British Monarchy and its influence upon governmental institutions
1642 was a banner year for Parliament. They stripped
Charles of the last vestiges of prerogative by abolishing episcopacy, placed
the army and navy directly under parliamentary supervision and declared this
bill become law even if the king refused his signature. Charles entered the
House of Commons (the first king to do so), intent on arresting John Pym, the
leader of Parliament and four others, but the five conspirators had already
fled, making the king appear inept. Charles traveled north to recruit an army
and raised his standard against the forces of Parliaments (Roundheads) at
Nottingham on August 22, 1642. England was again embroiled in civil war.
Cromwell added sixty horses to the Roundhead cause
when war broke out. In the 1642 Battle at Edge Hill, the Roundheads were
defeated by the superior Royalist (Cavalier) cavalry, prompting Cromwell to
build a trained cavalry. Cromwell proved most capable as a military leader. By
the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644, Cromwell's New Model Army had routed
Cavalier forces and Cromwell earned the nickname "Ironsides" in the
process. Fighting lasted until July 1645 at the final Cavalier defeat at
Naseby. Within a year, Charles surrendered to the Scots, who turned him over to
Parliament. By 1646, England was ruled solely by Parliament, although the king
was not executed until 1649.
English society splintered into many factions:
Levellers (intent on eradicating economic castes), Puritans, Episcopalians,
remnants of the Cavaliers and other religious and political radicals argued
over the fate of the realm. The sole source of authority rest with the army,
who moved quickly to end the debates. In November 1648, the Long Parliament was
reduced to a "Rump" Parliament by the forced removal of 110 members
of Parliament by Cromwell's army, with another 160 members refusing to take
their seats in opposition to the action. The remainder, barely enough for a
quorum, embarked on an expedition of constitutional change. The Rump dismantled
the machinery of government, most of that, remained loyal to the king,
abolishing not only the monarchy, but also the Privy Council, Courts of
Exchequer and Admiralty and even the House of Lords. England was ruled by an
executive Council of State and the Rump Parliament, with various subcommittees
dealing with day-to-day affairs. Of great importance was the administration in
the shires and parishes: the machinery administering such governments was left
intact; ingrained habits of ruling and obeying harkened back to monarchy.
With the death of the ancient constitution and
Parliament in control, attention was turned to crushing rebellions in the
realm, as well as in Ireland and Scotland. Cromwell forced submission from the
nobility, muzzled the press and defeated Leveller rebels in Burford.
Annihilating the more radical elements of revolution resulted in political
conservatism, which eventually led to the restoration of the monarchy.
Cromwell's army slaughtered over forty percent of the indigenous Irishmen, who
clung unyieldingly to Catholicism and loyalist sentiments; the remaining
Irishmen were forcibly transported to County Connaught with the Act of
Settlement in 1653. Scottish Presbyterians fought for a Stuart restoration, in
the person of Charles II, but were handily defeated, ending the last remnants
of civil war. The army then turned its attention to internal matters.
The Rump devolved into a petty, self-perpetuating and
unbending oligarchy, which lost credibility in the eyes of the army. Cromwell
ended the Rump Parliament with great indignity on April 21, 1653, ordering the
house cleared at the point of a sword. The army called for a new Parliament of
Puritan saints, who proved as inept as the Rump. By 1655, Cromwell dissolved
his new Parliament, choosing to rule alone (much like Charles I had done in
1629). The cost of keeping a standard army of 35,000 proved financially
incompatible with Cromwell's monetarily strapped government. Two wars with the Dutch
concerning trade abroad added to Cromwell's financial burdens.
The military's solution was to form yet another
version of Parliament. A House of Peers was created, packed with Cromwell's
supporters and with true veto power, but the Commons proved most antagonistic
towards Cromwell. The monarchy was restored in all but name; Cromwell went from
the title of Lord General of the Army to that of Lord Protector of the Realm
(the title of king was suggested, but wisely rejected by Cromwell when a furor
arose in the military ranks). The Lord Protector died on September 3, 1658,
naming his son Richard as successor. With Cromwell's death, the Commonwealth
floundered and the monarchy was restored only two years later.
The failure of Cromwell and the Commonwealth was
founded upon Cromwell being caught between opposing forces. His attempts to
placate the army, the nobility, Puritans and Parliament resulted in the
alienation of each group. Leaving the political machinery of the parishes and
shires untouched under the new constitution was the height of inconsistency;
Cromwell, the army and Parliament were unable to make a clear separation from
the ancient constitution and traditional customs of loyalty and obedience to
monarchy. Lacey Baldwin Smith cast an astute judgment concerning the aims of
the Commonwealth: "When Commons was purged out of existence by a military
force of its own creation, the country learned a profound, if bitter, Lesson:
Parliament could no more exist without the crown than the crown without Parliament.
The ancient constitution had never been King and Parliament but King in
Parliament; when one element of that mystical union was destroyed, the other
ultimately perished."
