Supporting Note No. 1. England17th century

Conceptual apparatus

Army of Cavaliers- royal army

Gentry- middle and petty nobility in England in the 16th – 17th centuries.

Diggers- true levelers or “diggers” demanded property equality, socialization of the land, and the abolition of exploitation.

Independent- (independent) sought complete freedom of faith and individual communication with the spiritual world

Consistory- a council of elders and preachers

Roundheads– supporters of parliament with hair cut into a circle

Levellers- equalizers, the ideological basis of their teaching is the doctrine of natural law, popular sovereignty, social contract.

Puritans- supporter of the cleansing of the church from rituals and sacraments from the power of bishops, from church courts

Presbyter- elder of the Puritan community

Royalists – supporters of the king

1. England on the eve of the revolution

In the first half of the 17th century, England was an agricultural country with a population of 4.5 million people, most of whom lived in villages. At this time, intensive changes were taking place in the country's agricultural life, and significant changes were also taking place in industry.

Industrial production was closely related to agriculture. A close alliance of the urban bourgeoisie and the new landowners, the gentry, was taking shape. The new nobles are at the same time landowners, rural owners, industrialists, and merchants. They enjoyed certain privileges, had a strong economic position and became the head of all forces opposed to the ruling regime of the Stuart dynasty.

Enterprising businessmen were hampered by feudal restrictions - bans on trade, guild regulations, dependence on the king. The English monarchy tried to rely on the aristocracy, the feudal nobility and the Anglican Church. Businessmen and new nobles were not satisfied with the Anglican Church. They became Puritans. The Puritans declared the personal faith of each person to be the basis of religion and denied the monopoly of the clergy.

The Puritan Church was called Presbyterian.

1. Bourgeois revolution in England

In the late 30s - early 40s of the 17th century. A revolutionary situation arose in England. Illegal taxes and other obstacles contributed to the delay in the development of trade and industry and the deterioration of the situation of the people. The mediation of monopolistic merchants interfered with the sale of cloth and led to its rise in price. A large number of apprentices and workers were fired and lost their income. The aggravation of the needs and misfortunes of the working people was combined with the critical situation of the ruling elite.

Causes of the English bourgeois revolution

1. Contradictions between the emerging capitalist and old feudal structures.

2. Dissatisfaction with the policy of the Stuarts, worsening relations and an open break between Parliament and the king during the reign of Charles I.

3. Contradictions between the Anglican Church and the ideology of Puritanism.

The main driving forces of the revolution: the urban lower classes and the peasantry, led by the bourgeoisie and the new bourgeois nobility - the gentry.

Occasion- dissolution of the “Short Parliament” by King Charles I Stuart (April 13-May 5, 1640), which he convened after an 11-year break in order to obtain subsidies for waging war against Scotland.

Constitutional stage of the revolution (1640 – 1642)

November 1640 – convening of a new parliament, called the “Long Parliament” (1640-1653)

Parliament passed a number of laws to limit royal power and democratize public life. The discussion of the “Great Remonstrance” - a declaration containing an accusation of absolutism and a program of action: the completion of the reformation, freedom of trade and entrepreneurship, the establishment of a bourgeois constitutional monarchy - split the parliament into two parties:

Presbyterian (moderate)- defended the interests of large landowners from the new nobility, bankers and merchants; were not interested in deepening the revolution.

Independents (radicals)) - defended the interests of the middle layer of the new nobility, the middle and petty bourgeoisie; interested in more radical reforms.

3.Civil War

All of England was divided into supporters of parliament and defenders of the feudal-absolutist system. On the side of parliament were city artisans and merchants, free peasants, and gentry. The king was supported by the nobility, the feudal nobility of the North, the moneylenders of the court, and the Anglican clergy. The royal army was called army of cavaliers, supporters of parliament - round-headed, by hair cut into a circle. During the war, the activity of the masses awakened. But Parliament did not have trained cavalry like the King. The Parliamentary Army and its command needed reorganization. A nobleman from Huntington becomes the leader of the Independents. Oliver Cromwell.

First Civil War

Presbyterian dominance in Parliament (1642-1646)

August 1642- Charles I declared war on Parliament (the northern counties supported the king)

Parliament organized a Defense Committee and adopted a resolution to recruit an army of 10,000 under the command of the Earl of Essex.

The military failures of the parliamentary army (defeat at Edgehill on October 23, 1642, etc.) required its reorganization.

1. The militias created on a local basis were disbanded.

2. New formations were recruited from soldiers who previously belonged to different counties. It included 6 thousand cavalry, a thousand dragoons and 14.5 thousand infantry.

3. A unified command was created

4. Strict discipline and responsibility were introduced.

The model for the “new model” army was the detachment under the command of Oliver Cromwell.

Cromwell's army began to win victories over the royalists - supporters of the monarchy. June 14, 1645. the royalists were defeated at Naseby. Charles I fled north and surrendered to the Scots.

Victory over the royal army was secured Act of Parliament dated February 24, 1646. This Act provided for the abolition of the system of royal guardianship over the landed property of subjects and the abolition of feudal dependence on the king. The bourgeoisie and the new nobility received the right to own property. By transforming feudal property into bourgeois property, parliamentary leaders deprived the English peasantry of their land rights. Therefore, the masses fought for the further development of the revolution. The army becomes the core of the left revolutionary forces, where in 1946-1947. a political party of levellers is emerging. Late 1646 - The first civil war ended in victory for Parliament.

In 1647, the English Revolution entered a new stage - the bourgeois-democratic one. The revolutionary initiative passes to the people. The masses, including soldiers and officers, did not allow parliament to collude with the king and achieved the execution of the king January 30, 1649. England is declared a republic. After the proclamation of the republic, the situation of the people as a result of wars and crisis sharply worsened. In the spring of 1649, a new movement of “true Levellers” or diggers (“diggers”) arose.

The troops of the bourgeois republic dispersed the diggers. The Diggers' crops were destroyed and they themselves were thrown into prison. The defeat of the democratic forces of the revolution narrowed the class base of the republic, alienated the masses from it and led to its destruction. The English Republic was faced with the task of strengthening the power of the independent gentry and bourgeoisie. It was supposed to eliminate pockets of the royalist threat in Ireland and Scotland.

Military dictatorship - Oliver Cromwell's protectorate

1649-1652 - conquest of Ireland by the English army.

1652 - conquest of Scotland.

1652-1654 - Anglo-Dutch war

1653 – the Constitution “Instrument of Governance” was adopted

1653-1658 - Cromwell's protectorate, proclaimed head of state with the title of Lord Protector.

1657 – the title of Lord Protector is declared hereditary

1658 – death of Oliver Cromwell

Restoration of the monarchy. Coup of 1688

1660 – Restoration (restoration) of the Stuart dynasty.

1688 – Parliament handed over the English crown to the “obedient” Prince William of Orange.

1689 – Parliament passed a bill of rights, which established a regime of limited (constitutional) monarchy and the dominance of Parliament.

1. The king was deprived of power over the army and the court and was subject to the laws.
2. Finances passed into the possession of Parliament
3. Freedom of speech and the right to petition.

Freedom of religion for persons and sects.

The instability of the political regime, the growth of popular unrest and demands for democratic reforms led the bourgeois-democratic alliance to the idea of ​​​​the need to restore legitimate monarchical power.

4. The meaning of the English Revolution

The revolution in England was decisive

Absolutism destroyed

Capitalist relations have developed

Civil society began to emerge

The foundations of modern industrial civilization were laid

Test

1. Gentry is...

B) Land plot.

C) Peasantry.

D) Shop owners.

E) Small and middle nobility.

2. The Roundheads are an army of supporters:

A) King.

In the church.

C) Poor people.

D) Citizens.

E) Parliament.

3. William of Orange was proclaimed King of England:

4. In England, supporters of the cleansing of the church from rituals and sacraments, from church courts, were called:

A) Lutherans

B) Calvinists.

C) Catholics

D) Puritans.

E) Christians.

5. Leader of the Independents...

B) General Monk.

D) O. Cromwell.

E) Lord Fairfax

6. The Puritan Church in England was called:

A) Catholic.

B) Lutheran.

C) Presbyterian.

D) Calvinist

E) Christian.

7. The Battle of Naseby took place in:

A) 1635

B) 1625

C) 1655

D) 1645

E) 1615

8. People who sought complete freedom of faith and individual communication with the spiritual world were called:

A) Gentry.

B) Independents.

C) Levellers.

D) Puritans.

E) Calvinists.

9. Levellers are:

A) Supporters of the king.

B) Political party.

C) Military unit.

D) Townspeople.

E) Church servants.

10. The Parliament, which lasted only two weeks, was named in the history of England:

A) Short.

B) Long.

C) Puritan.

D) Average.

After the defeat of the Invincible Armada, England became a strong naval power. At the beginning of the 17th century, England was actively involved in the colonization of America and Asia. At the turn of the XVI-XVII centuries. In England, cloth making, metallurgy and shipbuilding actively developed. It became one of the largest wool exporters. In the first decade of the 17th century, 80% of all European coal was mined here. At the same time, England remained an agricultural country: only a quarter of the population lived in cities. In the XVI-XVII centuries. In the process of development of capitalist relations, social stratification of the peasantry and nobility occurs. Social stratification led to the emergence of paupers, which in turn led to the emergence of legislation against vagrants and beggars. After the Reformation, begun by King Henry VIII in the first half of the 16th century, the number of followers of Calvinism, Puritans, constantly grew in the country. They called for hard work, modesty, extreme frugality and advocated the independence of religious communities.

England on the eve of the revolution: socio-economic development

Background

In the 16th century In England, bourgeois relations developed rapidly. Industry and trade actively developed. By the end of the 16th century. England became the strongest naval power. This gave the British an advantage on maritime trade routes. In the 17th century The British were actively involved in the colonization of North America.

End of the 17th century- There are already 13 English colonies in America. The British colonized most of the Atlantic coast of America.

Most of the population is engaged in agriculture (England was an agricultural country). Contributions in kind are gradually being replaced by monetary ones. Some peasants were ruined as a result of enclosures. But the richest peasants became land owners.

Cloth making, shipbuilding and metallurgy are actively developing in England.

The number of Puritans is growing. Puritanism is especially active in the bourgeois environment. Puritans are persecuted. Many of them are fleeing persecution in the American colonies.

The Scottish Stuart dynasty, which replaced the Tudors after the death of childless Elizabeth, clashes with Parliament, insisting on the divine right of kings.

1629- King Charles dissolves parliament.

