British Monarchs Who Ended Badly, Part 11: The German Georges and Robert Walpole

In 1714, the death of the last Stuart monarch, Queen Anne, brought the first of the Hanoverian line to the throne of the new Kingdom of Great Britain. 

The name "Hanoverian" name derives from the German principality of they ruled, Hanover. The first four Hanoverian kings were named George, and the period 1714 to 1830 is often called the Georgian Age. 

Hanover was one of some three hundred states that made up the Holy Roman Empire. As Voltaire correctly quipped, it was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire. It had developed in the Middle Ages into a confederation of mainly German states presided over loosely by emperors from the Austrian Hapsburg dynasty. 

The prince of Hanover was an Elector, one of seven in the "empire." Their title came from their right to select the emperors. Since the 15th century they had always elected the emperors from the Habsburgs. 

In 1714, George, Elector of Hanover, became king of Great Britain, in accordance with the Act of Settlement of 1701. That act of Parliament barred Roman Catholics from inheriting the throne and provided that upon Queen Anne's death, the throne would pass to her closest Protestant heir. In 1701 that was George's mother Sophia, but she died just weeks before Anne. [Image: George I, by Sir Godfrey Kneller]

Most Britons grudgingly accepted their new foreign king. he might be German but at least he was not French or Catholic. The first two Georges were never exactly popular. 

A few months after George I's coronation, Scottish Jacobites rose on behalf of the exiled Catholic Stuart claimant, James "III," son of James II & VII. Their rebellion was quickly crushed, as were other risings and plots, but the threat of a successful Jacobite coup was not ended until the 1750s.  

George I was not the kind of person to inspire devotion or enthusiasm, even in his own family. He and his wife detested one another. Before inheriting the British crown, he had possibly murdered her lover. He also imprisoned her for life. 

George I arrived in England with two mistresses. He promptly conferred titles on them. One was tall and thin, the other large and heavy. The English dubbed them the Maypole and the Elephant. 

George I's heir, also called George, hated him, and the feeling was mutual. This family dynamic became a feature of the reigns of the first three Hanoverian kings. Father and heir never got on. 

The reigns of the first two Georges were marked by significant political developments. Parliament continued its march towards supremacy. The office of Prime Minister emerged for the first time. The job had -- and still has -- no existence in law. Like so much of the British political system, it is the product of traditional usage.

Historians generally accord the title of the first Prime Minister to Sir Robert Walpole. He rejected the title, which began as a term of scorn. An MP from Norfolk, he rose to power due to his administrative ability and skill in maintaining a working majority in Parliament. He also benefited from being a Whig. 

The Whigs were firm supporters of the Hanoverian dynasty. The Tories were much less enthusiastic. George I suspected that some Tories were closet Jacobites, and he was not entirely wrong. He favored Whig politicians and chose his ministers from their ranks. 

George I's reign ushered in what British historians have called the Whig Supremacy. It lasted until the 1760s. Walpole's tenure as prime minister lasted from 1721 to 1742, making him the longest serving as well as the first prime minister. His ascendancy was sometimes called the "Robinocracy" from Walpole's nickname, Robin.

An event we can relate to these days helped bring Walpole to power. It was The South Sea Bubble, a financial crash involving the South Sea Company. It was a monopoly company established in 1714 to trade with the Spanish empire in America, a trade in slaves and manufactured goods. 

The Company promised huge profits. It attracted many investors, including Walpole himself, who did well from it. A buying mania ensued and shares skyrocketed in price. But the great profits never materialized. The South Sea Company was essentially a Ponzi scheme. 

The company's crash exposed corruption on the part of its directors, who included leading government ministers. Their disgrace and Walpole's adroit management of the fallout left him in command of the cabinet. He also earned the admiration of the king for protecting his mistresses, who had been involved in the scheme, from prosecution. George I relied on Walpole to lead the government for the rest of his reign.  

George II, who inherited the throne in 1727, intended to replace Walpole, who he disliked for siding with his father. His politically astute queen, Caroline of Anspach, urged him to retain Sir Robert. 

Although George also took mistresses, he was devoted to Caroline and listened to her. He helped keep Walpole in power for another fifteen years. In 1735 he gifted the house at 10 Downing Street to Walpole. It has been the residence of British prime ministers ever since.

Unfortunately for Walpole, Queen Caroline died in 1737. George II was devastated. As she lay dying, he promised that he would never take another wife, only mistresses. He kept his promise.

[Image: George II and Queen Caroline]

Walpole's position was secure as long as he maintained the support of a majority in Parliament and the support of the monarch. Getting and keeping the majority was a difficult and unedifying business. It required lots of promises, threats, and above all, bribes. 

The bribes included titles, lucrative government jobs, and pensions. It was a constant balancing act, because the number of  bribes available was always insufficient for the number of those seeking them. 

I don't mean to claim that Walpole's political system was uniquely corrupt. It is how even "democratic" governments function to some extent even now, although the bribes may be different. 

[Image: Speaker Onslow, center, calling upon Walpole, left, to speak in the House of Commons, by William Hogarth, 1730]

Walpole was able to keep things running fairly smoothly into the early 1730s. After that, he faced increasing opposition from disgruntled Whigs who called themselves the "Patriots." As an opposition, they were more effective and dangerous than the Tories. They also had the support of Frederick Prince of Wales, who true to Hanoverian form, despised his father.

The Patriots claimed that under Walpole the executive had become too powerful, the government too centralized for the good of the country. Their trump card was their attacks on Walpole's foreign policy. 

Walpole favored a peaceful foreign policy, emphasizing negotiation and the promotion of trade. He was able to keep Britain out of war for most of his premiership. The Patriots denounced what they claimed was his failure to take a firm stand against the machinations of England's traditional enemies, France and Spain.

Their constant criticism gradually ate away like acid at Walpole's support in the country and Parliament. In the late 1730s the Patriots helped to whip up public demands for war against Spain. The pretext was Spanish mistreatment of British merchants trading to the Caribbean. The goal was to seize wealth and land from Spain's American colonies. 

In 1739, Walpole gave way to the public clamor, and declared war.  The "War of Jenkin's Ear" followed, named for an English ship captain who alleged that a Spanish coast guard officer inspecting his vessel had cut off his ear. Jenkins brought to Parliament, sparking widespread outrage. 

The war did not go well. The opposition blamed Walpole's policies and forced him from office in 1742. George II was nearly as devastated as when Caroline died. He wept on hearing that Walpole resigned, and awarded the former prime minister a seat in the House of Lords, as Earl of Orford. 

