Dynastic Change and the Triumph of Parliament: The Two English Revolutions of the Seventeenth Century
11.4.1 The Kings of Scotland on the English Throne: The
Stuarts
Elisabeth I died without leaving an heir.[528] Thus, after her death, a Scottish dynasty came to occupy the English throne: the Stuarts, descendants of Queen Mary, who Elizabeth I had ordered beheaded.
The arrival to the English throne of the kings of Scotland, in the person of James VI of Scotland and I of England (1603-1625), allowed the two kingdoms to be united.The new kings of England and Scotland sought to wield the same authority as their predecessors, but the Stuarts lacked the Tudors’ charisma. James I, although writing several books on the divine right of kings, such as The True Law of Free Monarchies and the Basilokon Doron (literally “royal gift”), a kind of guide for princes,[529] was relatively moderate and did not square off against Parliament.[530]
11.4.2 The First English Revolution: Oliver Cromwell
and the Only “Republic” in English History
James I’s successor, however, Charles I (1625-1649), would soon collide head on with Parliament as a result of the initiative of Sir Edward Coke and his Petition of Right, of 1628 (Ryan 2005, 9-16). Besides having an authoritarian disposition— which he revealed by dissolving both Houses in 1629 and governing alone for 11 years—he was married to a Catholic princess: Henrietta Maria of France, Louis XIII’s sister. As most members of the House of Commons defended the independence of the Church of England, declared by Henry VIII and consolidated by Elizabeth I, civil war soon broke out.[531] The conflict was won by the Parliamentary leader Oliver Cromwell (1649-1658) who, in addition to supporting the king’s beheading for treason (along with 59 other deputies), established a “republic” over which he declared himself “Lord Protector” (Seel 1999, 73-90).
In reality what he established was a dictatorship which, following his death, his son could not sustain. Thus, weary of Cromwellian tyranny (Woolrych 2003, 61-89), the English chose to restore the Stuarts to the throne in the person of Charles II (1660-1685).11.4.3 The Appearance of Political Parties
Parliament soon clashed with the new king, not only because they believed him to be unduly lenient with Catholics, but because he forged an alliance with Louis XIV, the personification of absolutism in Europe at the time. Parliament reacted by unilaterally adopting two very important laws: the first forbade Catholics from serving as Parliamentary representatives or holding public through the Test Act of 1673 (Harris 2006, 74-75), while the second declared arbitrary arrests to be illegal (Habeas corpus, 1679).[532]
Parliament’s belligerence also had another momentous consequence in British constitutional history, as it favored the formation of two political groups in the House of Commons: the Tories (conservatives) and Whigs (liberals). The former were Anglicans loyal to the king, and the latter, were essentially members of the bourgeoisie who opposed the Stuarts. This organization of representatives into ideologically homogeneous groups greatly facilitated the formation of majorities, enabling Parliament thereafter to pressure the king much more effectively.[533] Thus, for the first time in the constitutional sphere there appeared political parties which, beginning with the French Revolution, would become one of the decisive instruments in the government of the contemporary state.[534]
11.4.4 The Second (and Last) English Revolution (1688)
Charles II was succeeded by his brother James II (1685-1688). Although the new king was a devout Catholic,[535] he was tolerated by the Parliament because he had two daughters married to Protestant princes: Mary to William of Orange, Stadt- holder of Holland; and Anna to the King of Denmark. James II, however, was widowed and married a Catholic Italian princess who bore him a son.
Faced with the threat of a Catholic dynasty occupying the throne, a number of Tory representatives allied with the Whig majority in 1688, with Parliament then asking William of Orange,[536] the husband of the king’s eldest daughter, to occupy the English throne (Nenner 2003, 83-94).When William sailed for England, James, rather than confronting him, chose to flee. As the throne was left vacant, the Parliament assembled without being summoned by the king in a “Convention”,[537] a sort of “constituent assembly”[538] formed to transfer the Crown from James II to William III and his wife Mary, imposed upon the two a Declaration of Rights (Maitland and Fisher 2001, 281288). This essential constitutional document, later reenacted in statutory form[539] as the Bill of Rights in 1689, was a stipulation of liberties that had been partially recognized in the Carta Magna and subsequent laws.[540] This second English revolution, dubbed the “Glorious Revolution”, was shorter and less spectacular than Cromwell’s, but much more pivotal.[541]
11.4.5 The Religious Issue and the Transformation of England's Constitutional Framework
One last point is essential to understand the political transformation England underwent during the reigns of the Tudors and Stuarts: the religious question. We know that the consolidation of the major European monarchies came at the expense of the papacy, as kings asserted their power and rejected the principle of Christian universalism, which had previously made the popes the supreme political authorities. In England, Henry VIII’s break with the Church, motivated by his divorce from Catherine of Aragon and marriage to Anne Boleyn, led to the clergy’s submission to the monarchy and the king’s establishment as the head of the English (Anglican) Church in what is called the “Reformation Statutes” (Bernard 2007, 68).
This policy would be sustained by his daughter, Elizabeth I, who undid the work done by her predecessor to the throne, her half-sister Mary Tudor.[542]The consolidation of a state religion was not easy, however, as the kings had to fight against Papist Catholics, many of whom took refuge in Ireland, and Protestant extremists, principally Puritans, Baptists and Presbyterians. In this sense, the Cromwellian Revolution triumphed largely because Charles I was married, as we know, to a Catholic princess, and James II had to flee England, in large measure because he was Catholic (Clifton 1971, 23-55). In fact, his daughters Mary and Anne sat on the English throne because they were married to Protestant princes. Parliament not only came to prevent the Catholics from serving as kings of England, through the Act of Settlement (1701),[543] but also banned them from holding any public office in the kingdom, a prohibition not lifted until well into the nineteenth century.[544]
Concerning non-Anglican Protestants, in principle they were also excluded from political activity—at least until Parliament passed and William and Mary approved the Bill of Rights in 1689. The Bill of Rights, however, only applied to dissident Protestant sects; Catholics and Jews did not benefit from the protection offered by this civil rights law.[545]
11.5