0:00 yes welcome to AP European history with dr. Brock and today we're going to talk about England we've covered events in 17th century in France movie 14th now the same we have to do for England very dramatic events in England this is the time of the English revolution this is the time of the first execution of the King to be followed in France this is the most perhaps dramatic social revolution in modern times starts in England so we have to go through very complex political and social and religious situation in England to understand who is who and what really
0:47 happened so it's a short introduction basically we left England at the time of Elizabeth which was probably one of the good times this was the late 1500s this is the time of prosperity peace England avoids the religious wars as were raging in France in 1500s England emerges victorious from the confrontation with Spanish Armada which basically puts England on the path of a maritime power in the 1580s and essentially at the time of devastation first by religious wars in France and then by the 30 Years War
1:33 in the Europe England stays out of it most of the time and it's sort of succeeds to keep the peace but then dramatic events do come to England and that's what we're going to talk about today so Elizabeth was childless and after her the King was James the first of England and at the same time James the sixth of Scotland so he was both he was Scottish and English at the same time and he had basically by the way the the first ship that goes to America in 1608 they found a colony called Jamestown that's because of James so
2:19 this is the first time the British the English are actually venturing out to America and established the very very first settlement in 1608 so that's why Jamestown James James had ideas of divine right Kings he certainly believes that his mission is to be a Divine Right King he certainly believes in his mission to unite England and Scotland as he himself is both a King of England and the King of Scotland now this is difficult because to you and to everybody who is not English it would sound like weird differences small differences between Calvinists whoo Presbyterians in Scotland and Anglicans
3:08 in England that they're both Protestant so what's the big deal they both don't like the Pope that the both Protestant churches and yet it's not really a matter of religious belief I think it's a matter of national identity the Scottish don't really want to become English and that is why the religious differences acquires a kind of a political dimension his his dream of uniting the two it's not gonna work he went to the present-day Scotland Scotland yes it's a United Kingdom but this is a different people with a different identity and sell-through as of now now James didn't accomplish much
3:53 but he at least avoided war of money that's what his most important accomplishment but in 1625 his son comes to power and his name is Charles known in history as Charles the first he carries on with the same dream as his father to unite England and Scotland and of course he feels himself much more English already because he's been born of an English king and and Scottish so he keeps baby but the both identities and again he's gonna try to do the same as his father to unify the two kingdoms into one now I kind of a we will go over it in a
4:38 chronological order but if you remember we mentioned in the previous videos the war of 1627 in 1627 england sent an army to help the Huguenots in la rochelle so this is the episode when england did participate in the 30 Years War but not very much basically it was under the command of buckingham and backing ham lost and the English withdrew but the reason this is important is because the Parliament for some reason detested Buckingham and wanted to impeach him which is can already put the king in a
5:24 confrontation mode with the Parliament because Charles wants to defend Lord Buckingham and in the Parliament wants to dismiss you and that's 1627 the English lost they withdrew they did not participate any more in the 30 Years War the Huguenots were defeated the Huguenots were crushed so we know all that story but for the English politics this is the first defeat political defeat of Charles the first and now comes the really big stuff and that's called the petition of right i all urge you to read it it's very easily searchable petition right on google it's a document of of two pages and and it's
6:11 extremely important because it shows a revolution in the brewing i mean it's it's going to have but you could see it already in the petition of right let me explain briefly what is in the petition of right what petition of right is a petition which means it's it's a request a very polite one by the members of parliament to the king and it is in the form of weary was such and such to be done and we don't like this and that so it lists grievances all the members of parliament or the parliament against the king now let's just be very clear what English Parliament is because that when the
6:57 revolution does happen which we have to understand what changed the English Parliament is similar to Parliament in France but it's different it is similar in that the landowners own all the seats in the parliament and they defend their right but what's different is that it's not it's landowners of whatever of whatever title you know a merchant could buy land and get himself a seat in the parliament so there's no kind of class division it's whoever owns the land has a seat in the parliament and it would cause big trouble later on when others would want to join in and they do pay taxes that's the difference with France
7:44 they do pay taxes and they have a House of Lords and the House of Lords is hereditary so the reach are the richest families of the lords have always been and their firstborn becomes a lord and gets a seat in the parliament so it's a different system yep you have the House of Commons which is all landlords and some people from the cities and and they are paying taxes all of them do however they pay taxes but but they have to approve the king's expenditure and that is the key difference the class composition is similar except that there's not only the birth ones but also
8:29 the English Parliament does have control of the purse as it is called does have control of the money that is raised through the taxation however it is not a legislative institution this is the key importance that makes it similar to the Parliament they are not a parliament in the modern sense they are not making no they're not making laws they are a collection agency for taxation that's what they do they raise money through taxes from all of the people of England and they approve the spending which means that if a king goes to war but the money has to be raised through the
9:15 Parliament for the national defense and they have to approve it and give it to him so that's the difference that makes it similar to a legislative institution in a sense that they control the money but they don't make any laws the king does the King declares wars the king leads the army he's a commander in chief he actually can pass any law at will and if we recall the the rule of Henry the ape he pretty much executed anybody he wanted including his wives and including Thomas More who was a bishop so there was an unlimited actually unlimited monarchy under Henry the eighth in an in a sense like lettuce my the
