AGE OF ABSOLUTISM
I. Search for Order
A. religious wars: Europeans gave up on the idea of a united Europe--political unity had been gone since Rome fell and religious unity had been gone since the Reformation--and they looked for order in a secular state system.
B. growing secularization: Religion was losing its grip on Europe, in part because of the religious wars. In addition, as kings wrenched power from the church, especially after the Reformation, and intellectuals engaged in thinking outside the boundaries of church theology, and as a commercial revolution was increasing the prosperity of many Europeans, European society became increasingly more secular.
C. absolutism: “Absolute monarchy or absolutism meant that the sovereign power or ultimate authority in the state rested in the hands of a king who claimed to rule by divine right” (Spiel.4thEd. 427).
"By the early 17th century, Europeans had developed the concept of a state--a distinctive political entity to which its subjects owed duties and obligations (Perry,366)." This concept would become the foundation of the modern science of politics. The essential ingredient was the notion of sovereignty (the supremacy of the state within its borders; i.e., all other institutions, including the church, must recognize the state's authority).
This lecture focuses on the kingdom of France because:
1. France developed an absolutist government, and became the preeminent power in Europe during the last half of the seventeenth century.
2. In turn, France's government and policies served as models for other European states.
3. The history of France during this period illustrates the tensions inherent in the conflicts between the states--monarchs and their ministers and civil servants and military leaders, elites--landlords and nobles in pre-industrial societies, owners and managers of enterprises or professional groups, and the laboring families--those who work the land in pre-industrial society, but become increasingly urban and involved in industry and services in modern times).
II. France: Louis XIV
After the Thirty Years War, various social forces were pushing European governments to evolve either towards an "absolutist" or "parliamentary" outcome. The phenomenon of absolutism in seventeenth century Europe is epitomized by the long reign of King Louis XIV of France. France became the great model of absolutism in Europe, as the Bourbon dynasty successfully consolidated royal power following periods of social crisis. Overcoming local interests and challenges by the French nobility, Louis XIV tightened his control over his kingdom, making it a military, economic and cultural powerhouse. It was only with the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-1713) that Louis, and France, were truly checked.
1. Background
With the death of Henry III (the last of the Valois kings), Catherine's daughter marries Henry, duke of Bourbon, a Protestant who turns Catholic to become king Henry IV. But it is Henry IV that issues the Edict of Nantes in 1598 granting religious toleration to the Protestants. “Because of the will and authority of King Henry IV, France’s Protestant minority had now achieved both individual and territorial rights.
“As the land calmed, Henry set to work to restore some semblance of order to his exhausted, fractured kingdom. He put the government back to work, repaired infrastructure, and introduced new manufactures according to ‘mercantilist’ principles. Under centralized, assiduous leadership of King Henry IV--the first king of the Bourbon dynasty--the seeds of absolutism were planted” (Maier 38).
Henry IV would be assassinated in 1610 by a Catholic fanatic and, "Throughout the seventeenth century, every French king attempted to undermine the Protestants' regional power bases and ultimately to destroy their religious liberties" (Perry,364).
Since Louis XIII (1610-1643) was only 9, France was under the regency of Marie d’Medici until 1617 when Louis took charge personally. Louis needed to get control from: a) aristocracy (he only called the Estates General once in 1614 and it did not meet again until 1789); b) Protestant cities (Cardinal Richelieu, Louis’ chief minister, persecuted the Huguenots and was responsible for the French being on the side of the Protestants instead of the Catholic Spanish Habsburgs in the Thirty Years War. For Richelieu, the needs of the State and the absolute authority of the monarch were synonymous; one was inconceivable without the other. Richelieu a) increased the power of the central bureaucracy; b) attacked the power of independent and often Protestant towns and cities; c) persecuted the Huguenots (altered Edict of Nantes in 1629) by taking away the Huguenots right to maintain garrisoned cities, separate political organizations, and independent law courts; d) humbled the great nobles; e) increased the power of France by weakening the Hapsburg power by supporting Protestants against Spain (Habsburgs).
Richelieu dies in 1642 and Louis XIII in 1643 when his son is only 5 years old, so Cardinal Mazarin takes over France until his own death. The Fronde (1648-1652), a series of street riots in Paris by great aristocracy, the courts, and the city’s poorer classes against the rising power of the crown was the most important event during Mazarin’s rule.
