Mary,

Queen of Scots (1542-1567) + King Francis II of France

*she changed her family name from the Scottish Stewart to the French version of Stuart
** she was a Catholic and in 1567 she was forced to abdicate and >led to England where in 1587 was executed on the orders of Elizabeth I as
she was suspected to have been implicated in a plot to overthrow the queen

James VI of Scotland = James I of England (1603-1625) + Anne of Denmark

* he had the Bible translated into English (King James's Authorised Version) because he wanted to have one main
translation
** he believed that he was answerable to God alone, so he often ignored the English Parliament (he promoted the Theory
of the Divine Right of Kings)

Charles I (1625-1649) + Henrietta Maria of France

* the rivalry between Charles and Parliament exploded into a civil war
** he was the only reigning British monarch ever to be executed; for the next 10 years (1649-1660), the country
was a federal republic, known as the Commonwealth, led by a politician and military leader called Oliver Cromwell,
who was declared The Lord Protector of the United Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland

Charles II (1660-1685) + Catherine of Braganza

* he was known as "the Merry Monarch" because of his pursuit of James II (1685-1688) + Lady Anne Hyde; Mary of Modena
pleasure; he "never said a foolish thing, nor ever did a wise one"
* his plan to restore Catholicism as the country's of>icial faith
** two disasters hit London during his reign: the plague in 1665 alarmed Parliament and consequently he was forced to >lee to
and the Great Fire of 1666 France (the Glorious Revolution (1688)- coup d'etat)

Mary II + William III (of Orange) (1689-1702)

Anne (1702-1714) + George of Denmark
* they were both Protestants and were appointed by Parliament
* she was the last of the Stuart monarchs
to rule jointly in place of Mary's Catholic Father, James II
** during her reign, in 1707, the Act of Union united
England, Scotland and Wales under one Parliament and
they became known as the United Kingdom


v Scotland – Presbyterian Kirk – had no bishops and it was a more democratic institution; it gave political and religious power to the
literate classes of Scotland
v England – Anglican Church (Protestant Church) – was strongly political (but in time it became weakly intellectual); it had bishops who
willingly supported the king/ queen as the Head of the English Church
– Puritans, like the Scottish Presbyterians, wanted a more democratic church (* many MPs and many of the wealth-creating
classes were Puritans)
– The Catholics and the Puritans were usually called “Nonconformists”
– It was the Puritans who persuaded king James I to permit a new official (“authorised”) version of the Bible
– Puritanism had led to the formation of a large number of small religious groups, or sects (e.g. Baptists and Quakers)
v James I, Charles I and Charles II – shared a strong belief in the Divine Right of Kings;
v During the Protectorate (the republican administration)– Oliver Cromwell (the Lord Protector) – who was a Puritan - had far greater
powers than king Charles I had had; he wanted to govern the country through the army, the people were forbidden to celebrate Christmas
and Easter, or play games in Sundays (i.e. cock fights); the theatres were also closed. Cromwell was therefore extremely unpopular.
v The Restoration of Charles II in 1660 – he greatly admired the magnificent, all-powerful, absolute ruler of France, Louis XIV
- hoped to make peace between the different religious groups
- the fear of Parliament of Charles’s personal interest in the Catholic Church and of the monarchy becoming too powerful
resulted in the first political parties in Britain: the WHIGS – a rude name for cattle drivers – and the TORIES – an Irish name
for thieves; while the Whigs believed that the Crown’s authority should depend upon the consent of Parliament, the Tories
upheld the authority of the Crown and Church (they were ‘Royalists’) - these two parties became the basis of Britain’s two-
party parliamentary system of government.
v After the Glorious Revolution (1688), which was rather a ‘coup d’état’ than a revolution, Parliament made William of Orange (the
Protestant ruler of Holland married to king James II’s daughter, Mary II) king, not by inheritance but by their choice. Parliament was now
beyond question more powerful than the king, and would remain so – the power over the monarch was written into the Bill of Rights in
1689.
v In 1701 Parliament finally passed the Act of Settlement, to make sure only a Protestant could inherit the Crown. This Act has remained in
force ever since – even today, if a son or daughter of the monarch becomes Catholic, he or she cannot inherit the Crown

v Important scientific developments:
- the British Royal Society was founded in 1662
- Francis Bacon - was a philosopher and a writer and he became James I’s Lord Chancellor
- William Harvey – discovered the circulation of blood in 1628
- Sir Isaac Newton – began to study gravity (1684) – his work remained the basis of physics until Einstein’s discoveries in the
twentieth century
- improvement of the printing techniques (the first newspapers appeared in the seventeenth century and they represented a
new way of spreading all kinds of scientific, religious and literary ideas. Many of them included advertising. In 1660 Charles II
advertised for his lost dog.)
v Entertainment: court masques (famous forms of entertainment annually staged at the English court during the Stuart dynasty);
coffeehouses (visited by the rich of London to discuss politics) and ‘alehouses’ (drinking houses visited by ordinary people).