From Reformation to Restoration

Henry VII (1485-1509)

The victor at Bosworth Field was Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond. Though his claim to the throne was tenuous and few in England could even hope that stability had at last come to that troubled land, he was to begin a dynasty that lasted 118 years. At the beginning of Henry VII's reign the Wars of the Roses were still pitting the Houses of York and Lancaster against each other for the throne. By the end of t Elizabeth IÍs reign, the last of the Tudors, the kingdom of Britain had become a great sea-power, enjoyed an unparalleled growth in literature and drama, experienced vast economic and social change and suffered (and more or less settled) the tumultuous problems of the great European Reformation. Little England had become unrecognizable in its unswerving path toward world domination in so many different areas.

Henry had a lot to think about when he defeated Richard. His victory was due as much to the king's allies deserting him on the field of battle as much as it was to Henry's own determination and courage, and in the face of his weak claim to be the legitimate ruler, a desperate gamble. After all, on his mother's side, he was descended from the offspring of John of Gaunt and his mistress, specifically barred from the succession. His grandfather, Welshman Owen Tudor, had been a household clerk of Catherine of Valois, whom he married after the death of her husband Henry V. Their son Edmund was granted the title of Earl of Richmond, and Henry himself, brought up in France, had the good sense to marry Elizabeth of York, eldest daughter of Edward lV, thus bringing together the white rose of York and the red of Lancaster.

It was not easy going for the new king. He effectively dealt with the early Yorkist threat to the throne when he defeated a conglomeration of rebels under Lambert Simnel, pushed forward to claim the throne as the supposed Earl of Warwick, nephew of Edward lV and Richard III. Henry's victory at Stoke, in 1487 marked the last battle of the Wars of the Roses. Then he dealt with Perkin Warbeck, who posed as the younger of the princes who had been murdered in the Tower. Along with the support of the King of Scotland, James VI, Warbeck foolishly led an army composed mostly of Cornishmen against Henry but was defeated and beheaded. The problem of Wales was more easily settled.

Henry had landed in West Wales to begin his march that culminated at Bosworth, in the English Midlands. The people of Wales showed little interest one way or the other, after all, the problem of the succession was an English one, but when Henry assumed the throne, it was generally felt in the principality that a Welsh ruler had now come to the land. Much of Wales, especially the gentry, now rejoiced in Henry's victory. They identified with the new ruler, a quarter Welsh (a quarter French and half English), who seemed proud of his Welsh lineage and showed that he recognized it. Consequently, Wales and the Marches were quite content to be ruled by the King's Council. It certainly helped that Henry named his son and heir Arthur, a name of great historical significance to the people of Wales, ever conscious of their long history as true Britons and heirs of the illustrious King Arthur.

The king could now concentrate on his governmental reforms, cementing in place not only the combined power of monarch and Parliament, centred in Westminster, but also reinvigorating the administration of law on both the national and local level. At Westminster, he revived the Court of the Star Chamber to deal with problems that mostly involved the nobility, and he reinvigorated the system of Justices of the Peace to keep tight control of the towns and parishes and ensure respect for the Crown. Henry also took control of the government's finances; his use of statutes to raise money raised some hackles, but he always had the excuse of needing extra cash to fight the French (who, in any case, paid him handsomely to stay away).

Henry secured his position as king by firm and effective government, soundly supported by adequate finances and backed by a strong legal system. The country was at peace and able to enjoy a great increase in trade with the Continent. John Cabot's voyages put the English flag on the shores of North America, the great mariner-explorer was supported by the king's grants of money and ships. Henry was also interested in books and learning. It was Henry who introduced the Yeomen of the Guard, the colorful "beefeaters" still to be seen at the Tower. His prudence, caution and wisdom were praised by historian Polydor Vergil as best suited to his age; they were qualities highly sought in a king.

All seemed well, but it was not. The premature death of Prince Arthur, who had married Catherine of Aragon when both were in their teens, had unforeseen consequences. The marriage may not have been consummated, but the subsequent remarriage of the Spanish Princess to Arthur's younger brother (who later became Henry VIII) created a major problem with the Catholic Church, which was having problems of its own trying to remain independent from the growing power of European monarchies. In one way, the repercussions of Arthur's premature death can be said to have led to the later success of the Reformation in England. It also meant the eventual unification of the Scottish and English Crowns, for Henry's daughter Margaret married King James IV of Scotland. But all this was later.

Henry VIII (1509-1547)

After the reign of the avaricious, duplicitous Henry Tudor, it was a welcome relief when he was succeeded by the amiable, athletic Henry VIII. He was a man who loved music, the military arts, and was interested in building England's navy. Considered by his contemporaries as a true renaissance prince, Henry proved just as ruthless as his father, a man who brooked no opposition, real or imagined. Right away he began his policy of "dynastic extermination," showing his bent by getting rid of the Duke of Buckingham, the Countess of Salisbury (sister to the Earl of Warwick) and in 1546, the poet Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, the grandson of Buckingham.

In understanding the spate of executions and the ridding of even those with the slightest of claims to the throne, we have to remember the infertility of the Tudors, a curse that was to haunt them. All male children born to Catherine and Henry had died. Henry had no heir of his own other than Princess Mary; it was unthinkable at the time that a woman should rule England. As Henry had married his brother's widow, the solution seemed simple enough: he would have to get his marriage annulled and marry the young, attractive, willing and it was to be hoped, fertile Anne Boleyn. But the king had not reckoned on the obstinacy of Charles V, the most powerful monarch in Europe, the nephew of Catherine and, more importantly, the virtual keeper of the Pope. Henry was just as obstinate, and those who failed to support his efforts to have the marriage annulled were quickly to feel his wrath.

Cardinal Pole, son of the Countess of Salisbury led the opposition to the king; thus his family was chosen for elimination. Pole had earlier gone to Paris in 1529 to seek a favorable opinion of Henry's claims in the matter of the divorce. He later sided with Charles V against the king, becoming elected cardinal for his spirited attack on the English monarch. He then appeared as a legate at the Council of Trent and played no significant part in English affairs until the accession of Mary. In the meanwhile, the son of an Ipswich butcher began his rapid rise to some of the highest offices in the land.

Thomas Wolsey joined the king's council in 1509, the first year of Henry's long reign. As the king enjoyed other pursuits, he left much of the administration in Wolsey's able hands, appointing him Lord Chancellor in 1515. The ambitious Wolsey then acquired other offices in rapid succession, including those of Archbishop of York, Cardinal and Papal Legate, in the words of a Venetian ambassador, "ruling the kingdom." It was in Henry's own interest to give free reign to his chief minister, but only so far.

Wolsey, like so many others in the kingdom, was completely undone by his failure to get Henry his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Again, it was the Emperor Charles V that presented the biggest obstacle, for he had just defeated his major European rival Francis l and taken Pope Clement VII prisoner. To be fair to Charles, he was more interested in Italy than what happened to his aunt, but Henry had been given the title "Defender of the Faith" by Pope Clement for his efforts to keep the forces of Protestantism at bay in England. Charles was not the only one who obviously felt that monarchs should live up to their titles, however earned.

In his passion for the beautiful Anne and his desire for a male heir, Henry made it quite plain that he wished for a quick divorce. Because of Wolsey's failure in the matter he was banished from court and eventually summoned to trial on a charge of treason. He died on his way to face the king. All his acquisitions of wealth and power had come to nought to the king's benefit, however, Wolsey had greatly increased the work of the Court of Chancery and the Star Chamber, a court by which the nobility was kept in check. On two occasions, he tried to get himself elected Pope, but the dilemma of the royal divorce ultimately proved too much for him. He was thus discarded when he was no longer useful to the king. His dismissal and the charges against him also point out only too well the declining influence of the universal Church in politics. The growth of nation-states independent from Rome would be a recurring theme of Europe for the next few hundred years.

Perhaps the break away of England was inevitable. The medieval church was moribund, in a fossilized state, out of touch with the vast changes that had been taking place in economics, politics and social conditions. We have already had an inkling of what was to come when John Wycliffe, during the reign of Edward III, had preached his revolutionary idea that grace could come from a reading of the Bible and not from the benefit of Church and clergy. Dissenters known as the Lollards were also increasing their attacks on the malpractices of the Catholic bishops, and William Tyndale was busy translating the New Testament into English. Now, with Henry at variance with the imprisoned and demoralized Pope, and the Catholic Church in disarray, with the teachings of Martin Luther reaching into all corners of Europe, the floodgates of the Reformation were let loose.

Henry obtained his divorce regardless of Charles V and the Pope. He simply used the authority of the state and the so-named Reformation Parliament that was first called in 1529 and that, for the next seven years, effectively destroyed the medieval church in England. In 1533, Henry married the pregnant Anne Boleyn and upon the death of the Archbishop of Canterbury, appointed Thomas Cranmer to do his bidding in that office. The official break with Rome came in April 1533 with the passing of the Act of Restraint of Appeals that decreed "this realm of England is an empire." One month later Archbishop Cranmer declared that the Kings' marriage to Catherine of Aragon was null and void. Ann Boleyn was duly crowned Queen, giving birth to Elizabeth but three months later. The Pope duly excommunicated both Cranmer and Henry.

After 1534, events moved even more rapidly. The Act of Supremacy of that year declared that the king was the Supreme Head of the Church of England and the Pope officially designated merely as the Bishop of Rome. There was no Catholic uprising in Britain; Henry still considered himself a staunch Catholic, retaining his title of "Defender of the Faith" and obviously proud of such an appellation. There was no break with Rome on matters of dogma, the king himself had no great desire for a complete separation, but matters came to a head with the rise to power of Thomas Cromwell, considered by many to be the architect of the English Reformation.

Cromwell was ruthless in carrying out the policies of Henry, but it is safe to say he probably sneaked in many of his own. Though Sir Thomas Moore, a man initially beloved of the king and Bishop Fisher were executed for refusing to acknowledge Henry's claim as Head of the Church in England, twenty-two other Englishmen were also burned at the stake for refusing to accept Catholicism. Then, when fears arose of an expected invasion from France, the dissolution of the monasteries in Britain proceeded at a rapid pace, for they were an easy target to satisfy Henry's need for vast amounts of money for coastal defenses and for the strengthening the navy. Wolsey himself had begun the matter, mainly for ready cash to found chanceries and schools, but the work was willingly carried to a rapid fruition by Cromwell.

The picturesque ecclesiastic ruins found all over the English landscape can give but little hint of the former grandeur and wealth of the great monasteries. Perhaps they had owned as much as one quarter of the arable land of the nation, and the amount of jewels, church plate, relics and gold artifacts they also possessed must have been enormous, to say nothing of their vast herds and flocks and huge swathes of the best arable land in the country. Henry was determined to have it all, thus the monasteries were destroyed and their lands taken over by the Crown. In three years, two acts of dissolution brought to an end hundreds of years of monastic influence in the island of Britain. A feeble protest from Catholics in the North, known as the Pilgrimage of Grace was easily suppressed.

An orgy of iconoclasm now took place in the land. In 1538, the same year that the last monasteries were dissolved, Henry's chief minister and architect of the Reformation in England issued injunctions stating that every parish church should have an English bible and shrines were to be destroyed. Thomas Cromwell relished his new duties in seeing that the crown replaced the pope as the arbiter of religious affairs throughout England. The destruction of so much that was a priceless heritage of an ancient nation is to be lamented. The value of so much art, books and architecture meant nothing to those who carried out Cromwell's work and the smashing of holy places even included the shrine of Thomas Becket, perhaps the holiest place of pilgrimage in all of Britain.