2. Luxury of his Reign: Louis XIV (r.1643-1715) would take over the French state upon Mazarin’s death, even though only 23 years of age. Louis would become the epitome of the age of absolutism so that ever since Voltaire the later half of the 17th century has been called the Age of Louis XIV. His was the longest reign in French history. He achieved the greatest monarchical power of the modern age as demonstrated by 1) the palace at Versailles, 2) luxury of the French court, 3) the brilliance of French culture during his reign.
He was only 5’5” but an impressively good looking man. He was also a good judge of men and though not a man of keen intellect, he worked long hours at being king: “He kept an eye on everything--the army, the navy, the courts, his household, the finances, the church, the drama, literature, the arts; and though, in the 1st half of his reign, he was supported by devoted ministers of high ability, the major policies and decisions, and the union of all phases of the complex government into a consistent whole, were his. He was every hour a king” (Durant, Vol. 8,17).
Louis detested chaos--maybe influenced by the riots in Paris he saw as a youth [Fronde: Lasted from 1648-1653; supported by great aristocracy, the courts and the poor; the most important event during Mazarin’s rule was this revolt against taxes and Mazarin which can be viewed as the last serious attempt to limit the power of the crown until the French Revolution; it caused Mazarin and Louis to flee Paris but anarchy caused their recall.].
He also detested Paris and built a luxurious palace at Versailles (a converted hunting lodge constructed between 1669 & 1688 a short distance from Paris). It included: 1) 17,000 beautifully landscaped parks with clipped hedges, arbors, and shaded walks enclosed by a 40 mile wall. 2) 1400 fountains, 2000 statues; 3) rooms decorated with marble columns, painted ceilings, costly draperies, mirrored walls, hand-crafted furniture; 4) theater, chapel & “marble court”.
He also hated religious chaos so he revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685. He thought only a few Huguenot Protestants were left. The Edict of Nantes (1598) had allowed them to garrison their towns, but Richelieu (the “great architect of French absolutism”) had rescinded this right. Louis later made attempts at converting them by a) stripping them of their schools and places of worship and b) offering money to converts to Catholicism until he felt there were few left. Unfortunately for France, when Louis revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685 subjecting practicing Protestants to torture or imprisonment, some 200,000 of the most industrious French people (mostly merchants, bourgeoisie) escaped to other lands. This would have profound economic consequences for France (Calvinists were capitalists from the start).
3. His Absolute Power resulted from several developments:
1) Church: he controlled religion--his predecessors had already wrung a number of concessions from the papacy so that the French Church enjoyed a semi-independent position (called the Gallican church). Louis gave the church good tax arrangements as long as it preached about the king’s divinely given rights.
2) Nobility: he no longer even consulted with the aristocracy for advice--he kept them happy with rituals, processions, banquets, duties at court and pensions; i.e., the aristocracy became parasites at court. “For example, the king’s routines of arising for the day, eating, and going to be (known as the lever, diner, and coucher) were complex rituals, full of numerous, intricate steps which served to convince those nobles waiting upon him of their king’s incredible majesty” (Maier 44).
3) commoners: many commoners were made loyal to Louis by being given titles of nobility (“nobles of the robe” --lawyers & administrators--vs. “nobles of the sword”); he used the middle class for operation of government. Any attempts at rebellion by the peasants were quickly crushed by the royal army and police (300,000 by the end of his reign).
4) revenues: tax collection was not in the control of the nobles but the king’s own men called intendants who controlled the 322 districts France was divided into during Louis’ reign. Louis XIV created a mighty, cohesive system of administration, centering in various “councils of state” which he attended personally. Designated men, Intendants, represented these councils in each district of the country.
Within the confines of his particular district, each Intendant incarnated all facets of the royal government. For example, the Intendant supervised the local law courts and nobles, worked to eradicate smugglers and bandits, recruited soldiers, oversaw the collection of taxes, regulated the marketplaces, guarded against famine, and dealt with the guilds and towns. Moreover, he sometimes would decide court cases himself. These Intendants were in constant contact with the King’s court, communicating with him and the state councils about what was happening in their districts, and receiving orders on what was to be done next.
An important aspect of the Intendants was their social origins. The king chose to use individuals whose upper-class status was recent. Why? Because such men were not embedded in the traditional, centuries-old power arrangements, as were the ancient nobility. In other words, these “new aristocrats” had no independent political power or influence: they owed their authority and status to the king himself” (Maier 40-41).
5) Louis’ propaganda genius: the palace at Versailles, the luxury of his court, the promotion of himself as Sun king impressed everyone.
