Battle for the Ballot Lecture 1: Introduction. Background pre-1688 and The Peasants’ Revolt 1381

There are three parts to this week's lecture: Introduction to the course. What is democracy? Has it always been viewed as a good thing? A brief consideration of pre-democratic Britain: including the Magna Carta 1215 and the Peasants’ Revolt 1381

POWER – who has it, how they get it, how they keep it, what legitimises them…. RESOURCES - who owns them, how they are shared, how they are used….

RULES - we live by, who should set them and how and if they should be given power to enforce them How much we should feel we have a RESPONSIBILITY for each other

What is democracy? ‘… the belief in freedom and equality between people, or a system of government based on this belief, in which power is either held by elected representatives or directly by the people themselves’ Cambridge Dictionary

‘...democracy is a concept before it is a fact, and because it is a concept it has no single precise and agreed meaning. It has had very different meanings and connotations in its long history…’ Anthony Arblaster, Democracy (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2007) p. 3

Democracy – has it always been seen as a good thing? ‘Democracy used to be a bad word. Everybody who was anybody knew that democracy…. Would be a bad thing – fatal to individual freedom and to all the graces of civilised living. That was the position taken by nearly all men of intelligence from the earliest historical times down to about a hundred years ago.’ C B Macpherson, The Real World of Democracy (Oxford, 1966) p. 1

‘The tyranny of the multitude is but a multiplied tyranny ‘The tyranny of the multitude is but a multiplied tyranny.’ Edmund Burke, 1790

‘If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.’ ‘The tyranny of the majority is now generally included among the evils against which society requires to be on its guard.’ J S Mill, On Liberty, 1859

Pre-Democratic Britain: Feudalism

The Divine Right of Kings

The Magna Carta King John (reigned 1199-1216)

The Magna Carta

Three clauses of Magna Carta still remain on statute in England and Wales I. FIRST, We have granted to God, and by this our present Charter have confirmed, for Us and our Heirs for ever, that the Church of England shall be free, and shall have all her whole Rights and Liberties inviolable. We have granted also, and given to all the Freemen of our Realm, for Us and our Heirs for ever, these Liberties under-written, to have and to hold to them and their Heirs, of Us and our Heirs for ever.

IX. THE City of London shall have all the old Liberties and Customs which it hath been used to have. Moreover We will and grant, that all other Cities, Boroughs, Towns, and the Barons of the Five Ports, as with all other Ports, shall have all their Liberties and free Customs.

XXIX. NO Freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be disseised of his Freehold, or Liberties, or free Customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any other wise destroyed; nor will We not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his Peers, or by the Law of the land. We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either Justice or Right.

Speaker of the House Sir Thomas Hungerford Arthur Onslow

The Peasants’ Revolt 1381 There are three things of such a sort That they produce merciless destruction When they get the upper hand: One is a flood of water, Another is a raging fire, And the third is the lesser people, The common multitude; For they will not be stopped By either reason or by discipline John Gower, Mirour de l’omme (1376-8)

John Ball encouraging the rebels Richard II meets the rebels in Mile End, 13th June 1381