NORMAN CONQUEST OF

ENGLAND
The Norman conquest of England was the
11th-century invasion and occupation
of Englandby an army of Norman, Breton,
and French soldiers led by Duke William II
of Normandy, later styled as William the
Conqueror.

William's claim to the English throne derived

from his familial relationship with the
(childless)Anglo-Saxon King Edward the
Confessor, who may have encouraged
William's hopes for the throne. Edward died
in January 1066 and was succeeded by his
brother-in-law Harold Godwinson. The
Norwegian king Harald Hardrada invaded
northern England in September 1066, and
was victorious at the Battle of Fulford, but Harold defeated and killed him at the Battle of Stamford Bridge on
25 September 1066. Within days, William landed in southern England. Harold marched south to confront him,
leaving a significant portion of his army in the north. Harold's army confronted William's invaders on 14
October at the Battle of Hastings; William's force defeated Harold, who was killed in the engagement.

Although William's main rivals were gone, he still faced rebellions over the following years and was not secure
on his throne until after 1072. The lands of the resisting English elite were confiscated; some of the elite fled
into exile. To control his new kingdom, William gave lands to his followers and built castles commanding
military strongpoints throughout the land. Other effects of the conquest included the court and government, the
introduction of Norman Frenchas the language of the elites, and changes in the composition of the upper
classes, as Williamenfeoffed lands to be held directly from the king. More gradual changes affected the
agricultural classes and village life: the main change appears to have been the formal elimination of slavery,
which may or may not have been linked to the invasion. There was little alteration in the structure of
government, as the new Norman administrators took over many of the forms of Anglo-Saxon government.

ORIGINS
In 911 the French Carolingian ruler Charles the Simple allowed a group of Vikings under their leader Rollo to
settle in Normandy as part of the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte. In exchange for the land, the Norsemen under
Rollo were expected to provide protection along the coast against further Viking invaders. Their settlement
proved successful, and the Vikings in the region became known as the "Northmen" from which "Normandy"
and "Normans" are derived. The Normans quickly adopted the indigenous culture, renouncing paganism and
converting to Christianity. They adopted the langue d'oïl of their new home and added features from their
own Norse language, transforming it into the Norman language. They intermarried with the local

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population and used the territory granted them as a base to extend the frontiers of the duchy westward,
annexing territory including the Bessin, the Cotentin Peninsula and Avranches.

In 1002 King Æthelred II of England married Emma, the sister of Richard II, Duke of Normandy. Their
son Edward the Confessor, who spent many years in exile in Normandy, succeeded to the English throne in
1042. This led to the establishment of a powerful Norman interest in English politics, as Edward drew heavily
on his former hosts for support, bringing in Norman courtiers, soldiers, and clerics and appointing them to
positions of power, particularly in the Church. Childless and embroiled in conflict with the formidable Godwin,
Earl of Wessex, and his sons, Edward may also have encouraged Duke William of Normandy's ambitions for
the English throne.

When King Edward died at the beginning of 1066, the lack of a clear heir led to a disputed succession in which
several contenders laid claim to the throne of England.[9] Edward's immediate successor was the Earl of
Wessex, Harold Godwinson, the richest and most powerful of the English aristocrats. Harold was elected king
by the Witenagemot of England and crowned by the Archbishop of York, Ealdred, although Norman
propaganda claimed the ceremony was performed by Stigand, the uncanonically electedArchbishop of
Canterbury. Harold was immediately challenged by two powerful neighbouring rulers. Duke William claimed
that he had been promised the throne by King Edward and that Harold had sworn agreement to this; King
Harald III of Norway, commonly known as Harald Hardrada, also contested the succession. His claim to the
throne was based on an agreement between his predecessor Magnus I of Norway and the earlier English
king, Harthacnut, whereby if either died without heir, the other would inherit both England and Norway.
William and Harald at once set about assembling troops and ships to invade England.

TOSTIG'S RAIDS AND THE NORWEGIAN INVASION

In early 1066, Harold's exiled brother Tostig Godwinson raided southeastern England with a fleet he had
recruited in Flanders, later joined by other ships fromOrkney.[c] Threatened by Harold's fleet, Tostig moved
north and raided in East Anglia and Lincolnshire, but he was driven back to his ships by the brothers Edwin,
Earl of Mercia, and Morcar, Earl of Northumbria. Deserted by most of his followers, he withdrew to Scotland,
where he spent the summer recruiting fresh forces. King Harold spent the summer on the south coast with a
large army and fleet waiting for William to invade, but the bulk of his forces were militia who needed to
harvest their crops, so on 8 September Harold dismissed them.

King Harald Hardrada invaded northern England in early September, leading a fleet of more than 300 ships
carrying perhaps 15,000 men. Harald's army was further augmented by the forces of Tostig, who threw his
support behind the Norwegian king's bid for the throne. Advancing on York, the Norwegians occupied the city
after defeating a northern English army under Edwin and Morcar on 20 September at the Battle of Fulford. The
two earls had rushed to engage the Norwegian forces before King Harold could arrive from the south. Although
Harold Godwinson had married Edwin and Morcar's sister Ealdgyth, the two earls may have distrusted Harold
and feared that the king would replace Morcar with Tostig. The end result was that their forces were devastated
and unable to participate in the rest of the campaigns of 1066, although the two earls survived the battle.

Hardrada moved on to York, which surrendered to him. After taking hostages from the leading men of the city,
on 24 September the Norwegians moved east to the tiny village of Stamford Bridge.[27] King Harold probably
learned of the Norwegian invasion in mid-September and rushed north, gathering forces as he went. The royal
forces probably took nine days to cover the distance from London to York, averaging almost 25 miles (40
kilometres) per day. At dawn on 25 September Harold's forces reached York, where he learned the location of
the Norwegians. The English then marched on the invaders and took them by surprise, defeating them in

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the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Harald of Norway and Tostig were killed, and the Norwegians suffered such
horrific losses that only 24 of the original 300 ships were required to carry away the survivors. The English
victory was costly, as Harold's army was left in a battered and weakened state.

NORMAN INVASION
NORMAN PREPARATIONS AND FORCES
William assembled a large invasion fleet and an army gathered from Normandy and all over France, including
large contingents from Brittany and Flanders. He mustered his forces at Saint-Valery-sur-Somme and was
ready to cross the Channel by about 12 August. The exact numbers and composition of William's force are
unknown. A contemporary document claims that William had 726 ships, but this may be an inflated figure.
Figures given by contemporary writers are highly exaggerated, varying from 14,000 to 150,000 men. Modern
historians have offered a range of estimates for the size of William's forces: 7000–8000 men, 1000–2000 of
them cavalry, 10,000–12,000 men; 10,000 men, 3000 of them cavalry; or 7500 men. The army would have
consisted of a mix of cavalry, infantry, and archers or crossbowmen, with about equal numbers of cavalry and
archers and the foot soldiers equal in number to the other two types combined. Although later lists
of companions of William the Conqueror are extant, most are padded with extra names; only about 35
individuals can be reliably claimed to have been with William at Hastings.

William of Poitiers states that William obtained Pope Alexander II's consent for the invasion, signified by a
papal banner, along with diplomatic support from other European rulers. Although Alexander did give papal
approval to the conquest after it succeeded, no other source claims papal support before the invasion. William's
army assembled during the summer while an invasion fleet in Normandy was constructed. Although the army
and fleet were ready by early August, adverse winds kept the ships in Normandy until late September. There
were probably other reasons for William's delay, including intelligence reports from England revealing that
Harold's forces were deployed along the coast. William would have preferred to delay the invasion until he
could make an unopposed landing.

LANDING AND HAROLD'S MARCH SOUTH

The Normans crossed to England a few days after Harold's victory over the Norwegians at Stamford Bridge on
25 September, following the dispersal of Harold's naval force. They landed at Pevensey in Sussex on 28
September and erected a wooden castle at Hastings, from which they raided the surrounding area. This ensured
supplies for the army, and as Harold and his family held many of the lands in the area, it weakened William's
opponent and made him more likely to attack to put an end to the raiding.

Harold, after defeating his brother Tostig and Harald Hardrada in the north, left much of his force there,
including Morcar and Edwin, and marched the rest of his army south to deal with the threatened Norman
invasion. It is unclear when Harold learned of William's landing, but it was probably while he was travelling
south. Harold stopped in London for about a week before reaching Hastings, so it is likely that he took a second
week to march south, averaging about 27 miles (43 kilometres) per day, for the nearly 200 miles (320
kilometres) to London. Although Harold attempted to surprise the Normans, William's scouts reported the
English arrival to the duke. The exact events preceding the battle remain obscure, with contradictory accounts
in the sources, but all agree that William led his army from his castle and advanced towards the enemy. Harold
had taken up a defensive position at the top of Senlac Hill (present-day Battle, East Sussex), about 6 miles (10
kilometres) from William's castle at Hastings.

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Contemporary sources do not give reliable data on the size and composition of Harold's army, although two
Norman sources give figures of 1.2 million or 400,000 men. Recent historians have suggested figures of
between 5000 and 13,000 for Harold's army at Hastings, but most agree on a range of between 7000 and 8000
English troops. These men would have comprised a mix of the fyrd (militia mainly composed of foot soldiers)
and the housecarls, or nobleman's personal troops, who usually also fought on foot. The main difference
between the two types was in their armour; the housecarls used better protecting armour than that of the fyrd.
The English army does not appear to have had many archers, although some were present. Few individual
Englishmen are known to have been at Hastings; the most important were Harold's
brothers Gyrth and Leofwine. About 18 other named individuals can reasonably be assumed to have fought
with Harold at Hastings, including two of his other relatives.

HASTINGS
The battle began at about 9 am on 14 October 1066 and lasted all day, but while a broad outline is known, the
exact events are obscured by contradictory accounts in the sources. Although the numbers on each side were
probably about equal, William had both cavalry and infantry, including many archers, while Harold had only
foot soldiers and few archers. The English soldiers formed up as a shield wall along the ridge, and were at first
so effective that William's army was thrown back with heavy casualties. Some of William's Breton troops
panicked and fled, and some of the English troops appear to have pursued the fleeing Bretons. Norman cavalry
then attacked and killed the pursuing troops. While the Bretons were fleeing, rumours swept the Norman forces
that the duke had been killed, but William rallied his troops. Twice more the Normans made feigned
withdrawals, tempting the English into pursuit, and allowing the Norman cavalry to attack them repeatedly.The
available sources are more confused about events in the afternoon, but it appears that the decisive event was the
death of Harold, about which differing stories are told. William of Jumieges claimed that Harold was killed by
the duke. The Bayeux Tapestry has been claimed to show Harold's death by an arrow to the eye, but this may
be a later reworking of the tapestry to conform to 12th-century stories that Harold had died from an arrow
wound to the head. Other sources stated that no one knew how Harold died because the press of battle was so
tight around the king that the soldiers could not see who struck the fatal blow. William of Poitiers gives no
details at all about Harold's death.

AFTERMATH OF HASTINGS
The day after the battle, Harold's body was identified, either by his armour or marks on his body. The bodies of
the English dead, who included some of Harold's brothers and his housecarls, were left on the
battlefield, although some were removed by relatives later. Gytha, Harold's mother, offered the victorious duke
the weight of her son's body in gold for its custody, but her offer was refused. William ordered that Harold's
body was to be thrown into the sea, but whether that took place is unclear. Another story relates that Harold
was buried at the top of a cliff. Waltham Abbey, which had been founded by Harold, later claimed that his
body had been buried there secretly. Later legends claimed that Harold did not die at Hastings, but escaped and
became a hermit at Chester.

After his victory at Hastings, William expected to receive the submission of the surviving English leaders, but
instead Edgar the Ætheling was proclaimed king by the Witenagemot, with the support of Earls Edwin and
Morcar, Stigand, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Ealdred, the Archbishop of York. William therefore
advanced, marching around the coast of Kent to London. He defeated an English force that attacked him
at Southwark, but being unable to storm London Bridge he sought to reach the capital by a more circuitous
route.

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William moved up the Thames valley to cross the river at Wallingford, Berkshire; while there he received the
submission of Stigand. He then travelled north-east along the Chilterns, before advancing towards London
from the north-west, fighting further engagements against forces from the city. Having failed to muster an
effective military response, Edgar's leading supporters lost their nerve, and the English leaders surrendered to
William at Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire. William was acclaimed King of England and crowned by Ealdred on
25 December 1066, in Westminster Abbey. The new king attempted to conciliate the remaining English
nobility by confirming Morcar, Edwin and Waltheof, the Earl of Northumbria, in their lands as well as giving
some land to Edgar the Ætheling. William remained in England until March 1067, when he returned to
Normandy with English prisoners, including Stigand, Morcar, Edwin, Edgar the Ætheling, and Waltheof.

ENGLISH RESISTANCE

FIRST REBELLIONS
Despite the submission of the English nobles, resistance continued for several years. William left control of
England in the hands of his half-brother Odo and one of his closest supporters, William fitzOsbern. In 1067
rebels in Kent launched an unsuccessful attack on Dover Castle in combination with Eustace II of
Boulogne. The Shropshire landowner Eadric the Wild, in alliance with the Welsh rulers
of Gwynedd and Powys, raised a revolt in western Mercia, fighting Norman forces based in Hereford. These
events forced William to return to England at the end of 1067. In 1068 William besieged rebels in Exeter,
including Harold's mother Gytha, and after suffering heavy losses managed to negotiate the town's
surrender. In May, William's wife Matilda was crowned queen at Westminster, an important symbol of
William's growing international stature. Later in the year Edwin and Morcar raised a revolt in Mercia with
Welsh assistance, while Gospatric, the newly appointed Earl of Northumbria, led a rising in Northumbria,
which had not yet been occupied by the Normans. These rebellions rapidly collapsed as William moved against
them, building castles and installing garrisons as he had already done in the south. Edwin and Morcar again
submitted, while Gospatric fled to Scotland, as did Edgar the Ætheling and his family, who may have been
involved in these revolts. Meanwhile Harold's sons, who had taken refuge in Ireland,
raided Somerset, Devon and Cornwall from the sea.

REVOLTS OF 1069
Early in 1069 the newly installed Norman Earl of Northumbria, Robert de Comines, and several hundred
soldiers accompanying him were massacred at Durham; the Northumbrian rebellion was joined by Edgar,
Gospatric, Siward Barnand other rebels who had taken refuge in Scotland. The castellan of York, Robert
fitzRichard, was defeated and killed, and the rebels besieged the Norman castle at York. William hurried north
with an army, defeated the rebels outside York and pursued them into the city, massacring the inhabitants and
bringing the revolt to an end. He built a second castle at York, strengthened Norman forces in Northumbria and
then returned south. A subsequent local uprising was crushed by the garrison of York. Harold's sons launched a
second raid from Ireland and were defeated in Devon by Norman forces under Count Brian, a son of Eudes,
Count of Penthièvre. In August or September 1069 a large fleet sent by Sweyn II of Denmark arrived off the
coast of England, sparking a new wave of rebellions across the country. After abortive raids in the south, the
Danes joined forces with a new Northumbrian uprising, which was also joined by Edgar, Gospatric and the
other exiles from Scotland as well as Waltheof. The combined Danish and English forces defeated the Norman

5
garrison at York, seized the castles and took control of Northumbria, although a raid into Lincolnshire led by
Edgar was defeated by the Norman garrison of Lincoln.

At the same time resistance flared up again in western Mercia, where the forces of Eadric the Wild, together
with his Welsh allies and further rebel forces fromCheshire and Shropshire, attacked the castle at Shrewsbury.
In the south-west, rebels from Devon and Cornwall attacked the Norman garrison at Exeter, but were repulsed
by the defenders and scattered by a Norman relief force under Count Brian. Other rebels from Dorset, Somerset
and neighbouring areas besiegedMontacute Castle but were defeated by a Norman army gathered from
London, Winchester and Salisbury under Geoffrey of Coutances. Meanwhile William attacked the Danes, who
had moored for the winter south of the Humber in Lincolnshire, and drove them back to the north bank.
Leaving Robert of Mortain in charge of Lincolnshire, he turned west and defeated the Mercian rebels in battle
at Stafford. When the Danes attempted to return to Lincolnshire, the Norman forces there again drove them
back across the Humber. William advanced into Northumbria, defeating an attempt to block his crossing of the
swollen River Aire atPontefract. The Danes fled at his approach, and he occupied York. He bought off the
Danes, who agreed to leave England in the spring, and during the winter of 1069–70 his forces systematically
devastated Northumbria in the Harrying of the North, subduing all resistance. As a symbol of his renewed
authority over the north, William ceremonially wore his crown at York on Christmas Day 1069.