Participants

The Puritans advocated reformation (“purification”) of the Church of England in accordance with the requirements of Calvinism. They were opponents of icons and statues in churches, as well as pompous church rituals. They believed that churches should submit not to the king, but to electoral colleges. The Puritans were distinguished by formal dress, they valued hard work and frugality. At the beginning of the 17th century, English Puritans were divided into two groups - Presbyterians and Independents.

Parallels

Contradictions between absolutism and the third estate led to the 18th century. to the revolution in France. If English events had relatively little impact on continental Europe, then the French Revolution led to a shock to the absolutist-aristocratic system on almost the entire continent.

Abstract

The inglorious death of the "Invincible Armada" undermined the naval power of Spain. Domination of the seas gradually passed to England. England, earlier than other European countries, embarked on the capitalist path of development. Earlier than in other countries, in England the prerequisites for revolution developed - a radical revolution in the life of society, which you will learn about in today's lesson.

Rice. 1. London. Engraving from the second half of the 17th century. ()

Although in the 17th century. England remained predominantly an agricultural country; the development of capitalism found its manifestation in agriculture, industry and trade. Indicators of the development of capitalism in agriculture were the strengthening of the new nobility, which transferred its economy to capitalist lines and actively participated in trade and monetary relations. Most of the nobility began to engage in entrepreneurial activities, creating sheep farms and turning into a new bourgeois nobility - gentry. In an effort to increase income, feudal lords turned arable land into profitable pastures for livestock. They drove out their holders - peasants (fenced them out) and thereby created an army paupers- people who had no choice but to become civilian workers.

In addition, an indicator of development in agriculture was the social stratification of the peasantry, as categories of rich yeoman peasants emerged; freeholders (land owners); copyholders (tenants) and cotters (landless peasants). In industry, evidence of the development of capitalism was considered to be the rapid development of manufacturing production and the disintegration of the medieval guild system. In the first three decades of the 17th century. there was a rise in all branches of English industry, especially cloth and mining.

In England, domestic and foreign trade developed rapidly. Its special island position helped transform its entire territory into a single market. Foreign trade was monopolized by a number of companies: Moscow, East India, African, etc.

A large share of capital received in trade was invested in the further expansion of production. At the turn of the XVI-XVII centuries. in England, as before, such sectors of the economy as cloth making and metallurgy, as well as shipbuilding, were actively developing.

One of the most important features of the social structure of England on the eve of the revolution was the established alliance of the bourgeoisie and the new bourgeois nobility. The development of the capitalist system in England led to the aggravation of class contradictions and the division of the country into supporters and opponents of the feudal-absolutist system. All bourgeois elements opposed absolutism: the new nobility (gentry), who sought to become full owners of the land, abolishing knighthood and accelerating the process of enclosure; the bourgeoisie itself (merchants, financiers, merchant-industrialists, etc.), who wanted to limit royal power and force it to serve the interests of the capitalist development of the country. But the opposition drew its main strength from dissatisfaction with its position among broad sections of the population and, above all, the rural and urban poor. The defenders of feudal foundations remained a significant part of the nobles (the old nobility) and the highest aristocracy, who received their income from the collection of old feudal rents, and the guarantor of their preservation was the royal power and the Anglican Church.

Played an important role in the life of English society puritan morality. The Puritans advocated the “cleansing” of the Anglican Church from pompous rituals and fought against idolatry (the worship of icons and statues). They fought for the transfer of church power to elected boards. They called on fellow believers to be hardworking and thrifty. Archbishop Laud, a close associate of Charles I, mercilessly persecuted the Puritans, using the highest courts for political and religious matters - the Star Chamber and the High Commission.

The impetus for the confrontation between the old government and new forces in society, which ultimately resulted in a revolution, was the fact that on the English throne at the beginning of the 17th century. The Stuart dynasty, who arrived in England from Scotland, established itself. James Stuart was the nephew of Elizabeth I Tudor, and she, having no children of her own, appointed him as heir. King James I, and then his son, Charles I (1625-1649), sought unlimited power, and English society no longer needed it. The peculiarity of English absolutism was that throughout the entire period of its existence, the parliament, which arose in the middle of the 13th century, continued to be convened periodically. and had the right to approve the introduction of new taxes. As long as society needed strong power, parliaments were obedient and accommodating. But by the beginning of the 17th century. the situation has changed: society no longer needs unlimited power. At the same time, the holders of the crown did not want to give up their powers; moreover, they sought to acquire new ones. Therefore, conflict was inevitable. It has been growing for 40 years. The expression of public discontent was the parliament, or more precisely, the parliamentary opposition, represented by people from among the “new nobility.”

Rice. 2. Charles I ()

After an unsuccessful war with Scotland, Charles I had to turn to Parliament to obtain funds for military operations. On November 3, 1640, a parliament met in London, which in history received the name of the Long Parliament (its activities lasted more than 13 years). Among the members of parliament there were many opponents of absolutism; they formed an opposition to King Charles.

The king's supporters received the nickname royalists (from royal - "royal") or "cavaliers", and his opponents - "roundheads", because the former were distinguished by a predilection for elegant silk suits and long hairstyles with curls in the court fashion, and the latter used to cut their hair " under the circle,” which corresponded to the Puritan desire for severe simplicity.

The “Roundheads” countered Charles I’s demand for money to wage war with the Scots with the demand for regular convening of Parliament and mandatory approval of taxes by Parliament. A very important requirement was that no one should be arrested without a charge signed by a judge. This was one of the first conditions guaranteeing human rights.

Rice. 3. Long Parliament ()

The dispute between the king and parliament occurred just at the moment when the uprising of Catholic Irish against the Protestant conquerors, immigrants from England and Scotland, began in Ireland. Charles I insisted on providing him with an army to suppress the Irish rebellion, but was refused by Parliament. The angry king left the capital at the beginning of 1642 and went to the north of the country to gather troops. In response, parliament began to create its own army. The country actually split into two hostile camps, one of which supported the king, and the other supported parliament. At the same time, the more developed south-eastern regions supported the parliament, and the backward north-west, where medieval traditions were strong, supported the king. Parliament could count on support from the Scots. The king expected that the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) would end on the continent and that he would receive assistance from other monarchs.

Bibliography

1. Bulychev K. Secrets of the New Time. - M., 2005

2. Vedyushkin V. A., Burin S. N. General history. History of modern times. 7th grade. - M., 2010

3. Koenigsberger G. Early Modern Europe. 1500-1789 - M., 2006

4. Soloviev S. Course of New History. - M., 2003

2. Mega-encyclopedia of Cyril and Methodius ()

Homework

1. What were the main features of the socio-economic development of England at the beginning of the 17th century?

2. Why did Puritanism form the basis of the ideology of the English bourgeoisie?

3. Why did the confrontation between the king and parliament begin?

4. What demands were made by the Long Parliament?

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England on the eve of the revolution in the mid-17th century

Until the end of the 15th century. England was in the position of an “agrarian appendage” and an economically backward outskirts of Europe. By the middle of the 17th century, while continuing to remain an agricultural country (% of the 5 million people of its population lived in the countryside and were engaged in the production of food and wool), the country made serious progress in development of industry and trade. Over a hundred years from 1540 to 1640, coal production increased from 200 thousand tons to 1.5 million tons (this accounted for 80% of European production), iron ore - 3 times, lead, tin, copper, salt - 6 times -8 times. Overseas trade, which was carried out by famous campaigns - Moscow (founded in 1554), African (1654), Baltic (1579), Levantine (1581), Guinean (1588), East Indian (1600), etc., for 1600- 1640 increased by 2 times. England became the main supplier to the European market not of wool, but of finished cloth. English merchants exported their goods on ships built in England itself. The creation of a merchant and military fleet, which defeated the “Invincible Armada” of Philip II in 1588, prepared the basis for the development of widespread colonial expansion. The disintegration of medieval feudal relations and the emergence of new capitalist ones occurred in England more intensively than in other European countries.

Shifts in the economic evolution of England in the 16th century. were largely determined by the following processes:

Movement after the discovery of trade routes to the Atlantic Ocean in 1492 by X. Columbus of America;

The flourishing of woolen manufactory in the Netherlands, which created a huge demand for wool. This demand stimulated the development of sheep farming in England and gave impetus to the agricultural revolution;

The mass emigration of people persecuted in the countries of continental Europe for religious reasons, including those who had capital and possessed advanced technological experience, contributed to the creation in England itself of manufactories for the production of fine woolen fabrics, which subsequently conquered the European market;

The development of cities, primarily London with its 200 thousand population, increased the demand for food and raw materials for new industries and thereby stimulated the development of commodity-money relations, drawing almost the entire population into them. There were 800 cities and towns in the country that had markets. A division of labor and specialization of various regions arose;

The influx of cheap gold and silver from America led to the so-called “price revolution”, which resulted in the depreciation of wages and land rent while industrial profits increased. The outbreak of inflation made it profitable to invest money in real estate, in the acquisition of land, the demand for which was constantly increasing;

Reformation movement of the 30-40s of the 15th century. pushed onto the market up to 1/4 of all arable land in the country that was in the possession of the Catholic Church (secularization). As a result of sales and resales (speculation), part of this land, in addition to the courtiers, the “new nobles”, and the urban bourgeoisie, was also taken over by the village rich, who formed the social environment for the formation of capitalist farming;

The unfolding of the agrarian revolution, the basis of which was the forced expropriation of the agricultural population, which in the 16th century. affected only part of the peasantry, and ended in the 18th century.

Social structure of English society at the beginning of the 17th century. The noted processes determined the prerequisites for the formation and appearance of social forces, the clash of which resulted in the middle of the 17th century. into the bourgeois revolution.

The peasantry consisted of the following groups:

Yeomen are the most prosperous part, having an annual income of 300 to 500 pounds. Art., close in position to small squires and gentlemen; a contemporary calls their number 10 thousand people;

Freeholders: 80 thousand people; their lands accounted for about 20% of holdings, close in form to private property;

Copyholders: for their holdings (accounting for 60% of all holdings) they paid the lord a fixed cash rent, paid tithes, sometimes bore corvee duties, etc.;

Leaseholders - small holders-tenants (about 7% of holdings);

Kotters (hut owners) are landless farm laborers and day labourers.

Ruined and driven from the land, the peasants turned into pauper beggars - and constituted that layer of society, due to which the class of hired workers began to take shape.

The analysis shows that part of the peasantry was already suffering from capitalist exploitation (after all, as Thomas More wrote, “sheep, usually so gentle... have become so voracious and indomitable that they even eat people, ruin and devastate fields..."), according to in general, the peasantry was primarily interested in the destruction of feudal institutions and relations. It was the liberation of the copyhold from the shackles of feudal dependence that was the main condition for the preservation of the peasantry.

