separated from the Exchequer as a depository of revenue. A gold
guinea coin was issued. From 1690, government policy was
controlled by specific appropriations. Money bills had to
originate in the Commons, and could not be amended by the House of
Lords.
Boards became independent of the king's Privy Council and
answerable to the secretary of state.
In the 1680s, Charles compelled some of the livery companies in
London to give up their charters to him and he called in many
corporation charters of boroughs whenever some light excuse could
be found to justify it. This was done by the use of the writ of
quo warranto before a court. In London he had the tory mayor
revive an ancient custom of selecting a sheriff by drinking to him
at the annual feast. Two tory sheriffs were installed into office.
All these actions gave the king a voice in selection of the
officers of London and boroughs, since Royal commissioners would
then determine who the officers would be. This was to assure
London's representation in Parliament by Crown loyalists as London
had been whig. It also allowed influenced selection of sympathetic
jurors.
Criminal seditious libel was brought into the common law courts in
1664, when Benjamin Keach was tried for writing a book containing
contradictions of the doctrine of the established church. He wrote
against infant baptism and asserted that laymen might preach the
gospel. The justice intimidated the jury to find him guilty. He
was sentenced to be fined, to spend two hours in the pillory in
two successive weeks, and his book to be burned before his face.
He was to be imprisoned until he found sureties for his good
behavior and renunciation of his doctrine and for his future
appearance in court. Juries were loath to find anyone guilty of
seditious libel.
James II succeeded Charles II to the throne and fostered Roman
Catholicism by appointments and by attempting to suspend laws
unfavorable to Catholics. He commanded all bishops to read in the
churches his Declaration of Indulgence exempting both Catholic and
Protestant dissenters from all penal statutes based on religion.
Seven bishops refused to obey and jointly petitioned him, stating
that his action was illegal according to Parliament. He prosecuted
them for seditious libel in the petition. The jury found them not
guilty. James discharged the two justices of the five who had
rejected the seditious libel doctrine which had been created by
the Star Chamber Court. This roused the whigs and tories in turn
to discharge him by joining in inviting Protestants William of
Orange and Mary to take the throne in his place. James was
effectively chased out of England by William's advancing army in
the Glorious Revolution of 1688-9, which took away the powers of
final authority from the king, but without transferring them to
any other body. A "Bill of Rights" stated that
1. The king may not suspend laws or dispense with them
without consent of Parliament.
2. The establishment of a Court of Commissioners and like
bodies for ecclesiastical causes is illegal.
3. The king may not levy money or extend an authorized levy
without consent of Parliament.
4. Subjects have a right to petition the king without
prosecution.
5. The king may not raise or keep a standing army within the
country in time of peace without the consent of Parliament.
6. Protestants may have arms for their defense as allowed by
law.
7. The elections of members of Parliament should be free.
8. The freedom of speech or debates or proceedings in
Parliament should not be impeached or questioned in any
court or place outside of Parliament.
9. Excessive bail should not be required, nor excessive
fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted
(so no more men were whipped to death)
10. Jury selection should not be tampered with, and jurors
who try men for high treason should be freeholders.
11. All grants and promises of fines and forfeiture of
particular persons, before conviction, are illegal and void.
12. Parliament should be held frequently for redress of
grievances and for the amending, strengthening, and
preserving of the laws.
13. All Protestants may freely exercise their religion and
the king will maintain the Protestant religion and the law
and liberty of the realm.
The right of the peoples' representatives to select and depose the
king and to change the order of succession was established. There
was no divine right or hereditary right to the Crown. An English
monarch was created by an act of Parliament. The king still called
and dissolved Parliaments, except that Parliament continued for
six months after the death of a king. From 1689, Parliament sat
every year. Freedom of speech for members of Parliament was
established by a resolution overturning a King's Bench felony
conviction of Sir John Elliot.