In early 1070, having secured the submission of Waltheof and Gospatric, and driven Edgar and his remaining
supporters back to Scotland, William returned to Mercia, where he based himself at Chester and crushed all
remaining resistance in the area before returning to the south. Papal legates arrived and at Easter re-crowned
William, which would have symbolically reasserted his right to the kingdom. William also oversaw a purge of
prelates from the Church, most notably Stigand, who was deposed from Canterbury. The papal legates also
imposed penances on William and those of his supporters who had taken part in Hastings and the subsequent
campaigns. As well as Canterbury, the see of York had become vacant following the death of Ealdred in
September 1069. Both sees were filled by men loyal to William: Lanfranc, abbot of William's foundation
at Caen received Canterbury while Thomas of Bayeux, one of William's chaplains, was installed at York. Some
other bishoprics and abbeys also received new bishops and abbots and William confiscated some of the wealth
of the English monasteries, which had served as repositories for the assets of the native nobles.

DANISH TROUBLES
In 1070 Sweyn II of Denmark arrived to take personal command of his fleet and renounced the earlier
agreement to withdraw, sending troops into the Fens to join forces with English rebels led by Hereward the
Wake, based on the Isle of Ely. Sweyn soon accepted a further payment of Danegeld from William, and
returned home. After the departure of the Danes the Fenland rebels remained at large, protected by the marshes,
and early in 1071 there was a final outbreak of rebel activity in the area. Edwin and Morcar again turned
against William, and although Edwin was quickly betrayed and killed, Morcar reached Ely, where he and
Hereward were joined by exiled rebels who had sailed from Scotland. William arrived with an army and a fleet
to finish off this last pocket of resistance. After some costly failures the Normans managed to construct a
pontoon to reach the Isle of Ely, defeated the rebels at the bridgehead and stormed the island, marking the
effective end of English resistance. Morcar was imprisoned for the rest of his life; Hereward was pardoned and
had his lands returned to him.

LAST RESISTANCE

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William faced difficulties in his continental possessions in 1071, but in 1072 he returned to England and
marched north to confront King Malcolm III of Scotland. This campaign, which included a land army
supported by a fleet, resulted in the Treaty of Abernethy in which Malcolm expelled Edgar the Ætheling from
Scotland and agreed to some degree of subordination to William. The exact status of this subordination was
unclear – the treaty merely stated that Malcolm became William's man. Whether this meant only for Cumbria
and Lothian or for the whole Scottish kingdom was left ambiguous.

In 1075, during William's absence, Ralph de Gael, the Earl of Norfolk, and Roger de Breteuil the Earl of
Hereford, conspired to overthrow him in the Revolt of the Earls. The exact reason for the rebellion is unclear,
but it was launched at the wedding of Ralph to a relative of Roger's, held at Exning. Another earl, Waltheof,
despite being one of William's favourites, was also involved, and some Breton lords were ready to offer
support. Ralph also requested Danish aid. William remained in Normandy while his men in England subdued
the revolt. Roger was unable to leave his stronghold in Herefordshire because of efforts by Wulfstan,
the Bishop of Worcester, and Æthelwig, the Abbot of Evesham. Ralph was bottled up in Norwich Castle by the
combined efforts of Odo of Bayeux, Geoffrey of Coutances, Richard fitzGilbert, and William de Warenne.
Norwich was besieged and surrendered, and Ralph went into exile. Meanwhile, the Danish king's brother, Cnut,
had finally arrived in England with a fleet of 200 ships, but he was too late as Norwich had already
surrendered. The Danes then raided along the coast before returning home. William did not return to England
until later in 1075, to deal with the Danish threat and the aftermath of the rebellion, celebrating Christmas at
Winchester. Roger and Waltheof were kept in prison, where Waltheof was executed in May 1076. By that time
William had returned to the continent, where Ralph was continuing the rebellion from Brittany.

CONTROL OF ENGLAND
Once England had been conquered, the Normans faced many challenges in maintaining control. They were few
in number compared to the native English population; including those from other parts of France, historians
estimate the number of Norman settlers at around 8000. William's followers expected and received lands and
titles in return for their service in the invasion, but William claimed ultimate possession of the land in England
over which his armies had given him de facto control, and asserted the right to dispose of it as he saw fit.
Henceforth, all land was "held" directly from the king in feudal tenure in return for military service. A Norman
lord typically had properties located in a piecemeal fashion throughout England and Normandy, and not in a
single geographic block.

To find the lands to compensate his Norman followers, William initially confiscated the estates of all the
English lords who had fought and died with Harold and redistributed part of their lands. These confiscations
led to revolts, which resulted in more confiscations, a cycle that continued for five years after the Battle of
Hastings. To put down and prevent further rebellions the Normans constructed castles and fortifications in
unprecedented numbers, initially mostly on the motte-and-bailey pattern. Historian Robert Liddiard remarks
that "to glance at the urban landscape of Norwich, Durham or Lincoln is to be forcibly reminded of the impact
of the Norman invasion". William and his barons also exercised tighter control over inheritance of property by
widows and daughters, often forcing marriages to Normans.

A measure of William's success in taking control is that, from 1072 until the Capetian conquest of Normandy in
1204, William and his successors were largely absentee rulers. For example, after 1072, William spent more
than 75 per cent of his time in France rather than England. While he needed to be personally present in
Normandy to defend the realm from foreign invasion and put down internal revolts, he set up royal
administrative structures that enabled him to rule England from a distance.

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CONSEQUENCES
ELITE REPLACEMENT
A direct consequence of the invasion was the almost total elimination of the old English aristocracy and the
loss of English control over the Catholic Church in England. William systematically dispossessed English
landowners and conferred their property on his continental followers. The Domesday Book meticulously
documents the impact of this colossal programme of expropriation, revealing that by 1086 only about 5 per
cent of land in England south of the Tees was left in English hands. Even this tiny residue was further
diminished in the decades that followed, the elimination of native landholding being most complete in southern
parts of the country.

Natives were also removed from high governmental and ecclesiastical office. After 1075 all earldoms were
held by Normans, and Englishmen were only occasionally appointed as sheriffs. Likewise in the Church, senior
English office-holders were either expelled from their positions or kept in place for their lifetimes and replaced
by foreigners when they died. By 1096 no bishopric was held by any Englishman, and English abbots became
uncommon, especially in the larger monasteries.

ENGLISH EMIGRATION
Following the conquest, many Anglo-Saxons, including groups of nobles, fled the country for Scotland, Ireland,
or Scandinavia. Members of King Harold Godwinson's family sought refuge in Ireland and used their bases in
that country for unsuccessful invasions of England. The largest single exodus occurred in the 1070s, when a
group of Anglo-Saxons in a fleet of 235 ships sailed for the Byzantine Empire The empire became a popular
destination for many English nobles and soldiers, as the Byzantines were in need of mercenaries. The English
became the predominant element in the eliteVarangian Guard, until then a largely Scandinavian unit, from
which the emperor's bodyguard was drawn. Some of the English migrants were settled in Byzantine frontier
regions on the Black Sea coast, and established towns with names such as New London and New York.

GOVERNMENTAL SYSTEMS
Before the Normans arrived, Anglo-Saxon governmental systems were more sophisticated than their
counterparts in Normandy. All of England was divided into administrative units called shires, with
subdivisions; the royal court was the centre of government, and royal courts existed to secure the rights of free
men. Shires were run by officials known as shire reeves orsheriffs. Most medieval governments were always
on the move, holding court wherever the weather and food or other matters were best at the moment; England
had a permanent treasury at Winchester before William's conquest. One major reason for the strength of the
English monarchy was the wealth of the kingdom, built on the English system of taxation that included a land
tax, or the geld. English coinage was also superior to most of the other currency in use in northwestern Europe,
and the ability to mint coins was a royal monopoly. The English kings had also developed the system of
issuing writs to their officials, in addition to the normal medieval practice of issuing charters. Writs were either
instructions to an official or group of officials, or notifications of royal actions such as appointments to office
or a grant of some sort.

This sophisticated medieval form of government was handed over to the Normans and was the foundation of
further developments. They kept the framework of government but made changes in the personnel, although at
first the new king attempted to keep some natives in office. By the end of William's reign most of the officials
of government and the royal household were Normans. The language of official documents also changed,

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from Old English to Latin. The forest laws were introduced, leading to the setting aside of large sections of
England as royal forest.[108] The Domesday survey was an administrative catalogue of the landholdings of the
kingdom, and was unique to medieval Europe. It was divided into sections based on the shires, and listed all the
landholdings of each tenant-in-chief of the king as well as who had held the land before the conquest.

LANGUAGE
One of the most obvious effects of the conquest was the introduction of Anglo-Norman, a northern dialect
of Old French, as the language of the ruling classes in England, displacing Old English. French words entered
the English language, and a further sign of the shift was the usage of names common in France instead
ofAnglo-Saxon names. Furthermore, English words were criminalized as profanity and only latinate substitutes
for certain anatomy and reproductive functions were acceptable. Male names such
as William, Robert and Richard soon became common; female names changed more slowly. The Norman
invasion had little impact on placenames, which had changed significantly after earlier Scandinavian invasions.
It is not known precisely how much English the Norman invaders learned, nor how much the knowledge of
French spread among the lower classes, but the demands of trade and basic communication probably meant that
at least some of the Normans and native English were bilingual. Nevertheless it is known that William the
Conqueror himself never developed a working knowledge of English and for centuries afterward English was
not well understood by the nobility.

IMMIGRATION AND INTERMARRIAGE

An estimated 8000 Normans and other continentals settled in England as a result of the conquest, although
exact figures cannot be established. Some of these new residents intermarried with the native English, but the
extent of this practice in the years immediately after Hastings is unclear. Several marriages are attested between
Norman men and English women during the years before 1100, but such marriages were uncommon. Most
Normans continued to contract marriages with other Normans or other continental families rather than with the
English. Within a century of the invasion, intermarriage between the native English and the Norman
immigrants had become common. By the early 1160s, Ailred of Rievaulx was writing that intermarriage was
common in all levels of society.

SOCIETY
The impact of the conquest on the lower levels of English society is difficult to assess. The major change was
the elimination of slavery in England, which had disappeared by the middle of the 12th century. There were
about 28,000 slaves listed inDomesday Book in 1086, fewer than had been enumerated for 1066. In some
places, such as Essex, the decline in slaves was 20 per cent for the 20 years. The main reasons for the decline in
slaveholding appear to have been the disapproval of the Church and the cost of supporting slaves, who
unlike serfs, had to be maintained entirely by their owners. The practice of slavery was not outlawed, and
the Leges Henrici Primi from the reign of King Henry I continue to mention slaveholding as legal.

Many of the free peasants of Anglo-Saxon society appear to have lost status and become indistinguishable from
the non-free serfs. Whether this change was due entirely to the conquest is unclear, but the invasion and its
after-effects probably accelerated a process already under way. The spread of towns and increase in nucleated
settlements in the countryside, rather than scattered farms, was probably accelerated by the coming of the
Normans to England. The lifestyle of the peasantry probably did not greatly change in the decades after 1066.
Although earlier historians argued that women became less free and lost rights with the conquest, current

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scholarship has mostly rejected this view. Little is known about women other than those in the landholding
class, so no conclusions can be drawn about peasant women's status after 1066. Noblewomen appear to have
continued to influence political life mainly through their kinship relationships. Both before and after 1066
aristocratic women could own land, and some women continued to have the ability to dispose of their property
as they wished.

HISTORIOGRAPHY
Debate over the conquest started almost immediately. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, when discussing the death
of William the Conqueror, denounced him and the conquest in verse, but the king's obituary notice from
William of Poitiers, a Frenchman, was laudatory and full of praise. Historians since then have argued over the
facts of the matter and how to interpret them, with little agreement. The theory or myth of the "Norman Yoke"
arose in the 17th century, the idea that Anglo-Saxon society had been freer and more equal than the society that
emerged after the conquest. This theory owes more to the period it was developed in than to historical facts, but
it continues to be used in both political and popular thought to the present day.

In the 20th and 21st centuries historians have focused less on the rightness or wrongness of the conquest itself,
instead concentrating on the effects of the invasion. Some, such as Richard Southern, have seen the conquest as
a critical turning point in history. Southern stated that "no country in Europe, between the rise of the barbarian
kingdoms and the 20th century, has undergone so radical a change in so short a time as England experienced
after 1066. Other historians, such as H. G. Richardson and G. O. Sayles, believe that the transformation was
less radical In more general terms, one writer has called the conquest "the last echo of the national migrations
that characterized the early Middle Ages" The debate over the impact of the conquest depends on what metrics
are used to measure change after 1066. If Anglo-Saxon England was already evolving before the invasion, with
the introduction of feudalism, castles or other changes in society, then the conquest, while important, did not
represent radical reform. But the change was dramatic if measured by the elimination of the English nobility or
the loss of Old English as a literary language. Nationalistic arguments have been made on both sides of the
debate, with the Normans cast as either the persecutors of the English or the rescuers of the country from a
decadent Anglo-Saxon nobility.

MANORIAL SYSTEM
manorial system (mənôr´ēəl, măn–) or seignorial system (sēnyôr´ēəl), economic and social
system of medieval Europe under which peasants' land tenure and production were regulated,
and local justice and taxation were administered. The system was intimately related
to feudalism but was not itself feudal, since it had no connection with the military and political
concept of the fief. The fundamental characteristic of the manorial system was economic—the
peasants held land from the lord (Fr. seigneur) of an estate in return for fixed dues in kind,
money, and services. The manorial system prevailed in France, England, Germany, Spain, and
Italy and far into Eastern Europe. A similar method of landholding by the peasants has existed
in countries outside Europe, notably Japan and India.

STRUCTURE AND FUNCTIONS

10
The manorial system
was essentially a local
institution, and general
statements concerning it
are subject to
exceptions. In its simple
form it consisted of the
division of the land into
self-sufficient estates,
each presided over by
the lord of the manor
and tilled by residents
of the local village that
usually accompanied
each manorial estate.
The lord, who might be
the king, an
ecclesiastical lord, a
baron, or any lesser noble, owed military protection to the peasants. The land remained in the
lord's holding and was loaned to the person who cultivated it in return for services and dues.
The lord, however, did not have the right to withdraw the property or to increase the dues, and
the rights of cultivation were in general heritable among the peasants. The peasants ordinarily
were of two classes, the free and the unfree, but there was wide diversity in the status of
the villein and serf, and the distinction became blurred. The terms free and servile came to be
attached to the land rather than to the man, and a holding could be servile or free regardless of
the status of the holder.

On the typical domain was the manor house of the lord. Some of the land he retained for his
own use (the demesne). The domain was divided into arable, meadow (the commons),
woodland, and waste. The arable was held by the peasants, and each holding was under its own
fixed conditions; usually the holdings were by strips, and a single man might hold widely
separated lands. The three-field system of agriculture generally prevailed, with one field
devoted to winter crops, another to summer crops, and a third lying fallow each year. The
meadow was generally held in common. The woodlands and fishponds usually belonged to the
lord, and he had to be recompensed for the right to hunt animals, catch fish, and cut wood. In
times of poor harvest the lord was to use his coin and credit to prevent starvation.

Small local industry was also a function of the manorial system, and dues owed the estate could
include such items as cloth, building materials, and ironware. The payments made by serf and
villein varied with the locality. There were usually fixed dues paid at certain times of the year.
In addition to dues for the use of the lands and the use of the lord's mill and oven, there were
personal work dues. There were also obligations to supply the lord with services—food,
lodging, and the like—when he came to the manor. In addition there were dues for the rights of
justice.

The manor was an administrative and political unit. There were manorial courts, and the lord or
his agent presided over the administration of justice. The manor was also the unit for the raising
of taxes and for public improvements. Thus the tenants were obliged to repair roads and bridges,
maintain the castles, and take care of the military contributions. The manor was almost always
under the charge the lord's agent, who might be assisted by provosts or bailiffs. The manor was
looked upon as a permanent organization, and even when part of it was transferred to others by
the lord, it remained a single manor. Thus one manor might have several direct lords. It did not
necessarily coincide with a single estate; it might be larger or it might be only part of an estate.

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 HISTORY
Local manorial institutions developed with the decline of central Roman power. Like feudalism,
the system received great stimulus from the collapse of Carolingian rule and from the invasions
by Norsemen, Arabs, and Magyars. It reached its final form at different times in various
countries, but in general it flourished from the 11th to the 15th cent.

The most perplexing problem concerning the manor is the question of the origin of manorial
organization. The dispute between the so-called Romanists and Germanists as to the sources of
the organization has never been settled; there is not sufficient evidence. Romanists point to the
process that, in the later Roman Empire, produced independent estates. Germanists focus on the
likenesses of the manor to what was supposedly the ancient German system of landholding
(see mark). It is now generally accepted that both German and Roman influences contributed to
the development of the manorial system.

Many economic and political factors contributed to the extinction of the manorial system. The
spread of trade and a money economy promised greater profit to capitalist production than to the
subsistence manor; the growth of new centralized monarchies competed with the local
administration of the lord. Gradual decline took place with the wide development of towns and
capitalistic commerce that tended to break down the small local economic unit, the manor, and
to build up larger units.