[Image: Walpole painted as a ranger at Richmond Park by John Wooten]

The War of Jenkins Ear merged with a broader European war in the early 1740s, the War of the Austrian Succession. Britain was now at war with France as well as Spain. The war ended in stalemate in 1748. 

The War of the Austrian Succession is notable in the history of the monarchy for one fun fact: it was the last time a British king led troops in battle, in 1743. The clash at Dettingen in Germany was technically a British/Hanoverian victory but had little effect on the outcome of the war.  [Image: George II at Dettingen by John Wooten]

The same war also saw the last battle fought on British soil, at Culloden near Inverness in Scotland. In April 1746, a Hanoverian army cornered and crushed Jacobite forces under Charles Edward Stuart, AKA Bonnie Prince Charlie. 

Culloden was more a massacre than a battle. Responsibility for the atrocities that followed belonged to William, Duke of Cumberland, a son of George II. Scots named a smelly weed toxic to horses after him: Stinking Billy. 

In retrospect, Culloden marked the end of the Jacobite threat to the Hanoverian dynasty. It also led to the destruction of the clan system in the Scottish Highlands, and eventually, the forced emigration of most Highland people to the Lowlands and other realms: Canada, the USA, Australia, and beyond. 

Today there are fewer people in the Highlands than in the 18th century. Sheep, hunters, and fishermen replaced the people, then tourists seeking the "romance" of the wild mountains, lochs, and glens. 

The peace of 1748 was merely a truce. By the mid 1750s Britain was once again at war with France, and eventually, Spain. It began in America, where it is still called the French and Indian War. It merged again into a broader European War, the Seven Years' War (1756-1763). 

The Seven Years' War started badly for Britain. It ended in triumph. The turnaround derived in large part from the leadership and strategies of William Pitt, who directed the war effort from 1757. Pitt was a leading member of the Patriot group of Whigs. 

[Image: William Pitt the Elder, later first Earl of Chatham by William Hoare]

George II hated Pitt. In addition to his constant attacks on the government and management of the war, Pitt had alleged that British interests were being sacrificed to the interests of Hanover, which he called "that despicable electorate."    

The king tried to keep Pitt out of government. He succeeded for several years. But as defeat followed defeat, he was forced to relent in 1757, and Pitt entered the cabinet to manage the war. 

Whether it was due to Pitt's leadership or not, cictory followed victory from 1758 on. New France (Canada and the land between the Appalachians and the Mississippi) became part of the British Empire, as did Spanish Florida and chunks of India and Africa.

George II did not live to see the outcome. By1760, he was blind in one eye and nearly deaf. On October 25, he died of heart failure (aortic dissection) while in his close stool (toilet) -- a rather undignified death for a king. 

On the plus side, George II lived to be 77, longer than any previous British monarch. He had outlived his eldest son and heir, Frederick, who died in 1754. He was succeeded by his grandson, who became George III, the first Hanoverian monarch born in Britain.  

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The Real War on Christmas was waged by Christians

Ho! Ho! Ho! It's that jolly time of year again! That hilarious time in the USA when FOX News, Republicans, and rightwing Evangelicals profess outrage at the "War on Christmas." A fake outrage, of course, trotted out at years' end for political and cultural reasons, like keeping the poor in their place working for peanuts. Not to mention keeping up donations to TV evangelists with huge mansions. 

Today's War on Christmas is a Phony War. But a real war on Christmas once took place. It was several centuries ago in the UK, with spillovers into Puritan America. And guess what? It was waged by Christians. They were called Presbyterians in Scotland and Puritans in England and New England. 

In England, the Puritans were on the winning side of of the Civil War between Parliament and Charles I in the 1640s. They famously closed the London theaters as dens of immorality. They also abolished the celebration of Christmas as a "pagan celebration." They ordered that it be kept as a day of "fasting and humiliation." No singing, no dancing, no merriment at all. Try that today. 

In New England, transplanted Puritans did the same. They kept the ban in place until the 1850s. The war ended for good after President Ulysses S. Grant declared Christmas a federal holiday in the 1870s.

It may seem odd for Christians to ban Christmas, but the Puritans found no biblical justification for celebrating the birth of Christ. Nobody knew when he was born anyway (we still don't). The Puritans also associated Christmas revels with sinful, ungodly pagan rites and behavior, not to mention Papists (Catholics). 

A wit once defined a Puritan as a person who was angry because somewhere, somebody was having a good time. That is a bit simplistic and unfair to Puritans as a whole, but the accusation fit some of them.

The Scots had preceded the English in the War on Christmas, as in so many aspects of British life. After the Presbyterian Church of Scotland came to dominate Scottish religious life in the late 16th century, they abolished the celebration of Christmas. John Knox, the Calvinist preacher who led the Scottish Reformation, was a dour sort who darkened Scottish culture for centuries. 

Scotland's Christmas ceased to be a holiday of feasting, fun, and folly (if it ever was). It became just another dark, dank, and dreary winter day -- like a Scottish Sunday until recently. 

During the Civil War, Scots Presbyterians allied with like-minded English Puritans. They also made common cause in the war on Christmas. 

[Image: Parliamentary soldiers enforcing the ban on celebrating Christmas, c. 1640s, William Barns Wollen, 1900] 

In England, the Restoration of the Monarchy under Charles II ("The Merry Monarch") in 1660 also led to a restoration of traditional Christmas celebrations. They were still light years away from the materialistic orgies of today. That required the influence of grasping, greedy American capitalism.  

In Scotland, the restoration of Christmas took much longer than in England. Presbyterian leaders continued to stifle enthusiasm for Christmas enjoyment for a couple of centuries. The difference shows in the holiday hierarchy of Scotland, compared to England, and most other civilized countries.

In Scotland, Christmas comes in a distant second to Hogmanay (New Years' Eve) as a real blowout. Think about it. The canny Scots simply transferred their serious celebrating from a sacred day to a secular one. Touché, Puritans! Freud would have understood. 

If you want to witness Scots letting their hair down these days, go to Edinburgh during Hogmanay! Or, just visit any Scots pub on a Saturday night. 

Scotland's elevation of New Year spread to the rest of the globe by the 20th century. For what do we sing at midnight on 1 January? "Auld Lang Syne" by Scotland's national poet, Robert (Rabbie) Burns, of course!