By the act of settlement of 1701, no officer or pensioner of the
king could be a member of Parliament. All resolutions by the Privy
Council had to be signed by the members consenting to them. No one
born outside the realm could be a member of the Privy Council or
of Parliament, or could have any civil or military office or place
of trust, or any grants of land or tenements from the king.
Justices served during good behavior instead of at the pleasure of
the king.
After the Glorious Revolution, Tories tended to accept of the Whig
principles of limited constitutional monarchy instead of rule by
divine right.
Under William and Mary, the ministers were first chosen by them
but could be impeached by the Commons and then removed by the
Parliament. The Commons removed anyone who disagreed with them as
soon as he made a mistake. But the king could pardon anyone
convicted by Parliamentary bill of attainder. This was
inconsistent, so no one was allowed to plead pardon by the king in
an impeachment by the Commons. Thus Parliament gained control of
who would be ministers.
The Glorious Revolution favored the capitalists and the commercial
magnates even though it had been started by the landed families,
with whom they now intermarried. There were companies in the
fishing, silk, baize [a coarse wool], sugar, rope, paper, iron,
hardware, gunpowder, saw milling, and pottery trades. The largest
pottery workshops employed about six men. One man shaped the pots,
another made the handles and put them on, while the others did the
decoration, the glazing, and the firing. New companies could be
formed without royal or Parliamentary consent. There were no more
commercial monopolies. Regulated companies declined. The Merchant
Adventurers lost their last monopoly privileges; their entrance
fees were abolished. Their method of limiting the volume of their
exports of English cloth to Germany to keep up prices was
obsolete. Now they tried to capture the market by selling cheap.
There were more joint-stock companies and on a larger scale. They
also no longer restricted output to keep prices high, but geared
to export many inexpensive goods. The Stock Exchange was
incorporated about 1694.
The domestic or "putting out" system came into use. In this
system, the worker usually owned his own machinery and the
capitalist owned the material, which he put out to the worker at
home. The merchant manufacturer bought raw wool and had it carded,
spun, woven, fulled, and dressed at his own expense. Some farmers
became spinners in the winter when outside work was impossible.
The manufacture of nails was also done by this system.
Accordingly, the guilds and municipal corporations in towns ceased
to control the recruiting, conditions of work, and pay of
industries. New industries for the manufacture of silk, paper, and
cutlery were organized on capitalist lines rather than being
subject to guilds. That is, production was controlled by men with
money and the means of manufacture. Only a quarter of 200 towns
had any organized guilds at all. The growing town of Birmingham
was not a chartered borough, so never was encumbered with guild
regulations. Overall, the guild and apprentice regulations were
effectively enforced only in agriculture work. Artisans became
known as tradesmen. Work was usually irregular, some seasonal. In
bad years, when a worker had to borrow money, he used work tools,
such as his loom, as security. In this way, one's work tools
often became the property of a merchant. Some merchant clothiers
also owned a fulling mill and a shop where the cloth was sold.
The capitalists first became owners of the materials, then of the
implements, and then of the work places. But production was still
confined to the known wants of its habitual market. Men used to
working at home were generally not inclined to go to work in a
factory. So there was an assortment of unskilled factory labor,
such as country people driven from their villages by the growth of
large estates, disbanded soldiers, and paupers. They had to be
taught, trained, and above all disciplined.
In 1670, Vauxhall glass works were opened with workmen brought
from Venice to blow their fine glass and make mirrors.
The capitalist organization of the mining, glass manufacture,
salt, soap, wire and other monopolized industries was made
possible only by government support.
>From the mid-1500s to 1700, coal production increased fourteen
times. Sir Ambrose Crowley, an iron maker with coal works,
established disability and medical benefits and pensions for his
workers.
Smiths used trip hammers powered by watermills which turned axles
with cams on them. They made iron gates, fences, balconies, and
staircases with hammer, anvil, and chisel. Cast iron was made by
running liquefied metal into molds. This was harder but more
brittle than the tough but malleable wrought iron. Tinkers went
from house to house to repair metal items such as pots and pans.