4. Positive Achievements
1) Colbertism. “State control of religion in France was paralleled by an all-embracing mercantilist system, developed by Louis’ comptroller of finance, Jean Baptist Colbert (1619-83)” (Wallbank, 459). “Bourgeois in blood and economist by contagion, he was trained to hate confusion and incompetence, and was fitted by nature and time to transform the economy of France from peasant changelessness and feudal fragmentation into a nationally unified system of agriculture, industry, commerce, and finance, marching with a centralized monarchy, and providing it with the material basis for grandeur and power" (Durant, Vol. 8, 20). He doubled Louis’ revenue in 10 years by (1) creating a comprehensive system of tariffs and trade prohibitions to protect France from outside competition while eliminating many of the local tariffs and levies in a large part of central France, creating an extensive free-trade area; (2) encouraging French luxury industries (silks, laces, fine woolens, glass); (3) importing the necessary skilled workers; (4) improving internal transportation by building some roads and canals; (5) giving monopolies to some overseas trading companies (New World: New France, La., Fr. W. Indies; also trading posts in India). The most significant element of Colberts’ policy was to make France self-sufficient. This policy, that a state which is politically independent should make itself economically independent, is called “mercantilism” Or sometimes in honor of its greatest exponent, “Colbertism.”
2) peak of French culture (esp. drama & literature): Racine’s tragedies & Moliere’s comedies. “Until this point, the Italians had been the undisputed leaders in the arts, but during Louis XIV’s reign, Versailles--and thus France--became the European center of refinement and culture. The preeminent sculptor and architect of the age, Giovanni Bernini, accepted the king’s invitation to come to Versailles. Other artists, such as Moliere and Racine (theater), Lully (music), Boileau and La Fontaine (satire, criticism), and Poussin and Lorraine (painting) provided the entertainment at the palace. Versailles became the seat of lavish spectacles, such as ballets, balls, hunts, and receptions, all presided over by the Sun King himself and attended by the educated international nobility. French became the universal language of Europe” (Maier 44)
5. Negative results:
With no checks on Louis’ power he was free to follow a policy of international conquest that would bankrupt the state. Louvois, the minister of war, made the French army the most efficient in Europe. France was the first state to keep a standing army in the modern sense, drilled, uniformed, and paid by the government. “Louis was delighted with the toy which his energetic minister had placed at his command” (Ferguson, 504). The power and prestige of France made it reasonably safe from attack by its weaker neighbors, yet Louis found himself at was during two-thirds of his reign, and the wars were largely the result of his own policies and his love of martial glory. Each conflict he helped to provoke was longer and more exhausting that the one preceding it, until most of the European states allied themselves against the aggressive French king. His aim, in foreign affairs, was to enlarge his realm and increase his prestige, and as the Habsburgs were the historic rivals of the Bourbons he sought in particular to expand at Habsburg expense. Pride, vanity, and dreams of dynastic aggrandizement blinded Louis to the welfare of his subjects and to the misery his wars inflicted on soldiers and civilians” (Ferguson, 509). [“Louis XIV coveted vast sections of the Holy Roman Empire; he also sought to check Dutch commercial prosperity and had designs on the Spanish Netherlands” (Perry, 352).]
There were four wars of Louis’ reign: 1) War of Devolution (1667-1668), 2) Dutch War (1672-1678), 3) War of the League of Augsburg (1689-1697), and 4) War of Spanish Succession (1702-1713). The last and most exhausting of Louis’ wars, the War of Spanish Succession, began when Charles II, king of Spain, was on his deathbed in 1700 with no successor to the throne. He was approached by Louis XIV with his grandson, Philip, to be king of Spain and by Leopold with his son, Charles. Philip V was proclaimed king of Spain. Louis expected Bourbon Spain to be on the side of Bourbon France now. Philip V as king of Spain was also king of the Spanish Netherlands. England and Holland got real nervous. The result was the War of Spanish Succession (France Vs. England & Netherlands in alliance with H.R.E. & Austrians). The war was mostly a land war fought on the battlefields of northern Europe. It ended with the Treaty of Utrecht (Holland) 1714):
(1) Philip V was allowed to keep the throne of Spain so long as the thrones of France and Spain were never united under one king. (Leopold died during war and Joseph became Joseph I of H.R.E. Then in 1711 Joseph died and Charles became Charles VI of H.R.E.) Under Charles Austria becomes major European power.
