Power and the people – still going – the Enlightenment and beyond

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I seem to have been posting about authority and various challenges to it for months! It’s not surprising really since the GCSE covers 800 years of history. We’ve challenged authority from a feudal perspective, the Barons’ War versions 1 and 2; Simon de Montfort and the revolting Peasants with a quick dash through the Wars of the Roses. The Tudors saw us look at a couple of popular risings against the Tudor throne – focusing mainly on dissolving monasteries and the Pilgrimage of Grace. This led neatly to Divine Right and Parliamentary authority.

The English civil war saw the development of political radicalism – I didn’t spend much time on the Levellers although I did spend a while executing Charles I and looking at some of the negatives of the Commonwealth. Essentially the execution of Charles led to a new discussion about royal authority and the right to representation – hence the American Civil War. The French Revolution is another episode that saw changes in the relationship between the monarch and his people but thankfully its only the impact of the French Revolution on the British mindset that a student would be required to know. Absolute monarchy and dictatorship have much in common. Society’s structure was deemed unfair compounded by economic problems in an age of radicalism and enlightenment – hey presto and welcome to the republic swiftly followed by social and economic consequences in the UK and radical thinkers demanding a little bit more equality in Britain.

The Enlightenment saw people explore the idea of humanity, their relationship with God and the Church, and of course, liberty. We haven’t covered reform and although I will be coming back to it for the blog this week, my GCSE historian is rapidly running out of time. So just think of this as an introduction or a sprint to the finish depending on your frame of mind.

The Nineteenth century saw the extension of the franchise after radical groups protested. Radical speakers addressed huge rallies – 60,000 people attended one event in Manchester. The result was the Peterloo Massacre of 1819 and the government who was afraid of a French style revolution introduced various acts to prevent large gatherings. George III was afraid of reform – not only because of the French but because of the loss of America (he was king from 1760 and yes he’s the mad one and we don’t have time to discuss whether he was or not).

The most significant act is the Great Reform Act passed in 1832 but many of the working population were still excluded. Essentially before the reform act many urban areas did not have representation because industrialisation had changed population patterns; there were rotten boroughs – Old Sarum is the famous one – no one lived there but it had an MP. There were also things called pocket boroughs – that were in the pockets of rich men. Women didn’t get a vote, there was not secret ballot and working class men didn’t get a vote either, – and that remained true after the reform act. You had to have property worth £10 to vote and it still wasn’t a secret ballot.

This led to the Chartist movement which developed in London in about 1836 and was most active across the following decade until 1848. They were alarmed about the new machinery coming into factories as well as working conditions and their lack of representation. They wanted constituencies to be the same size, for there to be an election every year and all men to have the franchise. They also wanted a secret ballot. They also argued that MPS should have wages because up until that time you had to be wealthy. At first they were peaceful but in 1839 when their requests were rejected they became more violent.The secret ballot was achieved in 1872 but it was 1918 before all men got the vote.

Alongside all that GCSE students need to know about the Anti- Slave movement and abolitionism, the Corn laws and the Anti-Corn law league, social reform and factory reform, the development of trade unionism, the Tolpuddle Martyrs and the match Girls’ strike – and various dockers’ strikes. The corn laws were repealed in 1846 as a result of the potato famine – the first time that a government had acted in the interests of the poor rather than the wealthy.

They need to know about nineteenth century factory conditions, the development of workers’ rights and the General Strike of 1926 as well as the Industrial Relations Act of 1971, swiftly followed up by the so-called Winter of Discontent and the banning of flying pickets in the 1980s not to mention closed shops and the Miners’ Strike of 1985. If that weren’t enough, and remember there are other units of study, they also need to know about women’s suffrage, suffragists, suffragettes and the Pankhursts. And once they’ve got that under their belts they need to understand about the development of Britain’s multi-racial society and minority rights – protest comes in the form of the Brixton Riots (yes folks that’s on the history syllabus and isn’t current affairs anymore) and they also need to know about the Scarman Report.

Oh yes and having learned all of that, GCSE students have a question paper that lasts an hour, with 4 questions. The first question is about a source – it could be a cartoon or a document about any of the areas covered. The next question focuses on a specific topic e.g. the Brixton riots while the third question asks candidates to compare two different episodes. The fourth question is worth 16 marks and requires candidates to draw on their knowledge from across 800 years such as the question below which was asked I think in 2022. I think we can safely say that GCSE History has not become easier over the years!