The nobility - the politically dominant class - was heterogeneous. Compiling by the middle of the 17th century. about 2% of the population and owning 50% of the cultivated land (in addition, another 15% of this area was owned by the peers of England), according to the method of farming, it was divided into the new nobility and the feudal nobility. The first differed not only sometimes in its origin (many of the new nobles were money people of the cities - merchants, moneylenders who bought land), but also in the nature of their economy, which was adapted to the needs of the capitalist structure: by exploiting day laborers, it received capitalist profit. An important part of the new nobility were the gentry - small and middle nobles. The new nobility was strongly dissatisfied with the fact that, as vassals of the king, they had to bear feudal payments in his favor, as well as attempts by the royal authorities to prohibit the expulsion of peasants from the land in order to prevent the growth of vagrancy and crime (laws of 1534, 1593, etc.). england trade colonial capitalist

The feudal nobility retained medieval agrarian orders on their estates, its income decreased with a decrease in feudal rents and depended to a greater extent on the position and positions at the royal court, which, in turn, found its support in the feudal nobility. It is no coincidence that pension payments from the time of Queen Elizabeth by 1640 increased from 18 thousand pounds. up to 120 thousand f. Art. Contemporaries called these nobles “drones.”

The bourgeoisie was also heterogeneous in its composition. Its richest stratum consisted of moneylenders and bankers in the City of London. With enormous profit, they bought the right to collect taxes and bought monopolies from the state - the exclusive right to import or export various goods. The interests of this layer were closely connected with the royal court and the feudal aristocracy.

The main part of the English bourgeoisie are the owners of factories, workshops, medium and small traders. The obstacle to their success in the cities, besides the inability to compete with monopolists, was the preservation of the guild system, which preserved small-scale production.

City apprentices, trade apprentices, day laborers, together with cottagers, made up the plebs of pre-revolutionary England. Formed from peasants driven off the land during the enclosure process, it, through special legislation that went down in history as bloody and terrorist, was accustomed to the discipline of wage capitalist labor.

In general, both in the countryside and in the city, the development of new relations was hampered by the feudal system of land ownership and the medieval structure of industrial production.

The kings from the Stuart dynasty (James I - 1603-1625 and Charles I from 1625) who ruled in England from 1603 pursued policies in the interests of the landowning class. Under them, the relationship between the authorities and the bourgeoisie, which began to hate the policy of regulation of production, the system of monopolies and patents, abuse of power, violation of laws, etc., changed significantly. As a result, a bourgeois-noble opposition arises in the English Parliament.

Ideological preconditions of the revolution. The Stuarts sought to establish a system of absolutist government. Forces whose interests were rooted in feudal relations rallied around the king. They found ideological support in the English church, which, after reformation, was able to preserve many of the organizational forms and rituals of Catholicism. Understanding the dependence of royal power and the church, James I declared: “No bishop, no king.”

Forces hostile to absolutism demanded the completion of the reformation. A movement arose for a radical restructuring (purification) of the Anglican Church - Puritanism (puritas - “pure”). His supporters demanded the replacement of appointed clergy with elected elders - presbyters, simplification of rituals, completion of the secularization of church lands. By the beginning of the 17th century. 2 currents of Puritanism were formed - Presbyterians, who advocated the abolition of the episcopate, but while maintaining unity in the new church, and Independents, who defended the independence and self-government of religious communities.

New political theories also emerged, reflecting the interests and aspirations of various social forces. The ideologists of feudalism, including King James 1, developed the theory of the “divinity” of royal power. Absolute monarchy was considered the best form of political structure by the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who based his argumentation on the theory of natural law. People, Hobbes taught, in order to get rid of the state of “war of all against all,” must renounce all their natural rights in favor of the state, the sovereign.

In the 16th century - the first half of the 17th century, the ideologists of Puritanism (J. Popet, John Milton, G. Parker, etc.) developed the idea of ​​a social contract between the king and the “people”. They came to the conclusion that if the sovereign abuses power, then the people are also free from compliance with the treaty and have the right to resist.

The ideas of popular sovereignty, natural human rights, and political equality were especially energetically defended by the Levellers, i.e. levelers (from English Levellers). The leader of this movement was John Lilburne (1618-1657), who argued: “The highest power is in the people.” For distributing Puritan literature, Lilburne was imprisoned at the age of 20, kept in solitary confinement, chained, and was released only in May 1641.

English absolutism under the Stuarts. The formation of a revolutionary situation. Deep dissatisfaction with the existing order permeated all of English society. Peasant uprisings, labor "unrest", resistance to taxation, the activities of religious sects - all showed signs of a growing revolutionary situation. The reign of James I was the "prologue" of the revolution;

Sharp conflicts have already arisen between kings and parliament. Under Charles I in 1628, the parliamentary opposition achieved the adoption of an important constitutional act - the Petition of Right, according to which no one could be arrested without a specific charge and could not be deprived of property without a court order. The king, having approved the petition, did not comply with it, and in 1629 he dissolved parliament and did not convene it for 11 years (1629-1640).

During these years of unparliamentary rule, a regime of feudal-absolutist reaction reigned in England. His inspirations were the king's "advisers" Earl of Strafford and Archbishop Laud. The country began operating the “Star Chamber” and the “High Commission” - the highest courts for political and religious matters. Religious persecution increased the emigration of Puritans to North America. But despite reprisals, including against the leaders of the parliamentary opposition J. Eliot, E. Coke and others, it was not possible to suppress the growth of discontent and indignation within the country. The struggle of the peasantry against the enclosures became a constant factor in social life.

In 1637, the trial of Squire John Hampden took place, who refused to pay the ship tax introduced in 1635 without the consent of Parliament. The Hampden Affair became a signal for an open struggle against absolutism. In 1639-1640 the entire bourgeoisie followed Hampden's example.

Meanwhile, Laud's church policy in Scotland and attempts to spread English church orders there led in 1638 to the Anglo-Scottish War. In order to obtain subsidies for the conduct of this war, the king was forced to assemble a parliament in April 1640, which turned out to be intractable and was dissolved in May (short parliament). But the situation became increasingly hopeless: Charles I and his advisers convened a new session of parliament in November 1640, which later became known as the Long Parliament (November 3, 1640-653). A revolution began in the country.

Periodization of the revolution. The English bourgeois revolution is divided into the following periods:

2. First Civil War (1642 - 1646);

3. The struggle to deepen the democratic content of the revolution (1646 - 1649);

4. Independent Republic (1649 - 1653);

5. Protectorate of O. Cromwell (1653 - 1658).

The initial, constitutional period of the revolution. Relying on the support of the popular masses, the Long Parliament carries out important measures: the “Star Chamber” and the “High Commission” are destroyed, the collection of ship taxes is prohibited, all monopoly patents and privileges are abolished, the bill “On the indissolution” of the existing parliament without its consent is adopted, it is attracted and condemned the king's favorite "black tyrant" Strafford was put to death (May 1641; Laud, executed in 1645, shared his fate), victims of absolutist tyranny were released from prison. But the parliament, consisting of 9/10 landowners, alarmed by the armed struggle of the peasants in the east against the fences, declares the inviolability of the fences erected before its convocation.

The process of deepening the revolution led to disagreements among parliamentarians, which was especially revealed during the discussion of the program document - the “Great Remonstration”. The document, which revealed the king’s abuses, the reasons for the unfolding movement, and set out the program of reforms, was approved by a majority of only 1 vote. But this was an open challenge to royal power. In response, Charles I (he refused to accept the remonstration) in January 1642 tried to carry out a counter-revolutionary coup by arresting the leaders of the opposition. Thousands of people moved to London to support parliament. The king, having lost power over the capital, hastily left for the North under the protection of feudal lords. The “constitutional period” is over.

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English revolution of the 17th century. was a thunderclap that heralded the birth of a new social order that replaced the old order. It was the first bourgeois revolution of pan-European significance. The principles she proclaimed for the first time expressed not only the needs of England, but also the needs of the entire Europe of that time, the historical development of which led objectively to the establishment of bourgeois orders.

The victory of the English Revolution meant “... the victory of bourgeois property over feudal property, the nation over provincialism, competition over the guild system, the fragmentation of property over the primordial order, the domination of the land owner over the subordination of the land owner, enlightenment over superstition... enterprise over heroic laziness, bourgeois law over medieval privileges" (K. Marx, Bourgeoisie and Counter-Revolution, K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, vol. ; 6, p. 115.).

The rich ideological heritage of the English Revolution served as an arsenal from which all opponents of the obsolete Middle Ages and absolutism drew their ideological weapons.

But the English Revolution was a bourgeois revolution, which, unlike the socialist revolution, only leads to the replacement of one method of exploitation of the working people by another, to the replacement of the rule of one exploiting minority by another. It revealed for the first time with complete clarity the basic laws inherent in all bourgeois revolutions, and the first of them is the narrowness of the historical tasks of the bourgeoisie, the limitations of its revolutionary capabilities.
The most important driving force of the English Revolution, like all other revolutions, was the working masses. It was only thanks to their decisive action that the English Revolution was able to triumph over the old system. However, in the end, the masses were bypassed and deceived, and the fruits of their victory went mainly to the bourgeoisie.

Along with these features common to all bourgeois revolutions, the English Revolution of the 17th century. It also had specific features inherent only to it, mainly a peculiar alignment of class forces, which in turn determined its final socio-economic and political results.

1. Economic prerequisites of the English Revolution

Productive forces are the most mobile and revolutionary element of production. The emergence of new productive forces occurs spontaneously in the depths of the old system, regardless of the will of the people.

However, the new productive forces that have arisen in this way develop in the bosom of the old society relatively peacefully and without shocks only until they more or less mature. After this, peaceful development gives way to a violent revolution, evolution to revolution.

Development of industry and trade

From the 16th century England experienced rapid growth in various industries. New technical inventions and improvements, and most importantly, new forms of organization of industrial labor, designed for mass production of goods, indicated that English industry was gradually being rebuilt along a capitalist path.
The use of air pumps to pump water out of mines contributed to the development of the mining industry. Over the century (1551-1651), coal production in the country increased 14 times, reaching 3 million tons per year. By the middle of the 17th century. England produced 4/5 of all the coal mined in Europe at that time. Coal was used not only to satisfy domestic needs (heating houses, etc.), but was already beginning to be used in some places for industrial purposes. Over approximately the same 100 years, the production of iron ore has tripled, and the production of lead, copper, tin, and salt - by 6-8 times.

