Useful for APSC CCE Exam and other exams

History of Britain

Page | 1

History of Britain

Disclaimer

While all care has been taken in drafting this material, no responsibility is accepted by the author for any errors, omissions or inaccuracies. This material is for informative purpose only. It is not intended to be relied upon or be a substitute for legal or other professional advice. The author accepts no responsibility for any consequences that may result from reliance on any information provided in this material. Anything from this document can’t be used in any legal case.

All Rights Reserved

No part of this work may be copied or reproduced in any form without prior permission of the Author.

Contents

1. Henry VII and Columbus Page | 2 2. Henry VII Period

3. Henry VIII and changing the Old Order

4. Thomas Cromwell

5. The Protestant Edward VI, the Catholic Queen Mary and Edward VI

6. Queen Elizabeth, Mary Queen of Scots and the National Church

7. The Spanish Armada

8. Queen Elizabeth's Sailors after the Armada

9. Queen Elizabeth, Spenser and Shakespeare

10. The Great Drama of the Stuart Period

11. The Gunpowder Plot

12. James I (1603—1625)

13. Charles I and the Petition of Right (1625—1628)

14. The Eleven Years' Rule without Parliament (1629—1640)

15. The Long Parliament

16. The English Civil War

17. Charles I

18. Oliver Cromwell, the Commonwealth, and Puritanism

19. The Reign of Charles II— the "Merrie Monarch" (1660—1685)

20. James II and the Glorious Revolution (1688)

21. William III and the Revolution Settlement

22. Queen Anne and Lady Marlborough

23. War of the Spanish Succession Page | 3 24. George II (1683 - 1760)

25. Seven Years' War (1756–63)

26. Sir Robert Walpole (1676 - 1745)

27. William Pitt, the Elder

28. William Pitt, the Younger

29. Industrial Revolution

30. The British Working Class Movement

31. Naval Race between Germany and Great Britain, 1898-1912

32. World War I

33. Winston Churchill

34. Labour reforms - the Welfare State (1945-1951)

1. Henry VII and Columbus

Page | 4 HENRY VII, the first Tudor sovereign, came to the throne in 1485, at the end of the Wars of the Roses. He was busy, during the first twelve years of his reign, in and the making sure of his throne; he had to put down two "pretenders," Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck, and he determined to get rid gradually of all those whose Yorkist blood made them dangerous rivals. The young Earl of Warwick was beheaded after an imprisonment of fourteen years—his only crime was that he was the last prince of the House of York. As soon as his throne was safe, Henry was anxious to make England a real power abroad, which she could not be during the Wars of the Roses, and he did this mainly by peaceful and tactful dealings with foreign kings and without fighting a single battle. The time was now ripe to arrange two important marriages which would further strengthen his position and his family. In those days, countries were treated as if they were princes' estates, and they often passed from one ruler to another by marriage. So the marriages of princes and princesses were very important events. The way in which Henry VII managed the marriages of his children shows us much of his own character and that of the times in which he lived. Months were spent in deciding how much money the bride should bring to her future husband, and Henry VII took care to gain every penny he could in this way. After the victory of Bosworth over Richard III, and after the murder of the Earl of Warwick, the Spanish envoy could report to his royal master that "not a doubtful drop of royal blood" was left in England. So a marriage treaty with Spain could be settled; and there was a solemn betrothal of Prince Arthur of England and Princess Catharine of Aragon at Woodstock, and later on the marriage was celebrated at St. Paul's. London gave itself up for ten days to the enjoyment of jousts and masques, mummeries and dancing, bowls and archery, feasting and banqueting. But Arthur died the next year, and arrangements were then made to betroth Catharine to the English king's second son, who afterwards became Henry VIII. This alliance with Spain lasted for forty years, until Henry VIII got tired of Catharine. Let us now turn our attention to Scotland. The disorder of the Middle Ages lasted longer in Scotland than elsewhere. There was no unity in the country. The Lowlands were peopled by the children of the old Angles and Normans and were still ruled by feudal lords. The Highlands were the homes of the children of the fierce old Picts and Scots and were still under the sway of tribal chiefs. These lords and chiefs were the real rulers of the country. Although kings of the House of Stuart had been on the Scottish throne for more than a hundred years, its kings were not much stronger than some of the great Scottish lords. The bitterness caused by Edward I's war with Scotland had

never died out. The old quarrels went on—always on the borders and on the seas, and now and then in set battles, especially when England was at war with France. Thus, Scotland and England were still separate kingdoms, each having its own king and fond of fighting each other on every possible occasion.

Page | 5 Henry VII wisely aimed at a lasting peace with Scotland which would end the long friendship of Scotland with France. It was decided that Henry's daughter Margaret should be married to the Scotch King James IV. From this marriage was descended James VI of Scotland, who became later James I of England. In this way Henry VII made the most important step towards the real union of Great Britain since Parliament was set up in the reign of Edward I. It is not unlikely that Henry had in his mind the dream of that Plantagenet king— a union of the two crowns—though there could be no immediate prospect of this being realised, But under his successors there was a break in the friendship and good relations which Henry established with Scotland; the Scotch were severely defeated at the battle of Flodden in Henry VIII's reign, and there was a renewal of the long Scottish alliance with France. But by far the most famous events of Henry VII's reign were the great discoveries and the great increase in trade and commerce. English trade in those days was in its earliest and humble stages. English ships did little more than ferry goods across the narrow seas between this island and the Continent—exporting Cornish tin and Derbyshire lead, and especially wool to Flanders, and importing wine from Gascony and cloth from Flanders. But even much of this trade, and all the trade with distant parts, was in the hands of foreign shippers, except that the men of Bristol carried on some business with Iceland. But now a time of stir and adventure was beginning. In all directions the English merchants found foreigners to oppose them and they had to struggle hard to get a footing. The products of South Europe and the riches of India and China in the East were brought to England each year in the fleets of the merchants of Venice. The Mediterranean trade was in the hands of the large ports of the South of Europe— Barcelona and Marseilles, Pisa and Genoa, Florence and Venice. The Baltic trade was jealously guarded by the German merchants, who had their factories or stations all over North Europe—even so far north as at Bergen in Norway and at Novgorod in Russia. The Steelyard, situated where Cannon Street Station now stands, was the Germans' headquarters in London. The English merchants hated these Germans, and so strong was the feeling against the foreigners that at one time they dared scarcely show their faces in the streets of London. But English trade and shipping was now receiving a great stimulus from voyages of discovery, It was in Henry VII's reign that the most important discovery in all history was made—when Columbus reached the Discovery; West Indies and thus opened the way to a New World, and won for Spain the largest share of the riches of this New World. Five years later, John Cabot sailed into the "sea of darkness" (as the Atlantic was

called) and reached the mainland of North America, and Henry VII showed his interest in these wonderful over-sea voyages by rewarding Cabot. The next year Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese mariner, found a sea-route to India round the Cape of Good Hope. Let us see what these great discoveries meant to Europe and England. Almost all Page | 6 parts of the world are now known to us, except the South Pole. This makes it very difficult for us nowadays to realise that five hundred years ago very little of the world was known to men in Europe. Men's exact knowledge of geography at that time did not go beyond Europe and the countries round the Mediterranean, and the West Coast of Africa. The huge Continent of Asia was still unknown except by hearsay and by the reports of the famous travellers of the Middle Ages, the brothers Polo of Venice. Their accounts of the strange lands they visited in the thirteenth century we can still read. The Atlantic had been "a sea of darkness," and nobody knew what lay beyond it, but the discovery of America soon made it a highway between the Old and the New World. The last quarter of the fifteenth century was a great age of discovery. Portugal and Spain, who had for many centuries been crusading against enemies in their own lands, now became eager to discover new lands, and to make Christians of the heathen peoples. The sailors of Portugal ventured eastwards over the sea round the west coast of Africa towards India, While Spain made for the west in the opposite direction. The Portuguese sailors had already got as far south as the mouth of the Gambia River in West Africa. But in the year after Henry VII came to the throne, the Portuguese sailor, Bartholomew Diaz, got much further south and found a Cape of Storms, as he had good reason to call it, at the extreme southwest coast of Africa. The supposed great wealth of India still tempted the Portuguese mariners. Their king decided that the Cape of Storms must be called the Cape of Good Hope, and twelve years later Diaz found his way round South Africa right across the ocean to India, and the good hope was at last realised. Meanwhile, the famous navigator of Genoa, Christopher Columbus, had been making up his mind that as the world was round, it must be possible to reach India more easily by sailing West, instead of East as the Portuguese were doing. It was now very important to find another and easy way to India, as the hated Turks barred the way to it overland. At last, after much disappointment and trouble, he found a friend in the Queen of Castile (Spain). In 1492, his three little ships sailed from Palos near Cadiz to try their fortunes on the "sea of darkness." Columbus himself commanded the largest vessel, the Santa Maria, which had a crew of fifty men. About two months from the date of setting out, Columbus sighted a little island, which he thought was a part of India or Cathay (China), and the group of islands to which it belongs has ever since been called the "West Indies." But though he did not know it, he had really found a New World— America, as you will see if you look at a map of the world. It was not till after his death that men realised what the great discovery meant, and the brave Columbus was badly treated by the nation he had made wealthy.

These wonderful discoveries had far-reaching effects. Italy and the Mediterranean were no longer the centre of the world, and their great merchant cities would no longer have the rich trade of the East all to themselves. Up till now the luxuries of the East—its spices, silks and velvets, gems and jewels, Page | 7 scented woods, etc.—had been brought to Europe overland from China and India by Arab traders. From the Arabs, these Eastern goods reached Venice by way of Egypt and the Red Sea, and Genoa by way of Constantinople and the Black Sea. From Venice and Genoa they were sent through Central Europe to the North German traders, and by them they were handed on to the nations of the north. But the Turks took Constantinople in 1453 and Egypt came under their rule some fifty years later. The European traders were afraid to go by the old routes where they would meet the cruel Turks. The nations therefore who could reach India quickest by the new sea routes would now reap the rewards of the Eastern trade. Spain drew great wealth from the newly-found mines of America, and Portugal founded a brilliant if short-lived empire in India and grew fat on its trade. What was England doing while all this was going on? She was not yet ready for her full share in the New World. For she was troubled by the Wars of the Roses, and later on by the religious strife of Henry VIII's reign. It was not till Elizabeth's time that England was ready to enter the race with Spain and Portugal, never to turn back again. But even now England showed great interest in the story of these marvellous voyages. Sir Thomas More goes so far as to say that books about these discoveries were in every man's hands. Henry VII himself helped and rewarded the Cabots, father and son. John Cabot was born in Genoa, but he lived his early life in Venice. He tried, but without success, to get Spain or Portugal to help him in his adventures over the seas. So he left Venice for Bristol, which was then the second town in England and the port most interested in discoveries. This town was already famous for its voyages in search of the famous "Seven Cities of the East" and the "Island of Brazil," which were said to be immensely wealthy. Henry VII sent the Cabots on a voyage of discovery, and the next year they returned with the report that they had found land on the other side of the ocean. Whether this land was Labrador or the Island of Newfoundland is not quite clear. They had at any rate discovered a part of the mainland of North America, but they thought it was the land of the great Khan, that is, the Emperor of China. Think a moment what these discoveries meant in those days! This voyage was made with one small sailing ship and eighteen men of Bristol. They had for many a long day and night to brave without charts the terrors of unknown seas and the icy winds, just as the men of Columbus had had to do. Then they only found dreary shores where they saw no human beings, although they did find a kind of fishing net. Well might the men of Bristol make a great fuss of Cabot on his return. "He is styled the great Admiral," writes the Venetian envoy, "vast honour is paid to him; he dresses in silk and the English run after him like mad people." In the next year Cabot again crossed the ocean to try

and find a North-West Passage from Europe to India, but the ice and the snow off the coasts of Greenland drove him back, as they did many another brave sailor who followed his example, even to our own days. The Cabots were not solely in the service of England. Sebastian Cabot, the son, Page | 8 was employed by the King of Spain, and by the Emperor Charles V, and the Venetians; and he made several voyages of discovery for them. He was map-maker to King Henry VIII, who sent him to try again to discover the North-West Passage. Edward VI made this great Venetian the Grand Pilot of England, and gave him a pension. The merchants of London were now growing in wealth and influence, and Sebastian Cabot settled a great dispute between them and the merchants of Germany. Later came Elizabeth, who not only gave Charters to numerous trading companies, but also shared in the gains from their voyages and in the treasure seized from Spanish ships by her "sea-dogs." Thus all the Tudor sovereigns showed their interest in the new lands and new trades across the great ocean. All this time, ships were being made, and sailors and pilots were being trained. Such were the tiny beginnings of our great Empire.

------xxxxxxx------

2. Henry VII Period

Page | 9 WE have seen how King Henry VII secured his throne, how he allied himself with Spain and Scotland, and how he encouraged commerce. It is now time to learn how he governed this country after the end of civil strife. Henry did not consult Parliament very much. What the country needed after the Wars of the Roses was not new laws but obedience to the laws already made. Murders and riots were very frequent. The coroners neglected their duties and murderers often escaped without punishment. Land was still being enclosed—that is, the old half-acre strips of land were thrown together and hedges put round the whole so as to enclose it. Waste lands and common lands, which belonged to the villagers, were also often enclosed or hedged in. In this way the plough land was constantly being turned into sheep runs. It took fewer men to look after the sheep than to plough the land and to sow and reap the corn; so the dispossessed villagers and discharged ploughmen had nothing to do but to join the large crowd of wandering beggars. Sometimes the peasants, in their anger at enclosures, would pull down the hedges and fill in the ditches which had been made when the land was enclosed for sheep runs. A visitor to England from Venice wrote that there were more thieves and robbers in England at this time than in any other country in the world. Few people, he said, dared go alone into the country except in the middle of the day, and fewer still dared go out in the towns at night, and least of all in London. Henry VII tried to deal with these disorders. It was the duty of the Justices of the Peace—who were gentlemen with landed estates—to help to rule the country districts. These men were now made to do their duty in a better way, and to keep the ale-houses in order, where men played cards and dice, and bowls and tennis. A law was also made that beggars were to be set in the stocks for three days, for it was found much too costly to keep all these wanderers in prisons. Henry used the middle class rather than the nobles to help him in his work. The nobles could spend their time at his court in gay pageants, tournaments or tilting matches, and other amusements, such as hunting and hawking. But the king chose his servants from the clergy and lawyers, "vigilant men and secret, and such as kept watch with him upon almost all other men," says Bacon. If Henry did not often call Parliament, where did he get the money for the expenses of his government, for fighting his foes, and for the safe-guarding of the sea? His first Parliament gave him tonnage and poundage for life, that is, the old taxes on commerce. This Parliament also gave him power to get back all crown lands which had been granted away since the Wars of the Roses began. This was a handsome present, for many of the old crown lands had passed into other hands during these wars. Henry, as king, also took the property of his enemies who had been accused of treason against

him. For in those days, when a baron or great landholder rebelled, or was on the losing side in a battle, his property was confiscated or taken over by the king. When Henry wanted further funds, he tried all other kinds of ways to get money. His favourite trick was to ask for free-will offerings from the wealthy, which they had to Page | 10 give whether they liked it or not. When Henry invaded France, he gave orders that "the sparing were to be pressed for money because they saved, and the lavish because they spent." Another device for getting money was by fines. Henry was once visiting his friend the Earl of Oxford, when the earl drew up his little army of retainers to line the route in honour of the king. But this broke the king's law against the keeping of armed retainers. The king enjoyed the earl's good fare, but before parting he said to him : "My lord, I thank you for your good cheer, but I may not have my laws broken in my sight; my attorney must speak with you." The earl was fined £10,000! In Henry's later days, after the death of his wife Elizabeth, people were made to pay fines, for all sorts of offences, by his hated agents Empson and Dudley. These men were looked upon as "ravening wolves, horseleeches and shearers," from whom no man was safe. It was the greedy and crafty Henry VII who through these men started that state robbing and pillaging which went on in the next two reigns. What with the Star Chamber (a new court to deal with the nobles) and Henry's demands for fines and loans, the great men of England had indeed a hard time of it, and many of them found themselves made so poor that they were imprisoned for debt. Henry's chief vice was greed. He knew that he and his son could not be free from the control of Parliament unless they had a well-filled treasury. But he could spend when he thought it worth while, as indeed is shown by the building of his beautiful chapel in Westminster Abbey, where his body rests. He encouraged traders and craftsmen, and so, while he kept the nobles poor in order to break their power, the country generally prospered. We have seen that the power of the king got stronger and stronger during Henry's reign. He was able to deal many blows at the great nobles, and we shall see that his son Henry VIII tried to bring the clergy and the Church also under the rule of the king. The Church claimed certain old privileges which sometimes interfered with the course of justice, as did the old privileges of the great lords. In England the Pope insisted, among other things, that (1) clergymen who were guilty of crimes should be tried as a rule only in the Church Courts, and that (2) the king's officers could not arrest people in churches. The first of these claims was known as Benefit of Clergy and the second as Right of Sanctuary. Anyone then who could claim that he was a clergyman could insist on trial in the Church Courts, and anyone who fled to a church was safe from the king's officers. This independence of the clergy was, of course, liable to be abused by scoundrels. Clergymen included not only those who were priests but all whose work was

reckoned to be in any way ecclesiastical. As the punishments which the Church inflicted were lighter than the very severe penalties by which the king tried to enforce order, it was possible for criminals sometimes to evade the punishments which most men thought their crimes warranted.

Page | 11 Towards the end of Henry's reign some famous men, like Sir Thomas More, thought it was better that the king should be the responsible authority for maintaining justice and order in his kingdom, and viewed with approval the limitation of the rights of sanctuary and benefit of clergy, as they were less necessary in the sixteenth than they had been in the twelfth century. In the general decay of the Church organization at the close of the Middle Ages other abuses had crept in, which earnest churchmen desired to have remedied. In Britain some of the clergy entered the service of great noblemen and landowners, and were more devoted to getting in the rents for their masters than to their spiritual duties. The monasteries, too, had grown very wealthy, being amongst the largest landowners in the country. Prosperity had made certain abbots worldly in their outlook, so that they set a bad example in exacting high rents, and in enclosing common fields to extend still further the production of the high quality of wool for which English farmers and some of the monasteries in particular were famous. On the other hand, the monasteries still performed a useful service in relieving the poor, and maintaining schools and libraries. Henry VII sent Sir Edward Poynings to Ireland as Lord Deputy, and the new governor applied his master's policy of curbing the nobles by prohibiting maintenance of large retainers, and getting the statute passed known as Poynings' Law, which forbade the Irish parliament from passing any laws which had not received the king's approval. Henry VII died at the age of fifty-two in 1509. Although his reign has no great event like the Armada, he did important work for England, and without it the glories of the reign Elizabeth would not have been possible. He not only united England, but he prepared also for future union with Scotland. He was, certainly a tyrant, crafty and greedy, and he ruled the barons with a rod of iron. But he took care that there should not be a whole host of other tyrants to trouble the land. He found England weak and cut off from all influence in Europe, and he left her strong and ready to take the first place.

------xxxxxxx------

3. Henry VIII and changing the Old Order

Page | 12

HENRY VII was succeeded on the throne by his son Henry VIII, whose reign is one of the most important in English History. His first minister was Thomas Wolsey; he was the son of an Ipswich wool merchant, and soon all Europe was ringing with his fame. So much power did he obtain that it was said he "ruled both the King and the whole realm." Honors were heaped upon him; he was made in quick succession Archbishop of York and Chancellor by the King, and Cardinal and Papal Legate (or Ambassador) by the Pope, So long as he was useful to his royal master, his power and influence increased; but so soon as he could not carry out the King's wishes, he fell from power. Henry VIII grew tired of his first wife, Catharine of Aragon, and fell in love with her maid Anne Boleyn; so Henry sought from the Pope, as supreme judge in Canon Law, that is the law of the Church, a declaration that his marriage with Catharine, his brother's widow, was not valid, or sound in law. This the Pope refused, but he appointed judges to hear the evidence. As Wolsey failed to get the divorce, Henry VIII soon found some pretext to have him arrested. Before he could be tried, he fell ill and died suddenly at Leicester Abbey. Henry VIII now determined to try other methods—to get his way with or without the Pope. From the days of William the Conqueror, English kings had on many occasions tried to limit the power of the Church in this country. The Church, however, invariably resisted these encroachments on her privileges, but frequently agreed to a working arrangement by which the king's legitimate interests might be safeguarded. This happened, as you will remember, in the dispute between Henry I and Anselm respecting the investiture of bishops. By the time Wolsey's career had ended, Henry VIII had learned how great were his powers. He had now made up his mind to get rid of Catharine, so that he might marry Anne Boleyn. To get his way, he was determined to subject the Church and, the clergy to his own authority and continue to be the absolute ruler not only of the State but of the Church also. So far he had worked with the Pope. Now he intended to become master of Parliament and of the Church, and through these to threaten the Pope. If, after many threats, the Pope would not divorce him, then he would have no more of the Pope in England. "Well-beloved subjects," said the king, "we thought that the clergy of our realm had been our subjects wholly, but now we have well seen that they are but half

our subjects." Henry VIII determined to finish the work of Henry II, who quarrelled with Becket about the rights of the Church. The clergy should be put severely under him, just as the nobles had been. The Parliament that assembled in 1529 was one of the most important in our Page | 13 history. The same year was also a landmark in the history of Europe, for it was then that the followers of the German monk Luther became Protestants. That is, they took what was then the strong step of "protesting" against the Emperor's decree against Luther, which made all religious changes in Germany unlawful. Luther had already made serious attacks on the Pope and burned before a large crowd, the papal bull issued against him. This Long Parliament was not chosen freely like the Parliaments in our day. The king sent down letters ordering the electors to choose certain persons named by him. A Parliament so elected was bound to be favourable to the king and willing to carry out the wishes of such a strong ruler as Henry had proved himself to be. At its very first meeting, Parliament attacked the clergy and limited their fees. The clergy replied that the "Commons seek the goods, not the good, of the Church." The next year there was no meeting, for Henry tried once more to get the Pope to divorce him. But the Pope was immovable. The Emperor Charles would not be bribed by Henry, for he was not, he said, a merchant to sell the honour of his aunt (Queen Catharine). The queen herself stood up passionately for her rights—"Go where I will, I shall still be his lawful wife." Two new advisers to the king now came to the front. One, Thomas Cranmer, had been a chaplain in the Boleyn family, and had suggested to the king that he should find out what the universities of Europe thought about his divorce. Cranmer now became archbishop, and the foremost of the Reformers in England. He was a man of great caution and succeeded in winning Henry's confidence completely. He wanted the king, rather than the Pope, to be supreme in the Church in England. He believed that it was best that the King of England should be the sole lord in his own land, and now helped the king to become supreme. The other new favourite, Thomas Cromwell, gave the king a hint that he might first make himself master of the Church and then get it to divorce him. Cromwell, like Wolsey of old, soon began to rule in everything concerning Church and State. The next year, in the Long Parliament's second session, the first step was taken to make the king head of the Church, and, as he hoped, to frighten the Pope to do what he wanted. The nation was now accused of breaking the same law as Wolsey had broken, for they had recognised. Wolsey as the Pope's Legate. It made no difference to this self-seeking king that he himself had asked the Pope to make Wolsey legate. The king pretended to pardon the nation, but the clergy had to buy their pardon by paying him huge sums. They were also made to call Henry "as far as the law of Christ allows, supreme head of the Church," and to agree to make no new Church laws without the

king's consent. The first great blow was thus struck at the freedom of the Church, and the king took the Pope's place in the English Church. At the next session, the king carried the war against the Pope still further, for he would not allow anything or anybody to thwart his will and desires. The clergy were at Page | 14 last under his thumb. Henry now had a law passed that the clergy should no longer pay their first year's incomes to the Pope, as had been the custom for many centuries. But the Pope was still the Emperor's prisoner. The next year Henry took the law into his own hands and married Anne Boleyn. Soon afterwards, Archbishop Cranmer declared that the marriage with Catharine was void from the first. At the end of the year, the Princess Elizabeth was born and the Pope excommunicated both her parents. It seemed as if a crusade of Catholic nations would be sent against Henry, but the Emperor and the King of France were too busy with their own quarrels to march against England. Parliament had already passed a law against the right of the clergy to appeal from the English courts to the Pope at Rome. The clergy could therefore no longer ask a foreign court to protect them, and the King of England was supreme over all in his own realm. At last the Pope gave his sentence against Henry, amid great rejoicings and the firing of cannon at Rome. But the crafty Henry knew how to take his revenge. In the fifth and most famous meeting of this Parliament, the breach with the Pope was made final. An Act was passed declaring that Anne Boleyn's children should succeed to the throne, thus shutting out Mary, the daughter of Catharine. Then came an Act of Supremacy, which summed up all the previous laws against the clergy and the Pope. The king became the "only Supreme Head on earth of the Church of England," and all the powers and wealth in England which once belonged to the Pope now passed to the king. But Henry could not allow anybody to differ from him, for fear the people should rebel against his new power. A new and terrible Treasons Act was passed, thundering out terrible and hideous penalties against those who should even suggest in speaking or writing that the king was a heretic or a tyrant. The king still called himself the Defender of the Faith, and said that there was no separation in England from the Catholic faith of all Christian countries, though the Pope had no more power here. Thomas Cromwell now became Vicar-General of the Church, and acted as chief officer over both Church and State. He was not slow to show what the king's supremacy meant. A visit to all churches, monasteries, and colleges was decided upon, but it was the turn of the monasteries first. For many centuries, the abbeys and monasteries had done a most important work for the country. They helped the poor in the days before workhouses; they tended the sick, and acted as doctors; they were the only inns for travellers, both rich and poor. They acted as bankers, taking care of valuables. They were pioneer farmers and wool- traders; and for many centuries they had been the centres of learning and education.

However, no chronicler existed in the abbeys in Henry's days. The abbeys were very wealthy; the king and others cast longing eyes on their possessions. Vague charges were made against the abbeys, that many of the monks were idle and lazy, that their charity had been carelessly given, that thereby "sturdy vagabonds were encouraged," and these vagabonds were the plague of the country-side. With the rise of the middle Page | 15 class, there were many men who saw with envy and greed the broad acres of the abbeys, and these men would be only too glad to share in the plunder. So Cromwell sent some men round to the monasteries to report to them of their condition. But these men were dishonest and untrustworthy. They thought most of pleasing their master, and were always ready to help themselves to bribes and to the gold and silver crosses of the abbeys and monasteries. Their visits were paid to the numerous monasteries very hurriedly in a single summer, and their reports were so bad that they were called the Black Book. The monks were looked upon as the soldiers of the Pope and the abbeys were so many of his garrisons in this country. The king and his advisers therefore thought they were very dangerous to the king's rule over the Church. It was claimed that the smaller houses were of little use, and in some cases there may have been vice. All was now ready for Parliament to condemn the monasteries. Cromwell took steps to inflame the citizens of London against the monks by giving them numerous pamphlets and sermons. The king told the House of Commons "that he would either have the Bill or some of their heads." So the Long Parliament at its last meeting passed an Act destroying the smaller monasteries. The people fondly hoped that when the king had got the wealth of the abbeys there would be fewer taxes to pay. But although about three hundred and seventy-six houses were destroyed, most of the wealth went to the king and his friends. By the destruction of the abbeys, poverty and misery were increased. The poor lost some of their best friends, and some ten thousand people, monks and their dependents, lost their living. The poor nuns were cast adrift with a gown apiece, and others fared not much better. The wealth of the monks went to make new nobles, who would therefore have a lasting though selfish interest in the breach with Rome. In this way the Reformation would not be undone. This memorable Parliament had now finished its work. Henry VIII had compelled the clergy and the nation to make him supreme ruler in the Church as well as in the State, and the greatest change in our history had now been effected. With all its cruelty, hard-heartedness and pillaging, we should not nowadays call the Age of the Reformation a religious age. Still we must take care not to judge by modern ideas the doings of three hundred years ago. There were many devout people then as now, and the services of the old Church still held sway over the hearts of the nation. There existed a strong religious life and feeling; even memories of the teachings of Wycliffe and of the Lollards had never been quite lost. These memories were now

being revived and strengthened by the teachings of the German Reformer Luther which were gradually becoming known in this country.

------xxxxxxx------Page | 16

4. Thomas Cromwell

Page | 17 SIR THOMAS MORE had given Cromwell good advice when he entered, the King's Council. "Master Cromwell, you are now entered in the service' of a most noble, wise, and liberal prince. If you will follow my poor advice, you shall, in your counsel-giving to his Grace, ever tell him what he ought to do, but never what he is able to do. For if the lion knew his own strength, hard were it for any man to rule him." The lion already knew his strength. He had used Cromwell to help him to cast off the Pope and had so taken the first and greatest step towards forming a National Church. The time was now come when he would show the nation that everybody— whether clergyman, noble, or the humblest follower of Wycliffe or Luther, nay even Parliament itself—must bend to the king's will. A terrible reign of terror, such as England fortunately has seldom if ever known in her history, marks this gloomy middle period of Henry VIII's reign. Cromwell now took steps, at his master's bidding, to "tune the pulpits"; that is, priests were compelled to preach such sermons as should cause men to favour the king's rule over the Church. Schoolmasters were made to revile the Pope in the presence of their scholars. Cromwell's spies were all over the country, ready to report to their master every word, written or spoken, which could be regarded as an offence. Erasmus might well say that "men felt as though a scorpion lay beneath every stone." One of the first martyrs for the old Church was Elizabeth Barton, known as the Holy Maid of Kent. Although only a servant, she became famed for her saintliness. Miracles were said to be done by her, and she had the gift of prophecy. In those days people were much disturbed by what was passing and perhaps easily believed the prophecies of such a far-famed person. She spoke against the divorce and predicted the king's death. This could have a very dangerous effect on the nation at such a time of ferment. The king decided that she must be executed and made an example to others. Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More were accused of knowing of her predictions and not revealing them to the king, who tried to have them both condemned as traitors without a trial. But Parliament would not agree to this. Now More was one of the most learned and best known men in England. When he was young he had prepared himself for a religious life by scourging himself with rods, and wearing a hair shirt and sleeping upon bare boards. He did not, however, become a priest, but he gained great fame not only as a lecturer and author, but also as a lawyer and statesman. "What did Nature," wrote Erasmus, "ever fashion daintier, sweeter, or happier than the character of Thomas More?" In the early years of his reign, Henry VIII was very devoted to More. He used often to visit and dine with More in his house at Chelsea, walking in his garden with his arm round More's neck.

But More knew the character of his royal friend. "I have no cause to be proud of the king's friendship," said More to his son-in-law Roper, "for if my head would win him a castle in France, it should not fail to go." Wolsey made him Speaker in the House of Commons, and as Speaker, More Page | 18 showed his great courage to do what was right. When Wolsey went in all his pomp to the House of Commons to demand a great grant of money for the king, the Speaker was not afraid to stand up for the rights of Parliament. "Would you had been in Rome, Master More, when I made you Speaker," remarked Wolsey afterwards. After Wolsey's fall, More became Chancellor and the chief minister of Henry VIII, but he soon resigned. As a loyal subject of the king, he was quite ready now to accept Anne Boleyn as queen. But neither he nor Bishop Fisher could take the oath which Henry demanded, because they truly believed that the Pope was the Vicar of Christ on earth, and that Henry could not be the Head of the Church. It was a very serious thing for the king to be opposed by men like Fisher and More, whose learning and piety were renowned through Europe. All possible means, fair and foul, were taken to compel these two brave and good men to call Henry Head of the Church. Bishop Fisher was the old friend of the Tudor family. But he had been fearless in supporting Catharine and the liberty of the Church. Neither of these men would go against his conscience, and the king at last had them both executed—to the horror and disgust of all Europe. "Had we been master of such a servant," said the Emperor Charles when he heard of More's death, "we would rather have lost the best city of our lands than have lost such a worthy councillor." The friars at this time did most of the preaching in the country. All their houses were now visited, so that they might take the oath acknowledging Henry as Head of the Church. Many of them submitted. The monks of the famous Abbey of the Charterhouse in London were the most renowned and the most pious in the country. These stood their ground against the self- willed king, just as Fisher and More had done. Their prior, everywhere known for the beauty and piety of his character, was sent to the Tower. Cromwell compelled a jury to say that the prior and his brethren were guilty, and these pious, noble men were hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn, in accordance with the barbarous custom of those days. Thus the most learned and pious men in the realm were struck down. Men had almost lost their most simple rights of liberty. Not even Henry VIII could persuade his Parliament to agree to this butchery without a good deal of murmuring and questioning. Meanwhile, Luther's teachings were spreading in the country. Heresy, (which Henry considered the 'reformed' teachings of Christianity') was very common, especially in the eastern counties, where a great many Flemish weavers had settled, for (it was said) every weaver was a heretic. All over the country, Lollard and Lutheran books were secretly read. More preaching went on in the villages than was ever known before, for

sermons had seldom been heard except at Lent. Men in the towns gathered together in the ale-houses to discuss the Scriptures rather than to drink ale, as they used to do. The burning of forbidden books and of heretics went on as usual. Some Cambridge gospellers, devoted to the study of the Bible, were burnt by the Bishop of Page | 19 Norwich. Tyndale offended Henry by calling the Bible the "Head of the Church." The heretics used his English New Testament, and Henry took care that he too should suffer burning, even though he was living in Flanders. All these changes and troubles caused much discontent in the country, especially in the North and West. There were fewer towns and roads in those parts, new ideas spread more slowly than in the South, and so the North the North and West remained the most backward and West districts till the days of steam and factories in the nineteenth century. And as there were fewer roads and larger wastes, the monasteries were very badly missed by travellers. Everywhere the clergy were terrified of the king. The poor had lost some good friends in the monks. The nobles hated the new men, such as Cromwell, in the council. Cromwell was told to his face that he was the cause of all this rebellion and wickedness, and that he was daily trying to strike off men's heads. His servants were at this time roaming all over England, destroying beautiful abbeys, taking away their valuables, tearing the lead off the roofs and pulling down the bells to sell them to the highest bidders. The storm now burst, first in Lincolnshire, where thirty-seven abbeys had been destroyed, then in Yorkshire, where no less than fifty-three abbeys had been spoiled. These two counties had been in the midst of all this terrible havoc. The men of Louth, in Lincolnshire, seized the king's officer, put his register on the bonfires, and ordered all the English Testaments to be burnt, for they were afraid of heresy. The movement spread throughout the county. The king sent his ambassador to say he was horrified that his business should be stopped by the "rude commons of one shire, and that the most beastly and brute in the whole realm." The ringleaders Were captured and some fifty were gibbeted in the various towns of Lincolnshire. In the same year a much more serious rising took place in Yorkshire and soon spread to all the northern counties. This was called the Pilgrimage of Grace: Men complained that their abbeys had been destroyed. Their kind landlords, the abbots, had been turned adrift; and now there was no one to build them bridges and highways and provide meat for strangers. The men of the North hated heresy and image-breaking, and loathed Cromwell and his men, but they stated that they were thoroughly loyal to their king. These pilgrim rebels wore as a badge the Five Wounds of Christ. They lit beacons all over the wolds, and rang the church bells to tell their friends of their rising. Led by a brave young lawyer named Robert Aske, they marched through Yorkshire, York and Hull opened their gates to them, and with an army of thirty thousand men they reached

Doncaster. Here they were met by the king's forces, and after some discussions, pardons were offered them. But the faithless king did not keep his word, and there was a second rising. A terrible and barbarous revenge was now taken. The king told his officers that the people Page | 20 of every rebel town, village, and hamlet were to be hanged up on the trees, and their heads were to be set up in every town. They were to do this without pity or respect. Abbots, friars, landowners—all the leaders of this religious crusade, were executed. Seventy-four rebels were hanged in Carlisle alone. Some of the finest abbeys, including the magnificent Furness Abbey in Lancashire, were now destroyed by the king's orders. Henry VIII had thus, in his cruel and heartless way, crushed out the first serious rebellion in England since the days when the Cornishmen marched to Blackheath some fifty years before. The men of the North had taken up the cause of the monks, and Cromwell and his master now decided that the larger monasteries must share the fate of the smaller. The Long Parliament had specially, spared them because of their "good conduct," Yet it was now given out that they were to be destroyed because of the "slothful and ungodly lives of the monks." Most of the, monks submitted; those who did not were accused of wickedness or treason. The brave and noble abbots of Reading, Colchester, and Glastonbury would not give in to the cruel king. They were accused of treason, and a sham trial was held. In reality they were murdered by the king and Cromwell. We can still see Cromwell's notebook, in which he had written "The Abbot of Glaston to be tried at Glaston, and to be executed there." This saintly old abbot, whose only offence was that he had obeyed his conscience, was actually tied to a hurdle and dragged past his abbey, and then beheaded on the hill near the village. Some six hundred and sixteen abbeys were handed over to the king. In lands and rents they were worth about twenty million pounds, reckoned in our money. Men hoped again that taxes would not be wanted, that the poor would be provided for, and that new schools and bishoprics would be founded. The Navy was indeed strengthened, and half a dozen new bishoprics were founded. But, as before, most of the wealth went to the king and his courtiers, and new nobles and landlords grew fat on the property of the monasteries. Such men would take care that the English Reformation should never be undone. The thirty-one mitred abbots no longer sat in the House of Lords, and for the first time the other nobles had a majority in that House. And this was the end of the monastic system in England. There is scarcely a town or village in this land where we cannot still find traces and sometimes beautiful remains of the splendid abbeys of the Middle Ages. The monasteries had done a great work in the land. The destruction of the larger abbeys was one of the blackest deeds in this cruel reign, and many noble men and women were made to suffer terrible hardships through no fault of their own.

On account of Henry's treatment of the Church, the Pope expected that France, Scotland and the Emperor would combine to attack England. The terrible Henry replied to the Pope by destroying the family and relatives of the man who was trying hard to bring about this European invasion. This was Cardinal Pole, once Henry's friend and now his bitterest foe. Pole's aged mother, the Countess of Salisbury, was thrown into prison, Page | 21 and two years later she was beheaded without a trial—perhaps the most wicked and cruel crime of this reign. The king also beheaded Anne Boleyn, the mother of Elizabeth, and the very next day he married Jane Seymour. Jane died soon after the birth of her son, Prince Edward. Cromwell then persuaded Henry to marry a German princess, Anne of Cleves, who was a follower of Luther. The famous artist, Holbein, had painted a flattering picture of her, but Henry disliked her from the first, and soon got her to retire. Although Cromwell had only just been made Earl of Essex for getting rid of the abbeys, he was now condemned for treason and heresy. The king had him executed without a trial—in the same way as others had been executed. Both at the beginning and the end of Henry's reign there was war with France and Scotland. His most successful martial achievement was the invasion of France in 1512, when he routed the French cavalry at the Battle of Spurs. That was in his young days, when he took great delight in manly and warlike exercises. He was then fond of tennis and archery and skilled in the use of the sword; armour that he wore is still in existence. Scotland was humbled at the Battle of Flodden. The French king later tried to secure the friendship of Henry, but the famous meeting between the two kings at the gorgeous Field of the Cloth of Gold came to nothing. It is to Henry's credit that throughout his reign he kept England free from the horrors of civil war and from foreign invasion—at a time, too, when there was very real danger of both. This had a beneficial effect on the trade of the country, and in spite of his many acts of cruelty, Henry retained his popularity to the end of his days. But Henry's reign was very wasteful. It is said that he took more money from the realm than all his predecessors on the throne. He plundered no less than six hundred monasteries, ninety guilds, and one hundred and ten hospitals. He took pensions from France, he issued coins which were not up to standard value, and he made poor men suffer thereby. He raised forced loans and made men pay "free-will offerings" or benevolences; and yet he was always in want of money. We may all agree with a great historian that Henry VIII was a man of iron will and determined purpose, and a man who would have been infinitely greater and better and more fortunate if he would have lived for his people and not for himself. That he was able to retain the respect of his people, and even the love of many of them, was due to the fact that in a great measure he was like themselves—free, open, and merry, with a hearty friendly manner towards rich and poor alike.

"The habits of all classes," says Froude (a famous modern writer on this period), "were open, free, and liberal. We read of 'merrie England' of these days and of the glory of hospitality, by the rules of which all tables, from the table of the freeholder to the table of the baron's hall and abbey refectory, were open at dinner-hour to all comers, without constraint or reserve. To every man according to his degree there was free beer Page | 22 and free lodging; bread, beef, and beer for his dinner; for his lodging perhaps only a mat of rushes in a spare corner of the hall, with a billet of wood for a pillow, but freely offered and freely given; the guest probably fared much as his host fared, neither worse nor better. There was little fear of abuse of such license; for any man found at large, and unable to give a sufficient account of him, there were the ever-ready parish stocks or town gaol. "The hour of rising, winter and summer, was four o'clock, with breakfast at five. In the country every unknown face was challenged and examined; if the account given was insufficient, he was brought before the justice. Thieves were then hanged so fast, Sir Thomas More tells us, that there were sometimes twenty on one gibbet. If the village shop-keeper sold bad wares, if the village cobbler made 'unhonest' shoes, if servants and masters quarreled, all used to be looked after by the justice. At twelve the country gentleman, the justice of the peace, dined; after dinner he went hunting, or to his farm." Throughout all the changes of this and the succeeding reigns the country gentleman remained a power in the land. It was he who chiefly benefited from the material destruction wrought by the Reformation. Some of the old abbeys, in the hands of their new owners, were transformed into luxurious mansions. While the Reformers pulled down Gothic churches and monasteries, the country gentlemen built palatial houses for themselves in a new style derived from Italy.

------xxxxxxx------

5. The Protestant Edward VI, the Catholic Queen Mary and Edward VI Page | 23 EDWARD VI was only nine when his father, Henry VIII, died, and the story of his six years' reign is a story of disorder and misrule. But it was not the boy's fault; he was like clay in the hands of his ministers. His father had appointed him, in his will, a council of advisers, in which men of moderate views evenly balanced the extreme men. Unfortunately, there was not a single man strong and wise enough to rule the country in such difficult times. For the first three years of the reign, Edward's uncle, Hertford, now created Duke of Somerset, managed to get the lead. In this short time he ruined the of attempts made by Edward's father and grandfather to bring Scotland closer to England, and he went to war with France. In 1549 there was in the West a great rising against the imposition of the new religion; this rising was put down with the utmost barbarity. After Somerset's fall, Warwick, Duke of Northumberland, took his place, and intrigued to get his own daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey, recognised as the young king's successor. She was Edward's cousin, and being Lady Jane very fond of Lady Jane, he was persuaded to give his consent to settle the crown on her. Somerset was at least a sincere Protestant, and he had real sympathy with the poor, though he was a weak but not a cowardly man. Of Northumberland it is difficult to say anything that is good. Under both men the real power was in the hands of a set of grasping, selfish, hard-hearted nobles, who "embezzled, plotted, and misgoverned" while pretending to reform the Church and to found a purer religion. As soon as the late king's strong hand was removed, a crowd of foreign Protestant teachers burst into the country. The robber nobles, who formed the Government, took advantage of the turmoil, and proceeded to rob the Church still further. Another reign of terror began. The, young king was fond of learning and of study, and his teachers had made him a strong and sincere Protestant. But he was not able to restrain his wicked nobles, who spoiled the churches while pretending to reform religion. A royal visitation of all churches was ordered in 1547, with the object of eradicating all Catholic usages. Processions were forbidden; new communion tables of wood were set up instead of the old stone altars. Images and pictures and precious manuscripts were destroyed; the plate and valuables of the churches were looted. Beautiful old painted windows, which could never be replaced, were smashed. The people naturally hated all this destruction of what they regarded as sacred and precious relics, which their forefathers had loved. Many of the treasures in the parish churches had been made by their ancestors' own hands, for they had loved to work for and adorn

the churches in which they worshipped. Almost every church, large or small, lost some treasure in the great pillage of Edward VI's reign. But that was not all. The property of hospitals was taken away from them, and even the guilds were robbed. These guilds were clubs for self-help, to which artisans and Page | 24 other workers paid their savings, so that they and their families might not be left without help when sickness or death or other troubles overtook them. Henry VIII had destroyed the monks, the friends of the poor and needy, and now Edward VI's robber nobles took away the funds of the people's mutual help societies. The Protestant religious teachers of the time were sincere and well-meaning men, but the actual men who carried out whop these violent changes were nothing but greedy rogues. "Thousands became gospellers for the sake of the Church lands," said Latimer, the greatest of the Protestant Reformers, who did not hesitate to denounce the Government. In one of his sermons Latimer told the Court that "we of the clergy had too much, but now we have too little. Schools are not maintained, the preaching office decays. The gentry take the profits of the Church, and benefices (church livings) are given to servants for keeping of hawks, hounds, and horses. The clergy are forced to put themselves into gentlemen's houses and serve as clerks of kitchens, surveyors, or receivers of rents." The whole country was in a wretched state. The violent changes, not only in religion but also in village farming, were upsetting home-life everywhere. Enclosures of village lands and of commons had been going on at a rapid rate, and many tenants had been turned out, and many of the new landlords were harsher than the old easy-going abbots. "Sheep," as More had written, "which are naturally mild and easily kept in order, may be said to devour men and unpeople not only villages but towns." For sheep- farming needed fewer labourers to see after the sheep on the pasture-land than did the ploughing, the sowing, and the harvesting when it was arable or plough land. Labourers lost their work, because there was more competition for work now when there was less of it, and wages fell. Yet the price of food and necessaries kept on rising. No wonder the country was full of sturdy beggars or vagabonds. These went on increasing in numbers in spite of the terrible penalties which were now imposed upon them. Any person found loitering for three days was to be branded with a "V" (for vagabond) on his breast. The man who found him loitering might have him for a slave and keep him on bread and water and broken meat. If the slave attempted to run away, then he was to be branded with an "S" on his cheek and forehead, to show that he was a slave for ever. Bishop Latimer, in another of his outspoken sermons, told the landlords and rent-raisers that poor men, who lived on their labour, could not with the sweat of their brows get a living. All kinds of victuals were very dear—pigs, geese, capons, chickens, and eggs. Not only were the clergy poor, not only did the agricultural labourers suffer, but the yeomen farmers, the sturdiest class in the country, found themselves equally badly off.