PS. If you go to the USA these days, be careful not to say "Happy Holidays!" or "Seasons Greetings!" And do not write "Merry Xmas" on your cards or gifts either. You may be accused of making war on Christmas, or even of Satanism. Or, even worse, of being a liberal. 

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Coronation! British Monarchs Who Ended Badly, Part 10: The Last Stuarts

The Glorious Revolution of 1688-89 produced the only joint monarchy in British history, William III (II in Scotland) and Mary II. Parliament made them monarchs in gratitude for Dutchman William's invasion, which its members saw as saving Protestantism from the Catholic James II. When James fled to France, Parliament declared he had abdicated, and the throne was vacant. 

The solution to filling the vacancy violated strict hereditary succession, which would have made James' infant son king. But the child had been baptized Catholic and was therefore unacceptable to most members of Parliament. Mary was second in line for the throne, and William, her cousin as well as her husband, fourth. Mary's sister, Anne, was third. 

Settling the throne on William and Mary jointly was accepted, if grudgingly, by most MPs in 1689. But it stored up problems for the future. Many people in Britain continued to support the claims of James and his heir. They are known to British history as Jacobites, from the Latin for James, Jacobus. In 1696, Jacobites tried and failed to assassinate William. 

William was initially a hero to most in Britain, especially after he defeated a Catholic army led by James in Ireland at the Battle of the Boyne and relieved the siege of Derry (AKA Londonderry) in 1690. 

Many English historians have called the Glorious Revolution the "Bloodless Revolution" because it avoided civil war. While that may be accurate enough in England, much blood was shed in Ireland, and some in Scotland as well. It also had some future stings in its tail. 

William's Irish victories inspired the creation of the anti-Catholic organization known as the Orange Lodge, which embitters the life of Northern Ireland to this day. The name derives from William's Dutch family, the House of Orange. (The reason the Dutch national football team wear orange.) In Northern Ireland, Orangemen march and beat the Orange Drum every year for "King Billy."

In the early years of their dual reign, Queen Mary was often the effective ruler in Britain. William was away on the Continent much of the time, directing the war with France. 

In 1694, Mary died of smallpox, and after that William ruled alone. She was a major loss to him, as she had social skills he lacked. He never remarried or took any mistresses, leading to (probably false) rumors of homosexuality. Courtiers viewed him as cold and aloof. His popularity with the public waned. 

One reason was resentment of his Dutch confidants and the Dutch businessmen who came to England during his reign. Anti-Dutch sentiment peaked just after 1700. It produced a brilliant response that speaks even today in our xenophobic world: a poem by Daniel Defoe, "The True Born Englishman." 

England owed major innovations to William and his Dutch followers. One was the creation of the Bank of England in 1694. Modelled on the Bank of Amsterdam, it soon became a financial powerhouse for the British government. The London Stock Exchange was also opened, modeled on that of Amsterdam. A third Dutch import was gin. 

War with France (The Nine Years' War) ended inconclusively in 1697. It broke out again in 1701 (War of the Spanish Succession). William did not live to direct the new war. He died a few months later, aged 51. 

His horse stumbled on a mole's burrow. William fell, breaking his collarbone. He died from the pneumonia that followed. After his death, gleeful Jacobites are said to have toasted "the little gentleman in the black velvet waistcoat," meaning the mole. 

William had never produced an heir. The crown passed to his sister-in-law, Queen Anne, who was much more popular than William. But Anne had no surviving heir either, despite numerous pregnancies. The death of her last surviving child, William, Duke of Gloucester, in 1700, created a dynastic and political crisis. [Image: Queen Anne, 1705, by Michael Dahl]

Anne was the last of the Protestant Stuart line. Fears grew that her death would lead to a restoration of her father the Catholic James II or his son (James "III"). 

To prevent this, the English Parliament passed the Act of Settlement in 1701. It barred Roman Catholics from the throne. It also provided that if William or Anne had no surviving issue, the throne would to Anne's nearest Protestant relative. She was a German princess, Electress Sophia of Hanover, a granddaughter of James I. Dozens of Anne's relatives had better hereditary claims to the throne, but they were all Catholic. 

The Act of Settlement only applied to England and Ireland. The English MPS did not consult the Parliament of Scotland, which was still a separate kingdom, although ruled by the same monarch since 1603. 

Soon after Anne became Queen, the Scottish Parliament declared that it would not necessarily select the same monarch as England after her death. They would do so, they declared, only if Scotland was granted free trade with England and its colonies. 

The fear that Scotland might choose to restore the Catholic Stuarts spurred efforts to achieve something James VI and I had proposed a century before: a formal union of the two kingdoms. 

After several years of negotiation, threats on both sides, and a good deal of bribery, the Act of Union passed through both parliaments. Finalized in 1707, it created the Kingdom of Great Britain with one parliament, located at Westminster. It is notable that, as a nation, Britain is nearly as young as the United States. The flag of the new nation combined the English Cross of St. George and the Scottish Cross of St. Andrew. [Image: First Union Jack, 1707-1800]

Many people on both sides of the border opposed the union. Angry Scots claimed that their leaders had sold off their parliament and independence for English gold. Disgruntled English folk were aghast at the prospect of being inundated with lean and hungry Scots barbarians looking to take over their jobs, money, empire, and women. [Image: A Flight of "Scotchmen" descending on London, 18th century]

Both nations benefited from the Union, in different ways. The Scots received the right to trade freely with England and its colonies, something Scots merchants had long desired. 

The Union created the largest tariff free economic zone in Europe at the time. Ironically, in 2016 the British (or rather the English) voted to leave today's largest free trade bloc, the European Union. "Brexit" is now one of the most decisive issues in British politics. 

In her later years, Queen Anne was plagued by ill health and obesity. At  times, she was disabled. She was often grumpy, but 17 pregnancies (at least) can do that. In the early part of her reign, she was close to Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, who became her close confidante for several years. 

Anne had appointed Sarah's husband John to command the army and made him Duke of Marlborough. He was the Wellington of his time, winning several key battles against the French. 

John's stunning victory at Blenheim in 1704 netted him a huge reward from Parliament, which he used to build the massive Blenheim Palace near Oxford. [Image: Blenheim Palace, designed by Sir John Van Brugh]

Despite Marlborough's success on the battlefield, the war dragged on for more than ten years. The Tories, mostly landed gentlemen, turned against the war because of its expense. It was largely funded by a tax on their land. 

Around the same time, Anne became estranged from Sarah Churchill. The breakdown of their relationship is portrayed in somewhat fanciful style in the otherwise excellent film The Favourite starring Olivia Colman. 

