Chapter 15
The Times: 1625-1642
The entourage of Charles I came to be called "Cavaliers". They were named by their opponents for the Spanish caballero who was a Catholic who prosecuted Protestants. Their hair had long, curled, and flowing locks. They wore a broad-rimmed decorated hat. Their fancy jackets and breeches were loose. Boots were wide and folded over at the top. Young men wore earrings and painted their faces. A lady wore her hair in ringlets on each side of her face. Her dress was fitted at the waist, with a peaked bodice. It was low at the shoulders with a scoop neckline in front. She often wore much lace, especially at the neck down to the bust line. Her outer dress and under-skirt that was revealed in front were full and made of satin and stiff silk or velvet. Only hose of silk was worn at court.
A majority of prosperous industrial towns and fee farmers, led sometimes by lords or old landed gentry were Puritans. They dressed plainly and in somber colors such as black, grey, and buff, with no ornamentation except plain white collars and cuffs of linen rather than of lace. Wool replaced silk and velvet. No jewelry was worn. The Puritan women also wore long white aprons. The Puritan men for a time had short-cut hair. The Puritan- Parliamentarians were given the name "Roundheads" after the crop- headed London apprentices whose rioting had marked every stage of the conflict between king and Parliament. The Puritan women smoothed their hair back into little knobs and covered their hair and head with a white covering. Both Puritan men and women wore broad-rimed hats and plain shoes. The ordinary country man wore a felt hat, broadcloth coat, woolen trousers, hand-knitted worsted stockings, and plain, strong shoes.
Nine-tenths of the people were Protestant. Religion was a favorite and serious topic of discussion, even among the illiterate. On the whole, they were more inclined to salvation by grace than to salvation by good works. Popular reading included guides for good manners such as "The Rich Cabinet" by Thomas Gainsford, and "Youths Behavior" translated from the French by Francis Hawkins. It advised not to sit with one leg on the other, but with the feet even; not to spit on one's fingers; and not to sniffle in the sight of others. Books for ladies such as "Delights for Ladies" by Hugh Platt told them how to adorn themselves, tables, closets, and rooms with beautiful objects, perfumes, and waters. It taught preserving and the making of candy preserved by sugar, cooking, and housewifery. Gervase Markham wrote advice for men in "Hobsons Horse-load of Letters", which addressed serious negotiations, private businesses, amorous accomplishment, wanton merriment, and the defense of honor and reputation. "A Helpe to Discourse" primed a man to meet company with suggested questions and answers, epigrams, riddles, and jests. In Henry Peacham's "The Compleat Gentleman" (1622), the model Cavalier is portrayed in terms of horsemanship, tilting, sports, choice of companions, reserved and dignified conduct, good scholarship, and responsibility. This popular book was a guide to university, where there was a seven year course of classroom lectures. It advised conversation with men of the soundest reputation for religion, life, and learning, but recreation with those of the same rank and quality. First place was to be given to religion, so that the foundation of all studies would be the service of God. Following in importance were: speaking and writing in English or Latin (grammar, syntax, and rhetoric), astronomy, astrology, geography (whose authorities were Pliny, Strabo, and the pagan writers of the first century), chorography [map-making], mathematics, including arithmetic and geometry, poetry (reading, writing, and criticizing), music, including part-music, drawing, limning [putting drawings in books], painting, art history, exercise (riding, running, leaping, tilting, throwing, wrestling, swimming, shooting, and falconry), logic and disputation if related to one's intended profession such as the law, philosophy (Plato and Aristotle), and some medicine and botany.
Richard Brathwaite's "The English Gentleman" portrays the somber Puritan who accepts the gospel of work. He is a staid and serious businessman. "Matrimonial Honour" by Daniel Rogers opined that for success, a marriage must be godly, with the parties equally religious, worshipping together in private and in public. A hasty or worldly marriage would bring repentance. The spouses should agree, but keep to their spheres. Children should not be spoiled.
Large households were more or less self-supporting and were managed by their ladies. Work included ordering wool, hemp, and flax; making cloth and dying it; dairy work; brewing; malting; baking; preserving wines; extracting oils; distilling perfume; and putting on banquets. Couches were coming into use in parlors.
The Flemish Johann Baptista van Helmont demonstrated that metals dissolved in acid can be recovered through chemical means and enunciated the doctrine that each thing in nature has its own specific organization.
The king and his court entourage settled for most of the year in Whitehall instead of traveling around the country. The king let the public into Hyde Park for recreation. The City of London and Westminster were still separate, but a mass of hovels was springing up in between them. The water carrier was still active and the night transport of sewage necessary. In certain areas there were houses crowded with those wanted for minor offenses, small thefts, and debt. Bailiffs did not dare venture into these areas because the inhabitants hid and defended each other unless the offense was a major one. The penalty for stealing even small sums was still death.
Inigo Jones was the first architect of consequence. He had studied in Italy and designed and built the Banqueting House at Whitehall in London in 1622. It had classical proportions and nice shaping and dressing in stone. He was now an arbiter of taste for the King Charles and his Queen and built many structures for them, including the Queen's Chapel at St. James Palace and her bedroom in the Queen's Hose in Greenwich. All over London and the country he and his pupils built many classical buildings, including houses, churches, stables, lodgings, out-buildings, staircases, galleries, watergates, and archways. They stood in stark contrast to the Tudor buildings around them. In the 1632, Jones started town planning in London with Covent Garden fruit and vegetable market with terraced houses around a central piazza surrounded by open arcades with a Tuscan church at one end. In 1634, a man from the suburb of Hackney introduced a line of coaches rented at 1s. per hour. They soon became very popular.
A large part of England was rebuilt as yeomen expanded their houses and others lower in rank replaced mud and wood hovels with brick and stone cottages. A separate kitchen appeared. The ground floors are boarded over to create bedrooms. Permanent stairs replace ladders. Glass appears in windows. Glass and crockery replace wood and pewter, Chairs replace benches. Knives and forks become common.
About 1640 began travel between towns by covered wagons called stage coaches. They carried passengers and goods and stopped at inns for stabling and repairs.
Work was begun in 1630 to make canals that would make marsh waters run to the sea. Barges on canals were the most efficient mode of transportation. A barge could carry 50 tons on a canal and only 30 tons on a river. A single horse could haul an 8-ton wagon on iron rails or on a soft road, but only 1/8 of a ton on his back.
Real wages, which had been falling, reached their low point and the gap between the poor and others widened. There were depressions from 1629-32 and from 1636 to about 1640, which called for Royal proclamations for the relief and distress, especially among the poor. The Book of Orders, for the relief of distress in earlier reigns, was to be reissued. The assize of beer and bread maintaining quality, prices, weights, and measures, was to be duly kept. Hoarding of foodstuffs was to be punished. Fish days and lent were to be observed to maintain the fishers. Abstaining from suppers on Fridays and on the eves of feasts was ordered in all taverns and commended to private families. City corporations were to give up their usual feasts and half the charge given to the poor. Foreign ships were not to be supplied with food for long voyages. The revised Book of Orders also covered the regulation of beggary, the binding of apprentices, and the general relief of the poor. All magistrates were to enforce the rules and raise special rates from all parishes, the richer of these to help the poorer.
A new trend of spring-sown crops led to better crop balance and reduced the risks of scarcity in a bad year. But the economy was still volatile.
There were riots in London in 1640-1 from a complete breakdown in political consensus, the factions being the Royalist City elite versus the middling and lesser merchants and craftsmen.
In 1631, the clock makers broke away from the control of the Blacksmiths. The gunmakers also broke away from the Blacksmiths. The tinplate workers broke away from the Ironmongers.