"My father was a yeoman," said Latimer, "and had no lands of his own. He had only a farm rented at three or four pounds a year at the utmost, and of his farm he tilled so much as kept half a dozen men. He had a walk for a hundred sheep, and my mother milked thirty kine. He was able to find the king harness for himself and his horses, and I can remember that I buckled on his harness when he went to Blackheath Field. He kept Page | 25 me at school, or else I should not have been able to preach before the king's majesty now. He kept hospitality for his poorer neighbours, and some alms he gave to the poor. All this he did on the said farm. Whereas, he that now has it pays sixteen pounds or more each year for rent. He is not able to do anything for his king, for himself, nor for his children, or give a cup of drink to the poor." Such was Latimer's account of his own father's farm and of the poor condition of the farmer who came after his father. An important measure carried out by the Protestants under Edward VI was the introduction of a new Church service-book in the English language for national use. Edward VI's first Prayer Book was issued in 1549. An Act of Uniformity to enforce its use was also passed by Parliament, which suppressed the Latin Mass book of old and ordered that there should be a uniform Church service in English throughout the land. But all these rapid changes only served to upset the people, who had for many years been also suffering from poverty and misery; and there were rebellions during this reign both in the South-West and in the East of England. The rising in Norfolk was by far the most serious. Gentlemen were even hanged under the "Oak of Reformation," on Mousehold Hill at Norwich, for the wrongs they had done to the people, that is, for enclosing villages and commons. The revolt was headed by Robert Ket, a farmer and banker of Wymondham, who called himself King of Norfolk and Suffolk. Ket and his followers seized Norwich, but it was not long before the Earl of Warwick suppressed the rising, and Ket might be seen hanging in chains from Norwich Castle. The Earl of Warwick, soon to be the Duke of Northumberland, after this took the first place in the King's Council". The boy king had been ailing for some time he had been brought up in the new Protestant' doctrines and remained in that belief till his death in his sixteenth year. The rule of the Protestant nobles had ended in disgrace. The sweeping changes imposed upon the people in regard to their religion, the dissolution of the monasteries and confiscation of the religious endowments of the craft-gilds, aggravated the violent social upheaval already in progress, due to changes in village farming through enclosure and the conversion of arable land into pasture. After the death of the young king, the selfish Duke of Northumberland tried to make Lady Jane Grey queen—she was the granddaughter of Henry VIII's sister Mary and she had married the duke's son. She was a charming, gentle, and clever woman, fond of books and study, and she did not desire the crown thus forced upon her by relatives who were greedy for power. For her own part, she had no wish to live any other life but that of a peaceful English gentlewoman. The people, too, refused to acknowledge her,

and rallied round the Princess Mary, the eldest daughter of Henry VIII. "The Lady Mary hath a better title," said the Londoners, and the duke's scheme failed. ------xxxxxxx------

Page | 26

6. Queen Elizabeth, Mary Queen of Scots and the National Church

Page | 27 “FEW rulers,” it has been said, "ever ascended a throne better prepared for her task than did Elizabeth." Like the nation, she had suffered deeply. She had certainly been in danger of execution for a time, and had been under restraint more or less stringent throughout Mary's reign; during this period she had outwardly conformed to the Catholic religion, whatever her private opinions might have been. She had learnt to depend on no one but herself. She loved England as she loved nothing else in the world beside herself, and she was resolved to make her country great and flourishing. But she was called to no easy task this November morning in 1558. Never had England been in greater trouble than when Elizabeth mounted the throne. Here is an account of the country at this time: "The queen poor; the realm exhausted; the nobles poor and decayed; good captains and soldiers wanting; the people out of order; justice not executed; all things dear: division among ourselves; war with France and Scotland; the French king bestriding the realm, having one foot in Scotland and the other on Calais." England's hope lay in the new queen. The people had watched her growing in their midst from childhood to womanhood. Her twenty-fifth birthday had just passed. They knew her to be "a bold horsewoman, a good shot, a graceful dancer, a skilled musician, and an accomplished scholar." She at once showed her wisdom by appointing Sir William Cecil her chief minister. He belonged to an old Welsh family that had always been loyal to the Tudor monarchs, no matter what their religion might be. He himself had served under the new queen's father, Henry VIII, her, brother Edward, and her sister Mary. "This judgment I have of you, that you will not be corrupted with any manner of gifts; that you will be faithful to the State; that without respect of any private will, you will give me that counsel that you think best." In these words the new queen addressed her minister, who indeed served her right well for the next forty years. And it is interesting to remember that a descendant of this very Cecil, Lord Salisbury, served Queen Victoria, some three hundred years later, for an even longer term of years. Elizabeth realized that she must destroy a great deal of Mary's work and build up much that she had destroyed. Her coronation took place at Westminster on Sunday, January 15th, and thus the first Protestant Queen of England commenced her reign. Very gradually Elizabeth began to introduce those changes that govern the public worship of England to-day. Before the first year of The Church made her reign was over, the Act of Uniformity was passed in order to keep the Church services uniform. It ordered all to use the new Prayer Book of Edward VI, as revised by a small body of

Protestants at Elizabeth's request. An Act of Supremacy was also passed, and in this Elizabeth took the title of "Governor" instead of "Supreme Head" of the Church, but she insisted on keeping the management of Church affairs in her own hands. Those who offered objections she answered loftily: "I will do as my father did."

Page | 28 In the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker, she had a tower of strength. Bishops, driven abroad during the reign of Mary, returned home. Eleven Catholic bishops were deprived of their sees and imprisoned, and their sees filled by Protestant bishops. The sudden death of the King of France had set Mary of Scotland and her husband Francis II on the French throne, and the new Queen of France assumed the royal arms of England. Elizabeth sent to object, but the answer was that "the Queen of Scotland bore those arms as the descendant of Margaret Tudor, her grandmother, the eldest daughter of Henry VII." Elizabeth herself bore, amid other titles, that of "Queen of France," and Mary urged that the French arms should be taken off the English shield, and the title dropped, if the royal arms of England were to be given up by her. Twelve sovereigns of England have borne the arms and style of France," replied Elizabeth proudly, "and I will not resign them" And so began the life-long quarrel between Elizabeth and her cousin Mary. During the absence in France of Mary Queen of Scots, her mother had been acting regent in Scotland, and had been collecting French troops for the protection of the realm. This reached the ears of Elizabeth, and she at once sent ships to Berwick with troops in case of possible invasion. The French army was besieged in Leith. The Treaty of Edinburgh was the result. By it, all French troops were withdrawn from Scotland and a council of twelve nobles, partly appointed by Elizabeth, were to carry on the government. It was also decided that "since the kingdoms of England and Ireland rightly belonged to the serene Elizabeth," therefore the King and Queen of France should not use the title or arms of England. But everything was changed when the King of France died, and soon after Mary returned to her own kingdom in Scotland. Mary's grief at leaving France was pitiful. She was to sail from Calais to Leith to avoid risks of capture from English ships. At the sight of the ships at Calais ready to take her away from France, she burst into tears. Indeed, all those present were weeping as she stepped on board, accompanied by her four Marys, who had attended her to France twelve years before. The sails were set and the galley was getting out to sea, when Mary cried through her tears: "Adieu, France! Beloved France, adieu!" The breeze died away, "the weary rowers slumbered on their oars." Mary had cried herself to sleep, begging to be awakened before the shores of the land she loved had faded quite away. As daylight dawned they wakened her, and looking out over the summer sea, she cried once more: "It is past. Farewell! Farewell to France, beloved land which I shall behold no more!" The English fleet was on her track, but a thick fog protected her little ship, and after a dangerous voyage of four days, Mary landed in Scotland early one morning in the

summer of 1561. She had left her home as a happy little queen of six years old. She returned to her kingdom, after twelve years, a childless widow, alone, unprotected. During these twelve years of Mary's absence, the Reformation, which had made itself felt in other countries, had taken strong hold in Scotland. The great leader of the Page | 29 Protestant party in that country was John Knox, a stern and unbending Reformer. Mary, the queen, was a staunch Roman Catholic. Though she put up with the Psalm-singing of Knox's choir under her windows at Holyrood for the first three nights after her arrival, it was impossible that she and Knox should ever really agree. She tried to get rid of him by bringing an accusation of treason against him, but Knox was acquitted. The realm of Scotland now passed through an unhappy time. Mary married her young Roman Catholic cousin, Lord Darnley; both Elizabeth and Knox strongly objected. Before long, Darnley became jealous of Mary's secretary, Rizzio, and the secretary was murdered in the presence of the queen and her husband. Three months after this tragedy, a son was born to Mary and Darnley—destined to be King James VI of Scotland and James I of England. But even the arrival of a fair son did not bring the unhappy couple together. Now comes a terrible tragedy which will ever remain a blot on the history of Scotland. Eleven months after the murder of Rizzio, Darnley himself was found murdered in a building outside Edinburgh. The whole world was horrified, and it was not less horrified when, two months later, Mary became the wife of Bothwell, who was regarded as the murderer of her late husband and the "foulest ruffian among her subjects.'' A shudder ran through the whole country and the Scottish nobles turned against her. The Scottish Reformers were determined that Mary should resign the crown, on which she had brought such disgrace. She had her choice between that or death, and thus she was forced to give up the throne in favour of her infant son. So the baby prince was crowned James VI of Scotland, when little over a year old. He was taken to Stirling Castle to be educated, while Mary's half-brother, Murray, acted as regent. Mary escaped from Lochleven Castle, where she had been imprisoned; then followed the defeat of her troops by the Regent Murray at Langside and her flight into England. A pitiful letter from her found its way to Elizabeth: "I entreat you to send for me as soon as possible," she wrote, "for I am in a pitiable condition, not only for a queen, but even for a gentlewoman, having nothing in the world but the clothes in which I escaped, riding sixty miles the first day . . . Have compassion on my great misfortunes and permit me to come to you. Your very faithful and affectionate good sister and cousin and escaped prisoner, Marie, Queen." Elizabeth had a difficult part to play. She was sorry for the hapless plight of her royal kinswoman. But she was most anxious she should be closely guarded in Carlisle Castle, and not allowed to escape a second time. From Carlisle, Elizabeth had her removed to Bolton Castle, in Yorkshire. Though she was allowed a household of her

own, she was strongly guarded by Elizabeth's orders. Mary was now but twenty-seven. She never had her freedom again. ------xxxxxxx------

Page | 30

7. The Spanish Armada

Page | 31 PHILIP of Spain continued his preparations for invading England. He felt that the conquest of Elizabeth's kingdom would enable him to complete his triumph over the obstinate people of the Netherlands. His warlike plans were known to all. Plots for murdering Elizabeth and placing Mary Queen of Scots on the English throne were discovered. This brings us to the last chapter in the life of the unfortunate Queen of Scots, who never lived to see the disastrous end of Philip's ambition. Mary had been moved from castle to castle. The cold bleak air of one of these, Sheffield Castle, told on her health and she suffered great pain from acute rheumatism. To the end of her life she remained stiff and lame from rheumatic pains. She had been continually begging Elizabeth to grant her freedom, yet all the time she was corresponding somehow with her Catholic friend the Duke of Norfolk, in order to effect her escape from her long imprisonment. The Duke of Norfolk was now executed. Mary was accused of plotting against Elizabeth. The rest of the story is soon told. Mary was tried in the great hall of Fotheringay Castle, declared guilty, and executed. A very outburst of horror at the deed arose over Europe.

PREPARATIONS FOR THE INVASION

Philip of Spain pushed on his preparations for the conquest of England. Not only did he wish to overthrow Elizabeth and suppress the Protestant religion in England, but also to put an end to English smuggling and interference in Spanish America and to stay the hands of Englishmen in the Netherlands. This England seemed to him to be "going ahead" too fast. A new energy was arising, and Englishmen were exploring outside their island-home for the first time in history. On this new energy Spain looked with a jealous eye. Spain was supreme by land and sea—the greatest force in Europe at this time. Philip was anxious to keep up his unequalled position and maintain the Catholic religion throughout the world. The news of coming invasion started off Drake on a new enterprise. With some twenty-five ships supplied by merchant adventurers, and four supplied by the queen herself, he went off in 1587 to divide the gathering fleet of Spain and if possible to stop the supply of food. Elizabeth had given her consent. But hardly had Drake passed out of Plymouth harbour than she repented having allowed such a vigorous pirate as Drake to

make war on Philip in his own waters. It was too late—Drake was already hurrying to Cadiz—where he found Spanish preparation already well-advanced. "The like preparation was never heard of, nor known, as the King of Spain hath to invade England. His provisions of bread and wines are so great as will suffice forty Page | 32 thousand men a whole year," he wrote home. The English sea-rover was soon at his old work, and his exploits in Cadiz harbour made the world ring with admiration of his daring. He sank great Spanish galleons; he burnt large vessels laden with biscuits, wheat, and wine; he created terror among the Spanish seamen and discovered for his country the strength of the foe. "I have singed the King of Spain's beard," he said on his return home. He had done more than this. He had stimulated the Spanish to still greater effort for the overthrow of England. Philip was now irritated beyond endurance, and he put out all his strength to accomplish his life's desire and defeat England. While his ships were getting ready to sail, let us see how England was preparing for this great ordeal. The hundred "beef-eaters" and Yeomen of the Guard at court formed the only standing army in England paid by the crown at this time. The very year before Elizabeth's accession, Philip and Mary had created a lord-lieutenant in every county in England. It was the duty of this magnate to choose officers for his county, to decide on the number of able-bodied men to be supplied by each parish, and to take command of the militia, as it was called, in case of war. To-day, the Territorials are under the lord- lieutenant of each county. The men as a rule volunteered when danger was at hand, but the full number had to be made up by compulsion. When formed, the troops were divided into "bands" of about two hundred men under a captain. Later on, these were formed into, "regiments." The men had no regular uniform—the only feature common to all was the red St. George's Cross worn on their jackets. For the past eight years the regular militia had been trained in the use of fire- arms—bows and arrows were fast disappearing, though pikes and halberds were still carried. The English volunteers had learnt the art of was in France, Flanders, and Ireland, where military schools had been formed, and the volunteers had drilled the, sons of knights and squires at home. Thus it was, when the long-talked-of peril was near, a hundred thousand armed men sprang into being at a few days' notice. "How many men and ships must we provide? asked the City of London. "Five thousand men and fifteen ships" was the answer. At the end of two days double this number, ten thousand men, and thirty ships, were placed at the queen's disposal. Such was the loyal feeling of Elizabeth's people in the face of danger.

The queen herself reviewed her land forces. The troops assembled at Tilbury in great spirits, longing to fight the Spaniards. Mounted on a war-horse, in a breast-plate of glittering steel, with a general's truncheon in her hand, "Elizabeth rode bare-headed through the ranks. She was greeted with thunders of applause—a just reward for her courage, for those in authority had begged her not to appear in public at this critical Page | 33 hour. "My loving people," she cried, let tyrants' fear! I have always so behaved myself, that under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and goodwill of my subjects. Therefore; I am come amongst you at this time, . . . for I am resolved, in the midst of heat and battle, to live or die amongst you all; to lay down for my God and for my kingdom and for my people, my honour and my blood even in the dust. I know that I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart of a king and a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Spain . . . should dare to invade the borders of my realm. Rather than any dishonour to the kingdom should come by me, I myself will take up arms. I myself will be your general, the judge and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. . . . I do not doubt but by your obedience to my general and your valour in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over the enemies of my God, of my kingdom and of my people." But the land forces had nothing to do, for already the ships of England had dispersed the "Invincible Armada." Elizabeth's "sea-dogs" had done the work and driven the Spanish ships to destruction. They were men trained in the rough school of Hawkins and Drake, such as Frobisher, Raleigh, Grenville, men with reckless daring and genuine seaman's skill. England had no proper navy at this time. Elizabeth owned thirty-four ships of varying sizes and shapes, but these were in bad repair and she always grudged spending money on them. Indeed, she was so mean and indifferent over her sailors, that she was actually trying to reduce her naval expenses by giving her seamen fish, oil, and peas, instead of meat, when, her very country was in danger! At last delay was no longer possible. Every ship fit for service was hastily manned. Merchants came forward with their little craft ready to bear all expenses themselves in a very outburst of patriotism. Supplies were hastily issued, and a very mixed little English fleet of some two hundred ships got ready to meet the greatest fleet in the world that had ever put to sea. But the English ships were manned by men of grit and power—men trained on the sea, schooled in storm and tempest, hardened by want and endurance. As a builder of ships, Hawkins had no equal; for skill in seamanship none could touch Sir Francis Drake. The whole fleet was under the command of Lord Howard; Sir John Hawkins commanded the Victory, Sir Martin Frobisher the Triumph—Drake as vice-admiral was on the Revenge. In the hands of these men lay the safety of England.

HOW THE ARMADA WAS DEFEATED

Meanwhile the great Spanish Armada had sailed at last from the harbour with a light wind, the sun shining on the numerous sails and lighting up the red crosses. Every seaman, officer and soldier had been through a solemn service before joining the fleet. But Philip's hopes that the English Catholics would help his cause were doomed to disappointment, for Catholics and Protestants alike came forward to resist the invader. Page | 34 The whole of the great Spanish fleet was under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia. He had in vain assured his king that he knew nothing about the sea and nothing of war. Bad weather and the clumsiness of the great ships delayed the fleet. Three weeks were spent in passing from Lisbon to Cape Finisterre, and it was not till, Friday evening, July 19th, that they sighted Lizard Point in Cornwall. They intended to take possession of England on the morrow. But they had already been sighted by a Cornish fishing-boat, and report of the enemy's approach soon reached Plymouth. It is said when the news arrived the English admiral was playing bowls at Plymouth Hoe with his captains. Lord Howard would have started off at once, for he knew the English ships were all riding at anchor in ports along the English Channel at the mercy of the foe. But Drake refused to be hurried. "There is time to finish the game first and beat the Spaniards afterwards," said Drake. So the famous game was finished and then the old sea captains got to their work in good earnest. There was no sleep in England that Friday night. Bonfires were lit all- round the coast, ports and harbours filled rapidly with armed men, bells rang out, and horsemen gathered in the villages, swift messengers flew from point to point. By daybreak on Saturday everything was ready. But the Spanish fleet did not come into sight till three o'clock that afternoon. To English eyes it looked like a vast array of floating castles arranged in the form of a crescent or half-moon, the horns of which were some seven miles apart. It approached "very slowly, though with full sails, the winds being, as it were, weary with wafting them and the ocean groaning under their weight." The Spaniards soon found that they had been seen and there was no chance of surprising Plymouth, as they had intended. So they resolved to make their way to the Isle of Wight and effect a landing there. Howard allowed them to get within sight of Plymouth. Then on Sunday morning he hoisted sail and led his sixty or seventy ships to the rear of the great Armada. The first shot was fired, and soon Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher were sailing round the outskirts of the unwieldy Spanish galleons, firing into them and inflicting injury, while the Spanish guns from high decks fired over their heads. For six hours that Sunday afternoon fighting continued and by three o'clock the invaders were in great confusion. On Monday the high-towered galleons moved onward, "like Thames barges piled with

hay." The low English ships, sailing double the pace, again harried them and shot away, as if by magic, before the wind. On Tuesday the Armada had reached St. Alban's Head (Dorsetshire). A famous crowd of Elizabeth's courtiers, including Sir Walter Raleigh, had hurried to the coast. Page | 35 They sailed out, into the Channel to help the English fleet in their work of skirmishing and harrying the rear of the Spanish fleet. By Thursday the Armada was off the Isle of Wight and there was some sharp fighting, which forced the Spanish flagship to retreat. Thence the two fleets passed onwards quietly along the coast of Sussex to Boulogne. To the Prince of Parma, who was waiting with troops on the coast of the Netherlands to join him, the poor Duke of Medina Sidonia wrote: "The enemy pursue me. They fire upon me most days from morning till nightfall. They have men and ammunition in abundance. I must request your Excellency to send me two shiploads of shot and powder immediately. I am in urgent need of it." On Saturday the 27th the wind rose the Spanish admiral knew nothing of our dangerous coast and decided to anchor in the Calais Roads. Amid squalls and driving showers from the west, the Armada ran across to the French coast. The English followed, but they were not yet strong enough to attack. The captains held a council of war—the fate of England depended on their verdict. "Considering their hugeness," said one, "'twill not be possible to remove them but by a device." This device was to drive the Spanish Armada out to sea by means of fireships. Some said it was Queen Elizabeth's own idea. Anyhow, some old ships were filled with gunpowder, pitch, and brimstone and their masts were smeared with pitch. They were then conducted near to Calais and at a given signal they were set on fire. The wind was rising, rain pelted down, and in black darkness the fierce south-wester blew the blazing fireships into the centre of the crescent fleet of Spain. "Cut your cables! Get up your anchors!" shouted the captains of the Spanish ships in an agony of fear. With sails set, amid confusion and panic, the Spanish ships were driven out by wind and tide into the angry sea of Ostend. "God hath given us so good a day in forcing the enemy so far to leeward," wrote Drake hurriedly. "God bless her Majesty, our gracious sovereign. This day's service hath much appalled the enemy." This was Sunday night. The Spaniards had suffered a severe loss in the Capitana, "the very glory and stay of the Spanish navy." Then on Monday, July 29th, they were attacked off Gravelines by the English fleet led by Drake in the Revenge. The fighting of this day decided the fate of the Armada. The battle began at nine in the morning, while the enemies were struggling to regain their crescent form in a strong north-west wind and a heavy tide. All through that summer day firing went on. Spanish guns, which were worked on high rolling platforms by soldiers unused to the sea, sent their shot into the air or

into the water, while the little English ships poured into the great galleons a continuous rain of shot. For six long hours they fought, until the English reported that "the last cartridge was spent and every man was weary with labour." Every Spanish ship received its share of injury; three great vessels were hopelessly wrecked. Drake thought that five thousand at least must have perished by gunshot or drowning. Page | 36 Still "their force is wonderful great and strong," wrote the admiral, "but we pluck their feathers by little and little." The Spaniards themselves were now hopeless. With sails torn and masts shot away, the once crowded ships were helpless. The Duke of Medina Sidonia was in despair. "We are lost," he cried to one of the bravest captains. "What are we to do?" "Let others talk of being lost," was the courageous answer. "Your Excellency has only to order up fresh cartridges." But a council of war decided to hurry the Armada back to Spain by the north of Scotland, for the wind was against their return by the Channel, neither did they care to encounter the English again. So the Armada sped northward in full sail. "Notwithstanding that powder and shot was well near all spent," said Howard, "we set on a brave countenance and gave them chase." The chase lasted from Monday to Friday. "We have the army of Spain before us," wrote Drake on the Wednesday. "There was never anything pleased me better than seeing the enemy flying with a southerly wind to the northwards." Driven onwards by a strong wind, the English ships sped on after the Spaniards, right up through the wild North Sea, till they reached the Firth of Forth. But the work of destruction was reserved for a mightier foe than Drake. No sooner had he given up the chase owing to want of food and powder, than a violent storm arose, "more violent than was ever seen before at that time of the year." Among the lonely Orkneys, the storms of the northern seas broke on the flying Armada like a fury. Amid driving squalls of wind and rain, the Spaniards at last guided their shattered ships to the great rollers of the Atlantic, only to meet greater perils on the Irish coast. They had no pilot to warn them of the dangers of the way and the wind blew them hither and thither. Some eight thousand men perished off the Giant's Causeway in the north of Ireland, and many a stout galleon was dashed to pieces. At last some fifty battered ships reached Spain out of the hundred and thirty-two that had started. They had ten thousand sick and stricken men out of the thirty thousand that had left her shores for the conquest of England some months before. And it is not surprising to hear that Philip of Spain shut himself up in his royal palace near Madrid, and "no one dared to speak to him." Coins and medals were now struck to commemorate the victory. In November a great thanksgiving service was held at St. Paul's, which was attended by the queen in full state. She was taken through the streets seated in a triumphal car with a canopy over it

in the shape of a crown on four pillars, in front of which stood a lion and dragon supporting the arms of England. The chariot was drawn by two milk-white horses. "Thou didst blow with Thy winds and they were scattered," preached the Bishop of Salisbury at St. Paul's. A more suitable text could hardly have been chosen, and it was Page | 37 inscribed on many of the medals issued after the Armada. Though the Armada had failed, the spirit of Philip was unbroken. After the first outburst of grief, he was making fresh preparations for action. "It is not honourable for her Majesty to seem to be in any fear of the King of Spain," said the people, and expedition after expedition left England to seize treasure, and pillage the Spaniards, wherever they might be. Some were successful and some failed, but Elizabeth's "sea- dogs "were not to be daunted.

------xxxxxxx------

8. Queen Elizabeth's Sailors after the Armada

Page | 38 IT would take too long to tell of all the Spanish treasure that found its way into English harbours, and of all the adventures that befell the Elizabethan explorers. But one story must be told, as it has come to us from the pen of Sir Walter Raleigh. It has been made the subject of a poem by Lord Tennyson, called the "The Revenge—a Ballad of the Fleet," and this tells us in beautiful verse of the daring seamanship of Englishmen under the Tudors. It was three years after the defeat of the Armada when Sir Thomas Howard and Sir Richard Grenville started off on a private enterprise to seize the West Indian fleet returning to Spain with its treasure. The queen had encouraged the enterprise by finding seven ships, and Sir Walter Raleigh had fitted out one; so the little fleet left Plymouth in the spring of 1591 bound for the West Indies. Hearing of the plan, King Philip sent out a large fleet of fifty sail to conduct the treasure ship safely home and defeat the English pirates. And so it fell out one day that when Howard was cruising about among the West India Islands, a Spanish fleet bore down on the little English ships. Being totally unprepared for battle, Howard sailed away. But somehow Grenville did not set off in time and the fifty great ships sailed towards him. It was too late to escape and soon the Spanish ships were close, and they were about three times as large as the Revenge. Sir Richard refused to turn from the enemy, for he felt that he would rather die than dishonour himself, his country and her Majesty's ship. He thought he could fight his way through the fleet, and— "The little Revenge ran on sheer into the heart of the foe, With her hundred fighters on deck and her ninety sick below." (noindent) But the Spanish ships closed round the Revenge. Sir Richard with his handful of men fought hand-to-hand for their lives, as even Englishmen had rarely fought before. The fight, which had begun at three in the afternoon, did not end till daybreak. "And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the summer sea, But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty-three. Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons came; Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-thunder and flame; Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and her shame, For some were sunk and many were shatter'd, and so could fight us no more God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before?"

"Fight on! Fight on!" cried Sir Richard, though he had been badly wounded and was in great pain. "All the powder to the lash barrel was now spent, all the pikes broken, forty of the best men slain and most of the rest hurt," says Sir Walter Raleigh. They had fought for fifteen hours and could fight no more. And— "Sir Richard cried in his English pride, Page | 39 'We have fought such a fight for a day and a night As may never be fought again! We have won great glory, my men! And a day less or more At sea or ashore, We die—does it matter when? Sink me the ship, master gunner—sink her, split her in twain! Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of Spain!'" But the men had wives and children at home, and they would not let the gunner sink the ship. Sir Richard lay dying, and they carried him on board one of the Spanish galleons. The Spanish Admiral treated him with every care and courtesy, and did all that was possible to soothe his sufferings. "And they praised him to his face with their courtly foreign grace; But he rose upon their decks, and he cried: 'I have fought for queen and faith like a valiant man and true; I have only done my duty as a man is bound to do: With a joyful spirit I, Sir Richard Grenville, die! And he fell upon their decks and he died." "All England was soon ringing with this story. Sir Richard Grenville was dead—he had lost the fight, lost his men, lost his ship, lost his very life. But he had gained such glory for England, for England's ships, for England's seamen, as the world had never seen before. It is said that the action of this one little English ship struck a deeper terror into the hearts of the Spaniards than even the destruction of the Armada itself." The Revenge had gone down in a terrific storm that broke over the Western Isles before she could be taken into port, and as the Revenge sank "she seemed to summon Drake to his doom." She was the most famous ship in all England's navy, and on her model all new ships had been based. She had been given and commanded by Drake, who was now longing to punish the Spaniards for her loss. It was known that Philip was preparing a new Armada, and the queen did not like to allow Drake to go far away from England. But at last she gave leave: so Drake and Hawkins started off on a joint venture to capture a disabled Spanish treasure ship of enormous value lying at Puerto Rico. It was to be their last voyage. The enemy was again prepared. The expedition failed and Hawkins, now an old man of seventy-five, died of "combined disease and grief." Drake only lived eleven weeks longer. Failure had come to him who had never failed before. Sickness broke out on board, and at last, broken in spirit as he was at the death of his old friend, it took hold of him. Delirium seized him. He rose from the bed

where they had laid him, and called like a "dying Viking for his arms." But they laid him down, and one January day in 1596, "as quiet as a sleeping child, the sea-king died." Elizabeth's three leading mariners, Frobisher, Drake, and Hawkins, were now all dead But Sir Walter Raleigh lived. He had loved the sea and was ready for adventure, Page | 40 but he had higher aims than these daring sea-rovers who dreamt of revenge and gold. Throughout his life Raleigh sought to plant English colonies in America. He had failed in Virginia, but he had himself since reached the Isthmus of Darien in Central American and only returned when summoned by the queen. He had fallen into disgrace by marrying secretly one of Elizabeth's maids-of-honor, for which offence he was thrown into the Tower of London. After his release, he left England to search for a city supposed to exist in South America and called El Dorado, or the golden city. This city was said to be richer than Peru, and the Spaniards had so far failed to find it. Raleigh failed too, but he discovered lands up the great Orinoco. The last expedition for his queen, in 1596, was successful. A league between England, France, and the Netherlands had been planned to withstand the power of Spain. Suddenly news ran through England that Philip had captured Calais from the French. This must be revenged and at once. An expedition was fitted out by Howard, Raleigh, and Essex to repeat Drake's exploit of "singeing the King of Spain's beard." It was the largest fleet ever prepared by England against Spain. Elizabeth contributed seventeen ships, and seventy-six were hired and volunteered. On a Sunday in June, Lord Admiral Howard, who was in command of one hundred and fifty ships, reached Cadiz and anchored quietly in the harbor, to the utter amazement of the Spaniards. Next day a great battle was fought, beginning at five in the morning. By one o'clock all was over and the Spaniards were defeated by sea. Then Essex, in command of three thousand soldiers, leapt on shore, Cadiz was taken and sacked and the English returned home victorious. "You have made me famous, dreadful, and renowned," wrote the queen to her victors, "not more for your victory than for your courage. Never was there heard in so few days so great a gain obtained. I charge you let the army know, both on sea and land, that I care not so much for being queen, as that I am queen of such subjects." With the death of Philip of Spain in 1598, all danger from that quarter was over. "I die like a good Catholic," he murmured as he lay dying, "in faith and obedience to the Holy Roman Church." He had failed either to convert or to conquer England, and his death affected but little the country over which he had once ruled as king.

------xxxxxxx------

9. Queen Elizabeth, Spenser and Shakespeare

Page | 41 REBELLION in Ireland took over one of the queen's subjects, Edmund Spenser. Another rebellion sent him back to England. During the intervening years, he wrote one of England's greatest poems, called the "Fairie Queene." He had gone to Ireland as secretary with Lord Grey, Elizabeth's new Viceroy. The misery and poverty of the Irish at once struck him. He contrasted the unhappy country with his own "merrie England," with its peace and order, its thriving homesteads, wealthy cities and contented people. When Elizabeth decided to plant English colonies in Munster, Spenser received three thousand acres in Cork. He made his home at Kilcolman Castle. The queen's viceroy grew in his mind as the image of perfect justice, and in the "Fairie Queen" he becomes the great Knight of Justice. At Kilcolman, Spenser was quietly working out his great poem, when his old friend Raleigh came to visit him in his quiet retreat. Spenser showed him the first three books of the "Fairie Queene." Raleigh at once saw its merit. He saw that the new poem was immensely better than anything that had appeared in England since the days of Chaucer, and hurried Spenser off to England. The queen must hear it, for Elizabeth was Gloriana, the "Fairie Queene "herself. Elizabeth was pleased—she allowed the poet a pension of £50 a year, and the poem was dedicated to her. The poem was received with quite a thunder of applause the silence of two hundred years had been broken and Spenser's name was on every lip. Here was a new world—a new England. Hearts were stirred by the deeds of men, the spirit of adventure was everywhere, and fearless sailors were exploring unknown seas. In the new poem men found a world of "lofty enterprise, of ceaseless labour and conflict for a great aim," yet over all reigned "an air of quietness and peace." Spenser, later on, brought three more books of his poem to England, where they were eagerly read. But a little later Kilcolman Castle was attacked during an Irish rebellion and set on fire. Though Spenser and his wife escaped to England, it is said their new-born child perished in the flames. Anyhow, three weeks later Spenser died utterly ruined and broken-hearted. But he had left his imperishable life-work behind to refresh and inspire many a tired generation—long after both he and his queen had been laid to rest in Westminster Abbey. But if the age of Elizabeth produced Spenser and his great poem, the "Fairie Queene," yet more important to the world at large were the plays of Shakespeare, which sprang into being at this time. The Elizabethans themselves had no idea what a really great man was their poor writer of plays, Shakespeare. The drama was new to them, but we know to-day that he was the greatest dramatist the world has ever seen in

any country or in any age, and that his plays are among England's most priceless possessions. Of the man himself, we know very little. He was born in 1564 at Stratford-on- Avon, but obtained his living in London as an actor and play-writer. He had little book- Page | 42 learning, "small Latin and less Greek," but he knew mankind, he understood human nature, and the art of expression. Spenser leads us into a world of dreams, with dim unreal figures passing across a shadowy stage. But Shakespeare gives us a world of real men and women; they are flesh and blood like ourselves, they have joys and sorrows and anxieties, they live and they die. The Spanish Armada had come and gone before Shakespeare wrote his first play, but he had come to London as a young man of about twenty-two, probably as an actor, a year or two before. At this time there were only two theatres in London—"Burbage's Theatre" and "The Curtain," though a little later the Globe Theatre in Southwark was built. But Elizabeth had always loved plays, and quite early in her reign we find her using her choir boys of Chapel Royal to act plays to her on Sundays. The Puritans found fault with her for this, but she tried to reform not by putting an end to plays, but by encouraging better ones. Many a time young Shakespeare must have acted in the courtyard of inns, which were used right through the reign of Elizabeth for the performance of plays. The poorest part of the audience sat or stood under the open sky in the court-yard or "pit" as it was called, while there were covered seats in the galleries running round the pit for the more wealthy onlookers. And the new theatres were made in that way. Plays began at one o'clock, they were advertised by bills in the town, while the hoisting of a flag told the people that the play was about to begin. In between the acts the audience ate apples, cracked nuts, played cards or smoked. The stage fittings were rough. Foreign countries were shown by labels, a few flowers represented a garden, heroes rode in on hobby-horses. The parts were taken by men and boys—no woman acted in the days of Queen Elizabeth. All the world was there. The stage was crowded with nobles and courtiers, while apprentices and citizens thronged the benches in the yard below. There are few more startling facts in the age of Elizabeth than this sudden rise of the English drama. The way had been prepared by others, but Shakespeare soon out- topped them. He thoroughly understood the brilliant life that had gathered round Elizabeth. It was a world of comedy, of wits, of fun and laughter. "Love's Labour Lost" was played before the queen at Christmas, 1590. A "Comedy of Errors" and the "Taming of the Shrew," which quickly followed, must have set the audiences laughing from beginning to end. In "The Midsummer-Night's Dream," Shakespeare dealt with a fairyland of his own creation. Historical plays followed, and Shakespeare's historical plays were magnificent. They were immensely popular. Their loyalty and devotion to England delighted the

patriotic subjects of the queen. Such lines as these had never been heard on any stage before:— "This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars. This other Eden, demi-paradise; Page | 43 This fortress, built by Nature for herself, Against infection and the hand of war; This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England." RICHARD II.

Then there was the famous Falstaff in "Henry IV." It is said that Queen Elizabeth was so pleased with him, that she ordered Shakespeare to write a play showing Falstaff in love, which he did in the "Merry Wives of Windsor." But as the reign drew to its close, a change came over the poet. He was only thirty-six, but he could no longer write the light comedy of his earlier days. "The outer world suddenly darkened around him." His friends passed away; Essex fell on the scaffold; some of his patrons were exiled from court. Shakespeare suffered acutely. Then he began to write tragedies; and the audiences no longer laughed and made merry over his plays. The year before the death of the queen, one of his greatest tragedies called "Hamlet" appeared. He wrote his play of "Henry VIII" after Elizabeth's death. Elizabeth was a great queen. She ruled over England during one of our most critical periods, and she brought her country successfully through its troubles. When she rode into London, a young woman of five-and twenty, to take up her duties as queen, the fortunes of the country were low. Spain was growing daily more powerful in Europe and in the New World of America. When she died forty-five years later, the power of Spain was broken, the Reformed Church was established, the New World was opened to Englishmen. It must be remembered that England was England only in those days. There were as yet no colonies. Scotland and Ireland had each its own Parliament. This was the England over which Elizabeth ruled. She never left it, and never travelled to Ireland or Scotland. Yet she delighted in the spirit of adventure that inspired the mariners of her day to sail hither and thither in search of gold and fame. She herself would wave them a last farewell; she was the first to welcome them if they ever returned. Thus did the "Queen of the Northern Seas" gather round her person devoted and faithful friends. The new awakening inspired Englishmen in every direction, but all enterprise centred round Elizabeth's court. Thither Spenser brought his "Fairie Queene," Bacon his Essays, Sir Philip Sidney his sonnets, Sir Walter Raleigh his great schemes for founding colonies.

The expeditions of Hawkins, Drake, Davis, Frobisher, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Sir Richard Grenville, Sir Walter Raleigh were all undertaken with her sanction and help. She sent Leicester to the Netherlands to help the Dutch and Essex to Ireland to enforce her rule, though both failed in the end. Before her Shakespeare acted his plays, and it was her interest and encouragement that helped to raise the drama to its height. And Page | 44 moving quietly behind the flash and pomp of Elizabeth was the stately Lord Burghley, faithful, firm, far-seeing, loving God and Queen and Country. The old statesman and faithful servant passed away, and Elizabeth could never speak of him without shedding tears. But heavy with grief though she was, she kept up her queenly splendour, and continued her wonderful progresses from country house to country house. When Elizabeth was sixty-nine and had reigned for forty-three years, she passed away—the last of the Tudors. Such was England's great queen. But what of England's people? And how did they live during these momentous years of our history? There was movement and activity everywhere, and it was a time of progress for the working classes. A growing demand for English wool gave more work to the increasing populations of the country. Waste lands were made fit for pasture, more and more sheep were reared, more and more men and women toiled in their homes to turn the home-grown wool into flannel and cloth for clothes. In various parts of England to-day there are still houses which remind us of that old cloth-weaving industry. Lavenham, in Suffolk, is famous for its quaint old cottages, in some of which the inhabitants still use the old hand-looms for the making of a kind of horse-hair cloth; but the most picturesque building in this interesting village is the hall of the Guild of Corpus Christi, where the clothiers' guild (or club) held its meetings, admitted the apprentices, regulated work, prices, and wages, and occasionally feasted together. The little homesteads of the rural workers were mostly self-contained; nearly every family grew its own corn and made its own bread, reared sheep and spun the wool into cloth, pastured cattle and made its own butter and cheese. The children all helped, for there was no schooling; they were taught and trained by their parents. As yet, there were no large towns full of shops like ours; markets were held at stalls in the open street, and it was a sign of prosperity that the townsmen were now going to the expense of building shelters at the market crosses. There were no great tall chimneys, no manufactories, and machinery to be worked by steam was not invented. There was not much encouragement to inventors, and William Lee, who invented the stocking- frame by watching the movements of his wife's fingers when knitting, had to go to Paris, where he was befriended by the French king, Henry IV. Housing was improving, but the dwellings of the people were nearly all of wood. The richer classes built fine mansions of brick and stone, of which imposing gateways and porches were always a feature. The roads were still poor and travelling difficult.

Only noblemen and very rich people could afford carriages; and it was a common sight to see two people riding the same horse, a woman being often seated behind a man on a cushion called a pillion. But the country was terribly overrun with beggars at this time, for the closing of Page | 45 the monasteries, and the ever-increasing practice of sheep farming in place of corn growing, had caused many men to be turned adrift. Elizabeth passed some famous Poor Laws, which have remained in force for several hundred years. Those who could work, but would not work, were punished by being beaten with whips, and sent back to their native village, "there to put themselves to labour as true men ought to do." Every parish was thus forced to support and maintain its own "paupers," as these people were called, and the workhouse system grew up in our midst. So we see that the "Merrie England" of Elizabeth had its darker side, that the poor were very poor and the rich were very rich. But between the two was rising that important class of people known to history as the "middle class"—honest traders, shop- keepers and manufacturers, who played their great part in the commercial development of our great country.

------xxxxxxx------

10. The Great Drama of the Stuart Period

Page | 46 THE Stuart period begins with the accession of James I, and ends with the death of his great-granddaughter, Queen Anne. It covers a little more than a century, so that the "Age of the Stuarts" and the "Seventeenth Century" mean practically the same thing. The Stuarts had been kings in Scotland for more than two hundred years. They became kings of England because the Tudors left no direct heirs. They ceased to be kings because they entered into conflict with Parliament, and Parliament proved too strong for them. The period is one of the richest in all our long history. It is full of stirring incidents; plots, insurrections, civil wars, revolutions, restorations, follow one another with startling rapidity. The political changes were so important that they have affected the whole life of the nation, and their consequences can be seen in the government of every civilised country to-day. The fortunes of the reigning family, the Stuarts, were so striking that they have furnished material for hundreds of romances and stories. The mother of James I, Mary Queen of Scots, had been beheaded by Elizabeth; yet James, on the death of Elizabeth, was raised from the throne of a small, wild, poor, and turbulent country, to be the ruler of three kingdoms, at a time when the rest of Europe was so distracted by war and civil strife that he might have become one of the greatest monarchs in Christendom, But "the wisest fool in Christendom," as a French king called James I, achieved nothing, and his son, Charles I, after vainly attempting to rule as a despot, like the kings of France or Spain, ended his days on the scaffold—the only king in all our history publicly put to death. His two sons, Charles II and James II, spent nearly half their lives as exiles and wanderers. Both lived to be kings; but one of them, James II, driven from his throne and country, lived out his old age as a pensioner at the Court of his cousin, England's greatest enemy, Louis XIV of France. Nevertheless, both the daughters of James II became queens of England. Mary, with her husband, James's own nephew, reigned whilst her father was in exile at a foreign Court. Anne was made queen by an Act of Parliament, which excluded James's son, for by that time Parliament was strong enough to make and unmake sovereigns. Whether on the throne or off, the Stuarts were born to wring trouble into England. Civil war had brought one king to the block. Revolution had driven another from the throne. Yet for two more generations the plots and insurrections of the "Jacobites"—those who upheld the cause of the dethroned and exiled Stuarts—kept their Hanoverian successors, George I and George II, constantly on the watch.

One event of the seventeenth century can never be forgotten. Only once in a thousand years has the succession of kings and queens in England been broken; and that was in the eleven years from 1649 to 1660, when the monarchy was thrown down and a Republic or Commonwealth was set up. That fact alone tells us much, for such great changes never occur without great causes. The whole history of the seventeenth Page | 47 century centres round the long and mighty struggle between king and Church on the one side, and Parliament and Puritans on the other. The events of the whole period may be pictured as the five acts of a great drama. In the first act, the actors take their places on the stage, and the cause of strife appears. James I and Charles I, with their courtiers and statesmen, find themselves more and more opposed to the Commons in Parliament; whilst the bishops are opposed to the Puritans. King and Church join hands. Charles, with his bold statesman, the Earl of Strafford, and Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury, are joined by all who rally to the cry of "Church and Crown." Opposed to them stand those who wish for government by Parliament, and a reformed "Puritan" Church. John Pym, John Hampden, John Eliot, and Oliver Cromwell stand forth as the leaders of a new Church and a new State. In the second act, the country is a field of battle for seven weary years. Parliament triumphs over the king; the army triumphs over Parliament; Cromwell, the successful general, triumphs over both Parliament, and army, and becomes the dictator of England, under the title of Protector of the Commonwealth, and England for eleven years has no king. In the third act, the chief figure is Cromwell. Like a giant he struggles to create a new England. The king is dead; the royal family is in exile; the old Church of England is silenced; the Cavaliers, or followers of the Stuarts, are deprived of all power and their estates impoverished. The protector, with the aid of his Puritan soldiers, enforces order, and attempts to rule England with the sword in one hand and the Bible in the other. For ten years a small religious sect, the Independents, armed and led by a great general and statesman, hold the chief power in the realm. The death of Cromwell is the end of the third act. In the fourth act all is quickly changed. The stern and sombre Puritan gives place to the "Merrie Monarch," Charles II, who is restored to the throne of his ancestors. The Church of England is restored too, and in its triumph the Church once more turns to persecuting Puritan clergymen and preachers—John Bunyan amongst others. So far the, course of events had been, (i) Preparation, (ii) Strife, (iii) the Triumph of Puritanism, (iv) the Triumph of the restored Church and king. The last act was (v) Reconciliation. This last revolution, that of 1689, preserved the monarchy, but preserved Parliament too, with all its rights. It preserved the national Church, but it also preserved the Nonconformist Churches. Persecution gave place to toleration for all but Roman Catholics. In all its main points the settlement of 1689, in both Church and State, is the settlement ender which we still live.

The age was essentially one of conflict and revolution, and such things try the temper and character of a nation. Englishmen may well, therefore, be proud that, even in the hour of strife and civil war, her soldiers and statesmen were of noble mould. Few men could escape the struggle, and everyman risked his life for the cause in which he believed. Page | 48 Eliot, the first leader of the Commons, died in the Tower. Strafford, the king's faithful and brave, but misguided servant, died like his master, Charles, on the scaffold. Archbishop Laud paid for his zeal by his life. Hampden died of the wounds he received on the battlefield. Falkland, one of the noblest of the king's supporters, rushed to a welcome death at Newbury. Rupert, the prince of Cavaliers, and Cromwell, the great captain of the Roundheads, came almost unharmed through a hundred fierce fights. Never did men take up arms with purer motives on both sides, and never was civil war waged with greater courage and humanity. Even apart from the severe conflicts and passions of the age, it was very rich in great and noble names. Shakespeare's finest work belongs as much to James's reign as to Elizabeth's. Raleigh, the last of the great Elizabethan adventurers, lived until 1618. Bacon wrote his greatest works, and Ben Jonson his greatest plays, after Elizabeth's death. Milton lived through the Civil War and far into the reign of Charles II. In this age Bunyan produced his "Pilgrim's Progress." In this age George Fox founded the "Society of Friends." The events of the time and the character of the people are handed down to us by famous writers of diaries like Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn; historians like Lord Clarendon; writers of memoirs like Mrs. Hutchinson; chroniclers like Rushworth. We can thus read in the words of eye-witnesses the whole story of the century. John Evelyn himself saw the meeting of the famous Long Parliament in 1640, with the king riding in state to its opening. Six months afterwards, "on the 12th of May," he writes, "I beheld on Tower Hill the fatal stroke which severed the wisest head in England from the shoulders of the Earl of Strafford." He saw the beginning of the Civil War, and then went abroad. But he was in England on the 30th of January, 1649, the day of the king's execution, and kept himself indoors, fasting and praying. He saw too "the superb funeral of the protector, Oliver, lying in effigy, in royal robes and crowned with a crown, sceptre, and globe, like a king." In 1660 he was present at the entry of Charles II into London. "I stood in the Strand and beheld it, and blessed God." Many other less pleasing sights he witnessed; for example, in 1665, when the Great Plague was raging in London. In 1666 he saw the "whole south part of the city burning, from Cheapside to the Thames and all along Cornhill, Tower Street, Fenchurch Street, Gracious Street, and so along to Baynard's Castle, and now taking hold of St. Paul's Church, to which the scaffolds contributed exceedingly." "God grant," he says, "mine eyes may never behold the like, who now saw above 10,000 houses all in one flame." Again, he tells us of a year later, when the Dutch sailed up to Chatham,, "a dreadful spectacle as ever Englishman saw, and a dishonour never to be wiped off."

Nearly twenty years later, on the death of Charles II, he says, "I can never forget the inexpressible luxury and profaneness, gaming, and all dissoluteness, and total forgetfulness of God, it being Sunday evening six days before the king's death, which I was witness of . . . a French boy singing love songs, in that glorious gallery [in Whitehall], whilst about twenty of the great courtiers and dissolute persons were at a game of Page | 49 Basset round a large table, a bank of at least £2,000 in gold before them. . . Six days later was all in the dust." Hardly any event of note did he miss, and as a very old man, in 1704, he saw the rejoicings on the news of the Battle of Blenheim, and "the queen in a rich coach with eight horses none with her but the Duchess of Marlborough." An age cannot be lacking in interest that includes Gun-powder Plot and the Battle of Blenheim, three revolutions, a long civil war, insurrections and, plots without number; and which could produce characters as diverse as Laud and George Fox; Strafford and John Lilburne, the Leveller; Pym, the first leader of the House of Commons, and Montrose, the royalist poet and Cavalier; Charles II, and John Milton. Nor can the age that saw the establishment of Parliamentary government, and the beginnings of our American Colonies, be wanting in importance in the history of the world.