(2) Austria received Austrian Netherlands (Spanish Netherlands were a buffer against a French overrun of Low Countries), and Milan, and Kingdom of Naples, and Kingdom of Sardinia. (All territories came from Spain; Austria was greatly strengthened and would become a trade rival to England; got all of Hungary back from Turks).
(3) Savoy got Sicily and was raised to the status of kingdom.
(4) Brandenburg became part of the kingdom of Prussia.
(5) England, the real winner, becomes a formidable naval power: Gibraltar from Spain; Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and the Hudson Bay area from France.
No country really got stronger than before, except England. In fact, it “created a balance of power in Europe with Britain emerging as a major force in European affairs, the counterweight against the French colossus. The relative peace of the eighteenth century has often been attributed to the creation of this real, but fragile, balance among the major European powers” (Perry, 352).
Only two years later Louis would be dead leaving France impoverished and surrounded by enemies. Bad harvests, the plague in the 1690s and Louis’ wars and taxes (taxed the peasants to death!) led to widespread poverty, misery and starvation in much of France. His and his successors’ failure to relieve the suffering of the lower classes would lead to the French Revolution of 1789. “On his deathbed, the seventy-six-year-old monarch seemed remorseful when he told his successor:
Soon you will be King of a great kingdom. I urge you not to forget your duty to God; remember that you owe everything to Him. Try to remain at peace with your neighbors. I loved war too much. Do not follow me in that or in overspending. Take advice in everything; try to find the best course and follow it. Lighten your people’s burden as soon as possible, and do what I have had the misfortune not to do myself.
....the
advice to his successor was probably not remembered; his great-grandson was
only five years old” (Spiel.4th Ed. 434).
II. Prussia
“The Peace of Westphalia, which officially ended the Thirty Years’ War in 1648, left each of the three hundred or more German states comprising the Holy Roman Empire virtually autonomous and sovereign. After 1648, the Holy Roman Empire was largely a diplomatic fiction; as the French intellectual Voltaire said in the eighteenth century, the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. Properly speaking, there was no German state, but over three hundred ‘Germanies.’ Of these states, two emerged as great European powers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries” (Spiel.4th Ed. 436).
1. Prussia was a state within the H.R.E., which in 1653 nobles granted elector power to collect taxes to maintain an army in return for decreeing serfdom permanent.
2. The Hohenzollerns were the controlling family in Prussia. The most aggressive was Elector Frederick William, "the Great Elector" (1640-1688), the first important Hohenzollern ruler and the one who laid the foundation for the Prussian state.
By 1672 the Prussian army entered the Franco-Dutch war on side of Dutch (once again the pattern of foreign war, taxes, military conscription); this led to an increase in power of the central government under Elector Frederick William. “By 1678, he possessed a force of 40,000 that absorbed more than 50 percent of the state’s revenues.... {“[He] introduced the “War commissioners,” bureaucrats who collected special excise taxes levied to support the army (Maier 49).} The noble’s support for Frederick William’s policies derived from the tacit agreement that he made with them. In order to eliminate the power that the members of the nobility could exercise in their provincial Estates-General, Frederick William made a deal with the nobles. In return for a free hand in running the government (in other words, for depriving the provincial Estates of their power), he gave the nobles almost unlimited power over their peasants, exempted them from taxation, and awarded them the highest ranks in the army and the Commissariat with the understanding that they would not challenge his political control. As for the peasants, the nobles were allowed to appropriate their land and bind them to the soil as serfs” (Spiel.4th Ed. 436-7).
His successors: Elector Frederick III (1688-1713), his son, received officially the title of Frederick I, king in Prussia, in return for aiding the Holy Roman Emperor in the War of the Spanish Succession. Thus, “Prussia emerged as a great power on the European stage” (Spiel.4th Ed. 437). “Although different in many was from the French model, Frederick William’s Prussia was indeed absolutist in character. The Prussian state was further refined and developed by his son Frederick William I (ruled 1709-1710), and his grandson Frederick the Great (1710-1740). The military continued to dictate the institutional evolution of the state (e.g., implementation of the canton system in 1733)” (Maier 50).
IV. ENGLAND, an exception to the movement toward absolutism.
1. Attempt at absolutism. The English movement toward constitutional government would now be more extreme than in the Netherlands, the other exception to absolutist states. But it would also become the main historical precedent for Western constitutional government because it was (1) later, 2) better protected, 3) more extreme, 4) more secular, and 5) more precise than the Dutch. But the first two Stuart kings, James I (1603-1625) and Charles I (1625-1649), both believed in royal absolutism. Unfortunately for them, they lacked the wealth and a standing army to est. themselves as absolute monarchs.