Decline was early in Italy, where Roman city institutions persisted to some extent through the
Middle Ages (see commune). In Spain it was soon modified, especially by Moorish conquest,
but still existed in modified form in the 20th cent. In England the dissipation of the system had
been long in process before it was hastened by the inclosure of estates. In France its
disappearance was consummated by the French Revolution. In Austria and Prussia it was
virtually ended by the reforms of Emperor Joseph II, Karl vom und zum Stein, and Hardenberg,
but in Hungary it left traces until the 20th cent. In Russia it was profoundly altered by the
abolition of serfdom (1861; see Emancipation, Edict of). Everywhere it left its mark upon
succeeding institutions.

THE BLACK DEATH

The Black Death arrived in Europe by sea in October 1347 when 12 Genoese trading ships
docked at the Sicilian port of Messina after a long journey through the Black Sea. The people
who gathered on the docks to greet the ships were met with a horrifying surprise: Most of the
sailors aboard the ships were dead, and those who were still alive were gravely ill. They were
overcome with fever, unable to keep food down and delirious from pain. Strangest of all, they
were covered in mysterious black boils that oozed blood and pus and gave their illness its name:
the “Black Death.” The Sicilian authorities hastily ordered the fleet of “death ships” out of the
harbor, but it was too late: Over the next five years, the mysterious Black Death would kill more
than 20 million people in Europe–almost one-third of the continent’s population.

“THE BLACK DEATH”

Even before the “death ships” pulled into port at Messina, many Europeans had heard rumors
about a “Great Pestilence” that was carving a deadly path across the trade routes of the Near and

12
Far East. (Early in the 1340s, the disease had struck China, India, Persia, Syria and Egypt.)
However, they were scarcely equipped for the horrible reality of the Black Death. “In men and
women alike,” the Italian poet Giovanni Boccaccio wrote, “at the beginning of the malady,
certain swellings, either on the groin or under the armpits…waxed to the bigness of a common
apple, others to the size of an egg, some more and some less, and these the vulgar named
plague-boils.” Blood and pus seeped out of these strange swellings, which were followed by a
host of other unpleasant symptoms–fever, chills, vomiting, diarrhea, terrible aches and pains–
and then, in short order, death. The Black Death was terrifyingly, indiscriminately contagious:
“the mere touching of the clothes,” wrote Boccaccio, “appeared to itself to communicate the
malady to the toucher.” The disease was also terrifyingly efficient. People who were perfectly
healthy when they went to bed at night could be dead by morning.

UNDERSTANDING THE BLACK DEATH

Today, scientists understand that the Black Death, now known as the plague, is spread by a
bacillus called Yersina pestis. (The French biologist Alexandre Yersin discovered this germ at
the end of the 19th century.) They know that the bacillus travels from person to person
pneumonically, or through the air, as well as through the bite of infected fleas and rats. Both of
these pests could be found almost everywhere in medieval Europe, but they were particularly at
home aboard ships of all kinds–which is how the deadly plague made its way through one
European port city after another. Not long after it struck Messina, the Black Death spread to the
port of Marseilles in France and the port of Tunis in North Africa. Then it reached Rome and
Florence, two cities at the center of an elaborate web of trade routes. By the middle of 1348, the
Black Death had struck Paris, Bordeaux, Lyon and London.

Today, this grim sequence of events is terrifying but comprehensible. In the middle of the 14th
century, however, there seemed to be no rational explanation for it. No one knew exactly how
the Black Death was transmitted from one patient to another–according to one doctor, for
example, “instantaneous death occurs when the aerial spirit escaping from the eyes of the sick
man strikes the healthy person standing near and looking at the sick”–and no one knew how to
prevent or treat it. Physicians relied on crude and unsophisticated techniques such as
bloodletting and boil-lancing (practices that were dangerous as well as unsanitary) and
superstitious practices such as burning aromatic herbs and bathing in rosewater or vinegar.

Meanwhile, in a panic, healthy people did all they could to avoid the sick. Doctors refused to
see patients; priests refused to administer last rites. Shopkeepers closed stores. Many people fled
the cities for the countryside, but even there they could not escape the disease: It affected cows,
sheep, goats, pigs and chickens as well as people. In fact, so many sheep died that one of the
consequences of the Black Death was a European wool shortage. And many people, desperate to
save themselves, even abandoned their sick and dying loved ones. “Thus doing,” Boccaccio
wrote, “each thought to secure immunity for himself.”

GOD’S PUNISHMENT?

Because they did not understand the biology of the disease, many people believed that the Black
Death was a kind of divine punishment–retribution for sins against God such as greed,
blasphemy, heresy, fornication and worldliness. By this logic, the only way to overcome the
plague was to win God’s forgiveness. Some people believed that the way to do this was to purge
their communities of heretics and other troublemakers–so, for example, many thousands of Jews
were massacred in 1348 and 1349. (Thousands more fled to the sparsely populated regions of
Eastern Europe, where they could be relatively safe from the rampaging mobs in the cities.)

13
Some people coped with the terror and uncertainty of the Black Death epidemic by lashing out
at their neighbors; others coped by turning inward and fretting about the condition of their own
souls. Some upper-class men joined processions of flagellants that traveled from town to town
and engaged in public displays of penance and punishment: They would beat themselves and
one another with heavy leather straps studded with sharp pieces of metal while the townspeople
looked on. For 33 1/2 days, the flagellants repeated this ritual three times a day. Then they
would move on to the next town and begin the process over again. Though the flagellant
movement did provide some comfort to people who felt powerless in the face of inexplicable
tragedy, it soon began to worry the Pope, whose authority the flagellants had begun to usurp. In
the face of this papal resistance, the movement disintegrated.

The Black Death epidemic had run its course by the early 1350s, but the plague reappeared
every few generations for centuries. Modern sanitation and public-health practices have greatly
mitigated the impact of the disease but have not eliminated it.

THE SIGNING OF MAGNA CARTA

The Magna Carta was signed in June 1215 between the barons of Medieval
England and King John. ‘Magna Carta’ is Latin and means “Great Charter”. The Magna Carta
was one of the most important documents of Medieval England.

It was signed (by royal seal) between the feudal barons and King John at Runnymede near
Windsor Castle. The document was a series of written promises between the king and his
subjects that he, the king, would govern England and deal with its people according to the
customs of feudal law. Magna Carta was an attempt by the barons to stop a king – in this case
John – abusing his power with the people of England suffering.
Why would a king – who was meant to be all powerful in his own country – agree to the
demands of the barons who were meant to be below him in authority ?
England had for some years owned land in France. The barons had provided the king with both
money and men to defend this territory. Traditionally, the king had always consulted the barons
before raising taxes (as they had to collect it) and demanding more men for military service (as
they had to provide the men). This was all part of the Feudal System.
So long as English kings were militarily successful abroad, relations with the barons were good.
But John was not very successful in his military campaigns abroad. His constant demands for
more money and men angered the barons. By 1204, John had lost his land in northern France. In
response to this, John introduced high taxes without asking the barons. This was against feudal
law and accepted custom.
John made mistakes in other areas as well. He angered the Roman Catholic Church. The pope,
vexed by John’s behaviour, banned all church services in England in 1207. Religion, and the
fear of Hell, were very important to the people including the barons. The Catholic Church
taught the people that they could only gain entrance to Heaven if the Catholic Church believed
that they were good enough to get there. How could they show their goodness and love of God

14
if the churches were shut ? Even worse for John was the fact that the pope excommunicated him
in 1209. This meant that John could never get to Heaven until the pope withdrew the
excommunication. Faced with this, John climbed down and accepted the power of the Catholic
Church, giving them many privileges in 1214.
1214 was a disastrous year for John for another reason. Once again, he suffered military defeat
in an attempt to get back his territory in northern France. He returned to London demanding
more money from taxes. This time the barons were not willing to listen. They rebelled against
his power. The barons captured London. However, they did not defeat John entirely and by the
Spring of 1215, both sides were willing to discuss matters. The result was the Magna Carta.

HISTORY

13TH CENTURY

BACKGROUND

Magna Carta originated as an unsuccessful attempt to achieve peace between royalist and rebel
factions in 1215, as part of the events leading to the outbreak of the First Barons' War. England
was ruled by King John, the third of the Angevin kings. Although the kingdom had a robust
administrative system, the nature of government under the Angevin monarchs was ill-defined
and uncertain. John and his predecessors had ruled using the principle of vis et voluntas, or
"force and will", taking executive and sometimes arbitrary decisions, often justified on the basis
that a king was above the law. Many contemporary writers believed that monarchs should rule
in accordance with the custom and the law, with the counsel of the leading members of the
realm, but there was no model for what should happen if a king refused to do so.
John had lost most of his ancestral lands in France to King Philip II in 1204 and had struggled
to regain them for many years, raising extensive taxes on the barons to accumulate money to
fight a war which ultimately ended in expensive failure in 1214. Following the defeat of his
allies at the Battle of Bouvines, John had to sue for peace and pay compensation. John was
already personally unpopular with many of the barons, many of whom owed money to the
Crown, and little trust existed between the two sides. A triumph would have strengthened his
position, but in the face of his defeat, within a few months of his return from France John found
that rebel barons in the north and east of England were organising resistance to his rule.
The rebels took an oath that they would "stand fast for the liberty of the church and the realm",
and demanded that the King confirm the Charter of Liberties that had been declared by
King Henry I in the previous century, and which was perceived by the barons to protect their
rights. The rebel leadership was unimpressive by the standards of the time, even disreputable,
but were united by their hatred of John; Robert FitzWalter, later elected leader of the rebel

15
barons, claimed publicly that John had attempted to rape his daughter,[14] and was implicated
in a plot to assassinate John in 1212.
John held a council in London in January 1215 to discuss potential reforms, and sponsored
discussions in Oxford between his agents and the rebels during the spring. Both sides appealed
to Pope Innocent III for assistance in the dispute. During the negotiations, the rebellious barons
produced an initial document, which historians have termed "the Unknown Charter of
Liberties", which drew on Henry I's Charter of Liberties for much of its language; seven articles
from that document later appeared in the "Articles of the Barons" and the subsequent charter.
It was John's hope that the Pope would give him valuable legal and moral support, and
accordingly John played for time; the King had declared himself to be a papal vassal in 1213
and correctly believed he could count on the Pope for help. John also began recruiting
mercenary forces from France, although some were later sent back to avoid giving the
impression that the King was escalating the conflict. In a further move to shore up his support,
John took an oath to become a crusader, a move which gave him additional political protection
under church law, even though many felt the promise was insincere.
Letters backing John arrived from the Pope in April, but by then, the rebel barons had organised
into a military faction. They congregated at Northampton in May and renounced their feudal ties
to John, marching on London, Lincoln, and Exeter. John's efforts to appear moderate and
conciliatory had been largely successful, but once the rebels held London, they attracted a fresh
wave of defectors from the royalists. The King offered to submit the problem to a committee of
arbitration with the Pope as the supreme arbiter, but this was not attractive to the rebels. Stephen
Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury, had been working with the rebel barons on their
demands, and after the suggestion of papal arbitration failed, John instructed Langton to
organise peace talks.

GREAT CHARTER OF 1215

John met the rebel leaders at Runnymede, a water-meadow on the south bank of the River
Thames, on 10 June 1215. Runnymede was a traditional place for assemblies, but it was also
located on neutral ground between the royal fortress of Windsor Castle and the rebel base
at Staines, and offered both sides the security of a rendezvous where they were unlikely to find
themselves at a military disadvantage. Here the rebels presented John with their draft demands
for reform, the "Articles of the Barons". Stephen Langton's pragmatic efforts at mediation over
the next ten days turned these incomplete demands into a charter capturing the proposed peace
agreement; a few years later, this agreement was renamed Magna Carta, meaning "Great
Charter". By 15 June, general agreement had been made on a text, and on 19 June, the rebels
renewed their oaths of loyalty to John and copies of the charter were formally issued.
Although, as the historian David Carpenter has noted, the charter "wasted no time on political
theory", it went beyond simply addressing individual baronial complaints, and formed a wider
proposal for political reform. It promised the protection of church rights, protection from illegal
imprisonment, access to swift justice, and, most importantly, limitations on taxation and other

16
feudal payments to the Crown, with certain forms of feudal taxation requiring baronial
consent. It focused on the rights of free men—in particular the barons—excluding serfs
and unfree labour. Its style and content reflected Henry I's Charter of Liberties, as well as a
wider body of legal traditions, including the royal charters issued to towns, the operations of the
Church and baronial courts and European charters such as the Statute of Pamiers.
Under what historians later labelled "clause 61", or the "security clause", a council of 25 barons
would be created to monitor and ensure John's future adherence to the charter. If John did not
conform to the charter within 40 days of being notified of a transgression by the council, the 25
barons were empowered by clause 61 to seize John's castles and lands until, in their judgement,
amends had been made. Men were to be compelled to swear an oath to assist the council in
controlling the King, but once redress had been made for any breaches, the King would continue
to rule as before. In one sense this was not unprecedented; other kings had previously conceded
the right of individual resistance to their subjects if the King did not uphold his obligations.
Magna Carta was however novel in that it set up a formally recognised means of collectively
coercing the King. The historian Wilfred Warren argues that it was almost inevitable that the
clause would result in civil war, as it "was crude in its methods and disturbing in its
implications". The barons were trying to force John to keep to the charter, but clause 61 was so
heavily weighted against the King that this version of the charter could not survive.
John and the rebel barons did not trust each other, and neither side seriously attempted to
implement the peace accord. The 25 barons selected for the new council were all rebels, chosen
by the more extremist barons, and many among the rebels found excuses to keep their forces
mobilised. Disputes began to emerge between those rebels who had expected the charter to
return lands that had been confiscated and the royalist faction.
Clause 61 of Magna Carta contained a commitment from John that he would "seek to obtain
nothing from anyone, in our own person or through someone else, whereby any of these grants
or liberties may be revoked or diminished".Despite this, the King appealed to Pope Innocent for
help in July, arguing that the charter compromised the Pope's rights as John's feudal lord. As
part of the June peace deal, the barons were supposed to surrender London by 15 August, but
this they refused to do. Meanwhile, instructions from the Pope arrived in August, written before
the peace accord, with the result that papal commissioners excommunicated the rebel barons
and suspended Langton from office in early September. Once aware of the charter, the Pope
responded in detail: in a letter dated 24 August and arriving in late September, he declared the
charter to be "not only shameful and demeaning but also illegal and unjust" since John had been
"forced to accept" it, and accordingly the charter was "null, and void of all validity for ever";
under threat of excommunication, the King was not to observe the charter, nor the barons try to
enforce it.
By then, violence had broken out between the two sides; less than three months after it had been
agreed, John and the loyalist barons firmly repudiated the failed charter: the First Barons' War
erupted. The rebel barons concluded that peace with John was impossible, and turned to Philip
II's son, the future Louis VIII, for help, offering him the English throne. The war soon settled

17
into a stalemate. The King became ill and died on the night of 18 October, leaving the nine-
year-old Henry III as his heir.
WHAT IS THE MAGNA CARTA?

The Magna Carta is a document that dates back to the year 1215. The name is Latin for 'Great
Charter'. A charter is a written document that defines the rights of a group of people. In this case
the document defined the rights of King John, who ruled England at the time, a group of
wealthy men called barons and the Catholic Church in England. Throughout history the
document's meaning has expanded to include other people as well.
WHY WAS IT CREATED?

King John ruled at the beginning of the 13th century. He was an unpopular king for a number of
reasons. One was that he was unsuccessful in some battles which made him look like a weak
leader. Among these battles were wars over parts of France which had belonged to England but
which France reclaimed during John's reign. When John lost these areas less money flowed into
England through taxes. This, along with continuing expensive battles with France, led John to
demand higher taxes from people in England.
The English barons were not happy about this, not just because they did not want to pay higher
taxes but also because it was the custom in those days for the king to consult with the barons
before raising taxes. John raised taxes on many occasions and even introduced new ones
without consulting them.
John also acted against custom by choosing someone to be the Archbishop of Canterbury
against the wishes of the pope who wanted someone else to fill this role. This angered the pope
so much that it caused a lot of problems for King John. To get back in favour with the pope,
John gave him the kingdom of England and paid him yearly rent to continue living there. This
gave the barons less control over their land because now it was officially owned by the Church,
which made them even angrier.
There were other ways in which John acted according to what suited him regardless of its
effects on others. His rule was harsh and unpredictable and lost him the support of many people
including the barons and the Catholic bishops. These two powerful groups got together and
wrote a list of things they wanted the king to do, most of which were rights that they wanted
him to guarantee them. John rejected these demands until the barons raised an army against him
and overtook London.
This action forced John to negotiate with the barons. In June 1215 he met them in a field near
London where they made him sign a document which contained their list of demands. This
document was called the Articles of the Barons but an official version of it called the Magna
Carta was released soon afterwards and copies were distributed throughout the kingdom.
In return for the king's signature on the document the barons agreed to end their hostilities and
renew their pledge of allegiance to him.
WHAT WAS CONTAINED IN THE MAGNA CARTA?

