The Development of Constitutionalism in England

Henry VIl (r. 1485-1509), the first of the Tudor monarchs, established a strong central government even though many regarded the family as usurpers, invited to the throne as an expedient compromise to end the Wars of the Roses. By regulating trade and internal commerce through monopolies, charters, and licenses, Henry raised revenue from the prosperous middle class. This money enabled him to finance a standing army and keep the nobility in check. The Court of the Star Chamber administered central justice and further subdued rebellious nobles. Since the Tudors were beholden to Parliament for inviting them to the throne, Henry and his successors, including his son Henry VIlI (r. 1509-1547), consulted Parliament on significant issues.

• Unlike his father Henry VIl, who was levelheaded and tightfisted, Henry VIlI was an impetuous, extravagant, and passionate man whose temper, ambitions, and appetites were legendary.

  • The need to maintain legitimacy by having a male heir led Henry VIll to make the decisions, with Parliament's support, that led to the English Reformation.

• Edward VI (r. 1547-1553) assumed the throne upon the death of his father, Henry VIll.
  Since Edward VI was only 10 years old and of fragile health, the government was headed by a regent, the Duke of Somerset. The basic tenets of the English Reformation were restated, and the Anglican Book of Common Prayer was made the basis for all church services.

  • Edward died at the young age of 16.

• Mary I of England (r. 1553-1558), the daughter of Henry VIII by his first wife, the Catholic Catherine of Aragon, became queen when Edward VI died.
  Mary I was unpopular not only because she was Roman Catholic but because she was married to Philip I of Spain.

  • Mary I had to suppress a rebellion against her rule and her alliance with Spain.
    She earned the nickname "Bloody Mary" when she burned hundreds of Protestants at the stake for dissenting against her attempt to reinstitute Catholicism in England.

  • When she died, Mary I was succeeded by her half-sister, Elizabeth I,
    Henry's daughter by his second wife, Anne Boleyn.

• Elizabeth I (r. 1558-1603) was the last and the greatest of the Tudor monarchs.

  • Elizabeth I reigned when the combined population of England and

  • Wales was between 3 and 4 million while that of France was over 16 million and that of Spain nearly 9 million.

  • Enriched by its conquests and colonies in the New World, Spain was the predominant power of Europe during Elizabeth's reign.

  • England, which is part of the British Isles, was at the geographic and political fringe of numerous powerful nations. England was vying for respect from the major powers, such as France, Russia, and Austria

  • The Church of England was independent from Rome, but its teachings were close to Roman Catholic theology.

  • Elizabeth's government balanced power between the monarchy and Parliament.

  • England's wealth came from rich, arable land and an energetic populace that excelled in commerce and trade.

  • England's social system was unique.

• The gentry, lesser nobles whose original wealth came from ownership of land, expanded their wealth by entering the world of commerce and by intermarrying with the middle class.

• There were no glaring distinctions between the upper and middle classes in England, as there were on the Continent. The interests of nobles, gentry, and bourgeoisie were represented in Parliament.

• Since the Tudors had been invited to the throne of England to settle the rival claims of the Houses of York and Lancaster during the Wars of the Roses, Elizabeth, her charismatic father, and her capable grandfather all lived under the shadow of being considered dynastic pretenders.

  • Elizabeth I was the child of Anne Boleyn, whose marriage to Henry VIlI was considered scandalous.

  • Elizabeth I was given the nickname the Virgin Queen. (This was a euphemism for Elizabeth's having never married even though she had notorious love affairs.) She had to prove her mettle in the face of the prejudices against her line, her parentage, and her gender.

  • Her natural intelligence had been honed by substantial education; her powerful personality had been toughened by living as a family outcast at the courts of her father, half-brother, and half-sister.

  • Elizabeth I was adored by her people and feared by her enemies, both at home and abroad.

  • She reigned for nearly a half-century as one of Europe's greatest monarchs and one of the world's greatest women.

The Elizabethan Age

Religion

• Upon assuming the throne, Elizabeth I repealed Mary's pro-Catholic legislation and reinstated the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity that had established the English Reformation during her father's reign.

• The Thirty-Nine Articles (1563) followed Protestant doctrine and were vague enough to accommodate the majority of the English population, except the Puritans (English Calvinists). Puritans believed that the liturgy (prescribed ritual) and the hierarchy (the order of rank within the organization) needed "purification" from Catholic influence. Militant Puritans challenged royal authority. Although the Puritans were suppressed for a time, they grew stronger during the reigns of Elizabeth's successors and later influenced the development of constitutionalism.

