sixteen forties or sixteen fifties 81 00:06:00.199 --> 00:06:04.040 was not necessarily evidence of opportunism or self interest, Considering how many factions were 82 00:06:04.120 --> 00:06:08.600 vying for power, and how quickly what those factions stood for could change, 83 00:06:08.839 --> 00:06:13.399 Being constant in both your principles and your partisan loyalties was more or less impossible. 84 00:06:14.240 --> 00:06:17.360 A more satisfactory explanation of Monk's actions in sixteen fifty nine and sixteen sixty 85 00:06:17.600 --> 00:06:23.040 requires a deeper investigation of his politics. In a sense, Monk shared a 86 00:06:23.079 --> 00:06:27.240 lot in common with Oliver Cromwell. The thread that ran throughout his political life 87 00:06:27.319 --> 00:06:30.360 was pragmatism, but not in the narrow sense of following the path of least 88 00:06:30.399 --> 00:06:35.319 resistance in the short term. Like Cromwell, Monk elevated practical politics to its 89 00:06:35.319 --> 00:06:40.439 own kind of ideology. Neither man was all that interested in the details of 90 00:06:40.480 --> 00:06:45.439 abstract political theory, nor were they wedded to a particular constitutional model. They 91 00:06:45.439 --> 00:06:48.199 were interested in outcomes, not process. What was the best way to deliver 92 00:06:48.240 --> 00:06:54.759 political stability without sacrificing some core principles, in Cromwell's case, independent religious conscience. 93 00:06:55.680 --> 00:06:59.319 In other words, the calculations Monk was making in sixteen fifty nine weren't 94 00:06:59.319 --> 00:07:02.519 necessarily working out how he would personally benefit from events, though of course those 95 00:07:02.600 --> 00:07:06.959 kinds of considerations were never entirely absent. Rather, Monk was trying to determine 96 00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:12.800 which course was best for England. Historian Richard Hutton argues that Monk wasn't interested 97 00:07:12.839 --> 00:07:15.839 in any particular political settlement so much as he sought a disciplined and united England. 98 00:07:16.680 --> 00:07:21.120 From his perspective, abstractions like Hausarregg's absolute supremacy of the House of Commons 99 00:07:21.319 --> 00:07:26.279 or the good old cause of the New Model Army were irrelevant. What mattered 100 00:07:26.399 --> 00:07:29.000 was what the future of England would look like in the hands of the various 101 00:07:29.040 --> 00:07:31.720 factions, and in sixteen fifty nine, more than any other time in our 102 00:07:31.759 --> 00:07:36.639 story, those potential English futures were changing by the day. Perhaps most of 103 00:07:36.680 --> 00:07:40.680 all, Monk refused to commit himself because he didn't really like any of the 104 00:07:40.720 --> 00:07:45.199 options on offer. The current Parliament was hardly a firm basis for legitimacy, 105 00:07:45.439 --> 00:07:49.680 Hauserwigg's claims of representative government rang hollow when the rump only represented a tiny minority 106 00:07:49.720 --> 00:07:55.199 of England. Meanwhile, army coups could perhaps be forgiven if they brought stability, 107 00:07:55.680 --> 00:07:58.519 But the standoff in October looked like the second one of the year. 108 00:07:58.959 --> 00:08:01.399 It was clear that the army men had no real plan aside from clinging to 109 00:08:01.480 --> 00:08:07.040 power, and finally, Monk had little desire to simply reopen a third Civil 110 00:08:07.040 --> 00:08:11.839 War by backing the Stewart exile. So instead of intervening, Monk sat back 111 00:08:11.839 --> 00:08:15.839 in Scotland, carefully husbanding the most cohesive army in Britain, and waited for 112 00:08:15.879 --> 00:08:20.480 the least of three evils to emerge, Which leads us to that message Hasserig 113 00:08:20.480 --> 00:08:24.600 received on the twelfth of October, just before he decided to precipitate parliament standoff 114 00:08:24.600 --> 00:08:28.839 with the army. In it, Monk made his most definitive statement yet in 115 00:08:28.920 --> 00:08:33.519 the current dispute between Parliament and the army. Monk assured Hasselig Scotland's army stood 116 00:08:33.559 --> 00:08:37.960 with Parliament. It's likely that by this point Monk had identified the army as 117 00:08:37.960 --> 00:08:41.399 the major threat to political stability There's little evidence that he had much confidence in 118 00:08:41.440 --> 00:08:45.720 the leaders of the Rump, like Hasselig, but it was perhaps conceivable that 119 00:08:45.759 --> 00:08:48.960 the current parliament offered a way to move forward with at least a shred of 120 00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:54.519 legitimacy, ideally by dissolving itself and holding fresh elections. More army coups would 121 00:08:54.559 --> 00:08:58.639 only whittle away what legitimacy of the regime still held, throwing England into chaos. 122 00:09:00.039 --> 00:09:03.519 Stirred by Monk's show of support, Hasselerigg was unfazed by the sight of 123 00:09:03.600 --> 00:09:07.039 John Lambert's men surrounding Westminster. The Rump may have lost the battle to mobili 124 00:09:07.120 --> 00:09:11.600 soldiers in the capital, but Lambert's national position was just as precarious as parliaments. 