18
Once signed by the king, the Magna Carta became a list of promises that he was supposed to
keep. They included promises to protect the freedom and rights of the Church, to consult more
closely with the barons (especially on matters such as taxes) and to guarantee certain freedoms
to all free men. For this reason the document also stated that a council of 25 barons would be
created to advise the king.
A number of the promises, or clauses, in the document ensured that the king would not do
whatever he felt like but would be constrained by laws and proper processes. For example, he
had to guarantee that if someone was accused of a crime they would be given a proper trial and
would be judged by their peers (people of the same status, in this case fellow Englishmen). The
king was not allowed to seize property or possessions from people but had to pay for them like
everyone else. Similar forms of mistreatment by the king were also ruled out by the document.
The Magna Carta was not just intended for the parties involved in its creation but for future
parties as well, particularly any future kings or queens.
WHY WAS IT IMPORTANT?

John only signed the Magna Carta because he was forced to at the time, not because he believed
in any of its principles. Within months he returned to war against the barons. But the Magna
Carta was re-issued ten years later by John's successor, Henry III, but the document had been
changed with parts that the monarchy did not like being left out. Many kings after Henry,
however, also re-issued it.
In later centuries the Magna Carta was almost forgotten. When it was rediscovered around the
time of Queen Elizabeth I it was looked upon with pride by the English as evidence of a
supposed history of legal principles and people's rights in their country.
Even though this was not really true - the Magna Carta was a solution to a specific situation
rather than a grand declaration of rights for all people - it came to be used as a kind of bill of
rights. People used it to back up a broad range of arguments about the powers of parliament, the
Church and the monarchy and people's rights. It influenced the content of other documents that
protect people's rights such as constitutions (including Australia's constitution) and America's
Bill of Rights.
WHAT DID IT CONTRIBUTE TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF DEMOCRACY?

Perhaps the Magna Carta's main contribution to democracy was that it was the first document in
English history to limit the power of the monarch. Until then, there had been a belief that the
monarch was the absolute ruler and therefore could do whatever they pleased. The Magna Carta
forced the king to accept that there should be some laws that even the monarchy had to obey.
This established the principle of the rule of law, meaning that law itself should be the absolute
ruler, not kings and queens (or, later in history, governments and parliaments). The rule of law
established certain rights for all people, such as the right to a fair trial. Over the years these
rights have been expanded in ways that are discussed in other chapters in this unit.
In John's time there was no parliament. Because the Magna Carta established the council of 25
barons whom the king was supposed to consult on matters that were important to the country,

19
some people also believe it sowed the seed for parliamentary democracy in England. Even
though John was not required to take the barons' advice, this did mark the beginning of the
power being shared by more people. The running of the state was now the concern of a group
rather than an individual.

The Magna Carta was a revolutionary document that helped shape society, human rights,
religion and politics, both in England and in America.
The Magna Carta promised a set of laws that were fair on all of the people, and not just the
people who had money. This important document stated that everyone should have access to the
courts, no matter what the costs and no matter what financial circumstances that person had.
It also states that no free citizen would be imprisoned or punished without first going through a
proper legal system. This was a huge leap for civil rights, and it is one of the clauses of the
Magna Carta that has helped shape modern law.
The last few sections of the Magna Carta detail how the caluses should be implemented in the
law and executed throughout the country. Initially twenty five barons were given the
responsibility of making sure that the king adhered to the clauses as described in the Magna
Carta, and the same document gives them permission to use force against the king if they felt it
was necessary.
King John agreed to the Magna Carta, and even consented to the use of the Royal Seal to give
the formal document impact. However, his support was superficial and King John quickly made
it obvious that he had no intention of honouring the laws as described in the document. This was
King John’s biggest, and final mistake.
The creation of the Magna Carta ensured that:
The Church would be able to operate free from royal interference. This was especially
important in the process of electing bishops.
Citizens of England could expect no taxes except for the regular feudal dues that
were expected. Additional taxes could only be levied with the consent of the Great
Council or Parliament

Citizens of England could expect fairer trials and they were not subject to
punishment by the king.

Citizens of England could expect fair weights and measures that would be uniformed
throughout the country.

THE PEASANTS’ REVOLT 1381

BACKGROUND
When the Black Death swept Europe in 1348-1351 it left about 30% of the population
dead. This greatly affected the English peasants because there was a labour shortage and
food was scarce. Even some thirty years later, life had not returned to normal -the settled

20
and structured country life of the Middle Ages was disrupted, and discontent was rife
amongst the poor.

CAUSES OF THE REVOLT

1. THE STATUTE OF LABOURERS 1351

This was a law passed at the end of the Black Death to stop the peasants taking advantage
of the shortage of workers and demanding more money. Peasants were forced to work for
the same wages as before, and landowners could insist on labour services being
performed, instead of accepting money (commutation). This meant that the landowners
could profit from shortages, whilst life was made very much harder for the peasants.

2. PRICES

Prices had risen since the Black Death. Wages had not risen as fast, so the peasants
suffered from hunger and shortages.

3. THE YOUNG KING

During the course of the Black Death and the years following it, England had a strong
and warlike king, Edward III. However, his son, the Black Prince, died before him,
leaving his grandson as heir to the throne. In 1377, Edward III died, and this boy of ten
became king. The true power lay with the powerful barons, in particular the boy's uncle,
John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. The barons, hated already by the peasants, began to
take advantage of the situation.

4. THE POLL TAX

England was involved in the Hundred Years War. This had left the treasury empty, and
the barons were tired of paying for the war.

In 1377, John of Gaunt imposed a new tax, the Poll (head) Tax, that was to cover the cost
of the war. Unlike normal taxes, this was to be paid by the peasants, as well as the
landowners. Although this was meant to be a "one-off" event, it was so successful that it
was repeated three more times. The first tax was 4d from every adult (adult:14yrs+), then
it was raised to 4d for the peasants and more for the rich, and finally in 1380, it was
raised to 12d per adult.

The barons liked the idea of the peasants helping to pay taxes, especially if the were
acting as tax collectors, as some of the money was siphoned off into their pockets. It was
much harder on the peasants, who could ill afford to pay, especially as the tax was
collected in cash and not in farm produce.

By 1380, many were hiding from the collectors, and avoiding payment. For this reason,
the amount collected dropped away, despite the fact that the tax had been increased.

5. JOHN BALL AND THE CHURCH

The Church was badly hit by the Black Death, and many of the clergy were poorly
educated, thus reducing popular respect for the Church. The Church was also a major

21
 landowner, and the abbots and bishops sided with the barons against the peasants. This
made the church hated, as the peasants felt betrayed by an organisation that should be
helping, rather than exploiting them.

This situation was made worse by a number of rebellious priests who preached against
the Church and the barons. Foremost amongst these was John Ball, who coined the
famous verse; "While Adam delved (dug) and Eve span, who then was the gentleman?"
i.e. There had been no group of non- working layabouts in that time, so why should they
be tolerated now?

So dangerous was this teaching that the Archbishop of Canterbury had arrested John
Ball, and confined him in Maidstone Castle.

THE OUTBREAK

Having examined the Poll Tax returns for 1380, the Royal Council headed by John of
Gaunt were upset to discover that less money than ever had been collected. Tax
collectors were sent out again, with instructions to collect the full amounts.

One of these men was Thomas Bampton, who arrived at Fobbing in Essex, and
summoned the villagers of Fobbing, Stanford and Corningham to appear before him.
Those law-abiding villagers who turned up were shocked to discover that they would
have to pay the hated tax a second time, and that they would also have to pay for the
people who had failed to turn up. Not surprisingly, a riot followed, and Bampton and his
men were beaten and driven from the village.

Sir Robert Belknap, a Chief Justice was sent to calm the situation, but he suffered a
similar fate. Word spread, and peasants allover Essex banded together and turned on the
landowners. Manor houses were burnt down, and any records of taxes, labour duties and
debts destroyed. Soon peasants in Kent rebelled also, and risings took place in many
other areas of the country. Some unpopular landowners were killed, others fled and
others captured and humiliated, having to act as servants and perform menial tasks.

Timeline showinq the Main Events 1381

Although the revolt spread to many areas of England, the two risings in Essex and Kent became
the focus of the revolt.

1381
May 30th.

Essex peasants chase Thomas Bampton out of Fobbing.

June lst

Essex rebels kill three of Bampton's servants. The revolt spreads through Essex, Hertfordshire
and Suffolk.

June 7th

The revolt is now widespread. The Kent rebels besiege Maidstone Castle, which surrenders.
John Ball is freed, and Rochester Castle surrenders also.

June lOth

22
The Kent Rebels march on Canterbury, and capture the city, Rich pilgrims are attacked in the
town, Finding the Archbishop away, the rebels appoint a humble monk as the new Archbishop,
and hold a service in the Cathedral, promising death to all "traitors" they capture,

At this point a new leader appears, Wat Tyler. We know little of him except that he may have
served as a soldier in France, that he was very cunning, and that he must have had exceptional
powers of leadership in order to control the mob of rebels.

Both the Kent and the Essex rebels now set out to march on London. The simple peasants
believed that they were going to explain their grievances to the King, who had been badly
advised, and that all would be set right. However, some of the more intelligent figures, such as
Wat Tyler and John Ball had a much clearer idea of the situation, and were planning to gain as
much as they could.

The King and the council were caught completely by surprise, and there were only a few
hundred troops in London. The city was virtually defenceless.

June 12th

Both groups of peasants had reached London. The Kent peasants camped at Blackheath, and the
Essex peasants at Mile End, north of the River Thames. Their nUDbers are hard to estimate, but
both groups could have been made up of up to 50,000 people. A message was sent into the city,
demanding a meeting with the king. It was arranged that he would meet them at Rotherhithe, on
the Thames, that afternoon.

Richard travelled downriver in the royal barge, but at the sight of the huge crowd of peasants,
Richard's advisers would not let him land. He returned to the Tower of London, leaving the
peasants angry and frustrated.

That night the peasants closed in on London. They were able to enter because the gates of the
city, and London Bridge were opened by townspeople sympathetic to their cause, although they
later claimed they had been forced to do it.

June 13th

The rebels were loose in the city. Fleet Prison was broken open, many lawyers were killed in the
Temple, and foreign merchants massacred. Despite this, most peasants were peaceful, and little
damage was done to the city, on the orders of Wat Tyler.

A group of peasants marched west from the city to the magnificent Savoy Palace, home of John
of Gaunt. It caught fire as they ransacked it. Fortunately, John of Gaunt was in Scotland at this
time, and escaped the rebels. As the flames lit the sky, Richard agreed to meet the rebels at Mile
End the following day. He hoped that this would draw the peasants out of the city.

June 14th

Richard rode to the meeting at Mile End. Here, Wat Tyler put forward the peasants demands:

-land rents were reduced to reasonable levels.

-the Poll Tax was to be abolished.
-free pardons for all rebels.
-charters would be qiven to the peasants laying down a number of rights and privileges.
-all "traitors" were to be put to death.

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Richard agreed to all these demands, but added that only a royal court could decide if a person
was a traitor or not. He thought that this was the best policy, in order to allow the peasants to go
home. A group of thirty or so clerks began to copy out charters for the peasants to take home.

However, the King had been outwitted by Wat Tyler. A group of peasants, taking advantage of
the King's absence at Mile End, raided the Tower of London. Here, they found three of their
lOSt hated people; simon Sudbury, (Archbishop of Canterbury), sir Robert Hailes (King's
treasurer) and John Legge (the creator of the Poll Tax). They were dragged out onto Tower Hill,
and beheaded.

June 15th

Following the granting of charters the previous day, many peasants began to leave London and
return home, believing that their demands had been met. However, Wat Tyler and a hard core of
peasants remained behind, and they demanded another meeting with the King, to deliver even
more demands.
The King agreed to a meeting at Smithfield, an open space within the city walls.

When the King's party arrived, Wat Tyler rode up and greeted them in an insolent manner. What
happened next is unclear, but was probably a pre-arranged plot. Tyler was rude to the King,
refusing to dismount, and spitting in front of him. The Lord Mayor of London, William
Walworth, drew his sword and attacked Tyler, wounding him. A squire finished him off as he
lay on the ground.

This was a crucial moment, before the peasants realised what had happened. The young King
rode forward, shouting out that all their demands were to be met, and that they should follow
him out of the city, where charters would be forthcoming. Trustingly, the rebels followed him,
and most were persuaded to return home.

The Aftermath: The kings Revenge

July

As soon as the peasants had left London, messengers were dispatched throughout the country,
summoning troops. The last members of the huge gathering of peasants were encamped at
Billericay in Essex. They found themselves cut down by royal troops, vainly flourishing the
pardons and charters that they had been given.

Royal forces toured the affected areas, hunting the rebels. Possession of a charter became a
virtual death sentence. In Hertfordshire and Essex, some 500 died, very few with any form of
trial, as the Earl of Buckinqham carried out the King's demand for vengeance. In Kent the toll of
executions was even greater, with 1500 peasants sent to the gallows

Another minor rebellion broke out in St. Albans, where the abbot was a hated figure amongst
the townspeople. This was ruthlessly crushed, and on 15th July, John Ball, whose preaching had
done so much to cause the rebellion, was hung, drawn and quartered in the market place, as an
example to any other potential rebels

THE RESULT OF THE PEASANTS REVOLT

1.On the surface, the peasants were crushed, their demands denied, and many executed.
However, the land owners had been scared, and in the longer term several things were achieved.

2. Parliament gave up trying to control the wages the landowners paid their peasants.

24
3. The hated poll tax was never raised again.

4. The Lords treated the peasants with much more respect. They made more of them free men
ie. they were not owned as part of the land. This benefited in the end, as free men always work
much harder.

5. This marked the breakdown of the feudal system, which had worked well during the early
Middle Ages, but was now becoming outdated as attitudes were beginning to change.

The Peasants' Revolt, also called Wat Tyler's Rebellion or the Great Rising, was a major
uprising across large parts of England in 1381. The revolt had various causes, including the
socio-economic and political tensions generated by the Black Death in the 1340s, the high taxes
resulting from the conflict with France during the Hundred Years' War, and instability within
the local leadership of London. The final trigger for the revolt was the intervention of a royal
official, John Bampton, in Essex on 30 May 1381. His attempts to collect unpaid poll
taxes in Brentwood ended in a violent confrontation, which rapidly spread across the south-east
of the country. A wide spectrum of rural society, including many local artisans and village
officials, rose up in protest, burning court records and opening the local gaols. The rebels sought
a reduction in taxation, an end to the system ofunfree labour known as serfdom and the removal
of the King's senior officials and law courts.

Inspired by the sermons of the radical cleric John Ball, and led by Wat Tyler, a contingent
of Kentish rebels advanced on London. They were met at Blackheath by representatives of the
royal government, who unsuccessfully attempted to persuade them to return home.
King Richard II, then aged 14, retreated to the safety of the Tower of London, but most of the
royal forces were abroad or in northern England. On 13 June, the rebels entered London and,
joined by many local townsfolk, attacked the gaols, destroyed the Savoy Palace, set fire to law
books and buildings in the Temple, and killed anyone associated with the royal government.
The following day, Richard met the rebels at Mile End and acceded to most of their demands,
including the abolition of serfdom. Meanwhile, rebels entered the Tower of London, killing
the Lord Chancellor and the Lord High Treasurer, whom they found inside.

On 15 June, Richard left the city to meet with Tyler and the rebels at Smithfield. Violence broke
out, and Richard's party killed Tyler. Richard defused the tense situation long enough for
London's mayor, William Walworth, to gather a militia from the city and disperse the rebel
forces. Richard immediately began to re-establish order in London and rescinded his previous
grants to the rebels. The revolt had also spread into East Anglia, where the University of
Cambridge was attacked and many royal officials were killed. Unrest continued until the
intervention of Henry le Despenser, who defeated a rebel army at the Battle of North
Walsham on 25 or 26 June. Troubles extended north to York, Beverley and Scarborough, and as
far west as Bridgwater inSomerset. Richard mobilised 4,000 soldiers to restore order. Most of
the rebel leaders were tracked down and executed; by November, at least 1,500 rebels had been
killed.

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The Peasants' Revolt has been widely studied by academics. Late 19th-century historians used a
range of sources from contemporary chroniclers to assemble an account of the uprising, and
these were supplemented in the 20th century by research using court records and local archives.
Interpretations of the revolt have shifted over the years. It was once seen as a defining moment
in English history, but modern academics are less certain of its impact on subsequent social and
economic history. The revolt heavily influenced the course of the Hundred Years' War, by
deterring later Parliaments from raising additional taxes to pay for military campaigns in France.
The revolt has been widely used in socialist literature, including by the author William Morris,
and remains a potent political symbol for the political left, informing the arguments surrounding
the introduction of the Community Charge in the United Kingdom during the 1980s.

THE REFORMATION
There were many factors that influenced the Protestant Reformation in England, such as the
political climate of Roman Catholic Church corruption and the increasing discontent among
both nobles and laymen. But the most important factor was King Henry VIII’s pervasive self-
serving attitude which profoundly impacted, and ultimately caused the Reformation of England.
Anne Boleyn’s influence that held sway over the king was an extremely important factor as
well, but the majority of his actions can be directly linked to his selfish nature, rather than his
love and devotion to either his kingdom or to his “true love.” His superiority complex mixed
with all other factors going on catalyzed the events that led ultimately to reformation in 1534,
and changed the face of England forever.