Anne didn't have a menagerie of 17 bunnies. They are there to represent the loss of her 17 children. There is also no evidence she was in a same sex relationship. She adored her husband George, Prince of Denmark, and lamented his death in 1708. 

Sarah's husband the Duke of Marlborough wanted to continue the war. Although he was a moderate Tory, he relied heavily on the support of Whig oligarchs to stay in his position. 

Anne preferred the Tories to the Whigs, partly because they were staunch defenders of her beloved Anglican Church. The Whigs defended the rights of Dissenting Protestants such as Presbyterians, Baptists, and Congregationalists.  

After 1710, Anne's support for Tory politicians and declining enthusiasm for the war brought the Tories to power. They began negotiations for peace with France and Spain, which was concluded in 1713 on terms quite favorable to Britain. 

The Peace of Utrecht ceded Nova Scotia and Gibraltar to Britain and added the right to trade with Spanish Empire in the New World. That included the right to send one shipment of enslaved Africans to be sold in the Spanish Caribbean. 

Anne's already poor health gave way in late 1713, and she died aged 49 after a stroke the following summer. Sophia, the aged Electress of Hanover, had died two months before. In July 1714, Sophia's son George, Elector of Hanover, became king of the new nation of Great Britain, courtesy of Parliament. 

The death of Anne was not only a change of dynasty. It was passing of an old mindset. She was the last British sovereign to use the monarch's veto power to stop an act of Parliament. She was also the last to touch for the King's Evil, or scrofula, a lymphatic disease caused by the tuberculosis bacillus. 

For a long time after her death, historians tended to dismiss Queen Anne as a nonentity: not very bright, bigoted, fat, and weepy. That view was largely based on the writings of her estranged confidante Sarah Churchill. 

Recent assessments of Anne stress the major accomplishments of her short reign: the Act of Union, victory in war, a flourishing economy, and greater political stability than Britain had known for a century, thanks to the development of a working two-party system. Governments came and went without violence.

Anne was a hardworking monarch despite her poor health. She had a major impact on many policy decisions. When she died, the new nation of Great Britain was verging on becoming the leading economic and imperial power in the world, for good and ill. Civil war and political revolution were left behind. Economic and Industrial Revolution lay ahead, under a new German dynasty, the Hanoverians.  

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Coronation! British Monarchs Who Ended Badly, Part 9: Charles II to William and Mary

In 1660, the Convention Parliament invited the eldest son of Charles I to return to England as King Charles II. Having spent nine years in exile, he promised to rule in cooperation with Parliament. 

The event marked the beginning of the period known as the Restoration. [Image: Charles II in his coronation robes. The crown he wore was made for the occasion, and remains the one in use at coronations today]

The Restoration might as well be called the Counter Revolution. The Revolution of 1649 had abolished the monarchy, the House of Lords, and the bishops. In 1651, Cromwell had effectively abolished the House of Commons. The Restoration of 1660 brought them all back. 

One might shrug and say, "I guess the civil wars, execution of Charles I, and revolution that followed accomplished nothing." But that was far from the case. 

Charles II never forgot his father's fate. On his return, he is alleged to have said, "God has given us the throne, and we intend to enjoy it." Have fun and party was the order of the day. 

The theaters reopened after being banned under Puritan rule, and bawdy comedies were performed. Christmas, which the Puritans also banned in 1646, could once again be celebrated with feasting and jollity. 

It wasn't all cakes and ale. In 1665, London was hit by the Great Plague, the worst (and last) plague epidemic in the city's history. It killed around 100,000 people. The following year, the Great Fire of London destroyed most of the city, including old St. Paul's and many other churches. Many people believed God was punishing England for its sins. But that soon blew over and the party continued.

Despite making many poor decisions, especially in foreign policy, Charles was and remains one of the most popular monarchs in British history. For many people he was and is the Merry Monarch, famous for his good humor, wit, and mistresses as much as anything else. 

The poet John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, wrote of Charles:

"Restless he rolls from whore to whore, 

A merry monarch, scandalous and poor."

Wilmot is also supposed to have written: 

"We have a pretty, witty king, 

Whose word no man relies on,

He never said a foolish thing, 

And never did a wise one."

It would be a mistake to write Charles off as a hedonistic playboy. He could be serious about his job, and he wanted to be a player on the world stage. He admired and envied the power and wealth of his fellow monarch in France. 

In 1660, Louis XIV was well on his way to becoming an absolute monarch. He was able to rule without serious interference from a troublesome representative assembly or overmighty nobles.  

Like his father, Charles II believed he was king by divine right. But he knew that in practical terms it was not God but Parliament that had given him the throne. To keep it, he needed to avoid the kind of direct conflicts with that body that had cost his father his head. 

Charles II always needed more money for wars and palaces but was reluctant to adopt the arbitrary measures his father had used. Instead, he tried to increase his wealth and power by subterfuge and duplicity. An example is the Treaty of Dover (1670). It was treaty of alliance with Louis XIV of France against the Dutch. That much was public. 

The treaty contained a secret section that Charles did not reveal even to some of his closest advisors. Louis agreed to pay Charles a large sum of money. In return, Charles pledged to restore Catholicism in Britain as soon as it was practicable. 

Whether Charles was sincere about that pledge may well be doubted. He did make an effort to relax the penal laws against Catholics and Protestant Dissenters in 1672 but backed down when faced with strong parliamentary opposition. His pro-French and anti-Dutch foreign policy also angered many in Parliament, who preferred an alliance with the Protestant Netherlands.

For much of his reign the majority in Parliament were firm royalists, but they were also staunch Protestants and supporters of the restored Church of England. By the late 1670s, many of these politicians coalesced into a loose party that became known as the Tories. 

Around that time, suspicions grew that Catholics were plotting to destroy Protestantism in Britain. A shady Anglican minister, Titus Oates, claimed to have uncovered a Catholic conspiracy to kill the king, the so-called Popish Plot. It was pure invention, but the murder of a staunchly Protestant MP, Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, convinced many people that the plot was real.   

Oates claimed that Charles' Portuguese and Catholic wife, Catherine of Braganza, was involved in the plot. The hysteria that followed in England and Scotland led to the executions of more than 20 innocent people. [Image: Queen Catherine of Braganza by Peter Lely, 1663-65]

Charles did not believe the plot was real. He interrogated Oates himself and caught him out in several lies and inaccuracies. He had Oates arrested, but Parliament ordered him freed. His accusations became even more bizarre. 

