THE PURITAN REVOLUTION AND AFTER
The Civil War.
5.1.1. The English Renaissance reached its apex around the year 1600, and concluded roughly during the Restoration in the 1660s. After Shakespeare's death, the poet and dramatist Ben Jonson was the leading literary figure. A tradition of Bible translation into English which began with the work of William Tyndale resulted in the publication of the King James Version of the Bible on 1611. It became the standard Bible. Other important figures of the period are the poet John Milton and the philosopher John Locke.
5 . 1 .2. In 1603 Elizabeth died, she left the new king James I with a huge debt. James had to ask Parliament to raise a tax to pay the debt. Parliament agreed, but in return insisted on the right to discuss James's home and foreign policy. James managed to rule the country without Parliament between till 1621. The situation in the country was not simple. The history of the Gunpowder Plot and the fate of Guy Fawkes (1570 – 1606) show that clearly. Fawkes was one of the people involved in the Gunpowder Plot to blow up the British Houses of Parliament. He is the most famous of the conspirators because he was caught with the gunpowder, tortured, and later killed. Since then, there is a tradition in Britain of burning ‘guys’ representing him every year on Guy Fawkes Night, November 5.
5.1.3. The next king Charles I relied with Parliament even more bitterly than his father had done. More than once Charles dissolved Parliament, but had to recall it again because he needed money. In 1628, in return for money, Parliament wanted Charles to sign a document known as the Petition of Rights, which would give Parliament the right to control the national budget and the law. Charles dissolved Parliament again and successfully ruled without Parliament.
5.1.4. But the religious situation in Britain was aggravated. There were people in the country who disagreed with the teachings of the Church of England. They thought that the services of the Church of England was too complicated and too rich and took too much money. They were called Puritans. Catholics disliked Puritans that's why some tried to find a new paradise in America. The first group of Puritans left England for good in August 1620 on board the Mayflower.
The Republican rule
5.2.1. That time Ireland exploded in rebellion against the Protestant English settlers. 3.000 people were killed. Parliament quarreled over who should lead an army to defeat the rebels, Many MPs were afraid to give an army to Charles; they thought that Charles would use the army in order to dissolve Parliament by force and to rule alone again. Most of the House of Lords and a few from the House of Commons supported Charles. The Royalists were known as Cavaliers, controlled most of the north-west. Parliament controlled the east and south-east, including London. Their short hair gave the Parliamentarian soldiers their popular name of Roundheads. The two armies clashed eventually. The first battle, fought in October 1642, was indecisive. The king rejected Parliament’s conditions for his return to power; his intransigence aggravated the divisions among the victors. The army, more independent in religion and radical in politics than the Presbyterians who dominated Parliament, seized the king. Found guilty, Charles I was executed on January 30, 1649.
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5.2.2. Several MPs had commanded the Parliamentarian army during the Civil War. One of them was a gentleman farmer named Oliver Cromwell. He had created a new "model" army. Instead of country people or gentry Cromwell invited into his army educated men wanted to fight for their beliefs. Cromwell and his advisers created the Republic called the Commonwealth. From 1649 till 1660 Britain was the republic.
5.2.3. The tragic thing was that Cromwell and his associates created a government which was far more severe than Charles had been. They got rid of the monarchy, and now they got rid of the House of Lords. The need for a permanent, settled government remained, and the power resided in Cromwell and the army. In December 1653 Cromwell accepted the Instrument of Government, a written constitution, which created a protectorate consisting of himself as Lord Protector and a one-house Parliament.
5 . 2 . 4. The Scots were shocked by the King’s execution. They invited his son, whom they recognized as King Charles II, to join them and fight against the Parliamentarian army. But they were defeated; the young Charles himself had to escape to France. So land was brought under English republican rule. Cromwell also took an army to Ireland "to punish them for killing Protestants in 1641. Soon Cromwell became unpopular because of his politics, severe rules and forbids of celebrating Christmas and Easter, or to play games on Sunday. Cromwell died on September 3, 1658, and the drift toward anarchy was halted by the commander of the army in Scotland. He marched into London with his troops and recalled the Long Parliament, which then restored Charles II to the throne in May 1660.
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The events after 1660.