125 00:09:13.679 --> 00:09:16.639 The result was a confrontation where Lambert held all these short term military cards 126 00:09:16.840 --> 00:09:22.200 but was keenly aware of his weak political position in the long term. Meanwhile, 127 00:09:22.200 --> 00:09:24.720 Hasserigg, confident that he had Monk and Scotland on his side, refused 128 00:09:24.759 --> 00:09:30.120 to budge. Even when the Rump's bodyguards started defecting to Lambert's camp in large 129 00:09:30.200 --> 00:09:33.679 numbers. Hasselrig held firm. In a sense, the die hard Rumper had 130 00:09:33.679 --> 00:09:37.039 a good read on the situation. Lambert and the other army men had the 131 00:09:37.080 --> 00:09:41.159 power to simply shut down Parliament, but they were hesitant to use it. 132 00:09:41.600 --> 00:09:45.639 For forty eight hours, the two sides engaged in an awkward, fruitless negotiation. 133 00:09:46.320 --> 00:09:50.080 Hassel Rigg refused to concede anything, and Lambert hesitated to simply occupy Westminster. 134 00:09:52.120 --> 00:09:54.240 Really, Lambert was in the same position his old ally, Oliver Cromwell, 135 00:09:54.240 --> 00:09:58.080 had been in the past. It was clear that the rump had to 136 00:09:58.120 --> 00:10:01.159 go, but the general had no real plan for what will come next. 137 00:10:01.799 --> 00:10:05.120 Cromwell had at least been confident in the army's control over England, and so 138 00:10:05.279 --> 00:10:09.440 had been able to indulge in experiments like the Nominated Assembly or Lambert's own instrument 139 00:10:09.440 --> 00:10:13.360 of government. But now Lambert was keenly aware of the weakness of his position. 140 00:10:13.960 --> 00:10:16.600 The only path forward he could see was re establishing some kind of cooperation 141 00:10:16.639 --> 00:10:22.759 with Parliament, albeit on his terms. Hasselrig's defiance had him flummixed. Finally, 142 00:10:22.919 --> 00:10:26.440 Lambert and the other officers decided that they had to move forward without Parliament. 143 00:10:26.879 --> 00:10:31.960 On the fifteenth of October, the Army formally proclaimed the Parliament dissolved, 144 00:10:31.080 --> 00:10:35.320 as well as its associated Council of State, a new executive body, the 145 00:10:35.399 --> 00:10:41.440 Committee of Safety, took over, populated by ten armymen. In any chronological 146 00:10:41.519 --> 00:10:43.879 list of the governing bodies of England, this was a fairly neat transition. 147 00:10:45.360 --> 00:10:48.200 The Rump was once again crossed out and the Committee of Safety written in its 148 00:10:48.240 --> 00:10:52.399 place. But the reality was far more complex than that. For one thing, 149 00:10:52.519 --> 00:10:58.600 Parliament's Council of State continued meeting in private despite the Army's declaration. In 150 00:10:58.639 --> 00:11:01.159 fact, Lambert and his ally were still eager to draw some legitimacy from the 151 00:11:01.200 --> 00:11:07.519 now officially defunct Parliament. Negotiations to poach counselors were ongoing, and by the 152 00:11:07.559 --> 00:11:11.519 twenty fifth of October the new regime had won over some key defections. Henry 153 00:11:11.559 --> 00:11:13.639 Vane, who had been growing closer to John Lambert in recent weeks, joined 154 00:11:13.639 --> 00:11:18.759 the Committee of Safety, as did Bulstrode Whitelock, Westminster's resident constitutionalist. The 155 00:11:18.799 --> 00:11:24.679 most significant defection was Edmund Ludlow, a committed Republican and longtime ally of Arthur 156 00:11:24.720 --> 00:11:28.120 Hesselrigg. None of these men were especially enthusiastic about the quasi government they were 157 00:11:28.159 --> 00:11:33.480 joining. Vane saw the Army as the best hope for his radical religious agenda. 158 00:11:33.679 --> 00:11:35.919 Whitelock wasn't a fan of illegal army coups, but hoped to steer the 159 00:11:35.960 --> 00:11:41.000 generals towards a constitutional settlement, as he had done with Oliver Cromwell, and 160 00:11:41.200 --> 00:11:46.240 Ludlow likely saw Hesselrigg's Rump as a lost cause. In other words, even 161 00:11:46.279 --> 00:11:50.480 after the Committee of Safety dissolved the Rump, England's new rulers still saw Parliament 162 00:11:50.480 --> 00:11:54.720 as playing an important role in legitimizing their government. But more importantly, all 163 00:11:54.799 --> 00:11:58.120 this talk of new governments, who was taking place within a smaller and smaller 164 00:11:58.159 --> 00:12:01.840 circle. The Committee of Safety claimed to be the government of England, but 165 00:12:01.919 --> 00:12:05.200 the evidence that could actually whield that kind of power was thin on the ground. 166 00:12:05.039 --> 00:12:09.320 For instance, the court system saw a little reason to recognize the coup. 167 00:12:09.799 --> 00:12:13.360 Half the judges at Westminster closed up shop after the coup. Their commissions 168 00:12:13.360 --> 00:12:18.000 came through Parliament, not this unconstitutional Committee of Safety, and those who stayed 169 00:12:18.039 --> 00:12:20.759 at their posts were hardly any more cooperative. They looked to the twentieth of 170 00:12:20.799 --> 00:12:24.879 November as the day when their parliamentary mandated terms came to an end. If 171 00:12:24.919 --> 00:12:28.919 there was no Parliament in session at that time, to renew their commissions, 172 00:12:28.960 --> 00:12:33.960 they'd stopped their work as well. London wasn't very cooperative either. Neither the 173 00:12:33.039 --> 00:12:37.200 rump nor the army had been especially popular in the city, and it quickly 174 00:12:37.240 --> 00:12:41.399 became apparent that the Committee of Safety could expect neither loans nor tax revenue from 175 00:12:41.399 --> 00:12:46.240 that quarter. On hearing news of the coup, London's apprentices immediately began petitioning 176 00:12:46.240 --> 00:12:48.759 for free elections and a new parliament. The story was the same in the 177 00:12:48.799 --> 00:12:54.000 provinces. JP's postponed or suspended quarter sessions until the status of parliament was clarified. 