The restoration of the monarchy

The monarchy (together with the Anglican Church and the House of Lords) was restored in 1660, two years after Cromwell’s death, when Charles II was invited to sit on the throne of a country tired of the harsh morality of Puritan rule. The Plague, which killed almost 70,000 of London’s inhabitants, and the Great Fire (1666), which destroyed most of the city during his reign, were considered signs of God’s wrath by the Puritans.

Although Charles had restored some power to the monarchy by the time James II came to the throne, Parliament’s support was necessary to govern the country. Parliament was dominated by two groups: the Whigs, who had tried to exclude Charles’ Catholic brother from the throne, and the Tories, the conservative aristocracy that had favoured the royal prerogative. However, his filling of civil and military posts with Catholics while the Protestants were being murdered in France so angered Parliament that the Tories and Whigs agreed to invite the Protestant William of Orange and Mary (James II’s daughter) to take the Crown as joint sovereigns. This Glorious Revolution (1688, so-called because it was bloodless) was accompanied by a Bill of Rights, which made it obligatory for the sovereign to rule with Parliament’s assistance and outlawed Catholicism for all Englishmen, including the King.

Exercise 8. Summarize the passage by answering the following questions.

1. Why was the monarchy restored?

2. What did the King need in order to be able to govern the country?

3. What was the original difference between the Whig and Tory Parties?

4. Why did James II lose the support of the Tories?

5. Why was the Bill of Rights so important?

The 18th century

Under Queen Anne Scotland was united with England in 1707 and by the Act of Union their Parliaments became one. Parliament then assumed almost absolute responsibility for running the country during the reigns of George I and George II, with the king’s most influential minister becoming known as the Prime Minister. Parliament pursued a vigorous trading policy which led to large areas of Canada and India being colonized at the expense of the French.

Towards the end of this century of the Enlightenment, when people felt they could use their reason to dominate both nature and society, some of the most profound political changes in British history occurred and began to shake this belief. They included the traumatic loss of the American colonies in 1776 after a seven-year war and the revolutions in agricultural and industrial methods at home.

The Agricultural Revolution

In the country the open fields with their tiny strips of land worked by peasant farmers were rapidly replaced by compact farms, with large fields enclosed by hedges and ditches to prevent stray animals from ruining the crops or mixing with the new, improved breeds of sheep and cattle. This agricultural revolution left large numbers of the rural population landless and destitute, but also led to the massive increase in agricultural production necessary to feed the country's growing non-agricultural population.