------xxxxxxx------

11. The Gunpowder Plot

Page | 50 THE memory of Gunpowder Plot has been kept alive by boys and girls for more than three hundred years, and the story is so well known that it would hardly be worth telling again, except for the information we can gather from it about several matters that affected the lives of our forefathers. Those who have read the history of the Tudor period will know that all through the sixteenth century a struggle went on between Catholics and Protestants, and that in Elizabeth's reign the Protestants gained the upper hand, made the Church of England a Protestant Church, and passed severe laws against the Catholics. In the rest of Europe the conflict was not yet decided, and the greatest "wars of religion" had still to be fought. Frederick, the Elector Palatine, and leader of the German Protestants, was a son- in-law of James I, but the English king gave him little support. For thirty years (1618- 1648) half the Continent was devastated through war, and many thousands of lives were lost before Protestants and Catholics settled down in peace. Even long after the Thirty Years' War, the fear that "Popery" would be revived in England was one of the strongest influences affecting our national history, as we shall see. Persecution on account of religion has now almost ceased. But in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was still the practice for the rulers of each nation to decide what the State religion should be, and to compel every person to conform to the religion of the national Church. If the rulers were Catholics, the practice of the Protestant religion was put down; if they were Protestant, then the Catholics were persecuted. The idea of allowing or tolerating more than one religion in the same country was hardly thought of. The history of England in the seventeenth century was very largely occupied by disputes between rival branches of the Protestant Church, ending in some sort of toleration for all except Catholics. It took more than another century for Catholics to gain toleration in England. Persecution takes many forms. One of the mildest forms is the exclusion of men and women from certain offices and positions on account of their religious belief. A stronger form of persecution is to fine and imprison people for conducting their religious services in public. A still stronger form of persecution is to banish, or imprison, or put to death all who refuse to attend the services of the national Church. The worst persecution of all is the torture and execution of people who are suspected of not believing in the doctrines of the Church, although they may be willing to attend its services. All these forms of persecution have been practised in England. In the reigns of Elizabeth and James I the laws against the Catholics included all but the worst form of persecution. Except in the case of specially favoured persons, Catholics were not

allowed to hold any office in the State. The public performance of the mass could be punished by heavy fines, and even by death. A priest caught conducting his services in England could be hung, drawn, and quartered for treason. Even to hear mass in secret made any person liable to a fine and imprisonment for a year, whilst to assert that the Pope had any power in England was an act of treason. Page | 51 Catholics could not even stay at home and be quiet. They were compelled to attend the national Church service. If they had sufficient property they could be fined £20 a month until they complied with the law. Less wealthy people were liable to lose two-thirds of their lands, and even poor people could be fined and imprisoned. How, it may be asked, after forty years of such treatment, did any Catholics manage, to survive? Just as there was no regular police system to detect and catch criminals, so there was no regular means of enforcing the laws against the Catholics. Except when some special alarm was raised, the laws were left to be carried out by the local magistrates, who were the country gentry and landowners. In many parts, especially in the north and west, and on the borders of Wales, there were numbers of Catholic noblemen and gentlemen whose neighbours did not care to put the laws in force against them. Hence for generations, in scores of country mansions, the Catholic religion was secretly, and sometimes openly, preserved. Priests were kept as chaplains, and in times of danger they could easily be hidden in secret chambers. Occasionally there would be an outburst of priest-hunting. Rascals, who cared nothing for religion, would join Protestant fanatics who thought they were obeying the commands of the Old Testament against idolaters, and go in bands to search the houses of suspected Catholics, destroying furniture and carrying off valuables and clothing. The Catholics were thus in the position of criminals, liable at times to be seized and imprisoned, whilst their priests were in danger of being hanged. Only where some great Catholic nobleman could keep out the mischievous rabble did the Catholics manage to live in peace. It is fairly safe to assume that wherever to-day we find a Catholic community in our villages, they have maintained themselves ever since the days when the Catholic squires kept their chapels and priests, hidden away from their neighbours, through nearly two centuries of bitter persecution and we can find many such villages in Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, and Lancashire. When James I became king it was an anxious time for both Catholics and Protestants. All Elizabeth's laws against Catholics were still in force, and the Puritans, who were growing in numbers and strength, were eager to crush out Catholicism in England. James had not quite made up his mind what he meant to do. Before he gained the throne he had had friendly talks with several leading Catholics, and had certainly led them to expect that he would not continue to persecute. Personally he was in favour of some scheme of toleration, or even of joining Protestants and Catholics in some sort of common religion.

The Catholics hoped much from the new king. The extreme Protestants, on the other hand, felt very doubtful. His mother had been a Catholic; his wife was secretly a Catholic; but as the Scottish Church was a Presbyterian Church, and therefore thoroughly Protestant, the Puritans hoped James would favour the extreme Protestant section in England. Page | 52 Before he had been on the throne a year, James had offended both the Puritans and the Catholics. He offended the Puritans by refusing to allow any further reforms in the Church. He disappointed the Catholics by denying his promises and allowing the fines against them to be collected. When this was followed by persecution, when priest- hunting began again, and when Jesuits and priests were banished, the anger of the Catholics was aroused. In our own times, whenever a law is felt to be unjust, there are means whereby those who suffer can make known their grievances, and get them removed without doing violence. Freedom of speech, the right to hold public meetings, the freedom of the Press, and the influence that can be brought to bear upon members of Parliament, all make in our days any resort to violence both wicked and foolish. In those times even the right of petitioning the king was hardly allowed, for we know that ten Puritans who signed the famous Millenary Petition were thrown into prison. When men cannot gain their ends by open means, they generally resort to secret plots. In the Middle Ages, and even until modern times, secret plots to capture or overturn the government were common in every country in Europe. In 1604 a few reckless Catholics began to look about for a remedy, for they were in despair of gaining toleration for their religion from a king who had broken his word and from a House of Commons that hated the Catholics. First a certain priest, William Watson, formed a very foolish plot to seize the king at Greenwich and compel him to grant toleration. The plot was revealed to James. Watson and another priest were hanged and for about a year the Catholics were looked upon with favour by James, because they had refused to agree with Watson's plot. But as the persecution soon began again, another plot was set on foot. This was the famous Gunpowder Plot. The chief facts to notice about the plot are, that it was not a widespread conspiracy, but was confined to a few persons; that these were mostly gentlemen of means and of good family; that the proposal to blow up Parliament was only a means to gain possession of the government and to set up a new Catholic government; and that the memory of the plot helped to keep alive the bitter hatred of the Catholics for generations afterwards. The story of the plot itself is simple. Robert Catesby, a Warwickshire squire, had been mixed up in Essex's rebellion in Elizabeth's reign. He had been imprisoned and all but ruined by the heavy fines imposed on him. He had become a fanatical Catholic; he was a bold soldier, and inspired courage and confidence amongst his friends. He gathered about him a small band of friends. Thomas and Robert Winter were among the

first to join him; the former was a soldier and a scholar, who, after fighting against Spain, had become a Catholic, and had been on a mission to Spain to get help for the English Catholics. Thomas Percy, a violent and arrogant man, the steward of the Duke of Page | 53 Northumberland, to whom he was distantly related, was another who early joined in the plot. He was one of those to whom James had promised some sort of toleration, and in his disappointment he had declared to Catesby that he would kill the king. Catesby persuaded him to wait and join in a greater adventure. Guy Fawkes was at first not one of the principal conspirators. He was the son of a lawyer at York. Becoming a Catholic, he served in the Spanish army in Flanders. When, in 1604, Catesby and Winter wanted a trustworthy soldier to help them to carry out their plot, he was chosen, and engaged to serve them faithfully. The intention was to blow up the king, lords, and commons assembled in the Houses of Parliament, as soon as they met for the second session, which was expected to be in February, 1605. This was to be the signal for a great Catholic rising. One of the princes was to be seized and proclaimed king, with a council of Catholic noblemen to govern the country. The second part of the plot was the more important, but all the preparation they were ever able to make was to arrange for an assembly of about eighty Catholic gentlemen at Dunchurch, in Warwickshire, under pretence of holding a hunting match. The first part of the plot almost succeeded. About March, 1604, five conspirators, including Catesby, Thomas Percy, and Guy Fawkes, met in a lonely house behind St. Clement's, London, swore an oath of secrecy, and took the sacrament from a Jesuit priest, who knew nothing of the plot. They hired a house close to the Parliament House, but they did not get possession until December. Then they began to dig a mine underneath the Houses, storing their materials in another hired house placed in charge of a new member of the plot. It was slow work. No labourers could be engaged. All the gentlemen worked with their hands, and the rubbish which they dug out was buried in the garden at night. Fawkes kept watch as a sentinel. At Christmas they learnt that Parliament was not to meet until October. In March, whilst working at their mine, they heard a loud rumbling noise. Their fears were changed to hopes when they learnt that it came from an adjoining cellar, which ran right under the Parliament House, and that it was possible to hire this and so gain access to the very spot they wanted to reach. Percy immediately got a lease of the cellar, and shortly twenty or thirty barrels of gunpowder were carried into it and covered with billets of wood and faggots. There were still nearly six months to wait. The conspirators were in want of money to secure horses and arms and to enlist supporters for the rising that was to follow. They therefore introduced to the conspiracy some wealthy young Catholics, including Sir Everard Digby and Francis Tresham.

During the summer there were disturbances among the Catholics on the Welsh border. There was wild talk of an insurrection. Priests were found preaching to large congregations, in spite of the law. The sheriff of Herefordshire had a conflict with a large body of Catholics, and under the old penal laws three men were executed for attempting to convert their neighbours. Page | 54 Meanwhile the plot was ripening, when, happily, it was betrayed to the Government. Francis Tresham, and others too, felt that they ought to warn the Catholic noblemen who were members of Parliament. Tresham sent a warning to his brother-in- law, Lord Monteagle. Everybody has heard of the curious letter which Lord Monteagle received, just as he was going to supper at his house at Hoxton, from a mysterious tall gentleman:— "My lord, out of the love i beare to some of youere frends i have a caer of youer preservation therefor i would advyse yowe as yowe tender youer lyf to devys some excuse to shift of youer attendance at this parleament . . . for thowghe theare be no apparance of anni stir yet i say e they shall receyve a terrible blowe this parleament and yet they shall not seie who hurts them." Lord Monteagle sent the letter to Cecil (Lord Salisbury), the king's chief minister. The plotters knew that the letter had been sent, but, like men bereft of all sense, they supposed its contents would not be understood, and that it was still safe to go on. Several, including Guy Fawkes, remained in London. Others went into the country to prepare the rising. Lord Salisbury, however, knew all he wanted; but to flatter the king he showed him the letter, and allowed him to enjoy. the credit of discovering its meaning. James, on reading the letter, of course instantly suspected gunpowder. The cellars underneath the Houses were searched on the night before Parliament was to sit. The barrels of gunpowder were discovered. Fawkes, still on guard, was seized and carried to, the king. Before dawn, on the 5th of November, the streets of Westminster were alive with people, alarmed at the rumour of a Catholic rising. They mobbed the Spanish ambassador's. house. The trained bands were called out. The sheriffs were ordered to capture the conspirators, who by this time were racing along the highroad towards Worcester. Digby had assembled his hunting party—about eighty, including retainers—at Dunchurch. When Catesby arrived he announced the discovery of the plot, and tried to persuade his friends to rise in insurrection. But the party rapidly dispersed. The leaders and a number of serving-men fled to Holbeach, in Staffordshire, where they took refuge in the house of Stephen Lyttleton. On the way they seized arms and armour at Hewell Grange. At Holbeach a slight explosion of gunpowder caused an alarm, and raised their fears. The sheriff and his soldiers surrounded the house. Two of the conspirators escaped. Catesby and two others were killed by the sheriff's men. Percy was wounded, and died in a day or two. Digby and, four others were captured and taken to London. Robert Winter and Stephen Lyttleton, after reaching

Hagley, where they hid for two months, were betrayed by a servant. Two Jesuit priests, suspected of being concerned in the plot, were caught near Worcester, in a secret room behind a gentlewoman's chamber. The plot had utterly failed, and the prisoners could only expect the vengeance of Page | 55 the Government. It was still usual to torture prisoners suspected of treason. The faithful Fawkes was tortured, and so was one of the priests. But little more was learnt than Salisbury knew already. All the arrested conspirators were executed, except Tresham, who died in prison before his trial. The effect of the plot was to increase the hostility of the nation against the Catholics. The penal laws were again enforced. Catholics who had begun to attend Church were now required to take the sacrament. Churchwardens and constables were fined if they did not prosecute known recusants, and were rewarded for their success. New fines were inflicted on those who kept Catholic servants. Recusants were forbidden to come within ten miles of London. They were forbidden to practise as attorneys or physicians; they could not be executors of a will, nor guardians of children. They might not be married except in the Church of England. Their books could be destroyed, and their houses visited by the magistrates in search of arms. It is said that courtiers bought from the king the shameful privilege of seizing land and property belonging to the wealthier Catholics. For another century the Catholics were persecuted and were cut off from public life. Gunpowder Plot had sealed their fate, and had given new life to the popular hatred, which burst out time after time. Even in the days of George III—when the Gordon Riots, with the cry "No Popery," placed London in the hands of a howling mob for three days and nights—popular fury against Rome was still a living force in England.

------xxxxxxx------

12. James I (1603—1625)

Page | 56 The word "king" has many different meanings. It may mean a "constitutional king," who reigns in state as king, but does not govern except through ministers and a parliament. It may mean an absolute despot, whose subjects' lives and property are at the disposal of his will and caprice. Or it may mean anything between these two extremes. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the power of kings, instead of growing less, appeared to be growing greater. This is shown by the despotic rule of Henry VIII in England, which has been described in a previous chapter; and, in the middle of the seventeenth century, by the rise of a great French king, Louis XIV, who became the most powerful and absolute monarch France had seen for nearly a thousand years. So far from kingship being dead, gunpowder and standing armies had put new weapons in its hands. Parliaments still existed, but most men believed that a strong king was needed to keep the nation in order and defend it against enemies abroad. So long as men believed this, the supreme power would lie with kings and not with parliaments. Such was the state of things when James I became king at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Most of the troubles of James's reign would have been soon forgotten, if they had not had such important effects in his son's reign. By themselves, they seem like trivial quarrels that might have been settled by a little common sense and forbearance. What are the affairs that all the history books about James's reign are full of? A petition of Puritan clergymen to abolish some of the ceremonies and practices of the Church; disputes about the privileges of Parliament; bargains about feudal dues; protests by the Commons against "monopolies," against "benevolences "; protests in defence of their right to advise the king; petitions against marrying the Prince of Wales to a Catholic; and such like matters. But these apparently petty conflicts between an angry and talkative king and his solemn Puritan Parliaments, jealous about the smallest of their, rights, were signs of the times such as a wise man would have taken to heart. They were the beginnings of that great struggle, the Civil War, which altered the whole destiny of the English race. James's reign is therefore like the first act in the play; we see its meaning only in the light of what happens farther on. The first thing to understand is this trouble between the Puritans and the bishops. We need not believe that either side was entirely in the right; but when people believe in a thing so thoroughly that they are willing to lay down their lives in defence of

it, even if they happen to be in the wrong, it is well to take notice of them. When there are two such sets of people, and their beliefs are opposed to one another, only two courses are open. The first course is to allow both parties to keep their own opinions, and to try to live side by side without quarrelling. That is toleration. The other course is for the two parties to fight it out, either by persecution or by open war. Page | 57 It seems strange enough now that two branches of the Christian Church should have fought one another like heathens. But in those times nearly every nation clung to the view that there ought to be one religion only within the same state. Therefore, just as Christians had fought against heathens, just as Catholics had fought against Protestants, so, when two parties arose within the English Church, they too began to fight. Ever since the Reformation, there had been two sorts of Protestants in England, although the division was not clearly marked at first. Some, whom we shall call the Anglicans, desired to be free from the Pope and Rome, but though they did not accept the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church and the authority of the Pope, they wished to keep as much as possible of the old ceremonies, prayers, sacraments, and Church government. They regarded the Church of England as still part of the true Catholic Church, and attached great importance to the proper succession of bishops. Others, whom we shall call Puritans, wished to be completely separated from Rome. They looked upon the Roman Church as wicked and idolatrous. They wished to simplify the services of the Church, and wanted to do away with what they regarded as image-worship. Instead of altars they wanted communion tables; instead of rich vestments and surplices, they preferred a plain black gown for their clergymen. As for bishops, whilst some were willing to keep them, others wished to have ministers chosen by the congregation, and to have an assembly of ministers and laymen to make rules for the Church, without any interference either from bishop or king. Probably the mass of the people had no very strong opinions, and were willing to accept whatever was arranged for them by their lawful rulers. But most of those who thought seriously about their religion came to belong either to the first party or the second. This broad division is important, because in after-times there arose out of it our existing Church of England on the one hand and the various Nonconformist Churches on the other. Queen Elizabeth had attempted to make the Church "comprehensive," that is, she tried to adopt such doctrines and services as would enable everybody to belong to the national Church. And for a long time many people believed that the Church could be made to suit all kinds of people. When James became king, there were many proposals for adapting the Church services to meet the wishes of all sections. But when they began to discuss the proposals, it soon became clear that the differences of opinion were too great to be settled in such a way. The Anglicans thought it would be sinful to give up the ancient ceremonies and sacraments, whilst the Puritans thought it was idolatry to pay attention to them. Hence

it became a struggle between these two religious parties for the control of the national Church. Whichever got the upper hand would be likely to persecute the other, as we shall see, for this struggle in different ways goes on throughout the century. One of the very first incidents in this struggle was the famous "Hampton Court Conference," held by James I as a result of the Millenary Petition, signed by a thousand Puritan ministers Page | 58 who desired certain changes in the Church. The English system gave great power to the king. There was no pope to interfere on the one hand, and no general assembly on the other. He alone appointed the bishops; the bishops controlled the rest of the clergy, whilst the congregations had no voice in the matter. James saw from the first the great advantage of this system to himself, and determined not to give in at all to those reformers whom he regarded as Presbyterians in disguise. "No bishop: no king," he said pithily. He declared that he would make the Puritans conform to the Church or he would "harry them out of the land." His temper towards the Puritans was shown by the fact that ten of those who had presented the Millenary Petition were committed to prison. From the conference the Puritans had gained nothing, except the king's consent to a new translation of the Bible, a few trifling alterations in the Prayer Book, and the promise of an enquiry into the best means of obtaining a preaching clergy. The new translation of the Bible was a great event, for it gave us the "authorised version," which has been read by all the English-speaking world for three centuries. On the other hand, the Puritans lost a great deal; for as the king had supported the Anglicans, so they now supported the king where he claimed the most extraordinary powers. This alliance between king and bishops was to have a great effect on the nation's affairs for the next two generations. The laws which compelled men to use the services of the Established Church were made more binding upon the clergy, and three hundred of them gave up their livings rather than make the promises required from them. Some went to Holland to join those "Separatist" Churches founded by the "Dissenters" of Elizabeth's time. Most of the Puritans remained in the Church, but the discontent went on growing. From this time we see the Puritan party becoming not only a Church or religious party, but also aState or political party, which was largely in opposition to the king. The alliance between the king and the bishops thus led to that other alliance between Puritans and Parliament. Many things led to this. The High Church party, or Anglicans, were to some extent in sympathy with the Catholics. Their own most loved ceremonies were very much like those. of the Roman Catholic Church. The Puritans, on the other hand, hated the Catholics intensely. They were constantly urging the Government to put the penal laws in force against the Catholics. They wished to sweep them out of the country. They believed that many of the Anglicans were really Catholics trying to betray the Church of England to Rome. They saw Catholics favoured at Court. They knew that there were many secret Catholics; the queen herself was one. They were therefore full of suspicion, and their suspicions of a great Catholic conspiracy haunted the minds of the Puritans for many years.

The temper of the Puritans was sharpened by persecution. Their own habits of life marked them out from their neighbours and tended to draw them together. They turned themselves to Bible-reading, preaching, and private prayer. They abstained from many simple amusements, denounced dancing and stage plays as wicked, as, in fact, many of the plays of the time were. They turned the old-fashioned English Sunday into a Page | 59 day on which nothing was to be done but what belonged to religious worship. These men thus lived a life of severe restraint. They believed that they had the direct guidance of God in the meaning they placed upon their reading of the Bible, and they used certain texts as plain commandments, regarding themselves as the "Elect of God" and their opponents as idolaters. Such men were enemies worth the respect of the most absolute king. When they turned their attention to politics they showed the same seriousness, the same intense faith, and the same hatred of compromise that they felt in religion. The House of Commons was their stronghold, for, from the latter days of Elizabeth, a majority of its 450 members were either Puritans or in sympathy with Puritans. When men are out of sympathy with one another it does not need great occasions to make them quarrel. The House of Commons was extremely jealous of its customs and privileges. Even the Tudor sovereigns had respected these—they might have used the House of Commons as a tool, but they generally took care neither to disturb its customs nor violate its privileges. James had none of the Tudors' tact. He was in reality far less of a tyrant, but he wanted to have his powers acknowledged, and he liked to lecture Parliament on his own supremacy.

------xxxxxxx------

13. Charles I and the Petition of Right (1625—1628)

Page | 60

THE events of James's reign were, except in their remote consequences, dull and tedious. Charles's reign was the most dramatic and tragic in our whole history. From the first year of his reign events moved rapidly, until the nation was plunged into civil war and revolution. The causes were great, Crown and Church against Parliament and the Puritan religion; and the men on both sides were noble. Charles himself, with all his faults, was a tragic figure. Born with the century, he was twenty-five when his father died. He was tall and athletic, good at tennis, and a fine horseman, a good shot, and a good sportsman. His face was dark, but handsome and dignified. His melancholy fate, and the genius of his portrait painter, Vandyke, have made his face more familiar to posterity than that of any English king. His manners were refined, and his bearing towards his friends was full of charm. He was much more serious than his father, more attentive to his business as a king, less wide in his ideas, but held more strongly to his purposes. He purified the Court of the drunkards and revellers of his father's time; his personal friends were better men than James's boon companions. He loved beautiful things, and was almost the first collector of our national art treasures. He was religious, and his personal life was pure; he was a generous husband and father. He was not cruel, and although obstinate, he was no Henry VIII crushing a nation under his brutal will. He even believed himself to be the protector of the nation's welfare and the saviour of the national Church. How was it, then, that with these qualities he was fated to be the one king in our history executed as the enemy of the people? The answer is to be found in two different circumstances. The first is one over which he had little control. A contest of some kind between king and parliament was unavoidable. Charles was, as it were, born into this great struggle. The second is that his abilities were not such as to make him a successful tyrant when matched against men like Pym, Eliot, Hampden, and Cromwell. And his untrustworthiness, when he got into difficulties, caused his enemies to think it unsafe to have further dealings with him. Nearly every mistake that James made in dealing with the affairs of the nation, Charles repeated and carried much further. He quarrelled with his Parliaments, and he dismissed the first and second after each had been assembled for a few months only. His third Parliament made itself famous by winning the first decisive victory in the long contest, for it secured the passing of the Petition of Right into an Act of Parliament. It is worthy of note that at this time Charles had no supporters at all in the

House of Commons, except a few officials who represented the king's government. Wentworth, who was soon to become Charles's greatest minister, was the leader of the Commons when a Bill was proposed to make it unlawful in future to imprison men without trial, or to raise loans, or to billet soldiers on householders.

Page | 61 The billeting of soldiers was no light grievance in times when soldiers were often undisciplined ruffians, who had; received no pay, and who lived on a sort of free plunder. "In my county," said Sir Walter Earle, of Dorsetshire, "under colour of placing a soldier, there came twenty in a troop to take sheep. They disturb markets and fairs, rob men on the highway, insult women, breaking houses in the night, and enforcing men to ransom themselves, killing men that have assisted constables to keep the peace." Charles wished Parliament to vote supplies and to rely on his promise "to maintain all his subjects in the just freedom of their persons, and safety of their estates." At this, the Commons determined to go further. Wentworth's bill had merely proposed a new law, saying nothing about the king's misdeeds. Sir Edward Coke, who had been Chief Justice of England; Sir John Eliot, the Cornish squire, once Vice-Admiral of Devon, and more than once imprisoned for his bold speeches; John Pym, a Wiltshire member, and the future leader of the House; John Selden, the most learned lawyer in the land; these now led the Commons. They drew up the famous Petition of Right, which was really a statement that the king had already broken the laws of the land by "(1) levying gifts, loans, benevolences, and taxes without the consent of Parliament; (2) imprisoning persons without showing cause; (3) billeting soldiers on householders against their wills; and (4) issuing unlawful commands for ruling by martial law." In this petition the Lords agreed. The Parliament was so united that Charles saw he must give way or lose the grants—five subsidies, probably the most liberal grant ever voted up to that time. The victory of Parliament had been gained. The news was shouted in the streets. The City churches rang their bells; bonfires were lighted, and men thought that strife was over. In reality it had only just begun. Before many days disputes arose again. Charles was angry, and prorogued Parliament until January, 1629. When Parliament assembled in January, they at once took up the tale of grievances, both in State and Church. In March the king ordered the Commons to adjourn, and a strange scene occurred. Without the presence of the Speaker, sitting in the chair, no business could be transacted. The Speaker—Finch—rose to obey the king's order. The members wished to continue their discussion, if only for a few minutes. Two members held down the Speaker in the chair, whilst Eliot moved three resolutions: "(1) That whosoever shall bring in innovation in religion, or seek to extend Popery, (2) whosoever shall counsel the taking and levying of the subsidies of Tonnage and Poundage, not being granted by Parliament, (3) whosoever shall voluntarily pay the said subsidies of Tonnage and Poundage, shall be reputed a capital enemy to this Kingdom and Commonwealth, and a betrayer of the liberty of England."

In the tumult that followed, Eliot threw his paper of resolutions into the fire, despairing of the House voting on them. The king's messenger was knocking at the door to take away the Speaker's mace. Holies remembered the resolutions, word for word, and put them himself to the vote, which was carried.

Page | 62 The king dissolved Parliament. He had made up his mind to call no more, and for eleven years no Parliament sat. Eliot, Holles, and Valentine were sent to the Tower, where Eliot died four years later. Thus, the first session of Charles's Third Parliament had seen the granting of the Petition of Right. The second session ended in scenes of violence, and Parliament was dismissed by the king, with threats that "the vipers amongst them should meet with their reward." Between the two sessions, two striking events had happened. Buckingham, the vain, incompetent, foolish favourite of the king, was assassinated. Wentworth, the strong-willed, ambitious statesman, had entered the service of the king.

------xxxxxxx------

14. The Eleven Years' Rule without Parliament (1629—1640)

Page | 63 The eleven years in which Charles ruled without calling any Parliament was the next stage in the great struggle. It would be wrong to suppose that in this time the king's government was so tyrannical and oppressive that the nation was goaded into insurrection. The rebellion, when it did come, was not a rising against a cruel despot by men who had suffered in person, but a struggle for principles which men believed were necessary, if the greatness and happiness of the whole nation were to be preserved. In this time, as at all others, Charles showed that he was a poor statesman. He thought that if he only suspended Parliament for some years, the people would be ready to come round to his views and accept his terms. He tried the experiment of governing without a Parliament, before he had taken any sufficient measures for securing a revenue. In his efforts to raise money, he adopted such foolish expedients that the very men most likely to rally round him were irritated and offended. Under old and obsolete laws he imposed fines on the gentry for not having had themselves made knights. He called upon the ports, the coast shires, and finally upon the inland shires as well, to pay "Ship-money," to raise money with which to improve and strengthen the navy. This was the tax that caused most noise. At first, many people paid the tax, considering it either as a customary due or as a sort of voluntary gift. When, however, the County of Buckinghamshire was taxed to the amount of £4,500, one of the richest squires of the county, a gentleman of an ancient family, John Hampden, refused to pay his share, which was a small sum of perhaps thirty or forty shillings. He refused in order that the question of the lawfulness of the tax might be tried in the law courts. The case would not have been of great importance, but for the extraordinary judgment delivered by the king's judges. One of them, Finch, declared that "Acts of Parliament are void which bind the king not to command his subjects, their persons and goods, and I say their money too, for no Acts of Parliament make any difference." In spite of all his efforts, Charles found that his income was insufficient to carry on any war, and in the affairs of Europe England ceased for a time to be of any account. Very soon, within his own kingdom, he found himself helpless from the same cause. For whilst entering upon a struggle against Parliament for control over taxation, Charles committed the folly of entering upon another struggle against the same people, and a more dangerous struggle, for it concerned their religion. For a whole generation the majority of the House of Commons had been Puritan in religion. Charles gave his support to the opposite party, led by Bishop Laud; and at the very time when the nation was angered by his quarrels with Parliament, he gave Laud

his whole support and allowed him a free hand to do what he would with the Puritans. Next to Charles himself, it was Laud more than any man who ruined the royal cause, for he stirred up fiercer passions than all Charles's tax-gatherers. Not only were the idle and worthless clergy punished, but the preachers of Page | 64 Puritan doctrines were silenced by being brought before the Church courts. Some congregations did not like the views of the parish clergyman, so they supported a lecturer who preached more to their taste, and spread Puritan teaching among the humbler classes. Laud promptly suppressed them. Some wealthier Puritans kept private chaplains: he forbade the practice. Others took to holding services in private houses or other buildings, sometimes in the midst of London and the towns, sometimes in the country. Laud rooted out these most strictly. Puritans who wished to emigrate to New England in America found themselves stopped by Orders in Council but they were Laud's orders. His fiercest wrath was reserved for the writers of books and pamphlets. In 1633 Charles had gone to Edinburgh to be crowned as King of Scotland. He found the Scottish Church still Presbyterian, in spite of the existence of some bishops whom James had set up. He wished to carry out his father's plan of having a real episcopal church in Scotland, and in this project Laud eagerly supported him. By 1637 the whole scheme was ready. New laws for the government of the Scottish Church were proclaimed, insisting on the strictest observance of the new Prayer Book. The first attempt to read the new Prayer Book was not made until July. By this time the Scots were prepared for it, but not in the sense Charles and Laud desired. In no church was the service undisturbed; and it was plainly impossible to make the Scots accept the Prayer Book without a. war. For after months of protests and petitions, the Prayer Book meanwhile not being read, the Scots bound themselves by a renewal of the Covenant, or agreement to defend the Church against all new customs. On the evening of February 28th, 1638, on a tombstone in Greyfriars Churchyard, the people of Edinburgh began to sign their names to the Covenant, and the mass of the Scottish nation followed their example. The Covenant was a protest against Popery, and it was because Laud's religion was regarded by the Puritans, English and Scotch alike, as in reality the same thing as Popery, that it roused such passionate hatred. The signing of the Covenant was an act of rebellion. A war for the bishops and Prayer Book in Scotland followed. Then Charles called a Parliament—the "Short" Parliament—but its members would not grant him money until he satisfied them. A second "Bishops' War" followed; then the Long Parliament was called.

------xxxxxxx------

15. The Long Parliament

Page | 65 The meeting of the Long Parliament was one of the greatest events in all history. Never before and never since has such a situation arisen. For anything at all like it, we must go back to Simon de Montfort's summoning of the first Parliament, or forward to the calling of the States-General in the French Revolution (1789). Previous Parliaments had met to vote supplies for the work of the Government, and to seek redress of grievances before the passing of new laws. The Long Parliament met to carry out a revolution, although few of the members would have dreamt of calling their intention by that name. The first six months were occupied chiefly by a tremendous struggle to secure the death of Strafford—a struggle for life between Parliament and its most dangerous enemy. The chief charges against Strafford were that he had, whilst President of the Council of the North, and especially whilst ruling in Ireland, made use of a "tyrannous power above and against the laws, over the lives of his Majesty's subjects. He had slandered the House of Commons to his Majesty, and did advise his Majesty that he, the king, was free from all rules of government, and that he had an army in Ireland which he might employ to reduce this kingdom. And he had also encouraged the wars between England and Scotland." What all this meant was that Strafford had been the chief adviser when the king tried to do away with the ancient liberties of the nation and to set up a despotic rule. In November, 1640, Strafford arrived in London. He at once advised the king to accuse the leaders of the Commons of treason for their correspondence with the Scots. The secret was betrayed to Pym. Next day Pym moved his impeachment of Strafford, and when Strafford went to take his place in the Lords, he was ordered to withdraw, and was put under arrest. The Commons kept strict watch that he was not allowed to escape. Laud was also sent to the Tower and accused of high treason by the Commons. Not until March did Strafford's trial begin. The Commons in the meantime prepared their charges against him, and passed resolutions to limit the power of the bishops, and to put an end to the unlawful taxes, and to secure that henceforth Parliament should be called at least every three years. Strafford was executed on May 12th, before an immense crowd of the citizens of London. The Long Parliament had struck down its most dangerous enemy. After the death of Strafford no minister could ever set Parliament at defiance again. It secured that the king's right to call Parliament as he wished should cease. An Act—the Triennial

Act—was passed, which said that if the king called no Parliament for three years it should assemble without the royal summons. In the terror inspired by the army plots Parliament went further. It compelled Charles to agree that the "present Parliament should never be dissolved except with its Page | 66 own consent." The collecting of taxes without consent of Parliament was made illegal. Ship-money was finally made unlawful. The Courts of High Commission, the Star Chamber, and the Council of the North, and other similar courts were abolished. By these means an end was put to all the practices of levying taxes without consent of Parliament, all the prosecution of persons by illegal courts, all the exercise of power, except in the Church, by the bishops. The king was no longer the supreme power in the realm. The Long Parliament set itself as actively to reform the Church as to limit the king's power in State matters. From the time of the Hampton Court Conference the bishops had been the staunchest allies of the king. Led by Laud, the clergy had even granted liberal supplies of money to Charles when the Short Parliament had refused them; and had passed new laws declaring that the most high and sacred order of kings is of divine right, and that for subjects to bear arms against their king is to resist the power ordained by God. When, however, the Parliament decided to reform the Church, it was found easier to denounce the bishops and to curtail their powers than to agree upon what the Church of England should be. How should it be governed? What should its services be? What should its doctrines be? The more extreme Puritans wanted to do away with bishops altogether, and to have the Churches governed by some laymen and some clergymen, in place of the bishops. In December, 1640, a petition from 15,000 London citizens had asked that episcopacy might be destroyed "root and branch." This phrase gave its name to the bill brought into the House of Commons by the extreme Puritans, including Cromwell. After some time the bill was supported by Pym and Hampden. It was this bill that gave the king his party. For whilst the more conservative House of Lords was willing to cut down the power of the bishops, a strong section in both Houses would on no account agree to sweeping changes in the government and services of the Church. Sir Edward Hyde and Lord Falkland were the leaders of this section. The Root and Branch Bill only passed the Commons by a small majority, and was rejected by the Lords, and later on dropped. The king declared boldly that he would die in the maintenance of the Church of England. From that moment Parliament was divided into two parties: Puritans on the one side, who stood for the Parliament and a reformed Church; on the other side a Church or Anglican party, who stood for the Church first and for agreement with the king. Ever since the death of Strafford, Charles had been constantly making plans and listening to plots, to get the better of the English Parliament. He knew that there were fierce divisions among the Scottish nobles, and he had reason to think he could create a

royalist party in Scotland. If only he could get a Scottish army on his side he could beat the Parliament by its own weapon. For it was by the support of the Scots that the English Parliament had got the upper hand. Charles tried to win the affection of the Scots by granting everything the Page | 67 Presbyterians wanted, whilst he intrigued with their enemies. But Argyle, the leader of the Scottish Parliament, was too shrewd, and defeated Charles's plans. Then occurred an event which seemed to bring discredit on the king. A plot was formed to seize—and probably to murder—Argyle, and place his power in the king's hands. The plot was betrayed. The king's part in it was never known, but in England it was regarded as a proof that the king was ready for any step which would give him the advantage over Parliament. Charles returned to London in November, but before that time other important events happened. Among Charles's schemes had been one to bring over the Irish army to help him against the Scots (and perhaps against the English Parliament too). The queen had encouraged him to bargain with the Irish Catholics for help. Many of the Irish Catholics believed that, by rising in rebellion, they would be able to throw off the hated Protestant settlers, who governed Ireland solely in the Protestant interest. Undoubtedly Charles's dealings with the Catholics had raised their hopes and indirectly led to the insurrection. As the rebellion went on unchecked for months, the terror it inspired was only equaled by that of the Indian Mutiny two hundred years after, London was in a panic; and the effect on the House of Commons was to hurry on the revolution. The Irish rebellion was perhaps, so they thought, a sign of a great Catholic plot. The king had intrigued with the Scots; might he not be in the same way responsible for the Irish rising? At any rate, it would not be safe to entrust the king with an army, even to put down the Irish rebellion. The king must be made to appoint only such councillors as were approved by Parliament. Cromwell moved that the Earl of Essex should have power to command the trained bands in defence of the kingdom. Pym and his party pressed forward a further attack on the king, in the shape of a Grand Remonstrance. The Grand Remonstrance was a long recital of all the misdoings of Charles and his councillors in Church and State since the beginning of the reign. But the real importance of if was that it proposed to take away the king's power to do wrong, by making him choose only such councillors as the Parliament could confide in. It also demanded that the Church should be reformed by a general assembly of the most grave and learned clergy. It was clear from the debates that the men who were most eager for a Puritan reformation of the Church—Cromwell, Pym, Hampden, St. John, Hazelrig, Strode, and others—were also most eager to take from the king his power over the army and the appointment of all officers in the State. The Church party were, therefore, almost driven

to side with the king, when he declared for the maintenance of the Church as it already existed. The two parties were narrowly divided. The Remonstrance was carried in the Commons at midnight in November, 1641, by a majority of only eleven. The division was Page | 68 now a division between Parliamentarians and Royalists. For the Puritans, though reduced to a small majority, were determined to force their way. "If the Remonstrance had not passed," said Cromwell, "I would have sold all I had the next morning, and never have seen England any more." Charles had now a splendid opportunity for both good and evil. The Church party was ready to his hand. By acting in open alliance with it, but avoiding all plots and appeals to force, he might soon have regained his position. But within a few months he had made a worse mistake than ever. Charles had at his command a body-guard composed of reckless ruffians. He had tried to place the Tower of London in charge of one of the worst of these soldiers named Lunsford, and Charles only dismissed him after a warning that the London apprentices would storm the Tower unless Lunsford were removed. One affray had already taken place between Lunsford and the citizens, and the Commons had asked the king for a guard to protect the Houses of Parliament. Charles answered that "the security of all and every one of you is as much our care as the preservation of us and our children." Yet, within a few days, fearing that some Puritan members intended to impeach the queen, he had Lord Kimbolton, together with the Five Members, Pym, Hampden, Holles, Hazelrig, and Strode, impeached of high treason, for plotting with the Scots to invade England. Charles intended, by having the leaders thrown into prison, to strike terror into his enemies. But the news of his plans leaked out. The members took refuge in the City. Charles hesitated until his foolish, but high-spirited wife urged him. "Go, you coward, and pull these rogues out by the ears, or never see my face again." At three o'clock on January 4th he threw himself into a coach at Whitehall, and, followed by hundreds of his armed soldiers (among them many noted ruffians), went to the House of Commons. No king had ever before entered the House of Commons. The soldiers remained at the doors. "By your leave, Mr. Speaker, I must borrow your chair a little," he said. "Gentlemen, I am sorry for the occasion of coming unto you. . . . No king that ever was in England shall be more careful of your privileges, . . . yet you must know that in cases of treason, no person hath a privilege, and therefore I am come to know if any of those persons that were accused are here. "Is Mr. Pym here?" There was no answer. "Are any of these persons in the House?"

"May it please your Majesty," answered Lenthall, the Speaker, "I have neither eyes to see, nor tongue to speak in this place, but as this House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here." "Well," said the king, "I think my eyes are as good as another's. I see all the birds Page | 69 are flown. I do expect from you that you shall send them unto me as soon as they return hither." As he retired, cries of "Privilege" were raised. The soldiers had waited impatiently. "They had come," said one of them afterwards, because they heard that the House of Commons would not obey the king, and therefore they came to force them to it. If the word had been given, they should certainly have fallen upon the House of Commons." Next day the king went to the City to demand from the Common Council in the Guildhall the Five Members. The streets were crowded, and there were cries of "Privilege of Parliament." On his way back, a bold man threw into his coach a paper, on which were written the ominous words, "To your tents, O Israel." That night a large number of the trained bands, and many other citizens armed with halberds, swords and clubs, appeared in the streets, prepared to resist any attack by Royalist guards, and to defend the Parliament against any further assaults. The House of Commons accepted, as guard, companies of the City trained bands. Some thousands of Buckinghamshire squires and yeomen, Hampden's friends, marched into London to protect their hero. The king prepared for flight, and on January 10th he left Whitehall. It was not until seven years afterwards that he entered once more the palace of Whitehall, a prisoner, on his way to trial in Westminster Hall.

------xxxxxxx------

16. The English Civil War

Page | 70 As the Civil War is the central fact in the history of the Stuart family, it is worth while trying to understand how it was fought. A number of questions arise. Who fought for the king? Who for the Parliament? Which parts of England did each party occupy? Did the war consist of a few big battles, or was it raging everywhere at once? Was it fought by professional soldiers? What part did the ordinary citizens and peasants play? First, then, who fought for the king? It was the attacks of the Puritans on the Church and the bishops that drove over to the king's side nearly all those who wished to preserve the Church of England. It was as the defender of the Church that Charles gained his best supporters. This is the clearest division of all. The Anglicans were, almost to a man, on the Royalist side. Of the members of the House of Commons, about 175 joined the king. The great majority, about 300, remained at Westminster, or took part in the war on the Parliamentary side. The Catholics all joined the king, and the reason must be evident to those who have read the preceding chapters. The greater number of the peers, some eighty or more, also joined the king, and so did the bulk of the country squires, except in the Eastern and in some of the Southern counties. Who fought for the Parliament? First, the Puritans. These were of all ranks, but chiefly from the middle classes both in town and country. There were amongst them a few peers: the Earls of Essex, Manchester, Warwick, Denbigh; Lords Brooke and Fairfax, and some others, in all about thirty. Large numbers of the most prominent citizens in London and the large towns, large numbers of freeholders and yeomen (especially in the Eastern counties), merchants and manufacturers, the corporations of Puritan towns even in the West of England: all these supported the Parliament. How was England divided geographically between the two parties? Speaking quite generally, a line drawn from Scarborough to Southampton represents the main Geographical division. Parliament held nearly all to the east and south of this line, and so they had what was in those days by far the richer and more thickly peopled half of the country. Until after the end of the First Civil War, the Parliamentary army never got firm hold of the country north and west of that line. But it must not be overlooked that there were many Royalists in the East and South, and many Puritans in the West and in Yorkshire. Even in Puritan London there was a king's party, and even in Charles's headquarters at Oxford and York there was a Puritan party. There were Puritan towns such as Plymouth, Bath, Gloucester, Dorchester, Nottingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Hull, Scarborough, and others, surrounded by districts in the Royalists' hands; and Royalist towns in Sussex, Hampshire,

Berkshire, and Buckinghamshire, surrounded by the Parliamentary forces. Parliament held nearly all the ports, and thus with its hold on the navy and its possession of the chief seat of government, it had an immense advantage. How was the war fought? A mere list of the great battles gives little idea of what Page | 71 really happened. In nearly every part of England there stands some castle or manor house; which has its story of fighting in the Civil War: Basing House in Hampshire; Lathom House in Lancashire; Wardour Castle in Wiltshire; Cawood, Pontefract, and Scarborough Castles in Yorkshire; Sherborne Castle in Dorset; Pendennis Castle in Cornwall; Beeston Castle in Cheshire; Raglan Castle in Monmouth; Flint, Denbigh, Conway, Chirk, Harlech, Pembroke, and Montgomery, in Wales; these are but a few of the isolated strongholds that stood sieges and assaults in the Civil War. Again, hardly a town in England failed to witness some incident that helped to decide the issue. London, Colchester, Gloucester, Exeter, Oxford, York, Nottingham, Hull, Leicester, Manchester, Liverpool, Stockport, Bolton, Coventry, Bristol, Reading, and many others, saw active fighting, whilst some underwent regular sieges. In most of the great battles there were from 10,000 to 20,000 engaged on each side; but at the same time, in bands and small garrisons all over the country, there were several times this number under arms. For if the Roundheads (Puritans) withdrew their forces from Lincolnshire or Wiltshire, the Royalists would step in and occupy the district; or if the Royalists relaxed their hold of Somerset or Warwickshire, the Roundheads immediately rushed in. Alongside of the great campaigns there went on, in half the counties, hundreds of local skirmishes and assaults on houses and castles.

Battles Of Edgehill, Marston Moor, And Naseby

If we take as the opening of the war the setting up of the Royal Standard at Nottingham on August 22nd, 1642, we find that the first nine weeks were spent by each side in marching and counter-marching. Charles stayed until September 13th at Nottingham. Prince Rupert, the dashing cavalry leader, whose soldiers from the first gained a bad name for plundering and riotous behaviour, levied a contribution of £500 from Puritan Leicester. Then Charles fell back through South Derbyshire and Staffordshire to Shrewsbury, gathering troops and money. Meanwhile Essex, with the Parliamentary army, was in Northamptonshire, but he moved westward to keep a check on the king. From Shrewsbury, Rupert made a dash on Worcester, and at Powicke Bridge, in a slight skirmish, he proved the superiority of the Royalist horsemen over the Roundheads. This had the effect of giving the Cavaliers greater confidence when they met the Roundheads a month later at Edgehill. By this time Charles had about 15,000 men round him, and thought himself strong enough to march straight for London.

On October 21st he reached Southam (in Warwickshire). Essex's army marched in the same direction to prevent the king reaching London. On the 22nd, a Saturday, Charles encamped at Edgecot. If he proceeded further in the same direction he would have to march into what was the enemy's country, with the Puritan army behind him. He therefore decided to turn round and meet Essex, who was now at Kineton (South Page | 72 Warwickshire). By Rupert's advice he took up a strong position at Edgehill, and about one o'clock on Sunday afternoon the battle began. In most of the pitched battles of this war, the main body of foot-soldiers was placed in the middle, with forces of cavalry on each side. So it was here. Prince Rupert commanded the Royalist right, facing Sir Faithful Fortescue. His dashing Cavaliers carried all before them. Sir Faithful turned traitor and joined Rupert against his own side. On the left wing, too, the Royalist horse had an easy victory. The victorious cavalry rushed on in pursuit for miles, leaving the two bodies of infantry struggling in the middle. Here the slaughter was great, but the Parliament's men held their own. The result of the whole fighting was a doubtful gain to the king. He was able to resume his march towards London, seize Banbury Castle, and enter Oxford without a blow. But Essex's main army, strengthened by the regiments following from Worcester, was still as strong as the king's, and was following at his heels. The excitement in the Puritan counties and London was now tremendous. If Charles should enter London all would be lost. Messengers were sent from Parliament to open negotiations with him, but he refused to receive them. Rupert tried to take Windsor Castle by storm, but failed. Already the reputation of his soldiers for plundering, and excesses of other kinds, had alarmed the Londoners, who quickly assembled in thousands to defend their beloved city. Six thousand new recruits joined Essex, who had managed to reach London before the royal army. On November 11th Rupert was at Brentford, where on the 12th he smashed up two regiments, fell on the town, and sacked it, although many of the inhabitants were Royalists. But the prompt succour sent by the City of London saved the capital and the Parliamentary cause. On the morning of the 13th November, 24,000 men stood under arms at Turnham Green. Had they all been trained soldiers and led by an enterprising general, the king would have been caught in a trap; for Kingston Bridge was held by 3,000 Parliamentary troops who could have attacked him in flank. But Essex acted with caution, perhaps rightly, and Charles had to withdraw, first to Reading, then to Oxford, leaving garrisons at Reading, Wallingford, and Abingdon. It was now that Oxford became the king's headquarters, from December, 1642, until June, 1646, and the memory of that occupation is still preserved. The old walls were then complete, and earthworks were thrown up outside from the present Balliol College cricket ground and the "King's Mound" to St. Giles's Church and beyond. The citizens and scholars helped in the work. The waters of the river on the south and east sides could be turned to the defence of the city.

