Abstract
This paper concerns an early whole system approach to change. Between 1647 and 1649 a series of civil wars across England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland eventually led to the execution of the king, Charles I, and the only period of republican government under Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector. That military and political maelstrom turned the world upside down and produced an attempt by parliament’s New Model Army to generate an alternative constitutional structure to the status quo through an array of whole system meetings that saw the senior leadership of the army join junior officers, enlisted soldiers, and civilian Levellers, to negotiate as equals. Ultimately these General Council meetings failed but their influence can still be seen in the contemporary constitution of the UK. Why the meetings started, what happened within them, and why they failed, are all discussed within the context of system leadership. The conclusions have implications for the contemporary leadership of whole system change.
Introduction
Systems thinking as an academic discipline is usually traced back to Bertalanffy (1971) and Prigogine (1976), though Hoverstadt (2022: 13) starts with G.H. Lewis in 1875. But as Jackson (2019: 3) makes clear, the traces of its origins lie in the work of Heraclitus, Aristotle, Plato, Kant, Hegel, Luhmann, and Bogdanov. In fact, the more one looks back into history, the longer appears the lines of theoretical antecedence. An early leadership – or rather ‘management’ - engagement with systems arrived through Parsons (1960) and then Katz and Kahn’s (1966/1978) work, which distinguished between closed and open systems, arguing that businesses and many organizations were usually of the latter variety. If we add in the history of complexity theory from Poincaré and Gleick to Prigogine, we can see how quickly leadership theorists adopted approaches that appear to nest the discipline in the quasi-scientific language of its scientific forbears, even if some leadership scholars often seemed rather unscientific in their enthusiastic adoption of the general approach (c.f., Rosenhead et al., 2019). Amongst the most significant contemporary writers in this field are Stacey and colleagues, who insist that a systems’ approach is often portrayed in the field as if leadership merely has to extend its grip from the mechanics of the organization to the systems that are embodied within the organization. In contrast, Stacey et al. (2000) articulate the importance of adopting a process approach, rather than a system approach, because the former recognizes the unpredictable nature of the ensemble and any attempt to intervene in it. Or as Hoverstadt (2022: 14) suggests, systems’ thinking is essentially related to emergence, that is, ‘a property of a system that is not a property of any of the parts of the system and which could not be predicted from understanding each of the parts of its own.’ In this approach, strategy, for example, moves from the result of intended intervention by the leadership to the emergent consequence of evolving interactions across the organization. Indeed, even the individual parts of the system, including individuals, are affected by their relationship to the system – to the extent that no individual is really independent in thought or practice. That means shifting our understanding from the way an individual or part works, to placing that understanding through contextualizing the individual or part as an element in a wider system. But the shift from the former to the latter does not imply any form of the egalitarianism generated through the complexity of the processes, which allegedly prevents the re-emergence of hierarchical influence. In other words, just because the leadership rarely achieve their desired strategic outcome does not mean that the outcome is the consequence of multiple interventions, all which have the same or similar significance. In short, the process approach adopted by Stacey et al. (2000) seems to project the process as bereft of differential power, in the same way that Kurtz and Snowden’s (2003) Cynefin model appears to operate in a scientific world free from politics or interests or values. This is not dissimilar to the Vanguard model of systems change reproduced in Seddon (2008) where, if applied properly, there are no approaches or values that cannot be accommodated into what Jackson (2019: 222) calls an ‘essentially unitarist viewpoint.’ It is ironic indeed, that these systems’ approaches seem empty of the very phenomena that makes organizations work and inhibits their change: politics.
So, what do we know about systems change? First, those deemed responsible for changing the system are usually responsible for its perpetuation: we don’t understand that we can change the system because we don’t see that it is us that enables the current system to continue. In other words: if you are not part of the problem then you probably cannot be part of the solution, and that implies that people must recognize that they are not working ‘on’ the system, they are part ‘of it’. Second, the system has evolved to cope with Tame Problems – those we know how to fix – but the difficulty is that the current system actively inhibits addressing Wicked Problems, those that are either novel or recalcitrant. That often leads to interventions that address the symptoms not the causes of the problem, which, in turn, may promote short term gains but only at the cost of compounding the longer term problem (Rittel and Webber, 1973). And most of the time the blame for the continuation of the problem is laid at the door of others, seldom at our own door. This can generate fatalism because our assumptions of efficacy are delimited by our apparent inability to affect or effect any kind of change on the system. In short, the attempted solutions often propel us into becoming what Stroh (2015: 20) calls ‘accidental adversaries’ – the silos that appear to bedevil organizations (but are designed to resolve Tame problems) often motivate people of goodwill into becoming adversaries because the interventions are not designed with the overall system in mind. Indeed, it is not uncommon for interventions that are designed to be positive to lead to outcomes that undermine the apparent purpose. Thus, as Zizek (2009) implies, providing resources to help individuals cope with systemic problems, for example, homelessness (shelters), hunger (foodbanks), staff shortages (voluntary overtime), paradoxically may enable the systemic problem to continue – and simultaneously diverts the resources away from a long term resolution. Hence, it is only because people of goodwill help that the creaking system continues, and in the absence of any visible crisis that generates national media coverage and embarrassment for the government, the systemic problems just continue. This implies that the goal of a charity involved in supporting the homeless, for instance, should be to dissolve itself when successful, and not count the longevity and growth of the charity as a metric of success. The alternative is for the state to engage in a radical – and properly funded collective - response that addresses the causes nor the symptoms, such as has happened in Finland’s response to homelessness (Gray, 2018).
We also know that a common language, identity, and a shared narrative are critical to any kind of success because systems’ change does not normally come about because of rational logic, let alone ‘self-evident’ facts or ‘overwhelming’ empirical data (Edmans, 2024; Pomerantsev, 2024). And for that to work we need start at the beginning by getting what Weisbord and Janoff (2015) call ‘getting the whole system in the room.’ But what counts as the whole system? We can imagine they mean a representative sample from across the entire organization in the room (that is a vertical slice through the hierarchy), rather than everyone, but what is the boundary of the system? Should we just take the (closed) system of the organization or include the regulatory system within which this organization operates, or do we mean the entire country or planet? This is always a dilemma when ‘mapping the system’ but that very mapping process can be important in exploring why the system appears to be so resilient to change: because it might mean changing the entire country. Wherever the boundary is drawn, perhaps the most important conclusion is that the first change has to come from within – the only person we know we can change is ourselves. Or as Mahatma Gandhi allegedly suggested, ‘be the change you want to see in the world.’ 1
If tracing the origins of systems’ approaches is difficult, discovering the first attempt to deploy systems theory and change a system is probably impossible, after all, many attempts at organizational change or national reconstruction or revolutionary acts or military coups, are actually attempts to change the system, even if they are not described in those terms. But overt examples of whole systems change or trying to get the whole system in the room, are usually explored after the post 2WW era (see Jackson, 2019). However, this paper takes us back to what might be an early whole systems approach between 1647 and 1649 in England, amidst an era that saw three civil wars, the execution of King Charles I, and the short lived English Republic led by Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector, as he became known. What does the case tell us about the difficulty and success or failure of leadership in such an intervention?
In theory, then, system change requires something like the following requirements: 1. Start with the purpose and generate a coalition of the willing. 2. Get the whole (vertical) system in the room and map it. 3. Get beyond the surface symptoms to form a collective understanding of the real problem and therefore the solution. 4. Recognize the responsibility for all in the continuation of the problem, however unintentional, and thus its resolution. 5. Generate a common language and narrative. 6. Plan before acting. 7. Focus on key changes, advance incrementally, and constantly monitor progress.