Many beside the king and his nobles were happy to see the monasteries disappear and the power of the Church diminished. Abbots lived like princes; their dwellings were more like baronial palaces than religious houses. Piety seemed notably absent from their magnificent edifices and vast land holdings. The bishop's house at St. David's rivaled the cathedral itself in grandeur. It wasn't only the great scholar Erasmus who decried the obscene wealth of the great religious houses in England, writing of them, in his well-read "Enchiridion" (1504), that "the monastic life should not be equated with the virtuous life "and that the monasteries themselves were "a backward-looking anachronism, out of date, out of sympathy, and ripe to fall." And fall they did. Their vast land-holdings were now sold off to those who could afford them and a new, rich landed aristocracy was set in place to dominate England's rural scene for centuries.

As the long period of monasticism ended in England, the nation of Wales also lost any hopes of regaining its independence. An expression that describes a Welshman who pretends to have forgotten his Welsh or who affects the loss of his national identity in order to succeed in English society or who wishes to be thought well of among his friends is "Dic-Sion-Dafydd." The term was unknown in 16th century Wales but, owing to the harsh penal legislation imposed upon its inhabitants, after the revolt of Owain Glyndwr in the previous century, it had become necessary for many Welshmen to petition Parliament to be "made English" so that they could enjoy privileges restricted to Englishmen, including the right to buy and hold land according to English law.

Such petitions may have been distasteful to the patriotic Welsh, but for the ambitious and socially mobile gentry rapidly emerging in Wales and on the Marches, they were a necessary step for any chance of advancement. In the military, of course, Welsh mercenaries, no longer fighting under Glyndwr for an independent Wales, had been highly sought after by Henry V for his campaigns in France, and the skills of the Welsh archers in such battles as Agincourt are legendary. Such examples of allegiance to their commander, the English sovereign, went a long way in dispelling any latent thoughts of independence and helped paved the way for the overwhelming Welsh allegiance to the Tudors.

When Henry Tudor ascended the throne as Henry VII, the foundations of the great Welsh landed-estates had been laid and much of the day-to-day affairs of the nation were controlled by its landed squires, many of whom had descended from English families and intermarried with their Welsh counterparts. Their loyalties were with the Crown or Parliament or both, but not with their native country; they came to associate the latter with loyalty to the Tudor sovereigns. Either the Welsh realized the hopelessness of their position; or their leaders, in true "Dic-Sion-Dafydd" style, were too busy enjoying the fruits of cooperation with London. The year 1536 produced no great trauma for the Welsh; all the ingredients for its acceptance had been put in place long before.

The so-called "Act of Union" of that year, and its corrected version of 1543 seemed inevitable. More than one historian has pointed out that union with England had really been achieved by the "Statute of Rhuddlan" in 1284. The new legislation was welcomed by many in Wales, by the gentry, commercial interests and religious reformers alike, and why not? Didn't it state that "Persons born or to be born in the said Principality ... of Wales shall have and enjoy and inherit all and singular Freedoms, Liberties, Rights, Privileges and Laws ... as other the King's subjects have, enjoy or inherit."

By the Act, "finally and for all time" the principality of Wales was incorporated into the kingdom of England. A major part of this decision was to abolish any legal distinction between the people on either side of the new border. From henceforth, English law would be the only law recognised by the courts of Wales. In addition, for the placing of the administration of Wales in the hands of the Welsh gentry, it was necessary to create a Welsh ruling class not only fluent in English, but who would use it in all legal and civil matters.

Thus inevitably, the Welsh ruling class would be divorced from the language of their country. But, as pointed out earlier, their eyes were focused on what London or other large cities of England had to offer, not upon what remained as crumbs to be scavenged in Wales itself. The Welsh people were without a government of their own, a capital city, or even a town large enough to attract an opportunistic urban middle class, and saddled with a language "nothing like nor consonant to the natural mother tongue used within this realm." A language that persistently refused to die.

The rise of the Welsh middle classes was mirrored in England, where the political privileges of the old nobility were being drastically curtailed and a new class was rising rapidly. Through his chief ministers, Henry continued to increase the powers of the Star Chamber at the national level, and saw to it that the Justices of the Peace, recruited from the gentry, carried out the king's commands at the local level. The king's foreign intrigues meant that he was forced to sell off most of his newly acquired monastic possessions. The landed gentry were the beneficiaries in more ways than one; for the king's repeated demands upon them for cash, and their repeated insistence on the granting of privileges in return, led only to an increase in the powers of parliament at the expense of the Crown. In 1544, the name "The House of Lords" first appeared, an indication of the rapid rise of the other, lower house "The House of Commons," which from now on was always ready to challenge the Lords' power (as well as the King's).

Much of Henry's need for money came from his wars in Scotland during the years 1542 and 1546 and with Scotland's ally, France. In 1488 in Scotland, James IV had come to the throne at the age of fifteen, with Earl Douglas acting as Regent. The EarlÍs cronies and conspirators received rich rewards for their services. One of these was the minor Laird Hepburn of Hailes, who became Earl of Bothwell and Lord High Admiral. We shall read more about the Bothwell later.

James IV had grand ambitions. His country enjoyed enormous prestige holding the balance of power between constantly warring England and France. He believed that Scotland could lead the way in the glorious cause of freeing Constantinople from the Turks. Accordingly, as a start, he had a large fleet built, including the mighty warship the Great Michael. He thus began a Scottish ship building industry that would become the envy of the world in a later era. In order to carry out his grandiose schemes in Eastern Europe, James first had to establish peaceable relations with England, his powerful neighbor to the south.

In 1501, James was twenty-eight years old. It was time to marry. He chose Margaret Tudor, the fourteen year-old daughter of Henry VII, following an agreement signed between the two monarchs that promised to be a treaty of perpetual peace. The Pope undertook to excommunicate whoever broke his pledged word. The ceremony took place at Holyrood Palace, Edinburgh, attended by many dignitaries from England. All seemed well.

James continued to use his kingdom as peacemaker between England and France. His efforts gave him the title "Rex Pacificator." When the Pope, the King of Spain and the Doge of Venice formed a Holy League against France, it was joined by Henry VII of England, the father-in-law of the King of Scotland. James did not join the league, however; he was convinced that the survival of France was essential to the stability of Europe. Thus he renewed the Auld Alliance that had begun in 1422 under the Regency of Albany. When France appealed to Scotland for help, as it had done when Buchan responded so magnificently in an earlier time, James unwisely sent an ultimatum to the English king.

Henry's response, though typical of the English monarch, must have startled James and the whole of Scotland. He declared himself to be "the verie owner of Scotland," a kingdom held by the Scottish king only "by homage." This was too much for a proud Scot to bear, and it was answered by James's march on England at the head of a large army in September 1513. So much for the peace treaty that was "to endure forever." The result was Flodden, one of the most disastrous battles in Scottish history.

James' own natural son, Alexander, thousands of the best and brightest young men, many of its bravest and strongest Highland chiefs, great Church leaders, and many Earls and Lords lost their lives in the calamitous battle at Flodden. Though no one knows what happened to James's body, a legend quickly developed in Scotland to match those in Wales concerning Arthur and Glyndwr, he was not dead, but one day James would return to lead his country again. Thus a typical Celtic myth grew out of what people saw as the refusal of a Welsh King (Henry VIII) to secure a proper burial for the body of a Scottish king (James IV).

Scotland now had no king and no army. As James V was still a baby, Queen Margaret assumed the Regency. However, in 1514, in a move that brought a surprising change of fortune for the country for which she showed little affection, she married the Earl of Angus and was succeeded as Regent by the French-educated Duke of Albany, the nephew of James III. Albany (who headed the National or French Party), continued the alliance with France, a country that had somehow extricated itself from its previous grave danger by the failure of its enemies to formulate a united front. After a series of plots against Albany by Margaret and her husband were foiled, the miserable, unfortunate Queen was forced to flee to England (the couple had planned to kidnap the young James V). This gave Margaret's brother Henry one more excuse to continue his policies of interfering in Scottish affairs. In 1524, Albany returned to France.

Chaos returned to Scotland. A series of battles between the Douglases and the Hamiltons, including one fought in the streets of Edinburgh, had left the mighty Douglas clan in control of the young king and thus of Scotland. James, however, who had declared himself ready to rule at the age of fourteen, escaped his captors and arrived at Stirling. He vowed vengeance against Angus Douglas whom he drove out of Scotland to seek refuge with the English king. James V could now begin to restore order to his suffering nation. He started by wisely agreeing to a truce with England.

In the meantime the effects of the Reformation were beginning to have their serious and long-lasting effects upon Scotland. In the struggle of Protestantism versus Catholicism, there was a mad scramble for a marriage alliance with the Scottish king. Keeping the idea of the Auld Alliance in mind, he elected for Madeleine, the daughter of the French King Francois I and when she died six months later, he took as his bride another French princess, Marie de Guise-Lorraine. Sadly for future Scottish history, she bore him no sons.

Henry VIII of England had the same seeming misfortune in lacking a male heir. He became more and more aggressive in his policies toward Scotland. By 1534 he had broken with Rome, was getting ready to totally absorb Wales into the English realm and had plans to turn Scotland against France by making it into a Protestant nation. When James was offered the crown of Ireland in 1542, Henry took an army north and proclaimed himself Lord Superior of Scotland. He met with and defeated the small, dispirited army of James at Solway Moss.

From his retreat at Falkland, the sad King James heard the news that his longed for heir was not to be; his wife had given him a daughter. Upon his consequent death, the young girl was proclaimed Queen of Scotland. So in 1542, Mary, Queen of Scots entered the world in much the same sad circumstances as she was to leave it forty-five years later. After James' death, Mary's mother, Marie de Guise, was determined to rule with a strong hand, but by her attempts to stamp out Protestantism in Scotland, she only invited further English activities in her country. Marie failed, for though an invading English army arrived too late to rescue a Protestant garrison holed up at St. Andrew's, it crushed the Royal Scottish army at Pinkie, near Edinburgh. Further hostilities were ended in 1549 by the Treaty of Boulogne between England and France that also effected the withdrawal of English troops from Scotland.

By that time, Henry VIII had been dead for two years. Jane Seymour had died soon after giving birth to Edward and Henry had remarried three times. Thomas Cromwell then chose Anne of Cleves as a bride for Henry, a bad choice for the Lord Chancellor and for the king, who despised his plain "Flanders Mare." The marriage was never consummated and quickly annulled by Parliament. Cromwell lost his head over the affair, but he had done his work for his master the king. The Reformation had been firmly established in England and the power of the Catholic Church irrevocably broken. The aging, gout-ridden, obese Henry had then married Catherine Howard, soon to be beheaded for adultery and Catherine Parr, his last wife, who outlived him.

Edward VI (1547-1553)

Another great "if" for English history was presented by the early death of Edward. At the time, no one could possibly see that the greatest Tudor monarch of them all would turn out to be Princess Elizabeth, daughter of the ill-fated Ann Boleyn. English hopes for a strong monarchy centered on Edward's survival. During his minority, despite Henry's wish that a council of ministers should govern, the Duke of Somerset (Edward's uncle) made himself Lord Protector. He continued the late king's policy of religious changes, furthering the Protestant reforms. Cranmer's "Book of Common Prayer" was made compulsory in all churches and the Latin mass abolished. These acts that were strenuously resisted in many Catholic areas of the country, not to mention Ireland, forever faithful to Rome, and because of this, Ireland was forever suspect in English eyes as a center of rebellion.