Oliver Cromwell: Lord Protector of England (1599-1658)
There is definitely an association between John Knox
and Oliver Cromwell. Knox, in his book The Reformation of Scotland, outlined
the whole process without which the British model of government under Oliver
Cromwell never would not have been possible. Yet Knox was more consistently
covenantal in his thinking. He recognized that civil government is based on a
covenant between the magistrate (or the representative or king) and the
populace. His view was that when the magistrate defects from the covenant, it
is the duty of the people to overthrow him.
Cromwell was not a learned scholar, as was Knox,
nevertheless God elevated him to a greater leadership role. Oliver Cromwell was
born into a common family of English country Puritans having none of the
advantages of upbringing that would prepare him to be leader of a nation. Yet
he had a God-given ability to earn the loyalty and respect of men of genius who
served him throughout his lifetime. John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progress
served under his command in the English Civil War, and John Milton, who penned
Paradise Lost, served as his personal secretary.
Cromwell's early years were ordinary, but after a
conversion experience at age 27, he was seized by a sense of divine destiny. He
became suddenly zealous for God. He was a country squire, a bronze-faced,
callous-handed man of property. He worked on his farm, prayed and fasted often
and occasionally exhorted the local congregation during church meetings. A
quiet, simple, serious-minded man, he spoke little. But when he broke his silence,
it was with great authority as he commanded obedience without question or
dispute. As a justice of the peace, he attracted attention to himself by
collaring loafers at a tavern and forcing them to join in singing a hymn. This
exploit together with quieting a disturbance among some student factions at the
neighboring town of Cambridge earned him the respect of the Puritan locals and
they sent him to Parliament as their representative. There he attracted
attention with his blunt, forcible speech as a member of the Independent Party
which was made up of Puritans.
The English people were bent upon the establishment of
a democratic parliamentary system of civil government and the elimination of
the "Divine Right of Kings." King Charles I, the tyrant who had long
persecuted the English Puritans by having their ears cut off and their noses
slit for defying his attempts to force episcopacy on their churches, finally
clashed with Parliament over a long ordeal with new and revolutionary ideas.
The Puritans, or "Roundheads" as they were called, finally led a
civil war against the King and his Cavaliers.
When he discerned the weaknesses of the Roundhead
army, Cromwell made himself captain of the cavalry. Cromwell had never been
trained in war, but from the very beginning he showed consummate genius as a
general. Cromwell understood that successful revolutions were always fought by
farmers so he gathered a thousand hand-picked Puritans - farmers and herdsmen -
who were used to the open fields. His regiment was nicknamed
"Ironsides" and was never beaten once, although they fought greatly
outnumbered - at times three to one.
It was an army the likes of which hadn't been seen
since ancient Israel. They would recite the Westminster Confession and march
into battle singing the Psalms of David striking terror into the heart of the
enemy. Cromwell's tactic was to strike with the cavalry through the advancing
army at the center, go straight through the lines and then circle to either the
left or the right milling the mass into a mob, creating confusion and utterly
destroying them. Cromwell amassed a body of troops and soon became
commander-in-chief. His discipline created the only body of regular troops on
either side who preached, prayed, paid fines for profanity and drunkenness, and
charged the enemy singing hymns - the strangest abnormality in an age when
every vice imaginable characterized soldiers and mercenaries.
In the meantime, Charles I invited an Irish Catholic
army to his aid, an action for which he was tried for high treason and beheaded
shortly after the war. After executing the national sovereign, the Parliament
assumed power. The success of the new democracy in England was short-lived.
Cromwell found that a democratic parliamentary system run by squires and lords
oppressed the common people and was almost as corrupt as the rulership of the
deposed evil king. As Commander-in-Chief of the army, he was able to seize
rulership and served a term as "Lord Protector."
During the fifteen years in which Cromwell ruled, he
drove pirates from the Mediterranean Sea, set English captives free, and
subdued any threat from France, Spain and Italy. Cromwell made Great Britain a
respected and feared power the world over. Cromwell maintained a large degree
of tolerance for rival denominations. He stood for a national church without
bishops. The ministers might be Presbyterian, Independent or Baptist.
Dissenters were allowed to meet in gathered churches and even Roman Catholics
and Quakers were tolerated. He worked for reform of morals and the improvement
of education. He strove constantly to make England a genuinely Christian nation
and she enjoyed a brief "Golden Age" in her history.
When Charles I was beheaded, the understanding was
that he had broken covenant with the people. The view of Cromwell and the
Puritans was that when the magistrate breaks covenant, then he may legitimately
be deposed. The Puritan understanding of the covenantal nature of government
was the foundation for American colonial government. This was true of Massachusetts
and Connecticut and to a lesser extent in the Southern colonies. When the
Mayflower Compact was written, the Pilgrims had a covenantal idea of the nature
of civil government. This was a foundation for later colonies established
throughout the 1600s. These covenants were influenced by what Knox had done in
Scotland and what the Puritans had done in England.
RICHARD CROMWELL (1658-1659)
The eldest
surviving son of Oliver Cromwell, Richard was Lord Protector of England from
September 1658 to May 1659, but failed in his efforts to lead the Commonwealth.
Richard served in the Parliaments of 1654 and 1656 and
some government posts, but showed little of his father's ability.