One of the reasons why Henry VIII’s Protestant Reformation was politically successful was
because there had been previous attempts at a Protestant reformation in England. England had
been uncomfortable with Rome for several centuries, and the Wycliffe rebellion in the
14th century prepared foundations for Protestantism in England. John Wycliffe was the first
person to translate the Bible into the vernacular language; unfortunately, he was branded a
heretic for his work and was killed. The need for reform was evident among many churches in
England prior to 1529. Absenteeism and discontent were rife, with clergymen often not
completing their clerical duties, and corruption of the church courts and their interference in lay
affairs. These shortcomings of the English Catholic Church all contributed to the anti-clerical
sentiments made apparent by some of the more noble families, such as the Boleyn family, and
the braver laymen.

Henry VIII’s temperament and perspective often changed from one end of the spectrum to the
other. The major examples of this vacillation were his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, and his
break with the Catholic Church. The death of King Arthur after only four months into marriage
with his new Spanish bride, Catherine of Aragon, left younger brother Henry the only surviving
male heir to the English throne by the Tudor family. Henry fell in love with Arthur’s widow,
and refused all other prospects of marriage, declaring that his love for Catherine of Aragon was
like no other.Henry showed his self-seeking attitude by refusing all other offers of marriage. He
may have truly been in love with her, but as the king, the right thing to do for his country would
have been to marry for strong alliances. An Anglo-French alliance would have been more

26
beneficial to the Crown and to England. In order to marry Catherine, Henry required special
Papal dispensation to legitimize the marriage. This was given happily by the Pope, and within a
few years, Henry and Catherine had a daughter, the future queen Mary. But when no male heirs
were produced afterwards, Henry began to “doubt both of the marriage and the spiritual validity
of the marriage.” After he met and fell in love with Anne Boleyn, Henry determined, upon
“careful study of the Scripture”, that his marriage to Catherine was void, as it was a sin to marry
his brother’s wife, and Henry then wanted an annulment. Henry’s selfish nature was the source
of this new-found Biblical understanding. He was weary of Catherine’s unwavering piety, and
wanted a wife who was lively and spirited. Anne Boleyn was the perfect candidate.
Unfortunately for Henry, the Pope had been taken captive by Charles V, Catherine’s
nephew. Charles V would have never let the Pope grant the annulment, because that would
have meant disinheriting Mary, who could then become a possible French princess on the
English throne. It would have also required yet another special Papal dispensation, which would
have decreed that the Pope had been in error the first time, something the Pope was not willing
to admit, as this would have caused him to lose face among the Catholic faithful. And so after
theologians argued that the Pope lacked freedom to make a decision on the matter, the
annulment was not granted; Henry secretly married Anne Boleyn in 1533. However, this too
was also a political move, because “the succession was the main point is proved by the fact that
Henry’s efforts were all directed to securing a wife and not a mistress.”

With absolute power in mind, Henry got rid of Cardinal Wolsey, Lord Chancellor of England,
and replaced him with Thomas Cranmer and Thomas Cromwell, who were both sympathetic to
the new ideas of Martin Luther. They gave the king the advice that if he wanted an annulment,
he should split off from the Catholic Church, and declare himself the head of the English
Church. Henry’s subsequent actions directly contradicted those that had been made only six
years prior, in 1521, when he stoutly defended the Catholic faith against Martin Luther’s
Protestantism. He had reaffirmed the seven sacraments to the people, and was given the
prestigious title of Defender of the Faith by the Pope.

Henry VIII was not a stupid monarch; he may have been selfish, self-serving, headstrong, and
querulous, with a personality akin to that of Machiavelli’s The Prince, but he knew how to get
what he wanted. It was in 1527 that Henry decided that Anne would become his queen, and that
Catherine should be cast aside, as well as her outdated Catholic beliefs. Many noblemen at the
court approved of Henry’s change in heart about whom he loved. Cardinal Wolsey, former Lord
Chancellor of England, whom Henry VIII later arrested for treason, had long advocated an
Anglo-French alliance, because he disliked Spanish Catherine. In 1533, England officially broke
with the Catholic Church, and after the laws passed, this put the entire clergy and all its monies
under Henry’s power. Henry’s ideas were almost completely secular, and were very shallowly
religious. The clergy had large sums of money that greatly increased the King’s treasury, and as
the new Head of the Church, Henry considered himself accountable only to God. Unfortunately
for the laymen, in England there were few to none of the large metropolises that other countries
in Europe possessed, possibly with the single exception of London. There was a glaring
omission of universities, a factor which had helped hinder the spread of Martin Luther’s
Protestant reformation in Germany. This was perhaps an extremely wise move on behalf of the
Catholic Church, as the lack of education of the lay people aided in keeping them under the
thumb of the Church law and traditions. Vernacular Bibles, or Bibles translated into the people’s
native language, were associated with sedition, because of the attempted 14th century

27
reforms. But Anne Boleyn, possibly one of the most famous women in English history, sought
to correct this astronomical oversight of education, through her faith and beliefs.

Anne Boleyn was one of the biggest personal influences in Henry VIII’s life. Henry himself
said that she bewitched him, with her unpredictability, jealousy, and her flirtatious streak. In
1532, Henry VIII created Anne the title of Marques of Pembroke, in her own right. This gave
her access to wealth and land, something Henry had never done for a woman, much less a
mistress, a title that Anne longed to shed. Henry, not known for his letter writing, wrote a total
of seventeen love letters to Anne during their courting before their marriage. Henry at that point
was still married to Catherine of Aragon; it is evident to the blind observer that he was deeply in
love with Anne, and would do many things for her to keep her in a constant state of happiness.
He even sacrificed his sex life to appease her. She would not tolerate anyone in his bed but her,
and she refused him over and over again, saying that she was chaste, and was saving herself for
marriage. The idea of marriage to the King was a tempting one, and Anne used this idea to
further her plan, to be “Queen or nothing.”

Anne Boleyn’s religious tolerance and her deep faith in God aided in bringing about the
reformation. Of the many things she was rumored to have been, a witch was not one of them.
Her belief system was Christian, and she had a fervent faith. Unlike the rumors that were spread
about her, such as her being a witch, she was deeply religious, and would have never dabbled in
sorcery. However, she questioned the Catholic Church’s policy of praying for the dead, and the
selling of indulgences. Anne fully supported the vernacular translation of the Bible; she loved
her French and English Bibles. Conversely she was against the closure and liquidation of
monasteries, one of the effects of the 1531 act “Submission of Clergy” in which Henry was
granted power and influence over clergymen and their holdings. Anne actually purchased a
monastery to prevent its closure, and used it to help fund the education of lower class citizens,
and aided them in university by creating scholarships with the monies of the monastery. While
Anne’s family might have been “outright Protestants,” as said by Eustace Chapuys, she had a
more evangelical faith to her than simply following the popular form of Christianity. Anne was
also not as “rigid and inflexible as Catherine of Aragon”, simply because while she was pious,
she did not pray the Rosary, and most definitely did not pray for the dead. Her sympathies lay
naturally with the progressive thought now challenging the Catholic orthodoxy, because
although it went hand in hand with her personal beliefs, if she did not support the new Church
of England, the consequences would have been disastrous. Her marriage to Henry VIII would
have been declared invalid, she would have been nothing more than the fallen mistress of King
Henry VIII, and her children would have been declared illegitimate; bastards by the church
decree. Fortunately for Anne, and also for her future daughter Elizabeth, she had great influence
upon Henry, which helped bring about the English reformation. Without the reformation of
1534, Queen Elizabeth І could not have ruled as successfully, because her power would have
been diminished by a husband, and by pressure to produce a male heir.

The changes in the church came swiftly and loudly trumpeting. In 1529, the “Reformation
Parliament” steadily granted powers over the church clergy to the King. In 1531, Parliament
passed the “Submission of Clergy,” which put the clergymen entirely under the King’s
rulings. Finally, in 1534, the “Act of Supremacy” declared Henry VIII as the Head of the
Church of England. Henry could finally marry Anne, for he “could not separate his desire for a

28
son…from his personal desire for Anne.” The church remained Catholic in essence; the only
difference in the beginning was that Henry could now do as he pleased.

In the end, Henry was declared Head of the Church of England, and Anglicanism was made the
state religion. He was a self-serving man who only furthered his own interests. This created
discontentment among the people, and made the political climate both native and abroad very
hostile. But the most important factors were King Henry VIII’s oft-changing temperament, his
pervasive self-serving attitude, and, most significantly, Anne Boleyn’s influence that held sway
over the king. This powerful combination catalyzed the events that led ultimately to reformation
in 1534, and changed the face of England forever.
When England's King Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic church of Rome it set in
motion a chain of events that would lead to a period known as the Protestant Reformation. The
consequences of the reformation were experienced both in England and abroad. The
Reformation resulted in dramatic changes to the religious, economic and cultural structure of
European society.

HENRY VIII'S DIVORCE

Henry VIII's first wife, Catherine of Aragon, failed to give Henry the son he needed to secure
his legacy before she reached the end of her childbearing years. Henry petitioned the Catholic
church to grant him a divorce so he could marry Anne Boleyn, and continue to attempt to
produce a legitimate male heir. Royal divorces were not unheard of in Henry's time (his own
sister had been granted one), but his request was ultimately denied largely because he had
petitioned the Catholic church for permission to marry Catherine of Aragon at the beginning of
his reign. One of the consequences of the Reformation was Henry's ability to end marriages
freely, which ultimately led to the production of a legitimate royal male heir.

THE END OF LONG-BREWING DISSATISFACTION

Henry's desire for a divorce was not the only factor that motivated England's split from the
Catholic church. Many of the people of England had been dissatisfied with the Catholic church.
The citizens of England believed that the Catholic Church's officials were abusing their power
for political gain. Plus, many members of Henry VIII's court saw a potential split from the
Catholic church as politically advantageous. One of the major effects on England after Henry
VIII broke from the Catholic church was the diffusing of the religious power in England that
had previously been concentrated in Rome.

INCREASED ENGLISH AUTONOMY

In 1532 Henry installed Thomas Cranmer as the Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1534 Cranmer
supported the Act of Supremacy, which made England's split from Rome official, and declared
Henry England's supreme spiritual leader. No longer part of the Catholic empire, England and
Henry now had total autonomy. The clergy were forced to choose sides between Rome and
England, and many who chose Rome were executed.

DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES

Another result of Henry VIII's split from the Catholic church was the dissolution of the
monasteries. This was the feature of the split that Henry's court had seen as holding so much
potential for profit. All monastic lands and possessions were seized by the state and sold. The

29
profits were often used to fund the personal projects of members of Henry's court. The process
of shutting down the monasteries and seizing their properties resulted in doubling state revenue
for several years.

The Protestant Reformation was the 16th-century religious, political, intellectual and cultural
upheaval that splintered Catholic Europe, setting in place the structures and beliefs that would
define the continent in the modern era. In northern and central Europe, reformers like Martin
Luther, John Calvin and Henry VIII challenged papal authority and questioned the Catholic
Church’s ability to define Christian practice. They argued for a religious and political
redistribution of power into the hands of Bible- and pamphlet-reading pastors and princes. The
disruption triggered wars, persecutions and the so-called Counter-Reformation, the Catholic
Church’s delayed but forceful response to the Protestants.

DATING THE REFORMATION

Historians usually date the start of the Protestant Reformation to the 1517 publication of Martin
Luther’s “95 Theses.” Its ending can be placed anywhere from the 1555 Peace of Augsburg,
which allowed for the coexistence of Catholicism and Lutheranism in Germany, to the 1648
Treaty of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War. The key ideas of the Reformation—a
call to purify the church and a belief that the Bible, not tradition, should be the sole source of
spiritual authority—were not themselves novel. However, Luther and the other reformers
became the first to skillfully use the power of the printing press to give their ideas a wide
audience.

NO REFORMER WAS MORE ADEPT THAN MARTIN LUTHER AT USING THE POWER OF
THE PRESS TO SPREAD HIS IDEAS. BETWEEN 1518 AND 1525, LUTHER PUBLISHED
MORE WORKS THAN THE NEXT 17 MOST PROLIFIC REFORMERS COMBINED.

THE REFORMATION: GERMANY AND LUTHERANISM

Martin Luther (1483-1546) was an Augustinian monk and university lecturer in Wittenberg
when he composed his “95 Theses,” which protested the pope’s sale of reprieves from penance,
or indulgences. Although he had hoped to spur renewal from within the church, in 1521 he was
summoned before the Diet of Worms and excommunicated. Sheltered by Friedrich, elector of
Saxony, Luther translated the Bible into German and continued his output of vernacular
pamphlets.

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When German peasants, inspired in part by Luther’s empowering “priesthood of all believers,”
revolted in 1524, Luther sided with Germany’s princes. By the Reformation’s end, Lutheranism
had become the state religion throughout much of Germany, Scandinavia and the Baltics.

THE REFORMATION: SWITZERLAND AND CALVINISM

The Swiss Reformation began in 1519 with the sermons of Ulrich Zwingli, whose teachings
largely paralleled Luther’s. In 1541 John Calvin, a French Protestant who had spent the previous
decade in exile writing his “Institutes of the Christian Religion,” was invited to settle in Geneva
and put his Reformed doctrine—which stressed God’s power and humanity’s predestined fate—
into practice. The result was a theocratic regime of enforced, austere morality.

Calvin’s Geneva became a hotbed for Protestant exiles, and his doctrines quickly spread to
Scotland, France, Transylvania and the Low Countries, where Dutch Calvinism became a
religious and economic force for the next 400 years.

THE REFORMATION: ENGLAND AND THE “MIDDLE WAY”

In England, the Reformation began with Henry VIII’s quest for a male heir. When Pope
Clement VII refused to annul Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon so he could remarry, the
English king declared in 1534 that he alone should be the final authority in matters relating to
the English church. Henry dissolved England’s monasteries to confiscate their wealth and
worked to place the Bible in the hands of the people. Beginning in 1536, every parish was
required to have a copy.

After Henry’s death, England tilted toward Calvinist-infused Protestantism during Edward VI’s
six-year reign and then endured five years of reactionary Catholicism under Mary I. In
1559 Elizabeth I took the throne and, during her 44-year reign, cast the Church of England as a
“middle way” between Calvinism and Catholicism, with vernacular worship and a revised Book
of Common Prayer.

THE COUNTER-REFORMATION

The Catholic Church was slow to respond systematically to the theological and publicity
innovations of Luther and the other reformers. The Council of Trent, which met off and on from

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1545 through 1563, articulated the Church’s answer to the problems that triggered the
Reformation and to the reformers themselves.

The Catholic Church of the Counter-Reformation era grew more spiritual, more literate and
more educated. New religious orders, notably the Jesuits, combined rigorous spirituality with a
globally minded intellectualism, while mystics such as Teresa of Avila injected new passion
into the older orders. Inquisitions, both in Spain and in Rome, were reorganized to fight the
threat of Protestant heresy.

THE REFORMATION’S LEGACY

Along with the religious consequences of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation came deep
and lasting political changes. Northern Europe’s new religious and political freedoms came at a
great cost, with decades of rebellions, wars and bloody persecutions. The Thirty Years’ War
alone may have cost Germany 40 percent of its population.

But the Reformation’s positive repercussions can be seen in the intellectual and cultural
flourishing it inspired on all sides of the schism—in the strengthened universities of Europe, the
Lutheran church music of J.S. Bach, the baroque altarpieces of Pieter Paul Rubens and even the
capitalism of Dutch Calvinist merchants.

THE CIVIL WAR (THE ENGLISH

REVOLUTION)
CAUSES

The Civil War did not start as a revolution. Those involved did not set out to remove the
Monarchy and replace it with a Republic. Conflicting attitudes towards Royal authority and
religion brought about a series of events which escalated into armed conflict.

Charles I believed he ruled with the Divine Right of Kings. This meant he thought he was King
by the will of God and therefore his decisions could not be challenged or questioned. This
ideology was opposed by those who believed there should be a limit to Royal authority; that the
people and their representatives, that is Parliament should have more say in how the nation was
governed. Tied up with this were arguments over the Church and religion. There were deep

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divisions over what religious practices, forms of worship and organizational structure the
Church should have.

RELIGION

Religion was a major cause of the English Civil War. It was part of a Europe wide conflict
between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.

At the start of his reign (1625) King Charles I had married the Roman Catholic Henrietta Maria
of France. Included in her marriage treaty were provisions that she be allowed to practice her
religion freely at Court. It was also made a condition of the treaty that King Charles I set about
lifting restrictions for recusants (that is Catholics who refused to attend Anglican Church
services). The marriage was not a popular one. At this time Roman Catholics were distrusted
and feared. The reign of the Catholic Queen Mary I (Bloody Mary as she came to be known)
had seen the persecution of Protestants. Within living memory there had been the attempted
invasion of England by Roman Catholic Phillip II of Spain in 1588 (The Spanish Armada); the
Gunpowder Plot of 1605, a Catholic plot to blow up James I in the Houses of Parliament; and
the on-going Thirty Years War, ultimately a religious conflict which saw Roman Catholic
nations trying to wipe out Protestantism in Europe.

