Dozen Lessons From British History. Reader

Winston Churchill points out in his History of the English Speaking Peoples, “No Englishman, however great or however humble, could be imprisoned for more than a few days without grounds being shown against him in open court according to the settled law of the land.”

James II (1685–1688)

Charles II died without legitimate offspring in 1685, converting to Roman Catholicism on his deathbed. James was crowned on April 23, 1685. At first, there was little overt opposition to the new Sovereign. The new Parliament which assembled in May 1685 seemed favourable to James, agreeing to grant him a large income.

James, however, faced several rebellions. The king’s judges punished the rebels brutally. Judge Jeffreys’ Bloody Assizes (when Jeffreys with four other judges tried persons accused of having had any share in the rebellion) provoked little comment at the time and were seen by many as an appropriate response to an armed rebellion. To protect himself from further rebellions, James sought to establish a large standing army. By putting Roman Catholics in charge of several regiments, the King was drawn into a conflict with Parliament.

Religious tension intensified from 1686. James tried to get rid of the Test Act (which prevented the Catholics from holding public employments) and controversially allowed Roman Catholics to occupy the highest offices of the Kingdom. The King displaced Protestant officers from the army and got Catholics into their places. In the Declaration of Indulgence (1687), also known as the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience, James suspended laws punishing Roman Catholics and Protestant dissenters.

Glorious Revolution

(1688)

In April 1688, James re-issued the Declaration of Indulgence, subsequently ordering Anglican clergymen to read it in their churches. Then the Archbishop of Canterbury William Sancroft and six other bishops (known as the Seven Bishops) wrote out a petition asking to reconsider the King’s religious policies. The

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bishops were arrested and tried for libel. However, the jury gave a verdict of not guilty.

In June, 1688, between the petition and the trial the queen had given birth to a son. The entirely new prospect of a Catholic successor (for both the king’s daughters were Protestants) determined a number of the nobles and the Bishop of London to invite the Prince of Orange who was James’s son-in-law and nephew over to England.

On June 30, 1688, a group of Protestant nobles requested the Prince of Orange to come to England with an army. On November 5, 1668, William’s fleet anchored in Devonshire, some of the gentry joined his army. James believed that his own army would be adequate but it began to falter. One after another, the king’s most important officers and friends deserted him and went over to William. His own daughter, Anne, fled from the palace. On December 11, 1688, James attempted to flee to France, first throwing the Great Seal of the Realm into the River Thames. He was, however, caught in Kent. Having no desire to make James a martyr, the Prince of Orange let him escape on December 23, 1688.

There had been a council of the lords and the authorities of London. When the Prince of Orange came, on the day after the king’s departure, he summoned the lords to meet him. It was finally resolved by these authorities that the throne was vacant by the conduct of King James II, that it was inconsistent with the safety and welfare of this Protestant kingdom to be governed by a Catholic prince, that the Prince and Princess of Orange should be king and queen during their lives and the life of the survivor of them, and that their children should succeed them, if they had any. That if they had none the Princess Anne and her children should succeed; that if she had none the heirs of the Prince of Orange should succeed.

On January 13, 1689, the prince and princess, sitting on a throne in Whitehall, bound themselves to these conditions. The Act that was signed is commonly referred to as the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights charged James II with abusing his power; amongst other things, it criticised the suspension of the Test Acts, the prosecution of the Seven Bishops for merely petitioning the Crown, the establishment of a standing army and the imposition of cruel punishments. The Bill also stipulated that no Catholic would henceforth be permitted to ascend to the English throne, nor could any English monarch marry a Catholic. The Sovereign was required in his coronation oath to swear to maintain the

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Protestant religion. The Act, furthermore, settled the question of succession to the Crown.

The Bill was designed to ensure Parliament could function free from royal interference. The Sovereign was forbidden from suspending laws which Parliament had passed or imposing taxes without Parliamentary consent. The Sovereign was not allowed to interfere with elections or freedom of speech, and proceedings in Parliament were not to be questioned in the courts or in any body outside Parliament itself. (This was the basis of modern parliamentary privilege.) The Sovereign was required to summon Parliament frequently (the Triennial Act of 1694 reinforced this by requiring the regular summoning of Parliaments).

