attendance at church, sexual immorality, working on the sabbath or
a holy day, non-payment of tithes, and lending money at interest.
The special ecclesiastical court, the Court of High Commission,
was composed of clerics appointed by the king and decided cases of
marriage annulment, alimony, adultery, married couples living
separately, cruelty of husbands to wives, and habitual
drunkenness. But it also took on cases of schismatics and extended
its power over them to include staid and solid Puritans, who
uniformly believed that salvation was the only worthy earthly aim.
Acting on information attained through secret channels or from
visitations, it would summon the accused, who was required to
give, under oath, "full, true, and perfect" answers to broad and
undetailed charges made by secret informants. Refusal to take the
oath resulted in commitment for contempt of court. If he denied
the charges and fled, the court could hold the hearing without
him. Many fled out of the country or went into hiding in it. If
the accused went to the hearing, he could not take an attorney
with him. Most of the issues involved clergy refusing to use the
litany, to make the sign of the cross in baptism, to wear the
surplice, or to publish the Book of Sports, and insistence on
extempore prayer and preaching. Other issues were clergy who from
the pulpit inveighed against ship-money and unjust taxes, and
spoke rudely against the bishops and tyrannical princes. One case
is that of Samuel Ward, the town preacher of a large town, heard
in 1635. He neglected bowing or kneeling on coming to his seat in
church and preached against the Book of Sports. He did not read
the set prayers from the official book, but said prayers he had
himself conceived. To this he replied that a parrot could be
taught to repeat forms and an ape to imitate gestures. But his
most serious offenses had to do with his utterances from the
pulpit derogatory to the tenets and discipline of the church. He
was accused of saying that he believed that congregations still
had the right of election of all officers, including ministers.
Also, he allegedly said that in preaching on the Christmas
holidays he told his people "that in the following days they might
do their ordinary business, intending to cross that vulgar
superstitious belief, that whoever works on any of those twelve
days shall be lousy". He allegedly warned his people to beware of
a relapse into popery. Ward was convicted of depraving the
liturgy, tending toward schism, frightening the people, and
encouraging the overthrow of all manner of government. He was
removed from his position, deprived of his ministerial function,
suspended and silenced during the King's pleasure. He was ordered
to make submission and recantation both in court and in his church
and to give bond for 200 pounds. When he did not do this, he was
sent to prison and lay there nearly four years, and died a few
months later. In another case, a Mrs. Traske was imprisoned for at
least eleven years for keeping Saturday as her sabbath. Many
people were excommunicated and books censored for essentially
political reasons.
In 1637, the king proclaimed that the common law courts could not
intervene in ecclesiastical courts.
The Court of High Commission was abolished by the Long Parliament.
Justices of the Peace had general and quarter sessions, the latter
of which were held four times a year with all Justices of the
Peace attending. It was primarily a court of appeal from penal
sentences. But it was also an administrative body to determine
taxes and make appointments of officials and grant licenses for
businesses.
In 1638, in distributing a deceased person's estate, the Chancery
court upheld a trust for an heiress which would not become her
husband's property.
At the request of Parliament, the King had all justices serve
during their good behavior instead of serving at the King's will,
which had been the practice for ages. This increased the
independence of the judiciary.
The rack was used for the last time in 1640 before the Long
Parliament met. It was used to torture a rioter before hanging.
Men were still pressed to death for failure to plead, pickpockets
still executed for the first offence, and husband murderers still
burned.
- - - Chapter 16 - - -
- The Times: 1642-1660 -
For four years, there was civil war between the King, backed
generally by the upper class, the established church, and most of
the gentry, against the Parliamentarians, backed generally by
middle class yeomen, town dwellers, some of the gentry, most of
the great corporations, the City of London, the ports, the seamen,
and the Navy. Oxford University was royalist, and Cambridge
University was Puritan in sympathy. Archery was not used, having
become just sport by 1633. Flint-lock pistols, which relied on
flint striking steel to ignite the powder, as well as swords were
used by horsemen in the civil war. Footmen were musketeers using a
match lock with a cord boiled in vinegar as the match and dressed
in leather doublets and an iron-pot headpiece, or pikemen with
long wooden poles with spearheads of iron or steel and short
swords, and dressed in armor. This was the last time armor was
used. The Parliamentarians wore orange scarves to distinguish
themselves from their enemy. Cromwell, who had a natural aptitude
for military matters, selected for his troops, Puritan zealots
with a Puritan code of behavior which included no drinking or
swearing. He selected horsemen based on ability rather than social
class. He was regarded as one of the leaders of the Independents,
who wanted total abolition of the monarchy and of the aristocracy.
