A New Kind of Army

Fifteen years ago, David Hackett Fischer published an extraordinarily illuminating book called Albion’s Seed, which traced the influence of a number of British “folkways” in America. One of these folkways was of great importance in the settlement of Virginia: Among its early settlers were many distressed Cavaliers, fugitives from the rule of the Long Parliament and Oliver Cromwell in the 1640s and ‘50s. Not exactly “folk,” they sprang from the prosperous gentry of the south and west of England, and the lower Midlands. This region remained loyal to King John in 1215 and was the last stronghold of the royalists in 1643; many of its constituencies voted Tory in Gladstone’s liberal landslide of 1880. It is the country in which Jane Austen’s novels are set, the country of Trollope’s Barsetshire and Hardy’s Wessex. Feudal traditions of deference remained stronger here than in much of the rest of England, as did other vestiges of aristocracy. (The southern and western shires contained the largest proportion of deer parks in the kingdom.) From this country came the “topping” families of old Virginia, families like the Lees (Shropshire), the Berkeleys (Gloucestershire and Somerset), and the Randolphs and the Washingtons (Northamptonshire).

Mr. Beran is the author of Jefferson’s Demons

About the Author

Michael Knox Beran

Michael Knox Beran, a lawyer and writer, is the author of WASPs: The Splendors and Miseries of an American Aristocracy.

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Fifteen years ago, David Hackett Fischer published an extraordinarily illuminating book called Albion’s Seed, which traced the influence of a number of British “folkways” in America. One of these folkways was of great importance in the settlement of Virginia: Among its early settlers were many distressed Cavaliers, fugitives from the rule of the Long Parliament and Oliver Cromwell in the 1640s and ‘50s. Not exactly “folk,” they sprang from the prosperous gentry of the south and west of England, and the lower Midlands. This region remained loyal to King John in 1215 and was the last stronghold of the royalists in 1643; many of its constituencies voted Tory in Gladstone’s liberal landslide of 1880. It is the country in which Jane Austen’s novels are set, the country of Trollope’s Barsetshire and Hardy’s Wessex. Feudal traditions of deference remained stronger here than in much of the rest of England, as did other vestiges of aristocracy. (The southern and western shires contained the largest proportion of deer parks in the kingdom.) From this country came the “topping” families of old Virginia, families like the Lees (Shropshire), the Berkeleys (Gloucestershire and Somerset), and the Randolphs and the Washingtons (Northamptonshire).

Mr. Beran is the author of Jefferson’s Demons