1.
History of England
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England became inhabited more than 800,000 years ago, as the discovery of flint tools and footprints at Happisburgh in Norfolk has revealed. The earliest evidence for modern humans in North West Europe. Continuous human habitation in England dates to around 13,000 years ago, the region has numerous remains from the Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Age, such as Stonehenge and Avebury. In the Iron Age, England, like all of Britain south of the Firth of Forth, was inhabited by the Celtic people known as the Britons, including some Belgic tribes in the south east. In AD43 the Roman conquest of Britain began, the Romans maintained control of their province of Britannia until the early 5th century. The end of Roman rule in Britain facilitated the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, the Anglo-Saxons, a collection of various Germanic peoples, established several kingdoms that became the primary powers in present-day England and parts of southern Scotland. They introduced the Old English language, which displaced the previous British language. The Anglo-Saxons warred with British successor states in Wales, Cornwall, raids by Vikings became frequent after about AD800, and the Norsemen settled in large parts of what is now England. During this period, several attempted to unite the various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. In 1066, a Norman expedition invaded and conquered England, the Norman Dynasty established by William the Conqueror ruled England for over half a century before the period of succession crisis known as the Anarchy. Following the Anarchy, England came under the rule of the House of Plantagenet, a succession crisis in France led to the Hundred Years War, a series of conflicts involving the peoples of both nations. Following the Hundred Years Wars, England became embroiled in its own succession wars, the Wars of the Roses pitted two branches of the House of Plantagenet against one another, the House of York and the House of Lancaster. The Lancastrian Henry Tudor ended the War of the Roses and established the Tudor dynasty in 1485, under the Tudors and the later Stuart dynasty, England became a colonial power. The Stuarts returned to the throne in 1660, though continued questions over religion and power resulted in the deposition of another Stuart king, James II. England, which had conquered Wales in the 13th century, united with Scotland in 1707 to form a new state called Great Britain. Following the Industrial Revolution, Great Britain ruled a colonial Empire, however, as of 2017, its cultural impact remains widespread and deep in many of them. The time from Britains first inhabitation until the last glacial maximum is known as the Old Stone Age and this earliest evidence, from Happisburgh in Norfolk, includes the oldest human footprints found outside Africa and points to dates of more than 800,000 BP. These earliest inhabitants were hunter-gatherers, who survived by hunting game, the last Ice Age ended around 10,000 BC, and England has been inhabited ever since
2.
Prehistoric Britain
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The recorded history of Britain is conventionally reckoned to begin in AD43 with the Roman invasion of Britain, though some historical information is available from before then. Archaeological prehistory, which comprises the bulk of this article, is divided into distinct chronological periods. These are based on the development of tools, from stone to bronze and iron, as well as changes in culture, the boundaries of these periods are uncertain, as the changes between them are gradual. In addition, the dates of these changes demonstrated in Britain are generally different from those of Continental Europe, Britain has been intermittently inhabited by members of the Homo genus for hundreds of thousands of years, and by Homo sapiens for tens of thousands of years. Modern humans reached Britain by around 42,000 years before present, people then briefly re-occupied Britain, but cold conditions returned during the Younger Dryas, about 12,900 to 11,600 years ago. It is not known whether Britain was wholly uninhabited during the Younger Dryas, Britain and Ireland were then joined to the Continent, but rising sea levels cut the land bridge between Britain and Ireland by around 11,000 years ago. A large plain between Britain to Continental Europe, known as Doggerland, persisted much longer, probably until around 5600 BC, by around 4000 BC, the island was populated by people with a Neolithic culture. However, none of the inhabitants of Britain had any known, surviving. Because no literature of pre-Roman Britain has survived, its history, culture, though the main evidence for the period is archaeological, there is a growing amount of genetic evidence, which continues to change. There is also an amount of linguistic evidence, from river and hill names, which is covered in the article about Pre-Celtic Britain. The first significant written record of Britain and its inhabitants was made by the Greek navigator Pytheas, however, there may be some additional information on Britain in the Ora Maritima, a text which is now lost but which is incorporated in the writing of the later author Avienus. Julius Caesar also wrote of Britain in about 50 BC after his two expeditions to the island in 55 and 54 BC. The 54 invasion was probably an attempt to conquer at least the southeast of Britain, located at the fringes of Europe, Britain received European technological and cultural achievements much later than Southern Europe and the Mediterranean region did during prehistory. The story of ancient Britain is traditionally seen as one of successive waves of invasion from the continent, more recent archaeological theories have questioned this migrationist interpretation and argue for a more complex relationship between Britain and the Continent. Palaeolithic Britain is the period of the earliest known occupation of Britain by humans and this huge period saw many changes in the environment, encompassing several glacial and interglacial episodes greatly affecting human settlement in the region. Providing dating for this distant period is difficult and contentious, the inhabitants of the region at this time were bands of hunter-gatherers who roamed Northern Europe following herds of animals, or who supported themselves by fishing. Recent scientific evidence regarding mitochondrial DNA sequences from ancient and modern Europe has shown a pattern for the different time periods sampled in the course of the study. Despite some limitations regarding sample sizes, the results were found to be non-random, as such, the results indicate that, in addition to populations in Europe expanding from southern refugia after the last glacial maximum, evidence also exists for various northern refugia
3.
