2.

5 THE CIVIL WAR AND COMMONWEALTH

THE TWO PARTIES:
Between 1642 and 1649 there were battles between the Royalists and the
Parliamentarians, between tyranny and liberty. Royalists or Cavaliers, and
Parliamentarians or Roundheads were different in appearance, ideologies and
ways of life. The two parties were also regionally different: the Royalists were
concentrated in Wales, Cornwall and the west of England, while the City of
London, sea ports and eastern England supported Parliament. The Parliamentarian
Army was stronger because it was made up of Professional Soldiers, the Ironsides,
and it had a cavalry. These were better armed and equipped. The Commander of the
parliamentarian army was Oliver Cromwell: a strongly built and religious Man.
Charles I was captured in 1648 and he was condemned to death and his execution
took place in 1649.
THE COMMONWEALTH:
The Rump Parliament abolished the monarchy and declared a republic, the
“commonwealth”. Cromwell took the new model army to Ireland for a campaign of
repression which culminated in the slaughter of the citizens of Drogheda. . Cromwell
also defeated the Scottish Royalists. Charles II managed to escape to France and
Cromwell gave himself the title of Lord Protector of England, Scotland and
Ireland. In 1655 Cromwell divided the country into eleven military regions under
major generals. Puritan rules were introduced, including execution for adultery, the
abolition of popular games, dancing and theatre performances. Inns, pubs and
theatres were closed down. Cromwell banned Christmas and Easter and replaced
them with days of fasting. Cromwell died in 1658 and in 1660 the army invited
Charles II to come back from France and so the monarchy was restored.
3.1 THE RESTORATION OF THE MONARCHY
CHARLES II
Charles II (1660-85), was an admirer of the Sun King, Louis XIV. Therefore, when
the monarchy was restored in 1660 and he came back to England, he established a
court devoted to pleasure. Theatres, race-courses and taverns re-opened, and
fashion and gossip replaced religious debate. In 1662 Charles patronised the Royal
Society, which was an association of scientists and intellectuals. The motto of the
Society, nullius in verba – ‘on the word of no one’ –was a direct challenge to the
dependence of the old philosophy on authorities. As regards home policy, the
landowners, both nobles and gentry, resumed their leadership of society and the
newly elected Parliament, the so-called Cavalier Parliament, met in 1661. It ordered
the bodies of the regicides, including Cromwell, to be exhumed and hanged. A series
of acts were passed, like the Corporation Act (1661), which excluded the dissenters
from public offices; the Act of Uniformity (1662), which imposed the use of the
Book of Common Prayer and the Test Act (1673), which required all public
employees to conform to the Church of England.
THE GREAT PLAGUE AND THE GREAT FIRE
In 1665 there was a devastating outbreak of bubonic plague and in 1666 the Great
Fire of London raged for five days, destroying nine-tenths of the buildings within the
City’s medieval walls. Charles II asked the architect Sir Christopher Wren to re-
build the old insanitary City. Wren presented a plan for a new City with wide streets
and squares, buildings and churches in the neoclassical style. St Paul’s Cathedral
was his masterpiece. Charles II was able to finance his project with the aid of
France, who offered cash when the king’s relationship with Parliament was difficult.
When Charles died in 1685, the succession of his brother James, who had converted
to Catholicism, was assured.
3.2 FROM THE GLORIOUS REVOLUTION TO QUEEN ANNE
FROM JAMES II TO THE JOINT MONARCHS
When James II came to the throne in 1685, he began to place Catholics in positions of
authority in the army and universities. James married the Catholic Mary of Modena.
The two opposing parties in Parliament, the Whigs and the Tories, were alarmed
because another civil war could break out. So they began to negotiate with William
of Orange. In January 1689, William and Mary became joint monarchs as William
III and Mary II at the request of Parliament. A revolution had taken place as the
monarch had been chosen by Parliament, not by ‘divine right’. Because this
revolution had succeeded without any fighting, it was known as the ‘Bloodless’ or
‘Glorious’ Revolution. During William and Mary’s reign, acts were passed. The
Toleration Act (1689) introduced more religious tolerance by granting freedom of
worship to dissenting Protestants but excluded Catholics and Unitarians. The Bill of
Rights (1689) re-enacted freedoms that had been stated by Magna Carta and the
Petition of Right, and it established that the king could levy taxes, raise an army and
suspend laws only with parliamentary consent. A Triennial Act asserted that
Parliament should last for three years. In 1690, William defeated James II in the
Battle of the Boyne. In 1694 Mary died of smallpox. Anne became queen when
William died a year later.
