History: The following is a People’s History of the British Isles. These two isles, long divided, were united by the marriage of the English Queen and the Scottish King, uniting the Kingdom of England, and its colony the Kingdom of Ireland, with the Kingdom of Scotland. Thus three nations existed under one Monarch, and under this monarch existed the institution of Parliament. Although not unique to England, as many contemporary monarchies held similar institutions, the Parliament of England developed throughout its history certain privileges and powers through the leveraging of the power of the gentry, who constituted Parliament’s ranks and also provided to the monarchs a steady administration and tax revenue. The assert of Parliament’s and by extension the gentry and aristocracy’s powers and privileges ran against the bulwark of the monarch's divine right to rule the Kingdom as his personal property. These two forces co-existed in a constant cycle of skirmish then reconciliation until finally coming to a climactic clash in an English Civil War, in which the flame of parliamentarians was snuffed out and the divine right of kings was made the law of the land.
Rule of Charles I
King Charles, I succeeded his deceased father in the year 1625, becoming King of England, Scotland, Ireland, and the fledgling British colonies abroad. Almost immediately, he came into conflict with parliament due to his detestation of their attempts to infringe upon his powers. As a result of this, Charles spent the first eleven years of his reign without having called Parliament to meet, a process known as his “personal rule”.
Another source of conflict was between the Arminians or “High Church” members of the Church of England, the state Protestant church of the Kingdom, and the “Nonconformists” in the form of the Puritans, Presbyterians, Quakers, and other Protestant denominations who disapproved of the Arminians in control of the Anglican Church or just the Anglican Church itself. In England, the main religious opposition to the Anglican church was the loosely organized but highly influential Puritans, who sought a purer church and who often accused the Arminians of Papist influence due to their grandeur, and in Scotland, the Anglicans were opposed by the Kirk, the Scottish church, a dominantly Calvinist church which opposed the Anglican church’s organization in favor a Presbyterian organization of church elder councils.
Religious conflicts boiled over into the Bishops War, where the Scottish Presbyterians launched an armed campaign in opposition to Charles over his attempt to institute a standard prayer bible across the three Kingdoms; a blatant attempt to impose Anglicanism upon the Kirk. Charles raised an army to combat the Scots, but he was unable to raise any new taxes due to his refusal to summon parliament, and thus was forced to find inventive ways to raise revenue to pay for his army such as pilfering funds from the Ship Tax (which was instituted to fund the navy, not armies) or stealing the Royal Mint’s bullion reserves. The Scottish and English armies skirmished but for the most part, avoided open battle until the Treaty of Berwick in 1639 established a temporary peace which Charles used to further build up his forces. Running low on funds, Charles finally convened the parliaments of England and Ireland to ask for support; Ireland, whose parliament was wholly dominated by the Anglicans colonists, pledged funds and troops to support Charles, while the English parliament went down in the annals of history as the Short Parliament as it was promptly dismissed following its denunciation of Charles for his theft of funds.
The Scots relaunched the war in 1640, leading a path of scorched earth, burning and looting Royalist areas, and cutting down south into Newcastle. Led by a veteran of the Swedish Army, Alexander Leslie, the Scottish army of Covenanters (So named as they adhered to the Covenant agreed to by the General Assembly of the Kirk) was a force of professional soldiers utilizing modern artillery along with the Swedish model, while Charles had managed to raise a force mostly of militias and untrained recruits who were more likely to desert than fight. That happened when the English army was defeated at the Battle of Newburn, which caused a collapse in army morale forcing Charles to peace. At the Treaty of Rippon, the Scots extracted demands of payment in the amount of 850 pounds per day along with the occupation of Northumbria; the war would not fully be resolved until the Treaty of London the next year 1641 where Kirk’s acts establishing a Presbyterian church were affirmed along with other guarantees such as protection for covenanters from prosecution.
Backtracking a little bit, the Treaty of Rippon forced on Charles the need to cough up 850 founds *per day* to the Scots, an amount he could not raise on his own, and thus for a second time, he was forced to call the English parliament to session. This parliament was a convention of 493 members, of which 350 were in opposition to the King. Its first acts were impeachments of the King’s councilors, chief among them Lord Stafford, the Lord Deputy of Ireland, and right-hand man of the King. Parliament also took radical action to protect itself, including passing an act mandating that it must meet at least once every three years, which Charles reluctantly agreed to due to its combination with a revenue bill. The case against Stafford fell apart in the courts, so the leader of the parliamentary radicals, John Pym, went to Parliament seeking a bill of attainder. While Pym was initially in the minority and attempted royalist army coup turned opinion against Stafford; he was beheaded by Parliaments orders on May 12th.
After this, parliament passed a slew of bills, including the abolition of major courts which Charles had used to enforce his revenue acts, along with the abolition of said acts to gain revenue, and an act which forbade the King from dissolving parliament. Charles granted these acts in order to concede and gain favor, and also to allow for the passage of taxation bills. He even made visits to Scotland and endorsed Kirk in an attempt to make friends, although an attempted royalist coup there undermined his support.