England in the Middle Ages
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England in the Middle Ages concerns the history of England during the medieval period, from the end of the 5th century through to the start of the Early Modern period in 1485. When England emerged from the collapse of the Roman Empire, the economy was in tatters, after several centuries of Germanic immigration, new identities and cultures began to emerge, developing into predatory kingdoms that competed for power. A rich artistic culture flourished under the Anglo-Saxons, producing epic poems such as Beowulf, the Anglo-Saxons converted to Christianity in the 7th century and a network of monasteries and convents were built across England. The Norman invasion of England in 1066 led to the defeat and replacement of the Anglo-Saxon elite with Norman and French nobles, William the Conqueror and his successors took over the existing state system, repressing local revolts and controlling the population through a network of castles. The new rulers introduced an approach to governing England, eradicating the practice of slavery. The position of women in society changed as laws regarding land, Englands population more than doubled during the 12th and 13th centuries, fuelling an expansion of the towns, cities and trade, helped by warmer temperatures across Northern Europe. A new wave of monasteries and friaries were established, while ecclesiastical reforms led to tensions between successive kings and archbishops, despite developments in Englands governance and legal system, infighting between the Anglo-Norman elite resulted in multiple civil wars and the loss of Normandy. Nearly 1,500 villages were deserted by their inhabitants and many men and women sought new opportunities in the towns, new technologies were introduced, and England produced some of the great medieval philosophers and natural scientists. English kings in the 14th and 15th centuries laid claim to the French throne, more social unrest broke out, followed by the Wars of the Roses, fought between rival factions in the English nobility. Henry VIIs victory in 1485 typically marks the end of the Middle Ages in England, at the start of the Middle Ages, England was a part of Britannia, a former province of the Roman Empire. The English economy had once dominated by imperial Roman spending on a large military establishment, which in turn helped to support a complex network of towns, roads. At the end of the 4th century, however, Roman forces had largely withdrawn. Germanic immigrants began to arrive in increasing numbers during the 5th century, initially peacefully, establishing small farms, in the 7th century, the kingdom of Mercia rose to prominence under the leadership of King Penda. Mercia invaded neighbouring lands until it loosely controlled around 50 regiones covering much of England, Mercia and the remaining kingdoms, led by their warrior elites, continued to compete for territory throughout the 8th century. Massive earthworks, such as the dyke built by Offa of Mercia, helped to defend key frontiers. Mercia and Northumbria fell in 875 and 876, and Alfred of Wessex was driven into exile in 878. Suppressing internal opposition to his rule, Alfred contained the invaders within a known as the Danelaw. The West Saxon rulers were now kings of the Angelcynn, that is of the whole English folk, with the death of Edgar, however, the royal succession became problematic
4.
