Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to the second lesson, of our inquiry into England in the 17th century, and the ways in which the world was turned upside down.

Before we start the lesson, I just needed to do two things.

Could you get a pen and some paper? So you've got something to write with.

If you don't have that, pause the video now and go get it.

Good.

Second thing, try and find a relatively quiet place to work.

So you can just do some really good focus thinking, about England in the 17th century, and it's very, very strange world.

Okay.

That's all we need to do.

I can't wait to make a start.

Let's get going.

So this is lesson two, of a six lesson inquiry.

And talk of today's lesson, is the Putney debates, and our inquiry question remains, in what ways was Britain turned upside down, in the 17th century? But first let's come back to this image that we looked at, at the start of last lesson.

Now I'm going to give you 10 seconds, and I'd like you to try and find, two different things in this picture, that are the wrong way round, that are upside down.

Like a little countdown.

And by the end of that, I'm going to give you my two for this week.

So one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10.

Okay.

The ones I'd pick this week, are the animals, at the bottom of the picture.

So it looks like we've got a rat or a mouse chasing a cat and a rabbit or a hair chasing a fox.

So, this picture is saying that the natural order of England has been turned upside down.

And this is because, in the middle of the 17th century, many people believed that, the world really had been turned upside down in England.

So the pamphlet from that time that we looked at last lesson.

Because our big question our inquiry question, for the next six lessons is this, in what ways was Britain turned upside down, in the 17th century? Before we can find out, about how the Putney Debates, turned Britain upside down, we just need to jump back, to the story from last lesson, and I'm going to try and retell it in under a minute.

So this is the story so far.

We began with Charles the First.

He believed he had a divine right to rule England, and that he could do whatever he wished.

Now, this did not make Charles the First, very popular with his parliament.

In fact, it made him so unpopular, that he went to war with them, in the English Civil War, between the Roundheads, who supported parliament, and the Cavaliers who supported the King.

Now eventually in 1645, the Roundheads, the parliamentarians, founded something called The New Model Army, which is an incredibly professional, efficient-fighting force.

And just over a year, after they founded this new model army, they took Charles the First capital city Oxford, and Charles surrendered.

And that was the end of The First English Civil War.

But there's a problem.

And that problem is that, England now has this huge, incredibly professional army, sort of sat around with nothing to do.

So would you just write down this heading, on your piece of paper? And it's, What Happened to the New Model Army, after 1646, you can pause the video now, if you'd like to write that down.

Okay, let's get into the story.

So once Charles was defeated, a group of people who you'd call Moderate Parliamentarians, people who are maybe willing to negotiate with the King, were delighted.

They thought we've had victory.

All our problems are solved.

We'll sign some sort of agreement with Charles, to limit his power, and everything will be okay, order will be restored to the kingdom.

But there was just one problem with that.

Because the new model army, had some demands.

They said, we are soldiers of God.

We are a professional army.

We demand indemnities.

And we demand a say in politics.

An indemnity is something that social wanted, because it meant that after the war was over, they couldn't be accused of committing crimes, by other people, because they were very worried, that in 10 years time, they might be accused of murdering someone during the war.

Whereas they would have seen it that, they killed that person in battle.

So that was entirely legal.

So they wanted essentially to be, protected from being arrested in the future.

They wanted the money that they were owed by parliament, about 3 million pounds.

And they wanted a say in politics.

And these ideas, came from people in the new model army called Agitators, who were very political men, who sort of starts to represent the people, in their regiments of the army.

Now, these ideas shocked, the Moderate Parliamentarians, and this is what they said.

The New Model Army is too expensive.

The people of England had enough.

It is full of common men with radical ideas.

It must be disbanded.

This is what leaders of the army like Henry Ireton started to say.

Now The New Model Army did not react to this very well.

Said, how dare you make these threats? We will start petitions within our regimens.

You'll see what us, what we, the agitators are capable of.

And what happened was that, these sort of political men, the leading men in the regimens, started to go around, petitioning, so asking people what they thought, and gathering signatures, and gathering lists of things, that the ordinary soldiers wanted.

And they started going to the leaders of the army, with these demands.

But that wasn't the only thing they did.

They also started taking advantage, of that thing we bumped into last, article we called the printing press.

And they started gathering all their demands together, writing down in books, and then printing multiple copies of them.