Let me now provide an outline of the historical context of the New Model Army General Council Meetings.
The historical context
By the end of the three civil wars in England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, also known as the War of Three Kingdoms 2 between 1642 and 46, 1648, and 1649-51, around 180,000 had died, of whom around 85,000 died in combat while the rest were victims of infectious diseases. The proportion of the population who died in the civil wars was greater than the death rates in the 1WW (3%), but the specific rate depended upon the country: about 4% of the English died, 6% of the Scottish, but an enormous 20% of the Irish (Mortlock, 2017). The wars also generated a land and time of political and social chaos that John Milton (2003) referred to in his Paradise Lost, as ‘the womb of teeming birth’, when the world was turned upside down and the questioning of tradition, entitlement, and normality itself became the norm. Whether all the radical ideas were born in the civil war or before is difficult to say because it was only the collapse of royal control over the printing presses during this period that stimulated the publication, if not the genesis, of radical ideas (Como, 2018).
Parliament had originally gone to war not to overthrow the monarchy but to protect the constitution – and that included retaining the king. Parliament was split between the conservative Presbyterian faction and the more radical Independents, but when it became clear that the Earls of Essex and Manchester, the leaders of the main parliamentary armies until 1645, were reluctant to see the royalist armies defeated, the Independents forced the Self-Denying Ordinance through parliament which prevented members of parliament from retaining military command. This also laid the grounds for the development of England’s first professional standing army, the New Model Army (NMA) as it was subsequently labelled. 3 Run on professional lines and funded initially by a loan of £80,000 from the London Common Council, the NMA recruited both volunteer veteran soldiers from the existing armies, especially with radical political beliefs and puritan values, as well as regular conscripts. 4 The cavalry, who were mainly volunteers, were often yeomen or independent craftsmen, that is a higher social class than the foot soldiers, who were mainly pressed, often illiterate, and sometimes had previously fought for the king (Woolrych, 2001: 54). Led by Fairfax, a professional soldier, and the politicians Cromwell and Ireton, the NMA became the most successful military unit in the civil wars and ensured the defeat of the royalist forces. But when the first war was over, and parliament seemed content to restore the status quo ante, the discontented voices within parliament and the NMA, supported by a radical political group of civilian known as the Levellers, responded by demanding a justice that included addressing the problems of pay arrears and legal threats of prosecution of soldiers for acts undertaken during the war, as well as a settling of accounts with the king, and a new participative constitution.
Between July 1647 and January 1649, following the English parliament’s successive victories over King Charles I, the NMA grew increasingly restive as the Presbyterian faction in parliament attempted to restore the king to his previous position. To ensure the solidarity of the army at the most critical times, the senior officers, known as the grandees – most of whom were religiously inspired and supportive of the general ethos of egalitarianism that accompanied what became known as the ‘praying army’ - accepted that representatives of the NMA from across the ranks, in addition to radical civilian Levellers, should discuss the situation and agree an alternative settlement to that proposed either by the defeated royalists or the Presbyterian faction in parliament (Gentles, 2001: 54). This ‘General Council of the Army’, a radical innovation in a hitherto strictly hierarchical army, met initially and briefly at Cambridge in June 1647, and then more substantively in three places over several days each time to discuss the constitutional arrangements for the country: first at Reading in July 1647, then at Putney from October to November 1647, and finally in Whitehall, London, between December 1648 and January 1649. The meetings were not widely reported at the time, but they were unprecedented gatherings of different ranks, including the three most senior officers of the Army: Fairfax, Cromwell, and Ireton, as well as more junior officers, sergeants, corporals, and privates.
Many radical soldiers in the NMA and their supporters in the Levellers came to see the main culprit in the conflagration as the king’s adherence to divine right – an authority derived from his position as God’s representative on earth – to insist that he, and only he, had the right to rule the country. This seems to explain his absolute intransigence when it came to compromising on the constitutional amendments suggested by Cromwell and his second in command and son-in-law, Henry Ireton. Ireton, like Cromwell and many of the soldiers in the NMA (especially the cavalry troopers) also saw themselves as following the will of God, though not as people who embodied the infallibility that Charles claimed. Indeed, Ireton’s changes in political direction from supporter of a constitutional monarch to the lead campaigner for its abolition, derived from his belief that he was acting in a direction set by God.
The collective influence of the Levellers over some of the elected representatives of the soldiers, the soldier-agitators or agents, generated a formidable political challenge to the army grandees that they could not ignore. Indeed, it became clear to Cromwell and Ireton that they needed to keep the soldier agitators, and their junior officer-agitators, on board if they were to constrain the king and parliament and resolve the problems that caused the civil wars in the first place. To that end, the grandees began by trying to co-opt the agitators into the central decision-making of the army.
The rise of the agitators and the Levellers
With the (first) war apparently over, and the king under lock and key, parliament began planning to disband half the Army – but without adequate provision for back pay or indemnities – and send the other half to Ireland to put down a revolt. By 21 March 1647 an Army officer-led petition demanded that before they would disband, they needed indemnities, pay-arrears, the removal of threats to force them to fight ‘out of this kingdom’ (i.e., Ireland), compensation for those injured in the war or those made widows or orphans, and money to pay for their upkeep until such time as they were disbanded. Parliament responded by ordering the army’s head, General Fairfax, to send the officers apparently behind the petition to answer for their conduct, where they were condemned for promoting mutiny and declared ‘enemies of the State’ (Firth, 1901). 5
That same month, in direct response to this parliamentary threat, several NMA regiments also began electing their own representatives – whom they called ‘Agitators’ - to protest about parliamentary actions, and parliament responded again by re-ordering the Army to Ireland, and warning the soldiers that only those who embarked on the ships would be paid. Since many in the cavalry were volunteers who had joined to fight the king, not the Irish, the order to embark on the Irish campaign was deeply troubling, especially when it appeared that parliament was trying to dilute the Army’s political influence by simultaneously reducing its overall size. And just to be absolutely clear about parliament’s intentions, it then demanded the demotion of all officers above the rank of colonel (except Fairfax), the prohibition of all army officers from membership of the House of Commons, and it insisted that all officers should take an oath to uphold the Solemn League and Covenant (the agreement between the Scottish Covenanters and Parliament to enforce Scottish Presbyterianism on England).
In March 1647 a group of London civilian radicals, specifically John Lilburne, Richard Overton, William Walwyn, and John Wildman – who collectively became known as the Levellers after November 1647– took advantage of the collapse of censorship to generate an array of publications. It was their media presence especially their Humble Petition of many Thousands (also known as the Large Petition and probably written by William Walwyn), rather than their organizational framework (which was always loose, never homogeneous, and rooted in London), which demanded the Commons – addressed as ‘the supreme authority of this nation’ - institute a series of reforms to ‘protect the rights of freeborn Englishmen.’ In fact, the Levellers were strongly associated with some sectarian (but tolerant) religious communities in London, especially its eastern urban areas, so while they were never a uniform or united political party, they were not just an isolated group of radical writers. As Barber (1998: 40) suggests, even though the civilian Levellers and the NMA radicals started out as separate entities, ‘later, civilians discovered issues of common cause with the rank-and-file soldiers and channelled their grievances through the command structure of the New Model Army.’
The Large Petition declared independence from what they saw as the tyranny of king and parliament and demanded changes to parliament, a ban on taking oaths, freedom of the press in religious matters, the termination of the Merchant Adventurers’ Company (the primary trading company in London), the replacement of Norman-French with English in courts, speedy trials with appropriate punishments, and the abolition of religious tithes, debtors’ prison and begging. It was submitted to Fairfax, but on 27 March 1647 parliament managed to see a copy and demanded that Fairfax immediately stop the spread of support. Holles the leader of the Presbyterian faction in parliament, oversaw parliament’s dual response: first it retook control over the London Militias, then, when that was secure, it issued what became known as the Declaration of Dislike - which spoke of a ‘deep dislike’ of the petition and called the soldiers, like their rebellious officers, ‘enemies of the state’ (Farr, 2006: 58).
