Political causes of the English revolution of the 17th century. English bourgeois revolution

The English Revolution of the 17th century, also known as the English Revolution civil war(1640-1660) - the process of transition in England from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional one, in which the power of the king is limited by the power of parliament, and civil liberties are also guaranteed. The revolution opened the way to the industrial revolution in England and the capitalist development of the country. Reasons: contradictions between the emerging capitalist and old feudal structures; dissatisfaction with Stuart policies; contradictions between the Anglican Church and the ideology of Puritanism (complete autonomy of each religious community, denial of the centralized organization of the church, the need for the papacy, episcopate, subordination of the church to the king). The history of the English bourgeois revolution is usually divided into four stages: Constitutional stage (1640 - 1642); First Civil War (1642 - 1646); Second Civil War (1646 - 1649); Independent Republic (1649 – 1653); First stage. An attempt to carry out a revolution through parliamentary means. The final break between the king and parliament. In January 1642 there was a break between the king and parliament. The king rejected the "Great Remonstrance" of 1641, which contained a list of abuses of royal power. The “Great Remonstrance” meant: the abolition of all illegal taxes; a ban on collecting taxes without the consent of parliament; concentration of finances in the hands of parliament; abolition of courts for political and religious matters; the adoption of the "Triennial Bill" obliging the king to meet parliament every 3 years. The Long Parliament destroyed the main tools of absolutism: the extraordinary royal courts were liquidated - the “Star Chamber”, “High Commission”, all monopoly patents and privileges were destroyed, and their owners were removed from parliament, a bill was passed on the indissolution of the existing parliament without its consent. The remonstration was approved by a majority of members of parliament against the will of the king. Parliament split into supporters of the king (royalists) and opponents ("roundheads"). Charles I left for Scotland to gather an army. The civil war began. Second stage. The first civil war (1642-1646) between the revolutionary army of parliament and the army of the king. On August 22, 1642, the king, who was in Nottingham, declared war on parliament. The first civil war began between the royalists - the "Cavaliers" and the supporters of Parliament - the "Roundheads". The economically developed southeastern counties, led by London, sided with the parliament; the comparatively backward counties of the north and west stood on the side of the king. Regular armies were created. The indecisive policy of the “moderate” majority of parliament - the Presbyterians - led to the fact that the parliamentary army was defeated in the very first battle - at Edgehill (October 23, 1642) and, moreover, made it possible for the royal army to settle in Oxford. At this critical moment, a mass peasant movement unfolded in the countryside and a plebeian movement in the cities, the echo of which in parliament and the army was the revolutionary-democratic line of independents, led by O. Cromwell. He sought to transform the army into a people's, revolutionary, capable of achieving victory. The old (mainly Presbyterian) command was dissolved. On January 11, 1645, it was decided to create a new parliamentary army - the so-called army. new sample. On June 14, 1645, under Naseby, the reorganized parliamentary army defeated the royal army. By the end of 1646, the first civil war ended in victory for Parliament. Charles I surrendered to the Scots, who then handed him over to Parliament (February 1, 1647). The new nobility (gentry) and bourgeoisie considered the revolution to be basically over: their main goals had been achieved. The Ordinance of February 24, 1646 abolished the knighthood and all obligations arising from it in favor of the crown; Thus, large landowners appropriated the right of bourgeois private ownership to lands that were previously only their feudal property. In industry and trade, with the abolition of monopoly rights, the principle of free competition partially prevailed; anti-fencing legislation was suspended. The entire burden of taxes for military needs has been shifted onto the shoulders of the working people. Under these conditions, the masses took the revolutionary initiative into their own hands. They not only thwarted all plans to strangle the revolution, but also made an attempt to turn it into a democratic direction. From the Party of Independents, an independent party of “levellers” emerged - the Levellers (leaders J. Lilburn and others). In an effort to suppress the revolutionary aspirations of the people, parliament in the spring of 1647 tried to dissolve part of the revolutionary army. Faced with the threat of disarmament and not trusting the independent officers - the “grandees”, the soldiers began to elect the so-called. agitators, to whom leadership gradually passed in military units and in the army as a whole. A conflict began between parliament and the army. The threat of political isolation prompted O. Cromwell, who initially advocated the subordination of the army to parliament, to lead the movement of soldiers in the army in order to stop its further drift to the left. On June 5, 1647, at a general review of the army, the so-called A “solemn undertaking” not to disperse until the demands of the soldiers were met and the liberties and rights of the English people secured. The army, along with the broad peasant-plebeian masses, became the main driving force of the revolution at its bourgeois-democratic stage (1647-49). In June 1647, the army captured the king, and in August they launched a march on London, as a result of which the Presbyterian leaders were expelled from parliament. How great the gulf was between the Independents and the Levellers in understanding the goals of the revolution became obvious at the Army Council in Putney from October 28 to November 11, 1647 (the so-called Putney Conference). The Levellers' demand for the establishment of a parliamentary republic (with a unicameral parliament) and the introduction of universal suffrage (for men), formulated in their draft political structure countries, so-called The “grandees” opposed the “People's Agreement” with their own program - the so-called. “Items of proposals”, which proposed maintaining a bicameral parliament and a king with veto power. The conflict between the “grandees” and the Levellers led to the dissolution of the Council. The disobedience of individual regiments demanding the adoption of the Leveller program was brutally suppressed. The army found itself at the mercy of the “grandees”. At this time, the king escaped from captivity, entering into a secret conspiracy with the Scots. Third Stage. The Second Civil War, which broke out in the spring of 1648, forced the Independents to temporarily seek reconciliation with the Levellers. But the acceptance by the “grandees” of a significant part of the Leveller program meant that social program Levellers - in particular on the question of the fate of the copygold - represented only a more radical version of the program of the “grandees” and “... that only the intervention of the peasantry and the proletariat, the “plebeian element of the cities,” is capable of seriously moving forward the bourgeois revolution...”. At the Battle of Preston (August 17 - 19, 1648), Cromwell inflicted a decisive defeat on the Scots and English royalists. On December 1, 1648, the king was taken into custody. The army reoccupied London and finally cleared the Long Parliament of its Presbyterian majority (Pride's Purge, 6 December 1648). On January 6, 1649, the Supreme Court was established to hear the king's case. On January 30, Charles Stuart was executed as a “traitor and tyrant.” Fourth stage. On May 19, 1649, England became a republic, the supreme power in which belonged to a unicameral parliament (the fate of the monarchy was shared by the House of Lords); in reality, the republic of 1649 turned out to be independent oligarchy. Executive power was exercised by the State Council, which consisted of “grandees” and their parliamentary associates. By selling the confiscated lands of the king, bishops and “cavaliers” for next to nothing, the republic enriched the bourgeoisie and the new nobility. At the same time, it did not satisfy a single demand of the lower classes. The Leveller leaders were thrown into prison, and the Leveller uprisings in the army in May 1649 were suppressed. The Levellers were defeated, in part, because they ignored the main issue of the revolution - the agrarian question; they opposed the “socialization of property” and the “equalization of fortunes.” The representatives of the interests of the lower classes during the period of the highest rise of the revolution were the so-called. the true Levellers were the Diggers, who demanded the abolition of copyhold and the power of landlords, the transformation of communal lands into the common property of the poor. The ideas of the Diggers were reflected in the works of their ideologist J. Winstanley and in the so-called Diggers, compiled by him. "Declarations of the Poor Oppressed People of England." The defeat of the peaceful movement of the Diggers for the collective cultivation of the communal wasteland (1650) meant the final victory of the anti-democratic course in resolving the agrarian question. Social and protective functions The independent republic's domestic policy was combined with aggressive aspirations and a policy of suppressing the liberation movement of peoples under British rule. Cromwell's military expedition to Ireland (1649-50) was aimed at suppressing the national liberation uprising of the Irish people; the degeneration of the revolutionary army in Ireland was completed; here a new landed aristocracy was created, which became a stronghold of counter-revolution in England itself. Just as mercilessly, the English republic dealt with Scotland, annexing it to England in 1652. The anti-democratic course in resolving the agrarian and national issues has narrowed social base republics. Its only support remained an army of mercenaries, maintained at the expense of the masses. The dispersal of the “rump” of the Long Parliament and the unsuccessful experience for the “grandees” with the Petit (Berbon) Parliament (1653), which unexpectedly for its creators took the path of social reforms (abolition of tithes, the introduction of civil marriage, etc.), paved the way for the regime military dictatorship - Cromwell's Protectorate (1653-59). The constitution of this regime endowed the protector with such broad powers that it can be considered as direct preparation for the restoration of the monarchy. Cromwell dispersed the 1st (1654-55) and 2nd (1656-58) parliaments of the protectorate, agreed in 1657 with the restoration of the House of Lords and almost assumed the English crown. At home, he fought both royalist conspiracies and popular movements. Continuing the expansionist policy of the republic, the protectorate declared war on Spain and organized an expedition to seize its West Indian possessions ("Jamaican Expedition", 1655-57). Soon after Cromwell's death (September 3, 1658), this regime collapsed. In 1659, a republic was formally restored in England, but its ephemeral nature was predetermined by the entire course of events. Frightened by the strengthening of the democratic movement, the bourgeoisie and the new nobility began to lean toward the “traditional monarchy.” In 1660, the restoration of the Stuarts took place and they agreed to sanction the main gains of the bourgeois revolution, which ensured economic dominance for the bourgeoisie. Coup of 1688-89 (“Glorious Revolution” is the name accepted in historiography for the coup d’etat of 1688 in England, as a result of which King James II Stuart was overthrown. The coup took part in the Dutch expeditionary force under the command of the ruler of the Netherlands, William of Orange, who became the new king of England under named after William III (in joint rule with his wife Mary II Stuart, daughter of James II), the coup received wide support among various strata of English society) formalized a compromise between the bourgeoisie, which from then on received access to state power, and the landed aristocracy. RESULTS: The English Revolution gave a powerful impetus to the process of the so-called. initial accumulation of capital (“de-peasantization” of the countryside, turning peasants into wage workers, strengthening enclosures, replacing peasant holdings with large farms of the capitalist type); it provided complete freedom of action for the rising bourgeois class and paved the way for the industrial revolution of the 18th century. just as Puritanism loosened the soil for the English Enlightenment. In the political field, the revolutionary struggle of the masses in the mid-17th century. ensured the transition from the feudal monarchy of the Middle Ages to the bourgeois monarchy of modern times.

