Development of Britain after republic
Charles II was more French than English. He did his best to secure toleration to Catholics in England and also to escape the control of Parliament. The king was careful to make peace with his father’s enemies. Only those who had been responsible for his father’s execution were punished. Many Parliamentarians were given positions of authority or responsibility in the new monarchy. But Parliament itself remained generally weak. Charles shared his father’s belief in absolute right.
Charles hoped to make peace between the different religious groups. He wanted to allow Puritans and Catholics who disliked the Anglican Church to meet freely. But Parliament was strongly Anglican. Charles himself was attracted to the Catholic Church. Parliament knew this and was always afraid that Charles would become a Catholic. For this reason Parliament passed the Test Act in 1673, which prevented any Catholic from holding public office. Fear of Charles’s interest in the Catholic Church also resulted in the first political parties in Britain.
One of these parties was a group of MPs who became known as “Whigs”. The Whigs were afraid of an absolute monarchy, and of the Catholic faith with which they connected it. They also wanted to have no regular or “standing” army. In spite of their fear of a Catholic king, the Whigs believed strongly in allowing religious freedom.
The Whigs were opposed by another group, nicknamed “Tories”. The Tories upheld the authority of the Crown and the Church. The Whigs were not against the Crown, but they believed that its authority depended upon the consent of Parliament. These two parties, the Whigs and the Tories, became the basis of Britain’s two-party parliamentary system of government.
Parliament passed an Act forbidding any Catholic to be a member of either the Commons or the Lords. It was not successful, however, in preventing James from inheriting the crown. James II became king after his brother’s death in 1685. James then tried to remove the laws which stopped Catholics from taking positions in government and Parliament. He also tried to bring back the Catholic Church, and allow it to exist beside the Anglican Church.
James II had two daughters – Mary and Ann – who were firm Protestants. Mary was married to her first cousin, William of Orange, a Dutch prince, a Protestant. James’s second wife, a Catholic, gave birth to a son and English Parliament and Protestants were alarmed by the possibility of Catholic succession of Monarchs. Tories and Whigs invited William of Orange to invade England and after James escape from the country Parliament decided that James II had lost his rights to the Crown. Mary and William ruled the country together; moreover the Parliament decided that William would rule on in the event of Mary’s prior death.
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The political events of 1688 were called “the Glorious Revolution”, as it was a turning point in the conception and practice of government. The Parliament secured its superiority by adopting the Bill of Rights in 1689 and the monarchs - William III and Mary II accepted the conditions advanced by the Parliament: the legislative and executive power of the Monarchs was limited (the monarchs could not impose taxes, the army could be kept only with the Parliament’s permission, the Acts should be passed through the Parliament).
In 1701 Parliament finally passed the Act of Settlement, to make sure only a Protestant could inherit the crown. It stated that if Mary had no children the crown would pass to her sister Anne. Even today, if a son or daughter of the monarch becomes a Catholic, he or she cannot inherit the throne.
In 1707 the union of Scotland and England was completed by Act of Parliament. From that moment both countries no longer had separate parliaments, and a new parliament of Great Britain, the new name of the state, met for the first time. Scotland, however, kept its own separate legal and judicial system, and its own separate Church.
During the seventeenth century Britain’s main enemies were Spain, Holland and France. War with Holland resulted from competition in trade. At the end of the century Britain went to war against France. Britain wanted to limit French power, which had been growing that time.
The Great Plague of 1665 and the Great Fire of London in 1666 were the calamities that brought a lot of sufferings to the English people.
The economy of England by the end of the century was developing freely; new economic institutions like the Bank of Britain (1695) were founded. Trade and colonies were flourishing. England became a prosperous country.
Revolution in thought
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The political revolution during the Stuart age could not have happened if there had not been a revolution in thought. This influenced not only politics, but also religion and science.
The influence of Puritanism increased greatly during the seventeenth century, particularly among the merchant class and lesser gentry. By the middle years of the seventeenth century Puritanism had led to the formation of a large number of small new religious groups, or “sects”. Most these Nonconformist sects lasted only a few years, but two are important, the Baptists and the Quakers. In spite of opposition in the seventeenth century, both sects have survived and have had an important effect on the life of the nation. The Quakers became particularly famous for their reforming social work in the eighteenth century. These sects brought hope to many of the poor and powerless.
