Election of Agitators to present Army grievances to Parliament

Historical Context Note

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.04: English Writing and Culture of the Seventeenth Century, 1625-1688.
Vol. editors: Jennifer Brady (Rhodes College), Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Neil Forsyth (Université de Lausanne), Claire Preston (Queen Mary, University of London), J A Roe (University of York), Virginia Mason Vaughan (Clark University)

Domains

Politics

Dates

Date of occurrence 1646-04-28

Places

United Kingdom (Location)

Resources

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After the end of the first English civil war, the relationship between Parliament and its New Model Army, which previously had been one of close co-operation, became one of rivalry. The army had strong grounds to argue that it was its efforts that had won the war for the Parliamentarians, and they wanted to be rewarded accordingly. In addition, the rank-and-file soldiers were overall more radical than the Members of Parliament, and favoured more extreme solutions to the problem of how to deal with King Charles I. Angry most urgently at not having being paid for months, the army selected delegates, known as 'agitators', to present their grievances in London. Parliament refused to countenance their demands, however, and so in August 1647, the army occupied the capital, and drove out eleven…

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