At the beginning of the 17th century, developing in favorable conditions, England looked in some respects as a country much more “bourgeois” than feudal-serf.

Fencing and land dispossession managed to disintegrate the rural community and proletarianize a significant part of the peasantry. Industry and maritime trade have achieved great success. The main export item was no longer wool, but cloth. Large trading companies organized in a capitalist manner arose and quickly grew rich.

However, the bourgeoisie was dissatisfied. She was burdened by government supervision over the production of goods and their sale, so typical of feudalism, by limiting the number of apprentices and apprentices, and by the obstacles imposed on peasants and their children when moving to the cities.

Constant irritation was caused by the outright extortion of money, which the government carried out either under the guise of arbitrary taxes, or with the help of new duties, or forced loans.

The country's governance system is becoming the subject of sharp criticism: extrajudicial jurisdiction concentrated in political tribunals; constant violence against common law courts; soldiers' quarters in private homes; the pathetic state of the armed forces, especially the navy; ignoring parliament; abuses of the all-powerful and dishonest favorite, the Duke of Buckingham.

Discontent is caused by the marriage of the heir to the throne, Charles I, to a French Catholic princess. Protestant England suspects the king of secret papism, that is, the intention to return the country to the Catholic faith.

Thus, there were more than enough reasons for the emergence of bourgeois opposition to absolutism. Political interests the bourgeoisie pushed it to seize power.

A feature of the revolution was the unique ideological formulation of the social, class and political goals of the revolution. The role of the ideology of the rebellious bourgeoisie was played by Puritanism, a religious movement that arose in the 20s. XVI century During the revolution, Puritanism split into moderate and radical movements: Presbyterianism and Independentism. Both of these movements preached the idea constitutional monarchy. The most radical was the Leveller movement, uniting artisans and peasants. The Levellers demanded the establishment of a republic and equal rights for citizens.

The following stages can be distinguished in the bourgeois revolution: constitutional stage (November 3, 1640 - August 22, 1642); first civil war (1642 - 1646); Second Civil War (1648 - 1649); independent republic (1649 - 1653); Cromwell's protectorate (1653 - 1658). code of hammurabi bourgeois revolution

In November 1640, a parliament was created in England, which went down in history under the name of the Long. The first stage of the revolution begins with his activities. Long Parliament February 15, 1641 adopts a three-year act, and on December 1, 1641. - the great remonstration, which took away the main instruments of autocracy from power. A constitutional monarchy was established in England.

During the first civil war, under pressure from circumstances, Parliament adopted a plan for the reorganization of troops proposed by Cromwell. To remove the aristocracy from military leadership, the Bill of Self-Denial was passed, according to which members of Parliament could not hold command positions in the army.

After victory in the second civil war, Cromwell removed active Presbyterians from parliament, and the remainder formed a “parliamentary rump” obedient to the independents. In 1649 the king was executed.

In 1649, the House of Lords was abolished, and the House of Commons was declared the supreme legislative body. England was declared a republic. The State Council, consisting of 40 people, became the highest executive body.

In December 1653 In England, a constitution was introduced that consolidated the military dictatorship of Cromwell. The Constitution declared Cromwell Lord Protector for life.

An equal voting qualification was established for everyone, but it was 200 pounds and therefore excluded the vast majority of the population from elections. The protectorate parliament did not become a representative body of the people.

The Lord Protector had legislative power. However, it was believed that he shared it with Parliament. The Lord Protector had executive power. The courts actually depended on him.

Art. deserves special attention. XXVII of the new constitution, which allowed the government to levy taxes on the maintenance of the army, navy, as well as to cover the costs associated with the activities of the government, courts, and the state apparatus in general.

Thus, the entire parliamentary experience of England, associated with the collection of taxes only with the consent of Parliament, was crossed out, an experience that served as a tool for Parliament in its relations with kings.

All of England was divided into districts, headed by governors-general. The “Instrument of Control” created a one-man dictatorship, but, in essence, it was a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and the new nobility.

