The fifth monarchist John Rogers and the contest for Commonwealth: debates and controversies with James Harrington, William Prynne, Richard Baxter in the protectorate.

• Grant number: 12/13447-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Effective date (Start): October 01, 2012
• Effective date (End): February 28, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - Modern and Contemporary History
• Principal Investigator: Luis Filipe Silverio Lima
• Grantee: Jaime Fernando dos Santos Junior
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 09/53257-3 - Seventeenth century interpretations of the five kingdoms dreams: sebastianists, joanists, and fifth-monarchy men, and the concepts of empire, universal monarchy, republic and sovereignty - Portugal, England and Americas, AP.JP

Abstract

The research intends to analyze a debate occurred between four authors whose work reflected the British Commonwealth held in 1659, the year after the death of Oliver Crowmell, during which new spaces for political experimentation seemed to open. The controversy took place between the fifth monarchist John Rogers, the central figure of our analysis, James Harrington, theoretical Republican, Richard Baxter, an advocate of constitutional monarchy and William Prynne, a Presbyterian sympathetic to an absolute monarchy. Our main interest is to see how John Rogers defended his position as a theocratic republic to English society and attacked the counter formulations, and as his opponents, rejecting the ideas of the fifth monarchist, sought to bring legitimacy to their theories. We believe that the analysis of this controversy through a reading of the texts from the coeval political vocabulary, it can help us to understand the competing projects and the perception of the authors on the millenarian belief and the fifth monarchists policymaking in the final years of the Protectorate England.