Have ideas, such as equality and democracy, been the main reason for protest in
Britain?
Explain your answer with reference to ideas and other factors.
Use a range of examples from across your study of Power and the people: c1170 to
the present day.



Power and the People – getting a gallop on! The American Revolution

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Time is marching on! The execution of Charles I changed the relationship between monarchy and parliament. The challenge to authority had lasting consequences. By the eighteenth century there were 13 colonies in America that were subject to British rule. In 1763 expansion west was prohibited which irritated the colonists. They also stated that they would not pay taxes unless they received parliamentary representation in London. Essentially they objected to decisions being made 3,000 miles away that impacted on their prosperity. In London, Parliament required taxation to conduct its European wars (1756-63 the Seven Years War). They also wanted to take advantage of the American markets – they had to buy British goods which had heavy levies imposed upon them. In addition many people had gone to America because they wanted political and religious freedom.

The European war crossed the Atlantic to the Americas – British soldiers went to the colonies, there was war with the French in Canada and in Britain the colonists were required to pay for the soldiers sent to ‘protect’ them.

IN Britain no one paid attention to the increasing unrest and instead imposed the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Navigation Acts. The first meant there was a tax on official government paper (seriously) and the later meant that the colonists couldn’t trade with any other country than Britain. Colonial opposition hardened against the British – there was a Continental Congress which create new constitutions, men such as Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine’s booklet entitled Common Sense which advocated independence collected political and moral arguments to encourage ordinary people to join in the fight. At the time the population was 2.5 million and Paine’s book was an immediate best seller. Paine connected his ideas with Protestantism – which was of course why the Puritan Pilgrim Father’s left England- and gave it an American political identity. The people who wanted to do what Britain said had no answering response or anything that stirred similar passion.

The response in 1775 was the Boston Tea Party which saw British tea imports dumped into the harbour. Note in the image that the protesters dressed up with feather headdresses when they carried out their destruction. The British closed the harbour until compensation was paid but in March 1766 Britain repealed the Stamp Act. However, it was too late, tension turned to conflict. In 1783, America became independent – the resistance to Crown authority split British politics – there was a fear that the loss of America would reflect on British power in the world. And radicals started to exert the same demands in Britain as America that there should be no taxation without representation.

Right – feeling brave? G.C.S.E students should be able to explain how the American Revolution and the Peasants Revolt are similar. And the American Revolution might also fit into the question Has Government been the main factor in improving people’s rights in Britain.

Essentially there is always a question asking students to compare to events to look for similarities and consider their impact on government and authority. By now most of you will have decided that there is some one doing GCSE this year! You are quite right but time is running out – so tomorrow is going to be something of a timeline to get us from revolutionary Americans to modern day – eek!

If you’d like to know more about the American Revolution but need somewhere to start the very short histories have a book on the subject which provides an excellent summary before delving further in.

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Trial of Charles I – Power and the People

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MPS were divided how to deal with the king. Colonel Thomas Pride threw out 300 MPS who supported parliamentary negotiations with the king – this was known as Pride’s Purge and the ups who remained were known as The Rump. it meant that when the king was bought to trial there was no one on his side in the Houses of Parliament.
A special commission put the king on trial for treason. 68 commissioners arrived out of the 135 attendees. Among the men who did not arrive was General Thomas Fairfax. The men who did not arrive felt that things had gone too far, Charles refused to recognise the authority of the commission because he said a king could not be tried for treason. When he argued with John Bradshaw, the chief judge who was so scared of assassination that wore a special reinforced hat, the king was removed from the court while witness gave evidence against him. There were no witnesses to support Charles and he was found guilty.

Charles I was executed on 30th January 1649 at Whitehall and England became a republic – the Commonwealth. There was no monarchy during the protectorate which lasted for the next 11 years. Instead Cromwell, the army and Parliament ruled.

Government kept a strict control on many aspects of everyday life. It banned Christmas, closed all the theatres and forbade Mayday celebrations. The Commonwealth did not believe in free speech for everyone, the Levellers, a group that. believed in equality were imprisoned and their
leaders killed. And in Ireland, the Catholic population were treated appallingly. At Drogheda women and children were murdered. Land was taken from Catholics and given to Protestants. Ultimately, he disbanded Parliament and ruled through the army – which sounds remarkably like tyranny…..

The Little History of Derbyshire

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I can’t say how much I enjoyed the research and writing this book, especially as I was permitted to include some of my own pen and ink drawings. Please share with any one who you think might be interested. And follow the link below to a blog post that I have written for the History Press. If you’d like to buy the book click on the image.

https://thehistorypress.co.uk/article/ten-things-or-thereabouts-you-may-not-have-known-about-derbyshire

People and Power

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Time flies when you’re having fun! I thought it was about a week since my last post – turns out to be rather more.

