Stuart Period

The Stuart period of British history lasted from 1603 to 1714 during the dynasty of the House of Stuart. The period ended with the death of Queen Anne and the accession of King George I from the German House of Hanover.

The period was plagued by internal and religious strife, and a large-scale civil war that resulted in the execution of King Charles I in 1649. The Interregnum, largely under the control of Oliver Cromwell, is included here for continuity, even though the Stuarts were in exile. The Cromwell regime collapsed and Charles II had very wide support for his taking of the throne in 1660. His brother James II was overthrown in 1689 in the Glorious Revolution. He was replaced by his Protestant daughter Mary II and her Dutch husband William III. Mary's sister Anne was the last of the line. For the next half-century, James II and his son James Francis Edward Stuart and grandson Charles Edward Stuart claimed that they were the true Stuart kings, but they were in exile and their attempts to return with French aid were defeated.

William and Mary: 1688–1702

During the joint rule of William and Mary, William made the decisions when he was in Britain; Mary was in charge when he was out of the country and also handled Church affairs. William encouraged the passage of major laws that protected personal liberties. of the Toleration Act 1689, which guaranteed religious toleration to Protestant nonconformists. It did not, however, extend toleration as far as he wished, still restricting the religious liberty of Roman Catholics, non-trinitarians, and those of non-Christian faiths. In December 1689, one of the fundamental constitutional documents in English history, the Bill of Rights, was passed. The Act restated and confirmed many provisions of the earlier Declaration of Rights, and established restrictions on the royal prerogative. It provided that the Sovereign could not suspend laws passed by Parliament, levy taxes without parliamentary consent, infringe the right to petition, raise a standing army during peacetime without parliamentary consent, deny the right to bear arms to Protestant subjects, unduly interfere with parliamentary elections, punish members of either House of Parliament for anything said during debates, require excessive bail or inflict cruel and unusual punishments. William was opposed to the imposition of such constraints, but he chose not to engage in a conflict with Parliament and agreed to abide by the statute.

Witchcraft and magic

Historians have recently placed stress on how people at the time dealt with the supernatural, not just in formal religious practice and theology, but in everyday life through magic and witchcraft. The persecution of witches began in England in 1563, and hundreds were executed. England was spared the frenzy on Continental Europe; with over 5% of Europe's population in 1600, England executed only 1% of the 40,000 witches killed in the period 1400–1800.

The government made witchcraft a capital crime under Queen Elizabeth I of England in 1563. King James VI and I made the suppression of witchcraft a high priority in both Scotland and (in 1604) in England. Judges across England sharply increased their investigation of accused 'witches', thus generating a body of highly detailed local documentation that has provided the main basis for recent historical research on the topic. Historians Keith Thomas and his student Alan Macfarlane study witchcraft by combining historical research with concepts drawn from anthropology. They argued that English witchcraft was an endemic year in and year out, rather than happening in epidemic outbursts. Older women were the favorite targets because they were marginal, dependent members of the community and therefore more likely to arouse feelings of both hostility and guilt, and less likely to have defenders of importance inside the community. Witchcraft accusations were the village's reaction to the breakdown of its internal community, coupled with the emergence of a newer set of values that was generating psychic stress.

Historian Peter Homer has emphasized the political basis of the witchcraft issue in the 17th century, with the Puritans taking the lead in rooting out the Devil's work in their attempt to de-paganize England and build a godly community. As the process of psychological modernization reached more and more people, fears of witchcraft and magic tended to steadily diminish. After 1660 Puritans were largely excluded from the judiciary and lost their power to investigate. In 1712, Jane Wenham was the last woman found guilty of witchcraft in England. In 1735 Parliament no longer believed that witchcraft was real—despite the efforts of James Erskine, Lord Grange, the Scottish Lord who made a fool of himself speaking in opposition. Parliament passed the Witchcraft Act 1735 which made it a crime to accuse someone of witchcraft. The laws against witchcraft were not fully repealed until 1951 with the passing of the Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951. Witchcraft was a minor issue of little importance in Ireland. However, Scotland was a major center of suppression; 3900 Scots were tried; two-thirds were convicted and executed, the last of whom was Janet Horne in 1727.

