A people so ignorant of their duty? The English ‘confessional state’ and strategic limitations in the time of Charles I and Oliver Cromwell

Abstract

Set in a comparative context alongside Madrid, Paris or Amsterdam, the English crown was certainly extremely short of resources in the first half of the seventeenth-century. Indeed, even after the Restoration (1660) the crown was faced with a financial deficit that placed enormous restrictions on the use of the fleet. There was, therefore, always an enormous contradiction between the projection of a confessional state and the realities of a government whose ability to finance war was highly limited. This perspective has emerged in a revisionism which has questioned the old orthodoxy on the role of parliament and the «puritans». Revisionist historians tend to see Charles I, his confessional programme, deceptions and betrayals as the cause of the Civil War (1642-1646) —often, indeed, as its only cause. Many argue that the real change emerged after 1688, when the political economy of the state was transformed. This vision dovetails with efforts to question, or even abandon, concepts such as the «military revolution», «absolutism» and «mercantilism».

Keywords

• revolución militar
• estado dinástico
• estado confesional
• par-lamento
• guerra civil inglesa
• charles i de inglaterra
• oliver cro-mwell.