A new rebellion popped up in 1641, this time in Ireland. Said island was a complicated area both politically, ethnically, and religiously; Its population was mostly Catholic with a Protestant minority, but while religion played a large role, so did class and ethnicity; the lower classes were mostly composed of the Irish Gaelic, while the gentry and nobility were divided between the Old English, those who had come over during the Norman invasions and older England, and the New English, who had settled after the establishment of the Church of England. The chief difference between these two groups was religion; the Old English were Catholic, which they shared with the Gaelic, while the New English were mostly Anglican with a notable Presbyterian minority in Ulster. These religious and ethnic differences caused tensions, and it didn’t help that the Catholics were often discriminated against and had their lands taken over by Protestant plantations, particularly in the north around Ulster or Dublin. The Irish Rebellion was primarily one in opposition to this colonization and religious tension, and it saw the Gaelic be supported by the Old English, while said Old English still professed loyalty to the King. A government known as the Irish Confederacy, formed shortly after the initial uprising, and primarily dominated by Old English gentry and nobility, raised regiments of Irish soldiers and fought the New English.
In England, Pym pushed through the Grand Remonstrance, a bill listing grievances and complaints against the King and the House of Lords, a very controversial bill that nonetheless passed. Shortly after, news of the Irish rebellion and rumors of Charles’s involvement began to spread, inciting embers to burn. When Charles asked for funds to raise an army to put down the Irish, parliament suspected Charles meant to raise an army to instead march on parliament, and so Pym pushed the Militia Act to place the military under parliament. Soon, the antipathy between parliament and Charles was brought to its boiling point by rumors that parliament meant to arrest Charle’s wife, and so he took drastic action.
The boots of soldiers dressed in red, armed with pikes and matchlock pistols, trampled over the carpet of the Commons. They forced open the doors and secured the chamber as the King marched in and sat in the speaker’s chair. He held in his hand a warrant for the arrest of five men, five agitators, and radicals, five members of parliament. The men had fled, forewarned by trusted sources, and so Charles looked around a house containing none of the men he had come for. He asked the speaker where they were, but the speaker told his monarch that he could not answer except as the Commons instructed him; that he was a servant of parliament first, not the King. Charles left the house, and soon after fled London fearing for his safety. With the king in flight, Parliament raised an army; civil war had come to England.
Wars of the Three Kingdoms and an English Civil War
Charles attempted to seize the militia arsenal at Hull but was rebuffed by its parliamentary governor. The lines had been drawn; on one side, the Royalists or Cavaliers, on the other the Parliamentarians or Roundheads. In the north, the Scottish who had once fought the king in the Bishops war now constituted the Covenanters, now allied with the Parliamentarians, while Royalist Scots under James Graham attempted to retake Scotland for the King. Ireland was a mess as New English Royalists and New English Parliamentarians fought each other and the semi-Royalist Irish Confederation. Charles formed his court in Nottingham on the 22nd of August 1642, soon after moving to Oxford where he’d also form a rival parliament. Both sides formed their armies, and soon enough marched out to fight.
With both sides relatively evenly matched in arms and numbers, the fighting came down to tactics. For the parliamentarians, their forces came under the command of Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex; Charles brought in Prince Rupert of the Rhine to give counsel and command his elite cavalry, which is exactly what he did at the Battle of Powick Bridge, routing a force of parliamentarian cavalry. On the 12th of October, his army marched out on the road to London, baiting Devereux’s army to come out and meet them. He would do just that, and at Edgehill, the two fought a bloody but indecisive battle, and later they’d fight again at Turnham Green, where Charles was forced to retreat to Oxford. The two sides hunkered down for the winter, and the dawning of 1643’s spring saw the Royalists gain many victories, but the parliamentarians were beginning to gain steam, undercut somewhat by demonstrations in August by Londoners demanding peace.
Devereux gained much-needed victories at the Battle of Newbury and the siege of Gloucester. Other victories such as at Winceby and King’s Lynn put immense pressure on the Royalists, leading to Charles agreeing to a ceasefire with the Irish Confederates in order to bring Royalist troops there over to England. These reinforcements, along with Prince Rupert’s cavalry utilizing effective scouting, delivering Charles a decisive victory at the Battle of Marston Moor; his outnumbered troops managed a successful fight against a joint parliamentarian and covenanter force, where the quick use of Rupert’s cavalry decimated a charge by the Ironside Cavalry under command of Oliver Cromwell, taking his life, and destroying infantry under command of the covenanter the Earl of Leven.
The victory dealt a large blow to the parliamentarian forces and crippled the covenanters, allowing for Charle’s forced to link up with the forces of James Graham, eventually leading to the pacification of Scotland in 1645. Earlier in 1644, Parliament reformed its forces, creating the New Model Army of professional officers and soldiers to fight Charles. Command of this army was given to Thomas Fairfax, who saw it through the fighting at the Battle of Lostwithiel and Second Battle of Newbury, both Royalist victories. Fairfax was beginning to see the writing on the walls and was increasingly coming to blows with the more radical members of the army such as Henry Ireton, who vied with him for power. Fairfax officially defected along with a contingent of moderate officers and soldiers, leaving the New Model Army as a mass of radical soldiers and a handful of radical officers, now under the command of Ireton. It fought two more battles at Naseby and Langport, both of which were Royalist victories.