Salt and glass manufacture expanded. Glass drinking vessels were
in common use. Mirrors of blown plate glass were manufactured in
England. Some plate glass by casting was imported. Plate glass was
a large and strong glass piece, which was formed by the liquid
glass being poured on a table. This glass was not distorted, so
mirrors could be made perfectly reflective. Then plate glass for
coaches, mirrors, and windows became manufactured in England; this
new industry was organized on capitalist lines.
The East India Company had about half the trade of the nation. Its
shares were frequently bought and sold. It responded to anger over
its semi-monopoly status by granting liberty to all English
subjects below the age of forty to live in its Indian settlements
and to trade practically everywhere. Bombay, India became subject
to the East India Company. Charters gave the East India Company
the right to coin money, to exercise jurisdiction over English
subjects, to levy taxes, to build and command fortresses, to
command English and Indian troops, to make peace and war, and to
enter into alliances with Indian rulers. The Company always paid
high dividends and the market price of its shares generally rose.
100 pound stock was worth 130 pounds in 1669, 245 pounds in 1677,
280 pounds in 1681, 360 and even up to 500 pounds in 1683, and
then fell to 190 pounds in 1692. In 1693 a new charter for the
Company included loss of monopoly status by resolution of the
Commons. With this resolution, Parliament assumed the right of
regulating commerce, now no longer the king's province. Thereafter
the Commons regulated trade with India and determined who could
participate in trade there. Political issues developed, which
initiated corruption at elections by entertainment and bribes to
candidates, which were later proscribed. The trade opened up to
many more traders and investors. Ordinary investors came to
include women and Quakers.
When there was a surplus of grain, it was exported. About 1696,
the king set up a board of trade of eight paid members and great
officers of state, who nominally belonged to it, and a staff. This
was to achieve a favorable balance of trade. For instance, it
imposed tariffs to protect internal markets and put restraints on
imports of goods producible in the country, e.g. live cattle,
dairy products, and woolen goods. It also restricted the export of
raw wool. England led the way in protectionist measures.
Exports included grain, silk, metal wares, foodstuffs, lead, and
tin. Cloth and manufactures were exported to America. Dyeing and
dressing of cloth became the norm and undressed cloth exports fell
sharply. Imports included linen, flax, hemp, timber, iron, silk
(raw, thrown, and woven), wine, brandy, fruit, coffee, chocolate
(served as a drink or used in cooking), cauliflower, and oil.
>From America came molasses, sugar, tobacco, and dyes. Sugar was in
great demand for tea, coffee, and chocolate. The East India
Company imported calico, silk, pepper, spices, China tea, potions,
and saltpeter. Tonnage of English shipping doubled by 1688
Exports and imports increased 50% by 1700.
Parliament required an oath of allegiance to the new sovereigns
William and Mary from all those in public functions, including the
clergy. By extending this rule to the clergy, Parliament asserted
a supremacy of Parliament over the church. It also asserted a
supremacy over the king by requiring all monarchs to take a
coronation oath promising to govern according to the statutes,
laws, and customs of Parliament, to make judgments with law and
justice in mercy, and to maintain the Protestant religion
established by law.
Drinking of gin, which had first been made by a Flemish physician,
became popular under King William, who was Dutch. The year of his
accession, the gin monopoly ended.
England competed with other nations for land in the New World.
Carolina, named for Charles II, was colonized for commerce in
1663. The Episcopal Church, an analogue of the Church of England,
was established there by law. The whole coast became English after
war with the Netherlands gave New York, named for Charles II's
brother the Duke of York, and New Jersey to England in 1667.
Presbyterians and Baptists fled from religious tests and
persecutions in England to colonize New Jersey. For free passage
to the English colonies, people became indentured servants,
agreeing to serve the master of the ship or his assigns with a
certain kind of labor for a term of a few years according to a
written contract made before departure. Also, various statutes
made transportation to any part of America available to any
person who would pay for his transportation, for a term of years,
usually seven, as a new possible penalty for offenses. In 1636,
Harvard College was founded in New England to advance literature,
arts, and sciences, as well as to train ministers. Some American
colonists sent their sons to be educated at the Inns of Court in
London.