178 00:12:54.480 --> 00:12:58.360 In many counties, local organizations followed the lead of London and declared tax 179 00:12:58.360 --> 00:13:03.039 strikes on the size or assessment until parliament was restored. In some instances, 180 00:13:03.159 --> 00:13:07.919 soldiers were able to collect taxes by force, but it was impossible to execute 181 00:13:07.960 --> 00:13:11.840 such measures on a national scale, and besides, that kind of work sapped 182 00:13:11.840 --> 00:13:15.679 the morale of the men. Some officers who ordered their men to forcibly collect 183 00:13:15.679 --> 00:13:20.960 taxes reported threats of mutinies or even physical violence against them personally. When the 184 00:13:20.960 --> 00:13:24.480 story of the sixteen fifty nine coup is told from the perspective of John Lambert 185 00:13:24.519 --> 00:13:28.399 and Arthur Hesselrigg. You get the sense of history repeating itself. Almost from 186 00:13:28.399 --> 00:13:31.039 the second the Civil War ended in sixteen forty six, English political life was 187 00:13:31.120 --> 00:13:35.679 defined by a series of coups, the dueling coups of Independent and Presbyterian factions 188 00:13:35.679 --> 00:13:39.679 in sixteen forty seven, the Purge of sixteen forty eight, and Cromwell's shuddering 189 00:13:39.679 --> 00:13:43.440 of the Rump in sixteen fifty three. This one, in sixteen fifty nine 190 00:13:43.480 --> 00:13:48.120 followed the same script and even had some of the same actors, most notably 191 00:13:48.200 --> 00:13:52.039 Arthur Hesselrigg, reprising his role from six years earlier. But if you take 192 00:13:52.080 --> 00:13:54.679 a step back from the arms stand off at Westminster, sixteen fifty nine was 193 00:13:54.799 --> 00:14:00.000 entirely different. Whether the Rump's shadow Council of State or the Committee of Safe 194 00:14:00.039 --> 00:14:05.240 he one out was virtually irrelevant if neither could exercise control over England. Parliament 195 00:14:05.240 --> 00:14:07.399 got its legitimacy from the people, and the army drived its power from the 196 00:14:07.440 --> 00:14:11.159 taxes that fed its troops. Both of those sources of power could be cut 197 00:14:11.200 --> 00:14:16.039 off if the people of England simply refused to cooperate. Historians have long debated 198 00:14:16.039 --> 00:14:20.759 why, after more than a decade of at least tacitly supporting various regimes, 199 00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:24.519 England withdrew its support for this latest one. Some have pointed to a rising 200 00:14:24.519 --> 00:14:30.559 fear of religious radicalism which coalesced around the Quaker movement. The Quakers presented a 201 00:14:30.639 --> 00:14:33.960 unique danger to English society. On the one hand, they seemed to reject 202 00:14:33.039 --> 00:14:37.000 all forms of hierarchy, whether spiritual or material, and on the other they 203 00:14:37.039 --> 00:14:41.120 were far better organized than any of the radical groups that had come before. 204 00:14:41.919 --> 00:14:46.840 These weren't individual crackpots spouting nonsense on street corners. This was a well organized 205 00:14:46.879 --> 00:14:52.559 group that rather confusingly, sought to implement anarchy throughout society. Some suspected that 206 00:14:52.559 --> 00:14:56.320 the Army coup was actually a Quaker coup in disguise. For the conspiratorially inclined, 207 00:14:56.399 --> 00:15:00.759 there were dots out there to connect. In September, the Rump had 208 00:15:00.759 --> 00:15:03.679 released to James Naylor, the radical Quaker who'd been condemned by Parliament in sixteen 209 00:15:03.720 --> 00:15:07.879 fifty seven. Henry Vane was seen as the driving force behind this reversal of 210 00:15:07.879 --> 00:15:13.799 parliamentary policy. Vain had long advocated for virtually absolute toleration in religion. In 211 00:15:13.919 --> 00:15:18.600 fact, in early October, just days before the coup, Vain presented to 212 00:15:18.639 --> 00:15:22.399 Parliament a motion calling for full toleration for all religious sects. The motion was 213 00:15:22.480 --> 00:15:26.960 defeated thanks to Hassagan as allies. The setback was part of a longer series 214 00:15:26.960 --> 00:15:30.960 of battles that drove Vain to abandon the Rump for the Committee of Safety. 215 00:15:31.159 --> 00:15:35.559 As we've seen, but rumors world that Vain wasn't just a defector. He 216 00:15:35.679 --> 00:15:39.279 and his Quaker friends were the puppet masters behind the coup. The end game 217 00:15:39.399 --> 00:15:43.000 was for Henry Vane to be declared king of a dystopian England marked by the 218 00:15:43.039 --> 00:15:46.759 absolute anarchy the Quakers dreamed of. There's little evidence of a Quaker conspiracy at 219 00:15:46.759 --> 00:15:50.799 the heart of the Army coup, but paranoia about Quakers in the fall of 220 00:15:50.799 --> 00:15:54.759 sixteen fifty nine was widespread throughout England. In London and elsewhere, Quaker owned 221 00:15:54.759 --> 00:15:58.639 shops were attacked, especially on Sundays, when God fearing businesses ought to be 222 00:15:58.720 --> 00:16:03.200 closed. Fear of Quakers and their potential involvement in the Army coup almost certainly 223 00:16:03.200 --> 00:16:07.879 played a role in the widespread rejection of the Committee of Safety as a legitimate 224 00:16:07.879 --> 00:16:11.320 body of government. But the crucial difference in sixteen fifty nine was that England 225 00:16:11.360 --> 00:16:15.159 had had enough. There