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The Stuarts
A chronology of the Stuart Dynasty and the English Civil War, the Commonwealth and the Protectorate
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Headlines are in brown.
Dates are in red.
Hyperlinks to other pages are in dark blue.
References and citations are in turquoise.
Context and local history are in purple.
Geographical context is in green.
The Stuart Line,
1603-1714
Stuart
is the English spelling of the Scottish Stewarts
James I, 1603-1625
The
lack of an heir left by Elizabeth meant that the son of Mary Stuart, the 37
year of James VI of Scotland, with his protestant upbringing, was welcomed with
relief.
Union
of the Crowns of Scotland and England (though the nations remained separate
with their own parliaments). James’ ambition was to make Scotland and England a
single Great Britain and he introduced a union flag, and common coinage. A new 22 shilling piece bore the motto, faciem
eos in gentem unam, I
will make them one nation.
James
had the common law adopted in Scotland.
The Union of the Crowns did not prevent
Scottish invasions, and the establishment of plantations of Scottish and
English settlers in Ulster was unpopular in Ireland.
James’ eccentricities were widely
mocked, though not hated. He tolerated religious diversity.
Bubonic plague outbreak in London.
1604
A third of the population of York died
from plague.
1605
Adoption of the Union Flag for Great
Britain.
The Gunpowder Plot: A plot in which Guy
Fawkes and other Catholic associates conspired to blow up King James VI and I
and the Parliament of England was uncovered. Disappointed by James’ lack of
momentum to restore Catholic freedoms, this was a plot of young Catholic
gentlemen to blow up the entire seat of government by a planned explosion of
367 barrels of gunpowder under the House of Lords. It was perhaps inspired by
an attempt to blow up James’ father in Edinburgh in 1567.
However the plot was not generally supported by
the Catholic population and so it id not lead to a period of persecution.
1606
James I granted a proprietary charter to two
competing branches of the Virginia Company, which
investors supported. These were the Plymouth Company and the London Company. By
the terms of the charter, the Plymouth Company was permitted to establish a
colony of 100 miles (160 km) square between the 38th parallel and the 45th
parallel (roughly between Chesapeake Bay and the current U.S.–Canada border).
The London Company was permitted to establish between the 34th parallel and the
41st parallel (approximately between Cape Fear and Long Island Sound) and also owned a large portion of Atlantic and Inland
Canada. In the area of overlap, the two companies were not permitted to
establish colonies within one hundred miles of each other. During 1606, each
company organized expeditions to establish settlements within the area of their
rights.
1607
14 May 1607 - Jamestown was founded in the Virginia
Colony and was the first permanent English colony in the Americas. The London Company hired Captain
Christopher Newport to lead its expedition. On December 20, 1606, he set sail
from England with his flagship, the Susan Constant, and two smaller
ships, the Godspeed, and the Discovery, with 105 men and boys, plus 39
sailors. After an unusually long voyage of 144 days, they arrived at the mouth
of the Chesapeake Bay and came ashore at the point where the southern side of
the bay meets the Atlantic Ocean, an event that has come to be called the
"First Landing". They erected a cross and named the point of land
Cape Henry in honor of Henry Frederick, Prince of
Wales, the eldest son of King James.
1611
John Speed’s The Theatre of the Empire
of Great Britain included the first set of county maps of England and Wales.
The publication of the King James Bible.
1616
William Shakespeare died.
1618
The Company of Adventurers of London
Trading with ports in Africa.
The Thirty Years War 1618-1648 broke out
in Prague and renewed the Papish threat from the Continent. The Habsburgs
crushed religious and political liberties. English and Scottish Protestants
enthusiastically supported the European Protestants (akin to the Spanish civil
war of the 1930s) and in some ways this gave rise to a significant part of the
gentry gaining military experience.
There is an In Our Time podcast on the Thirty Years War (1618
to 1648).
1620
By 1620, religious minorities were
attracted to the new colonies in America, The Pilgrim Fathers sailed for
America on the Mayflower to establish Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts.
There is an In Our Time podcast on the Pilgrim Fathers and
why their 1620 voyage on the Mayflower has become iconic in the American
imagination.
Jacobite
rebels, reprieved slaves, the imperious (who sold bondage to pay for passage)
and those offered transportation as an alternative to the gallows emigrated to
America. The immigrant population in America soon doubled every 25 years. The
settlers were self consciously English and later British.
1621
James sought to stay out of it. When
Parliament petitioned for war with Spain, James insisted that Parliament’s
privileged rested solely upon his will. James wished instead to gain closer
ties with Europe through a suitable marriage of his son Charles.
England generally stayed out of the
Thirty Years Way, and profited from trade with both
sides.
1625
In 1625, Charles married Louis XIII’s
sister, Henriette Marie.
Charles I, 1625-1649
Like his father, Charles saw Parliament
as archaic.
Charles had a natural reserve and was
instinctively secretive. His skills as a politician and statesman were inept.
Charles faced three issues:
1.
The
Church. Religious struggles and hardly anyone wishing to keep things as they
were
2.
The
Fiscal System. Elizabeth had kept peace by avoiding the unpopularity of raising
taxes. That left a problem for her successors exacerbated by inflationary
pressures.
3.
How
to govern the three kingdoms. Catholicism was spreading in Ireland and
Calvinism in Scotland.
1627
The development of Scarborough based on
the benefits of ‘taking the waters’.
1629
Charles was outraged by Parliament’s
refusal to agree to taxation and their criticism of his religious policies. He
ordered the Commons to adjourn, but the MPs held the speaker down and locked
the door to keep out the royal messenger, whilst passing resolutions
criticising the Kling’s policy. This has given rise to the ceremony of Black
Rod, establishing an independence from executive power which is rarely used
in practice.
The Personal Rule (also known as the Eleven Years' Tyranny) was the period in
England from 1629 to 1640 when King Charles I ruled as an autocratic absolute
monarch without recourse to Parliament. Charles claimed that he was entitled to
do this under the royal prerogative and that he had a divine right. Parliamentary
taxation only accounted for about 7% of the Crown’s revenue at this time, the
rest coming from feudal dues, local rates, fines etc and Charles increased this
income by an aggressive use of the royal prerogative and the extension of ship
money (supposed to be an emergency levy to fund naval defences).
·
The
absence of Parliament cooled the political temperature.
·
Charles
strengthened military and naval defences.
·
His
Book of Orders required local magistrates to report to him regularly and he
ordered a protection of common rights against landowners.
There is an In
Our Time podcast on the
Divine Right of Kings.
1630
Population reached 5.6 million.
Public stagecoaches began to operate
within a radius of about 30 miles of London.
Charles faced a serious religious
challenge., with a growing intensity of feeling about religion.