In England, attempts to impose the new Prayer book led to a serious revolt in Cornwall and Devon. This was joined by another uprising in Norfolk against rising prices and social injustices. To add to Somerset's woes, he embroiled England in a war with Scotland, as ever allied to France, and got himself defeated in battle and deposed and executed at home. Of the state of affairs, Sir Thomas Moore regarded the fight for influence and spoils between the great families of England as nothing more than "a conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of a commonwealth."

After Somerset's death, however, the country was then run by a much more able administrator, John Dudley, Earl of Warwick and Duke of Northumberland. He extricated his country from the disastrous war with Scotland, returned Boulogne to France and re-established social order in England. Protestantism now became official with the new Prayer book of 1552 and a new Act of Uniformity passed. But sickly Edward was dying.

To Northumberland's great chagrin, the rightful heir to the throne was Mary, Henry's only surviving child by Catherine of Aragon and a committed Catholic. He thus persuaded Edward to declare Mary illegitimate and to name Lady Jane Grey as heir (the granddaughter of Henry VIII's sister and married to his son Dudley). Poor Lady Jane, shy and unsuited for her role, was not supported by the country, who rallied to Mary, a Tudor and thus rightful sovereign. Mary arrived in London to great acclaim to take her throne.

Mary Tudor (1553-1558)

Mary took her throne with high hopes of restoring England to Catholicism. It has been said that she took her religion too seriously. In any case, she was too late, the Reformation had taken firm root throughout Northern Europe and in much of England, where her sacred duty to return the country to the Catholic fold was sure to be violently opposed. There were not too many in England who wished to return to a church that, as late as 1514, had condemned a dead man for heresy. To further her aims, Mary, already middle-aged, married Philip of Spain, the son of Charles V, who had defended her mother Catherine's marital rights. To most Englishmen, this act presaged an inevitable submission of their country to foreign rule. It was not a popular marriage.

Pious Mary then set about having Parliament repeal the Act of Supremacy, reinstate heresy laws and petition for reunion with Rome; the Latin Mass was restored and Catholic bishops reinstated. Rebellion was inevitable, and though easily crushed, the peasant uprising of Thomas Wyatt convinced the Queen that obedience to the throne had to be established by fire and sword. The orgy of burnings of heretics began.

The fires that Mary ordered to be lit at Smithfield put to death such Protestant leaders and men of influence as Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer and Hooper, but also hundreds of lesser men who refused to adopt the Catholic faith. The entire country became enraged and fearful. Mary's failure as Queen was ensured. Her marriage to Philip only made matters worse for it intensified the English hatred of foreigners, and by this time, of Catholicism in general. Parliament was rushed to declare that should Mary die without an heir, Philip would have no claim to the English throne. The Hapsburg Philip himself spent as little time in "obstinate" England as possible, got himself all involved in war with France in which Calais, England's last continental outpost, was lost forever. Calais hadn't been much of a possession but its loss was a grievous insult to the English nation. When "Bloody Mary" died in November, 1558, it seemed as if the whole country rejoiced.

The Virgin Queen, Elizabeth l (1558-1603)

Elizabeth became Queen of England at the age of twenty-five determined to show that it was neither unholy nor unnatural for "a woman to reign and have empire above men." She had many problems to settle, for the whole nation had gone through a period of social discord, political shenanigans and international failures, and was still in a state of revulsion over the Smithfield martyrs. Fortunately, the determined, charismatic and reasoned woman was adequately equipped for the enormous tasks ahead of her. Furthermore, though insistent on restoring royal supremacy and severing the ties with Rome, she was also willing to compromise on certain religious issues, putting her in another league from the late unmourned Mary.

The new queen was astute enough to realize that she needed the support of the common people, the majority of whom were overwhelmingly Protestant and anti-Rome. Her own feelings had to be put aside, though she did allow some of the ceremonies associated with Catholicism to remain. The communion service could be a Mass for those who wished. The religious settlement may have not satisfied everyone, but it satisfied most; above all, there was to be no return to the great distress and acrimony of Queen Mary's unfortunate reign. Even the rebellion of the Catholic nobility in the North created no great trauma for the Queen, for her nobles were better Englishmen than Catholics. Loyalty to England, expressed through her Queen, was stronger than loyalty to Rome. Those who bucked the trend, such as the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland paid for their insolence with their heads.

Elizabeth was served well by loyal citizens. One of her greatest assets was her ability to choose the right people to carry out her policies. In this, she had the luck of her father Henry, but unlike him, she was also able to have such men serve her loyally and efficiently for life, rather than carry out their own self-serving policies. She was particularly fortunate in finding William Cecil, who served first as her principal secretary and later as her lord treasurer. He was a man of amazing talents and industry; quite simply, he made governing into an honored profession. It has been astutely pointed out that, unlike Lords Leicester and Essex and the others who flattered the Queen, Cecil was no court ornament. His ability to compromise in matters of religion also stood him in good stead, and put him, like Elizabeth herself, slightly ahead of his time.

It was obvious to Elizabeth that in order to govern effectively, she needed to find a middle way between the extremes of Geneva and Rome. As Queen, she insisted on the retention of royal privilege. Her anti-Catholicism was heavily influenced by her desire to keep her country free from domination by Spain, rather than by any personal dictates of conscience. She thus chose the middle way of the Anglican Church, rather than accept the harsh doctrines of such men as Calvin and Knox, who would destroy much that was precious and holy in men's minds.

John Knox had arrived back in Scotland in 1544 carrying his huge two-handed sword along with his Bible. From the teachings and intractability of such men, the Reformation in Scotland had taken a much different path than it was to take in England after Mary, for Elizabeth was no Calvinist. Remaining the head of the Church, she promised not to "make windows into men's souls," and her Supremacy Bill and the Uniformity Bills of 1559, that made the Church of England law, substituted fines and penalties for disobedience, not the usual burnings and banishment.

One irritating and persistent problem that Elizabeth had to face was that of Mary, Queen of Scots. We have noted the success of John Knox in Scotland, and when the Protestant Nobles attacked the French-backed government forces of Mary, Elizabeth was naturally delighted when the French were driven out of Scotland. Queen Mary was not so happy. In 1548, the Auld Alliance had been immeasurably strengthened when as little Princess Mary, she had ended her period of moving from place to place for safety by going to France as future bride of the Dauphin. "France and Scotland," stated the French King, (reportedly leaping 'for blitheness') are now one country."

Catholic Mary returned to Scotland as Queen in August 1561. Widowed at age eighteen, she was no longer Queen of France, but thoroughly French in outlook and education. Scotland had undergone a major transformation in her absence. Knox had done his work well. The Queen's sprightly, impulsive (and apparently highly-sexed) nature quickly put her at odds with the austere, Puritan divines who wished to keep a tight hold on the hearts and minds of the newly-converted majority of Scottish people.

Edward VI protestant reforms book of common prayer catholic sir thomas moore john dudley lady jane grey mary tudor act of supremacy bloody mary virgin queen Elizabeth I smithfield martyrs william cecil john knox church of england auld alliance mary queen of scots In 1565, Mary's complete lack of foresight caused her to marry her younger cousin, Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, who had practically nothing to commend him either as husband or king. It wasn't only Protestants who were furious. When Darnley, immature and seemingly completely lacking in wisdom and intelligence, stabbed to death Mary's Italian secretary Riccio in a fit of teenage jealousy, the fires were lit for a never-ending saga of intrigue and misfortune. In 1567, Darnley's body was found in the wreckage of his house at Kirk o Field which had been destroyed in a mysterious explosion. He had been strangled to death.

Heavily implicated in the murder was a "bold, reckless Protestant of considerable charm" James Hepburn, fourth Earl of Bothwell, Lord High Admiral of Scotland. Mary then made her second grievous error: she married Bothwell. Now it was the turn of Mary's Catholic subjects to be furious. The young Queen, upon whom so many hopes had depended, had managed to alienate everybody. A Protestant army was raised to force Mary to abdicate and at age twenty-four, after she had been led in humiliation through the streets of Edinburgh, Mary Queen of Scots gave up her throne in favor of her baby son, who was immediately crowned as James VI. Bothwell's life was saved only by his escape to Norway. The Earl of Moray, Mary's half-brother James Stewart, now became Regent.

Mary, who had been held prisoner by the Scottish lords, made her escape from Lochleven Castle, but the small army she managed to raise was defeated by Moray. She then made another grievous error when she fled to England to seek refuge with the proud and easily jealous Queen Elizabeth who promptly imprisoned her unfortunate cousin. Mary should have gone to France, for as long as she lived, her own claim to the English throne made her a potentially deadly rival to Elizabeth l. Her endless schemes to recover the Scottish throne and to depose Elizabeth, including the Ridolfi Plot that got the unwise Duke of Norfolk executed for complicity, and the Throgmorton Plot, in which Pope Gregory XIII may have been involved, finally ensured her execution in 1587.

Elizabeth had far less trouble with Wales, peaceably incorporated into the realm of England by the Acts of Union under Henry VIII. Welsh men were found in strategic positions in court, specially favored by the Queen. Welshman William Cecil and others were included in the partnership that was forming a new and imperial British identity. In the expansion of England overseas, Welshman John Dee played an important part, for his accounts of Prince Madoc's supposed voyages to the New World were eagerly seized by Elizabeth's Court officials as justification for their war against Spain and proof of their legitimacy of their involvement in the Americas. Dee claimed that Elizabeth was rightful sovereign of the Atlantic Empire.

Welsh people were proud of their contributions to the nation. They were also people of "the Book," having received the Holy Bible in their own language and any attempts to make the Counter-Reformation productive in Wales failed miserably. William Salesbury had published his translation of the main texts of the Prayer Book into Welsh in 1551. When John Penry pleaded with the Queen and her Parliament to have the whole Bible translated, he found a sympathetic audience, for by this method, Protestantism could be firmly established in Wales, a country that formed a natural bulwark between England and the ever-rebellious Ireland.

Wales got her Bible in 1588, the brilliant achievement of Bishop William Morgan eleven years after Jesus College had been founded at Oxford to channel the flood of Welsh scholars flocking to the universities. With its own Bible and its language secure, there was little need for the Welsh to join in the fight to try to restore England to Catholicism. Besides, in the Tudors, they had members of their own national clan in firm charge of the whole nation.

The difficulties with Wales and Scotland were smoothed out. Ireland remained a problem. It was a far different country, almost a different world, one in which time had stood still for centuries. Fiercely tribal, loyal to the Catholic Church, it was a country that resisted all attempts to impose Protestantism. It was a country that England did not know how to govern, for it was a country that did not know how to govern itself. Yet, England's war with Spain meant that Ireland had to be controlled somehow, and it was somehow that Elizabeth extended her authority over a wide area of her Western neighbor. Sorrowfully, the Elizabethan dream of creating a loyal, modernized state of Ireland, perhaps in the Welsh model, completely failed despite the well-intended efforts of some of her most able men.

The great Irish chieftains were courted by Elizabeth in the hope that they could be used to bridge the gap between the native Irish and those that were sent from England on their "civilizing" mission. One of them, Hugh O'Neill, the second Earl of Tyrone (who was a personal friend of Sir Philip Sydney), in return for his loyalty to the Crown, demanded that chieftain rule be preserved and that the Irish people should be allowed freedom of worship as Roman Catholics. Elizabeth's refusal forced Tyrone to appeal to Philip of Spain for help.