The revolution in religious thinking was happening at the same time as a revolution in scientific thinking. In 1628 William Harvey discovered the circulation of blood and this led to great advances in medicine and in the study of the human body. These scientific studies were encouraged by the Stuarts. The Royal Society, founded by the Stuart monarchy, became an important centre where thinkers could meet, argue, enquire and share information.
In 1666 the Cambridge Professor of Mathematics, Sir Isaac Newton, began to study gravity. The greatest British architect of the time, Christopher Wren, was also Professor of Astronomy at Oxford. In 1666, following a year of terrible plague, a fire destroyed most of the city of London. Eighty-seven churches, including the great medieval cathedral of St Paul, were destroyed. Wren was ordered to rebuild them in the modern style, which he did with skill.
As a result of the rapid spread of literacy and the improvement in printing techniques, the first newspapers appeared in the seventeenth century. They were a new way of spreading all kinds of ideas, scientific, religious and literary. Many of them included advertisements.
The situation for the poor improved in the second half of the seventeenth century. Prices fell compared with wages, and fewer people asked for help from the parish. But it was the middle groups who continued to do well. Many who started life as yeoman farmers or traders became minor gentry or merchants.
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Most towns did not have shops before the seventeenth century. They had market days when farmers and manufacturers sold their produce in the town square or marketplace. By 1690, however, most towns also had proper shops.
There was a new class of rich “aristocrats” in London, most of whom belonged to the nobility, but not all. Money could buy a high position in British society more easily than in Europe. After 1650 the rich began to meet in the new coffeehouses, which quickly became the meeting places for conversation and politics.
After the rapid increase in population in the Tudor century, the number of births began to fall in the Stuart age. In 1600 Britain and Ireland had a total population of 6 million. Although it increased to 7.7 million by 1650, the rate then started to fall. No one is quite sure why the population either rose so rapidly in the Tudor age, or steadied during the seventeenth century.
QUESTIONS FOR CONTROL
1. Why did James I tried to rule the country without Parliament?
2. Why did he have to ask Parliament for money?
3. How did Charles I’s relations with Parliament develop?
4. Why did he dissolve Parliament in 1628?
5. How did Charles I rule the country without Parliament between 1629 and 1640?
6. Why did some people in England criticize the Church of England? Why were they called Puritans?
7. Did Charles I dislike Puritans?
8. What can you tell about the Civil War?
9. Who was Oliver Cromwell?
10. What was Charles I accused of and when was he executed?
11. How long was Britain a republic? Was it successful?
12. How did the position of Parliament change with the restoration of monarchy?
13. When did the first political parties appear in Britain and what were the basic principles of each of the two parties?
14. How was William of Orange connected with the English throne?
15. Was the Glorious Revolution really a revolution?
16. Why did Scotland agree to the union with England?
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17. What was the new official name of the united state?
18. What new ideas appeared in science in the 17-th century?
19. How did the life of people improve in the 17-th century?
LECTURE 3 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLAND IN THE XVIII-XIXTH CENTURIES
Plan:
1. Development of England during the first half of the 18th century.
2. Industrial revolution.
3. England at the end of 18th century.
4. Beginning of the 19th century.
5. England under the reign of Queen Victoria. End of the 19th century.
1. Development of England during the first half of the 18th century
The end of the 17th c and the start of the 18th c were the periods of wars in Europe. Britain was involved into the Nine Years War (1688-1697) and the War for Spanish Succession (1702-1713). France had become a permanent enemy, and the grant strategy of England was to stop the French expansionist policies: to struggle against the French competition in trade, and also to interfere in the affairs of the Spanish Empire.
The Whigs in the British Parliament supported the interventionist foreign policy of William III and his favorite general Duke of Marlborough. After the death of Mary II and William III they were succeeded by Anne. Marlborough was the commander of the army and was successfully fighting against the French attempts to place a French prince on the Spanish throne. England wanted to place an Austrian prince on the throne of Spain and was the goal in the War for Spanish Succession.
The Whigs were preparing the Union with Scotland and in 1707 the Scottish Parliament voted itself out of existence and together with the British Parliament adopted the Act of the Union with Scotland. The new British flag united the flags of England and Scotland combining the crosses of St.George and St. Andrew. Scotland retained its legal system and the established Church and also gained free trade with England. England, Scotland and Wales were united and became Great Britain.