The parish had become the social
cohesion of local communities, about 500 to 600 folk
bound together, which reflected the social and political as well as religious
hierarchy.
Puritanism was the name given to the ‘godly’ by
their opponents. Mostly Calvinists who believed in predestination and that God
had chosen an elect for salvation, God controlled everything that happened.
·
Their
beliefs caused psychological stress.
·
In some
ways they reinforced existing hierarchies and elect gentry imposed strict order
on the idle and drunk
·
They
also appealed to subversives, who saw themselves as godly with a right to
oppose and reprimand their ungodly superiors
Arminianism took its name from Jacobus Arminius,
and favoured free will, in direct opposition to the Puritans. They did not see
the Catholics as a false religion. This was the focus of Charles I and William
Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
There were fears that Charles was
getting to close to Catholicism and this was
reinforced by his Queen Henrietta Maria’s practice of her Catholicism.
Charles tended to be tolerant of
religious matters and no one burned for heresy during his reign. Indeed 1569 to
1642 was a time when there was no rebellion.
Meantime Scotland, a more turbulent and
militarised society, was left to govern itself since 1603 and there was a
growth of a Calvinist model of Scottish Presbyterianism, run by committees of
lay elders and clergy and without the rule of bishops.
1636
In 1636, Archbishop Laud ordered the use
of a Scottish remodel of Cranmer‘s Book of Common
Prayer.
1637
In July 1637, there was outrage and
resistance at St Giles in Edinburgh.
1638
By 1638 a committee of lairds, burgesses
and ministers had drafted a Covenant to uphold the Scottish kirk and resist
popery. The Covenanters were seen as rebels
by Charles.
There is an In Our Time podcast on the Covenanters, Scottish
Presbyterian pledges to advance their beliefs in the face of episcopacy and
Roman Catholicism, and their impact across Britain and Ireland.
1640
By 1640, Charles needed funds. He had no
option but to call a parliament in April 1640. It refused the taxes he needed and he dissolved it.
In August 1640 a Covenanter army from
Scotland invaded and came as far south as Yorkshire.
Charles was forced to call another
parliament, which was also to some extent forced upon him by leading critics of
royal policy. Since it lasted on and off for 20 years, including during the
Civil War, it was later called the Long Parliament.
The most influential challenger to royal
policy was John Pym, a Puritan from Somerset.
Pym entered into
discussions with the Scots and their demands against popery and royal tyranny
and used their leverage to make their own demands. They impeached Thomas
Wentworth, Earl of Strafford and voted his death by a Bill of Attainder.
His last
words were I wish that every man would lay his hand on his heart and
consider seriously whether the beginnings of the people's happiness should be
written in letters of blood.
.
1641
The Protestation Oath required adult
males to declare allegiance to the King, Parliament and the Protestant
religion. About a third of the returns survive.
In October 1641 there was rebellion in
Ireland. Angered by the Plantations, there was a cycle of extreme violence,
matched only in Europe at the time by events which were occurring in Ukraine.
The violence from Scotland and in
Ireland raised the possibility of civil war in England.
The parliamentarians wanted to raise an
army to deal with the violence in Ireland. However
they had lost faith in Charles.
The Commons drew up the Grand Remonstrance, a lengthy assault
on Charles whole reign. It was passed on 22 November 1641.
However there was concern in the general
population about the extremism of the Puritans in parliament.
Charles was therefore welcomed in a
triumphal march into London on 26 November 1641.
1642
This encouraged on 4 January 1642,
Charles took a bodyguard and armed courtiers to Parliament to arrest Lord
Kimbolton and five
MPs. However they were tipped off and escaped.
Charles’ action provoked hostility in
the streets.
Charles left London 5 days after this
humiliation.
In his absence John Pym and his allies
pushed through in March 1642 the Militia Ordinance (not an Act
because it never received the Royal Assent), which placed the command of each
county's armed forces in the hands of their supporters.
Charles issued his own commissions of
array assigning his followers to organise their own armed forces in the
counties.
The seeds of civil war were sown.
English Civil War (1642–1651)
As the Civil War broke out, there was no
established armed force on either side, so each side began to raise armed force
in order to strengthen their bargaining position:
·
Parliament
voted on 12 July 1642 to raise a force under the command of the Third Earl of
Essex and required an oath of allegiance;
·
The
King issued commissions of array to allow the raising of militias and raised his
flag at Nottingham on 22 August 1642
Each side seized towns, strongpoints and
military stores. The King was locked out of the largest military depot at Hull.
Counties petitioned for compromise.
Counties such as Yorkshire dragged their feet.
It is too simplistic that the war was
just a fight between liberty non the part of the Parliamentarians against the
tyranny of Stuart absolutism. Nor was it primarily about class struggle. The
ancient peerages tended to back the Parliamentarians as they disliked the
novelties of Stuart government. Religion was the clearest dividing line, but
religious spectrums were fluid and nearly everyone belongs to the Church of
England. A third of Puritans in 1643 were Royalist. Instead
there was division everywhere and every town and village and many families were
divided. Most fought because they were conscripted. Families split. There were
shifting coalitions and people changed sides.
The Parliamentarians didn’t seeing themselves as fighting against the King, but rather
rescuing him from his own councillors.
Officers were mainly gentlemen. Each
side carried banners into battle which provided focus for rally.
Parliamentarian banners tended to be religious, Royalist banners were more
subdued. The terms Cavalier and Roundhead dated from 1640.
Royalist Wales and Cornwall were the only
solid regional loyalties who sided with the King and even in East Anglia and
London there were many royalists. Shropshire weavers who traded with the
Mediterranean tended to be royalist. William Davenport called on his Cheshire
tenants to support the King, but most did not wish to challenge the
Parliamentarians and the Earl of Derby, Lord Lieutenant of Cheshire found some
of his tenants turned against him.
(Robert Tombs, The English and their History, 2023,
221 to 226).
All theatres closed to prevent public
disorder.
In August 1642, there were early
outbreaks of fighting at Colchester.
The first Battle of Edgehill in Warwickshire on
23 October 1642 was inconclusive.
After Edgehill Charles marched on
London, but was halted at Turnham Green on 13 November 1642.
He withdrew to Oxford which became the
Royalist base.
During the early phase of the War the
Royalists had military superiority although the Parliamentarians had London.
The Royalists had more popular support, better leadership and more
sophisticated tactics.
1643
The Royalists took Bristol, an important
port town, in July 1643.
The Battle of Roundway Down,
near Devizes, was fought on 13 July 1643. The Royalists won a costly victory.