Though the armada sent by Philip was turned back by storms, it encouraged the Irish to rebellion, driving out the English from all their lands except the Pale, a small strip along the east coast. The Queen's response to this threat of an independent Ireland under Spanish patronage was to send the Earl of Essex at the head of a large army. He failed miserably and returned to England in disgrace. It was left to Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, to restore the situation, and his successful attempts at pacification and the surrender of Tyrone in 1603 completed the Elizabethan subjugation of Ireland. The best we can say about the whole sorry adventure is that those who were busy trying to bring civil order to Ireland used the experience in their planting and colonizing of the New World, where they found a population far less able to withstand these ventures.

Alongside that of the ever-troublesome, unsolvable Irish question, how to deal with Mary, Queen of Scots, and the problem of the religious settlement, Elizabeth also had the task of defending the realm. This meant a twenty-year war against Spain, the most powerful nation in Europe. Again, the Queen of England was lucky, for Philip II of Spain had proved his incompetence as a ruler time and time again. He had practically ruined Spain in material resources, despite the bounty of wealth streaming in from South and Central America.

The theocracy that was Spain, decadent and moribund, despite its large armies and uncountable wealth, would prove no match for the vibrant, economically self-sufficient, fiercely proud and loyal island nation that was England under Elizabeth. Her navy, grown modern and efficient under Henry VIII was able to run rings around the cumbersome, ill-led, poorly trained forces put out by Philip in his attempt to conquer England. In 1588, the defeat of the seemingly-invincible Armada, though aided by the intolerable English weather, was inevitable. Its defeat also sealed the fate of any Catholic revival in England; from now on, a return to Rome would be out of the question. (A lesson that the later Catholic Stuarts were slow to learn).

It was thus that England was saved from domination by foreign powers, be they that of Rome or that of Spain (or a combination of both) or even Scotland. Elizabeth's long reign also saw her country undergo a remarkable economic growth, and a complete sea-change from the financial and political chaos (in addition to the religious quagmire) that had been the norm when she first took the Crown. Industry and trade prospered under the guidance of men such as Secretary Cecil (later Lord Burghley), one of the most efficient administrators that England was ever privileged to enjoy. His son Robert was one of the chief ministers responsible for carrying out the policies of James l. And in an interesting note, one of the same family, Lord Cranborne, a senior hereditary peer in the House of Lords, was dismissed from the shadow cabinet of that august body by Tory leader William Hague in December, 1998 for agreeing to a compromise deal with Labour leader Tony Blair over the reform of the House.

Remarkably free from corruption, Cecil became rich and prosperous in the service of the Crown and his loyalty was assured. It didn't do his economic policies any harm either, when the Duke of Alva began his reign of terror in the Netherlands, for the bankers and capitalists of Antwerp flocked to London to find a new and more secure international money and credit market. Only a year after the Northern Rising, Thomas Gresham had opened his new institution in London, the Royal Exchange, later to make the city the financial capital of the world. Cecil also encouraged the fishing industry, the source of England's navy and backbone of its sea power. Compulsory weekly fish days were increased from two to three "so the sea coast should be strong with men and habitations and the fleet flourish."

With such encouragement, English sailors began their mastery of the world's oceans. If William Cecil can be regarded as the great conservator of the Queen's strength, her seamen can be seen as its great expanders. It can be safely said that whatever Cecil did as pilot of the ship of state was made possible through English sailors. Though little more than pirates, these seamen laid the foundations of their nation's naval superiority which was to last, with few exceptions, for centuries and which later led to the acquisition of Britain's vast overseas empire. One of them, Sir John Hawkins, from the Plymouth family of sailor adventurers, was the first to show that English mariners could outmatch those of Spain, and it was not too long before the so-called Spanish monopoly in the New World was successfully challenged. The papal grant of 1493 that had divided newly-discovered lands and oceans between Spain and Portugal was conveniently ignored by Englishmen, and not just for religious reasons.

Hawkins was no John Cabot, who had discovered Newfoundland in 1497 in search of a Northwest Passage; he was no more than a slave trader, in search of riches. But so was Martin Frobisher, who made a series of voyages to Canada in the 1570's. So were those intrepid sailors and merchants who braved the Baltic to establish the Muscovy Company in 1555 to trade with Russia. On one of his voyages of plunder, some of Hawkins' ships had been captured in the Gulf of Mexico by the Spanish viceroy. Only two ships escaped, but one of them had young Francis Drake aboard.

A Spanish embargo then had the effect of the English rag-tag navy playing havoc with Spanish merchandise and shipping in the English Channel. Drake, now an experienced mariner grown bold, and others of his ilk then turned their attentions to disrupt the Spanish treasure fleets returning from South America. There followed a veritable explosion of English maritime achievements. For example, Drake's search for treasures led to his circumnavigating the globe (1577-78), Sir Humphrey Gilbert took settlers to Newfoundland in 1583; Sir Walter Raleigh organized his expedition to Virginia four years later, John Davis travelled into the northern regions of the world, John Cavendish emulated Drake's epic voyage by sailing around the world, the East India Company was founded and English culture and ideas spread east and west.

In the midst of all these successes, in which England thought of herself as divinely favored, perhaps we should also point out, that the passage of the Elizabethan Poor Law of 1601 showed only too well that in the midst of prosperity and the rise of a wealthy middle class, poverty was everywhere rearing its ugly head in the land. The transition of the English landscape by the enclosures of land (mainly to aid the wool industry) had thrown the traditional life of the yeoman farmer into turmoil.

The large market for English cloth on the Continent, brought in through Antwerp, increased the speed of land enclosures. The acquisition of vast land holding became a commercial venture and unemployment became rife. Thousands of landless peasants were now thronging into the cities and towns looking for handouts. It is astonishing that the Queen and her Council were able to ride out the climate in which a major revolt seemed inevitable. Fear of foreign intervention played its part in keeping England internally peaceful. It had also experienced a remarkable artistic renaissance, perhaps made possible by the growth of a large, new lawyer and gentry class.

Young Henry VIII had been considered a "Renaissance Prince," skilled in the military arts, deeply interested in music, theology and learning. Under Elizabeth, herself skilled in music and master of more than a few languages, courtiers became patrons of the arts, inviting great European artists such as Holbein and Hillard to paint their portraits. Traditional medieval music gave way to new forms of composition and performance under the skilled guidance of William Byrd and Orlando Gibbons. Great houses such as Longleat, Hatfield, Hardwick Hall followed Wolsey's magnificent palace at Hampton Court, in which to show off the new paintings, decorative arts and advances in architectural technique. There were great achievements in literature and drama.

Poetry was led by Edmund Spenser (1552-99) whose masterpiece The Faerie Queen was inspired by Elizabeth herself, and in which she is portrayed as a symbol of the English nation. In addition to producing Spenser, her reign was the age of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Raleigh, Sir Philip Sydney, Francis Bacon and John Donnne, to mention a few of those who would have been great in any age. In the midst of this outpouring of talent, the Virgin Queen found herself replacing the Virgin Mary as an object of devotion among many of her English subjects.

A Golden Age indeed, yet at the time of Elizabeth's death in 1603, it was possible to see the end of the Tudor system of government. The high costs of wars, years of depression brought on by high taxes, bad harvests, soaring prices, peasant unrest and the resulting growth of parliamentary influence and prestige in becoming the instrument by which the will of the landed classes could not only be heard but carried out against the royal prerogative meant that great political changes were afoot in the land. The Stuarts were to suffer from the increase in Parliamentary power and the diminution of the royal prerogative.

James VI (1603-1625)

Elizabeth's reign finally came to an end. The mighty Queen was laid to rest in March 1603 with James of Scotland declared as rightful heir. James journeyed to London to claim what he had longed for all his life, the throne of England. He greatly favored a union of the two kingdoms and the new national flag, the Union Jack, bore the crosses of St. Andrew and St. George. But though the Estates passed an Act of Union in 1607, it was a hundred years before a treaty was signed. After the glorious successes enjoyed under Elizabeth, marred by the failure to bring Ireland into her fold, there were many in England who had no wish to merge their identity with what they considered to be yet another inferior nation, let alone one that had been allied with Spain and France for such long periods in its history.

Whatever the English thought of their northern neighbors, the Scottish king had taken the throne of England without rancor. James VI was perfectly happy in the seat of power at Whitehall. His troubles with the Scottish Presbyterians, however, were nowhere near at an end. James' attempt to impose the Five Articles on the Scots, dealing with matters of worship and religious observances was met with strong opposition. He went ahead anyway, and pushed through his reforms at a in 1618. Typically, they were systematically ignored throughout Scotland.

It is important to remember that during the reign of James as King of both Scotland and England, the two nations retained their separate parliaments and privy councils. They passed their own laws and enjoyed their own law courts, had their own national church, their own ways of levying taxes and regulating trade and to a certain extent, they could pursue their own foreign policies. Scotland itself was practically two distinct nations. There was a huge division between Highland and Lowland. JamesÍ attempts to persuade the clan chiefs to adopt the Protestant faith was a failure. They clung to the military habits of their ancestors and continued the Gaelic tongue when most of Scotland had abandoned it in favor of English.

Despite such setbacks, James' twenty-year experience as the King of Scotland should have put him in good stead as monarch in London. But England was not Scotland; its government had progressed along different lines. In particular, the concept of the divine right of kings was not a major belief of those who held power at Westminster. There, it was king and Parliament that was the source of all laws, not the king alone. There was also the continuing religious problem, with both Catholic and Protestant factions vying for his support. James called an early conference at Hampton Court to listen to their arguments.

In Scotland, James had insisted that his powers were divinely bestowed as one way of counteracting the demands of both Presbyterians and Catholics. He carried this idea with him when he came south. He did not wish to have the English state made subordinate to any Church, whatever its religious preference. The example of Scottish Presbytery still rankled and the English Puritans' demand for a "reduced episcopacy" made him suspicious of their desires. James stated emphatically, "No bishop, no king."

Accordingly, the convocation of the clergy insisted on excommunicating anyone who impugned the royal authority, the Anglican prayer books, or the Thirty-Nine Articles that had been confirmed by statute in 1571 during Elizabeth's reign. For the age, these were moderate demands indeed. What was more important was the decision to issue a new translation of the Bible, and in 1611 the world received that most magnificent of all its holy books, the so-called King James Bible, the Authorized Version.

Moderate as James considered himself in matters of religion, he still promised to harry the Puritans out of the land. The consequent flight of many so-called Pilgrims to the Netherlands, and in 1630 their voyage from there to the New World, along with many of their compatriots from England, led to the establishment of the New England colonies. But more of this later. In the meanwhile, the Catholics in England were not as accommodating. When James reintroduced the recusancy laws that meted out penalties for not attending Church of England services, a group of Catholics took action. Their failure, in the notorious Gunpowder Plot of 1605, when they tried to blow up king and Parliament did more than merely ensure the commemoration by burning Guy Fawkes in effigy every November 5th, but also led to the demands for an oath of allegiance from Catholic recusants. This was a severe setback to their cause and an increase in the hatred of the Catholic religion in England and those who continued to practice it.

It is to James that we can attribute much of the sorry mess in Ireland that also continues to divide Catholics and Protestants, Nationalists and Loyalists. Anxious to expand Scotland's influence overseas, as well as to try to establish some sense of order in a country not willing to join Wales and Scotland as part of the British nation, the king unwisely encouraged the plantation of Ulster, beginning in 1610. Thousands of Scots settled on lands that rightly belonged to the native Catholic population. Their influence gave Ulster that staunchly Presbyterian character that so strongly resists attempts at Irish reunification today. James also encouraged Scottish emigration to Arcadia, one of the maritime provinces of Canada, part of which became Nova Scotia (New Scotland).