Parliament tightened control over the King’s expenditure; the financial settlement reached with William and Mary deliberately made them dependent upon Parliament, as one Member of Parliament said, ‘when princes have not needed money they have not needed us’. Finally, the King was forbidden to maintain a standing army in time of peace without Parliament’s consent.

The Bill of Rights added further defences of individual rights. The King was forbidden to establish his own courts or to act as a judge himself, and the courts were forbidden to impose excessive bail or fines, or cruel and unusual punishments.

However, the Sovereign could still summon and dissolve Parliament, appoint and dismiss Ministers, veto legislation and declare war.

The Settlement Act of 1701 was the final act to fully establish the supremacy of Parliament. King William’s War, a series of continental battles fought primarily to push Protestantism, had heavily taxed English economic resources; to retaliate, The Settlement Act forbade wars without Parliament’s consent. The act forbade members of the House of Commons, as well as all non-indigenous people, from holding public office and subjected ministerial appointments to parliamentary approval. Judges were removed from royal punishment, as they had to now be formally impeached by the House of Parliament, with no royal pardon.

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Lesson 9

Britain

in the 18th century

Owning land was the main form of wealth in the 18th century. The highest class were the peers and peeresses of the House of Lords and their spouses and families. They were the nobility and held the high political offices, the high ranks in the army and navy, and owned large estates, usually scattered over the country. Some were lawyers or merchants.

The next class were the gentry. Their family heads had land and were often Justices of the Peace. They were sometimes members of the House of Commons. The oldest son took over from his father, while the other had to find a living such as in the church, law, medicine, or trade. They usually lived in mansions.

The old yeoman class was disappearing due to their selling their land to larger landowners. Farming on a large scale was more productive.

The next class were the “middling sort”. In this class were merchants, lawyers, substantial tenant farmers, smaller freeholders, in town traders, shopkeepers (who now kept their wares inside and lived on the second floor), clerks and civil servants, and customs and excise men.

The last class were the manual workers. These were wage earners or independent craftsmen, jewellers, etc. These workers typically worked in their stone or brick houses in a rural setting. Many women and children were employed. It was not unusual for a man to work 13 hours a day for 6 days a week. Real wages were higher than at any time since the mid-1400s.

Lastly were the mass of the population of London: hordes of labourers who depended on casual employment and could be dismissed at will.

The gap between rich and poor became greater. Marriage remained a main way to wealth. Also, one trained in the law could aspire to have a successful career in high political office, which also brought wealth.

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Law and government

In 1707 there was union with Scotland, in which their Parliaments were combined into one. The country was known as Great Britain.

The high offices of the Crown included the Chancellor, Keeper, President of the Council, Privy Seal, Treasurer (who was usually also the leader of the House of Commons and the Chancellor of the Exchequer), and two Secretaries of State, who were in charge of all foreign and domestic matters other than taxation, one for the north and one for the south. Other offices were: Paymaster General, Secretary of War, and Treasurer of the Navy. Starting with the monarch, government positions were given by patronage to friends and relatives, or if none, to the highest bidder.

The king’s ministers were those members of his Privy Council who carried out the work of government. By distributing patronage, the ministers acquired the influence to become leading members of the House of Commons or the House of Lords. They made policy, secured the king’s consent, and then put through the necessary legislation. The king was to act only through his ministers and all public business was to be formally done in Privy Council with all its decisions signed by its members.

The king gradually lost power. The last royal veto of a Parliamentary bill was in 1708. By 1714, the Privy Council ceased making decisions of policy. Instead a cabinet, not identified with any particular party, was chosen by the Queen, who presided over their meetings, which were held every Sunday. It dealt with Parliament. In 1720, the number of peers in the House of Lords was fixed, so that the Crown could create no more. About 1720, Robert Walpole, son of a country squire, who came to be first minister of the Crown and the leader of the Whigs, organized the cabinet so that it was of one view. He led it for twenty years and thus became the first prime minister. He was brilliant at finance and lessened taxation. He was successful in preserving the peace with other nations and providing stability in England that led to prosperity. The Whigs opposed a standing army and over-reaching influence of the Crown. They espoused the liberty of individual subjects. Their slogan was “liberty and property”. They generally favoured foreign wars.

Members of the Parliament felt responsible for the good of the whole country instead of accounting to their electors, but selfinterest also played a part. Leading commercial magnates of the

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realm sought to be members of Parliament or governors of the Bank of England to be able to take up government loans at advantageous rates, snap up contracts to supply government departments at exorbitant prices, and play an important part in deciding what duties should be charged on what goods.