The First Battle of Newbury was fought on
20 September 1643. After a
long march, Essex surprised the Royalists and forced them away from Gloucester
before beginning a retreat to London. Charles rallied his forces and pursued
Essex, overtaking the Parliamentarian army at Newbury and forcing them to march
past the Royalist force to continue their retreat. Reasons for the Royalist failure to
defeat the Parliamentarians include shortage of ammunition, the relative lack
of professionalism of their soldiers and the tactics of Essex.
In desperation, the Parliamentarians
negotiated with the Scottish Convention and in September 1643 agreed a Solemn League and Covenant, bringing
the two nations close to union. The Solemn League and Covenant was an agreement
between the Scottish Covenanters and the leaders of the English
Parliamentarians in 1643. On 17 August 1643, the Church of Scotland (the Kirk)
accepted it and on 25 September 1643 so did the English Parliament and the
Westminster Assembly.
1644
By 1644, there were eight armies
fighting in 15 regional theatres.
In January 1644, 21,500 Scots marched
into England under Alexander Leslie, the First Earl of Leven. The military
balance was reversed.
The Second Battle of Newbury was a battle
of the First English Civil War fought on 27 October 1644, in Speen, adjoining
Newbury in Berkshire. The battle was fought close to the site of the First
Battle of Newbury, which took place in late September the previous year.
The Royalists were defeated by
Parliamentary troops at the Battle of Marston Moor, which was
fought on 2 July 1644. The combined forces of the English Parliamentarians
under Lord Fairfax and the Earl of Manchester and the Scottish Covenanters
under the Earl of Leven defeated the Royalists commanded by Prince Rupert of
the Rhine and the Marquess of Newcastle.
During the summer of 1644, the
Covenanters and Parliamentarians had been besieging York, which was defended by
the Marquess of Newcastle. Rupert had gathered an army which marched through
the northwest of England, gathering reinforcements and fresh recruits on the
way, and across the Pennines to relieve the city. Rupert’s force of 17,000 men
faced an Allied force of 27,000. The convergence of these forces made the
ensuing battle the largest of the civil wars.
On 1 July, Rupert outmanoeuvred the
Covenanters and Parliamentarians to relieve the city.
On 2 July 1644, he sought battle with
them even though he was outnumbered. He was dissuaded from attacking
immediately and during the day both sides gathered their full strength on
Marston Moor, an expanse of wild meadow west of York. Towards evening, the
Covenanters and Parliamentarians themselves launched a surprise attack. After a
confused fight lasting two hours, Parliamentarian cavalry under Oliver Cromwell
routed the Royalist cavalry from the field and, with Leven's infantry,
annihilated the remaining Royalist infantry.
Over 6,000 died in probably the largest
battle fought on British soil.
After their defeat the Royalists
effectively abandoned Northern England, losing much of the manpower from the
northern counties of England (which were strongly Royalist in sympathy) and also losing access to the European continent through the
ports on the North Sea coast. Although they partially retrieved their fortunes
with victories later in the year in Southern England, the loss of the north was
to prove a fatal handicap the next year, when they tried unsuccessfully to link
up with the Scottish Royalists under the Marquess of Montrose.
Parliament had control over northern
England.
As the war dragged on a peace movement
emerged. The clubmen
of the countryside were bands of local defence vigilantes who tried to protect
their localities against the excesses of the armies of both sides in the war.
They sought to join together to prevent their wives
and daughters being raped by soldiers of both sides, themselves being forcibly
conscripted to fight by one side or the other, their crops and property being
damaged or seized by the armies and their lives threatened or intimidated by
soldiers, battle followers, looters, deserters or refugees. As their name
suggests, they were mostly armed with cudgels, flails, scythes and sickles
fastened to long poles. They were otherwise unarmed.
In November 1644 Parliament offered
peace terms. After the alliance with Scotland, these terms included the
establishment of Scottish Presbyterianism and waging war against the Irish
Catholics and in Europe. These terms were rejected.
In December 1644, a New Model Army of 22,000 men was formed
by the Parliamentarians under Lord General Sir Thomas
Fairfax.
·
This
was the first professional army.
·
There
was a new officer corps.
·
The
Self Denying Ordinance removed MPs from military
command, though with the notable exception of the MP Oliver Cromwell, who was
given command.
·
The
army was detached from civilian society.
·
Harsh
discipline was imposed with penalties for drunkenness and blasphemy.
Sir Thomas Fairfax came from came from a
Yorkshire gentry family. The
Fairfaxes were among Parliament's leading supporters
in northern England.
1645
In 1645, the war intensified. An Act of
Attainder condemned the imprisoned Archbishop Laud who was beheaded on 10
January 1645.
The Battle
of Naseby took place on 14 June 1645, near the village of
Naseby in Northamptonshire. The Parliamentarian New Model Army, commanded by
Sir Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell, destroyed the main Royalist army under
Charles I and Prince Rupert. Defeat ended any real hope of royalist victory,
although Charles did not finally surrender until May 1646.
The Battle of Langport took place on 10
July 1645, near Langport in Somerset. Following its success at Naseby in June,
the New Model Army under Sir Thomas Fairfax destroyed the last Royalist field
army, led by Lord Goring. Parliamentarian victory allowed them to besiege the Royalist
port of Bristol, which surrendered in September.
The last Royalist field army was
decimated.
One of the last royalist positions was
at Basing House, which was bombarded and stormed by Oliver Cromwell on 16
October 1645.
Nevertheless the Civil War was marked by a degree of
restraint – encounters were generally followed by negotiation. Surrender terms
were generally respected and civilians tended not to
be harmed.
Charles was handed over and initially
held in Leicester.
At this stage, Charles still held a
relatively strong negotiating position. Public opinion remained relatively pro
Royalist.
There was factionalism amongst the
Parliamentarians. The Scottish Alliance had brought with it the threat of an
authoritarian system based on Scottish Presbyterianism. A faction of
Independents emerged within the Parliamentarians who sought liberty of conscience.
Many in the Army supported the Independents.
The New Model Army was becoming a
problem. Its cost and the need for taxation was causing resentment. The army
was coming to be hated by the civilian population. But disbanding was also a
problem with significant arreas of pay, amounting to
£3M. The army itself was seeking their own terms including protection from
being sent to fight in Ireland and indemnity from prosecution for acts during
the war.
However Charles remained stubborn and fatally
overplayed his hand.
1647
In July 1647, the army commanders
offered conciliatory terms, Heads of Proposals, which included tolerance for
the Anglicans. Charles was initially conciliatory, but eventually rejected the
terms. Charles was taken to Hampton Court.
Active political debates were started in
political instability following the end of the civil war. The Putney
Debates were held from 28 October to 8 November 1647 which discussed such
ideas as every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own
consent to put himself under that government.