Economy of England in the Middle Ages
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Norman institutions, including serfdom, were superimposed on an existing system of open fields and mature, well-established towns involved in international trade. Over the next five centuries the economy would at first grow and then suffer a crisis, resulting in significant political. The 12th and 13th centuries saw a development of the English economy. This was partially driven by the growth in the population from around 1.5 million at the time of the creation of the Domesday Book in 1086 to between 4 and 5 million in 1300. England remained an agricultural economy, with the rights of major landowners. More land, much of it at the expense of the forests, was brought into production to feed the growing population or to produce wool for export to Europe. Many hundreds of new towns, some of them planned, sprung up across England, supporting the creation of guilds, charter fairs, mining increased in England, with the silver boom of the 12th century helping to fuel a fast-expanding currency. Economic growth began to falter by the end of the 13th century, owing to a combination of over-population, land shortages, the Peasants Revolt of 1381 shook the older feudal order and limited the levels of royal taxation considerably for a century to come. These new trading systems brought about the end of many of the international fairs, together with improvements in metalworking and shipbuilding, this represents the end of the medieval economy, and the beginnings of the early modern period in English economics. William the Conqueror invaded England in 1066, defeating the Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings and this campaign was followed by fierce military operations known as the Harrying of the North in 1069–70, extending Norman authority across the north of England. Most of the damage done in the invasion was in the north, many of the key features of the English agricultural and financial system remained in place in the decades immediately after the conquest. Agriculture formed the bulk of the English economy at the time of the Norman invasion. Twenty years after the invasion, 35% of England was covered in arable land, 25% was put to pasture, 15% was covered by woodlands, wheat formed the single most important arable crop, but rye, barley and oats were also cultivated extensively. In the more parts of the country, such as the Thames valley, the Midlands. Sheep, cattle, oxen and pigs were kept on English holdings, although most of these breeds were much smaller than modern equivalents, most of the smaller landowning nobility lived on their properties and managed their own estates. The pre-Norman landscape had seen a trend away from isolated hamlets, around 6,000 watermills of varying power and efficiency had been built in order to grind flour, freeing up peasant labour for other more productive agricultural tasks. The early English economy was not an economy and many crops were grown by peasant farmers for sale to the early English towns. The Normans initially did not significantly alter the operation of the manor or the village economy, William reassigned large tracts of land amongst the Norman elite, creating vast estates in some areas, particularly along the Welsh border and in Sussex
5.
Norman conquest of England
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Williams claim to the English throne derived from his familial relationship with the childless Anglo-Saxon King Edward the Confessor, who may have encouraged Williams hopes for the throne. Edward died in January 1066 and was succeeded by his brother-in-law Harold Godwinson, within days, William landed in southern England. Harold marched south to confront him, leaving a significant portion of his army in the north, Harolds army confronted Williams invaders on 14 October at the Battle of Hastings, Williams force defeated Harold, who was killed in the engagement. Although Williams main rivals were gone, he faced rebellions over the following years and was not secure on his throne until after 1072. The lands of the resisting English elite were confiscated, some of the elite fled into exile, to control his new kingdom, William granted lands to his followers and built castles commanding military strongpoints throughout the land. More gradual changes affected the classes and village life, the main change appears to have been the formal elimination of slavery. There was little alteration in the structure of government, as the new Norman administrators took over many of the forms of Anglo-Saxon government. In 911 the Carolingian French ruler Charles the Simple allowed a group of Vikings under their leader Rollo to settle in Normandy as part of the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte. In exchange for the land, the Norsemen under Rollo were expected to provide protection along the coast against further Viking invaders and their settlement proved successful, and the Vikings in the region became known as the Northmen from which Normandy and Normans are derived. The Normans quickly adopted the culture, renouncing paganism and converting to Christianity. They adopted the langue doïl of their new home and added features from their own Norse language, in 1002 King Æthelred the Unready married Emma of Normandy, the sister of Richard II, Duke of Normandy. Their son Edward the Confessor, who spent many years in exile in Normandy, childless and embroiled in conflict with the formidable Godwin, Earl of Wessex and his sons, Edward may also have encouraged Duke William of Normandys ambitions for the English throne. When King Edward died at the beginning of 1066, the lack of a clear heir led to a succession in which several contenders laid claim to the throne of England. Edwards immediate successor was the Earl of Wessex, Harold Godwinson, Harold was immediately challenged by two powerful neighbouring rulers. William and Harald at once set about assembling troops and ships to invade England, in early 1066, Harolds exiled brother, Tostig Godwinson, raided southeastern England with a fleet he had recruited in Flanders, later joined by other ships from Orkney. Threatened by Harolds fleet, Tostig moved north and raided in East Anglia and Lincolnshire, but he was back to his ships by the brothers Edwin, Earl of Mercia. Deserted by most of his followers, he withdrew to Scotland, King Harald Hardrada invaded northern England in early September, leading a fleet of more than 300 ships carrying perhaps 15,000 men. Haralds army was augmented by the forces of Tostig, who threw his support behind the Norwegian kings bid for the throne
6.