The discontent within the NMA had now reached boiling point. It had achieved military victory over the royalists and believed it had a privileged position over the future constitution. On 15 April 1647 over 100 junior and middle-ranking officers from eight cavalry regiments met to choose two representatives ‘agitators’ (later called ‘agents’) from each regiment. Sensing the counter-productive effect of the Declaration of Dislike, parliament tried to calm the waters between it and the NMA, by authorising Cromwell, Skippon, Ireton, and Fleetwood – all MPs and all senior army officers – to act as Commissioners of Parliament to investigate the discontent at Saffron Waldon (Army HQ) and assess the situation (Farr, 2006: 60-66, 70).
On 3 May Cromwell and Ireton wrote to the colonels of each regiment requiring them to assess ‘the present temper and disposition of the regiment’, and 2 days later Colonel John Lambert – who told Fairfax that he had already done his best to calm the troops - with a group of other colonels, penned a letter stating that they had formed ‘an ambitious plan to unite the officer corps and soldiers in a common stand against parliament.’ (Quoted in Farr, 2006: 68) That plan seems to have been the origins of the new General Council of Army that would try to hammer out a consensus across the Army and simultaneously prevent the NMA from disintegrating or even mutinying under pressure from parliament (Barber, 1998: 50-51).
The initial meeting of the General Council of the army, Cambridge, June 1647
A preliminary meeting of officers and soldiers in Saffron Walden church on 15 and 16 May was orchestrated by Lambert, and he spent some time reminding the meeting that unless they remained united, then parliament would succeed in its plan of demobilising most of the army and sending the remainder to Ireland. 167 officers resigned their commissions shortly afterwards, but that just left the officers more united and more aligned with the soldiers against parliament (Farr, 2006: 70-72).
On 17 May 1647 the four parliamentary commissioners gave their report to parliament and Cromwell warned that the NMA would obey the order to disband (with 8 weeks arrears now offered) – but would not embark for the Irish campaign. Parliament responded, on 25 May 1647, by voting to disband the regiments of the NMA one by one and in different locations to prevent collective unrest, but it had the opposite effect. On 29 May an 86 member Council of War (senior NMA officers only) met at St Edmundsbury and was presented with a petition from 16 agitators (10 horse and 6 foot regiments) warning the grandees that unless a rendezvous of the whole army was called to discuss the issues, the agitators would call for independent action. Ireton advised Fairfax to agree, and the Council of War voted 82 to 4 in favour of what became the General Council of the Army. It was to be called and chaired by Fairfax, and composed of the senior officers themselves, plus two officers and two soldiers from each regiment. This General Council would collectively consider whatever parliament should offer in terms of a constitutional settlement and the grievances of the Army (Taft, 2001: 176-77) This, then is the first attempt at a whole system meeting within an organization that was, as were most military organizations then and now, a rigid hierarchy controlled through an authoritarian structure of command and compliance.
In part to head this growing dissent off, and in part to circumvent the Presbyterian MPs who were seeking to protect the monarchy in any future constitutional agreement, the grandees - through Henry Ireton and John Lambert - produced a constitutional outline called the Heads of the Proposals. The title ‘Heads’ implied these were headline topics to be discussed within the NMA and then submitted to parliament. They included: drastically reducing the power of the bishops; abandoning compulsory church attendance and the use of the 1604 Book of Common Prayer (widely seen by Puritans as overly Catholic); the redrawing of parliamentary constituencies; a Council of State to act as the government’s foreign policy executive; parliamentary control over the appointment of senior government officials, as well as the army and navy, for 10 years; and finally that Royalists be barred from holding office or standing for election for 5 years. The Heads were shown to King Charles in late July, and that action, plus the silence over widening the suffrage, saw the support for the Heads amongst the NMA’s radicals quickly drain away. However, when a Presbyterian mob broke into parliament and forced the House of Commons to pass a resolution returning the London Militia to Presbyterian hands, the Army’s grandees recognized that they needed to reunite with the agitators and see off the parliamentary threat.
Concerned that Parliament was about to agree to the unfettered restoration of the king to the throne, on 5 June Cornet (2nd Lt.) George Joyce, either acting independently, or more likely with Cromwell and Ireton’s tacit acquiescence (but without informing Fairfax), took the king from his residence at Holdenby House and delivered him to the HQ of Sir Thomas Fairfax on Thriplow Heath near Cambridge. Joyce was probably tasked with replacing the guard over the king, but when it became clear to Joyce that the king might be ‘rescued’ by recalcitrant royalists he appears to have taken the initiative and removed him (Gentles, 2001: 77-79). Fairfax had initially intended to discipline Joyce but given the ‘distemper’ of the NMA at this point, changed his mind and promoted him to Captain.
The grandees then established the first formal General Council of the Army. Its aim was to discuss the problems of the NMA, the future constitution of the country, and to unite the NMA around whatever the General Council agreed to. After meeting, the General Council of the Army issued what it called ‘A Solemn Engagement of the Army, under the Command of his Excellency Sir Thomas Fairfax’. It was probably written by Ireton with help from Cromwell and John Lambert and was an attempt to bind the divisions of the NMA together in the face of a common foe – the Presbyterian parliament. It insisted that the soldiers ‘were not a mere mercenary Army’ and were intent on securing ‘our own and the peoples’ just rights and liberties’ (quoted in Taft, 2001: 177). To that end, all arbitrary power would be resisted, including that of the king and parliament, and the latter would be purged of malcontents and be regularly elected via a larger suffrage and a more egalitarian constituency system. Religious toleration (except for Catholics) would be established and indemnities for actions undertaken by parliamentary soldiers provided (Farr, 2006: 77-78). In principle, then, at this point the General Council did seem to be adumbrating what might be taken as a map of the whole system – but only if we add to that map the word ‘acceptable’. In other words, the whole system was never going to include women or Catholics or beggars, nor were those who had fought against parliament included. These limits might not have undermined the wider project, after all women, Catholics and beggars were already excluded from the franchise. But to exclude half the population on the basis of gender when many women were active supporters of the NMA’s position, just at a time when the NMA was under threat seems to have frittered away a crucial body of support. 6
When parliament showed no interest in the document, Fairfax moved his HQ from Cambridge 60 miles north of parliament, to Uxbridge 15 miles west of parliament. It was a show of force that parliament would have recognised. The Solemn Engagement had another effect: it persuaded the NMA radicals that parliament no longer had their confidence and, as such, the NMA was now an independent component of the state and was not dependent upon, nor controlled by, either king or parliament (De Krey, 2017: 162). Furthermore, the spread of democracy within the Army began to seep into every pore, to the extent that an independent voice from below was not merely tolerated but often encouraged if it led to greater solidarity within the NMA. In short, as Temple (2023: 272) suggests, a review of the voting lists within the Army’s Council of Officers (separate from the cross-organizational General Council) shows a significant number of occasions when the senior officers were outvoted and overruled by the junior officers. On the face of it, then, we appear to have a body of soldiers representing all ranks and regiments in the NMA and a governance system rooted in democratic procedures, but at this juncture the ‘system’ of the General Council did not displace the existing hierarchical system of the NMA, it merely served as an advisory body.
