The key. Hello everyone and welcome to the history of England episode

405 the Putney debates now I hope you will all indulge me on this one today. We are going to talk about just a few days in the history of England

Not as bad as we spent two episodes on one day, but you know bad news for those of you who want me to cut the waffle and get on with it.

But look this is a very special occasion in English history when for the first time

ordinary people in a position of power got to debate extraordinarily radical ideas

about government effectively genuinely democratic ideas.

The concept of universal manhood suffrage comes out for example which for his time is just extraordinary.

So I give you, ladies and gentlemen, the Putney debates.

Before I hand you over to the episode, I thought I should also say that,

look, Jane and I happen to be in London with some friends and they live in Barnes, which is

just next door to Putney, so I went on a little pilgrimage to St Mary's Church. St Mary's Church. Mary's Church.

St Mary's Church, I should say, is where those debates were carried on.

It was very much rebuilt because it was been burnt down in the 70s,

but it was still very very atmospheric and I felt a

little weepy I had to tell you plus I met John who's a minister there and we

both got very emotional together I mean we didn't quite fall on each other's next is what

we'd have done if we were in a Tolstoy novel but still emotional in an English idiom.

The church is laid out in a way the Calvinists of the new model army would have liked very much.

Ultra in the body of the Church, no altar rails and all that sort of thing.

And John tells me that the progressive tradition carries on there with meetings of the inclusive church group of the Church of England.

In brief, the Putney debates cover a couple of weeks in late October and November 1647 when the General Army Council came together to discuss

the case of the Army truly stated.

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