There is an In
Our Time podcast on the Putney Debates of
1647, when factions of the New Model Army considered a possible new
constitution for England.
The Levellers
came to prominence at the end of the Civil War, led by John
Lilburne, and were most influential immediately
before the start of the Second Civil War (1648–49). Leveller views and support
were found in the populace of the City of London and in some regiments in the
New Model Army. The Levellers wanted limited government, though Lilburn denied that he wanted
to ‘level all men’s estates’. Their ideas were presented in their manifesto
"Agreement of the People". In contrast to the Diggers, the Levellers
opposed common ownership, except in cases of mutual agreement of the property
owners. They were committed to popular sovereignty, extended suffrage, equality
before the law and religious tolerance. The hallmark of Leveller thought was
its populism, as shown by its emphasis on equal natural rights, and their
practice of reaching the public through pamphlets, petitions and vocal appeals
to the crowd. Cromwell tried to ally with the Levellers.
In general
these emerging radical ideas tended not to envisage democratic freedoms, since
they recognised a need for strong central authority and high taxation.
The London Corporation established to
build workhouse.
Charles escaped from Hampton Court on 11
November 1647 and fled to Carisbrooke House on the Isle of Wight.
1648
The Second Civil War (1648 to 1649)
Fighting broke out again In London,
Kent, South Wales and East Anglia. The main struggle was at Colchester. The
Royalists captured Berwick.
In June 1648 Royalists sneaked into
Pontefract castle and took control. The Castle was an important base for the
Royalists, and raiding parties harried Parliamentarians in the area. Oliver
Cromwell led the final siege of Pontefract Castle in November 1648. Charles I
was executed in January, and Pontefract's garrison came to an agreement and
Colonel Morrice handed over the castle to Major General John Lambert on 24
March 1649. Following requests from the townspeople, the grand jury at York,
and Major General Lambert, on 27 March Parliament gave orders that Pontefract
Castle should be "totally demolished & levelled to the ground"
and materials from the castle would be sold off. Piecemeal dismantling after
the main organised activity of slighting may have further contributed to the
castle's ruined state.
A Royalist Scottish army invaded in July
1648, but were crushed by Cromwell who then marched into Scotland and forced
the removal of royalist sympathisers from the Edinburgh government.
The army and the Parliamentarians
concluded that they could not trust Charles. The army also decided that they
needed to bring Parliament to heel.
On 6 December 1648, Colonel Pride
occupied the Place of Westminster and arrested 41 MPs. ‘Pride’s Purge’ then
reduced the House to 150 MPs acceptable to the army, reducing it to a ‘rump’. The Rump Parliament was the English Parliament
after Colonel Thomas Pride commanded soldiers to purge the Long Parliament, on
6 December 1648, of those members hostile to the Grandees' intention to try
King Charles I for high treason. The army then demanded their right to try the
King.
1649
On 20 January 1649, the trial of Charles
I began at Westminster Hall. The president was John
Bradshaw, who wore an armoured hat. Charles was charged with unlawfully
using an unlimited and tyrannical power. Most people saw the trial as
illegal and sacrilegious. Sir Thomas Fairfax kept away – when his name was
called his wife called from the public gallery, He has more wit than to be
here.
Charles refused to recognise what he saw
as an arbitrary and illegal court. He commented “… for if power without law
may make laws, I do not know what subject he is in England that can be sure of
his life, or anything that he calls his own.”
Only 59 of the 135 members of the court
would sign the death warrant. Noone would write out the order itself, so
Cromwell did so.
There is an In Our Time podcast on the trial of Charles I,
recounting the high drama in Westminster Hall and the ideas that led to the
execution.
A scaffold was erected outside the
banqueting house. On 30 January 1649, wearing two shirts to stop him shivering
and suggesting fear in the cold air, Charles made his final speech: “Truly I
desire liberty and freedom as much as anybody whatsoever, but … liberty
consists in having government … It is not their having a share in the
government … a subject and a sovereign are clear different things.
He was beheaded at two o’clock.
The Commonwealth, 1649-1653
England became a Republic by an Act of
150 MPs of the Rump Parliament. Proclamation of a successor to Charles was
forbidden. The Rump became sovereign. The speaker became the Head of State. It
became high treason to deny Parliament’s authority.
There is an In Our Time podcast on the Interregnum (1649 to
1660) between the execution
of Charles I and restoration of Charles II including the impact in Scotland
and, infamously, Ireland.
There is an In Our Time podcast on how English republicanism has
developed from Cromwell to the present day, and examines whether it is embedded
as a sentiment deep within the culture of England.
Ireland was considered to belong to the
new British State. Scotland came under military government of General Monck.
The Regicide prompted religious fervour.
The largest group were the Quakers.
The Diggers
appeared in Surrey in April 1649, led by Gerrad Winstanley, who condemned land
ownership from the days of the Norman yoke. Lord General Fairfax concluded that
they were not dangerous.
The Fifth
Columnists led by Major Generals Overton and Harrison, drew support from
London labourers and servants.
The Muggletonians
founded by Lodowick Muggleton, foresaw the end of the
world.
The Adamites were biblical
fundamentalists.
These sects were feared by many.
Mutinies started in the army, including
in Oxfordshire in May 1649.
In
1649, Thomas Hobbes, a Royalist in exile in Paris, wrote Leviathan, which he presented to Charkes II. Its
premise was that humans originally lived in a barbarous state of nature, but emerged by yielding individual rights to an all powerful sovereign. In practice he upset both camps and
copies of Leviathan were burned in Oxford. It has subsequently been regarded as
a masterpiece of political philosophy, insofar as it is regarded as a statement
on the sovereignty of the state and the law rather than the person of a
prince.
On
the Parliamentary side of the argument, John
Milton
(including Paradise Lost), Sir
Henry Vane,
the Younger and Algernon
Sidney
wrote their treatises.
Charles II was proclaimed king in
Edinburgh and Dublin.
In August 1649, Oliver Cromwell arrived
in Ireland with a potent armed force. He
began to besiege Royalist held ports.
·
The
Republicans stormed Drogheda
on 11 September 1649.
·
There
was similar slaughter in Wexford in October 1649.
·
After
capturing the strongpoints, the Republicans fought a guerilla war against bands
of toraigh, or Tories and there was
devastation and epidemics.
·
An Act
for the Settlement of Ireland gave rise to the confiscation of land from the
Catholic gentry redistributed to 5,000 soldiers and investors.
1650
In September 1650, Cromwell turned to Scotland and destroyed the Scottish army at the Battle of Dunbar.
1651
In January 1651, Charles was crowned at
Scone and led his remaining Scottish army into England.
The Battle of Worcester ended the English
Civil War. The Scottish army was defeated and Charles
fled.