Fighting continued into the next year until Ireton was captured in battle in May of 1646, and Charles entered London at the head of an army commanded by Fairfax in June of the same year. What followed was known as Charles’s Purge, as he put to death fifty major members of the parliamentarian rebellion and stripped titles, land, and peerage from hundreds more. Charle’s legalized all of this along with new taxes through a new parliament, known as the Rump Parliament or the Royalist Parliament as it was stacked with royal supporters. Charles had defeated the parliamentarians and put to death or exiled his major opponents, but more importantly, he had, through force of arms and more blood than had ever been spilled, enforced the doctrine of divine right, and taken the growing power of parliament and put it to the torch.
However, his fighting was not over yet, as Ireland was still in a tricky situation. The Irish Confederation there professed to be loyal to Charles but had been in opposition to the New English and Royalist forces there, and while Charles was sympathetic to the Irish Catholics he loathed the amount of autonomy the Confederation sought. Charles sat at home, gaining funds and men, until finally breaking his ceasefire and launching the Irish Campaign in the spring of 1649. His forces landed and soon put to siege the city of Dublin, a bloody fight that saw over 3,500 killed. This ruthlessness was seen throughout the campaign at places such as Rathmines and Drogheda, coming to an end only having the complete destruction of the Confederacy and subjugation of Ireland under New English lords in 1651.
The final years of Charles’s reign, known as the Postbellum Period, was an era primarily of reconstruction and the strengthening of the monarch's position. This period also saw a few last uprisings against Charles, including the Second Scottish Civil War where the covenanters give their last fight and Pride's Coup where Thomas Pride, a former colonel in the New Model Army, lead a band of former soldiers to seize Parliament and attempt to re-install parliamentary rule, only to see the force be put to death by Royalist militias. With the end of the Irish campaigns and the brutal put down of the last uprisings, Charles finally cemented his rule, and in 1654 he looked out from the windows of the palace on his empire, only for his heart to finally give out after years of campaigning. Charles I was dead and his son now inherited a destroyed Kingdom.
Postbellum Britain and the Passing of the Torch
Coronated Charles II, the new King saw the unrestricted implementation of “Thorough”, a policy drafted by his father’s advisors, chiefly Stafford, to centralize royal power for the establishment of Absolute Monarchy. The first acts his Royal government and parliament passed were the Clarendon Codes, a series of laws named after one of the king’s chief advisors, which in effect banned nonconformists and non-Anglican, along with standardizing the Church of England as the dominant religion throughout the three Kingdoms, although mostly England and Scotland. These saw Puritans and other non-Anglicans flee England for the colonies, joining those Roundheads who had gone into exile there as well, in an event known as the Great Ejection. Charles also implemented the Fairfax Reforms, a series of reforms championed by Thomas Fairfax to create a professional core similar to the New Model Army although restricted in order to keep it under monarchist control, along with the adoption of parliamentarian naval doctrine and tactics, allowing the Royal navy to be reformed into a more effective fighting force.
The new King ruled with absolute power, with a parliament of yes men rubber-stamping anything he asked for. Charles saw a great expansion in colonial efforts including plantations in Ireland and the American colonies which, while full of Puritans and now former roundheads, and by and large stayed loyal, earning the most loyal, Virginia, the title of the Old Dominion. However, it was not to be all sunshine and rainbows, as in 1665 Charles needed to oversee his nation as it went through the Great Plague of London, the last major outbreak of the disease, and in 1666 London was hit again, this time with the Great Fire decimating much of the urban city.
1668 saw the acquisition of Bombay by the British East India Company. It’s worth mentioning them briefly; the Honorable East India Company has acted as a nation unto itself with the sole purpose of trade and colonization in the East ever since its establishment. Utilizing colonial ports established in West Africa and the growing Cape Colony, the company came into the Indian ocean and soon set up in Java, where it made deals and fought conflicts to gain ports and allies in order to control the island's valuable spices. These spices were then sold in India, ruled by the Mughals. Bombay was the first port acquired by the British, and to support its growth Charles II granted the HEIC sweeping powers such as to raise troops and taxes, make peace and war, and others in order to allow it to operate.
While parliament was filled with Royalist supporters, it was also filled with protestants, who began to chafe under the Catholic friendly Charles II. Of note was the Declaration of Indulgence in 1670 which lifted penal laws placed on Catholics. Charles recanted this Declaration soon after, bowing to parliament which passed the Test Act, which placed restrictions on Catholics being able to be civil servants and other penalties. Parliament had been willing to fund the King’s projects and allow for his acts, but finally, it had broken from him on religion; Charles favored the High Church like his father which drew accusations of Papal influence, while the Anglican royalists in parliament were not happy with such accused influence.
Rumors of a papal plot to overthrow Charles ran rampant through London, and soon enough ire fell on one of Charles’s ministers; Lord Danby, who had been a part of Charles’s effort to negotiate non-aggression with Catholic France. To avoid having his minister be tried and possibly executed, Charles dissolved parliament in August of 1679. This didn't work, however, and he’d be forced to recall it and have Danby face trial, leading to his exile to the colonies. These troubles were overshadowed by the biggest showdown between Charles and parliament over Charles’s brother, James. Charles was childless, and so if he died the crown would pass to James, who was a Catholic. James had earned popularity after taking part in the effort to fight the Great Fire, and even more so when an attempted assassination was foiled in 1682. However, he was still a Catholic, which was not popular with the largely protestant and anti-papist gentry and nobles.