The Tories opposed the military actions of Whigs. They came to power in 1712 and began negotiating peace with France. The treaty was signed in 1713 according to which the Crowns of France and Spain were never to be united, Britain gained new territories and the right to sell slaves to the Spanish colonies. Great Britain had become a great European power.
According to the Act of Settlement Anne was succeeded by Protestant of Hanoverian dynasty. George I was German and could speak no English. The consequences were that the Whigs surrounding the king had many royal prerogatives and their leader became the Chairman of the King’s Council. That was the beginning of the Cabinet system of Government in Great Britain, with a Prime Minister presiding over the Cabinet. The Whigs domination lasted for half a century. Robert Walpole was the first Prime Minister of England (in 1721). The main objectives of his policy were peace and prosperity. He had been in office for twenty years and stabilized the financial situation with the help of taxes imposed on goods sold within the country.
When George II became the king he continued his father’s policy and relied upon Walpole as Prime Minister. The most important opponent of Sir R.Walpole was William Pitt, the leader of Tories, who thought that trade is the wealth of the world, trade makes the difference between rich and poor, between one nation and another.
In 1760 George II was succeeded by his grandson George III. He was the first Hanoverian to be born in Britain. He was determined to take more active part in the government of the country. His Cabinet included the Tories who were describes as King’s friends. William Pitt had resigned as his new military plans did not find an understanding of the young king, who wanted to make peace with France and other European countries.
Industrial revolution
The technological Revolution was a breakthrough in the economic and social development of Great Britain. Its beginning is referred to the middle of the 18th c.; and the first achievements were in the production of agricultural products due to the new farming techniques. Mechanical inventions facilitated the growth of iron and coal production. By 1800 England was producing four times more coal as it had done in 1700 and eight times as much iron. In 1769 a steam engine was made. In 1764 a spinning machine was invented which revolutionized the cloth making industry and transformed it into a factory industry. Cotton textiles played the leading part in Britain’s economic expansion. The industrial revolution involved a revolution in transport. Man-made canals linked the main ports of England, roads were improved and a service of post coaches was started in 1784.
3. England at the end of 18th century
The end of the 18th c. was the period of social disintegration – the wealth of few was growing while the misery and the poverty of the majority of people were increasing rapidly. The country was splitting into two nations – the rich and the poor.
In 1789 there was Revolution in France and British ruling classes were frightened that similar events might happen in Britain. The Government took measures against the working class movement and organizations that were appearing: mass meetings were forbidden, associations of workers were declared illegal.
The king George III was an old sick man, who was not always in his right mind, so the position of the prime Minister was extremely important. Pitt was determined to maintain peace, but revolutionary France declared war in 1793. The situation became more dangerous when French general – Napoleon – appeared on the political scene. The British were rescued by the Navy. The commander of the British fleet, Admiral Nelson won several victories over the French navy. Britain emerged from the “Napoleonic Wars” a great empire: Canada, Australia, most of India, South Africa, Ceylon, Guinea and a number of small provinces.
At the same time England was suffering from internal problems: political and economic reforms had been long overdue, the position of workers and the poor had deteriorated. The first political measure of the Government was a Corn Law prohibiting the import of cheap foreign grain.
The social and political changes in the world involved the revolution in the arts. A brilliant galaxy of writers and poets looked for inspiration to nature, to emotions and to the spirit of freedom (Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelly and Austen).
4. Beginning of the 19th century
The old king George III (1760-1820), blind, insane, died in 1820 and was succeeded by little respected George IV (1820-1830) who had been Prince Regent for the last nine years of his father’s life (1811-1820).
At the first half of the 19th c. more liberal ministers were included in the Government, more progressive policies and laws were adopted. The efficient police force was created. The Catholic Emancipation Act was a forced decision that split the Tory party and brought the Whigs to power in 1830. The Whigs were determined to reform the Parliament and the parliamentary franchise, which had not changed since the reign of Elizabeth I. The electoral franchise and distribution of seats in Parliament were in a mess. Different parts of the country were represented in an uneven and unjust way. The voting was not secret; the whole system was corrupt and unrepresentative.
The same situation was in the country. There were outbreaks of machine breaking and riots: people exploited at the factories by factory owner and left unemployed by machines replacing them, were outraged; they smashed machines blaming Ned Ludd for it and bearing his name – Luddites, wearing masks and damaging the factories.
