Caroline Boswell is an associate professor of Humanistic studies and European History at the University of Wisconsin. According to the university’s website, Boswell’s works focus on popular dissent and changes in government during times of political/social crisis. This is reflected in her book Disaffection in Everyday Life in Interregnum England, as the book is dedicated to unpacking the nuance and realities of popular movements during the tumultuous decade(ish) after Charles the first was executed, including the Interregnum, Protectorate, and the very beginnings of Charles the Seconds reign.
In writing this book, Boswell seeks to better understand and explore how popular action, protests, and everyday social interactions were used by ordinary people to influence the policies of the Interregnum government. By extension, Boswell demonstrates how the existence of these points of conflict between the state and its subjects could and often did undermine the states legitimacy when the people felt that their traditional rights were being violated by said state and its representatives; a process exploited by royalist authors to sway the public towards supporting Charles II’s bid for the throne. Whether discussing the relocation of marketplaces (21) or the Sectarian associations of soldiers and the Excise tax (130 and 165 respectively), Boswell emphasizes how disagreements and conflicts between the state and its subjects were used by royalist propagandists and authors to tie an idealized past where these issues did not exist to the return of the monarchy, regardless of the monarchies’ actual position on the issues or the common peoples involved stances on the matter of royal restoration.
Structurally, the book is divided into two parts that focus on the places where unrest occurred and the sources of that unrest respectively. The book is thus not chronologically based, as each development and concept is examined more or less in its entirety before moving on to the next topic; despite this, Boswell does manage to create a sense of continuity and interconnectedness however, as the later chapters are not only positioned in the very places discussed in the first chapters, they are also constantly referring to common principles and justifications established early on as the traditional means by which common people express dissatisfaction and resistance towards unpopular policies. For example, policies introduced in an attempt to police morality by the state discussed around page 80 are referenced in subsequent chapters dealing with the public perception and reception of soldiers as the ones tasked with enforcing these deeply unpopular policies.
The points the author chooses to focus on as areas of conflict between English citizens and Parliamentary leaders are all interesting and insightful into the mindset of those on both ends of government policy. I personally found the chapter on drinking to be the most interesting due to the unintentional parallels between the policies that attempted to regulate public consumption of alcohol described and those of the American government almost three centuries later (not so much in their implementation but in their perception by the public). One particular commonality between many of these government policies worth noting was the exacerbation of societal tensions and issues meant to be reduced by said policies. To put it another way, many of the states attempts to reduce unrest by regulating behaviors only increased popular dissatisfaction with the government, as these measures were seen as arbitrary interference within daily affairs by an incompetent and potentially illegitimate wielder of power. Boswell articulates this point most clearly when discussing later implementations of the much-hated excise tax as protests against this practice led formerly staunch Parliamentarian towns to oppose the governments efforts (197-198).
One area in which Parliamentarian policy was in direct and expected conflict with the will of the English people was the toleration of religious minorities in England, specifically in the New Model Army. Boswell shows how despite the small number of religious nonconformists actually present in England the imagined threat of heretical teachings that upended established norms and customs led to animosity and even violence against religious ‘Others’ and those associated with them by ordinary English citizens (206-209). While questions are raised at the end of the chapter on ‘Fanatics’ as to whether repression was as preferable as people evidently remembered it to be following the Restoration, this section nonetheless shows how dissatisfaction with the government did not need to be uniform in character (i.e. each town saw a different group as religiously ‘Other’) to be seen as evidence of royalist support by both Parliament and Royalists.
Overall, I would say that Boswell’s book is an interesting and very insightful look into the mindset of ordinary people during a very unordinary time. The book was not difficult to read nor was it overly long while simultaneously offering good arguments for its positions. This work makes me want to look into how the arguments made by common people during the Interregnum for resisting certain policies might’ve changed in the following years and how many of the ideas expressed by them made it into our own history.