It wasn't only the matter of a religion, nor the vexing problem of what to do with Ireland which James had to deal. It was during his reign that the House of Commons first began to question the rights of the monarchy on matters of privilege. Elizabeth had replied most forcibly to the Common's interference on matters touching her prerogative and yet by the end of James' reign, the situation had changed altogether. The House of Commons now not merely being a legislative body performing this task for the monarch, or giving advice, or granting such taxes as he needed, but possessing remarkable administrative and legislative powers of its own. The change had come about gradually but the writing on the wall was set firmly in place even at the very beginning of James' reign in the matter of "Goodwin v. Fortescue."

Goodwin had been denied his place in the Commons by the Court of Chancery. When the Commons vigorously protested, James had to back down from his position that the whole institution of Parliament was dependent upon the royal powers. Following the Goodwin case and one concerning another Member of the Commons, Sir Thomas Shirley, the Commons were led to state what they considered to be their privileges in "The Form of Apology and Satisfaction." In it, they stated that James, as a foreign king, did not understand their rights which they enjoyed by precedent and not by royal favor. It was a sign of things to come in the long struggle between king and parliament that came to a head in the reign of Charles l.

Most of the troubles that beset James in his fight with Parliament, apart from his sexual preferences for men such as George Villiers, whom he appointed to many high offices, concerned the raising of money. The king's extravagance became legendary and the costs of running the Court and the war with Spain, which James at least had the foresight to end in 1604, led to the levying of additional customs duties. The matter of John Bate, a merchant who had refused to pay an imposition caused a deep split between those who believed that impositions were part or the king's absolute power and those who considered them to be a parliamentary privilege.

In the dispute, Chief Justice Edward Coke thought that the judges should mediate between king and parliament. His insistence on "a higher law background," that is the preference of common law (common right and reason) over an act of Parliament, had an enormous effect on the future direction of law both in England and in the American Colonies, where a supreme court could annul legislation or executive acts as contrary to a constitution. The king could dissolve parliament, or call it "addled," but it had to be recalled when the need arose once more to finance England's entry into the snares of the great European conflict.

James tried hard to keep the peace in Europe. His daughter Princess Elizabeth married Frederick the Elector Palatine of the Rhine. He also wished to marry his surviving son Charles, to the Spanish princess Donna Maria, but the German Catholic League, supported by Spain, drove the Protestant Frederick out of his lands. The Commons wanted a war with Spain, and a new dispute arose as to the exercise of free speech in Parliament when James resisted their efforts to discuss foreign policy.

To avoid war, Prince Charles visited Madrid to court the Infanta but returned humiliated along with Villiers, now Duke of Buckingham, who urged immediate war. James then turned to France to arrange a marriage between Charles and the French Catholic Princess Henrietta Maria (James' oldest son, Prince Henry, had died in 1612). The Thirty Years' War began with England's disastrous attempt to recover the Palatinate for Frederick and Elizabeth. The scholarly and intelligent James, the most learned of all who sat on the throne of England, so full of promise when he came to the throne, and so disappointed by so many failures at the end of his reign, died in 1625. The failures on the Continent, and in the struggle with Parliament continued in the reign of Charles l. The success of The Authorized Version , however, remained a magnificent legacy of the James l, the unfortunate monarch.

Charles I (1625-1649)

At the death of James, the throne passed to Charles l, who had only himself to blame for the troubles that would later befall him. His support of Buckingham, who continued his disastrous attempts at making war against France and Spain, as well as his own marriage to a Catholic princess, did not stand him in good stead with Parliament, who refused to grant him money until he got rid of Buckingham. The king dismissed his Parliament to save his friend, using the Crown's emergency powers to raise his revenues until expenses grew too great and Parliament had to be recalled. Its members promptly drew up a Petition of Right to emphasize the ancient rights of the English people, to assert that no man could be imprisoned without trial and other clauses that later became the foundation of the United States Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution.

Charles despaired of enforcing his rule on Parliament and from 1629 until 1630, he tried to rule without it. He ended the wars with France and Spain. But as so often in history, politics were dominated by economics, and poor harvests in England, coupled with a serious decline in the cloth trade with the Netherlands, led to Charles's attempts to enforce the collection of Ship Money over the whole country. He won his case against Charles Hampton, who had refused to pay, but alienated many of the country gentry without the support of whom his later fight with Parliament was doomed. Charles also increased the power of the clergy, and when, under Archbishop Laud, they began to renew persecution of the ever-growing Puritan sect, including the torture of William Prynne and other divines, a further exodus to New England took place in the 1630's that became known as the Great Migration.

Attempts to bring the Scottish Presbyterians into line spelled the beginning of the end for Charles, ironically at the height of his powers in 1637 with an efficient administration, more-or-less financially secure and doing quite nicely without Parliament. Although born a Scot, the Stuart Charles had very little understanding of Scottish affairs and even less of prevailing Scottish opinion. Of the Highlands, he knew nothing at all: of the Lowlands, not enough. A devout Episcopalian, he distrusted the Kirk and Presbyterians and greatly mistrusted democratic assemblies, religious or not. He completely failed to try to understand his Scottish subjects; nor did he wish to. As one who ruled by Divine right, he believed he had the sacred duty to bring the Scottish Kirk in line with the Church of England. It was an obligation that eventually was to cost him dearly.

The Act of Revocation, decreed by Charles in 1625, restored the lands and titles to the Church which had been distributed among the Scottish nobles during the upheavals of the Reformation. It did nothing to endure the king to those who could have given him support in Scotland. Neither did his outright, and to the Scots, outrageous demand of 1629 that religious practice in Scotland conform to the English model. It was as if Charles were deliberately setting out to antagonize everyone north of the border. His elaborate coronation as King of Scotland at St. Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh in 1633 was sufficiently "high church" to smack of popery to the assembled congregation. It was the wrong time to raise the question of the liturgy. Charles and Archbishop Laud went ahead anyway.

In July, 1637, the first reading of the Revised Prayer Book for Scotland was met with nothing more than a riot. Even the Privy Council had to seek refuge from the angry mob in Holyroodhouse. The Bishop of Brechin was able to conduct only with the aid of a pair of loaded pistols aimed at the congregation. Charles' answer was simply to demand punishment for those who refused to obey his orders concerning the use of the new Prayer Book. All petitioners against the Book were to be dispersed, and all the nobles who had resisted its use were to submit to the King's Will. The unwise and ill-advised King of England and Scotland had not reckoned with the strength of his opposition.

In Edinburgh, the National Covenant was drawn up by a committee made up of representatives from the clergy, the nobles, the gentry and the Scottish burghs. It was known as the Tables. Briefly, the document, signed on what was called "the great marriage day of this nation with God," pledged to maintain the True religion." Copies of the Covenant were carried throughout the country; its theological implications often lost. Though it had been signed "with His Majesty's Authority," it served almost as a declaration of independence from English rule, and let it be known that it was not Charles' representative in Scotland who made decisions, but the Lords of the Tables.

In November 1638, Charles met with the General Assembly in Glasgow. He didn't know what he was in for. The Assembly deposed or excommunicated all bishops, abolished the Prayer Book as "heathenish, Popish, Jewish and Armenian." Completely unwilling to compromise his position on the Church, Charles once again showed his naivete by brusquely informing the Assembly that all their decisions were invalid. To enforce his commands, he decided on war. By this further example of rashness, he sealed his fate.

In contrast to the poorly prepared, poorly led and poorly motivated armies of the English king in the early summer of 1639, the Scots had great numbers of experienced soldiers returning from overseas campaigns. And they had a worthy general, Alexander Leslie, who had commanded the army of the Swedes after the death of Gustavus Adolphus. The First Bishop's War, as it was called, was settled, most unwillingly by Charles (who had no other choice), by the Pacification of Berwick, by which the King agreed to refer all disputed questions to the General Assembly or Parliament.

The Scottish Parliament wasted no time in abolishing episcopacy and freeing itself from the King's control. When it took measures to weaken the Committee of Articles by which Charles had tried to control it, the king again foolishly took up arms, and the Second Bishops' War began. Without an effective army, Charles was forced to summon the English Parliament to beg for funds. When it met, it did nothing to please the King: the famous Long Parliament impeached and executed two of his chief supporters, Strafford and Laud. It also guaranteed its own existence against periods of personal rule by the monarch, for it stated that no more than three years could pass between Parliaments. More important, however, it stated that the present Parliament could not be adjourned without its own consent. With this further whittling away of royal prerogative, civil war threatened in England.

Off to Scotland again went Charles to try to gain support against his own Parliament. In the land that he had hitherto so blatantly antagonized, he distributed titles freely and reluctantly agreed to accept the decisions of the General Assembly and the Scottish Parliament. He had no choice. In England, where he had more support from the landed gentry, his obstinacy in resisting the Long Parliament and his stubborn insistence on Divine Right created the conditions for the actual outbreak of war in 1642. The Grand Remonstrance presented by Parliament had contained a long list of political and religious grievances. Charles had the audacity to try to arrest five members of Parliament but his attempts to locate them, and the speaker of the Houses' refusal to disclose their hiding place marked the beginning of the Speaker's independence from the crown, another landmark in the growth of Parliament.

At first, Scotland had no wish to get involved. The desires of the Covenanters were theological, not political. There was also a split developing between the extremists, who viewed practically anything at all of piety as "popery," and the moderates, led by Montrose, who reaffirmed both his belief in the Covenant, but also his loyalty to the King. Meanwhile, Charles had gathered enough supporters to gain many early victories against the forces of Parliament, mainly untrained levies from the shires. Scotland was again seen as a source of aid, but this time, it was the English Parliament, and not the king, who made the request.

Because the Covenanters wanted to establish presbytery in Ireland and England, as well as in Scotland, the offer from the English Parliament was too good to refuse. The agreement known as the Solemn League and Covenant, was signed in the autumn of 1643, the Scottish army was to attack the forces of Charles in England. In return, they would receive not only 30,000 pounds a month, but also the agreement that there would be "a reformation of religion in the Kingdoms of England and Ireland in doctrine, worship, and government." (Wales was considered as part of England). One term of the agreement was that popery and prelacy were to be completely extirpated from the whole realm.

The conditions of the agreement now had to be imposed upon the English Church. Accordingly, the Westminster Assembly was summoned to establish uniformity of worship in Scotland, England (and Wales) and Ireland. The task was much easier in Scotland, where even to this day, the Westminster Confession of Faith continues to serve as the basis for Presbyterian worship. It was not as easy to implement in England and almost impossible in Ireland. A good beginning, however, was the heavy defeat of the Royalist forces at Marston Moor by the Parliamentary army under an up-and-coming cavalry officer named Oliver Cromwell, that had been greatly augmented by a large force of disciplined and well-armed Scotsmen.

Then an about face took place. Montrose had been greatly disturbed by the forces of extremism. The ancient theory of Divine Right of Kings was being severely tested. And in the Highlands of Scotland, Presbytery did not run deep. The powerful Lord accordingly, aided by many in Ireland and a few loyalists from the Lowlands, raised an army of Highlanders to win Scotland for the King. The nationalist spirit was still beating in some Scottish hearts after all, and Montrose's army, without cavalry and with no artillery, managed to completely rout an army of Covenanters led by Lord Elcho at Tippermuir. He then occupied Glasgow.