·
Charels’
wanderings became legendry.
·
He
was harboured in Shropshire and Staffordshire.
·
He
hid in the ‘royal oak’ at Boscobel House in Shropshire.
·
He
escaped to France through Dorset disguised as a servant by Jane Lane.
It is suggested that 86,000 were killed
in the Civil War and 129,000 died from disease. Relative to population size
(about 4 to 5 million), these losses were heavier than in WW1.
In 1651 the Navigation Acts gave a near
monopoly of trade to British ships.
1652
The First Anglo-Dutch War, fought mostly
at sea.
1653
The Protectorate, 1653-1660
The army grew impatient with the Rump
Parliament. On 20 April 1653, General Cromwell called on his soldiers to break
up the debate (“I will put an end to your prating”) and installed the Sanhedrin
of the Goldy, Barebone’s Parliament, but it did not much change matters.
In December 1653, the Instrument
of Government, made Oliver Cromwell a reluctant Lord Protector. The
'Instrument of Government' (the new written constitution of 1653) placed great
power in the executive formed by the 'Protector' (the role of national governor
set out in the Instrument) and the 'Council of State', many of whose members
were military commanders.
Oliver
Cromwell was known for trickiness and hypocrisy., He was though a
conciliator and he sought consensus. He favoured freedom of conscience and
respect for other religious beliefs, but not for Catholics. He did not however
have long term vision.
The Protectorate was a godly
dictatorship, backed by the army. Cromwell said that it was for the people’s
good, not what pleases them. Niceties of law and procedure had to give way
to the direction of authority. Its stremngth came
from the dominance of the military and from having more funds available than
the Stuart Kings.
1654
In 1654 Cromwell made peace with the
Dutch and French and launched an attack on Spain.
1655
British captured Jamaica from the
Spanish. However his forces were defeated at Santo
Domingo, fought between April 23, 1655 to April 30, 1655 at the Spanish Colony
of Santo Domingo. A force of 2,400 Spanish troops led by Governor Don
Bernardino Meneses y Bracamonte, Count of Peñalba,
successfully resisted a force of 13,120 troops and 34 ships of the English
Commonwealth Navy led by Admiral Sir William Penn.
The Rule of the Major Generals. From
1655 Cromwell ordered that each County in England be governed by a
Major-General. This was a form of military government which was an attempt to
provide better law enforcement in the country as well as to reform the nation’s
morals. One of their responsibilities was to punish those who had fought for
the King. They were to punish all manner of vice. Including drunkenness,
wearing and fornication. It was a repressive regime. Racehorses, fighting
cocks, bears and dogs were banned.
Nothing
sickened the people of the rule of the Sergeant Majors so much as their cruel habit
of examining little boys vice voce. For this purpose
the unfortunate children were dressed in their most uncomfortable satins and
placed on a stool. The Sergeant Major would then ask such difficult questions as
“How’s your father” and “Animal, Vegetable or Mineral?” and those who could not
answer were given a cruel medicine called Pride’s
Purge.
All this was called the Commonwealth and was right but repulsive
(1066 and
all that, Walter Sellar and Robert Yeatman, 1930).
A Decimation Tax (10% of income) was
imposed on former royalists.
It inspired more fury than terror.
1657
In March 1657, Cromwell was offered kingship,
but he refused. This may be seen as a restraint of his ambition, but it would
probably have restricted is powers.
1658
Oliver Cromwell died suddenly in
September 1658.
His son Richard Cromwell was easily
persuaded not to assume his succession.
1659
In May 1659, the army recalled the Rump
Parliament, but only 42 turned up and it ceased to function. For a week the
nation had no central government.
1660
In February 1660 General George Monck
arrived in London from his post in Scotland. Monck called on MPs to resume
their seats and to begin a transition top monarchy.
Charles II in Holland issued a
conciliatory Declaration
of Breda.
On 8 May 1666 a Convention Parliament
unanimously declared Charles II as King.
Charles II, 1660-1685
On 25 May 1660 Charles arrived in Dover
on his flagship Naseby, renamed Royal Charles.
The Commonwealth had left huge debts.
In August 1660 the Act of
General Pardon, Indemnity and Oblivion recognised changes in ownership of
land, and gave an amnesty covering the Civil War except for the surviving
regicides (of which 9 were executed in the coming years and Cromwell’s body dug
up, hanged and beheaded).
Most of
Charles’ witty remarks were of an unbridled nature and therefore (fortunately)
not memorable. He instituted however a
number of witty Acts of Parliament. Amongst these
were (1) The Act of Indemnity and Oblivion, which said that everyone should pay
an indemnity to the King and then forget that he had paid it; (2) The Act of
Uniformity, which said that everyone had to be the same as everyone else; (3)
The Five Mile Act, which said that no schoolmasters or clergymen were to go
within five miles of each other (this was obviously a Good Thing); (4) The Corporation
Act, which said that everyone had to be as fat as possible (except Nell
Glyn).
After each of these Charles became merrier still and though some of them,
particularly the Corporation Act, were considered rather unfair, he made up by
passing a new Habeas Corpus Act which said that all people might keep their
bodies, and thus everyone was contented. Later, Charles became even merrier and
made a Declaration of Indulgence saying that people could do anything they liked and a Test Act was passed soon after to see if they
had done it (and if so, what) (1066 and all that, Walter Sellar and Robert Yeatman, 1930).
The Royal Society founded to promote
discussion about scientific subjects.
Samuel Pepys’ diary began in January 1660.
The Tenures Abolition Act ended
feudalism.
The Corporations Act 1661 excluded
religious dissenters from town government.
A poll tax levied on all men and women
over 16 years old annually (until 1697).
The first regular standing army
established.
The English Navy became the Royal Navy.
There is an In
Our Time podcast on the
reign of Charles II which discusses whether the Restoration brought
peace and prosperity to England or was an unstable period that culminated in
revolution
1662
The Quaker Act made it illegal to refuse
to take the oath of allegiance.
The Act of Uniformity 1662 reimposed the
use of the Book of Common Prayer.
The Settlement Laws made it easier to
evict newcomers if a complaint was made within 40 Days of their arrival. This
reduced the mobility of the poorer classes and discouraged the search for work
elsewhere.
Limits to rights to claim poor relief.
The Book of Common Prayer included a
prohibited marriage list.
The Hearth Tax – a shilling to be paid
twice a year for every hearth or stove in all domestic buildings. From 1663,
hearths were listed.
Charles sold the recently acquired
Dunkirk to the French.
1663
The first turnpike road was authorised
for a section of the Great North Road.
1664
The Conventicle Act forbade religious
meetings of more than 5 people to discourage non conformity.
