Recollection in the Republics: Memories of the British Civil Wars in England, 1649–1659. Imogen Peck. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. xiv + 232 pp. $85

• Published in: Renaissance Quarterly Vol. 76; no. 2; pp. 719 - 720
• Main Author: Stewart, Laura A. M.
• Format: Journal Article Book Review
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge Cambridge University Press 01.07.2023
• Subjects: 17th century; Civil war; Parliaments; United Kingdom > UK; England
• ISSN: 0034-4338; 1935-0236
• DOI: 10.1017/rqx.2023.249

Peck's discussion of the historical narratives produced by supporters of the republican regimes focuses on three key themes: the king's “blood guilt”; the barbarity and treachery of the Scottish Covenanters, Parliament's one-time ally (Peck makes a tiny slip, page 11, when stating that the Scots first arrived in 1644; they had occupied Newcastle in 1640–41); and the providential nature of Parliament's military successes. Blaming the Scots and the king for England's ills enabled these writers to move attention away from divisions within their own society, but as a strategy for aiding reconciliation, it served to keep the divisions of the 1640s alive. The most interesting parts of the book deal with wide-ranging evidence of the ways in which memories of conflict informed interactions between individuals and shaped community identities. Peck's final sentence asserts that people in the past “did not do things so very differently there” (202), but I think she shows that they did, and there is much in this fine book that will help readers toward a better sense of why.