Suez Canal University

Faculty of Al-Alsun
Department of English

Culture and Civilisation

England in the 16th and 17th centuries
Selected readings in history and philosophy

Prepared by the Department of English

 Table of Contents
Part One: History
 Puritanism
 Puritan Literature
 Civil War
 The Age of Resoration

Part Two: Philosohy

 Introduction
 Sir Francis Bacon
 Rene Descartes

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Part One: History

3
Puritanism
It was a loosely organized reform movement in the 16 th

century. At first, they received the name “puritans” because

they sought to purify the National Church of England. In later

times, they were called “Puritans” because of the purity of life

they sought. Their desire was to conform the National Church

to the word of God in government worship and practice. They

went to attempt purification of the self and society as well.

They believed in the universal love of God for all mankind as

the Christians have to strive to be perfect in every good work.

They exemplified the required balance of church and family.

They had a belief in Biblical ethics in all matters.

Reformation
The usual term for the reformation movement, which

made its appearance in Western Europe in the 16th century

while ostensibly aiming at an internal renewal of the church,

really led to a great revolt against it. In England, the

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reformation was political rather than religious. King Henry

VIII had originally married Catherine of Aragon; since she had

been previously married to his brother, Henry had to get

special papal dispensation for the marriage. Marrying the wife

of one’s brother was incest; it was almost equivalent to

marrying one’s sister. The marriage, however, produced no

male children to occupy the throne at Henry’s death. In the mid

1520s, he met and fell in love with Ann Boleyn, and he wished

to annul his marriage to marry her. Nevertheless, the marriage

to Catherine had to be annulled by the Pope, and since that

marriage did have a special papal dispensation, thus annulling

the marriage would imply that the first papal dispensation was

an error, something the Pope was not willing to admit.

Henry’s closest advisor on that matter was Cardinal

Wolsey, the Lord Chancellor of England by whom the

negotiations with the papal court were largely carried out.

When he failed, Henry dismissed him and replaced him by

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Thomas Cranmer and Thomas Cromwell. Both were

sympathetic to the new ideas of Martin Luther who was

leading a rebellion against ecclesiastical authority in Germany.

They gave the king some radical advice: “if the Pope does not

grant the annulment, then split the English church from the

Roman church”. Rather than the Pope, the king would be the

spiritual head of the English church, and then he can grant his

own annulment. In 1529, the English Parliament began to

debate this question, and in 1533, the Parliament passed the

“Submission of Clergy”, a law that placed the clergy

completely under Henry’s control. In the same year, Henry

married Ann Boleyn, who was already pregnant with Elizabeth

I.

Despite all the storm of activity, the English Church did

not really change. It was still for all practical purpose a

Catholic Church, the only difference was the use of English

Bible in the church. In 1539, Henry reaffirmed his

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commitment to Catholic practice by passing into law the Six

Articles. The king wished to remain unchanged both the

doctrines of the church and the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and

caused a series of doctrines and institutions rejected by Luther

and his followers to be strictly prescribed by the Act of

Parliament (Six Articles) under the pain of death. These

articles affirmed the substantiation “truth” of the Eucharist (the

Eucharist was mystically transformed into the body and blood

of Christ), confession, private masses, celibate vows, and the

sanctity of the Eucharist cup. The only substantive change

Henry made merely involved the head of the church who

constituted himself supreme judge in matter of faith as well,

and laid foundation for further arbitrary religious innovation.

Edward VI (1547-1553) was Henry’s third child, born

by his third wife Jane Seymoar. Edward was only a teenager

when he became king, but he thoroughly sympathized with the

Protestants as Edward and Thomas Cranmer set about

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promoting the Reformation in England according to the

principles of Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin, turning the Church

of England into a thoroughly Protestant Church. Edward

replaced the Six Articles, allowed clergy to marry, and

imposed Thomas Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer on all

the church services. He also ordered any and all images and

alters to be removed from churches. Had Edward lived,

England would have become a more or less Calvinist country.

The reformation received its final form in England

during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558- 1603). When

Mary, Henry’s first child by Catherine of Aragon, assumed the

throne of England, she declared England to be a Catholic

country. Elizabeth understood that her country was being torn

apart by warring doctrines. While she replaced Mary’s

Catholic legislation, she did not return to Edward’s austere

Protestantism. Rather, she worked out a compromise church

that retained as much as possible from the Catholic Church

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while putting into place most of the foundational idea of

Protestantism. Elizabeth founded what is currently known as

the Anglican Church. The following tables show the

differences between the different churches:

Table One: Roman Catholics vs Protestants

Points of Roman Catholics Protestants

Comparison
Status of Bible Historically teaches The original
that original writings of the
writings by Bible Bible authors are
authors are inerrant inerrant
Structure of Hierarchal Democratic
church
Power of Pope Required beliefs in Denied
matters of religious
doctrine and faith.

Mary’s status Is below Jesus, but Plays only a minor

above the saints. role.

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Prayer To God, also ask To God only
Mary or saints to
intercede their
behalf.

