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+\e~v-. .e."""e:.", V\CHAPTER 1

Introduction

SOCIETY IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

populationThe population of England and Wales was approximatelyfive and a half million in 1600. It had been rising steadilythroughout the sixteenth century as the population becameincreasingly resistant to the recurring attacks of plague thathad halved the population between 1349 and 1480. Thevast majority of the population lived in the countryside,the poorest probably never travelling outside their village.There were cities, the major cities being Norwich, Bristol,York and Newcastle and one city that was huge byEuropean standards - London. Already London wasgrowing at a rate that dwarfed the other cities. In 1600London's population was 250,000; by 1640 it was 400,000_ the largest city in Europe. The next largest city inEngland, Norwich, only had a population of perhaps20,000. The size and wealth of London became a matter ofenvy and concern to the merchants of the' outports suchas Hull and Lynn, who saw the great city, with itsimmensely rich companies of merchants, 'eating up thetrade of the whole kingdom'.

Life expectancyLife expectancy was low for the vast majority of thepopulation - those just 'making a living' as farm labourersor 'cottagers' (smallholders), for whom the average age ofdeath was thirty. As child deaths were very high indeed,this figure gives a rather distorted view. In fact anyone whosurvived until fourteen had a chance of living until forty.For the more wealthy, with a better diet and rather betterhygiene, life expectancy was higher. However, medicalknowledge was, by our standards, all but non-existent.Death was a constant presence in every family; childbirthwas particularly dangerous so children and wives were verymuch at risk.

4 The Coming of the Civil War 1603-49

AgricultureFor the majority of the population living in the~ountryside~ life was bound up with the seasons and theylived by agnculture. Even England's main export, cloth,was based on the grazing of sheep. Poor weather in thesummer months could mean starvation for many because,if the harvest failed, they were at risk in the followingwinter. However, in the seventeenth century demand foragricultural.produce increased. The reason for this was thegrowth in population explained above. The growing citiesneeded to be fed and money was invested in improvingriv~r transport. The result was that landowners could gettheir goods to market more easily and were thereforeencouraged to invest in agricu~ural improvements.Investment in agriculture and the increase in profits led toan increase in the number of large farms. Smaller farmswere joined together to form farms of over 600 acres insize,

IndustryFor centuries wool had been England's main export. Bythe seventeenth century England was not exporting muchraw wool, but cloth that was 'unfinished'; it still needed tobe dyed and 'dressed' - finished - to be made into clothes.This finishing was done in the Netherlands. Newlightweight cloths that were suitable for warmer climateswere also being developed. Although England exportedsome other goods, such as tin and leather, cloth remainedthe single most important export, with thousands ofpeople, from shepherds, farmers, weavers and cloth buyersthrough to merchants, depending on it.

KEY TERMThe merchant companiesof London Trade to variouspartS of the known world waslargely in the hands of thegreat city companies, whohad royal charters (documentsof rights granted by the king)to trade to various areas. Themajor companies were: theMerchant Adventurerstrading to northern Europe,the Levant Company toTurkey, the EastlandCompany to the Baltic, theRussia Company to Russia,and the East India Companyto the Far East and India.The charters these companieshad gave them a monopoly oftrade. Merchants who werenot members of thesecompanies could not trade inthese areas. Of course,merchants who were notmembers of the greatchartered companies resentedtheir hold on trade.

However, the cloth industry, like other sectors of theEnglish economy, faced real problems at the beginning ofthe seventeenth century.

• The guild system. Industrial production was held backby the guild system. Guilds were organisations thatmade the rules for each trade, whether it be weaving,spinning or plumbing. The main effect of the guildsystem was to restrict those making specific goods so asto keep the price of those goods high. However, theresult of this guild system was that it restricted output.

'. Introduction 5

• Poor communication and transport. Although somerivers, including the Ouse, Nene and Thames, weremade navigable in parts during the seventeenth century,it still took a long time to get goods to market. Mostroads were tracks that became almost impassable in wetweather and harsh winters.

