The Stuarts: Kings, Conflicts, and the Rise of Parliament
UNIT 6: THE STUARTS
James I: Uniting Crowns and Religious Tensions
JAMES I: James I, son of Mary, Queen of Scots, had been King of Scotland for 36 years when he became King of England. Although he was king of both countries, James’s attempt to create a full governmental union proved premature. An able theologian, he ordered a new translation of the Bible which became known as the “Authorized King James’s Version of the Bible”. James himself was fairly tolerant in terms of religious faith, but the Gunpowder Plot (an attempt by Guy Fawkes and other Roman Catholic conspirators to blow up the Houses of Parliament) in 1605 resulted in the reimposition of strict penalties on Roman Catholics. Although he believed that kings took their authority from God, James I accepted that his actions were subject to the law. Unable, like many of his predecessors, to put royal finances on a sound footing, James was in dispute with his Parliament. The outbreak of the Thirty Years War 1618-48 in Europe spread, and financial pressures forced James in 1621 to summon Parliament, but when the House of Commons tried to debate wider aspects of foreign policy and asserted their right to discuss any subject, James dissolved it. A further Parliament, summoned in 1624, failed to resolve foreign policy questions. On James’s death in 1625, the kingdom was on the edge of war with Spain.
Charles I: Conflict and Civil War
CHARLES I: James was followed by Charles the First. Controversy and disputes dogged Charles throughout his reign. They eventually led to civil wars, first with Scots from 1637 and later in England (1642-46 and 1648). He argued with Parliament, particularly about taxes. Many people in Parliament were Puritans, who wanted the Church of England to adopt a simpler style of worship without bishops and formal ceremonies. Some Puritans, known as the Pilgrim Fathers, traveled to America to Massachusetts (within the Mayflower ship) so that they could settle there and follow their own religion freely. Meanwhile, Charles decided that bishops should rule the Scottish Church (the Presbyterian Church), but the Presbyterians did not accept this and created an army to attack England. Charles stopped the attack by paying money, but needed the help of Parliament to raise this money. There were more disagreements, and fighting began between Royalists (known as Cavaliers) who supported the king, and Parliamentarians (known as Roundheads) who supported Parliament. This was known as the English Civil War. One of the main leaders of the Roundheads was Oliver Cromwell. The Cavaliers were defeated at the battles of Marston Moor and then at Naseby. Finally, in 1648, the war ended with Cromwell’s victory at Preston in August. The army, concluding that permanent peace was impossible whilst Charles lived, then decided that the king must be put on trial and executed. In December, Parliament was purged, leaving a small rump totally dependent on the Army, and the Rump Parliament established a High Court of Justice in the first week of January in 1649. The King was sentenced to death on 27 January, and three days later, Charles I was beheaded in London.
Commonwealth and Protectorate: A Republic Experiment
COMMONWEALTH & PROTECTORATE:
Cromwell’s convincing military successes at Drogheda in Ireland (1649), Dunbar in Scotland (1650) and Worcester in England (1651) forced Charles I’s son, Charles, into foreign exile despite being accepted as King in Scotland. From 1649 to 1660, England was therefore a republic during a period known as the Interregnum (‘between reigns’). A series of political experiments followed, as the country’s rulers tried to redefine and establish a workable constitution without a monarchy. Throughout the Interregnum, Cromwell’s relationship with Parliament was a troubled one, with tensions over the nature of the constitution and the issue of supremacy, control of the armed forces and debate over religious toleration. In 1653 Parliament was dissolved, and under the Instrument of Government, Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector, later refusing the offer of the throne. Further disputes with the House of Commons followed; at one stage Cromwell resorted to regional rule by a number of the army’s major generals. After Cromwell’s death in 1658, and the failure of his son Richard’s short-lived Protectorate, the army under General Monk invited Charles I’s son, Charles, to become King.