QUEEN ANNE’S REIGN
Anne was a popular queen, proudly English and Anglican. In 1707 the Act of Union
was passed, by which the kingdom of England and Scotland, established by James I,
was replaced by the United Kingdom of Great Britain with a single Parliament in
Westminster. In foreign policy, the Treaty of Utrecht was signed with France in 1713
at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession, in which England was involved
against France. It required the French to recognise the Protestant succession and
expel the exiled Stuarts. It gave England the French possessions in Canada and the
monopoly of the slave trade with Spanish America. The British Empire was
emerging. When Queen Anne died in 1714, George I, inherited two kingdoms and
twelve colonies.
3.3 THE EARLY HANOVERIANS
GEORGE I
The political scene of the reign of George I was dominated by two opposing parties:
the Whigs and the Tories. An ambitious Whig, Sir Robert Walpole, became the
most powerful minister in Parliament. He is traditionally regarded as the first Prime
Minister and his anti-war government was to be the longest in English history. He
opposed military expenses, promoted trade, managed to reduce land tax and to restore
trust in the established order, although he was accused of corruption by his opponents.
He was awarded a townhouse in Downing Street that would become the official
London residence of the British Prime Minister. This period was considered as a
golden age. Coffee houses in town were places for social and professional
networking and also for the discussion of ideas, as they circulated the latest
periodicals and pamphlets. Young aristocrats went on a Grand Tour of Europe;
many returned with works of art that adorned their wealthy houses. Italian Palladian
style came to dominate British architecture. A religious movement, Methodism,
was founded by John and Charles Wesley in 1729. It stressed respectability and
moral dignity, the importance of living with temperance and method. The
Methodists offered services to improve the life of the poor, such as Sunday schools
where people studied the Bible, but more often learned to read and to write.
GEORGE II
George I died in 1727 and was succeeded by his son, George II. He tried to negotiate
with Spain in 1738, but war broke out in 1739. This drew Britain into a general
European war, the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-48), a conflict over
territory between Austria and Prussia. In 1745, Charles Edward Stuart, raised a
rebellion in Scotland to make his claim to the throne. It was called ‘Jacobite’ because
its aim was to restore the legitimate heir of James II. The two armies met at the
Battle of Culloden, in 1746. The Jacobites were defeated and Charles escaped to
France, while most Jacobites were executed or sent to penal colonies overseas. In
1756 war broke out, which lasted seven years and was called the Seven Years’ War
(1756-63). It was considered as the first ‘world war’ because it was fought in three
continents. George II died in 1760 and was succeeded by George III.
FROM COFFEE HOUSES TO THE INTERNET
For the price of a cup of coffee, you could read the latest pamphlets, catch up on
news and gossip, attend scientific lectures, strike business deals, or chat with like-
minded people about literature or politics. The coffee houses, starting around 1650,
functioned as information exchanges for writers, politicians, businessmen and
scientists. Like today’s websites, blogs and discussion boards, coffee houses were
unreliable sources of information that typically specialised in a particular topic.
Coffee houses were centres of scientific education, literary and philosophical
speculation, commercial innovation and, sometimes, political fermentation. As
with modern websites, the coffee house you went to depended on your interests. They
were also popular in Paris, Venice and Amsterdam, but particularly in London,
where 82 coffee houses had been set up by 1663, and more than 500 by 1700. Coffee
houses around the Royal Exchange were frequented by businessmen; those around
St James’s and Westminster by politicians; those near St Paul’s Cathedral by
clergymen and theologians. Discussions in coffee houses inspired a new, more
colloquial and less ponderous prose style, conversational in tone and clearly visible in
the journalism of the day.
