Republican and Restoration Britain
Republican Britain
Several MPs had commanded the Parliamentarian army. Of these, the strongest was an East Anglian named Oliver Cromwell. He had created a new “model” army, the first regular force from which the British army of today developed.
Cromwell and his advisers had captured king in 1645, but they did not know what to do with him. Charles had been imprisoned. He was able to encourage the Scots to rebel against the Parliamentarian army.
The Parliamentarian leaders now had a problem. They could either bring Charles back to the throne and allow him to rule, or remove him and create a new political system
Two-thirds of the MPs did not want to put the king on trial. They were removed from Parliament by the army, and the remaining fifty-three judged him and found him quilty of making “war against his kingdom and the Parliament”. On 31 January 1649 King Charles was executed. As his head was cut from his body the large crowd groaned.

From 1649-1660 Britain was a republic. Cromwell and his friends had got rid of the monarchy, and they now got rid of the House of Lords and the Anglican Church.
Scots were shocked by Charles’s execution. His son, King Charles II. Joined them and fight against the English Parliamentary Army. They were defeated. Scotland was brought under English republican rule
Cromwell took an army to Ireland to punish the Irish for the killing Protestants in 1641, and for the continued Royalist rebellion there. He captured two towns, Drogheda and Wexford.

The army remained the most powerful force in the land, disagreements between the army and Parliament resulted in Parliament´s dissolution in 1653. it was the behaviour of the army and the dissolution of the Parliament that destroyed Cromwell´s hopes.
“Levellers” wanted a new equality among all man. They wanted Parliament to meet every two years, and for most men over the age of twenty-one to have the right to elect MPs to it, complete the religious freedom, which would have allowed the many new Puritan group to follow their religion in the way they wished.
From 1653 Britain was governed by Cromwell alone. He became “Lord Protector”. His efforts to govern the country through the army were extremely unpopular. Cromwell´s government was unpopular for other reason. For example, people were forbidden to celebrate Christmas and Easter, or to play games on Sundays.
Cromwell died in 1658, the Protectorate, as his republican administration was called, collapsed. His son, Richard Cromwell was not a good leader and the army commanders soon started to quarrel among themselves. One of these decided to act. In 1660 he marched to London arranged for the free elections and invited Charles II. to return to his kingdom. The republic was over.
Charles managed his return with skill. Although Parliament was once more as weak as it had been in the time of James I. and Charles I., the new king was careful to make peace with his father´s enemies

Catholicism, the Crown and the new constitutional monarchy

Charles hoped to make peace between the different religious groups. Charles himself was attracted to the Catholic Curch. Parliament afraid that Charles would become a Catholic. For this reason Parliament passed the Test Act in 1673, which prevented any Catholic from holding public office. Fear of Charles´s interest in catholic Church and of the monarchy becoming too powerful also resulted in the first political parties in Britain.
One of these parties was a group of MPs who became known as “Whigs”, a rude name for cattle drivers. They believed strongly in allowing religious freedom. The Whigs were opposed by another group, nicknamed “Tories”, an Irish name for thieves. The Whigs and the Tories, became the basis of Britain´s two-party parliamentary system of government

James II. became king after his brother´s death in 1685. he shown his dislike of Protestants while he had been Charles´s governor in Scotland. His soldiers had killed many Presbyterian men, women, children. This period is still remembered as the “killing times”.
James tried o remove the laws which stopped Catholics from taking positions in government and Parliament. He also tried to bring back the Catholic Church and allow it to exist beside the Anglican Church. Parliament was very angry.
James tried to get rid of the Tory gentry who most strongly opposed him. He removed three-quarters of all JPs and replaced them with men of lower social class. He tried to bring together the Catholics and the Puritans, now usually called “Nonconformists” because they would not agree with or “confirm” to the Anglican Church.
Tories, Whigs and Anglicans did nothing because they could look forward to the succession of James´s daughter, Mary. Mary was Protestant and married to the Protestant ruler of Holland, William of Orange.
In 1688 James´s son was born. The Tories and Anglicans now joined the Whigs in looking for a Protestant rescue.
They invited William of Orange to invade Britain. He was already at war with France and he needed the help of Britain´s wealth and armed forces.
William entered London, but the crown was offered only to Mary. William said he would leave Britain unless he also became king. Parliament had no choice but to offer the crown to both William and Marry.