England in the Late Middle Ages
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At the accession of Henry III only a remnant of English holdings remained in Gascony, for which English kings had to pay homage to the French, and the barons were in revolt. Royal authority was restored by his son who inherited the throne in 1272 as Edward I and he reorganized his possessions, and gained control of Wales and most of Scotland. His son Edward II was defeated at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 and he was eventually deposed in a coup and from 1330 his son Edward III took control of the kingdom. With a shortage of labour, much of Englands arable land was converted to pasture. Social unrest followed in the Peasants Revolt of 1381, Richard was deposed by Henry of Bolingbroke in 1399, who as Henry IV founded the House of Lancaster and reopened the war with France. However, the French enjoyed another resurgence and by 1453 the English had lost almost all their French holdings. Henry VI proved a weak king and was deposed in the Wars of the Roses. English government went through periods of reform and decay, with parliament emerging as an important part of the administration, women had an important economic role and noblewomen exercised power on their estates in their husbands absence. The English began to see themselves are superior to their neighbours in the British Isles, new reformed monastic orders and preaching orders reached England from the twelfth century, pilgrimage became highly popular and Lollardy emerged as a major heresy from the later fourteenth century. The Little Ice Age had a significant impact on agriculture and living conditions, economic growth began to falter at the end of the thirteenth century, owing to a combination of overpopulation, land shortages and depleted soils. Technology and science was driven in part by the Greek and Islamic thinking that reached England from the twelfth century, in warfare, mercenaries were increasingly employed and adequate supplies of ready casequipped and uniformed. Medieval England produced art in the form of paintings, carvings, books, fabrics and many functional, by the time of Edward III, armies were smaller, but the troops were better objects. Literature was produced in Latin and French and from the reign of Richard II there was an upsurge in the use of Middle English in poetry, music and singing were important were used in religious ceremonies, court occasions and to accompany theatrical works. During the twelfth century the Anglo-Norman architectural style became more ornate, with pointed arches derived from France, as Henry II he consolidated his holdings and acquired nominal control of Wales and Ireland. His son Richard I was a largely absentee English king, concerned the crusades and his brother Johns defeats in France weakened his position in England. The rebellion of his English vassals resulted in the treaty called Magna Carta and this would form the basis of every constitutional battle through the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. However, both the barons and the failed to abide by the terms of Magna Carta, leading to the First Barons War in which the rebel barons invited an invasion by Prince Louis. When Henry III came to the throne in 1216, much of his holdings on the continent were occupied by the French, marshall won the war with victories at the battles of Lincoln and Dover in 1217, leading to the Treaty of Lambeth by which Louis renounced his claims
7.
Tudor period
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The Tudor period is the period between 1485 and 1603 in England and Wales and includes the Elizabethan period which ends with the completion of the reign of Elizabeth I in 1603. The Tudor period coincides with the rule of the Tudor dynasty in England whose first monarch was Henry VII. In terms of the century, Guy argues that England was economically healthier, more expansive. Following the Black Death and the depression of the late 15th century. The export of woollen products resulted in an upturn with products exported to mainland Europe. Henry VII negotiated the favourable Intercursus Magnus treaty in 1496, the high wages and abundance of available land seen in the late 15th century and early 16th century were replaced with low wages and a land shortage. Various inflationary pressures, perhaps due to an influx of New World gold and this was a period of significant change for the majority of the rural population, with manorial lords beginning the process of enclosure. Historian Geoffrey Elton revolutionized the study of Tudor government with his 1953 book The Tudor Revolution in Government and he argued that Thomas Cromwell, who was Henry VIIIs chief minister from 1532 to 1540, was the author of modern, bureaucratic government, which replaced medieval, government-as-household-management. Cromwell introduced reforms into the administration that delineated the Kings household from the state and he injected Tudor power into the darker corners of the realm and radically altered the role of Parliament. This transition happened in the 1530s, Elton argued, and must be regarded as part of a planned revolution, by masterminding these reforms, wrote Elton, Cromwell laid the foundations of Englands future stability and success. However, Eltons thesis has been challenged by recent historians. The Tudor Government raised an amount of revenue from the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The clerical income from First Fruits and Tenths, which went to the Pope. The Tudor Government gained further revenue from the lands by receiving rents from confiscated lands. Altogether, between 1536 and Henrys death, the Government collected £1.3 million, this influx of money caused Cromwell to change the Crowns financial system to manage the money. He created a new department of state and a new official to collect the proceeds of the dissolution, the Court of Augmentations and number of departments meant a growing number of officials, which made the management of revenue troublesome and expensive. Partly because of the new revenue raised from the dissolution of monasteries and these were the six courts or departments of state, each fully organised with its own specialised officials, equipped with seals and habitat, and responsible for a particular kind of revenue. The growing number of departments meant that the number of officials involved increased, there were further financial and administrative difficulties in 1540–58, aggravated by war, debasement, corruption and inefficiency, which were mainly caused by Somerset
8.