Truth Found in scriptures Found in scriptures

as interpreted by the as interpreted by
Church. individuals

Change of beliefs Debate is forbidden Free discussion is

allowed
Selection of clergy Appointed, all Elected, mostly
males are males, single or
unmarried married

Definition of Hell More than a A real physical

physical place. It is place of eternal
a state of being, torture
involving pain,
frustration and
emptiness

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Non Christian Have some value Worth less and
religion for the truth they dangerous
contain

Sacrament Means of grace Sample of grace

Achieving Depends on faith, Depends on faith

salvation works, and only
sacrements

Table Two: Anglicans vs Puritans

Points of comparison Anglicans Puritans

Episcopacy(government Hierarchal(king Directly to God,
in church) instead of Pope) called for direct
relation between
Man and God
Sacraments Bread and wine in Consider them
church as real as symbols
blood and flesh of
Jesus

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Vestment Special uniform Wear whatever
they want
Forms of worship Have the book of Believed in
Common prayers, individual role
the same book all and prayers
over the country
Theology Did not believe in Believed in the
the idea of idea of
predestination predestination
Bible interpretation Christians should Christians
not do what the should only do
Bible exactly what the Bible
prohibited commanded

The unified view of society had harmed the Puritans

reputation. However, it is possible to see in them great

advantages. They succeeded in bursting the bonds of mere

religiosity in their efforts to serve God. Puritanism was one of

the most effective forces in the rise of the English Parliament

in the early 17th century. It provided a foundation for the first

great political revolution in the modern time.

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 Puritan Literature

Puritans beliefs: there are four beliefs that controlled

the Puritan literature

1- The concept of Originalism:

For the Puritans, both Adam and Eve are the reason behind

human damnation. Since Adam and Eve’s fall, every person

is born sinful. Adam and Eve sinned because they

disobeyed God, which, in the Puritans’ point of view,

stands for all humans.

2- The concept of unconditional election and

predestination:

In the Puritans’ point of view, man is predestined to

destruction. God saves those He wishes. Only a few are

selected for salvation.

3- The concept of limited atonement:

The Puritans believed that Jesus dies for the chosen only,
not for everyone. His blood on the cross purified the chosen
ones only from their sins, not all the human beings.
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4- Perseverance of saints:

The Puritans believed that those elected by God have full

power to interpret the will of God. Anyone rejects them;

consequently, rejects God.

Puritanism and Theatre:

The Puritans and the stage were not on good terms. This

conflict began with the popularity of the public theatre,

which mocked the Puritans. Both, dramatists and actors, felt

strong enough to scandalize the Puritans. However, the

theatres were protected by the monarchs and the public

opinion. Another source of anxiety towards the stage came

from the Puritans belief that such activity is considered

sinful. Besides, the Puritans religious view of the

relationship between spirit and nature prevented them from

recognizing art as a bridge between spirit and nature, and,

so; denied to art any useful function. As a result, when

Puritans became masters, they destroyed two native arts,

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Music and Drama. They abolished every media for

entertainment. There were no festivals nor songs but the

Cathedral and religious ones only. They also got rid of

gambling, racing, alcohol, and tobacco. Furthermore,

theatres were closed in 1642 after a great development in

Drama. Theatres were reopened 18 years later in the age of

Restoration.

Nevertheless, the Puritans realized that they needed

literature, mainly in the form of prose to propagate their

ideas and religious experience. That is why journals were a

perfect mediator between them and the public. These

journals are kinds of diaries in which they write everything

about their lives. The Puritans were the processors of the

novel that depended on narration, as they were full of

descriptions of real life, psychological statuses of mind, and

the inside of the characters and their development. For

example, Jon Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress is a narrative in

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 prose. It is an allegory on the surface, but has a deep level

in which abstract ideas are personified as characters. The

hero stands for every Christian, as it materializes the

spiritual journey of every Christian in his road to salvation

and the temptations he faces while dwelling into this road.

The main characteristics of the style and main topics of

Puritan literature:

The Puritan style was straightforward, plain, and without much

use of figurative language. Puritan writings reflected the

character and the scope of the reading public, which was

literate and well-grounded in religion. The intermingling of

comedy and tragedy in the portrayal of life and the rich of

humanity in literature were replaced by a passionate

controversy on the form of Christian religion, and a search for

a way toward salvation. The Puritans always wrote with a

reference to the Bible. They thought that the ornament style

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glorifies the writer not, God. They did not want to stop at the

style, they paid more attention to the message that should be

delivered.

The main topics that prevailed at that time were merely

religious. All the writers glorified God and tried to make Him

more relevant to the universe. Their religious beliefs were

clearly reflected in their writings. Any love song or words were

rare; the same was for comic or tragic words.

Puritan prose and poetry:

The Puritans were religiously strict. The revival of religion

distinguished this generation from the preceding one, by

giving it its lost freedom and air of dignity.

In prose, there was no romances for having tales of adventures

and unbelievable events. There was no picaresque element,

description of manners, or imaginative entertainment. Both

Puritans and Anglicans wrote on religious matters to propagate

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their prose and denounce that of their adversaries. Moreover,

the conflict between the Puritans and the stage appeared more

violent and freer through the pamphlets written by John

Milton.

