Agricultural History Review, Volume 67 Part 2 (2019), p. 318

‘Kill all the Gentlemen’ is a book born from current ecological and societal crises. Issues such as low wages and temporary employment plague Britain’s rural population, whilst the environmental impact of modern farming continues to be a point of concern. For Martin Empson, the origin of present-day worries is clear: ‘capitalism puts profits before people and the planet’. Subsequently, by exploring the contested development of capitalism in the English countryside Empson aims to trace current conflicts back to their historical source. Yet Empson seeks to do more than simply document history, indeed he ‘celebrates the rural class struggle for equality, justice and a better life and through this hopes to inspire people today’. As a socialist and an environmental activist, he dedicates his work to reasserting ‘the approach of Karl Marx’ into English rural protest history (p. 7). This book, consequently, provides a thought-provoking revival of socio-economic approaches that have been overlooked in recent years.

This ambitious monograph attempts to provide an overview of English rural protest from the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 to the Countryside Alliance March of 1997. Of the ten chapters, eight concern themselves with case studies ranging from Jack Cade’s Revolt and the Pilgrimage of Grace to Captain Swing and Joseph Arch’s Agricultural Union. The remaining two chapters are thematic; examining the ideological and material transition from feudalism to capitalism that occurred in the years surrounding the English Civil War. Commencing his study in the medieval period, Empson argues that following the Black Death feudalism was in turmoil. Reacting to widespread poverty and corruption, rebellions such as the Peasants’ Revolt were thus attempting to found a ‘new social order’ where the exploitative nobility could be entirely eliminated (p. 57). Empson repeatedly implores historians to acknowledge the ‘radical nature’ of these revolts, stressing their ability to organize a ‘cross section of medieval society’ and their visions of ‘a land held in common’ (p. 84). These beliefs continued into the ‘Tudor Rebellions’, where Empson reinforces the primacy of socio-economic causes. It was not the Reformation’s religious alterations alone that led to rebellions such as the Pilgrimage of Grace or Western Rising. Instead, these protests were caused by the emergence of capitalist relations, with landowners using religious upheaval as an opportunity to assault traditional village institutions and the poor’s material well-being. Indeed, Empson argues that it was the small cadre of gentry who led Tudor uprisings that dragged the poor away from ‘agrarian warfare’ and back to religious issues (p. 113).

By the seventeenth century, the farming class has supposedly undergone an ideological transformation. They were now isolated from their communities and ‘individually minded’; agrarian capitalism having firmly established itself with ‘farming for profit’ replacing the old feudal systems. The English Civil War, subsequently, was a ‘class war’ driven by capitalist farmers seeking representation and influence within national institutions. Attempts by the rural poor to prevent these changes, such as enclosure riots, were inevitably crushed by the military and legal might of the new capitalist order. By the late-eighteenth century, Empson argues, the poor had been similarly remodelled into a ‘rural proletariat’ yet still ‘the development of capitalist agriculture and capitalist relations in the countryside was fought at every step of the way’ (p. 204). These concerns over machinery, wages, enclosure and employment found their ‘final’ expression in the Swing Riots of 1830. In his longest case study, Empson depicts Swing as the dying gasps ‘of the old traditions’, its failure leaving a lasting realization that the rich could not be convinced to return to their ‘traditional’ roles. In his final chapters, Empson details the subsequent shift in the tools and mentalities of rural protestors. The adoption of agricultural unionism, abortively trialled at Tolpuddle and then championed by Joseph Arch, proved that ‘agricultural workers could organise and win’ (p. 281). These trailblazers thus inspired mass unionization in the early-twentieth century and the eventual modernization of rural protest. For Empson, these historical case studies serve to highlight the need for rural workers to organize, as even today ‘a redesign of the world’s food system will not come from above’ (p. 293).

In any nationally focused work, generalizations are to be expected, especially when covering over six hundred years of history. However, Empson’s narratives of ‘class struggle’ and the ‘rise of capitalism’ often feel worryingly lacking in nuance. Throughout this book, the rural ‘working classes’ and ‘elite’ are presented as two eternally opposed monolithic entities. This serves to lock historical actors into a socio-economic straitjacket, seemingly unable to operate outside of the assigned roles of their class. King Richard II, for example, could not have truly sympathized with the Peasants’ Revolt, as no noble would betray ‘the social structures that provided him and his class with their wealth and power’ (p. 47). Enclosure riots are similarly romanticized, becoming sites of binary struggle ‘as communities fought to use the resources instead of them being limited to the rich landowner’ (p. 198). Such simplistic dichotomies risk obscuring the complex nature of rural power relations. As Briony McDonagh has illustrated, common rights were tangled webs of interest that cut across local socio-economic structures, often leading to alliances between multiple social groupings. Not all communities experienced enclosure equally, nor was the relationship between the rural poor and ‘agrarian capitalism’ identical in every English village. It is a shame that in imposing these national models, Empson obscures the local distinctions that were foundational to the world view of rural people.

Despite these issues, Empson’s meticulous and evocative retelling of these protests make this book an enjoyable read. These rebellions and revolts are expertly described through concise yet energetic prose. Though mostly reliant on secondary works, Empson nevertheless provides an interesting and well-researched synthesis. Consequently, those interested in the history of rural resistance will be well served by Empson’s study. Additionally, this book provides an excellent summary of Marxist approaches to history and environmental activism, helping to contextualize many modern-day ecological conflicts. Although it occasionally stumbles, this book thus remains a valuable overview of the rural workers long struggle.