ENGLISH BOURGEOIS REVOLUTION OF THE 17TH CENTURY

victorious bourgeois revolution that led to the establishment of capitalism and the establishment of the bourgeoisie. building in England; one of the early bourgeois. revolutions. Being in its significance the first revolution in Europe. scale, it opened (and this is its world-historical significance) the era of the collapse of feudal rule. building in Europe, marking the beginning of a change in feudal rule. capitalist method of production. Economic and ideological prerequisites of the revolution. In the beginning 17th century 4/5 out of 5 million people the population of England lived in the countryside. However, the country has achieved this. success in the development of industry and trade. K ser. 17th century mined approx. 3 million m cam. coal (approx. 80% of European production); iron production ore production has tripled in 100 years. Over the same century (1540-1640), the production of lead, tin, copper, salt increased by 6-8 times, etc. The basis of this is economic. progress was the development of new forms of production - capitalist. manufactory (mainly in the form of scattered manufactory; as a result of the development of this form of production, for example, in cloth making, in the 1st half of the 17th century, England became the main supplier of undyed cloth to European markets). Overseas trade in the first 40 years of the 17th century. increased by 2 times: ch. London played a role, where the stock exchange was opened (1568) and trading was organized. companies - Moscow Company (founded 1554), Moroccan (1575), Baltic (1579), Levantine (1581), East India Company (1600), etc.

Capitalist development manufacture, however, was sharply slowed down in the first decades of the 17th century. Industrial policy monopolies and restrictions, carried out by the Stuarts in fiscal interests, narrowed the field of activity of manufacturing entrepreneurs. In the same way, they were hindered by the ancient mountains. corporations, main for the Middle Ages shop regulations. The principle of free competition and free enterprise therefore became one of the chapters. demands of the bourgeoisie in the revolution.

Features of socio-economic. development of England in the 16th - 1st half. 17th centuries was that the penetration of capitalist. elements to the village and their revolutionaries. influence on tradition relations surpassed similar ones in their social consequences. processes in industry. Capitalist development rent and the formation of the capitalist class. tenants, on the one hand, and rural farm workers, on the other - the main. manifestation of this process. In these new economic conditions cross. land ownership in England and even the very existence of the peasantry (yeomanry) as a class was threatened; liberation of copyhold from feud feud. dependencies were the main condition for the preservation of the peasantry in England.

One of the most important features A. b. r. - a kind of ideological drapery is her class. and political goals. This was the last revolution. movement in Europe that took place under the Middle Ages. the banner of the struggle of one religion. doctrines against another. State The Anglican Church (which largely retained the organizational forms and partly the ritual of Catholicism) was one of the true strongholds of absolutism. Therefore, all his enemies demanded the completion of the reformation, that is, the transformation of queens. church into a church suitable for the needs of the bourgeoisie. Thus, the assault on absolutism in England began with an assault on its ideology, ethics and morality, which were embodied in Anglicanism. Burzh. the revolutionaries acted as a church. Puritan reformers. Their demand to completely cleanse the church of the “defilement” of Catholicism and papism had far-reaching consequences - it led to the creation of revolutions. ideologies - ideologies of the people. antifeud. uprisings To the beginning 17th century two main ones were formed. currents of Puritanism: currents of Presbyterians and Independents. East. The role of Puritanism was that it, as a persecuted and persecuted ideology, for the time being united all currents of religions. and political opposition to absolutism, which prepared unity in the camp of the revolution - at its first, “constitutional” stage.

Folding revolution. situations. The Tudors managed to disguise the absolutism of Parl. forms of government. The Stuarts, who established themselves in England after the death of Elizabeth I Tudor (1603), during the period of crisis and disintegration of absolutism, switched to a regime of open dictatorship, entering into an acute conflict with Parliament. The first three parliaments of James I (convened in 1604, 1614, 1621) were dissolved due to fierce resistance from the House of Commons, which denied the king the right to collect taxes. James I (1603-25) began to look for “extra-parliamentary ways” to replenish the treasury (introducing new taxes, collecting old feudal duties and so-called “voluntary donations”, trading in titles, positions, monopolies). External relations were equally unacceptable for parliament. king's policy. The desire (contrary to the Elizabethan tradition) for an alliance with Spain is the main thing. the direction of this policy, while Spain was viewed as a “national enemy” of the English. bourgeoisie, ch. an obstacle to her colonial and bargaining. expansion. Under James's successor, Charles I (1625-1649), political. blackmail, intrigue, treachery and arbitrariness further aggravated the conflict between the crown and parliament: on June 7, 1628, the so-called "Petition of Right" that sought to stop the queens. arbitrariness The king's dispersal of parliament in 1628-29 marked the beginning of non-parliamentary rule (March 3, 1629 - April 13, 1640). Together with his closest advisers, Earl Strafford and Archbishop Laud, Charles began to implement a “firm course” in England, Scotland and Ireland. Trying to free myself from finances forever. Depending on parliament, Charles restored the ancient “ship tax” (1635), which, according to the plan, was supposed to turn into a permanent tax. The condemnation of Squire J. Hampden, who refused in 1637 to pay this (not authorized by Parliament) tax, seemed to bring an end. victory for the king. In fact, the result of the “non-parliamentary rule” of the 30s. there was an increase in discontent and indignation within the country and increased emigration of the most enterprising elements overseas - the so-called. "Great Exodus" in the North. America. Equally unsuccessful was the policy of Charles I in Ireland. In Ireland, where (from 1633) Strafford was Lord Lieutenant, the robbery of the Irish continued. landowners, carried out under the pretext of “verification of titles” to land and their registration; the policy of “church uniformity”, carried out in Catholic conditions. of a country oppressed by foreign conquerors, relations were extremely strained. The rottenness of the entire regime of “one-man rule” was even more clearly demonstrated in Scotland, where Laud’s attempt to introduce a “church. uniformity" led in 1637 to a nationwide uprising against Charles I - to the creation of the so-called "Covenant", and in 1638 to the Anglo-Scottish war, in which English absolutism was defeated. This defeat, on the one hand, and the outbreak of cross and mountain unrest and open uprisings (20s and 30s) - on the other hand, accelerated the beginning of the revolution (April 13 - May 5, 1640), convened to obtain subsidies for the conduct of the war. . war, turned out to be intractable and was dissolved. The lack of money, discontent not only among the people, but also among the financiers and merchants of the City and some of the peers, made Charles’s situation hopeless. A new parliament was convened, which later became known as the Long Parliament (3). Nov. 1640 - 1653); a revolution began in the country.

"Constitutional period" of the revolution (1640-42). Events from the convening of the Long Parliament to the flight of the king to the north and the beginning of civil society. War (Aug. 22, 1642) can be characterized as the “constitutional period” of the revolution. Relying on the strong support of the people. masses, the Long Parliament destroyed (with the forced consent of the king) the foundation. tools of absolutism and took measures to make a non-parliamentary regime impossible in the future: the “Star Chamber”, “High Commission”, Councils for the Affairs of the North and Wales were destroyed (July 1641); the verdict in the Hampden case was declared invalid and the collection of ship taxes was prohibited (Aug. 1641), all monopoly patents and privileges were destroyed, and their owners were removed from parliament (summer 1641), and finally the bill “On the Inviolability” of the existing parliament without its consent was adopted (May 1641). Strafford was brought to the court of parliament and executed (May 12, 1641) (later (early 1645) Laud shared his fate). However, having approved all these acts, Charles I was only waiting for the moment to end the revolution with one blow. The differences that emerged in parliament inspired great hopes. They were first discovered in the beginning. 1641, during the discussion of the “Petition for Root and Branches”, and then a bill of the same name (May 1641), which demanded the destruction of the power of bishops - the “Antichrist clan” and the reorganization of the church on Calvinist principles. The bill was not adopted due to the fierce resistance of the landlords and the big bourgeoisie, who were afraid of the principle of “equality and self-government”, which, having won in the church. affairs, could also influence politics. order in the country.