For nearly two years, until Marston Moor, the events of the war are difficult to follow, and we can only see any connection between the different operations if we try to understand Charles's plan. He had his own headquarters at Oxford and held most of the country round it. Another Royalist army, led by the Marquis of Newcastle, held Yorkshire and the North of England. A third under Sir Ralph Hopton occupied Cornwall Page | 73 and the West of England. Now if Charles could bring these three armies towards London at the same time, he could probably defeat any army of the Parliament and capture London itself. That done, he had little more to fear. His plan, however, never succeeded because, firstly, Newcastle could never shake off the Roundheads under Lord Fairfax and his more famous son, Sir Thomas Fairfax; nor could he break through the Puritan forces of the Eastern Association (Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridge, Herts, Hunts, and Lincoln), led by Cromwell, who was becoming noted as the finest cavalry leader on the Puritan side. Secondly, Hopton could not venture to leave the West whilst strong towns like Bristol, Gloucester, Plymouth, Taunton, and others remained in the hands of the Roundheads. Thirdly, because if the northern and western armies did not act with him, Charles's own forces could never be strong enough. Nevertheless, for most of the time before Marston Moor, the Parliamentary armies were acting on the defensive. There was a skirmish at Chalgrove (June 18th, 1643), and a Royalist victory at Newbury (September 20th, 1643). Chalgrove had struck down Hampden; Newbury claimed another noble victim, this time from the king's side, the gentle and chivalrous Falkland. Weary of the strife and turmoil of the times, fearing the bigotry of the fanatic Puritans, and mistrustful of the shifty king, he rode gladly to his death, hoping to find peace in a soldier's grave. Between Newbury in September, 1643, and Marston Moor in July, 1644, several notable events happened. A treaty was patched up with the Irish rebels and the king got some regiments from Ireland. Pym, the great Parliamentary leader of the House of Commons, died in 1643. He was the man who had organised everything from the impeachment of Buckingham, the Petition of Right, and the Attainder of Strafford, down to the alliance with the Scots. The Scottish Presbyterians now allied themselves to the Parliament by the signing of the Solemn League and Covenant at Westminster, on September 25th, 1643. They sent an army under Alexander Leslie (Lord Leven) and his cousin, the more famous David Leslie, to check Newcastle's forces in the North (January, 1644). Cromwell had already prevented their attack on the Eastern Counties by his victory at Winceby. The way was shortly open for a forward movement by the Roundheads, and it soon began. The campaign that ended in the battle of Marston Moor began like a game of chess. For months the Roundheads in Lancashire, helped by Fairfax, had overpowered the Royalists everywhere except at Lathom House (near Ormskirk), defended by the Countess of Derby. Rupert had to wait until May before he could leave the Midlands for

its relief, and by that time other troubles had arisen. The Royalists were shut up in York and besieged by the Roundheads. Rupert now determined on a bold stroke, which relieved Lathom House and left him free to proceed to York. This city was reached on July 1st. The Royalist Marquis of Page | 74 Newcastle could now escape, and the two royal armies at once took up their quarters at Marston, six or seven miles west of York; the Scots and Fairfax, now joined by the Earl of Manchester and Cromwell, drawing off a little to the south. It looked as if Rupert's movement had been a complete success, But he was not content with relieving the Northern army; he wished to inflict a decisive defeat on the Parliamentarians. He told the more cautious Newcastle that he had the king's most positive orders to fight at all costs. But the king was ignorant of the circumstances. Newcastle, Rupert, and Goring had not more than eighteen thousand men, whilst Manchester and Cromwell, the Fairfaxes and the Leslies mustered about twenty-seven thousand. Rupert, however, had his way. He seized a strong position with open ground in front, where his cavalry could move easily. The Parliamentary army had also a good position on a slope or ridge between Tockwith and Long Marston. A ditch and hedge hindered their attack, and neither side wished to risk being caught there. For hours on the afternoon of July 2nd the armies lay facing one another. They were in the usual sort of order, foot-soldiers in the middle and cavalry on each side. Manchester was in chief command. Cromwell and David Leslie, with 4,000 horsemen, were on the left; next them came Manchester's foot; next the Scottish foot under Alexander Leslie; next Lord Fairfax's foot; and on the right wing Sir Thomas Fairfax's Yorkshire cavalry. Opposite them Rupert's own cavalry faced Cromwell's; Newcastle's foot faced the middle, and Goring's cavalry faced Fairfax. Cromwell was only in subordinate command, but as events turned out it was his battle. "Is Cromwell there?" asked Rupert of a prisoner. "And will they fight? If they will, they shall have fighting enough." "If it please God," said Cromwell, "so shall he." At six o'clock no movement had been made. "We will charge them to-morrow morning," said Rupert, and went off to supper. In a few minutes Cromwell had begun the attack. Sending a body of dragoons to clear the way over the ditch and hedge, he followed up rapidly with some heavy cavalry. A regiment of Rupert's horse met them and were swept back. This brought, Rupert himself to the front, rallying his men. And now the stoutest and fiercest troopers on both sides charged with all their force. "We came down the hill in the bravest order and with the greatest resolution that ever was seen," wrote one of them afterwards. "Cromwell's division of 300, in which himself was in person, charged the first division of Prince Rupert's, in which himself was in person. Cromwell's own division had a hard pull of it. They stood at the sword's point a pretty while, hacking one another, but at the last, so it pleased God, he brake through them, scattering them before him like a little dust."

David Leslie, with another body of cavalry, was now supporting Cromwell, and together they routed Rupert's horsemen completely, although Cromwell was wounded on the neck and for a time disabled. This, however, was only part of the battle. Further along the line Manchester's Page | 75 foot, led by Crawford, had made a successful attack, but in the centre, the Scottish foot, led by Alexander Leslie (Lord Leven) and William Baillie, were hard pressed by Newcastle's Whitecoats, and so also were Lord Fairfax's foot; whilst on the extreme right, Sir Thomas Fairfax's cavalry were being swept off the field by Goring's horse. The bulk of Goring's men pursued Fairfax's retreating regiments for miles. On that side the Royalists believed themselves sure of victory, and already sent off messengers to Oxford to announce it; and no wonder, for many had fled as far as Tadcaster, and old Leven reached Wetherby thinking the battle was entirely lost. Meanwhile Fairfax, wounded and almost alone, managed to reach Cromwell to tell him the news of the disaster. By this time the left wing, Cromwell's and Leslie's cavalry, were occupying the ground from which they had swept Rupert. They could thus wheel round still further and close in upon the Royalist infantry—Newcastle's—who were in a deadly struggle against Crawford and a few Scottish regiments. Crawford's foot had from the first pressed back the enemy, and with the Scottish regiments who kept their ground, he saved the situation, until Cromwell and Leslie with the victorious cavalry could come to their help. The decisive movement was Cromwell's. First clearing the ground of the few undefeated horsemen who had not joined in the pursuit of Fairfax, he and Leslie now bore down on the mass of Newcastle's foot, and caught them between his own horsemen and Crawford and Baillie's foot. The slaughter was terrible. Newcastle's finest regiments made a gallant and desperate stand. "By mere valour, for one whole hour, they kept the troops of horse from entering amongst them at near push of pike; and when the horse did enter, they would have no quarter, but fought it out until there was not thirty of them living." By nine o'clock all was over. Four thousand Royalists had been killed. Newcastle rode off to Scarborough and took ship to the Continent. Rupert collected the remnants of his army, 6,000 men, left York to the Roundheads, and rode off towards Chester. It was the first great and decisive victory of the Parliamentary armies, and whilst many had fought bravely, the victory was chiefly due to Cromwell's judgment and resolution and to the irresistible onslaught of his Ironsides. It was in this battle that Rupert gave Cromwell the nickname "Old Ironside," and his own soldiers accepted it. "We never charged but we routed the enemy. God made them as stubble to our swords"; so wrote Cromwell in describing the battle. After Marston Moor, Cromwell persuaded Parliament to reorganise the army, and a fine "New Model Army" was the result; the half-hearted leaders were also got rid of.

Soon the two armies again met in the decisive battle of Naseby. Charles, with Rupert and Langdale and Astley—for Goring was unable to join in time—had only 9,000 men. Fairfax had 14,000. But the king had heard of the new army, and thought his own old soldiers would make short work of it. He despised Fairfax, the new "brutish general," as he called him. And, indeed, but for Cromwell's unerring judgment and resolution, the Page | 76 king's confidence might have been justified. It was, compared with some others, a simple battle. On the Parliamentary side, Skippon was in the middle with the infantry. Ireton had some cavalry on the left. Cromwell, with over 3,000 horse, had the right wing. On the opposite side Rupert faced Ireton, Astley faced Skippon, and Sir Marmaduke Langdale faced Cromwell. Rupert swept all before him, and Ireton, with five regiments, was driven back. Ireton himself was wounded, and was for a time a prisoner. But, as usual, Rupert went too far. Whilst he was capturing the baggage train, the main action was being neglected. Astley's foot held the centre in check, and on the side where Rupert's horse had swept off Ireton, the Roundheads were exposed to a flank attack. Skippon himself was severely wounded. It was Cromwell who, by the same tactics as he had used at Marston, once more turned the scale. He sent forward Whalley, with a regiment of Ironsides, to charge Langdale. They carried all before them, and this left Cromwell, with his reserve cavalry, free to charge the Royalist centre. Joined by Fairfax, he soon made an end of the king's foot regiments. Before Rupert could return, whole regiments had surrendered, and the rest were flying back towards Leicester. A thousand had been killed. Five thousand prisoners, the king's baggage, his artillery, and his letters, fell into the Parliament's hands. From Naseby to the end of the first civil war, the time was spent in crushing out isolated fragments of the Royalist army, and in capturing fortified houses and castles. Goring was finally crushed at Langport, in Somerset, while Bristol, defended by Rupert, capitulated early in September. Bridgwater, Lyme, Taunton, Bath, Winchester, Devizes, Sherborne, all fell in a few weeks. Long and tedious were the attempts that Charles made to get terms from the Parliament, and meanwhile he kept up the game of trying to secure support, now from the Irish, now from the Scots. At length, at three in the morning of April 27th, 1646, disguised as a servant, with his beard and hair closely trimmed, Charles rode out of Oxford, over Magdalen Bridge, and by a roundabout route, passing through Slough, Harrow, St. Albans, Melton Mowbray, and Stamford, reached Southwell on May 7th at seven in the morning. The distinguished personage who was supposed to be his master pretended to be on the Parliament's side, and thus got through the Roundhead patrols with little difficulty. In a few hours Charles had surrendered himself a prisoner to the Scottish army encamped at Newark. The Scots had now a great prize in their hands, and moved off to Newcastle,

The Bargaining

Charles was a prisoner with the Scottish army from May to December, 1646. Long. discussions went on, and the Presbyterians tried to convert the king to their form of religion. But Charles refused to come to terms, as they asked him to give up the Page | 77 English Church and establish Presbyterianism, at least for ten years. The English Parliament, also largely Presbyterian, bargained with the king and with the Scots. It was arranged that the Scots should hand over the king to the English Parliament, on receiving payment of their arrears. In January, 1647, therefore, Charles was lodged under guard at Holmby House, in Northamptonshire, and the Scots went home. And now there began a most extraordinary series of bargainings between king, Parliament, and army. The two latter quarrelled; Cromwell threw in his lot with the army and had Charles seized and brought to the army headquarters at Newmarket. The army was now supreme, and made Charles an offer called the Heads of the Proposals. The king was to be restored, but for ten years Parliament was to control the militia, and the appointment of ministers of the Crown. These terms were refused. The quarrels between the different parties continued, Charles escaped to the Isle of Wight, and early in 1648 the second civil war broke out, after Charles had managed a treaty with the Scots. The Royalists were besieged at Colchester, and Cromwell gained a decisive victory over the Scots at Preston, and the second civil war (April–August, 1648) was soon over. After this there was little hope of mercy for the king. The army had made up its mind that Charles was responsible for all the blood shed during the second civil war. The Presbyterians still wished to treat with the king, but the army officers on December 6th sent Colonel Pride to Westminster to turn out the Presbyterians by force. Standing with a guard of soldiers at the entrance to the Parliament House, he arrested forty-five members, turned back ninety-six others, and admitted only those, about fifty or sixty, who were known to be in agreement with the wishes of the army. This action of Colonel Pride is known as "Pride's Purge."

------xxxxxxx------

17. Charles I

Page | 78 MEANWHILE the king was removed from Carisbrooke to Hurst Castle, and on December 23rd was brought to Windsor. During the next week his fate was discussed. Cromwell tried hard to find a way by which the king's life could be spared. When he found that Charles would rather part with his life than give up his kingly power, and that the leading officers were equally determined to accept no terms proposed by the king, Cromwell took the firm resolution that the king must die. When someone objected that the king could not be tried by the court set up by the Rump Parliament, "I tell you," said Cromwell, "we will cut off his head with the crown upon it." The trial of the king was a strange and terrible scene. Before he could be tried at all, several revolutionary measures were necessary, even though the House of Commons had been made a mere shadow of the army when Colonel Pride "purged" it. First the Commons passed an Ordinance to form a special court for the king's trial. The House of Lords, also reduced to a shadow—there were now only seven members— rejected the Ordinance. The Commons then passed resolutions that the people are, under God, the origin of all just power, and that the Commons, in Parliament assembled, have the supreme power. Their acts were to have the force of law, even without the agreement of the Lords and the king. On January 6th, 1649, the Act was passed, creating a High Court of Justice for the trial. The Act stated all the king's crimes; these were—that he had tried to ruin the ancient laws and liberties of this nation, and had carried out his design with fire and sword, and had levied and maintained a cruel war in the land against the Parliament and kingdom. Of the 138 Commissioners named to act as the judges at the trial, only sixty-eight appeared on the day of the trial, January 20th. At one o'clock the Court assembled in Westminster Hall. At the south end a wooden platform was erected on which sat the whole body of the king's judges, with Bradshaw as President of the Court. A chair covered with crimson velvet was placed directly in front of the President, and in it sat the king guarded by Colonel Hacker. Colonel Axtell with a large body of soldiers kept back the crowd of spectators. John Cook, the Solicitor of the Commonwealth, read the charges against Charles Stuart and impeached him as a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and a public and implacable enemy of the Commonwealth of England. Whilst this was read, Charles attempted to interrupt by touching the solicitor with his silver-headed staff. But the head fell off, and no one offering to pick it up for him, he stooped down for it himself. Hearing himself styled a traitor, he burst into a laugh.

Charles demanded of his judges by what authority he had been brought to the bar. Bradshaw replied, "By the authority of the people of England." Charles refused to plead, except before a lawful authority. "It is not my case alone," he said; "it is the freedom and liberty of the people of England; and do you Page | 79 pretend what you will, I stand more for their liberties. For if power without law may make laws, and may alter the fundamental laws of the kingdom, I do not know what subject he is in England that can be sure of his life, or anything that he calls his own." On the 27th, after nearly a week of private discussion, the Court delivered sentence, that the king was guilty and must be beheaded as a traitor. He had refused to plead before the Court, but he asked that he might address the Lords and Commons instead. After the sentence he attempted to speak. "Your time is now past," replied Bradshaw. He struggled to be heard. "Guard, withdraw your prisoner," ordered Bradshaw. "I am not suffered to speak," cried Charles. "Expect what justice other people will have." Even yet there was a faint hope for the king's life. The night after the trial he slept at Whitehall for the last time. On Sunday the 28th he listened to the prayers of the Church read to him by Bishop Juxon. At five o'clock he was led to St. James's Palace, perhaps to be out of earshot whilst his scaffold was prepared. Meanwhile the regicides (or king-killers), as the king's judges came to be called, were almost overwhelmed by appeals and protests and petitions to spare the king's life. The Prince of Wales sent a blank sheet of paper signed and sealed by himself, on which the Parliament might inscribe any terms they pleased. The death-warrant had not yet been signed by nearly all the judges, and many repented having signed it. It was Cromwell's stern unbending will that forced the judges to carry out their own sentence. The king bore himself with great dignity. He spent much time in prayer, burnt his papers, distributed various gifts, and Execution of took leave of his children. His wife he had not seen for nearly five years. On Monday night he slept at St. James's, and on the last day, Tuesday, he rose before daylight. "Let me have a shirt, more than ordinary," he said to his servant Thomas Herbert. "The season is so sharp as probably may make me shake, which some will imagine proceeds from fear. Death is not terrible to me. I bless my God I am prepared." Bishop Juxon read the morning service, and Charles continued in prayer until Colonel Hacker knocked at the door to summon him to Whitehall. Accompanied by the bishop, Colonel Tomlinson, and Herbert, he walked across St. James's Park between a double row of soldiers. At Whitehall he had to wait some hours, for the scaffold had to be prepared, so as to make any attempt at resistance impossible. About two o'clock the king stepped forth, probably from the central window of the Banqueting House. Juxon was still with him. The others on the scaffold were Colonels Hacker and Tomlinson and the two masked executioners. Around the scaffold were troops of horse and foot, and behind them surged the crowd.

Charles could not be heard below, but addressing himself to Juxon and Tomlinson, he declared that "Not he but the Parliament had originated the Civil War." He prayed that his enemies might be forgiven. "For the people . . . I must tell you that their liberty and freedom consists in having government, those laws by which their lives and their goods may be most their own. It is not their having a share in the government: Page | 80 that is nothing appertaining unto them." He then knelt down, placed his neck on the block, and in a moment all was over. "Behold the head of a traitor," cried the executioner. A groan of horror arose, and the troops began to patrol the street and to disperse the angry crowd.

------xxxxxxx------

18. Oliver Cromwell, the Commonwealth, and Puritanism

Page | 81 DURING the, ten years that followed the death of Charles, the history of England depended largely upon the conduct of one man, Oliver Cromwell. The country gentlemen, neither poor nor noble, together with the trading and manufacturing classes, formed the backbone of the Puritan cause, and like most of the leading Puritans, Cromwell sprang from this middle class. In appearance he was a strongly built man about 5 feet 10 inches, with a fine head. His face was not handsome, but his large, rough-hewn features had a kindly expression, as you can see in his portraits. His nose was large, his eyes a blue-grey, his mouth large and firm; he wore his hair long, as was usual in his time. He dressed plainly and sometimes carelessly, but even his enemies admitted his dignified bearing on all great occasions. Cromwell himself was descended from the sister of Thomas Cromwell, the famous minister of King Henry VIII. He was educated at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, entering the University on the very day on which Shakespeare died at Stratford. Afterwards he went to Lincoln's Inn, London, according to the custom which made the study of law common amongst English gentlemen. He inherited two small estates near Huntingdon, which he managed himself. He married the daughter of a well- to-do city merchant, and at twenty-nine was elected Member of Parliament for Huntingdon. From the first, long before the Civil War, Cromwell's chief interest lay in supporting the cause of the Puritan religion. It is, in fact, in the lives of individual men, such as Cromwell, Eliot, Pym, Hutchinson, Fairfax, and hundreds more, that we see how much religion had to do with the revolution. Cromwell spent much time in prayer and Bible-reading and in hearing sermons. He subscribed to maintain Puritan preachers or lecturers, for many of the clergy were not to the liking of their Puritan congregations. Of his conduct down to the death of the king, after what has been related in the last chapter, little more need be said. Indignant as he was with those who, he thought, had caused the second civil war, his personal feelings towards Charles softened. He risked his own popularity with the army and the Independents in trying to secure terms for the king and to preserve his life. But he shared the same superstitious feelings as most of the army leaders, and believed that it was God's command that the king should be brought to trial. When he was convinced that the execution of the king was a duty imposed by God, he struck down all opposition until the deed was done. With the death of the king a new chapter in Cromwell's career opens. Hitherto the revolution had been destructive. But in every revolution a time comes when new forms of government must be created and new rulers set up.

Cromwell was no anarchist; he was not even a Republican like Ludlow, whose sole idea was "that the nation might be governed by its own consent." His chief aims were to secure "liberty of conscience" for what he called the "people of God," by which he meant all Protestants. He believed in order and good government, and wished to see Parliament once more restored to what it had been before the war. But he recognized Page | 82 that for the present a strong authority must be set up. In February, 1649, the House of Commons voted that the House of Lords was useless, dangerous, and ought to be abolished. The House of Commons at that moment was simply the Rump, that is, the members left after Pride's Purge, and not even all those, for some had not come back after the king's execution. On February 8th the office of king was voted, by the same authority, to be unnecessary, burdensome, and dangerous. And after thus getting rid of the king and the lords, an Act established the English Commonwealth or Republic. It was intended that a new Parliament should be elected in due course, but for the present the remnant of the old Long Parliament was to make the laws, and a council of forty-one—of whom only about fifteen sat regularly—was to see the laws carried out. For three years this was the Commonwealth of England. It was surrounded by enemies. The royalists were ready to rise. The Scots were preparing to invade England. The extreme democrats, called the Levellers, the most famous of whom was John Lilburne, were ready to overturn the Government and set up a pure democracy, that is, a government of annual Parliaments elected by manhood suffrage, every man having a vote, and with Parliamentary control over everything. Considering its great difficulties, the new Council of State managed its affairs well. It had an army of 44,000 men, the best troops in Europe. The navy was strengthened, new ships were built, the sailors were better paid and better fed than ever before, and England began to be a great sea power. But it was useless to pretend that it was a popular Government. Even the liberty and worship that was allowed was hateful to the Presbyterians. Without the powerful army the Government could not have existed a single week. The expenses were greater than they had ever been under Charles I. Heavy taxes had to be levied, and the Royalists were ruined by having to pay heavy fines. The first trouble came from the Levellers. Cromwell saw that they must be put down. "I tell you," he said, thumping the Council table, you have no other way to deal with these men but to break them or they will break you." Lilburne, the leader, was sent to the Tower, but mutiny broke out in the army. Three of the ringleaders were shot in Burford churchyard. The rest were pardoned, and the trouble was over for the present. The next business was to finish the war in Ireland, which had begun with the Irish rebellion of 1641. The Royalist forces were led by James Butler, Earl, Marquis, and finally Duke of Ormonde, and after the king's execution he had proclaimed the Prince of Wales as Charles II. The situation was one of hopeless confusion when Cromwell sailed for Ireland in August, 1649, having been delayed four months by the task of equipping his

army of 12,000. Ormonde and the Royalists were now allied with the native Irish, and if they had acted promptly, they might have swept the Parliamentary forces out of Ireland. But Ormonde was kept too busy with his enemies to face Cromwell on his arrival. He could only throw a garrison into Drogheda, which Cromwell slaughtered without mercy, when he stormed it on September 10th. Wexford and Dundalk were Page | 83 soon captured. Waterford held out until 1650, when Cromwell sailed for England, leaving the rest of Ireland to be subdued by his lieutenants. His next workday in Scotland. The danger from Scotland was far greater than from Ireland, for already, in 1648, the Scots had sent a great army into England, which only Cromwell's astonishing success at Preston had defeated. The danger was imminent. But Cromwell won a great battle over Charles II and the Scots at Dunbar (September 3rd, 1650), and delivered his final blow at Worcester on the same day in the following year. The young king escaped after Worcester with a troop of Scottish horse. The Earl of Derby directed him to a safe retreat at Boscobel. Here, with Colonel Careless, he spent a day in a large oak-tree, whilst the woodman Penderel and his wife kept watch. Soldiers passed near in search of Royalist fugitives, but the king was not discovered. From Boscobel, mounted on a miller's horse, and in a threadbare coat and breeches of coarse green cloth, he rode to Moseley, accompanied by the six brothers of the Penderel family. In the night, Charles proceeded to Bentley disguised as the servant of Mistress Lane, and three days after reached Abbotsleigh. After many adventures, aided by loyal friends who risked their lives to save him, he reached Bridport, hoping to get a ship. But the shipmaster was suspicious, and Charles had to hide, first near Salisbury, and then make his way to Brighton, where a loyal merchant got him a vessel, and the owner— although he had discovered who his passenger was—carried him across to the Norman coast. Worcester was the last stage of the Civil War in England, and Cromwell now turned his attention to the government of the country, while General Monk reduced Scotland to a province of England, and thus for the first and only time conquered it. Whatever may have been his views in earlier days, Cromwell now realised that the country needed a strong ruler. After all the anarchy of the last few years, no government of any sort could exist without the help of the sword. He realised, what the men of the Rump did not realise, that the existing (so-called) Parliament was a sham; that it exercised its powers simply by leave of the army; and that until the whole nation was at peace with itself the army would be the real ruler of the country. These ideas were shared by a majority in the army, so that Cromwell was able to count upon its support. But the Rump, instead of dissolving itself in order to make room for a new Parliament that the army leaders had been asking for ever since the king's execution, now proceeded to pass a bill to ensure all its members a seat in the new

Parliament without re-election. Cromwell lost patience. He dissolved the Rump and was declared Lord Protector of the Commonwealth by another Parliament. Despairing of a "healing and settling" by Parliament, Cromwell determined at all costs to keep the nation from civil war. Plots were forming. The leader of the Scottish Page | 84 mutineers was sent to the Tower. General Harrison, the man who fed on prophecies and believed the second coming of Christ was at hand, had to be put in prison to prevent another rising. The leader of the Levellers was seeking to raise a rebellion against "the tyrant Cromwell." Royalists in the West were proclaiming Charles II. Swiftly Cromwell crushed out these dangerous fires and, boldly throwing off all appearance of legal right, he began to act as a great Constable set by God to keep order over the nation. He now used the army as his police officers and divided England into ten or twelve large districts, over each of which he set a major-general. For about two years, whilst Cromwell used despotic power, the major-generals kept the whole of England under military rule. Dangerous Royalists were placed under arrest; special taxes or fines (10 per cent. of their property) were levied from former Cavaliers. Races, cock-fights, and bear-baitings were prohibited to prevent seditious meetings. Ale-houses were closely watched and many were closed; rogues and vagabonds were put into the stocks. The old ejected clergy of. the Anglican Church were forbidden to act as chaplains or tutors; the use of the Common Prayer Book was forbidden; newspapers were restricted. To the Cavaliers it seemed a reign of terror. Yet, except for the repression of the Anglican and Catholic worship and the fines levied on the old Cavaliers—acts for which long afterwards the Puritans paid dearly—the stern rule of the despotic protector and the major-generals was a time of peace and prosperity. An Act was passed to give servants, apprentices, and scholars a holiday once a month. Cromwell himself hunted, hawked and played bowls. Education was encouraged, and the protector wished to set up a new university for the North of England either at York or Manchester, and he actually founded a college at Durham. If the Anglicans were hardly treated, the new sects had great liberty. George Fox won Cromwell's sympathy, and by his protection went on with his preaching and prophesying, founding the Society of Friends, commonly called Quakers. Whatever may be said in defence of Cromwell's rule by the major-generals as a measure to prevent the outbreak of civil war, it was the most unpopular of his acts, and it made Englishmen hate the name of a standing army for two generations. For the common people and the Cavaliers resented the interference with their daily habits. The country gentry were indignant at the fines they had to pay. Cromwell himself disliked this military despotism, but he believed that it was necessary. It was his firm intention to retain power until the nation was "healed and settled," and could once more be governed lawfully by a king through Parliament. In September, 1656, he called a second Parliament, but took care to exclude a hundred of the most troublesome members. Next year he withdrew the major-generals. The Parliament by "the Humble Petition and Advice" begged him to assume the title of king

and to rule by a Parliament of two Houses, It was not a mere name that they were thinking of. They believed that the new-fangled Governments of the last few years would never take root, but that if the old Government of King, Lords and Commons could be restored, with Cromwell as king, the country would get used to it.

Page | 85 Cromwell would have accepted the crown, for he had long been convinced that a king, under some title or other, was necessary. But his strongest supporters, the army officers, were opposed to the name, and he was unwilling to risk the loss of their support. He was now installed "protector," and there was a ceremony, almost like a royal coronation. But like all the previous schemes, it was destroyed by the quarrels of the various sections of Parliament and army. For when the two Houses met, all the old red-hot Republicans in the Commons broke out again in disputes. Fearing that the divisions in Parliament were encouraging the Royalists once more to rebel, Cromwell urged them to cease their quarrels. When he heard that the Republicans were making claims that had never been made before, nor have ever been made since, Cromwell in anger took coach to the House of Lords, summoned the Commons to the Painted Chamber, and put an end to their sitting. "I do dissolve this Parliament," he said, "and let God be judge between you and me." For seven more months Cromwell reigned alone, but his strength was exhausted. The long campaigns of the Civil War had more than once brought him to death's door, but he had recovered. He was now nearly sixty, and the incessant work and the terrible anxieties which the constant struggles with his Parliaments caused him, wore him out. "A great place, a great authority, is a great burden," he said. "I can say in the presence of God I would have lived under my woodside, to have kept a flock of sheep, rather than undertake such a government as this is." Whilst a great storm, long remembered, was raging over London, his mighty spirit, humbled like a little child's, was passing away. He prayed for "God's cause and God's people." "Thou hast made me, though very unworthy, a mean instrument to do them some good and Thee service. And many of them have set too high a value upon me, though others wish and would be glad of my death. But, Lord, however Thou dost dispose of me, continue and go on to do good for them. Give them constancy of judgment, one heart, and mutual love, and go on to deliver them. Teach those who look too much upon Thy instruments to depend more upon Thyself. Pardon such as desire to trample upon the dust of a poor worm, for they are Thy people too. And pardon the folly of this short prayer, even for Jesus Christ's sake, and give us a good night, if it be Thy pleasure." He was buried in Westminster Abbey, in the Chapel of Henry VII, amongst kings; for he had been a king and more than a king. No statesman ever had greater trials to endure and none ever devoted himself more whole-heartedly to serve his nation.

In spite of all the unpopularity of the Puritans, the nine years of Cromwell's rule had made the Commonwealth Government secure against all foes from without. The army was an invincible host, such as no English king had ever previously commanded. The navy was such as Charles I had only dreamt of. Early in the days of the Commonwealth the Dutch had given shelter to Charles, insulted the English Page | 86 representatives, allowed the English ambassador to be murdered, acted as lords of the sea, and refused all the proposals for friendship put forward by the Commonwealth. A short war, in the course of which the Commonwealth greatly strengthened the navy, soon taught the Dutch to respect the English flag. The Navigation Act (1651) closed the English and Colonial ports to Dutch ships; and Robert Blake fought for two-years against the famous Admirals Tromp and Ruyter. Admiral Tromp fought a drawn battle against Blake, off Hastings, and drove him into the Channel, flaunting a broom at his mast-head. But Blake soon drove the Dutch to their own shores, and, after further fighting, a favourable peace was concluded. The English admirals, Blake and others, chased Prince Rupert from the seas, where he had begun to wage a semi-piratical war on English ships. Cromwell made the courts of France and Spain bid for his support; he demanded from Spain freedom to trade with Spanish America, and freedom of religion for Englishmen in all Spanish dominions. "You might as well ask for my master's two eyes," declared the Spanish Ambassador; so Cromwell turned to the French alliance and sent out a fleet to the West Indies. That expedition was a failure, but on its way back the fleet seized Jamaica. Blake in the Mediterranean put down the pirates of Tunis. He also destroyed the Spanish West India fleet at Santa Cruz in Teneriffe—the greatest naval victory since the Armada. The prestige of the Commonwealth was so great abroad that the French, at Cromwell's wish, compelled the Regent of Savoy to stop the persecution of the Protestants in the Vaudois. Six thousand Ironsides went to help the French against Spain, and won a great victory at the Dunes outside Dunkirk. The reward for this was that the English held Dunkirk, until Charles II was pleased to sell it, a few years after his Restoration. Foreign nations looked upon Cromwell's Government as a firmly settled power, and the exiled wanderer, Charles, with scarcely bread enough to eat, shifted about from place to place. The Royalists had almost ceased to hope, when Cromwell died. Even then they could effect nothing until the quarrels of the Republicans themselves opened the door for the king. Cromwell had named his eldest son, Richard, as his successor: But it was not long before General Monk, the governor of Scotland, marched to London, and proclaimed a free Parliament, which invited Charles II to return as king. On his birthday, May 29th, Charles entered London: Everywhere flags were flying, bells and music sounding. "But in the midst of the general joy, one spot presented a dark and threatening aspect. On Blackheath the army was drawn up to welcome the

sovereign. He smiled, bowed, and extended his hand graciously to the lips of the colonels and majors. But all his courtesy was vain. "Betrayed by their general, abandoned by their leaders, surrounded as they were by a nation in arms, the gloomy silence of their ranks awed even the careless king Page | 87 with a sense of danger. But none of the victories of the New Model were so glorious as the victory which it won over itself. Quietly and without a struggle, the farmers and traders who had dashed Rupert's chivalry to pieces, who had mastered the Parliament, and held even Cromwell in awe, became farmers and traders again, and were known among their fellow-men by no other sign than their greater soberness and industry."

------xxxxxxx------

19. The Reign of Charles II — The "Merrie Monarch" (1660—1685)

Page | 88 WE read that in May, 1660, Charles II entered London in triumph, and that the whole nation seemed to give itself up to feasting and revelry. John Evelyn, who saw it, writes: "Shouting with inexpressible joy, the ways strewed with flowers, the bells ringing, the streets hung with tapestry, fountains running with wine, the mayor, aldermen, and all the companies, in their liveries, chains of gold, and banners; lords and nobles, clad in cloth of silver, gold, and velvet; the windows and balconies all set with ladies; trumpets, music, and myriads of people flocking, even so far as Rochester . . . I stood in the Strand and beheld it and blessed God. And all this was done without one drop of blood shed, but it was the Lord's doing." We may well ask what it all really meant. Did it mean that the Civil War had been a mistake, and that the nation wished to be ruled by kings, as it had been in the days of the Tudors and the Yorkists? Doubtless many of the old Cavaliers thought so. But when they saw the king restored, they forgot that he had been restored, not by a royalist victory, but by a parliamentary general (Monk). The king was restored without any of those treaties such as had been discussed years before between Charles I and the Parliament. His promise that everything should be settled by a free Parliament was thought to be more satisfactory than any treaty. The Restoration was therefore the restoration of Parliament as well as of Monarchy, and the fact that the Parliament turned out to be composed of Royalists was due to the temper of the nation and to nothing else. There is no doubt that the event known as the "Restoration" was a very important crisis in our history. It was a revolution, just as the setting up of the Commonwealth had been; and, just as the character of Cromwell in that period influenced the destinies of the whole nation, so the character of Charles II helped to decide the direction in which the nation was to develop. But Charles influenced our history as much by what he did not do, as by what he did. Had he been a king with a strong will and a taste for hard work, he might have become a despot like Louis XIV, his cousin, then reigning in France. It was fortunate for England that Charles threw away the opportunities which a foolish nation placed in his hands. The newly elected Parliament was to meet in May. In the interval, the country was strongly royalist in feeling. It was then that the trial and execution of the Regicides took place. The elections resulted in a strong Cavalier Parliament. Only about sixty Presbyterians gained seats, although London continued to send four. This Parliament sat until 1679, and is known as the Long Parliament of the Restoration. This, of course, was

contrary to the Triennial Act, but that Act was repealed as being a reflection on the king. Charles knew he was not likely to get a Parliament more favourable to him, so he took care not to dissolve it for eighteen years. His first work was the restoration of the Church of England. Charles himself cared Page | 89 little about the Church. His private inclinations were towards Catholicism, and eventually he became a secret Catholic. He wished to secure toleration for Catholics, and would have agreed to some toleration for the Presbyterians. But the temper of the House of Commons was now so violently Anglican, that even without Clarendon the restoration of the Church was certain. The discredit of the famous persecuting statutes belongs rather to the Commons than to Clarendon, the minister, although it is true he opposed the king's desire for toleration. The first of these acts, theCorporation Act (1661), was directed against the Presbyterians, who were still numerous and influential in the towns. This act compelled all members of town councils or corporations, mayors, aldermen, councillors, and other officers, to receive the Holy Communion according to the rites of the Church of England. They had also to call the king Supreme Head of the Church and to take the oaths of allegiance and non-resistance to the king. By this means all power in the boroughs was placed in the hands of Anglicans, who thus could see that Anglican members were elected to Parliament. In the following year the old Act of Uniformity, passed in 1559, was renewed. By this act it became impossible for any one to hold a Church living, or to be a tutor or a schoolmaster, who would not swear that he believed everything in the Book of Common Prayer. All the clergy were also compelled to be ordained by a bishop. More than 1,200 rectors and vicars gave up their livings rather than conform to these laws, and for some years in many parts of the country it was difficult to find men able to take their places. It was, however, still possible for the Presbyterians and other Puritan sects to worship in their own chapels, and the ejected clergy swelled the ranks of these "Dissenters." So a further act was now aimed at them. The Conventicle Act forbade more than five persons besides the members of a household to meet for worship except according to the Prayer Book, under penalties of fine and imprisonment. For a third offence the offenders could be sent out of the country. Lastly, a Five Mile Act was passed, and this forbade "any nonconformist minister to come within five miles of any corporate town (or borough), or of any place in which he had formerly held a living; unless he would swear that he believed it to be unlawful to take up arms against the king, or try to change the Government either in Church or State." These were harsh laws, but it was still possible to evade them; and even without evading them, it was still possible for Nonconformists to exist. Their numbers grew in spite of fine and imprisonment. The persecution of the Dissenters, like that formerly practised against the Catholics, was never very systematic. Every now and then there

would be an outburst of persecution, and the gaols would be filled with men whose only offence was a conscientious objection to conform to the Prayer Book. Even a single magistrate could harass and ruin any poor Dissenter in his neighbourhood. Foreign affairs, particularly our relations with France and Holland, were of great Page | 90 importance from Charles's accession until the end of the period (1715). The King of France, Louis XIV, was Charles's cousin; and just about the time of Charles's restoration, he was by his own industry and ambition trying to make France the most powerful monarchy in Europe. The main fact in European history from that time until 1715 was the struggle against Louis, who was seeking to make himself master of Spain, of the Spanish Netherlands (now Belgium), of the States bordering on the Rhine, and even of Holland itself. Alliances were formed, chiefly by Holland, to resist and break down the French power. In 1665 this great struggle had not yet begun, but by his attack on Holland, Charles foolishly played into Louis's hands. For Holland and England were the two strongest naval powers, and Louis was glad to see them destroy each other. It was his policy to prevent England from allying with Holland. With this purpose, after the first Dutch war was over, he bound Charles by secret treaties not to ally with the Dutch. Charles was a clever diplomatist, and extorted vast sums of money from Louis as the price of his agreement. But it was a shameful bargain, for it meant that an English king was bribed to act against the real interests of the English nation, and to support a Catholic tyrant against a free Protestant nation (Holland). The Dutch war was the first stage in this dishonest, foolish foreign policy. In the year following the Great Fire of London and the Plague, the Dutch actually sailed up the Thames and burned sixteen ships at the gates of Chatham Docks. London was in a panic, and those who were not frightened were ashamed. In order to give toleration to the Catholics, Charles was willing to give it to the Nonconformists. He issued a Declaration of Indulgence in 1672, which suspended the penalties against Catholics and Nonconformists alike. But the next year the Protestant party passed the Test Act, requiring all officers of the crown to take the sacrament according to the Church of England. The Duke of York, the heir to the throne, had declared himself a Catholic. In 1678 the rumour of a great Popish plot was spread. The Whigs—as the Roundheads came to be called—introduced the Exclusion Bill to exclude the duke from the throne, but the Tories—the successors of the Cavaliers—rallied round the duke and the king. Charles II died in February, 1685. The main course of events during the reign has been told, but it is difficult to see just how much had been gained or lost during the twenty-five years since the Restoration. It must have seemed to the Whigs that the Civil War had been fought in vain. In reality it was not so. More progress had been made than the people of the time were aware of. First of all, Charles II had never attempted, as his father had, to oppose a united Parliament. He could only go as far as the Tory party would support him, and his power was therefore dependent on a party that frequently had half the nation on its

side. Secondly, it was only by accepting a pension from France that he had been able to maintain so much independence. Thirdly, he had to consent to many things distasteful to him. Parliament insisted on its right not only of fixing the amount of supplies for the Government, but of deciding upon what objects the money should be spent. And it was in this reign that the House of Commons asserted the right, against the House of Lords, Page | 91 that they alone had control over all votes of money. The Whigs had almost succeeded in altering the succession to the throne. They did succeed in getting one law passed which ranks among the greatest laws in English history; this was the great Habeas Corpus Act. Magna Charta had said, "No freeman shall be taken and imprisoned unless by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land." Nevertheless, during hundreds of years it was possible for a king to evade the law in the case of men arrested for political crimes. Many attempts had been made by Parliament to prevent kings interfering with the course of justice, and to secure either a speedy trial or the release of such prisoners. The Habeas Corpus Act now secured this end, by making judges and other officers liable to a heavy fine if they refused to bring men to trial at the first opportunity. In addition to all this, Shaftesbury and the Whig lords who acted with him had shown that, without resort to civil war, a large party in Parliament, backed by the voters in the country, could make it difficult for any Government to act in defiance of the wishes of the people. Political parties had come into existence; and in a few years that party which could secure a majority of members on its side in the House of Commons would be able to control the Government. For good and evil, this was one of the greatest results of the political life of the reign of Charles II. It remains to say something of some other matters of interest in this reign. The Great Plague has been mentioned. This happened in 1665, during the war with the Dutch. There had been many previous plagues. Indeed, in the Middle Ages plague was seldom absent for any long time; and in the seventeenth century London had suffered several times. The city itself was very unsanitary, and the new districts that had grown up to the east and south were still worse than the city. For months the plague raged. At the end of August the streets were deserted, and business was almost suspended except for the supply of food. All who could escaped from the plague-stricken city, except a few doctors and Puritan clergymen. In September a thousand persons a day died, and altogether some eighty thousand, or about one-fifth of the whole city population, were carried off by the plague alone. Next year, 1666, the Great Fire broke out. Pepys writes in his Diary, September 2nd, 1666: "Some of our maids, sitting up late last night, called us up, about three in the morning, to tell us of a great fire they saw in the city. Bye and bye Jane comes and tells me she hears that above three hundred houses have been burnt down to-night, and that it is now burning all Fish Street by London Bridge. . . . So off I go to the Lieutenant of the Tower, who tells me it began this morning in the king's baker's house in Pudding

Lane . . . Everybody endeavouring to remove their goods and flinging them into the river, or bringing them into lighters." His account is the most vivid we possess, but too long to quote in full. Charles II's reign was not fruitful in great men. In literature, the one great name Page | 92 that stands out above all others is that of John Milton. But although he lived on until 1674, and wrote his greatest poems in the early years of the Restoration period, he belongs to the earlier age, when Puritanism was triumphing over its foes. He wrote in defence of the Parliament, and even justified the execution of the king. The Commonwealth appointed him Latin Secretary to the Council of State. But he soon became blind, partly in consequence of his close attention to his duties and to study. When the Restoration came, misfortune fell upon him. He was imprisoned for a short time and lost much of his property. He was, however, able to live in quietness and obscurity, in a house in Artillery Walk, Bunhill Fields, London. His greatest poems, "Paradise Lost," "Paradise Regained," and "Samson Agonistes," were all written in this last period of his life. No one who has not read these magnificent poems can realise the grandeur of Puritanism at its highest and best. Writers were not wanting in Charles II's reign. John Bunyan wrote his marvellous "Pilgrim's Progress" and other works, such as "The Holy War" and "Grace Abounding." But he, too, belonged in sympathy to the previous age, and of all the writings of the seventeenth century, his are the most expressive of the popular Puritan spirit. Dryden, Andrew Marvell, Otway, Cowley, Edmund Waller, Butler, and other poets were a sad falling off from the age of Shakespeare and Milton. Clarendon's History, the Diaries of Pepys and Evelyn, and other memoirs give us wonderful pictures of the men and manners of the time. But, with these notable exceptions, books and plays were more frivolous, and written mostly for amusement. In art nearly all the greatest painters were foreign, and these were greatly inferior to their predecessors, Rubens and Vandyke, whom Charles I had employed. One very great architect there was, Sir Christopher Wren, the, builder of St. Paul's Cathedral, Greenwich Hospital, and scores of London churches. The Fire of London furnished him with the greatest opportunity any English architect has ever enjoyed, and Wren has left more monuments of his genius than any of his successors. Henry Purcell, the first notable English musician, lived at this time. In natural science, Sir Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle began their researches and discoveries, and gathered round them in the Royal Society, founded in 1662, a band of scientists— careful thinkers and writers—who did much to spread an interest in real knowledge of the natural world.