Social classSocial class in seventeenth-century England was very muchmore clearly defined and separated than today. In theorysociety was still hierarchical.

the monarch

the gentry

lawyers/merchantsl- __ -\yeoman farmers

smallholdersand tradesmen

1---------\

form workers/urban labourers

Aristocracy. The most important group in seventeenth-century society was the aristocracy - those with largeestates whose families could, in most cases, be traced backfor hundreds of years. They had inherited titles - Earl,Duke, Lord, Baron - which usually passed down to theeldest son. The eldest member of an aristocratic family satin the House of Lords. Traditionally they had commandedarmies, attended court and advised kings, and theyarranged marriages among themselves - unless the fami~ywas going through a bad time financially, when they mightarrange a marriage with the daughter of a rich merchant.They lived in the great houses that one can still see acrossEngland - Hardwick, Hatfield, Burleigh, Haddon, Knole,Holdenby - and they were surrounded by servants who'lived in', some great houses having as many as fifty living-in servants.


Hatfield House, built byRobert Cecil, Earl ofSalisbury.

KEY TERMJustices of the Peace (JPs)were the unpaidadministrators of thecountryside. They undertookmany of the following tasks:

• carrying out theinstructions of the RoyalCouncil

• trying criminal cases• keeping law and order

'.

Knights were a special case. Unlike the aristocracy withtheir hereditary tides, they were given their tide of Sir bythe monarch, usually for distinguished service or bravery,and the title did not pass down to the next generation.Those who held this tide were very proud of it because itmarked them off from the rest of the population.

Gentry. Below the aristocracy were the gentry - 'gentlemen'.The gentry are less easy to define. In theory, they had to beof 'old families' which did not have a hereditary title ofhonour, and they had a coat of arms, which showed thattheir family was 'old'. The gentry varied in wealth. Somecould rival their local aristocrats in the number of acresthey owned; others were considerably less wealthy. Thegentry in the prosperous agricultural areas, such as thesouth, the midlands and East Anglia, were far richer thanthe gentry of the less prosperous north and west. The markof the gentry family was that it did no work; like thearistocracy they let their land out to tenant farmers or hadan 'estate manager' who organised the farms. Like thearistocracy, they were anxious to keep their landholdingintact, so only the eldest son inherited the land; youngersons became lawyers or merchants. The gentry were vital tothe running of the country outside London.

They served as Justices of the Peace and sheriffs. Theleading gentry in each county got their status from beingmilitia officers, Justices of the Peace, Deputy Lieutenants

Introduction 7

(the organisers of the militia) and, the highest honour ofall, Members of Parliament.

The militia was the only military force in England - exceptfor a few garrisons at key points such as Portsmouth andDover, and the Royal Guards around the court. Therewere very few professional soldiers in England. In theory,every man could be called upon by the monarch to helpdefend the country in time of war. Not everyone could beequipped and trained, even on a once-a-year meeting(muster). Therefore only some people were in the militiacompanies that were organised by each county. TheDeputy Lieutenants were in charge of the militia in thecounties, and the other leading gentlemen of each countywere captains in charge of local companies. The weaponsand gunpowder were often stored in the local parishchurch. Most militia companies were not at all well trainedor equipped.

Lawyers and merchants. The lawyers and merchants were,in theory, below the gentry in terms of social status,although some were the younger sons of"gentry. In fact,many lawyers and merchants were as rich as the leadinggentry, or even aristocrats, and married into gentry oraristocratic families. Some of the great City of London


Felbrigg, Norfolk, 1620.

A yeoman's farmhouseat Bishopstone,Wiltshire, built in 1637.

..

merchants acted as moneylenders to both the aristocracyand gentry.

Yeomen. Next down the social scale were the yeomanfarmers. These owned their own land, or rented largechunks of land from aristocracy or gentry. They did notclaim to be 'gentlemen' and they worked their farmsdirectly. Some successful yeomen, because they were hard-headed 'business farmers', were as rich as the gentry, butmost were not. Yeoman farmers had done well in the laterElizabethan period and were to continue to prosper; somemoved up into the gentry. Below the yeoman farmers werethe 'cottagers' - those who had a few acres ofland and alsoworked for yeoman farmers o*he gentry.

The yeoman farmers seem to have done well between 1540and 1640. They did not have the expenses of thearistocracy and gentry since they did not have to keep up agrand 'lifestyle' to impress others. The one expense theydid take on was the rebuilding, improvement andextension of their houses. Many large farmhouses inEngland date from this period, known as the 'GreatRebuilding', and show how prosperous the yeomen were.

Introduction 9

The poor. The vast majority of the population were therural poor - rural labourers who perhaps just had a cottagegarden, or the urban workers in industries such as glassmaking, leather tanning and pottery. Some of these, if theywere skilled workers, were in demand and could live quitewell; others lived 'from hand to mouth'. There werespecialised trades in the countryside, such as blacksmithingand weaving, but the latter was dependent on economicconditions. Occasionally economic depression causedwidespread distress. In the 1620s and again in 1640 thewool trade was affected by recession and the weaverssuffered.