On 13 June 1647 Fairfax’s Council of War (comprised only of senior officers) issued The Declaration from Thomas Fairfax and the Army which demanded the purging of malcontents in Parliament, starting with the impeachment of eleven MPs – including Denzil Holles. In addition, it demanded fixed limits to every parliament and the removal of rotten boroughs that disproportionately returned MPs from small constituencies.’ If and when the king agreed to this programme, he would be restored to his prior position. When the eleven MPs withdrew voluntarily Fairfax ordered the Army to abandon its position at Uxbridge and move away to Reading (De Krey, 2017: 118-18; Woolrych, 2001: 59-61).
The General Council of the army at Reading, July 1647
On 16 July, at the NMA HQ in Reading, the General Council, then numbering some 100 people, including senior officers, officer agitators and other ranks’ agitators, was chaired by Fairfax. We have the names of sixty-four attendees, including nineteen officer-agitators and three soldier-agitators. The soldier agitators, worried that the grandees were concocting a private deal with the king, demanded an instant march on London to guarantee the removal from parliament of the eleven named MPs, an immediate stop to the enlistment of disbanded soldiers to the City’s militia, the payment of all arrears, and the release of Lilburne and other Levellers. Amongst their other demands – or ‘desires’ as they were called - were issues like freedom to petition, amendments of forest laws relating to game and wood collection, and the removal of tax on basic foodstuffs that the poor depended on. Cromwell and Ireton spoke against the march on London and proposed a smaller committee, led by Ireton, and comprised of twelve army officers and twelve agitators (in association with several unnamed civilians) to discuss the Heads. That discussion, over 17-18 July, led to the final draft of what became the Heads of Proposal in detail, in particular the veto allocated to the king and the lords. Indeed, Ireton even wrote to the king, confirming that his veto would be allowed to continue, despite significant resistance from the radical faction amongst the agitators (Como, 2020: 139). John Berkeley, a royalist general who had become an emissary for the king, was adamant that Charles should sign up to the Heads of the Proposals because that was the best deal he was ever going to get. But Charles allegedly turned down the proposals with the phrase, ‘You cannot do without me… you will fall to ruin if I do not sustain you’ (quoted in Gentles, 2001: 86). That facilitated the reinsertion of Charles’ veto clause and when the news leaked to the civilian radicals in London, they journeyed to Bedford, the new HQ of the army, and expressed their discontent on 24 July 1647, warning Fairfax that ‘fraudulent Counsels’ and ‘delusive Arts’ were afoot, and that such proposals would generate discontent amongst the NMA, especially the supporters of the Large Petition submitted in March earlier that year (Como, 2020: 1410-11).
There are two important issues falling out of this phase: first, the intransigence of the king undermined any attempt to shift the whole system (the constitution in this case) in a direction acceptable to the NMA; second, if we take the General Council as the whole system instead, then it becomes clear just how difficult it was to maintain some kind of unity when part of the system was operating behind the back of another part. In effect, the high level of trust that appears to be necessary to lead whole systems change was rarely if ever present within the early phase of the General Council.
The General Council of the army and the Putney debates, September - November 1647
The result of another attack upon parliament by a Presbyterian mob led many MPs, Lords, and the Speakers of both Houses – all recognised as Independents – to flee, and it was this attack that prompted Fairfax to consider occupying London to ‘restore’ order between 5 and 6 August 1647. The NMA HQ moved to Putney, about five miles southwest of Parliament but rather than the gesture encouraging Parliament to negotiate it did the opposite, and Parliament refused to pay the NMA anything in September. In response, the grandees agreed to call regular meetings of the General Council, on Thursdays, in Putney Parish Church.
The looming presence of the NMA and the debates in the General Council eventually had some effect on parliament because the soldiers received all their pay for the month of October 1647 and the future size of the Army was increased from 6400 in February to 26,400 in October. Lilburne wrote to warn the radical faction of the General Council of the likely consequence of all the meetings with the grandees, ‘be sure not to trust your great officers at the General’s quarters… their plausible but yet cunning and subtle policies, most unjustly stole the power both from your honest General [Fairfax] and your too flexible Agitators.’ (quoted in Woolrych, 2001: 65) The warning of Lilburne reflects an element of system theory that needs highlighting here: he seemed aware that there was no consensus about the nature of the problem facing the NMA and therefore the solutions would differ.
The grandees suspicions grew over the next few weeks when, fearful of the apparent backsliding of the NMA’s leaders in the General Council towards a negotiated settlement with the king, five of the most radical regiments dismissed their existing agitators (who were composed of a diverse and changing group) and elected a new set– the so-called New Agents – who drew up their own draft of a new constitution – The Case of the Army Truly Stated. The precise names and numbers of New Agents varied and there are sixteen different signatures involved at different times (Woolrych, 2001: 65-66), but in some ways it appears to be Leveller-inspired, though the very name ‘Leveller’ only came into the political lexicon at Putney, when Ireton suggested that the agitators were in favour of a political levelling. As such, the presence of external civilians at an Army conference would not, in and of itself, have aroused concern on the part of the grandees. In fact, the links between the London-based radicals who became known as the Levellers and the army agitators is complex: in some cases, army agitators were Levellers, but in others they were either just sympathetic towards them or even hostile. But this is to assume there was a distinct political group who recognized themselves as Levellers, when it is more likely that, originally at least, they were more kindred spirits than party zealots. Indeed, many of the soldier-representatives called themselves ‘adjutators’, owing their loyalty to the army, to differentiate their identity from the ‘London agents’ whose loyalty lay elsewhere, but the precise nature and loyalty of these representatives soon became confused as the level of frustration with parliament and the king grew exponentially as the summer leaked into the autumn.
The Case of the Army began by castigating the senior commanders for ignoring the promises they had made in the Solemn Engagement and trying to stop open debate about the constitution, especially the sovereignty of the people – by which they meant all men over 21 who were not ‘delinquents’ – that is, had fought for the royalists. In turn, the NMA should take whatever action was necessary to secure the ‘birth rights of freeborn English men.’ (Quoted in Morrill and Baker, 2001: 113) The document led to, and was put before, the General Council on Thursday 21 October, and it was this that ended up as a new document, after discussion at the General Council as The Agreement of the People. This claimed to have widespread support in the army, with nine of the twelve regiments of horse and seven of the twelve regiments of foot in agreement, and focused on four changes to resolve the problems of the existing (Long) Parliament: 1. Redistribution of MP’s seats in accordance with the population 2. Dissolution of the Long Parliament on 30 September 1648 3. Biannual parliamentary elections to a single House of Commons (abolition of the House Lords) 4. The new parliamentary structure was to have supremacy over the king.
In addition, there was to be freedom of religious conscience, the abolition of military conscription, indemnity for actions undertaken in the service of parliament by soldiers, legal equality, and ‘good’ laws for the safety and well-being of the people. The latter meant a written constitution that could not be over-written by parliament and would therefore protect the people from tyranny (De Krey, 2017: 128-29).