About 1,000 ministers (a sixth) and 2,000 clergy and teachers were ejected from
their posts.
The Second Anglo Dutch War, 1664 to
1667.
Impressment into the navy was officially
authorised.
1665
The Oxford Gazette (later the London
Gazette).
The Great Plague in London killed over
60,000.
During Charles II’s reign the Great
Plague happened in London. This was caused by some rats which had left a
sinking ship on its way from China, and was very fortune for the Londoners,
since there were too many people in London at the time, so that they were
always in bad health (1066 and all that, Walter Sellar and Robert Yeatman, 1930).
1666
Great Fire of London, 1666, 13,200
houses, 87 churches, the medieval St Paul’s Cathedral and 4 bridges as well as
treasures if art and literature were lost. 250,000 people were left homeless.
There is an In
Our Time podcast on the Great Fire of London
in 1666 and how the city rose from the ashes.
In the following year, therefore, London
was set on fire in case anyone should be left over from the Plague, and St Paul’s
Cathedral was built instead. This was a Good Thing and was the cause of Sir Christopher
Wren, the memorable architect (1066 and all that, Walter Sellar and Robert Yeatman, 1930).
The Burial in Wool Act required woollen
shrouds to be used.
A
humiliating defeat by the Dutch who sailed up the Medway in June 1667.
The
earliest ships’ muster books.
John
Milton’s Paradise Lost.
1670
The population reached 5.7 million.
European politics started to dominate
domestic affairs again.
Charles was close to France and admired
the young Louis XIV. He was attracted by Catholicism which promised the
absolute dignity of Kings.
1671
Establishment of a Board of Customs.
1672
The Test Act 1672 required all public
employees to take an oath of allegiance.
Charles II signed the Treaty of Dover
with France in anticipation of a joint war against the Dutch. England was duped
into lending aid to French aggression.
1672 to 1674
In 1672 a French army attacked the Dutch
Republic, with English naval support. The Third Anglo Dutch War – the army was
increased to 10,000.
Parliament refused to finance the Dutch
war and peace was signed in 1674.
Charles prorogued Parliament and relied
on French subsidies, assuring Louis of his continuing support. In this context
there was a revival of anti papal feelings.
Popery was as much a political idea as a
religious one. Feelings were aimed as much against France as Catholicism.
1675
John Ogilby’s Britannia Illustrata included 100 strip maps of roads in
England and Wales.
·
Plate 7 –
Tuxford to York via Doncaster
·
Plate 8 –
York to Chester le Street via Northallerton
·
Plate 49 –
Barnsley to Richmond
·
Plate 88 –
York to Lancaster
·
Plate 99 -
Whitby to Tinmouth via Lythe, Guisborough and Durham.
·
Plate 100 –
York to Scarborough via New Malton, Pickering and Whitby
1678
Dissenters
went underground. John Bunyan, imprisoned for illegal teaching, wrote
the Pilgrim’s Progress, a work on Puritan piety.
The
Titus
Oates plot
in August 1678 amounted to a conspiracy theory suggesting a popish plot with
French support to assassinate Charles. Catholics were executed for treason. The
Earl of Shaftsbury took the lead and demanded the exclusion of Catholics from
Parliament. Shaftsbury also sought to exclude Charles’ brother, James from the
throne, who left for Brussels.
There
is an In Our Time podcast on Titus Oates and his
Popish Plot.
1679
The
Exclusion
Crisis
(1679 to 1681) sought to exclude the King's brother and
heir presumptive, James, Duke of York, from the thrones of England, Scotland
and Ireland because he was Catholic. While the matter of James's exclusion was
not decided in Parliament during Charles's reign, it would come to a head only
three years after James took the throne, when he was deposed in the Glorious
Revolution of 1688. Finally, the Act of Settlement 1701 decided definitively
that Catholics were to be excluded from the English, Scottish and Irish
thrones, now the British throne.
Shaftesbury
urged Charles to make his illegitimate son also James, Duke on Monmouth, a
Protestant, his heir. James
Scott,
1st Duke of Monmouth, 1st Duke of Buccleuch, KG, PC (9 April 1649 – 15 July
1685) was a Dutch-born English nobleman and military officer. Originally called
James Crofts or James Fitzroy, he was born in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, the
eldest illegitimate son of Charles II of England with his mistress Lucy Walter.
Two new parties formed.
The Tories were opposed to this
exclusion. The derogatory term Tory came from the toraigh,
the Irish Catholic rebels.
The "Country Party", who were
soon to be called the Whigs, supported the exclusion. The derogatory term Whig
came from the whiggamore, Scottish
Presbyterian rebels.
The Civil War camps were the foundation
of the evolution of British politics and a trend towards what has later been
referred to as a
Whig History.
This was also the start of the Age
of Enlightenment or the Age of Reason.
1680
Headstones began to be widely used to
mark a place of burial.
The Great Comet was first identified by
telescope.
1682
Charles appealed for loyalty and
Shaftesbury fled overseas.
Locke wrote Two Treatises of
Government, asserting the right to resist monarchs.
There was a backlash against the Whigs.
The first settlers arrived in
Pennsylvania.
Travels of Celia Fienes
provide detailed information on certain English towns.
1683
The Great Frost – a frost fair held on
the Thames.
1685
Charles II died suddenly on 6 February
1685.
James II, 1685-1689
The accession of the Catholic James II
and VIII stirred things up again.
Titus Oates was exposed as a fraud.
James had ambition to make England a Catholic state. He was more authoritarian
than Charles, but less intelligent. Protestantism was being eliminated across
Europe in Italy, Spain, Hungary and France.
Almost immediately there was a
Whig/Protestant attempt on the throne, led by the Duke of Monmouth. Monmouth’s Rebellion
was defeated at the Battle
of Sedgemoor in Somerset.
The Bloody Assizes followed. Lord
Justice Jefferies heard 1,336 cases. The first batch were hung, drawn and
quartered, and James then made them all suffer the bloody executions.
Parliament was alarmed at the threat of
another civil war. James was appeased with money and an army.
James then legalised Catholicism in law.
Concurrently n Europe, Louis XIV revoked
the Edict of Nantes of 1598 which guaranteed the French Protestants a freedom
to practice their religion. 50,000 protestant refugees flooded into England.
1687
The Settlement Act of 1662 amended so
that it was necessary to establish settlement by occupying property valued at
over £10 per annum for more than 40 days.
1688
James allowed Catholics to freely
practice their religion by the Declaration of Indulgence of 1688.
On 10 June 1688 James II and his second
wife, Mary of Modena, had a son, James Francis Edward Stuart, who was baptised
a Catholic. This meant that James’ policies would not end with his death.