The revelation of the plot led to what was called the Exclusion Crisis. This was an attempt by some members of Parliament to exclude Charles' brother, James, Duke of York, from the throne. 

During the panic over the plot the public had learned that James had secretly converted to Catholicism. Charles had a dozen illegitimate children but fathered no legitimate heir. Queen Catherine had several pregnancies, but each ended in miscarriage. James was therefore next in line.

The politicians who supported the Exclusion Bill became known as the Whigs. They supported a limited monarchy and toleration for all Protestant sects. Most Tories and Charles opposed the Exclusion Bill. 

Charles, with Tory help, was able to prevent passage of the Bill. Public opinion gradually turned against Oates, who was convicted of perjury and imprisoned. Several leading Whigs were executed on questionable evidence for plotting against the monarchy. The Whig leader, Anthony Ashley Cooper (Earl of Shaftesbury) fled to the Netherlands, where he died soon after. 

Charles died of apoplexy (stroke) in 1685. James became King James II (VII in Scotland). [Image: James II and VII by James Riley]

At first, most of the country accepted the new king. The Duke of Monmouth, an illegitimate son of Charles II, led a rising against James in the West Country but Monmouth's Rebellion was easily and brutally crushed. 

Monmouth and hundreds of others were executed. Hundreds more were transported to the West Indies to work on the sugar plantations. The trials of the rebels became known as the Bloody Assizes. The film Captain Blood starring Errol Flynn deals with these events.

James lacked his older brother's caution. Perhaps the easy defeat of Monmouth's rebellion made him overconfident. He suspended the penal laws against Catholics and non-Anglican Protestants, known as Dissenters. A good thing we might think, but not in the political and religious context of the 1680s.

Charles II had tried todo the same thing and failed. James might have got away with it. But he went on to place Catholics and Dissenters in important positions in the military, government, universities, and judiciary. He packed juries. All in violation of the current law.

Suspicions grew that James was intent on a Catholic coup. Across the Channel in France, Louis XIV had just revoked the Edict of Nantes, which since 1598 had guaranteed toleration of Protestant Huguenots. Refugees were streaming into England with tales of horrific persecution.  

Public fears increased when James' second wife, Mary of Modena, gave birth to a son in 1685. Many people were so upset at the news that they eagerly accepted a fake story that the infant was not hers but had been smuggled into the birthing room in a warming pan. 

James had two grown children from his first marriage, daughters Mary and Anne. Both had remained firmly Protestant. As long as they were his heirs, many people were willing to tolerate the elderly James. The newly arrived male child took precedence over the princesses in the line of succession, opening the prospect of a Catholic dynasty. 

The Tories faced a dilemma. They were staunch royalists who supported a powerful monarchy. But they were also fervent defenders of the Protestant Anglican Church. Would they support their king or their church? 

The Whigs had fewer qualms. They opposed absolute monarchy and supported parliamentary sovereignty. As James became more arbitrary in his actions, many Tories became seriously alarmed. In the autumn of 1688, several leading Tories and Whigs met in secret and came up with a plan. 

They invited Prince William of Orange, the Stadtholder (kind of a president) of the Netherlands to bring an army to England and stop James from his reckless course. You may ask why a Dutch prince? [Image: William III, of Orange, 1689]

William was married to James' eldest daughter, Mary. He was also a grandson of Charles I. William accepted the invitation despite the obvious risks. The Netherlands was at war with Louis XIV of France again, and he calculated that if he could turn England into an ally, his country might prevail. 

God, or luck, was on William's side. In November 1688, a favorable "Protestant Wind" blew his fleet quickly across the channel to Torbay in Devon. Auspiciously, they landed unmolested on the 5th of November, anniversary of the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot.

William's army marched towards London, picking up English supporters on the way. James initially decided to fight, but in the end, he fled to France. He was actually captured at one point, but William shrewdly ordered the captors to let him go. 

William entered London to great acclaim. He was viewed as the savior of Protestantism. He decided to cash in on his sudden popularity. He called a Convention Parliament to settle the issue uppermost in his mind: who should be the ruler of the British kingdoms. 

Members of Parliament had other concerns. They wanted to ensure that future monarchs would not be able to act arbitrarily. The result was the Declaration of Rights, which later passed into legislation as the Bill of Rights. 

The Declaration placed clear limits on royal power and guaranteed regular and free elections to Parliament. It outlawed "cruel and unusual punishments." It protected freedom of speech and the right not to pay taxes that were not approved by Parliament.

On the future of the monarchy, Parliament debated long and hard. The majority favored declaring that James had abdicated, and Mary, his eldest daughter, should become queen. That solution bypassed his son, violating strict hereditary succession, but few in Parliament were now willing tolerate the idea of a Catholic monarch. 

William refused to accept the job of "gentleman usher" to the Queen. He demanded that he be declared king in his own right. If not, he threatened, he would take his army and navy home, leaving the British kingdoms to the mercy of James and the French. 

To avoid that, Parliament agreed to make William and Mary joint monarchs, the first and only time that has been done. If nothing else, it gave a certain college in Virginia its name. [Image: William and Mary]

More important is the reality that once again, Parliament had decided who the monarch should be. It would not be the last time. 

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British Monarchs Who Ended Badly, Part 8: Oliver Cromwell and the Republic

Following the execution of Charles I in 1649, the British Isles had no monarch for 11 years. In the history of the monarchy this period is known as the Interregnum ("between reigns"). Officially, the government was a republic, "The Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland."

The revolutionaries who won the Civil War not only killed the king. They abolished the monarchy itself, along with the House of Lords and the bishops. Nominally, power lay initially in the hands of the "Rump" of the Long Parliament, a minority of those elected in 1640. 

It soon became clear, however, that real power had gravitated to the New Model Army. The top army commander, Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), became de facto head of the Commonwealth. [Image: Cromwell by Samuel Cooper]

Cromwell was not a monarch, yet he ruled the British Isles as firmly as any king for several years. Prior to the Civil War, he had been a Cambridgeshire country gentleman living a generally unremarkable life. He became an MP in the late 1620s and served in the parliaments elected in 1640. During the war, he rose to high rank and eventually to overall commander. 

After the execution of Charles I, which he had at first opposed and then supported, he served on the Council of State of the new republic and in the "Rump," the remnants of the Long Parliament. 

By 1651, Cromwell had become thoroughly disillusioned with the behavior of the Rump MPs. He used his power as army commander to dissolve it, accusing its members of having become a corrupt and self-perpetuating oligarchy. 

