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Henry III was made "Superme Head of the Church of England". The schism was made because the king didn't have radical protestant views. The foundation of the Church of England allowed the king to reform the church. -
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Before the reformation, Pagan and Christian practices cohabitated together.
There were problems of language between English worship and welsh-speaking people. -
Henry VIII disbanded the monasteries and considered them as bastions of "popery". Lands and incomes where partly appropriated by the crown, then partly redistributed among the nobility. It helped Henry VIII to strengthen state’s finance and to keep the nobility on his side. Thomas Cromwell, Henry’s chief minister, played an important role in this process.
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Every monasteries in England had disappeared and their goods had been confiscated and the metals melted. Clergy’s finances were affected, and many nuns and monks were left aimless. Those monasteries were part of the social fabric of communities and very much involved in the everyday life of those communities. (Examples : providing education, hospitality for travellers/poor reliefs...) -
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A book that replaced every latin mass books in every churches which led to rebellions in Cornwall and Devon. Thomas Cranmer wrote the 42 Articles, which outlines the main aspects of the Church of England. The marriage of ministers was allowed. Calvinist influence. But never put into application. -
Edward VI died at the age of 15. The country was bankrupt, and his more radical take on the reform divisive.
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Mary I came to the throne at the age of 37 and with the goal of restoring Catholicism and making and alliance with the Habsburgs empire by marrying Phillip II. She repealed the protestant legislation of her half-brother.
She engaged England, allied with Spain, in a war against France and lost Calais. 200 protestants went to the stake as protestantism was made an heresy. Protestants were forced to leave the country and fled to the Continent, they were called the Marian exiles. -
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This established the idea that central and local government had a responsibility for helping the poor. But it also established a distinction between the “deserving poor” and the “undeserving poor” : very harsh laws against beggars and vagrants, sent to prison. This is one of the most important heritage of the Elizabethan era, as those structures were replaced as later as after the WWII when a national health and insurance system was adopted.
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Queen Mary I died of illness in 1558. Her reign was short but emblematic. In fact, her brutal attempt to restore Catholicism played in favour of the reform : she will be dubbed Bloody Mary and the burned heretics will became martyrs. -
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After Mary’s reign, she reaffirmed the authority of the Queen over the Church and became the “Supreme Governor of the Church of England”.
Every parish had to use the Book of common prayer, and people who did not attend an Anglican service were fined. -
In a 1559 speech, she declared herself “married to the Kingdom of England”. She was also able to endorse a mother-like stature as the “mother of all the subjects”.
She became the Virgin Queen. In her late reign, she often appeared in white clothes. -
In the 1560s, calvinist ideas were adopted by many scots. -
The Queen stated the doctrine of the Church as a revised and tamed version of Edward VI”s 42 articles. It still is the main doctrinal frame for the Anglican church of today.
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Mary Queen of Scots had to escape in England, where she was imprisoned for 19 years. -
Mary Stuart had to abdicate in 1568 for marriage reasons, from then a war between her supporters and those who ruled the country in the name of her infant son James VI who will be raised as a protestant. -
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Animated by the Earls of Westmorland and Northumberland, they were back by 6000 insurgents. Their aim was to replace Elizabeth by Mary, Queen of Scots who was Catholic and next heir in line. The rebellion was crushed. -
Just after the rebellion, the Pope Pius V excommunicated Elizabeth. -
Death penalty for converts; Catholic mass forbidden. About 150-200 persons were killed during the repression.
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The King of Spain Philipp II will send the Spanish Armada to invade Britain. Due to weather conditions and a good naval strategy, the “invincible” armada will be defeated. This is a huge victory, at a symbolic and diplomatic level -
Puritans were particularly hopeful for an extended religious toleration toward their faith. Indeed James held Calvinist views. They presented him the millenary petition at the very start of his reign, 1603. -
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Some Catholics did also had hope for toleration under the rule of the son of the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots. They will be strongly disappointed. Thus in early November 1605 a group of conspirator planned to put some explosives under the parliament and kill James I. Only three hours before the king’s arrival, the plot was discovered : Guy Fawkes was preparing the explosives.
This further alienated the catholic cause to the public opinion and condemned all possible toleration policies. -
In 1610, the Great Contract between King and Parliament stipulated that the King received a fixed sum for his annual expenses. The Crown was recognized as a proper administration, but some feared that this will collide with the Parliament prominence on taxation and military expenses. The House of Common refused to vote for it, and the King responded by dissolution of the Parliament.
