BRITISH MONARCHY AND ITS INFLUENCE UPON GOVERNMENTAL INSTITUTIONS

JAMES II (1685-88)

Born in 1633 and named after his grandfather James I, James II grew up in exile after the Civil War (he served in the armies of Louis XIV) and, after his brother's restoration, commanded the Royal Navy from 1660 to 1673.
James converted to Catholicism in 1669. Despite his conversion, James II succeeded to the throne peacefully at the age of 51. His position was a strong one - there were standing armies of nearly 20,000 men in his kingdoms and he had a revenue of around Ј2 million. Within days of his succession, James announced the summoning of Parliament in May but he sounded a warning note: 'the best way to engage me to meet you often is always to use me well'. A rebellion led by Charles's illegitimate son, the
Duke of Monmouth, was easily crushed after the battle of Sedgemoor in 1685, and savage punishments were imposed by the infamous Lord Chief Justice,
Judge Jeffreys, at the 'Bloody Assizes'.

James's reaction to the Monmouth rebellion was to plan the increase of the standing army and the appointment of loyal and experienced Roman
Catholic officers. This, together with James's attempts to give civic equality to Roman Catholic and Protestant dissenters, led to conflict with
Parliament, as it was seen as James showing favouritism towards Roman
Catholics. Fear of Catholicism was widespread (in 1685, Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes which gave protection to French Protestants), and the possibility of a standing army led by Roman Catholic officers produced protest in Parliament. As a result, James prorogued Parliament in 1685 and ruled without it.

James attempted to promote the Roman Catholic cause by dismissing judges and Lord Lieutenants who refused to support the withdrawal of laws penalising religious dissidents, appointing Catholics to important academic posts, and to senior military and political positions. Within three years, the majority of James's subjects had been alienated.

In 1687 James issued the Declaration of Indulgence aiming at religious toleration; seven bishops who asked James to reconsider were charged with seditious libel, but later acquitted to popular Anglican acclaim. When his second (Roman Catholic) wife, Mary of Modena, gave birth on 10 June 1688 to a son (James Stuart, later known as the 'Old Pretender' and father of
Charles Edward Stuart, 'Bonnie Prince Charlie'), it seemed that a Roman
Catholic dynasty would be established. William of Orange, Protestant husband of James's elder daughter, Mary (by James's first and Protestant wife, Anne Hyde), was therefore welcomed when he invaded on 5 November
1688. The Army and the Navy (disaffected despite James's investment in them) deserted to William, and James fled to France.

James's attempt to regain the throne by taking a French army to Ireland failed - he was defeated at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. James spent the rest of his life in exile in France, dying there in 1701.

WILLIAM III (1689-1702) AND MARY II (1689-94)

In 1689 Parliament declared that James had abdicated by deserting his kingdom. William (reigned 1689-1702) and Mary (reigned 1689-94) were offered the throne as joint monarchs. They accepted a Declaration of Rights
(later a Bill), drawn up by a Convention of Parliament, which limited the
Sovereign's power, reaffirmed Parliament's claim to control taxation and legislation, and provided guarantees against the abuses of power which
James II and the other Stuart Kings had committed. The exclusion of James
II and his heirs was extended to exclude all Catholics from the throne, since 'it hath been found by experience that it is inconsistent with the safety and welfare of this protestant kingdom to be governed by a papist prince'. The Sovereign was required in his coronation oath to swear to maintain the Protestant religion.

The Bill was designed to ensure Parliament could function free from royal interference. The Sovereign was forbidden from suspending or dispensing with laws passed by Parliament, or imposing taxes without Parliamentary consent. The Sovereign was not allowed to interfere with elections or freedom of speech, and proceedings in Parliament were not to be questioned in the courts or in any body outside Parliament itself. (This was the basis of modern parliamentary privilege.) The Sovereign was required to summon
Parliament frequently (the Triennial Act of 1694 reinforced this by requiring the regular summoning of Parliaments). Parliament tightened control over the King's expenditure; the financial settlement reached with
William and Mary deliberately made them dependent upon Parliament, as one
Member of Parliament said, 'when princes have not needed money they have not needed us'. Finally the King was forbidden to maintain a standing army in time of peace without Parliament's consent.

The Bill of Rights added further defences of individual rights. The King was forbidden to establish his own courts or to act as a judge himself, and the courts were forbidden to impose excessive bail or fines, or cruel and unusual punishments. However, the Sovereign could still summon and dissolve
Parliament, appoint and dismiss Ministers, veto legislation and declare war.

The so-called 'Glorious Revolution' has been much debated over the degree to which it was conservative or radical in character. The result was a permanent shift in power; although the monarchy remained of central importance, Parliament had become a permanent feature of political life.