Similarly, in poetry, most works were religious, especially the

poems written by George Herbert, whose poem The Temple

was the most popular of the Anglican poems. His poetry aimed

at describing his own ideas, thoughts, and abilities. It

expressed his performance of his priestly duties during the last

three years of his life.

Important Puritan figures

John Milton:

John Milton was an ingenuous poet who looked down on

prose. He was thought of to be the most successful religious of

the English poets though mingling Paganism and Christianity.

He used prose to perform what he considered ‘his duty’. For

instance, during the Civil War he wrote several pamphlets for

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the sake of the Puritans, some of them were in English while

others were in Latin. He also called for the freedom of press,

wrote in favor of divorce, and tried to justify in The Eye of

Europe the execution of King Charles I.

Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonists were

all the best known of his poems publish after the Restoration.

The Songs of Creation and The Fall of the Angle are also

celebrated works of Milton. Yet, Paradise Lost was the most

religious of all the English poems in which Milton depended

on the Old Testament, and it was the fruit of the Puritan

meditation on the Bible. His ideas were inflected by two

sources: the Bible that influenced his writings and the Classical

Culture which he was a good reader of.

The actual beheading of King Charles I was received with

stunned honour. Many, if not most, of the thinkers in England

at that time felt that the earth shake under them when the king

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was executed. They thought he was the most innocent

individual in England, and his execution was therefore the

most execrable murder that was ever committed since that of

the Blessed Savior, and, so, he met his death with “the saint-

like behavior”. People considered his execution to be the

second after the crucifixion of Jesus. On this C.V. Wedgwood

wrote:

Our Noble king is dead,

Sweet prince of love,
This heavy news so bad,
Hath made three kingdoms sad,
No comfort to be had,
But from above.
On the other hand, Milton, as well as Marvell, lacked the

worship of God as flesh and blood. To them, this man was a

tyrant, the enemy of his people- Charles I- whose execution

was an extraordinary action. On this, Milton wrote:

‘Tis madness to resist or blame

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 The face of angry Heaven’s flame,
And if he would speak true,
Much to the man is due.
Andrew Marvell:

He was a distinguished poet. To His Coy Mistress is the

most well-known of his poems. He avoided sectarianism and

enjoyed tolerance. The best of his poems is a wonderful fusion

of senses: sensuousness, good sense, reasonableness, and the

soul. During the Civil War and the Commonwealth was the

coming of the existence of the royal society to improve

knowledge in 1662. It was the coming of reason, dependence

on reason rather than intuition. Man became a receiver of

observation and sensory knowledge. Since it was the growth

of scientific atmosphere, it appealed to the mind being plain,

straightforward with the least use of figurative language.

However, this language was still incapable of describing

complex states of mind and situations.

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The Civil War

King James I:

King James VI, king of Scotland, succeeded to the

throne after Queen Elizabeth’s death. He was Scottish Catholic

who believed in the “Divine Right” to rule as he pleased. He

became James I of England. He believed in the absolute power

of monarchy, which brought him to conflict with the English

Parliament. It would be a mistake to think that the Parliament

as a democratic institution, or the voice of the common

citizens. Rather, the Parliament was a forum for the interests

of the nobility and the merchant classes.

As King James thought that God has made someone a

king and as a God He could not be wrong, he believed that

none should disobey his orders. Accordingly, he expected the

Parliament to do as he wanted; he did not expect it to argue

with any of his decisions, which was never the case. Therefore,

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in 1611, King James I suspended the Parliament and it did not

meet for another 10 years.

During James’ reign, a radical Protestant group called

“Puritans” began to gain sizable following. They wanted to

purify the church by paring down church ritual, educating the

clergy, and limiting the power of the bishops. King James

fiercely rejected this. The powers of the church and the king

were closely related and linked. He said “No bishops, no

King”. The Puritans favored thrift, education, and individual

initiative; therefore, they found great support among the new

middle class merchants and the commons. King James’

attitude toward the Puritans was clear, as to the Parliament, as

he commented in 1614 that he “should not have permitted such

an institution to come into existence”.

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King Charles I:

Charles, the son of James I and Anne of Denmark, was

born in 1600. He married Henrietta Maria, the daughter of

Henri IV of France. As he was Roman Catholic, the marriage

was not very popular among the English people. At this time,

King Louis XIII was involved in a civil war against the

Protestants in France. The Parliament wanted to help the

Protestants but Charles refused, as he did not want to upset his

wife or his brother-in-law. Eventually, it was agreed to send a

fleet of eight ships to France. At the last moment, Charles sent

orders that his men should fight for, rather than against, Louis

XIII. The captains and the crews refused to accept these orders

and fought against the French king.

The Parliament was not pleased with Charles decision.

When he asked for taxes of 1.000.000, they gave him 150.000

which left him in short of money as taxes could not be imposed

without the agreement of the Parliament. Accordingly, he

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came in conflict with the Parliament and tried to rule without

it for 11 years. The failure of both James I and Charles I to

understand the English tradition of parliamentary liberty led

eventually to civil war.