That left him with the problem of what should replace it. He wanted to establish a workable representative government for the Commonwealth. Despite several experiments, he never succeeded. 

In effect, he ruled as a military dictator, dividing the British Isles into districts, each governed by a major general. Some of his supporters wanted him to take the title of king. He refused. Instead, he accepted the title of Lord Protector of the Commonwealth in 1653. 

To many people in England during the following centuries, Cromwell was a hero who defended the liberty of the people. A statue of him was erected in 1899 outside the Parliament buildings in Westminster. [Image: Cromwell statue]

The statue was controversial. Sincere royalists detested it. Though hardly royalists, Irish Nationalist MPs protested vehemently against it. Most of the Irish reviled Cromwell. In 1649 he had suppressed a royalist revolt in Ireland with brutal ferocity. Rightly or wrongly, he was blamed for atrocities committed by his soldiers. 

Cromwell's Irish campaign and the penal laws against Catholics that followed did more to poison Anglo-Irish relations than anything besides the Famine of the 1840s. Cromwell's name remains a byword among the Irish for English cruelty and tyranny. Winston Churchill called it "the curse of Cromwell."

Cromwell also suppressed a royalist rebellion in Scotland in 1650-51. That produced its own atrocities, but he treated the Scots more leniently than the Irish. Religion explains the difference. 

The Scots were largely Protestant and had been allies against Charles I. Cromwell viewed them as a people "godly but deceived." The Catholic majority in Ireland was simply ungodly, enslaved to the mass and the Pope. 

Cromwell's exact religious views and policies remain something of an enigma. He was a strong believer in Providence, the idea that God was actively engaged in world affairs. Not surprisingly, he considered himself a servant that God had "provided" to make Britain a more moral and godlier place.

As for the organization of religion, Cromwell was an "Independent." He opposed any central church hierarchy, whether bishops in England or presbyters in Scotland. Each congregation, he believed, should be left independent to run its own affairs. 

Cromwell tolerated various interpretations of Protestantism. He also welcomed Jews back to England for the first time since Edward I had banished them in the 13th century. He continued to make life difficult for Catholics, and persecuted some radical Protestant fringe sects, especially the Quakers and Fifth Monarchists. 

The breakdown of traditional authorities and institutions encouraged the spread of surprisingly radical ideas. Historian Christopher Hill entitled a book on the 1650s The World Turned Upside Down. A movement within the army, the Levellers, pushed for a democratic political system. Small groups of people known as Diggers even attempted to establish a communistic society. 

In contrast to the film named after him, starring Richard Harris, Cromwell was not a democrat. He believed in a representative government, but one controlled by men of property. He presented his views at a series of meetings that took place at St. Mary's Church in Putney in 1647, pictured below.

The meetings became known as the Putney Debates. The Levellers demanded a political system of one man, one vote, and freedom of conscience. One of the most memorable statements came from the Leveller leader Colonel Thomas Rainsborough:

"For really I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest he; and therefore truly, Sir, I think it clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government; and I do think that the poorest man in England is not at all bound in a strict sense to that government that he hath not had a voice to put himself under."

Cromwell and his allies rejected the Levellers' demands. When the Levellers continued to agitate for democratic reforms, he crushed them. Democracy would have to wait two more centuries.

Religious innovations also flourished during the Civil War and Republic. Some sects advanced positions embraced by the hippies of the 1960s, including nudity and free love. The "Ranters" argued that the best cure for temptation was to give in to it. For example, an urge to swear should be cured by swearing.  

Several religious sects that "came out" in the 1650s did not last long, but a few are with us today, notably Congregationalists, "Quakers" (Society of Friends), and Baptists. 

Cromwell died in 1658, probably of kidney disease complicated by malaria. He had nominated his son Richard to succeed him as Lord Protector, but Richard lacked his father's political and military skill. The major generals pushed him aside after a few months. he became known as "Tumble Down Dick."

Without a clear leader, Britain seemed destined to descend into chaos and Civil War once again. George Monck, one of Cromwell's major generals, marched his army from Scotland to London and recalled the remnants of the Long Parliament. They voted to restore the monarchy. In 1660, the eldest son of Charles I took the throne, inaugurating the period known as the Restoration. 

PS. After Charles II became king, he moved to avenge his father's execution. The MPs who had signed Charles I's death warrant and remained alive were arrested and executed.  

Cromwell's body was dug up and hanged in chains. It was then tossed into a pit, except for his head. It was displayed on a pole outside Westminster Hall until 1685. It passed through various hands until 1960, when it was buried beneath the floor of a chapel at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. 

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British Monarchs Who Ended Badly, Part 7: James I, Charles I, and the Civil War.

The 17th century began with a new dynasty in England, the Stuarts. It was new in England but old in Scotland. Stuart monarchs had occupied the Scottish throne since the late 14th century. Most of them had been called James, five in all. 

In 1603, James VI of Scotland became James I of England. He had been king of Scotland since 1567. His 57-year reign was the longest in Scottish history. [Image: James VI and I.]

James inherited the Scottish throne as an infant after the forced abdication of his mother, Mary Queen of Scots. During his minority, the government was controlled by a regency. His personal rule in Scotland began in the early 1580s and he ruled effectively there. 

In 1603, James made history as the first monarch to rule the entire British Isles, including Ireland. He styled himself "King of Great Britain and Ireland," although officially no such kingdom existed. 

James promoted a union between England and Scotland, but the idea was unpopular in both countries. He designed a flag for "Great Britain" similar to the one that came into use after the Act of Union in 1707. It incorporated the crosses of St. Andrew and St. George

A more immediate issue for James was religious division in England. Not only division between Catholics and Protestants, but also among different kinds of Protestants. 

Because James was raised a Calvinist in Scotland, English "Puritans" hoped he would "purify" the Church of England of remaining Catholic doctrines, ritual, and structure.

James disappointed them. He insisted on keeping the Church of England as established under Elizabeth I, with its bishops, vestments, and Book of Common Prayer. 

He is perhaps most famous for promoting a new English translation of the Bible, immortalizing himself through the resulting "King James Bible." Few publications in history have ever attained such success.

In the long run, Puritans would prove a more serious threat to the monarchy than Catholics. In the short run, a Catholic conspiracy nearly ended James's reign soon after he became king of England.

The Gunpowder Plot, as it is known to history, was designed to blow up Parliament during its opening session on November 5, 1605, when the king and all the members were present. Fortunately for them, the barrels of gunpowder and one of the plotters were discovered in the cellars the evening before. 

