prr

I was reading a transcription of the debate at the council at Putney (1647), with Cromwell and other leaders present, about the extension of the franchise to all born in Britain, or to retain its restriction to those who hold 40 pounds (sterling) property.

Right in the middle, one of the speakers inserts references to the laws from the Norman Conquest (1066), asserting that the Normans "made us their vassals.... we are now engaged for our freedom" (the speaker was John Wildman).

Was this use of "we" to mean nothing more than "just like the English back then, we also are fighting for our freedom," or was it meant to allude to a descent of the rebels, from the Angles and Saxons of old, and a descent of the lords from the Norman conquerors? There would have been almost six centuries between the two events, so I"m not sure how many families of the original supporters of William would have still had their lands and titles. Maybe a lot, maybe not....

Toltec

I think your alluding to a fictional divide in England invented by Walter Scott a century after the ECW had finished.

Nick

There was some truth in this as the old nobility who supported the king were the descendents of the Normans.
The gentry and middle classes who supported Parliament were Puritans and wanted to identify with Germany (where protestantism originated) and played up the idea they were the descendents of the Saxons (this idea came about in the 1500s and replaced earlier ideas the English were descended from Trojans)

Toltec

The Trojan idea was a little older.

The parliamentarians invented the notion of Saxon to replace the idea the English came from the Celts, which was the prevalent view before the roundheads.

They portrayed the Royalists as Celts not Normans, when the Jacobite cause later moved to Ireland and Scotland and that was the origin of them being called Celts.

Gary

The reference is to the ‘myth’ of the Norman Yoke. It was believed that the Norman Conquest had deprived the common folk of many of the freedoms that they had before the conquest; and over the six centuries between the conquest and the Civil War this idea had never gone away.
The medieval peasantry, while never actually rebelling against the established order of society (Peasants Revolt 1381 aside) had waged a continuous agrarian rebellion against the lords, most often with quiet refusal to do work for the lord or doing it badly, or resorting to litigation in the courts. There is a long history of perceived injustices imposed by the Anglo-Norman-French ruling order in medieval folk literature.

By the time of the Tudors, when it was seen that England had at last an ‘English Dynasty’ many antiquarians/historians looked at how Anglo-Saxon England operated before the Normans, to try to discover the character of early English law and church. It was part of the political and religious redefinition of English identity that went with the Reformation.

Also with the endowment of grammar schools a wide ranging education was available not only to the middle classes, which was now much more numerous, but also available to those who could be worthy of a bursary, those who while not poor could not afford the cost of schooling their sons.
What I’m trying to say is that as more academics took an interest in Anglo-Saxon law and religion there was more educated people to read and be influenced by their writings. By the time of the Civil War there was a strong and widely held view that England and the English had suffered under the Norman Yoke imposed by the blood line of William the Bastard/Conquer .This is clear from the rhetoric of the Levellers,
Gerard Winstanley.
'England, you know, hath been conquered and enslaved divers times, and the best laws that England hath (viz Magna Charta) were got by our forefathers' importunate petitioning unto the kings, that still were their task-masters; and yet these best laws are yokes and manacles, tying one sort of people to be slaves to another...
'The last enslaving yoke that England groaned under (and yet is not freed from) was the Norman, as you know; and since William the Conqueror came in, about 600 years ago, all the kings did confirm the old laws, or else make new ones, to uphold that Norman Conquest over us; and the most favouring laws that we have doth still bind the hands of the enslaved English from enjoying the freedom of their creation.
'You of the gentry, as well as we of the commonalty, all groaned under the burden of the bad government and burdening laws under the late King Charles, who was the last successor of William the Conqueror: you and we cried for a Parliament, and a Parliament was called, and wars, you know, presently begun, between the King, that represented William the Conqueror, and the body of the English people that were enslaved ...
'... and William the Conqueror's successor, which was Charles (I), was cast out; and thereby we have recovered ourselves from under that Norman Yoke.'

Black Dog

If one comes up with an idea- even if it is new one, such as extending the franchise to the unpropertied- then it is common to try to find a precedent. Just as Thomas Paine alluded to the early days of society with the Liberty Tree, and just as Geoffrey of Monmouth claimed Trojan ancestry for the Welsh (!), when they were apparently under no-one's yoke, then to I suppose that Cromwell's lot had every interest in presenting it as an old freedom lost, due to the tyranny of kings.

It's a common trick, and never more so than now: American and British governments are restricting our freedoms more than ever, apparently to make us more free and safer

It is, however, true that the Norman Conquest was a sharp break in any notion of universal (albeit male!) suffrage. No other monarch of England had as much power as William I, and of course, the monarch's power was slowly eroded, but still caused baron's rebellions such as that by Simon de Montfort. As for Anglo-Saxons v Normans, well, that particular water was muddied long time ago. Henry I married a direct descendant of Edmund Ironside, whilst our present queen claims to be descended from Alfred the Great. Just as monarchs try to gain legitimacy that way, so do anti-monarchs!

prr

Given the remarks of above posters, it appears that folks here don't really buy the line about the English nobility being descended from the Normans, but instead, see it as, what would be the right term--propaganda? It does appear, though, that these ideas were seen earlier than Walter Scott (late 1700s to early 1800s).

Toltec

2 parents
4 grandparents
8 great grandparents
16 great great grandparents (1900)

32 great great grandparents
64 great great great grandparents
128 great great great great grandparents
264 great great great great great grandparents (1800)

assuming 4 generations per century

1700: 2112 great great great great great great great great great grandparents
1600: 33792
1500: 540672
1400: 8650752
1300: 138412032
1200: 1107296256

People are descended from a hell of a lot of people, so many it's way beyond traceability.

Old nationalist ideas put the ideas of racial identites into us. They usually make these races romantic and often noble warriors and they're both simple and attractive (just check out the post asking people their ethnic group post, people queueing to do so,). However they being idealiesd nationalism don't stand up to rational scrutiny.

Lucius

Yeah, and what's cool about it is that the further back you look, the fewer people were on the planet, So we're not just descended from a hell of a lot of people, we're descended from a hell of a lot of the same people.

alex87tkd

Which is why in Nottingham people have twelve fingers and webbed feet.