Constitutional changes in 1657 allowed Cromwell to choose his successor. He
began to prepare Richard, appointing him to the council of state and the House
of Lords.
He was proclaimed Lord Protector immediately after his
father's death, on 3rd September 1658. Unfortunately, the Commonwealth had been
held together by his father and Richard was no Oliver. It was an unstable
mixture of zealous reform and a yearning for stability, Parliamentary authority
and military power.
Richard soon faced serious problems. The army were
disillusioned with a government that had grown increasingly ceremonious. They
grew more restless when Richard appointed himself commander in chief. A new
Parliament was elected in 1659 but a vacuum of power prompted the army council
to seize power. In April 1659 it forced Richard to dissolve Parliament.
The officers now recalled the Rump Parliament,
dissolved by Oliver Cromwell in 1653. It dismissed Richard as Lord Protector;
he officially abdicated in May. Yet the Rump was incapable of governing without
financial and military support and the army itself remained bitterly divided.
George Monck, one of the army's most capable officers, marched south from
Scotland to protect Parliament but, on arriving in London, realised that only
the restoration of Charles II could put an end to the political chaos that now
gripped the state.
Richard, having amassed large debts during his time in
office, left for Paris in 1660 to escape his creditors, living under the name
of John Clarke. After living in Geneva, he returned to England in around 1680,
where he lived quietly until his death.
CHARLES
II (1660-85)
Although those who had signed Charles I's death
warrant were punished (nine regicides were put to death, and Cromwell's body
was exhumed from Westminster Abbey and buried in a common pit), Charles pursued
a policy of political tolerance and power-sharing. In April 1660, fresh
elections had been held and a Convention met with the House of Lords. Parliament
invited Charles to return, and he arrived at Dover on 25 May.
Despite the bitterness left from the Civil Wars and
Charles I's execution, there were few detailed negotiations over the conditions
of Charles II's restoration to the throne. Under the Declaration of Breda of
May 1660, Charles had promised pardons, arrears of Army pay, confirmation of
land purchases during the Interregnum and 'liberty of tender consciences' in
religious matters, but several issues remained unresolved. However, the Militia
Act of 1661 vested control of the armed forces in the Crown, and Parliament
agreed to an annual revenue of £1,200,000 (a persistent deficit of
£400,000-500,000 remained, leading to difficulties for Charles in his
foreign policy). The bishops were restored to their seats in the House of
Lords, and the Triennial Act of 1641 was repealed - there was no mechanism for
enforcing the King's obligation to call Parliament at least once every three
years. Under the 1660 Act of Indemnity and Oblivion, only the lands of the
Crown and the Church were automatically resumed; the lands of Royalists and
other dissenters which had been confiscated and/or sold on were left for
private negotiation or litigation.
The early years of Charles's reign saw an appalling
plague which hit the country in 1665 with 70,000 dying in London alone, and the
Great Fire of London in 1666 which destroyed St Paul's amongst other buildings.
Another misfortune included the second Dutch war of 1665 (born of English and
Dutch commercial and colonial rivalry). Although the Dutch settlement of New
Amsterdam was overrun and renamed New York before the war started, by 1666
France and Denmark had allied with the Dutch. The war was dogged by poor
administration culminating in a Dutch attack on the Thames in 1667; a peace was
negotiated later in the year.
In 1667, Charles dismissed his Lord Chancellor,
Clarendon - an adviser from Charles's days of exile (Clarendon's daughter Anne
was the first wife of Charles's brother James and was mother of Queens Mary and
Anne). As a scapegoat for the difficult religious settlement and the Dutch war,
Clarendon had failed to build a 'Court interest' in the Commons. He was
succeeded by a series of ministerial combinations, the first of which was that
of Clifford, Ashley, Buckingham, Arlington and Lauderdale (whose initials
formed the nickname Cabal). Such combinations (except for Danby's dominance of
Parliament from 1673 to 1679) were largely kept in balance by Charles for the
rest of his reign.
Charles's foreign policy was a wavering balance of
alliances with France and the Dutch in turn. In 1670, Charles signed the secret
treaty of Dover under which Charles would declare himself a Catholic and
England would side with France against the Dutch - in return Charles would
receive subsidies from the King of France (thus enabling Charles some limited
room for manoeuvre with Parliament, but leaving the possibility of public
disclosure of the treaty by Louis). Practical considerations prevented such a
public conversion, but Charles issued a Declaration of Indulgence, using his
prerogative powers to suspend the penal laws against Catholics and
Nonconformists. In the face of an Anglican Parliament's opposition, Charles was
eventually forced to withdraw the Declaration in 1673.
In 1677 Charles married his niece Mary to William of
Orange partly to restore the balance after his brother's second marriage to the
Catholic Mary of Modena and to re-establish his own Protestant credentials.
This assumed a greater importance as it became clear that Charles's marriage to
Catherine of Braganza would produce no legitimate heirs (although Charles had a
number of mistresses and illegitimate children), and his Roman Catholic brother
James's position as heir apparent raised the prospect of a Catholic king.
Страницы: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19
|
|