In effect, at this juncture, it looked as though the General Council had finally developed a collective understanding of the real problem and thus the opportunity presented itself to agree a solution. But that agreement concealed as much as it revealed. For the Levellers, the 1647 Agreement of the People was framed around the natural law of consent for ‘all men are equally and alike borne to like propriety, liberty and freedom.’ (Quoted in Baker, 2012: 99). The Agreement was discussed at the Putney debate in the Church on Thursday 28 October, and Ireton suggested the council should address this, rather than the earlier Case of the Army, and it was the Agreement, or rather the focus on ending the propertied nature of the electorate, that would render asunder the temporary unity of the grandees, the rest of the NMA, and the civilian Levellers. For Cromwell and Ireton, the very idea that people without a ‘fixed permanent interest’ – that is property qualification – should be part of the electorate was anathema and would, inevitably, lead to anarchy (De Krey, 2017: 147-53; Morrill and Baker, 2001: 121). Two civilian Levellers, Maximillian Petty and John Wildman, in conjunction with Agitator Trooper Everard and Captain Lewis Audley, spoke for the collective authors of the Case of the Army and began by insisting that the only legitimate power was that embedded in the sovereignty of the people, to be acknowledged by all the people through their individual assent (a procedural mechanism that was already embedded in the Solemn League and Covenant and a convention adopted by most of the Sectarian churches where public assent was common). But since the present parliament would never acquiesce to such a change, the NMA would have to enforce it. Cromwell, ever reluctant to take precipitate action, especially one that implied a republican government, replied that the constitution must have the support, not just of the army, but of the people – and at this conjunction, the king. Furthermore, Ireton would not countenance the Agreement’s insistence on a radical widening of the franchise, ‘this doth make me think that the meaning is, that every man that is an inhabitant is to be equally considered’ (quoted in Morrill and Baker, 2001: 118). 7 This is precisely what Wildman had in mind: ‘Every person in England has as clear a right to elect his representatives as the greatest person in England. I conceive that’s the undeniable maxim of the Government, that all government is in the free consent of the people.’ (Quoted in Morrill and Baker, 2001: 118) Ireton’s repeated denial of this prompted Thomas Rainsborough’s famous response, ‘The poorest he that is in England hath a right to live as the greatest he … I think it’s clear that the poorest man in England is not at all bound in a strict sense to that Government that he hath not had a voice to put himself under…..’ Ireton suggested that the only alternatives to the limited changes he proposed were either a total democracy –‘all the people to a man’ – which would lead to anarchy, or an army dictatorship acting as ‘the conclusive authority of the kingdom’ and neither was viable (Taft, 2001: 186). So bitter did the dispute between Ireton and the Levellers become that Ireton shouted at Wildman ‘I would not have you talk’ (quoted in Mendle, 2001: 143). At this critical juncture, the notes of the official clerk, William Clarke, are inconclusive, but according to the New Agents’ version of events, a vote was taken within the General Council which overwhelmingly supported the radicals’ case against that of the grandees, with only three votes against, presumably including that of Cromwell and Ireton. The problem was, as the Levellers had always suggested, the authority to execute the democratic decisions of the General Council lay not with the majority, but with those three dissenters. As such the body representing the whole system of the NMA was never intended by the grandees as a democratic executive body but rather an advisory body, whose most important role was to keep the NMA together rather than change the country’s constitution. We might note the importance of the third point in the systems’ change model appertaining to the real problem and solution: the contending bodies on the General Council never reconciled their different answers to these points.
Pamphlets condemning both the grandees and the king then appeared, and reports filtered in that as many as twelve regiments were electing agitators, and it became clear to Cromwell that rather than the Putney debates releasing the steam valve of discontent within the NMA and ensuring unanimity they were actually encouraging discontent and disunity. Second, the Levellers were increasingly hostile to Charles as the king and to the monarchy in principle, and they were insisting that there should be no further negotiations with him, even though the grandees were still committed, at this time, to the view that the future constitution would retain the monarchy. Quite where the limit of the royal veto, or Negative Voice, might sit was unclear, with Ireton remaining the most traditional. Third, the king’s belligerence – and the suspicion that he was negotiating with the Scots – generated a level of anxiety that was best met in the field with the united army, not in the divisions surfacing within Putney. After all, as Cromwell insisted, ‘we all speak to the same end, and the mistakes are only in the way.’ (Quoted in Morrill, 3: 2003: 570).
To that end, on 8 November 1647, after the suffrage motion had been passed by the General Council that included all men except servants and beggars (so overturning Ireton’s preference for a more limited propertied vote), Cromwell may have (we have few records of the debates on this day) concluded that the mounting problems required a quick vote on suffrage and then a return to the regiments. This was primarily because Levellers outside the debates appeared to be calling for mutiny, and some regiments appeared to be suggesting the removal of the king, while others seemed to be moving to restore the king. Assuming Cromwell called for unity above everything else and accepted the need for a general rendezvous of the army to acclaim the agreement, the General Council advised Fairfax to send all members of the General Council back to their regiments until recalled, and Fairfax, in turn, promised to secure another 6 weeks’ pay for all the soldiers. But he added that if the disorder continued then he would resign, and, given his popularity amongst the NMA generally, that was not an empty threat (Taft, 2001: 188).
The result of the committee’s debates was not the radical Agreement but the more moderate Remonstrance to be agreed by all the Army’s regiments at the rendezvous. The Leveller faction then suggested that once they had all returned to their regiments, the NMA should hold a grand rendezvous to affirm the conclusions of the General Council by popular acclamation – but Fairfax, wary of their intentions, insisted on three small ones. At each one Fairfax demanded that all soldiers pledge their loyalty to him and the NMA – not to Parliament- and to sweeten that there was a promise of backpay (Morrill and Baker, 2001: 123).
The first such Army rendezvous was at Corkbush Field, near Ware, on 15 November 1647, and Fairfax along with the senior officers went to present the Remonstrance to the seven assembled regiments. However, after prompting from the supporters of the Agreement, Colonel Thomas Harrison’s regiment turned up, without an official invitation, without most of their officers, and intending to acclaim the Agreement, then march on the Commons and ‘purge the house of score members’ (quoted in De Krey, 2017: 160). They wore the Agreement of the People in their hats alongside a slogan: ‘England’s freedom, soldiers’ rights’, and Cromwell personally ripped these from the hats and issued a warning to all that their backpay would not be secure if the NMA was divided before parliament, and instead all the regiments would be disbanded, and no back pay would ever be paid. At this point most of the regiments agreed. However, several officers refused to sign the Remonstrance and several, including a Colonel Eyers and Major Scott, were arrested. Colonel Thomas Rainsborough then attempted to give Fairfax a copy of the Agreement, but he refused to accept it. Col. Robert Lilburne’s (another brother of John Lilburne) regiment of foot also arrived, again uninvited, and led by Captain-Lieutenant William Bray (Gentles, 2001: 102). When they were admonished by a major from Col. Pride’s regiment, Lilburne’s troops began to throw stones at the major, cutting his head (Gentles, 2001: 155). In response Cromwell and his closest officers rode directly into the regiment, ordered them to remove the Agreement from their hats and had eight or nine soldiers arrested for refusing. Fairfax court martialled all nine on the spot, then pardoned six, and ordered the remaining three to draw lots for execution. Trooper Richard Arnold drew the short straw and was immediately shot by the other two (Gentles, 2001: 103).
Fairfax, who first faced down Harrison’s regiment, then had the Remonstrance read to each of the seven regiments. First, an indemnity would be granted for all actions occurring during the war; second, military conscription (‘pressing’) would be abolished; third, the current parliament would be dissolved; fourth, future parliaments would be called via elections on set timetables and, in a suitably ambiguous phrase: ‘freedom and equality of Elections … to render the House of Commons as near as may be an equal Representative of the People that are to elect.’ (Quoted in Gentles, 2001: 154) And just to cement approval, every single member of each regiment would be required to sign the document, to bear witness to their approval and submission to the authority of Fairfax and the Council of War. The other two rendezvous in Essex and Surrey witnessed mass compliance but eight regiments were ordered not to rendezvous, including those of Harrison, Ingoldsby, Ireton, Lilburne, Scrope, Twisleton, and Whalley (Gentles, 2001: 103-4). The Levellers may have been growing in popularity and many soldiers probably supported the Agreement, but Cromwell and Fairfax remained more popular and when the choice was between mutiny and compliance to their orders –most soldiers remained loyal to the institution that had brought the civil war to an end and were best placed to address their pay and indemnity concerns, the NMA. That, plus the incisive action of Cromwell at Corkbush, effectively suppressed the discontent, at least in the short run (Gentles, 2001: 105).
