Part 84

I. Government. II. Religion. III. Military Affairs. IV. Literature and Learning. V. General Industry and Commerce. Vi. Mode of Life, Manners, and Customs

I. Government

517. The Divine Right of Kings; the Civil War; the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688.

The period began with the attempt of James I to carry out his theory that the King derives his right to rule directly from God, and in no wise from the people. Charles I adopted this disastrous theory, and was supported in it by Manwaring and other clergymen, who declared that the King represents God on earth, and that the subject who resists his will, or refuses a tax or loan to him, does so at the everlasting peril of his soul.

Charles I's arbitrary methods of government and levies of illegal taxes, with the imprisonment of those who refused to pay them, led to the meeting of the Long Parliament and the enactment in 1628 of the statue of the Petition of Right, or second great charter of English liberties.

The same Parliament abolished the despotic courts of Star Chamber and High Commission, which had been used by Strafford and Laud to carry out their tyrannical scheme called "Thorough."

Charles I's renewed acts of oppression and open violation of the laws, with his levies of "ship money," led to the Grand Remonstrance, an appeal to the nation to support Parliament in its struggle with the King. The attempt of the King to arrest five members who had taken a prominent part in drawing up the Remonstrance brought on the Civil War and the establishment of the Commonwealth. The new republic was utterly opposed to the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings. It declared "the People are, under God, the origin of all just power." Eventually Cromwell became Protector of the nation, and ruled by means of a strong military force.

On the restoration of the Stuarts, Feudal Tenure and the Right of Purveyance were abolished by Parliament (1660). Charles II endeavored to rule without Parliament by selling his influence to Louis XIV, by the secret Treaty of Dover. During his reign, the Habeas Corpus Act was passed and feudalism was practically abolished.

James II endeavored to restore the Roman Catholic religion. His treatment of the University of Oxford, and imprisonment of the Seven Bishops, with the birth of a son who would be educated as a Roman Catholic, caused the Revolution of 1688, and placed William and Mary on the throne.

Parliament now, 1689, passed the Bill of Rights, the third great charter for the protection of the English people, and later confirmed it, 1701, by the Act of Settlement, which secured the crown to a line of Protestant sovereigns. The Mutiny Bill, passed at the beginning of William III's reign, made the army dependent on Parliament. These measures practically put the government in the hands of the House of Commons, where it has ever since remained. The Long Parliament had passed a Triennial Act (1641) requiring a new Parliament to be summoned within three years from the dissolution of the last Parliament, which was to sit not longer than three years. This law was repealed in 1664 and reenacted under William III in 1694. William's wars caused the beginning of the National Debt and the establishment of the Bank of England.

In the reign of Anne, 1707, Scotland and England were united under the name of Great Britain. During her sovereignty the permanent Whig and Tory parties, which came into existence in the time of Charles II, became especially prominent. They have since continued to divide the parliamentary government between them,--the Whigs seeking to extend the power of the people; the Tories, that of the Crown and the Church. After the passage of the Reform Bill in 1832 (S582) the Whigs took the name of Liberals and the Tories that of Conservatives. The system of Cabinet Government, which now prevails, took its rise in 1721 under Robert Walpole, seven years after Anne's death (S534).

II. Religion

518. Religious Parties and Religious Legislation.

At the beginning of this period we find four religious parties in England: (1) the Roman Catholics; (2) the Episcopalians, or supporters of the National Church of England; (3) the Puritans, who wised to remain members of that Church, but who sought to "purify" it from certain Roman Catholic customs and modes of worship; (4) the Independents, who were endeavoring to establish independent congregational societies. In Scotland the Puritans established their religion in a Church governed by elders, or presbyters, instead of bishops, which on that account got the name of Presbyterians.

James I persecuted all who dissented from the Church of England; and after the Gunpowder Plot the Roman Catholics were practically deprived of the protection of the law, and subject to terrible oppression. In James's reign Bartholomew Legate, a Unitarian, was burned at West Smithfield Market, London (1612), for denying the doctrine of the trinity. He was the last English martyr. Charles I greatly exasperated the Puritans in the English Church by his Declaration of Sports, which recommended games in the churchyards after service on Sunday. Clergymen who refused to read the Declaration to their congregation were dismissed from their places.

During the period of the Civil War and the Commonwealth, Presbyterianism was established as the national worship of England and Scotland by the Solemn League and Covenant. A great many Episcopal clergymen were deprived of their parishes. At the Restoration several laws against the Scotch Covenanters and other Dissenters were enforced, and retaliatory legislation drove two thousand clergymen from their parishes to starve. On the other hand, the pretended Popish Plot caused the exclusion of Roman Catholics from both houses of Parliament, and all persons holding office were obliged to partake of the sacrament according to the Church of England. James II's futile attempt to restore Catholicism ended in the Revolution and the passage of the Toleration Act, granting liberty of worship to all Protestant Trinitarians. Stringent laws were passed against Catholics (1700), but they were not regularly enforced. Under Anne the Occasional Conformity Act (1711) and the Schism Act (1714) were aimed at Dissenters. The first of these laws punished officeholders who, during their term of office, should attend any dissenting place of worship; the second forbade any person's keeping a public or private school unless he was a member of the Church of England. Both laws were repealed a few years later (1718).

III. Military Affairs

519. Armor and Arms.

Armor still continued to be worn in some degree during this period, but it consisted chiefly of the helmet with breastplates and backplates. Firearms of various kinds were in general use; also hand grenades, or small bombs, and the bayonet. The chief wars of the period were the Civil War, the wars with the Dutch, William's war with France, which extended to America, and the War of the Spanish Succession.

IV. Literature, Learning, and Art

520. Great Writers.

The most eminent prose writers of this period were Sir Walter Raleigh, Lord Bacon, Sir Isaac Newton, John Bunyan, Bishop Hooker, Jeremy Taylor, John Locke, Hobbes, Dean Swift, Defoe, and Addison; the chief poets, Shakespeare and Jonson (mentioned under the preceding period), Milton, Dryden, Pope, Butler, and Beaumont and Fletcher, with a class of writers known as the "Comic Dramatists of the Restoration," whose works, though not lacking in genius, exhibit many of the worst features of the licentious age in which they were produced. Three other great writers were born in the latter part of this period,-- Fielding, the novelist, Hume, the historian, and Butler, the ablest thinker of his time in the English Church,--but their productions belong to the time of the Georges.

Bishop Butler, author of "The Analogy of Religion" (1736), a work which gained for him the title of "The Bacon of Theology."

521. Progress in Science and Invention.

Sir Isaac Newton revolutionized natural philosophy by his discovery and demonstration of the law of gravitation, and Dr. William Harvey accomplished as great a change in physiological science by his discovery of the circulation of the blood. The most remarkable invention of the age was a rude steam engine, patented in 1698 by Captain Savery, and so far improved by Thomas Newcomen in 1712 that it was used for pumping water in coal mines for many years. Both were destined to be superseded by James Watt's engine, which belongs to a later period (1765).

522. Architecture.

The Gothic style of the preceding periods was followed by the Italian, or classical, represented in the works of Inigo Jones and Sir Christopher Wren. It was a revival, in modified form, of the ancient Greek and Roman architecture. St. Paul's Cathedral, the grandest church ever built in England for Protestant worship, is the best example of this style. Many beautiful manor houses were built in the early part of this period, which, like the churches of the time, were often ornamented with the exquisite wood carving of Grinling Gibbons. There were no great artists in England in this age, though Charles I employed Rubens and other foreign painters to decorate the palace of Whitehall and Windsor Castle.

523. Education.