The Stuarts
James I
(1603-1625)
Scottish favourites
Disreputable court
Avoids confrontation with Parliament
Puritans
•
Against entertainments
•
Strong individualism
•
No church
•
Gunpowder Plot
5 November 1605
•
Guy Fawkes
Progress in overseas settlements
(Jamestown, Virginia)
1620: Pilgrim Fathers
New Plymouth
East India Company
Charles I
(1625-1642)
Puritans want balance of power
Involved in war with Spain
Expeditions to France → failure
Parliament: Petition of Rights (1628)
Without Parliament, the king cannot
Impose taxes
Imprison subjects without reason or trial
Introduce martial law in peace time
King accepts
1629: King dissolves Parliament
Ship money
Marriage with Henrietta Marie
(daughter of King of France)
William Laud: Archbishop of Canterbury
1640: rebellion in Scotland
King summons Parliament to raise money
→ short Parliament
→ Long Parliament (until 1653)
New act limiting power of King
Laud impeached and imprisoned
King asked to give up command of armed force → refuses → civil war
Civil War and
Commonwealth
1642: outbreak of hostilities
Cavaliers vs. Roundheads
Royalists: north & west
Lords
Gentry
Church of England
Parliamentarians: London and ports
New gentry
Small landowners
Artisans
Puritans
Oliver Cromwell → Ironsides
1647: King imprisoned
Expulsion & arrest of 100 MPs → Rump Parliament
30 January 1649: execution of the King
Abolition of Monarchy & House of Parliament
Diggers & Levellers
Religious Toleration:
1657: Jews re-admitted in Great Britain
(expelled 1290)
1649: Rebellion in Ireland
Submission of Scotland
1653: Cromwell = Lord Protector
1651: Navigation Acts
1652-54: Dutch War
1655: victory over Spain → Jamaica
1658: Cromwell dies
Richard Cromwell
General George Monk → new Parliament: 2 Houses
1660: Convention Parliament invites Charles II back from exile
Charles II
(1660-1685)
Merry Monarch
Admired Louis XIV
1661: Cavalier Parliament
Vindictive legislation against puritan non-conformists
Exclusion from local government
1665: bubonic plague
1666: great fire
1673: Test Act : Catholics barred from public office
Whigs / Tories
James II
(1685-1688)
Catholic, appoints Catholics
→ loses support of Tories
Mary of Modena
1688: invitation to William III
1689: crown to Mary and William
William
(1689-1702)
Mary
(1689-1694)
1689: Bill of Rights
No taxes, no army without consent of Parliament
No action against MPs for what they say in Parliament
1689: Toleration Act
Freedom of worship to protestant dissenters
1701: Act of Settlement
No crown to Catholics
Anne queen after William
Revolts in Scotland and Ireland
1690, 1 July (11) Battle of the Boyne
→ today celebrated on July 12th
Export from Ireland prohibited
Anne
(1702-1714)
Spanish Succession
Treaties if Utrecht (1713-1714)
→ GB keeps Gibraltar
→ monopoly of slave trade
1707: Act of Union