Here we can see the significance of ensuring that the system in the room adequately reflects the system outside the room, for while the representatives in the room had achieved a democratic mandate for their radical Agreement, support for the agitators was never solid or guaranteed, and certainly not when faced not with the common enemy the king, but rather the organization to which most owed loyalty, the NMA. This, of course, is a common problem for all systems approaches – do those representing the system in the room embody all or even a majority of those outside the room? It is ironic that this representative gap appeared to decrease momentarily when the king escaped custody, and the Second Civil War ignited.
The vote of no address and the 2nd civil war 1648
The residue of Ireton’s declining faith in the king evaporated with Charles’ escape to the Isle of Wight on 11 November 1647. Five weeks later, on 9 January 1648, a publication, probably written by Ireton, emerged called, A Declaration from Sir Thomas Fairfax and the General Council of the Army, of their resolutions to adhere to the Parliament in their proceedings concerning the King. The Declaration insisted that any agreement would not be at the expense of the religion, rights, liberties, or safety of the people because Salus populi, solus Rex (the welfare of the people is the primary concern of the king). 8
On 17 January 1648, those sentiments became embodied in a Vote of No Address supported by both Cromwell and Ireton in the Commons, in favour of terminating all negotiations with the king – who was now exposed as engaged in negotiations with the Scots to invade England. Cromwell demanded that ‘thou shalt not suffer a hypocrite to reign’ (Quoted in Gentles, 2001: 109). For the other Army grandees, and especially Ireton, the real crime of the king was in breaking the covenant with his subjects, and ironically it was the Putney debates that sealed the king’s future because Ireton had put himself out on a limb for the sake of the king and against the wishes of many in the NMA. That was compounded by continuing unrest in the NMA, manifest in the refusal of Fairfax’s own Lifeguard to disband in late February 1648 until its pay demands were met. The order had been legitimated by a meeting of the General Council, not just an order from Fairfax himself, and the Army’s Council of War condemned the disturbance and sentenced William Clarke, the regiment’s agitator, to death for his part in the mutiny. Peace was only restored when the Council of War rescinded Clarke’s death sentence and that of three others from Harrison’s regiment. It also reprieved ex-Corporal William Thompson who was arrested by Ireton in the Commons for trying to spread discontent and threatened with imprisonment but released (De Krey, 2017: 175-76).
Now that Charles had reneged on all his promises, Ireton was done with him, and his suspicions were confirmed when the Vote of No Address was itself revoked in the Presbyterian-dominated Commons in April 1648. As the country slithered towards renewed conflict, royalists took Berwick and Carlisle and an invasion by Charles’ newly allied Scots looked ever more likely. Just as it appeared that the situation could not get any worse, it did. News came that a new petition was being discussed by regimental agitators at the NMA’s camp at St Albans, and then Captain John Reynolds (from Cromwell’s own regiment) arrived at Army HQ Windsor and was arrested along with several other officers from Col. Rich’s regiment. The grandees responded first by Ireton leading Cromwell, Harrison and the rest of the officers in a prayer meeting at Windsor on 29-30 April 1648. This was common practice in order to ensure that – after 6 years - should they be victorious again, they could take the victory as a sign from God that they were doing his work and had taken the righteous path (De Krey, 2017: 176-79).
Confirmation of the NMAs’ righteousness was not long in coming. A rising in Wales was repressed by the summer of 1648, with Cromwell successfully besieging Pembroke (11 July), while Fairfax besieged Colchester (28 August). In the north, the Scots were not the same soldiers that had fought originally against the king but mainly untested troops under the poor leadership of the Duke of Hamilton, and between the 14-25 August, in a series of running battles, Cromwell’s 8600 troops dismantled Hamilton’s 20,000 soldiers piece by piece until they surrendered. Such was the overwhelming success of the NMA after this final victory that parliament authorised 6 months payment for the first half of 1848 (Gentles, 2001: 105).
Cromwell and Ireton, saw their second victory over the king as a sign that God had spoken for them and against Charles, but it was probably another month before both men were reconciled to the conclusion that Charles would have to be executed, rather than just exiled, displaced or deposed (Brady, 2006: 23).
It was, then, the second civil war and the continuing intransigence and duplicity of the king that finally generated the cohesion of the whole system of the NMA’s General Council in their attempts to address the problems of the constitution. At last, their appeared to be a consensus emerging that the radical constitutional changes suggested by the Levellers and the radicals within the NMA were the only appropriate changes to the system if the country was to avoid further bloodshed and disquiet. So why did the final set of meetings of the whole system not facilitate such changes?
The General Councils of the army at Whitehall, november 1648 and December-January 1649
The last General Council was held in Whitehall between December 1648 and January 1649, after the grandees had approved the Remonstrance on 25 November (De Krey, 2017: 200-203; Farr, 2006: 149). News of the progress of the Remonstrance also spurred on the negotiations between the king and 15 parliamentary commissioners, led by Denzil Holles, and the next day, the 27 November, the Treaty of Newport was delivered by Holles to the king. This required Charles to accept responsibility for the war, abolish the bishops, allow parliament to control military and civil appointments for twenty years, and cede control over Ireland until the rebellion was put down. Charles refused to agree to the total abolition of the episcopacy or to see his closest friends and allies lose their lands, but he seemed reluctantly acquiescent to the rest. In fact, Charles had already informed James Butler (Duke then Marquess of Ormond and Commander of the Irish royalist army) that he would not abide by any agreement, whatever his public statements.
In turn, the publication of the Treaty of Newport so irked the NMA that on the same day Fairfax moved Army HQ and 7000 troops to Whitehall, near Parliament, to prevent the London Militia, or at least the Presbyterian elements within it, from causing more trouble. On 5 December, despite all that had happened, parliament voted (129 – 83) to continue negotiating with the king, which left the NMA in general – and Ireton in particular - with a dilemma: self-evidently parliament was never going to agree to put Charles on trial, so should it be dissolved or merely purged? The former was quicker and more efficient but for the sake of retaining some degree of legitimacy – at least in the eyes of the Levellers – Ireton decided on a purge. Parliament was neither interested in purging itself, nor in the NMA’s Remonstrance, and so what came to be known as Pride’s Purge occurred on 6 December 1648 when, of 231 MPs considered hostile to the NMA, 45 were arrested and 186 excluded by soldiers of Colonel Pride’s regiment. On the evening of the purge Cromwell returned to London, having taken no part in it – for either political or military reasons. Fairfax remained confined to his bed with another convenient illness.
The remaining MPs comprised the so-called Rump Parliament and immediately annulled the Treaty of Newport, and at the same time, a committee of sixteen met to try and thrash out a new Agreement of the General Council within the so-called Whitehall Debates. Ultimately, as Farr (2006: 181) suggests, Cromwell and Ireton’s desire for securing the widest support possible from the General Council also diluted the proposals to the point where few of those present felt zealously disposed to support it. Nevertheless, the draft of the new Agreement was put before the Army’s Council of Officers at Whitehall on 11 December.