Charles II: Restoration and Challenges
CHARLES II: Although those who had signed Charles I’s death warrant were punished, Charles II pursued a policy of political tolerance and power-sharing. In April 1660, fresh elections were held and a Convention met with the House of Lords. Parliament invited Charles to return, and he accepted. There was a bitterness from the Civil Wars and Charles I’s execution, there were few detailed negotiations over the conditions of Charles II’s restoration to the throne. Under the Declaration of Breda in 1660, Charles had promised a lot of things as pardons, arrears of Army pay, but several issues remained unresolved. However, the Militia Act of 1661 vested control of the armed forces in the Crown, and Parliament agreed to an annual revenue of £1,200,000 (a persistent deficit of £400,000-500,000 remained, leading to difficulties for Charles in his foreign policy). The bishops were restored to their seats in the House of Lords, and the Triennial Act of 1641 was repealed – there was no mechanism for enforcing the King’s obligation to call Parliament at least once every three years. The early years of Charles’s reign saw an appalling plague which hit the country in 1665 with 70,000 dying in London alone, and the Great Fire of London in 1666 which destroyed St Paul’s amongst other buildings. Another misfortune was the second Dutch war of 1665 (born of English and Dutch commercial and colonial rivalry). Although the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam was overrun and renamed New York before the war started, by 1666 France and Denmark had allied with the Dutch. The war was dogged by poor administration culminating in a Dutch attack on the Thames in 1667; a peace was negotiated later in the year. In 1667, Charles dismissed his Lord Chancellor, Clarendon – an adviser from Charles’s days of exile (Clarendon’s daughter Anne was the first wife of Charles’s brother James and was mother of Queens Mary and Anne).
As a scapegoat for the difficult religious settlement and the Dutch war, Clarendon had failed to build a ‘Court interest’ in the Commons. He was succeeded by a series of ministerial combinations, the first of which was that of Clifford, Ashley, Buckingham, Arlington and Lauderdale (whose initials formed the nickname Cabal). Such combinations (except for Danby’s dominance of Parliament from 1673 to 1679) were largely kept in balance by Charles for the rest of his reign. Charles’s foreign policy was a wavering balance of alliances with France and the Dutch in turn. In 1670, Charles signed the secret treaty of Dover under which Charles would declare himself a Catholic and England would side with France against the Dutch. In return, Charles would receive subsidies from the King of France (thus enabling Charles some limited room for manoeuvre with Parliament, but leaving the possibility of public disclosure of the treaty by Louis). Practical considerations prevented such a public conversion, but Charles issued a Declaration of Indulgence, using his prerogative powers to suspend the penal laws against Catholics and Nonconformists. In the face of an Anglican Parliament’s opposition, Charles was eventually forced to withdraw the Declaration in 1673. In 1677 Charles married his niece Mary to William of Orange, partly to restore the balance after his brother’s second marriage to the Catholic Mary of Modena and to re-establish his own Protestant credentials. This assumed a greater importance as it became clear that Charles’s marriage to Catherine of Braganza would produce no legitimate heirs (although Charles had a number of mistresses and illegitimate children), and his Roman Catholic brother James’s position as heir apparent raised the prospect of a Catholic king. Throughout Charles’s reign, religious toleration dominated the political scene. The 1662 Act of Uniformity had imposed the use of the Book of Common Prayer, and insisted that clergy subscribe to Anglican doctrine (some 1,000 clergy lost their livings). Anti-Catholicism was widespread; the Test Act of 1673 excluded Roman Catholics from both Houses of Parliament. Parliament’s reaction to the Popish Plot of 1678 (an allegation by Titus Oates that Jesuit priests were conspiring to murder the King, and involving the Queen and the Lord Treasurer, Danby) was to impeach Danby and present a Bill to exclude James (Charles’s younger brother and a Roman Catholic convert) from the succession. In 1680/81 Charles dissolved three Parliaments which had all tried to introduce Exclusion Bills on the basis that ‘we are not like to have a good end’. Charles sponsored the founding of the Royal Society in 1660 (still in existence today) to promote scientific research. Charles also encouraged a rebuilding programme, particularly in the last years of his reign, which included extensive rebuilding at Windsor Castle, a huge but uncompleted new palace at Winchester and the Greenwich Observatory. Charles was a patron of Christopher Wren in the design and rebuilding of St Paul’s Cathedral, Chelsea Hospital (a refuge for old war veterans) and other London buildings. Charles died in 1685, becoming a Roman Catholic on his deathbed.