The role of womenSeventeenth-century society was dominated by males. Intheory, the head of the family exercised complete powerover his children, and, by today's standards, women appearto have been oppressed. Legally, women were second-classcitizens.

• Women could not, in theory, own or inherit land andmost marriages among the upper classes - aristocracy,gentry and merchants - were arranged.Women could not vote and were regarded as inferior tomen in every respect.

In practice, some women overcame these legal handicapsand exercised considerable influence. Despite theconvention of arranged marriage, in the late sixteenthcentury, women such as Bess of Hardwick were able tomake their 'own luck' by marrying the men they wishedto, holding property and, through their forcefulpersonalities, having real power. One of the most commonthemes in early-seventeenth-century plays is the daughterwho defies her parents and marries for love. Moreover, thediaries of some seventeenth-century gentry and yeomenshow that their wives had considerable power in the homeand were able to exert influence over their husbands.During the Civil War, some women played an active rolecommanding troops defending their castles while theirhusbands were away fighting. Even the poorer womenplayed an important role in the economic life of thecountry, particularly in the weaving industry - 40 per cent


A seventeenth-centuryfamily: the Spencers atCharlecote Park.

of weaving was done by women. However, in general itwould be true to say that women were regarded as inferiorand the 'weaker vessel'.

THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS

The CrownAt the head of the political system was the monarch, withfar greater powers than kings or queens have today.

The divine right of kings. There were many importantideas associated with the monarchy, the most significantbeing the 'divine right of kings'. During the sixteenthcentury ideas that had been around for several hundredyears became more clearly expressed. The divine right ofkings was an idea that appealed to monarchs alloverEurope - monarchs who wished to extend their authority.In simple terms, the idea was this:

..Introduction 11

JAMES I = Anne of Denmark1603-25

Henry

ICHARLES I = Henrietta Maria1625-49

IElizabeth = Frederick V,

Elector Palatine

I ICHARLES II = Catherine Mary = William II Anne (1) = JAMES II = (2) Mary of

1,"'H5 '''''9"om 'fO"O~ 168>-' Mode"

WILLIAM III = MARY II ANNE = George of1689-1702 1689-94 1702-14 Denmark

• Kings were God's representatives on earth. Their powercame from God and therefore could not be challenged.

• God's will. Those who believed in the divine right ofkings believed that kings were carrying out God's will onearth, so again their decision could not be challenged.

The difference between Charles and James. Both James Iand Charles I were, like all seventeenth-centuty monarchs,believers in the divine right. This belief is importantbecause it helps to explain many of their decisions andactions. However, there was a difference berween the rwo.Although James believed that he had been chosen by Godto be king, he did not challenge the laws of the land orParliament with this idea in mind. Charles was not socareful.

The royal prerogative. In English political theory, the kingruled as well as reigned. In other words, he had widepowers that could not, or should not, be challenged.Although the king had these powers, it did not mean thatmany people believed in the divine right of kings. Thewide-ranging rights and powers that the monarch heldwere known as the 'royal prerogative'. The prerogativeincluded the right:

• to give out titles of honour,• to choose the Royal Council (the king's advisers),• to conduct foreign policy,• to appoint judges,


Part of the Stuart familytree. Monarchs areshown in bold capitalsand the dates indicatetheir reigns.

Chooses The monarch Chooses bishops______judges ---------,~---1:---------"'--------

..----- TheRoyaIHoldcourtsin CallsParliament! Council

serious criminal dismisses Parliament (Privy Council)cases ~

The Lords Lieutenant

~TheDeputyLieutenants

~

StarChamber

TheChurch

1High Commission

TheJustices Theof the Peace sheriffs

(JPs)

Note: Both Star Chamber and High Commission were Prerogative Courts where the monarch could sit, but usually members of the Royal Council judged.

Themilitia

The structure ofgovernment.

KEY THEMES'Live of his own' meantthat the monarch should notcollect taxes in peacetime tosuppOrt the royal household.

Royal proclamations werenew laws declared by themonarch without reference toParliament.

'0

• to call and dismiss parliaments,• to collect certain taxes, ,~• to issue royal proclamations (instructions) on certain

matters.