The Whitehall General Council comprised 160 people and was dominated by junior officers, but it also included 36 civilians and four Levellers. There was also one woman present, Elizabeth Poole, who claimed to be a prophet, who had allegedly seen the presence of God with the NMA – though definitely not the Levellers - and tried to persuade the grandees not to execute the king or abandon the Agreement. The General Council proceeded to debate the draft and voted according to basic democratic procedures, and that, in the assessment of the royalist observer John Evelyn who had somehow managed to secrete himself into the room, led to ‘disorder and irreverence as young, raw, and ill-spoken men’ appeared to ignore the conventions of deference to rank normally associated with the Army (Quoted in De Krey, 2017: 204). In fact, there were seven votes over the 4 days (16, 18, 21 and 26 December) and the voting record reveals Ireton as the most conservative senior officer and consistently being supported by most of those of colonel rank or above, but almost always being outvoted by the more radical junior officers and soldiers. Yet there were senior officers (particularly Whalley and Waller) who warned that though they had coerced parliament into acquiescence, they should not do the same for the people as a whole (Temple, 2023: 272-75).
The final draft of the 2nd Agreement presented to the Rump parliament on 20 January 1649 repeated the Christian religion requirement, though that did not include ‘popery and prelacy’, and also insisted that conscription should be retained but only for domestic service, not overseas operations, and that the wording of the restraints on legal intervention by parliament should not prevent the forthcoming trial of the king. The constitution proposed noted that only those signed up to the 2nd Agreement would be allowed to participate in the politics of the country. That, of course, was an attempt to prevent the very likely possibility of an extended franchise returning a pro-royalist parliament. Nonetheless, Ireton was firmly of the opinion that the indictment and possible abolition of the monarchy necessitated a radical restriction of the franchise, even if a significant proportion of the population would be disenfranchised by it. Finally, biennial parliaments with fixed dates would operate with the wider franchise (the Lords were not mentioned). The Levellers had requested the inclusion of several radical social measures, such as the use of English in court, the right to a jury trial, the right not to incriminate oneself, and an end to jail for debt, locally elected mayors, sheriffs and magistrates, as well as various commercial measures aimed at restricting the monopolies control over trade, the end of church tithes, and support for the poor, but they were content to leave these to the first of the new parliaments under the new constitutional framework and locally redrawn parliamentary constituency boundaries (De Krey, 2017: 209-10).
As far as Lilburne was concerned, the 2 nd Agreement would first be approved by the General Council, then by all the NMA’s regiments, then by the nation. For the Levellers, to proceed with the Agreement on the basis of just a vote in the Rump Parliament without popular acclamation was to open it up to future changes with a change in parliament, but for Cromwell and Ireton, the dangers of any further delay would open up another window that would allow the royalist to reorganize. Moreover, to put changes to the people was a hostage to fortune, especially given the radical intent behind the 2nd Agreement. Instead, legitimacy would remain not with the people but with parliament. Despite this, the General Council did agree to the printing of thousands of copies of the 2nd Agreement for popular distribution, and even ordered parchment copies which would allow people to affirm their agreement by signature. However, as the debates continued, on 25 December the Council of the Army issued Heads of the CHARGE AGAINST THE KING, Drawn up by The General Council of the Army.
Here was the fatal weakness of the attempt to change the system: the purging of parliament left the NMA in prime position to enact what the General Council had agreed but that same act undermined the consistent warning of the Levellers that the NMA must retain support of parliament and the people. In effect the purge had radically reconstructed the whole system to mean not just the NMA and its subordinated parliament but, as the General Council were about to find out, the senior leadership of the NMA. Moreover, the timing of the 2nd Agreement was what finally undermined it.
The regicide and beyond
To all intents and purposes, the General Council had, for the second time, generated some kind of consensus based upon a democratic majority about how the constitutional system was to change. Was the system in the room about to proceed with an array of incremental but radical changes to the governance structure of the country? For a brief moment it might have appeared so: the Second Agreement of the People was presented to the Commons on 20 January 1649. But it was never debated, nor did the NMA remind the Commons of its remiss, because of the second event: the trial of the king that started on the same day and that effectively stymied any possibility of the General Council generating the changes it had already agreed.
Over a sixteen day period, there were nineteen trial sessions, and these occurred at the same time as the Whitehall debates and Ireton attended both. Charles was charged with a: Wicked design to erect and uphold an unlimited and tyrannical power to rule according to his will, and to overthrow the rights and liberties of the people… take away and make void the foundations thereof … hath traitorously and maliciously levied war against the present Parliament, and the people therein represented. (Quoted in Farr, 2006: 187).
On 25 January Ireton, Harrison, and a few other officers drew up the death sentence while Charles prepared for martyrdom. Cromwell may have been a reluctant regicide, waiting to see the hand of God in all this, but Ireton was by then convinced of the righteousness of the decision: the king would die. He was sentenced to be beheaded and that occurred 3 days later, on 30 January 1649, on a scaffold erected outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall.
On 7 February the monarchy was abolished by the Rump Parliament, and the new executive leadership of the country was embodied in the 41-person Council of State of the Commonwealth (which included Cromwell and Fairfax but not Ireton). That month the General Council of the Army was abandoned, several soldiers and officers were dismissed for petitioning the Council of Officers, and Lilburne was imprisoned in the Tower for organizing ‘meetings … dangerous and prejudicial to the safety of the Commonwealth.’ (Quoted in De Krey, 2017: 234) The Levellers’ response was Overton’s The Hunting of the Foxes which denounced all the institutions of the new republic, especially the abolition of the General Council of the Army, which the article insisted should be the sovereign authority over the NMA. That effectively severed the links between the Levellers and most of their supporters in the NMA. Cromwell was in no mood for compromise and told the new Council of State meeting: ‘You have no other way to deal with these men but to break them in pieces … if you do not break them, they will break you.’ (Quoted in De Krey, 2017: 234) A failed mutiny at Burford on 13-15 May 1649 marked the last chance for the Levellers to influence the new leaders of the Commonwealth. The rebellious regiments were now dispersed across the country and unable to come together, while the common people of the country appeared more concerned with their increasing poverty than constitutional problems. The system had changed – but not in the way the General Council had envisaged because it never had any executive authority, even if the radical soldiers and their Leveller allies hoped that it would.
On 20 April 1653 Cromwell purged the Rump parliament and set in motion the eventual shift to military rule. On 12 December 1653, General John Lambert and supportive MPs took the opportunity while the rest were at prayer to vote to dissolve Parliament and it was replaced with the Instrument of Government (designed by Lambert), and 4 days later Cromwell became Lord Protector. Amongst the claims that sought to legitimize the (re)turn from collective to individual authority were that Cromwell (post the campaigns in Scotland and Ireland) embodied the classical heroes of Rome and that an individual would be more accountable to the people than a collective body of representatives (Barber, 1998: 207-08). 9
In 1656 a proposal surfaced to alter the Instrument of Government and turn it into a hereditary protectorate. Cromwell did not take the title of ‘King’, probably because his retinue of senior military officers would not have supported it, though many of Cromwell’s supporters claimed that the regicide was not against the principle of individual authority but of the particular nature of Charles I. Richard Cromwell, Oliver’s son, was Lord Protector for 9 months in 1658-59 when Oliver died but it was an unstable system, and despite the attempt by supporters of the ‘Good Old Cause’ the republicans were hopelessly split. The restoration of the monarchy in Charles II occurred in May 1660, eleven years after his father was executed, but with some of the constraints that his father had lost his life trying to resist.
Conclusion
So, what can we learn about systems change from the actions of the case study: the NMA’s General Council between 1647 and 1649? And what does it imply for system change almost four centuries later? To illustrate this, I will briefly refer to the climate emergency as a system change problem and consider whether a systems approach to leadership is actually useful? Let us return to the conventional assumptions about the requirements for successful system change.