When made a leader of the New Model Army, Cromwell dressed all his
foot men in red with only the facings being regimental colors. The
New Model Army had been assembled because there had been
disagreement about policy among the members of Parliament who held
commissions. Almost all members gave up their commissions. For
their continued support, many wives and also prostitutes put on
men's clothing and followed the troops. They nursed the wounded.
Those many wives who stayed at home pleaded and answered in court;
petitioned to the House of Commons, e.g. for release of debtors
from prison, high taxes, lack of work, and arbitrary government;
and made other public appearances. Puritan and royalist newspapers
printed the news at least once weekly. Poet John Milton pled for
civil and religious freedom, freedom of social life, and freedom
of the press. He stated: "Give me the liberty to know, to utter,
and to argue freely, according to conscience, above all
liberties."
The Mayor and citizens of London were given authority in 1642 to
fortify all highways leading to the city and levy a tax on
inhabitants for this purpose. When London was deprived of coal
during the war, trees and flowers again flourished there.
Officers and seamen in navy ships were authorized in 1642 to take
one-third of all prize goods captured, the other two-thirds going
to the state.
Parliament approved certain persons to set forth ships at their
own expense to defend the realm in 1643. They were allowed to keep
any ships, goods, ammunition, or moneys they seized.
Saltpeter men were appointed by Parliament in 1643 and later times
to search and dig for saltpeter in pigeon houses, stables, and
outhouses, but not dwelling, shops, or milkhouses. They had to
repair any damage done to the contentment of the owners.
Complaints were made to Parliament that there were scandalous and
ill-affected fomenters of the civil war and disobeyers of the
ordinaries of Parliament and deserters of their ordinary places of
residence. These complaints were made by members of the University
of Cambridge, students, clergy in surrounding counties, and
schoolmasters. So a committee was established in 1643 to
investigate and sequester their lands and goods, excepting one-
fifth of the estate for the wife and children.
When Charles was captured in 1646, the episcopacy of the bishops
was abolished. When Parliament was about to reinstate Charles as
king with weakened powers and establish a Presbyterian state
church, the soldiers, who were religious Independents and who
still had not been fully paid (the infantry pay was 18 weeks in
arrears and the cavalry 43 weeks) despite plans to disband them,
spontaneously took the King by force. They demanded liberty of
conscience to practice their own religion and their pay. Cromwell
sided with the army and then became leader of the House of
Commons. Charles dissembled in his negotiations with the army
generals. He felt freed from his promises as soon as the pressure
was removed. The army could not forgive Charles' duplicity and
deceitfulness and insisted upon his death as the only way to bring
peace. Cromwell gave up hope on negotiations with Charles when he
intercepted a letter by Charles to his Queen decreeing the final
doom of the army adherents in favor of the Scottish Presbyterians.
During protracted negotiations over months between the army and
Parliament over a new constitution, a renewed support for the
King, which was inspired by him, necessitated a second civil war
to put down this revolt and subdue its Scot supporters. Eventually
the army took control of Parliament by force, only allowing the
few members who agreed with them on the trial of the King into
Parliamentary meetings. So Charles was tried in 1649, found guilty
of "an unlimited and tyrannical power to rule according to his
will, and to overthrow the rights and liberties of the people ...
which by the fundamental constitutions of this kingdom were
reserved on the peoples' behalf in the right and power of frequent
and successive parliaments or national meetings in council", and
maintaining a war against his subjects, which amounted to treason.
To prevent his adherents from trying to reinstate him, he was
condemned to death and beheaded in January 1649.
Parishes had to give maintenance to maimed soldiers and provision
for the livelihood to the wives and children of killed soldiers.
Masters of apprentices who became soldiers had to take them back
as apprentices without loss for their absence in defense of the
Commonwealth. Masters who received considerable loss by the
absence of their apprentices received reasonable satisfaction from
the public stock.