In August 1642 King Charles I raised his standard at Nottingham, effectively starting the English civil war. – this did not bode well for Nottingham Castle when Parliament gained the upper hand.  Essentially England was divided into the North and West which supported the king and the South and East which supported Parliament.  

October 1642 – Battle of Edgehill – not decisive. The Earl of Essex commanded Parliament’s army. Had Charles been able to reach London the war might have had a different outcome. Instead there was intermittent fighting across the country and the king based his court at Oxford.

1643 –

The Oxford Propositions – similar to the Nineteen Propositions and like them they were rejected.

Charles I came to an agreement with the Irish – which did not go down well in England. They joined the king’s men in Cheshire and the North-West but the use of Catholic troops was counter-productive as it gave Parliament propaganda gold.

The Royalists had the upper hand until Parliament came to an agreement with the Scots. In January 1644 a 22,000 man army would cross the border into England. The royalist army in the north was sandwiched between the Scots and the Parliamentarians.

1644

Rupert of the Rhine headed north with his cavalry to support the royalists.

July 1644 The Battle of Marston Moor – the royalist commander William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle lost the battle and left the country. It meant that the North of England came under the control of Parliament.

Newark remained a royalist stronghold but the tide had turned.

1645.

Parliament presented the king with the Uxbridge Propositions – yup – they were like the Nineteen Propositions and the king rejected them again.

June 1645 The New Model Army which was much more organised and professional than the royalists won the Battle of Naseby.

5 May 1646 Charles I surrendered to the Scots who gave him to Parliament in return for £400,000

In 1648 there were Royalist uprisings in many parts of the country including at Colchester. It became known as the Second Civil War. In August 1648 a joint force of Scots and English Royalists was destroyed by Oliver Cromwell’s army at Preston – many Scots fugitives were held captive at Chapel en le Frith.

In January 1649 – having been put on trial Charles I was executed.

A typical GCSE question asks: Explain the significance of the trial and execution of Charles I for royal authority…

It changed the relationship between the authority of the monarch king and parliament. Continuity of kingship was broken. There was a new form of government. The Commonwealth placed greater emphasis on the rights of men. Even when a monarch was restored, Parliament redefined prerogative rights and the idea of the Divine Right of Kings was dead in the water. It was certainly very evident that kings were only men and that they were fallible.

Charles I was viewed in many quarters as a tyrant. The idea of holding rulers to account was popular from then onwards e.g. America and France.

The changes were almost too radical. There was uncertainty and unrest. People didn’t know what to call Oliver Cromwell and when he died he was replaced with his son – Richard – in a way that was redolent of a royal accession. It meant that when the monarchy was restored, that it benefitted from a reluctance for change.

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Power and the People – civil war (s)

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There were three civil wars fought between 1642 and 1651 across Britain’s three kingdoms. Charles, married to Henrietta Maria, was increasingly distrusted because of his use of royal power, his economic policies and disagreement about religion.

There were many types of Christianity in Charles I’s realm from High Church groups such as the Arminians, favoured by Archbishop Laud, who supported vestments and altar railings and whose Book of Common Prayer laid out the form services should take. The archbishop believed in the ‘beauty of holiness’ and wanted lots of decoration. Many people saw Laud’s vision of the Church of England as almost Catholic in the form it took and it didn’t help that there were so many prominent Catholics at court including Henrietta Maria, Charles’ queen upon whom he relied for advice after the demise of his favourites.

For many people in England religion was related not only to faith but to national identity. It wasn’t that long since the Spanish Armada of 1588 or the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 – ‘Popish plots’ was examples of treachery.

In 1637 Puritan pamphleteers had their ears cropped and were branded for criticising Laud – which made him look rather cruel.

In 1638 the Scots revolted when Charles attempted to impose the Book of Common Prayer upon them.

Charles was forced to recall Parliament to raise funds to fight the Scots – parliament was sympathetic to the Puritans. The so called long parliaments lasted from 1640 to 1653. Recalled, and knowing that the king needed cash Parliament issued the Grand Remonstrance against the king in November 1641 and in June 1642 issued the Nineteen Propositions which was a bid to gain more power for themselves. By then the relationship between the monarch and his parliament was at breakdown. At the end of August, Charles raised his standard at Nottingham Castle and the country was at war.

