The Stuarts
Our story starts in 1660: restoration of the Stuart dynasty to the English throne after the
Republican Interregnum (Latin for period between kings, 1649-1660). Charles II returns from
his exile in France to become king.
Who were the Stuarts and why did they have to be restored?
1. The kingsINGLESA
LITERATURA of EnglandDE ever
LAsince Elizabeth I diedAL
RESTAURACIÓN childless in 1603 and James VI of
ROMANTICISMO
Scotland became James I of England (union of crowns, but not countries: this will
take place in 1707, the Treaty of Union).
2. In 1625 his son Charles I succeeded to the throne, but his authority was questioned by
the Puritans and this led to the Civil Wars between Parliament and the Monarchy
(1642-48). The Monarchy was defeated and England became a republic (the
Commonwealth) under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell.
3. Charles I was declared a traitor after trial and was subsequently beheaded: the only
English monarch ever to have been executed.
4. On Tuesday 30th January 1649, a bitterly cold day, the King was beheaded outside
the Banqueting House at Whitehall Palace.
5. His last words were: “I shall go from a corruptible to an incorruptible Crown, where
no disturbance can be.”
He meant the incorruptible Crown as Heaven. Disturbance → the beheading
(The power of the King came from God)
THE RELIGIOUS PROBLEM
1. THE REFORMATION: In 1533 Henry VIII founds the Church of England or
Anglican Church through the Act of Supremacy, different from the Catholic and
Protestant churches, under the supremacy of the King, not the Pope. The doctrine is
initially Catholic (the Act of Six Articles, 1539).
1. Under Edward VI the doctrine becomes fully Protestant, but followed by (Bloody)
Mary I’s Catholic counterreformation.
1. Finally, Elizabeth I manages a compromise between both in the Settlement of 1559:
the middle way between Catholic conservative dogma or practice and Protestant
innovation.
1. This satisfied neither Papists nor Puritans, the former did not join it, the latter
remained inside but discontented (they will leave and establish their own
organizations after 1660): High and Low Church.
1. Discontent became a breach when they tried to impose upon Charles I a Puritan
reformation of the Church of England, which divided the nation between Royalist
Cavaliers (for the King and the Anglican Establishment) and Puritan Roundheads (for
Parliament as protector of Protestant religious truth).
This was not just a religious conflict, it was also political and economic: the battle for power
and money between King and Parliament. The result was the Civil Wars, the execution of
Charles I and the Commonwealth.
After the accession to the throne of Charles II, pURITAN FANATICISM IS DISCREDITED
AND Anglican establishment restored.
2. Act of Uniformity (1662): ministers must agree to Episcopalian form of church
government, It penalized Puritans which did not conform to Anglican creed and they
created their dissenting organizations (Non-conformists or Dissenters (puritans)).
2. Test Act (1673): government officials must swear that they don't believe in
transubstantiation (in the mass, the communion bread represents Christ’s flesh and
wine his blood). Catholics are thus excluded from public life and scorned.
2. Toleration Act (1689) grants the Dissenters a limited freedom of worship, initiating a
transition from discrimination to toleration.
In the eighteenth century, as religious conflict is freed from political implications and
becomes just a question of doctrine, and as its influence on all aspects of life decreases,
religion becomes less and less a problem.
THE BEGINNING OF PARTY POLITICS
6. Charles II promised to govern through Parliament and adapted to circumstances, but