ABSTRACT
In 1642, men had been forced to make up their minds between two parties both of which represented essential elements in their fundamental political cosmology. Conflicting allegiances, further cross-cut by local connection and patronage, had led to commitments entered into without certainty, without conviction. Despite the constant demands and pressures of war, the social and administrative life of the village community persisted. The effects of the war were contained, restricted wherever possible. To declare for the King might legitimate resistance without involving any wider commitment than the restoration of local self-government. The Clubmen emerged as the true champions of a fully developed provincialism and conservatism whose importance and significance have been scandalously ignored. One fact is immediately striking from a reading of Clubmen programmes. A similar movement developed in Staffordshire. The civil war transformed the bureaucracy of local government. It happened within provincial royalist administrations as much as within parliamentarian ones, but after 1646 it certainly continued to take place.