To pay for the civil war, an assessment tax on the yearly value of
rents, annuities, and offices was often levied. The main burden of
this tax fell on the gentry rather than the merchants and smaller
men of property, as previous taxes had. An excise tax, a tax on
consumption, was begun on ale and beer and then extended to meat,
salt, starch, soap, and paper. It was gradually extended to many
goods. The excise taxes were paid, as was the customs tax, by
manufacturers on goods made in England and by foreign
manufacturers on goods at the ports.
From 1640-60, Royalists were purged from Oxford and a group of
Baconians moved into the university behind Parliamentary armies.
At the two universities, books were no longer chained to the
bookcases. The universities were freed from taxation.
After the civil wars, Cromwell led the country. He was a military,
political, and religious leader. He had become a Puritan zealot
after a youth of gambling, drinking, debauchery, and rioting. He
believed that military success was a reflection of divine favor
and he regarded himself as one the few elect preordained for
salvation. Those in power in the new Commonwealth tended to
explain their regime in terms of popular consent, and the takeover
from Charles I as due to his breaking of a contract with the
people.
Most people dressed in Puritan fashion. A Puritan's favorite
readings were the Old Testament, Epistles of St. Paul, and
Switzerland's John Calvin.
Wealth and prosperity steadily increased in spite of the civil
wars. During Cromwell's tenure, there was a marked revival of
economic prosperity. By the mid-1600s, landlords had been able to
shorten their leases so that a lease of twenty-one years was the
predominant form of landholding.
Patent protection was given in 1642 to the inventors of a device
for salvaging ships' goods and cannons from the seas for seven
years. With it they could convert to their own use one half and
items retrieved, the other half going to the Navy and Parliament.
Patent protection was given in 1650 to George Manby on his new
invention for boiling liquors and making salt with less coal and
wood and iron, lead, and copper for fourteen years. Patent
protection was given in 1651 to Jeromy Buck for melting iron,
lead, tin, copper, brass, and other metals with coal without
burning charcoal, for fourteen years.
Dutchman Stevinus showed that the pressure at the bottom of a
column of liquid is proportional to the height of the column, and
not to its bulk, about 1634. He also studied oblique forces, and
the balancing of such that could bring about "stable equilibrium".
Evangelista Torricelli, an Italian student of Galileo, discovered
in 1643 that any fluid will be supported at a definite height,
according to its relative weight, as compared with air. He
realized that a mercury column, 30 inches in height, in a long
glass tube inverted in a cup of mercury, was being supported by
air pressure exerted on the mercury in the cup. When he observed
that this height changed with the weather, he had invented the
mercury barometer. His creation of a vacuum, above the mercury in
the tube, astonished philosophers, who had thought that nature
abhored a vacuum and would prevent it.
Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician, physicist, and religious
philosopher, constructed a calculator in 1644 to assist his
father, who was involved in local administration, in tax
computations. Around 1646, he proved his law that pressure applied
to a confined liquid is transmitted undiminished through the
liquid in all directions regardless of the area to which the
pressure is applied. Around 1653, he laid the foundations for the
theory of probabilities, including the creation of "Pascal's
Triangle" of coefficients of (a=b) raised to the nth power.
Jean Ray from France concluded from his experiments that every
piece of material has a given weight, including air and fire.
The Merchant Adventurers were incorporated again in 1643 to have a
monopoly. It was required to admit into membership for 100 pounds
anyone free of London and bred as a merchant, and for 50 pounds
any non-inhabitant of London. The penalty for trading for one who
was not free of the corporation was forfeiture of his goods.
In 1648, the House of Commons abolished the monarchy and in 1649
the House of Lords. Also in 1649 it declared that England "should
thenceforth be governed as a commonwealth and free state by the
supreme authority of this nation, the representatives of the
people in Parliament." It made a new constitution.
John Milton defended the Commonwealth as superior to the monarchy
because it could not deteriorate into tyranny in his books: "First
Defense of the People of England" in 1651, and "Second Defense" in
1654. He lauded Cromwell as great in war and great in peace, and
exemplifying the principle that "nature appoints that wise men
should govern fools".