The fear of the people and the deepening of the revolution was revealed even more clearly in the Long Parliament in the fall of 1641 when discussing the so-called. "Great Remonstrance" (204 articles listing the abuses of the crown). The struggle around this bourgeois-noble program of revolution was so fierce that it was adopted by the House of Commons with a majority of only 11 votes. The secret of parliament's victories, to Krom in August. In 1641, power in the state actually passed, the fact was that the rebel people stood behind him. Exactly people. the masses defended parliament when Charles in January. 1642 decided to behead the opposition he hated ( unsuccessful attempt the arrest of its leaders: Pym, Hampden, Hazelrigg, Hollis and Strode). The king, having lost power over the rebellious capital, left (Jan. 10, 1642) to the north under the protection of a feud. lords. The “Constitutional period” of the revolution ended, both sides began to prepare for war. struggle. First citizen war (1642-46). Aug 22 1642 the king declared war on parliament; Clashes began everywhere between the royalists - the "cavaliers" - and the supporters of parliament - the "roundheads". Gradually, England divided into two military camps: the economically developed south-east came out on the side of Parliament. Counties led by London, on the side of the king - the more backward counties N. and W. Regular armies were created. During the war, contradictions within parliament again emerged. His conservative, Presbyterian majority, represented in the army by the commander-in-chief Earl of Essex and others, waged war against the king so reluctantly and without initiative that, despite the number. superiority, the parliamentary army was defeated at the first major battle at Edgehill (October 23, 1642), which made it possible for the royal army to escape unharmed at Turnham Green (November 13, 1642) and settle in Oxford. The Presbyterian generals saw the war merely as a means to force the king into a series of concessions. A semi-victory through a peace agreement with him or, in extreme cases, a victory won without the people, was the only outcome of the struggle acceptable to the Presbyterians. This was precisely the meaning of the union of parliament with Scotland (1643) - the “Covenant”, which provided for the spread of oligarchic. Presbyterian Church building for the whole of England.

However, along with the Presbyterian line of warfare, a more decisive, revolutionary-democratic line was increasingly evident in parliament and the army. line of independents. It was most clearly represented at that time by O. Cromwell (at the beginning of the civil wars - a member of parliament, an inconspicuous captain of a cavalry detachment in the parliamentary army).

Cromwell saw the main reason for the defeats of the parliamentary forces in the lack of revolutionary discipline and inspiration in the Essex army. He saw the way out in transforming the army into a people's, revolutionary, capable of achieving victory. The situation at the fronts became more and more critical. Parl. the troops were victorious at Marston Moor (July 2, 1644), but the armies of Essex and Waller were completely defeated in the center and west on Dec. 9. 1644 Cromwell demanded radical reform of the army; a “bill of self-denial” was adopted, by virtue of which members of parliament were removed from the military. posts The old (mainly Presbyterian) command had to leave their posts. An exception was made for Cromwell. 11 Jan 1645 it was decided to create a new parliamentary army - the army of the so-called. "new sample". It was a disciplined army of 22,000 Yeomen and Mounties. the grassroots, inspired by the common goal of crushing the royalist army as quickly as possible. Commoners were given access to officer positions (Fox, a boilermaker, Pride, a cab driver, Rainsborough, a skipper, etc., became colonels). 14 June 1645 under Naseby Queens. the army was defeated. By the end of 1646 the first citizen. the war ended in parliamentary victory.

The year was 1647 turning point A. b. r. - the beginning of its bourgeois-democratic. stage (1647-49), when the revolutionary. the initiative passed from the bourgeoisie and gentry to the people. to the masses. Nar. the masses, who from the very beginning were the main. by the power of parliament, at this stage they not only finally won the victory of the revolution, but also made an attempt (albeit unsuccessful) to turn it into a democratic one. channel

People's struggle masses for deepening democracy. content of the revolution. Levellers and Independents. The victory of the revolution was still far away. Charles I, who surrendered to the Scots (April 1646), and then transferred them into the hands of Parliament (February 1, 1647), still felt himself to be the master of the situation. He pinned his greatest hopes on discord in the parliamentary camp and, perhaps, would have waited in the wings if not for the decisive intervention of the people. masses (chiefly represented by the “new model” army), who thwarted all plans to strangle the revolution. To the beginning 1647 in the camp of the revolution, four more or less organized forces should be distinguished: parliament, army, city and people. masses (primarily London and its suburbs). Parliament, like the City, with its Presbyterian majority and Independent minority, represented the new nobility (gentry) and bourgeoisie, which considered the revolution to be fundamental. finished: their main goals were achieved. Ordinance dated February 24. In 1646, the knighthood and all the obligations arising from it in favor of the crown were destroyed. Thus, large landowners usurped modern times. the right of private ownership of land, which was previously only their fief. property. In industry and trade, with the abolition of monopoly rights, the principle of free competition partially prevailed; regulation of wages of hired workers ceased; anti-fencing legislation was suspended. Finally, the whole burden of taxes on the military. needs (excise duty, monthly taxation, etc.) are shifted onto the shoulders of the working people.