Diplomacy

• When the Netherlands, a Habsburg possession that had adopted Protestantism, revolted against Spanish rule, Elizabeth entered into an alliance with the Dutch in 1577. Both England and the Netherlands had strong traditions of democracy and a Protestant majority among their populations. This alliance protected England because the country previously feared that Holland would provide a base from which Spain could invade England. Both England and Holland sent privateers to prey on the Spanish treasure ships from her colonies in the New World. (Privateers were warships not commissioned by the state but covertly supported by the government. Privateers were also the individuals, sometimes called "pirates with papers, on those ships.)

  • Outraged by the alliance, Philip Il, the Spanish king and Holy Roman Emperor, conspired with English Catholics to overthrow Elizabeth I and put her cousin, the Catholic Mary Stuart, queen of the Scots, onto the throne.

  • In 1587, Elizabeth ordered the execution of Mary for treason, and Philip Il declared war on England.

  • La Grande y Felicísima Armada, or "great and most fortunate fleet," of 132 heavily armed warships loaded with troops was defeated in 1588 by the superior naval tactics of the smaller, more maneuverable
    English fleet led by Sir Francis Drake (1540-1596) and by bad weather.

  • The superior navigational skills and tactics of the English were aided by winds that drove the Spanish Armada into the North Sea. Severe storms eventually sank many Spanish ships.

  • The failure of the Spanish Armada marked the beginning of the decline of Spanish naval dominance and the rise of the British.

Culture

• This was the Golden Age of English literature, the era of Shakespeare, Spenser, Donne, Marlowe, More, and Francis Bacon. During this age, brilliant national literature was written that instilled pride in the uniqueness of English culture.

The Stuart Kings and Parliament (1603-1688)

James I (r. 1603-1625), king of Scotland and son of Mary, Queen of Scots, took the English throne upon Elizabeth's death since she had no direct heirs. A believer in the divine right of kings, James failed to understand the importance of Parliament in governing England. A conference at Hampton Court in 1604 failed to reconcile the Puritans, who opposed the Anglican hierarchy as the Church of England. The Gunpowder Plot, in 1605, was uncovered before disgruntled Catholics (led by Guy Fawkes), who objected to James's enforcement of laws that required participation in Anglican services, could blow up the king and Parliament. The years 1610-1611 saw Parliament enmeshed in the issue of its role in financing government

• The Addled Parliament met in 1614, so-called by James because it spent its entire session arguing that taxes could be levied only with its consent and that rule was by king and Parliament in conjunction.

  • James I dissolved Parliament. He tried to rule without it until England's involvement in the Thirty Years' War necessitated his reconvening Parliament.

  • In 1621, after a rancorous session in which Parliament criticized James's foreign policy, Parliament passed the Great Protestation, claiming free speech and authority in conducting governmental affairs. James dissolved the body a second time and arrested its leaders. He then had the remainder of Parliament call for new elections if it wanted to remain a body

• Charles I (r. 1625-1649) was, like his father James I, devoted to the divine right theory and, unlike his father, woefully inept at dealing with Parliament. 

  • While embroiled in wars on the Continent, Charles I called for Parliament to vote for funds to carry England through those wars.

  • Parliament refused to do so until Charles signed the Petition of Right.

  • The Petition of Right guaranteed the following:

    • Parliament alone can levy taxes.

    • Martial law cannot be declared in peacetime.

    • Soldiers may not be quartered in private homes.

    • Imprisonment required a specific charge.

  • The Bishops' War of 1639-1640, after Archbishop Laud persecuted Puritans and tried to force Anglican worship upon the Presbyterian Scots, led Charles I to reconvene Parliament in order to pay war debts from his loss.

• The Long Parliament (1640-1660) demanded the following in return for paying for Charles's defeat:

  • Impeach his top advisers.

  • Allow Parliament to meet every three years without his summons.

  • Promise not to dissolve Parliament without its consent.

• When Charles attempted, in early 1642, to arrest opposition members, Parliament seized control of the army.

  • Charles gathered his forces.

  • The English Civil War (1642-1649) began.

  • The English Civil War was a conflict between Parliament, the monarchy, and other power elites over their roles in the political structure. This conflict exemplified the struggle between monarchs and other elites for power in the era of absolutism and constitutionalism.