The monarch was head of the Church, so he appointedbishops and decided on the way the Church of Englandheld its ceremonies and on its doctrines (beliefs). Themonarch also had the right to declare war or peace, andwas commander of the armed forces. In addition, the day-to-day running of the country was in the monarch's hands:the Royal Council would issue instructions to the JPs andDeputy Lieutenants in the counties under the royal seal,which gave legal authoriry to them.

Limits to royal power. There were limits to royal power,however, and these limits were a matter for debatethroughout the first forty years of the seventeenthcentury.

• In theory, the monarch should live of his own.• Royal proclamations could not override 'common law' -

the laws of England that had grown up over hundreds ofyears.

• The 'subject' (the citizen) of England had rights in lawthat the monarch could not overrule.

Many of the clashes berween kings and parliaments in thisperiod were about the rights of the subject as against therights of the monarch.

Introd uction 13

Royal revenue. Where did the monarch's money comefrom? The monarch collected customs duties, profits ofjustice (fines imposed by courts), the rent from Crownlands and some revenue from the Church by right. Thiswas termed 'ordinary revenue'. There were other sources ofrevenue collected by the Crown such as 'wardship' and'purveyance' (see pp. 28-9) which caused controversy.

ParliamentParliament consisted of twO houses - the House ofCommons and the House of Lords.

House of Lords. The House of Lords consisted of theleading noblemen (peers) (who were members of thearistocracy), the law lords, leading lawyers and somebishops. In the early seventeenth century, the House ofLords (the Upper House) was more important than theHouse of Commons (the Lower House) and could blockany bills (laws) coming to it from the Commons. It tendedto support the Crown in disputes with the Commons. Thereason why so much of seventeenth-century history seemscentred around the House of Commons is that the recordsof the House of Lords were destroyed in a fire in the1830s, so historians know far more about the House ofCommons.

House of Commons. Unlike the House of Lords, wherepeers sat by right, the House of Commons was e~ected.Elections were called by the monarch and supervisedlocally by the sheriffs. There were two kinds of Member ofParliament:

• County MPs (knights of the shire) who were elected bythe 'forty shilling freeholders'. In other words, all thosewho owned land worth forty shillings (two pounds) wereentitled to vote in county elections.

• The burgesses were MPs who represented boroughs -towns that had a charter from the monarch that allowedthem to have an MP. The charter laid down who, ineach town, was entitled to vote.

Who actually voted? Some boroughs, such as Westminster,had a charter that allowed every male over twenty-one to


KEY THEMESubsidies were a form oftaxation based on a valuationof the subject's 'movablegoods' - usually amountingto one-tenth or one-fifteenthof the value. Local'commissioners' (usually JPs)assessed those who couldafford to pay, estimating howmuch their goods were worth.

Only Parliament could votesubsidies, which were theform in which Parliamentvoted money to the Crown.In theory, Parliament votedsubsidies only in cases ofemergency, as the king shouldnormally live of his own.

Problems with the valuationson which subsidies werebased:

• Rising prices (an importantfuture problem) were nottaken into account, so thereal worth of subsidies wentdown.

• The local gentry tended to'under-assess' theirneighbours and friends.

'.

vote, some other boroughs had a charter that allowed thosewho owned property to vote, and others were 'closed'boroughs where only the mayor and some leading citizenscould vote. Probably 10 to 20 per cent of the populationvoted normally. In county elections the sheriffs did not, orcould not, check who really was a forty shilling freeholder,and probably a lot more people voted than were legallyentitled to.

Loyalty of MPs. Most MPs were gentry, but some werelawyers and merchants, especially those holding boroughseats.

There were no 'parties' in the modern sense in Parliament.MPs saw themselves as representing their 'countries'(i.e. counties), not any particular party system. They wereindependent and could be influenced by speeches inParliament or by royal attitudes and they were proud ofthe fact that they were independent. Sometimes MPs whoshared the same views would get together to try to pushtheir ideas through the House of Commons but there wasno 'party system'. There were MPs who, because they hadfavours from the king, or were councillors, would normallysupport royal policies in the Commons. However, neitherJames nor Charles (unlike Elizabeth I) made sure that therewere men of enough influence who had respect from otherMPs and could be relied on to do this, putting mostcouncillors in the House of Lords.

Crown and Parliament - different views on rightsand rolesThe king's needs for subsidies. Both James and Charlesdisliked calling Parliament. There had to be a newparliament at the beginning of a new reign but after thatparliaments were called only because the Crown wantedsubsidies for help with financial difficulties.

