The English Revolution, 1640-88 PDF Print E-mail
Tuesday, 30 November 1999 00:00

Key Objectives of the Lecture

1) Establish that modern representative democracy was founded through the revolutionary overthrow of absolutism.

Key Objectives of the Lecture

1) Establish that modern representative democracy was founded through the revolutionary overthrow of absolutism.

2) Provide a brief description of the major events of the English Revolution.

3) Provide a preliminary indication of the key institutional features of representative democracy which emerged from the English Revolution.

1) The Capitalist Revival of Democracy – the Bourgeois Revolutions, 1640-1848

  • "the Great Transformation”:

- industrial revolution;

- English Revolution (1640-1688);

- American Revolution (1776, 1789, 1861-65);

- French Revolution (1789-95).

- French and German Revolutions (1848-9).

  • modern representative democracy emerged through the revolutionary overthrow of absolutism.

2) The English Revolution, 1640-88

  • Hill observes of the English Revolution that:

"like all revolutions, [it] was caused by the breakdown of the old society; it was brought about neither by the wishes of the bourgeoisie, nor by the leaders of the Long Parliament. But its outcome was the establishment of conditions far more favourable to the development of capitalism [and representative democracy] than those which prevailed before 1640." Hill, p.111.

  • Charles I ascended to the throne in 1625.

  • in 1629 he dissolved parliament and commenced his 'Personal Rule' for the next eleven years without calling another.

  • crisis of 1640: from Short to Long Parliament.

  • following a skirmish at Manchester in July, the Civil War officially started when Charles I raised his standard at Nottingham in August 1642.

  • the New Model Army and the Levellers, 1647-49.

  • debate centred on two proposed constitutional settlements

- the Heads of Proposal favoured by the generals which promoted the establishment of a constitutional monarchy in which the King and the Lords would retain a right of veto over legislation passed in the House of Commons

- and the much more radical Agreement of the People formulated and advocated by the Levellers which proposed a republic in which the monarchy and House of Lords would be abolished.

  • Army officers then "drove forward the trial of the King and his execution on 30 January 1649, the abolition of the monarchy and the House of Lords, and the establishment of a republic." Manning, p.109.

  • 1660 - restoration of monarchy.

"After 1660 no doubt Charles II (from time to time) and James II (more seriously) dreamed of building up the absolute monarchy that their father had failed to achieve. But, thanks to the Revolution, there was never any chance that they could succeed. Without an army, without an independent bureaucracy, absolutism was impossible."
Hill, p.111.

"Nor, even in the atmosphere of royalist euphoria of 1660-1 were MPs prepared to abandon all the constitutional gains of the early 1640s. Charles I's financial expedients of the 1630s remained illegal, and star chamber, the court of high commission, council of the north, court of wards, and feudal tenures remained abolished. It is often, correctly, said that the monarchy that was restored in 1660 was that of 1641 not 1640."
Coward, p.290.

  • The 'Glorious Revolution' of 1688 was less of a genuine revolution than the events of 1640-1649, resting on the external military invention of William III in November, supported by internal provincial risings in Cheshire, Nottingham and York (finally consolidated with William III's victory over James II at the Battle of the Boyne in July 1690).

  • But it has aptly been referred to as the 'final settlement' because it established the essential foundations of the constitutional monarchy that was to survive in Britain for the next three centuries.

3) Key institutional features of representative democracy established by the revolution

  • The monarchy retained considerable powers, but the constitutional and, even more importantly, the fiscal limits to the sovereign's power were "real and recognised".

  • The 1688 settlement attempted to:

- remove the King's claim to suspend laws without parliamentary consent;

- tightly circumscribe the collection of revenue through unparliamentary taxation;

- prevent the King maintaining a standing army during peacetime;

- prohibit excessive bail or fines and 'cruel and unusual punishments'.

  • During the same period measures were introduced to:

- enshrine freedom of election to parliament, freedom of speech in parliament, and frequent elections.

- In particular the Triennial Act (1694) "provided not only that Parliaments should meet every three years but also that they should not last longer than three years. Henceforth parliament was a necessary and continuous part of the constitution, in closer dependence on the electorate."

  • This had a very real effect on the frequency of parliamentary elections and the size of the electorate.

Indeed, "the most startling contrast in the nature of political life during the reigns of William III and Queen Anne, and one which sets it apart from both the preceding and succeeding periods, is the frequency of general elections. From 1660 to 1688 there were only five; from 1689 to 1715 there were eleven." Coward, p.348.

  • The electorate increased to around 200,000 or approximately 4.3 percent of the total population during the reign of William III. Coward, p.349.

  • property qualification excluded workers, peasant farmers, and the ‘lower middle class’.

  • exclusively male franchise.