------xxxxxxx------

20. James II and the Glorious Revolution (1688)

Page | 93 WITH the accession of James II we seem to take up the thread of events, especially the struggle between King and Parliament and the fight against Popery that had been suspended by the Restoration. The king's position was more secure than ever after the defeat of the Duke of Monmouth, the Whig candidate for the throne, who had raised rebellions for "the defense of the Protestant religion." The rebellions Act had placed a standing army in his hands. Parliament had voted ample supplies. The King of France, and the enemies of the King of France, were each anxious to secure his support. He now felt strong enough to effect the second part of his design. Had he attempted only to secure toleration for the Catholics, he would have met with little opposition; and the more prudent of the Catholics, even the Pope himself, wished him to adopt this course. Instead, he began to set the Test Act at defiance. He granted places in the army to zealous Catholics. He bluntly told the Parliament that he had appointed officers who were not qualified by the law, but he could guarantee their fidelity, and was determined to keep them in his service. As Parliament—though a Tory one—refused to repeal the Test Act, he tried to get the judges to override the act by deciding, in a famous lawsuit, that the king could "dispense'. with that or any other Act of Parliament. Next, he placed Roman Catholics in important positions not only in the State, but in the English Church itself. He actually appointed an avowed Catholic to be Dean of Christ Church, Oxford. James's next step was a bid for popularity in another direction. Charles II had often wished to secure toleration, and had therefore published a Declaration of Indulgence, which was rejected by his next Parliament. With James, the desire for toleration was a mere pretence. He wished to assert his power to dispense with any law whatsoever, and to unite the Protestant Dissenters with the Catholics to overthrow the power of the English Church. In April, 1687, be published a Declaration of Indulgence suspending all the laws against both Catholics and Protestant Dissenters. It was a great temptation to the Dissenters, but most of them stood firm. They refused to accept a toleration that could only be got by sacrificing the laws of the country and the whole authority of Parliament to suit the schemes of a popish king. William Penn—the great Quaker, and the founder of Pennsylvania—and a few others went over to the king's side; but Richard Baxter, John Bunyan, and other leaders of the persecuted sects, who had suffered imprisonment, were not to be bought over, although James made great efforts to secure their support. So the Dissenters supported the Church of England in resisting the Declaration, and as a result some of the old intolerance was weakened. Eminent Churchmen began to see that the laws against the

Protestant Dissenters must be relaxed. In the next reign the Toleration Act put an end to a century of persecution, as far as the Protestants were concerned. James's first Declaration failed. Next year he published. another. Even yet he had not got to the end of his folly; for he now committed the most unwise act of his reign Page | 94 and one that cost him his crown. The clergy were ordered to read the Declaration from their pulpits on the last two Sundays in May, 1688, in London, and on the first two Sundays in June elsewhere. The Dissenters in London joined with the other clergy. Many of the greatest preachers of the age met in London and pledged themselves not to read the Declaration. A memorable meeting took place at Lambeth round the table of the Archbishop of Canterbury. A few bishops and the Earl of Clarendon were present. They decided to call together the most eminent leaders of the Church. They little thought they were preparing a Revolution. They met again, and there they drew up the Petition of the Seven Bishops. Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, Lloyd of St. Asaph, Turner of Ely, Lake of Chichester, Ken of Bath and Wells, White of Peterborough, and Trelawney of Bristol, all signed. Compton of London, having been suspended, did not sign. They stated that the Church was and ever had been faithful to the throne, that the bishops would in Parliament show that they were in favour of granting some toleration, but that the Declaration was illegal, and that they could not in conscience publish an illegal Declaration in the house of God. The petition was carried to James himself by six of the bishops. Sancroft stayed behind, as he had been forbidden to come to court. James had heard that the bishops were disposed to obey. He met them therefore in good humour, but when he read the petition he broke out in anger. "This is a standard of rebellion," he said. The bishops retired. The king kept the petition in his hand; but some one had obtained a copy, and in a few hours it was hawked in the streets and sold by thousands. When Sunday came, out of a hundred London churches the Declaration was read only in four, and in these the congregations hastily left the church. Before such signs of public indignation James hesitated. Sunderland and the Catholic lords in his council advised that the bishops should be merely reprimanded by the king. But Jeffreys advised that they should be tried as criminals for "publishing a seditious libel." They were first summoned to the Council Chamber in the hope that they would retract. They refused. James therefore gave orders to commit them to the Tower. A week later they were brought before the Court of King's Bench, passing on their way through great crowds of admirers. The trial was not to take place before June 29th, and Lord Halifax had already arranged that twenty-one of the greatest peers of the realm would give bail for Bishops. The country was raging with indignation. The peasants and miners of Cornwall sang a ballad still remembered— "And shall Trelawney die, and shall Trelawney die? Then thirty thousand Cornish boys will know the reason why."

It was in these weeks before the trial of the Seven Bishops that a son was born to James. Instead of rejoicing, the nation was filled with rage and disappointment. Thousands had been content to serve the king faithfully while he lived, because they believed the Protestant cause was secure in the succession of James's Protestant daughter and the Prince of Orange. The birth of a son, who would certainly be brought Page | 95 up in the Catholic faith, increased all that hatred and fear of the Catholic cause which the king's conduct had aroused. In another week it was rumoured, and the rumour was well founded, that Sunderland, the king's chief minister, had openly become a Catholic. This was at the very time that the greatest leaders of the National Church were awaiting their trial for obeying their consciences and defending the Church. The trial began before the four judges of the King's Bench. Great lawyers were engaged on both sides. The court was crowded with peers and members of Parliament. Even the judges themselves were awed by the solemnity of the occasion and the presence of the greatest and most powerful men in the kingdom. After the speeches of the lawyers and the summing-up of the judges, the whole nation waited for the verdict. While the rest of the court went home, the jury remained all night in a locked room under guard, without food or water—such was the custom of the time— considering their decision. Great numbers of people walked the neighbouring streets till dawn. Messengers came every hour from Whitehall to know what was happening. Not until six in the morning were the jury agreed. At ten the court met again to hear the verdict. As the words "Not Guilty!" were heard, Lord Halifax, who was in court, sprang up and waved his hat. The ten thousand persons who filled the great hall raised a mighty "Not guilty!" shout. The crowd outside took it up, and the boats on the Thames answered with another. Guns were fired. Horsemen set off to carry the news over the whole country. The churches were opened, the bells were rang. All the following night London gave itself up to rejoicings. Bonfires were ablaze everywhere. James might well be disturbed by these signs of the times. By his rashness and bigotry he had succeeded in doing what neither his father nor his brother had done. He had united the Church of England and the Protestant Dissenters, Tories and Whigs, Cavaliers and Roundheads, in one spirit of resentment against the crown. On the very day that the bishops were acquitted, seven of the leading noblemen despatched a letter inviting William, Prince of Orange, to come at once to England to lead the nation against James. This letter was the outcome of a conspiracy, but one which deserves a place among the greatest events in our history. It was conceived by men who had great claims to act in the name of the nation, and who proved by their actions that they could carry out a revolution which preserved far more than it destroyed. James tried to make concessions; but he was now deserted by his friends, including the rising general, John, Lord Churchill. William landed at Torbay (November 5th, 1688); James fled to France, and so abdicated the throne. ------xxxxxxx------

21. William III and the Revolution Settlement

Page | 96 William, Prince of Orange, was one of the greatest men of his own age, and one of the greatest kings who ever reigned over England. Yet he was never popular in England, and was worse served than the worst king who brought misers upon the nation he governed. Before proceeding with the narrative of William's career, there is one aspect of the Revolution that must receive attention. For sixty years, if we go back no further than the Petition of Right in 1628, there had been strife between King and Parliament. There had been a long civil war, the execution of a king, the establishment of a republic, a military despotism, a Restoration, and now another Revolution. James had been driven from the throne chiefly because of his attempt to overthrow the Church of England and to impose Catholicism on the nation. Had James been a member of the Church of England, his civil tyranny alone would never have provoked a revolution; for the Parliament was prepared to support him. Nevertheless, now that the occasion had come, the Whigs were desirous of setting the monarchy upon a new footing, and of placing the power of Parliament beyond the reach of attack. All previous attempts to arrive at a just balance of power between crown and Parliament had failed. With a man less wise and moderate than William, this attempt also would have failed. The Convention Parliament drew up a Declaration of Right, which stated what the chief illegal acts of James had been. It went on to, declare that the king had no power to suspend or dispense with laws; nor to levy taxes without consent of Parliament; nor to keep a standing army in time of peace. Further, that elections to Parliament ought to be free; that speech in Parliament ought to be free; that Parliaments ought to be held frequently; and that no one but a Protestant should be king or queen of England. They then offered the crown to William and Mary as joint sovereigns, on their accepting and ratifying the Declaration of Right. This was afterwards made into an Act of Parliament, and so the "Bill of Rights" still stands as one Of the few great Acts of Parliament upon which the British Constitution rests. Parliament for the first time declared its right freely to dispose of the crown, and, acting on this right, it decided also the succession to the throne. For it gave to William, and not to Mary, the right to act as king, both whilst Mary lived and so long as he survived. It gave the succession first to the children of William and Mary; then to her sister Anne and her children; then to any heir of William. The doctrine of divine right— of the Lord's Anointed—was thus put an end to by Act of Parliament.

All previous attempts to make kings dependent on Parliament for their supplies had only been partially successful. The king's revenue was now so ordered that he simply could not carry on the ordinary government in time of peace without frequent resort to Parliament. As for the army and navy, without the annual votes of supplies from Parliament it was absolutely impossible to maintain them. As William's whole Page | 97 policy was dependent upon having an army to fight Louis on the Continent, this made the control of Parliament perfectly secure. Again, although William was free to choose his own ministers, and did so from both parties at the same time, he soon found that it was better to choose his council from the party which had a majority in meat the House of Commons, for unless the House of Commons supported the acts of his ministers, all sorts of obstacles could be put in his way. A general election thus decided which party was to direct the government, for the Cabinet was now chosen from the party which had a majority in the House of Commons; and this has ever since been the most important feature in the Constitution of the country. We can now turn to the chief events of William's reign. In spite of the wrangling of parties and the intrigues of self-seeking politicians, some good measures were enacted. Among the first of these was the Toleration Act. It might have been expected that the Dissenters, who had really done so much to support the Revolution, would have been now rewarded by complete toleration. William and the Whigs would have granted this, but the Tory Churchmen would only consent to the penal laws being suspended. The old penal laws were not repealed; but any Dissenter who would take certain oaths was relieved from the penalties. The Corporation and Test Acts were still retained, and thus for a century more, although not persecuted, the Dissenters were still excluded from office in the State, the corporations, and the army. They were also excluded from the Universities. But they submitted loyally and waited until the nineteenth century for complete toleration. The Catholics, on the other hand, hated by Whigs and Tories alike, were oppressed by new laws, both in England and Ireland. Scotland and Ireland both required William's attention. Scotland was a separate kingdom. Its people were strongly Presbyterian, but by means of packed Parliaments and the special powers of the crown, the country had been ruled in the interests of the followers of the bishops. The Scottish Parliament took advantage of James's "desertion" to effect a more complete revolution than had taken place in England. They abolished "prelacy," or the rule of bishops, altered the constitution of their Parliament, and put restrictions on the power of the crown, before they offered it to William. He had no choice but to accept their terms, for the kingdom was divided by fiercer factions than England; a "Jacobite" party was forming, supported by whole clans of the Highlanders. The Jacobites caught William's general at a disadvantage in the Pass of Killiecrankie (Perthshire), but the revolt soon died down. There followed, however; a

terrible crime: because the Macdonalds of Glencoe did not take the oath to William in time, they were nearly all put to the sword at the terrible Massacre of Glencoe. Affairs in Ireland were worse than in Scotland. The Ulstermen were cooped up in Londonderry, besieged by a French and Irish army, and suffered the agonies of famine Page | 98 before they were relieved by William. Next year (1690), William defeated James at the Battle of the Boyne. Still Ireland took another fifteen months to. conquer. The war ended by the Treaty of Limerick, which promised the Catholics the privileges they had enjoyed in Charles II's time. The Irish Protestant Parliament, however, repudiated the terms, though the Irish were entitled to them by every sentiment of honour. Whilst William had been winning, the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland, England had passed through a great danger. On June 30th, the very day the two armies faced each other across the Boyne, the English Admiral Herbert, now Lord Torrington, was shamefully beaten by the French, under Tourville. Torrington behaved badly, both by retreating before the French fleet until he received positive orders from the Government to fight at all costs, and by allowing the brunt of the battle to fall upon his Dutch allies, who formed part of his fleet of sixty ships. By the battle off Beachy Head, the French became for the moment masters of the Channel, and burnt the town of Teignmouth. It was two years before the English wiped out the national disgrace by the great victory of La Hogue, won by Admiral Russell in May, 1692. To William the affairs of England were but a part of that great struggle against France which was the supreme object of his life. Louis had at his command the richest nation, the greatest army, the best generals, that had been seen in Europe for a thousand years. William had to rely upon uncertain alliances with Austria, Spain, Brandenburg, and England. To keep them faithful to their promises, to get them to act together, and with such means to hold in check the mighty power of France, was a great achievement. Although war was declared against France in 1689, William could not go to the Continent until two years afterwards. He was an unlucky general. He hardly ever won a victory. Yet he achieved his ends by holding on in spite of defeat, and keeping his armies together. Consequently, although Louie won nearly all the battles, France was worn out and defeated in the long run. The good queen, Mary, had died in 1694. In September, 1701, James II died at St. Germains. The last of Anne's children had died in 1700. It was therefore necessary to decide the question of the lawful succession to the throne. The Act of Succession (or Act of Settlement) decided that the crown was to descend to Anne, then to Sophia, Electress or Princess of Hanover (a grand-daughter of James I of England), and to her heirs, being Protestants. It carried further the principles of the Bill of Rights by providing that all future monarchs must belong to the Church of England; that no English sovereign should leave the kingdom without the consent of Parliament; that no pensioner or placeman should serve as a member of Parliament; that no pardon under

the Great Seal should prevent impeachment by the Commons, and that the judges should hold their offices during good behaviour, and not be removed except by an address from both Houses of Parliament. Thus we see that the efforts of the Long Parliament had after all not been in vain. William III was the first "constitutional king," that is, the first king who really ruled through Parliament. Page | 99 William died on March 8th, 1702, in consequence of a fall from his horse. He was preparing for a renewal of the great war against France, which was to be carried out by England's greatest general in the next reign.

------xxxxxxx------

22. Queen Anne and Lady Marlborough

Page | 100 It is difficult to describe Anne's character, except by saying what she was not. She was not clever, she was not beautiful, she had no gifts of any kind; she had not behaved well to her father, or to her sister. Her piety was mixed with superstition; her honesty was spoiled by obstinacy. She had no real independence of character, and always relied upon someone to think for her and decide for her. From childhood she had been entirely in the hands of a clever woman, Sarah Jennings, who married John Churchill—known to history as the first Duke of Marlborough. William's death left Marlborough to carry out his policy. France was now more powerful than in the previous war, for Spain and Bavaria were joined in alliance with her. Against them were united Austria, Holland, the new kingdom of Prussia, a few other small German States such as Hanover, Portugal, the Duchy of Savoy (which furnished a great general, Eugene), and England (which furnished an army, much money, and Marlborough). The war was fought in Italy, in Spain, in Germany, in Flanders, and on the sea. The hero of it was Marlborough. He had two great tasks—first, to keep the allies acting together; next, to defeat the French on the battlefield. He found the second task easier than the first. There was, in fact, only one of the allies with whom it was possible to act in harmony. That was Eugene of Savoy, with whom Marlborough struck up a great friendship. The war was on a grand scale, for the opposing armies often numbered sixty thousand on each side. Of these, not more than about twelve thousand were Englishmen. Many were veterans who had gained experience in William's wars, but there were the usual supplies of raw recruits gathered from the gaols, pressed-men, bankrupts, and able-bodied men who had no lawful calling or occupation, or visible means of support." Yet out of such material Marlborough created the finest army of his age. As far as his means would allow, he looked after the welfare of his men, and his discipline and training enabled his troops to perform deeds that astonished his enemies. War was declared in 1702. Marlborough drove back a great French army from the Lower Meuse, and took some strong fortresses. Early in 1704, in secret conjunction with Eugene, he devised the most daring and brilliant of his campaigns, that of Blenheim (August 13th, 1704). Marlborough's fame was spread over Europe. The queen had already created him Duke of Marlborough after his first campaign. He now received further rewards, and began to build at Woodstock the great palace (Blenheim Palace) that still reminds us of his greatest victory. The very week before Blenheim was fought, Admiral Rooke also captured Gibraltar, and defeated soon after a French fleet that attempted to

recover it. The importance of this great event was seen during the next hundred years, for it enabled British fleets to hold the Mediterranean. For the next six years Marlborough conducted great campaigns, chiefly in Flanders. He defeated the French at Ramillies (1706), Oudenarde (1708), and Page | 101 Malplaquet (1709). But the achievements of the war after 1709 brought no further advantage either to England or the Allies. At home the Tories were planning for the overthrow of the Whig party and of Marlborough himself. A new Parliament was elected, and this was strongly Tory, and Marlborough's power was over. In 1713 the Peace of Utrecht was signed. England gained from France valuable lands in North America—Hudson's Bay, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia, as well as St. Christopher in the Leeward Isles. From Spain she gained Gibraltar and Minorca, and— what must be read with shame, although it did not seem shameful to our ancestors— the monopoly of the slave trade to the Spanish colonies for thirty years. The French, too, were to expel the Pretender (the son of James II) from France. The original cause of the war, the Spanish Succession, was settled by allowing Philip V to remain king: but Spain was only to keep her colonies, not her other possessions in Europe. A great part of the latter went to the Archduke, now Emperor of Austria. The greatest political event of the reign of Anne was the Act of Union with Scotland. In the last reign great jealousy existed between the two kingdoms. In matters of trade they were like two foreign countries, and thus the trading companies of the two countries came into conflict with one another. In a few years, however, the Scots saw that they had more to gain in trade by a real union with England than they had to lose in independence. The Act of Union provided for forty-five Scottish members to sit in the House of Commons and sixteen peers in the House of Lords. The Scottish Church, which was Presbyterian, was to remain as it was, and Scottish laws which differed in several ways, from English, was also to remain unchanged. But trade was to be free between the two countries, and taxes and coins were to be the same in each country. The last act in the drama of the Stuart period was now nearly over. It ended in a strangely dramatic scene. The queen herself was not only a Tory, but at heart a "Jacobite." If the Pretender had been a Protestant, there is no doubt she would have secured him as her successor, in spite of the Act of Settlement. The Tories opened negotiations with James, in the hope that he would declare himself a Protestant. To his honour, he refused, then and always. Notwithstanding his refusal, the Jacobite minister, Bolingbroke, continued his plots. Harley, now Lord Oxford, was undecided, and it was therefore necessary to remove him. For a few days Bolingbroke was really Prime Minister. It looked as if he

would bring about a Jacobite revolution, for he put Jacobites into office, and assured the Pretender of his support. Suddenly, at the end of July, 1714, the queen had a fit of apoplexy; she lay speechless, and was evidently dying. The moment had come when a decisive blow must Page | 102 be struck either for James or George of Hanover. The Whigs were preparing to fight. The Cabinet met at Kensington. What they were going to do will, perhaps, never be known, But a strange scene is said to have taken place. The Whig Dukes of Argyle and Somerset availed themselves of their privilege as Privy Councillors, and appeared in the Council chamber. The Duke of Shrewsbury, an old and respected Whig, who had of late years joined the Tory governments of Anne, was present and welcomed them. They called the physicians, who declared the queen was dying. The Council resolved that Shrewsbury should be appointed Lord Treasurer, and took upon them to summon all the Privy Councillors, mostly Whigs, living in London. The dying queen consented to Shrewsbury's appointment, and Bolingbroke was baffled. The Whigs ordered four regiments to London, and equipped the fleet to protect the ports against Jacobite invasions. On August 1st the queen died. George I was at once proclaimed. A Whig Government was formed, a new Whig Parliament was soon elected, and the Age of the Stuarts passed away.

------xxxxxxx------

23. War of the Spanish Succession

Page | 103 Spain's distant cousins: 1690s

During the 1690s all Europe awaits the death, thought likely to be imminent, of Charles II, the king of Spain. He is childless and has no cousins in the immediate Spanish Habsburg line. The question of the day is who will inherit the vast Spanish domains.

The two most powerful European rulers, Louis XIV of France and the Austrian emperor Leopold I, can make almost equal claims on behalf of their descendants. Both these monarchs have a Spanish Habsburg princess as a mother and a Spanish Habsburg princess as a wife (such is the interconnection of Europe's royal families, though the Habsburg link is of course almost a tradition in the Austrian imperial family).

In each generation the elder infanta has been sent to France, but the French brides have specifically renounced any claim to the Spanish throne. The younger sisters, marrying in Austria within the Habsburg clan, have not renounced their claim.

In the mid-1690s the Austrian case looks stronger than the French. A daughter of Leopold I and his Spanish bride has married the elector of Bavaria. In 1692 she gives birth to a son, Joseph Ferdinand. His claim is clearly good. Perhaps even more important, he has the advantage of being neither Bourbon nor Habsburg. The boy is a Wittelsbach. Another great European dynasty in possession of Spain will help to preserve the balance of power.

Partition treaties and wills: 1698-1700

In 1698 William III of England and Louis XIV, normally at loggerheads, join forces. Both are determined to prevent the reassembling of the great Habsburg domain held in the 16th century by the emperor Charles V. They sign a partition treaty accepting the right of the young Joseph Ferdinand to all Spain's possessions except Italy - which is to be shared, as a sweetener, between Habsburgs and Bourbons. Milan will go to the Austrians, the rest of Spanish Italy to the French.

The ailing Spanish king, Charles II, is outraged at this high-handed distribution of his property. He responds with a will naming Joseph Ferdinand as heir to the entire estate. But in 1699 the boy dies.

Undaunted, William and Louis come up with a second partition treaty in 1699. This is generous to the Habsburgs, in that a younger son of the Austrian emperor (the

archduke Charles) is to have almost everything except Italy and Lorraine, which will go to France. Charles II, now almost on his deathbed (in October 1700), changes his will again. As if in a fit of pique, he leaves everything to a Bourbon prince - Philip, the second grandson of Louis XIV. A month later Charles II dies.

Page | 104 Given the way things have turned out, Louis XIV changes tack. Forgetting the recent partition treaty, he eagerly accepts his grandson's good fortune - treating him now as Philip V of Spain. The Austrians prepare for war.

Europe takes sides: 1701-2

At the start, in 1701, the quarrel is specifically between France and Austria - or between Louis XIV and the emperor Leopold I. Each is fighting on behalf of a grandson or son who is not next in line of succession to the French or Austrian throne. Each of the candidates has been identified in the Spanish king's will, which states that if his crown is not accepted by one of the younger grandsons of Louis XIV it shall go to the younger son of Leopold I (the archduke Charles).

The list of nations involved in the war soon extends beyond France and Austria - perhaps inevitably in view of the importance of the issue, but also because of the aggressive stance taken by Louis XIV.

Alarmed by France's ambitious demands, England and Holland enter the fray in 1702 in support of the Austrian emperor. The emperor can also rely on many of the states within his German empire, among whom the most useful ally is Prussia (encouraged in 1701 by being elevated to a kingdom).

The important exception among the German states is Bavaria, whose elector in 1702 joins the war on the side of France. Spain is with France (fulfilling the intention of the late king's will), as also are the neighbouring territories of Portugal and Savoy. These two are reluctant allies, acting mainly from fear of the Bourbons. Both change sides in 1703, when the fortunes of war favour the imperial side.

Fortunes of war: 1702-1706

Although the detailed development of the war is very complex, the basic aim is clear. Each side is trying to take control of the territories which make up the late king's bequest. The imperial allies have the two most brilliant generals of the war, and each makes early inroads in one of the significant regions of Spain's European empire. Prince Eugene of Savoy rapidly seizes much of northern Italy, while the duke of Marlborough makes advances in the Spanish Netherlands.

But a bold French initative in 1704 threatens to make these peripheral successes of trifling importance. A joint French and Bavarian army presses eastwards to threaten Vienna itself.

A rapid move by Marlborough from the Netherlands brings him to the Danube in Page | 105 time to join Prince Eugene. Together they win the outstanding victory of the war, at Blenheim in August. Twenty-four battalions of French and Bavarian infantry and four regiments of dragoons are taken prisoner.

In the same month, August 1704, the imperial cause has considerable success at sea. Gibraltar is taken by an English and Dutch expedition (on behalf of the archduke Charles as king of Spain) and an English fleet defeats the French in an engagement off Malaga. These two events give the allies command of the Mediterranean for the rest of the war.

The year 1705 is relatively quiet on all fronts, but in 1706 the allies' two generals achieve spectacular successes. Prince Eugene's victories that summer in north Italy are so convincing that Louis XIV withdraws all his troops from the region. At the same time Marlborough sweeps the French out of the Spanish Netherlands, in a campaign beginning with his victory at Ramillies in May.

The setbacks of 1706 prompt Louis XIV, in August, to discuss a possible peace.

Peace proposals: 1706-1710

The terms suggested by Louis XIV in 1706 are close to those proposed in the second partition treaty of 1699. He is willing for his grandson Philip to relinquish Spain and Spanish America to the archduke Charles; Philip, instead, will merely retain the Spanish territories in Italy.

The allies, determined now that the Bourbons shall benefit from no part of the Spanish inheritance, reject this very reasonable proposal. Warfare continues, but so - over the following years - do peace negotations. Louis, old now and perhaps weary, keeps returning with suggestions. Each time he offers more, but each time the allies become increasingly demanding.

By 1709 Louis is even willing to relinquish Bourbon claims to any part of the Spanish inheritance. The allies reply that in that case he must give his approval to the use of force to remove his grandson from Madrid, where he is securely installed by now as the de facto monarch Philip V. Not surprisingly, Louis breaks off negotiations.

Once again, the war continues - at increasingly great cost, particularly in the Spanish Netherlands. The battle of Malplaquet, in September 1709, is a victory for

Marlborough in strategic terms. But the allies suffer 20,000 casualties, compared with about 11,000 French.

In 1710 Louis' peace proposals become even more conciliatory. He now accepts the use of force to remove Philip from Spain; he is even willing to provide funds for the Page | 106 purpose. The allies in their turn insist that French troops shall be used for the purpose. Again negotiations break down.

Finally, in 1710-12, subsidiary events conspire to break the prolonged impasse. First there is a change of ministry in England. In 1710 the Whigs suffer an election defeat by the Tories; with stronger French links, the Tories are inclined to peace. Then death cuts a swathe through both Bourbon and Habsburg families, profoundly altering the political complexion of the war.

Royal deaths: 1711-1712

In 1710, of the two contenders for Spain, Philip is fifth in line of succession to the French throne and the archduke Charles is the younger brother of the Austrian emperor Joseph I (their father Leopold has died in 1705).

Two years later only a sickly infant stands between Philip and the French crown. Louis XIV has suffered in quick succession the deaths of his only son in 1711 and of his elder grandson and elder great-grandson in 1712. A two-year-old (subsequently Louis XV) becomes the French heir. Even more significant, the archduke Charles is now the emperor Charles VI (his brother Joseph I dies childless in 1710).

These abrupt changes undermine the strategy of the allies. Their aim has been to place the archduke Charles on the Spanish throne. Nobody would now accept his inheriting it as the Austrian emperor.

By the same token Philip, in possession of Spain, cannot be allowed to inherit the French throne. In May 1712 he is persuaded to renounce any claim to France. The way is at last open for a succession of peace treaties which are signed during 1713 and 1714. In the changed circumstances the results are much more favourable to France than any of the solutions discussed in previous years.

Treaties of Utrecht and Baden: 1713-1714

France and Spain agree separate treaties with each of their opponents, most of them in Utrecht in 1713. The house of Bourbon can be said to have gained the greatest advantage, since everyone now accepts the right of Philip V to Spain and the Spanish colonies overseas. But other nations make significant gains too.

Great Britain wins some useful territories. Gibraltar is ceded by Spain, as is Minorca - a valuable Mediterranean base captured by a British fleet in 1708. From France Britain receives Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and the Hudson Bay territory. Louis XIV also recognizes the Protestant succession and promises to give no further support to the exiled Stuarts (a pledge made also in 1697 but subsequently broken). Page | 107 Britain and Holland are both granted commercial privileges, and Britain is allowed to provide 4800 African slaves each year for the Spanish colonies in America. In the so-called Barrier Treaties the Dutch win a confirmation of their right to maintain a line of fortresses along the southern frontier of the Spanish Netherlands - as a protection against French expansion.

In the treaties agreed with the emperor Charles VI in 1714 (initially at Rastatt, later confirmed at Baden), the Spanish Netherlands become the Austrian Netherlands. This part of the Spanish inheritance, together with Spanish territories in northern Italy, is ceded to Charles even though he is now emperor.

Among other important concessions, the elector of Brandenburg is accepted in his new status as king of Prussia. Adjustments along the Rhine include the ceding to France of Strasbourg and Alsace (steadily infiltrated by Louis XIV during recent decades).

These settlements, representing a major adjustment of Europe's internal balance, hold good until the next upheaval in the Napoleonic period. In the interim the great powers continue to vie with each other, and there are minor adjustments (within Italy, and between Austria and Prussia). But the real rivalry for the rest of the century is overseas, in Europe's competing empires.

However, one cause of future conflict does result from the Treaty of Utrecht. Within a week of its being signed, the emperor Charles VI - alarmed by the drastic diminution of the Habsburg empire - issues a Pragmatic Sanction to secure within the family the inheritance of the remaining territories.

The Sanction states that the inheritance can pass through the female line, with the order of succession being any son of his, then any daughter of his, and finally any daughter of his deceased elder brother Joseph I (an arrangement to the detriment of the only princesses, daughters of Joseph, who as yet exist). The Sanction is finally accepted by the major European powers in 1720, but this is not enough to prevent a war on the issue (the War of the Austrian Succession) when Charles dies in 1740, as he feared, without a male heir.

------xxxxxxx------

24. George II (1683 - 1760)

Page | 108

George was elector of Hanover and second Hanoverian king of Great Britain and Ireland.

George was born in Hanover, Germany on 10 November 1683, the only son of the elector of Hanover. In 1705 he married Princess Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach, and they had nine children.

In 1714, George's father succeeded to the British throne, and created George prince of Wales. The relationship between father and son was already poor and the prince's London residence, Leicester House, became a rival court and focus for a dissident Whig group which included Robert Walpole. He encouraged a reconciliation between father and son. This led to Walpole's inclusion in George I's administration, whereupon he lost the prince's favour. Only Caroline's intervention kept Walpole in office when the prince succeeded to the throne in 1727. He cemented his position by securing George a Civil List (allowance) from parliament of £800,000, considerably more than previous monarchs had received. Walpole also won acknowledgement of George's legitimacy from many influential Tories who supported the exiled Stuart pretender to the English throne. As a result, no senior politician deserted George's cause during the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745. Charles Edward Stuart, the 'Young Pretender' landed in Scotland but, after some initial success, was defeated at the Battle of Culloden in 1746.

George seemed destined to imitate his father, quarrelling with his son Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales, who in turn became a leader of an anti-administration faction. War broke out with Spain in 1739. In 1742 Walpole, who had dominated government since 1721, resigned. George quickly found another mentor in John Carteret who, with George, brought England into the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748), prompting accusations that he was subordinating English interests to those of George's German possessions. In 1743, George led his troops into battle against the French at Dettingen, the last British king to fight in battle.

In 1742 George became the last British monarch to take part in a battle when he commanded the British Army at the Battle of Dettingen. The following year war broke out between England and France. As France was a Catholic nation, it had always supported the Stuarts' claim to the English throne. King Louis XV realised that it would be in his interests if the Stuarts made another attempt to regain the throne.

Louis XV informed James Edward Stuart in 1745 that if he invaded England he would supply him with arms and ammunition. James was now fifty-seven years old and

was not keen on becoming involved in another military campaign. However, his son Charles Stuart was more enthusiastic, and on 5 July he left France with 700 men.

Once in Scotland, Charles Stuart, who had been nicknamed Bonnie Prince Charlie, began building up his army. He was especially successful at persuading Catholics Page | 109 living in the Scottish Highlands to join him. In September, Charles was ready to take action. His first move was to capture Holyrood, the ancient palace of Scottish kings. The English army arrived soon afterwards but Charles' army had an easy victory at the battle of Prestonpans. Charles' 5,000 man army now marched into England and by December he reached Derby.

Charles had hoped that English Catholics would join his army. This did not happen. In fact, in many of the towns that he marched through, the crowds showed great hostility to Charles' army. Louis XV had promised Charles that 12,000 French soldiers would invade England in the autumn of 1745. However, Louis XV did not keep his promise. Although Charles still wanted to march on London, his military advisers argued that without the support of the French they were certain to be beaten. Reluctantly, Charles agreed to return to Scotland.

Another English army, this time led by the Duke of Cumberland, followed Charles back into Scotland. Completely outnumbered, Charles's army were chased into the Scottish Highlands.

In April 1746, Charles Stuart decided to turn and fight the English army. The two forces met at Culloden Moor on 16 April. Cumberland's army devastated the Jacobites and Charles was forced to flee from the battlefield. A reward of £30,000 was offered for his capture, but Charles still had many loyal supporters who were willing to hide him.

George gave the Duke of Cumberland instructions that the Scots had to be punished for supporting Charles. Many of those who had joined Charles' army were executed and their land was given to those who had remained loyal to the king. Scotsmen were also banned from wearing kilts and playing bagpipes.

During the last decade of his life George took little interest in politics. Britain's involvement in the Seven Years' War (1756 - 1763) was largely overseen by William Pitt the Elder. This period also saw the expansion of British influence in India and Canada with the military successes of Robert Clive and James Wolfe respectively.

During his reign the British army won important military victories at Plassey (1757) and Quebec (1759). George II died in 1760.

------xxxxxxx------

25. Seven Years' War (1756–63)

Page | 110

Seven Years’ War, (1756–63), the last major conflict before the French Revolution to involve all the great powers of Europe. Generally, France, Austria, Saxony, Sweden, and Russia were aligned on one side against Prussia, Hanover, and Great Britain on the other. The war arose out of the attempt of the Austrian Habsburgs to win back the rich province of Silesia, which had been wrested from them by Frederick II (the Great) of Prussia during the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48). But the Seven Years’ War also involved overseas colonial struggles between Great Britain and France, the main points of contention between those two traditional rivals being the struggle for control of North America (the French and Indian War; 1754–63) and India. With that in mind, the Seven Years’ War can also be seen as the European phase of a worldwide nine years’ war fought between France and Great Britain. Britain’s alliance with Prussia was undertaken partly in order to protect electoral Hanover, the British ruling dynasty’s continental possession, from the threat of a French takeover.

The Diplomatic Revolution and the Prelude to the French and Indian War

The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748), which concluded the War of the Austrian Succession, left wide grounds for discontent among the powers. It did nothing to allay the colonial rivalry between Great Britain and France, and it virtually guaranteed a subsequent conflict between Austria and Prussia by confirming the conquest of Silesia by Frederick the Great. The aggrandizement of Prussia was seen by Russia as a challenge to its designs on Poland and the Baltic, but it had no voice in the negotiations. Under the Treaty of St. Petersburg of December 9, 1747, Russia had supplied mercenary troops to the British for use against the French in the last stage of the war, and the French, in reprisal, had vetoed any representation of Russia at the peace congress.

The War of the Austrian Succession had seen the belligerents aligned on a time- honoured basis. France’s traditional enemies, Great Britain and Austria, had coalesced just as they had done against Louis XIV. Prussia, the leading anti-Austrian state in Germany, had been supported by France. Neither group, however, found much reason to be satisfied with its partnership: British subsidies to Austria had produced nothing of much help to the British, while the British military effort had not saved Silesia for Austria. Prussia, having secured Silesia, had come to terms with Austria in disregard of French interests. Even so, France had concluded a defensive alliance with Prussia in 1747, and the maintenance of the Anglo-Austrian alignment after 1748 was deemed essential by the duke of Newcastle, British secretary of state in the ministry of his

brother Henry Pelham. The collapse of that system and the aligning of France with Austria and of Great Britain with Prussia constituted what is known as the “diplomatic revolution” or the “reversal of alliances.”

Page | 111 The interests of the European powers

The Hanoverian king George II of Great Britain was passionately devoted to his family’s Continental holdings, but his commitments in Germany were counterbalanced by the demands of the British colonies overseas. If war against France for colonial expansion was to be resumed, then Hanover had to be secured against Franco-Prussian attack. France was very much interested in colonial expansion and was willing to exploit the vulnerability of Hanover in war against Great Britain, but it had no desire to divert forces to central Europe for Prussia’s sake. French policy was, moreover, complicated by the existence of le Secret du roi—a system of private diplomacy conducted by King Louis XV. Unbeknownst to his foreign minister, Louis had established a network of agents throughout Europe with the goal of pursuing personal political objectives that were often at odds with France’s publicly stated policies. Louis’s goals for le Secret du roi included an attempt to win the Polish crown for his kinsman Louis François de Bourbon, prince de Conti, and the maintenance of Poland, Sweden, and Turkey as French client states in opposition to Russian and Austrian interests.

On June 2, 1746, Austria and Russia concluded a defensive alliance that covered their own territory and Poland against attack by Prussia or Turkey. They also agreed to a secret clause that promised the restoration of Silesia and the countship of Glatz (now Kłodzko, Poland) to Austria in the event of hostilities with Prussia. Their real desire, however, was to destroy Frederick’s power altogether, reducing his sway to his electorate of Brandenburg and giving East Prussia to Poland, an exchange that would be accompanied by the cession of the Polish duchy of Courland to Russia. Aleksey Petrovich, Graf (count) Bestuzhev-Ryumin, grand chancellor of Russia under the empress Elizabeth, was hostile to both France and Prussia, but he could not persuade Austrian statesman Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz to commit to offensive designs against Prussia so long as Prussia was able to rely on French support.

Frederick the Great saw Saxony and Polish West Prussia as potential fields for expansion but could not expect French support if he started an aggressive war for them. If he joined the French against the British in the hope of annexing Hanover, he might fall victim to an Austro-Russian attack. The hereditary elector of Saxony, Frederick Augustus II, was also elective king of Poland as Augustus III, but the two territories were physically separated by Brandenburg and Silesia. Neither state could pose as a great power. Saxony was merely a buffer between Prussia and Austrian Bohemia, whereas Poland, despite its union with the ancient lands of Lithuania, was prey to pro-French and pro- Russian factions. A Prussian scheme for compensating Frederick Augustus with Bohemia in exchange for Saxony obviously presupposed further spoliation of Austria.

Preliminary negotiations and hostilities in the colonies

To gratify Austria, the British government proposed Hanoverian support for the election of Maria Theresa’s son Joseph as the next Holy Roman emperor. That proposal Page | 112 foundered on the opposition of Frederick the Great (elector of Brandenburg as well as king of Prussia), whom the other German electors did not dare to antagonize. In 1750 Great Britain acceded to the Austro-Russian defensive alliance of 1746, but without subscribing to the secret clause on Silesia and without obtaining from the two empires a guarantee of the status quo in Hanover.

In 1750 Kaunitz went to France to urge French participation in Austro-Russian plans against Prussia. France, however, was neither ready to resume diplomatic relations with Russia (severed in 1748) nor willing to connive in the destruction of Prussia, a development that would have restored Austria to incontestable hegemony in Germany. By 1753, when Maria Theresa recalled him to Vienna to serve as chancellor, Kaunitz had achieved only a vague atmosphere of Franco-Austrian goodwill.

Meanwhile, the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle had done nothing to ease tensions between the French and British East India companies, and in North America relations between the colonists had deteriorated steadily from 1752. By1754 French aggression in North America had reached a level that the British could no longer ignore. London’s policy, which had been to “let Americans fight Americans,” had resulted in a series of French military victories. British Admiral Edward Boscawen attacked French ships in the Strait of Belle Isle in June 1755, beginning an undeclared naval war between the two countries. Before the British government could declare open hostilities against France, it had to safeguard Hanover. British naval superiority could then be brought to bear while France’s superior land forces in Europe were held in check by some Continental ally of the British.

Defensive alliances

Concerned primarily with Silesia, Austria was most reluctant to become implicated in the Anglo-French quarrel. Kaunitz believed that Great Britain should hire German and Russian mercenaries to defend both Hanover and the southern Netherlands; the latter had served as a launching point for previous Austro-British and Dutch operations against France. The decline of the Dutch as a military force had compromised the defense of the Austrian Netherlands, and Kaunitz was in fact willing to consider ceding the territory to the French in return for help regarding Silesia. Ultimately, the force that Kaunitz was willing to exert against France for the defense of Hanover or the Netherlands was far less than what the British required from him.

Rebuffed by Austria, the British sought a new treaty with Russia, and on September 30, 1755, a preliminary agreement was signed in St. Petersburg by Bestuzhev and the British ambassador, Sir Charles Hanbury Williams. It stipulated that Russia should maintain 55,000 men on the Livonian-Lithuanian frontier so that they could be promptly moved to defend British interests on the Continent if necessary. In exchange, Page | 113 Russia would receive a yearly subsidy of £100,000, a sum that would be increased to £500,000 in the event of an attack. Bestuzhev, assuming that the treaty was aimed at Prussia, was delighted to have British money to spend on his own projects. At the same time, and without Russia’s knowledge, the British were in contact with Frederick the Great. Afraid of Austro-Russian intentions and alarmed at the Anglo-Russian negotiations, Frederick welcomed Britain’s overtures, though the result was unlikely to please his French ally. On January 16, 1756, the Convention of Westminster was signed, whereby Great Britain–Hanover and Prussia agreed to respect one another’s territory in Europe and undertook to jointly resist any invasion of “Germany” by a foreign power. The Austrian Netherlands were expressly excluded from that guarantee.

The Convention of Westminster dismayed Bestuzhev and his empress, who had not yet ratified the British treaty. Elizabeth peremptorily informed the British that the common enemy envisaged in the treaty could only be Prussia, and, when the British rejected that interpretation, the whole Russo-British arrangement came to nothing. The French government was no less angry at the duplicity of its one ally, Prussia. The French, hoping to thaw relations with Russia and gain more information about the Anglo- Russian talks, had sent a Scottish Jacobite refugee, Alexander Mackenzie, on a clandestine mission to St. Petersburg in autumn 1755. Mackenzie was acting in the service of le Secret du roi as well as the French foreign ministry, but the chief agents of le Secret in Poland had been kept unaware of his mission, lest they regard an overture to Russia as a betrayal of the anti-Russian line to which they had been dedicated. Mikhail Illarionovich Vorontsov, the Russian vice-chancellor and a persistent enemy of Bestuzhev, received Mackenzie very favourably, and Elizabeth’s indignation at the Convention of Westminster served to accelerate a Franco-Russian rapprochement. In April 1756 the Russians pledged 80,000 men to Austria for an attack on Prussia.

To Kaunitz the Convention of Westminster provided obvious reasons for self- congratulation. It justified his view that the British alliance was no longer worthwhile, and it obliged France to draw closer to Austria for fear of isolation now that Prussia was defecting. Franco-Austrian negotiations—which had been resumed in summer 1755 by Austrian ambassador Georg Adam, Graf von Starhemberg, and the French statesman François-Joachim de Pierre de Bernis, a protégé of Louis XV’s mistress, Jeanne- Antoinette Poisson, marquise de Pompadour—had reached a stalemate in December. The announcement of the Convention of Westminster gave them new impetus, however, and on May 1, 1756, the First Treaty of Versailles was concluded. That pact was a defensive alliance between France and Austria, with either party pledging to send

24,000 men to support the other in the event of attack. Notably, it exempted Austria from any obligation to join in a war against Great Britain.

The Convention of Westminster and the First Treaty of Versailles are generally taken as the constituent factors of the diplomatic revolution, but they did not make war Page | 114 in Europe inevitable. Both being expressly defensive, they might well have had the contrary effect, though Kaunitz at least could see the Austro-French agreement as a step toward enticing France into an Austro-Russian offensive alignment against Prussia. The French conquest of British Minorca, achieved in a monthlong campaign from April 19 to May 20, 1756, did not oblige Prussia to war on the British side and was, of course, no concern of Austria’s.

Frederick the Great had tried, unavailingly, to present the Convention of Westminster as not inconsistent with his French alliance. He had, accordingly, to profess to regard the First Treaty of Versailles as harmless to Prussia, but that treaty was clearly advantageous to Austria and so, indirectly, to Russia. In fact, both Austria and Russia were now massing troops on their frontiers nearest to Prussia. Throughout July and as late as August 20, 1756, Frederick appealed to Maria Theresa for assurances of her good intent toward him, but he received no satisfactory reply. On August 29, 1756, Frederick led his army into Saxony, on the way to Austria’s Bohemian frontier. The motive for Frederick’s decisive action, which started the European war, has been much debated. Was he frightened into a preventive war, intending only to seize what military advantage he could in the face of imminent aggression by Austria and Russia, or did he think that the moment had come for another war of annexation? However much the British were annoyed at the prospect of having to support Frederick if his war went ill, the French were aghast at his action. Whereas they had signed their Austrian treaty in the belief that their hands would be free for the vital war against the British and that they could later choose whether or not to abet an Austrian offensive against Prussia, they now found themselves committed to defend Austria against the unforeseen aggression.

The Course of the Seven Years’ War

Crossing the Saxon frontier with 70,000 Prussians on August 29, 1756, Frederick entered Dresden, the Saxon capital, on September 10. The Saxon army, numbering no more than 20,000, fell back to Pirna, in the southeast. Prussia offered assurances of its good intentions to Saxon elector Frederick Augustus and his minister, Heinrich, Reichsgraf (imperial count) von Brühl, but those promises, quite naturally, were greeted with mistrust, and an Austrian force of 32,000 under Maximilian Ulysses, Reichsgraf Browne, moved from Bohemia to reinforce the Saxons. To prevent that union, Frederick advanced southward into Bohemia, where he soundly defeated Browne at Lobositz (now Lovosice, Czech Republic) on October 1. Returning to Saxony, Frederick received

the capitulation of the Saxons at Pirna (October 16), whereupon he took nearly all of them into his own service. Frederick Augustus and Brühl retired to the former’s kingdom of Poland.

Russia might have dispatched forces to assist Austria at once, but the most-direct Page | 115 route to the conflict lay across Poland, a country that was within the French sphere of influence and largely opposed to Russian designs. For the perfect achievement of an anti-Prussian coalition, it was most desirable, as Kaunitz saw, for Russia and France to come to terms. The Russians, however, saw the new development as an occasion for extracting concessions from France with regard not only to Poland but also to Sweden and Turkey. The French foreign ministry was ready to admit swift passage of Russian troops across Polish territory and thus relieve France of the obligation to help Austria. However, that came into conflict with le Secret du roi, a primary purpose of which was to exclude the Russians from Poland at any cost. In Great Britain the accession of William Pitt the Elder to office as virtual prime minister in November 1756 would have a decisive effect on the development of the war.

After weeks of negotiation at cross-purposes, Mackenzie, having returned to St. Petersburg as France’s official agent, obtained Russia’s accession to the First Treaty of Versailles by secretly pledging that France would assist Russia in the event of an attack by Turkey (December 31, 1756 [January 11, 1757, New Style]). That contradiction of the long-standing Franco-Turkish entente was immediately disavowed by the French government. A personal letter from Louis XV to Elizabeth, the first of an important series, finally secured Russia’s accession to the treaty without the objectionable appendix (April 19). An Austro-Russian offensive alliance against Prussia was concluded on February 2, 1757, with each party undertaking to put 80,000 men into the field and forswearing any separate peace, while secret articles provided for a partition of Prussia.

On May 1, 1757, Austria and France signed the Second Treaty of Versailles, an offensive alliance against Prussia that additionally provided for significant territorial adjustments. Austria was to recover Silesia but would cede the Netherlands to Louis XV and his Spanish Bourbon cousin, Philip, duke of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla. Philip’s Italian possessions would then revert to Austria. Militarily, France was to maintain 105,000 men in Germany, in addition to the contingent to be supplied to Austria (which was raised from 24,000 to 30,000), and would grant an annual subsidy of 12 million lives to Austria. Shortly after the treaty was concluded, Bernis was named French foreign minister.

By a large majority of votes in the Council of Princes of the Reich, Austria secured the declaration of a “war of the Empire” against Prussia. Though Hesse-Kassel, Brunswick, and, naturally, Hanover opposed it, some Protestant states supported Austria, despite Frederick’s attempt to pose as the champion of Protestantism against an Austro-French Roman Catholic coalition. In April 1757 the Prussians again advanced into Bohemia. On May 6 the 66,000 Austrians under Browne and Charles, prince of

Lorraine and Bar, were routed by Frederick’s force of 64,000 at the Battle of Prague. An Austrian force under Leopold Joseph, Graf von Daun, arrived too late to affect the outcome of the battle, and the Austrians lost more than 14,000 men. Some 16,000 escaped to join Daun while the rest took refuge in Prague itself, which the Prussians, who had taken comparable losses, proceeded to besiege. A month later Daun, with Page | 116 more than 50,000 men, moved to relieve Prague, and Frederick met him with a force of 34,000. On June 18 the two groups met at the Battle of Kolín, and Daun won a great victory, inflicting 13,000 Prussian casualties while suffering just 8,000 of his own. Raising the siege of Prague, the Prussians evacuated Bohemia.