A divide formed over the introduction of the Exclusion Act, which aimed to exclude James from succession; its supporters were called Whigs in reference to a group of radical Scottish parliamentarians, and its opponents were called Tories referencing a group of Irish Catholics. Whigs formed an opposition to the King, while the Tories supported him and his attempts at Absolute Monarchy. The exclusion bill never saw a vote as Charles dissolved parliament and began a few years-long personal rules after he attempted to form another parliament only to see the Whigs fill it, necessitating him to dissolve it again. A string of acquittals towards those accused of involvement in papal plots showed the growing support for Charles and growing opposition to the exclusion bill, allowing Charles to push support for Tories in the civil service and judiciary. Support grew again after the Rye House Plot of 1683, a failed protestant assassination was uncovered, leading to the prosecution and execution or exile of many leading Whigs. With support at an all-time high, Charles solidified control by replacing judges and sheriffs at will and packing juries to achieve convictions favorable to him. He also disenfranchised many Whigs to achieve electoral victories for the Tories in municipal elections.
A Pretender's Rebellion and the Catholic King
Charles suffered a sudden apoplectic fit on the morning of February 2nd, 1685; he died shortly after. With the country firmly in the hands of Tory politicians, James ascended to the throne of the three kingdoms as James II of England and James VII of Scotland. James called a parliament that was largely packed with Tories thanks to the before-mentioned disenfranchisement campaign. James mostly kept Charles’s old ministers and officers, relying on them and continuing their policy Throughout. All was not roses, however, as soon after his coronation, James faced his first test as his nephew, the Duke of Monmouth raised an army hellbent on dethroning the Catholic King.
Monmouth was joined by the Earl of Argyll who raised a rebellion in Scotland; the rebellion was primarily based on religious and political differences, as Monmouth declared himself the rightful King and was supported by many Whigs who opposed Stuart's policy of absolute monarchy and James’s catholicism. James raised an army thanks to the generous funding provided by Parliament and crushed the Scottish uprising, capturing Argyll, in June of 1685. Monmouth saw a similar fate at the Battle of Sedgemoor where his forces were routed and himself captured, leading to the Bloody Assizes; a series of trials where Monmouth and Argyll were put to death and over three hundred other rebellion leaders and Whigs were sent into indentured servitude in the Suriname colonies of America.
After the rebellion, James sought security by incorporating the troops he raised for the Monmouth Rebellion into the standing Royal Army. This, along with James’s use of Catholic officers in the army, caused outrage among Whigs, while the conduct of the often rowdy soldiers in towns alienated many. When parliament objected to James’s use of Catholic officers in defiance of the Test Act, James dissolved Parliament. James then began to surround his court with men dubbed “papists” by the public, even receiving the first envoy of the Papacy itself since the reign of Mary I. While this alienated many Anglicans, even tory ones, James’s powerful standing army and the utter control of the courts by James’s appointments meant there was little power to stop him as he entered his personal rule. In May of 1686, James utilized a court packed with his supporters to rule that he had the power to nullify acts of parliament, and so overturned many of the penal laws against Catholics. Between 1687 and 1688 the King went on a speaking tour of the nation, driving support for his reforms throughout the nation, including new reforms granting tolerance to Scottish Presbyterians, who had become a minority in a new Anglican dominated Scottish Kirk.
Alongside his speaking tour, James instituted a new round of purges and disenfranchisement which saw the Dissenters; Whigs, and Tories alike who supported the Test Act and opposed James’s religious tolerance; removed from offices and purged from Parliament, along with the appointment of new Lord-Lieutenants in the counties and other municipal positions. After this, James issued writs of elections calling for a new parliament, which was seated in May of 1688 and was packed with Tories, most of whom were Nonconformists. In that same year, eleven Anglican lords formed a parliament of their own, which voted to declare the King’s Parliament null, nominating Lord Danby to lead their forces. Militias on both sides were raised, and within a month England was plunged into another civil war.
Many Tories of Anglican belief, or generally just opposed to James’s policies, joined the new Parliamentarians. Also joining the rebellion were the Agitators, and it is now that we shall take a detour to explain them. When the New Model Army was formed, its members became a group of conscripted, mostly puritan, men from all across England, now brought together. The rank and file became a hotbed for radical ideas, and the representatives of these men were called the Agitators. After the defection of Fairfax, Ireton rose to power and he empowered the Agitators, turning the Army into a radical force of Republicans. When they were defeated, these men didn’t disappear; while their officers fled to America, they were pardoned and returned to their homes, where they kept their arms and their radical ideas. Throughout the reign of Charles II and James II, these Agitators worked in the shadows, the most radical of the radicals, more radical than even the Whigs. Influenced by groups such as the Levelers who sought full political enfranchisement of the citizenry, the Agitators formed Green Ribbon clubs where they discussed and planned. With the rising of a new Parliamentarian force, the Agitators raised their own militias and went out to fight for parliament, even if parliament didn’t want them.
James met the rebels in June of 1688, resulting in a victory for his larger and more professional army. However, James did not capitalize on his victory, as despite his troop's quality they were low in numbers due to defections, so he wished to sit and build up his forces before moving. This allowed parliament's forces to regroup in the north, although this was a short respite as disagreements led to an all-out war between parliament and the Agitators in 1689, soon to be joined by the landing of Irish forces loyal to James in 1690. With his main opposition fighting amongst themselves, James fought multiple battles across a campaign cutting a bloody path north until he retook Nottingham in March of 1690. Now linked up with his Irish forces, James launched a final bloody fight stomping out the rebellion, with the last pockets falling in 1692.