"Searching" for bad cloth became more difficult as the industry became more diversified. For instance, a new machine called a gig- mill did the work of many hand finishers. In 1633, Charles issued a commission for the reformation of the cloth industry with minute directions for the manufacture of cloth. But there were many disagreements over the details of manufacture and reform was difficult to enforce.
By the 1630s, many parishes had a resident intellectual for the first time. The parish priests came from gentry, upper yeomanry, urban tradesmen and clerical families. They were educated and highly learned. They had libraries and were in touch with contemporary religious debates. They saw their role primarily as pastoral care. Many wanted to improve the religious knowledge and moral conduct of their parishioners. Puritan influence deepened as they forbade dancing, games, minstrels, and festivals. They punished superstitious conduct. They initiated prosecutions in church courts for sexual lapses and drunkenness. The church court had little coercive power and its punishments were restricted to penance or excommunication. Many Puritan sects espoused equality for women. By the 1640s women were preachers, e.g. in the Baptist and Anabaptist religions and, until 1660, prophetesses. These sects were mostly composed of the lower echelons of society.
The poor people did not respond to sermons as did the well-to-do. Nor were they as involved in church activity, attending church only for marriages, baptisms, and funerals.
Charles I not only believed in the divine right of kings and was authoritarian; he was the ultimate autocrat. He had an unalterable conviction that he was superior to other men, who were insignificant and privileged to revolve around him. He issued directives to reverse jury verdicts. Parliamentarians Oliver Cromwell and other educated men opposed this view. The Commons voted not to grant Charles the usual custom-dues for life, making it instead renewable each year, conditioned on the king's behavior. Charles dissolved Parliament before this passed. He continued to take tonnage and poundage.
He wanted money for war so he imposed many taxes, but without the consent of Parliament. They included many of which had fallen into disuse. He imposed a compulsory "loan" on private individuals, which the courts held was illegal, and imprisoned those who refused. Bail was denied to these men. Simpler people who refused were threatened with impressment into the Navy, which included being landed on shore to fight as marines and soldiers. They sought to revive the old writ of habeas corpus [produce the body] to get released, but to no avail. The old writ had been just to bring to court those persons needed for proceedings, but Coke in 1614 had cited the writ with a new meaning "to have the body together with the cause of detention". Charles billeted unpaid and unruly soldiers in private homes, which they plundered. It was customary to quarter them in inns and public houses at royal expense. Martial law was declared and soldiers were executed. But the citizens did not want martial law either.
The Magna Carta was now seen as a protector of basic liberties. Both attorneys and laymen read "The Pastyme of People" written by John Rastell in 1529, which described the history of the Magna Carta from 1215 to 1225. Also read was the "Great Abridgment" of the English law written by Rastell in 1527, and Coke's volume of his Institutes which dealt with the Magna Carta, which the Crown took to prevent being published until 1642, when Parliament allowed it. Broad-scale pamphleteering turned England into a school of political discussion. Oxford University favored the established church and Cambridge University was Puritan.
The estates of the members of the House of Commons were three times the extent of the members' of the House of Lords. Bishops' estates had diminished considerably because of secularization. The members of the House of Commons were elected [chosen] by the people. For these reasons, the House of Commons asserted a preeminence to the House of Lords.
The House of Commons drew up a Petition of Right in 1627, which expanded upon the principles of Magna Carta and sought to fix definite bounds between royal power and the power of the law. It protested the loans compelled under pain of imprisonment and stated that no tax or the like should be exacted without the common consent of Parliament. It quoted previous law that "...no freeman may be taken or imprisoned, or be disseised of his freeholds or liberties, or his free customs, or be outlawed or exiled; or in any manner destroyed, but by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land" and that "...no man of what estate or condition that he be, should be put out of his land or tenements, nor taken, nor imprisoned nor disinherited, nor put to death without being brought to answer by due process of law". It continued that "... divers of your subjects have of late been imprisoned without any cause showed; and when for their deliverance they were brought before your Justices by your Majesty's writs of Habeas Corpus, there to undergo and receive as the court should order, and their keepers commanded to certify the causes of their detainer, no cause was certified, but that they were detained by your Majesty's special command, signified by the Lords of your Privy Council, and yet were returned back to several prisons, without being charged with anything to which they might make answer according to the law." It also protested the billeting of soldiers in private houses and martial law trying soldiers and sailors. If these terms were agreed to by the King, he was to be given a good sum of money. Since he needed the money, he yielded. He expected tonnage and poundage for the Navy for life, as was the custom. But he got it only for one year, to be renewable yearly. The King agreed to the petition, quietly putting his narrow interpretation on it, and it was put into the statute book.
In 1629 Parliament distinguished between treason to the king and treason to the Commonwealth.
The Chief Justice held in 1638 that acts of Parliament to take away the King's royal power in the defense of his kingdom were void; the king may command his subjects, their persons, their goods, and their money and acts of Parliament make no difference. But the people refused to pay these taxes.
Charles thought of more ways to obtain money and disregarded his agreement to the Petition of Right.
Without the consent of Parliament, he extended ship money to all the kingdom instead of just the ports. It was used to outfit ships for the protection of the coasts. Hampden refused to pay it on principle and the courts ruled against him in the case of King v. John Hampden and he was sent to prison. When distraints were tried, the common people used violence to prevent them. The bailiffs were pelted with rocks when they came to distrain. One man used his pitchfork to take back his steer being taken by the bailiff. If distraint were successful, people would refuse to buy the distrained property of their neighbors.
Charles revived the right of the Crown to force knighthood on the landed gentry for a fee.
Charles sold monopolies in such goods as soap, leather, salt, wine, coal, and linen rags although they had been abolished in the last Parliament of James. This made employment uncertain for workers and prices high for the public, and put masters in danger of loss of capital.
Fines were levied on people for the redress of defects in their title deeds. Crown forest boundaries were arbitrarily extended and landowners near Crown forests were heavily fined for their encroachments on them. Money was extorted from London by an illegal proclamation by which every house had to pay three years' rental to the Crown to save itself from demolition.
But what incensed the people more than the money issue were the changes in the established church. High churchmen, called Ritualists, enforced ceremonies offensive to Puritan feeling in every parish. The centrally placed communion tables were to be placed at the east end within railings and called "altars", or "mercy seats" as if for mass. They were to be ornamented with crucifixes, images, pretty trifles, books, candles and rich tapestries. Bowing was to be done when approaching them. Clergymen were to be called "priests" and their authority treated as divine. Worship was to be done in accordance with the prescribed forms of Romish Breviars, Rituals, and Mass-books. Its ritual was to have pomp and ceremony, including kneeling for communion. Rings were to be used in marriages and crosses used in baptisms. Churches, fonts, tables, pulpits, chalices and the like were to be consecrated, thereby putting holiness in them. Churches that did not do this but used unconsecrated or "polluted" articles were closed by interdiction. Regard was to be had with regard to days, postures, meats, and vestments. The clergy was to wear supplices [white linen vestments flowing to the foot with lawn sleeves] and embroidered copes [vestment over the head]. A Bishop wore a four-cornered cap, cope and surplice with lawn-sleeves, tippet (long, black scarf), hood, and canonical coat. Churchwardens were to take oaths to inform against any who disobeyed. The law still required that all attend Sunday sermons. But parishes had some control over who was their preacher, even though a minister could be assigned to a parish by the bishops without the consent of the patron of the church or parish people. By increasing the meager pay of a parish clergyman, they could chose one with a compatible theology or employ a lecturer from outside. The Ritualists scolded clergymen for "gospel preaching" and suppressed Puritan preaching in public meetings. Preaching or printing matter concerning the controversy of free will versus predestination was forbidden. Geneva Bibles, which were popular among laymen, were prohibited from being imported. Many were excommunicated for sitting instead of kneeling at communion. The clergy prohibited marriage if they liked by withholding their license, and they licensed marriages without banns. The Ritualists encouraged certain sports to be played after church on Sunday. The Puritans protested vehemently to this because they wanted to strictly observe the Sabbath. The Puritans saw the high churchmen as wanting to return to the doctrine and customs they thought to be Papist. The Ritualists were absolutists in their political views and accepted the King's intervention in church matters. The ecclesiastical Court of High Commission enforced the edicts of the church, excommunicating those who did not conform and expelling clergymen who, for instance, did not bow at the name of Jesus or wear the surplice. It was used against the Puritans and imposed high fines and imprisonment for religious eccentricity and Puritan preaching. Charles supported the established church in this endeavor because it agreed that he had a divine right to rule.
