Political Views and Debates Over The Future of The Monarchy
While Cromwell's policy was practically limited to making the best of the present situation, and was inclined to compromise, Ireton's attitude was based on well-grounded principles of statesmanship. At the Putney Debates he opposed extremism, disliked the views of the Republicans and the Levellers, which he considered impractical and dangerous to the foundations upon which society was based, and wished to retain the constitution of King, Lords and Commons. He argued for these in the negotiations of the army with Parliament, and in the conferences with the king, being the person chiefly entrusted with the drawing up of the army proposals, including the manifesto called "The Heads of the Proposals" which proposed a constitutional monarchy. He tried to prevent the breach between the army and parliament, but when it happened, he supported the negotiations with the king till his actions made him unpopular.
Ireton finally became convinced of the hopelessness of dealing with Charles, and, after the king's flight to the Isle of Wight, treated his further proposals with coldness and urged the parliament to establish an administration without him. Ireton served under Fairfax in the second civil war in the campaigns, in Kent and Essex, although it was Fairfax, as Lord General, and not Ireton as is sometimes believed, who was responsible for the executions of Sir Charles Lucas and Sir George Lisle at Colchester. After the rejection by the king of the last offers of the army, the Commissary General showed special zeal in bringing about his trial. He wrote the Army's statement about the regicide - the Remonstrance of the Army - with Hugh Peters. He was active in the choice to purge rather than reelect Parliament and supported the second Leveller Agreement of the People. He sat on the King's trial and was one of the commissioners who signed the death warrant.
Read more about this topic: Henry Ireton
Famous quotes containing the words political, views, debates, future and/or monarchy:
“The rage for road building is beneficent for America, where vast distance is so main a consideration in our domestic politics and trade, inasmuch as the great political promise of the invention is to hold the Union staunch, whose days already seem numbered by the mere inconvenience of transporting representatives, judges and officers across such tedious distances of land and water.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Views of women, on one side, as inwardly directed toward home and family and notions of men, on the other, as outwardly striving toward fame and fortune have resounded throughout literature and in the texts of history, biology, and psychology until they seem uncontestable. Such dichotomous views defy the complexities of individuals and stifle the potential for people to reveal different dimensions of themselves in various settings.”
—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)
“The debates of that great assembly are frequently vague and perplexed, seeming to be dragged rather than to march, to the intended goal. Something of this sort must, I think, always happen in public democratic assemblies.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“Not only our future economic soundness but the very soundness of our democratic institutions depends on the determination of our government to give employment to idle men.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“A monarchy is the most expensive of all forms of government, the regal state requiring a costly parade, and he who depends on his own power to rule, must strengthen that power by bribing the active and enterprising whom he cannot intimidate.”
—James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851)