The Royalists in England were not faring as well. Cromwell's rag-tag armies had now become the well-trained, well-armed New Model Army (nicknamed "the Roundheads). Following their success at Marston Moor, they won a second smashing victory over Charles at Naseby. They then turned towards Scotland and stopped the string of successes of Montrose and his Highlanders at Philiphaugh. Then, in May 1646, news came of the King's surrender to the Scottish forces at Newark. There was little left for Montrose but to take ship for Norway and his followers went back to their homes. The victorious Scots army, after having turned Charles over to the English Parliamentary Commissioners, also returned north of the border. Everything seemed settled.

Despite their military successes, the Covenanters were not happy with the situation. There was little likelihood that Cromwell would establish Presbytery in England. Perhaps Charles would have been their best chance after all. So at the end of 1647, an agreement was made between the Scottish Parliament and the king, whereby he would give Presbyterianism a three-year trial in England in return for an army to help him against the Parliamentarians. Charles' joy at this unexpected help soon turned to grief. The Scots army, led by the Duke of Hamilton duly came south. It was utterly defeated by Cromwell at Preston, its leader executed and its followers dispersed. Cromwell and his officers, even before the battle, had decided that it was their duty to call Charles Stuart to account for the blood he had shed and the mischief he had done against the Lord's cause. There was to be no room for the king in the post-war settlement.

After Preston, the Commons passed the final ordinance establishing Presbyterianism. A purge of the moderates in Parliament, however, left the radical elements in the so-called "Rump Parliament" that created a High Court of Justice to bring Charles to trial for high treason. His execution, held in public before a saddened crowd at Charles' own banqueting hall in Westminster, whose only reaction was a loud and mournful groan, was a foregone conclusion. The Rump then proclaimed a republican form of government. First called the "Commonwealth and Free-State," and later the "Protectorate," it lasted only eleven years.

Republican Government in England (1649-1660)

Charles I sincerely believed that he died in the cause of law and the Church. His death may have been thought of by Cromwell as a political necessity, but it created an atmosphere that was to haunt his own efforts to build a new godly society. When his Parliament, the Rump, abolished the monarchy, on the grounds that it was unnecessary, burdensome and dangerous, and then meted out the same fate to the House of Lords, for being useless as well as dangerous, it was destroying more than a thousand years of English history. Yet for many, even these measures had not gone far enough; the so-called Levellers wanted more, wishing for biennial parliaments with strictly limited powers, a vast increase in the electorate and no established church or doctrine.

The demands of the Levellers put them way ahead of their time. Cromwell was determined to crush them in a show of force. Determined to bring in an era of firm government, he quickly and forcibly suppressed any revolts and attempts at challenging his authority. He also had to deal with the Scots, seething with anger at the execution of their King whom he had promised to preserve and defend by the Solemn League and Covenant of 1644.

Cromwell had come to Edinburgh to receive a hero's welcome, but the news of the unprecedented execution of Charles, a few days later, sent a tidal wave of dismay over much of Scotland. After all, the unfortunate man had been king of their country, too. And regicide was still an act against God. Taking immediate action, Argyll continued the strange alliance of King and Convenanter and had the 18 year-old Prince Charles proclaimed King at Edinburgh.

In 1650, Charles II duly arrived in Scotland to claim his Kingdom. Eventhough, in an opportune "conversion," he had allowed himself to be crowned by the more powerful Presbyterian faction, this was totally unacceptable to Oliver Cromwell, who had assumed the title of Lord Protector. Cromwell invaded Scotland, defeated the Scots under General Leslie at Dunbar and marched on Edinburgh. The Covenanters, no doubt trusting that God would preserve their cause, would not admit defeat and on New Year's Day, 1651 they crowned Charles II at Scone and raised a sizeable army to defend him. Mainly composed of Highlanders, it was utterly defeated by the more disciplined, better trained Roundheads at Inverkeithing.

Cromwell now occupied all of Scotland south of the Firth of Forth. He then departed to deal with the Scottish army that had been looking for support in England, leaving General Monck in charge. Cromwell caught up with the Scottish army at Worcester on September 3, 1651. He destroyed it. A few days earlier, Monck had captured the Committee of the Estates (the remnant of the Scottish Parliament and had occupied Dundee). The continent now became a refuge for yet another Scottish monarch, as Charles II fled to France in the time-honored fashion of so many Scots rulers. He was to return after nine years in exile. It is interesting to note that General George Monck is on record as being "the first professional soldier of the unique school which believes that the military arm should be subordinate to the civil" a doctrine followed by non other than General Dwight D. Eisenhower during his presidency of the United States some three hundred years later.

While the king in exile "went on his travels," as he put it, Cromwell was busy setting up an efficient system of government in both kingdoms. He saw that a Treaty of Union in 1652 united Scotland with England and made it part of the Commonwealth. At the beginning of his "reign," sanctioned by the Rump Parliament, he had dealt severely with insurrection in Ireland, where his cruelty and butchery in reducing the towns of Drogheda and Wexford made his name so hated that it is spoken in a dreaded whisper even today.

Cromwell was determined to prevent any of the Stuarts from gaining a foothold in Ireland. Through his ruthless campaigning, he forced it to accept the authority of the rulers of England. Following the precedent set by James l's land grants at the expense of the native Irish, many more English landowners were able to take advantage of the confiscation and sale of sizable Irish properties, a situation that was later to lead to the blight known as "Absentee Landlordism." One result, however was that his military successes made it possible to integrate Scottish, Welsh, English and Irish MP's into a truly British Parliament, a remarkable achievement that lasted until the first quarter of the 20th century.

Under Cromwell, England was also able to strengthen its position abroad. As the signs of civil strife became apparent, Charles l had married his daughter Mary, to William, Prince of Orange, perhaps to show his commitment to Protestantism. Like the Scots, the Dutch people were horrified at the news of the king's execution. To propose a union between the two republics, the Rump Parliament sent envoys to Holland who were deliberately insulted and thus the opportunity and the excuse was presented for English commercial interests to engage in a trade war.

Consequently, the Rump passed a Navigation Act in 1654 designed to cripple Dutch trade. The resulting war brought forth one of England's great military leaders, Admiral Blake, who blockaded the Dutch ports and defeated and killed Admiral van Tromp in a sea battle before peace came in 1654. War with Spain a year later resulted in the British capture of Jamaica and the destruction of a large Spanish fleet at Tenerife.

In retrospect, Cromwell has been seen as an evil genius, at odds with the other impression that saw him as a godly man, interested in the establishment of a lasting democracy that practiced tolerance. He was certainly a man caught between opposing forces. He had gained his power through the army, yet he wished to rule through a much less radical parliament. He truly found himself "sitting on bayonets," as one historian has remarked. In 1653, unable to satisfy the demands of both factions, in true monarchical fashion, he even dissolved Parliament, but after the lack of progress of the interim "Barebones" Parliament, he resumed his power as head of the government of a nation that consisted of England and Scotland, Ireland and Wales.

On 12 December, 1653, after he had refused an offer of the Crown, "Old Noll" Cromwell, virtual dictator of England, received the title of Lord Protector. He instigated a period of government remarkable for its religious tolerance to all except Roman Catholics, still regarded as enemies of the realm. Under his protectorate, Jews were allowed back into England for the first time since their expulsion under Edward I. Many Jewish families were to do much to support later English governments financially. The Society of Friends or Quakers, began to flourish under the inspired leadership of George Fox. Perhaps more remarkable was the permission granted to congregations to choose their own form of worship, the Anglican Book of Common Prayer was replaced by the Directory of Worship.

Even these measures were not enough to satisfy everyone. In 1655, a Royalist uprising forced Cromwell to divide England into eleven military districts to keep down insurrection and to rigidly enforce the laws of the Commonwealth. Many of these leaders were responsible for the so-called "blue laws" creating a land of joyless conformity, where not only drinking, swearing and gambling became punishable offences, but in some districts, even going for a walk on Sundays. The unpopularity of these puritanical justices, mostly army colonels, led to their dismissal in 1657.

The same year saw Parliament nominate Cromwell's son Richard as his successor, an unfortunate choice, for the young man, nicknamed "Tumbledown Dick," didnÍt have the experience nor the desire to govern the nation. When he retired to his farm in the country, a period of great confusion between the various political factions and indecisive government resulted in the decision of General Monck to intervene. Always a Cavalier at heart "Old George" Monck brought his army from Scotland to London, where he quickly assembled a parliament and invited Charles ll to take over the reigns of the kingdom. The Republic of Great Britain and Ireland came to an abrupt end.

Charles ll (1660-1685)

Though a London mob had thrown down a statue of Charles l outside the Royal Exchange and placed the words "Exit Tyrannus" over the empty space, the same mob was to lustily cheer "God Bless King Charles ll" at the arrival of General Monck's army. The people had never been happy at the interregnum. The great diarist Samuel Pepys has adequately described the rejoicing when the monarchy, "laid aside at the expense of so much blood, returned without the shedding of one drop." Charles must have thought that the tumultuous welcome accorded him gave him carte blanche to govern as he thought fit; it did not. There was still Parliament.

The king got off to a good start. England was tired of being without a king, such an integral part of their history and a source of great national pride when things went well. Charles was crowned in April 1660 and within the same year married Catherine, the daughter of the King of Portugal, an act, nevertheless, which did nothing to diminish his reputation as a philanderer. Sadly enough, though he sired at least fourteen illegitimate children, but he was not able to produce a legitimate heir. A cynic in morals and a pragmatist in politics, he was shrewd enough to change his beliefs when he saw an advantage. In his earlier attempts at winning the throne, he had courted the Scots Presbyterians, but in later life, he reverted to his Catholic preferences.

Charles could not, of course, claim to rule by divine right. That era in English history had gone forever. The Crown could not enforce taxes without the consent of Parliament, nor could it arbitrarily arrest M.P.'s as Charles l had attempted. The two houses of Parliament, Lords and Commons were restored, as was the Church of England and the bishoprics. Many of those who had plotted against Charles l, known as "regicides" were executed, but there was no orgy of revenge and many prominent anti-Royalists, such as the poet John Milton, were allowed to escape punishment. The restoration of the supremacy of the Anglican Church, however, meant the upswelling of resistance from those outside its embrace.

Protestants were grouped together under many names. There were Baptists, Congregationalists and Quakers, all of who resisted strenuous efforts to get them to toe the line by conforming to the Act of Uniformity of 1662. Action against them came in the form of the Clarendon Code, a collection of different restrictive measures completed during 1664-5, that cut off the dissenters from professional advancement in all the professions, except business. Perhaps this may have led to the close alliance of Dissent and the world of Business that so characterized later England and has been seen as the foundation for its commercial success. In any case, it only strengthened the desire of the new and various Protestant sects to worship in the way they pleased.

Unlicensed preachers became a thorn in the side of government who regarded them as something akin to traitors. In 1660, John Bunyan, who preached, as he stated so emphatically, by invitation of God, and not of any bishop, went to prison for twelve years. The result was first, "Grace Abounding" and then "Pilgrim's Progress" completed in 1675. The pious, humble Quakers were particularly singled out for ridicule and harsh treatment. But the worst fears, and most severe recriminations were reserved for the Catholics.

During the period known as Carolingian England, after Charles had made his triumphant return from the Continent, it seems that there was no end to the anti-papal processions in London, the burning of the pope and cardinals in effigy, the hunting down of Catholic priests, the closing of their schools and search for their secret meeting places. Great Catholic families had been particularly loyal to Charles l; they had become anathema during the inter-regnum, and there was little that Charles II could do to restore their former dignity and favor. Catholic priests went into hiding, in constant peril of death or were forced to fall to the Continent.