The universities and high churchmen were beginning to adopt the doctrine of free will over predestination. Parliamentarian and Puritan Oliver Cromwell and others feared this presaged a return to justification by works and the popish faith. In Parliament, he spoke out against the tyranny of the bishops, whose offices he wanted abolished, and the elaborateness of church services.
To avoid persecution, many Puritans emigrated to Virginia and New England. They were led by magistrates, country gentlemen, prominent businessmen, attorneys, and other professionals. In 1629, the Massachusetts Bay Colony was chartered at the instigation of John Winthrop as a Puritan refuge. Its leaders led a migration of Puritans organized to include five each of armorers, bakers, blacksmiths, carpenters, shoemakers, merchants; three each of clothiers, chandlers, coopers, military officers, physicians, and tailors; two each of fishermen, herdsmen, and masons; on tanner, and one weaver. The fare was five pounds and an applicant was interviewed to make sure he was a Puritan. He got 50 acres, or more for a larger family. But if he paid 50 pounds into the common stock he received 200 acres of land, plus 50 more for each dependent. Maryland was founded in 1632 as a haven for Catholics, but its charter precluded a government-established religion. It was granted to Lord Baltimore to hold in free socage and was named after King James II's Queen, who was overtly Catholic. Catholics in England could practice their religion only in their homes and could not carry arms.
As hostility grew, censorship of books and plays accelerated and the number of authorized printers was reduced in 1637 by decree of the Star Chamber. In 1640s effective government control of the press collapsed. Then there were many pamphlets and newspapers with all variety of interpretation of the Bible and all sorts of political opinion, such as on taxation, law and the liberties of the subject, religion, land and trade, and authority and property. Twenty-two pamphlets were published in 1640 and 1,996 in 1642.
In 1640 the canons of the church included a requirement for parsons to exclaim divine right of kings every year. The Commons soon resolved that this was contrary to the fundamental laws and liberties of the realm.
The Short Parliament of 1640 was dissolved soon because the Commons demanded redress of its grievances. The Long Parliament of 1640-1653 requested by the House of Lords was agreed to by Charles because he still wanted money. In election of members to the Long Parliament, voters wanted to know where contenders stood on certain political issues. In this Parliament, the Commons ceased to agree on all issues and started to rely on majority rule.
The House of Commons was led by John Pym, a middle class landholder with extensive commercial interests. The Commons treated the King's refusal to act with them as a relinquishment of his power to Parliament. When it met at the Long Parliament, Pym expressed the grievances of the King's actions against the privileges of Parliament, against religion, and against the liberties of the subjects. Specifically, he decried the disregard of free speech and of freedom from prosecution afterward, and the arbitrary dissolution of Parliament. Secondly, he alleged popery had been encouraged and the ecclesiastical jurisdiction enlarged. Thirdly, he protested the patent monopolies given to favorites to the detriment of the buying public, the imposition of ship money levies beyond the need of national defense and without the consent of Parliament, the revival of the feudal practice of imposing a fine for refusal to accept a knighthood with its attendant obligations, the enlargement of the King's forests and driving out from hence tenants with lucrative holdings, extra judicial declarations of justices without hearing of counsel or argument in many criminal matters, and the abuses of the prerogative courts in defending monopolies. Parliament's assertion into religious matters and foreign affairs was unprecedented, those areas having been exclusively in the power of the King.
The Long Parliament begun in 1640 removed many of the King's ministers and forbade clergy from sitting in Parliament or exercising any temporal authority. It passed measures which were not agreed to by the King. It undid the lawless acts of the King and the court decision in the case of King v. Hampden. Ship money was declared illegal. The new concept that the present Parliament should not be dissolved but by its own consent was adopted. The Star Chamber and Court of High Commission were abolished. The oath ex officio, an oath to answer all questions, was originally meant for facts at issue, but had been extended by these courts to opinions, beliefs, and religion and had led to abuses. The Star Chamber had been the only court which punished infractions of the Kings' edicts, so now his proclamations were unenforceable. Protection against self-incrimination was given by the provision that no person be forced "to confess or accuse him or herself of crime, offense, delinquency, or misdemeanor, or any neglect... or thing whereby, or by reason whereof, he or she shall or may be liable or exposed to any censure, pain, penalty, or punishment whatsoever, as had been the practice in the Star Chamber and the Court of High Commission.
These measures were also adopted: No one may be compelled to take knighthood nor undergo any fine for not so doing. The forest boundaries are returned to their former place. All subjects may now import gunpowder; they may also make and sell gunpowder and import saltpeter.
The Root and Branch Petition of 1640 complained about pressure on ministers by bishops on threat of dismissal not to preach about predestination, free grace, perseverance, original sin remaining after baptism, the Sabbath, doctrine against universal grace, election for faith foreseen, free-will against anti-Christ, non- residents, or human inventions in God's worship. It also complained about the great increase of idle, lewd, and dissolute, ignorant and erroneous men in the ministry who wanted only to wear a canonical coat, a surplice, and a hood, bow at the name of Jesus, and be zealous of superstitious ceremonies. It also complained about the swarming of lascivious, idle, and unprofitable books, pamphlets, play-books, and ballads, such as Ovid's "Fits of Love", "The Parliament of Women", Barn's "Poems", and Parker's "Ballads". Further it opposed the restraint of reprinting books formerly licensed without relicensing. It protested the growth of popery and increase of priests and Jesuits, the strict observance of saints' days whereby large fines were imposed on people working on them, the increase of whoredoms and adulteries because of the bishops' corrupt administration of justice and taking of bribes, and the practice of excommunicating for trivial matters such as working on a holy day or not paying a fee. It further protested the fining and imprisoning of many people; breaking up men's houses and studies; taking away men's books, letters, and writings; seizing upon their estates; removing them from their callings; and separating them from their wives, to the utter infringement of the laws and of people's liberties. It complained that these practices caused many clothiers, merchants, and others to flee to Holland, thus undermining the wool industry. It finally complained of the multitude of monopolies and patents, large increase of customs, and ship-money. Many Londoners signed this petition.
The House of Commons decided to forbid bowing at the name of Jesus. When the House of Lords disagreed with this, the House of Commons claimed that it represented all the people and didn't need the concurrence of the House of Lords. The House of Commons ordered that all communion tables be removed from the east end of churches, that the railings be taken away, and all candles and basins be removed from it. Further, all crucifixes, images of the Virgin Mary, and pictures of any of the Trinity were to be demolished, which was done to even those in markets and streets. Further, all bowing at the name of Jesus or toward the east end of the church or toward the communion table was forbidden. All dancing or other sports on Sunday was forbidden. Enforcement was to be done by Justices of the Peace and Mayors. But these orders never became statutes.