The improvement of blowing bellows (in many places they were driven by water power) gave impetus to the further development of iron smelting. Already at the beginning of the 17th century. In England, 800 furnaces smelted iron, producing an average of 3-4 tons of metal per week. There were many of them in Kent, Sessex, Surry, Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire and many other counties. Significant advances were made in shipbuilding and in the production of pottery and metal products.

Of the old industries, cloth making was the most important. Wool processing at the beginning of the 17th century. spread widely throughout England. The Venetian ambassador reported: “Cloth making is done here throughout the kingdom, in small towns and in tiny villages and hamlets.” The main centers of cloth making were: in the East - the county of Norfolk with the city of Norwich, in the West - Somersetshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, in the North - Leeds and other Yorkshire “clothing cities”. In these centers, specialization in the production of certain types of cloth has already occurred. The western counties specialized in the production of thin undyed cloth, the eastern counties produced mainly thin worsted cloth, the northern - coarse wool varieties, etc. The nomenclature of only the main types of woolen products included in the first half of the 17th century. about two dozen titles.

Already in the middle of the 16th century. The export of cloth accounted for 80% of all English exports. In 1614, the export of unprocessed wool was finally prohibited. Thus, England from a country that exported wool, as it was in the Middle Ages, turned into a country that supplied finished woolen products to the foreign market.

Simultaneously with the development of old industries in pre-revolutionary England, many manufactories were founded in new branches of production - cotton, silk, glass, stationery, soap, etc.

Great successes during the 17th century. Trade also did. Already in the 16th century. A national market is emerging in England. The importance of foreign merchants, who previously held almost all of the country's foreign trade in their hands, is declining. In 1598 the Hanseatic Steel Yard in London was closed. English merchants penetrate foreign markets, pushing aside their competitors. On the northwestern coast of Europe, an old company of “Adventurers merchants”, founded back in the 14th century, operated successfully. Then arose one after another Moscow (1555), Moroccan (1585), Eastern (on the Baltic Sea, 1579), Levant (1581), African (1588), East Indian (1600) and other trading companies spread their influence far beyond Europe - from the Baltic to the West Indies in the West and to China in the East. Competing with the Dutch, English merchants founded in the first third of the 17th century. trading posts in India - in Surat, Madras, Bengal. At the same time, English settlements appeared in America, on the island. Barbados, Virginia and Guiana. The huge profits brought by foreign trade attracted a significant share of available capital here. At the beginning of the 17th century. in the company of “merchant adventurers” there were over 3,500 members, in the East India Company in 1617 there were 9,514 shareholders with a capital of 1,629 thousand pounds. Art. By the time of the revolution, the turnover of English foreign trade had doubled compared to the beginning of the 17th century, and the amount of duties had more than tripled, reaching 623,964 pounds in 1639. Art.
The rapid growth of foreign trade, in turn, accelerated the process of capitalist reorganization of industry. “The old feudal or guild organization of industry could no longer satisfy the demand that was growing with the new markets.” Its place is gradually taken by capitalist manufacture.

In pre-revolutionary England there were already many different enterprises, in which hundreds of hired workers under one roof worked for the capitalist. An example of such centralized manufactories is the copper smelter of the city of Keswick, which employed a total of about 4 thousand workers. Relatively large manufacturing enterprises existed in the cloth, mining, shipbuilding, weapons and other industries.

However, the most widespread form of capitalist industry in England in the first half of the 17th century. there was not a centralized, but a dispersed manufacture. Encountering resistance to their entrepreneurial activities in ancient cities, where the guild system still dominated, rich clothiers flocked to the surrounding countryside, where the poorest peasantry supplied an abundance of hired domestic workers. There is, for example, evidence of a clothier in Hampshire who employed house-workers in 80 parishes. From another source it is known that in Suffolk 5 thousand artisans and workers worked for 80 clothiers.

A powerful impetus to the spread of manufacturing was given by the enclosures and seizure of peasant lands by landlords. Landless peasants in industrial counties most often became workers in dispersed manufacturing.
But even in cities where medieval guild corporations still existed, one could observe the process of subordinating labor to capital. This manifested itself in social stratification both within the workshop and between individual workshops. From among the members of craft corporations, rich people emerged, the so-called livery masters, who were not involved in production themselves, but took on the role of capitalist intermediaries between the workshop and the market, relegating ordinary members of the workshop to the position of domestic workers. There were such capitalist intermediaries, for example, in the London corporations of clothiers and tanners. On the other hand, individual workshops, usually engaged in final operations, subordinated a number of other workshops working in related branches of the craft, themselves turning from craft corporations into merchant guilds. At the same time, the gap between masters and apprentices is increasingly widening, who finally turn into “eternal apprentices.”

Small independent commodity producers continued to play a significant role in capitalist production. This diversity of forms of industrial production characterizes the transitional nature of the English economy in the first half of the 17th century.

Despite the successes of industry and trade, their development was hampered by the dominant feudal system. England and by the middle of the 17th century. remained essentially an agrarian country with a huge predominance of agriculture over industry, villages over cities. Even at the end of the 17th century. Of the country's 5.5 million population, 4.1 million lived in villages. The largest city, the most important industrial and commercial center, which stood out sharply from other cities in terms of population concentration, was London, in which about 200 thousand people lived on the eve of the revolution; other cities could not compare with it: the population of Bristol was only 29 thousand ., Norwich - 24 thousand, York - 10 thousand, Exeter - 10 thousand.

Despite the rapid pace of its economic development, England in the first half of the 17th century. Still, it was still significantly inferior in terms of industry, trade and shipping to Holland. Many branches of English industry (production of silk, cotton fabrics, lace, etc.) were still underdeveloped, while others (leatherworking, metalworking) continued to remain within the framework of medieval craft, the production of which was intended mainly for the local market. In the same way, transport within England was still of a medieval nature. In a number of places, especially in the North, goods could only be transported by pack animals due to poor roads. Transporting goods often cost more than their cost. The tonnage of the English merchant fleet was negligible, especially in comparison with the Dutch. As early as 1600, one third of English foreign trade was transported on foreign ships.

English village

The peculiarity of the socio-economic development of England at the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of modern times was that bourgeois development here was not limited to industry and trade. Agriculture XVI-XVII centuries. in this respect, it not only kept up with industry, but in many ways was even ahead of it. The breakdown of old feudal production relations in agriculture was the most striking manifestation of the revolutionary role of the capitalist mode of production. Long associated with the market, the English countryside was a breeding ground for both new capitalist industry and new capitalist agriculture. The latter, much earlier than industry, became a profitable object for investing capital; In the English countryside, primitive accumulation took place especially intensively.

The process of separating the worker from the means of production, which preceded capitalism, began in England earlier than in other countries, and it was here that it acquired its classical form.

In England in the 16th - early 17th centuries. profound changes were taking place in the very foundations of the economic life of the village. Productive forces in agriculture, as well as in industry, by the beginning of the 17th century. have grown noticeably. The drainage of swamps and reclamation, the introduction of the grass system, the fertilization of the soil with marl and sea silt, the sowing of root crops, the use of improved agricultural tools - plows, seeders, etc. - eloquently testified to this. The same is evidenced by the fact that agronomic literature was extremely widespread in pre-revolutionary England (during the first half of the 17th century, about 40 agronomic treatises were published in England, promoting new, rational methods of farming).

High incomes from agriculture attracted many wealthy people to the village who wanted to become owners of estates and farms. “...In England,” Marx wrote, “by the end of the 16th century, a class of rich for that time “capitalist farmers” had formed (K. Marx, Capital, vol. I, Gospolitizdat, 1955, p. 748.).

It was more economically profitable for the landlord to deal with a tenant deprived of any rights to the land than with traditional peasant holders who paid relatively low rents, which could not be increased before transferring the holding to the heir without violating the ancient custom.

The rent of short-term tenants (leaseholders), flexible and dependent on market conditions, in many estates turns into the main item of manorial income. Thus, in the three manors of Gloucestershire, all the land by the beginning of the 17th century. was already in the use of leaseholders; in 17 other manors of the same county, leaseholders paid almost half of all feudal taxes to landlords. The share of capitalist rent in the counties adjacent to London was even higher. The medieval form of peasant land ownership - copyhold - was increasingly replaced by leasehold. An increasing number of small and medium-sized nobles switched over to capitalist methods of farming in their manors. All this meant that small peasant farming was giving way to large, capitalist farming.
However, despite the widespread introduction of capitalist relations into agriculture, the main classes in the English pre-revolutionary village continued to be traditional peasant holders, on the one hand, and feudal landowners - landlords - on the other.

There was a fierce, sometimes open, sometimes hidden, but never-ending struggle for land between landlords and peasants. In an effort to take advantage of favorable conditions to increase the profitability of their estates, the lords already from the end of the 15th century. began a campaign against peasant holders and their communal, allotment farming system. Traditional holders were the main obstacle for manorial lords on the way to new forms of economic use of land. Driving the peasants off the land became the main goal of the enterprising English nobles.

This campaign against the peasants was carried out in two ways: 1) by fencing and seizing peasant lands and communal lands (forests, swamps, pastures), 2) by increasing land rent in every possible way.

By the time of the revolution, enclosures had been implemented in whole or in part in Kent, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Leicestershire, Worcestershire, Hertfordshire and a number of other central, eastern and south-eastern counties. Fencing took on a particular scale in East Anglia due to the draining of tens of thousands of acres of marshes there; Large sums of money were spent on drainage work carried out by a company specially organized for this purpose. In the West, in connection with the transformation of reserved royal forests into privately owned parks, fencing was accompanied by the destruction of communal easements of peasants (rights to use land). As government investigations have shown, 40% of the total area enclosed between 1557 and 1607 occurred in the last ten years of this period.

In the first half of the 17th century. fencing was in full swing. These decades were also a time of unprecedented growth in land rent. An acre of land, rented at the end of the 16th century. for less than 1 shilling, began to rent for 5-6 shillings. In Norfolk and Suffolk, rents for arable land increased from the end of the 16th to the mid-17th centuries. several times.

Differentiation of the peasantry

The interests of various groups of the peasantry were not united. Even in medieval England, the peasantry legally fell into two main categories: freeholders and copyholders. In the 17th century the land holdings of the freeholders were already approaching in nature the bourgeois property, while the copyholders were land holders under feudal customary law, which opened many loopholes for the arbitrariness and extortion of manorial lords.

Writer and publicist of the second half of the 16th century. Harrison considered the copyholders "the largest part (of the population) on which the well-being of all England rests." At the beginning of the 17th century. in Middle England approximately 60% of holders were copyholders. Even in East Anglia, which had a high percentage of the freeholder population, copyholders made up between one-third and one-half of the holders. As for the northern and western counties, copyholding was the predominant type of peasant holding.