King Charles I was deeply religious. He believed that he ruled with the Divine Right of Kings.
He preferred a High Anglican form of worship, with ceremonies, rituals and lavish
ornamentation. Charles thought the hierarchy of bishops and priests to be important. This
caused alarm for some Protestants as it appeared that Charles was leaning towards Catholicism.
The Puritans, who were extreme Protestants, considered all of this to be forms of ‘Popery’. They
wanted a purer form of worship without rituals and without religious icons and images. Puritans
believed that they had a personal relationship with God and did not need bishops.

In 1633 William Laud was appointed as Archbishop of Canterbury by King Charles I. William
Laud was a Protestant but thought the Puritans too extreme. Like King Charles I, Laud also
favoured a High Anglican form of worship. William Laud wanted to impose uniformity of
worship based on The Book of Common Prayer. Bishops were considered important to the
running of the Church. Laud also wanted to bring back some of the ceremonies and rituals.
Decorative features such as statues and stained-glass windows were reintroduced. Priests were
to wear vestments as a sign of their elevated status as members of the clergy. William Laud saw
this as the ‘beauty of holiness’. Puritans saw this as an attempt to make the Church more Roman
Catholic. There was much opposition to this religious change. William Laud saw Puritans as a
threat to the Church and pursued his critics in the courts. In 1637 William Prynne, John
Bastwick and Henry Burton were convicted in the Star Chamber of seditious libel for criticising
Laud’s policies in a pamphlet. They had their cheeks branded and their ears cropped.

In 1637 King Charles I and Archbishop Laud imposed a new Prayer Book on the people of
Scotland. It was a revised edition of the English Prayer Book. When it was introduced riots
broke out in Edinburgh. The Scottish Presbyterians thought that the new Prayer Book had too
many similarities to Catholicism. They saw it as an attack on the true Protestant religion and on
their freedom to choose how they worshipped. Although Scotland had Charles I as its King, it
was still a separate kingdom from England. Scotland had its own government, laws and
established church – The Kirk. Charles’ response was to insist on the full implementation of the

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new Prayer Book and punishment for those who refused. He considered their refusal to be an
attack on his Royal authority.

In 1638 the Scottish people signed a Covenant in which they promised before God to defend
and preserve the true religion and pledged loyalty to the King.

In 1639 King Charles sent an army to try and enforce the new Prayer Book in Scotland. King
Charles already distrusted by some as having leanings towards Catholicism was now declaring
war on his loyal, Protestant subjects.

The English army was easily defeated in what was later known as the First Bishops’ War. In
1640 King Charles was defeated in the Second Bishops’ War. He was forced to sign the Treaty
of Ripon in October 1640, which stipulated that the Covenanter (Scottish) troops were to be
paid £850 a day in maintenance while they still occupied northern England.

MONEY

A key factor which led to the outbreak of the Civil War was King Charles and his lack of
money.

Charles’ father King James I, had led a lavish, extravagant lifestyle, which had left the Royal
treasury depleted. The cost of running the Royal household of Charles I was similarly
expensive. King Charles was a patron of the arts and spent vast sums of money on musicians to
entertain his Court and in buying works of art.

King Charles needed to call Parliament to ask for money. In June 1625 Parliament had only
granted the King tonnage and poundage (income from customs duties) for a single year, rather
than for life as was customary. This meant that Charles would be forced to call Parliament again
to grant further taxes.

Parliament refused to grant King Charles enough money to finance military campaigns against
Spain and France. Charles dismissed Parliament and sought to raise income through a Forced
Loan. That is money from taxes levied without the consent of Parliament. Refusal to pay often
resulted in imprisonment without trial. This caused much discontent. In 1628 a Commons’
Petition of Right was drawn up which stated that the king could not levy taxes on his subjects
without the assent of Parliament, nor arbitrarily imprison them. Although King Charles initially
agreed to the Petition it was never properly enacted as a statute.

In March 1629 Charles dismissed Parliament and began what he called his ‘Personal Rule’ and
what his opponents called the ‘Eleven Years’ Tyranny’. As only Parliament could legally grant
taxes King Charles had to find other non-Parliamentary sources of revenue. Charles exploited
the Royal prerogative and imposed knighthood fees on landowners worth £40 or more a year
(distraint of knighthood). Monopolies were sold to rich merchants, even though this was
forbidden by Parliamentary Statute. Forest boundaries were reinstated to their ancient limits, so
that forest fines could be levied on those who now found themselves within the new boundaries.
In 1635 the King demanded ship money from all the counties of England and not just those on
the coast. Wealthy land owner, John Hampden MP, was tried in court for non-payment of ship
money as he believed the King had no legal right to collect it. King Charles made himself very
unpopular amongst those people who were traditionally royal supporters.

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After his defeat in the First Bishops’ War, King Charles called Parliament in April 1640 to raise
money for another campaign against Scotland. Not having been called for eleven years
Parliament had a long list of grievances they wished to present to the King. Parliament refused
to grant the money and Charles dissolved Parliament after less than a month.

After defeat in the Second Bishops’ War, the terms of the Treaty of Ripon stated that King
Charles had to pay the Scottish Covenanters £850 a day while they occupied northern England.
With huge debts the only option King Charles had was to call Parliament and ask for
money. This became known as the Long Parliament. King Charles’ financial situation meant
that only Parliament had the means to raise enough money to pay the Covenanters and cover the
costs of the unsuccessful Bishops’ Wars. Parliament finally had the opportunity to present their
grievances and push through reforms.

PARLIAMENT

Under the reign of James I there had been a breakdown in relations between Parliament and the
Monarchy. Charles I had a similar negative view of any interference by Parliament in his rule.
It was within the King’s royal prerogative not to call Parliament but they did have their purpose.
As well as being necessary for raising taxes and passing legislation they could also be used as a
source of advice and as a means of getting grievances heard.

THE SHORT PARLIAMENT

King Charles called Parliament in April 1640 to raise money for the Second Bishops’ War. He
needed Parliament to grant taxes to finance an army. Parliament expressed concern over King
Charles and his administration and wanted their grievances heard. The Puritan MP, John Pym
was particularly outspoken in the call for reform. King Charles dissolved Parliament after only
three weeks when his request for money was refused. [S. R .Gardiner, 1884]

THE LONG PARLIAMENT

After the defeat in the Bishops’ Wars, King Charles was forced to call Parliament in November
1640. The Members of Parliament now had the opportunity to have their complaints about
Charles’ Personal Rule heard. Their list of grievances concerned Archbishop Laud and his
religious reforms, which were considered to be too Catholic; The use of the Royal prerogative to
raise money, such as ship money; Dissolving Parliament rather than allow grievances to be
heard and arresting Members.

One of the main complaints of Parliament was that King Charles was unduly influenced by
some of his closest advisors. Parliament blamed bad advice rather than the King himself for
most of the problems.

In December 1640 Archbishop Laud was impeached for High Treason. One of the charges
brought against him was that he gave wicked and traitorous advice to the King. He was
imprisoned in the Tower of London in March 1641. His trial finally began in March 1644.
Unable to find any evidence that would prove him guilty of Treason Parliament passed a Bill of
Attainder against him. William Laud was executed in January 1645.

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In 1641, John Pym MP accused Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford of Treason and had him
impeached. The Earl had been recalled as Lord Deputy of Ireland to become one of Charles’
chief ministers during the Bishops’ Wars. When the attempts to impeach him failed, the House
of Commons passed a Bill of Attainder. Charles I tried to rescue Strafford by sending troops to
the Tower of London. The attempt failed and resulted in demonstrations in London, with the
protestors demanding justice. The House of Lords passed the Bill of Attainder and King Charles
signed it. Strafford was executed in May 1641.

Parliament wanted to see its place in the running of the country made more secure. It also tried
to remedy the religious and political problems that had arisen during the king’s Personal Rule.
Some of these measures would also reduce the Kings’ ability to rule without Parliament. King
Charles agreed to some of these reforms.

Non-Parliamentary forms of taxation, such as ship money, were declared illegal. The court of
Star Chamber, which sat without a jury, was abolished.

King Charles also agreed that the English Parliament could not be dissolved without the consent
of Parliament itself. Furthermore, Charles gave Royal Assent to the Triennial Act of 1641,
requiring that Parliament be called at least once every three years.

The Puritan members of Parliament were still calling for further reforms, particularly of the
Church and religious practices in England. Divisions began to appear within Parliament and
within the wider population. The more moderate Protestants believed that religious reforms had
gone far enough and did not agree with the more radical changes the Puritans were demanding.
It was these who would emerge as supporters of the King.

ROAD TO WAR

The Irish rebellion broke out in October 1641. Irish Catholics had risen up and massacred
Protestant settlers in Ulster. King Charles needed to raise an army to put down the rebellion.
This led to heated debates as to whether the King or Parliament should control the army. John
Pym MP argued vociferously that “…mischievous counsels…” would influence the king. Pym
and his Puritan supporters were worried that the army might be turned against Parliament after
the Irish rebellion had been supressed. The Irish rebellion had also re-ignited fears of a Roman
Catholic plot against Protestantism in the three kingdoms (England, Scotland and Ireland).

In November 1641 the Grand Remonstrance was presented to the House of Commons by John
Pym.

This document suggested that King Charles had been ill-advised by “…malignant parties…”
which included Bishops, “Jesuited Papists” and counsellors who were serving the interests of
foreign powers. These persons “…for the advantage and increase of Popery…” had been
attempting to undermine the political and religious reforms approved by Parliament and create
conflict between the King and Parliament. The Remonstrance listed 204 instances from the
beginning of Charles’ reign onwards. It demanded that the King remove these advisors and
replace them with ones approved of by Parliament.

It was passed by the House of Commons, but with only a very small majority of eleven. The
House of Lords and the King rejected it. [www.parliament.uk] In December the House of

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Commons voted to have the Grand Remonstrance printed and made available to ordinary
members of the public.

King Charles in his response to the Remonstrance declared that there was no Church which
practiced “…the true religion with more purity of doctrine than the Church of England…” Not
everyone in Parliament or in England was a Puritan. His stance on religion gained King Charles
much support, especially in the House of Lords.

On the 4th January 1642 King Charles entered the House of Commons with an armed escort of
soldiers to arrest five Members of Parliament on charges of High Treason. These MPs were
John Pym, John Hampden, Denzil Holles, Sir Arthur Haselrig and William Strode. Having
been forewarned, the MPs were not there. The Speaker of the House of Commons, William
Lenthall, defended Parliamentary privileges and refused to assist the King as to their
whereabouts.

“May it please your majesty, 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…”

This abuse of Parliamentary privileges by King Charles lost him political support. Some of the
MPs already believed that the King could not be trusted and were worried that he might try and
re-instate his ‘Personal Rule’. Bringing armed soldiers into Parliament only made these fears
worse. When riots broke out in London King Charles fled to Hampton Court. The rift between
Parliament and the King had become more obvious and people were being forced to take sides.

The London Trained Bands were brought out to guard Parliament with the consent of both
Houses. Crowds gathered in London to have their opinions heard and voice their concerns. In
February King Charles sent Queen Henrietta Maria to the Netherlands for her own safety and to
raise foreign support for the war.

In March 1642 Parliament passed the Militia Ordinance which put the local militias under the
control of Parliament. As it was passed as an Ordinance and not as an Act, Parliament decided
that it did not need Royal Assent. They claimed they were acting for the safety and defence of
the nation.

King Charles headed for York. His supporters among the Lords and the gentry began to rally to
him. Some supported the Royalist cause as they disagreed with the Puritans demands for radical
reforms and did not like the influence they had in Parliament. Others came out of loyalty to the
Crown even if they did not necessarily agree with the King’s actions.

In June 1642 Parliament presented the Nineteen Propositions to King Charles at York in an
attempt to prevent the “…imminent dangers and calamities…”. It proposed that Parliament
would control all military resources. Parliament would approve all ministers and officials
chosen by the King. Parliament would decide how the Church was to be reformed. Laws against
Catholics were to be strictly enforced. Parliament would have a say in the education and
marriage arrangements of the King’s children.

King Charles rejected the propositions.

Parliament was mustering troops under the authority of the Ordinance. King Charles reinstated
the outdated Commissions of Array to raise men. Individuals now had to choose whether to

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mobilise under the Commissions of Array or the Militia Ordinance. Royalist and
Parliamentarian forces seized military strongholds and raided stores for arms and munitions.

The nation was becoming increasingly polarised. It was more difficult to remain neutral.

On 12 July Parliament voted to raise an army under the command of the Earl of Essex, for the
“… preserving of the true religion, the laws, liberty and peace of the kingdom.”

On 22 August 1642 King Charles I raised his Royal standard at Nottingham. Civil War had been
openly declared.

1. THE AFTERMATH OF THE FIRST CIVIL WAR, 1646-47.

The Scots believed that the captured Charles I would agree to the introduction of
Presbyterian government in the Church of England. Charles believed that he could
play off the Scots against the English, and the various English factions against one
another. Both sides were mistaken.

The English did want the Scots army to return home, and when Charles would not
agree to a peace treaty, they simply paid off the Scots. The Scots handed over Charles
and withdrew from England, 30 January 1647.

Charles was taken as Parliament's prisoner to Holmby House in Northamptonshire,

where he continued to plot for a restoration of his power.

The English Civil War accelerated social change.

Social distinctions were brushed aside in pursuit of military efficiency.
Men who had never been outside their own parish before the war, were marched
around the whole country.
The Self-Denying Ordinance struck at the heart of the aristocracy's monopoly of
military command.

The process of social change was accelerated by ideological ferment.

The system of Church Discipline that had enforced social conformity and religious
orthodoxy ceased to function in much of the country. Furthermore, the collapse of
censorship and an explosion of cheap pamphlets led to opinions of all sorts being
voiced publicly.

2. PRESBYTERIANS AND INDEPENDENTS.

Even before the English Civil War started there were differences of opinion amongst
the Parliamentarians. The collapse of the Laudian regime raised the question of how
the Church of England should be governed.

The Westminster Assembly was convened to solve this problem. The Scots, many

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 clergymen and some gentlemen wanted to replace episcopacy with Presbyterianism.
This would have preserved a compulsory national church firmly under the control of
the social elite: simply replacing bishops with synods.
Amongst advocates of a National Church, there was friction between the Scots who
(supported by many English ministers) wanted a clericalist settlement, and much of the
gentry who wanted the lay elite to control the Church through Parliament and the
secular Courts. The advocates of lay control were known as Erastians [named
for Thomas Erastus (1524-83), an early Swiss opponent of Presbyterian clericalism].
The main Erastians in the Westminster Assembly were John Selden, John Lightfoot,
Thomas Coleman, and Bulstrode Whitelocke.
English politicians, such as William Prynne and Denzil Holles showed Erastian
tendencies that outraged the Scots, but shared with Presbyterians a belief in the
enforcement of religious uniformity through a hierarchical state church.

The Independents rejected the idea of a national church: they believed that Christians
should associate voluntarily in autonomous congregations. The state should provide
religious education and curb open idolatry and blasphemy, but leave discipline and
worship to the godly themselves.
Independent ministers formed only a small minority in the Westminster Assembly, but
were able to delay proceedings because many moderate Presbyterian ministers wanted
to proceed by consensus. In addition, the Independents had powerful supporters in
Parliament, including Lord Saye and Sele, his son Nathaniel Fiennes, and Oliver
Cromwell.
The Independents and the Erastians differed on some points, but in practice they worked
together to obstruct the creation of a rigid Presbyterian government in the Church of
England.
During the 1640s, the number of Baptists (often still called Anabaptists by their
opponents) grew. There were two separate groups: the General Baptists, who believed
in free will and traced their beliefs back to Mennonites; and the Particular Baptists, who
were orthodox Calvinists in doctrine, but believed in adult baptism and held the same
views as Independents on church government.
Another sect grew in importance only during the 1650s - this was the Quakers, whose
founder was George Fox (1624-91). Quakers refused to doff their hats to their social
superiors; they used the familiar "thou" instead of the respectful "you" to gentlemen;
they allowed - indeed encouraged - ordinary laymen and even women to preach.
Still more than other sects, the socially radical implications of Quaker doctrine strained
the willingness of the elite to permit religious toleration.
After the death of John Pym and the collapse of the "middle group", Parliamentary
politics came to be seen as a struggle between Presbyterians and Independents.
Because the Scots were the enemies of social and religious radicalism, the Members of
Parliament who were willing to settle with the King in order to prevent further disorder
became known as Presbyterians (even when they had no particular religious affinity).
The trade and commerce of London had been severely disrupted by the war, so it
became a stronghold of parliamentary Presbyterians.
Those who wanted to defeat Charles I entirely and curb the crown to prevent any future
royal absolutism became known as Independents.
The political Independents were strong in the New Model Army, where Cromwell had
promoted religious radicals on the basis of military efficiency and dedication - without

39
regard to religious orthodoxy. Some political Independents were also religious
Independents - Oliver Cromwell was one such. But others were not: Sir Henry
Marten (1602-80), for example, attacked both King and Presbyterians vigorously but
was also notorious for his loose morals.
The New Model Army was hated by the religious Presbyterians as a nest of heresy, and
by the parliamentary Presbyterians for the enormous expense of its upkeep and for its
parvenu officers.