And the most famous list of these demands, was called The Agreement of the People.

And they said that this was founded, upon grounds of common-right, and freedom.

These are radical new ways to talk about politics.

And not talking about, duties to the King, or obedience.

They're talking about common rights, that all men have, and about freedom.

So this agreement of the people, is a very radical document.

And eventually the leaders of the army, like Henry Ireton, realised they needed to make this problem go away.

So the agitators from the new model army, and the leadership, parliamentarians who wants to negotiate with the King, agreed to meet in St.

Mary's Church in Putney.

And this is where The Putney debates took place.

Okay.

Let's just see how much of that story, you've managed to get a hands on.

So pause the video now.

And so these statements you tell whether they're true or false.

Okay.

Let's find out how you've done.

Is it true, that The new Model Army demanded pay? They wanted 3 million or so pounds they were owed, and they also wanted indemnities.

So they wanted protection from being accused of crimes in the future, committed during the civil war.

And they also wanted to say in politics.

Now those was true, some MPs wants to disband The New Model Army, because they saw it was quite threatening, to have this huge army, they're sort of wandering around England with nothing to do.

And again, it's true that agitated in the army began petitioning.

They began gathering together all the ordinary men, in their regimen store, and the writing down their list of grievances.

It's not true that the printing press was used to torture Charles the First.

The printing press was actually used, to make these pamphlets, like what we just looked at, which could be used to outline the men's grievances.

And it's also not true, that the party debate took place in a field to a place in st.

Mary's Church in Putney.

Well done if you've got those right.

But now we've got the slight other question of, what was actually debated in Putney.

So again, pause the video now, and just write down that heading on your piece of paper, What was Debated in Putney.

Okay.

Let's find out.

So the Moderate Parliamentarians, supported the document called the 'Heads of Proposals,' and they wanted to negotiate with Charles the First, and would turn England to stability.

And the head of the proposals basically said, Charles the First can come back, but we're going to limit his power ever so slightly.

We're going to make parliaments slightly more powerful.

And they thought that this was a pretty good deal.

They thought the King would agree to it, and everything would be fine, or they would be restored.

The agitators did not want this.

They wanted the agreement of the people.

They wanted ordinary people to be involved in politics.

They wanted religious toleration, so that people of different faith and beliefs, would be allowed to practise those with freedom.

And they wanted votes for men by age 21 and over.

These are absolutely radical ideas in the 17th century.

And one of the agitates in the new model army, a man called Thomas Rainsborough, or sent in as a leveller said this, the poorest he, that is in England, has a right to live, as the greatest he.

So what he meant was that, anyone in the country, had as much of a right to safety, and to living and to having a say, in how they were governed, as the richest people.

And as you can probably imagine, the Moderate Parliamentarians was shocked.

So they said, involving the poor in politics? Madness.

Politics is about status.

Property is the basis of politics.

Because for men like Henry Ireton, politics is really all about how much money you have, and about how important your family are.

It's not about, you know, all people having a say, they thought that this would lead to chaos.

So they found these ideas absolutely shocking.

And this is basically, a little sort of table I've made to sum up, what was said at Putney debates.

So we've got the Moderate Parliamentarians on one side, and the Levellers is on the other.

Now the leading figure of the parliamentarians is Henry Ireton, and he wants to negotiate with Charles the First.

Once you abolish the New Model Army, and he spoke to the heads of proposals.

the leading Leveller figure was Thomas Rainsborough.

And he wants to involve ordinary men in politics.

And to secure the money that the new model army was owed, and mere key text was this agreement of the people.

Okay, let's see how many of those you've got right.

Pause the video now.

And then you can find out the answers in a moment.

Time for the answers.

There's folks that Moderate Parliamentarian wanted votes for all men.

That he wanted voting to be limited, to a very small number of people, and based on some sort of property qualifications.

You had to own a certain amount of land, to be able to vote.

It's true that the Levellers wanted religious toleration.

They wanted people to have freedom, irrespective of what religion they were.

And it's also true that Thomas Rainsborough, stood up for the poorest here in England.

He was all about sharing political power, and involving ordinary people in politics.

I suppose that the Levellers wanted to negotiate, with Charles the First, that was not their priority.

Their priority was involving the ordinary people in politics much more, but it's true that Henry Ireton, this Moderate Parliamentarian, wanted to abolish the New Model Army.