Parliament and the City took urgent measures to suppress the revolutions. the aspirations and aspirations of the people; in the spring of 1647 an attempt was made to dissolve the revolutionaries. army, which refused to lay down its arms until the soldiers' demands were met and guarantees of "people's freedom" were given. Thus began the conflict between parliament and the army. In the face of the army's defiance of Parliament, Presbyterians and Independents rallied. Cromwell advocated the subordination of the army to parliament. The Independents of 1647 are essentially two parties: the Independents themselves, ch. arr. generals and other senior officers of the parliament. armies, which were now called “silk” (based on clothing) and “grands” (lords), and people. the masses, which by the spring of 1647 had become independent. the party of "levellers" - levellers. Unlike the "grandees", these are Republicans. Their political the ideal was the doctrine of “popular sovereignty.” Political equality of “freeborn people” without distinction of property. qualifications and religion (within the framework of Christianity) and economic equality. opportunities formed the basis and content of their struggle for the “natural rights of the English”. Along with the “civil levelers”, led by John Lilburne, R. Overton, W. Walwyn and others, who enjoyed great influence in the London suburbs, there were also “military levelers” in the ranks of the army. Faced with the threat of disarmament and not trusting the officers - the “grandees”, the soldiers began to self-organize, electing the so-called in each regiment. “agitators”, leadership in military units and in the army as a whole gradually passed to the Crimea. The threat is political. isolation prompted O. Cromwell to lead the movement of soldiers in the army in order to stop its further drift to the left. On June 5, 1647, at a general review of the army near Newmarket, the so-called “Solemn engagement” (Solemn engagement) not to disperse until the just demands of the soldiers are satisfied and the freedoms and rights of the English are ensured. people. Nar. the army, along with the Levellers, became the main driving force of the revolution in its bourgeois-democratic. stage. She was a spokesman for social indignation, which increased in connection with the decline in industry caused by the war, which ruined artisans and deprived thousands of factory workers of their jobs. In 1646-47 the country experienced drought and crop failure. Ruin of the peasantry by robberies and war. permanently led to the creation of their military. self-defense organizations, so-called. Klobmenov. Continued enclosures and rising rents, along with rising costs and heavy tax burdens, caused deep disappointment and dissatisfaction with the activities of the Long Parliament among the broad masses. Practical his implementation of the agrarian program of the allied classes - the bourgeoisie and the new nobility - did not give anything to the peasantry (an order of March 27, 1643 on the sequestration of the possessions of chapters, archbishops, bishops, deans and other clergy and secular persons supporting the king, and supplementary orders of August 18, 1643 and May 25, 1644; ordinance February 24, 1646 - abolition of knighthood, etc.). The aspirations of the peasants were reflected in the peasant-plebeian agrarian movement put forward somewhat later (1649) by the Diggers. program. People's dissatisfaction the masses found expression in the actions of the army. She captured the king (June 2-4, 1647), captured the artillery of Parliament stationed in Oxford, and finally launched a march on London (Aug. 1647), as a result of which the Presbyterian leaders were expelled from Parliament and organized in June-July 1647 Presbyterians conspired in the City. But how great the gulf was between the grandees and the Levellers in understanding the goals of the revolution became obvious at the Army Council in Putney on October 28. - 11 Nov. 1647. The “Grands” (Cromwell and Ayrton) resolutely opposed the adoption of the Leveller political project. device of the country, the so-called "People's Agreement"; They opposed him with their own program, the so-called. "Suggestion Points". In contrast to the Levellers’ demand for the establishment of a parliamentary republic (with a unicameral parliament, annually re-elected) and the introduction of universal suffrage. rights (for men), the “grandees” defended the “traditional constitution” with a bicameral parliament and a king with veto power. The debate at Putney clearly revealed that, at a decisive period, the English. people's revolution the masses made an attempt to wrest hegemony from the hands of the bourgeoisie and the bourgeois nobility and, although it was generally unsuccessful, its consequences for the fate of the revolution were enormous. At the first moment the Independents triumphed. The army council, by order of Cromwell, interrupted its work. The agitators were sent to their regiments. The review of the army, scheduled for Ware (November 15), did not result in a general Leveler uprising, as expected. Disobedience dept. regiments were brutally suppressed. The army found itself at the mercy of the “grandees”. At this time, the king, who had been flirting with the Crimea with both the Presbyterians and the Independents, escaped from captivity (from the Hampton Court fortress), entering into a secret conspiracy with the Scots.

Second citizen war (1648) and the execution of the king. Second citizen the war that broke out in the spring of 1648 forced the Independents to temporarily seek reconciliation with the Levellers. But, having accepted means. part of the Levellers' program, the "grandees" thereby revealed the secret of every bourgeoisie. revolution, namely, “that only the intervention of the peasantry and the proletariat, the “plebeian element of the cities,” is capable of seriously moving forward the bourgeois revolution...” (Lenin V.I., vol. 15, pp. 43-44). At the Battle of Preston (Aug. 17-19, 1648), Cromwell struck a decisive blow. defeat to the Scots and the English. royalists. Suppression of scattered royalist revolts in the west and southeast. was not a big deal. The fate of the king was finally decided: at a meeting in Windsor, it was decided to bring Charles Stewart to justice. The army reoccupied London and finally cleared the Long Parliament of its Presbyterian majority (Pride's Purge, 6 Dec. 1648). 6 Jan 1649 was established Supreme Court to consider the king's case. 30 Jan Charles Stuart as a "traitor and tyrant" was beheaded in the square in front of the queens. palace.

Independent Republic 1649-53. On May 19, 1649, England was declared a republic (commonwealth), the supreme power in which belonged to the unicameral parliament (the fate of the monarchy was shared by the House of Lords); in reality, the Republic of 1649 turned out to be an independent oligarchy, which Lilburn called “the new chains of England.” Execute The government concentrated power in its hands. a council consisting of “grandees” and their parliamentary associates. Parliament, in which there are now only approx. 100 people (he received the name “rumps”), covered the dictatorship of army generals. Having sold the confiscated lands of the king, bishops and delinquents for next to nothing, the republic enriched the army elite and the City businessmen. At the same time, she did not satisfy any of the people’s demands. the lower classes: the leaders of the Levellers were thrown into prison, and the Leveller uprisings in the army in May 1649 were suppressed with unprecedented cruelty. The Levellers failed because they went past the basics. question of revolution - agr. question. From the point of view of the Yeomanry as a class, their program differed only slightly from that of the Independents. In the latest, 4th edition of the “People's Agreement,” the Levellers once again proved this by opposing the “socialization of property” and the “equalization of fortunes.” Expressors of the aspirations and ideals of the people. the lower classes during the period of the highest rise of the revolution became the so-called. "true levelers" are diggers. Their ideologist Gerard Winstanley revealed the one-sided, usurper nature of the agrarian people. legislation of the Long Parliament. The destruction of copyhold and the power of landlords, the transformation of communal lands into the common property of the poor - this was the minimum program of the Diggers. In 1649, near Cobham (Surrey) and in a number of other places, diggers attempted to collectively cultivate communal wasteland. Prosecutions and attacks on their colony led to the Diggers being dispersed (1650). The defeat of the Diggers meant the end. anti-democratic victory course in solving agri. question.

Social security functions of an independent republic in the interior. politics were combined with aggressiveness. and colonial aspirations - in the external. The army controlled by Cromwell was used to suppress the national liberation movement. uprisings in Ireland. Irl. Cromwell's expedition of 1649-50 turned into the extermination of tens of thousands of Irish. The survivors were forcibly driven from their lands to the barren regions of the north-west. Ireland. Millions of acres of confiscated irl. lands ("Act of the Settlement of Ireland", 1652) were used to pay debts to City bankers and debts to army officers. Revolutionary rebirth. army ended in Ireland. A new land was created here. an aristocracy that became a stronghold of counter-revolution in England itself. The English are just as merciless. The Republic dealt with Scotland. Shotl. Cromwell's campaign (1650-51) resulted in the annexation of Scotland to England in 1652. Without deciding ag. the issue in favor of the peasantry and without resolving it will liberate. spirit of the problem of small nationalities, English. the republic narrowed its social base. Unity its support remained the victorious army of mercenaries, maintained at the expense of the people. wt. The dispersal of the "rump" of the Long Parliament (April 20, 1653) and the unsuccessful experience for the grandees with the Small Parliament ("Parliament of Saints", Berbon Parliament of 1653), which, unexpectedly for its initiators, took the path of social reforms (abolition of tithes, the introduction of civil marriage and etc.), dangerous for the elite established in power - all this had as its inevitable result a transition to a regime of open war. dictatorship - Cromwell's protectorate.

Cromwell's Protectorate 1653-59. The constitution of this regime is the so-called. “An instrument of control” - endowed the protector with such broad powers that it can be considered as direct preparation for the restoration of the monarchy. Cromwell dispersed the first (Sept. 3, 1654 - Jan. 22, 1655) and second (Sept. 17, 1656 - Feb. 4, 1658) parliaments of the protectorate (elected by an exceptionally high electoral qualification and nevertheless turned out to be intractable with the Cromwell regime), agreed in 1657 with the restoration of the House of Lords and almost took over the English. crown (according to the so-called “Most humble petition and advice”). Within the country, he fought on two fronts: against royalist conspiracies and against the people. movements (the so-called “People of the Fifth Monarchy”). Continuing the expansionist policy of the Republic, the Protectorate declared war on Spain and organized an expedition to seize its West Indian possessions ("Jamaican Expedition", 1655-57).