Not only the Parliament, but the Puritans were in

conflict with Charles I. They were promised that the king

would allow his wife to practise her religion freely and would

have that responsibility for their children as well until they

reach the age of 13. Charles argued that the king rules by

“Divine Right”, claiming that the king had been chosen by

God, and those who disagreed with him are bad Christians. He

believed that the church reforms had gone too far.

Accordingly, the Puritans strongly disagreed with him, which

was another factor that led to the civil war.

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 The Civil War:

The English civil war had many causes but the personality of

Charles I must be counted as one of the major reasons. The

civil war started in 1642 and ended 1651 with the public

execution of Charles I.

The causes of the civil war:

A- The long term causes:

The status of monarchy had started to decline under the

reign of James I. he was a firm believer in the “Divine Right

of Kings”. James expected the Parliament to blindly follow

his orders with no argument with any of his decisions.

However, the Parliament had one advantage over James,

money, which he was continuously in short of it. They

clashed over custom duties, and in 1611 James suspended

the Parliament for 10 years. James used his friends to run

the country and they were rewarded with titles. This caused

26
 great offence to the members of the Parliament who

believed they had the right to rule the country.

In 1621, James recalled the Parliament to discuss the future

marriage of his son, Charles, to a Spanish princess. The

parliament was outraged, as the children would be brought up

to be Catholics. The marriage never took place but damaged

the relationship between the king and the Parliament.

B- The short term causes

King Charles I was arrogant and a strong believer in the

“Divine Right”. He had witnessed the damaged relationship

between his father and the Parliament, and he considered that

the Parliament was entirely at fault. He found it difficult to

believe that the king could be wrong. His conceit and

arrogance were eventually to lead to his execution. From 1625

to 1629, Charles argued with the Parliament over most issues,

27
but money and religion were the most common causes of

argument.

In 1629, Charles copied his father. He refused to let the

Parliament meet. Members of Parliament arrived at West

Minister to find that the doors had been locked. They were

locked out for 11 years. To raise money for the king, the court

heavily fined those brought before it. Rich men were

persuaded to buy titles. If they refused to do so, they were fined

the same sum of money it would have cost for a title. In 1635,

Charles ordered that everyone in the country should pay Ship

Money. This was a historically tax paid by coastal areas to pay

for the upkeep of the navy. The logic was that coastal area most

benefited from the navy’s protection. Yet, Charles decided that

everyone in the kingdom would benefit from the navy’s

protection, and accordingly they must pay the tax.

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 The king’s main advisor was William Laud, the

Archbishop of Canterbury. Laud argued that the king ruled by

Divine Right, and he is appointed by God, hence, people who

disagree with him are bad Christians. Laud, as well as the

Anglicans, also thought that the church’s reforms had gone too

far, while the Puritans were against this. When Laud gave

instructions that the wooden communion cables in churches

should be replaced by stone alters, the Puritans accused him of

trying to reintroduce Catholicism. Laud’s instructions to the

Scots were not acceptable as he ordered they use the English

book of Common Prayers. The Scottish Presbyterians were

furious and made it clear that they were willing to fight to

protect their religion. In 1639, the Scottish army marched to

England. Being unable to raise a strong army to stop this

march, Charles was forced to agree not to interfere with

religion in Scotland and ay the Scottish war expenses.

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 After the Scottish march, Charles was in short of money

to fight the Scots. In 1640, he called the Parliament, as the

Parliament is the only authorized institution that can collect

money from the people. Another clash took place, and in 1642,

Charles went to the Parliament with 300 soldiers to arrest his

5 big critics. However, these critics fled before Charles could

arrest them. Six days later, Charles left London to Oxford to

raise an army to fight the Parliament in order to have full

control over England. Thus, a civil war could not be avoided.

The role of the Scots

When the Scots signed the National Covenant and refused the

prayer book of Charles I, they clashed with Charles’ attempts

to enforce the Anglican reforms on the Scottish church. This

outraged the Scottish church and led to the Bishop wars in

1639 and 1640.

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 In 1643, the Parliament under the leadership of Oliver

Cromwell made an alliance with the Scots, which threatened

Charles I, from the North. Both sides won minor battles but

none of them was decisive. In 1646, Charles surrendered to the

Scots in the hope that they will help him. However, Charles

was captured and handed over to the Parliamentary army.

Charles was imprisoned, but in 1647 he managed to escape and

raise another army.

In 1648, Cromwell’s parliamentary army defeated the Scots

and Charles was imprisoned again, and this was called the

second civil war. In 1651, Charles was executed for high

treason for helping the French and the Irish.

Oliver Cromwell:

The English were bent upon the establishment of a

democratic parliamentary system of civil government and the

elimination of the Divine Right of Kings. Charles I clashed

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with the Parliament over a long ordeal with new and

revolutionary ideas. The Puritans, finally, led a civil war

against the king and his cavaliers. When he discerned the

weakness of the Puritan army, he made himself captain of the

cavalry. He had never been trained in war, but from the very

beginning, he showed consummate genius as a general. He

gathered a thousand Puritans who were ready to the open fields

of the war.