Parliament's view of its rights. Parliament did not alwayssee its role as being only to vote subsidies, and this was thebasis for many of the disputes in the early Stuartparliaments. Parliament claimed certain 'privileges' asrights such as:

Introduction 15

• the right to 'free speech',• freedom from arrest while sitting as an MP,• the right to settle disputed elections, when there was an

argument about a borough charter or who had actuallywon an election.

Henry VIII and Elizabeth I had, on occasions, letParliament discuss religion (in theory part of the royalprerogative) and other matters. Parliament also saw itself ashavinz the right to punish corrupt and inefficient royalcouncillors because this had happened in the Middle Ages.

The Crown's view. The Crown, of course, took a differentview of Parliament's rights. Monarchs saw Parliament asbeing the means to raise subsidies and on occasions bring'grievances' to the Crown. Parliament had a large numberof lawyers, and gently with legal training, and it oftenlooked back hundreds of years into the past to prove that ithad the right to discuss matters that the Crown dislikedbeing discussed, because Parliament had done so in thedistant past.

Parliament did not meet regularly and, even in years whenParliament was sitting, the sessions lasted only a few weeksso Parliament was not like a modern parliament, sitting formost of the year doing regular business. Most of societytook very little interest in the issues of Parliament.However, there was an established political nation.

RELIGION IN THE EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

The importance of religion. Nowadays religious belief isseen as a matter for individuals. This was not so in theseventeenth century. It was impossible to separate religion,politics and royal authority. Religion was central to nearlyeveryone's view of the world, and religious belief formedthe cement that held people's lives together. Christianityhad split in the sixteenth century into, at first, Catholicand Protestant. This split had caused a series of terriblereligious wars in Europe with each side claiming to beabsolutely right.


KEY THEMEThe political nation wasmade up of those who had aninterest in politics and whathappened in Parliament. Thisinterest was not constant - itappeared at times of electionswhen there were particularissues that stirred interest.

In a largely illiteratepopulation most people rookno part in politics becausethey did not know about orunderstand it. However, thosein the higher classes, fromyeomen upwards, voted andwere literate; they comprisedwhat historians call 'thepolitical nation'.

Two contrastingpictures, one showingthe way a RomanCatholic priest dressed(left), the other the waya Puritan ministerdressed (right).

..

Catholics. Roman Catholicism had been the officialreligion in England until the reign of Henry VIII. In 1563,during the reign of Elizabeth I, England officially became aProtestant country. Although the new Church of Englandkept some of the ceremonies of the Catholic Church, theCatholic Church did have distinct beliefs.

• Catholics believed that the pope was God'srepresentative on earth, the direct spiritual descendant ofSaint Peter, Christ's leading apostle.

• The priest had a very special place. He was thought tohave direct communication with God and all Catholicsbelieved they had, on some occasions, to communicatewith God through the priest. Therefore he had powersthat were not possessed by anyone who was not a priest.

• The priest's special powers were expressed, for example,in the communion service, where it was believed that thebread and wine taken by those receiving communionwas literally converted into the body and blood of JesusChrist.

Introduction 17

The pope claimed to be the only authority on what wastrue in the Christian religion and what was untrue(heresy). This made all Christians spiritual subjects of thepope.

Protestants. Protestantism started in 1517 as a 'protest'against some of the pope's powers. The protest was led bya German monk, Martin Luther. The movement againstthe Catholic Church spread across Europe. A new set ofChristian beliefs emerged which attacked the ideas of theCatholic Church.

• Protestants believed that the pope had no powers overChristians at all; indeed many Protestants saw him as anevil force - the' anti-Christ'.

• Protestants believed that many of the ceremonies of theCatholic Church were at best unnecessary and at worstevil: the vestments (the elaborate clothing of the priest),the prayers said for the dead, the claim that the breadand wine became the body and blood of Jesus Christ.Protestants believed these were either wrong or at leastgot in the way of the individual's relationship with God.

• Protestants believed that an individual's relationshipwith God was based on prayer and reading the Bible.The Catholic Church, on the other hand, dislikedthe idea of the Bible being read by the laity(the congregation), believing it should be interpreted bythe trained mind of the priest. Protestants saw Biblereading as central to discovering religious faith.Therefore all Protestants had their own Bible, mostreading from it at least once a day. The 'Word' of theBible was central to Protestant thinking .