The King was merciful to those lords who decided to pledge allegiance to him once more but gave only hellfire to the Agitators captured, ordering hundreds to death or exile. A second civil war, a second bloody purge, and a second Stuart King upholding his absolute god-given right to rule. Nine years later, just short of a decade, he was dead. A brain hemorrhage killed the Catholic King; he left behind a Britain utterly transformed from the one his ancestor, James I, knew. Succession passed officially to the thirteen-year-old James III, although his sister Mary ruled as regent until her death in 1704. Mary was a protestant, and so became favorable to the Anglican Tories. Her pressuring resulted in James officially converting to Anglicanism, and so his full rule in 1706 was marked with cheers from a now united Tory party.
Jacobite Era
James III began his reign mostly relying on his father’s ministers. While there was some push for it, he refused to undo the reforms of his father, although he did not push any new ones, instead of toeing the line between Anglicanism and tolerant reform. James’s reign was focused greatly on trade and the colonies, as the North American colonies, most established under his father and grandfather's rule, flourished, with booming populations and rich trades. The triangular trade emerged where slaves from British colonies on the west African coast were transported to British Guyana to work the extremely valuable sugar plantations. This sugar then was sent either back to Britain or to North America where it was used in alcohol production. America also sent back to Europe many raw goods such as tobacco, indigo, wood, and grain, while Britain sent to America manufactured goods like linens and guns. The whole trade became even more profitable with the expansion of the HEIC into the interior of Java and the acquisition of the port of Puducherry. This made the British the largest European power in the Indian Ocean trade and the ever-important spice trade which exploded in profitability over the emerging 18th century.
This period, known as the Jacobite Golden Age, became an era of extreme growth in the British economy, the further centralization of control and unity among the three kingdoms, and general peace in the Empire. It was also an era of progress, both in technology as the Royal navy adopted new techniques and weapons to stay ahead in the age of sail, and in policy as the Bank of England was formed by royal charter in 1708. The bank is of particular note not only for the fact that it was a private institution backed by the crown which allowed for the financing of the expansion of the Empire but also for the fact that it was a Whig institution. In fact, British politics had evolved to the point that being a Whig wasn’t a sign of radicalism and opposition to the king, but a new type of ideology; Liberalism and Capitalism. Ideals of the burgeoning enlightenment such as toleration but more importantly free trade became the defining ideology of these “New Whigs”, while the Tories became a party of those dedicated to protectionism; their disagreements became primarily economic, as both sides had their radicals weeded out by the Second Civil War. James tended to play the two sides off each other, although leaned Whig due to their tolerant stance and his own support for the expansion of trade.
That’s not to say there was no opposition, after all in 1712 a plot to assassinate the King was uncovered and its ringleader executed, but these types of things were common, and there was no sizable uprising or political opposition to the monarch on the basis of his right to rule. The plot, however, is notable for the fact that the ringleader went to the beheading block wearing a green ribbon. Despite their defeat in the civil war, the Agitators were still alive, just underground, and the growing enlightenment profoundly altered them. They perceived their defeat as having been due to the betrayal of the largely noble rebel parliament, just as the original New Model Army had been betrayed by the noble Fairfax. This, along with a growing movement in support of popular sovereignty and works from enlightenment writers such as John Loche, an Englishmen, turned the agitators towards what they called the “Grand Old Cause”; Universal Suffrage, Republicanism, an end to the nobility, and redistribution of noble lands to peasant farmers. The actions of James and his parliament helped him, as the agitators were soon joined by many of the Old Whigs who abhorred the New Whigs for their cooperation with the King.
Some of the first “Police” organizations were formed personally by James to combat the Republicans, who formed a complex net of organizations. The most expensive of these was the Constitutional Society of England in the north primarily around Sheffield and the London Corresponding Society in… London. Both of these groups operated as political organizing groups spreading radical ideas, often operating in shadows as the open spread of Republican ideas was considered Treason.
1715 saw the passage of the Acts of Union, which combined England, Scotland, and Ireland into one nation; the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It also abolished the Scottish and Irish parliaments and created one Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland, although other institutions and common law continued to stay separate. While there was no major armed uprising, there was discontent in the two, although the act mainly affected the Scottish gentry and New English in Ireland, both of whom now had seats in the Parliament of Great Britain.
While there was peace at home, James was often involved in the wars of Europe, supporting various sides ranging from Catholics to Protestants, mostly just attempting to keep the balance. The largest of these wars was the War of Jenkins Ear beginning in 1739 over the Iberian mutilation of a British smuggler. The war saw the British and the Iberians trade blows across the ocean, mostly in the form of privateers hired to raid the other's shipping routes. A few major naval battles had England come out on top, and on land, the Georgia militia made huge gains taking the Iberian colony of Florida. Later wars, including the Seven Years War, saw Britain gain full control of Canada and what was upper Louisiana, now the western territories, were costly. These foreign wars often distracted the monarch's attention, allowing for rebellions to take place in the home isles. The most common were rebellions by Scottish Presbyterians and Scottish Nationalists wishing to undo the Act of Union, the biggest of these being the Rising of 1745 where the Scots were joined by a force of Green Ribbon Militia organized by the Constitutional Society; both forces were put down with brutality by the Butcher of ‘45; the King’s song Charles Edward. While ending the immediate threat, the brutality turned the rebels into Martyrs and also united the Republican and Scottish causes.
