Restless Revolutionaries

“But when you talk about destruction don't you know that you can count me out” sang John Lennon.
Marc Bolan thought that the Beatle had too much to say on the subject and replied that the Beatle having a Rolls Royce because it was good for his voice didn't fool The Children of the Revolution.

With that author Clive Bloom covers some of the thoughts and actions of The Children of the Revolution in a very stimulating first chapter named as such. Bloom states that the fight for a British republic has had a violent and tragic history; not only because of its failures but that the participants perhaps lost up to 35,000 lives. Nowadays only but a few are half remembered and even then mostly ignored by modern histories. To be a revolutionary one has to have a moral universe, one that will make the future different than that of the present, have a vision of making things better. Revolutionaries fight because others say that there is no hope of changing and all will remain as before. Bloom states that in almost all cases covered in this book he would have “....stood aside and let them get on with their better future...” I indeed relate to that. I may have been a better red than dead type back in the day.

Bloom claims that Britain has a myth of political compromise and consensus and that reform has come through national debate. This is a fallacy as those that fought for a republic were consigned to little but a few paragraphs in history and rarely considered. In truth those such as Luddites, Tolpuddle Martyrs and Chartists were at the forefront of eventual change. As well as the Irish struggles for republican independence there have also there have also been 2 uprisings in Wales, one lowland Scottish civil war and a highlands' rebellion. Add also uprising's in Derbyshire and Kent, five attempts to assassinate the entire cabinet, numerous attempts to take out members of the royal family, 3 invasions from France, an attempt to seize Canada and various revolts in Australia. There have even been shenanigans in the jungles of Venezuela on behalf of the dream of British republicanism.

In the 18th and 19th century these republican revolutionaries often considered themselves “....gentleman who had lost money and fallen into the void between squirearchy and the respectable tradesman class, failures in everything but self-belief.” John Bellingham, the assassin of British PM Spencer Perceval, claimed his business was ruined while working for the government is but one example the author provides. Failure in business was the “...curious thread that unites...” those in the search for Republicanism. Their actions were “clearly defined”, they were happy with those actions as they were certain of their cause and conscious of the outcome. Whenever the leaders were sentenced in court there was calm and even exultant. Though they acted on behalf of those such as the poor but were never in fact of them.

When the revolutionaries used acts of terror the use of “....agents provocateurs, black propaganda, scaremongering, spies and deliberate falsification of history...” was “... almost the prerogative of the British state in its defensive position.” These acts of terror were useful from the time of the Elizabethan age with state involvement of the entrapment of Catholics, democrats, anarchists through to nationalists of Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the various overseas dominions. This was required in retaining mass support for the state. The desire of the state was to maintain order and with that property rights. John Lennon was well aware of this with his lyric in Revolution.

Bloom then takes us on a guided tour of the so-called fight for a republic by various Britain's. So-called fight? I suppose that depends on what one calls a fight. The Irish issues are covered in what I would almost describe as “A brief History.” In my opinion this book itself would have been far better called A brief History of British Republicanism. The coverage of the civil wars of the 1640s has been covered in great depth over the years as has the Irish fight for an independent republic and these events take up some long chapters. This sounds like criticism and it is. The author writes in the preface that this is the only book in recent times that is a detailed book on the subject. With that he has to deliver and with that he has written an interesting book but for this reader there must be more surely.

With that in mind I am going to admit to enjoying large chunks of this read for the sheer fascination of the subject. I have come across events and characters, minor in the scheme of things admittedly, that I would enjoy reading about in more depth. The author also gives some serious food for thought along the way as to the export of the republican ideals of Britain to various other parts of the planet with the US, France and Australia to name but a few. Influential were the likes of Thomas Hobbes via Leviathan and John Locke with Second Treatise of Government. Locke was writing as early as 1690 about the “preservation..... of property” as being the end of government responsibility. Later the author covers such luminaries as Thomas Spence and Thomas Paine and their influence on the republican ideals.

Flags as the emblem of republican revolution, or “defiance” as the authors says, made for interesting times for courts over the years.
In 1780 London rioters used black flags along with the young flag of the fledgling republic of the USA to show defiance towards the establishment. The French tricolour was despised by the authorities. That flag was revolutionary and also sometimes Jacobin. A red flag had been hoisted as early as the Nore and Spithead mutinies of 1797 and had confused a judge to no end at the trial of one mutineer. “defiance” and “mutiny” said his lordship but n officer replied that they in fact wished to fight under it as the Dutch had stolen that flag, and they wished to restore it! A dumbfounded silence followed.
A green, red and white tricolour was also known to be used as a flag of republican defiance. It was known to be used at Peterloo, the Charterist had adopted it and as late as the jubilee of George V in 1935, “two maverick households spoiled the celebrations” by flying that flag. There was an elaborate flag at the “...disaster...” of the 1839 at Bossenden Wood. The Welsh use of a white flag in calf's blood at Merthyr Tydfil in 1831 may be the first use of a red flag for “...overtly political purposes”, more so than the naval mutiny mentioned previously. Tricolours owe their origin to revolutionary events hence the Irish taking up a tricolour.

When it comes to the revolutionary's themselves we get a large range of political beliefs from all spectrums be that those from the Internationalist Left through to the Nationalist Right. The fight comes in what are now many long ignored events. The Cato Street Conspiracy with one Arthur Thistlewood and William Davidson are but one example covered. John Nichols Thom and the above mentioned Bossenden Wood another. This was a final peasant's revolt says the author.

I was interested in Australia and its links to British republicanism. After treachery no longer became used against revolutionaries, back then a death sentence if guilty, sedition became the charge in trials and with that many Irish republicans were sent to Australian penal colonies. In Australia one individual received 100 lashes for merely saying that he agreed with Thomas Paine. The transported Irish plotted and eventually Castle Hill at Parramatta was taken with the intention of marching on Sydney. The more famous event of the Eureka Stockade at Ballarat in Victoria during the gold rush was almost a “Boston Tea Party” moment in Australian history. Australia later gets another mention with the attempted assassination of Prince Alfred in 1868 with the author writing that the royal was on a tour of “Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney and Tasmania” (I laughed, Tassie mistaken for a city?). Loyalism out poured to the point that the royal considered Australia “still” a “colony”. For Australian republicans such as me, it may as well still be!

There is many more of these incidental events and people of interest discussed throughout this book. The Tartan Army anyone? An Gof in Cornwall and even a few Manx revolutionaries get a mention. “Well, when we're all wiped out, people will blame us for everything, I suppose” said Pádraic Pearce in 1916 during the Easter uprising in Dublin. I suspect though more pertinent for the majority of the republican movement, in England at least, was an officer called to put down a drunken rebellion at the Globe pub in Littleport near Cambridge who was quoted as saying that “Last year we were fighting the battle of Waterloo, and now we think we are going to fight the battle of Hullaballoo” No fooling that child of the revolution.

It has indeed been a worthy read for all my complaints above. I spent my time underlining sections with the thought to eventually reading further about these people and events. That should be what makes a good history book, one that make you want to delve further.