Queen Elizabeth I never married. When she died the English throne passed to her one of her nearest of kin, King James VI Stuart of Scotland, son of Mary Queen of Scot (whom she had put to death). He became King James I of England, most famous perhaps for lending his name to the much loved King James Bible. Thus did the Stuart come to rule England as well as Scotland in the 17th Cent. They would turn out to be a rather disastrous lot.
James I was extremely happy to inherit the throne of England. As in all moments of drastic changes, people have different expectations. Even before he had arrived in London, delegates of different persuasions had already met him to present their cases for change. Soon after his coronation he called the Hampton Court Conference to discuss the religious disputes that had been presented to him. Nothing came out of this conference except for the decision that an "authorized" translation of the Bible should be produced; it was issued seven years later. Catholics continued to be stymied in England and the Gunpowder Plot by a group of Catholics to blow up parliament when it was sitting and restore a Catholic head made things worse for them.
James, however, could not make much practical sense of the parliamentary system that had been the English way of governance for nearly the last century. He still thought of kings as having absolute say in all state decisions and the parliament being there only to raise the money for him. He called parliament when he needed money but quickly prorogued or dismissed it when it did what was not to his likings. But he was just wise enough to learn not to ruffle too many feathers. His son was not.
Charles was adamant about his divine right as king and saw parliament's role simply as being responsible for authorizing the money he needed, and where possible would try to made do without parliament at all, raising taxes and forced loans which became a matter of grief to everybody. His real trouble began when he became smittened by the High-Churchism of Archbishop William Laud, and then sought to conform the Presbyterian Scottish Church to Anglican episcopacy. The reaction from the Scots was electrifying, and soon broke out into war between Scotland and England, what became known as the Bishops' Wars. To fight the war, Charles needed money, and then for the first time in eleven years, called parliament. When the house refused to discuss money until he addressed their other grivances, Charles prolouged it after only a few weeks (hence its name Short Parliament). But he still had a war to fight, and in he recalled parliament. It went worse than the early one and things finally broke down when Charles went to war against his own people in a war now known as the English Civil War (1642-49). In the midst of all these rumblings, came the call by parliament—strongly influenced by Calvinist Puritans—for a revision of the Thirty-Nine Articles. An assembly of Scottish and English divines convened Westminister, and the fruit of their work became the Westminster Confession. Though it was never adopted by the Anglican Church, it became one of the most important and influential creeds of Calvinism and of the Presbyterian churches.
Charles lost the Civil War, and was eventually put on trial and beheaded in early 1649. For the next eleven England came under republican rule, under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell, what is known as the Commonwealth. When it became obvious upon Cromwell's death in 1658 that his son, who had assumed his father's office, was not turning out well, a group of nobelmen began to rethink about a monarchy. Charles I's son, also called Charles, also began to send out feelers, and eventually, he was invited and restored to his father's throne. He returned from refuge in France in 1660, and was crowned Charles II the following year.
Unlike his brother Charles II, James II had early publicly declared his Catholic convictions, which cause the Protestant parliament more than a bit of concerns. But James had already shown that he could produce heirs (he had already two daughters by an earlier marriage; Mary and Anne, both married to Protestant princes) and he promised to abide by the requirements of parliamentary rule. Once he became king, however, he began to move to remove restrictions on Catholics and Dissenters. His second wife, moreover, was staunchly Catholic, and rather openly encouraged Catholic worship, which had been banned for a century. Things took a turn for the worse when his wife gave birth to a son (though rumours soon swept the country that his child had actually died in child-birth and a substitute brought into the palace in a bed-warmer). The fear of the English monarchy becoming Catholic sent shivers up many spines. In fearful desperation, parliament sought a way out; they decided to invited James's daughter, Mary and her husband, Prince William of Orange III to rescue them. William arrived in England with a force of Protestant soldiers. Instead of meeting his son-in-law face-on in battle, James sent his wife and child to France, and a few days later, he too tried to flee, throwing his royal seal into the Thames as he did so. His cowardice provided the convenient legal fiction parliament needed; the declared the throne 'vacated,' and William and Mary rightful sovereigns (William had accepted the invitation to intervene on condition he was not going to play second-fiddle to his wife) in what has come to be called the Glorious Revolution of 1688. England would remain Protestant.
Low Chai Hok
©Alberith, 2020