About 5% of the population could vote. Voting was open, rather than by secret ballot. Seats in Parliament could normally be bought either by coming to an arrangement with some landowner who had the right to nominate to a closed seat or by buying enough votes in constituencies where the electorate was larger and the contest more open. As of 1710, electees to the Commons had to have 600 pounds annual income for knights or 300 pounds annually for burgesses.

Ambassadors were made immune from arrest, prosecution and imprisonment to preserve their rights and privileges and protection by the Queen and the law of nations.

In 1747, Justices of the Peace were authorized to decide issues between masters and mistresses and their employees who were hired for at least one year. If a servant misbehaved, they could authorize reduction of wage, discharge, and hard labor at a house of Correction up to one month.

Mercantile law was developed by the common law courts, especially the King’s Bench.

The office of sheriff was now an accessory department of the common law courts for summons, executions, summoning the jury, and carrying out the sentence of the law.

Seditious libel trials in England and the colonies were followed closely and their defendants broadly supported. John Wilkes, a member of the House of Commons, published a criticism of a new minister in 1763. He wrote a scathing attack on a speech delivered by King George III when he opened Parliament. First the printers of the paper were arrested on the orders of the King and then Wilkes himself. However, the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas ordered him to be released. Wilkes became a popular hero, and the following year he was elected Lord Mayor of London, but he soon got into further trouble. This time he fled the country. He was tried in his absence and outlawed. When Wilkes returned to England he was imprisoned and brought before the court. This time the Chief Justice of the King’s Bench reversed the sentence of outlawry stating that ‘public policy is not an argument in a court of law’. Wilkes was released. His victory established principles of the greatest importance: that the freedom of the individual is more important than the interests of the state.

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Colonies

There was much competition among countries for colonies. Quebec and then Montreal in 1760 in Canada were captured from the French. About 1768 James Cook discovered New Zealand and Australia; his maps greatly helped future voyages. The English East India Company took over India as its Mogul Empire broke up.

There was a steady flow of emigrants to the American colonies, including transported convicts and indentured servants.

If the results of the wars against France left the British colonists in America with a new sense of confidence, they also made parliament in London increasingly aware both of the value of the American colonies and of the likely cost of defending them.

British America consisted of the thirteen colonies founded or developed by Britain between 1607 (Virginia) and 1732 (Georgia), together with four provinces won through warfare — Nova Scotia in 1713, and then Quebec and West and East Florida in 1763. The British government felt that this important bloc of overseas territory now required more coherent control and better defense — both to be supplied from London. But many in the original thirteen colonies regarded any such interference as an intrusion.

This difference in attitude led inevitably to friction. London, sending over British troops, expected the colonists to contribute to the expense and to allow the soldiers to be quartered in American homes. The colonists saw this as an unacceptable imposition, in both financial and personal terms. Similar resentment resulted from British measures to control the judges and courts in America, to lessen the power of the elected assemblies in each colony, and to collect more effectively the customs due on trade between the American mainland and the West Indies.

But British taxes provoked the most deeply felt grievances and the most effective American response. In 1776 the American colonies declared their independence from Britain, relying on the principles stated by John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau that man was naturally free and all men equal, and that society was only created with their consent. Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence which listed the colonies’ grievances against the Crown which reiterated many of the provisions of the Petition of Right and Bill of Rights, specifically dispensing with and suspending laws, maintaining a standing army and quartering troops without legislative consent, imposing arbitrary taxation, encouraging illegal prosecutions in strange courts, and corrupting the jury process. It was adopted on July 4, 1776.

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Lesson 10

The Victorian Era

Victoria was the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837, and the first Empress of India from 1 May 1876, until her death on 22 January 1901. Her reign lasted sixty-three years and seven months, longer than that of any other British monarch. In general, the period centred on her reign is known as the Victorian era.

The Victorian era of the United Kingdom marked the height of the British Industrial Revolution and the apex of the British Empire. Although commonly used to refer to the period of Queen Victoria’s rule between 1837 and 1901, scholars debate whether the Victorian period—as defined by a variety of sensibilities and political concerns that have come to be associated with the Victorians—actually begins with the passage of the Reform Act 1832. It was concerned with giving the middle classes a stake in government rather than with changing the basis of government. The total electorate was increased by 57 percent to 217,000, but the artisans, the working classes, and some sections of the lower middle classes still remained outside “the pale of the constitution.” Yet the composition of the new House of Commons differed little from that of the old. It continued to reflect property rather than population, and landed interests remained by far the largest interests represented.