So we'll just jumped back to our inquiry question quickly, pause the video now, and just think about this, in what ways was Britain turned upside down, in the 17th century, by the Putney debates? Okay.

So you might've written down, that there were talks, about involving ordinary people in politics.

I know, if we compared to all the history you studied so far, this is a completely radical, shocking idea.

You might have written down that there was talk about, sort of not negotiating with the King, and challenging his power.

Again, radical new ideas.

Putney was full of changes or ideas about changing, the way politics was done.

Finally, that we need to try and answer this question.

Did the Levellers achieve their aims? The short answer is no, because Charles the First escaped from Hampton Court, on the 11th of November 1647.

And when Charles escaped from being held prisoner, by parliament, the party debates ended quite suddenly.

And it was quite clear that the Levellers, we're not going to be given the vote.

They were not going to be given, all of the things they're asking for.

And so they decided to mutiny, against the leadership of The New Model Army, but this was very unsuccessful.

The Levellers were quite quickly crushed, and one man, so it could Richard on was shot and killed.

And with that, the Corkbush Field Mutiny was over.

And so were many of the things the Levellers, dreamed to achieve in 1647 of Putney.

And actually once Charles had escaped, he very quickly gathered together a new fighting force, mainly of Scottish soldiers and people who remained loyal to him.

And a second civil war broke out.

But unlike the first, which lasted for four years, the second civil war lasted less than a year, because obviously parliament still have this New Model Army.

And they're very quick to use it to crush, the remaining people who loved Charles.

And with that at the end of 1648, Charles was captured again.

And that is the end of our story for this lesson.

Okay.

Find your way.

Could you sort these statements, into the chore support.

Pause the video now, and then unpause it, to find out the answers.

Just suppose that Charles fled to France, on the 11th of November, 1647.

He actually just escaped prison, and gathered together, an army of soldiers ready, to fight from England.

It is true that the Levellers mutinied at Corkbush Field.

And it is also true that one Leveller, Richard Arnold was shot and killed there.

Spokes The Second Civil War lasted until 1660.

It actually lasted less than a year, because the new model army was, very quickly able to defeat Charles's forces.

And it's also true that Charles was captured in 1648, just as he had been a few years earlier.

Okay.

Pause the video now.

Read the slides on the next page, and answer the comprehension questions, and resume the video once you've finished.

Okay, let's go through the answers.

Question one, who was involved in the Putney debates? A good answer would be the Levellers, and the leaders of the New Model Army.

But a better answer would be, the Putney debates took place on the 28th of October 1647.

They invoked the radical Levellers, and the leaders of the New Model Army, like Henry Ireton.

Question two, what did the levellers want? The correct answer would be that, pay the vote and religious freedom, but a better answer would be, the Levellers had radical ideas.

Yes, they wanted the 3 million pounds, owed to them by parliament, but they also wanted votes all men over 21, a few even wanted votes for women, and religious freedoms. Question three, how did the English elites respond, to the Levellers? The correct answer would be they ignored their demands, but a better answer would be the English elites, such as Henry Ireton were terrified, by the radical ideas of the Levellers.

They did not want involved.

They did not want ordinary men, to be involved in politics.

Question four, why did the Putney debates end? The correct answer is Charles the First escaped, but a better answer would be, the Putney debates ended on 11th of November 1647, When Charles escaped from Hampton Court.

Question five, what happened at Corkbush, on the 15th of November? Correct answer would be a rebellion, but a better answer would be, the Levellers rebelled against, the leaders of the New Model Army on the 15th of November.

One Leveller, Richard Arnold, was shot and killed.

Okay, well done.

If you've got most of those answers, right? Brilliant work.

Finally though, I'd just like to jump back to inquiry question, because we're thinking about this question of 17th century, being a time when Britain was turned upside down, in what ways was Britain turned upside down, in 17th century? And just pause the video now, and based on everything you've learned this lesson from that reading sheet, and from our activities we've done.

Write down in what ways was Britain turned upside down, in the 17th century.

Okay, good.

Well done for finishing that final question.

And if you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer, to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging at Oak National, and hashtag learn without Oak.

Well done some brilliant work today.

I can't wait to teach you the next part of the story, although I must warn you, it's quite shocking, what happens next.

Bye for me for now.