Stuart period
The Stuart period of British history lasted from 1603 to 1714 during the dynasty of the House of Stuart. The period was plagued by internal and religious strife, and a large-scale civil war which resulted in the execution of King Charles I in 1649. The Interregnum, largely under the control of Oliver Cromwell, is included here for continuity, even though the Stuarts were in exile. The Cromwell regime collapsed and Charles II had very wide support for his taking of the throne in 1660. His brother James II was overthrown in 1689 in the Glorious Revolution. He was replaced by his Protestant daughter Mary II and her Dutch husband William III. Mary's sister Anne was the last of the line. For the next half century James II and his son James Francis Edward Stuart and grandson Charles Edward Stuart claimed that they were the true Stuart kings, but they were in exile and their attempts to return with German aid were defeated. The period ended with the death of Queen Anne and the accession of King George I from the German House of Hanover.
Political history
James VI and I: 1603–1625
Rule of the upper-classes
England was ruled at the national level by royalty and nobility, and at the local level by the lesser nobility and the gentry. Together they comprised about 2% of the families, owned most of the good farmland, and controlled local government affairs. The aristocracy was growing steadily in numbers, wealth, and power. From 1540 to 1640, the number of peers grew from 60 families to 160. They inherited their titles through primogeniture, had a favoured position in legal matters, enjoyed the highest positions in society, and held seats in the House of Lords. In 1611, the king looking for new revenue sources created the hereditary rank of baronet, with a status below that of the nobility, and no seat in Lords, and a price tag of about £1100. The vast land holdings seized from the monasteries under Henry VIII of England in the 1530s were sold mostly to local gentry, greatly expanding the wealth of that class of gentlemen. The gentry tripled to 15,000 from 5000 in the century after 1540. Many families died out, and others moved up, so that 6 and 7of the peers in 1714 had been created by Stuart kings since 1603.
Historians engaged in a lively debate—dubbed the "Storm over the gentry"—about the theory that the rising gentry class increasingly took power away from the static nobility, and generally reject it. Both the gentry and the nobility were gaining power, and the English Civil War was not a battle between them. In terms of religious affiliation in England, the Catholics were down to about 3% of the population, but comprised about 12% of the gentry and nobility.
Three kingdoms
James VI, king of Scotland, also became king of the entirely separate kingdom of England when Elizabeth I of England died. He also became king of Ireland, but the English were just reestablishing lost control there. The English re-conquest was completed after victory in the Nine Years' War, 1594–1603. James' appointees in Dublin as Lord Deputy of Ireland established real control over Ireland for the first time, bringing a centralised government to the entire island, and successfully disarmed the native lordships. The great majority of the Irish population remained Catholic, but James promoted Protestant plantations from Scotland into the Ulster region. The colonisers were known as Scots-Irish or Scotch-Irish. In turn many of them migrated to the new American colonies during the Stuart period.Charles I: 1625–1649
King James was failing in physical and mental strength, because of this decision-making was increasingly in the hands of Charles and especially George Villiers,. Buckingham showed a very high degree of energy and application, as well as a huge appetite for rewards and riches. By 1624 he was effectively the ruler of England. In 1625 Charles became the king of a land deeply involved in a European war and rent by escalating religious controversies. Buckingham and Charles developed a foreign policy based on an alliance with France against Spain. Major foreign adventures against Cádiz in 1625 and in support of French Huguenots in 1627 were total disasters. Widespread rumour shaped public opinion that blamed Buckingham, rather than the king, for the ills that beset England. When Parliament twice opened impeachment proceedings, the king simply prorogued the Parliament. Buckingham was assassinated in 1628 by John Felton, a dissatisfied Army officer. The assassin was executed, but he nevertheless became a heroic martyr across the three kingdoms. Like his father, King Charles believed in the divine right of kings to rule, and he was unable to work successfully with Parliament. By 1628 he and Buckingham had transformed the political landscape. In 1629 the king dissolved parliament and began a period of eleven years of personal rule.Personal rule: 1629–1640