In 1830 the Manchester and Liverpool Railway was opened. The first effective Factory Act was passed, limiting the hours worked by children in cotton factories to nine, prohibiting their employment under nine years of age and appointing inspectors to see that the decisions were enforced. According to the Poor Law all poor people were to go to the workhouses where the conditions were terrible (it was described in the novel by Ch.Dickens “Oliver Twist”).
The working classes demanded more radical reforms. In 1838 the first petition was drawn up the leaders of the first association of workers, which was called the People’s Charter. It included six main demands for changes: the vote for all males, parliamentary constituencies of equal size, voting by secret ballot, a salary for MPs, no property qualifications for MPs, annual Parliaments. All these reforms seemed revolutionary at that time.
The Chartist movement was supported by the working people, but it had its ups and downs. The first and the second Charters were rejected by the Parliament in 1839 and 1842. In 1848 the charter movement coincided with the revolution in Europe and with the nationalist demands of the Irish, but the third petition was rejected too. After that Chartism began to decline and grew into the cooperative and trade unionist movement.
5. England under the reign of Queen Victoria. End of the 19th century
The Parliament struggle of the Tories and Whigs, the working classes struggle for social rights and a better life, were all developing against the background of changes in the Monarchy. After the death of William IV in 1837 the 18 years old Victoria became Queen. Her first Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, taught the young Queen the duties of the constitutional monarch. It was a difficult time: the Whigs lost their popularity and the majority in the House of Commons; the Hungry Thirties passed into the Hungry Forties, and the alternative to the Whigs polices was the new Conservative Party, created by R.Peel. Peel’s financial reforms brought revival to the country (1844) and legislation to protect factory and mine workers improved their conditions. Reforms brought cheaper food and exports from “the workshops of the world”. And the Whigs inherited the benefits of Peel’s reforms.
In 1840 Victoria married her cousin Albert. The marriage was happy, and the Royal family became a model for moral standards in high society as well as for middle classes. Albert was deeply interested in the British affairs, both foreign and home. He was the initiator of a great display of Victorian glory and progress in the country – the Great Exhibition of 1851. It was quite a new idea. The Exhibition building was an enormous glass-and-iron structure – the crystal Palace in Hyde Park, it had on display machinery and products from Britain, the Empire and other countries. “The Crystal Palace” was the symbol of Technological progress. All the Victorian writers, poets, painters glorified English culture (Tennyson, Charles Dickens, Nikolas Nickleby, Thackeray, Bronte sisters, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, Oscar Wilde, Bernard Shaw).
Victorian science was influenced by the development of three men: K.Marx – the founder of Communism, Sigmund Freud – the founder of psycho-analysis and Ch.Darvin – the founder of the modern theory of biological evolution.
In 1854 a Crimean War broke out. Britain and France declared war on Russia in support of Turkey. This war revealed the courage of ordinary solders and the incompetence of the command. Newspapers reported the shocking conditions in the army hospitals, the terrible organization of supplies. The war solved nothing but it brought a glory to the work of Florence Nightingale, who organized hospitals and treatment of the wounded.
Queen Victoria suffered a great personal tragedy in 1861 – Albert died of typhoid – and the Queen went into deep mourning, withdrew from public duties and lived in isolation for a decade. Her last thirty-five years of reign were a period of struggle between the new Liberal Party and the Conservatives. On the great issues Queen Victoria strongly sympathized with Conservatives and disapproved of Liberals.
The Empire that Great Britain had gained by the middle of the 19th c, was the result of the greatest power that Britain possessed through its command of trade, finance and manufacturing. The colonies were united by English law and by trade, the forms of governing administration varied. The whole population was growing due to the emigration from the British Isles: throughout the 18th c., 19th c. poor and disadvantaged people sought a new and better life in the colonies.