Enforcement of the law for not coming to church was not now regularly enforced, so Catholics had a respite.
Rebellion of Irish Catholics against England and English Protestants broke out in Ireland in 1641. Parliament didn't trust the King with an army that he could use against themselves so it passed the following two measures expanding the Navy and calling out the militia and naming certain persons to be Lieutenants of each county.
The Admiral shall impress as many seamen as necessary for the defense of the realm. This includes mariners, sailors, watermen, ship carpenters, but no one over the age of 50 or masters or masters' mates. If one hides, he shall be imprisoned for three months without bail.
Justices of the Peace shall impress as many soldiers as the king may order for war in Ireland. This is despite the right of a citizen to be free from being compelled to go out of his county to be a soldier because the danger from Ireland is imminent. Excluded are clergymen, scholars, students, those rated at a subsidy of land of three pounds or goods of five pounds, esquires or above, the sons of such or their widows, those under eighteen or over sixty years of age, mariners, seamen, and fishermen. The penalty for disobeying is imprisonment, without bail or misprise, and a fine of ten pounds. If an offender can't pay the fine, he shall be imprisoned a year more, without bail or misprise.
The right to call out the county militia had been a prerogative of the Crown, so the King issued a Proclamation ordering the soldiers to ignore this order and obey him. So Parliament declared this Proclamation void.
The King accused five leaders of Parliament, including Pym, of trying to subvert the government of the kingdom, to deprive the King of his regal power, to alienate the affections of the people toward their King, forcing the Parliament to their ends by foul aspersions, and inviting the Scots to invade England. In 1642, the King entered Parliament with 300 soldiers to arrest these five. They had flown, but Parliament was shocked that the King had threatened the liberties of Parliament with military force. The citizens of London, in their fear of popery, rose in arms against the King, who left the city. Both sides raised big armies. The goal of the Parliamentarians was to capture the King alive and force him to concessions.
When the Parliamentarians took Oxford in 1648, they purged its faculty of royalists.
The Law
From 1625 to 1627 these statutes were passed:
No one shall engage in sports or any pastimes outside his own parish or bearbaiting, bullbaiting, interludes, plays or other unlawful pastimes inside his parish on Sundays because such has led to quarrels and bloodshed and nonattendance at church. The fine is 3s.4d. or if the offender does not have the money or goods to sell to pay, he shall be set in the public stocks for three hours.
No carrier with any horse or wagon or cart or drover with cattle may travel on Sunday or else forfeit 20s.
No butcher may kill or sell any victual on Sunday or else forfeit 6s.8d.
Every innkeeper, alehousekeeper, and other victualer permitting a patron who is not an inhabitant of the area to become drunk shall forfeit 5s. or be place in the stocks for six hours. Offenders convicted a second time shall be bound by two sureties to the sum of 200s.
As of 1627, a parent sending a child out of the country to go to a Catholic school was to forfeit 100 pounds, one half to the informer and one half to the king.
The Petition of Right herebefore described was passed as a statute in 1627.
Judicial Procedure
The Star Chamber decided cases as diverse as a case of subordination of witnesses, cases of counterfeiters of farthing tokens, and cases of apothecaries compounding ill medicines. It tried to keep down the prices of foodstuffs for the benefit of the poor; it repressed extortion and false accusations, and disbarred an attorney for sharp practices; it punished defamation, fraud, riots, forgery of wills; it forbade duels. A special virtue of its position was that it could handle without fear matters in which men of social or local influence might intimidate or overawe juries or even country justices. It punished a lord who caused records to be forged, unlawfully entered lands, and seized tithes. It disciplined a nobleman for drawing a sword on a lord hunting hare.
In one of its cases, Sir Edward Bullock, a knight wanting to enclose a common of a thousand acres threatened his neighbor Blackhall when he would not sell his lands and rights. The knight hired a man to break down the hedges and open a gate that had been staked up, so that his neighbor's cattle would stray. He sued his neighbor three times for trespass, lost his cases, and threatened revenge on all the witnesses who testified against him. He had the house of one pulled down. The pregnant wife and a naked child were turned out and had to lie in the streets because no one dared to take them in, even when a justice so directed. The witness, his wife, and family took refuge in an unheated outbuilding in the winter. He and his wife and one child died there. The knight had another witness cudgeled so that she was black and blue from the waist up, and could not put on her clothes for a month. The knight threatened to set fire to the house of another witness, and sent his men to pull him out of doors and keep him prisoner for some hours. The Star Chamber imprisoned the knight and his men. The knight was fined 1,000 pounds and the men 50 pounds each. The knight also had to pay one witness 100 pounds in reparation to the surviving children of the family whose house had been pulled down.
But the power of the Star Chamber was abused by King Charles I. For instance, one lord was accused by another of calling him a base lord. The evidence was paltry. But he was fined 8,000 pounds, one-half going to the King. A lord who was accused of converting agricultural land to pasture was fined 4,000 pounds. A person who exported fuller's earth, contrary to the King's proclamation, was pilloried and fined 2,000 pounds. A man who defaced a stained-glass window in a church was fined 500 pounds and ordered to pay for a plain glass replacement. A man who became sheriff of a county and had taken the oath which bound him to remain in the county was elected to Parliament and stood in opposition to the king on many matters. He was imprisoned for many years until he made a humble submission and had to pay a heavy fine. A London importer who was alleged to have said "That the Merchants are in no part of the world so screwed and wrung as in England; That in Turkey they have more encouragement" was fined 2,000 pounds for seditious and slanderous words against his majesty's happy government. A Scottish minister circulated a book appealing to Parliament to turn out the bishops and to resist its own dissolution by the King. In it he called the bishops men of blood, anti-Christian, satanical, ravens, and magpies, preying on the state. He was against kneeling at the sacrament and denounced the Queen for her Catholic religion. He blamed the state for the death of citizens of a certain town by famine. For as he did "scandalize his Majesties Sacred Person, his Religious, Wise, and just Government, the Person of his Royal Consort the Queen, the Persons of the Lords and Peers of this realm, especially the Reverend Bishops", he was fined 10,000 pounds, was to be unfrocked (which was done by the Court of High Commission), and was whipped, pilloried, one ear nailed to the pillory and cut off, his cheek branded, and his nose slit. Then he was imprisoned for life, but only served ten years, being released by a statute of the Long Parliament. A Puritan writer Pyrnne wrote a book that included a condemnation of masks and plays, and all who took part, and all who looked on as sinful, pernicious, and unlawful. It opined that Nero had attended plays and deserved to be murdered. Since Charles had attended plays and the Queen had taken part in a mask, it was inferred that Pyrnne meant them harm. His indictment alleged that "he hath presumed to cast aspersions upon the King, the Queen, and the Commonwealth, and endeavored to infuse an opinion onto the people that it is lawful to lay violent hands upon Princes that are either actors, favorers, or spectators of stage plays". The justices saw in the book an attempt to undermine authority. The Chief Justice called the book a most wicked, infamous, scandalous, and seditious libel. Pyrnne was sentenced to be degraded by Oxford and disbarred by Lincoln's Inn, to be fined 5,000 pounds, to be pilloried and to have his ears cut off, and then to be imprisoned for life. Three men who wrote attacks on the bishops and ecclesiastical courts, such as alleging that the bishops suppression of fasts and preaching had brought the pestilence upon the people and that the bishops had dishonored God and exercised papal jurisdiction in their own names, were each sentenced to 5,000 fine, the pillory, where their ears were cut off, and to life imprisonment. One, who had been convicted for libel before, was branded on both cheeks: "S.L." for Seditious Libeller. Others printed similar material. In vain the Star Chamber limited the number of London printers to twenty, and made licensing stricter. These prisoners were set free by the Long Parliament.