Meantime, Princess Mary, James’ daughter
with his first wife, Anne Hyde, was now aged 26 and wife of Willem II van Oranje, William of Orange, leader of the resistance against
France. Another war was looming between France and Holland.
On 30 June 1688, five Whigs and 2
Tories, later called the
Immortal Seven, wrote to Willem and promised support if he intervened to
secure a free Parliament.
On 19 October 1688 the biggest seaborne
invasion force before D Day sailed from the Dutch Republic and after a couple
of abortive attempts, reached Torbay with 463 ships, 5,000 horses and a
multinational force of 20,000. The force marched on London to confront James’
larger force of 53,000.
Fearful of another civil war, there was
hesitation. Towns and counties started to turn against James. Rather than rally
popular support, James abandoned his troops.
The Glorious Revolution.
There is an In
Our Time podcast on the
Glorious Revolution of 1688.
With the benefit of retrospect, the
Glorious Revolution was a turning point to a calmer world.
Nevertheless there were rival claimants to the
thrones of the three nations and the Dutch war against France, into which
England was now drawn, meant that Louis XIV had an interest to reignite the old
tensions in Scotland and Ireland.
This was the start of a war with France
that lasted 127 years until 1815, sometimes called the
Second Hundred Years War. It included:
·
The
Nine Years War 1688 to 1697
·
The
War of Spanish Succession 1701 to 1713
·
The
Seven Years War 1755 to 1763
·
The
French revolutionary War 1792 to 1802
·
The
Napoleonic Wars 1803 to 1815
It was from this point that Britain
started to appear more prominently on the global stage. The English language
spread, as did the culture and manners of Britain. London started to become
more cosmopolitan, a global bazaar. Economically, politically, culturally,
Britain became a major player in world history.
Although generally welcomed as a
solution, William was not widely accepted and
Archbishop Sancroft refused to crown William and Mary or to swear allegiance to
them. The Church and the Tories were still strong supporters of the divine
right of the Stuarts, while the Whigs gave support to the new regime.
This conflict between Whigs and Tories
became institutionalised. Generally each camp was
evenly represented within the elite. Party politics spread to counties and
boroughs and news and propaganda circulated in the coffee houses.
The Nine
Years War 1688 to 1697
1689
The Second Interregnum 1688 to 1689
A Convention Parliament met in January
1689.Willem and Mary were declared regents.
The House of Stuart and Orange, 1689 to 1714
William III and Mary, 1689-1702
In response to the 1688 revolution, the
French invaded Ireland in March 1689 with a naval squadron, led by James II.
The intention was to invade Scotland from Ireland and thence to London.
James met William at the Battle of the Boyne on 1 July 1690.
This was a European battle, with French, Dutch, English, German, Irish and
Danish soldiers.
The invading force was defeated. However the guerilla war continued. Penal Laws were passed
in Dublin to break up the Jacobite aristocracy.
William was dour and taciturn. He spoke
English imperfectly and spent much of his reign outside England. He didn’t feel
the English people were created for him, or him for them. However
he had overwhelmingly changed the course of English and British history by his
perilous invasion and his anti French alliance
prevented France from becoming the dominant force in Europe.
Legislation to encourage the consumption
of gin rather than French brandy.
There is an In Our Time podcast on the
Gin Craze in the 18th
Century and the moves to control it.
Steps were now
taken over the next few years to reinforce the Crown’s subjection to law and to
have Parliament take the centre stage of state.
The challenges
of concurrent wars meant that Parliament was more than every relied upon to
provide ever in creasing taxation needs.
Parliament has
met every year since 1689.
The Bill of Rights 1689 embraced:
·
a
right of petition
·
free
debate in Parliament
·
freedom
of election
·
trial
by jury
·
the
right to bear arms
·
the
frequency of Parliament
The wars
promoted a requirement for a larger more professional army, evolving out of the
New Model Army of Cromwell. Civil War was an incentive for the control of
military force and military service was not popular. This meant that there was
increased reliance upon a professional army, honed for serious fighting.
The Mutiny Act 1689 made
the army’s existence dependant upon Parliament’s consent.
1690
The Battle of the Boyne.
1692
The Massacre at Glencoe.
The Royal Hospital at Chelsea was
established.
During the 1690s the Whigs set up a new
“Country Party” which promoted resentment of ever increasing taxes,
and found some favour from Tories. It feared that despotism was being
replaced by corruption. The
party would later become known as the Whig Party, characterised by its
opposition to absolute monarchy. In the early to middle 1700s it was taken up
by opponents of the Whig Walpole ministry, which they claimed was acting
tyrannically and against the interest of the British nation and its people.
1694
The Bank of England founded by Royal
Charter.
The Triennial
Act 1694 required general elections to take place every three years.
The eldest daughter of James II,
William’s Queen, Mary, died childless in 1694.
1695 to 1699
Large scale emigration from Scotland
following famine. Many settled in Ireland.
County
Sheriffs were required to compile poll books of voters.
A
Window Tax replaced the Hearth Tax and led to widespread bricking up of
windows.
Another
offshoot of concurrent warfighting was the spiralling of taxes, which trebled
between 1688 and 1713. In 1696 an Inspector General was appointed to levy
customs and excise duties. The Land Tax created in 1688 was administered
locally by JPs.
There
is a perception of eighteenth century administration as
corrupt, but there is no real evidence of that and in contract to Continental
Europe, there was a tendency to trust and accept the administration, accepting
the need for national defence, albeit reluctantly. Taxation
was generally regarded as fair and compliance was high.
However taxation alone was not sufficient.
Public debt grew from £3M in the 1680s to £100M in 1760. This was the catalyst
for a new more efficient financial system.
·
Simple
IOUs were replaced by more sophisticated long term low interest bonds.
·
In
the 1690s, there were studies of Dutch and Venetian banking systems.
·
In
1694, the Scot, William Paterson founded the Bank of England (based on
the Bank of Amsterdam). It immediately acted to prevent a debt crisis to save a
collapsed in government credit.
·
As
Parliament’s guarantee made default unlikely and by 1715, half of the tax
revenue was spent servicing the national debt, but ‘as long as land lasts
and beer is drunk’, there was little worry of default.
·
Domestic
and foreign savers were eager to lend.
·
The
rate of interest fell from 14% in 1693 to 3% in 1731.
·
Britain
became a fiscal military state.
·
New
professions arose such as bankers and lenders.
(Robert Tombs, The English and their History, 2023,
307-308).
1697
Paupers were required to wear badges.
Waymarkers were inscribed on roads.
1699
The first slave ship sailed from
Liverpool.
The Stading Army was limited to 7,000
‘native born’ men.
1701
The population reached 6 million.
