The Wealth of the Gentry 1540–1660, by A Simpson

[p042] The Wealth of the Gentry, 1540-1660. By Alan Simpson. Cambridge Uni- versity Press, 35s. The social origins of the English Revolution in the 17th century are a subject of heated controversy among historians. The late R. H. Tawney, together with most Marxists, ex- plained it in terms of the rise of capitalism, primarily in agriculture. The growth of the market in farm products enabled farmers and gentry to grow rich at the expense of the older, more feudal type of landlord. The rising class came into collision with Crown and Court, eventually overthrowing both. This interpreiation has been chal- lenged, notably by Professor Trevor- Roper. The driving force in the revolution, he maintains, came not from the rising but from the declin- ing gentry, in protest against royal extravagance and the fat living of courtiers. Professor Alan Simpson, of Chicago, does not offer a general explanation, but subjects the histories and accounts of three thriving East Anglian families to detailed scrutiny. Nicholas Bacon, the rising lawyer and father of the more famous Francis, Sir Thomas Cullum, the canny draper who played a modest and equivocal role in the Revolution of the 1640s, and Sir Thomas Cornwallis, comptroller of Queen Mary’s household, whose grandson was elevated to the peerage at the Restoration, are the main subjects of this study. Professor Simpson believes that his evidence casts grave doubts on the Tawneyan and Marxist interpretations of the century. Bacon was not an improving but a conservative land- lord, and still made his fortune. Cornwallis, after retiring from Court with the accession of Elizabeth, also ‘increased his substantial wealth with- out engaging directly in capitalist farming. The ‘mere landlord’ was not, Simpson’s evidence suggests, ruined by inflation and supplanted by more aggressive and bourgeois characters. Short leases and frequent rent-raising enabled the ‘mere land- lord’ to take his cut out of rising agricultural prices. As a basis for a general under- standing of the problems, however, Simpson’s evidence is unsatisfactory. East Anglia was an area close to the main markets, exceptionally prosper- ous and offering opportunities of en- richment to ‘mere landlords’ not available to their opposite numbers in the North and West. . This highly untypical area cannot provide evi- dence for what was happening to class relations in the country as a whole. Early 17th century writers, such as Jonson and Middleton, be- lieved that the scions of old landed families were being supplanted by thrustful bourgeois types. Of the supplanted, Middleton wrote in The Family of Love, ‘their gentility they swore away so fas‘, that they had almost sworn away all the ancient gentry out of the land; which, indeed, are scarce missed, for that yeomen and farmers’ sons, with the help of a few Welshmen, have undertook to supply their places’. The quotation could be capped by very many others. And even in East Anglia one would like to know more than Professor Simpson tells us about the people who sold the land that his successful ‘mere landlords’ were so persistently buying. H.C.

[p043] ail LAL PUUIalL pace BL C240 Vasseur reser revolution. Without an alliance of the proletariat with the peasantry the tasks of the democratic revolution cannot be solved, nor even seriously posed. But e alliance of these two classes can be Tr r f influence ot the national-liberal bour- eoisie. evolution 4. No matter what the first episodic stages of the revolution may be in the individual county e sdalization of the revolutionary CA hee the pro- letariat and the peasantry is conceivable only under the political leadership of the proletaridl Dogs Hits: in the Commu S ir Ol n means that the victory of the democratic revo- lw CO €_O OQ e hip ras i$ bases itself upon the alliafee with the peasantry and solves first of all the tasks of the democratic revolution. by Leon Trotsky 5. Assessed historically, the old slogan of Bolshevism—‘the democratic dicta- torship of the proletariat and peasantry’ —expressed precisely the above-charac- ised relationship of the proletariat, the In one volume, 254 pps. Hard cover 25/-, soft cover, 15/-. Order from: New Park Publications Ltd. 186A Clapham High St. London $.W.4 Printed by Piough Press Ltd. (1.U.), ¢.0. 180 Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4,

[p044] In one volume, 254 pps. Hard cover 25/-, soft cover, 15/-. Order from: New Park Publications Ltd. 186A Clapham High St. London $.W.4 Printed by Plough Press Ltd. (T.U.), t.o. 180 Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4,