Charles I intimidated justices to obey him in decision-making even more than James I.
Charles I so abused the power of the Star Chamber court that it was abolished by the Long Parliament and with it, the involvement of the King's Council in civil and criminal cases.
The regular church courts punished people for heresy, non- attendance at church, sexual immorality, working on the Sabbath or a holy day, non-payment of tithes, and lending money at interest. The special ecclesiastical court, the Court of High Commission, was composed of clerics appointed by the king and decided cases of marriage annulment, alimony, adultery, married couples living separately, cruelty of husbands to wives, and habitual drunkenness. But it also took on cases of schismatics and extended its power over them to include staid and solid Puritans, who uniformly believed that salvation was the only worthy earthly aim. Acting on information attained through secret channels or from visitations, it would summon the accused, who was required to give, under oath, "full, true, and perfect" answers to broad and undetailed charges made by secret informants. Refusal to take the oath resulted in commitment for contempt of court. If he denied the charges and fled, the court could hold the hearing without him. Many fled out of the country or went into hiding in it. If the accused went to the hearing, he could not take an attorney with him. Most of the issues involved clergy refusing to use the litany, to make the sign of the cross in baptism, to wear the surplice, or to publish the Book of Sports, and insistence on extempore prayer and preaching. Other issues were clergy who from the pulpit inveighed against ship-money and unjust taxes, and spoke rudely against the bishops and tyrannical princes. One case is that of Samuel Ward, the town preacher of a large town, heard in 1635. He neglected bowing or kneeling on coming to his seat in church and preached against the Book of Sports. He did not read the set prayers from the official book, but said prayers he had himself conceived. To this he replied that a parrot could be taught to repeat forms and an ape to imitate gestures. But his most serious offenses had to do with his utterances from the pulpit derogatory to the tenets and discipline of the church. He was accused of saying that he believed that congregations still had the right of election of all officers, including ministers. Also, he allegedly said that in preaching on the Christmas holidays he told his people "that in the following days they might do their ordinary business, intending to cross that vulgar superstitious belief, that whoever works on any of those twelve days shall be lousy". He allegedly warned his people to beware of a relapse into popery. Ward was convicted of depraving the liturgy, tending toward schism, frightening the people, and encouraging the overthrow of all manner of government. He was removed from his position, deprived of his ministerial function, suspended and silenced during the King's pleasure. He was ordered to make submission and recantation both in court and in his church and to give bond for 200 pounds. When he did not do this, he was sent to prison and lay there nearly four years, and died a few months later. In another case, a Mrs. Traske was imprisoned for at least eleven years for keeping Saturday as her Sabbath. Many people were excommunicated and books censored for essentially political reasons.
In 1637, the king proclaimed that the common law courts could not intervene in ecclesiastical courts.
The Court of High Commission was abolished by the Long Parliament.
Justices of the Peace had general and quarter sessions, the latter of which were held four times a year with all Justices of the Peace attending. It was primarily a court of appeal from penal sentences. But it was also an administrative body to determine taxes and make appointments of officials and grant licenses for businesses.
In 1638, in distributing a deceased person's estate, the Chancery court upheld a trust designed to hold the property for an heiress so that it did not become her husband's property.
At the request of Parliament, the King had all justices serve during their good behavior instead of serving at the King's will, which had been the practice for ages. This increased the independence of the judiciary.
The rack was used for the last time in 1640 before the Long Parliament met. It was used to torture a rioter before hanging.
Men were still pressed to death for failure to plead, pickpockets still executed for the first offense, and husband murderers still burned.
Chapter 16
The Times: 1642-1660
For four years, there was civil war between the King, backed generally by the upper class, the established church, and most of the gentry, against the Parliamentarians, backed generally by middle class yeomen, town dwellers, some of the gentry, most of the great corporations, the City of London, the ports, the seamen, and the Navy. Oxford University was royalist, and Cambridge University was Puritan in sympathy. Archery was not used, having become just sport by 1633. Flint-lock pistols, which relied on flint striking steel to ignite the powder, as well as swords were used by horsemen in the civil war. Footmen were musketeers using a match lock with a cord boiled in vinegar as the match and dressed in leather doublets and an iron-pot headpiece, or pikemen with long wooden poles with spearheads of iron or steel and short swords, and dressed in armor. This was the last time armor was used. The Parliamentarians wore orange scarves to distinguish themselves from their enemy. Cromwell, who had a natural aptitude for military matters, selected for his troops, Puritan zealots with a Puritan code of behavior which included no drinking or swearing. He selected horsemen based on ability rather than social class. He was regarded as one of the leaders of the Independents, who wanted total abolition of the monarchy and of the aristocracy. When made a leader of the New Model Army, Cromwell dressed all his foot men in red with only the facings being regimental colors. The New Model Army had been assembled because there had been disagreement about policy among the members of Parliament who held commissions. Almost all members gave up their commissions. For their continued support, many wives and also prostitutes put on men's clothing and followed the troops. They nursed the wounded. Those many wives who stayed at home pleaded and answered in court; petitioned to the House of Commons, e.g. for release of debtors from prison, high taxes, lack of work, and arbitrary government; and made other public appearances. Puritan and royalist newspapers printed the news at least once weekly. Poet John Milton pled for civil and religious freedom, freedom of social life, and freedom of the press. He stated: "Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely, according to conscience, above all liberties."
The Mayor and citizens of London were given authority in 1642 to fortify all highways leading to the city and levy a tax on inhabitants for this purpose. When London was deprived of coal during the war, trees and flowers again flourished there.
Officers and seamen in navy ships were authorized in 1642 to take one-third of all prize goods captured, the other two-thirds going to the state.
Parliament approved certain persons to set forth ships at their own expense to defend the realm in 1643. They were allowed to keep any ships, goods, ammunition, or moneys they seized.
Saltpeter men were appointed by Parliament in 1643 and later times to search and dig for saltpeter in pigeon houses, stables, and outhouses, but not dwelling, shops, or milkhouses. They had to repair any damage done to the contentment of the owners.
Complaints were made to Parliament that there were scandalous and ill-affected fomenters of the civil war and disobeyers of the ordinaries of Parliament and deserters of their ordinary places of residence. These complaints were made by members of the University of Cambridge, students, clergy in surrounding counties, and schoolmasters. So a committee was established in 1643 to investigate and sequester their lands and goods, excepting one- fifth of the estate for the wife and children.
When Charles was captured in 1646, the episcopacy of the bishops was abolished. When Parliament was about to reinstate Charles as king with weakened powers and establish a Presbyterian state church, the soldiers, who were religious Independents and who still had not been fully paid (the infantry pay was 18 weeks in arrears and the cavalry 43 weeks) despite plans to disband them, spontaneously took the King by force. They demanded liberty of conscience to practice their own religion and their pay. Cromwell sided with the army and then became leader of the House of Commons. Charles dissembled in his negotiations with the army generals. He felt freed from his promises as soon as the pressure was removed. The army could not forgive Charles' duplicity and deceitfulness and insisted upon his death as the only way to bring peace. Cromwell gave up hope on negotiations with Charles when he intercepted a letter by Charles to his Queen decreeing the final doom of the army adherents in favor of the Scottish Presbyterians. During protracted negotiations over months between the army and Parliament over a new constitution, a renewed support for the King, which was inspired by him, necessitated a second civil war to put down this revolt and subdue its Scot supporters. Eventually the army took control of Parliament by force, only allowing the few members who agreed with them on the trial of the King into Parliamentary meetings. So Charles was tried in 1649, found guilty of "an unlimited and tyrannical power to rule according to his will, and to overthrow the rights and liberties of the people ... which by the fundamental constitutions of this kingdom were reserved on the peoples' behalf in the right and power of frequent and successive parliaments or national meetings in council", and maintaining a war against his subjects, which amounted to treason. To prevent his adherents from trying to reinstate him, he was condemned to death and beheaded in January 1649.