5.3 . 1. When Charles II became king he promised general pardon, and religious toleration, which was received with a burst of national enthusiasm. In May 1660 monarchy was restored in England. The period of 1660 – 88 is known as the Restoration. It is characterised by a struggle for power between the feudal aristocracy and the bourgeoisie and gentry which had secured a dominant position in the society during the revolution. The feudal aristocracy was dreaming of a complete return to the pre-revolutionary days, while the bourgeoisie desperately tried to retain the privileges gained during the revolution.
5.3.2. Nobody can say that England did well in the period of Restoration. There happened the Great Plague (1665 – 1666) and the Great Fire of London (1666), and the country was losing a lot in the sphere of foreign policy. In this period we can see the beginning of what we now know as the modern political system of Great Britain. The two political parties appeared at that time – the Tories and the Whigs. Later they turned into the Conservative and Liberal parties. The Whigs was a rude name for cattle drivers. The Whigs were afraid of an absolute monarchy and of the Catholic faith. The other party, which opposed the Whigs, was nicknamed Tories, which is an Irish name for thieves. The Tories, who were natural inheritors of the Royalists of the Civil War, supported the Crown and the Church. The Revolution of 1688 deposed James in favor of his nephew, William of Orange. William was a Dutch protestant noble who had married James’ daughter Mary.
5.3.3. In the XVII century Britain's main rivals were Spain, Holland and France. There was a competition in trade between England and Holland. Colonizing foreign lands was important for economic development. Britain did not have as many colonies abroad as Spain or Holland, but it had greater variety. Britain had twelve colonies on the east coast of North America which were started with the help of John Smith early in the XVII century. In the West Indies it had new colonies where sugar was grown. Besides, by this time Britain's East India Company had established its first trading settlements in India, on both the west and east coasts. There were many colonial wars which led to the emergence of the British colonial empire. It eventually reached the farthermost corners of the world, like Australia discovered by Captain James Cook.
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5.3.4. The XVII century is known as the period of the Enlightenment in England. Great scientists worked at that time such as Isaac Newton. The writers and scholars Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe and Samuel Johnson contributed to the development of the literary language. The architect of London, Sir Christopher Wren is noted for his St. Paul's Cathedral and dozens of other structures. The Enlightenment saw the development of humanitarian thought. Individuals like the poet and painter William Blake created their own artistic philosophies.
The Industrial Revolution.
5.4.1. By the middle of the XVIII century industry began to use coal for changing iron ore into good quality iron or steel. This laid the foundation for the Industrial Revolution. This made Britain the leading iron producer in Europe. Increased iron production made it possible to manufacture new machinery for other industries. In the middle of the century other countries were buying British uniforms, equipment and weapons for their armies.
5.4.2. The industry most often associated with the Industrial Revolution is the textile industry. A series of extraordinary innovations reduced and then replaced the human labor required to make cloth. British inventor John Kay created a device known as the flying shuttle, which partially mechanized the process of weaving. The British inventor and industrialist James Hargreaves had invented the spinning jenny, a machine that spins a number of threads at once. The most important results of these changes were enormous increases in the output of goods per worker. A single spinner or weaver, for example, could now turn out many times the volume of yarn or cloth that earlier workers had produced.
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5.4.3. James Watt, a laboratory assistant from Scotland, developed a new type of steam engine. At first the engine was used only for stationary work, but later on it was modified by George Stephenson to drive locomotives. In 1825 the first railway was built. The development of technology was advanced further by outstanding engineers like Isambard Brunel. He was responsible for building more than 1,600 km of railway in the West Country, the Midlands, South Wales, and Ireland. His approach to engineering was always creative. Brunel Junior is best remembered for his outstanding contribution to marine engineering. Later in life, he designed three huge ships. The Great Eastern built in 1858 is probably the most well-known of the three. It was the largest steamship in the world in the second half of the XIX century.
5.4.4. The social consequences of the Industrial Revolution were dramatic and far-reaching. English society was breaking up into 2 basic classes – the owners of factories (the capitalists) and the workers (the proletarians). While the owners gained profits the working conditions were terrible and the wages were very small. Hand-workers were losing their jobs to the new machines. The enclosure movement created an abundant labour supply. Thousands of peasants became landless and ruined and were forced to migrate to the growing towns where they were consumed by the growing industry.
LECTURE 06
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