WOMEN AND THE RISE OF THE NOVEL
In the 18th century, only the most privileged women received an intellectual
education alongside being tutored in the accomplishment needed for a role as wife,
hostess and mother. A respectable lady was expected to acquire the social graces, to
be able to join in polite conversation, to dance, to have a little musical and artistic
training and some geography and French. The ideal woman was supposed to be a
pure, virtuose, submissive and gentle creature who never drew attention to herself.
Despite the difficulties facing them, women did begin to publish their writings, some
becoming successful enough to rival male writers. So, the numbers of women readers
and the demand for novels reflecting reality increased.
3.4 THE AGE OF REASON
A GOLDEN AGE
The 18th century in England is generally regarded as a golden age, and it was called
‘Augustan’ after the period of Roman history which had achieved political stability
and power as well as a flourishing of the arts. It was an important moment in the
making of modern England. There was a deliberate rejection of extremism in all its
forms: superstition, fanaticism, verbal violence. The virtues of politeness,
moderation and rationality were commonly praised. The Spectator, a newspaper
founded by Joseph Addison, made politeness fashionable with its mixture of news,
literature, conversation and moral exhortation.
CIVILITY AND MODERATION
The ‘art of pleasing’, that is, civility and moderation, became the 18th-century
ideal. Morality and fashion demanded simplicity and emotional authenticity. This
influenced the emerging of the figure of the gentleman. There was also a counter-
culture, which developed a taste for manly sports such as boxing, racing and fox-
hunting, which became important in rural social life.
THE ROLE OF WOMEN
English women were more active in social and cultural life than women on the
Continent. They visited friends, attended the theatres and coffee houses where they
were previously banned. Women readers and writers influenced the rise of the
novel as the most distinctive literary genre of the period. Access to books increased
with the spread of circulating libraries and book clubs, as well as with the reduction of
book prices.
A NEW VIEW OF THE NATURAL WORLD
Enlightened thinkers not only wanted to understand the world but to improve it.
They rejected the Calvinist belief that every event of life is controlled by God or the
Devil. Nature meant human nature and the physical environment, but it also extended
to the universe beyond the earth. It was seen as the complex system or set of
principles divinely ordained and manifested in the creation. This rational age aimed
at improving nature, as it did with humane society. The ‘English garden’ was
invented, a carefully planned space that expressed values such as freedom, simplicity
and balance. English gardens were copied all over Europe. The common and
uncultivated lands were enclosed and improved. The principles of the Enlightenment
were in practice: the harmony between man and nature as well as the hierarchical
organisation of gentry estates and tenant farms.
EXPLORATIONS
The new optimism and the belief that reason could improve society and discover new
horizons encouraged exploration.
THE SPREAD OF CULTURAL DEBATE
THE SPREAD OF CULTURAL DEBATE in the 18th century meant there was a
real need for new means of expression and for the circulation of ideas. Many of these
ideas were formed in England, developed later in France and then spread to the rest
of Europe. One of the main ways the ideas spread was through the printed word. The
first English periodical, published in London in 1622, was A Current of General
News, printed by Archer and Bourne, whereas the first daily newspaper, Leipziger
Zeitung, appeared in Germany in 1660. England was the first country where
journalism developed as a free profession, encouraging the struggle for political and
individual freedom. This was the time when the modern periodical took shape. Daniel
Defoe was one of the pioneers of journalism with his periodical The Review. At first
this publication was weekly and then it became thrice-weekly. This publication had
considerable influence on the gentle didacticism to be found in later periodicals like
Richard Steele’s The Tatler in 1709 and Joseph Addison’s The Spectator in 1711.
The spread of journalism caused concern among politicians, who began to fear a more
widespread access to power. They tried to limit the influence by imposing new
limitations. This caused many periodicals and newspapers to lose part of their public.
Some publications began to use advertising as a means of survival. English journalists
fought to defend liberal principles and the right to cover parliamentary debates.