Thomas Hobbes, the son of a clergyman, and tutor to students,
wrote "Leviathan" in 1651 on his theory of sovereignty. Hobbes
thought that states are formed as the only alternative to anarchy,
barbarism, and war, so that supremacy and unity of a sovereign
power is essential to a civilized life and the protection of the
citizenry. A sovereign may be a man or body of men as long as his
or its authority is generally recognized. There must be a social
contract among the citizenry to obey a certain sovereign. To avoid
religious conflict, there must be a complete subordination of the
church to the state and the religion of a state must be dependent
upon its secular sovereign. Hobbes thought that knowledge of the
world came through experience and not reason alone. Only matter
exists, and everything that happens can be predicted in accordance
with exact, scientific laws. He regarded human societies as purely
mechanical systems set in motion by human desires. He saw self
interest as the mainspring of moral law. Conflicting self
interests transformed into a lawful system of agreements. Hobbes
opined that all power really originated in the people and that the
end of all power was for the people's good.
On the other hand, James Harrington, who wrote "The Commonwealth
of Oceana" in 1656, opined that a stable society depended on a
direct relationship between the distribution of property and
political power; no one with property worth more than 2,000 pounds
should be allowed to acquire more and property should be divided
among children. A senate of mature property owners were to make
and debate the laws while an assembly elected by universal
suffrage was to vote on them because "a popular assembly without a
senate cannot be wise and a senate without a popular assembly will
not be honest". A third of the Senate would turn over every year.
John Milton defended the execution of the King in "The Tenure of
Kings and Magistrates" in which he maintained that the people may
"as often as they shall judge it for the best either to choose
him or reject him or depose him, though no tyrant, merely by the
liberty and right of freeborn men to be governed as seems to the
best". He also wrote in favor of liberty of the press. Ordinary
speech found its way into prose writing.
Lands of more than 700 Royalists, including church lands, were
confiscated and sold or leased by county committees. Many
Royalists put their lands into trusts or turned them over to
relatives or sold them outright to prevent confiscation. It was an
upheaval comparable to the dissolution of the monasteries. Also,
specified Papists who had taken up arms against the realm lost
their lands and goods and money and rents and two-thirds of their
personal estates. But allowance was made for the maintenance of
their wives and children.
The Book of Common Prayer was abolished because of its burdensome
ceremonies. It was replaced by a Directory for Public Worship.
According to this, the Sunday service was to include reading of
the Scriptures, prayer, and a sermon, ordinarily on some text of
scripture which would be explained with reasons therefore and
applied to peoples' lives so they could see it they had sinned or
not. The ending of episcopal patronage gave some parishes the
right to elect their own ministers.
All festivals and holy days were abolished, e.g. Christmas,
Easter, Whitsuntide. Instead, scholars, apprentices, and servants
were to have recreation and stores were to be closed every second
Tuesday of the month. The usual merry-making, music, dancing, and
sports after the Sunday service were discontinued.
A day for fasting: the last Wednesday of every month, was declared
by statute. This day was to be "kept with the more solemn
humiliation, because it may call to remembrance our sins, and the
sins of our forefathers, who have turned this Feast, pretending
the memory of Christ into an extreme forgetfulness of him, by
giving liberty to carnal and sensual delights, being contrary to
the life which Christ himself led here upon earth, ...". This
statute lasted for only five years from 1644 because observance of
it was not consistent throughout the country.
Educational opportunities such as in grammar schools were more
widespread and stronger than ever before or since until the 1800s.
About 78% of men in London were literate, and 30% of men
nationwide. About half the women in London were literate by 1700.
In 1645, the marshalls of the admiralty and five major ports were
ordered to search all ships for stolen children since it had been
a problem in London.
The elderships of the church were given power in 1645 to suspend
from the sacrament of the Lord's Supper all ignorant and
scandalous persons. Ignorance was lack of knowledge that there is
a God and this is the one true God we worship, that this God is
one, yet three persons" Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, that God
created man in his own image, that all have sinned and therefore
shall die, that there is one mediator between God and man: Jesus
Christ, who died on the cross to save men from their sins, that he
rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand
of God, and intercedes for us, that Christ and his benefits are
applied only by faith, that the souls of the faithful live with
Christ in blessedness, that non-believers and non-repenters shall
perish eternally, that the sacraments are baptism and communion,
and that the is a judgment day on which the righteous will be
given life eternal and the wicked shall receive everlasting
punishment. Scandalous persons are those who blasphemously speak
or write anything of God, his holy work or the sacraments; an
incestuous person; an adulterer; a fornicator; a drunkard; a
profane swearer or cursor; a murderer; a worshipper of images,
crosses, crucifixes, relics, saints, or angels; makers of images
of the trinity; one who professes not to be in charity with his
neighbor; any challenging another to fight or accepting such
challenge; on the Lord's day, dancing, dicing, cards, masking,
wake, shooting, bowling, football, wrestling, plays, interludes,
fencing, bullbaiting, bearbaiting, hawking, hunting, coursing,
fishing, fowling, selling wares, travel without reasonable cause;
brothel-house keeper, one who solicits the chastity of another;
one who consents to the marriage of his child to a Papist or
marries a Papist; own who goes for advice to a witch, wizard,
fortune-teller; assault his parents, or any magistrate, minister,
or elder in the execution of his office; one attainted of
barratry, forgery, extortion, or bribery. If such a person
persists, he shall be excommunicated.
