- •The ancient population of Britain.
- •Neolithic Period
- •Prehistoric monuments. Causeway Camps
- •Long Barrows
- •Passage Graves
- •Stone Circles
- •Paganism on the territory of Britain.
- •The Roman Invasion
- •The Romans on the territory of Britain. Queen Bodiciea`s revolt.
- •The Anglo-Saxon Invasion.
- •Christianity on the territory of Britain. Augustine and his mission.
- •Anglo-Saxon England.
- •Alfred the Great and his role in the history of the country.
- •Edward the Confessor, Westminster Abbey
- •William the Conqueror and his feudal state. The structure of the state after the Norman Invasion.
- •William Rufus, Henry I.
- •Stephen and Matilda, the wars for the throne.
- •Henry II and the Plantagenet dynasty. Thomas Becket and his opposition to the king.
- •Richard the Lion Heart and crusades. John Lackland and Magna Carta.
- •Henry III. Simon de Monfort`s opposition. The first parliament.
- •Edward I and his wars in Wales and Scotland. Edward II. EdwardIii. The first stage of the Hundred Years` War.
- •England's economy in the 14th and 15th centuries. Richard II and Wat Tyler's rebellion...
- •Henry IV. Henry V and the continuation of the Hundred Years` War.
- •The Wars of the Roses. (Henry VI, Edward IV, V)
- •Richard III. Henry VII- the first monarch of the Tudor dynasty.
- •22. Henry VIII and the reformation of the church.
- •23. Edward VI, Jane Grey.
- •24. Mary I. Elizabeth I. Foreign policy and economy of the country in the 16th century.
- •25. England at the beginning of the 17th century. Charles I and his conflict with Parliament.
- •26. The Civil Wars. England after the Civil Wars. The economic situation during and after the Civil Wars. Oliver Cromwell and his Protectorate.
- •27. Restoration of the monarchy. Charles II, the Merry Monarch and his reign.
- •1660-85. Early Life
- •28. James II.
- •29. The Glorious Revolution and its meaning. Mary II and William III.
- •30. Queen Anne. The Unity of England and Scotland.
- •31. The economic development of the country in the 18th century.
- •32. The economic development of the country in the 19th century.
- •33. Science and culture in the 19th century.
- •34. Edward VII. England before World War I.The results of World War I.
- •35. Britain between the World Wars. The Results of World War II. Loss of colonies.
- •Ideological impact:
- •36. Britain at the end of 20th century.
- •37. Britain today: economy, political influence, role in the world.
- •Dates to be remembered
26. The Civil Wars. England after the Civil Wars. The economic situation during and after the Civil Wars. Oliver Cromwell and his Protectorate.
Oliver Cromwell and the English Civil War
When the Civil war began in 1642, Cromwell was sent to organize the defense of Norfolk.
When the Civil War ended with Parliament victorious, Cromwell played a part in trying to keep Parliament united. He also tried to smooth things between Parliament and the army in 1647 when the army mutinied and refused to disband. He played a prominent part in the second Civil War.
Here are the most important changes that Oliver Cromwell instituted.
He was the prime mover behind the decision to execute the King in 1649 and the establishment of the Commonwealth.
Having stabilized England, Cromwell left for Ireland to put down the Irish Civil War. As an extreme Puritan, he hated the Catholics and had never forgiven them for their alleged massacre of Protestants in 1641.
He therefore felt he was justified in seeking revenge and was responsible for the Massacre of Drogheda in September 1649.
Oliver Cromwell Takes Command
Cromwell was becoming increasingly frustrated with the members of the Rump Parliament who had not passed reforms in either the political or religious sphere. In 1653, at the head of an army, Cromwell marched into Parliament and dismissed the members. It was replaced by the Barebones Parliament, a select parliament of committed Puritans who elected Cromwell as Lord Protector.
The Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell
The deliberations of the officers of the Army issued in the publication of the decree called the Instrument of Government. Until the overthrow of Charles I the English constitution had been developed by regular growth. There had been no revolutions in the system, however violently dynastic changes had been affected.
The Civil War had affected a revolution and necessitated the invention of a constitution which had not grown out of the past, of which the most that could possibly be said would.be that a simulacrum or semblance of some features of the past was reproduced in it.
The first experiment had produced the Rump, which was a travesty of a parliament, coupled with the Council of the State, which was a quite practical equivalent for the various forms which the Executive Council of the Crown had formerly taken. If the Rump had been a travesty, the Assembly of Nominees was a burlesque.
Now in the Instrument of Government the Army officers made their third experiment the rough and ready framework for a constitution which affords, an instructive contrast to the mathematical accuracy and the logical perfection of the various impossible constitutions with which France was saddled when she started in the search for an ideal government in 1789.
Lord Protector Cromwell
The government must have a head, and the head of the government must have an Executive Council. Unless the head and his Council had very large powers, any government in the then state of England would be impossible. On the other hand, the people had a right to a voice in affairs of state, and therefore must have a representative assembly.
Practical sense singled out one man as the only possible head, the man whose personality was irresistibly dominant, Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell then was to be Lord Protector, a title revived from times when a minor or an imbecile had occupied the throne and a practically regal authority had to be vested in a subject.
The Executive power was vested in the Protector and the Council of State, which was a permanent body with power to fill up its own numbers.
When the Chamber was not sitting the Executive could issue decrees, but those decrees had effect only until the parliament decided to abrogate or to confirm them. Cavaliers were not eligible to the House. The entire control of the Army lay with the Executive. The parliament was to meet not less than once in three years, and was in no case to be dissolved until it had been sitting for five months. The Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell began in December 1653. Its sanction was nothing but the will of the Army and the sulky acquiescence of a nation which had no alternative. For something less than five years Cromwell's will was supreme. He did not want to dispense with parliaments; throughout his rule he summoned them according to law; but when they met, parliament and Protector habitually found themselves arriving at a deadlock, from which the only escape, just as in the case of parliament and Charles I, lay in the decisive assertion of the supremacy of one or the other. But, unlike Charles, Cromwell never had any difficulty in proving the decisiveness of his own supremacy. He had what Charles had, not the obvious superiority in physical force. There was no gainsaying the fact, and no failure in the Army's loyalty to its chief, whose ideals it shared.