Early Victorian England was turbulent and excited, and, if it had not been for Robert Peel, who succeeded Melbourne as prime minister after the general election of 1841 and had returned to power the “Conservatives” (as Peel liked to think of his party), there might well have been even greater disorder. From the start Peel attached top priority to financial reform. Beginning with his budget of 1842, he set about simplifying and reducing tariff restrictions on trade, and in the same year he reintroduced an income tax. In 1846 he repealed the Corn Laws (import tariffs designed to protect corn prices in the UK against competition from less expensive foreign imports). The first national Public Health Act was passed in 1848.

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Most people were concerned, too, about the rise in population. At the first (defective) census of 1801, the population of England and Wales was about nine million and that of Scotland about 1.5 million. By 1851 the comparable figures were 18 million and three million. At its peak between 1811 and 1821, the growth rate for Britain as a whole was 17 percent for the decade. It took time to realize that, as population grew, national production would grow also.

The railway age may be said to have begun in 1830, when the line from Manchester to Liverpool. By 1851, 6,800 miles of railway were open, some of them involving engineering feats of great complexity. There was as much argument among contemporaries about the impact of railways as there was about the impact of steam engines in factories, but there was general agreement about the fact that the coming of the railway marked a great divide in British social history.

In 1851 Britain was the workshop of the world and the main influence on the industrialization of other nations. The Great Exhibition of 1851 in London symbolized this economic supremacy. People from all parts of the world could examine machines of every kind. Part of the success of the exhibition was political as much as economic. The objects on display came from all parts of the world, including India and the countries with recent white settlements, such as Australia and New Zealand, that constituted the new empire. The exhibition was a triumph not only for the economy but also for Victoria and her German husband, Albert, whom she had married in 1840. Despite outbursts of opposition to Albert by the press, particularly in the patriotic mid-1850s, the family life of the Victorian court began to be considered increasingly as a model for the whole country. The fact that Albert had appreciated the significance of Peel’s achievement and that he put his trust in the advancement of industry and science was as important as the fact that Victoria herself established monarchy on respectable foundations of family life.

Mid-Victorian politics

Palmerston, an aristocrat born in 1784, stood out as the dominant political personality in mid-Victorian Britain, precisely because he was opposed to dramatic change and because he knew through long experience how to maneuver politics within the half-

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reformed constitution. He was skillful in using the growing power of the press in order to reinforce his influence. At a time of party confusion, when the queen might well have played a key part in politics, Palmerston found the answer to royal opposition in popular prestige. He preferred the English system of constitutional government to continental absolutism. He liked to appear energetic. In January 1855 Palmerston was made prime minister for the first time. In 1857 he went to the second war in China and, when defeated in Parliament, appealed triumphantly to the country. Although his government was defeated in 1858, he was back again as prime minister, for the last time, a year later.

After the death of Palmerston the question of parliamentary reform was reopened and the Second Reform Bill was passed in 1867. It added 938,000 new names to the register, amounting almost to a doubling of the electorate, and gave the vote to many workingmen in the towns and cities. 45 new seats were created by taking one member from existing borough constituencies with a population of less than 10,000.

The mid-Victorian period also witnessed significant social changes: an evangelical revival occurred alongside a series of legal changes in women’s rights. While women were not enfranchised during the Victorian period, they did gain the legal right to their property upon marriage through the Married Women’s Property Act, the right to divorce, and the right to fight for custody of their children upon separation.

Foreign policy

The British Empire was the largest empire in history and for a substantial time was the foremost global power. By 1921, the British Empire held sway over a population of about 458 million people, approximately one-quarter of the world’s population. It covered about 36.6 million km2 (14.2 million square miles), about a quarter of Earth’s total land area. At the peak of its power, it was often said that “the sun never sets on the British Empire” because its span across the globe ensured that the sun was always shining on at least one of its numerous colonies or subject nations.

In fact, however, it was difficult to pull the empire together politically or constitutionally. Certainly moving toward federation was a challenging task since the interests of different parts were already diverging, and in the last resort only British power—above

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