The dissatisfaction of the allied classes with the protectorate made Cromwell's regime transient. Soon after Cromwell's death (September 3, 1658), this regime collapsed. Although a republic was formally restored in England in 1659, its ephemerality was predetermined by the entire course of events. The country has become more democratic. movements. Frightened by this, the bourgeoisie and the new nobility began to lean toward the “traditional monarchy.” In 1660, the restoration of the Stuarts took place (see Charles II), who agreed to sanction the foundation. conquests of the bourgeoisie revolution. Graduated The establishment of the bourgeoisie and the new nobility in power occurred as a result of the coup of 1688-89 (see "Glorious Revolution").

Socio-economic and political results A. b. r. were so significant and diverse that they predetermined the development of the society - and not only English. - in the century that followed it. The most important achievement of the revolution, confirmed by the restoration, was the abolition of the knightly rule, that is, the unilateral (in the interests of the bourgeois-noble bloc) destruction of the feud. building land relations and establishing the bourgeoisie. land ownership. The victory of the bourgeois-noble bloc in the revolution sealed the fate of the English. villages in the 18th century - the disappearance of the peasantry as a class and the triumph of the landlordism system. The plunder by supporters of William III of Orange, his favorites and favorites of the huge fund of crown lands (which in Ireland alone reached 1 million acres) shows how the lands were formed. possessions of modern English aristocracy. The revolution gave a powerful impetus to the so-called process. the initial accumulation of capital with its “de-peasantization” of the village, the transformation of most of its inhabitants into hired workers, the strengthening of fencing, and the replacement of the cross. holdings of large capitalist farms. type. Refusal of the later Stuarts from shy guardianship over the economy. life meant maximum stimulation of capitalism. accumulation, providing complete freedom of action to the rising bourgeois class. 60-70s 17th century were a period of unusually rapid national growth. the wealth of England, its internal and ext. trade, its manufactures and shipping. Thus, England became the “homeland” of industry. revolution and because it was the first to accomplish a victorious bourgeoisie. revolution. The system of protectionism, the development of state. debt, foundation of English. banking, trade and colonial expansion overseas, which resulted in a series of trade wars waged in the name of the interests of capital - this is a short list of the prerequisites for the transformation of England into a “world workshop”, which were created by the revolution of the 17th century. And if one of the features of political. building England in the 2nd half. 17th and 18th centuries was that the “pure” rule of the bourgeoisie was not established here, but that political power was preserved. landowner monopoly nobles, then it is all the more amazing how extensive opportunities were open in this country for the “free play” of capital, how sensitively the orders of His Majesty the “money bag” were captured and taken into account in the policy. In a word, the transition from feud. monarchy of the Middle Ages to the bourgeois. monarchies of modern times - this is what happened as a result of the people's feat of ser. 17th century

Burzh. historiography English revolution goes back three centuries. Traditional its interpretation has two directions - Tory-conservative and Whig-liberal; the forerunner of the first was E. H. Clarendon (1609-74), the second - J. Locke (1632-1704), the philosopher of the “glorious revolution”. As a spokesman for the reaction. forces feud. society, E. H. Clarendon - “The history of the rebellion and civil wars in England” (Clarendon H. E., The history of the rebellion and civil wars in England, v. 1-6, 1888), and his newest followers Davis - “ The Early Stuarts" (Davies G., The early Stuarts, 1603-1660, 1937) and others interpret the revolution of the 40s. as a "great rebellion" against the pious king, provoked by the leaders of the opposition and having "terrible consequences" for the kingdom. Providentialism and legitimism - distinguish. features of this concept. Its modification is the modern concept. reaction historian H.R. Trevor-Roper - “Cromwell’s English Revolution” (Trevor-Roper H.R., La révolution anglaise de Cromwell (see “Annales”, 1955, No. 3)), according to the cut the uprising of 1640 is not bourgeois. revolution, but a “blind revolt” of the most backward, impoverished provincials. The gentry is essentially a feud. unrest against the king and the court nobility. Thus, the revolution of the 40s. the bourgeoisie is completely deprived. content.

In his book. “Two treatises of government” (1690, Russian translation “On the State”, 1902) J. Locke laid the foundation for the Whig idealization of the peaceful coup of 1688-89, called it a “glorious revolution”, in contrast to the events of the 40s, in which the rebel people played a decisive role. masses. Complete disregard for the interests of the people. mass and underline class. the compromise between the bourgeoisie and the nobility is contained in D. Hume ("The history of England from the invasion of Julius Caesar to the revolution in 1688", v. 1-8, 1786), to -ry attempted a unique synthesis of the Tory and Whig concepts of the revolution of the 40s. In particular, Hume completely misunderstood religions. shell of this revolution and suspected the Puritans of complete hypocrisy. He was outraged by the Levellers (whom he confuses with the Diggers); he calls their ideas “monstrous chimeras.” In the works of Hallam - “Constitutional history of England” (Hallam H., The constitutional history of England.., v. 1-6, 1827), F. Guizot - “History of the English Revolution” (Guizot E. P. J., Histoire de la révolution d" Angleterre.., v. 1-6, 1854-56, Russian translation, vol. 1-4, 1868), T. Macaulay - “History of England from the accession to the throne of James II” (Macaulay Th. V., The history of England from the accession of James the second, v. 1-5, 1849-61, Russian translation, parts 1-8, 1861-65) glorifies the “glorious revolution”. there was a concept of the English revolution of the 17th century as the “Puritan revolution” by S. Gardiner - “The history of England from the accession to the throne of James I until the outbreak of the civil war” (Gardiner S. R., History of England... 1603-1642, v. 1-10 , 1883-84) and the continuation of this work - "History of the great civil war 1642-1649", v. 1-4, 1886-91), "History of the Republic..." ("History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate (1649-1656)", v. 1-3, 1894-1901) Considering the citizens of the war of the 40s. only as a religionist. turmoil, struggle of religions. and political ideas, Gardiner thereby deprived the revolution of any social class. content. A major historian of the 20th century closely adheres to the concept of the “Puritan revolution”. Trevelyan. As a reaction to scientific the futility of the “traditional concepts” of the revolution of the 40s. can be considered modern. Labor historiography (see, for example, G. Holorenshaw, The Levellers and the English Revolution, translated from English, 1947). Her ch. Attention is drawn to the study of small towns. radicals of the 17th century, in particular the Levellers. Labor historiography expanded the range of sources, and thereby the field of history. observations, but never came to an understanding of the true truth. the significance of the events of the 40s, since she does not consider them as the pinnacle of the class struggle. Big East flair in interpreting the events of the 40s. 17th century has already shown pre-revolution. Russian historiography (M. M. Kovalevsky, From direct democracy..., vol. 2-3, 1906; A. N. Savin, Lectures on the history of the English revolution, 1924, 2nd ed., 1937). A truly scientific concept in English. revolution was given by the founders of Marxism-Leninism. They were the first to interpret it as a bourgeois revolution, emphasizing the decisive role of the masses in it and pointing out its specific differences from the French revolution of the late 18th century. (see Marx K. and Engels F., (Review) - Guizot. “Why was the English Revolution a success? Discourse on the history of the English Revolution,” Works, 2nd ed., vol. 7; Marx K., Bourgeoisie and Counter-Revolution, ibid. , vol. 6; Engels F., Development of socialism from utopia to science, Introduction to the English edition, in the book: Marx K. and Engels Prod., vol. 2, M., 1955, and etc.). Sov. historiography, based on theoretical the foundation of Marxism-Leninism, tried to create the first scientific. construction of English history bourgeois revolution, beginning a new time (see "The English bourgeois revolution of the 17th century", edited by Academician E. A. Kosminsky and Y. A. Levitsky, vol. 1-2, M., 1954).