In 1682, Quaker William Penn, son of an Admiral, founded the
colony of Pennsylvania for Quakers in a "Holy Experiment" in
political and religious freedom. The king had granted proprietary
rights to this land to him to discharge a Crown debt to his
father. When Penn refused to take off his hat before King Charles
and asked why Charles took off his own, Charles, unruffled,
replied that "It's the custom of this place that only one man
should remain uncovered at a time". The Pennsylvania Charter of
1701 went beyond Magna Carta and England's law in guaranteeing
right to counsel and giving a right to defendants to summon
witnesses in all criminal cases. It gave Penn absolute authority
and he established liberty of conscience (freedom of religion) and
freedom from arbitrary arrest. In 1751, some Quakers founded a
small hospital in Pennsylvania as an asylum for the insane, where
they would be treated humanely.
Proprietary colonies, in which an individual or syndicate held
under the crown a sort of feudal overlordship, were founded in
America: namely, Virginia, Maryland, Carolina, New York and New
Jersey in 1663, and Pennsylvania and Delaware in 1682. New
Hampshire was made a royal province in 1680 to cut off the
expansion of Massachusetts, which had been avoiding the trade
laws. These colonies were distinguished from the corporate
colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and Rhode
Island, which made their own arrangements for internal government
without a royal executive. Charles persuaded the Chancery Court to
declare the charter of Massachusetts void; it was given a new
charter in 1691 which made it a royal province. New York was made
a royal province in 1691. Maryland's proprietor gave way to a
royal governor in 1692. Soon all colonies except Rhode Island,
Connecticut, Pennsylvania were royal provinces, with governors
nominated by the Crown. This bringing of union to the colonies was
done for maintenance of order, to coordinate defense, and to
enforce trade laws.
In 1670, the Hudson's Bay Company was incorporated to engage in
fur trade with Indian trappers in the Hudson Bay and to find a
northwest passage to China.
In 1701 the founding of the "Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel in Foreign Parts" by the Church of England created many
missionaries in the colonies, where they called their churches
"Episcopalian".
Increase Mather and his son Cotton Mather were Puritan ministers
in Boston. Increase was for a time the President of Harvard
College and participated in obtaining the new charter of
Massachusetts of 1691. He and his son tried to maintain the
principles of the Puritan founders of Massachusetts, which
included the theories of diabolical possession and witchcraft. But
the thought of Presbyterians, Anglicans, and Baptists became
influential also. In 1692 in the small town of Salem,
Massachusetts, some hysterical girls showing strange spasms and
sounds charged they had been bewitched by certain other residents.
Victims were deceived, flogged, or tortured into forced
confessions and then excommunicated from the church. They were
then hanged and their property confiscated. One man endured being
pressed to death for refusal to plead so that his property would
be inherited by his family rather than confiscated due to being
convicted. Eventually, some prominent citizens including judges
were accused. Then the more thoughtful people began to doubt the
whole phenomenon and admitted error. The excommunications were
revoked. Cotton Mather came to accept Newton's science and
advocated inoculation. He encouraged Puritanism into a simpler
piety and charity. This influenced American Protestantism toward
a generalized concern with good works, morality, and social
leadership.
- The Law -
Any sale of land or lease or estate of freehold or copyhold shall
be in writing and signed. An interest in land given orally shall
have only the force of estates at will. All contracts for sale of
goods or merchandise for the price of at least 10 pounds shall be
in writing and signed by the parties or shall be accompanied by
part payment or partial acceptance of the goods. This is to deter
fraud. This statute caused many small freeholders, including
yeomen, who paid rent by custom to be dispossessed.