When the Puritans fell out of power, Britain began to enjoy itself again. The theatres returned and played a major role in high society in London, where they were patronized by royalty. Historian George Clark argues:

The best-known fact about the Restoration drama is that it is immoral. The dramatists did not criticize the accepted morality about gambling, drink, love, and pleasure generally, or try, like the dramatists of our own time, to work out their own view of character and conduct. What they did was, according to their respective inclinations, to mock at all restraints. Some were gross, others delicately improper ... The dramatists did not merely say anything they liked: they also intended to glory in it and to shock those who did not like it.

The first coffee houses appeared in the mid-1650s and quickly became established in every city in many small towns. They exemplified the emerging standards of middle-class masculine civility and politeness Downtown London boasted about 600 by 1708. Admission was a penny for as long as a customer wanted. The customers could buy coffee, and perhaps tea and chocolate, as well as sandwiches and knickknacks. Recent newspapers and magazines could be perused by middle-class men with leisure time on their hands. Widows were often the proprietors. The coffeehouses were quiet escapes, suitable for conversation, and free of noise, disorder, shouting and fighting in drinking places. The working class could more usually be found drinking in pubs or playing dice in the alleyways.

Many businessmen conducted their affairs there, and some even kept scheduled hours. Historian Mark Pendergast observes:

Each coffeehouse specialized in a different type of clientele. In one, physicians could be consulted. Others served Protestants, Puritans, Catholics, Jews, literati, merchants, traders, fops, Whigs, Tories, army officers, actors, lawyers, clergy, or wits. The coffeehouses provided England's first egalitarian meeting place, where a man was expected to chat with his tablemates whether he knew them or not.

Lloyd's Coffee House opened in 1686 and specialized in providing shipping news for a clientele of merchants, insurers, and shipowners. In a few years, it moved to a private business office that eventually became the famous insurance exchange Lloyd's of London. By the 1790s private clubs had become more popular and the penny coffee houses largely closed down.

World trade

The 18th century was prosperous as entrepreneurs extended the range of their businesses around the globe. By the 1720s Britain was one of the most prosperous countries in the world.

As an island, there was little incentive for gaining new territory. In the Tudor and Stuart periods the main foreign policy goal (besides protecting the homeland from invasion) was building a worldwide trading network for its merchants, manufacturers, shippers and financiers. This required a hegemonic Royal Navy so powerful that no rival could sweep its ships from the world's trading routes, or invade the British Isles. Wool was a great commercial product. Home production of wool supplied internal needs, while raw wool and wool cloth made up 75–90% of exports. Trade was extensive with France, the Low Countries, and the Baltic. The Hanseatic League of German trading cities had once controlled 40% of the English trade, but it rapidly lost that role after 1500 and was expelled from England in 1598. The English colonies in the West Indies provided sugar, most of which was re-exported to the Continent. The 13 American colonies provided land for migrants, masts for the navy, food for the West Indies slaves, and tobacco for the home and the re-export trades. The British gained dominance in the trade with India, and largely dominated the highly lucrative slave, sugar, and commercial trades originating in West Africa and the West Indies.

More information is available at [ Wikipedia:Stuart_Period ]

A Personal Note from Robin

William and Mary College

Many English migrants settled in the American tidewater area (Virginia, New Jersey, Delaware, North and South Caroline) of America during the Stuart period. The first Univesity in the Americas was 'New College (now Harvard). Fifty years later (1693), 'The College of William and Mary' waS founded in Williamsburg, VA. W&M was the second oldest in the Americas and the ninth-oldest in the English-speaking world.

• After WWII, my mother and father attended 'William and Mary' (aka W&M) on the GI Bill.

More information is available at [ Wikipedia:College of William & Mary ]

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