was no confidence that this latest coup bring any kind 226 00:16:15.159 --> 00:16:19.639 of stability to the nation. Each successive coup had alienated another segment of the 227 00:16:19.639 --> 00:16:23.559 population, to the point that Lambert and Haselrig were fighting over the loyalty of 228 00:16:23.559 --> 00:16:27.919 a minuscule collection of interests. The rest of England had no desire to participate 229 00:16:27.919 --> 00:16:32.399 in that process. In fact, people were questioning the future direction of the 230 00:16:32.480 --> 00:16:36.320 nation like never before, not just idealogs, but men and women who had 231 00:16:36.320 --> 00:16:40.519 previously been willing to accept a Cromwellian or Republican regime so long as it delivered 232 00:16:40.519 --> 00:16:44.960 peace and stability. Perhaps Cromwell could have delivered that kind of pragmatic margain, 233 00:16:45.360 --> 00:16:48.320 but since his death, his would be successors had shown no ability whatsoever to 234 00:16:48.399 --> 00:16:52.399 rule England. While the Committee of Safety tried to convince England of its authority 235 00:16:52.399 --> 00:16:56.919 in October and November sixteen fifty nine, completely different visions of England's future sprang 236 00:16:57.000 --> 00:17:02.279 up all over, especially in London. The variety of models and ideas being 237 00:17:02.279 --> 00:17:06.480 discussed is an indication of how the path of perpetual army coups was widely seen 238 00:17:06.519 --> 00:17:10.880 as a dead end. But The proliferation of free wheeling political discussions was also 239 00:17:10.920 --> 00:17:14.359 an indication of how deficient the Committee of Safety was as a government. In 240 00:17:14.440 --> 00:17:18.640 the absence of any kind of effective censorship regime, discourse had never been freer. 241 00:17:18.359 --> 00:17:22.960 Which sounds like a lead into a section on political philosophy, but you 242 00:17:22.039 --> 00:17:26.960 know, high struggle with complex, abstract ideas, so instead, I'll steer 243 00:17:26.000 --> 00:17:30.240 us towards a more tangible aspect of these philosophical debates. Because the sharing of 244 00:17:30.279 --> 00:17:34.440 new ideas wasn't just fueled by the uncertain political climate. It was also fueled 245 00:17:34.480 --> 00:17:38.640 by a new miracle drink, coffee. I've long wanted to make a commodity 246 00:17:38.640 --> 00:17:41.559 a central focus of the podcast. I suppose we sort of did that with 247 00:17:41.640 --> 00:17:45.599 coal and fuel more generally a while back, but I've always regretted not spending 248 00:17:45.599 --> 00:17:49.519 more time with tobacco exploring why it played such an important role in the politics 249 00:17:49.519 --> 00:17:53.519 and economics of Transatlantic English history. So to make up for that, we'll 250 00:17:53.599 --> 00:17:59.000 turn to coffee. Its story brings together some disparate threads. This podcast has 251 00:17:59.000 --> 00:18:03.759 thrown up international trade, public health, and emerging consumer society, and the 252 00:18:03.799 --> 00:18:07.759 development of a modern civil society where an informed public takes an active role in 253 00:18:07.799 --> 00:18:11.359 politics. Coffee emerged from the highlands of Ethiopia, but took off as a 254 00:18:11.400 --> 00:18:15.200 commercially cultivated and traded commodity on the other side of the Red Sea on the 255 00:18:15.200 --> 00:18:21.000 Arabian Peninsula in the fifteenth century. Initially, production was localized to modern day 256 00:18:21.079 --> 00:18:25.000 Yemen, and it was primarily used at nearby Sufi monasteries to aid in spiritual 257 00:18:25.000 --> 00:18:30.000 contemplation. In the fifteen thirties, the Ottoman Empire sees control of Yemen part 258 00:18:30.039 --> 00:18:33.000 of a deliberate policy of expanding Turkish influence in the Indian Ocean to counter the 259 00:18:33.079 --> 00:18:37.799 sudden appearance of Portuguese traders. In fact, coffee became an important element of 260 00:18:37.839 --> 00:18:42.079 the empire's pivot to the south. The development of the new commodity somewhat offset 261 00:18:42.160 --> 00:18:47.480 the European intrusion into the lucrative spice trade of the East, but in many 262 00:18:47.480 --> 00:18:51.720 ways the Ottomans found coffee to be a frustrating product. The problem had to 263 00:18:51.759 --> 00:18:55.440 do with local politics, as we've seen in North Africa. Outside of its 264 00:18:55.440 --> 00:18:59.960 Turkish heartland, the Ottoman Empire tended to work through local powerbrokers. On paper, 265 00:19:00.240 --> 00:19:03.880 these men were loyal to estambul but in practical terms, the exercise of 266 00:19:03.880 --> 00:19:08.319 power required sensitivity to local interests. The situation in Yemen was further complicated by 267 00:19:08.319 --> 00:19:11.279 the fact that while the Ottomans had a strong presence along the coast, they 268 00:19:11.319 --> 00:19:15.599 had little political influence in the interior, where the coffee was actually grown. 269 00:19:15.599 --> 00:19:21.119 Extracting value out of Yemeni coffee was therefore a constant struggle of local diplomacy and 270 00:19:21.200 --> 00:19:26.079 imperial power politics. This instability culminated in the rise of an independent state in 271 00:19:26.200 --> 00:19:30.279 Yemen run by the Zadie of the Interior Highlands. In a series of conflicts 272 00:19:30.279 --> 00:19:33.319 between fifteen ninety seven and sixteen thirty eight, the Zadis pushed the Ottomans entirely 273 00:19:33.319 --> 00:19:37.599 out of Yemen. With the exit of the Ottomans, European traders quickly descended 274 00:19:37.640 --> 00:19:41.920 on the port of Mocha, the world's largest and virtually only wholesale market for 275 00:19:41.920 --> 00:19:47.680 the new miracle drink coffee. The first reference to coffee in any English source 276 00:19:47.799 --> 00:19:51.480 comes from a letter written by a Levant Company merchant in Aleppo in sixteen hundred. 