Prussia, meanwhile, was exposed to attack from several directions. The French began their spring campaign by sending Louis-Charles-César le Tellier, comte d’Estrées, with 100,000 men against the so-called Army of Observation, a force of Hanoverians and their allies under the command of William Augustus, duke of Cumberland, a younger son of George II. Defeated at Hastenbeck on July 26, 1757, Cumberland withdrew to Stade, near the Elbe estuary, abandoning the defense of the electorate and Brunswick. French command then passed to Louis-François-Armand du Plessis, duc de Richelieu, and on September 8 he forced Cumberland to sign the Convention of Klosterzeven, which stipulated the disbanding of the Army of Observation and the evacuation of Hanover. Richelieu then advanced on Prussia’s western frontier while another French army, of 24,000, under Charles de Rohan, prince de Soubise, was crossing Franconia to join Austria’s German allies under Joseph Frederick William of Saxe-Hildburghausen. Furthermore, Sweden, having signed an alliance with France and Austria on March 21, invaded Prussian Pomerania in September with the intention of annexing it.

A Russian army of 90,000 men, which had begun to cross Polish territory in May, at last entered East Prussia in August 1757. On August 30 Russian commander Stepan Apraksin inflicted a crushing defeat on the Prussians under Hans von Lehwaldt at Gross- Jägerndorf, west of Gumbinnen (now Gusev, Russia). In a puzzling move, Apraksin then began a retreat, pleading difficulties of supply. It seems that his conduct was caused, partly at least, by a consideration that was long to bedevil Russian affairs—the fact that the empress Elizabeth, who hated Prussia, was in notoriously uncertain health, while her heir, the future emperor Peter III, adored Frederick and opposed the anti-Prussian war. Any Russian general or statesman who did too much harm to Prussia was therefore risking the displeasure of his future master.

Frederick, with Saxony as his main base, decided first to confront the danger from the west, leaving Frederick Francis of Brunswick-Bevern to face the Austrians in Silesia. To prevent Richelieu from joining forces with Soubise and Saxe-Hildburghausen, Frederick marched first toward Halberstadt, but Austrian successes in Silesia, where Brunswick-Bevern was defeated at Moys (near Görlitz) on September 7, made him turn eastward again. Meanwhile, Frederick’s nephew Charles William Ferdinand of Brunswick remained to observe Saxe-Hildburghausen, and a daring Austrian raid on Berlin caused further diversion of Frederick’s forces. Finally, hearing that Soubise and Saxe-

Hildburghausen were in Thuringia, Frederick moved to engage them. The Battle of Rossbach followed on November 5, 1757. The combined strength of the French and the Army of the Reich was at least 41,000 against just 21,000 Prussians, but the aggressive Saxe-Hildburghausen and the more-cautious Soubise were at odds. When at last the battle was joined, the greatly superior mobility of the Prussians, with the brilliant Page | 117 cavalry leadership of Friedrich Wilhelm, Freiherr (baron) von Seydlitz won the day. In less than two hours’ fighting, the Prussians inflicted 7,000 casualties on the allies while losing only 550 men. Encouraged by the news of Rossbach, the British government repudiated Cumberland’s Convention of Klosterzeven. The British decided to reinforce the Hanoverians and to transfer the command in western Germany to Frederick’s brother-in-law, Field Marshal Ferdinand of Brunswick. In September a British naval expedition against the French base of Rochefort had been a failure.

In Silesia the Austrians took Schweidnitz (now Świdnica, Poland) on November 11 and Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland) on November 22. Frederick then force-marched his army from Thuringia to support Brunswick-Bevern, and at the Battle of Leuthen (December 5, 1757), he won the greatest of his victories. With 43,000 men, he attacked the 72,000 under Charles of Lorraine and utterly routed them with an unexpected cavalry charge followed by an artillery bombardment. Frederick suffered 6,000 casualties, but Charles lost 22,000 men, including 12,000 who were taken prisoner. Shortly thereafter the Prussians reclaimed Breslau. In the course of the winter, Lehwaldt drove the Swedes back into their own part of Pomerania, where they were able to hold the Prussians outside Stralsund. Frederick’s masterful handling of well-disciplined troops, combined with Apraksin’s retreat, saved Prussia from a situation which, after Kolín, had appeared desperate.

William Fermor, a Scottish emigre in Russian service, had taken Apraksin’s place in autumn 1757, and on January 22, 1758, he captured the East Prussian capital of Königsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russia). With the onset of spring, however, thawing snows made the northern roads impassable, and his force was temporarily immobilized. In Russia itself, the anti-French Bestuzhev was arrested, and power came into the hands of his rival Vorontsov.

Ferdinand of Brunswick, with his Anglo-Hanoverians, launched a successful offensive against the French in Westphalia, and on March 27 he crossed the Rhine River at Emmerich, near the Dutch frontier. On June 23, with 40,000 men, he defeated 70,000 men under Louis de Bourbon, comte de Clermont, at Krefeld. The effect of that victory, which enabled him to secure all of northwestern Germany, was scarcely offset by subsequent French successes farther to the south, in Hesse and Thuringia. Apart from reinforcing Hanover, on April 11 the British signed a new treaty with Prussia, promising an annual subsidy of 4,000,000 talers (£670,000), and both parties undertook not to make a separate peace with any of the other belligerents.

Frederick began the year’s campaign with an offensive in Silesia, where Schweidnitz fell on April 16. He then advanced into Moravia to lay siege to Olmütz (now Olomouc, Czech Republic). In July, however, the Austrians forced Frederick to abandon the siege by threatening his supply bases. In the north, meanwhile, a new Swedish attack on Prussian Pomerania was being fended off by Lehwaldt, but the Russians were Page | 118 on the march again, going southwestward from East Prussia toward the Oder River and Brandenburg.

To evade the Austrians, Frederick had to march first northwestward into Bohemia, then northward across Silesia. Fermor’s 52,000 Russians, having reached the Oder, began a siege of Küstrin (now Kostrzyn nad Odra, Poland) on August 15, but Frederick was at Frankfurt an der Oder by August 20. He then moved around Fermor’s east flank and, with a total of 36,000 men, attacked the Russians at Zorndorf (now Sarbinowo, Poland) on August 25. In the bloodiest battle of the war, the Russians lost 42,000, with 21,000 killed, and the Prussians lost 13,500. Leaving Christoph von Dohna to pursue the defeated Russians, Frederick hastened back to Saxony to save his brother Prince Henry from attack by superior Austrian forces under Daun. Daun fell back until he found a strong position at Kittlitz, where he decided to stand with his 90,000 men. Frederick, with 37,000, advanced as far as Hochkirch, not believing that Daun would venture an offensive. Daun’s attack, in the early morning of October 14, took the Prussians by surprise, but Hochkirch would prove to be an expensive victory for Daun. He lost 7,500 men (the Prussians lost 9,500), and he was unable to interfere with Frederick’s retreat into Silesia. Daun advanced on Dresden again, but the news of Frederick’s approach through Lusatia caused him to withdraw to Pirna in November.

Hochkirch put new spirit into the French, who after Krefeld and Zorndorf had been inclined to despair of their European war. Étienne-François de Choiseul, duc de Choiseul, became foreign minister in December in the place of the exhausted Bernis, whose overtures for a separate peace had been scorned by the British government.

The Third Treaty of Versailles, already drafted by the end of December 1758, was signed in March 1759 and ratified in May. Under its terms French obligations of direct help to Austria in men and money were considerably reduced, and the 1757 plan concerning the Netherlands and Parma was discarded. The French, however, were still to maintain 100,000 men in Germany. On April 13 Ferdinand of Brunswick, who had advanced against the French in southwestern Germany, was defeated by Victor- François, 2e duc de Broglie, at Bergen, near Frankfurt am Main. Broglie took Minden, on the Weser River, on July 9, once again opening a passage into Hanover. When Marshal Louis Georges Érasme, marquis de Contades, joined Broglie, the French could field 60,000 men against Ferdinand’s 43,000 Anglo-Hanoverians. On August 1, however, at the Battle of Minden, Ferdinand contrived to lure Contades into an engagement which—thanks partly to accident and partly to extraordinarily stubborn fighting by British regiments—resulted in the complete rout of the French.

Choiseul had relieved France of its heavier commitments to Austria in order to prosecute the war against Great Britain with greater vigour. He planned an ambitious cross-Channel invasion, with landings around London and in Scotland. To transport and escort the expeditions, the Mediterranean fleet from Toulon was summoned to join the Atlantic fleet at Brest. On its way northward the former fleet was attacked and scattered Page | 119 by Boscawen in the Battle of Lagos (August 19) off the Portuguese coast. Meanwhile, Edward Hawke was maintaining a blockade of Brest. On November 9 Hawke withdrew to English waters, and the Brest fleet took to sea. Hawke then reappeared, and in the Battle of Quiberon Bay (November 20–21) the French suffered a decisive defeat. Not only was the planned invasion scrapped, but British naval superiority was established for the remainder of the war.

Minden, Lagos, and Quiberon Bay, together with outstanding successes in North America—the capture of Fort Niagara on July 24 and, of far more significance, that of Quebec on September 13—made 1759 the annus mirabilis for the British. From its strong position, the government began negotiations for peace with France. Britain’s terms were too stiff to be accepted by the French, and its proposals were made in association with its Prussian ally, which, at the end of the year, was in no position to expect favourable treatment from its enemies. Furthermore, Austria and Russia strongly objected to France’s treating separately with the British.

In May 1759 the Russian command had been transferred from Fermor to Pyotr Saltykov. Advancing across Poland through Poznao and into Brandenburg with 70,000 men, Saltykov defeated 26,000 Prussians under Carl Heinrich von Wedel at Züllichau (now Sulechów, Poland), east of Crossen an der Oder (now Krosno Odrzaoskie, Poland), on July 23. Saltykov then moved down the Oder toward Frankfurt while Daun sent 35,000 Austrians under Gideon Ernest, Freiherr von Laudon, northward from Saxony to join forces with him. Frederick, who had been facing Daun, promptly moved to block the Austro-Russian junction, but he failed to do so. Having joined forces with Wedel and with another Prussian army, under Friedrich August von Finck, Frederick, now commanding some 50,000 men, boldly assailed the Austro-Russian position at Kunersdorf (now Kunowice, Poland), east of Frankfurt, on August 12. The result was an appalling disaster for Frederick, who in six hours lost more than 18,000 men. Saltykov made no immediate use of his victory, but Daun, advancing against the diminished Prussian forces in Saxony, took Dresden on September 14.

Attempts at further concerted action by Daun and Saltykov were frustrated by Frederick’s skillful movements after Kunersdorf. When lack of supplies forced Saltykov to retire from the scene, Frederick turned on Daun again. Finck was sent with more than 12,000 men to attack Daun’s rear, but he was surprised by 42,000 of Daun’s men at Maxen, south of Dresden, and had to surrender (November 21). The year had been a bad one for Frederick, and the necessity of reinforcing him after Kunersdorf had precluded the full exploitation of Ferdinand’s victory at Minden.

Russia and Austria chose Silesia as the main field of operations for the campaign of 1760. On June 23 Laudon destroyed a Prussian force at Landeshut (now Kamienna Góra, Poland), and on July 26 he captured the stronghold of Glatz (now Kłodzko, Poland). Saltykov, from his base at Poznao, marched south to join him. Frederick, having been monitoring Daun in Saxony, at first moved eastward against Laudon, then turned Page | 120 back to besiege Dresden (July 12) upon hearing that Daun was moving to support Laudon. When Daun likewise turned back, Frederick raised his siege and hastily marched through Meissen and Lusatia into Silesia. While 20,000 Russians under Zakhar Grigoryevich Chernyshev occupied Prince Henry of Prussia in the vicinity of Breslau, the Austrians converged on Frederick. On August 15, at Pfaffendorf, near Liegnitz (now Legnica, Poland), I.audon launched an attack on Frederick’s columns in the hope of preventing their escape from encirclement, but he was rebuffed with heavy losses. A ruse of Frederick’s tricked Chernyshev into retreating, and the Austro-Russian plan for a decisive victory in Silesia came to naught.

Most of Saxony remained defenseless against Daun, and Brandenburg was open to the Russians. A detachment under Russian General Gottlieb Totleben took Berlin on the night of October 8–9 and was able to retire unmolested on October 13. Daun concentrated 64,000 men around Torgau, and Frederick met him with about 45,000. The Battle of Torgau, Frederick’s last major victory, began on November 3. Austrian artillery devastated his advancing troops, but he sent wave after wave of them forward in an attempt to break the Austrian line. A late afternoon attack by Prussian General Hans Joachim von Zieten finally turned the tide of battle and drove the Austrians from the field. Frederick had lost 13,000 men, Daun 11,000; additionally, some 7,000 Austrians were made prisoners.

In western Germany Broglie won a victory at Korbach on July 10, 1760, but it was offset by Ferdinand’s victory at Warburg on July 31. Hanover was again saved from French invasion, but Ferdinand’s subsequent attempt to advance across the Rhine was reversed by Charles Eugène Gabriel de Castries at Klosterkamp on October 16. George II of Great Britain died on October 25. His grandson and successor, George III, was far more attached than his predecessor to British—as distinct from Hanoverian—interests and had a strong dislike for Pitt, who was the foremost exponent of the Anglo-Prussian alliance. Without British subsidies Prussia could not have fought on.

By March 1761, when George III’s favourite, John Stuart, 3rd earl of Bute, became British secretary of state, the members of the anti-Prussian coalition were at variance in their attitudes toward the war. France wanted a negotiated peace with Britain. Austria desired a general congress of the powers, at which the retrocession of Silesia might be obtained from Prussia. The Russian empress was committed to pursuing war against Frederick until Prussia could be carved up. Formal discussions between the French and the British broke down in July over Pitt’s demand that Britain be permitted to continue to aid Prussia but that the French should reduce their support of Austria to a minimum. Additionally, the British desired to keep all their colonial conquests. Choiseul

would not submit to that dictation, and he countered it with a plan which he had long had in mind: the introduction of Spain into France’s war against Great Britain. In August a “Family Compact” between the two Bourbon kings, Louis XV of France and Charles III of Spain, was concluded. Spain would declare war on Great Britain if France had not obtained peace by May 1, 1762, and France would see that Spanish claims against Great Page | 121 Britain were met at the final peacemaking. On October 5, when the British government refused to declare immediate war on Spain, Pitt resigned.

Meanwhile, the fighting in western Germany continued. Ferdinand advanced southward from Westphalia but was repulsed by Broglie at Grünberg on March 21. A French counterthrust into Westphalia was checked by a vastly outnumbered Ferdinand at Vellinghausen on July 15–16. In that battle British commander John Manners, marquess of Granby, won great distinction for his role in repulsing a pair of French attacks. By October, however, the French had made considerable progress eastward. Between April and June a British expedition achieved the capture of Belle-Île-en-Mer, off the Breton coast of France.

For Prussia, Frederick’s first concern was to prevent the junction, in Silesia, of Laudon’s 72,000 Austrians, based in Glatz, with a Russian army of 50,000 under Aleksandr Borisovich Buturlin. He concentrated his available forces around Schweidnitz, but, after two months of skirmishing and marching, the allies effected their junction between Liegnitz and Jauer (now Jawor, Poland) on August 23. Cut off from the north and outnumbered three to one, Frederick entrenched himself at Bunzelwitz (now Boleławice, Poland), where his enemy did not dare to attack him. When Buturlin withdrew to the north in September, leaving only 20,000 Russians under Chernyshev in Silesia, Frederick was free to move toward Brandenburg. Laudon took Schweidnitz on October 1, however, enabling the Austrians to winter in Silesia. In Saxony Daun made gradual progress against Prince Henry, and on the Pomeranian coast the fortress and harbour of Kolberg (now Kołobrzeg, Poland) fell to the Russians under Pyotr Aleksandrovich Rumyantsev on December 16. With the departure of Pitt, Frederick was no longer certain that he could rely on a British subsidy to continue the war, and he saw that only luck could save him from destruction in the coming year.

Frederick’s salvation came from the death of the empress Elizabeth, which took place on January 5, 1762, and brought the Prussophile Peter III to the Russian throne. On May 5 Peter made peace with Frederick, and on May 22 the Treaty of Hamburg was concluded between Prussia and Sweden through Peter’s mediation. In June Peter not only allied himself with Frederick for action against Denmark over his ancestral home of Holstein but also instructed Chernyshev to help Frederick expel the Austrians from Silesia. In July, when Peter was deposed and murdered, his widow and successor, Catherine II (the Great), countermanded his measures against Denmark and Austria, but she did not renew the war against Frederick.

Daun had been given the Austrian command in Silesia, with Laudon receiving a subordinate position. Before Catherine’s recall of Chernyshev became effective, Frederick and Daun converged on Schweidnitz, the former attempting to recapture the city and the latter trying to relieve it. Daun was defeated at Burkersdorf (now Burkatów, Poland) on July 21, and his second relief effort was similarly beaten back at Reichenbach Page | 122 (now Dzierżoniów, Poland) on August 16. On October 9 Schweidnitz fell again to the Prussians. In Saxony Prince Henry and Seydlitz together won a significant victory over the Austrians at Freiberg on October 29. Less than a month later, on November 24, Austria and Prussia signed an armistice.

In western Germany Ferdinand of Brunswick won victories over Soubise at Wilhelmsthal (June 24) and over Prince Xavier of Saxony at Lutternberg (July 23). On August 16 Ferdinand took Göttingen. The French had a success at Johannisberg, near Nauheim, on August 30 but lost Kassel on November 1.

In the west Britain declared war on Spain on January 2, 1762, three months after the rejection of Pitt’s advocacy of the same measure and four months ahead of the Family Compact’s deadline for Spanish intervention. The Spaniards then attacked Portugal, which the British promptly reinforced. The Portuguese fortress of Almeida fell to the Spaniards on August 25, and overseas the Spanish took Colonia do Sacramento, on the estuary of the Río de la Plata, opposite Buenos Aires. Those Spanish successes were overshadowed by the British capture of Havana on August 13 and Manila on October 5. Three important West Indian islands had also fallen to the British: Martinique and Saint Lucia in February and Grenada in March.

Russia’s defection from the anti-Prussian alliance convinced Austria that nothing was to be gained from prolonging the war. After the removal of Austria’s objections, France soon came to terms with Great Britain, which in turn had no interest in continuing to back Prussia in a quarrel with Austria about Silesia. France in October induced the disappointed Spanish to join in the negotiations with the British. On November 3, 1762, anticipating the Austro-Prussian armistice by three weeks, Great Britain and France signed preliminaries of peace at Fontainebleau.

------xxxxxxx------

26. Sir Robert Walpole (1676 - 1745)

Page | 123

Walpole was a British Whig statesman, considered to the first holder of the office of prime minister, who dominated politics in the reigns of George I and George II.

Robert Walpole was born on 26 August 1676 in Houghton, Norfolk into a wealthy landowning family. He was educated at Cambridge University and in 1701 became member of parliament for Castle Rising in Norfolk, where his father had previously been MP. He rose rapidly, becoming a member of the Admiralty Board, secretary of war and, in 1709, treasurer of the navy. His rise was temporarily halted by the Tories, who came into power in 1710. In 1712, they accused him of corruption and he was briefly imprisoned.

In 1714, George I came to the throne. George distrusted the Tories, whom he believed opposed his right to the throne, and as a result the Whigs were in the ascendant again. In 1715, Walpole became first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer. He resigned in 1717 after disagreements within his party but in 1720 was made paymaster general. He avoided the scandal that surrounded the collapse of the South Sea Company and was subsequently appointed first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer again. In this position he effectively became prime minister, although the term was not used at the time. He remained in this position of dominance until 1742.

Walpole consolidated Whig power through a system of royal patronage. He pursued a policy of peace abroad, low taxation and reducing the national debt and he knew the importance of keeping parliament on his side. He was also accused of bribery and corruption in his efforts to retain power. After George I's death in 1727, Walpole was briefly superseded by George II's favourite, Spencer Compton, but succeeded in returning himself to favour, partly through the support of the new queen, Caroline. In 1735, George II made Walpole a gift of 10 Downing Street, now the permanent London residence of the British prime minister.

Opposition eventually began to develop within Walpole's own party, and a trade dispute with Spain was used by his critics to force him to declare war in 1739, known as the War of Jenkins' Ear. A poor general election result in 1741 made his position more unstable. A number of Whig politicians opposed Walpole's conduct of the war and he resigned in February 1742. He was created earl of Orford in the same year and continued to maintain influence over George II. Walpole died on 18 March 1745.

------xxxxxxx------

27. William Pitt, the Elder

Page | 124

William Pitt, the Elder, also called (from 1766) 1st Earl of Chatham, Viscount Pitt of Burton-Pynsent, byname The Great Commoner, (born November 15, 1708, London— died May 11, 1778, Hayes, Kent, England), British statesman, twice virtual prime minister (1756–61, 1766–68), who secured the transformation of his country into an imperial power.

Background and Education

Pitt was born in London of a distinguished family. His mother, Lady Harriet Villiers, daughter of Viscount Grandison, belonged to the Anglo-Irish nobility; his father, Robert Pitt, member of Parliament, was the son of Thomas (“Diamond”) Pitt, governor of the East India Company’s “factory” at Madras (now Chennai), India, where he made a vast fortune and secured one of the world’s largest diamonds (sold in 1717 to the regent of France). “Diamond” Pitt had returned from India with a despotic temper made devilish with spleen and gout; he quarreled violently with his wife and declared war on “that hellish confusion that is my family,” but he treated his grandson William with affection. Father Robert was mean and cantankerous, and the Villiers blood was notoriously unstable. William inherited the gout, as well as a haughty temper and a strain of manic depression.

Such was the background and the smoky, explosive inheritance that was suddenly to blaze into genius. But William’s passionate temper and Pitt truculence had to be disciplined, so he was sent to Eton College, where he acquired social polish and learned to be aloof and yet agreeable, to be politely insolent. Delicate health and the early onset of gout deprived him of field sports and hunting, but he learned to ride with a good seat and take his port wine, and he enjoyed the select company of clever and well-connected friends—the two Grenvilles (one to be Earl Temple; the other, George, to be first minister to George III), George Lyttelton, Charles Pratt (to become a follower of Pitt and, as the 1st Earl Camden, a member of his 1766 ministry), and other men who would later become influential in politics, as well as Henry Fielding, author of Tom Jones. But Pitt hated the brutal harshness of Eton and determined to have his own sons educated at home. He continued his education at Trinity College, Oxford, but left after a year without taking a degree. He then spent several months at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, probably studying law.

His classical education made him think, act, and speak in the grand Roman manner. His favourite poet was Virgil, and he never forgot the patriotic lessons of Roman history; he constantly read Cicero, the golden-tongued orator who could yet lash offenders with his indignation. Later, in Parliament, his organ-like voice could be distinctly heard outside the House. This voice, perfect timing, and splendid gestures Page | 125 were worthy of David Garrick, the greatest actor of the day and a personal friend; Pitt’s lean, tall, commanding figure, combined with a Roman beaky nose and hawklike eyes— large and gray but turning black when he was roused—overwhelmed all onlookers. To his countrymen he was to become almost a divine portent, a voice from the Delphic oracle.

For the present, possessed of a mere £100 a year, he nevertheless rejected the church, a younger son’s last resort as a career. While he was vegetating on a small family property in Cornwall, which he called a “cursed hiding-place” in one of his many letters to his adored sister and confidante, clever Nan (Ann) Pitt, help came from a politically powerful millionaire nobleman, Lord Cobham, who lived in splendour in a palatial mansion and vast park at Stowe, in Buckinghamshire, to which William and his friends paid visits. Cobham sent William abroad on “The Grand Tour” of Europe (only France and Switzerland were visited, however) and later bought him a cornetcy—a commission—in his own regiment of horse (1731).

Early Political Career

In 1735 Pitt was offered one of the “pocket” boroughs his brother controlled, in Wiltshire, and entered Parliament. He belonged to the small group known as “Cobham’s cubs” and the “boy patriots,” the connection of family friends and place hunters whom Cobham was mobilizing to oppose the ministry of Sir Robert Walpole (later the 1st earl of Orford). Walpole had governed England since 1720, monopolizing patronage, and had—they thought—become too ready to compromise in foreign affairs for the sake of peace. The “patriots” joined other discontented Whigs such as John Carteret (later Earl Granville) and William Pulteney (later the 1st earl of Bath) to rally opposition forces behind Frederick Louis, prince of Wales, who was vehemently estranged from his father, King George II.

There were no formal political parties in the 18th century, and political power, together with the financial opportunities it brought, was a gift of patronage from a handful of landowning family oligarchies and from the monarch himself; nor was there a formal opposition in Parliament, and opposition to the king’s ministry was regarded as factious and even traitorous. Pitt’s maiden speech in Parliament was so critical of the ministry that it provoked Walpole to deprive him of his military commission, to “muzzle this terrible young cornet of horse.”

In 1737 the Prince of Wales made Pitt one of his court officials with a salary of £400 a year. He was still a relatively poor dependent of a powerful Whig clan but

already showed an independence of mind and a readiness to appeal to public opinion outside Parliament that were new in English political life: when Walpole dismissed him from his cornetcy, he ostentatiously drove about London in a one-horse chaise to underline his poverty. His talents as an orator had already become clear. He repeatedly referred to the “voice of England,” which had to be sought outside Parliament because Page | 126 Parliament was so packed with placemen and sinecurists. He claimed to speak for the commercial interests and even for the colonies overseas, the latter scarcely represented in the Commons. He was using arguments that carried far beyond the close interests of the Whig families; but he made lasting and valuable friendship with the rich sugar planter-aldermen of the City of London in his opposition to Walpole’s cautious handling of the disputes with Spain over West Indian trade.

Walpole at last fell from power in 1742 and was replaced by a ministry that included his old colleagues Thomas Pelham-Holles, the 1st duke of Newcastle, and Philip Yorke, the 1st earl of Hardwicke, with Carteret as secretary of state. Pulteney was silenced by the grant of a peerage. The “boy patriots,” of whom Pitt was the acknowledged leader, were still excluded. They opposed Carteret even more vigorously than they had Walpole. In the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48), Pitt, a former warmonger, now vigorously opposed the sending of men and subsidies to check the French by protecting Hanover (the king’s territory in Germany) and condemned Carteret as a “Hanover troop minister”: for this he was never forgiven by his sovereign.

Pitt insisted that French power should be opposed at sea and in its colonial possessions, not on the Continent. When Carteret was forced to resign in 1744, Newcastle and his brother Henry Pelham took office and wanted to include Pitt in their ministry, but George II refused to accept him, though he did accept Cobham, Lyttelton, and Grenville. It was at this time that Pitt first appeared in Parliament swathed in bandages, on crutches, and with a huge gout boot on his foot, parading his illness. But, in the Jacobite rising of 1745 (the Forty-five Rebellion), Pitt gained new stature as the one effective statesman.

In February 1746 the king agreed to appoint Pitt joint vice treasurer of Ireland at £3,000 a year, and two months later he became paymaster general of the forces; he bowed very low as he kissed the king’s hands, but George wept with rage. The post of paymaster was one of the most sought after in government, with ample opportunity for corruption. There was an outcry from Pitt’s friends, who suspected he had been bought, but he proceeded to show both his contempt for moneymaking and his integrity as an honest but comparatively poor man by ostentatiously refusing to take for himself any more than the official salary of more than £4,000 a year: he put the interest that paymasters before had appropriated to themselves, together with the accounts of the paymaster’s funds, into the Bank of England and won the people’s hearts again. He introduced many reforms into the administration, and, though he supported the Pelhams’ alliance with Hanover (which was a change of tack), he tried also to strengthen British naval power.

A legacy of £10,000 from the old duchess of Marlborough at this time, left to Pitt “for the noble defence he has made for the support of the laws of England, and to prevent the ruin of his country,” enabled him to indulge in more lavish expenditure and generosity. He spent a good deal on landscape gardening and bought a new property near London. After a furious quarrel, he became estranged from his sister Nan, who had Page | 127 been his hostess for years.

When Henry Pelham died in office in 1754, Pitt hoped for advancement, but, after much reshuffling and intrigue, Newcastle and Henry Fox (later 1st Baron Holland) abandoned him for the sake of expediency. He then became ill and retired to a new house at Bath, groaning “I wish for nothing but a decent and innocent retreat, not to afford the world the ridiculous spectacle of being passed by every boat that navigates the river.” An invalid and an aging bachelor, he suddenly fell in love with Lady Hester Grenville, became engaged at once, and was married by November 1754. She was 33 and he 46, and she adored him, possibly from the times in her childhood when he had visited Stowe with her brothers. She was attractive, clever, patient, and eminently practical—particularly about money, arranging mortgages, satisfying creditors, and pouring away her own fortune, in his last years of grandiose extravagance, to protect him.

It proved to be an ideally happy marriage with a well-ordered, loving home and family (“the infantry” Pitt called them); later he was to be found making hay with them at Hayes Place, his house in Kent, going for picnics, and chasing butterflies. He magically became healthy and happy, ready for his last big parliamentary fight for high office. But first, because of his attacks on Newcastle’s ministry, he was dismissed, penniless, from the pay office in 1755. His brother-in-law Earl Temple helped with an annuity of £1,000.

Leadership during Seven Years’ War

The outbreak of the Seven Years’ War gave Pitt his supreme opportunity for statesmanship. The war began with heavy losses and considerable confusion of policy. The popular demand for Pitt became irresistible, and he declared, “I am sure I can save this country, and nobody else can.” In November 1756 he formed a ministry that excluded Newcastle, with the Duke of Devonshire as its nominal head. In June 1757 Newcastle returned to office on the understanding that he should control all the patronage and leave Pitt to conduct the war.

Pitt determined that it should be in every sense a national war and a war at sea. He revived the militia, reequipped and reorganized the navy, and sought to unite all parties and public opinion behind a coherent and intelligible war policy. He seized upon America and India as the main objects of British strategy: he sent his main expeditions to America, to ensure the conquest of Canada, and supported the East India Company

and its “heaven-born general,” Robert Clive, in their struggle against the French East India Company.

He subsidized and reinforced the armies of Frederick the Great of Prussia to engage the French on the Continent, while the British Navy harassed the French on their Page | 128 own coasts, in the West Indies, and in Africa. Choosing good generals and admirals, he inspired them with a new spirit of dash and enterprise. His hand, eye, and voice were everywhere. By 1759, the “year of victories,” Horace Walpole, man of letters and son of Sir Robert Walpole, wrote with reluctant admiration, “Our bells are worn out threadbare with ringing for Victories.” Pitt, the “Great Commoner,” was known and feared throughout the world. This resolute and concerted policy was too much for Bourbon France, and, by the terms of the Treaty of Paris in 1763, Great Britain remained supreme in North America and India, held Minorca as a Mediterranean base, and won territory in Africa and the West Indies.

Pitt had given Britain a new empire besides preserving and consolidating the old. But, before the war ended, he had been forced to resign. In 1760 George III came to the throne resolved, as was his chief adviser, the Earl of Bute, to end the war. When Pitt failed to persuade his colleagues to declare war on Spain to forestall its entry into hostilities, he resigned in October 1761. He alone was not tired of war. He never considered its carnage or the ruin facing a bankrupt country. He had tended to concentrate the whole conduct of government into his own hands and worked with furious energy. His haughty manner, which alienated many, and his high-handed treatment of affairs had earned him respect and admiration but little friendship.

When his resignation was accompanied by a peerage for Hester and an annuity to her of £3,000, there was again an outburst of abuse and scurrility. Just as when he had accepted the pay office, this acceptance of a peerage and a pension for his wife seemed to be the result of a political bargain. As rewards for his immense services they were meager enough, but it was some measure of his unique reputation for high- minded disinterestedness that his accepting them should provoke so much bitter disillusionment. His effigy was burned, and Hester was reviled as Lady Cheat’em. Pitt attacked the terms of the Treaty of Paris as an inadequate recognition of Great Britain’s worldwide success. But, though his popular appeal was soon restored, his career as war minister was over.

Pitt fell back on his gout and his gardening. In 1765 an admirer left him a splendid estate at Burton Pynsent in Somerset, where he planted avenues of noble trees. He was frequently at Bath, where they stood up in the Pump Room when he drank the water. He now had the attacks of “gout in the head” that led to bouts of insanity.

When Bute resigned in 1763, he was succeeded by George Grenville, and Pitt’s attacks on the administration completed a breach between the two brothers-in-law. Pitt

was becoming a champion of liberty, condemning the high-handed action taken by the ministry against a member of Parliament, John Wilkes, whose paper, the North Briton, had attacked the King’s speech at the opening of Parliament and who eventually had to flee abroad. Inactive in 1764 and 1765, Pitt reentered the stage in January 1766 to deliver a passionate plea for imperial liberty on behalf of the American colonists who Page | 129 had resisted the Stamp Act and to demand that act’s repeal.

In July the king asked him to form a ministry drawn from all sections of the houses of Parliament. Pitt’s judgment and wisdom were impaired at this time, and, never having paid attention to manoeuvring among political connections, he found it difficult to form a coherent ministry. It was a fiasco rightly called a “tessellated pavement” by his political opponent Edmund Burke. Pitt himself chose the secondary post of lord privy seal, for which he was created earl of Chatham, but this meant abandoning the House of Commons and the possibility of influencing it directly by his oratory there. The “Great Commoner” retired to the Lords and fell ill for another two years, leaving a rudderless government, under the luckless duke of Grafton and Charles Townshend, to abandon his policies. Engulfed in a black fit of insanity, Pitt withdrew completely and in 1768 resigned office. He acquired a group of followers in the House of Commons and, in an alliance with Lord Rockingham’s group of opposition Whigs, offered a threat to Lord North’s ministry, but this opposition was, in the end, without results.

Pitt’s last years were clouded by illness, yet he was to reappear in the House of Lords—with ever greater difficulty—as an elder statesman. He continued to plead for generous treatment of the American colonists though he did not wish to grant them independence, partly for fear of their falling into the hands of France; in 1775 he hurriedly introduced a bill designed to suspend repressive measures at Boston and to maintain the legislative authority of Parliament over the Colonies while using the Continental Congress established at Philadelphia as a body for assessing the monetary contributions of each colony. Although the bill was summarily rejected, it indicates how Pitt would have handled the American problem. His last speech, against any diminution of an empire based on freedom, closed a political career that had become devoted to a reconciliation of imperial power with constitutional liberty. Pitt died on May 11, 1778, falling back into the arms of his son William who was reading to him the passage in Homer’s Iliad on Hector’s farewell. He was buried in Westminster Abbey with all the funeral pomp he could have desired and with public grief.

------xxxxxxx------

28. William Pitt, the Younger

Page | 130

William Pitt, the Younger, (born May 28, 1759, Hayes, Kent, England—died January 23, 1806, London), British prime minister (1783–1801, 1804–06) during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. He had considerable influence in strengthening the office of the prime minister.

Early Life

William Pitt was the second son of William Pitt, 1st earl of Chatham, a famous statesman of the mid-18th century, whose energy contributed much to Britain’s successful prosecution of the Seven Years’ War (1756–63) with France. His mother was Lady Hester Grenville, sister of George Grenville (who headed the government from 1763 to 1765). Both because he was extremely delicate and because his father disliked public schools, he was educated at home. He was a precocious boy and went to Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, at the age of 14. Because of persistent ill health, he made use in 1776 of the antiquated privilege that allowed noblemen’s sons to graduate without examination. Left, after his father’s death in 1778, with an income of less than £300 a year, he was called to the bar in 1780 and joined the western assize circuit. In September 1780, because of his youth, he failed to secure election to Parliament for Cambridge University but four months later was provided with a seat for Appleby in Westmorland, on condition that he should resign it should his views and those of his patron diverge. Pitt made a successful maiden speech and, in March 1782, when it was clear that a new ministry would soon be formed, announced with astonishing self- confidence that he had no intention of accepting a subordinate position.

Under Lord Shelburne, who succeeded as prime minister in July 1782, Pitt became Chancellor of the Exchequer. With Shelburne’s consent, Pitt, in February 1783, sought a compact with Charles James Fox, who had gone into opposition, but Fox absolutely refused to serve under Shelburne. According to his contemporary biographer, his form tutor and friend George Tomline, Pitt then replied that he had not come there to betray Lord Shelburne. This interview marked the beginning of the long political duel between Pitt and Fox and also rapidly brought to an end Shelburne’s ministry, since Fox now surprisingly allied himself with Lord North, a politician who had always been willing to work in accordance with the King’s wishes, and defeated Shelburne. King George III, unwilling to accept the coalition that would give office to Fox, whom he hated, invited Pitt to form a government; but Pitt declined, knowing he would not have a majority in the House of Commons, and the King had to commission Fox and North. To embarrass the new government, which, under the nominal premiership of the Duke of Portland,

consisted of an admixture of reformers and anti-reformers, Pitt brought forward the question of parliamentary reform, with which he had already once, a year earlier, concerned himself. He suggested no extension of the franchise but recommended measures to prevent bribery and to make the representation more realistic. Although his resolutions were defeated, reformers now looked to him, rather than to Fox, as their Page | 131 parliamentary leader.

Pitt’s First Ministry, 1783–1801

In December 1783, after the defeat in the House of Lords of Fox’s East India Bill, George III at once took the opportunity to dismiss the coalition and asked Pitt to form a government. Pitt clearly did not take the premiership as the King’s tool, for his first step was to try, on his own terms, to include Fox and his friends in the new ministry. But Fox would not consent to join a government from which his ally Lord North would have been excluded.

When Parliament reassembled in January 1784, the government was at once defeated by 39 votes on a virtual motion of censure, but Pitt refused to resign, and George III was prepared to abdicate rather than again surrender to the Fox–North coalition. Pitt admitted that his situation was without precedent but denied that he was prime minister through backstairs influence. He hung on, and gradually the coalition’s majority in Parliament began to crumble; many members, fearing the loss of their seats at a general election, went over to Pitt’s side during February and March, doubtless in the hope that he would gain a majority in the existing house sufficient to make dissolution unnecessary. By March 8 the majority against him was one vote, and on March 25 Parliament was dissolved.

No 18th-century government lost a general election, and Pitt’s success in 1784 was never in doubt. The “influence of the Crown” ensured that the new House of Commons was chosen by the Treasury. Patronage and corruption gave Pitt a majority, and secret service money paid election bills. Although public opinion aided Pitt in the open constituencies, it is nevertheless misleading to say that he was “the choice of the people”; he was the dispenser of royal patronage. Pitt himself was returned for the University of Cambridge; only once again (1790), at subsequent elections, did he have to stand a contest.

When Pitt became prime minister, the national credit was impaired by the heavy cost of the American Revolution. The debt was about £250,000,000, a staggering amount for those days. Pitt imposed new taxes to wipe out the deficit, checked smuggling by reducing the high duties that encouraged it, and reduced frauds in the revenue by establishing an improved system of auditing. He also simplified customs and excise duties, bringing them into a single consolidated fund, out of which all public creditors were to be paid. In 1786 he introduced a sinking fund on a new principle: an annual surplus of £1,000,000 was to be appropriated to the purchase of stock and

allowed to accumulate at compound interest for 28 years, by which time the income from it would amount to £4,000,000 a year. In 1792 another act provided that a sinking fund of 1 percent should be attached to every new loan, which would thereby be redeemed within 45 years. The system worked reasonably well in peacetime because there was an annual surplus of revenue, but, after the outbreak of war in 1793, the Page | 132 government redeemed debt bearing a low interest by fresh borrowing at a higher rate of interest.

Fox’s East India Bill had been defeated, but the problems it was designed to solve remained. Britain’s increased possessions in India made it necessary for the administration there to be supervised by the government rather than be left in the hands of the commercial East India Company. Pitt, therefore, introduced his own East India bill (1784). He set up a new government department, the Board of Control, to supervise the directors of the company. He also ended an inappropriate division of authority in India by making the governor general supreme over the subordinate governments of Bombay and Madras. In 1786 a supplementary act increased the authority of the governor general over his own council. Warren Hastings, governor general of Bengal since 1773, returned home in 1785, having greatly strengthened British power in India, only to undergo the ordeal of an impeachment for his conduct. Pitt honestly believed that there was a case against Hastings and, determined that the British name should be freed from the suspicion of injustice or oppression in the government of Asian peoples, supported the demand for an inquiry. But those who conducted the impeachment acted with unwarrantable rancour; the trial dragged on for seven years and, although Hastings was finally acquitted, the expenses almost ruined him.

Another imperial problem with which Pitt had to deal was that of the future of Canada. By the Constitutional Act of 1791 the then province of Quebec was divided into a predominantly French province of Lower Canada and a predominantly English province of Upper Canada. Pitt, who was in office when men were first transported to Australia, never regarded that country as anything more than a convict settlement.

Pitt’s foreign policy was only moderately successful. In 1788 he made alliances with Prussia and with Holland, aimed at restricting French influence. But, in effect, the alliance served only one useful purpose: Prussia’s diplomatic support enabled Pitt in 1790 to triumph over the Spanish without having to go to war in the Nootka Sound dispute. Thus, the Spanish claim to a monopoly of trade and settlement on the western seaboard of North America was finally destroyed. Pitt’s intervention in eastern Europe, however, bore no such marks of triumph. Catherine II of Russia was bent on establishing her supremacy in the Black Sea. In March 1791 Pitt sent her an ultimatum demanding the restoration to the Sultan of all conquests except Crimea. But his policy of bolstering up the Turkish Empire was supported neither by the entire Cabinet nor by public opinion, and the government, badly shaken, had to reverse its policy.

Although the British government clung to neutrality as long as possible, in face of the European wars started by the leaders of the French Revolution, war proved unavoidable. It was not the execution of the French king Louis XVI in January 1793 that made a continuation of peace impossible but it was the provocative French decrees of late 1792, which authorized their armies to violate neutral territory and which promised Page | 133 military assistance to any European people wishing to depose its rulers. The French, confident of victory after their successes against the Austro-Prussian forces and believing that England was ripe for revolution, declared war on England and Holland on February 1, 1793. Pitt refused to intervene to restore the French monarchy. He fought to protect Britain’s vital commercial and colonial interests.

The French Revolution had revived the agitation for parliamentary reform, dormant since a bill introduced by Pitt in 1785 had been defeated, but the cause of reform was soon discredited because its advocates were thought to approve of the violence in France. The unwise demonstrations of the radicals caused the government to have recourse to repressive legislation. In May 1792 a proclamation against seditious publications was issued; and the Habeas Corpus Act, which normally prevented the detention of persons without trial, was suspended in 1794 and remained so until 1801.

The French Revolution had disastrous repercussions in Ireland, too, creating new hatreds to exacerbate the old religious feuds and a rebellion in 1798. As early as 1792 Pitt had held that an ultimate union of the two countries was the only solution of the Irish religious problem; the events of 1798 convinced him that union was most urgently necessary. Large-scale corruption carried the measure through the Irish Parliament, but opposition from Pitt’s Cabinet and particularly from the King prevented him from carrying his supplementary proposals—Catholic emancipation and state provision for Catholic and Dissenting clergy. As a result, Pitt resigned on February 3, 1801, and his friend Henry Addington formed a government. The crisis again drove the King insane, and after his recovery in March he accused Pitt of having caused his illness. Pitt replied that he would never again press the Catholic question during the King’s reign.

Patriotic motives induced Pitt to support the new ministry, but for several months during the session of 1802–03 he never attended Parliament, living in Walmer Castle, where, holding the ancient office of warden of the Cinque Ports, he organized a local volunteer force. In March 1803 Addington invited Pitt to join the government, but Pitt made it clear that he would return only as prime minister. War broke out again in May 1803, and by 1804 Pitt was increasingly critical of the government’s financial polity and its measures to meet the growing danger of invasion. Addington’s majority fell steadily, and he decided to resign. On April 30 Pitt was informed that the King wished him to plan a new ministry. Pitt replied that a nonparty government was desirable but fell in with the King’s determination that Fox be excluded.

Pitt’s Second Ministry, 1804–06

Pitt’s second ministry was weaker than the first, for the Addington group, as well as others, went into opposition. The Third Coalition against Napoleon’s France—an alliance with Russia, Sweden, and Austria engineered by Pitt—collapsed after the battles of Ulm and Austerlitz in 1805, and the year closed in disaster, in spite of Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar in October, which ended the invasion threat and ensured Britain’s naval Page | 134 supremacy for the rest of the war. Pitt’s health, never robust, was now failing. He made his last public speech at the Guildhall in London on November 9, 1805. By January 15, 1806, some of his colleagues were determined to force him to resign as the only means of saving his life, and the King was thinking about his successor. He died a few weeks later and was buried in Westminster Abbey on February 22. A motion for a grant of £40,000 to pay his debts was unanimously carried in the Commons. Earlier (1801), his friends had raised £12,000 in order to relieve him from embarrassment. Careless to a fault about money and engrossed with public affairs, he had allowed his large official income to be squandered by irresponsible servants and tradesmen.

Private Life and Character

Though eloquent and forceful in Parliament and Cabinet, Pitt made no impact in society and altogether lacked the common touch. He was always notably withdrawn. He never married. He had few friends. Even members of the government complained of his inaccessibility. In 1801 his resignation from office caused extraordinarily little sensation; a contemporary wrote that “nobody speaks of him; no addresses, no subscriptions, no stir of any kind anywhere.” Long before his death, bodily infirmities, increased by his addiction to port, curtailed his working day.

Pitt’s experience was remarkably limited. He never set foot in Scotland or Ireland; the greater part even of England was unknown to him. He was once in France— for a few weeks. He never came into touch with men of letters or original thinkers; in his official patronage he neglected literature, science, and the arts. He was long overconfident of success in every cause he espoused; in the end only the weight of ill health and Napoleon’s great victories of 1805 began to shatter his optimism. Although at first connected with the movement for parliamentary reform, he made no attempts to reintroduce the issue after the failure of his bill in 1785. He made no effort to deal with the social problems caused by the Industrial Revolution; and in all his long years of office, nothing was done to reform the barbarous criminal law, the harsh game laws, prison administration, and local government. Nevertheless, by reason of his superb debating powers he dominated the House of Commons, even in that age of notable oratory. His conduct in Parliament had a mixture of prudence, firmness, and transcendent ability never before seen and hardly ever again surpassed.

Historical Importance

The constitutional significance of Pitt’s career has often been misunderstood. He was not a prime minister of the modern type. At no time was he the leader of a well- organized, coherent party commanding a majority of the House of Commons, which itself owed its existence to the will of the electorate. He was not at all the choice of the country; he was the nominee of the King, and he retained office only as long as he Page | 135 retained the King’s confidence. He had to resign in 1801 because his Irish policy was not acceptable to George III. Even though the inadequacy as a wartime prime minister of his successor made Pitt’s return to office almost inevitable three years later, Pitt did not return on his own terms but on the King’s. He was more dependent on the King’s favour than he was on the support of the House of Commons. His most serious crisis came in the winter of 1788–89, when, during George III’s madness, Pitt lost the support of the crown. Had the dissolute Prince of Wales, who favoured the opposition, become regent, Pitt would certainly have been dismissed. Without the support of the crown, neither he nor anyone else could remain long in office. Moreover, there were obvious limitations to his absolute authority in the Cabinet, where various colleagues opposed him on all the great questions of the day. And, finally, Pitt had to deal with a sovereign of narrow intellect and with intense and irrational prejudices—though, indeed, these were shared by a great many of George III’s subjects.

Although Pitt’s supremacy in the Cabinet has often been exaggerated, the necessity for a prime minster who would supervise and coordinate the work of the various departments and possess the chief confidence of the king was never again questioned after his ministries. Pitt’s achievement of this status, while depending upon his forcefulness of character, was only made possible by his long tenure of office. His total of 19 years in power exceeded by almost 7 years the tenure of office, earlier in the 18th century, of Sir Robert Walpole, often regarded as “the first” British prime minister, and that of Lord North, nearer Pitt’s own time.

