History of the United Kingdom : resistance to Union
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Photographs book England |
When James inherited the English throne in 1603, he assumed that he would unite the two countries, but his efforts at union were blocked on both sides of the border. James was unable to overcome the hostility and prejudice that the citizens of both countries felt toward each other after centuries of war. The Scots were fearful of losing their independence. The English, already jealous of James’s Scottish advisers, saw no advantage in merging with a poor, less-developed nation. Unable to form a union, James did everything he could to establish closer connections between the two kingdoms. He elevated Scottish lords to English titles, provided them with English estates, and arranged marriages between English and Scottish noble families. Encarta encyclopedia |
Resistance to Union |
James’s son Charles I made no attempt to unite his kingdoms, although he did try to create greater uniformity between the Scottish and English churches that he headed. His attempts at church reform in Scotland led to a rebellion against him in 1639. Charles convened Parliament and requested new taxes to pay for an army to suppress the Scottish rebellion. However, Charles had attempted to govern without Parliament in the past, and Parliament refused to raise revenues until Charles addressed a series of grievances raised by its members. |
The conflict between Charles and Parliament escalated into a civil war in which Scots and English fought side by side both for and against the king. Parliamentary forces defeated Charles and executed him in 1649. They established a revolutionary government to rule over the king’s former domains. Oliver Cromwell, the leader of the Parliamentary army, eventually assumed total political control and brought about a brief political union between England and Scotland. Under this arrangement, the Scots sent representatives to the English Parliament. Cromwell also established complete British control over Ireland. The English presence in Ireland began in the 12th century, when English invaders landed on the eastern coast and gradually moved westward. English feudal lords gained control of vast areas of the Irish countryside. Over time many of these English lords adopted Irish customs and manners. Although these lords technically owed allegiance to the English monarch, their distance from England and their isolation in country estates made them practically independent. In the late 16th century a group of Irish lords, predominantly based in the northern province of Ulster, rebelled against England. The English defeated the Irish forces in 1601 and seized lands in Ulster that belonged to the rebels. With these lands, the English established a plantation, or colony, of English and Scottish Protestants. The present majority of Protestants in Northern Ireland stems from this settlement. In 1641 the Irish Catholics rose up against the Protestants. The local population took vengeance on the settlers who had seized their lands, killing thousands. The rebels were unable to capture the city of Dublin, a royal stronghold and the center of English administration on the island. A stalemate ensued. Encarta |
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James 1er of England by Encarta |
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In 1649 Cromwell brought an army to Ireland to assist the Protestants. Cromwell’s highly trained army easily defeated the Catholics, often with brutal savagery. Within a year all major opposition had been eliminated. Cromwell seized all estates owned by Catholics and gave the land to Protestants. Following Cromwell’s death in 1658, Charles’s son returned to England from exile in 1660 and took the throne as Charles II. He reestablished separate governments in Scotland and England. In the 1670s there were occasional outbreaks of violence against the king’s rule in Scotland, but they were brutally suppressed. In 1685 a prominent Scottish noblemen, Archibald Campbell, 9th earl of Argyll, led a rebellion against the newly crowned James II of England. It, too, was violently crushed. James II did not serve long as king. English Protestants became suspicious that the king, who was Catholic, might impose his religion on the nation. This suspicion increased in 1687 when James removed legal restrictions placed on Roman Catholics and on Protestants who did not belong to the Church of England. In 1688 the birth of the king’s son, James Francis Edward Stuart, created the potential of a Catholic heir to the throne. Encarta |