277 00:19:51.960 --> 00:19:55.240 He reported that the locals were obsessed with the stuff. They drank it 278 00:19:55.319 --> 00:19:59.039 as hot as they can suffer it. Ten years later, coffee made an 279 00:19:59.039 --> 00:20:03.079 appearance in a widely read travelock written by George Sandus, the younger brother of 280 00:20:03.200 --> 00:20:07.799 Edmund Sandis, the great disruptor of James's reign. George spent two years traveling 281 00:20:07.799 --> 00:20:11.400 through Turkey, Syria, and Egypt and published an account of his voyage. 282 00:20:11.799 --> 00:20:15.960 He noted that coffee was a ubiquitous presence throughout the Eastern Mediterranean. However, 283 00:20:15.039 --> 00:20:21.160 Sandis was thoroughly befuddled by its popularity. He described the drink as black as 284 00:20:21.160 --> 00:20:26.559 soot and tasting not much unlike it. Sandus's account was widely read and spruct 285 00:20:26.599 --> 00:20:29.640 an interest in the Levant. In fact, an English trade boom was about 286 00:20:29.680 --> 00:20:32.759 to kick off there, but coffee didn't play much of a role in that 287 00:20:32.839 --> 00:20:37.640 process. Sandus and other commentators tended to compare coffee to ale and found the 288 00:20:37.720 --> 00:20:41.480 drink lacking. Perhaps more importantly, coffee became associated with the Turk, which 289 00:20:41.480 --> 00:20:45.759 in England meant on the one hand, vicious tyranny and on the other a 290 00:20:45.839 --> 00:20:49.920 kind of asiatic effeminacy. The Levant company treated coffee as an exotic curiosity, 291 00:20:51.079 --> 00:20:55.319 but not a product worth importing to England in any great quantities. But if 292 00:20:55.359 --> 00:20:57.960 coffee wasn't considered viable for the English market, that didn't mean it didn't have 293 00:20:59.039 --> 00:21:03.519 value. The first English merchants the season the new opportunity were the Levant Company's 294 00:21:03.559 --> 00:21:07.119 cousins in the East India Company. As was often the case in the early 295 00:21:07.160 --> 00:21:10.359 history of the company, it was Thomas Rowe who led the charge. You 296 00:21:10.440 --> 00:21:12.519 may remember him as the ambassador to the Mughal Court in the sixteen tens, 297 00:21:12.640 --> 00:21:17.200 who was so important in getting the East India Company off the ground. One 298 00:21:17.279 --> 00:21:21.000 of Roe's suggestions to the East India Company was to build local trade networks within 299 00:21:21.119 --> 00:21:25.559 Asia rather than focusing solely on long haul trade between England and India, and 300 00:21:25.759 --> 00:21:29.839 coffee was a great place to start. As early at sixteen seventeen, Roe 301 00:21:29.920 --> 00:21:33.119 urged the company to make Mocha a key strategic base. The Yemedyport was useful 302 00:21:33.160 --> 00:21:37.839 as a base of resupply for ships coming from Africa before completing the final run 303 00:21:37.880 --> 00:21:41.319 to India itself. But more importantly, coffee was emerging as a major commodity 304 00:21:41.359 --> 00:21:47.160 in the Indian Ocean. Consumption was exploding in Persia and India. The company 305 00:21:47.240 --> 00:21:49.960 was slow to follow Row's advice, but by the sixteen thirties, English merchants 306 00:21:49.960 --> 00:21:53.319 were making good money shipping coffee out of mocha. Not all of them were 307 00:21:53.319 --> 00:21:56.960 East India company men, though. The interlopers who spread into the Asian market 308 00:21:57.000 --> 00:22:00.519 around that time had a nose for profit and were naturally drawn to the exploding 309 00:22:00.519 --> 00:22:04.359 coffee market. By the late sixteen fifties, the English were some of the 310 00:22:04.400 --> 00:22:08.440 most active coffee merchants in the world. England itself, however, accounted for 311 00:22:08.480 --> 00:22:12.079 a very little of their sales. In fact, probably the only coffee drinkers 312 00:22:12.079 --> 00:22:15.839 in England were to Levant or East Indie company men, who had picked up 313 00:22:15.839 --> 00:22:18.319 the habit while in the East. As there was no retail market in London, 314 00:22:18.359 --> 00:22:22.400 they had to get their fixed through personal deliveries from friends who still did 315 00:22:22.440 --> 00:22:26.200 business in Asia. The missing ingredient was the development of an English consumer base. 316 00:22:26.759 --> 00:22:30.960 Instrumental in that process was a group of inquisitive and unconventional thinkers we've met 317 00:22:32.000 --> 00:22:36.799 before, the intellectual circle surrounding Samuel Hartleb. As we've seen before in this 318 00:22:36.839 --> 00:22:40.680 podcast, English intellectuals had a long running interest in the Arab world. The 319 00:22:40.839 --> 00:22:45.960 Universities Oxford especially had dedicated programs for the study of Arabic to better understand the 320 00:22:45.960 --> 00:22:49.400 oldest available translations of ancient Greek and Latin texts, and in the process of 321 00:22:49.400 --> 00:22:55.440 brushing up on their Arabic scholars continually came across references to this wonder drink coffee. 