It is sometimes claimed that Pitt emerged as the leader of a new Tory Party. Certainly, as a minister who accepted the royal prerogative, he represented the traditions of the Tory, or Court, Party, as distinct from those of the Whigs, who sought to dictate to the crown the choice of its servants; but he was far from being a great party leader commanding the votes of a majority in the House of Commons. He had a personal following of little more than 50. In spite of persistent efforts, great speeches, and the support of powerful and eloquent members, he failed to pass a slave trade abolition bill, a parliamentary reform bill, and Catholic relief bills.

------xxxxxxx------

29. Industrial Revolution

Page | 136

Industrial Revolution, in modern history, the process of change from an agrarian and handicraft economy to one dominated by industry and machine manufacturing. This process began in Britain in the 18th century and from there spread to other parts of the world. Although used earlier by French writers, the term Industrial Revolution was first popularized by the English economic historian Arnold Toynbee (1852–83) to describe Britain’s economic development from 1760 to 1840. Since Toynbee’s time the term has been more broadly applied.

A brief treatment of the Industrial Revolution follows. For full treatment, see Europe, history of: The Industrial Revolution.

The main features involved in the Industrial Revolution were technological, socioeconomic, and cultural. The technological changes included the following: (1) the use of new basic materials, chiefly iron and steel, (2) the use of new energy sources, including both fuels and motive power, such as coal, the steam engine, electricity, petroleum, and the internal-combustion engine, (3) the invention of new machines, such as the spinning jenny and the power loom that permitted increased production with a smaller expenditure of human energy, (4) a new organization of work known as the factory system, which entailed increased division of labour and specialization of function, (5) important developments in transportation and communication, including the steam locomotive, steamship, automobile, airplane, telegraph, and radio, and (6) the increasing application of science to industry. These technological changes made possible a tremendously increased use of natural resources and the mass production of manufactured goods.

There were also many new developments in nonindustrial spheres, including the following: (1) agricultural improvements that made possible the provision of food for a larger nonagricultural population, (2) economic changes that resulted in a wider distribution of wealth, the decline of land as a source of wealth in the face of rising industrial production, and increased international trade, (3) political changes reflecting the shift in economic power, as well as new state policies corresponding to the needs of an industrialized society, (4) sweeping social changes, including the growth of cities, the development of working-class movements, and the emergence of new patterns of authority, and (5) cultural transformations of a broad order. Workers acquired new and distinctive skills, and their relation to their tasks shifted; instead of being craftsmen working with hand tools, they became machine operators, subject to factory discipline.

Finally, there was a psychological change: confidence in the ability to use resources and to master nature was heightened.

Page | 137 The First Industrial Revolution

In the period 1760 to 1830 the Industrial Revolution was largely confined to Britain. Aware of their head start, the British forbade the export of machinery, skilled workers, and manufacturing techniques. The British monopoly could not last forever, especially since some Britons saw profitable industrial opportunities abroad, while continental European businessmen sought to lure British know-how to their countries. Two Englishmen, William and John Cockerill, brought the Industrial Revolution to Belgium by developing machine shops at Liège (c. 1807), and Belgium became the first country in continental Europe to be transformed economically. Like its British progenitor, the Belgian Industrial Revolution centered in iron, coal, and textiles.

France was more slowly and less thoroughly industrialized than either Britain or Belgium. While Britain was establishing its industrial leadership, France was immersed in its Revolution, and the uncertain political situation discouraged large investments in industrial innovations. By 1848 France had become an industrial power, but, despite great growth under the Second Empire, it remained behind Britain.

Other European countries lagged far behind. Their bourgeoisie lacked the wealth, power, and opportunities of their British, French, and Belgian counterparts. Political conditions in the other nations also hindered industrial expansion. Germany, for example, despite vast resources of coal and iron, did not begin its industrial expansion until after national unity was achieved in 1870. Once begun, Germany’s industrial production grew so rapidly that by the turn of the century that nation was outproducing Britain in steel and had become the world leader in the chemical industries. The rise of U.S. industrial power in the 19th and 20th centuries also far outstripped European efforts. And Japan too joined the Industrial Revolution with striking success.

The eastern European countries were behind early in the 20th century. It was not until the five-year plans that the Soviet Union became a major industrial power, telescoping into a few decades the industrialization that had taken a century and a half in Britain. The mid-20th century witnessed the spread of the Industrial Revolution into hitherto non-industrialized areas such as China and India.

The Second Industrial Revolution

Despite considerable overlapping with the “old,” there was mounting evidence for a “new” Industrial Revolution in the late 19th and 20th centuries. In terms of basic materials, modern industry began to exploit many natural and synthetic resources not

hitherto utilized: lighter metals, new alloys, and synthetic products such as plastics, as well as new energy sources. Combined with these were developments in machines, tools, and computers that gave rise to the automatic factory. Although some segments of industry were almost completely mechanized in the early to mid-19th century, automatic operation, as distinct from the assembly line, first achieved major significance Page | 138 in the second half of the 20th century.

Ownership of the means of production also underwent changes. The oligarchical ownership of the means of production that characterized the Industrial Revolution in the early to mid-19th century gave way to a wider distribution of ownership through purchase of common stocks by individuals and by institutions such as insurance companies. In the first half of the 20th century, many countries of Europe socialized basic sectors of their economies. There was also during that period a change in political theories: instead of the laissez-faire ideas that dominated the economic and social thought of the classical Industrial Revolution, governments generally moved into the social and economic realm to meet the needs of their more complex industrial societies.

------xxxxxxx------

30. The British Working Class Movements

Page | 139

The Trade Unions (An Early History)

FROM THE EARLIEST times workers have formed associations to defend their rights and interests against their employers. As they developed as a CLASS, organised resistance against capitalist exploitation and oppression was essential in order to fight for the unity of the working class and to organise to end the system of exploitation of man by man. Socialism has become the ultimate goal under the Capitalist System.

The British Working Class is rightly proud of and loyal to its great traditions of militant organisation, determined and heroic struggle, all of which have characterised its history.

In the earliest days, whatever they may have been called, there were nation- wide organisations like the Great Society of the Fourteenth Century or local Craft bodies like the Yeomen Gilds. These were in essence the earliest forms of unions.

Economic advancement, at first hindered the formation of permanent combinations among the JOURNEYMEN of the middle ages. Certain classes of skilled manual workers, who had no chance of becoming employers, do appear to have succeeded in establishing long lasting combinations. Nevertheless, the Industrial Revolution changed things making wider and more formidable combinations possible.

The partly deliberate and partly natural concealment and secrecy of Trade Unionism of the eighteenth century makes it next to impossible to write History. The members of the earliest clubs were the skilled. Unskilled workers, if they had any such societies, have left no traces of them in history.

A glimpse of activity in 1718 was where a proclamation against unlawful clubs in Devon and Somerset complains about how great numbers of wool combers and weavers had illegally presumed to use a common seal. The proclamation complains about how they tried to ‘Act as bodies Corporate’ by making and unlawfully conspiring to execute certain by-laws or Orders, whereby they pretended to determine who had the right to the Trade, what and how many Apprentices and Journeymen each should keep at once. When the Masters would not submit they fed them with money till they could again get employment in order to oblige their Masters to employ them for want of other hands.

In 1754, 300 Norwich Wool Weavers, desiring to obtain an increase in wages, retreated to a hill three miles away from the town and built huts. They lived there for six weeks supported by contributions from fellow workers. By 1721 the Journeymen of Tailors of London had a powerful and permanent union.

Page | 140 When the capitalist builder or contractor began to supersede the master mason, master plasterer etc., this class of small entrepreneurs had again to give place to a hierarchy of hired workers, TRADE UNIONS in the modern sense, began to arise.

The TRADE UNION was the successor of the Guild. Both institutions had arisen “under the breaking up of an old system.”

From the moment that to establish a given business more capital is required than a Journeyman can easily accumulate within a few years, guild-mastership – the mastership of the masterpiece, becomes little more than a name. Labour and skill are like commodities. Skill has a value, but skill only has a value if it is sold, hired out to capital. Here you have the opposition of interests between capital and labour. Labour groups together and organises the TRADE SOCIETY.

Industrial society is still divided vertically trade by trade, instead of horizontally between employers and wage earners. It is the horizontal cleavage, which would transform the organisation of petty and narrow-minded craft mentality of the skilled into the modem Trade Union Movement. The pioneers of the Trade Union movement were not the trade clubs of the town Artisans but the extensive combinations of the West of England Woollen workers and Midland framework knitters.

The Combination Acts

The Necessity for Workers’ Rights and Organisation to develop empowerment and Opposition. The Necessity for Workers’ Rights and Organisation can be borne out of history where persistent Trades Union legislation, mainly by Conservatives, has repeatedly attempted to undermine the workers’ capacity to act.

History has shown an uninterrupted series of legislative Acts affecting Trades Unions. Right from the early days of feudal England the Ordinance of Labourers 1349 and the Statute of Labourers 1351 attempted to suppress sources of wage inflation by banning workers organisation, creating offences for any able-bodied person that did not work, and fixing wages at the time of the great plague and after to pre-plague levels.

An endeavour by the ruling class was made to make even economic resistance impossible. The act against illegal oaths passed in 1797 against the “Nore Mutineers” was used to break up existing Trade Unions;

Nineteenth century Britain recognised the now established post Industrial Revolution class division society where the class relations of production were clear. The Master and Servant Act 1823 and subsequent updates stipulated that all workmen were subject to criminal penalties for disobedience, and calling for strikes was punished as an “aggravated” breach of contract. The capitalist accumalation based on suppressing the Page | 141 claim on value of the product, was not going be allowed to impede profit by collective organisation.

Parliamentary legislation and consolidation of capitalist laws can be seen throughout history. The most infamous were the Combination Acts. The Combination Act 1799 was an Act to prevent capitalist notions put into practice for unlawful combinations of working people that, prohibited trade unions and collective bargaining by British workers. The Act received Royal Assent on 12 July 1799. An additional Act was passed in 1800.

The 1799 and 1800 acts were passed under the government of William Pitt the Younger against strikes. Collectively these acts were known as the Combination Laws. The legislation drove labour organisations underground. Sympathy for the plight of the workers brought repeal of the acts in 1824, political actions inside and outside of Parliament including by Chartist reformer, Francis Place played a role. However, in response to the series of strikes that followed, the Combinations of Workmen Act 1825 was passed, which allowed labour unions but severely restricted their activity.

The 1825 Act followed on from the Combination Act 1799 and the Combination of Workmen Act 1824. The 1824 Act repealed the Acts of 1799 and 1800, but this led to a wave of strikes. Accordingly, the Combinations of Workmen Act 1825 was passed to reimpose criminal sanctions for picketing and other persuasive methods used to cause workers not to work. The laws though, even made any combinations or unions pressing for wage increases or change working hours illegal.

Yet changing laws and the struggle to do so forced changes. The 1825 Act was recommended for amendment by the majority report of the Eleventh and Final Report of the Royal Commissioners appointed to Inquire into the Organisation and Rules of Trade Unions and Other Associations. It was wholly displaced by the Trade Union Act 1871.

Trade Union Act 1871 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which legalised trade unions for the first time in the United Kingdom. This was one of the founding pieces of legislation in UK labour law, though it has today been superseded by the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.

The Conservative Prime Minister, the Earl of Derby, set up a Royal Commission on Trade Unions in 1867. One worker representative was on the commission, Frederic

Harrison, who prepared union witnesses. Robert Applegarth from the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners was a union observer of the proceedings.

The Criminal Law Amendment Act 1871 was passed at the same time, which made picketing illegal. This was not repealed until the Conspiracy and Protection of Page | 142 Property Act 1875. The Act was fully repealed by the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1974.

During the reign of this anti-union reign of terror it gave birth to real trade unionism. Huge strikes or “turnouts” as they were called took place. The Scottish Weavers in 1812; the Lancashire Spinners in 1818; the North East Coast Miners in 1810; Scotland 1818 and South Wales 1816 (including the Ironfounders, they succeeded in defeating a wage reduction). The advance of unity through these bitter years saw the emergence of the first complete national unions. The Calicoprinters, The Friendly Society of Ironfounders, the Papermakers and the Ropemakers were these national unions.

Without the struggle there would have been no room for the pushing through of a Bill repealing the Combination Laws.

The repeal of the Combination Act seemed to have done nothing but to prove the futility of mere sectional combination (due to the commercial slump of 1825). The emancipated combinations were no more able to resist reductions than the secret ones had been. Working men turned back again from Trade Union action to the larger aims and wider character of the radical and socialist agitations of the time with which from 1829 to 1842, the Trade Union Movement had become inextricably entangled.

The Peterloo Massacre (or Battle of Peterloo) occurred at St Peter’s Field, Manchester, England, on 16 August 1819, when cavalry charged into a crowd of 60,000– 80,000 that had gathered to demand the reform of parliamentary representation.

In the next period we were to see the development of the Trades-Union, which represented NEW UNIONISM. Trade Union or Trade Club represented old unionism.

The ideal at which the Trades Unionists aimed was a complete union of all workers in the country in a single national trades union.

The New Unionism of 1829-34

Just before this period it is appropriate to say that the Lancashire Spinners struggles of the mid-twenties had a consequent development of organisation. A number of trades agreed to form a General Union of Trades, or philanthropic society that became known as

the PHILANTHROPIC HERCULES (presumably intended as a legal cover because of the Combination acts). This was the essence of the idea or one big union.

It was in Lancashire that the first outstanding trades union leader appeared, JOHN DOHERTY. He was the moving spirit in a conference of English, Scottish and Irish Page | 143 textile workers held in the Isle of Man in 1829 at which the GRAND GENERAL UNION of the UK was set up. Despite of its name, it appears to have been a union of cotton spinners only.

In 1830 Doherty became secretary to the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION for the PROTECTION of LABOUR. This was the first Trades Union or Union of Trades, as distinct from organisations catering for one section of the workers only.

1831 saw the NATIONAL UNION OF THE WORKING CLASSES, (formed by William Lovett to support the REFORM BILL and with others, in London, became the METROPOLITAN TRADES UNION, to which many unions affiliated.

In 1833 the OPERATIVE BUILDERS UNION was formed out of a number of craft unions reaching a membership of 40,000 mainly around Manchester and Birmingham. Early in 1834 it merged into the GRAND NATIONAL CONSOLIDATED TRADES UNION.

At this time Radical politics were on the agenda and given great attention to by radical newspapers such as “Voice of the People.” They gave attention to the repeal of the union with Ireland and the progress of revolution on the continent.

The Owenite newspapers towards the end of 1833 were full of references to the formation of a General Union of the Productive Classes.

ROBERT OWEN, the Utopian socialist, gave a speech to the OWEN societies of 6th October in 1833. Robert Owen “I will now give you, ” he said, “a short outline of the great changes which are in contemplation, and which shall come suddenly upon society like a thief in the night …It is intended that national arrangements shall be formed to include all the working classes in the great organisation, and that each department shall become acquainted with what is going on in other departments; that all individual competition is to cease; that all manufacturers are to be carried on by National Companies … All trades shall first form association of lodges to consist of a convenient number for carrying on the business… all individuals of the specific craft shall become members.”

Immediately after this we find in existence the “GRAND CONSOLIDATED TRADES UNION in January 1834. OWEN was its chief recruiter and propagandist.

The Socialist Movement

SOCIALISM is a system free from Capitalism, a system run by those that PRODUCE THE WEALTH of society and are not hindered by the multi-millionaires and billionaires who have historically exploited the labour of workingmen and women. It is a Page | 144 society free of exploitation of man by man based on, “from each according to his ability to each according to his work”. Socialism is where the factories, mines, workshops and property are in the hands of the majority of the people, where the Working Class controls production and distribution. Socialism is a system where there is no crisis, no unemployment and no inflation. It is where production is geared to the material and cultural needs of the people as a whole and not to the profits of a few. It is a system that cares for the sick and needy and respects old age and also looks after the future of the youth such as with the provision of education to a high standard.

Socialism is the aspiration of the workers, who, in their heart of hearts, desire fairness, equality, freedom and democracy. Socialism has been a movement of the people for an ultimate political goal for centuries. It has come up at various times in English History (for instance) before modern times.

In every period there have been those that have held radical thinking and have put forward ideas of running society for the whole of the people, for equality amongst men and women and have spoken of the Class Struggle between the Rich and the Poor.

There have been movements amongst the Slaves of ancient times led by such people as Spartacus the Gladiator against the Roman slave-owners. In Mediaeval times there were the Levellers and there were many leaders of the Peasant uprisings in Feudal Britain. There have been movements amongst the workers against Capitalism which have put forward demands for change, for political rights, for partial demands like the “People’s Charter” and the Chartist Movement in the last century.

Socialists and Trades Unionists have formed Socialist Parties and Socialism has been enshrined as an aim in the constitutions of practically every Trade Union in Britain.

Socialism, as a doctrine, has known many forms. Sometimes trends have arisen to oppose its development in the name of socialism. There was even “Feudal Socialism” which developed at a time when Capitalism replaced the Feudal System and there were aristocrats that warned Capitalism of its impending doom by the rising working class. This “Socialism” was a reactionary ideology to try and stop history advancing.

There was Bourgeois Conservative Socialism, which told the workers that society should be left to the capitalist masters who would somehow become benefactors.

There was Petty Bourgeois Socialism of the middle strata and also Utopian Socialism, that of ROBERT OWEN, FOURIER and SAINT SIMON. The Utopians built model

factories to prove to the capitalists that if they gave workers better conditions, education, less hours of working etc. that their productivity was better and so the ideal system should copy such experiments.

But capitalism as a whole, terrified of such notions, only too quickly used its Page | 145 power to crush the dreams of the Utopians. As a reminder Robert Owen’s model factory at New Lanark still stands today as a museum.

The movement of socialism always advances and it was KARL MARX, the founder of SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM, who proved the inevitability of the socialist system and that the revolutionary overthrow of Capitalism was the only path.

“The class struggle leads to the Dictatorship of the Proletariat”, says Marx. Thus socialism reached its conclusion in a logical and analytical way, and society could progress because social development is a scientific phenomenon.

Marx had laid bare the essence of the contradictions in society and proved that the class struggle was the motive force of history. The strategy and tactics needed to be worked out and so Marx and Engels wrote The Manifesto of the Communist Party. All that was needed was to carry out the programme.

The workers did it first of all in the Paris Commune of 1871 and again in 1917 led by Lenin in Russia and in various places since then. Despite Socialism developing to a system in operation as occurred in the Soviet Union for many years, the development of Socialism has gone forward and gone back. We know that the fall of Eastern Europe and Albania as well meant that Socialism, as a system in the world, once again was set back in the 1990’s, but it always inevitably rises again as a more advanced system in future.

Socialism has its origins as an independent movement, separate and from without of the working class movement, just as the Working Class Movement has had its separate development.

The workers, in the past, themselves have only really been able to achieve Trade Union consciousness on their own as a class though it tends towards Socialism.

The Working Class Movement is like a ship on the sea and Socialism is like the land on the distant horizon. The ship will go in and out and grope in the dark and encounter many obstacles. It will probably eventually reach the land but, with a compass on the ship, it will reach the land more quickly. Working class politics and the Socialist ideology is like the compass in the Working Class Movement headed for Socialism; it is the INTEGRATION OF THE TWO MOVEMENTS.

The WORKING CLASS MOVEMENT, (the most important organisation having been the Trade Unions) and the SOCIALIST MOVEMENT, two INDEPENDENT MOVEMENTS being integrated has always been an imperative. It is this integration, which the bourgeoisie has always opposed in order to retard the movement, to slow it down. It is here that we must address ourselves. The capitalists call it “keeping politics Page | 146 out of the unions,” what they mean is keeping out working class politics and keeping in bourgeois politics.

Chartism

The Chartist political movement (1837-48) was not of a trade union character, even so, trade unionists played an active part in it. The shock troops of Chartism were the textile factory workers and the miners. The former unions favoured by overwhelming majorities the turning of the Lancashire General Strike of 1842 into a political rising for the charter.

Chartists played a leading part in the formation of the first national coalfields organisation, the MINERS ASSOCIATION in 1841. But Chartism tackled too late the vital problem of rooting itself firmly in the relatively strong craft unions.

The stronghold of Chartism lay in the industrial north but ideological origins were from London. The Artisans and skilled craftsmen in London, led by such people as WILLIAM LOVETT, were the pertinent radicals. They were to set up the LONDON WORKING MEN’S ASSOCIATION in June 1836 as a political and educational body intended to attract the “Intelligent and influential portion of the working classes.” It was radical and Owenite in outlook.

In February it drew up a petition to parliament in which were embedded the six demands that afterwards became known as THE PEOPLE’S CHARTER. They were:

• EQUAL ELECTORAL DISTRICTS

• ABOLITION OF THE PROPERTY QUALIFICATIONS FOR MP’S

• UNIVERSAL MANHOOD SUFFRAGE

• ANNUAL PARLIAMENTS

• VOTE BY BALLOT

• THE PAYMENT OF MP’S

Frederick Engels declared that the six points were “sufficient to overthrow the whole English constitution, Queen and Lords included.” “Chartism,” he wrote, “is of an essentially social nature, a class-movement. The `six points’, which for the Radical bourgeoisie are the end of the matter… are for the proletariat a mere means to further ends. `Political power our means, social happiness our end’ is now the clearly Page | 147 formulated war-cry of the Chartists.”

In the spring of 1838 the six points were drafted into the form of a Parliamentary Bill and it was this draft, which became the actual Charter.

The Chartist movement was formally launched at a vast meeting at Newhall Hill, Birmingham, on August 6`” 1838.

There were three distinguished groups; the right wing was led by LOVETT and ATTWOOD, the centre by the dynamic figure of FEARGUS O’CONNOR and the left wing by BRONTERRE O’BRIEN in the early stages and later JULIAN HARNEY and ERNEST JONES.

FEARGUS O’CONNOR had the support of the great majority of the industrial workers, the miners and the ruined and starving hand workers of the North. He was an Irishman, nephew or one of the leaders of the Rebellion of 1798, nurtured on the Irish revolutionary traditions. He was a one time Irish MP and started the famous paper, important in the movement, THE NORTHERN STAR.

O’Brien, Harney and Jones never had the popularity of O’Connor, but were clearer politically. O’Brien was considerably influenced by the ideas of the Co-operative and Owenite socialism. Harney and Jones were younger men who came into the movement when it was already in decline. They both held views in common with KARL MARX, with whom they were closely associated, when he came to live in England in 1848.

During the winter of 1838 collections of petition signatures had begun, the Chartist Convention in February 1839 showed that only 600,000 had been collected. The criticism stimulated activity so that by July 12th it had 1,280,000 signatures.

On July 4th, a body of police, specially imported from London, attacked a meeting at the BULL RING Birmingham with exceptional brutality. The workers rallied and drove the police out of the Bull Ring and it was not till some days later that order was restored in the city, and that was after soldiers had been used to assist the police. The outrage spread rapidly over the Birmingham news and there were a number of violent clashes in Glasgow, Newcastle, Sunderland and Lancashire towns. On July 5th Lovett was arrested.

The petition was rejected after being debated in parliament. More arrests followed. There were plans for an insurrection, many details of which have never been available. There was also an insurrectionary committee of five.

There was a rising in South Wales where thousands of armed miners, led by Page | 148 JOHN FROST, marched. The miners had been assembled on the night of November 3rd 1839 at Blackwood on the Rhymney. Others from Pontypool and Nantyglo were to meet up with them at Risca, but inexperience of the leaders led this rendezvous to fail. The Chartist force that arrived in Newport numbered some four thousand. They were fired upon by troops concealed in Westgate Hotel. Ten were killed and about fifty were wounded.

Soon after all the Chartist leaders were arrested (in all about 490 were arrested) the movement was forced underground. As the leaders came out of gaol a slow revival began.

In the revival THE NATIONAL CHARTIST ASSOCIATION was formed in July 1840. The N.C.A. was the first real political party of the working class. It went far in trying to remove one of its main weaknesses – the Trade unions and built Chartist groups within them. The attempt was partially successful.

O’Connor was released in August 1841 and preparations were made for a second petition, which took into account poverty. It demanded higher wages, shorter hours and factory legislation.

The capitalist crisis had intensified and unemployment had risen and there were consequent wage reductions. 3,315,000 people signed the second petition nevertheless it was rejected by Parliament in May 1842. Strikes broke out all over Lancashire against the wage reductions.

In the second week in August the strikers turned a casual strike in Ashton-under- Lyne into a strike for the Charter. Immediately it spread. Manchester came out, and then it went over into Lancashire, Yorkshire, Cheshire and the Potteries, Warwickshire and into Wales. The Scottish Miners came out. A trade union conference decided by an overwhelming majority:

“That it is our solemn and conscientious conviction that all evils that afflict society, and which have prostrated the energies of the great body of the producing classes, arise solely from class legislation; and that the only remedy for the present alarming distress and widespread destitution is the immediate and unmutilated adoption and carrying into law the document known as the People’s Charter.”

“That this meeting recommend the people of all trades and callings to forthwith cease work, until the above document becomes the law of the land.”

Troops were sent into the strike areas and by September a combination of repression and hunger, with over 1500 arrests saw the strike dwindle and consequently the movement once again. The movement held together until the crisis of 1846 accompanied by the Irish famine brought Chartism into its third period of activity.

Page | 149 O’Connor was elected as MP for Nottingham in 1847. With a background still of poverty, misery and starvation and also the attempt of pacification by the passing of the Ten-Hour Act, the movement tended to focus on the unemployed. In Glasgow there were severe bread riots in April 1848 and many people were killed and wounded. The Government made serious military plans.

The new tide began to arise, in February 1848, the people of Paris suddenly drove the King of France from his throne, and the people of Paris had proclaimed a Republic. One by one Royalty was under siege throughout Europe. Popular insurrections were taking place. The small kingdoms of Germany the kingdoms and Duchies of Italy, which had began to go up in smoke. The King of Prussia was forced to grant a Constitution. The Emperor of Austria accepted the National Guard forced on him, and Metternich fled to England.

In England the Chartists promptly drafted a new petition and an Assembly called to present it, a Constitution of the British Republic was drafted. A mass meeting was to be called for April 10th to present the petition, to meet on Kennington and march to Parliament. The frightened Ruling-Class thought it was to be the day of Revolution. A new petition of 1,975.000 signatures was presented. The Duke of Wellington had packed London with troops and special police.

On May 1st the Chartist-Convention (which became the National Assembly) debated the question of armed insurrection.

A National Guard was instituted as a result of a local Lancashire and Yorkshire Conference. 3,000 were reported drilling at Wilsden, under a black flag. There is evidence of other armed Chartist forces at Leicester, Aberdeen and Glasgow. London was to be the centre of the insurrection; they were in touch with Irish revolutionaries. The headquarters were in Orange Street, as it was called then, in Red Lion Square. Numerous bands of armed men were scattered about Bloomsbury, the largest number at seven dials, with pickaxes ready to turn paving stones into barricades

Unfortunately for the Chartists, they could not try their strength because the movement was riddled with spies and provocateurs and the executives were arrested.

Afterwards the movement went into decline despite the adoption of a new programme with marked socialist features. The National Charter Association continued until about 1858. ERNEST JONES continued almost alone. The failure of Chartism was

partly because of its leadership and tactics, but also because it was new and the working class immature.

Page | 150 The Co-Operative Movement

The earliest Co-operatives were mainly attempts by groups of workers to break the monopoly of the millers and to provide cheap flour for their members. Examples were the Hull Anti-Mill Society of 1795 and the Devenport Union Mill of 1817. Then came Owenite Utopian Socialism and the Co-operatives were hailed as the key to the peaceful supersession of Capitalism.

The `new model’ Co-operative was that of the Rochdale “Equitable Pioneers” having founded their Co-operative shop in Toad Lane in 1844. Twenty-eight men started it with twenty eight pounds. They survived by paying a dividend on purchases. The greatest single benefit that the “Co-ops” brought to the workers was pure food. There were `sand in the sugar’ grocers, and other adulterators commonplace then.

In the 1860’s the Co-operative wholesale society came into being to supply goods to the retail societies and in the next decade it began actually to produce goods in its own factories. In 1869 began the regular series of annual Co-operative Congresses, which has continued.

From the second congress sprang the Co-operative Central Board, which developed into the Cooperative Union, the co-ordinating body for propaganda and education. The first central board contained Owenite and trade union Junta members. Also there were sympathisers from the middle class who became less needed as time went on.

On many occasions the Co-op’s supported the wider working class movement including strike struggles.

Eventually people who had become successful traders in commerce got to the top. The belief that the movement would peacefully put an end to the competitive system, while never formally abandoned, became more of a pious dream than a reality.

The Co-operative movement took in thousands of workers who learned how to organise and administer large-scale business enterprise at the time. This demonstrated conclusively that the ability to do so is not confined to the Capitalist Class.

The New Spirit and New Model Unions

After 1848 there was a tendency for the narrow-minded craft mentality to become a trend due to the setbacks of the previous period.

Page | 151 The “New Model” Unions, as they became known, however were not Trades Unions but Trade Unions. A national organisation employed in a single craft. They expressed the point of view of the skilled artisans. The result was to go against strikes and rely upon keeping down the supply of labour by restricting apprentices, discouraging overtime and even encouraging emigration. They were exclusive, catered for a labour aristocracy and had little concern for the masses outside their ranks.

The first of the New Model Unions was the AMALGAMATED SOCIETY OF ENGINEERS founded in 1851 by merging a number of craft unions. The journeymen Steam Engine and Machine Makers and the Millwrights Friendly Society were the most powerful. The next strongest of the unions at this time were the Iron founders and Stonemasons. The Lancashire Cotton Operatives formed a permanent organisation in 1853 along similar lines. The Amalgamated Society of Carpenters, founded in 1860, became second only to the A.S.E. in numbers and influence.

In 1860, these unions formed an unofficial central leadership known as the JUNTA. The JUNTA can be described as a “Cabinet” of the Trade Union Movement. The presence in London of the headquarters of these societies brought their salaried officers into close intimacy with each other. The inner circle consisted of ALLAN and APPLEGARTH of the Engineers and Carpenters, GUILE of the Ironfounders, and COULSON of the Bricklayers.

A fifth member, GEORGE ODGER, was of a different kind belonging only to a small union of skilled Bootmakers. But he became important as the secretary of the London Trades Council and an influence in Radical circles.

ROBERT APPLEGARTH became a leading member of the FIRST INTERNATIONAL (led by KARL MARX) and its Chairman in 1870.

The “New Model” Unions brought more business methods into the working class movement and care for the more tedious details of organisation. They made trade unionism a normal and regular part of working class daily life.

The JUNTA interested itself in politics, but not in the same way as the Chartists. They were more interested in exerting pressure on the existing parties. They participated in the Reform agitation of 1866-7.

Many Existing sections did not follow the “New Model” especially the miners and textile workers and those in the north They challenged the domination of the Junta and

(with the assistance of GEORGE POTTER of the London Working Men’s Association took part in national conferences, which initially were boycotted by the JUNTA until 1872 when they took a hand.

Eventually from this The TRADES UNION CONGRESS came about. In the General Page | 152 Election of 1874 Trade Union Leaders came forward as candidates for the first time independently of the Liberal and Tory Parties, though as individuals they were still only Radicals.

The International

The INTERNATIONAL WORKING MEN’S ASSOCIATION, later known as the First International, was founded at an international workers’ meeting in St. Martin’s Hall, London, on September 28th, 1864.

Under the leadership of KARL MARX and FREDERICK ENGELS it was for 10 years the directing force of all the advanced sections of the working class throughout Europe.

The movement in England had always been sensitive to events abroad. Going back to the 1840’s the Chartists had taken the initiative in the formation of the body known as the `Fraternal Democrats’, a forerunner of the 1st International, founded in 1846, mainly through the efforts of GEORGE JULIAN HARNEY. The movement in Britain had therefore kept in touch with events abroad, through the great epoch of European Revolutions.

The fundamental aim of the International was the union of workingmen of all countries for the emancipation of labour. Its principles went on to declare that, “the subjection of the man of labour to the man of capital lies at the bottom of all servitude, all social misery and all political dependence.”

Between 1864 and 1870 branches were established in nearly all European Countries as well as in the United States, the majority of Trade Societies in some European Countries joining in a body. The central administration was entrusted to a General Council of 55 members sitting in London, which was composed of London residents of various nationalities, elected by the branches in the countries to which they belonged. The General Council had, however, no legislative or other control over the branches, and in practice served as little more than a means of communication between them, each country managing its affairs in its own way.

The principles and programme of the Association underwent a steady development in the succession of annual international congresses attended by

delegates from the various branches. The extent to which English workingmen really participated in its fundamental objects is not clear.

In 1870 ODGER was president and APPLEGARTH chairman of the General Council, which included BENJAMIN LUCRAFT, afterwards a member of the London Page | 153 School Board, and other well-known workingmen politicians.

But few English Trade Unions (amongst them being the Bootmakers and Curriers) joined in their corporate capacity. When, in October 1866, the General Council invited the London Trades Council to join, or that failing, to give permission for a representative of the INTERNATIONAL to attend its meetings, with a view of promptly reporting all Continental strikes, the council’s minutes show that both requests were refused.

The London Trades Council declined indeed to recognise the INTERNATIONAL even as the authorised medium of communication with Trade Societies abroad, and decided to communicate with these directly. APPLEGARTH attended several of the continental congresses as a delegate from England, and elaborately explained the aims and principles of the Association in an interview published in the New York World of May 21st 1870.

After the suppression of the PARIS COMMUNE the branches in France were crushed out of existence and the membership in England fell away. The annual Congress held in 1872 at The Hague decided to transfer the General Council to New York and the INTERNATIONAL was unable to play any part in the English Labour movement.

The formation between 1858 and 1867 of permanent Trades Councils in the leading industrial centres was an important step in the consolidation of the Trade Union Movement.

The London Trades Council

In 1862 the London Trades Council held a great meeting in St. James’s Hall in support of Northern States against Negro slavery.

POTTER fought the Bill of GLADSTONE to sell Government Annuities for small amour as an insidious attempt to divert savings workingmen from their Trade Unions and benefit societies into an exchequer controlled by the governing classes. London Trades Council sent an influential deputation to Gladstone to publicly disavow Potter action.

Also during 1861-62 HOWELL and ODGER strove in vain to enlist the council in the agitation for a new REFORM BILL, but 1866, under the influence of ODGER and

APPLEGARTH, ALLAN and COULSON, the council enthusiastically threw itself into the demonstration in favour of the REFORM BILL. The Liberal Government brought in the Bill. The council took a leading part in the agitation, which resulted in the enfranchisement of the town Artisan. In the same year the Council agreed to co-operate with the INTERNATIONAL in demanding DEMOCRATIC REFORM from all European Page | 154 Governments.

The New Unionism of 1880-1900

In 1881 FREDERICK ENGELS had publicly pointed out in the Labour Standard, Organ of the London Trades Council; (a series collected in his pamphlet The British Labour Movement) that the waning of Britain’s Industrial Monopoly meant that the unions could not maintain their organised strength. He pointed to the failure of unions, “Unless they really march in the Van of the working class…” This meant breaking the, “Vicious circle out of which there is no issue” (Of movements limited to wages and hours) and that they must cease to be the “Tail of the “Great Liberal Party.” “A Political organisation of the Working Class as a whole,” which would win power for the workers and build a new social order.

As for the dominant leaders – the “old gang” as they became to be called, this appeal fell on deaf ears. The men who succeeded the JUNTA offered the movement not leadership but abdication, they dominated the T.U.C. It was the Socialists, both the intellectual leaders outside the unions and the younger Trade Unionists, who became converts, who led the fight against the “old gang” and revolutionised trade unionism.

The London Match Girls’ Strike

In July 1888, a famous Socialist led strike of the girls at Bryant and May’s match factory took place in the East-End of London, it secured wide publicity. It was the “Light Jostle needed for the entire avalanche to move” (Engels). The Gasworkers followed. Unrest had been growing for some time at Beckton, where the Stokers worked a 12- Hour shift and a 13-Day fortnight. They demanded and 8-Hour shift, a 12-Day fortnight and a shilling shift wages increase. Led by WILL THORNE, a Beckton Stoker, the men vainly sought Liberal aid to have their case raised in Parliament, and then turned to the Socialists.

They were advised to organise a union and were given maximum assistance, notably by ELEANOR MARX and AVELING. The “Law and Liberty League” of 1887 united Socialist and Radical Working men and Trade Unionists in a broad mass movement.

Rapid recruitment to the new Gasworkers’ and General Labourers’ Union enabled the men shortly to hand in strike notices. They were in so strong a position that the Gas companies conceded the whole of their demands, save that the wage granted was 6d instead of 1/-. This led to a spontaneous strike of the men at the South West Indian Dock that within a week became a “General Dockers’ Strike.” Page | 155 A movement that completely paralysed its greatest port electrified the world. Under the leadership of Socialists JOHN BURNS, TOM MANN, and BEN TILLET, with ELEANOR MARX as secretary of the strike-committee – the `starvelings’ had truly arisen from their slumbers. The strike lasted for four weeks sustained by an unprecedented wave of international solidarity.

The Workers’ Offensive (1910-1914)

V. 1. LENIN in his article, Lenin on Britain in 1913 is quoted as saying that:

“…the masses of the English workers are slowly but surely taking a new path- from the defence of the petty privileges of the labour aristocracy to the great heroic struggle of the masses themselves for a new system of society.”

Within this period, union membership grew from 2.5 million to 4 million.

The initiative of the 1889 NEW UNIONISM was to be carried forward. TOM MANN was the leader that had emerged as the leading exponent of SYNDICALISM, which is organisation by industry, rather than by craft.

In 1910 the several unions of Dockers and other Transport Men formed the “Transport Workers’ Federation”.

In June 1911 the Seamen struck work for uniform conditions at all ports and other improvements, The Dockers and Carters in Manchester struck and in July the Port of London was closed down.

Winston Churchill, Liberal Government Home Secretary reinforced the London Garrison and threatened to dispatch 25,000 troops to the docks to break the strike by doing the Dockers’ work.

Daily demonstrations of the strikers on Tower Hill were of unprecedented size, marches through the city counted up to 10,000 people.

Movements took place in other Ports, In Liverpool it almost turned to civil war. A General Transport strike with Dockers, Seamen, Carters, Tramwaymen, Railwaymen, a total of 70,000 being out. The leading figure was Tom Mann.

The Police brutally charged a monster demonstration on St. George’s Plateau Page | 156 causing a great outcry. Warships were moored in the Mersey their guns trained on the city. The troops were called out and two workers were shot when a crowd of demonstrators, said to be attempting a rescue of prisoners, were fired on. So alarmed were the authorities that the local territorials, which included many trade unionists and kept their arms at home, were ordered to remove the bolts from their rifles and turn them in at headquarters.

In January 1912, after the Glasgow Dockers struck the Dockers were in action again including London where 100,000 came out.

The big transport struggles of 1911 inspired the railwaymen and strikes broke out there too. Ultimatums to the railway companies from the railway unions led to threats of bloodshed from the Government of Asquith, Churchill sent troops to Manchester and other places without requistion from the civil authorities.

At Llanelly a strike demonstration was fired on and among the numerous casualties two were fatal.

200,000 railwaymen came out and industry was being brought to a standstill. An agreement was forced.

In the autumn of 1910 disputes over payment for abnormal places in the pit led to a strike of 10,000 miners employed by the Cambrian Combine in the Rhondda Valleys. The arrogant attitude of the mineowners headed by Lord Rhondda gave rise to deep resentment and there were stormy demonstrations. Metropolitan Police and troops were sent up the valleys and clashed with strikers at Tonypandy. Throughout 1911 strikes took place throughout these parts of the South Wales Coalfield.

A delegate conference of the Miners Federation of Great Britain decided to ballot for a national strike to establish the minimum wage, by March 1st the strike was complete and a million Miners ceased work. The first national miners strike proved to be the vastest labour conflict ever known up to that time in this country and the most sensational. The Government intervened, drafted a Minimum Wage Bill and rushed it through into law by the end of March.

As a result of the strike, within a year the number of trade unionists in mining had leapt by nearly 160,000 to over 900,000.

It was a new era for the workers, the British Working class would no longer be the same they had learned to fight and realised their power.

Within the country there was a “General Spirit of Revolt” which spread throughout the country. Page | 157 Of utmost importance and significance at the time was a strike in Ireland, which was to influence important political developments for Irish freedom against British Colonial Rule, particularly the development of the movement, which led to the 1916 “Easter Uprising”. All of this occurred in Dublin and was not to be without effect upon the British Working Class Movement.

The Historic year of 1913 witnessed the General Strike in Dublin in August and September. The Irish Transport and General Workers Union was under the revolutionary leadership of JAMES CONNOLLY and JIM LARKIN.

This fierce struggle of 80,000 Dublin Workers aroused an extraordinary response. Solidarity was symbolism in the enthusiastic dispatch through the Co-operative movement of a food ship to Dublin, and in the sympathetic strikes in which some 7,000 British Railwaymen took part.

There was a wave of unlimited police terror launched against the Dublin strikers. Two workers were killed, 400 wounded and over 200 were arrested. There was outrage and talk of arming the workers, general strikes and revolutionary action throughout the trade unions.

Everything pointed to a maturing political and social crisis towards the end of 1914. The number of disputes in 1908 averaged 30 a month. In 1911, 75 a month. The latter half of 1913 and the first half of 1914 the strike total rose to 150 a month.

The summer of 1914 was working up towards a revolutionary outburst of gigantic industrial disputes. The miners were preparing new autumn claims. The Transport Workers were organising and Railwaymen and Engineers were preparing. In 1914 an alliance for mutual aid was proposed and agreed between the Miners Federation, the National Union of Railwaymen and the Transport Workers Federation. This was to be called the TRIPLE ALLIANCE.

The ruling class were in a deep crisis; the problems in Ireland and the internal situation were grave. The English aristocrats, Tory politicians and army officers were preparing for civil war. Lloyd George said openly that with labour “insurrection” and the Irish crisis coinciding, “the situation will be the gravest with which any government has had to deal for centuries.”

They thought that if the war did not materialise quickly it could be forestalled by revolution. The first imperialist world war came, in time to dissipate the internal crisis.

Page | 158 The First Imperialist World War Years

Without the collaboration of the trade union leaders, the working class could not have been tied to the Imperialist War turning workers into cannon fodder for the capitalist class.

The union leaders and the labour aristocracy had control of the machinery of organised labour. They abandoned their pre-war pledges to prevent war or to end it by revolutionary means. Only some leaders such as KEIR HARDIE and WILL THORNE condemned the war.

The general feature of 1914-18 was the development of shop leadership in place of the disarmed union machine.

In engineering the SHOP STEWARDS, already existing as card inspectors and reporters to their union district committees, were transformed into workshop representatives and leaders.

Strikes took place during the war against the wishes of the union executives. In 1915 on Clydeside, shop stewards in engineering took action for a pay increase and fifteen establishments were involved, these included large armament firms and overtime was ceased on war contracts. A ballot on March 9th led to shops coming out on strike.

The miners of South Wales struck work in July 1915 for a new agreement with wage increases. The Government intervened under the Munitions Act but 200,000 miners struck and in less than one week the Government turned about, over rode the coal owners, and conceded the main points at issue.

Out of the Clyde workers struggle emerge the SHOP STEWARDS as the core of an entirely new form of workshop organisation. Out of the strike arose the Clyde WORKERS’ COMMITTEE, pledged to resist the Munitions Act.

WORKERS’ COMMITTEES on the Clyde model were established in other centres and in 1916 the NATIONAL SHOP STEWARDS AND WORKERS’ COMMITTEE MOVEMENT was formed.

The leaders of the Clyde Workers’ Committee were WILLIAM GALLACHER (chairman and JOHN McLean (a revolutionary and agitator for Bolshevism).

1917 brought the Russian Revolution, which had huge repercussions. There were almost 2.5 million working days lost as a result of disputes with the shop stewards in the lead. Up to July 1916 over 1,000 workers were convicted under the Munitions Act for strike activities.

Page | 159 The Russian Revolution had the effect of immensely politicising the British Working Class. This was shown at the Leeds Convention in 1917, it met with the aim of setting up Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils on the model of the Russia Soviets. Of the 1,150 delegates from all section of the movement that attended, the largest single group was 371 from trade unions and Workers’ Committees. Amongst the calls at the convention were appeals for a revolutionary struggle against the war.

------xxxxxxx------

31. Naval Race between Germany and Great Britain, 1898- 1912 Page | 160

The Anglo-German naval race was the most spectacular strand of the general maritime arms build-up before World War I. Often, albeit misleadingly, described as both the first and the prototypical arms race among modern industrial nations, this arms race resulted from and lent shape to the Anglo-German antagonism.

The Making of a Naval Race

German battleship building and Weltpolitik opened the door to the Anglo- German naval race. Driven by a desire to make the German Empire a viable world power and an integral industrial nation, the Navy Bills of 1898 and 1900 laid out the course for a massive naval expansion under anti-British auspices. The completed navy was to have a real fighting chance in a defensive war against the Royal Navy in the North Sea, with a projected German-British force ratio in capital ships of 2:3. Designed as a military deterrent against an empire that allegedly held the key to Germany’s future, this fleet would serve as a geopolitical lever to coerce Britain into accepting the German bid for equality as a global empire, or so the architect of this strategy, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz (1849-1930), reasoned.

The German naval buildup unfolded methodically, carefully managed by the Imperial Naval Office, supported by a fleet-loving emperor and the empire’s political leadership, sustained by the naval enthusiasm of Germany’s bourgeois intelligentsia, and supported by a broad section of the political nation. It was then left to Tirpitz, Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859-1941), and Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow (1849- 1929) between 1905 and 1908 to bring the German challenge to British naval power out into the open and to usher in the era of an open naval race. Confronted with the dramatic change in capital ship construction associated with the “Dreadnought” battleships and battle cruisers pioneered by the Royal Navy, the Germans first incorporated the construction of these new ship types into their existing program in the Navy Bill of 1906, with its annual building rate of three large ships. They then transitioned to an annual rate of four capital ships over the next four years in the Navy Bill of 1908.

British naval policy-makers quickly took note of the German program and its anti-British intentions. But until well after 1906, British naval strategy and building policy were driven by other threat assessments (feared confrontations with France and Imperial Russia) and commitments (maintenance of global military capabilities, financial

limitations, and the search for military-technological innovations beyond the paradigm of battlefleet warfare). Only subsequently, after the passage of the German Navy Bills of 1906 and 1908 and in the wake of the destruction of Russian sea power in the Russo- Japanese War and the diplomatic realignments of 1904-1907, did considerations of German armaments and capabilities emerge as a primary factor in British naval decision- Page | 161 making and public debate. By 1908, British naval construction, deployment, and war- planning took heed of the battleships being built on the other side of the North Sea, even as they also continued, until the outbreak of war in 1914, to reflect broader commitments to the global defense of the British imperial realm against all adversaries.

