(Drivebycuriosity) - Confucius said: "Study the past if you would define the future”. I agree, we can learn so much by studying history. For instance Jonathan Healey`s fascinating book "The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England" (489 pages amazon ) gave me a lot insights how the world has changed in the 16th century and what forces have shaped these developments.
In England the 17th century was a bloody & messy period, shaped by continuing revolutions & wars, much worse than the 16th century. This was caused by the hereditary system: Ruler Elizabeth I was succeeded by the Stuarts, the son and the grandsons of Maria Stuart, Queen of Scotland, her arch enemy. The result was not surprising: The Stuarts pitched England into chaos, contrary to the Tudors, who brought relative stability (described for instance in Peter Ackroyd´s excellent English history drivebycuriosity ).
Wheels Of Time
The Stuarts tried to turn the wheels of time back and attempted to restore the Roman Catholicism and to nullify the reforms of Henry VIII & Elizabeth I, as also Maria Stuart had intended. Apparently the Stuart kings inherited the genes of the Scottish Queen. They were tyrants & schemers; they waged wars against the fledgling Parliament and tried to erase the early seeds of democracy and to replace it with absolutism, following the role model of France´s Sun King Louis XIV.
The ruthlessness of the Stuart rulers caused many bloody revolutions: 1640, 1647, 1649, 1653 & 1653 that caused immense misery for the English people. But nevertheless, one Stuart followed another because the English people, at least their majority, wanted to be ruled by kings, who were believed to be godsend.
While Maria Stuart´s son King James, who followed Elizabeth I, was a relatively modest ruler, her grandson Charles I was a slippery & treachery weasel, like his grandmother. He tried
- to nullify the theological reforms of Henry V & Elizabeth I and to return to a Catholic system under the rule of the Pope.
- to cancel the rights of the Parliament and to become an absolute ruler like France`s Louis XIV.
He also caused at least 2 bloody civil wars and began wars on the continent, that he all lost and that cost the lives of about 10,000s of soldiers and ruined the English finances.
Provoking The Regicide
To make things worse, Charles favorized the allegedly very handsome Duke of Buckingham, who`s incompetent commands in the lost wars against France destroyed the lives of hundreds of English soldiers. For instance the English planned to relieve the Protestant stronghold of La Rochelle, a French harbor town, but the expedition, led by Buckingham, lurched into a catastrophe. The lowest point came, when the Duke decided to attack a citadel there, in the driving rain, "only for his men to find that their ladders were too short! The whole shambolic escapade alone cost around 5,000 lives".
Unsurprisingly, the Duke was highly unpopular. His personal adviser Dr John Lambe, an astrologer and quack, an alleged practitioner of black arts and convicted child rapist, was killed on the streets of London, pelted with stones and trash by "boys and mariners".
Nevertheless King Charles provoked whenever he could the Parliament and the English population; he also continued to promote his sweetheart Duke Buckingham and defended him vigorously against any critique.
Evidently the ruthless depot had created so much political resistance and chaos that the Parliament put him on trial that lead to his execution. After Charles` execution the chaos continued and got even worse, till the king got replaced by an uprising politician and soldier: Oliver Cromwell. The Puritan member of the parliament rose to a military dictator, called "Lord Protector". Cromwell is remembered for cancelling Christmas, closing the theaters, stopping music & dance, even banning mince pies. No wonder that he also got very unpopular and caused massive resistance. After his death, caused by several illnesses, Cromwell was replaced by this son Richard, who became the new "Lord Protector" - he was unpopular as his father.
Learning Nothing
Since the English had learned nothing, they forced Richard to retire; the country returned to Royalism and another Stuart came into power: Charles II, who was weak and despised for his inept foreign policy, and died apparently due to natural causes February 1685. He got followed by James II, the son of Charles I and younger brother of Charles II! "Amid the Chaos, James arrived back in London on the 16th, where he was met by a huge show of support from the population. The expression of joy took Williamites (followers of William Cromwell and the Parliament) by surprise. There was a belief among most observers that once the evil councellers had been dismissed, James could return a legitimate king". At the end of the centuries even more Stuarts continued the hereditary Stuat monarchy: William II (William of Orange) & Mary II.
Some Things Never Change
The changes of the rulers where accompanied by ongoing conflicts between the Royalists and the Parliament. While the members of Parliament defended democracy against the dictatorship and despotism of the Kings, the Royalists stood for law and order against the mob & chaos, often represented by an unruly crowd of "apprentices and other youth activists" (looks like some things never change!).
According to Healey, "the Royalists were the side of order: to them, the greatest threat to the realm came from upstart Parliamentarians, from the crowd and from street preachers. Royalism was born in response to the social changes, that brought crowds onto the streets of London, brought streams of petitions to Parliaments, and drew preaching from ordinary men and women. It was a reaction to all these things. Royalism stood for tradition, community and the old hierarchies".
Typically for the 17th century, the ongoing political, ideological and theological conflicts lead to extreme violence and caused the lives of many people and executions. But despite all the violence, the 17th century brought enormous progress in science & culture and opened the way for the industrial revolution that started just a century later.
Progress In Science
Reading and book ownership became much more common, spurred by the growing wealth of the English and by the ballooning population of London, ready markets developed for almanacs, pamphlets, polemics, plays, penny ballads, true crime, foreign treaties and books about almost everything from how to run an efficient farm to how to play chess, or even how to be a dutiful wife.
The publishing industry, centered on London, was important to the sharing of science. The way science was shared in print meant that people could cross-reference, double-check and correct in way that wasn´t simply possible - at least to the same degree - with cumbersome manuscripts. Print helped foster a culture of corroboration, allowing an experiment to be repeated and validated, or a theorem or prediction to be tested by others.
Books fostered progress in science and opened the doors for thinkers like Isaac Newton, who revolutionized the knowledge about light in his experiments on refraction. He also formulated a new set of theorems that would dramatically change humans`understanding of celestial mechanics. They depended on a well-established idea, that there was a powerful force pulling bodies together: Gravity. Newton developed a satisfying mathematical model for the universe in motion.
Fitting Together
At the end of the 17th century the whole rural economy was fitting together much more effectively. Everything was becoming more market-oriented and efficient. The English economy was evolving as a sophisticated market system based on efficient farming and international trade.
There seems to have been a notable relaxation of social tension. For reasons that still elude historians, plague never returned after about 1670. There are also signs that the English were becoming less violent - at least to each other. Aristocrats were less likely to spend their time duelling. People were less likely to carry weapons. Domestic violence was less widely accepted at the end of the seventeenth century than at the start, and the homicide rate was falling: by the end of century it was lower than it is in today´s United States.
The commercial beating heart of the kingdom was still London, after the great fire in September 1666 rebuilt at remarkable speed in stone and brick. The city remained unhealthy, the number of burials in London was about 5,000 per year higher than baptisms. Yet it grew. The capital must have had around 7,500 migrants per year to grow as it did.
Aggressive Diplomacy
Europe in the 1680s was dominated by the decline of two empires and the rise of another. In the east, the Ottoman Empire had failed in 1683 to take Vienna and was now being pushed back. In the west, the vast Spanish Empire was in decline. In the middle was France, rising to greatness under the absolutist "Son-King" Louis XIV, and with a vast army to match. Louis had be engaged in a policy of aggressive diplomacy on his eastern frontier, gradually and forcefully annexing territories, like Strassburg and Luxembourg.
Reading "The Blazing World" not only introduced me to a fascinating but turbulent century, it also helps me to understand today´s world - at least a bit.
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