Click on the pictures to open the links for more information about the books below. Diane Purkiss’s book provides an excellent account of the English civil war. I really enjoyed Michael Arnold’s Stryker series written against the backdrop of the turbulent 17th century.

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Power and the People – Personal rule or tyranny

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In 1629, Charles I dissolved his parliament having been presented the Petition of Right in 1628. In March 1629 the Speaker tried to dissolve Parliament, on the king’s orders, but was held in his chair by three MPS while the commons voted against some of the king’s decisions. The Speaker of the House was in a difficult position – he stated that he was parliament and the king’s servant. Charles I was not amused when he was told what had happened and dissolved parliament immediately. He decided that he did not need parliament to raise funds – instead he would rule by royal prerogative and that meant finding older ways of raising taxes. He returned in effect to personal rule and feudal taxation.

Charles used: feudal dues, customs duty and income from his own estates. James I had often been short of money and Charles’ favourite the recently assassinated Duke of Buckingham had involved England in a disastrous war with the French. Now Charles levied a tax called Distraint of Knighthood – any man who possessed more than £40 a year was required to attend a royal coronation, when one occurred, to receive a knighthood. Failure to do so resulted a fine. Charles’ coronation was in 1626 and £40 was not as much money as it had once been. Now though, Charles didn’t hesitate to levy the fine to raise funds. Not only was there this war in France to be fought there was also support to be provided for Charles’ sister, Elizabeth also known as the Winter Queen and her husband, Frederick V the Elector Palatine / King of Bohemia in the Thirty Years War.

There was also ship money. This was usually levied during time of war in coastal counties but Charles now directed that the tax should be raised across the whole kingdom. As a result there was a high profile court case against John Hampden who refused to pay.

And just in case you wanted something else – there was the grant of monopolies to individuals who paid for the right and then increased the price on whatever they held the monopoly upon.

Was Charles I a tyrant? He wasn’t a cruel man and didn’t have a secret police to enforce his whims but he ruled without recourse to parliament, on occasion men were imprisoned without trial and the taxes he imposed while legal in the strictest sense of the word had often fallen into disuse by the time he resurrected them. And then there were his religious beliefs which he tried to impose on all his subjects – more of that anon.

The turbulent seventeenth century – Divine Right and the Petition of Right

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Divine right is the belief in the God given right of a monarch to rule. The idea was established in the reign of James (1603-25) who believed that the king was subject to no other earthly authority and could only be judged by God. Any attempt to depose or even to restrict the powers of the king went against God’s will. In 1598 he had published a book called The True Law of Free Monarchies. He claimed that ‘Kings are justly called gods for that they exercise a manner or resemblance of divine power on earth’. The Basilikon Doron written by the king as a set of instructions for his eldest son, Prince Henry, in 1599 identified his ideology more clearly.

The book is divided into three parts:

I) how to be a Christian king

2) practical aspects of kingship

3) the king’s behaviour in everyday life.

James’ belief in the divine right of kings had a negative impact on his relationship with the English Parliament. During the reign of his successor, Charles who inherited the throne following the deaths of his elder brother in 1612 and James in 1625 also believed in the divine right of kings. Charles I also believed that because he was God’s representative only he had the right to make laws and that to oppose him was a sin. He believed that he was above the law and had to govern according to his conscience.

By the time James died in 1625 Parliament was suspicious of the Stuart kings, by 1628 the tension turned to Parliamentary demands known as the Petition of Right. Charles lacked both experience and confidence and relied upon the advice of his favourite, the Duke of Buckingham. Buckingham advocated a raid on Cadiz which was a disaster. Parliament demanded that she should be impeached – so Charles dissolved parliament before it granted him any funds. Buckingham arranged for the king to marry a French Catholic bride (Henrietta Maria) and then went to war with the French in 1627 in support of the Huguenots of La Rochelle – the whole thing was a disaster because of poor planning. By 1628 Charles was at war, without any money and was trying to extract forced loans. He had no choice but to call Parliament.