Parishes had to give maintenance to maimed soldiers and provision for the livelihood to the wives and children of killed soldiers. Masters of apprentices who became soldiers had to take them back as apprentices without loss for their absence in defense of the Commonwealth. Masters who received considerable loss by the absence of their apprentices received reasonable satisfaction from the public stock.
To pay for the civil war, an assessment tax on the yearly value of rents, annuities, and offices was often levied. The main burden of this tax fell on the gentry rather than the merchants and smaller men of property, as previous taxes had. An excise tax, a tax on consumption, was begun on ale and beer and then extended to meat, salt, starch, soap, and paper. It was gradually extended to many goods. The excise taxes were paid, as was the customs tax, by manufacturers on goods made in England and by foreign manufacturers on goods at the ports.
From 1640-60, Royalists were purged from Oxford and a group of Baconians moved into the university behind Parliamentary armies. At the two universities, books were no longer chained to the bookcases. The universities were freed from taxation.
After the civil wars, Cromwell led the country. He was a military, political, and religious leader. He had become a Puritan zealot after a youth of gambling, drinking, debauchery, and rioting. He believed that military success was a reflection of divine favor and he regarded himself as one the few elect preordained for salvation. Those in power in the new Commonwealth tended to explain their regime in terms of popular consent, and the takeover from Charles I as due to his breaking of a contract with the people.
Most people dressed in Puritan fashion. A Puritan's favorite readings were the Old Testament, Epistles of St. Paul, and writings of John Calvin.
Wealth and prosperity steadily increased in spite of the civil wars. During Cromwell's tenure, there was a marked revival of economic prosperity. By the mid-1600s, landlords had been able to shorten their leases so that a lease of twenty-one years was the predominant form of landholding.
Patent protection was given in 1642 for seven years to the inventors of a device for salvaging ships' goods and cannons from the seas. With it they could convert to their own use one half of the items retrieved, the other half going to the Navy and Parliament. Patent protection was given in 1650 to George Manby on his new invention for boiling liquors and making salt with less coal and wood and iron, lead, and copper for fourteen years. Patent protection was given in 1651 for fourteen years to Jeromy Buck for melting iron, lead, tin, copper, brass, and other metals with coal without burning charcoal.
Dutchman Stevinus showed that the pressure at the bottom of a column of liquid is proportional to the height of the column, and not to its bulk, about 1634. He also studied oblique forces, and the balancing of such that could bring about "stable equilibrium".
Evangelista Torricelli, an Italian student of Galileo, discovered in 1643 that any fluid will be supported at a definite height, according to its relative weight, as compared with air. He realized that a mercury column, 30 inches in height, in a long glass tube inverted in a cup of mercury, was being supported by air pressure exerted on the mercury in the cup. When he observed that this height changed with the weather, he had invented the mercury barometer. In his work, he created and used vacuums.
Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher, was a child prodigy. At the age of 12, he proved Euclid's 32nd theorem that the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles. Before age 16, he wrote a book on conic sections. He is famous for his theorem that a hexagon inscribed in a conic section has the property that the three meeting points of the opposed sides are always in a straight line. He constructed a calculator, which could handle nine-digit numbers, in 1644 to assist his father, also a gifted mathematician, in tax computations he did as a local government official. He had Torricelli's mercury barometer carried up a mountain and found that the height of the column dropped as altitude increased, and thus that air pressure decreased with altitude. This showed that the attribution of these effects to nature's abhorrence of a vacuum were due instead solely to the weight and pressure of air. He determined that the height to which the mercury rose was the same regardless of the shape of the vessel containing it. Around 1646, he did experiments with double vacuums and on the results formulated his principle that pressure applied to a confined liquid is transmitted undiminished through the liquid in all directions regardless of the area to which the pressure is applied. Around 1653, he laid the foundations for the theory of probabilities after being asked by a gambling friend why, in playing dice, some frequencies came up more often than others. He developed a means of calculating probabilities with his "Pascal's Triangle" of coefficients of (a+b) raised to the nth power. Each row represents the coefficients of a power one greater than the power of the previous row. Each number is the sum of the nearest two numbers in the row above it.
Jean Ray from France concluded from his experiments that every piece of material has a given weight, including air and fire. Otto von Guericke from Germany discovered that, in a vacuum, sound does not travel, fire is extinguished, and animals stop breathing.
At a time when mathematics was only a business of traders, merchants, seamen, carpenters, and surveyors, mathematician John Wallis, the son of a minister, studied sections of cones [circles, ellipses, parabola, and hyperbolas] as curves of the second algebraic degree, i.e. with an exponent of two, i.e. y = (a (x squared)) + b. He also worked with negative and fractional exponents. Around 1655 he invented the infinite arithmetic and introduced the symbol for infinity. He determined that the area under any curve defined by the equation y = (x to the nth power), was x to the (n+1)th power divided by n+1. He introduced the concept of the limit of a string of numbers. He wrote a treatise on algebra which was historical as well as practical. He also decoded enemy cyphers for the sovereign.
Some English gentlemen interested in the new scientific methods originated by Galileo had meetings beginning about 1645 to discuss scientific topics. One group met at Gresham College and was headed by Wallis. Another group was led by Robert Boyle, a philosopher, physicist, and chemist. They wrote in English instead of Latin. These meetings later gave rise to the Royal Society for science.
The Merchant Adventurers were incorporated again in 1643 to have a monopoly. It was required to admit into membership for 100 pounds anyone free of London and bred as a merchant, and for 50 pounds any non-inhabitant of London. The penalty for trading for one who was not free of the corporation was forfeiture of his goods.
In 1648, the House of Commons abolished the monarchy and in 1649 the House of Lords. Also in 1649 it declared that England "should thenceforth be governed as a commonwealth and free state by the supreme authority of this nation, the representatives of the people in Parliament." It made a new constitution.
John Milton defended the Commonwealth as superior to the monarchy because it could not deteriorate into tyranny in his books: "First Defense of the People of England" in 1651, and "Second Defense" in 1654. He lauded Cromwell as great in war and great in peace, and exemplifying the principle that "nature appoints that wise men should govern fools".
Thomas Hobbes, the son of a clergyman, and tutor to students, wrote "Leviathan" in 1651 on his theory of sovereignty. Hobbes thought that states are formed as the only alternative to anarchy, barbarism, and war, so that supremacy and unity of a sovereign power is essential to a civilized life and the protection of the citizenry. A sovereign may be a man or body of men as long as his or its authority is generally recognized. There must be a social contract among the citizenry to obey a certain sovereign. To avoid religious conflict, there must be a complete subordination of the church to the state and the religion of a state must be dependent upon its secular sovereign. Hobbes thought that knowledge of the world came through experience and not reason alone. Only matter exists, and everything that happens can be predicted in accordance with exact, scientific laws. He regarded human societies as purely mechanical systems set in motion by human desires. He saw self interest as the mainspring of moral law. Conflicting self interests transformed into a lawful system of agreements. Hobbes opined that all power really originated in the people and that the end of all power was for the people's good.