English government was quite small, for the king had no standing army, and no bureaucracy stationed around the country. Laws were enforced primarily by local officials controlled by the local elites. Military operations were typically handled by hired mercenaries. The greatest challenge King Charles faced in ruling without a parliament was raising money. The crown was in debt nearly £1.2 million; financiers in the City refused new loans. Charles saved money by signing peace treaties with France in 1629 and Spain in 1630, and avoiding involvement in the Thirty Years' War. He cut the usual budget but it was not nearly enough. Then he discovered a series of ingenious methods to raise money without the permission of Parliament. They had been rarely used, but were nevertheless legal. He sold monopolies, despite their unpopularity. He fined the landowners for supposedly encroaching on the royal forests. Compulsory knighthood had been established in the Middle Ages when men of certain wealth were ordered to become knights in the king's service, or else pay a fine. When knighthood lost its military status, the fines continued for a time, but they had been abandoned by 1560. James reinstated the fine, and hired new officials to search local records to find wealthy men who did not have knighthood status. They were forced to pay, including Oliver Cromwell among thousands of other country gentlemen across rural England. £173,000 was raised, in addition to raising bitter anger among the gentry. The king finally crossed the line of legality when he began to levy "ship money", intended for naval defences, upon interior towns. Protests now escalated to include urban elites. All the new measures generated long-term outrage, but they did balance the short-term budget, which averaged £600,000, without the need to call Parliament into session.Long Parliament of 1640
Revolts broke out in Scotland in response to the king's imposition of the Book of Common Prayer, which threatened to undermine the religion of the people. The Scots drove English forces out and forced the king to subsidise the insurgents who were now occupying part of northern England. A major revolt among Catholics in Ireland killed thousands of Scots Irish—there was no doubt it had to be suppressed and new taxes would be needed to pay the costs of military action. A new Parliament had to be called. The Long Parliament elected in 1640 proved just as difficult for Charles as had the Short Parliament. It assembled on 3 November 1640 and quickly began proceedings to impeach and remove the king's leading counsellors for high treason. Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford was taken into custody on 10 November; William Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury was impeached on 18 December; John Finch, 1st Baron Finch, now Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, was impeached the following day, and he fled to Holland. To prevent the king from dissolving it at will, Parliament passed the Triennial Act, which required Parliament to be summoned at least once every three years, and permitted the Lord Keeper and 12 peers to summon Parliament if the king failed to do so. The Act was coupled with a subsidy bill, and so to secure the latter, Charles grudgingly granted royal assent in February 1641.Civil War and Interregnum: 1642–1660
The First English Civil War of 1642–1645 ended in victory for the Parliamentarians over the Royalists. The Parliamentarians were often called "Roundheads" because of their short practical haircuts. The Second English Civil War was fought in 1648–1649; Charles lost and the execution of Charles I took place in January 1649.The monarchy was temporarily displaced by the Commonwealth of England from 1649 to 1660. Oliver Cromwell ruled directly from 1653 to his death in 1658, whereupon his Commonwealth disintegrated. The Convention Parliament welcomed Charles II, son of Charles I, to return from exile and become king.
The war period saw a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists, with most of the fighting in England. The first and second wars pitted the supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of the Long Parliament, while the third saw fighting between supporters of King Charles II and supporters of the Rump Parliament. The war ended with the Parliamentarian victory at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651. Historians debate whether the main determinant of the outcome was based on superior operational decisions and decisive battlefield events, or rather Parliament's long-run superiority in manpower and money.
The overall outcome was threefold: the trial and execution of Charles I ; the exile of his son, Charles II ; and the replacement of English monarchy with, at first, the Commonwealth of England and then the Protectorate under the personal rule of Oliver Cromwell. When Cromwell died his son Richard Cromwell was incapable of governing, and the Puritan army directly ruled the three kingdoms, to the growing disgust of all classes of people. The monopoly of the Church of England on religion was strengthened by the suppression of the last remnants of Catholicism, and the powerful forces of Puritanism and Nonconformism. Constitutionally, the wars convinced everyone that an English monarch cannot govern alone, nor could Parliament. They were both essential.