Cromwell took a large share in the winning of the North

of England in the battle of Marston Moor in 1644. He

supported the idea of the new model army, an exceptionally

well-trained force. In 1645, it inflected a severe defeat on the

army of Charles I in Naseby. The king lost his gun and

ammunition at the end of this battle.

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In the meantime, Charles I invited an Irish Catholic army to

his aid, and action for which he was sentenced with high

treason and beheaded shortly after the war.

After executing the sovereign, the Parliament assumed

power. The success of the new democracy in England was

short lived. Cromwell found that a democratic parliamentary

system run by squires and lords oppressed the common people

and was almost corrupt as the rule of the king. As a

commander-in-chief of the army, he was able to seize the

rulership and serve as “lord protector”, and England was called

Protectorate.

Cromwell has been variously judged. The contemporary

royalist view is summed up in Clarendon’s phrase “a brave bad

man”. The republican criticism is voiced by Lucy Hutchinson

as she said “he made such natural greatness and well became

the place he had usurped”.

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 Thomas Carlyle thought that Cromwell was the

“strongest true giant of man” who brought Protestantism to the

most heroic phase. Cromwell made Great Britain a respected

and feared power. He maintained a large degree of tolerance

for rival denomination. He stood for a national church without

bishops, and worked for reform of morals and education. He

granted religious freedom and only loosely enforced several

Puritan laws. Through the intersection of his social and

political beliefs, Cromwell was able to show that he was not

an opportunist and was in fact a great leader and a man of

principle.

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The Age of Restoration (1660-1688)

Restoration was the period in the English history that followed

the return of the royal family, the Stuarts, to the throne. After
the death of Oliver Cromwell in 1658, his son Richard
succeeded him and ruled for only one year. Richard was not as
strong as his father was and he abandoned the throne in 1659.
After that, power fell into the hand of George Monck, the
leader of the army of occupation in Scotland, who engineered
Charles II restoration to the throne as the country was in a state
of anarchy. Monck summoned the free Parliament to meet
again in April 1660; a new parliament was elected and
proclaimed that Charles II should succeed to the throne. In
fact, the restoration began with Charles II and ended by the end
of the reign of James II in 1688.

The Declaration of Breda (1660)

Charles II sent to the Parliament to announce his desire to

come back to restore the throne unconditionally. He issued the
Declaration of Breda 1660 to reassure the English people and
sent it to the Parliament. In this declaration, Charles II
promised the English people to fulfill major demands:

35
 1- General amnesty to everyone who took part in the civil
war. None would be punished except by the wish of the
Parliament.
2- Religious tolerance and there will be no executions
based upon religious reasons.
3- Those who obtained land during the Commonwealth
period may keep them in Restoration according to the
decision of the Parliament. During the Commonwealth,
the monarchy was abolished and the lands were
confiscated. These lands were distributed and purchased
by the soldiers and officials of the army. After the return
of Charles II, the lands would have two owners. The king
declared that he would leave this issue to the Parliament
to deal with.
4- The army will be kept and well-paid as before.

Charles II and the Parliament

In May 1660, London reacted with great happiness to receive

the new king. Despite his young age, Charles II was aware of
a very important lesson; he did not want to repeat the same
mistake of his father. After his return, a constitutional balance
of the power between the king and the Parliament in the 17 th

36
century restricted the power of the king without making the
Parliament his master even in financial aspects.

At the beginning of Charles’ reign, the Parliament was

not financially generous to give the king his private revenue.
Consequently, in 1662, Charles II sold Danckreck Sea port to
France, the thing that annoyed the Parliament. The years 1665
to 1667 witnessed the beginning of a new opposition to the
king as the Parliament accused Charles II and his ministry of
the Great Fire.

In 1670, Charles II agreed to join Louis XIV in his war

against the Dutch and this was called the Treaty of Dover.
There was a secret term in this treaty which was disgraceful as
Charles II bargained to announce his conversion to
Catholicism, and, if necessary, to receive French troops to face
any domestic opposition. The public items of the treaty stated
that Charles would support Louis in invading Holland and then
distribute the property between them. In fact, Charles II was
secretly Catholic since his mother was Catholic and brought
up in France.

In 1662, Charles tried to increase religious tolerance

with his Declaration of Indulgence, but he was forced to

37
withdraw it in 1663. Once again, in 1672, Charles II issued the
Declaration of Indulgence that suspended any punishments
against Catholics, Puritans, and Anglicans. The Parliament
replied by passing the Test Act which excluded Catholics from
public office and affirmed the Anglicans’ control of religion.
Moreover, the king was forced by the Parliament to make
peace with the Dutch in 1674.

Charles’ alliance with Louis XIV ended by the marriage

of Charles’ niece, Mary, to Louis’ rival William of Orange, the
chief Protestant prince of Europe. This marriage had been
carried out by the king’s chief minister in 1677 and James II
was against it because the king was Catholic.