FRANCE (125)
The symbol of the Enlightenment was the Encyclopédie. In 1746 the publisher André
Le Breton offered the philosopher Denis Diderot the chance to provide a French
translation of the Cyclopedia by the English Ephraim Chambers. He involved the
mathematician d’ Alembert as co-editor. The Encyclopédie was conceived as a
rational dictionary whose main principle was faith in the progress of the human
mind. Its aim was to provide information concerning every sphere of knowledge, to
encourage the application of science in the fields of the arts, industry and trade.
ITALY (125)
The model set by The Spectator was followed by the Italian periodicals of the 1760s:
L’Osservatore veneto by Gasparo Gozzi, La Frusta letteraria by Giuseppe Baretti,
Il Caffè by Pietro and Alessandro Verri. Il Caffè appears every ten days; it deals with
litterature, science, law and customs, and expresses the most progressive ideas of
the Italian Enlightenment. Also there were the coffee houses which had been created
in Europe as meeting places where the intellectuals could debate their ideas free from
any censorship. The First Coffeehouse In Italy was opened in Venice in Piazza San
Marco and still exists today as Caffè Florian.
3.7 A SURVEY OF AUGUSTAN LITERATURE
THE READING PUBLIC
The literature of the Augustan Age reflected the economic and intellectual progress of
the period. Reading as an occupational activity had been limited by the low level of
literacy. In the country farmers and labourers were quite illiterate, while in the
towns literacy was limited by the few schools and the early leaving age. Books were
expensive and a luxury the lower classes couldn’t afford. For them there were
cheaper forms of printed materials like ballads, chapbooks, pamphlets and
newspapers, where short stories and novels were published in serial form. Lending or
circulating libraries led to an increase in the reading public.
3.8 THE RISE OF THE NOVEL
THE FATHERS OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
Daniel Defoe and Samuel Richardson are generally regarded as the fathers of the
English novel. The 18th century novelist was the spokesman of the middle class; the
novel was concerned with everything that could affect social status and it was
directed to a bourgeois public.
THE WRITER’S AIM
The writer’s primary aim was no longer to satisfy the standards of patrons and the
literary elite, but to write in a simple way in order to be understood even by less well-
educated readers. Speed and copiousness became the most important economic
virtues.
THE MESSAGE OF THE NOVEL
The story was particularly appealing to the practical-minded tradesman, who was self-
made and self-reliant. The sense of reward and punishment, which was the ‘message’
of the novel itself, was related to the Puritan ethics of the middle classes.
THE CHARACTERS
The writer aimed at realism; he tried to portray different human experiences. The
realism of the novel was linked not to the kind of life presented, but to the way a life
experience was presented. The subject of the novel was always the ‘bourgeois man’
and his problems. He was the hero of the narrative; he was generally the mouthpiece
of his author and the reader was expected to sympathise with him. The former was
composed of people who believe in reason, like Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, and the
latter by those who cannot control their passions and subordinate reason to their
desires. The fact that characters were given names and surnames was something new
and served to reinforce the impression of realism.
THE NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE
The writer was omnipresent. He chose the third-person narrator, who was
omniscient and never abandoned his characters, or the first-person narrator, who was
the main character in the story. Characters were rooted in a temporal dimension and
references were made to particular times of the year or of the day.
THE SETTING
Great attention was paid to the setting. Time and place were considered two different
aspects of the same reality. In previous fiction the idea of place had been vague and
fragmentary; but in the new novels, specific references to names of streets and towns,
with detailed descriptions of interiors, helped render the narrative more realistic.
TYPES OF NOVEL
The 18th-century novel developed different sub-genres:
• The realistic novel (Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe)
focuses on realistic descriptions of time and place.
• The utopian novel (Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels)
shows imaginary nations with new societies and peoples employed to satirise English
society.
• The epistolary novel (Samuel Richardson’s Pamela)
is told through letters exchanged between different characters.
• The picaresque novel (Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones)
is episodic in structure; it concerns the adventures of a young hero who has to deal
with tyrannical masters and misfortunes but generally manages to escape these
situations by using his wit.
• The anti-novel (Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy)
shows that the orderly narratives of events have little relation to the disorder of the
human mind, which is not linked to a logical sequence of events.