Elizabeth, who succeeded her sister Mary, was attached to the Protestant faith, and found little difficulty in establishing it in England. Having concluded peace with France (1559), Elizabeth set herself to promote the confusion which prevailed in Scotland, to which her cousin Mary had returned from France as queen in 1561. In this she was so far successful that Mary placed herself in her power (1568), and after many years imprisonment was sent to the scaffold (1587). As the most powerful Protestant nation, and as a rival to Spain in the New World, it was natural that England should become involved in difficulties with that country. The dispersion of the Armada by the English fleet under Howard, Drake, and Hawkins was the most brilliant event of a struggle which abounded in minor feats of valour. In Elizabeth's reign London became the centre of the world's trade, the extension of British commercial enterprise being coincident with the ruin of Antwerp in 1585. The Parliament was increased by the creation of sixty-two new boroughs, and its members were exempted from arrest. In literature not less than in politics and in commerce the same full life displayed itself, and England began definitely to assume the characteristics which distinguish her from the other European nations of to-day.
To Elizabeth succeeded (in 1603) James VI of Scotland and I of England, son of Mary Queen of Scots and Darnley. His accession to the crown of England in addition to that of Scotland did much to unite the two nations, though a certain smouldering animosity still lingered. His dissimulation, however, ended in his satisfying neither of the contending ecclesiastical parties—the Puritans or the Catholics; and his absurd insistence on his divine right made his reign a continuous struggle between the prerogative of the Crown and the freedom of the people. His extravagance kept him in constant disputes with the Parliament, who would not grant him the sums he demanded, and compelled him to resort to monopolies, loans, benevolences, and other illegal methods. The nation at large, however, continued to prosper through the whole of his reign. His son Charles I, who succeeded him in 1625, inherited the same exalted ideas of royal prerogative, and his marriage with a Catholic, his arbitrary rule, and illegal methods of raising money provoked bitter hostility. Under the guidance of Laud and Strafford things went from bad to worse. Civil war broke out in 1642 between the king's party and that of the Parliament, and the latter proving victorious, in 1649 the king was beheaded.
A Commonwealth or republican government was now established, in which the most prominent figure was Oliver Cromwell. Mutinies in the army among Fifth-monarchists and Levellers were subdued by Cromwell and Fairfax, and Cromwell, in a series of masterly movements, subjugated Ireland and gained the important victories of Dunbar and Worcester. At sea Blake had destroyed the Royalist fleet under Rupert, and was engaged in an honourable struggle with the Dutch under van Tromp. But within the governing body matters had come to a deadlock. A dissolution was necessary, yet Parliament shrank from dissolving itself, and in the meantime the reform of the law, a settlement with regard to the Church, and other important matters remained untouched. In April, 1653, Cromwell cut the knot by forcibly ejecting the members and putting the keys of the House in his pocket. From this time he was practically head of the Government, which was vested in a council of thirteen. A Parliament—the Little or Barebones Parliament—was summoned, and in the December of the same year Cromwell was installed Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland. With more than the power of a king, he succeeded in dominating the confusion at home, and made the country feared throughout the whole of Europe. Cromwell died in 1658, and the brief and feeble protectorate of his son Richard followed.
There was now a widespread feeling that the country would be better under the old form of government, and Charles II, son of Charles I, was called to the throne by the Restoration of 1660. He took complete advantage of the popular reaction from the narrowness and intolerance of Puritanism, and even endeavoured to carry it to the extreme of establishing the Catholic religion. The promises of religious freedom made
by him before the Restoration in the Declaration Breda were broken by the Test and Corporation Acts, and by the Act of Uniformity, which drove two thousand clergymen from the Church and created the great dissenting movement of modern times. The Conventicle and Five-mile Acts followed, and the 'Drunken Parliament' restored Episcopacy in Scotland. At one time even civil war seemed again imminent. The abolition of the censorship of the press (1679) and the reaffirmation of the Habeas Corpus principle are the most praiseworthy incidents of the reign.
As Charles II left no legitimate issue, his brother the Duke of York succeeded him as James II (1685-8). An invasion by an illegitimate son of Charles, the Duke of Monmouth who claimed the throne, was suppressed, and the king's arbitrary rule was supported by the wholesale butcheries of such instruments as Kirke and Jeffreys. The king's zealous countenance of Roman Catholicism and his attempts to force the Church and the universities to submission provoked a storm of opposition. Seven prelates were brought to trial for seditious libel, but were acquitted amidst general rejoicings. The whole nation was prepared to welcome any deliverance, and in 1688 William of Orange, husband of James's daughter Mary, landed in Torbay. James fled to France, and a convention summoned by William settled the crown upon him, he thus becoming William III. Annexed to this settlement was a Declaration of Rights circumscribing the royal prerogative by depriving him of the right to exercise dispensing power, or to exact money, or maintain an army without the assent of Parliament. This placed henceforward the right of the British sovereign to the throne upon a purely statutory basis. The Toleration Act, passed in 1689, released dissent from many penalties. An armed opposition to William lasted for a short time in Scotland, but ceased with the fall of Viscount Dundee, the leader of James's adherents; and though the struggle was prolonged in Ireland, it was brought to a close before the end of 1691. The following year saw the origination of the national debt, the exchequer having been drained by the heavy military expenditure. A Bill for triennial Parliaments was passed in 1694, the year in which Queen Mary died. For a moment after her death William's popularity was in danger, but his successes at Namur and elsewhere, and the obvious exhaustion of France, once more confirmed his power. The Treaty of Ryswick followed in 1697, and the death of James II in exile in 1701 removed a not unimportant source of danger. Early in the following year William also died, and by the Act of Settlement Anne succeeded him.
The closing act of William's reign had been
the formation of the grand alliance between England, Holland, and the German Empire, and the new queen's rule opened with the brilliant successes of Marlborough at Blenheim (1704) and Ramilies (1706). Throughout the earlier part of her reign the Marlboroughs practically ruled the kingdom, the duke's wife, Sarah Jennings, being the queen's most intimate friend and adviser. In 1707 the history of England becomes the history of Britain, the Act of Union passed in that year binding the Parliaments and Realms of England and Scotland into a single and more powerful whole. See Britain.
Ecclesiastical History.—The first religion of the Celts of England was Druidism. It has been conjectured that Christianity may have reached Britain by way of France (Gaul) before the conclusion of the first, or not long after the commencement of the second century, but the period and manner of its introduction are uncertain. It had, however, made considerable progress in the island previous to the time of Constantine the Great (306-337). Several bishops from Britain sat in the Councils of Nice (325), Sardica (347), and Ariminum, in Italy (359); and in 519 an ecclesiastical synod of all the British clergy was held by St. David, Archbishop of Caerleon, for extirpating the remains of the Pelagian heresy.