1. Conflict between King and Parliament.

2. The Restoration of the Monarchy.

Conflict between King and Parliament

The Stuart monarchs, from James I onwards, were less successful than the Tudors. They were convinced of the divine right of kings, they ignored the Parliament and this resulted in civil war. The only king of England ever to be tried and executed was a Stuart.

Charles I raised taxes without permission of the Parliament. He quarrelled with the Commons bitterly mainly over money. Charles strongly believed in king’s «divine right» to control both the «national budget» and the law. He saw no reason to explain his policy or method of governing to anyone. Charles dissolved Parliament and prevented it from meeting for 11 years until he needed its help to raise the money to fight the war against Scotland. Without the help of Parliament he was only able to put together an inexperienced army. Events in Scotland made Charles depend on Parliament, but events in Ireland resulted in civil war.

James I had continued Elizabeth's policy and had colonised Ulster, the northern part of Ireland, mainly with farmers from the Scottish Lowlands. The Catholic Irish were sent off the land, and even those who had worked for Protestant settlers were now replaced by Protestant workers from Scotland and England.

In 1641 at a moment when Charles badly needed a period of quiet, Ireland exploded in rebellion against the Protestant English and Scottish settlers. 3000 people were killed, most of them in Ulster.

Charles and Parliament quarrelled over who should control an army to defeat the rebels. Many believed that Charles only wanted to raise an army to dissolve Parliament by force and to rule alone again.

Charles’s friendship toward the Catholic Church increased Protestant fears. In 1642 he tried to arrest five MPs in Parliament.

And it convinced Parliament and its supporters all over England that they had good reason to fear.

The Civil War had started. Charles moved to Nottingham where he gathered an army to defeat MPs who opposed him. In fact, no more than 10 per cent of the population became involved. But most of the House of Lords and a few from the Commons supported Charles. The Royalists, known as «Cavaliers», controlled most of the north and west. But Parliament controlled East Anglia and the southeast, including London. The short hair gave the Parliamentarian soldiers their popular name of «Roundheads».

Parliament was supported by the navy, by most of the merchants and by the population of London. The Royalists had no way of raising money. As a result the Royalist army was finally defeated in 1645.

One of the strongest commanders of the Parliamentarian army an Hast Anglian gentleman farmer named Oliver Cromwell captured the King in 1645. But Charles continued to encourage rebellion against Parliament even after he had surrendered and had been imprisoned. He was able to encourage the Scots to rebel against the Parliamentarian army. After the Scots were defeated some Puritan officers of the Parliamentarian army demanded the king’s death for treason. On 3L' of January 1649 King Charles was executed.

From 1649-1660 Britain was a republic, but the republic was not a success. Cromwell and his friends created a government far more severe than Charles’s had been.

When Cromwell died in 1658, the Protectorate, as his republican administration was called, collapsed.

The Restoration of the Monarchy.

In 1660, two years after Cromwell’s death the monarchy was restored. Charles II w'as invited to return to his kingdom. People welcomed the king because they were tired of the harsh morality of Puritan rule. Charles hoped to make peace between the different religious groups.

When Charles II returned to England as the publicly accepted king, the laws and Acts of Cromwell’s government were automatically cancelled.Charles shared his father’s belief in divine right. He was a monarch, who «never said a foolish thing, nor ever did a wise one». He was a welcome change from Cromwellian rule. Charles II believed as strongly as his father in the divine right of kings, but had the good sense to avoid an open break with Parliament.

Seminar 7.

British History (Part V)

The Victorian Age.

Queen Victoria came to the throne as a young woman in 1837 and reigned until her death in 1901. She did not like the way in which power seemed to be

slipping away from the monarchy and aristocracy. But like her advisers she could not prevent it. Victoria married a German, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg, but he died at the age of 42 in 1861. She could not get over it a long time and refused to be seen in public. But her advisers persuaded her to take a more public interest in the business of the kingdom. And soon she became extraordinarily popular. By the time Victoria died monarchy was better loved than it had ever been before. Queen Victoria succeeded in showing a newly industrialised nation that the monarchy was a connection with a glorious history. Besides the idea of pure family morality supported by the queen was appealing to the British people.

Queen and Empire.

Britain’s empire had first been built on trade and the need to defend this against rival European countries. After the loss of the American colonies in 1783 the idea of creating new colonies remained unpopular until the 1830s.