Caroline Era and Prelude to Revolution
While the Empire was rich off its trade, taxation felt like a burden to many making this revenue. Nowhere was this hated more than in British North America, where the colonists hated the fact that Catholic Ireland had representation in parliament but they didn’t. These tensions erupted into outright protests during the 1760s after British authorities cracked down on smuggling and tax evasion. In 1766, King James passed away, leaving his crown to his some Charles, now Charles III; the Butcher of 45. His rule, known as the Caroline Era, would be remembered for the escalation of the American conflict; in 1770 a group of British soldiers labeled Red Coats by the Americans, fired on a protest. This, along with the proclamation that they’d be tried in England, not America, stoked outrage. In 1773, rebels in Boston seized ships of the HEIC and dumped their stores of tea into the harbor; in response, Charles pushed through punitive acts known as the Intolerable Acts in America. The Americans formed a continental congress, and soon fighting broke out, causing the Americans to declare independence in 1776. The war became of considerable concern for Charles, as he feared a successful American rebellion might spread to other British colonies, and possibly even back home.
After years of conflict, major successes by the Americans combined with the entrance of France and Iberia into the war forced Britain to seek peace in the Treaty of Versailles in 1783, recognizing the American Republic and ceding it the western territories, although Canada had stayed loyal thanks to the presence of the Royal Navy. The defeat at the hands of not only Britain's long-time enemies of France and Iberia but also the upstart American rebels humiliated the Stuart monarchy and began to incite the people who had lived so long under its absolute control. The monarchs absolute control had been a fact for decades now, and one that was very unpopular, even to the royalist tories in parliament; but the Second Civil War had seen to it that rebellion was seen as impossible and so it was deemed by many prefer to simply deal with it and work within the system. It helped that the large growth in the economy over the 18th century meant that many cared little for what the King did as long as they stayed well fed and the gentry stayed well paid. Now, not only had the Americans proved rebellion possible, but the loss of the colonies and the war with France had caused a major depression in the economy, which was slowly recovering. This economic depression led to the Gordon Riots in London, whose violent suppression alienated the Whigs who oversaw said repression and drove people even more towards the Republican societies.
Recruitment to the Grand Old Cause skyrocketed. In Ireland, leading parliamentary leaders there had secured approval for the raising of the Irish Volunteers during the American War, and armed forces to free up British troops. The leadership of the Volunteers united in the Belfast Conference in 1780 under a new society, the United Irishmen. The leadership of the United Irishmen was mostly Presbyterians who sympathized with the Irish as they were both discriminated against by the Anglicans, and while the Irishmen’s leader Wolfe Tone disliked Catholicism he pushed for unity with the Irish Catholics as a means of obtaining a Democratic-Republican Ireland. The United Irishmen made common cause and contact with fellow Republicans in Scotland and Ireland, where the United Scotsmen and United Englishmen were formed by the Friends of the People in Scotland and the Constitutional Society in England.
In 1784, a year after the peace and the Gordon Riots, the Manchester Convention was held between representatives of the Republican organizations and came to an agreement on cooperation, forming the United Britons. At this point, the movement had grown so large that meetings and rallies were held out in the open, with street fights between constables and United Britons happening on the regular. The decentralized democratic model of organizing pioneering by the London Society was adopted and expanded across the country, creating a Federation of organizing units across the country that organized everything from political campaigning to the training of militias. Elections saw many prominent Republicans being elected to both local office and parliament, although those elected to parliament boycotted and refused to take their seats. With control of local offices, the Republicans took over command of Royal Militias primarily in the north.
Giving fuel to this fire was the radical writer and political organizer Thomas Paine. Known as the Father of the Republic now, Paine’s writing, most notably “Plain Truth” and the later “Rights of Man” were highly circulated and read works that formed much of the political theory at the foundation of the United Britons and Republican movement. Paine himself was constantly in and out of prison while men such as John Cartwright, Thomas Hardy, Thomas Holcroft, John Thelwall, John Horne, and Edward Despard led much of the effort to organize both politically and militarily in England. In Scotland, Thomas Muir led the organization of the United Scotsmen, while in Ireland the United Irishmen united with many militant Catholics and often butted heads with the Irish Patriot party which advocated for reconciliation with Great Britain to gain autonomy and mainly appealed to the Whiggish Irish. Many leading intellectuals of the time such as William Godwin, Mary Wollenstencraft, Richard Price, and many others gave support to the Republicans through the press, writing social and political works calling for parliamentary rights, universal suffrage, the abolition of slavery, and some radicals like Wollenstencraft even called for “Social Levelling” such as Women's Suffrage and the abolition of the aristocracy.