• Protestants also expressed 'the Word' in another way-through the sermon. It was the duty of the minister(the priest, as Catholics called him) to preach the word,rather than to perform glorious ceremonies at an altarcut off from the people. Most important of all, theindividual could communicate directly with Godthrough prayer. The 'priest' did not have the monopolyof communication with God.

England had become Protestant during the sixteenthcentury. Protestantism, because it stressed the individual's


KEY PERSON

John Calvin, who died in1564, was very imporrant inthe development ofProtestantism. He establishedthe first extreme Protestant-influenced government inGeneva. His main idea wasthat of predestination, thebelief that individuals areborn 'saved' in the eyes ofGod.

search for God, had tended to break up into differentgroupings with differing ideas. One of the most importantgroups were Calvinists named after John Calvin. Theytended to dislike bishops and wished either to get rid ofthem altogether or at least to stop them having muchauthority. Some Protestants wanted no ceremonies at all,just congregations praying together with a preacher, andwanted to get rid of all Church organisation. Others, lessextreme, wanted to keep some ceremonies and a properChurch organisation.

The Church of England. The Church of England, set up in1559 by Elizabeth I, was a compromise between the moreextreme Protestant views and the more conservative ones.The queen, like her father Henry VIII, was head of theChurch - thus defying the pope's authority. However,some of the old ceremonies were kept and the Church wasorganised under bishops headed by the Archbishop ofCanterbury. This compromise between different views onreligion was quite successful because, in practice, Elizabethappointed bishops of differing views and tried to create atolerant broad Church that all Protestants could support .

Challenges to the Church of England. By the time Jamescame to the throne, the Church of England was wellestablished but there were two challenges to the'Elizabethan settlement' of the Church.

• Roman Catholics. One came from Roman Catholicswho either had never 'converted' to Protestantism, orhad been 're-converted' to Catholicism. Catholics,however, made up perhaps 7 per cent of the populationand so were never a serious force.

• Puritans. More extreme Protestants were a greaterchallenge to the Church of England (Anglican)settlement. These Protestants thought there were still toomany traces of the old Catholic faith in the AnglicanChurch, and they wanted changes. Some wanted onlyminor changes, such as to the way the minister dressedfor services. The term 'Puritan' covers a range ofattitudes, though all Puritans wanted to see an end toanything that could be seen as being Catholic, such asany ceremonies, bishops or authority at all. The term

Introd uction 19..

'Puritan' was also used by some as an insult: for instance,one Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, used it todescribe anyone who opposed his high church view ofhow the Church of England should be run - a view thatmany moderates saw as a return to Catholicism. On theother hand, one ofJames' appointments, ArchbishopAbbott, has himself been seen as a Puritan. Rather thanseeing all Puritans as extremists wishing to change theChurch completely, it is probably safer to see them asmore determined Protestants, many of whom werehappy to stay in the Church of England under James.

Who were the Puritans? Puritanism was an attitude ofmind. It covered a range of different views aboutProtestantism and the way people should lead their lives.Puritanism was to be found in all social classes; someleading courtiers of Elizabeth's reign were strong Puritans -for instance, the head of Elizabeth's secret service,Walsingham, and her favourite, the Earl of Leicester.Puritanism was less fashionable at court under Jamesbecause James' court, with its extravagance and sexualscandal, was not, perhaps, as moral as Elizabeth's. Puritanstended to have high moral standards: for instance, theybelieved that sexual relationships were acceptable only inmarriage.

Puritanism seems to have been strongest among the middleclasses: among yeoman farmers, some gentry, tradesmenand merchants. Puritanism stressed hard work, beingcareful with money and being responsible for one's ownlife in the eyes of God. Puritans saw laziness as a sinagainst God. Some historians, such as Christopher Hill,have argued that Puritanism was a very attractive attitudeof mind to those who were hard working and making theirown way in the world. Therefore a yeoman farmer, forexample, who was careful with his money and hardworking believed that God approved of this, so being aPuritan fitted in with his own way of life. However,Puritanism covered such a wide range of views that theidea that all Puritans objected to any kind of entertainmentor celebration would be wrong. Even a strong Puritan suchas Oliver Cromwell enjoyed music and dancing.


KEY TERMS

High church is the termused co describe the part ofthe Church of England thatconrinued using Catholicceremonies and traditions.

Low church describes theparr of the Church ofEngland that rejectedCatholic rradirions and usedonly Protestant services.

