The Scouring of the Shire

In many ways 1688 was the most remarkable years of English history. In 1684 James II had unexpectedly become king following the death of his brother Charles II. Charles was known as the merry monarch and was a sort of royal dandy. It wasn't known during his reign that he had all along been a closet Catholic and his deathbed conversion to Rome had been a huge shock to his subjects, with whom he had generally been popular. His brother was an out Catholic. This was both unpopular and constitutionally tricky. The King of England is also the head of the Church of England. Luckily James was already in his fifties and had no heir. The next in line to the throne was a Protestant. The problem was therefore going to sort itself out in time so it seemed bearable. But Jame's promotion of Catholics and persecution of the official Church, which was loved by the majority of the population of England, must have seemed an attack on the very fabric of society. Everything changed in 1688 when James' Catholic wife gave birth to a son. Now there was the prospect of not just a few more years of agony, but the real possibility of another Catholic monarch reigning for a long time. This was not to be borne. But it left the loyal subjects with the ultimate divided loyalty. Did they support their Church or their King? England at this time did not have a standing army so James was vulnerable to a popular uprising. Basically his position depended to a large extent on consent from his subjects - and he was well award of this. His solution to this was to bring across Catholic Irishmen to form a loyal army. He calculated that he could rely on troops that shared his religion and had a natural dislike of the English as well. This incendary situation could easily have led to bloodshed. Only forty years before the country had suffered years of civil war, and no doubt there were enough old soldiers still alive to have provided the know-how for a new conflict. But in the event, although there was drama aplenty there was almost no fighting. Some leading English citizens sent a suggestion to William of Orange, the Stadtholder of the Netherlands, that he should land with an army whereupon the population would welcome him and offer him the throne. At this time William was fighting a war of survival against France. He had to make the decision - should he risk taking his army to England? If he did so and got entangled in a civil war he could leave his country unprotected from his enemy. But the prize of winning over England to his side was great. He took the risk and set sail for England, knowing that he risked losing everything including his own country's independence. The English Channel is very narrow near Dover and it was impossible to pass it unobserved by day but as the chance of time and tide had it the flotilla happened to go by during the long winter hours of darkness. William chose to light the lamps on all his ships to clearly signal to onlookers on shore that he was on his way. He landed in Dorset on the 5th of November. As it happened this was the day devoted by the Church of England to celebrate the unsuccessful attempt by Catholics to blow up the Houses of Parliament. As the news of the landing spread huge bonfires were lit and fireworks let off. This was the first time that the event had been celebrated in this way and the tradition of bonfires and fireworks on the fifth of November which continues to this day in England dates back to 1688. Landing unopposed by the powerful English fleet was lucky, but William was now in the position of invading a large kingdom which on paper had considerable resources available to defend itself. William was in a position to give battle if need be, but if he did he would be possibly harming his legitimacy as a saviour, and also weakening the kingdom he was hoping to take over. What he did therefore was to move very slowly and to avoid battle while waiting for the population to come over to his side. This happened more slowly than he wanted but he did begin to pull over both the ordinary people of the west of England and increasing numbers of the upper classes and the establishment. For James it must have been agonising watching his authority slip away as more and more people went over to William. The last straw seems to have been when his top general, John Churchill, defected. Churchill, an ancestor of Winston, was both an important military expert and also a personal fried of the king. Now that his army had started to disintegrate James fled, stopping to throw the Great Seal in the Thames. Having got right to the point of a potentially murderous civil war, England succeeded in changing its government with hardly any bloodshed. The potential harm that could have come from a conflict is easy to imagine by looking at Ireland where the same process was far from peaceful and where the bitterness arising from it was still causing problems even a couple of years ago. It is not hard to see why the men at the time called it the Glorious Revolution. It has been forgotten to some extent today when compared to the Civil War and the two World Wars which have more action to them. but when Tolkien was growing up it a more prominent bit of history. As someone who was interested in folklore he can hardly have been unaware of the rhymes that date from the period like The Grand Old Duke of York. For this reason I think that it was this period in English history he was thinking of when he wrote the Scouring of the Shire. The re-establisment of the legitimate church and the banishing of a tyrant all sound like very Lord of the Rings themes. And the atmosphere in the Shire has great parallels. The English put up with the privations at first, but when things got too much it only needed a small prod to stir them up. Much the same as the hobbits in the Shire. The other strong parallel is the determination to avoid violence as far as possible. And some of the details have parallels as well. The central role of bonfires for instance. Tolkien may not have been consciously modelling the Scouring of the Shire on the Glorious Revolution of 1688. But I can't believe that what he had heard about it didn't have some influence on him.