James II: A Catholic King and Growing Opposition
James II
Born in 1633 and named after his grandfather James I, James II grew up in exile after the Civil War (he served in the armies of Louis XIV) and, after his brother’s restoration, commanded the Royal Navy from 1660 to 1673. James converted to Catholicism in 1669. Despite his conversion, James II succeeded to the throne peacefully at the age of 51. His position was a strong one – there were standing armies of nearly 20,000 men in his kingdoms and he had a revenue of around £2 million.
Within days of his succession, James announced the summoning of Parliament in May but he sounded a warning note: ‘the best way to engage me to meet you often is always to use me well’.
A rebellion led by Charles’s illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth, was easily crushed after the battle of Sedgemoor in 1685, and savage punishments were imposed by the infamous Lord Chief Justice, Judge Jeffreys, at the ‘Bloody Assizes’. James’s reaction to the Monmouth rebellion was to plan the increase of the standing army and the appointment of loyal and experienced Roman Catholic officers. This, together with James’s attempts to give civic equality to Roman Catholic and Protestant dissenters, led to conflict with Parliament, as it was seen as James showing favouritism towards Roman Catholics. Fear of Catholicism was widespread (in 1685, Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes which gave protection to French Protestants), and the possibility of a standing army led by Roman Catholic officers produced protest in Parliament. As a result, James prorogued Parliament in 1685 and ruled without it. James attempted to promote the Roman Catholic cause by dismissing judges and Lord Lieutenants who refused to support the withdrawal of laws penalising religious dissidents, appointing Catholics to important academic posts, and to senior military and political positions. Within three years, the majority of James’s subjects had been alienated.
In 1687 James issued the Declaration of Indulgence aiming at religious toleration; seven bishops who asked James to reconsider were charged with seditious libel, but later acquitted to popular Anglican acclaim. When his second (Roman Catholic) wife, Mary of Modena, gave birth on 10 June 1688 to a son (James Stuart, later known as the ‘Old Pretender’ and father of Charles Edward Stuart, ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’), it seemed that a Roman Catholic dynasty would be established.
William of Orange, Protestant husband of James’s elder daughter, Mary (by James’s first and Protestant wife, Anne Hyde), was therefore welcomed when he invaded on 5 November 1688.
The Army and the Navy (disaffected despite James’s investment in them) deserted to William, and James fled to France. James’s attempt to regain the throne by taking a French army to Ireland failed – he was defeated at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. James spent the rest of his life in exile in France, dying there in 1701.
William III and Mary II: The Glorious Revolution
William III & MARY II: In 1689 Parliament declared that James had abdicated by deserting his kingdom. William (reigned 1689-1702) and Mary (reigned 1689-94) were offered the throne as joint monarchs. They accepted a Declaration of Rights (later a Bill), drawn up by a Convention of Parliament, which limited the Sovereign’s power, reaffirmed Parliament’s claim to control taxation and legislation, and provided guarantees against the abuses of power which James II and the other Stuart Kings had committed. The exclusion of James II and his heirs was extended to exclude all Catholics from the throne, since ‘it hath been found by experience that it is inconsistent with the safety and welfare of this protestant kingdom to be governed by a papist prince’. The Sovereign was required in his coronation oath to swear to maintain the Protestant religion. The Bill was designed to ensure Parliament could function free from royal interference. The Sovereign was forbidden from suspending or dispensing with laws passed by Parliament, 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 defenses 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 so-called ‘Glorious Revolution’ has been much debated over the degree to which it was conservative or radical in character. The result was a permanent shift in power; although the monarchy remained of central importance, Parliament had become a permanent feature of political life. The Toleration Act of 1689 gave all non-conformists except Roman Catholics freedom of worship, thus rewarding Protestant dissenters for their refusal to side with James II. After 1688 there was a rapid development of party, as parliamentary sessions lengthened and the Triennial Act ensured frequent general elections. Although the Tories had fully supported the Revolution, it was the Whigs (traditional critics of the monarchy) who supported William and consolidated their position. Recognizing the advisability of selecting a Ministry from the political party with the majority in the House of Commons, William appointed a Ministry in 1696 which was drawn from the Whigs. Known as the Junto, it was regarded with suspicion by Members of Parliament as it met separately, but it may be regarded as the forerunner of the modern Cabinet of Ministers. In 1697, Parliament decided to give an annual grant of £700,000 to the King for life, as a contribution to the expenses of civil government, which included judges’ and ambassadors’ salaries, as well as the Royal Household’s expenses.