Mortgagees can hold the land of any mortgagor who borrows money
upon security of the land or obtains another mortgage without
prior notice to the initial mortgagee. The mortgagor has six
months to pay off the mortgage and all interest and charges or
vacate the land and lose his equity therein. But a widow's dower
will not be affected if she did not join with her husband in the
mortgage.
If rent is not paid in a reasonable time, the renter's goods and
grain may not only be distrained, but sold.
One coparcener of a joint tenancy or tenancy in common may have a
court partition the property without the presence of other
coparceners, because such coparceners are often difficult to find.
This is to avoid wasting of land lying uncultivated and unmanured.
After the intestate death of a father of any sons or daughters
without wives or children of their own in the life time of their
mothers, the mother and every brother and sister shall share
equally except the customs of London and York shall not be
affected. Administrators have to make an inventory. They have to
account on request by an interested person. They must be bonded by
two sureties.
Executors and administrators of estates of deceased persons must
pay the debts of the deceased person rather than waste or convert
the goods and chattels to their own use. Creditors may recover
their debts from heirs or devisees of the will of a debtor.
Men gone beyond the sea who could not be accounted for were deemed
dead after seven years, so their life estates could be terminated.
Whereas lawful games are not to be used as constant callings for a
livelihood, and young people are deceived and debauched and their
money taken, anyone "winning" money by deceitful or fraudulent
gambling shall forfeit three times his "winnings".
When a bill of exchange drawn to at least five pounds is not paid
on demand at the time it is made payable, the person who accepted
it may make a protest in writing before a notary public, which
shall be served on the maker of such bill, who must pay it and all
interest and charges from the date of the protest. But if a bill
of exchange is lost or miscarried, another shall be given in its
place.
No one may take more than 6 pounds in interest for a 100 pound
loan.
Persons seeking election to Parliament may not give or promise
money, meat, drink, entertainment, present or gift to any elector.
Because the gaols were full of people in debt due to the late
unhappy times such as the London fire, all prisoners for debt were
to be released upon taking an oath that they had no property over
ten pounds nor had disposed or conveyed property to defraud
creditors. Creditors not wanting them released had to contribute
to their maintenance in gaol.
The making or selling of fireworks is forbidden or else forfeit 5
pounds. Firing or throwing such from one's house onto or across
the street is a common nuisance with a penalty of 20s. This is to
avoid the loss of life and of eyes.
Treason to the king is to compass, imagine, or intend death or any
bodily harm tending to death, or maiming or wounding, or
imprisonment, or restraint as well as trying to depose him or levy
war against him. Also included is printing, writing, preaching, or
malicious speaking. Traitors shall suffer death and forfeiture as
in high treason.
Any malicious and willful burning or destroying of stacks of hay,
grain, or barns, or killing any horses, sheep, or cattle at
nighttime shall be felony and punished by transportation to the
American colonies for seven years.
Any person apprehending a thief or robber on the highway will be
rewarded 40 pounds from the local sheriff, to discourage the many
robberies and murders which have made travel dangerous. Also,
executors of persons murdered while trying to apprehend a robber
shall have the reward.
No more than 20 people may petition the king nor more than 10
people may assemble to present a petition to the king, because
more has been tumultuous and disorderly.
Anyone may without fee set up a hemp business including breaking,
hatchelling [separating the coarse part and broken pieces of the
stalk from the fine, fibrous parts by drawing the material through
long iron teeth set in a board], and dressing it; or a flax
business, including making and whitening thread, spinning,
weaving, making, whitening, or bleaching hemp or flax cloth;
making twine or nets for fishing or treating cordage for tapestry
or hangings because the daily importation of such has in effect
taken the work from the poor and unemployed of England.
Retailers of wine may not add to imported wines cider, honey,
sugar, molasses, lime, raisin juice, or herbs.
Butter sold must be of one sort and not contain bad butter mixed
in with good butter. Butter pots must bear the name or mark of
their potter.
Salt may be sold only by weight, to avoid deceit by retailers and
wrong to buyers.