Glorious Revolution and Early Administration
The monarchy's reaction to this explosion of radicalism was the usual attempts at a crackdown by local authorities, but its ability to rationally react was stopped short by the death of the King at the hands of a stroke in 1788. Charles had died heirless, and the next in line was the controversial Catholic Henry, now Henry IX, also known as the Cardinal-Duke of York as he had dedicated his life to religious pursuits only to find the Kingship of Britain dropped into his lap. With the monarchy at an all-time low, the United societies recognized the time for revolution was neigh, and the spark to light the powder keg would come from the navy. A force of working-class men stuffed into hot wooden vessels, the navy was a historic source of radicalization, having sided with the parliamentarians during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Sailors from sixteen vessels at Spithead and eight vessels at Nore mutinied in March of 1789, seizing control of the vessels and their guns, and electing new officers. One of these new officers was Horatio Nelson, a career officer who had constantly been passed up for promotion by his aristocratic peers. Nelson led the Spithead and Nore sailors to draft a manifesto denouncing the poor treatment of the sailors and declaring their common cause with the Republicans. Their mutiny sparked off the uprising of the United Irishmen several weeks later, and as word spread a domino effect happened as Republican militias rose up, supported by Republican-controlled local governments.
A pitched battle was fought for several days in London as armed militias fought for control of the city, ultimately ending with Henry deciding to abandon the city to find a better strategic group in the west. With control of London, those Republicans who had boycotted entered the now empty halls of Parliament and declared themselves the new House of Commons of the English Republic, with their first acts being the legalize many of the revolutionary measures taken, nationalizing the militias as the Army of the Republic, and abolishing the House of Commons. Leadership from the United Britons was hastily elected as the Council of State, the new executive body taking over the former position the King and his court held, led by First Councilman Thomas Paine. At the end of July, the United Englishmen held London and the surrounding areas along with a large swath of the north while Royalist forces held onto Wales, Cornwall, and western England. The United Irishmen had declared the Irish Republic with its parliament currently in Belfast as their Irish Volunteers under Wolfe combated the Royalist garrison in Dublin. Muir’s Scotsmen had secured Edinburgh and the Highlands and were working their way south to defeat the Royal troops near Newcastle and then unite with the northern Englishmen. Meanwhile, Henry had fled the country, leaving his troops in the hands of his ministers and Generals. The Royal Army had seen many desertions but kept most of its officer corps, with many veterans of the American war commanding what was left of the Royal Army and its militias. The Republican Army was led mostly by defectors or elected officers, with notable commanders being John Cartwright in command of the northern United Englishmen and Edward Despard leading the London Militias.
Despard led a march north from London, cutting a path to Cambridge and then Norwich by September. Royalist forces were sent north to hold back the Republicans in the north, skirmishing south of Manchester and holding at Nottingham. Meanwhile, Muir surrounded and besieged Newcastle, separating half his army and sending it south to reinforce Sheffield while he settled in for a long siege. Through the fall Despard secured the east while sending his forces west to secure and defend the greater areas outside London. With winter setting in, both sides settled down, not willing to fight with rushed forces through the terrible cold. The Royalist Generals held a council in Bristol where they broke with Henry and declared a military government which would act as a temporary regency until the Republicans were put down; this was all legitimized with the seating of the Bristol parliament, made up mostly of members of the former House of Lords and House of Commons, who passed laws giving near-dictatorial powers to the military council in order to prosecute the civil war. The Council then undertook an internal purge of “Stuartites”, mainly Catholics and Nonconformists, replacing them with Anglican Tories who supported the Lords and the Military Council. On the other side of Britain, the Republican Army used the winter to conduct training under the guidance of foreign volunteer officers from Europe, mainly Germany, whose sympathy to the Republican cause saw them come to Britain to assist. Paine’s Council of States instituted a wholesale reorganization of the administration under his control, creating a map of Counties which were subdivided into “Divisions” and further subdivided into neighborhood sized “Tithings”, directly copying the structure of the Republican Societies and grafting them onto a larger scale to create a decentralized Democratic administration based on direct democratic votes at the Tithing level and the election of recallable delegates to division and county-level councils. Paine also pushed through his Republican Parliament several bills related to land reform, a topic he was personally concerned with, including the seizure of Royal and Noble lands and having them be redistributed by County officials and instituting a new series of taxes mostly on landowners and the wealthy to pay for direct relief programs for the urban poor.
When the frost melted in Spring of 1790, Royalist forces of the Military Council marched north on a warpath to take Sheffield. At the helm was General Clinton of fame from the American War, leading the main force up north through Birmingham while sending a detachment to reinforce his flank at Oxford and Northampton. Clinton, however, greatly misjudged the ability of the men at Northampton to stand up to Despard’s militias, believing them to be a ragtag group unlike the organized soldiers he fought in America; he was right in that they weren’t like the Americans, but he was wrong to underestimate them. Despard, with the assistance of German volunteers and his fresh army, smashed the Royalists at Northampton and sent a force to surround Oxford, drawing the surrender of the Royalists thereafter their troops mutinied seeing Republicans behind them. Clinton was unaware of this until he reached Nottingham, and soon realized the situation he was in when he also received word of the fall of Newcastle, freeing up the Scottish army. Clinton attempted to retreat south but was caught by Republican forces moving south from the north at Derby, fighting a pitched battle that ultimately ended in Clinton fleeing the field with his men. They’d again be cut off this time on the road into Coventry by Despard’s militias, another victory for the Republicans and one that put Clinton in between Republicans advancing from the south and the north. Recognizing he was between an anvil and a striking hammer, Clinton surrendered his army and the city of Birmingham to Despard.
