english revolution

The English Revolution , which took place in the 17th century, was one of the main events of the Modern Age . It was considered the first of the great bourgeois revolutions , that is, the revolutions led by leaders of the European bourgeoisie, which had become significantly strong, from an economic point of view, throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, and which needed to achieve political legitimacy.

With the process of revolution, the bourgeoisie of England , through a civil war and the action of Parliament, managed to fight the absolutist state from that country and reformulate the political structure, which would culminate in the model of the Parliamentary Monarchy in 1688.

We can divide the historical process of the English Revolution into four main phases:

1) Puritan Revolution and the Civil War;

2) Republic of Oliver Cromwell;

3) Restoration of the Stuart dynasty;

4) Glorious Revolution .

See also: Protestant Reformation – Great Event of the Modern Age

Historical Background to the English Revolution

For much of the 16th century, the English bourgeoisie was well articulated with the nobles and kings belonging to the Tudor dynasty (Henry VIII and his daughter Elizabeth), who consolidated the Anglican Reform . Henry VIII's religious reform provided great financial benefits to both nobles and burghers in England. This is because the process of converting former feudal lands, under the Catholic Church's domain, into private properties began, which made possible the formation of enclosures and leases that were sold to the bourgeois who intended to exploit coal mines or practice some agricultural activity.

Furthermore, the break with the Catholic Church (which was not only an institution with spiritual power, but the holder of a continental political power, to which a good part of the European Crowns was linked) exempted England from paying tribute to Rome, as well as putting the English navy in flagrant rivalry with the ships of Catholic countries, especially with the Spaniards. Many English pirates , known as "sea wolves", attacked Spanish ships and took their merchandise (most often, precious metals) to England, which contributed to the heating of the country's internal market.

As you can see, the main political actions of the Tudors ended up providing a great rise of the bourgeoisie , so that at the end of the century, in the 1590s, the bourgeois already had great representative strength in the so-called House of Commons (one of the chambers of the English Parliament, which was opposed to the House of Lords , that is, of the noble supporters of the Crown). The problem is that this strength acquired by the bourgeoisie was associated with puritanism (theEnglish Calvinism ), which was the religion that most attracted the bourgeoisie and that gave ideological support to anti-absolutist political radicalism.

Added to this the fact that the nobles and the Crown were threatened by the capacity of the Puritan bourgeoisie to accumulate wealth. While the income of the bourgeoisie came from work and financial investments, the income of the nobles came from hereditary privileges, the collection of taxes and the formation of state monopolies in a mercantile way. The monarchs who succeeded the Tudors, that is, the Stuart, they realized that if they didn't stop the bourgeoisie in the political field, the monarchic structure would be doomed to ruin.

The first monarch of the Stuart dynasty was Jaime I , who ruled from 1603 to 1625. To try to adapt the Crown to the new financial reality in England and control the rise of the bourgeoisie, James I began to take two main measures:1) tax increase and establishment of forced loans; and 2) the formation of state monopolies as a form of participation in the income of bourgeois businesses. In addition, James unleashed a religious persecution of the Puritans. Confronted by the House of Commons, he dissolved Parliament, which was inactive from 1614 to 1622.

With the rise of Carlos I , son of James, to the throne, in 1625, there was a new attempt at agreement between the Crown and Parliament for a new increase in taxes. The House of Lords sided with the king, but the House of Commons again confronted him. The king then decided to dissolve Parliament again , which was inactive until 1640. In 1640, Charles I entered a new conflict against Scotland and again needed the tribute of the bourgeois to pay for the war, thus summoning, once again, the Parliament. Again the House of Commons refused to help him. But contrary to what had happened before, the Puritan bourgeois prepared for an all-out confrontation against the king and the nobility.

A Puritan radical leader namedOliver Cromwell organized a bourgeois army known as the army of the “Round heads ” for refusing to wear the wigs of nobles. This army waged war against the Crown, which was defended by the “Knights ”, that is, the traditional army of the nobility. Thus began the Puritan Revolution , or English Civil War.

Puritan Revolution and Civil War (1640-1649)

The civil war between the Puritan bourgeoisie and the Crown intensified when, in 1642, Oliver Cromwell summoned the rank and file of the petty bourgeoisie and peasants to form the New Model Army (New Model Army).

On this basis, the Diggers e Levellers , who were characterized by their political radicalism in matters such as agrarian reform (Diggers) and equal rights for all citizens (Levellers). With the New Model Army, Cromwell was able to crush the Crown's forces. In 1649, the bourgeois radical wing demanded the beheading of Charles I , which took place on the 31st of January. To learn more about this time of political disputes, read:English Civil War.