Start with the purpose and generate a coalition of the willing
Well, there was certainly a coalition of the willing involved, though the purpose changed across the three phases of the General Council, from resolving the issues facing soldiers and preventing the Presbyterian faction from allowing the king back without any demands for constitutional changes. And we know that the nature of the purpose is a crucial foundation stone for contemporary leadership, and, in its absence, change is highly unlikely and probably pointless. In contemporary environmental system terms this implies a better strategy for generating a coalition of the willing beyond relying on most of us to recycle our rubbish or Extinction Rebellion to disrupt public events or transport systems. But note that a coalition of the willing is not the same as a consensus of the whole system and the latter, either in mid 17th century England or 21st century globally, was not and is not a likely possibility. To this end leadership theories and models that posit collective agreement as either the prerequisite for change or the end result of change, seem closer to fantasy than possibility.
Get the whole system in the room and map the whole system
The whole vertical system of the parliamentary army was well represented in the room with representatives of senior leaders, middle to junior officers, and common soldiers, and in addition there was always a group of civilian radicals, primarily Levellers. So, if the system is defined as the primary group intent on holding the king to account and constructing an alternative constitution, then the whole group was in the room. But if the whole system is widened to encompass the common people of the country, or even the royalist faction, then clearly the whole system was not in the room. Moreover, the final decision of the grandees was to cast aside the warnings of the Levellers that the people would need to confirm their support – which they never did. But this raises another issue: is it ever possible not just to get the whole system in the room, but to get the whole system to agree? Does this demand a level of consensus that is almost impossible to envisage for two reasons: first, unless we are looking at a closed system then each system is really just a sub-system of another system that extends infinitely. For example, ‘the system’ in the civil war is not just the warring parties and the civilians of the various countries but all the systems that were providing resources to the warring parties, including those countries such as France and the Netherlands. Inevitably some pragmatic decision needs to be taken to extend the system but also to contract it to a size that can operate as a viable semi-independent system. Second, even such a pragmatic reduction still presumes no one loses, and that a consensus or at least majority agreement is viable; but this may not be possible. In contemporary debates we can see how these issues are a persistent thorn in the side of all those seeking to lead system change – because it’s often unclear where the boundaries of the viable system lie and because a consensus is so rare. After all, despite the fact that 99% of the science suggests we are heading for a climate emergency – and literally the whole planetary system is involved - it is also self-evident that no consensus exists amongst global leaders or followers as to just what (if anything) needs to happen now. So, the critical point here is that action may soon be required beyond that limited to the collaborative acts associated with leadership. As Cromwell concluded, in some cases a commander might be required to coerce a level of compliance unachievable through rational debate and peaceful persuasion.
Get beyond the surface symptoms to form a collective understanding of the real problem and therefore the solution
This element seems to change across time in the case study. Initially it was really only the Levellers and the radical agitators that focused on changing the constitution as the real problem, rather than the military grievances and some minimal restraints on the king that predominated amongst the army’s grandees. Only by the last General Council meetings had the radicals’ demands become mainstream, but even then, the demand for a major expansion of and changes to the system of suffrage was never accepted by all – and certainly not by the grandees like Cromwell and Ireton who actually held executive power. To some extent this reflects the previous point about the difficulty of achieving a consensus and the same criticism holds: if we cannot agree on the real problem, or the causes of the real problem, do we need to recognize that in the absence of such a consensus, system change needs to work through those most interested in achieving it, not all those that are part of the problem? Moreover, as with the civil war, there are often diametrically opposed understandings of the problem and therefore the solution, and the underlying premise of systems theory – that the system is unitary and embodies a single (and self-evident) solution, does not capture the agonistic and antagonistic diversity at the heart of many systems.
Recognize the responsibility for all in the continuation of the problem, however unintentional, and thus its resolution
Recognising that both the grandees, the common soldiers, and the Levellers each played a part in the continuation of the problems facing the country in the late 1640s was always going to be the most difficult element of change. Neither Ireton not Cromwell really wanted to remove the king until his obstinate recalcitrance persuaded them that the Levellers and radicals were right, but it was also the very refusal of the Levellers, especially Lilburne, to countenance anything but a radical reconstruction of the whole society that saw the support of most soldiers ebb away just when they needed it most. If we take the climate emergency again as a systems’ change project, then one of the most difficult elements is getting most people to recognize their role in the problem and change their behaviour. But this is to construe all agents as equally culpable in the system, when we know that to paraphrase Orwell, actually some (organizational) agents are more equally culpable than others and indeed have greater influence over the system. So, while the General Council embodied significant influence in an advisory capacity, it did not carry the executive powers of the grandees in the NMA. And while the general population carries the capacity to promote good practice with regards to climate change, the fundamental actors in the system are governments and corporate bodies, not individuals.
Generate a common language and narrative
The narrative developed by the General Council developed across the time of the meetings, but it seems to have been approaching something of a consensus about the need for radical change towards the end. However, that commonality was only likely to prevail while the enemies of the General Council threatened the very existence of the NMA, and the grandees needed the support of the rank and file. But on two occasions events beyond the General Council’s control – in the wider system – threatened to undermine that solidarity. First, when the king escaped custody and another war beckoned the Putney General Council was abandoned, and second when the king’s trial threatened to generate popular discontent, the grandees took the opportunity – or were forced (depending on your perspective) - to abandon the Whitehall General Council and revert to conventional military hierarchical command. At this point the common narrative fell apart. This also points to the problem highlighted in point two: what exactly is the whole system – the NMA or all the agents and agencies involved in the situation? If it is the latter, then no plan can possibly cover all possibilities. Or as the British Prime Minister Chamberlain allegedly responded to a question about the greatest challenges for a political leader: ‘Events, dear boy, events.’ In effect, for all that strategic leadership is concerned with long term visions and plans, it is always the case that contingencies inevitably throw leadership designs out of kilter.
Plan before acting
The very fact that three substantive sequences of democratically-inspired meetings occurred within the most hierarchical of all organizations, suggests that they were committed to planning before acting. But the agreements that the plans encompassed were never watertight and, ironically, the military coup enacted through Pride’s Purge, followed by the execution of the king, and the abolition of the General Council and its replacement by the Council of State and then by military dictatorship, were all acts that were not really planned by the General Council but rather acts of the grandees. In short, the General Council did not adequately reflect the system but then again, the future is never determined by the present. After all, did not the Prussian Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke warn that ‘No plan of operations reaches with any certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy’s main force.’ 10
Focus on key changes, advance incrementally, and constantly monitor progress
As the focus of the changes discussed switched across time, and the key changes suggested by the Levellers for the radical expansion of, and changes to, the democratic system were discarded, the key changes became removing the king and parliamentary opposition, both of which were radical not incremental. Moreover, the progress that was monitored never revealed the kind of mass support for the Commonwealth that might have embedded the republic, no matter how many changes were introduced. Indeed, the constitutional changes that were considered in the General Council meetings never really saw the light of day until almost three hundred years later, though it is worth noting that Charles II accepted some of the constraints that his father had thought outrageous, and the Glorious Revolution that saw the displacement of James II in 1688 might not have happened without the civil wars. Perhaps this is an important issue for measuring change: what time frame are we considering to monitor these changes? The conflict in Gaza, for example, may appear recent, but its contemporary roots lie in the construction of the Israeli state in 1948, while its historical roots go back much further. And as so often, while the UN might be considered part of the system for addressing these problems, it sits outside the conflict system and has little control over the conflict. In the climate case we have had over 40 years of international treaties since the Kyoto protocol of 1992, but these have had precious little, if any, effect upon the rise of global temperature. So, we have pursued an incremental approach and monitored the effects – and they have failed. In the civil war example, the end result of a failed attempt at system change was regicide, followed by the revenge of Charles II upon the regicides; should we now prepare for ecocide?
Footnotes
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.