Elizabethan era
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The Elizabethan era is the epoch in English history marked by the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Historians often depict it as the age in English history. In terms of the century, the historian John Guy argues that England was economically healthier, more expansive. This golden age represented the apogee of the English Renaissance and saw the flowering of poetry, music, the era is most famous for theatre, as William Shakespeare and many others composed plays that broke free of Englands past style of theatre. It was an age of exploration and expansion abroad, while back at home and it was also the end of the period when England was a separate realm before its royal union with Scotland. The Elizabethan Age may be viewed especially highly when considered in light of the failings of the periods preceding Elizabeths reign, the Protestant/Catholic divide was settled, for a time, by the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, and parliament was not yet strong enough to challenge royal absolutism. England was also compared to the other nations of Europe. The Italian Renaissance had come to an end under the weight of Spanish domination of the peninsula, France was embroiled in its own religious battles due to significant Spanish intervention, that would only be settled in 1598 with the Edict of Nantes. The one great rival was Spain, which England clashed both in Europe and the Americas in skirmishes that exploded into the Anglo-Spanish War of 1585–1604 and this drained both the English Exchequer and economy that had been so carefully restored under Elizabeths prudent guidance. English commercial and territorial expansion would be limited until the signing of the Treaty of London the year following Elizabeths death, economically, the country began to benefit greatly from the new era of trans-Atlantic trade, persistent theft of Spanish treasure, and the African slave trade. The Victorian era and the early 20th century idealised the Elizabethan era, the Encyclopædia Britannica maintains that he long reign of Elizabeth I, 1558–1603, was Englands Golden Age. Merry England, in love with life, expressed itself in music and literature, in architecture and this idealising tendency was shared by Britain and an Anglophilic America. In popular culture, the image of those adventurous Elizabethan seafarers was embodied in the films of Errol Flynn, in response and reaction to this hyperbole, modern historians and biographers have tended to take a more dispassionate view of the Tudor period. Elizabethan England was not particularly successful in a military sense during the period, having inherited a virtually bankrupt state from previous reigns, her frugal policies restored fiscal responsibility. Her fiscal restraint cleared the regime of debt by 1574, and this general peace and prosperity allowed the attractive developments that Golden Age advocates have stressed. The Elizabethan Age was also an age of plots and conspiracies, frequently political in nature, high officials in Madrid, Paris and Rome sought to kill Elizabeth, a Protestant, and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots, a Catholic. That would be a prelude to the recovery of England for Catholicism. In 1570, the Ridolfi plot was thwarted, in 1584, the Throckmorton Plot was discovered, after Francis Throckmorton confessed his involvement in a plot to overthrow the Queen and restore the Catholic Church in England
9.