The Plague of 1665

The great plague of London was one of the calamities that had
infected London during the reign on Charles II. In 1665,
London experienced a very hot summer and many people were
poor and lived in slums. The only way people used to get rid
of the rubbish was by throwing it into the streets. As a result,
London became dirty and a suitable place for rats. In fact, the
plague was caused by disease carrying fleas carried on the
bodies of the rats. The plage was also caused by the bad living

38
conditions. When the disease began to spread throughout
England, the rich people left London to stay in the countryside.

The authorities in London decided to ensure that the

plague did not spread widely. Any family that had one member
infected by the plague was locked in their home for 40 days
and a red cross was painted on the door to warn others, and
none was allowed in but nurses. The approaching winter
stopped the spread of the plague as the weather began to affect
rats and fleas badly. The end of the plague occurred with the
Great Fire of London, as the fire destroyed the dirty areas
where the rats hid.

The Fire of London 1666

Causes:

On Sunday morning, the 2nd of September 1666, the

destruction of medieval London began in the house and shop
of Thomas Farriner who was the king’s baker. The baker
forgot to put out the fire in the oven and he was the first victim
of the fire. Since London was made out of wood, once the fire
started, it spread quickly and the strong wind helped the flames
to spread widely.

39
Consequences:

a- Negative ones:
Within 5 days, London was destroyed by the fire. 87
churches and 13.000 houses were burnt.
b- Positive ones:
-the fire helped ending the plague as it destroyed the
dirty areas.
- wooden houses and designs dating back to the
medieval era were replaced by brick and stone building.
- owners began to insure their properties against the fire
damage.
- Christopher, the great 17th century architect, began the
reconstruction of London and built 49 new churches
along with the Great Cathedral of St. Paul.

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 The Anglo-Dutch Wars (1652- 1674)

The first Anglo-Dutch War (1652- 1654)

There was a competition between England and Holland

although both were Protestants. The rivalry was commercial.
Charles II’s government endorsed the foreign policy of the
Commonwealth with its Navigation Act in 1651. It stated that
no goods can entre or leave England unless they are
transported in English ships. This was a blow to Dutch
interests because the Dutch will make no money. This war
ended by a treaty made with the Dutch on April 5, 1654.

The second Anglo-Dutch War (1664- 1667)

It broke in 1664 by the motives of trade and old disputes over

colonies outside Europe. The war began with a great victory
of the English and the capture of a place of great importance
to the Dutch in trade. Moreover, the Dutch had the French
allies who took advantage of the confusion caused by the great
fire of London and the plague. Thus, the Dutch burnt the
English ships and launched many attacks that the English
people could not resist. As a result, the Parliament forced
Charles II to make a peace treaty with the Dutch in 1667 which
put an end to the second war.

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The third Anglo-Dutch War (1672- 1674)

In March 1672, the war was preceded by a declaration of

indulgence issued by Charles II suspending all penal laws
against both the Roman Catholics and non-conformists. Thus,
he could fulfill the promises of the treaty of Dover. Yet, in
1673, the Parliament objected to the second declaration and
indulgence and forced Charles II to cancel it and passed the
Test Act. In 1674, Charles II was obliged to withdraw from the
war and accept the modest peace terms in the treaty of
Westminster. In December 1677, a formal treaty was
concluded between England and Holland, followed by another
treaty between the French and the Dutch in 1678.

King James II

Charles II produced no legitimate heir, so; his brother, James

II, succeeded him. James II became the king of England,
Scotland, and Ireland. In his early life, he converted to
Catholicism, and became unpopular in England when
consented the marriage of his daughter Mary to the Protestant
prince of Orange, William II, as the couples became the heirs
to the throne. As a result, the Parliament tried to pass the

42
Exclusion Act, which excluded Charles’ brother, James II,
from succeeding to the throne.

The Parliament also wanted to exclude the Catholics

from holding any public offices. Consequently, in 1681,
Charles II dissolved the Parliament and ruled as an absolute
monarch without the Parliament from 1681 to 1685. When
Charles II died, James succeeded to the throne and his
principle object was to full positions of authority by Roman
Catholics. Consequently, he issued the 2nd and 3rd declarations
of Indulgence (1687, 1688), suspending the laws against
Catholics and Dissenters.

These event led the politicians (Tories and Whigs) to turn to

James’ daughter, Mary, and her husband and offered them the
throne. Thus, William landed with an army and James fled,
and in 1689, Mary and William were declared King and
Queen.

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 The Glorious Revolution 1688

Mary and Anne (both Protestants) were James II’s

daughters by his first wife. After the death of his wife, James
married a Catholic princess. He had no heir but his daughters.
In fact, many Anglicans were about to revolt, but as James had
no heir, it seemed best to wait until Mary and William succeed
to the throne. The last straw was when James’ second wife
gave birth to a son in 1688 who was known as Edward the
pretender.

As a result, people thought that the birth of this son as a

calamity since the son surely would be brought up as a Roman
Catholic, and hence, England would remain as a Catholic
country forever. The people were infuriated by the process of
Catholicization of the country and England was ready for a
revolution. Many politicians whom James kept out of office
planned for a coup with William of Orange, the chief
Protestant prince of Europe, and in 1688, they invited him to
invade England with a Dutch army. William came with this
army and the country remained quiet and almost none rebelled
against the Dutch, and a large number of the gentry joined the
army.