The copyholders, who made up the bulk of the English peasants - the yeomanry, in the figurative expression of a contemporary, “trembled like a blade of grass in the wind” before the will of the lord. First of all, the ownership rights of copyholders were not sufficiently secured. Only a relatively small proportion of copyholders were hereditary holders. Most held the land for 21 years. It depended on the lord whether the son would receive his father's allotment or be expelled from the land after the expiration of the holding period. Further, although the rents of the copyholders were considered “unchangeable,” their size was in fact constantly increased by the lords with each new lease of the allotment. The most dangerous weapon in the hands of the lords were the allowance payments - fains, levied when the holding passed by inheritance or into other hands. Since their size, as a rule, depended on the will of the lord, then, wanting to survive a holder, the lord usually demanded an exorbitant payment from him for admission, and then the holder was actually driven out of his site. In many cases, fains from the middle of the 16th to the middle of the 17th century. increased tenfold. Forced to give up their holdings, copyholders became leaseholders, short-term tenants of plots of land “at the will of the lord,” or sharecroppers, cultivating someone else’s land for part of the harvest.

The lords also collected other monetary payments from the copyholders, in addition to rent. These were: posthumous tax (geriot), mill and market duties, payment for pasture, for the use of forests. In a number of places, corvée duties and taxes in kind have been preserved in some quantities. Copyholders were limited in the right to dispose of their allotment. They could not sell it, nor mortgage it, nor rent it out without the knowledge of the lord; they could not even cut down a tree on their estate without his consent, and in order to obtain this consent, they again had to pay. Finally, copyholders for minor offenses were subject to the jurisdiction of the manorial court. Thus, copyholding was the most limited and powerless form of peasant holding.

In terms of property, there was significant inequality among copyholders. Next to a layer of more or less “strong”, wealthy copyholders, the bulk of copyholders were middle and poor peasants who had difficulty making ends meet on their farm.

The differentiation among freeholders was even sharper. If the large freeholders were in many ways close to the rural gentlemen-nobles, then the small freeholders, on the contrary, were in solidarity with the copyholders and fought for the preservation of the peasant allotment system, for the use of communal lands, and for the destruction of the lords’ rights to peasant land.

In addition to freeholders and copyholders, in the English countryside there were many landless people, cottagers, exploited as farm laborers and day laborers, and manufacturing workers. At the end of the 17th century. Kotters, according to contemporaries’ calculations, numbered 400 thousand people. This mass of rural residents experienced double oppression - feudal and capitalist. Their life, as one contemporary put it, was “a continuous alternation of struggle and torment.” It was among them that the most extreme slogans put forward during the uprisings were popular: “How good it would be to kill all the gentlemen and generally destroy all rich people...” or “Our affairs will not improve until all the gentlemen are killed.” .

All these dispossessed people - partly simply beggars, paupers, homeless vagabonds, victims of enclosures and evictions (Eviction, English, eviction - eviction - a term meaning the expulsion of a peasant from the land with the destruction of his yard.) - crushed by poverty and darkness, were not capable of any independent movement. Nevertheless, his role was very significant in the largest peasant uprisings of the 16th - early 17th centuries.

2. The alignment of class forces in England before the revolution

From these features of the economic development of pre-revolutionary England flowed the uniqueness of the social structure of English society, which determined the alignment of the contending forces in the revolution.

English society, like contemporary French society, was divided into three classes: the clergy, the nobility and the third class - the “common people”, which included the rest of the country’s population. But unlike France, these estates in England were not closed and isolated: the transition from one estate to another occurred more easily here. The circle of aristocratic nobility in England was very narrow. The younger sons of a peer (i.e., a titled lord), who received only the title of knight, not only formally became part of the lower nobility (gentry), but also in their lifestyle often became noble entrepreneurs close to the bourgeoisie. On the other hand, the urban bourgeoisie, acquiring noble titles and coats of arms, remained bearers of the new, capitalist mode of production.

As a result, the English nobility, united as a class, found itself split into two essentially different social strata, which found themselves in different camps during the revolution.

New nobility

A significant part of the nobility, mainly small and middle, by the time of the revolution had already closely linked their fate with the capitalist development of the country. While remaining a landowning class, this nobility was essentially a new nobility, for it often used its land property not so much to obtain feudal rent as to extract capitalist profit. Having ceased to be knights of the sword, the nobles became knights of profit. Gentlemen (in the 17th century, gentlemen were predominantly representatives of the new nobility - gentry; richer gentlemen were called squires; some of them received the title of knight from the king.) turned into clever businessmen, not inferior to businessmen from among the urban merchants. To achieve wealth, all activities were good. The “noble” title did not prevent an enterprising gentleman from trading wool or cheese, brewing beer or smelting metals, mining saltpeter or coal - no business in these circles was considered shameful, as long as it provided high profits. On the other hand, rich merchants and financiers, acquiring lands, thereby joined the ranks of the gentry.

Already in 1600, the income of the English gentry significantly exceeded the income of peers, bishops and wealthy yeomen combined. It was the gentry who were most active in the market as buyers of crown lands and possessions of the impoverished nobility. Thus, out of the total amount of land sold in 1625-1634, in the amount of 234,437 f. Art., knights and gentlemen bought up more than half. If the landownership of the crown from 1561 to 1640 decreased by 75%, and the landownership of the peers by more than half, then the gentry, on the contrary, increased its landownership by almost 20%.

Thus, the economic prosperity of the new nobility was a direct consequence of its involvement in the capitalist development of the country. Forming part of the noble class as a whole, it socially stood out as a special class, connected by vital interests with the bourgeoisie.

The new nobility sought to transform its ever-increasing land holdings into property of the bourgeois type, free from feudal shackles, but the absolutist regime countered the aspirations of the new nobility with a comprehensive and increasingly restrictive system of feudal control over its land ownership. The Chamber of Guardianships and Alienations, established under Henry VIII, turned under the first Stuarts into an instrument of fiscal oppression. The knighthood, by which the nobles owned land, became the basis of the feudal claims of the crown, one of the sources of its tax revenues.

Thus, on the eve of the revolution, the peasant agrarian program, which consisted in the desire to destroy all rights of landlords to peasant plots - to turn copyhold into freehold, was opposed by the agrarian program of the new nobility, which sought to destroy the feudal rights of the crown to their lands. At the same time, the gentry sought to eliminate peasant traditional rights to land (hereditary copyhold).

The presence of these agrarian programs - bourgeois-noble and peasant-plebeian - was one of the most important features of the English Revolution of the 17th century.

Old nobility

Something directly opposite in its social character and aspirations was represented by another part of the nobility - mainly the nobility and nobles of the northern and western counties. In terms of their source of income and way of life, they remained feudal lords. They received traditional feudal rent from their lands. Their land tenure almost completely retained its medieval character. So, for example, in the manor of Lord Berkeley at the beginning of the 17th century. the same payments and duties were collected as in the 13th century - fains, heriots from holders (copyholders), court fines, etc. These nobles, whose economic situation was far from brilliant, since their traditional incomes lagged far behind Their insatiable thirst for luxury, however, looked down on the noble businessmen and did not want to share their power and privileges with them.

The pursuit of external splendor, huge crowds of servants and hangers-on, a passion for metropolitan life and a passion for court intrigue - this is what characterizes the appearance of such a “distinguished lord.” Inevitable complete ruin would have been the fate of the aristocrats if they had not systematically received support from the crown in the form of various pensions and sinecures, generous cash gifts and land grants. The impoverishment of the feudal nobility as a class is evidenced by the large debt of the aristocracy: by 1642, i.e., by the beginning of the civil war, the debts of the nobles who supported the king amounted to about 2 million pounds. Art. The old nobility linked its fate with the absolute monarchy, which protected the feudal order.
Thus, the English bourgeoisie, which rebelled against the feudal-absolutist regime, had against itself not the entire noble class as a whole, but only part of the nobility, while the other and, moreover, the most numerous part of it turned out to be its ally. This was another feature of the English Revolution.

The bourgeoisie and the masses

English bourgeoisie of the early 17th century. was extremely heterogeneous in its composition. Its upper layer consisted of several hundred money tycoons of the City of London and the provinces, people who reaped the benefits of the Tudor policy of patronage of domestic industry and trade. They were closely associated with the crown and the feudal aristocracy: with the crown - as tax farmers and financiers, holders of royal monopolies and patents, with the aristocracy - as creditors and often participants in privileged trading companies.

The main mass of the English bourgeoisie consisted of middle-class traders and the upper layer of guild craftsmen. The latter opposed fiscal oppression, the abuses of absolutism and the dominance of the court aristocracy, although at the same time they saw in the crown the support and guardian of their medieval corporate privileges, which gave them the opportunity to monopolize the exploitation of apprentices and apprentices. Therefore, the behavior of this social group was very hesitant and inconsistent. The most hostile layer of the bourgeoisie to the crown were non-guild entrepreneurs, organizers of dispersed or centralized manufactories, and initiators of colonial enterprises. Their activities as entrepreneurs were constrained by the guild system of crafts and the policy of royal monopolies, and as merchants they were largely pushed away from overseas and domestic trade by the owners of royal patents. It was in this layer of the bourgeoisie that the feudal regulation of craft and trade met its most fierce enemies. “In the person of their representative, the bourgeoisie, the productive forces rebelled against the system of production represented by feudal landowners and guild masters” (F. Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and the end of classical German philosophy, K. Marx, F. Engels, Selected Works, vol. II, Gospolitizdat, 1955, p. 374).

The mass of workers - small artisans in the city and small peasant farmers in the countryside, as well as a fairly large layer of urban and rural wage workers - made up the predominant part of the country's population; the lower classes, the direct producers of all material values, were politically powerless. Their interests were not represented either in parliament or in local government. The masses of the people, dissatisfied with their situation and actively fighting against the feudal system, were the decisive force that accelerated the maturation of the revolutionary crisis in the country. Only by relying on the popular movement and using it to their advantage, the bourgeoisie and the new nobility were able to overthrow feudalism and absolutism and come to power.

3. Ideological and political prerequisites for the revolution.

Puritanism

With the emergence in the depths of feudal society of a new, capitalist mode of production, bourgeois ideology also arises, entering into a struggle with medieval ideology.

However, being one of the first bourgeois revolutions, the English Revolution clothed this new ideology in a religious form, which it inherited from the mass social movements of the Middle Ages.