Stuart period
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The Stuart period of British history usually refers to the period between 1603 and 1714 and sometimes from 1731 in Scotland. This coincides with the rule of the House of Stuart, whose first monarch of Scotland was Robert II, the period ended with the death of Queen Anne and the accession of George I from the House of Hanover. The Stuart period was plagued by internal and religious strife, the English Civil War took place during the reign of Charles I, the second Stuart monarch. The war ended in victory for the Parliamentarians, after this conflict, the line of Stuart monarchs was temporarily displaced by the Commonwealth of England. Their rule lasted from 1649 to 1660, oliver Cromwell ruled directly from 1653 to 1658. After Cromwells death the Commonwealth fell apart, the Convention Parliament welcomed Charles II, son of Charles I, to return from war and become king. This event was known as the English Restoration, Stuart England was consumed with internal affairs. During 1600-1650 the king made repeated efforts to colonize Guiana in South America and they all failed and the lands were ceded to the Dutch in 1667. James Is foreign policy placed much higher priority on European affairs, the Anglo-Dutch Wars were a series of three wars which took place between the English and the Dutch from 1652 to 1674. The causes included political disputes and increasing competition from merchant shipping, religion was not a factor, since both sides were Protestant. The British in the first war had the advantage with larger numbers of more powerful ships of the line which were well suited to the naval tactics of the era. The British also captured numerous Dutch merchant ships, in the second war Dutch naval victories followed. This second war cost London ten times more than it had planned on, and it ended the fights over mercantilism Meanwhile, the French were building up fleets that threatened both the Netherlands and Great Britain. In third war, The British counted on a new alliance with France, the Dutch gained domination of sea trading routes until 1713. The British gained the colony of New Netherland, and renamed it New York. Historians have long regarded the overthrow of King James II in 1688 as a break in English history. Pincus argues that this revolution was the first modern revolution, it was violent, popular and he rejects older theories to the effect that it was an aristocratic coup or a Dutch invasion. Instead, Pincus argues it was a supported and decisive rejection of James II
10.
English Civil War
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The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists over, principally, the manner of Englands government. The war ended with the Parliamentarian victory at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651, the monopoly of the Church of England on Christian worship in England ended with the victors consolidating the established Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. The term English Civil War appears most often in the singular form, the war in all these countries are known as the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Unlike other civil wars in England, which focused on who should rule, this war was more concerned with the manner in which the kingdoms of England, Scotland, the two sides had their geographical strongholds, such that minority elements were silenced or fled. The strongholds of the royalty included the countryside, the shires, on the other hand, all the cathedral cities sided with Parliament. All the industrial centers, the ports, and the advanced regions of southern and eastern England typically were parliamentary strongholds. Lacey Baldwin Smith says, the words populist, rich, at times there would be two groups of three lines allowing one group to reload while the other group arranged themselves and fired. Mixed in among the musketeers were pikemen carrying pikes that were between 12 feet and 18 feet long, whose purpose was to protect the musketeers from cavalry charges. The Royalist cavaliers skill and speed on horseback led to early victories. While the Parliamentarian cavalry were slower than the cavaliers, they were better disciplined. The Royalists had a tendency to chase down individual targets after the initial charge leaving their forces scattered and tired, Cromwells cavalry, on the other hand, trained to operate as a single unit, which led to many decisive victories. The English Civil War broke out fewer than forty years after the death of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603, in spite of this, James personal extravagance meant he was perennially short of money and had to resort to extra-Parliamentary sources of income. Charles hoped to unite the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland into a new single kingdom, many English Parliamentarians had suspicions regarding such a move because they feared that setting up a new kingdom might destroy the old English traditions which had bound the English monarchy. As Charles shared his fathers position on the power of the crown, at the time, the Parliament of England did not have a large permanent role in the English system of government. Instead, Parliament functioned as an advisory committee and was summoned only if. Once summoned, a continued existence was at the kings pleasure. Yet in spite of this role, Parliament had, over the preceding centuries. Without question, for a monarch, Parliaments most indispensable power was its ability to tax revenues far in excess of all other sources of revenue at the Crowns disposal
11.