The Course of the Conflict

The civil war in England was caused by a conflict between the king and the Parliament about where sovereignty lies and what its limits are. In the end, the hostilities left Parliament as the sovereign power of England, with the monarch reduced to more of a ceremonial role from the 1650s onward. The rising middle class, many of whom were members of Parliament, wanted to gain political power. So this civil war is often viewed by economic historians as a conflict between the monarchy and nobility on one side and the bourgeoisie on the other. The middle class, the merchants, the major cities, and a small segment of the nobility supported Parliament and were called Roundheads. The Anglican clergy, the majority of the nobility, and the peasants backed the king and were referred to as Royalists or Cavaliers.

1643

• The Roundheads allied with Presbyterian Scotland, promising to impose Presbyterianism on England in exchange for military assistance. Charles I called on Irish Catholics for help.

1644

• Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), a Puritan leader of Parliament, led his New Model Army of Puritans against the Cavaliers at Marston Moor and defeated them decisively.

1645

• Charles I surrendered to the Scots.

1647

• The Scots turned Charles I over to Parliament, which was led by Cromwell's Independents, who favored religious toleration. The Scots turned about and allied with Charles, who promised that he would impose Presbyterianism on the English.

1648

• Cromwell defeated the Scots at the Battle of Preston and helped purge the Presbyterians from Parliament. He thereby created the Rump Parliament, which voted to behead Charles for treason.

1649

• With the execution of Charles I, England became a republic, called the Commonwealth. Cromwell and his army wielded power. In suppressing Irish supporters of the Crown, the Puritans committed terrible atrocities and imposed injustices that would exacerbate the Irish Question for centuries.

1653-1660

• Cromwell was designated Lord Protector by a puppet Parliament and ruled with its support until his death in 1658. His son Richard, a far less capable ruler, was deposed in 1660. Then Charles /I (r. 1661-1685) was proclaimed king.

The Stuart Restoration (1660-1688)

The Cavalier Parliament (1660-1679) marked the development of the first political parties, the Tory and Whig parties.

• The Tories, made up of nobles, gentry, and the Anglicans, were Conservatives who supported the monarchy over Parliament and who wanted Anglicanism to be the state religion.

• The Whigs, mainly middle class and Puritan, favored Parliament and religious toleration.

  • Since the Tories prevailed in the Cavalier Parliament, Anglicanism was restored by a series of laws that forbade dissenters to worship publicly, required government officials and military personnel to practice Anglicanism, and discriminated against other faiths.

  • The Whig Parliament, elected in 1679, was suspicious of Charles Il's absolutist and pro-Catholic tendencies. It enacted the Habeas Corpus Act, which limited royal power by doing the following:

    • Enabling judges to demand that prisoners be in court

    • Requiring just cause for continued imprisonment

    • Providing for speedy trials

    • Forbidding double jeopardy (being charged again for a crime that one had already been acquitted of)

The Glorious Revolution

The Glorious Revolution was actually the culmination of an evolutionary process over centuries that increased the power of Parliament over the monarchy through historical accident, outright conflict, and painstaking design. James /I (r. 1685-1688) was unpopular from the moment he took the throne. A devout Roman Catholic, he appointed Catholic ministers to important posts and gave the appearance of trying to impose Catholicism upon the English.

• In 1688, important nobles invited William of Orange, a Hollander, and Mary, the wife of James's oldest child, to rule England conditional upon their granting a bill of rights.

• When William and Mary (r. 1688-1704) arrived in England, James II fled to exile in France.

• The new monarchs accepted from Parliament, as a condition of their reign, the Declaration of Rights (enacted into law as the Bill of Rights in 1689).

• The Habeas Corpus Act, the Petition of Right, and the Bill of Rights have all become part of the English Constitution, which is a common law constitution rather than a written one.

• In the centuries that followed, monarchs in England came to reign while Parliament came to rule.

Although, at the time of the Glorious Revolution Parliament served the interests of the wellborn or the wealthy, it came to represent "the people" as government came to be viewed as existing and functioning according to John Locke's Enlightenment concept of consent of the governed. The English, and those who inherited their political traditions, would guarantee individual rights and would create modern democracy.

In the end, the Glorious Revolution protected the rights of the gentry and aristocracy from absolute monarchs through the assertion of the power of Parliament. The common people later (mostly in the 1800s) gained political power as they sporadically gained the right to vote across Europe.