TEMA 5 The Civil War, Republic, Restoration and Union

1. THE CIVIL WAR (1639 1649)

The Union of the Scottish and the English Crowns (1603) James VI of Scotland Becomes King of England James V of Scotland died in 1542 leaving a six days old daughter, Mary. Mary was sent to France and later married the future king, Francis II, to whom she became widow at the age of eighteen. In 1561 Mary Stuart (Mary I of Scotland) returned to Scotland after his husband s death. She was a Catholic, and the country was Protestant. After his following husband s death under suspicious circumstances, the Scottish nobility rebelled. She was imprisoned and forced to abdicate in favour of her infant son James VI. In 1603 Elizabeth I died childless, and James VI of Scotland (her cousin) acceded to the English throne, becoming James I of England as well. The three separate kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland were now united under a single monarch. James was the first Stuart ruler of England. The Anglo-Scottish Border The border, in the 16th century, was quite similar to the one established during 1237 (Treaty of York). By 1580 there were only six disputed areas. The largest was divided between the two kingdoms in 1552. In the 1560s, the Protestant Reformation established certain solidarity and co-operation between London and Edinburgh. The frontiers were gradually transformed into the Middle Shires in 1603, with the Union of the Crowns. Charles I and his Prerogative Powers Charles I Access to the Throne In 1625 James I died, and his son Charles I acceded to the throne. Problems arose almost immediately after his coronation, as he was a Catholic that underestimated the power of the Parliament (he was even determined to rule without parliament if necessary). He managed to arise rebellions between Catholics and Protestants. In Scotland, Charles offended the Scottish subjects trying to renegotiate the terms on which Crown and Church lands had been handed over to them in the 16th century, and by giving the bishops a prominent role in government. In Ireland, many catholics had been dispossessed of their lands and replaced by Scots and English Protestant settlers. Charles promised the Catholic old English families limited religious freedom in return for a payment of 120,000, but he never confirmed their privileges. The New Prayer Book and the beginning of the War The king tried to impose a version of the English prayer book in Scotland in 1638, leading the Scottish Presbyterians to form the National Covenant and call for an end to English-style bishops. The king responded by raising an army in England, but when he was confronted by a large Scots force at Berwick in 1639, he backed down. The following year Charles raised another army to invade Scotland, but the Scots acted first marching into England, and winning and easy victory and occupying Newcastle. These humiliating little bishop wars strained the king s finances and forced him to call a parliament to pay off the Scots and confirm his concessions to them. The price parliament demanded for its co-operation (reforms that would limit the kings power) was unacceptable to Charles.

Charles position became critical late in 1641, when a Catholic rebellion broke out around Dublin and Ulster. 10% of the Protestant settlers there were massacred, and around 30% fled form their homes. Many died due to the privations, but many reached England to testify to their sufferings. Desperate, Charles attempted to break the deadlock with the English parliament by a coup in 1642, but the attempt failed and he was forced to leave the capital of York, and both king and parliament began to gather military forces. Fighting between parliamentary and royalist supporters broke out in Manchester in 1642. Support for Parliament was strong in London, the Southeast, East Anglia and the port towns that traded with London. Royalist support was strongest in the poorer, more peripheral west and north. The Scots initially remained neutral. The Widening War Charles attempted to gain London, but his attempt to capture the city became useless. Nevertheless, the war generally progressed in the king s favour. By late 1643, royalist control had been extended from the west country over much of Wiltshire, Hampshire and Berkshire. In 1643 Scotland supported the Parliament, as if Charles won, it would be problematic for their Presbyterian revolution. The Royalist position in the North collapsed. When Charles lost Oxford, he lost all hope on the victory. He surrendered to the Scots in 1646, ending the war. The Second Civil War of 1648 The surrender of Charles I in 1646 brought no solution to the problems of the three kingdoms. The English Parliament agreed to introduce Presbyterianism in England and Ireland in return for Scottish support during the Civil War. But the war was over and the Parliament seemed to have lost its enthusiasm on Presbyterianism. Charles refused to make any concession at all to Parliament (it would have reduced his prerogative powers). The English Parliament tried to offer their own peace terms (known as The Head of Proposals . Charles seemed to be interested in it, but at the same time he started communication with the duke of Hamilton (in order to raise Scottish support for a RoyalistPresbyterian rebellion). In 1648 the Second Civil War started. The Parliament won. Charles I was tried, accused of treason, and executed in 1649. Then the Commons proclaimed themselves the sovereign power. The monarchy and the House of Lords were abolished and England was declared a Commonwealth, making its government a republic.

1. THE BRITISH REPUBLIC (1649 1660)

The Commonwealth (1649) The immediate response of the Scots to the execution of Charles I, was to proclaim his son, Charles II, king of all Britain. Ireland had to be pacified. Cromwell was sent with his troops to Ireland in 1649, and after his success there, to Scotland in 1650. He managed to occupy Edinburgh, but resistance continued north of the Forth, where Charles II was raising forces. In 1651 Charles II invaded England, buy he was defeated by Cromwell (it was the end of royalism as a military threat). In 1652, the Act of Settlement was established in Ireland. It meant that the Catholic Irish were forced to live in Connacht. For the first time in history, all of the British Isles were under the control of a single government. The Protectorate (1653 1660) Oliver Cromwell was established as the First Lord Protector in 1653. Cromwell removed the members of parliament and established a body of 144 men chosen by the army council. It