3. THE LEVELLERS.

The Leveller movement began amongst London apprentices and artisans in about 1645,
but it only became really important when Leveller ideas spread in the New Model
Army.
The Levellers also attempted to spread their ideas amongst the people at large through a
series of pamphlets.
John Lilburne (1614-57) was a clothmaker's apprentice in the 1630s, but he
soon became involved in radical opposition to the Bishops. He was imprisoned
from 1638 to 1640. Lilburne fought for Parliament, but refused to subscribe to
the Solemn League and Covenant and its endorsement of religious uniformity.
Lilburne left the New Model Army in 1645. He attacked the powers of the
House of Lords, and abandoned his early support of Oliver Cromwell.
In and out of prison, he was popular with the people and a thorn in the
government's side. Late in life, he became a Quaker.
Richard Overton (fl. 1642-63) agreed with Lilburne on political questions but
was more radical in his religious beliefs. In a pamphlet entitled Man's
mortality (1643), he rejected the notion of an immaterial soul, arguing that the
Scripture only gave grounds for belief in the resurrection of the body. This view
was seen at the time as virtually the equivalent of atheism.
Like Lilburne, he was imprisoned: - Once for his tracts against the Westminster
Assembly under the pseudonym of "Martin Marpriest" - a direct reference to
theMartin Marprelate tracts. - Later he was arrested for his help with Lilburne's
tract,England's New Chains Discovered (1649), an impassioned plea for
freedom of speech. In 1655, he fled to Flanders with Edward Sexby, where he
conspired with Charles II to overthrow Cromwell's regime.
William Walwyn (1600-81) was the younger son of a noble family, who
became a prosperous silk merchant.His political views were close to those of
other Levellers, although he laid less stress on Magna Carta and more on
inalienable natural rights than did Lilburne.Walwyn's overriding concern was
with religious freedom. He himself held Arminian views, but he came to the
defense of Calvinists, insisting that persuasion was the only proper method of
religious conversion. Walwyn was imprisoned with other Leveller leaders in
1649, although unlike them he played no part in encouraging mutiny against
Cromwell and the other army Grandees.
John Wildman (1621-93) played an important part in the army disturbances of
1647 and was imprisoned in 1648. His career of political radicalism continued
long beyond the English Civil War. He was imprisoned from 1661 to 1667 for
plotting against Charles II. Soon after his release, he conspired with Algernon
Sidney against the succession to the throne of the Catholic James II.

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 Wildman finally found a government he approved in the reign of William and
Mary, became postmaster general and was knighted.
Edward Sexby (1616-1658) served in Cromwell's regiment of horse from 1643.
He helped lead the Leveller soldiers in 1647, but remained in Cromwell's
confidence and was made governor of Portland. He fought for Cromwell in
Scotland and was sent as an agent provocateur to France in 1652-53.
He grew disillusioned with Cromwell's government and in 1657 wrote Killing
No Murder, an endorsement of tyrannicide. He came to England - apparently
intending to act on his principles - but was arrested and died in the Tower, 13
January 1658.

The Levellers were accused of wishing to institute communal ownership of property and level all
ranks and estates - this was the origin of their name. In fact, the Levellers were not communists and it
is not even clear that they wanted to extend the vote to landless laborers. However, the Levellers did
wish to undermine the monopoly of political power held by the nobility and the gentry, and this
certainly would have had significant social and economic effects.

All the Leveller theorists' shared certain basic principles:

I. SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PEOPLE.

Many Parliamentarian theorists argued that Parliament was sovereign. The Levellers
insisted that Parliament was accountable to the people as a whole. Hence the title of a 1647
pamphlet An Appeale from the degenerate representative body the Commons of
England...to the body represented, the free people in general.

The Levellers advocated regular parliaments, stripping King and House of Lords of their
veto powers, and widening the franchise to financially-independent adult men. This would
have excluded from voting household servants and those dependent on charitable handouts:
there was no secret ballot, and the Levellers feared that poor, dependent men would simply
vote as their masters' wished. It would also have excluded women; most adult women
married, and wives were legally and financially dependent on their husbands. (Only
Royalist theorists - mocking democratic ideas - argued that democracy meant that women
too should vote).

The Army Grandees - Oliver Cromwell and Henry Ireton - agreed with the Levellers that
the franchise should be more representative than it was. In particular, that populous areas
should have more representatives. But they thought that only men with a permanent stake
in the country - land or trading capital - could be trusted to vote responsibly.

II. INDIVIDUAL NATURAL RIGHTS

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 The Levellers often appealed to Common Law and to Magna Carta to sustain their
claims to the "birthrights" of "freeborn Englishmen". However, they were more
willing than conventional common lawyers to admit that English law was defective
and corrupt.

Overton called Magna Carta "a beggarly thing" and many Levellers complained of a
"Norman Yoke" imposed on the free English people by the Norman conquerors of
1066.
Leveller theorists ultimately relied on a theory of inalienable natural rights. They
argued that regardless of human law, every individual possessed certain fundamental
rights including

religious freedom

freedom from arrest without cause

due process of law

no taxation or legislation except by the consent of the governed

Many Leveller theorists wanted these rights formally framed in a written constitution.

4. THE ARMY IN POLITICS.

These decisions angered the New Model Army. The rank and file soldiers appointed "agitators"
to discuss their grievances with the officers, many of whom were sympathetic to their cause.

3 June 1647, Cornet George Joyce took a detachment of cavalry to Holmby House and seized
control of Charles.

Parliament in response began raising new troops in London - excluding anyone with
Independent sympathies.

The New Model Army published a declaration denouncing Denzil Holles and the leaders of the
Presbyterian faction in Parliament.

22 July 1647, a group of London apprentices responded by invading the House of Commons,
threatening Independent MPs.
By 30 July 1647, fifty-eight Members had fled to the Army (including the Speaker, William
Lenthall), as had Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester (who was Speaker of the House of
Lords) along with eight other peers.

7 August 1647, the New Model Army marched into London and reinstalled the Independent

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MPs.

The Army was now in effective control of the country and issued The Heads of the
Proposals as an outline of a constitutional settlement. The Levellers' plan, An Agreement of the
People, was more radical. Representatives of both viewpoints tried to arrive at a joint scheme
during The Putney Debates (October to November 1647).

Some New Model Army soldiers wanted Charles I put on trial and punished for causing the
Civil War. When Charles heard of this, he fled to the Isle of Wight, 11 November 1647.
Although confined in Carisbrooke Castle, Charles reached a secret agreement with the Scots to
invade England. The Scots' reward was to be the institution of Presbyterianism and the
suppression of heresy; Charles would be restored to his throne.

Believing that the Scottish alliance rendered any compromise unnecessary,

Charles rejected Parliament's suggestions for a peace settlement so completely, that it
passed the Vote of No Addresses, 17 January 1648.

5. THE SECOND CIVIL WAR.

Late frosts and heavy rains during the Spring and Summer of 1647 had resulted in poor
harvests. This combined with heavy taxation meant widespread economic hardship
during the winter of 1647-8. By April 1648, wheat prices were very high.
Ordinary people's discontent was exacerbated by the Puritan regime's attempts to
suppress Christmas celebrations as "superstitious".
In the first few months of 1648, areas of South-East England that had always stood
loyally with parliament began to exhibit increasing discontent at the costs of
maintaining the army.
In May 1648, the navy mutinied and ten warships deserted to Charles, Prince of Wales
(Charles I's eldest son). In Wales, May 1648, Colonel Poyer led a revolt of Royalists
and disillusioned Parliamentarians. Cromwell commanded the army sent against them
and besieged their stronghold of Pembroke Castle.
In Kent, 10,000 men revolted, and assembled to march on London. A smaller force also
rebelled in Essex.
June 1648, Sir Thomas Fairfax defeated the Kentish Royalists and marched on
Colchester to besiege the Essex Royalists.
July 1648, the Scots invaded England. They were delayed by Major-General John
Lambert until Cromwell, having forced the Welsh rebels to surrender, could march
northwards.
The Scots army was badly organised and had left its best troops in Scotland. 17-19
August 1648, Cromwell comprehensively defeated the Scots at the Battle of Preston.
A few days later, Fairfax took Colchester, and the Second Civil War was over.
Many members of Parliament still tried for a negotiated settlement. The Treaty of
Newport (September 1648) was the result of their discussions, but Cromwell and Ireton
had now lost all trust in Charles. Cromwell decided that the New Model Army should
take direct control of the country.

43
 6. PRIDE'S PURGE

5 December 1648, the House of Commons decided to continue negotiating with

Charles.
6 December 1648, Colonel Thomas Pride and a troop of soldiers prevented Presbyterian
MPs from sitting in Parliament. 45 were temporarily imprisoned. (Cromwell only
returned from the North after the event, although there is little doubt that Henry Ireton
had planned the coup with him).
The House of Commons was know after Pride's Purge as The Rump. The Purge
reduced the number of MPs from about 240, to about 50.
(In the weeks after Pride's Purge, the House of Lords' attendance was three and four,
reaching a high point of eight peers on 28 December).
The remaining MPs decided to stop talking with Charles and bring him to trial.
1 January 1649, the House of Commons proposed the establishment of a High Court of
Justice to try Charles I. When the House of Lords refused to approve the measure, the
House of Commons decided that the Lords was unnecessary, as the Commons alone
represented the sovereign people. It was abolished 6 January 1649, (despite Cromwell's
objections).
6 January 1649, the Commons appointed the High Court of Justice.
19 January 1649, Charles was brought to Westminster for his trial.
135 men had been appointed to try Charles, but only 67 put in an appearance. (Sir
Thomas Fairfax was amongst the absentees).

Charles refused to recognize the Court's jurisdiction. It found him guilty of treason and
sentenced him to death.
Those who signed the death warrant became known as The Regicides.
Charles I was executed 30 January 1649.

COMMONWEALTH AND PROTECTORATE

1649-1658

1. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE COMMONWEALTH.

19 May 1649, The Rump of the Long Parliament declared that England "shall
henceforth be governed as a Commonwealth and Free State by the supreme authority of
this nation, the representatives of the People in Parliament … and that without any King
or House of Lords".
The Rump appointed a Council of State (largely composed of its own Members) to act
as the executive branch of government.

2 January 1650, every adult male was required to take the Engagement:
Many were unwilling to subscribe; the Rump was widely regarded as illegitimate and
survived only because of Army support.

44
Oliver Cromwell and others did try to increase moderate gentry support for their
regime. They suppressed the Levellers and arrested their leaders. They also launched a
propaganda campaign to encourage subscription to the Engagement on purely pragmatic
grounds - people were encouraged to accept the regime de facto even though they
doubted its legitimacy.
Cromwell wanted acquiescence at home so he could turn his attention to the problem of
Ireland.

2. IRELAND.

In 1645, Charles I's emissary, Edward Somerset, Earl of Glamorgan, had agreed to
freedom of worship for Irish Catholics. This exceeded his instructions and Charles later
repudiated the treaty, but it did increase Irish support for Charles' cause.
The Catholics in Ireland, led by the papal nuncio, Cardinal Rinuccini, became so
powerful and united that James Butler, Marquess of Ormond, surrendered Dublin to
Parliament in 1647, rather than see it fall into Catholic hands and perhaps complete the
creation of an independent Catholic state. The Irish Catholics began arguing amongst
themselves as to whether to aim for complete toleration or a negotiated compromise.
On Charles I's execution, his son Charles was proclaimed King in Ireland by an alliance
of Royalist Protestants and Anglo-Irish Catholics hoping for toleration. Ormond
captured Drogheda and Dundalk in June 1649, but was defeated at Rathmines, 2 August
1649, by Michael Jones.
15 August 1649, Oliver Cromwell arrived with an army of 12,000 troops. During the
next ten months, Cromwell subdued Ireland entirely in a bloody and successful
campaign.
September 1649, Cromwell's army stormed Drogheda Castle and massacred the
garrison of 2,000 men.
October 1649, Cromwell's army took Wexford Castle, and his troops killed both the
defenders and about 1,500 civilians in the town.
Over the next two to three years, the English army (Edmund Ludlow and Henry Ireton
commanded after Cromwell''s return to England in May 1650) conquered the whole of
Ireland, ending with the capitulation of Philip O'Reilly at Cloghoughton, 27 April 1653.
The Act for the the Settlement of Ireland (August 1652) authorized the expropriation of
land on a grand scale - eleven million acres of land (out of Ireland's roughly twenty
million) were confiscated. Much was given to English soldiers in lieu of wages, who in
turn sold it to Protestant settlers. By 1656, four-fifths of Irish land was owned by
Protestants.

3. SCOTLAND.

Charles I was also King of Scotland, and the Scots were unhappy that he had been
executed without consulting them. They were equally annoyed to see the New Model
Army in control in England.
Soon after Charles' execution, they proclaimed his son Charles, King of England as well
as of Scotland.
Charles II had no taste for Presbyterianism but thought that Scotland was worth the
Covenant. Charles went to Scotland and subscribed to the Solemn League and
Covenant, 23 June 1650. (His coronation was at Scone, 1 January 1651, the last King
crowned in Scotland).

45
The Rump saw this as a casus belli and appointed Oliver Cromwell to command the
invading army of 16,000 men.
The Scots were led by David Leslie, 1st Baron Newark (1601-82) - nephew of
Alexander Leslie, Earl of Leven, who was too old and ill to take active command.
David Leslie was himself an experienced soldier and outmaneuvered Cromwell, forcing
him to retreat to Dunbar.
Cromwell's position was precarious - trapped between the sea and the Scots' formidable
defenses, naval evacuation seemed the only option.
The Scots, however, managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. 2-3 September
1650, Leslie mounted an attack that was meant to crush the English army entirely, but
instead resulted in their own defeat at the Battle of Dunbar.
Oliver Cromwell then marched on Edinburgh, and soon took the city, although Sir
Walter Dundas held out in Edinburgh Castle until 24 December 1650.
Those elements of the Scottish army that had survived Dunbar regrouped and invaded
England, 5 August 1651. Charles II hoped that Royalists in the North of England would
rally to his cause.
Very few recruits came in, but Charles continued to march south pursued by Cromwell's
army. 3 September 1651 (the anniversary of the Battle of Dunbar) Cromwell attacked
the Scots at the Battle of Worcester.
The Scots were completely defeated. About seven thousand of the surviving Scots
soldiers were transported to the West Indies, as "indentured servants" (i.e. virtual
slaves).
Charles II managed to escape, although forced to hide up an oak tree at one point. He
finally reached France after six weeks on the run.
The Battle of Worcester was "the crowning mercy" in Oliver Cromwell's eyes. It
secured the regime, and thereafter Cromwell's rule was never seriously challenged
militarily.
After General George Monck's 1652 campaign, Scotland (like Ireland) was reduced to
an English province.

4. THE FIRST ANGLO-DUTCH WAR: 1652-54.

By 1648, the Dutch had achieved complete independence from Spain. After 1650, both
England and the Netherlands were Protestant republics.
Until 1650 Charles I's son-in-law, William II of Orange was Stadholder of the
Netherlands and had wielded great influence. But in 1650, he died two weeks before the
birth of his heir - son of Mary Stuart, and grandson of Charles I.
The office of Stadholder was abolished, and Holland's merchants gained more power.
Although the two countries had political interests in common, they were rivals
in trade and commerce.
In 1623, the Dutch had killed a number of English merchants at Amboyna in the East
Indies.
There was also long-standing competition over the carrying trade. In 1650, the Council
of State made overtures to settle the problem by compromise. The Dutch saw this
"compromise" as an attempt to undermine their sovereignty, and rejected it. So
Parliament passed the Navigation Act, 9 October 1651.
This provoked a naval war between the two countries. The Dutch Admiral Maarten Van
Tromp (1598-1653) gained the upper hand over Robert Blake in 1652. But the English

46
won a series of engagements in 1653. The English captured or destroyed four times as
many ships as the Dutch.
In 1654, England made peace with the Netherlands, giving them generous
terms in the Treaty of Westminster (5 April 1654). The English hoped to promote good
relations with fellow Protestants and to avoid the return to power of the Orange family.

5. THE DISSOLUTION OF THE RUMP.

The radical officers of the New Model Army had hoped that the purged Parliament
would embark on a campaign of political and religious reform. Instead it grew more
conservative and - in the view of many - more corrupt.
The Rump, led by Sir Henry Vane the younger (1613-62) and Edmund Ludlow (1617?-
1692), began planning to reduce the size of the Army, and to organize elections.
Cromwell and the Army alleged that the House intended not to hold elections for a
wholly new Parliament, but simply to make up their numbers - i.e. so that the existing c.
150 MPs would automatically retain their seats.
Oliver Cromwell accompanied by General John Lambert surrounded the House with
troops, 20 April 1653.
Cromwell spoke briefly and then closed Parliament down.
The dissolution of the Rump effectively ended England's brief experiment with
republican government: it was replaced by a military dictatorship until (after a brief
period of virtual anarchy) monarchy was restored in 1660.
Cromwell seized power when greatly under the influence of religious radicals -
especially Thomas Harrison (1606-62) and the Fifth Monarchists. Cromwell tried to use
his power to institute a rule of the Saints.