According to F. Engels, in the Middle Ages “the feelings of the masses were nourished exclusively by religious food; therefore, in order to cause a violent movement, it was necessary to present the own interests of these masses to them in religious clothing" (F. Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and the end of classical German philosophy, K. Marx, F. Engels, Selected Works, vol. II, Gospolitizdat, 1955, p. 374.). And indeed, the ideologists of the English bourgeoisie proclaimed the slogans of their class under the guise of a new, “true” religion, essentially sanctifying and sanctioning a new, bourgeois order.

The English royal reformation of the church, finally enshrined under Elizabeth in the “39 Articles” of the Anglican Confession, was a half-hearted, incomplete reformation. The reformed Church of England got rid of the supremacy of the pope, but submitted to the king. The monasteries were closed and the monastic property was secularized, but the land ownership of bishops and church institutions remained intact. The medieval church tithe, which was extremely burdensome for the peasantry, also remained; the episcopate, noble in its social composition and social status, was preserved.

The Anglican Church has become an obedient servant of the crown. Clerics appointed by the king or with his approval became in fact his officials. Royal decrees were announced from the church pulpit, and threats and curses were rained down on the heads of those who disobeyed the royal will. Parish priests exercised strict supervision over every step of the believer, episcopal courts and, above all, the supreme church court - the High Commission - brutally dealt with people at the slightest suspicion of deviating from the official dogmas of the state church. The bishops, who retained power in the Anglican Church, became a stronghold of absolutism.

The result of such a complete merger of church and state was that the people's hatred of absolutism spread to the Anglican Church. Political opposition manifested itself in the form of a church schism - dissent (From English, dissent - schism, disagreement.). Even in the last years of Elizabeth's reign, the bourgeois opposition to absolutism outwardly manifested itself in a religious movement that demanded the completion of the reformation of the English church, that is, its cleansing of everything that even outwardly resembled the Catholic cult, hence the name of this movement - Puritanism (Puritanism, Puritans - from Latin purus, English, pure - pure.).

At first glance, the demands of the Puritans were very far from politics, from directly threatening the power of the king. But this is one of the most important features of the English Revolution, that its ideological preparation, the “enlightenment” of the masses - the army of the future revolution - was carried out not in the form of rationally presented political and moral-philosophical teachings, but in the form of contrasting one religious doctrine with another , one church rituals to another, new organizational principles of the church to the old. The nature of these doctrines, rituals and principles was entirely determined by the requirements of the emerging society. It was impossible to crush absolutism without crushing its ideological support - the Anglican Church, without discrediting in the eyes of the people the old faith that sanctified the old order, but equally it was impossible to rouse the people to fight for the triumph of bourgeois relations without justifying their “sacredness” in the name “ true" faith. Revolutionary ideology, in order to become a popular ideology, had to be expressed in traditional images and ideas. To develop such an ideology, the English bourgeoisie took advantage of the religious teachings of the Genevan reformer John Calvin, which penetrated into Scotland and England in the middle of the 16th century. The English Puritans were essentially Calvinists.

The Puritans demanded the removal from the church of all decorations, images, altar, covers and colored glass; they were against organ music; instead of prayers according to liturgical books, they demanded the introduction of free oral preaching and improvised prayers; Everyone present at the service had to participate in the singing of hymns. The Puritans insisted on eliminating rituals that were still preserved in the Anglican Church from Catholicism (signifying the cross during prayer, kneeling, etc.). Not wanting to take part in official “idolatry,” that is, in the cult of the state, Anglican Church, many Auritans began to worship in private homes, in a form that, as they put it, “would least dim the light of their conscience.” The Puritans in England, like other Protestants on the continent of Europe, demanded, first of all, “simplification” and, therefore, cheaper church. The very life of the Puritans fully corresponded to the conditions of the era of primitive accumulation. Acquisitiveness and stinginess were their main “virtues.” Accumulation for the sake of accumulation became their motto. Puritan-Calvinists viewed commercial and industrial activity as a divine “calling,” and enrichment itself as a sign of special “chosenness” and a visible manifestation of God’s mercy. By demanding the transformation of the church, the Puritans in reality sought to establish a new social order. The radicalism of the Puritans in church matters was only a reflection of their radicalism in political matters.

However, among the Puritans at the end of the 16th century. There were different currents. The most moderate of the Puritans, the so-called Presbyterians, put forward a demand for the purification of the Anglican Church from the remnants of Catholicism, but did not break with it organizationally. The Presbyterians demanded the abolition of the episcopate and the replacement of bishops with synods (assemblies) of presbyters (Presbyter (from Greek) - elder. In the early Christian church, this was the name of the leaders of local Christian communities.), elected by the believers themselves. Demanding a certain democratization of the church, they limited the scope of intra-church democracy only to the wealthy elite of believers.

The left wing of the Puritans were separatists who completely condemned the Church of England. Subsequently, supporters of this trend began to be called independents. Their name comes from the demand for complete independence and self-government for each, even the smallest, community of believers. The Independents rejected not only the bishops, but also the power of the Presbyterian synods, considering the presbyters themselves to be “new tyrants.” Calling themselves “saints,” “an instrument of heaven,” “an arrow in the quiver of God,” the Independents did not recognize any authority over themselves in matters of conscience other than “the authority of God,” and did not consider themselves bound by any human injunctions if they contradicted “ revelations of truth." They built their church in the form of a confederation of autonomous communities of believers independent from each other. Each community was governed by the will of the majority.

On the basis of Puritanism, political and constitutional theories arose that became widespread in opposition circles of the English bourgeoisie and nobility.
The most important element of these theories was the doctrine of the “social contract”. His supporters believed that royal power was established not by God, but by people. For their own good, the people establish the highest power in the country, which they entrust to the king. However, the rights of the crown do not become unconditional; on the contrary, the crown is limited from the very beginning by an agreement concluded between the people and the king as the bearer of supreme power. The main content of this agreement is to govern the country in accordance with the requirements of the people's welfare. Only as long as the king adheres to this agreement, his power is inviolable. When he forgets the purpose for which his power was established and, violating the agreement, begins to rule to the detriment of the interests of the people “like a tyrant,” his subjects have the right to terminate the agreement and take away from the king the powers previously transferred to him. Some of the most radical followers of this teaching drew the conclusion from this that subjects not only can, but are also obliged to disobey the king, who has turned into a tyrant. Moreover, they declared that his subjects were obliged to rebel against him, depose and even kill him in order to restore their violated rights. The most prominent representatives of these tyrant-fighting theories in England in the 16th century. there were John Ponet and Edmund Spencer, in Scotland - George Buchanan. What a huge role the ideas of the tyrant fighters played in the fight against the existing regime can be seen from the fact that Ponet’s “Short Treatise on Political Power”, first published in 1556, was republished on the eve of the revolution - in 1639 and at its height - in 1642 .

In the 30s and 40s of the 17th century. Henry Parker spoke with a number of journalistic works of a Puritan nature on constitutional issues, whose teaching on the origin of power through a social contract and the ensuing fundamental rights of the English people subsequently had a great influence on the literature of revolutionary times.

The famous Independent writer and political activist John Milton later wrote about the mobilizing role of Puritan journalism in the pre-revolutionary and revolutionary years: “Books are not at all a dead thing, for they contain within themselves the potentialities of life, as active as the people who created them.” ... They contain a powerful attractive force and, like the teeth of the dragon of Greek mythology, when sown, they sprout in the form of a crowd of armed people rising from the ground.”

Economic policies of James I Stuart

Productive forces in England in the first half of the 17th century. had already grown so much that within the framework of feudal production relations it became unbearably cramped for them. For the further development of the country's economy, the speedy elimination of feudal orders and their replacement with capitalist social relations was required. But old, moribund forces stood guard over the feudal system. English absolutism played a huge role in defending the old system and opposing the new, bourgeois system.

In March 1603, Queen Elizabeth died, and her only relative, the son of the executed Mary Stuart, King James VI of Scotland, who was called James I in England, ascended the throne.

Already during the reign of the first Stuart, it became abundantly clear that the interests of the feudal nobility, expressed by the crown, came into irreconcilable conflict with the interests of the bourgeoisie and the new nobility. In addition, Jacob was a foreigner for England, who did not know English conditions well and had a completely false idea of ​​both the “ineffable wisdom” of his own person and the power of the royal power inherited to him.

Contrary to the bourgeoisie’s desire for free enterprise, its tireless search for new ways to enrich itself, James I imposed a system of monopolies, that is, exclusive rights granted to individuals or companies to produce and trade any goods. The monopoly system gradually covered many branches of production, almost all foreign and a significant part of domestic trade. The royal treasury received significant sums from the sale of patents, which went into the pockets of a small clique of court aristocrats. Monopolies also enriched individual capitalists associated with the court. But the bourgeoisie as a whole clearly lost from this monopoly policy. It was deprived of freedom of competition and freedom to dispose of bourgeois property - necessary conditions for capitalist development.

Government regulation of industry and trade was equally hostile to the interests of the bourgeoisie. The requirement of a seven-year apprenticeship as a precondition for engaging in any craft, the meticulous supervision of government agents not only over the quality of products, but also over the number and nature of tools, over the number of apprentices and journeymen employed in one workshop, over production technology, made it extremely difficult to -or technical innovations, consolidation of production, its restructuring on capitalist principles.

In the papers of the justices of the peace, one continually encounters long lists of persons against whom prosecutions were instituted for violating royal statutes that regulated crafts and trade in a purely medieval spirit. For example, in Somerset, four clothiers were brought to trial “for hot ironing cloth in violation of the statute.” Five other clothiers were fined “for stretching and pulling the cloth and for mixing tow and hair into the cloth and for having short threads not woven.” A tanner was put on trial for selling leather without a mark.

This government guardianship over industry and trade, carried out at first glance in the interests of the consumer, in fact pursued only the goal of fleecing the treasury of merchants and artisans through fines and extortion.

Feudal barriers to the development of industry made manufacturing, despite the cruel exploitation of manufacturing workers, a less profitable area for investing capital. Money was invested in industrial enterprises extremely reluctantly. As a result, the development of manufacturing was sharply slowed down, and a lot of technical inventions remained unused. Numerous craftsmen from Germany, Flanders, and France, who appeared in England under the Tudors and introduced technical innovations, are now leaving England and moving to Holland.

Foreign trade became virtually a monopoly of a narrow circle of large, mainly London, merchants. London accounted for the overwhelming majority of foreign trade turnover. Back at the beginning of the 17th century. London trade duties were 160 thousand pounds. Art., while all other ports combined accounted for 17 thousand pounds. Art. The development of domestic trade everywhere collided with the medieval privileges of city corporations, which in every possible way blocked access to city markets for “outsiders.” The growth of both domestic and foreign trade was stunted, with British exports particularly affected. The balance of England's foreign trade became passive: in 1622, imports into England exceeded exports by almost 300 thousand pounds. Art.
Stuarts and Puritanism

The onset of the feudal-absolutist reaction was clearly manifested in the church policy of James I. The new nobility and bourgeoisie, who profited from the lands of the monasteries closed under Henry VIII, were most afraid of the restoration of Catholicism, but the fight against the “Catholic danger” receded into the background under the Stuarts. The government's priority was the fight against puritanism.