lasted for 5 months, disrupted by more radical dissenters. In 1654 he called for his first Parliament (iy contained 400 members from England and Wales, and 30 from Scotland and Ireland). It ended in dissolution. In 1655 Cromwell reacted against feeble royalist uprisings by setting up 11 military governors (the Major Generals) of 11 districts in England and Scotland. He raised taxation for former royalists. The Parliament wanted to confirm Cromwell as king of Britain, but he refused. It gave all the component nations seats in a single and new elected British Parliament When Cromwell died in 1658, he was succeeded as Protector by his son Richard. He lacked the authority that his father had, and a political radicalism in the army put an end to the Protectorate. He was hardly able of containing a revival of political radicalism in the army, which wanted to put an end to the Protectorate. In 1660, the army of occupation in Scotland began to march towards London. On the way, they received petitions calling for free elections to parliament. These elections produced the moderate Convention parliament that proclaimed Charles II king in 1660. From War to Peace The transition from Civil War to peace was not easy. The land of the Crown, the Church etc was confiscated and sold off. Some places which had been central points during the war had to be rebuilt. At the Restoration, confiscated lands reverted to their previous owners. The landowners privileged during the Protectorate (that were against the King) lost their lands.

1. THE RESTORATION OF MONARCHY (1660)

Introduction The King Charles II restored the Stuart Monarchy in 1660. Government were revived and separate legislature restored in Westminster, Edinburgh and Dublin. In England, the Monarchy returned to its previous 1641 status, while in Scotland legislation from 1633 on was revoked. Anglicanism was imposed in England by the Clarendon Code (it ended the diversity of religious practice which had flourished under Cromwell. Religious nonconformity was now sought as a synonym of political disloyality). They would not have any of the Puritanism impossed by Cromwell. In Scotland bishops ruling a Presbyterian majority rose rebellions. It ended in a series of measures to enforce religious conformity (preaching at unlicensed Presbyterian services was considered a capital offence).

The Succession Crisis Shortage of money was one of the main problems, Charles II made a Secre Treaty of Dover with the French King Louis XIV Charles II was succeeded by his brother James II (1685 1688). James was a Catholic, and he wanted to re-establish the rights of Catholics. In 1685, Charles illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth, launched a rebellion. The Monmouth s Rebellion ended with a series of trials for those who had supported him (hundreds of men were condemned to death). Popular opinion grew against James II after his son was born, raising a prospect of a Catholic dynasty.

1. THE GLORIOUS REVOLUTION OF 1688

Introduction During his short reign, King James II became involved in two political problems: v The political problem between Catholicism and Protestantism v The political problem between the divine right of the Crown and the political rights of Parliament His greatest problem was his Catholicism, which left him alienated from both parties in parliaments (Tories and Whigs). James s attempt to relax the penal laws related to Religion alienated his natural initial supporters (Tories), as this was seen as a disestablishment of the Church of England. James ordered the removal of Henry Compton, the anti-Catholic Bishop of London, replacing at the same time the Protestant fellows of Magdalene College (Oxford) with Catholics. James also created a large standing army and employed Catholics in positions of power in it. In 1688, James re-issued the Declaration of Indulgence, and ordered all clergymen to read it in their churches. The Archbishop of Canterbury and six more wrote to James asking him to reconsider his policies, but then they were arrested on charges of libel (but they were supported by the London crowd at trial). In 1688, James had a son. Till then, the throne would have passed to his daughter Mary (a Protestant). The prospect of a Catholic dynasty in the British isles was now likely but undesired. The Glorious Revolution The birth of James son was undesired, as it was seem as the continuation of the Catholic Monarchy. Five Whig and two Tory politicians (known as The Immortal Seven ), invited James son-in-law, the Protestant William of Orange (from Holland), to intervene and restore England s laws and liberties. William saw this intervention as the possibility to secure his wife Mary as the future Queen of Britain. In 1688, William and his army landed in England. James fled to France. In 1689, the Convention Parliament determined that as the English and Irish thrones had been left vacant by James abdication , they could be offered to William and Mary. They were crowned as joint sovereigns, and then both accepted the Scottish crown as well. In 1689, the Bill of Rights represented a shift in the balance of political power between parliamentary and monarchical power. Parliament thereafter became a permanent institution (meeting at least annually). Britain s involvement in the Nine Year s War (1689 1697) and the War of the Spanish Succession (1702 1713) indicated an intensification of foreign policy commitments. The English army became an increasingly presence in Europe. The nation s finances were strengthened. Mary died in 1694, so William ruled alone till 1702, when he was succeeded by his sister-in-law Anne. In 1701 the English parliament passed an Act of Settlement, requiring all the future English monarchs to be in communion with the Anglican Church. The Act of Settlement also claimed that if the line of succession established in the Bill of Rights were to be extinguished, then the crown would go to a German cousin, Sophia of Hannover, and to her Protestant heirs. When Anne died in 1714, as Sophia had died this same year, the crown was inherited by George I (Sophia s son). James s son James Francis Edward was recognised as king at his father s death by Louis XIV of France and by Jame s remaining supporters (known as Jacobites). He led a rising in Scotland in

1715, but was defeated. Jacobites rose again in 1745 led by Charles Edward Stuart (James II s grand son), but they were defeated again.

1. THE ACT OF UNION OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND OF 1707

In 1707 the Act of Union brought together Scotland and England to form Great Britain. A new national flag was adopted, incorporating the crosses of Saint George (England) and Saint Andrew (Scotland). Other united aspects followed: a single coinage, the same system of weight and measures This union was established due to England s necessity to resolve the Jacobite successional situation (the Act of Union prevented that Scotland embraced the Jacobites). Separate legislation preserved the established status of the Presbyterian Church within Scotland, as well as the independent integrity of the Scottish legal system.