On the other hand, James Harrington, who wrote "The Commonwealth of Oceana" in 1656, opined that a stable society depended on a direct relationship between the distribution of property and political power; no one with property worth more than 2,000 pounds should be allowed to acquire more and property should be divided among children. A senate of mature property owners were to make and debate the laws while an assembly elected by universal suffrage was to vote on them because "a popular assembly without a senate cannot be wise and a senate without a popular assembly will not be honest". A third of the Senate would turn over every year. John Milton defended the execution of the King in "The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates" in which he maintained that the people may "as often as they shall judge it for the best either to choose him or reject him or depose him, though no tyrant, merely by the liberty and right of freeborn men to be governed as seems to the best". He also wrote in favor of liberty of the press. Ordinary speech found its way into prose writing.
Lands of more than 700 Royalists, including church lands, were confiscated and sold or leased by county committees. Many Royalists put their lands into trusts or turned them over to relatives or sold them outright to prevent confiscation. It was an upheaval comparable to the dissolution of the monasteries. Also, specified Papists who had taken up arms against the realm lost their lands, goods, money, rents, and two-thirds of their personal estates. But allowance was made for the maintenance of their wives and children.
The Book of Common Prayer was abolished because of its burdensome ceremonies. It was replaced by a Directory for Public Worship. According to this, the Sunday service was to include reading of the Scriptures, prayer, and a sermon, ordinarily on some text of scripture which would be explained with reasons therefore and applied to peoples' lives so they could see it they had sinned or not. The ending of episcopal patronage gave some parishes the right to elect their own ministers.
All festivals and holy days were abolished, e.g. Christmas, Easter, Whitsuntide. Instead, scholars, apprentices, and servants were to have recreation and stores were to be closed every second Tuesday of the month. The usual merry-making, music, dancing, and sports after the Sunday service were discontinued.
A day for fasting: the last Wednesday of every month, was declared by statute. This day was to be "kept with the more solemn humiliation, because it may call to remembrance our sins, and the sins of our forefathers, who have turned this Feast, pretending the memory of Christ into an extreme forgetfulness of him, by giving liberty to carnal and sensual delights, being contrary to the life which Christ himself led here upon earth, ...". This statute lasted for only five years from 1644 because observance of it was not consistent throughout the country.
Educational opportunities such as in grammar schools were more widespread and stronger than ever before or since until the 1800s. About 78% of men in London were literate, and 30% of men nationwide. About half the women in London were literate by 1700.
In 1645, the marshalls of the admiralty and five major ports were ordered to search all ships for stolen children since it had been a problem in London.
The elderships of the church were given power in 1645 to suspend from the sacrament of the Lord's Supper all ignorant and scandalous persons. Ignorance was lack of knowledge that there is a God and this is the one true God we worship, that this God is one, yet three persons" Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, that God created man in his own image, that all have sinned and therefore shall die, that there is one mediator between God and man: Jesus Christ, who died on the cross to save men from their sins, that he rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of God, and intercedes for us, that Christ and his benefits are applied only by faith, that the souls of the faithful live with Christ in blessedness, that non-believers and non-repenters shall perish eternally, that the sacraments are baptism and communion, and that there is a judgment day on which the righteous will be given life eternal and the wicked shall receive everlasting punishment. Scandalous persons are those who blasphemously speak or write anything of God, his holy work or the sacraments; an incestuous person; an adulterer; a fornicator; a drunkard; a profane swearer or cursor; a murderer; a worshipper of images, crosses, crucifixes, relics, saints, or angels; makers of images of the trinity; one who professes not to be in charity with his neighbor; any challenging another to fight or accepting such challenge; on the Lord's day, dancing, dicing, cards, masking, wake, shooting, bowling, football, wrestling, plays, interludes, fencing, bullbaiting, bearbaiting, hawking, hunting, coursing, fishing, fowling, selling wares, travel without reasonable cause; a brothel-house keeper; one who solicits the chastity of another; one who marries a Papist or consents to the marriage of his child to a Papist; own who goes for advice to a witch, wizard, or fortune-teller; one who assaults his parents, or any magistrate, minister, or elder in the execution of his office; and one attainted of barratry, forgery, extortion, or bribery. If such a person persists, he shall be excommunicated.
Cromwell did not disapprove of activities prohibited because of the recreation they provided, but thought that they had become too central to people's lives. He did not close the taverns or ale houses.
In 1653 it was required that public preachers be approved by a commission nominated by the Lord Protector and Parliament because there had been too many "weak, scandalous, popish, and ill- affected" ones. In 1654 named persons were ejected as scandalous, ignorant and insufficient ministers and schoolmasters.
In 1649 a corporation was established to teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ in New England to Indians.
Because the poorer parishes of London were having problems supporting their poor, a Corporation for the poor of London was established in 1647 with authority to erect workhouses and houses of correction.
Imprisoned debtors who had less than five pounds and less that five pounds worth of trade tools and clothing and bedding for his family were ordered released in 1649.
Wardship was abolished. Military tenures were abolished. Feudal tenures were converted into freehold in 1646.
In 1653 those living in Crown forest land were given free socage in that land. The game laws were not enforced, so people could eat deer.
Enclosures were increasing and Parliament was disinclined to protect copyholders against enclosures, favoring those with rights of ownership. Enclosure was no longer deterred especially after abolition of the Star Chamber. The legal device of "strict settlement" evolved to prevent heirs from breaking up estates enabled families to concentrate land and capital into large units. The oldest son inherited the land and the younger sons now received money. Clover seed was sold in London by 1650. It revolutionized the cultivation of barren land. England began to export instead of import grain. But vagrancy increased from people dispossessed of land. And the village artisan, when deprived of his field and of this rights of common, could not continue to work at home, but had to accept the wages offered to him in an employer's workshop.
Employers and entrepreneurs were now free from control by the Crown. There were no more attempts to supervise quality of manufactures or to fix prices or regulate wages. There was greater freedom established in relations between employers and workers. The government no longer tried to compel employers to keep employees in times of economic slump. The requirement of seven year apprenticeships and being the son of a freeholder to be an apprentice were not enforced.
The economy was still volatile due ostensibly to variable harvests, amount of gold and money in circulation, and balances of trade, and to periods of plague. Wages rose steadily. The rise in prices ended about 1650, and prices remained stable until about 1775. There was more mobility of people. Taxation became regular and it was controlled by representatives of the taxpayers. Population growth gradually stabilized.
Capitalism was coming into being. For instance, the clothier was now a manufacturer. He had become a contractor, taking wool to the specialist spinner, the yarn to the specialist weaver, the rough cloth to be washed and stretched, and finally to the dyer. This cloth was sold at retail by the drapers. Tin on the surface was exhausted, so capital was used to drive deep shafts in tin mines. No longer did a single man with a single ship sail around until he found a market, but company trading overseas had their ships, wharves, and depots furnished by men's savings put into a common stock. The first major capitalist industries were coal mining, iron mining, and foreign trade because they all needed large investments, and thus joint-stock company organization.
Cromwell reconstituted the East India Company on a wider and more permanent basis. He gave it a new charter in 1657 which included authority to make stock permanent, thus ensuring a continuity of capital. This solved the problem of the competition of overlapping voyages which still occurred despite their terms of several years. The company became one of the first permanent joint-stock companies. Now the stock was never wound up. The Company had permanent capital which could grow. The absence of competition among voyages made the Company stronger in the face of a common enemy, such as a rival trading country or Indian groups. The charter also authorized the company to fortify and colonize any of its establishments and to transport to them settlers, stores, and ammunition.