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England was at war against both Spain and France, and Lord Buckingham, the King’s most prominent counsellor, as during his father’s reign, became unpopular : he led a costly war with poor results. Particularly disastrous campaign against Spain
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In Scotland, the attempt to enforce uniformity went through the imposition of the Book of Common Prayer / New Prayer Book in 1637 – not used by the Presbyterian Kirk till then. A special mass was celebrated in St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh to introduce the New Prayer Book. Some Scottish attendants welcomed the sermon with particular care : they threw a stool at the bishop ! -
For more than a decade, England will be governed without a King. Oliver Cromwell will assume the role of the head of the State.
This period led to many experiments of forms of government, without success. At the end, the failure to reach stability will favour a restoration of the King.
The main conflicts aroused in two areas : religious and social. -
The first Civil War (1642-46) will oppose the Cavaliers (Royalists) and the Roundheads (Parlementarians). It will cost the lives of 190 000 Englishmens from combats and diseases spread by the troops.
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In December 1648, the Army’s Colonel Pride entered the Parliament to arrest 45 conservative MPs : the Pride’s Purge that led to the formation of the very radical and quite reduced Rump Parliament, that put the King on trial for high treason. -
In 1649, massacre of both soldiers and civilian at Drogheda and Wexford during the second Irish Rebellion. Spirit of revenge from the 1641 Irish Rebellion. -
On the 30th January of 1649, The King Charles I was Executed.
Monarchy and the House of Lords were abolished. England was declared a Commonwealth – A republic. -
On the 20th of April 1653, Cromwell dissolved the Rump. The Barebones Parliament will follow, but without much success. The 16th of December 1653, it was dissolved. End of the Commonwealth / Start of the Protectorate. -
Cromwell died in 1658, his son Richard became Lord Protector, but had to resign soon in face of increasing political tensions. For some months, complete anarchy of multiple governments. Increasing popular demands for the return of the King. -
Charles II, on exile in the Dutch republics, published the Declaration of Breda in 1660.
Amnesty, religious toleration and acknowledgment of Parliament power if monarchy is restored. -
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Hostility towards him grew slowly. First he had to face dreadful events : the 1665 outbreak of plague, the 1666 Great Fire of London. Some interpreted those dreadful events as a divine sign that the King’s inclination toward Catholicism was a malediction.
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Rumours of a plot organised by the French to assassinate Charles II and to put his catholic brother on the throne. The Parliament decided to execute 35 people. -
The Parliament tried to debar James from succession. Charles reaction was to dissolve Parliament. He ruled without it until his death in 1685 (he converted to Catholicism on his deathbed !). He was succeeded by his brother.
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The Glorious Revolution reinstalled a protestant monarch. Mary and William III also accepted Parliamentary authority / limits to their power. England became a Constitutional Monarchy, framed by the 1689 Bill of Right. -
William had to settle the revolution by fighting Irish and Scottish opposition to it. Jacobite (those loyal to James) rising in 1689 in Scotland (defeated). In Ireland, Irish Catholics support for James II. In 1690 William lands in Ireland with his army and win a short war : treaty of Limerick in 1691. Then William will focus on war against his lifetime enemy : Louis XIV. And Parliament kept going on with reforms. -
The financial revolution that occurred during the XVIIIth century had many aspects. First, the Bank of England was created in 1694. It made possible to use the national debt as a financial instrument. The state was now able to fund large project – the East India Company benefited greatly of this money for ex. The birth of the fiscal-military state. -
An agricultural revolution took place during the XVIIIth century in Britain. Huge growth in productivity : new technologies and transformation of the land.
A proto-industrial revolution. Development of bigger workshops: new work organisation, often centred around new technologies/machines (both the steam engine and the spinning jenny were invented in the 1770s). -
In 1707, Act of Union between England and Scotland. After that the Jacobite threat was tamed. A single kingdom, no more parliament in Scotland, but representatives in the House of Commons. The Presbyterian Scottish Kirk kept its independence from the Church of England. -
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The Seven Years War (1754-63) opposed a French coalition to the English, mostly over questions of colonial and naval control. The Treaty of Paris of 1763 made Britain victorious. The Whigs led by William Pit the Elder raised much money to fund the war, mostly through taxation, even in the colonies.
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This led to much resentment in the North American settlements : “taxation without representation is tyranny”. The Boston Tea Party of 1773 paved the way for the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783). Interestingly, the revolutionaries invoked the rights of the freeborn Englishmen !
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Britain recognized the independence of the United States through the treaty of Paris. -
In 1798 : another Irish Rebellion – caused by the old resentment against English rule, but also by the revolutionary fever after the French revolution. The rebellion was crushed, and in 1801, Acts of Union : Created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The Parliament of Ireland was integrated to London’s Parliament.