Mary had died of smallpox in 1694, aged 32, and without children. According to the Act, succession to the throne therefore went to Princess Sophia, Electress of Hanover and James I’s granddaughter, and her Protestant heirs. The Act also laid down the conditions under which alone the Crown could be held. No Roman Catholic, nor anyone married to a Roman Catholic, could hold the English Crown. The Sovereign now had to swear to maintain the Church of England (and after 1707, the Church of Scotland). The Act of Settlement not only addressed the dynastic and religious aspects of succession, it also further restricted the powers and prerogatives of the Crown. Under the Act, parliamentary consent had to be given for the Sovereign to engage in war or leave the country, and judges were to hold office on good conduct and not at royal pleasure – thus establishing judicial independence. The Act of Settlement reinforced the Bill of Rights, in that it strengthened the principle that government was undertaken by the Sovereign and his or her constitutional advisers (i.e. his or her Ministers), not by the Sovereign and any personal advisers whom he or she happened to choose. One of William’s main reasons for accepting the throne was to reinforce the struggle against Louis XIV. William’s foreign policy was dominated by the priority to contain French expansionism. England and the Dutch joined the coalition against France during the Nine Years War. Although Louis was forced to recognize William as King under the Treaty of Ryswick (1697), William’s policy of intervention in Europe was costly in terms of finance and his popularity. The Bank of England, established in 1694 to raise money for the war by borrowing, did not loosen the King’s financial reliance on Parliament as the national debt depended on parliamentary guarantees. William’s Dutch advisers were resented, and in 1699 his Dutch Blue Guards were forced to leave the country. Never of robust health, William died as a result of complications from a fall whilst riding at Hampton Court in 1702.
Anne: The Last Stuart Monarch
ANNE:
On William’s death in 1702, his sister-in-law Anne (Protestant younger daughter of James II and his first wife) succeeded him. Within months, another war in Europe had started (the War of the Spanish Succession), which was to overshadow most of Anne’s reign. A series of military victories by John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, strengthened England’s negotiating position at the end of the war. Under the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, France recognized Anne’s title (and exiled James II’s Roman Catholic son, James Stuart, from France) – the treaty also confirmed England’s possession of Gibraltar. Party politics became more significant throughout Anne’s reign, with Whigs (who supported limited monarchy, and whose support tended to come from religious dissenters) and Tories (who favored strong monarchy and the religious status quo embodied in the Church of England) competing for power. During the final years of the seventeenth century, the Parliaments of England and Scotland had conflicting foreign and economic policies. Difficulties reached a climax when England settled the succession on the Protestant Sophia of Hanover (Charles I’s niece and cousin to James II), as Anne (the last of her line) had failed to produce an heir.
The Scots declared that they were free to choose someone different, with the implication that this could be the exiled Roman Catholic Prince James Francis Edward Stuart, James II’s son by his second wife, Mary of Modena. (The scene had been set for the later uprisings in Scotland led by the two Stuart pretenders against the Hanoverian kings.) This disagreement over the succession was clearly untenable. In 1707 after months of bitter debate in Edinburgh and lengthy debate elsewhere, the two Parliaments agreed to unite. Henceforth one British Parliament would sit at Westminster, and there would be a common flag and coinage. Scotland would, however, retain its own established Church and its legal and educational systems. Until their dismissal in 1710, the political scene was dominated by Marlborough (whose wife enjoyed the influence of a 20-year friendship with the Queen) and the Lord Treasurer Godolphin, who headed a financial team mostly independent of the party factions. However, in 1711, as a result of a Tory ministry’s disagreement with the Whig majority in the House of Lords over the future peace settlement to war in Europe, Anne was persuaded to create peers for party purposes. This represented an important weakening of the royal prerogative.