322 00:22:56.039 --> 00:22:57.880 Of course, for the majority of students who saw Arabic as a means 323 00:22:57.880 --> 00:23:03.160 to an end a greater understanding of Christian scripture, these references to coffee were 324 00:23:03.160 --> 00:23:06.640 of little interest, but a handful of scholars were curious to learn more. 325 00:23:07.480 --> 00:23:10.799 Some of them were physicians who wanted to know more about the many physical and 326 00:23:10.839 --> 00:23:15.440 psychological effects of the drink that the Arabic authors described. Some were just generally 327 00:23:15.440 --> 00:23:19.279 curious, seeking exotic knowledge for its own sake. Samuel Hartlib and Robert Boyle 328 00:23:19.359 --> 00:23:23.480 were especially fascinated by coffee. Like other Englishmen, they used ale as a 329 00:23:23.480 --> 00:23:29.279 point of comparison. But while previous reviewers like George Sandis had found coffee bitterly 330 00:23:29.279 --> 00:23:33.400 deficient in terms of taste, Heartlib and Boil focus more on its mental and 331 00:23:33.440 --> 00:23:37.759 physical effects. From that perspective, coffee seemed to be the superior drink. 332 00:23:37.240 --> 00:23:41.880 It wasn't as dangerous as alcohol. There weren't any stories of drunken brawls in 333 00:23:41.920 --> 00:23:47.119 the Arabic texts. If anything, coffee improved social discourse. It fostered civil 334 00:23:47.160 --> 00:23:51.400 and sober conduct, the perfect lubricant for the kind of interactions successful business and 335 00:23:51.440 --> 00:23:55.880 politics were required. And if coffee didn't produce violent drunks the way liquor did, 336 00:23:56.119 --> 00:23:59.400 it didn't seem to produce lecherous drunks either. In fact, it was 337 00:23:59.440 --> 00:24:03.160 commonly assumed that coffee was a kind of anti aphrodisiac. Some speculated that the 338 00:24:03.200 --> 00:24:07.000 drink could even lead to impotence. That was hardly a selling point, but 339 00:24:07.079 --> 00:24:11.519 the more moderate take on coffee struck a favorable contrast of chocolate, another exotic 340 00:24:11.559 --> 00:24:15.000 drink that was coming on the market that was closely tied to lustful impulses. 341 00:24:17.000 --> 00:24:19.680 As with standard procedure for the heartlib Circle, plans were immediately drawn up to 342 00:24:19.759 --> 00:24:23.039 unleash the power of the new drink. The man for the job was John 343 00:24:23.119 --> 00:24:27.440 Beale, the group's expert on orchards and agriculture. More generally, he suggested 344 00:24:27.400 --> 00:24:33.000 that plantations could be established in New England, Virginia and Jamaica. This would 345 00:24:33.039 --> 00:24:37.759 be more cost effective than bringing coffee from Mocha or through Turkish middlemen. Beale 346 00:24:37.799 --> 00:24:41.000 discounted the concerns that coffee was a temperamental plant and wouldn't grow anywhere outside of 347 00:24:41.079 --> 00:24:47.359 Yemen. That was clearly misinformation spread by Yemeny farmers looking to protect their monopoly. 348 00:24:48.079 --> 00:24:49.640 Like many of the schemes cooked up by Heartlib and his friends, this 349 00:24:49.680 --> 00:24:53.440 one never got off the ground. Coffee seeds were closely guarded and it was 350 00:24:53.480 --> 00:24:56.680 illegal to carry them out of Yemen, and for the moment, the English 351 00:24:56.720 --> 00:25:00.599 market for coffee was confined to a few eccentric scholars and a handful of addicts 352 00:25:00.640 --> 00:25:06.039 in the Levant Company. The first step towards an English coffee market was therefore 353 00:25:06.039 --> 00:25:10.279 a tentative. In sixteen fifty, the Angel Inn in Oxford became the first 354 00:25:10.400 --> 00:25:15.920 establishment in England to sell coffee. It's clientele almost exclusively consisted of the oddballs 355 00:25:15.920 --> 00:25:18.680 who had been turned on to coffee by Arabic texts. It's likely that coffee 356 00:25:18.680 --> 00:25:22.640 could only be procured irregularly from private contracts in one of the trading companies. 357 00:25:23.240 --> 00:25:27.279 Gatherings at the Angel were probably more like a social club experimenting with straight coffee 358 00:25:27.279 --> 00:25:32.839 beans that had come across, rather than men patronizing a business. Coffee as 359 00:25:32.839 --> 00:25:37.519 a commercial enterprise came a bit later, and unsurprisingly emerged in London. The 360 00:25:37.599 --> 00:25:41.200 key driver in the city was Daniel Edwards, a Levant Company man who had 361 00:25:41.240 --> 00:25:45.680 just returned home from a decade long stint in Turkey. Edwards had been stationed 362 00:25:45.680 --> 00:25:48.519 in Smyrna on the Aegean coast. As you might recall, Smyrna had played 363 00:25:48.559 --> 00:25:52.440 host to a kind of civil war within the Levant Company. Rival factions loyal 364 00:25:52.480 --> 00:25:56.960 to either Parliament or the Crown battled for control over the Ottoman trade. Smyrna 365 00:25:57.039 --> 00:26:00.960 was usually the base for whichever faction had been pushed out of the capital. 