Dynamics of a Naval Race

The Anglo-German naval race came into focus with the German Navy Bill of 1908 and the British “Navy Scare” of 1909, which resulted in a massive construction program under anti-German auspices. An atmosphere of mutual suspicion now ruled the day. German fear of an imminent British military strike was matched by British suspicion about a secret acceleration of the construction of German capital ships. With broad national support, the British political and military leadership forcefully responded to the German program and displayed a relentless determination to protect British naval mastery. After 1908, massive British naval construction ensured the perpetuation of a favorable force ratio. The Liberal government also showed its resolve to increase its armaments supply with the passing of the so-called People’s Budget, which raised new revenue through taxation and suggested that Britain was in a position to mobilize whatever financial resources were necessary to remain ahead in the naval race with Germany, even at the expense of a constitutional crisis. In the years leading up to 1914, the Royal Navy retained its position of clear maritime superiority; its war planners developed schemes for a war with Germany involving a naval blockade and economic warfare. The Germans could not hope to match the British response. To raise new revenue to cover ever-escalating expenses for naval construction proved increasingly difficult, due to structural domestic political impediments. Furthermore, an ever- growing chorus of critics within and outside the government rapidly emerged. They emphasized British financial superiority and the deleterious diplomatic consequences of the Anglo-German antagonism, while also arguing for Germany to once again prioritize land power over the navy. The arms race was decided almost as soon as it started, as clear-headed observers in Germany and Britain recognized right away. (Indeed, the British would eventually enter World War I with forty-five “Dreadnought” battleships and battle cruisers in service or under construction, whereas the Germans would do so with twenty-six such ships built or in the process of being built.) But until 1914, German navy leaders struggled to face the facts and to declare a lost arms race lost.

The Anglo-German arms race saw repeated attempts to explore the possibility of an arms control agreement. These talks, which included a visit by the British Secretary of War Richard Burdon Haldane (1856-1928) to Berlin in February 1912, never stood a chance of succeeding, as both sides were unwilling to enter into an agreement to their

disadvantage. In Germany, Tirpitz enjoyed a veto position that allowed him to torpedo any efforts at a mutually acceptable agreement with Britain, which were undertaken by successive chancellors and supported by most of the civilian foreign policy elite in an effort to improve Anglo-German relations. In Britain, interest in an arms agreement was driven by a desire to stabilize naval competition at as low a level as possible in order to Page | 162 limit the financial costs of maintaining a clear British superiority. The Anglo-German talks that took place while the German Navy Bill of 1912 was being considered shattered any hopes in that regard for good. Subsequent talk about “naval holidays” and mutual arms limitations served a strictly propagandistic purpose.

In each country, the essentials of the naval build-up ultimately remained non- negotiable. This reflected the thinking of the decision-making elites, but it was also underwritten by the pressures of fast-developing naval-industrial complexes and their protagonists in politics and the press. Any substantive reduction of armaments appeared problematic in light of the direct consequences for the particular industries involved and the repercussions for national economies. More importantly, the naval competition galvanized political parties and the broader public and attracted the attention of the fast-developing mass media. In each country, the pursuit of maritime force became a focal point of political mobilization, public debate, and nationalist identity politics. Political parties rallied around the case for national power, global empire, and maritime force, making the possession of a first-rate navy an attribute of a strong nation, well beyond the particulars of force ratios and maritime strategy.

Another key component of the naval race was the rise of broader cults and folkloric appropriations of the navy, promoted by (but not limited to) the British and German navy leagues. Popular enthusiasm and media coverage developed in particular around the public staging of the navy in the form of fleet reviews and ship launches, which became performative displays of power and deterrence. These displays, in turn, directly fed Anglo-German enmity through their ostentatious character; their linkage of national identity, the sea, and military power; and the rituals’ own peculiar rhetoric and choreography of rivalry. Located at the intersection of popular culture, mass politics, and personal longings, this “naval theatre” (Jan Rüger) imbued the competition over sea power with symbolic meanings that transcended the calculations of policy-making elites and nourished a culture of public enmity and armed nationalism even after the arms race itself had been decided in Britain’s favor.

Legacies

The Anglo-German naval race heightened the tensions between the German and British Empires and cast a long shadow over their pre-war diplomacy. To be sure, the race was decided early on; political leaders and diplomats learned to bracket it as an issue, and it did not cause the decision for war in 1914. But the naval competition nonetheless created an atmosphere of mutual hostility and distrust, which circumscribed the space for peaceful diplomacy and public recognition of shared

interests, and helped to pave the twisted road to war in Europe. The race’s outcome fed the panic among German elites over the prospect of Germany losing its place as a world power. This, in turn, provided a necessary condition for the German policy of brinkmanship in July 1914, which ultimately made war inevitable. On the British side, thinking about the German naval challenge colored the decision to go to war over Page | 163 Germany’s invasions of Belgium and France. The pre-war culture of conflict then easily turned into intense wartime hostility, a mutually reinforcing regime of British Germanophobia and German Anglophobia combined with the totalizing conditions of a war cast as a clash of civilizations. To view the Anglo-German arms race as a direct precursor of the war and both as part of a developing Anglo-German antagonism became common in each country, with German Anglophobes going so far as to denounce the British Empire as the main instigator of the war. Foreign observers, especially in the United States, were also prone to draw a direct line from the arms race to a war and to view the latter as a product of the pre-war Anglo-German conflict over navies and empire.

Ever since, the arms race has loomed large in public narratives and memory of the lead-up to World War I. Over time it has increasingly come to stand in either for the folly of pre-war militarism and power politics as a general European condition, or for both the pathology of the German bid for world power, linked to the country’s compromised modernity, and the superior rationality of Britain as a liberal state and peaceful empire. In the era of Cold War militarization and U.S.-Soviet antagonism, the Anglo-German arms competition also served as an object lesson for the concerned public, allegedly providing insight into the dynamics of a modern arms race and the relationship between threat, deterrence, and war. In the past twenty-five years, however, the story of the Anglo-German race has lost its luster as a cautionary tale as Europe confines its 20th century to history and confronts a present not haunted by the specter of big power arms competitions and war. Strikingly, there has been a sustained effort to rethink the Anglo-German arms race as a historical event, at least in the scholarly realm. While scholars of German Weltpolitik and battleship construction continue to stress the seriousness of the German challenge to British naval mastery and the reality of the arms competition, many historians of the Royal Navy and the British Empire have come to downplay the centrality of the arms race and the larger Anglo- German antagonism for the understanding of British naval policy and strategy before 1914. Today, the place of the Anglo-German naval race in the historical imagination of the future remains an open question.

------xxxxxxx------

32. World War I

Page | 164

Why did war break out in 1914?

The Great War of 1914-18 began in August 1914. The causes of this war have been debated by politicians and historians ever since. One of the few things that historians have been able to agree about is that the war was the result of many different complex factors working together. These factors meant that the situation in Europe in 1914 was very tense. This in turn allowed one crisis to spiral out of control and spark off a war that killed millions.

The war was fought between rival alliances of European powers:

In 1879, Germany and Austria-Hungary formed an alliance (the Dual Alliance) that gave them great strength in the centre of Europe.

In 1892, the French and the Russians formed their own strong alliance (the Dual Entente) that meant Germany now had an unfriendly power on each side.

Soon afterwards, Germany's most powerful soldier, General Schlieffen, drew up a plan that would allow Germany to beat France very quickly in any future war. This would then free most German troops to fight Russia in the east.

By the early 1900s, the alliances had developed. The Dual Alliance had become the Triple Alliance with Italy (although Italy stayed out of the war in 1914).

In 1907, Britain joined Russia and France to form the Triple Entente. Britain was much less committed to this alliance than Russia or France.

The advantage of these alliances was that it gave the great powers a sense of security. The downside was that if the powers stuck blindly to their alliances, then a small-scale local dispute involving one power might drag the other powers in and turn into a major war.

The experience of the early 1900s seemed to suggest this would not happen. For example: In 1905 and 1911, there were disputes between the powers over colonies in North Africa.

In 1908, Austria-Hungary took over the province of Bosnia, which contained many Serbs. Serbia and her ally Russia were furious, but there was no war as a result.

In 1912-13, there were a series of wars in the Balkans. Serbia emerged from these wars as the main victor and appeared to be a possible threat to Austria-Hungary. Page | 165 Even so, there was no major war.

Unfortunately, this changed in 1914. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the trigger that set off the Great War. Franz Ferdinand was the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary. He was assassinated on 28 June 1914 by terrorists from one of Austria-Hungary's rival powers, Serbia. Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia, even though the terrorists were not connected to the Serbian government. On 31 July 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.

At this point, the alliances came into play. Russia mobilised its army ready to help the Serbs against Austria-Hungary. Everyone knew that if Russia attacked Austria- Hungary, then the alliance system meant that Germany and France could be pulled into the war as well.

The alliance system did not mean that a European war had to happen. Some say that it could still have been avoided - especially if Britain could have made Germany hold back from helping Austria-Hungary. Germany decided to help Austria-Hungary and declared war on Russia (1 August) and France (3 August). The German army prepared to attack France through Belgium, just as General Schlieffen had planned.

How did Britain become involved in the war?

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Britain was often described as being in 'Splendid Isolation' from the rest of Europe. Britain had a huge empire and ruling this empire was its priority. The key to Britain's power was India with its vast resources of manpower. Britain relied heavily on Indian troops to control the empire. The highest priority for Britain was protecting the trade routes between Britain and India. Britain's large navy protected trade links with India and with the rest of the world.

Despite this focus on the empire, Britain was interested in events in Europe. To start with, other European countries had rival empires. Belgium and France both had large empires in Africa. There was strong rivalry between Britain and France over possessions in North Africa. By the early 1900s, Germany also had colonies in Africa and was beginning to show an interest in North Africa.

Another concern was Russia. For much of the 19th century, Russia wanted to take control of the Dardanelles, the area where the Black Sea opened out into the Mediterranean Sea. This would allow Russian warships and trading ships to sail easily around Europe. Russia had other ports in the north, but these tended to freeze over in

winter. The problem was that the Dardanelles were owned by Turkey. Turkey and Russia had long been enemies. Britain supported Turkey against Russia. This was because Britain did not want Russian ships in the Mediterranean. The Mediterranean was part of Britain's most important trade route to India.

Page | 166 Until the early 1900s, Britain was more concerned about Russia and France than Germany. Relations between Britain and Germany were very good. This began to change, however. When Kaiser Wilhelm II took control of Germany, he was anxious for Germany to be a great power. He felt that Russia to the east and France to the west were encircling Germany. As a result, he built up his armed forces. France and Russia feared Germany and did the same. During the 1900s, all of the great powers in Europe began to build up their armies and navies.

British policy in Europe intended that no country in Europe should become completely dominant. If Russia, France, Germany and Austria-Hungary worried about each other, then they would be less of a threat to Britain. By about 1907 it was becoming clear to Britain that the greatest potential threat to Britain was going to be Germany. The strong economy, large population and powerful armed forces of Germany seemed to be capable of dominating Europe. As a result, Britain began to support Russia and France. Britain joined the Triple Entente.

Despite being part of the Triple Entente, Britain was not committed to going to war in 1914. The Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, spent much of the summer of 1914 furiously trying to reassure Russia and Germany and prevent a war happening. Even when German troops invaded France and Belgium as part of the Schlieffen Plan, Britain did not have to go to war.

Germany hoped Britain would stay out of the war altogether. However, the Germans knew that Britain had promised to defend Belgium under the Treaty of London of 1839. The Germans wanted the British government to ignore the Treaty of London and let the German army pass through Belgium. The British government made much of their duty to protect Belgium. Belgium's ports were close to the British coast and German control of Belgium would have been seen as a serious threat to Britain. In the end, Britain refused to ignore the events of 4 August 1914, when Germany attacked France through Belgium. Within hours, Britain declared war on Germany. The Kaiser said how foolish he thought the British were. He said that Britain had gone to war for the sake of a "scrap of paper".

Within a few more days, Britain, France and Russia (the Allies) were all officially at war with Germany and Austria-Hungary (the Central Powers). What had started as a small, local problem in the Balkans was turning into the biggest and most brutal war the world had ever seen.

------xxxxxxx------

33. Winston Churchill

Page | 167

Winston Churchill, in full Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, (born November 30, 1874, Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, England—died January 24, 1965, London), British statesman, orator, and author who as prime minister (1940–45, 1951–55) rallied the British people during World War II and led his country from the brink of defeat to victory.

After a sensational rise to prominence in national politics before World War I, Churchill acquired a reputation for erratic judgment in the war itself and in the decade that followed. Politically suspect in consequence, he was a lonely figure until his response to Adolf Hitler’s challenge brought him to leadership of a national coalition in 1940. With Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin he then shaped Allied strategy in World War II, and after the breakdown of the alliance he alerted the West to the expansionist threat of the Soviet Union. He led the Conservative Party back to office in 1951 and remained prime minister until 1955, when ill health forced his resignation.

In Churchill’s veins ran the blood of both of the English-speaking peoples whose unity, in peace and war, it was to be a constant purpose of his to promote. Through his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, the meteoric Tory politician, he was directly descended from John Churchill, 1st duke of Marlborough, the hero of the wars against Louis XIV of France in the early 18th century. His mother, Jennie Jerome, a noted beauty, was the daughter of a New York financier and horse racing enthusiast, Leonard W. Jerome.

The young Churchill passed an unhappy and sadly neglected childhood, redeemed only by the affection of Mrs. Everest, his devoted nurse. At Harrow his conspicuously poor academic record seemingly justified his father’s decision to enter him into an army career. It was only at the third attempt that he managed to pass the entrance examination to the Royal Military College, now Academy, Sandhurst, but, once there, he applied himself seriously and passed out (graduated) 20th in a class of 130. In 1895, the year of his father’s tragic death, he entered the 4th Hussars. Initially the only prospect of action was in Cuba, where he spent a couple of months of leave reporting the Cuban war of independence from Spain for the Daily Graphic (London). In 1896 his regiment went to India, where he saw service as both soldier and journalist on the North-West Frontier (1897). Expanded as The Story of the Malakand Field Force (1898), his dispatches attracted such wide attention as to launch him on the career of authorship that he intermittently pursued throughout his life. In 1897–98 he wrote Savrola (1900), a Ruritanian romance, and got himself attached to Lord Kitchener’s Nile

expeditionary force in the same dual role of soldier and correspondent. The River War (1899) brilliantly describes the campaign.

Page | 168 Political Career Before 1939

The five years after Sandhurst saw Churchill’s interests expand and mature. He relieved the tedium of army life in India by a program of reading designed to repair the deficiencies of Harrow and Sandhurst, and in 1899 he resigned his commission to enter politics and make a living by his pen. He first stood as a Conservative at Oldham, where he lost a by-election by a narrow margin, but found quick solace in reporting the South African War for The Morning Post (London). Within a month after his arrival in South Africa he had won fame for his part in rescuing an armoured train ambushed by Boers, though at the price of himself being taken prisoner. But this fame was redoubled when less than a month later he escaped from military prison. Returning to Britain a military hero, he laid siege again to Oldham in the election of 1900. Churchill succeeded in winning by a margin as narrow as that of his previous failure. But he was now in Parliament and, fortified by the £10,000 his writings and lecture tours had earned for him, was in a position to make his own way in politics.

A self-assurance redeemed from arrogance only by a kind of boyish charm made Churchill from the first a notable House of Commons figure, but a speech defect, which he never wholly lost, combined with a certain psychological inhibition to prevent him from immediately becoming a master of debate. He excelled in the set speech, on which he always spent enormous pains, rather than in the impromptu; Lord Balfour, the Conservative leader, said of him that he carried “heavy but not very mobile guns.” In matter as in style he modeled himself on his father, as his admirable biography, Lord Randolph Churchill (1906; revised edition 1952), makes evident, and from the first he wore his Toryism with a difference, advocating a fair, negotiated peace for the Boers and deploring military mismanagement and extravagance.

As Liberal minister

In 1904 the Conservative government found itself impaled on a dilemma by Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain’s open advocacy of a tariff. Churchill, a convinced free trader, helped to found the Free Food League. He was disavowed by his constituents and became increasingly alienated from his party. In 1904 he joined the Liberals and won renown for the audacity of his attacks on Chamberlain and Balfour. The radical elements in his political makeup came to the surface under the influence of two colleagues in particular, John Morley, a political legatee of W.E. Gladstone, and David Lloyd George, the rising Welsh orator and firebrand. In the ensuing general election in 1906 he secured a notable victory in Manchester and began his ministerial career in the new Liberal government as undersecretary of state for the colonies. He

soon gained credit for his able defense of the policy of conciliation and self-government in South Africa. When the ministry was reconstructed under Prime Minister Herbert H. Asquith in 1908, Churchill was promoted to president of the Board of Trade, with a seat in the cabinet. Defeated at the ensuing by-election in Manchester, he won an election at Dundee. In the same year he married the beautiful Clementine Hozier; it was a marriage Page | 169 of unbroken affection that provided a secure and happy background for his turbulent career.

At the Board of Trade, Churchill emerged as a leader in the movement of Liberalism away from laissez-faire toward social reform. He completed the work begun by his predecessor, Lloyd George, on the bill imposing an eight-hour maximum day for miners. He himself was responsible for attacking the evils of “sweated” labour by setting up trade boards with power to fix minimum wages and for combating unemployment by instituting state-run labour exchanges.

When this Liberal program necessitated high taxation, which in turn provoked the House of Lords to the revolutionary step of rejecting the budget of 1909, Churchill was Lloyd George’s closest ally in developing the provocative strategy designed to clip the wings of the upper chamber. Churchill became president of the Budget League, and his oratorical broadsides at the House of Lords were as lively and devastating as Lloyd George’s own. Indeed Churchill, as an alleged traitor to his class, earned the lion’s share of Tory animosity. His campaigning in the two general elections of 1910 and in the House of Commons during the passage of the Parliament Act of 1911, which curbed the House of Lords’ powers, won him wide popular acclaim. In the cabinet his reward was promotion to the office of home secretary. Here, despite substantial achievements in prison reform, he had to devote himself principally to coping with a sweeping wave of industrial unrest and violent strikes. Upon occasion his relish for dramatic action led him beyond the limits of his proper role as the guarantor of public order. For this he paid a heavy price in incurring the long-standing suspicion of organized labour.

In 1911 the provocative German action in sending a gunboat to Agadir, the Moroccan port to which France had claims, convinced Churchill that in any major Franco-German conflict Britain would have to be at France’s side. When transferred to the Admiralty in October 1911, he went to work with a conviction of the need to bring the navy to a pitch of instant readiness. His first task was the creation of a naval war staff. To help Britain’s lead over steadily mounting German naval power, Churchill successfully campaigned in the cabinet for the largest naval expenditure in British history. Despite his inherited Tory views on Ireland, he wholeheartedly embraced the Liberal policy of Home Rule, moving the second reading of the Irish Home Rule Bill of 1912 and campaigning for it in the teeth of Unionist opposition. Although, through his friendship with F.E. Smith (later 1st earl of Birkenhead) and Austen Chamberlain, he did much to arrange the compromise by which Ulster was to be excluded from the immediate effect of the bill, no member of the government was more bitterly abused— by Tories as a renegade and by extreme Home Rulers as a defector.

During World War I

War came as no surprise to Churchill. He had already held a test naval Page | 170 mobilization. Of all the cabinet ministers he was the most insistent on the need to resist Germany. On August 2, 1914, on his own responsibility, he ordered the naval mobilization that guaranteed complete readiness when war was declared. The war called out all of Churchill’s energies. In October 1914, when Antwerp was falling, he characteristically rushed in person to organize its defense. When it fell the public saw only a disillusioning defeat, but in fact the prolongation of its resistance for almost a week enabled the Belgian Army to escape and the crucial Channel ports to be saved. At the Admiralty, Churchill’s partnership with Adm. Sir John Fisher, the first sea lord, was productive both of dynamism and of dissension. In 1915, when Churchill became an enthusiast for the Dardanelles expedition as a way out of the costly stalemate on the Western Front, he had to proceed against Fisher’s disapproval. The campaign aimed at forcing the straits and opening up direct communications with Russia. When the naval attack failed and was called off on the spot by Adm. J.M. de Robeck, the Admiralty war group and Asquith both supported de Robeck rather than Churchill. Churchill came under heavy political attack, which intensified when Fisher resigned. Preoccupied with departmental affairs, Churchill was quite unprepared for the storm that broke about his ears. He had no part at all in the maneuvers that produced the first coalition government and was powerless when the Conservatives, with the sole exception of Sir William Maxwell Aitken (soon Lord Beaverbrook), insisted on his being demoted from the Admiralty to the duchy of Lancaster. There he was given special responsibility for the Gallipoli Campaign (a land assault at the straits) without, however, any powers of direction. Reinforcements were too few and too late; the campaign failed and casualties were heavy; evacuation was ordered in the autumn.

In November 1915 Churchill resigned from the government and returned to soldiering, seeing active service in France as lieutenant colonel of the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers. Although he entered the service with zest, army life did not give full scope for his talents. In June 1916, when his battalion was merged, he did not seek another command but instead returned to Parliament as a private member. He was not involved in the intrigues that led to the formation of a coalition government under Lloyd George, and it was not until 1917 that the Conservatives would consider his inclusion in the government. In March 1917 the publication of the Dardanelles commission report demonstrated that he was at least no more to blame for the fiasco than his colleagues.

Even so, Churchill’s appointment as minister of munitions in July 1917 was made in the face of a storm of Tory protest. Excluded from the cabinet, Churchill’s role was almost entirely administrative, but his dynamic energies thrown behind the development and production of the tank (which he had initiated at the Admiralty) greatly speeded up the use of the weapon that broke through the deadlock on the

Western Front. Paradoxically, it was not until the war was over that Churchill returned to a service department. In January 1919 he became secretary of war. As such he presided with surprising zeal over the cutting of military expenditure. The major preoccupation of his tenure in the War Office was, however, the Allied intervention in Russia. Churchill, passionately anti-Bolshevik, secured from a divided and loosely Page | 171 organized cabinet an intensification and prolongation of the British involvement beyond the wishes of any major group in Parliament or the nation—and in the face of the bitter hostility of labour. And in 1920, after the last British forces had been withdrawn, Churchill was instrumental in having arms sent to the Poles when they invaded the Ukraine.

In 1921 Churchill moved to the Colonial Office, where his principal concern was with the mandated territories in the Middle East. For the costly British forces in the area he substituted a reliance on the air force and the establishment of rulers congenial to British interests; for this settlement of Arab affairs he relied heavily on the advice of T.E. Lawrence. For Palestine, where he inherited conflicting pledges to Jews and Arabs, he produced in 1922 the White Paper that confirmed Palestine as a Jewish national home while recognizing continuing Arab rights. Churchill never had departmental responsibility for Ireland, but he progressed from an initial belief in firm, even ruthless, maintenance of British rule to an active role in the negotiations that led to the Irish treaty of 1921. Subsequently, he gave full support to the new Irish government.

In the autumn of 1922 the insurgent Turks appeared to be moving toward a forcible reoccupation of the Dardanelles neutral zone, which was protected by a small British force at Chanak (now Çanakkale). Churchill was foremost in urging a firm stand against them, but the handling of the issue by the cabinet gave the public impression that a major war was being risked for an inadequate cause and on insufficient consideration. A political debacle ensued that brought the shaky coalition government down in ruins, with Churchill as one of the worst casualties. Gripped by a sudden attack of appendicitis, he was not able to appear in public until two days before the election, and then only in a wheelchair. He was defeated humiliatingly by more than 10,000 votes. He thus found himself, as he said, all at once “without an office, without a seat, without a party, and even without an appendix.”

In and out of office, 1922–29

In convalescence and political impotence Churchill turned to his brush and his pen. His painting never rose above the level of a gifted amateur’s, but his writing once again provided him with the financial base his independent brand of politics required. His autobiographical history of the war, The World Crisis, netted him the £20,000 with which he purchased Chartwell, henceforth his country home in Kent. When he returned to politics it was as a crusading anti-Socialist, but in 1923, when Stanley Baldwin was leading the Conservatives on a protectionist program, Churchill stood, at Leicester, as a Liberal free trader. He lost by approximately 4,000 votes. Asquith’s decision in 1924 to

support a minority Labour government moved Churchill farther to the right. He stood as an “Independent Anti-Socialist” in a by-election in the Abbey division of Westminster. Although opposed by an official Conservative candidate—who defeated him by a hairbreadth of 43 votes—Churchill managed to avoid alienating the Conservative leadership and indeed won conspicuous support from many prominent figures in the Page | 172 party. In the general election in November 1924 he won an easy victory at Epping under the thinly disguised Conservative label of “Constitutionalist.” Baldwin, free of his flirtation with protectionism, offered Churchill, the “constitutionalist free trader,” the post of chancellor of the Exchequer. Surprised, Churchill accepted; dumbfounded, the country interpreted it as a move to absorb into the party all the right-of-centre elements of the former coalition.

In the five years that followed, Churchill’s early liberalism survived only in the form of advocacy of rigid laissez-faire economics; for the rest he appeared, repeatedly, as the leader of the diehards. He had no natural gift for financial administration, and though the noted economist John Maynard Keynes criticized him unsparingly, most of the advice he received was orthodox and harmful. His first move was to restore the gold standard, a disastrous measure, from which flowed deflation, unemployment, and the miners’ strike that led to the general strike of 1926. Churchill offered no remedy except the cultivation of strict economy, extending even to the armed services. Churchill viewed the general strike as a quasi-revolutionary measure and was foremost in resisting a negotiated settlement. He leaped at the opportunity of editing the British Gazette, an emergency official newspaper, which he filled with bombastic and frequently inflammatory propaganda. The one relic of his earlier radicalism was his partnership with Neville Chamberlain as minister of health in the cautious expansion of social services, mainly in the provision of widows’ pensions.

In 1929, when the government fell, Churchill, who would have liked a Tory- Liberal reunion, deplored Baldwin’s decision to accept a minority Labour government. The next year an open rift developed between the two men. On Baldwin’s endorsement of a Round Table Conference with Indian leaders, Churchill resigned from the shadow cabinet and threw himself into a passionate, at times almost hysterical, campaign against the Government of India bill (1935) designed to give India dominion status.

Exclusion from office, 1929–39

Thus, when in 1931 the National Government was formed, Churchill, though a supporter, had no hand in its establishment or place in its councils. He had arrived at a point where, for all his abilities, he was distrusted by every party. He was thought to lack judgment and stability and was regarded as a guerrilla fighter impatient of discipline. He was considered a clever man who associated too much with clever men—Birkenhead, Beaverbrook, Lloyd George—and who despised the necessary humdrum associations and compromises of practical politics.

In this situation he found relief, as well as profit, in his pen, writing, in Marlborough: His Life and Times, a massive rehabilitation of his ancestor against the criticisms of the 19th-century historian Thomas Babington Macaulay. But overriding the past and transcending his worries about India was a mounting anxiety about the growing menace of Hitler’s Germany. Before a supine government and a doubting Page | 173 opposition, Churchill persistently argued the case for taking the German threat seriously and for the need to prevent the Luftwaffe from securing parity with the Royal Air Force. In this he was supported by a small but devoted personal following, in particular the gifted, curmudgeonly Oxford physics professor Frederick A. Lindemann (later Lord Cherwell), who enabled him to build up at Chartwell a private intelligence centre the information of which was often superior to that of the government. When Baldwin became prime minister in 1935, he persisted in excluding Churchill from office but gave him the exceptional privilege of membership in the secret committee on air-defense research, thus enabling him to work on some vital national problems. But Churchill had little success in his efforts to impart urgency to Baldwin’s administration. The crisis that developed when Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935 found Churchill ill prepared, divided between a desire to build up the League of Nations around the concept of collective security and the fear that collective action would drive Benito Mussolini into the arms of Hitler. The Spanish Civil War (1936–39) found him convinced of the virtues of nonintervention, first as a supporter and later as a critic of Francisco Franco. Such vagaries of judgment in fact reflected the overwhelming priority he accorded to one issue—the containment of German aggressiveness. At home there was one grievous, characteristic, romantic misreading of the political and public mood, when, in Edward VIII’s abdication crisis of 1936, he vainly opposed Baldwin by a public championing of the King’s cause.

When Neville Chamberlain succeeded Baldwin, the gulf between the Cassandra- like Churchill and the Conservative leaders widened. Repeatedly the accuracy of Churchill’s information on Germany’s aggressive plans and progress was confirmed by events; repeatedly his warnings were ignored. Yet his handful of followers remained small; politically, Chamberlain felt secure in ignoring them. As German pressure mounted on Czechoslovakia, Churchill without success urged the government to effect a joint declaration of purpose by Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. When the Munich Agreement with Hitler was made in September 1938, sacrificing Czechoslovakia to the Nazis, Churchill laid bare its implications, insisting that it represented “a total and unmitigated defeat.” In March 1939 Churchill and his group pressed for a truly national coalition, and, at last, sentiment in the country, recognizing him as the nation’s spokesman, began to agitate for his return to office. As long as peace lasted, Chamberlain ignored all such persuasions.

Leadership during World War II

In a sense, the whole of Churchill’s previous career had been a preparation for wartime leadership. An intense patriot; a romantic believer in his country’s greatness

and its historic role in Europe, the empire, and the world; a devotee of action who thrived on challenge and crisis; a student, historian, and veteran of war; a statesman who was master of the arts of politics, despite or because of long political exile; a man of iron constitution, inexhaustible energy, and total concentration, he seemed to have been nursing all his faculties so that when the moment came he could lavish them on Page | 174 the salvation of Britain and the values he believed Britain stood for in the world.

On September 3, 1939, the day Britain declared war on Germany, Chamberlain appointed Churchill to his old post in charge of the Admiralty. The signal went out to the fleet: “Winston is back.” On September 11 Churchill received a congratulatory note from Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt and replied over the signature “Naval Person”; a memorable correspondence had begun. At once Churchill’s restless energy began to be felt throughout the administration, as his ministerial colleagues as well as his own department received the first of those pungent minutes that kept the remotest corners of British wartime government aware that their shortcomings were liable to detection and penalty. All his efforts, however, failed to energize the torpid Anglo-French entente during the so-called “phony war,” the period of stagnation in the European war before the German seizure of Norway in April 1940. The failure of the Narvik and Trondheim expeditions, dependent as they were on naval support, could not but evoke some memories of the Dardanelles and Gallipoli, so fateful for Churchill’s reputation in World War I. This time, however, it was Chamberlain who was blamed, and it was Churchill who endeavoured to defend him.

As prime minister

The German invasion of the Low Countries, on May 10, 1940, came like a hammer blow on top of the Norwegian fiasco. Chamberlain resigned. He wanted Lord Halifax, the foreign secretary, to succeed him, but Halifax wisely declined. It was obvious that Churchill alone could unite and lead the nation, since the Labour Party, for all its old distrust of Churchill’s anti-Socialism, recognized the depth of his commitment to the defeat of Hitler. A coalition government was formed that included all elements save the far left and right. It was headed by a war cabinet of five, which included at first both Chamberlain and Halifax—a wise but also magnanimous recognition of the numerical strength of Chamberlainite conservatism—and two Labour leaders, Clement Attlee and Arthur Greenwood. The appointment of Ernest Bevin, a tough trade-union leader, as minister of labour guaranteed cooperation on this vital front. Offers were made to Lloyd George, but he declined them. Churchill himself took, in addition to the leadership of the House of Commons, the Ministry of Defence. The pattern thus set was maintained throughout the war despite many changes of personnel. The cabinet became an agency of swift decision, and the government that it controlled remained representative of all groups and parties. The Prime Minister concentrated on the actual conduct of the war. He delegated freely but also probed and interfered continuously, regarding nothing as too large or too small for his attention. The main function of the chiefs of the armed services became that of containing his great dynamism, as a governor regulates a

powerful machine; but, though he prodded and pressed them continuously, he never went against their collective judgment. In all this, Parliament played a vital part. If World War II was strikingly free from the domestic political intrigues of World War I, it was in part because Churchill, while he always dominated Parliament, never neglected it or took it for granted. For him, Parliament was an instrument of public persuasion on Page | 175 which he played like a master and from which he drew strength and comfort.

On May 13 Churchill faced the House of Commons for the first time as prime minister. He warned members of the hard road ahead—“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat”—and committed himself and the nation to all-out war until victory was achieved. Behind this simplicity of aim lay an elaborate strategy to which he adhered with remarkable consistency throughout the war. Hitler’s Germany was the enemy; nothing should distract the entire British people from the task of effecting its defeat. Anyone who shared this goal, even a Communist, was an acceptable ally. The indispensable ally in this endeavour, whether formally at war or not, was the United States. The cultivation and maintenance of its support was a central principle of Churchill’s thought. Yet whether the United States became a belligerent partner or not, the war must be won without a repetition for Britain of the catastrophic bloodlettings of World War I; and Europe at the conflict’s end must be reestablished as a viable, self- determining entity, while the Commonwealth should remain as a continuing, if changing, expression of Britain’s world role. Provided these essentials were preserved, Churchill, for all his sense of history, was surprisingly willing to sacrifice any national shibboleths—of orthodox economics, of social convention, of military etiquette or tradition—on the altar of victory. Thus, within a couple of weeks of this crusading anti- Socialist’s assuming power, Parliament passed legislation placing all “persons, their services and their property at the disposal of the Crown”—granting the government in effect the most sweeping emergency powers in modern British history.

The effort was designed to match the gravity of the hour. After the Allied defeat and the evacuation of the battered British forces from Dunkirk, Churchill warned Parliament that invasion was a real risk to be met with total and confident defiance. Faced with the swift collapse of France, Churchill made repeated personal visits to the French government in an attempt to keep France in the war, culminating in the celebrated offer of Anglo-French union on June 16, 1940. When all this failed, the Battle of Britain began on July 10. Here Churchill was in his element, in the firing line—at fighter headquarters, inspecting coast defenses or antiaircraft batteries, visiting scenes of bomb damage or victims of the “blitz,” smoking his cigar, giving his V sign, or broadcasting frank reports to the nation, laced with touches of grim Churchillian humour and splashed with Churchillian rhetoric. The nation took him to its heart; he and they were one in “their finest hour.”

Other painful and more debatable decisions fell to Churchill. The French fleet was attacked to prevent its surrender intact to Hitler. A heavy commitment was made to the concentrated bombing of Germany. At the height of the invasion threat, a decision

was made to reinforce British strength in the eastern Mediterranean. Forces were also sent to Greece, a costly sacrifice; the evacuation of Crete looked like another Gallipoli, and Churchill came under heavy fire in Parliament.

In these hard days the exchange of U.S. overage destroyers for British Caribbean Page | 176 bases and the response, by way of lend-lease, to Churchill’s boast “Give us the tools and we’ll finish the job” were especially heartening to one who believed in a “mixing-up” of the English-speaking democracies. The unspoken alliance was further cemented in August 1941 by the dramatic meeting between Churchill and Roosevelt in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, which produced the Atlantic Charter, a statement of common principles between the United States and Britain.

Formation of the “grand alliance”

When Hitler launched his sudden attack on the Soviet Union, Churchill’s response was swift and unequivocal. In a broadcast on June 22, 1941, while refusing to “unsay” any of his earlier criticisms of Communism, he insisted that “the Russian danger…is our danger” and pledged aid to the Russian people. Henceforth, it was his policy to construct a “grand alliance” incorporating the Soviet Union and the United States. But it took until May 1942 to negotiate a 20-year Anglo-Soviet pact of mutual assistance.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941) altered, in Churchill’s eyes, the whole prospect of the war. He went at once to Washington, D.C., and, with Roosevelt, hammered out a set of Anglo-American accords: the pooling of both countries’ military and economic resources under combined boards and a combined chiefs of staff; the establishment of unity of command in all theatres of war; and agreement on the basic strategy that the defeat of Germany should have priority over the defeat of Japan. The grand alliance had now come into being. Churchill could claim to be its principal architect. Safeguarding it was the primary concern of his next three and a half years.

In protecting the alliance, the respect and affection between him and Roosevelt were of crucial importance. They alone enabled Churchill, in the face of relentless pressure from Stalin and ardent advocacy by the U.S. chiefs of staff, to secure the rejection of the “second front” in 1942, a project he regarded as premature and costly. In August 1942 Churchill himself flew to Moscow to advise Stalin of the decision and to bear the brunt of his displeasure. At home, too, he came under fire in 1942: first in January after the reverses in Malaya and the Far East and later in June when Tobruk in North Africa fell to the Germans, but on neither occasion did his critics muster serious support in Parliament. The year 1942 saw some reconstruction of the cabinet in a “leftward” direction, which was reflected in the adoption in 1943 of Lord Beveridge’s plan for comprehensive social insurance, endorsed by Churchill as a logical extension of the Liberal reforms of 1911.

Military successes and political problems

The Allied landings in North Africa necessitated a fresh meeting between Page | 177 Churchill and Roosevelt, this time in Casablanca in January 1943. There Churchill argued for an early, full-scale attack on “the under-belly of the Axis” but won only a grudging acquiescence from the Americans. There too was evolved the “unconditional surrender” formula of debatable wisdom. Churchill paid the price for his intensive travel (including Tripoli, Turkey, and Algeria) by an attack of pneumonia, for which, however, he allowed only the briefest of respites. In May he was in Washington again, arguing against persistent American aversion to his “under-belly” strategy; in August he was at Quebec, working out the plans for Operation Overlord, the cross-Channel assault. When he learned that the Americans were planning a large-scale invasion of Burma in 1944, his fears that their joint resources would not be adequate for a successful invasion of Normandy were revived. In November 1943 at Cairo he urged on Roosevelt priority for further Mediterranean offensives, but at Tehrān in the first “Big Three” meeting, he failed to retain Roosevelt’s adherence to a completely united Anglo-American front. Roosevelt, though he consulted in private with Stalin, refused to see Churchill alone; for all their friendship there was also an element of rivalry between the two Western leaders that Stalin skillfully exploited. On the issue of Allied offensive drives into southern Europe, Churchill was outvoted. Throughout the meetings Churchill had been unwell, and on his way home he came down again with pneumonia. Though recovery was rapid, it was mid-January 1944 before convalescence was complete. By May he was proposing to watch the D-Day assaults from a battle cruiser; only the King’s personal plea dissuaded him.

Insistence on military success did not, for Churchill, mean indifference to its political implications. After the Quebec conference in September 1944, he flew to Moscow to try to conciliate the Russians and the Poles and to get an agreed division of spheres of influence in the Balkans that would protect as much of them as possible from Communism. In Greece he used British forces to thwart a Communist takeover and at Christmas flew to Athens to effect a settlement. Much of what passed at the Yalta Conference in February 1945, including the Far East settlement, concerned only Roosevelt and Stalin, and Churchill did not interfere. He fought to save the Poles but saw clearly enough that there was no way to force the Soviets to keep their promises. Realizing this, he urged the United States to allow the Allied forces to thrust as far into eastern Europe as possible before the Russian armies should fill the vacuum left by German power, but he could not win over Roosevelt, Vice Pres. Harry S. Truman, or their generals to his views. He went to Potsdam in July in a worried mood. But in the final decisions of the conference he had no part; halfway through, when news came of his government’s defeat in parliamentary elections, he had to return to England and tender his resignation.

Insistence on military success did not, for Churchill, mean indifference to its political implications. After the Quebec conference in September 1944, he flew to Moscow to try to conciliate the Russians and the Poles and to get an agreed division of spheres of influence in the Balkans that would protect as much of them as possible from Communism. In Greece he used British forces to thwart a Communist takeover and at Page | 178 Christmas flew to Athens to effect a settlement. Much of what passed at the Yalta Conference in February 1945, including the Far East settlement, concerned only Roosevelt and Stalin, and Churchill did not interfere. He fought to save the Poles but saw clearly enough that there was no way to force the Soviets to keep their promises. Realizing this, he urged the United States to allow the Allied forces to thrust as far into eastern Europe as possible before the Russian armies should fill the vacuum left by German power, but he could not win over Roosevelt, Vice Pres. Harry S. Truman, or their generals to his views. He went to Potsdam in July in a worried mood. But in the final decisions of the conference he had no part; halfway through, when news came of his government’s defeat in parliamentary elections, he had to return to England and tender his resignation.

The general election of February 1950 afforded Churchill an opportunity to seek again a personal mandate. He abstained from the extravagances of 1945 and campaigned with his party rather than above it.

The electoral onslaught shook Labour but left them still in office. It took what Churchill called “one more heave” to defeat them in a second election, in October 1951. Churchill again took a vigorous lead in the campaign. He pressed the government particularly hard on its handling of the crisis caused by Iran’s nationalization of British oil companies and in return had to withstand charges of warmongering. The Conservatives were returned with a narrow majority of 17, and Churchill became prime minister for the second time. He formed a government in which the more liberal Conservatives predominated, though the Liberal Party itself declined Churchill’s suggestion of office. A prominent figure in the government was R.A. Butler, the progressive-minded chancellor of the Exchequer. Anthony Eden was foreign secretary. Some notable Churchillians were included, among them Lord Cherwell, who, as paymaster general, was principal scientific adviser with special responsibilities for atomic research and development.

As prime minister again

The domestic labours and battles of his administration were far from Churchill’s main concerns. Derationing, decontrolling, rehousing, safeguarding the precarious balance of payments—these were relatively noncontroversial policies; only the return of nationalized steel and road transport to private hands aroused excitement. Critics sometimes complained of a lack of prime ministerial direction in these areas and, indeed, of a certain slackness in the reins of government. Undoubtedly Churchill was getting older and reserving more and more of his energies for what he regarded as the supreme issues, peace and war. He was convinced that Labour had allowed the

transatlantic relationship to sag, and one of his first acts was to visit Washington (and also Ottawa) in January 1952 to repair the damage he felt had been done. The visit helped to check U.S. fears that the British would desert the Korean War, harmonized attitudes toward German rearmament and, distasteful though it was to Churchill, resulted in the acceptance of a U.S. naval commander in chief of the eastern Atlantic. It Page | 179 did not produce that sharing of secrets of atom bomb manufacture that Churchill felt had unfairly lapsed after the war. To the disappointment of many, Churchill’s advocacy of European union did not result in active British participation; his government confined itself to endorsement from the sidelines, though in 1954, faced with the collapse of the European Defense Community, Churchill and Eden came forward with a pledge to maintain British troops on the Continent for as long as necessary.

The year 1953 was in many respects a gratifying one for Churchill. It brought the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, which drew out all his love of the historic and symbolic. He personally received two notable distinctions, the Order of the Garter and the Nobel Prize for Literature. However, his hopes for a revitalized “special relationship” with Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower during his tenure in the White House, beginning in 1953, were largely frustrated. A sudden stroke in June, which caused partial paralysis, obliged Churchill to cancel a planned Bermuda meeting at which he hoped to secure Eisenhower’s agreement to summit talks with the Russians. By October, Churchill had made a remarkable recovery and the meeting was held in December. But it did not yield results commensurate with Churchill’s hopes. The two leaders, for all their amity, were not the men they once were; their subordinates, John Foster Dulles and Anthony Eden, were antipathetic; and, above all, the role and status of each country had changed. In relation to the Far East in particular there was a persistent failure to see eye to eye. Though Churchill and Eden visited Washington, D.C., in June 1954 in hopes of securing U.S. acceptance of the Geneva Accords designed to bring an end to the war in Indochina, their success was limited. Over Egypt, however, Churchill’s conversion to an agreement permitting a phased withdrawal of British troops from the Suez base won Eisenhower’s endorsement and encouraged hopes, illusory as it subsequently appeared, of good Anglo-American cooperation in this area. In 1955, “arming to parley,” Churchill authorized the manufacture of a British hydrogen bomb while still striving for a summit conference. Age, however, robbed him of this last triumph. His powers were too visibly failing. His 80th birthday, on November 30, 1954, had been the occasion of a unique all- party ceremony of tribute and affection in Westminster Hall. But the tribute implied a pervasive assumption that he would soon retire. On April 5, 1955, his resignation took place, only a few weeks before his chosen successor, Sir Anthony Eden, announced plans for a four-power conference at Geneva.

Retirement and death

Although Churchill laid down the burdens of office amid the plaudits of the nation and the world, he remained in the House of Commons (declining a peerage) to become “father of the house” and even, in 1959, to fight and win yet another election.

He also published another major work, A History of the English- Speaking Peoples, four volumes (1956–58). But his health declined, and his public appearances became rare. On April 9, 1963, he was accorded the unique distinction of having an honorary U.S. citizenship conferred on him by an act of Congress. His death at his London home in January 1965 was followed by a state funeral at which almost the whole world paid Page | 180 tribute. He was buried in the family grave in Bladon churchyard, Oxfordshire.

Legacy

In any age and time a man of Churchill’s force and talents would have left his mark on events and society. A gifted journalist, a biographer and historian of classic proportions, an amateur painter of talent, an orator of rare power, a soldier of courage and distinction, Churchill, by any standards, was a man of rare versatility. But it was as a public figure that he excelled. His experience of office was second only to Gladstone’s, and his gifts as a parliamentarian hardly less, but it was as a wartime leader that he left his indelible imprint on the history of Britain and on the world. In this capacity, at the peak of his powers, he united in a harmonious whole his liberal convictions about social reform, his deep conservative devotion to the legacy of his nation’s history, his unshakable resistance to tyranny from the right or from the left, and his capacity to look beyond Britain to the larger Atlantic community and the ultimate unity of Europe. A romantic, he was also a realist, with an exceptional sensitivity to tactical considerations at the same time as he unswervingly adhered to his strategical objectives. A fervent patriot, he was also a citizen of the world. An indomitable fighter, he was a generous victor. Even in the transition from war to peace, a phase in which other leaders have often stumbled, he revealed, at an advanced age, a capacity to learn and to adjust that was in many respects superior to that of his younger colleagues.

------xxxxxxx------

34. Labour reforms - the Welfare State (1945-1951)

Page | 181

After the war in Europe had ended, elections were held in Britain to choose a new government. The election was fought mainly between the Conservative and Labour Parties.

The Conservative Party was led by Winston Churchill, while the Labour Party was led by Clement Attlee. In July 1945, the Labour Party won the election with a majority.

The Labour Government

The Labour Party formed the Government in July 1945. Clement Attlee became Prime Minister and Aneurin Bevan became Minister for Health.

Between 1945 and 1951, the Labour Government passed a series of measures which became known as the ‘Welfare State’. This refers to the fact that the Government took responsibility for looking after the well-being of all its citizens. The reforms made were designed to take care of the British people 'from the cradle to the grave' (ie.from birth to death).

The Labour Government introduced a number of reforms and changes in order to attempt to tackle the Five Giants - disease, want, squalor, ignorance and idleness.

National Health Service Act 1948

• the National Health Service (NHS) was established in 1948 - it provided free access to doctors, dentists, opticians and hospitals • doctors, dentists and opticians were inundated with patients queuing up for treatment that they had previously been unable to afford

National Insurance Act 1946

• it provided financial protection in the event of unemployment and sickness - workers received 26 shillings a week or 42 shillings for married men • the elderly received pensions • financial assistance with funeral arrangements was provided • it established standardised minimal living conditions for the employed

Industrial Injuries Act 1946

• it provided financial relief for those who were temporarily absent from work, due to injury • it also provided financial relief for those absent long-term

National Assistance Act 1948 Page | 182 • it provided financial assistance for the unemployed or those who had not paid enough contributions into the National Insurance scheme • it provided for the elderly who had not been paying into the National Insurance scheme during their lives • it established standardised minimal living conditions for the unemployed

New Towns Act 1946

• twelve new towns were planned in order to reduce overcrowding

Housing Act 1949

• councils could buy houses in disrepair and make improvements • householders could apply for assistance to make improvements

Education Act 1944

• all local authorities had to provide primary, secondary and further education • free education was available for all until the age of 15

The Labour Government nationalised (brought under Government control) industries in Britain in order to create and maintain job levels. This included industries such as steel, iron, gas, coal, electricity, railways etc.

This helped to keep unemployment rates very low - unprofitable industries were provided with Government money to keep them in business and to avoid job losses.

------xxxxxxx------