Having hated the Presbyterian order back in Scotland, James I, having become king of England, immediately took a hostile position towards the English Puritans. In 1604, at a church conference at Hampton Court, he told the English priests: “You want a meeting of elders in the Scottish style, but it is as little consistent with the monarchy as the devil with God. Then Jack and Tom, Wil and Dick will begin to gather and will condemn me, my Council, our entire policy...” “No bishop, no king,” he further said. Realizing that “these people” (i.e., the Puritans) were starting with the church only to give themselves a free hand in relation to the monarchy, James threatened to “throw out of the country” the stubborn Puritans or “do something even worse to them.” . The persecution of the Puritans soon assumed vast proportions, as a result of which a stream of emigrants poured from England, fleeing prisons, whips and huge fines by fleeing to Holland, and later overseas to North America. The emigration of the Puritans actually marked the beginning of the founding of England's North American colonies.

Foreign policy of James I

James I did not take into account the interests of the bourgeoisie at all in his foreign policy. The development of English overseas and, first of all, the most profitable colonial trade everywhere encountered the colonial dominance of Spain. Elizabeth's entire reign was spent in a fierce struggle with this “national enemy” of Protestant England. Elizabeth's popularity in the City of London largely depended on this.

However, James I, instead of continuing the traditional policy of friendship and alliance with Protestant Holland, a policy directed against a common enemy - Catholic Spain, began to seek peace and alliance with Spain.

In 1604, a peace treaty was concluded with the Spanish government, in which the issue of English trading interests in the Indian and West Indian possessions of Spain was completely bypassed. To please Spain, Jacob grants pardon to some participants in the “gunpowder plot” (In 1605, barrels of gunpowder prepared for explosion were discovered in the basement of the palace where parliament was meeting and the king was supposed to attend a meeting. Catholics were involved in this plot.), turns a blind eye to the strengthening of the activities of Catholics and Jesuits in England, completely distances himself from the struggle of English capital for the colonies, throws into prison and then sends to the chopping block the most prominent of Elizabeth’s “royal pirates” - Walter Raleigh.

The Spanish ambassador Count Gondomar, who arrived in London in 1613, became the closest advisor to James I. “Without the Spanish ambassador,” wrote the Venetian ambassador, “the king does not take a step.”

James's sluggish and passive policy during the Thirty Years' War contributed to the defeat of Protestantism in the Czech Republic, as a result of which his son-in-law, Elector of the Palatinate Frederick V, lost not only the Czech crown, but also his hereditary lands - the Palatinate. In response to a request for help, James attacked Frederick V with accusations of inciting the Czechs to “rebellion.” “So,” he angrily declared to the ambassador of the ill-fated elector, “you are of the opinion that subjects can overthrow their kings. It is very opportune for you to come to England to spread these principles among my subjects.” Instead of armed action against the Habsburgs, James I began planning the marriage of his son, the heir to the throne, Charles, with the Spanish Infanta, which he saw as a guarantee of further strengthening of the Anglo-Spanish alliance and a means of replenishing the empty treasury with a rich dowry. Thus, internal English and international feudal reaction came together; In feudal-Catholic Spain, the English feudal aristocracy saw its natural ally.

Consolidation of the bourgeois opposition in parliament

But to the same extent that absolutism ceased to take into account the interests of bourgeois development, the bourgeoisie ceased to take into account the financial needs of absolutism. The financial dependence of the crown on Parliament was the most vulnerable aspect of English absolutism. Therefore, the acute political conflict between the feudal class, on the one hand, and the bourgeoisie, on the other, was most clearly manifested in the refusal of parliament to vote new taxes to the crown. “The English revolution, which brought Charles I to the scaffold, began with the refusal to pay taxes,” emphasizes K. Marx. - “Refusal to pay taxes is only a sign of a split between the crown and the people, only proof that the conflict between the government and the people has reached a tense, threatening degree” (K. Marx, Trial against the Rhine District Committee of Democrats, K. Maox and F. Engels , Soch., vol. 6, p. 271.).

In contrast to James’s desire to establish in England the principles of absolute, unlimited and uncontrolled royal power, referring to its “divine” origin, the first parliament assembled during his reign declared: “Your Majesty would be misled if anyone assured you that that the King of England has any absolute power in himself, or that the privileges of the House of Commons are based on the good will of the King, and not on his original rights...”

Neither the first (1604-1611) nor the second (1614) parliaments provided Jacob with sufficient funds that would have made him at least temporarily independent of parliament. Meanwhile, the acute financial need of the crown was intensifying as a result of embezzlement, wastefulness of the court and the unheard-of generosity of the king to his favorites, among whom the first was the Duke of Buckingham. The usual income of the royal treasury during the reign of Elizabeth was 220 thousand pounds. Art. per year, the income of her successor averaged 500 thousand f. Art. But the debts of the crown already in 1617 reached the figure of 735 thousand pounds. Art. Then the king decided to try to replenish the treasury bypassing parliament.

Jacob introduces new increased duties without the permission of parliament; trades in titles of nobility and patents for various trade and industrial monopolies; auctions off crown land holdings. He restores long-forgotten feudal rights and collects feudal payments and "subsidies" from holders of knightly rights, and fines them for alienating land without permission. Yakov abuses the right of priority to purchase food for the courtyard at a cheap price, resorting to forced loans and gifts. However, all these measures do not eliminate, but only alleviate for a short time the financial need of the crown.

In 1621, James was forced to convene his third parliament. But already at its first meetings, both the king’s domestic and foreign policies were sharply criticized. The project of a “Spanish marriage,” that is, the marriage of the heir to the English throne with a Spanish infanta, caused particular indignation in parliament. During the second session, parliament was dissolved. This was done not without the advice of the Spanish ambassador.

However, Jacob failed to implement the plan for an Anglo-Spanish alliance. The Anglo-Spanish contradictions were too irreconcilable, although Jacob tried with all his might to smooth them out. The matchmaking of Crown Prince Charles at the Spanish court ended in failure, and along with this, plans to return the lands to Frederick of the Palatinate peacefully collapsed, as well as plans to replenish the treasury with the Spanish dowry. Forced loan in the amount of 200 thousand pounds. Art. brought only 70 thousand. Trade and industry in England, as a result of the unbridled distribution of trade and industrial monopolies by the king, found themselves in an extremely difficult situation.

Exacerbation of class contradictions. Popular uprisings

The decisive struggle against the feudal-absolutist regime of the Stuarts took place, however, not under the arches of Parliament, but in the streets and squares of cities and villages. The dissatisfaction of the broad masses of the peasantry, artisans, manufacturing workers and day laborers with growing exploitation, tax robbery and the entire policy of the Stuarts increasingly erupted either in the form of local or in the form of wider uprisings and unrest that arose in different parts of the country.

The largest peasant uprising under James I broke out in 1607 in the central counties of England (Northamptonshire, Leicestershire, etc.), where enclosures during the 16th - early 17th centuries. accepted the widest sizes. About 8 thousand peasants, armed with stakes, pitchforks and scythes, told the magistrates that they had gathered “to destroy the fences that turned them into poor people dying of want.” One of the rebels’ proclamations said about the nobles: “Because of them, villages were depopulated, they destroyed entire villages... It is better to die courageously than to slowly perish from want.” Hedge destruction has become widespread in the midlands.

During this uprising, the names Levellers (levelers) and Diggers (diggers) were first used, which would later become the names of the two parties of the popular wing of the revolution. The uprising was suppressed by military force.

A wave of peasant uprisings then swept in the 20s of the 17th century. across the western and southern counties in connection with the transformation of common forests into private parks of the lords. The uprisings in the 1930s in Central England were caused by the renewed enclosure of common lands, and the uprisings of the 1930s and 1940s in East and North-East England were caused by the drainage of the “great marsh plain” and the conversion of drained lands into private property, which deprived the peasants their communal rights to wetlands.

A typical example of these unrest can be seen in the events that took place in 1620 in the possessions of Lord Berkeley. When the lord tried to fence off communal lands in one of the manors, peasants armed with shovels filled up the ditch, drove away the workers and beat the magistrates who had arrived for the judicial investigation. The same struggle was waged in dozens of other manors.

Popular demonstrations in cities were just as frequent at that time. The protracted commercial and industrial crisis sharply worsened the already plight of artisans, apprentices and journeymen engaged in the production of cloth. The working day of a craft and manufacturing worker lasted 15-16 hours, while real wages were increasingly declining due to rising prices for bread and other food products. At the beginning of the 16th century. a rural artisan earned 3 shillings. per week, and in 1610 - 6 shillings. per week, but during this time the price of wheat increased 10 times. Unemployed artisans, apprentices, and manufacturing workers posed a particularly great threat in the eyes of the government. They often destroyed grain warehouses, attacked tax collectors and justices of the peace, and set fire to the houses of the rich.

In 1617, a rebellion of artisan apprentices broke out in London, and in 1620 there were serious unrest in the cities of the western counties. The threat of an uprising was so great that the government, by a special decree, obliged clothiers to provide work to the workers they employed, regardless of market conditions.

All these popular movements were a clear manifestation of the revolutionary crisis brewing in the country. Parliamentary opposition to the Stuarts could only emerge and emerge in an atmosphere of increasingly intensifying popular struggle against feudalism.

James's last parliament met in February 1624. The government had to make a number of concessions: abolish most monopolies and start a war with Spain. Having received half of the requested subsidy, Jacob sent a hastily assembled expeditionary force to the Rhine, which suffered complete defeat from the Spaniards. But Yakov did not live to see this. In 1625, the throne of England and Scotland was inherited by his son Charles I.

Political crisis of the 20s of the 17th century.

The change on the throne did not entail a change in political course. Too limited to understand the complex political situation in the country. Charles I stubbornly continued to cling to his father's absolutist doctrine. It took only a few years for the break between the king and parliament to become final.