Where was Puritanism strongest? Puritanism was strongestin London and East Anglia. It seems to have been lesspopular in the north, where Roman Catholicism was stillquite strong, especially in Lancashire. In the cloth-makingtowns of the west of England, such as Taunton andGloucester, Puritanism was also stronz arnonz the tradingt> t>classes, such as weavers and merchants. In the countrysidein Devon, Cornwall and Somerset, Puritanism was not sostrong. The-country people seem to have held on to theirtraditional festivals, such as May Day, which weredisapproved of by Puritans, who thought all thesecelebrations were sinful in the eyes of God and took peopleaway from work.

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Anti-Catholicism. This was one of the strongest forces inEnglish life in the seventeenth century. For most Englishpeople, Catholicism was associated with the burnings ofProtestants under Mary, with massacres of Protestantsabroad (of course, Protestants had also massacredCatholics) and, above all, with England's traditionalenemies Spain and France. The object of the SpanishArmada of 1588 had been the re-conversion, by force, ofEngland to Catholicism, and the 'absolute' monarchs ofEurope, who saw Catholicism as part of their authoritariansystem, seemed at odds with 'English liberty'. EnglishCatholics were seen as dangerous because their first loyalty,in theory, was to the pope, 'a foreign prince', not to the .English king. Catholicism was therefore seen asunpatriotic, religiously evil, and the driving force behindEngland's enemies. Anti-Catholic attitudes were deeplyrooted in English society from the top to the bottom andcould unite people in a way that nothing else could. TheGunpowder Plot of 1605 (see pp. 47-9) of course servedonly to confirm this prejudice in the public mind.

Court and country. To some extent, religious division wasassociated with a division berween court and country.During the seventeenth century there was a split inattitudes berween those gentry who lived on their countryestates, rarely coming up to London, and the courtsurrounding the king. Sir Walter Raleigh summed up theanger felt towards the court when he said, 'Say to the courtit shines and glows like rotten wood.' The puritan-minded

Introd uction 21'.

country gentry saw the court as devoted to luxury,hideously expensive and corrupt. Th~~ suspected that thecourt was inclined to Roman CatholicIsm, and thatcourtiers were at court only to get 'offices of profit' an~ .pensions. The 'country' saw t~emselve~ as honest, patrioticand having the interests of their counties and t.hecountryside, in which they lived, at heart. Their .resentment of rich London 'money men' and courtiers waspart of the tension that surfaced in seventeenth-centurypolitics and parliaments.

CHAPTER 2

James I's reign 1603-25

INTRODUCTION

1 What were the prerogatives of the monarch?

James I had been King of Scotland as James VI. He wasthe son of Mary Queen of Scots and the great-great-grandson of Henry VII of England. He was offered thethrone on the death of Elizabeth I, who died in 1603without an heir. Although a ~cot, he was a Protestantwhich was, for Parliament, a most important aspect of hischaracter. However, there were other aspects of hischaracter which were to have an important influence onhow he ran the state.

SUMMARY QUESTIONS

2 What were the rights and role of Parliament?

3 What were the differences in beliefs between Catholicsand Protestants?


• The wisest fool in Christendom? James has beencriticised by historians in the past. His knowledge andintelligence have been made little of; he has been seen asan educated man of no real practical sense.A contemporary remark about him, 'The wisest fool inChristendom', is often quoted. To be fair to James, hehad a difficult childhood. His mother, Mary Queen ofScots, was executed by Elizabeth I in 1587 and he foundhimself bullied by a series of tutors and advisers until hecame of age. As James VI of Scotland he was successful,managing to balance all the religious and politicalrivalries in a divided kingdom. He was highly intelligentand well educated, although he was perhaps too fond ofshowing it, and his experience in ruling Scotland ledhim to believe that 'as a wise and experienced king' hewould have no difficulties in England.

• Fear of assassination. He disliked war but was a keenhuntsman, takirig considerable risks while riding. Thusthose who saw his pacifism as cowardice may well havebeen mistaken. On the other hand, the Gunpowder Plotcertainly panicked him, and he lived in fear ofassassination, wearing a rapier-proof doublet - a paddedjacket. (A rapier was a small sword.)

4 Why were so many English people anti-Catholic?

5 What did 'Puritans' believe?

'. James l's reign 1603-25 23

bbs.calderdale.sch.uk · the poor. the vast majority of the population were the rural poor - rural...

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