State Formation in Early Modern England, c.1550–1700

by Michael J. Braddick

The seventeenth century has always been seen as important for the development of the modern English state. Over the past twenty years, however, this view has been criticized heavily and no general account of the development of the state in this period has yet emerged. On the basis of a wide-ranging synthesis of specialist work in diverse fields of English, British and colonial history, this book makes a novel argument about the modernization of the seventeenth-century English state, and of the role of class and gender interests in its development.

Genres: History

460 pages, Hardcover

First published December 6, 1996

About the author

A specialist in early modern British history, Michael Jonathan Braddick, FBA, FRHistS is Senior Research Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. Educated at the University of Cambridge (BA, PhD) he was Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Head of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities from 2009 to 2013 and Professor of History at the University of Sheffield from 2013 until 2024.

Reviews

[Boone Ayala · Rating 4 out of 5]

Braddick focuses this treatment of the Tudor and Stuart English state on "the impersonal forces which shape[d] the uses of political power rather than the purposeful actions of individuals or groups"; the work "is, in short, a study of state formation, rather than of state building" (1). He argues that "the development of the state was shaped in important ways by social interests - particularly those of class, gender, and age" (1). "It is clear that no single will, or group interest, lay behind all the uses made of" the offices of state power. "Different groups, responding to a variety of challenges and opportunities, sought to make use of the resources at their disposal. They attempted to redefine the scope of existing offices, or to invent new ones, and in doing so they appealed to legitimating ideas current in society at large" (7). This negotiation contrasts with other models of state formation (such as that of Tilly) which posit that the state was essentially constructed from the top-down (or indeed, hypothetically, from the bottom-up). The state, according to Braddick, was "a coordinated and territorially bounded network of agencies exercising political power" and "exclusive of the authority of other political organisations within those bounds." Political power, in turn, is "territorially based, functionally limited, and backed by the threat of legitimate physical force" (9) and "resides in offices, not persons" (17). Braddick thus sees the state in the officials who exercised state power in the center and in the localities, and the formation (or transformation) of the state in the negotiations between those officials which changed the scope, territory, and legitimizing ideology of the state.

Part 1 of the book lays out Braddick's theory of the state, mentioned above, and the centrality of officials. He argues, critically, that while no single plan created the state, patterns existed in how political power and offices were used and transformed: "particular offices, and legitimating languages, were better suited to meeting particular kinds of challenge, and we can discern some consistences in the kinds of challenges that were perceived to be worth responding to" (90).

Parts II-V lay out 4 parallel kinds of "state" - really 4 uses of political power - that helped transform the overall structure of the early modern English state. Part II examines "the patriarchal state," concerned with giving order and stability to society. Patriarchal visions of order emphasized "a pattern of hierarchy and subordination which subsumed class, status, and social relations" and demanded deference and dependency from social inferiors (102). Use of patriarchal rhetoric to enforce order was motivated as much or more by fear of disorder than by actual material conditions (131, 151). Patriarchal rhetoric legitimized the role of a number of actors within the state. "Central to the success of this patriarchy was the participation of those who were formally subordinate - the middling sort, and those among women and the poor anxious to lay claim to respectability. The activities of this state favoured the interests of those with significant property and of males, but it depended on the participation of others" (174). The relative success of patriarchal implementation of state power demonstrates "there was a material interest, or a moral consensus (or something approaching it) among governing social and political elites"; in other words, patriarchal state formation was so successful because those wielding political power in the center and localities, and those wielding social power in the localities, were in agreement about the proper patriarchal, legitimating ideology (175). After about 1640, these functions were routinized, but not contested.