Cromwell did not disapprove of activities prohibited because of
the recreation they provided, but thought that they had become too
central to people's lives. He did not close the taverns or ale
houses.
In 1653 it was required that public preachers be approved by a
commission nominated by the Lord Protector and Parliament because
there had been too many "weak, scandalous, popish, and ill-
affected" ones. In 1654 named persons were ejected as scandalous,
ignorant and insufficient ministers and schoolmasters.
In 1649 a corporation was established to teach the Gospel of Jesus
Christ in New England to Indians.
Because the poorer parishes of London were having problems
supporting their poor, a Corporation for the poor of London was
established in 1647 with authority to erect workhouses and houses
of correction.
Imprisoned debtors who had less than five pounds and less that
five pounds worth of trade tools and clothing and bedding for his
family were ordered released in 1649.
Wardship was abolished. Military tenures were abolished. Feudal
tenures were converted into freehold in 1646.
In 1653 those living in Crown forest land were given free socage
in that land. The game laws were not enforced, so people could eat
deer.
Enclosures were increasing and Parliament was disinclined to
protect copyholders against enclosures, favoring those with rights
of ownership. Enclosure was no longer deterred especially after
abolition of the Star Chamber. The legal device of "strict
settlement" evolved to prevent heirs from breaking up estates
enabled families to concentrate land and capital into large units.
The oldest son inherited the land and the younger sons now
received money. Clover seed was sold in London by 1650. It
revolutionized the cultivation of barren land. England began to
export instead of import grain. But vagrancy increased from people
dispossessed of land. And the village artisan, when deprived of
his field and of this rights of common, could not continue to work
at home, but had to accept the wages offered to him in an
employer's workshop.
Employers and entrepreneurs were now free from control by the
Crown. There were no more attempts to supervise quality of
manufactures or to fix prices or regulate wages. There was greater
freedom established in relations between employers and workers.
The government no longer tried to compel employers to keep
employees in times of economic slump. The requirement of seven
year apprenticeships and being the son of a freeholder to be an
apprentice were not enforced.
The economy was still volatile due ostensibly to variable
harvests, amount of gold and money in circulation, and balances of
trade, and to periods of plague. Wages rose steadily. The rise in
prices ended about 1650, and prices remained stable until about
1775. There was more mobility of people. Taxation became regular
and it was controlled by representatives of the taxpayers.
Population growth gradually stabilized.
Capitalism was coming into being. For instance, the clothier was
now a manufacturer. He had become a contractor, taking wool to the
specialist spinner, the yarn to the specialist weaver, the rough
cloth to be washed and stretched, and finally to the dyer. This
cloth was sold at retail by the drapers. Tin on the surface was
exhausted, so capital was used to drive deep shafts in tin mines.
No longer did a single man with a single ship sail around until he
found a market, but company trading overseas had their ships,
wharves, and depots furnished by men's savings put into a common
stock. The first major capitalist industries were coal mining,
iron mining, and foreign trade because they all needed large
investments, and thus joint-stock company organization.
Cromwell reconstituted the East India Company on a wider and more
permanent basis. He gave it a new charter in 1657 which included
authority to make stock permanent, thus ensuring a continuity of
capital. This solved the problem of the competition of overlapping
voyages which still occurred despite their terms of several years.
The company became one of the first permanent joint-stock
companies. Now the stock was never wound up. The Company had
permanent capital which could grow. The absence of competition
among voyages made the Company stronger in the face of a common
enemy, such as a rival trading county or Indian groups. The
charter also authorized the company to fortify and colonize any of
its establishments and to transport to them settlers, stores, and
ammunition.