Restoration (England)
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The term Restoration is used to describe both the actual event by which the monarchy was restored, and the period of several years afterwards in which a new political settlement was established. It is very used to cover the whole reign of Charles II. Richard Cromwells main weakness was that he did not have the confidence of the army, after seven months, an army faction known as the Wallingford House party removed him on 6 May 1659 and reinstalled the Rump Parliament. Charles Fleetwood was appointed a member of the Committee of Safety and of the Council of State, on 9 June 1659, he was nominated lord-general of the army. However, his leadership was undermined in Parliament, which chose to disregard the armys authority in a fashion to the post-First Civil War Parliament. A royalist uprising was planned for 1 August 1659, but it was foiled, however, Sir George Booth gained control of Cheshire, Charles II hoped that with Spanish support he could effect a landing, but none was forthcoming. Booth held Cheshire until the end of August when he was defeated by General Lambert, the Commons, on 12 October 1659, cashiered General John Lambert and other officers, and installed Fleetwood as chief of a military council under the authority of the Speaker. The next day Lambert ordered that the doors of the House be shut, on 26 October a Committee of Safety was appointed, of which Fleetwood and Lambert were members. Lambert was appointed major-general of all the forces in England and Scotland, the Committee of Safety sent Lambert with a large force to meet George Monck, who was in command of the English forces in Scotland, and either negotiate with him or force him to come to terms. It was into this atmosphere that Monck, the governor of Scotland under the Cromwells, lamberts army began to desert him, and he returned to London almost alone. The Presbyterian members, excluded in Prides Purge of 1648, were recalled, Fleetwood was deprived of his command and ordered to appear before Parliament to answer for his conduct. On 3 March 1660, Lambert was sent to the Tower of London, Lambert was incarcerated and died in custody on Guernsey in 1694, Ingoldsby was indeed pardoned. On 4 April 1660, Charles II issued the Declaration of Breda, Monck organised the Convention Parliament, which met for the first time on 25 April. On 8 May it proclaimed that King Charles II had been the monarch since the execution of Charles I on 30 January 1649. Constitutionally, it was as if the last nineteen years had never happened, Charles returned from exile, leaving the Hague on 23 May and landing at Dover on 25 May. He entered London on 29 May, his birthday, to celebrate his Majestys Return to his Parliament,29 May was made a public holiday, popularly known as Oak Apple Day. He was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 23 April 1661, some contemporaries described the Restoration as a divinely ordained miracle. The sudden and unexpected deliverance from usurpation and tyranny was interpreted as a restoration of the natural, the Cavalier Parliament convened for the first time on 8 May 1661, and it would endure for over 17 years, finally being dissolved on 24 January 1679
12.
Glorious Revolution
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The crisis facing the king came to a head in 1688, with the birth of the kings son, James Francis Edward Stuart, on 10 June. This changed the line of succession by displacing the heiress presumptive with young James Francis Edward as heir apparent. The establishment of a Roman Catholic dynasty in the kingdoms now seemed likely, stadtholder William, the de facto head of state of the Dutch United Provinces, feared a Catholic Anglo–French alliance and had already been planning a military intervention in England. After consolidating political and financial support, William crossed the North Sea and English Channel with an invasion fleet in November 1688. After only two minor clashes between the two opposing armies in England, and anti-Catholic riots in several towns, Jamess regime collapsed, however, this was followed by the protracted Williamite War in Ireland and Dundees rising in Scotland. In Englands distant American colonies, the led to the collapse of the Dominion of New England. By threatening to withdraw his troops, William in February 1689 convinced a newly chosen Convention Parliament to make him, the Revolution permanently ended any chance of Catholicism becoming re-established in England. The Revolution led to limited tolerance for Nonconformist Protestants, although it would be some time before they had political rights. Internationally, the Revolution was related to the War of the Grand Alliance on mainland Europe and it has been seen as the last successful invasion of England. It ended all attempts by England in the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the 17th century to subdue the Dutch Republic by military force, the expression Glorious Revolution was first used by John Hampden in late 1689, and is an expression that is still used by the British Parliament. The Glorious Revolution is also termed the Bloodless Revolution, albeit inaccurately. Jamess greatest political problem was his Catholicism, which left him alienated from both parties in England. The low church Whigs had failed in their attempt to pass the Exclusion Bill to exclude James from the throne between 1679 and 1681, and Jamess supporters were the high church Anglican Tories. In Scotland, his supporters in the Parliament of Scotland stepped up attempts to force the Covenanters to renounce their faith, when James inherited the English throne in 1685, he had much support in the Loyal Parliament, which was composed mostly of Tories. His Catholicism was of concern to many, but the fact that he had no son, Jamess attempt to relax the Penal Laws alienated his natural supporters, however, because the Tories viewed this as tantamount to disestablishment of the Church of England. The majority of Irish people backed James II for this reason, by allying himself with the Catholics, Dissenters, and Nonconformists, James hoped to build a coalition that would advance Catholic emancipation. In May 1686, James decided to obtain from the English courts of the law a ruling that affirmed his power to dispense with Acts of Parliament. He dismissed judges who disagreed with him on this matter as well as the Solicitor General Heneage Finch, eleven out of the twelve judges ruled in favour of dispensing power
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