44
 By the end of 1688, the Glorious Revolution was
established. It was a white revolution without any bloodshed,
and William succeeded to the throne, while James II and his
family fled to France and took refuge at the court of Louis
XIV. William was not as a king yet, for the Tories did not
forget their belief in the Divine Right of Kings. However, the
Whigs claimed that people had the right to elect a new king. In
1689, both Whigs and Tories issued the Declaration of Rights,
which admitted William and Mary to be King and Queen of
England. Moreover, the Parliament added a good deal to the
written constitution which reduced the power of the king and
limited his rights to dissolve the parliament.

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 Restoration Literature

The factors that influenced the Restoration Literature:

1- The social factor.

2- The reaction to the Puritans.
3- The attitude toward the Church.
4- The philosophy of the age.
5- The character of Charles II and his court.

1- The social factor:

All the relations were confounded by the several sects in

religion and that discountenanced all forms of reverence and
respect. Children asked not blessing for their parents, nor did
the parents concern themselves in the education of their
children. They were content that children should take any
course to maintain themselves and that they might be free from
that expense. The young women conversed without any
circumspection or modesty, and frequently met at taverns and
common eating-houses, and those who were stricter and more
severe in their comportment became the wives of the studious
preachers or army officers.

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 The daughters of noble and illustrious families bestowed
themselves upon the divines of the time, or other low or
unequal matches. The parents had no manners or authority
over their children, nor children had any obedience or
submission to their parents; everyone did what was good in his
view. This natural antipathy had its first rise from the
beginning of the rebellion, when the fathers and sons engaged
themselves into the contrary parties, which division and
contradiction of affection was afterwards improved to mutual
animosities and direct malice.

The relations between masters and servants had been long

since dissolved by the Parliament, that their army might be
increased by the prentices against their masters’, and that they
might have intelligence of the secret meetings and traditions in
those houses and families, which were not devoted to them.
The blood of the master was frequently the price of the
servant’s villainy.

In every age, there good people and bad people, but the
strange thing is that kindness was a bad trade. In a word, the
nation was corrupted from that integrity, good nature, and
generosity that had been peculiar to it. The very mention of
good nature was laughed at and looked upon as the mark of the

47
character of a fool. In the place of generosity, a vile and sordid
love of money was entertained as the truest wisdom, and
anything lawful that contribute towards being rich was sought.
There was a total decay, or rather, a final expiration of all
friendship and dissuade a man from anything he affected, or to
reprove him from anything he had done amiss, or to advise him
to do anything he had no mind to do, was though an
imprudence unworthy a wise man, and was received with
reproach and contempt.

2- The reaction to the Puritans:

A more important change took place in the morals and

manners of the community. Those passions and tastes which,
under the rule of the Puritans, had been sternly repressed, and,
if gratified at all, had been gratified by stealth, broke forth with
ungovernable violence as soon as the check was withdrawn.
Men flew to frivolous amusements and criminal pleasures with
greediness which long and enforced abstinence naturally
produces.

Ethical philosophy had recently taken a form well suited

to please a generation equally devoted to monarchy and vice.
Thomas Hobbes had maintained that the will of the prince was

48
the standard right and wrong, and that every subject ought to
be ready to profess Popery (Catholicism), or Paganism, at the
royal command (i.e. religion should be in the hand of the
rulers). Thousands who were incompetent to appreciate what
was really valuable in his speculations, eagerly welcomed a
theory which, while it exalted the kingly, relaxed the
obligations of morality, and degraded religion into a mere
affair of state.

Hobbism soon became an almost essential part of the

character of the fine gentleman. All the lighter kinds of
literature were deeply tainted by the prevailing licentiousness.
Poetry stooped to be the pander of every low desire. Ridicule,
instead of putting guilt and error to the blush, turned its
formidable shafts against innocence and truth. The restored
church contended indeed against the prevailing immorality,
but contended feebly, with half a heart.

Thus, the clergy, for a time, made war on schism with so

much vigor that they had little leisure to make war on vice. The
ribaldry of Wycherley was, in the presence and under the
special sanction of the head of the church, publically recited
by female lips in female ears, while the author of Pilgrim’s
Progress languished in a dungeon for the crime of proclaiming

49
the Gospel to the poor. It is an unquestionable and most
instructive fact that the years during which the political power
of the Anglican hierarchy was in the zenith were precisely the
years during which national virtue was at the lowest point.

3- The attitude toward the church

This part of literature (Restoration Drama) is a disgrace to

English language and national character of England. It is
clever indeed and very entertaining, but it is, in the most
emphatic sense of the words, earthly, sensual, and devilish.

