{"id":53121,"date":"2019-11-29T03:00:24","date_gmt":"2019-11-29T08:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=53121"},"modified":"2022-03-30T13:44:27","modified_gmt":"2022-03-30T17:44:27","slug":"revolts-civil-wars-and-revolutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2019\/11\/29\/revolts-civil-wars-and-revolutions\/","title":{"rendered":"Revolts, civil wars, and revolutions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rottenchestnuts.com\/revolts-vs-revolutions-ii\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Severian<\/a> offers his taxonomy of protest with examples from English history:<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_53122\" style=\"width: 863px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/King-Charles-I-and-Prince-Rupert-before-the-Battle-of-Naseby-16450614-Wikimedia-Commons.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-53122\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/King-Charles-I-and-Prince-Rupert-before-the-Battle-of-Naseby-16450614-Wikimedia-Commons-853x624.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"853\" height=\"624\" class=\"size-large wp-image-53122\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/King-Charles-I-and-Prince-Rupert-before-the-Battle-of-Naseby-16450614-Wikimedia-Commons-853x624.jpg 853w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/King-Charles-I-and-Prince-Rupert-before-the-Battle-of-Naseby-16450614-Wikimedia-Commons-480x351.jpg 480w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/King-Charles-I-and-Prince-Rupert-before-the-Battle-of-Naseby-16450614-Wikimedia-Commons-150x110.jpg 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/King-Charles-I-and-Prince-Rupert-before-the-Battle-of-Naseby-16450614-Wikimedia-Commons-768x562.jpg 768w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/King-Charles-I-and-Prince-Rupert-before-the-Battle-of-Naseby-16450614-Wikimedia-Commons.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 853px) 100vw, 853px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-53122\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">King Charles I and Prince Rupert before the Battle of Naseby 14th June 1645 during the English Civil War.<br \/>19th century artist unknown, from Wikimedia Commons.<\/p><\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>A <strong>revolt<\/strong> is a large-scale, semi-organized riot. It aims, at best (e.g. Wat Tyler&#8217;s Rebellion), at the redress of specific grievances. At worst, it&#8217;s violent nihilism (e.g. the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jacquerie\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Jacquerie<\/em><\/a>).<\/li>\n<li>A <strong>civil war<\/strong> aims to replace one leader with another, leaving the underlying civil structure intact \u2014 e.g. any of the Roman civil wars post-Augustus.<\/li>\n<li>A <strong>revolution<\/strong>&#8216;s goal is total social transformation. We&#8217;re stipulating that it&#8217;s violent, because while stuff like the Industrial Revolution is fascinating, we&#8217;re not looking at peaceful change here in the Current Year. Revolutions are necessarily, fundamentally <em>ideological<\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I realize this can cause some confusion, as events I&#8217;d classify as &#8220;revolutions&#8221; are called civil wars in the history books, and vice versa. But the difference is important, because it sheds light on the development, course, and outcome of events.<\/p>\n<p>The paradigm case is the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/English_Civil_War\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">English Civil War<\/a>, 1642-51. This was clearly a revolution, as it aimed at \u2014 and achieved \u2014 the near-total overthrow of existing society. When Charles I took the throne in 1625, his kingdom was very much closer to a Continental-style divine-right monarchy than most Britons would like to admit. While the English had succeeded in clawing some of their liberties back from the crown after Henry VIII&#8217;s death, the fact remains that the Stuart state, like the Tudor state, was despotic. But by 1625, the despot was completely out of step with his people, and his times.<\/p>\n<p>By 1642, the first revolutionary prerequisite was in place: <strong>No clear alternative<\/strong>. There were lots of revolts against Henry VIII, and one of them, the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pilgrimage_of_Grace\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Pilgrimage of Grace<\/a>, had the potential to turn into a civil war, or even a revolution. The revolts against Elizabeth I didn&#8217;t quite rise to that level, but the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rising_of_the_North\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Northern Rebellion<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Essex%27s_Rebellion\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Essex&#8217;s Rebellion<\/a> certainly imperiled her government. See also <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Wyatt%27s_rebellion\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Wyatt&#8217;s Rebellion<\/a> against Queen Mary, the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Prayer_Book_Rebellion\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Prayer Book Rebellion<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kett%27s_Rebellion\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Kett&#8217;s Rebellion<\/a> against Edward VI, etc. In all of these, the alternative was clear \u2014 return to Rome, replacement of one court faction with another, or return to the old ways.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Severian offers his taxonomy of protest with examples from English history: A revolt is a large-scale, semi-organized riot. It aims, at best (e.g. Wat Tyler&#8217;s Rebellion), at the redress of specific grievances. At worst, it&#8217;s violent nihilism (e.g. the Jacquerie). A civil war aims to replace one leader with another, leaving the underlying civil structure [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,84,7,53],"tags":[650,570,396,720,506,1462],"class_list":["post-53121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britain","category-government","category-history","category-politics","tag-civilwar","tag-england","tag-monarchy","tag-protest","tag-revolution","tag-severian"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-dON","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53121"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53123,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53121\/revisions\/53123"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}