QUESTIONS FOR CONTROL
1. What king was George I? Why did Parliament support him?
2. Who was Robert Walpole?
3. When did the war with France break out and what were the results of this war for Britain?
4. What attempts were made to help the poor people? What is a workhouse?
5. How did the industry begin to develop at the end of the 18th century?
6. What helped England to avoid revolution?
7. Was the revolution in France a real danger for England?
8. What measures did the British government take because of afraid of revolution?
9. When did Britain go to war with Napoleon? Why did it decide to fight at sea?
10. Who was Horatio Nelson?
11. Why did Britain change from the nation of country people to a nation of townspeople between 1815 and 1835?
12. What were both the Tories and the Whigs afraid of?
13. When was the People’s Charter worked out? What rights did the Charter demand?
14. What exhibition was opened in 1851? What was the aim of the exhibition?
15. What was the pride of Britain and a great example of its industrial power?
17. When was the voting carried out in secret for the first time?
18. How did the growth of newspaper industry tell the development of democracy?
19. When did the first congress of trade unions meet?
20. What was the purpose of the numerous “colonial wars” Britain was engaged in?
21. What was the political situation in Europe at the end of the 19th century?
LECTURE 4 DEVELOPMENT OF GREAT BRITAIN IN THE XXTH CENTURY
Plan:
1. The United Kingdom in the first half of the 20 century
2. Affairs in Parliament.
3. World War I.
4. Political changes in the country.
5. World War II.
6. The postwar Britain
7. Britain in the Second Half of the 20th century
8. Britain in the end of the century
9. Present-Day Britain
1. The United Kingdom in the 1st half of the 20 th century
By the beginning of the 20th century, Britain was no longer the world’s richest country. The first twenty years of the century were a period of extremism. The Suffragettes, women demanding the right to vote, were prepared both to damage property and to die for their beliefs; the problem of Ulster in the north of Ireland led to a situation in which some sections of the army were ready to disobey the government; and the government’s introduction of new taxes was opposed by the House of Lords so that even Parliament seemed to have an uncertain future in its traditional form. But by the end of the First World War, two of these issues had been resolved to most people’s satisfaction (only the Irish problem remained).
In the first half of the 1900s, Britain fought in two world wars that considerably changed its international influence and status. Many countries which were British colonies before 1945 became independent countries as the British Empire developed into the Commonwealth of Unions. In 1906, Britain was the world's richest and most powerful nation, but the Soviet Union and the United States, with their vast resources of people and materials, eventually overtook Britain.
Affairs in Parliament
In 1906, the Liberals won a general election by a large majority and again returned to government in January 1910. Then it introduced a bill to end the power of the Lords to reject financial bills. The bill also provided that any other bill, if passed by the Commons three times in two years, should become law without the approval of the Lords. The Liberals also proposed to reduce the length of a Parliament from seven to five years. The Lords passed the bill. It became law as the Parliament Act of 1911.
The Liberals passed more social reforms. In 1911, the Shops Act enforced early closing once a week. By another act, members of Parliament received payment for their services. A National Insurance Act provided sickness insurance for all low-paid workers and unemployment insurance for people in some jobs.
World War I
In the late 1800s, Britain, with its vast empire, relied on the Navy for defences and followed a foreign policy of splendid isolation. But with the early 1900s came a need for alliances. In 1902, Britain allied with Japan to meet a possible Russian attack on India. In 1904, Britain and France, both fearing German aggression, signed a treaty called the Entente Cordiale. In 1907, this became the Triple Entente, when France's ally, Russia, joined it. The Entente was opposed by the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria, and Italy.War was becoming imminent. The assassination of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, at Sarajevo on June 28, 1914 was the pretext which led to open conflict.
On August 1, 1914 Germany declared war on Russia, on August 3 it declared war on France.
World War I began in 1914. The Allies - Britain, France, the United States, and other countries - fought the Central Powers - Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria. The war was caused chiefly by political and economic rivalry among the various nations. Britain entered the war on August 4, 1914, after German troops invaded neutral Belgium on their way to attack France.
In the course of the war a coalition government was formed with the participation of the Liberals, the Tories and a few Labour representatives. Lloyd George emerged as the dominant figure in the government doing his best to divert growing labour unrest by propagating 'national unity'.
The fighting lasted until 1918, when the Allies finally defeated Germany. On August 8, 1918 the allied forces staged a major breakthrough surrounding and destroying 16 German divisions. Germany was defeated and the Armistice was signed on November 11, 1918.
Lloyd George served as prime minister during the second half of the war. He helped to write the Treaty of Versailles, which officially ended the war with Germany. The treaty set up the League of Nations, and gave Britain control over German colonies in Africa. The Treaty of Sevres, signed with the Turkish Ottoman Empire, gave Britain control over some Turkish possessions in the Middle East.
The war had a shattering effect on Britain. About 750,000 members of the British armed forces died. German submarines sank about 7 million metric tons of British shipping. The war also created severe economic problems for Britain and shook its position as a world power.
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