There is undoubtedly a great deal of indelicate writing in

Fletcher and Massinger, and more than might be wished in Ben
Jonson and Shakespeare, who are comparatively pure. It is
impossible to trace their plays in any systematic attempt to
associate crime, vice with those things men value most, and
desire most, and virtue with everything ridiculous and
degrading. Such systematic attempt is found in the whole
dramatic literature of the generation which followed the return
of King Charles II. In general we will venture to say that the
dramatists of the age of Elizabeth I and James I either treat the
breach of marriage-vow as a serious crime, or, if they treat it
as a matter of laughter, turn the laugh against the gallant.

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 On the contrary, during the forty years, which followed
the Restoration, the whole body of the dramatists invariably
represent adultery. The hero intrigues just as he wears a wig,
because, if he did not, he would be a queer fellow, a city pig,
or perhaps a Puritan. All agreeable qualities are always given
to the gallant. All the contempt and aversion are the portion of
the unfortunate husband. And if it be asked why the age
encouraged immorality which no other age would have
tolerated, we have no hesitation in answering that this great
deprivation of the national taste was the effect of the
prevalence of Puritanism under the Commonwealth.

To punish public outrages on morals and religion in

unquestionably within the competence of rules. But, when a
government, not content with requiring decency, requires
sanctity, it oversteps the bounds which make its proper
functions. It may be led down as a universal rule that a
government that attempts more than it ought to perform less.
So a government which, not content with repressing
scandalous excesses will soon discover that, while attempting
to render an impossible service to the cause of virtue, it has in
truth only promoted vice.

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 The political counter-revolution assisted the moral
counter-revolution, and was in turn assisted by it. A period of
wide and desperate immorality followed. Even in the remote
manor houses and hamlets the change was in some degree felt,
but in London the outbreak of debauchery was appalling, and
in London the places most deeply infected were the Palace, the
quarters inhabited by the aristocracy, and the Inn of the Court.
It was on the support of these parts of the town that the
playhouse depended. The character of the drama became
conformed to the character of the patrons. The comic poet was
the mouthpiece of the most deeply corrupted part of a
corrupted society. And in the plays before, we find the
essential spirit of the fashionable world during the anti-Puritan
reaction.

4- The philosophy of the age:

England was sound enough, but her courtiers and politicians

were rotten. For the king himself and the young generation of
aristocracy had been demoralized by the break-up of their
education and family life by exile and confiscation leading to
the mean shift of sudden poverty, by the endurance of injustice
done to them in the name of religion, by the constant spectacle
of oaths taken lightly and broken, and all the base underside of

52
revolution and counter-revolution of which they had been the
victims.

For these reasons, a hard disbelief in virtue of any kind

was characteristic of the restored leaders of politics and
fashion, and was reflected in the early Restoration drama
which depended on their patronage. However, the theatre had
been restored and much of its work was good. It received plays
by Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. It was adorned by the poetic
genius of Dryden’s dramas and the musical genius of Purcell’s
incidental tunes and operatic pieces. In the following
generation, Wycherley’s brutalities went clear out of fashion.
They were succeeded by the new English comedy of Congreve
and Fraquhar. Those great writers are usually lumped with
Wycherley as “Restoration dramatist”, but in fact it would be
more chronologically correct to call Congreve and Franquhar
“Restoration dramatists” for they wrote in the reign of William
and Mary.

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 5- The character of Charles II:

The impact of Charles II on the literature of his age is seen

most clearly in drama. As a habitual playgoer, he knew what
he liked, and he took some trouble to see they he got what he
wanted. What he usually wanted was comedy, which gave him
the greatest pleasure from the stage. From time to time he
suggested to his dramatists where they could find a good plot.

Left to himself, he might have been prepared to settle for

comedy or opera, but he had to consider the taste of the ladies
of the court, and there is a good deal of evidence to show that
the female part of a Restoration audience had a decided
preference for tragedies and heroic plays. So far as the
establishment of the rhymed heroic play in England is
concerned, the influence of the king appears to have been
decisive, and it can be documented in some detail.

However easy-going Charles might seem, there was

something in his character which led him toward a more
absolute form of government than the vast majority of his
subjects would have approved. His love of comedy may reflect
the affable, and even democratic, aspects of his character; but
his apparent interest in the heroic play may reflect his desire

54
for a world in which kings are not constantly checked and
destroyed by their subjects.

A king about whom such stories could be recorded was

clearly a source of inspiration to the writers of the day. So long
as Charles II was alive, wit, humor, raillery, repartee, the droll
remark, the well-turned phrase were all in demand and certain
to be appreciated. The king and court might be unfriendly to
epic, but they were king to epigram, and the stimulus of a king
‘who never said a foolish thing’ radiated outward to coffee-
house and taverns and to the writers of his study. Rightly or
wrongly, Dryden gave Charles much of the credit for
reforming the conversation of Englishmen.

The desire of imitating so great a pattern first awakened

the dull and the heavy spirits of the English from their natural
deservedness, loosened them from their stiff forms of
conversation, and made them easy and pliant to each other in
conversation. Thus, the way of living became freer, and the
fire of the English wit began to display its force. The
dramatists wrote better because they had the king and his court
as models of imitation, as standards by which to test their own
performance, and as judges of the finished work.

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Part Two: Philosophy

56