366 00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:04.880 At his stembul Edwards had sided with Parliament the clear winners. By the time 367 00:26:04.880 --> 00:26:08.759 he'd returned to England in sixteen fifty two. Like many other Levant companymen, 368 00:26:08.839 --> 00:26:11.200 he had picked up a taste for coffee during his stay in the East. 369 00:26:11.680 --> 00:26:15.960 By one estimate, Smirna housed more than forty coffee houses. Edwards found it 370 00:26:15.960 --> 00:26:19.559 impossible to give up coffee and kept a strategic reserve in his London home, 371 00:26:19.720 --> 00:26:25.160 supplied through his contacts in the East, and maintaining his stockpile was a constant 372 00:26:25.200 --> 00:26:29.319 battle. Edwards himself drank as much as nine cups a day and provided his 373 00:26:29.359 --> 00:26:32.440 guests with as much coffee as they could drink. In fact, he had 374 00:26:32.440 --> 00:26:36.359 brought back a coffee specialist as a servant, Pascal Rose, a Greek Man 375 00:26:36.400 --> 00:26:40.599 who had acted as his translator and personal assistant in Smyrna. Edwards found that 376 00:26:40.599 --> 00:26:42.599 his friends were as enthralled by the drink as he was, and quickly saw 377 00:26:42.680 --> 00:26:48.680 business opportunity. With his connections to coffee suppliers and Rose's expertise in producing a 378 00:26:48.720 --> 00:26:52.880 good cup, they could take London by storm. With financial backing from Edwards, 379 00:26:52.039 --> 00:26:56.720 Rose set up a stall by Saint Michael's Parish Church just outside the Royal 380 00:26:56.759 --> 00:27:00.960 Exchange. The choice of location was no accident. Edwards and Rose identified merchants 381 00:27:00.960 --> 00:27:04.799 as their primary customers. Some of them would already be familiar with coffee through 382 00:27:04.839 --> 00:27:08.960 their international connections, and the drink stimulating properties were a perfect match for the 383 00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:14.880 frenetic deal making they went on at the Exchange. Within days, churchwardens were 384 00:27:14.880 --> 00:27:18.720 complaining that talkative merchants were disrupting services and generally making a nuisance of themselves leaning 385 00:27:18.759 --> 00:27:23.519 on the church walls. Luckily for the churchmen, Rose's operation very quickly outgrew 386 00:27:23.559 --> 00:27:29.240 his little stall. The Greek entrepreneur found more partners and established a more permanent 387 00:27:29.240 --> 00:27:33.640 coffee house. He even inspired imitators the beginnings of London's coffee culture, but 388 00:27:33.759 --> 00:27:40.160 initial progress was slow, partly because coffee hawkers like Rose faced stiff resistance from 389 00:27:40.240 --> 00:27:45.319 London's traditional purveyors of refreshment. The city's ale housekeepers were well organized and formed 390 00:27:45.359 --> 00:27:48.240 an influential lobbying group. Coffee houses were a potential threat to their business, 391 00:27:48.359 --> 00:27:52.680 and so found few friends at Guildhall. But a larger problem was that supply 392 00:27:52.839 --> 00:27:57.359 remained irregular and expensive. The East India Company, which had direct access to 393 00:27:57.400 --> 00:28:02.279 the main wholesale market of Mocha, was in disarray. As we've seen in 394 00:28:02.279 --> 00:28:04.960 the middle of the sixteen fifties, the company's new leadership was struggling badly. 395 00:28:06.480 --> 00:28:10.640 Only after a massive reorganization in sixteen fifty seven was the company able to take 396 00:28:10.640 --> 00:28:14.480 advantage of the growing market for coffee in London. It was only in the 397 00:28:14.480 --> 00:28:18.519 summer and fall of sixteen fifty nine that the conditions finally aligned for coffee to 398 00:28:18.599 --> 00:28:22.119 hit the mainstream. Trading companies were now bringing beans into London on regular shipments, 399 00:28:22.200 --> 00:28:26.799 and the chaotic politics of the past few months created the perfect atmosphere for 400 00:28:26.839 --> 00:28:30.839 a caffeinated frenzy of discussions on England's future. At the leading edge of this 401 00:28:30.920 --> 00:28:36.039 marriage between coffee and politics was a partnership between James Harrington and Henry Neville. 402 00:28:36.079 --> 00:28:40.359 Harrington we've met before. He was the political philosopher who published The Commonwealth of 403 00:28:40.359 --> 00:28:44.839 Oceania three years earlier, the first truly Republican vision of England's past, present 404 00:28:44.839 --> 00:28:48.640 in future. Henry Neville had similarly Republican inclinations, which had got him purged 405 00:28:48.640 --> 00:28:52.119 with the rest of the Rumpers in sixteen fifty three. But where Rumpers like 406 00:28:52.240 --> 00:28:56.200 Arthur Hasserig rarely went beyond a fairly simplistic claim that the House of Commons was 407 00:28:56.240 --> 00:29:02.440 the sole representative of the people, Neville the larger consequences of Republican ideology. 408 00:29:03.079 --> 00:29:06.400 This had often gotten him into trouble. For instance, he was accused of 409 00:29:06.400 --> 00:29:08.920 being an atheist, largely because he claimed there was little difference between the Bible 410 00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:14.319 and the Koran. Practically speaking, the morality they espoused was fairly similar. 