Already the first parliament of Charles I, convened in June 1625, before approving new taxes, demanded the removal of the all-powerful temporary Duke of Buckingham. The British foreign policy led by him suffered failure after failure. Naval expeditions against Spain ended in complete defeat: English ships failed to capture the Spanish “silver fleet”, which was carrying precious cargo from America, and the attack on Cadiz was repulsed with heavy losses for the English fleet. While still at war with Spain, England began a war with France in 1624. However, the expedition, which Buckingham personally led and which had the immediate goal of providing assistance to the besieged Huguenot fortress of La Rochelle, ended in shameful failure. The outrage in England against Buckingham became general. But Charles I remained deaf to public opinion and defended his favorite in every possible way. The king dissolved the first and then the second (1626) parliaments, which demanded a trial of Buckingham. He openly threatened: either the House of Commons would submit to the monarch’s will, or there would be no parliament at all in England. Left without parliamentary subsidies, Charles I resorted to a forced loan. But this time even the peers refused the government money.

Foreign policy failures and the financial crisis forced Charles I to turn to parliament again. The third parliament met on March 17, 1628. The opposition of the bourgeoisie and the new nobility in the House of Commons now appeared in a more or less organized form. Eliot, Hampden, Pym - coming from the ranks of the squires - were its recognized leaders. In their speeches, they attacked the government for its incompetent foreign policy. Parliament protested against the king's collection of taxes not approved by the chamber and against the practice of forced loans. Eliot expressively characterized the significance of the opposition’s demands: “...This is not only about our property and possessions, everything that we call ours is at stake, those rights and privileges thanks to which our naked ancestors were free.” In order to put a limit to the absolutist claims of Charles I, the chamber developed a “Petition of Right”, the main demands of which were to ensure the inviolability of person, property and freedom of subjects. The extreme need for money forced Charles I to approve the Petition on June 7. But soon the parliamentary session was suspended until October 20. During this time, two important events occurred: Buckingham was killed by Officer Felton; One of the leaders of the parliamentary opposition, Wentworth (the future Earl of Strafford), came over to the king’s side.

The second session of Parliament opened with sharp criticism of the ecclesiastical policies of Charles I. Until assurances were received that the royal policy would be changed, the House of Commons refused to approve customs duties. On March 2, 1629, when the king ordered the session to be interrupted, the chamber for the first time showed open disobedience to the royal will. Forcibly holding the speaker in the chair (Without the speaker, the chamber could not sit, and its decisions were considered invalid.), the chamber adopted the following 3 resolutions behind closed doors:

1) whoever seeks to introduce popish innovations into the Church of England must be regarded as the chief enemy of the kingdom;

2) anyone who advises the king to levy duties without the consent of parliament should be considered an enemy of this country;

3) anyone who voluntarily pays taxes not approved by Parliament is a traitor to the freedoms of England.

Government without parliament

Charles I dissolved the House of Commons and decided to henceforth rule without parliament. Having lost Buckingham, the king made his main advisers the Earl of Strafford and Archbishop Laud, who were the inspirers of the feudal-absolutist reaction over the next 11 years. To gain free rein within the country, Charles I hastened to make peace with Spain and France. A regime of terror reigned in England. Nine leaders of the parliamentary opposition were thrown into the royal prison of the Tower. The strictest censorship of the printed and spoken word was supposed to silence the “seditious” Puritan opposition. Extraordinary courts for political and ecclesiastical matters—the Star Chamber and the High Commission—were in full swing. Failure to attend the parish church and reading forbidden (Puritan) books, a harsh comment about the bishop and a hint of the queen's frivolity, refusal to pay taxes not approved by parliament and speaking out against the forced royal loan - all this was a sufficient reason for immediate involvement in an incredibly cruel court.

In 1637, the Star Chamber passed a brutal verdict in the case of the lawyer Prynne, Dr. Bastwick and the priest Burton, whose entire guilt was the composition and publication of Puritan pamphlets. They were put in the pillory, publicly flogged, branded with a hot iron, then, having their ears cut off, they were thrown into prison for life imprisonment. In 1638, the London merchant apprentice John Lilburne, accused of distributing Puritan literature, was sentenced to public flogging and indefinite imprisonment. Merchant Chambers was sentenced to imprisonment in the Tower for 12 years for refusing to pay duties. The Puritan opposition was driven underground for a time. Many thousands of Puritans, fearing persecution, moved overseas. The “great exodus” from England began. Between 1630 and 1640 65 thousand people emigrated, 20 thousand of them to America, to the New England colonies.

The brutal terror against the Puritans was accompanied by an increasing rapprochement between the Anglican Church and Catholicism. Archbishop Laud of Canterbury listened favorably to the proposals of the papal legate to accept the cardinal's hat from the pope, and a Catholic mass was openly celebrated in the queen's chapel (Henrietta Maria, the wife of Charles I, a French princess by birth, remained a Catholic upon her arrival in England.). This aroused indignation among the bourgeoisie and the new nobility, which largely owed their land wealth to the secularization of the lands of Catholic monasteries.

In the early 1930s, due to the increased demand for English goods caused by the war on the continent of Europe, there was some revival in foreign trade and industry. Favorable market conditions temporarily reduced the irritation of the bourgeois opposition. During these years, absolutism seemed to achieve complete triumph. All that remained was to find permanent sources of replenishment of the treasury so that the crown could get rid of parliament forever. Strafford and Secretary of the Exchequer Weston frantically searched for such sources. Customs duties were collected contrary to the mentioned resolutions of the parliament of 1628-1629. Trade in patents for industrial monopolies developed on a large scale. In 1630, a law was pulled out of the dust of the archives, obliging all persons who had at least 40 pounds. Art. land income, appear at court to receive a knighthood. Those who evaded this expensive honor were fined. In 1634, the government decided to check the boundaries of the royal reserve forests, many of which had long since passed into private hands. Violators (and among them there were many representatives of the nobility) were forced to pay heavy fines. The extent to which the feudal rights of the crown were intensively exploited is evidenced by the growth in the income of the chamber of guardianship and alienation: in 1603 its receipts amounted to 12 thousand pounds. Art., and by 1637 they reached a huge amount of 87 thousand f. Art.

The greatest indignation in the middle and lower strata of the population was caused by the collection of “ship money” in 1634 - a long-forgotten duty of the coastal counties, once introduced to combat pirates who attacked the coast of the kingdom. In 1635 and 1637 this duty has already been extended to all counties of the country. Even some royal lawyers pointed out the illegality of this tax. Refusal to pay ship money became widespread. The name of Squire John Hampden became known throughout the country, demanding that the court prove to him the legality of this tax.

To please the king, the judges by a majority vote recognized his right to collect “ship money” as often as he saw fit, and Hampden was convicted. A permanent extra-parliamentary source of income seemed to have been found. “The king is now and forever free from parliamentary interference in his affairs,” this is how the royal favorite Lord Strafford assessed the significance of the court decision in the Hampden case. “All our freedoms have been destroyed in one blow” - this is how Puritan England perceived this sentence.

However, one external push was enough to reveal the weakness of absolutism. This was the impetus for the war with Scotland.

War with Scotland and defeat of English absolutism

In 1637, Archbishop Laud tried to introduce the Anglican church service in Sstlapdia, which, despite the dynastic union with England (since 1603), retained complete autonomy in both civil and church affairs. This event made a great impression in Scotland and caused a general uprising. Initially, it resulted in the conclusion of the so-called covenant (social contract), in which all the Scots who signed it swore to defend the Calvinist “true faith” “until the end of their lives with all their might and means.” The Lord Chancellor assured Charles I that the Anglican prayer book could be imposed on the Scots with the help of 40 thousand soldiers. However, the matter was more serious. The struggle against Laud’s “papist innovations” was in reality a struggle of the Scottish nobility and bourgeoisie to preserve the political independence of their country, against the threat of introducing absolutist orders into Scotland, the bearer of which was the Anglican Church.

The king's punitive expedition against the Scots began in 1639. However, the 20,000-strong army he had recruited at the cost of enormous efforts fled without even engaging in battle. Charles had to conclude a truce. On this occasion, the bourgeoisie of London staged an illumination: the victory of the Scots over the English king was a holiday for all opponents of absolutism. But Karl only needed to buy time. Lord Strafford was summoned from Ireland and tasked with “teaching the rebels a lesson.” For this a large army was needed. However, there were not enough funds for its organization and maintenance. On the advice of Strafford, the king decided to convene parliament in April 1640. Charles immediately demanded subsidies, trying to play on the national feelings of the British. But in response to the intimidation of Parliament by the “Scottish danger,” one member of the House of Commons said: “The danger of a Scottish invasion is less formidable than the danger of a government based on arbitrariness. The danger that was outlined in the ward is far away... The danger that I will talk about is here at home...” The opposition-minded House of Commons was sympathetic to the cause of the Covenanters: Charles’s defeats not only did not upset her, but even pleased her, since she was well aware that “the worse the affairs of the king in Scotland, the better the affairs of the parliament in England.” On May 5, just three weeks after convening, parliament was dissolved. It was called in history the Short Parliament.

The war with Scotland resumed, and Charles I did not have the money to continue it. Strafford, appointed commander-in-chief of the English army, was unable to improve matters. The Scots went on the offensive, invaded England and occupied the northern counties of Northumberland and Durham (Durham).
The maturation of a revolutionary situation

The defeat of English absolutism in the war with Scotland accelerated the maturation of a revolutionary situation in England. The ruling feudal aristocracy, led by the king, became confused in its domestic and foreign policies, found itself in the grip of a severe financial crisis and by this time felt a clearly hostile attitude towards itself from the bourgeoisie and the broad masses of England. Since 1637, the state of industry and trade in England had deteriorated catastrophically. The policy of government monopolies and taxes, the flight of capital from the country and the emigration to America of many Puritan merchants and industrialists caused a reduction in production and mass unemployment in the country.

The discontent of the masses in the late 30s and early 40s, manifested in the form of peasant movements, mass protests and unrest in the cities, was growing. In London in 1639 and 1640. There were violent demonstrations of artisans and working people, exhausted by poverty and unemployment. From various counties, especially East and Central England, London received information about the growing hostility of peasants towards the lords and all large landowners in general. “Such gatherings and conspiracies are taking place among the people that you cannot imagine,” reported a witness to the events. “The rural people harm us as much as they can,” complained one landowner and fencer. “The neighboring villages joined together and formed an alliance to protect each other in these actions.”

The population's payment of royal taxes almost completely ceased; the "Ship Money" did not bring the government even one tenth of the expected amount.

Numerous petitions from all over the country demanded that the government conclude peace with Scotland and immediately convene parliament. Many anti-royalist leaflets and pamphlets were distributed throughout the country. Puritan preachers, citing various biblical texts, called for disobedience to the king. The political atmosphere in the country has become extremely tense. Even for corona supporters it became obvious that an explosion was inevitable. On September 24, a meeting of peers meeting in York spoke in favor of convening parliament. Charles I had no choice but to turn to parliament again.