“Republic” by Oliver Cromwell (1649-1658)

On May 19, 1649, the Republic was proclaimed, and Cromwell was given the title of Lord Protector by Parliament. (Lord Protector of the Republic). Many political transformations operated by Cromwell benefited the bourgeoisie that he led in the Civil War. One of these transformations was made possible by the so-called Navigation Acts , approved in 1650, which restricted the transport of English products only to England's own ships.

However, like the authoritarian monarchs he had fought, Cromwell eventually turned against Parliament . In 1653, he dissolved it with the help of the bourgeois army and instituted an open dictatorship, whose main characteristic was the execution of the leaders who helped him to form this same army, that is, the Diggers and Levellers , as historian Christopher Hill says in his work The Puritan Revolution of 1640 :

“The story of the English revolution from 1649 to 1660 can be told in a few words. Cromwell's shooting of the Levellers at Burford made the restoration of the monarchy and the lords absolutely inevitable, for the break between the big bourgeoisie and the gentry on the one hand and the popular forces on the other meant that their rule could only be maintained by an army (which in the long run proved to be extraordinarily expensive and difficult to control) or by a compromise with the remaining representatives of the old order.” |1|

Sometime later, in 1657, Cromwell proposed a new agreement with the parliamentarians and rehabilitated the English Parliament. However, before this agreement could take effect, Cromwell died (1658). In his place, he took on his son, Richard Cromwell , who did not have the same prestige as his father, especially in the face of the most radical classes of the bourgeoisie. Fearing a popular uprising and a new civil war, Parliament made a risky maneuver:it summoned Charles II, son of the beheaded king, to take the throne and restore the Stuart dynasty .

See also: French Revolution – the historic landmark that started Contemporaneity

Restoration of the Stuart Dynasty (1660-1688)

In 1660, Charles II assumed the throne promising to respect the interests of Parliament. But he soon began to articulate with former nobility leaders to restore absolutism, coming closer to the France of Louis XIV. However, the social reality was already quite different from when his father had reigned and, failing to obtain a new traditional composition, Charles II began a widespread religious persecution against the Calvinists .

This persecution also had as a background Charles II's approach to members of the Catholic Church. Despite being Anglicans, the Stuarts maintained good relations with members of the clergy, who still had great social influence, in addition to land tenure.

The Parliament, composed of a Puritan majority, by repudiating the actions of Charles II, found itself again a victim of authoritarianism:the monarch dissolved it in 1681 and ruled alone until his death. , in 1685. His brother, Jaime II , took over the lathe, reactivated Parliament, but sought to follow up on the actions of Charles II, with regard to the restoration of absolutism . However, James II went further, converting to Catholicism and enacting a series of measures that benefited Catholics, such as tax exemptions. Again, Parliament's reaction was immediate. Fearing that Jaime would claim support from France, members of Parliament tried to organize a political maneuver to avoid a possible armed conflict.

Glorious Revolution and the founding of the Parliamentary Monarchy

The maneuver consisted of summoning the daughter of James II, Mary II , at the time married to Guilherme de Orange , governor of the Netherlands, to assume the throne of England with her husband. William of Orange, initially, did not welcome the plan, imagining that his wife, as the rightful heir, would have more powers than he did. However, even so, still in 1688, William invaded England with his army to depose James II and support Parliament.

The Cavalry of the nobility, who were also displeased with the king, instead of defending him, allied themselves with William. To James II, already without any defense, William of Orange allowed the escape to France, where the monarch remained exiled until the last day of life.

William of Orange assumed the English throne as William III . Because its military action did not result in war and bloodshed, it was called the Glorious Revolution . Parliament, however, set new guidelines for William and Mary before crowning them. Both kings had to undertake to fulfill the so-called Declaration of Rights of 1689 (Bill Of Rights). The Bill of Rights limited the action of kings so as to prevent any return to absolutism. The kings came to have restricted power, and the political decision-making power was concentrated in Parliament, thus forming a Parliamentary Monarchy . In addition, there was a commitment to individual freedoms, especially freedom from religious beliefs. To learn more about this stage of the English Revolution, read our text:Glorious Revolution.

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|1 | HILL, Christopher. The English Revolution of 1640 . trans. Wanda Ramos. Lisbon:Editorial Presença; São Paulo:Livraria Marins Fontes, 1985. p. 101.