After he had fled from England, Parliament had decided that James II. had lost his right to the crown. It gave as its reason that he had tried to undermine “the constitution of the kingdom by breaking the original contract between King and People.” The logical conclusion of such ideas was that the “consent of the people” was represented by Parliament, and as result Parliament, not the king, should be the overall power in the state.
The Glorious Revolution was the political result of the events of 1688. Revolution was completely unplanned and unprepared for. It was hardly a revolution, more a coup d´etat by the ruling class. Parliament made William king by their choice was revolutionary. Parliament was now beyond question more powerful than the king, and would remain so. Its power over the monarch was written into Bill of Rights in 1689. The king was now unable to raise taxes or keep an army without the agreement of the Parliament, or to act against any MP for what he said or did in Parliament.

In 1701 Parliament finally passed the Act of Settlement, to make only Protestant could inherit the crown. It stated that if Mary had no children the crown would pass to her sister Anne. If she also died without children, it would go to granddaughter of James I., who had married the German elector of Hanover. The Act of Settlement has remained in force ever since, although the Stuarts tried three times to regain the crown. Even today, if son or daughter becomes a Catholic, he or she cannot inherit the throne.

Scotland and Ireland
Neither Scotland, nor Ireland accepted the English removal of James peacefully. In Scotland supporters of the Stuarts rebelled, but although they successfully defeated a government army, they rebellion ended after the death of their leader. Most of the rebels were Highlanders.
Scotland was a separate kingdom, although it shared king with England (James II. had been James VII of Scotland), the English wanted Scotland and England to be united. But the English act of Settlement was not law in Scotland. While Scotland remained legally free to choose its own king there was a danger that this might be used to put a Stuart back on the throne. Scotland might renew its Auld Alliance in France, which was now England´s most dangerous European enemy.
On the other hand, Scotland needed to remove the limits on trade with England from which it suffered economically. The English Parliament offered to remove these limits if the Scots agreed to union with England. The Scots knew that if they did not agree there was a real danger that an English army would once again march into Scotland. In 1707 the union of Scotland and England was completed by Act of Parliament. From that moment both countries no longer had separate parliaments, and a new parliament of Great Britain, the new name of the state, met for the first time. Scotland, however, kept its own separate legal and judicial system, and its own separate Church.

In Ireland the Catholicism of James II had raised. When he lost his throne in England, James naturally thought that Ireland would make a strong base from which to take back his throne. In 1689 he landed in Ireland, with French support.
In Dublin a Catholic parliament immediately passed an Act taking away all the property of Protestants in Ireland. Thirty thousand Protestants locked themselves in the city of Londonderry (or “Derry” as the Catholics continued to call it)
King William landed in Ireland in 1690, and defeated James´s army at the River Boyne. Protestant victory was complete.

Foreign relations
During the seventeenth century Britain´s main enemies were Spain, Holland and France. War with Holland resulted from competition in trade.
At the end f the century Britain went to war with France. Britain wanted to limit French power. Under the duke of Marlborough, the British army won several important victories over the French at Blenheim (on the Danube), Ramillies, Oudenarde and Malplaquet.
By the treaty of Utrecht in 1713 France accepted limits on its expansion, as well as a political settlement for Europe. It accepted Queen Anne instead of James II´s son as the true monarch of Britain. In the war Britain had also won the rock of Gibraltar, and could now control the entrance to the Mediterranean.

The capture of foreign land was important for Europe´s economic development. On the east coast of America, Britain controlled about 12 colonies.
During this time Britain also established its first trading settlement in India. The East India Company did not interfere in Indian politics. Its interest was only in trade.