10:01 king could do whatever he pleased and that was a part of English tradition it was a part of English history so what do they say in 1628 petition of right they say basically that no one can put out anybody out of his lands without the parliamentary consent now that that is a very interesting proposition because people who were put out of their lands by Charles and by his predecessors and of course by Henry the 8th no taxation without parliament approval well that's an interesting idea but that's been done before too so they're kind of trying to assert their power over the taxation process and over property rights and
10:49 that they have a big big stake in because indeed some of the some of these issues are echoes from the Magna Carta which was the first time that the English nobility put conditions about the property and their their privileges to the team for the first time in 1215 no loans they say could be imposed on the people of England without the Parliament consent again the Kings used to do it including childs and all the preceding ones that they would need alone that they would put it on somebody and they would provide this because the king wants it no quartering of troops should be allowed to Papa to private property to
11:35 some states without the approval of the Parliament no one can be imprisoned without the due process of law that does echo the Magna Carta and and that's of course of course it's been done to wives and bishops and others under Henry the eighth and all other Kings people were imprisoned at will without the Parliament consent but now they say you need a parliament can say nobody could be put to death without the due process of law says the parliament in the petition of right in accord with ancient laws and privileges but of course the point is that this was done as well so just like the French parliament the Parliament in England asks politely the
12:22 king to respect old traditions and privileges it sounds like a very similar language to what happened in France in 1648 all traditions and privileges and and the English have moreover right to say that because you can find some of these propositions in the Magna Carta but the point is what the cartridge was like 400 years ago and many many kings broke all kinds of rules of Magna Carta many many times over the glaring example being Henry VIII a and so in a sense they are introducing something new in the guise as it is old but that is is the reality in England a very
13:10 interesting thing is the response of the King to the petition of right usually I'll just read the petition of right but then don't look at his responses responses extremely interesting it shows actually that the Charles Charles the first is a very clever man very educated man a politician that can speak about history and precedent and law and the rules of the Parliament that he actually knows what he's talking about if we read his response his response to the petition of right basically is that the Parliament had always been an advisory institution which implies that the king is free to do whatever he pleases they can they can submit that
13:58 petition but the king is free to accept or not accept their requests which by implication means that they know that he can do whatever he wants he can impose loans he can declare war he can raise money for the war he can imprison traitors he can even order execution of the enemies of the state all of that has been done and is a part of tradition he says just as much as the ancient privileges of nobility are a part of tradition so he has a very clever response to them basically saying look everything that you accused me of doing has been done by others before me and I don't see any reason why I shouldn't be
14:44 doing that either the second concern of the Parliament was that the child's married French woman she was a Catholic and her name was Henry at the Boer ball and that meant from the point of view of the Parliament that the kids may be Catholic because she's Catholic and that's a nightmare for the British elite to have a Catholic heir to the throne who who knows might restore Catholicism and that would be of course you know devastation - - they're from their point of view
15:31 so let's just briefly we'll finish on that in a minute review the the religious situation in England why they're so afraid of a Catholic heir to the throne England has a very complicated religious situation much more complicated than in France where you had Catholics and Huguenots that's it just - in England you have in England proper you have the official Anglican Church which is also not quite clear what it is because it kept changing through the 16th century and in the role of Edward it became more Protestant it became more bear of relics
16:17 and rituals and it appeared to be more Protestant in in the way it looked and then the way the procedures were but at the same time it did it did keep the bishops the structure the privileges the detects the freedom from taxation it had a lot of elements of it just exactly as the Catholics except no Pope in other words during Henry the eighth's it was pretty much like the Catholic Church without the Pope then it became much more Protestant under Edward but Elizabeth his policy for all these years was pretty much to keep it from being too much either of those because she wanted to keep peace she wanted to
17:04 preserve the country and she succeeded in doing that so the English church was never like a fully Protestant like the Calvinists or Anabaptist would want it but it was still obviously not a Catholic Church now that means that the new trend that appeared which we began to study under the influence of Thomas More you have a new element which is called the Puritans and they're becoming more and more numerous and in 1622 a ship of Puritans leaves for America because they are not comfortable in England of Charles well at that time of James and and they establish a new colony in
17:49 Massachusetts where you have the Brotherhood of the Christian brothers and sisters in Christ they they want to create a new community of believers who viewer who Puritans who are genuinely Protestant an Anglican Church for them is not Protestant enough so within the Protestants you actually have in England proper you have Anglicans and your Puritans and then you'll have even more radical ones but that's later down the road the level is during the civil war in Scotland you basically have Calvinists who are called Presbyterians and in Ireland your staunch Catholics and the English crown
18:34 owns all of it it is de facto United Kingdom you have a king who is English and Scottish and English old Ireland and therefore you have very very tense situation in religion and each of those groups is very very nervous about who is going to get the power and which way the religion is going to move as it would blow out into a full-fledged civil war and on that note we'll be finished today do not forget to put your likes and to subscribe to AP European history the doctor brought