The Toleration Act of 1689 gave all non-conformists except Roman
Catholics freedom of worship, thus rewarding Protestant dissenters for their refusal to side with James II.

After 1688 there was a rapid development of party, as parliamentary sessions lengthened and the Triennial Act ensured frequent general elections. Although the Tories had fully supported the Revolution, it was the Whigs (traditional critics of the monarchy) who supported William and consolidated their position. Recognising the advisability of selecting a
Ministry from the political party with the majority in the House of
Commons, William appointed a Ministry in 1696 which was drawn from the
Whigs; known as the Junto, it was regarded with suspicion by Members of
Parliament as it met separately, but it may be regarded as the forerunner of the modern Cabinet of Ministers.

In 1697, Parliament decided to give an annual grant of Ј700,000 to the
King for life, as a contribution to the expenses of civil government, which included judges' and ambassadors' salaries, as well as the Royal
Household's expenses.

The Bill of Rights had established the succession with the heirs of Mary
II, Anne and William III in that order, but by 1700 Mary had died childless, Anne's only surviving child (out of 17 children), the Duke of
Gloucester, had died at the age of 11 and William was dying. The succession had to be decided.

The Act of Settlement of 1701 was designed to secure the Protestant succession to the throne, and to strengthen the guarantees for ensuring parliamentary system of government. According to the Act, succession to the throne went to Princess Sophia, Electress of Hanover and James I's granddaughter, and her Protestant heirs.

The Act also laid down the conditions under which alone the Crown could be held. No Roman Catholic, nor anyone married to a Roman Catholic, could hold the English Crown. The Sovereign now had to swear to maintain the
Church of England (and after 1707, the Church of Scotland). The Act of
Settlement not only addressed the dynastic and religious aspects of succession, it also further restricted the powers and prerogatives of the
Crown.

Under the Act, parliamentary consent had to be given for the Sovereign to engage in war or leave the country, and judges were to hold office on good conduct and not at royal pleasure - thus establishing judicial independence. The Act of Settlement reinforced the Bill of Rights, in that it strengthened the principle that government was undertaken by the
Sovereign and his or her constitutional advisers (i.e. his or her
Ministers), not by the Sovereign and any personal advisers whom he or she happened to choose.

One of William's main reasons for accepting the throne was to reinforce the struggle against Louis XIV. William's foreign policy was dominated by the priority to contain French expansionism. England and the Dutch joined the coalition against France during the Nine Years War. Although Louis was forced to recognise William as King under the Treaty of Ryswick (1697),
William's policy of intervention in Europe was costly in terms of finance and his popularity. The Bank of England, established in 1694 to raise money for the war by borrowing, did not loosen the King's financial reliance on
Parliament as the national debt depended on parliamentary guarantees.
William's Dutch advisers were resented, and in 1699 his Dutch Blue Guards were forced to leave the country.

Never of robust health, William died as a result of complications from a fall whilst riding at Hampton Court in 1702.

ANNE (1702-14)

Anne, born in 1665, was the second daughter of James II and Anne Hyde.
She played no part in her father's reign, but sided with her sister and brother-in-law (Mary II and William III) during the Glorious Revolution.
She married George, Prince of Denmark, but the pair failed to produce a surviving heir. She died at 49 years of age, after a lifelong battle with the blood disease porphyria.

The untimely death of William III nullified, in effect, the Settlement
Act of 1701: Anne was James' daughter through his Protestant marriage, and therefore, presented no conflict with the act. Anne refrained from politically antagonizing Parliament, but was compelled to attend most
Cabinet meetings to keep her half-brother, James the Old Pretender, under heel. Anne was the last sovereign to veto an act of Parliament, as well as the final Stuart monarch. The most significant constitutional act in her reign was the Act of Union in 1707, which created Great Britain by finally fully uniting England and Scotland (Ireland joined the Union in 1801).

The Stuart trait of relying on favorites was as pronounced in Anne's reign as it had been in James I's reign. Anne's closest confidant was Sarah
Churchill, who exerted great influence over the king. Sarah's husband was the Duke of Marlborough, who masterly led the English to several victories in the War of Spanish Succession. Anne and Sarah were virtually inseparable: no king's mistress had ever wielded the power granted to the duchess, but Sarah became too confident in her position. She developed an overbearing demeanor towards Anne, and berated the Queen in public. In the meantime, Tory leaders had planted one Abigail Hill in the royal household to capture Anne's need for sympathy and affection. As Anne increasingly turned to Abigail, the question of succession rose again, pitting the Queen and the Marlborough against each other in a heated debate. The relationship of Anne and the Churchill's fell asunder. Marlborough, despite his war record, was dismissed from public service and Sarah was shunned in favor of
Abigail.