James I (son of Mary Queen of Scots, Elizabeth’s cousin and king of Scotland) dismisses his 1st Parliament in 1611 and the 2nd one sits only 2 months in 1614; he rules by decree from 1614-1621 and in 1621 rejects proposals against his policies (Parliament was demanding church reform, lower taxes, security). To bolster his sovereignty he preaches divine right of kings through the Anglican Church. He tries to win over the aristocracy by giving them new offices and titles. [According to rumor, the Duke of Buckingham is his homosexual lover.]
Charles I (1625-1649), son of James I, dismissed Parliament (1629) and attempted to collect taxes without its consent. “From 1629 to 1640, Charles pursued a course of ‘personal rule’, which forced him to find ways to collect taxes without the cooperation of Parliament” (Spiel.4th Ed. 447). He also wanted to rid England of Puritans: Protestants were whipped, mutilated and jailed so that 1,000's of people left England.
England became divided:
Royalists (“court”: 1) divine right of king to rule
2)king's right to levy taxes
3)king's right to control economy
Urban Middle Class (“country”): 1)wanted to be partners in governing with the king
2)wanted to control expenditures
3)wanted to end government regulation of business (royal monopolies)
2. English Civil War and Interregnum
1) The years 1640-1660 saw revolution and civil war led by Parliament, fought by Cromwell. Charles had finally called Parliament because he needed money to defend the realm against a Scottish invasion (he had tried to force the Anglican Book of Common Prayer on Presbyterian Church, so the Scots helped Cromwell), but he refused to agree to Parliament’s demands (to be consulted in matters of taxation, trial by jury, habeas corpus, and a truly Protestant church) so civil war broke out financed by Parliament's supporters and fought by the New Model Army led by Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), a Puritan. “In late Tudor times, the gentry and merchant interests fused with Puritanism--the English variety of Calvinism--to produce a political-religious vision with enormous potential” (Perry 371).
The New Model Army (filled with religious zealots) defeat the king, his aristocratic followers and the Anglican Church hierarchy. By 1646 the rebel forces take Charles prisoner--he escaped but was defeated a second time and executed in 1649 by order of Parliament (The Parliament had promised the Scots to make England Presbyterian for their help against the king.)
For the next eleven years (the Interregnum:1649-1660) England was a Puritan republic governed by Parliament and the army. In the 1650's, though, there was a radical element in the army called Levelers who wanted to "level" society by 1) redistributing property by ending monopolies, 2) giving the vote to all male citizens and establishing a democratic republic with freedom of speech and religious toleration. But the army officers regained control of army and established a military regime (by 1653) known as "The Commonwealth" (republic dominated by property holders and maintained by military dictatorship under Cromwell). It was not popular. Puritans prohibited drunkenness, theater going and dancing; and commerce suffered and the budget was too high. In 1653 Parliament moved to disband Cromwell’s expensive army, so Cromwell took over. Eventually the Stuart monarchy would be restored in 1660, two years after Cromwell's death in 1658.
NOTE: see Cromwell’s invasion of Ireland to crush Catholic uprising and Irish resentment of English rule.
Charles II, son of Charles, agreed to limit his power and to summon Parliament regularly and not levy taxes or make religious changes without approval of Parliament. So this period of civil war and Interregnum resulted in a reverse of the trend toward absolute monarchy with a recognition of the necessity of the role of Parliament to the English system of government.
3. Glorious Revolution: "While Louis XIV was dazzling Europe with his brilliant and irresponsible display of power, across the Channel in England the cause of royal absolutism suffered a reverse” (Ferguson 513).
1) Charles II (1660-1685) and the Restoration
The Stuarts had begun to rule over England with James I in 1603. Because his attempts to establish an absolute monarchy were continued by his son Charles I, civil war broke out that was directed by Parliament, financed by the merchants, and fought by the New Model Army led by Oliver Cromwell. It ended when Charles was executed in 1649 and Cromwell virtually ruled England until his death in 1658. In 1660, because the rule of the Puritan Commonwealth was unpopular, the Stuart monarchy was restored ("The Restoration") with Charles II (1660-1685), the son of the executed Charles I. "(He) agreed to limit his power and promised to summon Parliament regularly, with the understanding that he was to levy no taxes and make no changes in religion without parliamentary approval” (Ferguson 513-14).