6. BAREBONES.

After dissolving the Rump, Cromwell did not organize elections; instead he nominate
144 "godly" men. This "Nominated Parliament" was often called Barebones, after one
of its Fifth-Monarchist members, Praise-God Barebones.
The first official action of the assembled nominees was to proclaim themselves a
Parliament, but much of the political nation denied any legitimacy to this unelected
body.
Although it contained a few rich gentlemen, such as its Speaker Francis Rous (1579-
1659), many of the delegates were from lower social ranks than was usual.
Cromwell wanted the Parliament to reform English religion, but it began to attack the
social and political establishment. Barebones' most ardent Members advocated the
abolition of tithes and of lay presentation to benefices, the closure of the Court of
Chancery and the introduction of a simple Law Code in place of Common and Statute
Law.
To the established clergy, lawyers, and gentry, these plans looked like a blueprint for
social revolution.
A vocal minority of Fifth Monarchists even wanted to re-institute Mosaic Law, and run
England on the model of Biblical Israel.
Early on the morning of 11 December 1653, the Speaker, Francis Rous and a few other
Members (all friends of Cromwell) convened Parliament, and before the radicals could
effectively intervene, resigned their powers to Cromwell.

47
7. THE INSTRUMENT OF GOVERNMENT AND THE PROTECTORATE.

16 December 1653, Cromwell assumed the office of Lord Protector of England,

Scotland and Ireland.
The title and powers of Lord Protector were detailed in the Instrument of Government.
It provided for an elected House of Parliament to tax and legislate. The new franchise
made the Parliament more representative of large centers of population, but did not
extend the franchise to poorer men, as the Levellers had desired.
The new Parliament included representatives from Scotland and Ireland, whose
populations had not been consulted on their loss of independence and sovereignty.
The Lord Protector and a Council of State formed the executive branch of government.
Despite the constitutional window-dressing afforded by the Instrument of Government,
England remained in reality a military despotism.
Oliver Cromwell established a system of Triers and Ejectors to approve Church
ministers. The advocates of complete religious toleration and disestablishment objected
to this, but in practice English Protestants were freer to worship as they chose under the
Protectorate than they had ever been.

8. THE PARLIAMENT OF 1654

Oliver Cromwell convened his first Parliament as Lord Protector on 3rd September
1654 - the anniversary of his victorious battles at Dunbar and Worcester.
Oliver Cromwell did not want the terms of the Instrument of Government discussed,
and made this view so clear that a number of committed republicans withdrew at once.
Despite Cromwell, the House proceeded to debate the constitution at length.
Cromwell was particularly threatened by the House's attempts to control the army - the
basis of his power. As soon as legally possible, Cromwell dissolved the Parliament, 22
January 1655.
Outside Parliament, resistance to Cromwell's rule continued both amongst Royalists and
radical (Levellers and republicans) - on occasion even in alliance.
The Fifth Monarchist army commander, Robert Overton was arrested for planning a
military uprising against Cromwell, and the radical republican, Major John Wildman
soon joined him in prison.
March 1654, John Penruddock (1619-55) organized a royalist uprising in Salisbury. It
was easily suppressed and Penruddock was beheaded in May. Seventy other Royalists
were shipped to the West Indies and sold as slaves.

9. THE RULE OF THE MAJOR-GENERALS

In August 1655, Cromwell revolutionized local government. He divided England and

Wales into ten districts (later eleven) each under a major-general. The major-generals
wielded enormous power over local affairs - displacing the gentry's traditional control
as Justices of the Peace.
The Major-generals cracked down on Royalist sympathizers, closet Anglicans, bear-
baiters, ale-drinkers, cock-fighters, horse-racers and many others - partly because they
posed a threat to order, and partly because of puritan fervor. Naturally, they became
extremely unpopular.

48
A new 10% tax on royalists, called "Decimation" - was raised to pay for the Major-
Generals' rule, and its illegality (it had no Parliamentary approval) increased the
regime's unpopularity.

10. CROMWELL'S FOREIGN POLICY

Cromwell carried on Charles I's policy of strengthening the Navy. He posted squadrons
to the Mediterranean and Caribbean, and used them to help an active -even aggressive -
foreign policy.
Cromwell aimed to strengthen England's economic position and to advance the cause of
the Protestant religion.
Cromwell regarded Spain - the world's leading Catholic power - with distaste and tried
to force it to accept humiliating terms to avoid war. When Spain refused these he
attacked their possessions in the West Indies and the Netherlands.
May 1655, a joint expedition under Admiral William Penn (1621-70) father of the
founder of Pennsylvania, and General Robert Venables (1612-87) failed to capture the
Spanish territory of Hispaniola, but did take Jamaica.
In September 1656, the Navy intercepted the Spanish treasure fleet, and in April 1657
virtually destroyed the Spanish battle fleet.
March 1657. England allied with France. Together, they defeated Spain's army in the
Netherlands at the Battle of the Dunes, 14 June 1658. The port of Dunkirk was
surrounded, blockaded, and taken. (Charles II sold it to France in 1662).
Cromwell was successful in undermining Spanish power, but at a high cost to
English trade. Furthermore, he helped France towards European domination that was
later to become England's major problem.

11. THE HUMBLE PETITION AND ADVICE.

War was expensive, and Cromwell summoned Parliament (17 September 1656) to raise
the money. His first action was to purge about a quarter of its Members; the remainder
voted him the taxes he needed. In exchange for the money, Cromwell ended the rule of
the Major-Generals.
Parliament returned to the constitutional problems and drew up the Humble
Petition and Advice. Its key points were that:
Cromwell should take the title of King, with the right to name his own
successor
An upper House of Parliament was to be created; its members to be appointed
by Cromwell and his successors
Members of the lower House of Parliament should not be excluded by
Cromwell
The lower, elected House would have the power to veto membership of the
Council of State
Religious toleration was to be restricted
The constitutional arrangements of the Humble Petition and Advice were clearly
conservative and radicals in the army disliked them. Cromwell compromised by
refusing the crown, but basically accepting the other terms.
During the 1650s, the number of Quakers increased dramatically from a handful in 1653
to about 40,000 in 1660.

49
 The Quakers rejected the whole apparatus of the established Church and looked to
divine inspiration just as in biblical times. They held that any Christian could and
should preach publicly, and subordinated biblical exegesis to the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit. This naturally outraged the clergy (Anglican, Presbyterian, and even
Independent) who all restricted Christian ministry to officially-ordained graduates.
The two first leaders were George Fox and James Nayler, who together developed and
taught Quaker beliefs.
In 1656, James Nayler rode into Bristol on a donkey, preceded by women spreading
palm leaves. This reenactment of Christ's entry to Jerusalem seemed the height of
blasphemy to the local authorities, as did one woman's claim that Nayler had brought
her back to life. They arrested Nayler and sent him to London.
Parliament took an immediate interest in the case, because Quakers were feared as a
threat to religious, political and social order. Many wanted Nayler executed, but others
doubted the legality of this, and so Nayler was sentenced to flogging, branding on the
forehead with the letter B (for blasphemer), and boring through the tongue.
Cromwell did nothing to protect Nayler, but he was concerned that other religious
dissidents might be punished by Parliament. This was one of the reasons why he
supported the creation of an Upper House of Parliament - made up of his friends and
supporters - that could curb such action by the Lower House.
Oliver Cromwell agreed to the revised Humble Petition and Advice, 26 June 1657.
20 January 1658, the two Houses of Cromwell's new Parliament met.
To fill the Upper House, Cromwell had needed to take some of his most influential
supporters out of the Lower House. (Even so, one of the few real noblemen summoned
to the Upper House refused to attend "in the same assembly with Hewson, the cobbler,
and Pride, the drayman"). The Lower House not only contained less of Cromwell's
friends but more of his enemies, that he was no longer able to exclude. In particular, the
republican, Arthur Haselrig attacked the whole system erected by the Humble Petition
and Advice, and especially the Upper House.
3 February 1658, the House of Commons refused to recognize the "House of Lords".
4 February 1658, Cromwell dissolved Parliament.
3 September 1658, the anniversary of the battles of Dunbar and Worcester, Oliver
Cromwell died.
Cromwell's associates said that he had appointed Richard Cromwell his successor, but
no written evidence of this survives. Richard was a placid, conservative country
gentleman, popular with the social elite. Oliver's other son, Henry was an officer with
the army in Ireland, who might have shown more sympathy to the religiously radical
officers.
3 September 1658, Richard Cromwell (1626-1712) was proclaimed Lord Protector of
the Realm.

THE END OF THE PROTECTORATE

AND THE RESTORATION

1658-1660

50
 1. RICHARD CROMWELL AND HIS PARLIAMENT

Richard Cromwell had spent his first 33 years as a conventional country gentleman -
hunting in the shires, taking his seat in Parliament and serving as a member of its
Committee for trade and navigation. He had no support in the army, but conservative
gentry found Richard acceptable and his accession passed without incident.
Richard summoned Parliament, and it began 27 January 1659.
A vocal minority of committed republicans, led by Arthur Haselrig and Henry Neville
(1620-94), were still not reconciled to the Protectorate and wished to restore the rule by
the House of Commons alone.
Richard attempted to ally with the conservative elements in Parliament and re-assert
civilian control over the army.
General Charles Fleetwood led a mutiny of the army. Ignoring Richard's orders,
Fleetwood along with many senior officers began issuing demands for indemnity, for
their action, arrears of pay and a return to republican rule.

2. THE ARMY AND THE RUMP

22 April 1659, the republicans in Parliament allied with the army forced Richard to
dissolve parliament.
General John Lambert presented a "petition" to William Lenthall asking for the return
of the Rump. Forty-two survivors of Cromwell's dissolution, assembled 7 May 1659
and issued a declaration establishing a "commonwealth without a King, single person,
or House of Lords…"
22 May 1659, Richard wrote a letter acquiescing in the change and so resigning the
Protectorship. (Richard left England for the Continent and did not return until about
1680).
Friction soon developed between the Rump and the army over the appointment of
officers and indemnity for past actions.
In Cheshire, Sir George Booth led a revolt aimed at restoring Charles II. Booth had
fought for Parliament during the Civil War, but raised about four thousand troops and
tried to seize Chester. In August 1659, his raw recruits were routed by Lambert at the
Battle of Winnington Bridge.
13 October 1659, Lambert expelled the Rump Parliament and instituted military rule
through a Committee of Safety.
The army now had few civilian friends left, and was itself increasingly divided. The
armies in Ireland and Scotland did not support Lambert's actions.
December 1659, the Navy mutinied and declared for the Rump. Support for Lambert
collapsed and the Rump Parliament resumed its sittings, 26 December 1659.

3. GEORGE MONCK

George Monck commanded the army in Scotland. He professed his loyalty to the Rump
Parliament but surrounded himself with officers loyal to himself personally.
When support for Lambert evaporated, Monck led his army into England, reaching
York on 11 January 1660. He was welcomed by Sir Thomas Fairfax - an important
indication that moderates would rally to him.

51
The Rump meanwhile did little to broaden its support in the country as a whole, and
when Monck approached London, it attempted his summary dismissal from command.
21 February 1660, George Monck responded by restoring to Parliament the Members
excluded in Pride's Purge. The purged members outnumbered the Rumpers and
promptly outvoted them.

4. THE END OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT

The excluded Members declared the Long Parliament restored and appointed Monck
Commander in Chief of the army.
The elected a new Council of State - largely from the ranks of Political Presbyterians.
When Monck decided to negotiate with Charles II for the restoration of the Stuart
dynasty, the Long Parliament dissolved itself (16 March 1660) and called elections for a
new Parliament to decide on what terms Charles should resume the throne.
The Convention Parliament, which met 25 April 1660, was elected on the traditional
franchise and made up of both Lords and Commons.
About one hundred of the Commons were former Royalists, and even former
Parliamentarians agreed that only the return of the Stuarts could ensure social stability
and order.

5. CHARLES II RESTORED.

During March 1660, Charles and Monck negotiated terms.

4 April 1660, Charles issued the Declaration of Breda in which he promised general
pardon, a degree of religious toleration, and settlement of the soldiers' arrears.
In response, the Convention Parliament declared "That, according to the ancient and
fundamental Laws of this Kingdom, the Government is, and ought to be, by King,
Lords, and Commons; ..."
8 May 1660, Charles II was formally proclaimed King in London.
25 May 1660, Charles landed at Dover.
29 May 1660, Charles II arrived in London and celebrated his thirtieth birthday.
The immediate aim of Charles II was to secure his position by unifying the country
behind him and few of his father's opponents suffered. Thirteen of the Regicides were
executed as were the extreme republican, Sir Henry Vane, and the Independent minister
and polemicist Hugh Peter.
A few surviving republicans, such as Henry Marten and Edmund Ludlow, suffered
imprisonment or exile, whilst the corpses of Henry Ireton, John Pym and Robert Blake
were dug up and defiled. Nevertheless, the vast majority of those who had fought
against Charles I made their peace with his son, and prospered under the restored
monarchy.

6. THE RESTORATION SETTLEMENT.

In May 1661, the Cavalier Parliament assembled. Its Members wanted to undo the
Puritan Revolution of Cromwell and the Rump, but they confirmed some of the
limitations imposed on the king during 1640 and 1641. Thus, episcopal government was

52
re-established in the Church of England, but the prerogative courts (High Commission
and Star Chamber) were never restored.
Effectively, after 1660 country gentlemen held the upper hand over the clergy.
Although most gentlemen were happy to help in the Anglican reaction against sects and
religious radicals, a stubborn and influential minority of Presbyterians or Dissenters
remained. They continued to struggle for the abolition of "superstitious" "Papist"
ceremonies. The Declaration of Breda had offered a degree of religious toleration, but
even Presbyterians who agreed on the fundamental doctrines of the Church of England
suffered discrimination.
Venner's Rising, 1-6 January 1661, helped supply Charles with a pretext for a standing
army. In fact, Thomas Venner (a Fifth Monarchist so radical that he had tried to
overthrown Cromwell's government in 1657) only had about fifty supporters and was
easily crushed. Venner was executed 19 January, and many Fifth Monarchists and
Quakers imprisoned. After this disaster, Quakers and other sectaries became
increasingly quietist.
The Militia Act of 1661 gave Charles control of the armed forces. He disbanded most of
the army, but created a new force from Monck's "Regiment of Foot". His regiment
marched into England from the small Scottish border town of Coldstream, and so
became known as the Coldstream Guards - the oldest regiment in continuous service in
the English army. They formed the nucleus of an army loyal to the King - an element in
future attempts to create royal absolutism in England.
Despite Charles II's small force, the Restoration restored civil government - never again
would England be a military dictatorship.
All legislation passed without royal consent (i.e. from 1642-1660) was deemed invalid,
and so land sold by Parliament was restored to King, Church, and royalists from whom
it had been confiscated. Unfortunately for them, many royalists had sold their land
privately to pay Parliament's fines and taxes, and these sales were valid. Some of the
richer royalists were able by legal action or royal favor to regain their land, but many
lesser royalists suffered financially.
The disbandment of the army enabled Parliament to reduce taxes sharply. They
attempted to grant Charles II a steady source of income from customs and excise
receipts, but it proved inadequate to Charles' needs. Charles II wisely made no attempt
to resort to his father's unpopular prerogative and feudal ways of raising money. Instead
he married Catherine of Braganza (the King of Portugal's daughter) for a large dowry
(which included the ports of Bombay, India, and Tangiers on the North African
Mediterranean coast).
Charles also sold Dunkirk to the French for 1.5 million silver ecus - an unpopular but
financially sensible move.
The 1662 Act of Uniformity required all clergy and schoolmasters to subscribe to the
Book of Common Prayer. It had been revised slightly by a commission of bishops and
clergy, but it still contained many elements offensive to Presbyterians and about two
thousand ministers refused to assent and were deprived of their livings.
Nonconformists who refused to attend the Church of England's worship and attempted
to conduct their own religious services were subject to fines and imprisonment.
The moderate puritan, Richard Baxter, for example was deprived of his living in 1662,
and repeatedly harassed and imprisoned over the course of the next twenty or so years.
Nor was there official toleration for Roman Catholics. Charles II himself was inclined
to allow some degree of toleration, but Parliament continued to fear the Catholic threat.
The expanding power of France under Louis XIV (1638-1715; acceded 1643) - a
bigoted persecutor of Protestants - only fueled such fears.

53
The electoral reforms of Cromwell did not survive the Restoration, and for most intents
and purposes, Parliament represented the interests only of the gentry and aristocracy.
Nonetheless, the Restoration instituted a period of financial and political stability such
that increasing wealth and scientific advance combined to begin a period of
considerable progress and modernization.

54