Many of the internal conflicts in English society were simply the birth pains of the two-party system of government. The Whig and Tory Parties, fully enfranchised by the last years of Anne's reign, fought for control of
Parliament and influence over the Queen. Anne was torn personally as well as politically by the succession question: her Stuart upbringing compelled her to choose as heir her half-brother, the Old Pretender and favorite of the Tories, but she had already elected to side with Whigs when supporting
Mary and William over James II. In the end, Anne abided by the Act of
Settlement, and the Whigs paved the way for the succession of their candidate, George of Hanover.

Anne's reign may be considered successful, but somewhat lackluster in comparison to the rest of the Stuart line. 1066 and All That, describes her with its usual tongue-in-cheek manner: "Finally the Orange... was succeeded by the memorable dead queen, Anne. Queen Anne was considered rather a remarkable woman and hence was usually referred to as Great Anna, or Annus
Mirabilis. The Queen had many favourites (all women), the most memorable of whom were Sarah Jenkins and Mrs Smashems, who were the first wig and the first Tory... the Whigs being the first to realize that the Queen had been dead all the time chose George I as King."

THE HANOVERIANS
The Hanoverians came to power in difficult circumstances that looked set to undermine the stability of British society. The first of their Kings,
George I, was only 52nd in line to the throne, but the nearest Protestant according the Act of Settlement. Two descendants of James II, the deposed
Stuart King, threatened to take the throne and were supported by a number of 'Jacobites' throughout the realm.
The Hanoverian period for all that, was remarkably stable, not least because of the longevity of its Kings. From 1714 through to 1837, there were only five, one of whom, George III, remains the longest reigning King in British History. The period was also one of political stability, and the development of constitutional monarchy. For vast tracts of the eighteenth century politics were dominated by the great Whig families, while the early nineteenth century saw Tory domination. Britain's first 'Prime' Minister,
Robert Walpole, dates from this period, while income tax was introduced.
Towards the end of the reign, the Great Reform Act was passed, which amongst other things widened the electorate.

It was in this period that Britain came to acquire much of her overseas
Empire, despite the loss of the American colonies, largely through foreign conquest in the various wars of the century. At the end of the Hanoverian period the British empire covered a third of the globe while the theme of longevity was set to continue, as the longest reigning monarch in British history, Queen Victoria, prepared to take the throne.

THE HANOVERIANS

1714 - 1837

GEORGE I =
Sophia Dorothea, dau. of Duke of Brunswick and Celle

(1714–1727)

GEORGE
II = Caroline, dau. of Margrave of

(1727–1760) Brandenburg-Anspach

Augusta of =
Frederick Lewis,

Saxe-Gotha-Altenberg Prince of
Wales

GEORGE III = Sophia Charlotte of

(1760–1820) Mecklenburg-Strelitz

GEORGE IV WILLIAM IV

Edward, = Victoria
(1820–1830) (1830–1837)

Duke of Kent of Saxe-
Coburg

VICTORIA

(1837–1901)

GEORGE I (1714-27)

George I was born March 28, 1660, son of Ernest, Elector of Hanover and
Sophia, granddaughter of James I. He was raised in the royal court of
Hanover, a German province, and married Sophia, Princess of Zelle, in 1682.
The marriage produced one son (the future George II) and one daughter
(Sophia Dorothea, who married her cousin, Frederick William I, King of
Prussia). After ruling England for thirteen years, George I died of a stroke on a journey to his beloved Hanover on October 11, 1727.

George, Elector of Hanover since 1698, ascended the throne upon the death of Queen Anne, under the terms of the 1701 Act of Settlement. His mother had recently died and he meticulously settled his affairs in Hanover before coming to England. He realized his position and considered the better of two evils to be the Whigs (the other alternative was the Catholic son of
James II by Mary of Modena, James Edward Stuart, the Old Pretender). George knew that any decision was bound to offend at least half of the British population. His character and mannerisms were strictly German; he never troubled himself to learn the English language, and spent at least half of his time in Hanover.

The pale little 54 year-old man arrived in Greenwich on September 29,
1714, with a full retinue of German friends, advisors and servants (two of which, Mohamet and Mustapha, were Negroes captured during a Turkish campaign). All were determined to profit from the venture, with George leading the way. He also arrived with two mistresses and no wife - Sophia had been imprisoned for adultery. The English population was unkind to the two mistresses, labeling the tall, thin Ehrengard Melusina von Schulenberg as the "maypole", and the short, fat Charlotte Sophia Kielmansegge as the
"elephant". Thackeray remarked, "Take what you can get was the old monarch's maxim... The German women plundered, the German secretaries plundered, the German cooks and attendants plundered, even Mustapha and
Mohamet... had a share in the booty."

Страницы: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18