Part III describes the fiscal-military state, which, unlike the patriarchal state, exhibited a tension between locality and center. "There was not a continuous demand for their [fiscal-military state officials] activities and so they could not draw on a strong sense that their activities were justified in terms of the beliefs of local society" (178). The hunt for a superior legitimizing ideology for military buildup led the center to turn to "state necessity" - a doctrine that only successfully caught on after the civil war, when localities all experienced the exigencies of war and the military revolution, which increased state revenues. "After 1642, military effort was financed through parliament and carried out by armed forces wholly owned by the national government. Reason of state had, by the restoration, ceased to be disreputable and had become instead a normal measure of policy" (274, quote 279). This was emblamatic of "the emergence of a clearer distinction between social and political authority in later seventeenth century England" (270).

Part IV focuses on the "confessional state" - the attempt to enforce Anglican conformity in the localities. Here the central state was to some extent compelled by its own rhetoric of legitimacy. "Political legitimacy was claimed to rest in part upon the defence of the true religion, defined in doctrinal and liturgical terms" (287). Braddick frames the state as somewhat unwilling here - "having justified the political order as a guarantee of true religion it was almost inevitable that they would have to take measures to define and impose true religion" (335). Yet this policy tended to be unpopular in the localities. "Locally... toleration of religious pluralism had been developing for some time [before 1688]" (330). Even towards Catholics, the toleration extended in the early modern period was fairly generous in the localities, provided they were deemed to support the social order and were not beholden to a foreign power. "It was popery rather than recusancy that threatened domestic political and social order" (306). Religious dissenters were not viewed as politically harmless, but begrudgingly accepted as a fact of life by local elites (331-332).

Part V discusses the "dynastic" state - the buildup of a British and imperial state apparatus. Here Braddick contends that "the process of state formation, as in England, was intimately connected with the processes of elite formation" (337). He highlights that this process, within Britain, was not merely a process of Anglicization, and in particular identifies the complicity of Welsh and Scottish low-country elites in the extension of the English crown. "This process [of extending civility, and thereby the reach of government and order], in the English and Scottish peripheries, and in Wales, was a means by which influential local groups could consolidate, and legitimate, their social position" (340). These elites invited the state in, rather than having it forced upon them.

Ireland represents a very different case, wherein the failure of the Reformation inspired London to promote "the creation of a new elite, more suitable for the exercise of civil governance" (380). Conquest and colonization represented the breakdown of the process of elite formation. This process was accelerated by the failure of the Reformation and subsequent clashes between English protestants and their Catholic neighbors. "In Ireland, it was religious differences, ultimately, that determined that civility would be achieved by dispossession" (396).

In the overseas colonies, "elites... had vested interested which could be protected by crown authority" but "none the less, these developments [i.e., the creation of a patriarchal society in the New World] took place within the shell of a developing fiscal-military empire, the interests of which overrode the interests of particular colonies. As in England, therefore, there was a potential tension between the interest that bound local elites to the crown and the autonomous interests of the state" (397-398). Braddick's language is intriguing when he refers to the buildup of the fiscal-military state, and its implications for the empire as enshrined in the Navigation Act of 1651, "as a reflection of a larger shift from a contractual empire to a legislative one" (412).

Overall then, Braddick wants to highlight that the process of state formation was an uneven process not directed by the center or the locality. "The functional and institutional form of the state was the product of negotiation, as activists sought means to legitimate innovations in the exercise of political power" (433). Clearly the civil war and the military revolution is something of a turning point: "two broad and relatively distinct phases of development [can be discerned]. Before 1640, the most striking and effective innovations were those made in relation to social problems. After 1640 it is the development of the fiscal-military functions of the state that commands most attention" (436). But Braddick's most important intervention is methodological: to look at "structural change" in the state as "the net effect of the ways in which individuals took advantage of political, social, cultural, and linguistic resources in order to legitimate acts of political power" (437).

[Marissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciate Braddick's careful theorizing and synthesis. I've taken away a lot of helpful information and my understanding of state formation is much more accurate than it was before reading this book. But it's an infuriating read. It's like 5 books in one and the passive voice (necessary here considering the agent-less action that Braddick is describing) is very annoying. It's certainly not an easy read but this book is important to Early Modern English historiography.