411 00:29:15.039 --> 00:29:18.359 Neville's goal was to build a society based on equitable laws, not blind adherence 412 00:29:18.400 --> 00:29:25.200 to religious dogma or traditionalist political ideologies. In the Protectorate elections of sixteen fifty 413 00:29:25.279 --> 00:29:29.160 nine, Neville returned to Parliament. Then, when the rump was restored, 414 00:29:29.319 --> 00:29:32.720 he won a seat on the Council of State. But the idealistic take on 415 00:29:32.759 --> 00:29:37.400 Republicanism that he and his friend Harrington espoused was drowned out by the power politics 416 00:29:37.400 --> 00:29:41.079 of Arthur Hesselrigg and the Army Grandees. As England once again hurtled towards Civil 417 00:29:41.079 --> 00:29:45.759 War, Nevill's attention drifted away from Westminster or Whitehall and towards a new project 418 00:29:45.759 --> 00:29:49.799 he and Harrington were working on. Its initial iteration in the summer of sixteen 419 00:29:49.839 --> 00:29:55.000 fifty nine was the Commonwealth Club, a society for the discussion of political ideas 420 00:29:55.039 --> 00:29:57.640 that met regularly at a tavern and common garden run by the old leveler John 421 00:29:57.640 --> 00:30:03.200 Wildman. The deal was to get together the finest Republican minds in England away 422 00:30:03.200 --> 00:30:07.759 from the hot house of Westminster and draw up a workable constitution. This time 423 00:30:07.839 --> 00:30:11.519 their work would be insulated from the conniving and factional in fighting that had undermined 424 00:30:11.519 --> 00:30:15.759 every previous attempt. In October, as an army coup once again threatened England, 425 00:30:15.920 --> 00:30:18.720 Harrington and Neville moved their operation from the fashionable West End to the center 426 00:30:18.720 --> 00:30:22.920 of the action, right outside the Westminster complex. The new location was the 427 00:30:22.920 --> 00:30:27.160 Turk's Head, where a proprietor named Miles ran a coffeehouse within sight of Westminster 428 00:30:27.240 --> 00:30:30.839 Home. Harrington and Neville also changed the name of their group to the Road 429 00:30:30.880 --> 00:30:34.519 A Club and advertised their meetings as an attempt to fashion a model of a 430 00:30:34.519 --> 00:30:40.759 free state or equal commonwealth. Harrington published pamphlets outlining the topics to be discussed 431 00:30:40.759 --> 00:30:44.960 in a daily schedule and invited interested parties to come debate, prepared with written 432 00:30:44.960 --> 00:30:48.799 proposals. Borrowing from the original Oxford coffee house clubs, Harrington described the club 433 00:30:48.960 --> 00:30:53.559 as a free and open academy unto all comers, though in reality there was 434 00:30:53.559 --> 00:30:57.400 a membership fee of eighteen pence and men deemed unfit could be turned away. 435 00:30:57.960 --> 00:31:03.400 Harrington also warned and potential members in advance that this academy is to be governed 436 00:31:03.400 --> 00:31:07.839 according to the rules of good breeding or civil conversation. Members sat at a 437 00:31:07.920 --> 00:31:11.160 large circular table with a gap in the medal for Miles to distribute coffee at 438 00:31:11.160 --> 00:31:14.799 the end of each night. When everyone had had their say on the day's 439 00:31:14.839 --> 00:31:18.920 resolution, a ballot box was passed around to collect votes. A twenty six 440 00:31:18.000 --> 00:31:21.759 year old Samuel Peeps, who was just beginning to record the events of his 441 00:31:21.799 --> 00:31:26.359 life in a diary, attended often drawn by the admiral discourse and exceeding good 442 00:31:26.440 --> 00:31:29.960 argument, and he wasn't the only one. The Turk's head was crammed just 443 00:31:29.960 --> 00:31:33.880 about every night with visiting intellectuals like William Petty, the man behind the Great 444 00:31:33.880 --> 00:31:37.200 Irish Survey, or spectators looking to hear a good debate. In many ways, 445 00:31:37.240 --> 00:31:41.079 the Road of Clubs set the model for political associations and corresponding societies in 446 00:31:41.119 --> 00:31:45.119 the future. In fact, coffeehouse clubs would soon move into all aspects of 447 00:31:45.119 --> 00:31:48.880 English life. Imitators of the Road of Club entered the fields of news, 448 00:31:49.200 --> 00:31:52.039 finance, the stock exchange, and, most famously, in the case of 449 00:31:52.119 --> 00:31:56.920 Lloyd's Coffeehouse insurance. There's also a connection to be drawn between the rules of 450 00:31:56.920 --> 00:32:01.480 debate and association Harrington drew Up and the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural 451 00:32:01.519 --> 00:32:06.960 Knowledge, the great intellectual institution of the Restoration period, founded almost exactly a 452 00:32:07.039 --> 00:32:09.400 year after the Road a Club, but to return to a current narrative. 453 00:32:09.519 --> 00:32:14.319 The Road to Club had no official sanction from any government authority. But really, 454 00:32:14.319 --> 00:32:16.240 in the fall of sixteen fifty nine, it wasn't clear that England had 455 00:32:16.240 --> 00:32:20.720 a government authority. It was just as likely that the future of England would 456 00:32:20.720 --> 00:32:23.400 be determined at the Turk Set as it would by the increasingly irrelevant Committee of 457 00:32:23.440 --> 00:32:29.039 Safety. John Lambert and Charles Fleetwood had managed to close down the Rump and 458 00:32:29.079 --> 00:32:31.839 set up their own government, but whether that government could actually do any governing 459 00:32:32.079 --> 00:32:36.920 was very much in doubt. The army regime seemed powerless to stop men from 460 00:32:36.920 --> 00:32:40.400 planning new constitutions in the coffee houses of London. The courts and national administrative 461 00:32:40.400 --> 00:32:44.079 system had grown to a halt, and worst of all, the Committee of 462 00:32:44.160 --> 00:32:46.920 Safety had no long term plan for how to continue paying the soldiers. The 463 00:32:47.039 --> 00:32:52.079 taxes coming into the treasury had slowed to a trickle. The Committee of Safety 464 00:32:52.119 --> 00:32:55.599 faced a troubling question, what happens to an army coup when the army disappears? 465 00:32:57.519 --> 00:33:00.839 Next time they'll get their answer delivered by the only man in Britain who 466 00:33:00.839 --> 00:33:02.759 commanded a well paid, loyal army, George Monk