The remaining Royalist forces rallied at Bristol, fighting a valiant defense of the city in June of 1790 that ultimately ended in defeat after a blockade by Nelson’s fleet cut off all supplies into the port. Most of the Military Council had managed to evacuate before the arrival of Nelson’s ships, but the members of the Bristol Parliament had been left behind and taken prisoner. There was a great question in the air as to what to do with these men, most if not all were members of the aristocracy and gentry. Of the several hundred arrested, Paine’s personal intervention saw many of the lower gentry and those who had not been very vocal in their opposition given prison sentences, but even his influence could not save the Forty top lords and gentry who the court convicted of counter-revolutionary action and crimes against the people of England; the noose was their own salvation. With their forces in shambles and their leaders either dead, in prison, or fleeing the country, the remains of the Royalist forces in Ireland and Scotland dissipated, with their officers fleeing and their men deserting. Wolfe Tone marched at the head of a column of Volunteers into Dublin on July 5th, 1790, and a day later personally oversaw the executions of many of the leading Royalist commanders. Muir was elected President of Scotland. Paine’s government oversaw the demobilization of the militias, with the men either being sent home or transferred to the control of county councils, turning them into a new police force; the same happened in Ireland and Scotland, the former renamed its Irish Volunteers into the “Garda”.
With the war over, Britain had become three independent Republics, with the Irish and Scottish motivated by Nationalist sentiments to maintain their own government after having lived under the boot of the English kings for so long there was hesitation in reunification. A new convention of the United Britons was held in the fall of 1790, this time in London, and the topic of the day was not only unification but a federation. Paine and the Englishmen stressed the need for a united Britain to combat the threat of the Iberians and the French, while the Irish and Scottish as said before wished to maintain their national sovereignty. The convention drew heavily upon the work of the Germans in their Federal state, and ultimately a pact was formed with the signing of the London Charter in the spring of 1791. The charter laid out the modern Federal state of Britain, along with the guarantee of liberties in the Declarations of the Rights of Man.
The elections of 1791 naturally saw a Republican parliament elected, which re-elected Paine and his government to their positions within the Council of State. With their demobilization, the United societies transitioned from revolutionary organizations to political parties, united in a common coalition under the banner United Britons. Despite a united front, those elected were not of unanimous opinion, and soon enough factions formed. More moderate members surrounded the Irishman Henry Grattan and Englishman Charles Fox, seating themselves on the right side of the House where the Whigs used to sit, gaining them the nickname "Right Opposition" in the press. More radical members, like school teacher-turned MP Thomas Spence, embraced the title of Leveller, adopted from the old radicals of the English Civil War, while those true to Paine proclaimed themselves true "Republicans". Before Paine took his first official oath of office, the Treaty of Bombay was finalized with the Honorable East India Company. The loyalty of said company was greatly in question, as many of its governors had been members of the aristocracy and nobility, but it had also gone into great debt to the monarchy and it had not intervened in the revolution. Negotiations began with company leadership after the surrender of Clinton's army, ultimately concluding in their allegiance to the Republic in exchange for forgiving debts previously owed by the company to the British treasury. British Regiments were sent to the colonies to secure their loyalty from any possible Stuart loyalists and new administrations in Guyana, West Africa, Canada, and Cape colony were installed. Despite the treaty, many of the most aristocratic and royalist bureaucracy and governance in the Company mutinied; some were put down and tried for their treason, others were embraced by foreign governments like the French Kingdom, protecting them from the Republic's justice.
No longer ruling as a provisional authority, Paine took his victory in parliament as a mandate from the people to act, instituting many of the social programs he spoke of in his written works. Ranging from price-fixing, wage regulations, industrial and agricultural subsidies, grants and subsidies for medicinal facilities, and the nationalization and expansion of the union's secular school system, opening it up to the poor. Paine served ten years before retiring in 1800, citing his old age and a wish to promote a revolving door of power. His successor, Thomas Hardy, largely continued his policies, added with a focus on "Popular Culture" as his administration created the Office of National Heritage to "Promote the culture and heritage of the Republics and her Peoples". Hardy also empowered the Militias as a true police force, creating a cultural revolutionary fervor where citizens were taught of the ideals and importance of the revolution, coupled with the Militias arresting those denounced as Stuart sympathizers or counter-revolutionaries. Very few convictions happened but those brought up on charges had their property seized by the Militias, were shunned by the community, and barred from local and national offices; and for those convicted, death was the only punishment.
Just the year before the 1810 elections, the nation mourned the loss of Paine, struck dead by natural causes in his old age, one of the last of a string of deaths and retirements of many of the leading figures of the revolution, leaving a few old guards surrounded by rising new young politicians. The election brought a shakeup as the Central Committee of the United Britons decided to endorse Charles Hall as a candidate for President of England; Hall was an economist and a member of the Levellers, and thus an ardent critic of Capitalism, making him particularly popular in the urban areas. Members of the Right Opposition felt this was the last straw; first moderates of the United Englishmen resigned from the party, followed by those of the United Irish and Scotsmen. A few months before the election, the Edinburgh Conference was held and the assembled delegates declared the creation of the British Liberal Society, nominating Christopher Wyvil to party leadership. With grand support from the Irish Protestants, Scottish Anglicans, and English business-owning class the Liberals carried a large number of seats but ultimately fell short of unseating the United Britons, who in their party convention voted to reorganize as the United Republican Society. Emerging from the schism battered but alive, the Republicans elected old guard and revolutionary hero John Thelwall as First Councilman. Two years into his administration, Thelwall has made the defense of the Republic his top priority, seeing the growing clouds of reaction on the horizon.