62 The Seventeenth Century (1603 - 1714}

regarded Oliver as a traitor to the 'good old cause'.366 The
part played by the navy in the victory of revolution has been
described at length;36' more surprisingly (and not altogether
cogently), the influence of England's disturbances in unsettling
the French has been discussed in a book based essentially on a
collection of pamphlets and ambassadorial reports.368 Two
typical but very different figures of the day have found their
biographers: Gregg, a good democrat, gives uncritical admira-
tion to the democratic John Liiburne, while Lament thought-
fully and subtly discusses the bitter and heedless William
Prynne.36S

(D) THE PURITANS

Who and what were the English puritans (for those of America
are another story still)? What types were there in. this 'move-
ment'? Has the concept any sort of analytical value for the
historian? Until quite recently, questions of this kind were
hardly even asked; it was taken for granted that the puritanism
of the age of Cromwell descended directly from that of Eliza-
beth's reign, and that the so-called revolution was a puritan
one formed a simple axiom. All this is today the subject of
debate, and in large measure we still await the answers. Admit-
tedly, Hill adheres to the view that the troubles were closely
connected with a socio-religious movement to be called purit-
anism (n. 334), and Haller completed the account of the
spiritual and intellectual history of the movement, which he
began thirty years ago, without adjusting his categories.370 On

»•• Austin H. Woolrych, 'The good old cause and the fall of the

Protectorate', CHJ 13 (1957), 133-61.
**7 J. R. Powell, The Navy in the English Civil War. L: Archon Books:

1962. Pp. xviii, 240. Rev: EHR 80, 171.
*** Philip A. Knachel, England and the Fronde: the impact of the English

civil wet and revolution on France. Ithaca: Cornell UP: 1967. Pp. xiii,

312, Rev:Mrf53, 431.
** * Pauline Gregg, Free-Born John: a biography of John Ulbwne* L:

Harrap: 1961. Pp. 424. - W. M. Lamont, Marginal Prynne, 1600 -

1669, L: Routledge: 1963. Pp. x, 250. Rev: EHR 80, 397^
370 \villiam Haller, Liberty and Reformation in the Puritan Revolution.

New York: Columbia UP: 1955. Pp. xv, 410. Rev: EHR 71, 286ff.