"Though he played the role of a Protestant and constitutional ruler, Charles was a Catholic and an absolutist in his secret convictions” (Ferguson 514). He attempted to win to absolute power, but the ever-watchful Parliament and his fear of following his father’s footsteps to execution foiled his plans. When he attempted, though, to suspend laws against Catholics (and Puritans—he linked them in hopes of success) an opposition party developed in Parliament and in the country who called themselves Whigs (who favored a constitutional monarchy under a Protestant king with toleration for dissenters--members of various Puritan sects who were denied civil and military offices because they "dissented" from the teaching of the Anglican Church). "Those who supported the king and the Anglican Church were nicknamed Tories...”(Ferguson 515-516).
2) James II (1685-1688) foolishly openly Catholic; rescinded anti-Catholic laws
Charles' brother James was openly Roman Catholic as well as an admirer of French absolutism (a fact that virtually guaranteed a new constitutional crisis for England). The result was that after his Catholic wife gave birth to a prince, who was widely regarded as a potential Catholic king, "In early 1688, Anglicans, some aristocrats, and opponents of royal prerogative (Whigs and a few Tories) formed a conspiracy against James II. "A group of parliamentary leaders from both major parties offered the English crown to William of Orange, the Protestant stadholder of the Netherlands and husband of Mary, one of James' Protestant daughters by an earlier marriage” (Wallbank 524). James found himself deserted! William (r. 1689-1702), great-grandson of William the Silent, and Mary (r. 1689-1694), and the “Dutch army were welcomed as deliverers and James soon fled to exile in France” (Wallbank, 524).
In summary, the fundamental cause of Glorious Revolution was the attempt of James II to become absolute monarch (rule without Parliament) and to restore the Roman Catholic Church (appointed Catholics to high positions in the government , army, navy, and universities). The immediate cause was that Mary Modena was going to have a child (James born in 1688). "Many had been prepared to endure James's misrule, because he was over fifty and would be succeeded on his death by his Protestant daughter Mary. The birth of a son who would be raised in the Catholic faith ended this hope, and political leaders from both the Whig and Tory Parties dispatched a secret invitation to William of Orange to come and take the throne" (Ferguson, 519).
There were several important results of this Glorious Revolution:
(1) Bill of Rights (1689)--Habeas Corpus & trial by jury: Parliament is supreme over the crown (i.e., right to make laws and levy taxes is now a law on paper); no Roman Catholic can ever rule over England (assured Protestant successors)
(2) Toleration Act (1689)-- (1) granted religious toleration to all Englishmen (in particular the Puritan Dissenters, but excluded Roman Catholics and Unitarians (don’t believe in deity of JC); (2) did not est. religious. equality: Anglican Church remained privileged state church.
(3) Act of Settlement (1701)--regulated the succession of the crown of England to nearest Protestant relative. (After William of Orange-->Anne-->George of Hanover, the Windsors today). The English worried about the Stuarts returning: Louis XIV’s support of the Stuarts did more than any other single thing to assure the triumph of Parliament in England.
(4) Act of Union (1707) An accident had united England and Scotland when James VI of Scotland became James I of England (1603). The dynastic tie was weakened under William (since he was not a Stuart), but under Anne Scotland and England became Great Britain. This act allowed Scotland to send 45 representatives to House of Commons and 16 to House of Lords. Also, Presbyterianism was recognized as the established faith of Scotland.
In conclusion, the Glorious Revolution of 1689 was England’s last revolution, and it established a constitutional system of government based on the laws made by Parliament and sanctioned by the king.
“The sovereign had become dependent on Parliament for his revenue; he could no longer deprive a subject of his liberty or property at pleasure, for the laws guaranteed anyone accused of crimes a fair and public trial before a jury of his fellow citizens (Habeas Corpus Act, 1679; Bill of rights, 1689). Citizens were no longer to be persecuted for their religious beliefs (Toleration Act of 1689); but the Bill of Rights provided that no one who was a RC or married to a RC might occupy the English throne & Parliament asserted this principle by excluding the legitimate Stuart claimants and choosing the Hanoverian line to succeed Anne (Act of Succession, 1701). When George I ascended the English throne in 1714, he became king by the will of Parliament, and he knew it; English sovereigns thenceforth were to reign but not to govern, and the rule of Parliament was assured. In analysis, this meant the rule of the nobles, the country gentry, and the merchant classes, for these were the groups which dominated Parliament” (Ferguson 522).