Guy Fawkes was the plotter arrested red-handed. He was an explosives expert who had been fighting for Spain and his faith against England and Protestantism. He was executed for treason, along with several others involved in the plot. The rest were killed in a shootout. 

The foiling of the Gunpowder Plot became a cause for national celebration. Guy Fawkes Night, November 5, was henceforth marked by the burning of "The Guy" in effigy. It still is, although it has been stripped of its sectarian religious trappings and renamed "Bonfire Night."

King and Parliament were united in the response to the Gunpowder Plot, but they soon came into regular conflict, a pattern that would be repeated under his son and grandsons. Religion, taxation, war, and arbitrary actions all played a part in the conflict. James' proclivity to lavish honors, gifts, and power on his close male friends (lovers?) increased resentment. 

A contemporary critic once called James the "the wisest fool in Christendom." Historians used to place the emphasis on fool. More recently, they have been inclined to view him more seriously, particularly his foreign policy. 

He was strongly in favor of peace in Europe. He resisted demands of parliamentary hawks to renew war with Spain or enter the devastating Thirty Years' War in Central Europe (1618-1648). In the first, he failed, but in the second, he succeeded. 

He was moderate for his time in religious matters. Like Elizabeth, he preferred to turn a blind eye to people's private religious practices as long as they conformed outwardly. Yet in hindsight he laid the seeds of the current division of Ireland by encouraging Scots and English Protestants to settle in Ulster (Northern Ireland). 

James suffered from various ailments in his last years, especially arthritis and gout. He died in 1625, probably of dysentery. He was sincerely mourned by many of his subjects. Despite some conflicts, they had enjoyed peace and low taxation for much of his reign, and in 17th century Europe that was rare.

His son and successor Charles I was not so fortunate. During his reign, simmering conflicts between the Crown and the English Parliament came to a head. Charles initially pursued an anti-Spanish policy, which grew out of personal humiliation when he tried unsuccessfully to woo a Spanish princess. He also went to war briefly with France. [Image: Charles I by Van Dyck]

Charles' anti-Spanish foreign policy was broadly popular in England, but he became angry when he could not get Parliament to vote the taxes to support it. His attempts to raise revenue without parliamentary consent and arrest non-payers aroused powerful opposition. In 1628, Parliament presented the king with The Petition of Right, which condemned his arbitrary actions. 

The following year, 1629, Charles dissolved Parliament and vowed to rule without it. He managed to do it for eleven years, the "Personal "Rule" or "Eleven Years Tyranny." During that time, opposition to Charles' rule festered without an outlet. 

The anger was not limited to Charles' arbitrary methods and taxes. Various strands of Radical Protestantism rooted in Calvinist and Anabaptist traditions gained strength during these years. 

The "Puritans" represented an existential threat to the Church of England established by Elizabeth I and supported by James I. They opposed his efforts to enforce conformity to Anglicanism. His marriage to a French Catholic princess, Henrietta Maria, increased suspicions that he was a crypto Catholic.

That was not true, but Charles was a staunch defender of the Anglican Church and promoted "popish" ritualism the Puritans opposed. During the 1630s, he tried to weaken Puritanism through prosecutions, sometimes in arbitrary courts. 

His biggest mistake was his attempt to force the Church of Scotland to adopt the Anglican model. In 1637, without consulting the Scottish parliament or kirk (church), he authorized the use of a version of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer in Scottish churches. 

By this time, most Scots had embraced a strict Calvinist form of worship. They rejected Anglican religious ritual as "popish," and wanted to eliminate bishops. Their views united them to some extent with English Puritans.

When the Book of Common Prayer was introduced in Scotland, it provoked riots. Legend has it that an Edinburgh woman, Jenny Geddes, started it all by denouncing the new book and throwing her stool at a preacher in St. Giles Cathedral. 

The reality was more complex, but the riots expanded into a full-blown rebellion, the "Bishops Wars." Charles raised an army to enforce his will, but he was unable to pay for it. 

Reluctantly, he called Parliament in the spring of 1640. The members refused to fund his army unless he recognized their power to approve all new taxes. Furious, he dissolved the body after a few weeks.  It became known as the "Short Parliament." 

Meanwhile, the Scots' army had invaded northern England and occupied Newcastle and Durham. Faced with opposition within and without, Charles made concessions to the Scots and agreed to elections to a new English parliament. 

The elections went badly for Charles. A huge majority of the new MPs opposed his policies. The "Long Parliament," as it later became known, convened in November 1640. 

Its members immediately began the impeachment of the king's leading councillors for high treason. During the next year, they passed a series of acts restricting royal power and increasing that of Parliament. 

A rebellion in Ireland in 1641 sparked anti-Catholic hysteria in England. Pamphlets were published charging that Queen Henrietta Maria was behind the rising and demanding her impeachment.  

The extreme measures of the most radical MPs gradually increased support for the king in Parliament. Charles alienated much of this sympathy when he tried to arrest five leading members of the opposition as they sat in Parliament. He faced humiliation when he burst into the chamber with soldiers to find that the five had been alerted and fled. No king had ever entered Parliament uninvited.

Soon after, Charles fled London. He began to assemble an army often referred to as the "Cavaliers" for their fancy clothes and long-flowing hair. Parliament also began to raise an army, eventually dubbed "Roundheads" for their closely cropped hair and plain clothes. (These distinctions were not as clear cut as the terms imply.) 

Civil War in England began in the middle of 1642. Historians today see the English Civil War as part of a wider conflict they call the "Wars of the Three Kingdoms." Scotland and Ireland were also involved. It was the bloodiest war ever fought on British soil. 

The war started badly for the parliamentary side at first. It seemed the king would prevail. But by 1644 men like Lord Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell rose to command and reorganized the army. A key reform was selecting officers based on ability rather than birth. The "New Model Army" defeated and captured the king in 1646. 

For more than two years the victors tried to negotiate a settlement with Charles, without success. In 1648, royalists began a second civil war designed to free the king. They were quickly defeated, but Cromwell and his allies decided the monarchy must be abolished. 

In January 1649, a parliamentary tribunal tried Charles for treason against his people. This was an astonishing reversal of the meaning of the act. In law, treason meant an act against the king. 

Charles mounted a vigorous defense, but the outcome was inevitable. On January 30, 1649, he was led out to scaffold in front of Inigo Jones' Banqueting Hall on Whitehall and beheaded. The assembled crowd let forth a loud moan. Many of them dipped handkerchiefs in Charles' blood as a memento. Charles was soon celebrated as a martyr. 

