Quick break now for coffee then a piece on Cromwell's internal political pressure which I'm particularly looking forward to.
It's Malcolm Wanklyn (buy this book or this one). He's got a very small audience which is desperately disappointing, as he's started with a fantastic review of his experience of deconstruction as it affected historiography, especially seventeenth-century history. The focus is the many Oliver Cromwell's: left hero, left villain, inspiration to Hitler and Mussolini, fundamentalist or freedom fighter, hammer of Scotland and Ireland etc. etc. Malcolm's concentrating on the military career and the various ways in which it can be seen. Malcolm sees OC as taken up by radical politicians (the Fiery Spirits) who saw him as God's General who would win the war and persuade the undecided that Cromwell was the tool of Godliness.
It turns out that Cromwell used these people to achieve power, and tamed their radicalism for his own ends. This draws on an existing debate about whether or not Cromwell was radical or not - he certainly crushed the leftists such as the Levellers and Diggers. He was certainly a tolerationist in the early years - he didn't agree with the Scottish Presbyterians that any minority Protestants and Catholics should be crushed.
Despite his later military successes, Cromwell's early martial victories were a mixture of being in the right place at the right time, down to other peoples' successes, and a good degree of spin as the Fiery Spirits sought their 'god's general' - trying Waller, the Earl of Manchester and the Earl of Essex first.
I should mention what a great speaker Malcolm is: enthusiastic, total command of his subject, rarely needs notes, dynamic delivery.
Final session is on Manorial Rights of Wreck - didn't catch by whom. Apparently, some lord of the manor has turned up a 12th century right to ownership anything out to sea as far as a barrel of Hambrough/Humber (no, me neither) can be seen floating on a clear day by a man on horseback from a clifftop (supposedly 3 miles!) - conflicting with all sorts of other laws. The speaker's a law lecturer who is a diver. He's found loads of excellent stuff, but before he could give it to a museum via the crown, the lord of the manor claimed ownership. The git. Anyway, it's raised a host of quite interesting legal questions.
Quick guide for you scavengers:
stuff above water - Wreck. Belongs to the owner or the lord of the manor if no owner turns up.
Below high water - belongs to the Lord High Admiralty since time immemorial, which legally means 1189. Common law jurisdiction follows the tide as it comes and goes.
A derelict is an abandoned vessel floating or sunk below low water - and belongs to the Admiralty in British waters. The Tubantia was a hot case - a Dutch ship sunk and believed to be carrying gold. Turned out it had a cargo of Edam!
Update - a Hambrough/humber barrel = corruption of Hamburg Barrel - a 45 gallon drum used by the Hanseatic League. Phew.
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