ENGLISH REVOLUTION of the 17th century, a religious, political and social conflict that took the form of a civil war and led to radical changes in public relations and methods of government in England.

Causes and prerequisites of the revolution. The English revolution was conditioned by a whole complex of socio-economic, religious, ideological and political prerequisites. In the economic history of England, the general historical patterns of the transition of European medieval society to the bourgeois system were most clearly manifested. But a certain specificity also remained: the disruption of the traditional method of production, due to England’s historical orientation towards the European wool market, began here earlier in agriculture than in urban industry, predetermining a more intensive development of dispersed manufacturing in the countryside. This gave particular urgency to the agrarian question and, above all, to the problem of copyholding (see Copyholders). The fate of the peasantry depended on whether peasant holdings on the lord's land could be converted into free property (see Freeholders) on the basis of common law. In the struggle for land between the peasantry and the new nobility (gentry), the bourgeoisie intervened on the side of the latter, because land at that time was still the object of the most profitable investment of capital and in many ways the basis of social prestige. But seigneurial ownership of land did not allow it to freely change hands, which did not suit either the bourgeoisie or the gentry.

One of the features of the English Revolution was manifested in the fact that the ideology of the Reformation, which took the form of Puritanism in England, played a revolutionary mobilizing role here. This doctrine took root under Elizabeth I Tudor, a champion of the Anglican Church, who adopted part of the dogma of Calvinism, but left untouched those aspects of the cult that were incompatible with the ritual system of Puritanism. Of even greater practical importance were the organizational differences between the Puritans and the Anglican Episcopal Church, which became an instrument of royal absolutism. Instead of bishops and clergy appointed by the crown, some of the Puritans (Presbyterians) chose preachers by communities of believers governed by elders. The principle of election was for this part of the Puritans a means of subordinating the church to the interests of the anti-absolutist opposition.

The bourgeoisie and gentry, which had strengthened in Elizabethan times, and partly the lords, were aware that their lack of full property rights to land, as well as fiscal abuses of power, were directly related to the weakening of the role of representative bodies and the strengthening of absolutist tendencies in the country. James I Stuart (1603-1625) viewed parliament as an auxiliary institution to the king, while the opposition, denying the divine right of the king in both ecclesiastical and secular matters, saw parliament (headed by the king) as the supreme body of the state. The result of the contradictions between the king and parliament, which worsened due to the court’s attempts to arbitrarily establish taxes and pursue a policy of rapprochement with Spain, was the repeated dissolution of parliament.

Political crisis. Under Charles I (1625-49), the political crisis reached its climax with the submission of the “Petition of Right” (1628) by the parliamentary opposition. It contained a protest against abuses by the crown and demands to protect property from encroachment by the monarchy. After the dissolution of parliament by the king (March 1629), an 11-year period of non-parliamentary rule began.

The main instruments of the repressive policy of the king and his inner circle (Earl of Strafford and Archbishop W. Laud) were the “Star Chamber” (the highest judicial body) and the High Commission that considered church affairs. Strafford also engaged in "land settlement" in Ireland with the aim of confiscating Irish lands for the benefit of the English crown, which caused resistance from the Irish. The King's and Laud's policies in Scotland led to the successful Scots Rebellion (1639–40). The king, in dire need of money, convened parliament twice. The first, so-called Short, Parliament did not last long (13.4-5.5.1640) and was dissolved. The second, called Long, lasted from November 1640 to April 1653.

In the early 1640s, the parliamentary opposition formulated the main demands of the bourgeoisie and the new nobility in the “Petition of Roots and Branches” and the Great Remonstrance of 1641. The essence of the program of the bourgeoisie and gentry (“allied classes”) was liberation from feudal duties, services and restrictions, as well as from illegal (not voted by parliament) taxes. The goal of protecting bourgeois property was pursued by both the Act on the abolition of the “Star Chamber” (July 1641) and the Act on the illegal collection of ship money (August 1641). In November 1640, the Earl of Strafford was accused by parliament of treason, convicted and executed on May 12, 1641 (Laud shared his fate at the beginning of 1645).

In the winter of 1641-42, the confrontation between the king and parliament (House of Commons) became open. But both the supporters of parliament (“Roundheads”) and the royalists (“Cavaliers”) initially did not have the real armed force to go into direct conflict. However, the conflict escalated into a civil war.

First Civil War (1642-46). In August 1642, the king left London and went north. Having gathered knights loyal to the throne there, he declared war on parliament. On October 23, 1642, the battle took place at Edgehill Hill (near Oxford). Despite the success of the Parliamentary army, its commander, the Earl of Essex, allowed the king's army to avoid defeat. After this battle, the king settled in Oxford until the end of the war. Material advantage (the queen transferred the sum of 2 million pounds sterling to the royalists) and the military initiative as a whole were at this moment on the side of the king. Part of the parliamentary army located in the western counties was destroyed. In July 1643, Bristol surrendered to the royalists. In the north they defeated Fairfax's army. The Cavaliers were preparing to capture London and were advancing on Gloucester.

Parliament's military failures forced it to mobilize its forces. At this time, the most dynamic force in it were the independents, who finally formed into an independent political party that expressed the interests of radical bourgeois circles and the new nobility. At the beginning of the Civil War, the figure of a member of the House of Commons, Independent O. Cromwell, emerged. From among the Puritan yeomen devoted to “God’s cause,” he created the core of the parliament’s army - the “ironsided” cavalry. Parliament also received support from the so-called Eastern Association - a union of five (later seven) eastern counties that arose on Cromwell's initiative in the summer of 1642.

On September 25, 1643, the union of the parliaments of England and Scotland (“covenant”) was formed. The "Ironsides" of the Eastern Association won an important victory over the king's supporters at the Battle of Winsby (Lincolnshire) on 10/11/1643. On 2 July 1644 the Parliamentary army defeated the Royal troops at the Battle of Marston Moor. The final defeat of the royalists took place on June 14, 1645 at the Battle of Naseby. By the end of the next year, England was freed from the royalist army. The king, who fled to the Scots (April 1646), was escorted to England a few months later.

The Civil War initially developed against the backdrop of intensifying peasant uprisings, which flared up more than once in East, South-West and Central England. The Parliamentary Ordinance of February 24, 1646, which abolished knighthood and associated duties in favor of the king, not only did not alleviate the situation of the peasants, but also created even more favorable conditions for driving them off the land. The process of replacing the largest class of medieval England with bourgeois tenants, who used hired labor and paid rent to the lords, who themselves became capitalist owners of the land, began to gain momentum. Copyholders remained in feudal dependence on the owners of the manors, they were not admitted to the courts of common law and were still subject to the jurisdiction of the manorial courts.

The hardships of the urban population caused by the war, disruption of economic ties, and stagnation in industry and trade also worsened. Parliament imposed taxes on basic necessities (salt, fuel, beer, textiles). The London lower classes constantly expressed their dissatisfaction and more than once interfered in the course of events.

