Book description
In The Fifth Monarchy Men (Faber, 1972), Professor Capp places the
movement in the context of the rise of millenarian thought in Europe
from the Reformation and its rapid spread in England during the Civil
Wars. For many radicals, the execution of King Charles cleared the way
for King Jesus, and heralded the establishment of a revolutionary
millennium. The apparent apostasy of the Rump Parliament and Oliver
Cromwell channelled part of the wave of millenarian feeling into the
formation of a specific sect. This first comprehensive study of the
Fifth Monarchists movement traces its history and examines its social,
political, legal and religious proposals. Although it had the support
of some gentry and army officers, it was essentially an urban movement
of artisans, apprentices, and even labourers, reaching lower down the
social scale than any contemporary radical movement, with the possible
exception of the Diggers. Professor Capp discusses its structure, and
its relationship to other revolutionary sects, notably the Levellers
and Quakers. He analyses the social, political and economic programmes
of the self-styled saints which, though revolutionary, were elitist
rather than equalitarian. The Fifth Monarchists' militant foreign
policy was shaped by the twofold consideration of exporting the
revolution and of strengthening the position of English trade. Their
much-derided call for the re-establishment of the Mosaic Code is the
culmination of a long tradition of such thinking amongst Puritan and
earlier writers. Appendices provide biographies of almost 280 Fifth
Monarchists and the location of all known Fifth Monarchist groups.