After 1668, Charles began to turn more and more toward the Catholic religion. He concluded treaties with Louis XIV of France and agreed to reconcile himself with the "Church of Rome." In 1672, he issued a Declaration of Indulgence allowing freedom of religion for Catholics as well as non-conformists (Dissenters). He then joined the French king in a war against the Dutch, who flooded their lands successfully and resisted invasion. The failure caused a return of English resentment of Catholics and the passing of the Test Act of 1673 compelling public office holders to take the sacrament of the Church of England.

In 1678, when Protestant Clergyman Titus Oates, known as an habitual liar, heard rumors of the possible conversion of England to Catholicism by an invasion of French troops, he whipped up public feeling to frenzied heights by graphically embellishing the false tale. (Note: in World War II, the author as a small boy remembers the rumors being put about of an invasion of German paratroopers who had, it was said, already landed in Scotland: it was probably started when Nazi leader Hess parachuted into Scotland to give himself up to British authorities). Panic swept the land.

In the orgy created by rumors of plots to kill Charles and burn down Parliament, Catholics were hunted down and killed, and the legitimate heir, James Duke of York, was excluded from the throne by Parliament because he was a Catholic. Those who supported him were called "Tories" after Catholic outlaws in Ireland. Those who opposed James were the "Whigs" after Whiggamores, fiercely Protestant Scottish drovers. The Whigs supported the claim of The Protestant Duke of Monmouth, one of Charles' illegitimate sons. Another civil war seemed imminent before anti-Catholic feelings managed to die down in the absence of the "threatened" invasion. Yet even then, Charles continued his secret intrigues with the King of France.

Fortunately for the profligate, but Machiavellian English King, when a Whig plot to murder him and James, he had a reason to execute his opponents. Popular opinion then allowed him to bring back James to England where he regained his earlier position as Lord High Admiral. Charles was then able to live out the rest of his reign in peace mainly free from the political and religious struggles that had occupied so much of his reign.

These struggles, mostly involving the degree to which Protestantism had taken hold in Britain, had been particularly manifest in England's relations with Scotland. Alas, like his father, the new king had little interest in Scotland, preferring to govern it through a Privy Council situated in Edinburgh and a Secretary at London. Despite his early support by the Scots Presbyterians, he considered Presbytery as "not a religion for gentlemen." It is a constant source of astonishment to the modern reader how little Charles knew about how deep the roots of Presbyterianism had been planted in Scotland and how strongly the Covenanters would fight all attempts to return Scotland to episcopacy. His years in exile had taught him very little.

As King of Scotland, Charles had signed two Covenants in 1649 merely to secure his own coronation. When he restored James VI's method of choosing the Committee of Articles, he had the intention, not only of strengthening his position in relation to Parliament, but also of bringing back the bishops and restoring the system of patronage that chose ministers. All ministers chosen since 1649 were required to resign and to reapply for their posts from the bishops and lairds. One third of all Scottish ministers refused and held services in defiance of the law. Troops were sent to enforce the regulations but made the Calvinist Covenanters even more eager to serve God in their own way. In 1679, claiming to be obeying a command from on high, they murdered Archbishop Sharp.

The government decided to intervene to bring the rebels to heel. An army was sent to deal with them under the command of James, Duke of Monmouth. He defeated the Covenanters at Bothwell Brig and the survivors were dealt with severely. The reaction and counter-reactions that followed gave the period of the 1680's the title of "The Killing Time." The troubles continued when Charles died in 1685 to be succeeded by his brother James VIl (James ll of England) an openly-avowed Catholic who was welcomed in the Highlands, ever true to the legitimate monarch. And thus the seeds were sown for the Jacobite opposition that blossomed under the next king, the Dutchman, William of Orange.

Before the accession of James II, however, we have to mention the three great disasters that befell the England of Charles: plague, fire and war, all of which took place in three consecutive years, and all of which were recorded in graphic detail by diarist Pepys. The great outbreak of plague began in 1665, bringing London to a standstill and causing panic at the numbers of dead and the lack of any knowledge as to how to deal with the terrible scourge. Those who could afford to, simply packed up and went to live in the country.

The Great Fire of London, catastrophic as it was to the city, may have helped destroy the dwelling places of the brown rat, the carrier of the deadly fleas and thus brought the plague to an end. Though it destroyed the massive St. Paul's cathedral, it gave a chance for architects such as Christopher Wren to rebuild, transforming the old, unhealthy medieval, infested warrens into a city worthy of being a nation's capital, with fine, wide streets, memorable public buildings and above all, its magnificent new churches, including the present St. Paul's.

The third catastrophe was the continuation of the war against Holland. This time, with the Royal Navy mutinous over poor pay and atrocious conditions aboard its ships, the Dutch navy was able to sail with impunity into the Medway at the mouth of the Thames and burn many of the English ships moored at idle anchor. After the triumphs of Admiral Blake in the First Dutch War (1652-4), the Second Dutch War (1665-7) was a national disgrace.

Charles II died in February 1685 of a heart attack no doubt brought on by a life style that today' medical men (and religious leaders) would style nothing less than debauched. Of his reign, and that of his successor, more than one historian has seen all the political struggles, culminating in the Revolution of 1688 and the triumph of Parliament over the Crown, as springing partly from their attempts to grant to Catholics a greater degree of tolerance than would be countenanced by their other English subjects. They came to a head during the reign of James II.

James II (1685-1688)

James was yet another of those who have only themselves to blame for their downfall. His reign lasted only three years. He too, had learned nothing from his predecessors, for his attempts to re-introduce Catholicism into a country that had become a bastion of Protestantism meant with disaster far worse than any plague or fire or minor skirmishes on the Continent. Unlike Charles II, who could modify his beliefs to suit the occasion and ride the swells of political change, James could not; his morality, some say his high-handedness, prevented him. In his own words, he admitted that had he kept his religion private, he could have been one of the most powerful kings ever to reign in England, but he would think of nothing "but the propagation of the Catholic religion."

Things went well at first. He was able to get Parliament to grant him adequate finances. He recognized the Church of England as the established church and defeated a rebellion led by James, the Duke of Monmouth who had foolishly landed on the southern coast of England and declared himself king. Though many of the people of the southwest came to his support, Monmouth's rag-tag army was defeated at Sedgemoor and soon came to suffer the reprisals handed out by the infamous "Bloody " Judge Jeffries who had hundreds executed and hundreds more transported overseas as convicts, mainly to the New World.

King James was misled by his early success. He began to implement policies that not only gave religious toleration to nonconformists, but also, and especially to, Catholics. Enlightened as this policy seems to us, James had chosen the wrong time and the wrong country. By replacing Protestants as heads of universities, military leaders and in important offices of state, the king dug his own grave. He ignored all Protestant pleas for concessions. One of the last straws was his 1687 Declaration of Indulgence which aimed at complete religious toleration. This too, was an act far ahead of its time; it only furthered the resentment of, and increased the fears of, the nation's Protestant majority. Non conformists and Anglicans reformed their alliance against the religious policies of the king. He had learned nothing from Charles II, who had done his best to keep this alliance alive; thus ensuring that his last years were peaceful ones.

James, on the other hand, was too anxious to foment change; he did not take into account the anti-Catholic sentiments of much of the British nation; constant wars with continental powers, i.e. Catholic, had built a strong, nationalistic British (and Protestant) state. James' plans for equal civil and religious rights for Catholics were out of the question; his efforts to win widespread support for his policies were totally unsuccessful.

On the continent, the Protestant ruler, the Dutch King William III of Orange was engaged in a duel with the French King Louis XIV for military success and diplomatic influence in Western Europe. Charles II of England had fought against the Dutch in a series of skirmishes for commercial hegemony, but a rapprochement followed the marriage of William and his first cousin Mary, James's eldest daughter in 1677. William made his decision to intervene in England in early 1688, hoping to be seen as a liberator, not as a conqueror; but his first invasion attempt in mid-October was easily defeated, mainly by the English weather which destroyed most of his ships and supplies.

Yet it was precisely this weather, and the strong northeasterly wind, that later prevented the British fleet from intercepting the Dutch armies of William landing at Brixham on 5 November, 1688. King James, despite having numerical strength in soldiers was forced on the defensive. His weak resolve, poor judgment, ill health and probably poor advice, caused him to retreat to London instead of attacking William's vulnerable army.

In the meantime, a series of provincial uprisings did nothing to bolster the morale of James' forces; Derby, Nottingham, York, Hull and Durham declared for William whose army marched towards London. Showing a complete failure of nerve, James fled to France in mid-December; his forces, twice the size of those of William, rapidly disintegrated. It was widely believed that William allowed James to escape, not wishing to make the King another English martyr. In what historians have called the "Glorious Revolution" William and Mary, in a joint monarchy, became rulers of Britain. James II and his baby son were debarred from the succession, as were all Catholics.

The Age of Empire

Preparation for Empire Building: The Growth of the Commons

In 1690 John Locke published his highly influential "Two Treatises of Civil Government;" its theory of limited monarchy had vast appeal to the majority of Englishmen, but especially to Parliament, always anxious to increase its own powers and give special favors to its members. According to Locke, "The liberty of man in society is to be under no other legislative power but that established by consent in the commonwealth, nor under the domination of any will, or restraint of any law, but what that legislative shall enact according to the trust put in it."

Prior to the great electoral reforms of the later 19th century, the legislative in England was restricted to a very limited class. But it was a powerful class indeed that came to dominate the House of Commons, and it was the House of Commons that made the Empire, for it was an empire based on trade. While England's great rival, the kingdom of Spain may have had mixed motives in its overseas conquests, the lure of gold perhaps as equally important as the saving of souls, those who governed Britain did not disguise their motives.

The power of the Commons, and its control by the business and trade oriented middle-class, aided and abetted by a rapidly growing stratum of lawyers, had been building steadily; it looked for opportunities in whatever part of the world they could be found (and exploited). They were aided by the constitutional crisis that occurred when James II fled to France in 1688.

A Convention Parliament offered the throne to William and Mary (elder daughter of James II) as joint sovereigns; hereditary succession was replaced by parliamentary succession. A Bill of Rights was drawn up that guaranteed free speech, free elections and frequent meetings of Parliament, the consent of which was made necessary to raise taxes, keep a standing army and proscribe ecclesiastical commissions or courts, and royally suspend and dispense power. In short, the Bill re-affirmed the will of the English people (or at least of those who represented them in Parliament) against the arbitrary powers of the monarchy.

One of the most important milestones in English law had already taken place. The "Habeas Corpus Act" of 1679 had obliged judges to issue upon request a writ of habeas corpus directing a gaoler (jailer) to produce the body of any prisoner and to show cause for his imprisonment. The Act went on to state that a prisoner should be indicted in the first term of his commitment, be tried no later than the second term and once set free by order of the court, should not be imprisoned again for the same offense. Thus at a single stroke, hundreds of years of abuse of the prisoner by the authorities, often capricious and vengeful, came to an end. The Act remains an integral part of the Commonwealth's legal system today and has been widely copied in many other countries including the United States.

Also of considerable interest and lasting importance was the creation of a fixed Civil List for both the Crown's household and administrative expenditures, a novelty which the monarchs may have chafed at ever since, but which was made necessary to keep their expenditures under parliamentary control. Parliament had come a long way since the days of Henry VII. It is worth while to take a brief look at what had been taking place in the winning of the initiative by the House of Commons.