Sir Edward Coke, a lawyer, put together the Petition of Right which stated, there would be no more forced loans; no imprisonment without trial – 5 knights had been sent to prison because they refused to pay Charles’ forced loan. In addition there would be no further use of free lodgings (billeting) for soldiers in civilian households and no use of martial law against civilians. At the same time, the House of Commons granted the king five subsidies but only if he agreed their terms. Coke and Parliament were defining the law by asserting rights that already existed. It should have been an opportunity for the king and parliament to learn to work together…

Click on the book to open the link in a new tab to find the book and read more about their contents. I love Leanda de Lisle’s writing. Last year she published a biography of Charle’s queen, Henrietta Maria

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Power and the People – Tudor rebellions

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Reformation, taxation and enclosure were causes of the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536. During the reign of Henry VII rebellions including the Lovell/Stafford rising, the rebellion in favour of Lambert Simnel and the Perkins Warbeck rebellion were all related to the dynastic upheavals of the fifteenth century. it wasn’t really just about bloodlines by that time, it was also about power and influence at court – who would help the king to govern. But even they had more than one cause.

Taxation and enclosure: this could be a localised problem as with the Yorkshire rebellion of 1489 that saw the murder of the Earl of Northumberland. The same was true of the Cornish Rebellion of 1497 that was then followed up by the Cornish commons joining with the Perkin Warbeck Revolt. The most well known of the rebellions associated with enclosure was Kett’s Rebellion in Norfolk in 1549 during the reign of Edward VI. Local taxation, rent rises and enclosure of common land led to risings based on social and economic need – but they weren’t necessarily a major threat to the Tudors because they were regional rather than national. Where the rising was contained in one area it was easier to put down.

Religion: The Pilgrimage of Grace is the most obvious example, but in 1554 when Mary Tudor, a.k.a. Bloody Mary, was on the throne Wyatt’s Rebellion aimed to place Elizabeth on the throne because she was protestant.

The Tudors always feared rebellion but they centralised government, used propaganda and had a secret service. The real problem with any rebellion was if it was backed by a foreign power like the French, Spanish or the papacy. One of the reasons Henry VIII was so alarmed by the Pilgrimage of Grace was because there was a potential threat from Catholic nobles who wanted Princess Mary restored to her rightful place in the succession. Taken together with the support of the gentry (not always given willingly) and the clergy it was perhaps the biggest challenge to Tudor authority. The Pilgrimage of Grace is something studied at school because it was the biggest rebellion that expressed anti-Reformation beliefs.

Henry VIII and Thomas Wolsey continued with their programme of closing the monasteries but it was only during the reigns of Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I that opinions completely polarised. Reformers became gradually more radical, while Catholics wanted to keep to their traditional values. It was one of the reasons that the presence of Mary Queen of Scots in England was difficult for Elizabeth. The Scottish queen was recognised by many catholics as England’s legitimate monarch and it led to prolonged plotting against Elizabeth.

Religious contention would lead, in 1605, during the Stuart era, to the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 which aimed to kill James I and his heir, destroy the Protestant parliament and leave the way clear for a Catholic restoration. The plotters intended to place James’ daughter Elizabeth Stuart on the throne, convert her to catholicism and ensure that she was married to a Catholic husband. In 1701 the Act of Settlement finally drew the matter of the religion of the succession to a conclusion – the monarch had to be Protestant or Parliament wouldn’t recognise their right to rule. Ultimately in 1714 George I became King of England because he was the nearest in line to the throne from among the potential claimants who was a Protestant. Of course, that didn’t stop the Catholic heirs of James II (who had been deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 – his son James (the Old Pretender) and his grandson Charles (Bonnie Prince Charlie, a.k.a. the Young Pretender) attempting to regain the throne for the Catholic branch of the Stuart family in the Jacobite rebellions of the eighteenth century.

And of course, in between the times – the seventeenth century saw the English Civil Wars, which is where we will be going next.

Power and the People – the pilgrims’ badge

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The pilgrims of 1536 demonstrated that religion could be an alternative authority to the Crown. Rituals and symbolism were important throughout the rebellion. The image here shows monks and a bishop heading the procession of pilgrims- they carry a cross and a banner showing the five wounds of Christ which was the pilgrim badge. One of the things that this did was to create a sense of unity among the thousands of pilgrims who came from many layers of society with diverse social and economic backgrounds.

The Five Wounds of Christ depict the injuries Christ sustained during his crucifixion. They were a powerful reminder of the rebels’ catholic beliefs and their opposition to Henry VIII’s reform of the Church. The imagery was an easy way for ordinary people to understand what the protest was about – that the rebels objected to the break with Rome and the closure of the monasteries. Men who might not have rebelled against the king would protest because they believed that their spiritual life – and eternity – were being damaged by the Crown.

The rebels took an oath of allegiance to the Pilgrimage of Grace, took part in masses and mass processions and had churches return to the old way of conducting services. As well as showing their devotion to God, these were an act of defiance against the authority of the king.