Another succession crisis arose in 1701.
The eldest daughter of James II, William’s Queen, Mary,
had died childless in 1694. The heir was James II’s younger daughter, Anne
(William’s sister in law), who was an Anglican and
therefore acceptable to many. After that, the successor to the throne would be
the Catholic descendants of James II by his second marriage.
The Act of Settlement in June 1701
(which remains in force) excluded the many Catholic claimants to the throne in
favour of a granddaughter of James I, the Electress
Sophia of Hanover. So whilst the Stuart Queen Anne
would succeed William, the throne was set in due course to become Hanoverian.
The War of Spanish Succession 1701 to 1713:
·
To
prevent the Spanish empire falling to the French.
·
Enormous
armies fought bloody battles across lengthy lines of defence, anticipating the
hoors of the First World War.
1702
William died on
1702 after falling off his horse in Richmond Park.
Queen Anne, 1702-1714
Anne was the last true Stuart Queen. She
has been described as popular, plump and unthreatening, but she made broad
political decisions and was the last monarch to try to refuse consent to
legislation. Her beingness transformed the monarchy into the symbolic, popular
and familiar institution that it became.
First daily newspaper, the Daily
Courant, published in Fleet Street – it later merged with the Daily
Gazetteer.
1704
Marlborough's victory at the Battle of Blenheim, 13 August 1704.
·
John Churchill, later the
Duke of Marlborough, an outstanding general, led a largely German army into
southern Germany
·
The
French army was defeated (the first French defeat for generations and the first
significant victory since 1588).
A Deeds Registry was established in
Wakefield containing over a million records of property ownership, followed by
records in the East Riding in 1708 and North Riding in 1735.
1706
Marlborough’s victory at the Battle of Ramillies, 12 May 1706
·
As
significant as Blenheim
·
The
consequence was to exclude France from the Spanish Netherlands and the later
fall of the fortress at Lille.
1707
The Act of Union established the Kingdom
of Great Britain.
·
The
Glorious Revolution had unleashed in Scotland a violent contest between the Calvanists focused in the Lowlands
and the Episcopalians focused in the feudal Highlands.
·
In
the 1690s the Scottish Parliament recklessly tried to establish a colony of its
own in Darien
in Central America. This involved it in war with Spain, when England was at
peace with Spain. The colony collapsed in 1699.
·
The
Act of Settlement of 1701 did not apply in Scotland
·
The
government in England brought things to a head and forced a choice between
union or separation.
The Act of Union 1707 was passed in both
parliaments (in Westminster without a vote). The wish of James VI and I a
century before, the unification of a United Kingdom of Great Britain with a
single Parliament at Westminster, was realised. Ireland remained a separate
kingdom. There was little controversy and it was felt,
certainly south of the border, that nothing need change.
Scottish intellectuals, including Hume,
Smith and Boswell played an active role in the Enlightenment. Scotland retained
a separate legal and education system, and its own religious establishment.
There is an In Our Time podcast on the part British thinkers
played in the Enlightenment in the 18th century.
There is an In Our Time podcast on the emergence and impact of
the Scottish Enlightenment which was led by the philosopher David
Hume and the father of modern economics, Adam Smith.
There is an In Our Time podcast on Adam Smith's celebrated
economic treatise The Wealth of Nations.
There is an In Our Time podcast on the pioneering British
Enlightenment thinker Mary Wollstonecraft (1759 to 1797).
As long as England had existed the lands
top the north had played an important part in its politics, especially during
the Civil War. It was hoped that Union would stabilise matters. The union
established a common market and single sovereign Parliament. However there
remained:
·
Religious
boundaries – an established Presbyterian Church in Scotland; Catholicism and
then Methodism in Wales;
·
Cultural
separateness
There was no ambition to create a single
nation.
This gave rise over time to a mixed
identify of English and British. The idea of Britishness mostly emerged in
imperial contexts and in institutions like the army.
At this stage the English colonies were
not as significant to the new Britain as the colonial interests of Spain,
Portugal and Holland. There was nothing yet to suggest a British imperial
destiny.
·
The
priority was national security and the growth of maritime trade.
·
There
remained an element of fear, especially for France.
·
British
overseas interests had a commercial interest, in the hands of chartered trading
companies:
o
The
East
India Company, chartered 1599
o
The
London company and the Plymouth Company, charted 1606
o
The
Ohio Company chartered 1747.
(Robert
Tombs, The English and their History, 2023, 329 to 330, 335 to 336).
There is an In Our Time podcast on the
East India Company.
The Sacheverell affair of 1709-10 is a much
overlooked event in English history. It was not significant
in itself, being a rather trivial incident, but was significant for its
far-reaching implications, in terms of its impact on both the political
situation in Britain and diplomacy on the continent. Henry Sacheverell was a high church Tory
Anglican who preached two sermons that described what he saw as threats to the
Church of England. The threat from Catholics was dealt with in three minutes;
but the rest of the one-and-a-half-hour sermon was an attack on Nonconformists
and the "false brethren" who aided them in menacing Church and State.
His target was the Whig party. His sermons brought to the fore the tensions
that existed between Whig and Tory across the country at that time. Sacheverell
was tried by the House of Lords at Whig instigation, accused of preaching
against the Glorious Revolution of 1688. The House found that his sermons
should be publicly burned and he should be banned from
preaching for three years. This made him a martyr in the eyes of many Tory supporters, and triggered the riots.
1708
The earliest artillery muster rolls.
The coldest winter for centuries.
1709
At the Battle of Malplaquet,
11 September 1709 in the Spanish Netherlands, the death toll was comparable to
the first day of the Somme.
Suspicions grew about how the Whigs were
pursuing the war and there were suspicions that it was being pursued for
personal gain and suspicions of the significant wealth built up by Marlborough.
Poor harvests across Europe led to bread
riots in Britain.
1710
A pro peace Tory government was formed.
An idea emerged that Britain’s best interest was to create a balance of power in Europe, and not necessarily
weaken France too much, However France, as a universal monarchy with intentions
to reimpose Stuart rule to Britain, continued to be the significant threat.
1712
Thomas Newcomen’s steam driven piston
engine provided efficient pumping of mines.
1713
The Tories however were not committed to
the war with France. They tended to take the Country Party view against high
taxation.
They unilaterally concluded an armistice
with France, the Treaty
of Utrecht. Spain ceded Gibraltar and France ceded Newfoundland to Britain.
The Spanish Netherlands were ceded to the Habsburgs.
There followed a long truce into the
1720s and 1730s.
1714
Queen Anne died in August 1714.
Following the process of the Act of
Settlement 1701, the electoral prince of Hanover, George Ludwig von
Braunschweig - Luneburg, became George I.