In the reign of Henry VIII Parliament had become increasingly important in the scheme of government for it gave confirmation and authority to the royal wishes when needed. If the King wished to go slow on his promises of treaties, it gave him a convenient way of retreat; in the struggle with foreign and domestic interests, it strengthened his hands. Much more than a formality of government and a mere income-generating body, Parliament began to be recognized as the voice of public opinion, a voice that the Tudors may not always have liked, but one which they wisely never wholly failed to heed.

The Tudors had encountered some opposition from the Commons, but during most Parliamentary sessions it had not been enough to cause any great anxiety to the Crown or the Council. There were simply too many members in the Lower House who regarded opposition to the Crown as disloyal. In any case, Henry VIII was ruthless in dealing with those who opposed him. Yet the Members in Commons could become vociferous, especially when the Crown asked for money. Privileges began to be exchanged for promises of ready cash: once granted, it was hard for future monarchs to refuse them.

The Upper House, as expected, was a firm ally of the Council. The leaders of the House of Lords were usually landed magnates who had often helped the Council in formulating Crown policy. The Lords seldom resisted the wishes of the Council, and much legislation was put first through the Upper House; then brought to the Commons, who dutifully followed along, for their seats often depended upon the support of local magnates. It was during the troublesome reign of Mary Tudor that the Commons became more contentious. Her determination to reverse the trend of events in religion brought her into conflict with her Parliaments, where something like a Protestant Party began to form to voice its opposition. Members began to speak out, and Mary had to go out of her way to dragoon them into acquiescence with her unpopular policies.

In Elizabeth's long reign, the House of Commons grew in leadership, though the whip hand remained firmly in the hands of the Queen and Council. It was in matters where the Queen expressed no opinion that the House was subtly, but surely, able to gain in power. The Puritan element in Parliament began to exert more and more influence; it was especially alarmed at Elizabeth's middle-of-the road religious policies. For the time being, however, under the strong hand of the Privy Council, and especially during the time of the Cecils, the Commons remained quiet, duly supportive of Royal legislation, kept firmly in control by the carefully groomed Speaker. Yet even his power had declined by the end of Elizabeth's reign with the dramatic increase in the use of the committee system.

By the time of the early Stuarts, essential changes had taken place in the growth of the English Constitution, changes in the day to day business and in the way of doing things. Between the time of Elizabeth I and the Long Parliament of Charles I, a great change had taken place in the relation of the Royal Council to the Commons. Almost unnoticed, Privy Councillors had ceased to guide the Lower House, in which there came into power a group of leaders who had no official connection with the government. It was this leadership that established the real initiative in legislation. The Commons had become a dominant force in government; its dynamic, forceful leaders had made the institution almost unrecognizable from the old, acquiescent body that had been afraid to cross the Tudors.

Parliament had further grown in strength when James I failed to keep a sufficient number of his own men in the Commons, which became increasingly vociferous in expressing its grievances. James himself was seen as a meddler; unlike Elizabeth, he was not content with staying in the background, and his constant interference meant that his words lost their weight, and royal prerogative began to be sneered at openly. Resentment led to opposition. The King's penchant for elevating his supporters to the House of Lords also left him with inexperienced, untried members to speak for him in the Commons.

The leadership exercised by Elizabeth's able Councillors was wholly absent during James' reign. The Commons could only benefit from the hiatus; its members were no longer subservient to the Royal Will; many were lawyers who brought new initiatives along with their legal skills into the committee system. Their presence ensured that the Commons no longer served as a recruiting ground for the service of the Crown, but was seen as a dignified profession for wealthy and powerful country gentlemen. Their allegiance was primarily to common law, not to the whims of their monarch.

A new interest in precedent also searched for ways to establish the privileges, rights and powers of the Commons on a firm basis, rapidly changing it from a mere ratifying body to one that formulated and passed laws. The Commons eventually showed that it not only could decide who could sit on the throne of England, it could even dispense with the monarchy altogether. It also had to deal with Scotland.

The Jacobites in Scotland and Ireland

It was all-too-soon apparent that William's success in England did nothing to ensure the compliance of Scotland and Ireland. The cause of the exiled Stuarts became known as Jacobitism, from the Latin for James, Jacobus. Though King James and his supporters controlled parts of Britain including most of Ireland, they failed miserably in their cause. In a series of strategically-sound campaigns, William succeeded in driving them from their bases in both Ireland and Scotland, thus forcing them to become reliant on foreign support. The campaigns against William's rule in overwhelmingly-Catholic Ireland began the period of close cooperation of that country with France, both military and political. It continued right up the '45 rebellion.

The first battle against the new King William of England was fought in Scotland. In July, 1689, at Killiecrankie, the most active of James' supporters, Viscount Dundee, defeated a much larger royal army led by General Mackay. "Bonnie Dundee" was killed in the battle, but the Highlanders' success led the hitherto hesitant clans to flock to James' standard. It was a success that gave them false hopes; without Dundee in command, they were unable to exploit their initial victory.

The decisive battles involving the Jacobite cause were not fought in Scotland, but in Ireland, more accessible to French naval power, and thus to troops and supplies. In a desperate attempt to regain his throne, James II left France for Ireland in March 1689. His armies soon won most of the country, but a prolonged resistance was put up by the people of Derry, where the Protestant apprentice boys had slammed the city gates shut against the Catholic army. Starving Derry (Londonderry) was eventually relieved by an English fleet in July 1689, a day still celebrated with much pomp and pageantry in Northern Ireland. In August, mainly as a consequence of the resistance of Derry and Enniskillen, William's army, mostly Danish and Dutch mercenaries, occupied Belfast.

In June 1690 William marched on Dublin. His way was blocked by the Jacobite forces on the banks of the River Boyne, which became the site of the battle so vividly remembered and celebrated by Ulster's Protestant majority. James' outnumbered forces were cast aside. Once more showing a failure of nerve, in time-honored fashion for a Scottish ruler, he fled to France, and William easily took Dublin. Other successes were enjoyed by John Churchill, Earl of Marlborough, aided by the Dutch General Ginkel with Hugh Mackay as his second-in-command. At Limerick, what was left of the Jacobite cause suffered another catastrophic defeat; all their forces in Ireland consequently surrendered, with about 11,000 Irishmen, the so-called Wild Geese, going to France to continue the fight for James.

James had not given up hope of regaining his kingdom. He still enjoyed the strong support of Louis XIV, and in June 1690, his hopes were raised when a large French naval force managed to defeat an Anglo-Dutch fleet. As so often in the past, however, the Jacobite victory was not followed up. French control of the Channel was not exploited and the initiative was soon lost. When Louis finally decided to invade England in May 1692, it was too late; his fleet was sent packing. One result of the hostilities was entirely unexpected but had an enormous result on subsequent world history.

In 1694, the costs of the war led to the formation of the Bank of England, a Whig joint-stock company that raised funds from the public and loaned it to the government in exchange for the right to issue bank notes and to discount bills. The loan did not have to be repaid as long as the interest was raised by imports duties. Thus a funded national debt came into being. The method of borrowing money at interest, instead of taking it by taxation for nothing was established as a normal practice. It took a while to catch on in other countries, but catch on it did, as soon as respective governments saw the advantages. The foundation of a society to write marine insurance formed by merchants and sea captains at Lloyd's Coffee House in 1688 was also of enormous importance; the practice of underwriting enormous expenditures in overseas ventures and shipping, dates from this time.

Another revolutionary idea was the granting of monopolies in trade by Parliament, and not by the time-honored system of royal dispensation to favorite courtiers. The 1698 Parliament showed its strength by announcing that such grants could no longer be granted as a general rule by royal charter but only though an act of Parliament. The new East India Company came about as one of the first results of these acts, seen by many as the greatest event in the organization of British foreign trade. This company, together with the newly-formed Bank of England, showed only too well the growing power of the British traders and financiers over the state government.

For many, the resolution of May 26, 1698 was as important as the "Magna Carta" of 1215, for it gave the granting of powers and privileges for carrying on the East India trade to Parliament. And if the trading classes could control Parliament, they could make their own terms, which is precisely what happened over and over again in subsequent British history. It became one of the ever-increasing problems for the country's government: the interference of trade with legislation and administration was to become an inevitable part of the future. Yet it was the desire for trade and overseas markets that led to the expansion of the Empire.

On the Continent, French King Louis, having enough of the war against the stubborn Dutch and their allies, made peace at Rijswijk in 1697, recognizing William as King of England and his sister-in-law Anne as heiress presumptive. A period of peace between France and England, however, came to an end with Louis's recognition of the prince born in 1688 as the future King James III, an act regarded by historian Arthur Bryant as one of "megalomaniac folly." Prospects for the Jacobites, however, were not helped by the War of the Spanish Succession which tied up Catholic forces in the Netherlands and forced France to withdraw to its own borders.

As important as William's victories were in Scotland and Ireland, he was more concerned with the fate of the Spanish Netherlands that looked likely to fall to France upon the death of the childless Charles II of Spain. After Louis agreed that his grandson Phillip V would rule the Spanish Empire, William formed his Grand Alliance against France in 1701. We have to remember that William's main purpose in taking on the throne of England was to utilize its resources and military forces to defend his beloved Netherlands against the French King. When William died in 1702 after falling from his horse (young Queen Mary had died of small pox in 1694), Princess Anne succeeded him; the war in France continued.

Queen Anne (1702-14) The Foundations of Empire

It was evident during the reign of dull, gouty Anne that Britain was also fast becoming a nation thoroughly Protestant, though the inevitable differences in worship continued. Anne was an Anglican, a member of the Established Church of England. King James had been forced to make a number of concessions to the Nonconformists (or Dissenters) in order to win political support. Though the times were not yet ripe for complete religious toleration, the Toleration Act of 1689 had broken the monopoly of English Protestantism hitherto enjoyed by the Established Church.

The rise of the Dissenters and the spread of Unitarianism accompanied the so-called Scientific Revolution in England associated with the upsetting (to Churchmen) discoveries of such men as Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle. The Established Church no longer played a major role in national politics. The accession of William, a Dutch Calvinist, had been instrumental in helping sever that special relationship long enjoyed between Church and Crown.

Though the quarrels within and without the Church continued, in an age noted for the prolific rise in pamphleteering and electioneering chicanery, the time of Daniel Defoe and Dean Swift and the intense and bitter political between Whigs and Tories, it was the war with France that dominated Queen Anne's reign. William's accession had meant that the island nation of England had become inextricably part of the Continent. The war brought forth one of England's great military leaders, John Churchill, the husband of Queen Anne's close friend Sarah.

Churchill succeeded King William as leader of the English and Dutch forces in the Grand Alliance. Under his leadership as the Duke of Marlborough, England became the leading military power in Europe for the first time since the Hundred Years' War. Though the Dutch feared an invasion by France, Marlborough went ahead and attacked the French army at Blenheim, a name that is remembered in England as one of the greatest victories in its long history.

The annihilation of the French army at Blenheim was followed by the English capture of Gibralter in 1704; another smashing victory at Ramillies was then followed by additional successes at Oudenarde and Malplaquet. A grateful nation built Blenheim Palace for the Duke (a sumptuous residence in which Winston Churchill, a direct descendant of John Churchill, was born in 1874). The victorious Wellington was satirized by Scot John Arbuthnot in his "The History of John Bull" (1712) that introduced the name John Bull as a symbol of England.