Later in 1657, the Company threw open the freedom of the Company to the public for a nominal sum of five pounds. Now the Merchant Adventurers and private traders could participate. It provided that dividends were to be paid only in cash and not in kind (goods). It also provided for appraisals of the Company's property to be made every three years, so any shareholders could redeem their shares proportionately. His shares would then be resold. People began to buy and sell their shares among each other. The Company made the minimum subscription 100 pounds. Each person holding 500 pounds worth of shares had one vote. Holding 1,000 pounds worth of shares qualified one for election to the committee of twenty-four. The seats of the members of this committee and of the Governor and Deputy Governor could no longer be permanent, but had limited and staggered terms. The continuity of capital took the place of the permanence of the governing body in providing stability. There was a regular scale of salaries for employees, and rules of conduct such as the one disallowing any clerk of the India House from going to play houses, dancing schools, or taverns. The Company established almshouses for its widows and orphans.
In 1657 the Muscovy Company, renewed its charter for trade in Russia and established a New General Stock. If a man bought a share, he bought freedom of the company. An annual dividend was declared from the annual profits.
Commercial men regularly kept accounts with bankers. Merchants used division to apportion profits or losses to the parties whose capital was involved. Simple and compound interest were used. The concept of contract became a familiar one.
Regular private bankers of London emerged from the Goldsmiths from 1640 to 1675. They issued bank notes and paid checks.
Cromwell increased trade by seizing territories, establishing colonies, and warring with competitors for master of the seas and trade. In 1649 it was provided that no one who paid his assessment for soldiers' pay would have to quarter any of them.
Authority was given in 1649 to impress seamen: mariners, sailors, watermen, surgeons, gunners, ship carpenters, caukers, coopers, whoymen, and carmen for carriage of victuals.
English ships were embellished with decoration. Their sail area was increased by triangular fore and aft sails. The Navy increased from 39 to 80 vessels.
After serving in foreign wars, ex-soldiers were allowed in 1654 to practice any trade without serving a seven year apprenticeship.
Colonies New Hampshire and Maine were established in 1635, Connecticut in 1636, and Rhode Island in 1638, as offshoots from other colonies.
About 1650, steel was hardened by repeated quenchings and temperings when the steel had reached certain colors. Brass was made from copper and zinc alloyed together.
There were power-driven rolls for the coinage from 1657. Strips of silver were passed between engraved rolls. Then coins were punched out and their edges serrated.
In the 1650s, Huygens made the first pendulum that worked practically in a mechanical clock. This new clock increased the accuracy of time-keeping tenfold. He also introduced the concept of mathematical expectation into probability theory.
There was a thermometer which used liquid such as water or alcohol in a glass tube instead of air.
Dutchman Stevinus showed that the pressure at the bottom of a column of liquid is proportional to the height of the column, and not to its bulk, about 1634. He also studied oblique forces, and the balancing of such that could bring about "stable equilibrium".
Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher, constructed a calculator in 1644 to assist his father, who was involved in local administration, in tax computations. Around 1646, he proved his law that pressure applied to a confined liquid is transmitted undiminished through the liquid in all directions regardless of the area to which the pressure is applied. Around 1653, he laid the foundations for the theory of probabilities, including the creation of "Pascal's Triangle" of coefficients of (a=b) raised to the nth power. He and lawyer and mathematician Pierre Fermat invented the theory of probabilities.
Fermat also proved that the law for refraction (bending) of light results from light's following the path that takes the shortest time. He founded number theory, the study of properties of whole numbers, in 1640. Fermat formulated the notion of a line tangent to a curve and started the development of differential calculus, in which a rate of change is expressed as a function of time in equation form and also as a tangent to the curve associated with that equation. This work helped lay the foundation for analysis. He and German Gottfried Leibniz formulated the principle that an equation with two unknown quantities can represent a curve. Leibnitz believed that man's mind can arrive at truths about entities by pure thought.
Since the Puritans forbade music in churches, but enjoyed it in domestic circumstances, much secular music was composed, published, and played. There were many musical clubs. The violin became very popular. Solo songs were much sung. The first English opera: "The Siege of Rhodes" was written and performed with women on stage. Writers of the time included John Milton, political philosopher James Harrington, poet Edmund Waller, Thomas Fuller, poet Abraham Cowley, and biographer Issak Walton. John Aubrey wrote anecdotes about famous men. Jeremy Taylor, chaplain to Charles I, wrote on theology. People still read French romances translated into English. Dancing was still popular. Coffee houses came into prominence as places of social discourse. The first coffee house was established in London in 1652; ten years later, there were 82 coffee houses in the City. There were elegant pleasure gardens, with a fee for access. They were used for promenades and picnics. Ladies and their gallants rendezvoused there. Cromwell introduced the habit of port drinking to England.
In 1657, one general Post Offices was established with one Postmaster General for all of England. No other person could have the horsing of the through-posts. It cost 2d. for a letter to or from 80 miles of London and 3d. for one outside 80 miles of London.
There was continual problem with Catholics. Mayors, Justices and capital burgesses of towns where Papists or others had caused rebellion and insurrection and plundered, robbed, pillaged, murdered and raped, were given the power in 1642 to call, assemble, train, and arm soldiers for defense. The Committee of the Militia of London was given authority in 1647 to search all houses and places for Papists and to search for and seize any arms, ammunition, and war materials in custody of such persons. In 1648, all Papists and soldiers of fortune who had borne arms against Parliament were ordered to depart from within twenty miles of London and Westminster or be imprisoned as traitors. In 1657 convicted Papists and people marrying convicted Papists were required to take an oath renouncing the pope and Catholic Church or lose two-thirds of their lands and estate, retaining their house on the remaining one-third. If one went to mass in an ambassador's house, the fine was 100 pounds and imprisonment for six months, one half going to the informer. In 1659 all householders in London and Westminster had to give a list of persons lodging in their house, and the horses and arms there. But the laws against Catholics practicing their religion were not rigorously enforced, nor were those against adherents of the formerly established Church of England.
The Society of Friends was founded by the son of a weaver. They greeted everyone as "friend" and did not bow, remove their hat (as was the custom when before the king or an earl), or otherwise show any reverence to anyone. From 1650, they were called Quakers because they trembled when religiously stirred. They reverted to the ancient "thou" and "thee" appellations. Their dress was particularly simple, with no buttons, lace, ruffles, or embroidery. They hated ritual so much that they rejected baptism and communion. They did not observe the Sabbath as a special day different from other days. They derided the holiness of churches. No clergy were admitted into their sect. When they met for divine worship, each rose to deliver extemporaneous inspirations of the Holy Ghost. Women were admitted to teach the brethren and were considered proper vehicles to convey the dictates of the spirit. Quakers believed that every man, in his own life, could be fully victorious over sin. The denied any clerical authority and all texts. They believed in the separation of church and state. They refused to swear to any oath, e.g. in court, or to participate in war. They refused to take off their hats to anyone but God. It was their practice to turn the other cheek when one cheek had been struck. If asked for his cloak, a Quaker would give it. He never asked more for his wares than the precise sum which he was determined to accept. The Quakers encouraged widows and widowers to provide for children from a first spouse when remarrying. They carefully selected masters and mistresses who wanted to take on child apprentices for their suitability for such responsibility. The education of Quaker women did not decline, as it did for other women. From the fervor of their zeal, the Quakers broke into churches, disturbed public worship, and harassed the clergyman and audience with railing and reproaches. When brought before a magistrate, they show no reverence but treated him as an equal. Sometimes they were thrown into mad house or prisons and sometimes whipped or pilloried. They endured stoically under this suffering. Mary Fisher from Yorkshire introduced Quakerism to New England.