Family background and social status

The composition of the political elite has never been static, but periods of civil strife are characterized by particular social upheaval, in which families and affinities rise and fall more rapidly in relative status and influence. Within that, the middle decades of the seventeenth century provided a context not just for accelerated mobility but also for an expansion of the base of the political nation as represented in the Commons. The systematic and ‘permanent’ exclusion from the House of large numbers of MPs who left Westminster to follow the king in 1642 and attend the Oxford Parliament in 1644, or who revealed themselves as too inclined to peace-making in 1648, or who struck protectorate councillors as potentially subversive, implied replacement recruiting from a wider spread of social backgrounds. Additionally, Parliament’s armies, and especially from 1645 the New Model, offered – to a degree never previously seen – a meritocratic environment in which those of modest background could prove their mettle alongside those more privileged. They could demonstrate their competence, enhance their wealth, establish their godly reputation and acquire patrons. At the same time, they could develop the motivation for entering the political arena and hone the ideas necessary to succeed in it.

Such were the possibilities, but the reality was complex. There were continuities alongside novelties, and in certain respects traditional hierarchy asserted itself. Each Parliament between April 1640 and 1659 included among its Members a few peers whose Scottish or Irish titles did not disqualify them from sitting. In late 1640 these were variously embodied in Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland, a critic of the crown who soon became an eloquent supporter; William Monson, Viscount Monson, a future regicide; and Sir Ferdinando Fairfax, the later parliamentarian commander in the north, who became 2nd Baron Fairfax of Cameron in the gap between the Short and Long Parliaments. Ferdinando’s son Sir Thomas Fairfax inherited the title in 1648 while sitting as a recruiter and continued to grace protectorate Parliaments. The innovation of Scottish and Irish constituencies allowed him to be joined in 1654 by James Johnstone, earl of Hartfell, and George Livingston, earl of Livingston, and in 1659 by Livingston, James Hay, earl of Tweeddale, and even the formidable Archibald Campbell, marquess of Argyll.