[Image: Execution of Charles I]

For the next eleven years, the British Isles was governed as a republic. For much of that time Oliver Cromwell ruled the three kingdoms , essentially as a military dictator. 

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British Monarchs Who Ended Badly, Part 6: Edward VI, Bloody Mary, and the Virgin Queen

As we learned in Part 5, Henry VIII broke with the Church of Rome and disposed of his first two wives (divorced, beheaded) in his quest to father a male heir to the English throne. His third wife, Jane Seymour, delivered the goods, and promptly died, leaving a vacancy for wife number four. 

The "goods" was the future Edward VI, who became king in 1547, on Henry's death. He did not prove to be the strong monarch Henry had hoped for. He was only nine years old, and sickly. This left him under the influence of the powerful men around him. 

[Image: Edward VI, aged 13]

They favored moving the new Church of England in a more Protestant direction and penalising Catholics. Under their influence, Edward became a little bigot. His brief reign was marked by riot, rebellion, and war with Scotland. 

Edward VI died at age 15, probably of tuberculosis. According to Henry's will, his eldest daughter Mary was next in line. Unlike Edward, Mary was raised a devout Catholic. 

The Protestant nobles who had dominated the country under Edward knew that Mary would remove them, or worse. They ignored Henry VIII's final will and proclaimed Lady Jane Grey as Queen. She was a teenager they believed they could manipulate. [Image: Lady Jane Grey, Streatham Portrait]

Lady Jane was descended from Henry VII, and thus of royal lineage, but many influential people believed Mary was the rightful heir. Within little over a week, Lady Jane's support evaporated, and Mary's forces prevailed. 

Lady Jane was never crowned, so one can debate whether she was ever monarch. But neither was Edward V, who is counted as a king. A tough call. It was a tough end for Jane as well. The "Nine Days Queen" was beheaded at the Tower of London, along with her husband and father-in-law.

Mary Tudor has gone down in history as "Bloody Mary." That's awful, but how many monarchs have a popular cocktail named after them? Even "Ivan the Terrible" has only got a vodka. 

[Image: Mary I]

Mary earned her nasty epithet because of her violent campaign to restore Catholicism in England. During her brief reign (1553-1558) her government executed hundreds of Protestants, mostly by burning at the stake. [Image: Protestants being burned at Smithfield Market in London, from an 18th century edition of Foxe's Book of Martyrs]

The persecutions did not achieve their result, perhaps because Mary died too soon. Their main result was to make her and her Church infamous in England for centuries. 

Something else hurt her popularity. She married a foreign monarch, the most powerful in Europe at the time, Philip II of Spain. We all know the English love to hate foreigners. He came to England, married Mary, gamely tried to impregnate her, and left for home soon after. I think he knew the game was up. He later sent the Spanish Armada in revenge.

Mary believed she had gotten pregnant. It turned out to be a false pregnancy. She died in 1558 with her two great tasks unfinished. Catholicism was not firmly restored, and there was no Catholic heir. 

With Mary gone, one child of Henry VIII remained: Elizabeth, daughter of Anne Boleyn. Elizabeth I lasted 45 years and brought some needed stability. [Image: Elizabeth I, the Armada Portrait]

The "Virgin Queen" was the last of her line. Whether she really died a virgin or not, the fact that Elizabeth never married meant the end of the Tudor dynasty. 

Her options for marriage were certainly unappealing: an English nobleman or a foreign prince, most likely a Catholic. Neither was likely to be a popular choice, and any man she chose, she knew, would try to rule her and the country. 

Elizabeth was an effective monarch for her time but it wasn't an especially pleasant time. Many historians have proclaimed the "Elizabethan Age" as a Golden Age for England. That may have been true for some people, but it was a tough world for most of them. Savage laws against beggars and vagrants were the main means of dealing with the rising numbers of poor.  

England famously defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588. It was a critical victory, but the Spanish plan had serious flaws from the start. It is hard to see how it could have succeeded. 

Under Elizabeth, England became safe for Protestantism of a sort. Her religious settlement, her Church of England, compromised between Catholic and Protestant doctrine. But crucially, it remained independent of Rome with the monarch as its titular head. 

Radical Protestants disliked the Elizabeth's Anglican Church as too "Romish" and pushed to "purify" it. Devout Catholics tried to destroy it. Yet enough people supported it to ensure its survival to this day. 

Elizabeth is usually compared favorably to her sister Mary and portrayed as more tolerant and moderate. Up to a point, the distinction is valid, but only up to a point. Elizabeth did not send hundreds to the stake, but she did have many a Catholic priest hanged.

Historians have praised Elizabeth for creating a church that sought compromise between Catholic and Protestant doctrines and her distaste for religious persecution. "I would not make windows into men's souls," she is alleged to have said when becoming Queen. 

By this, she meant that as long as people conformed to her version of the church outwardly, she did not care what they thought. The truth is, she had to care. Thought, when sincere, can lead to action. 

Violence and rebellion connected to religious causes was never far below the surface in Elizabethan England. The pope declared Elizabeth a heretic who could be deposed or killed and Catholic plots against her were common. 

One of those famously involved was her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots. In 1567, Protestant nobles deposed Catholic Mary from the Scottish throne. She fled to England and put herself under Elizabeth's protection. [Image: Mary, Queen of Scots]

Mary was the granddaughter of a sister of Henry VIII. As such, she was Elizabeth's closest heir. She became a focus of Catholic plots to replace Elizabeth with her after the pope declared Elizabeth a heretic. 

Elizabeth kept Mary in comfortable captivity for 19 years before bowing to the demands of her male advisors and ordering her cousin's execution. (Contrary to certain "historical" films, the pair never met face to face). 

Catholic priests in England, especially Jesuits, sometimes met a similar fate. They were declared agents of foreign powers aiming at Elizabeth's assassination, and therefore guilty of treason. Catholics in Ireland also suffered for their faith and opposition to English rule. The subjugation of the Emerald Isle was completed toward the end of her reign. 

Elizabeth died soon after, in 1603. She never publicly named her successor. Her chief minister, Robert Cecil, arranged the business. The son of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, James VI of Scotland, became King James I of England, Wales, and Ireland, the first monarch to rule all of the British Isles. 

England was wealthier and more populous than Scotland and the weather was a little better. James viewed England as the Land of Milk and Honey. He and his dynasty, the Stuart monarchs, would discover another reality.

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