Unit 5: The Stuards.
The last monarch was Elizabeth I, but she had no children or family to
follow her. The next to the throne was Queen Mary of Scots, but she was killed so his son
followed her.
In the year 1603, Elizabeth I died at the age of 70. When she died, her distant relative James,
who was the king James VI of Scotland, became James VI of Scotland and James I of England.
James, King of Scotland, was considered a very good king, so everybody thought he’d be a very
good candidate to be king of England, but he was not so good when he became James I. He
didn’t realise that the situations of each country’s parliaments were different, so he didn’t get
used to them very well and started having problems with the English parliament.
James I was known for saying the right thing at the wrong time. During all his time as King of
England, he was constantly having arguments with the English parliament. These had two
reasons: money and foreign policy.
When James I died, he was followed by his child Charles, who was named Charles I, and he had
the same bad relationship with the English parliament.
When Elizabeth I died, she the country in a very bad economic position, and this situation lasted
until Charles I arrived. He was very good in making English bureaocracy more efficient.
However, in the year 1637, Charles I began to make very serious mistakes:
1. The first mistake he made was to get married to a Catholic French princess.
2. The second mistake was ignoring a new religious group that was becoming more and
more popular in England: the puritans. They were very strict Christians, obsessed with
the idea of the corruption of the soul and they saw sin everywhere. Charles I didn’t
consider them a political danger.
By the time he realises, this group was controlling the parliament and, therefore, the country. In
the year 1641, there was a rebellion in Ireland, and Charles told the English parliament that he
needed money to form an army and go to Ireland to suffocate it, but the English parliament
didn’t trust him and denied the money. This was because Ireland was Catholic, and they thought
if he went, he’d be influenced, not only by his wife, but by the country, and he’d attack England.
At this point, members of the House of Parliament rebelled against the king and a civil war
begun. The country was divided into two groups: those supporting Charles I, and those
supporting the parliament and the puritans.
After four years of fighting, in 1645 Charles was defeated, arrested and put into prison. The
leader of the puritans was a man called Oliver Cromwell . He was a member of the parliament,
who was also a puritan and he was a very good commander of the puritan army. When Charles
I was made a prisoner, Oliver didn’t know what to do with him. Oliver wanted to keep him in
the Tower of London, but Charles I kept organising an army, so he was finally executed in 1649.
After the execution of Charles I, England stops being a monarchy and, for the first and only
time, it became a Republic. Oliver Cromwell was named Head of the Government with the
name of Lord Protector. He was Head of the Government from 1649 until 1657. During all
those years of puritan government, people got tired of them. When Oliver Cromwell died in
1657, his son tried to continue, but in 1660 the English Republic collapsed due to the
unpopularity of the puritans.
The Stuart Dinasty.
