English Civil War

Place in the Political Allegory

The English Civil War is invoked as a compressed emblem of popular revolt, not recounted as a sequence of battles or political events. The passage first argues that people attribute to kings achievements and resources that come from the people themselves: the people fight and pay, while the king receives the glory and appears generous in returning only a small portion. Its image of a colossal pedestal admiring the tiny statue it supports turns that mistaken deference into the central absurdity of monarchy.

The equestrian statue gives the argument its governing figure: the horse represents the people, while the rider represents the king. The people initially bear royal power, but the horse changes in the telling from a submissive ass into a lion. When it throws its rider, the passage identifies 1642 in England as one instance of that reversal, alongside 1789 in France.

Popular Power and Reversal

The reference makes the English Civil War a moment when the relation between ruler and ruled is abruptly reversed. The king’s apparent height depends on the people beneath him; once the people cease to carry him, the image of royal grandeur loses its support. The conflict therefore serves the passage’s political claim that the people are not merely subjects within the royal order but the force on which that order rests—and can overturn it.

The comparison with France places the English example within a broader pattern of revolt, but the passage does not describe the causes, participants, or course of either conflict. Its focus is the allegorical turn from bearing the rider to throwing him, rather than the military or constitutional history of the war.

Relation to 1649 and the Restoration of Deference

The passage distinguishes throwing the rider from devouring him. It associates the latter, more violent image with 1649 in England and 1793 in France, giving the English Civil War reference a specific place in a sequence: revolt in 1642, followed by a further and more destructive overturning in 1649. These dates are not interchangeable in the argument; they mark different degrees of popular upheaval.

The narrative then sharpens its irony by saying that the lion can become a donkey again. In the period under Queen Anne, the people have resumed the pack-saddle and the idolatry of the crown. Thus the English Civil War figures both the possibility of popular resistance and the instability of that achievement: the people can cast off royal authority, yet later return to venerating the monarchy whose stature depends on them.