Disengagement in the camp of the revolution. The conflict between the Presbyterians, as well as some of the Independents, nicknamed “silk” for their closeness to the Presbyterians, and the common people turned into a confrontation between parliament and the army, which, after the victory over the king, the parliamentary majority decided to get rid of. However, the army itself, from the ranks of which new leaders emerged - “agitators”, who increasingly pushed the “grandees” (officers representing the army elite) away from the command, refused to surrender their weapons. The struggle between the army and parliament acquired a political character.

During this period, a new party emerged among the Independents, representing mainly the interests of the petty bourgeoisie and demanding equalization of people's political rights - the Levellers (equalizers). In their views, the leader of the Levellers, D. Lilburn, and his associates relied on the doctrine of natural law, which was based on the principle of equality of people by birth. However, social problems, and above all the situation in the village, were of little interest to them. Therefore, while welcoming the abolition of the knightly holding, they ignored the fate of the copyhold and thereby refused to support the peasantry.

Meanwhile, the dissolution of the army planned by parliament did not take place: it was thwarted by “agitators” closely associated with the Levellers. In early June 1647, they captured the Parliamentary artillery and then transported Charles I to the army, which entered the capital on August 6. Parliament, still inclined to compromise with the monarchy, was looking for an opportunity to put an end to the democratization of the army and agree with Charles I on a form of government acceptable to both sides. On behalf of the “grandees,” General G. Ayrton developed extremely moderate “Chapters of Proposals.” In contrast to the “Heads...”, the Levellers’ manifesto “People’s Agreement” was put forward from below, which was, in essence, a project for a bourgeois-democratic, republican structure of the country, although the Levellers did not dare to openly pronounce the word “republic”. They demanded the replacement of the Long Parliament with a unicameral one (400 people), convened every two years on the basis of universal male suffrage, the introduction of the principle of proportionality in the election of deputies and the proclamation of freedom of conscience. To bring the movement for the “People's Agreement” under control, Cromwell held an army council in the London suburb of Putney (10/28/1647), at which the Independents gained the upper hand, and an attempt at disobedience by part of the army, inspired by the ideas of the equalizers, was suppressed.

Charles I decided to take advantage of the contradictions in the enemy camp. He won over the Scottish Presbyterians and fled to the Isle of Wight. This prompted a rapprochement between Independents, Levellers and "agitators". At a council of army leaders at Windsor in April 1648, Charles I was formally accused of grave crimes against “God’s cause” and the nation.

Second Civil War. The second civil war began (spring-summer 1648). Having suppressed the royalist revolts in the west and southeast, Cromwell moved to the north of England against the Scots who had sided with the king, and defeated them at the Battle of Preston on 17–19 August 1648. In December 1648, army officers isolated Charles I in one of the castles, the army entered London, where a detachment of dragoons under the command of Colonel Pride cleared the House of Commons of Presbyterians ready for another deal with the king (“Pride’s Purge”). The numerically reduced Independent Parliament was nicknamed "the rump of the Long Parliament". At the end of December 1648, a decision was made to try the king, and on January 4, 1649, parliament proclaimed itself the bearer of supreme power. The Supreme Court, appointed by Parliament, headed by Judge Bradshaw, after much hesitation, sentenced Charles I to death. On January 30, 1649, the king was beheaded in the square in front of Whitehall Palace. The feudal monarchy was overthrown.

Republic. In March 1649, the House of Lords was abolished and the royal power was abolished "as unnecessary, burdensome and injurious to liberty." England actually became a republic (declared on May 19, 1649) without a king and a House of Lords. This event had pan-European significance: the English bourgeoisie, in alliance with the new nobility, not only opposed the thesis of the divine origin of royal power with the idea of ​​a republic based on the doctrine of a national contract, but also practically embodied this idea.

However, the specificity of the republic in England in the 1640s was that the principles of bourgeois democracy were not consistently implemented, since in the concept of “popular sovereignty” even among the Levellers there was a limited social content of the very concept of “people”, which, separating the unprivileged classes from the gentry, at the same time excluded the poor. The resolution of the agrarian question on a democratic basis in the interests of the masses of the peasantry of England was contained only in the demands of representatives of the “true Levellers” (Diggers) movement, led by J. Winstanley. It arose in the spring of 1649 as a reflection of the hopes of the peasantry that with the destruction of royal power, the opportunity would open up to rebuild people's lives on the basis of justice. In his pamphlet “The Law of Liberty,” which presented a project for the reconstruction of society based on the abolition of private ownership of land, Winstanley wrote that justice could manifest itself in the form of recognition of land as the common treasury of the people of England. When the “true Levellers” began to implement their plans (a group of 30-40 people led by Winstanley began to work together to dig up land near the town of Cobham in Surrey), despite the peaceful nature of the movement, all sectors of society took up arms against them, political parties and movements, including levelers.

The policy of the Independents in Ireland and Scotland was aggressive. In 1649-52 the actual conquest of the “Green Island” took place. By order of Cromwell, the garrisons of even surrendering fortresses were exterminated. Ireland was devastated. Thousands of Irish were taken to the American colonies as “white slaves.” Almost 2/3 of the territory of Ireland fell into the hands of new landowners from England. The principles of the “land management” policy in Scotland were also similar, where Cromwell’s troops invaded under the pretext of fighting the machinations of Charles, the son of the executed king. In September 1651, the Scots were completely defeated, and the heir to the English throne fled to France. Most of the lands of the Scottish aristocracy were confiscated in favor of the English. Along with the “organization” of affairs in Ireland and Scotland, the Independent Republic began to suppress the royalist movement in the American colonies. In 1650, Parliament declared the colonists who did not recognize the republic to be traitors and prohibited all kinds of relations with them.

The foreign and trade policy of the republic was based on the principles of protectionism and corresponded to the interests of the “allied classes”. The British forced Holland to recognize the “Navigation Acts,” which did not allow foreign merchants to trade with the English colonies without the permission of the English government and prohibited the importation of non-European goods into the possessions of this country on foreign ships.

Cromwell's Protectorate and Stuart Restoration. In 1653, Cromwell, who effectively established a regime of military dictatorship, was proclaimed Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland. But Cromwell largely remained captive to old ideas about government. In 1657 the House of Lords was restored. Cromwell, after some hesitation, refused to accept the royal crown offered to him. Cromwell's military victories and foreign policy successes temporarily averted the threat of a Stuart restoration. However, the protectorate regime proved fragile and practically ceased to exist in 1658 with the death of the Lord Protector. Richard Cromwell, who replaced his father, could not resist restorationist tendencies. On May 25, 1659, he was deposed, power nominally passed to the Long Parliament, restored by the “rump.” General Monck, who commanded the army in Scotland, occupied London and convened a new parliament, which proposed that Charles take the English throne on the basis of the restrictive conditions set out in the Declaration of Breda in 1660. The restoration of the Stuart monarchy took place in England. However, although the monarchy and Anglicanism were restored to their rights, the basic laws adopted during the years of the republic and protectorate (primarily the legalization of private ownership of land) remained in force, and the gentry and bourgeoisie, who believed in their own strength, brushed aside the claims of the Stuarts to restore absolutism, committing 1688 a new, “Glorious Revolution”.

Lit.: Legislation of the English Revolution: 1640-1660 / Edited by N. P. Dmitrievsky. M.; L., 1946; Green D. R. History of the English people. M., 1891-1892. T. 3, 4; Trevelyan D. M. Social history of England. M., 1959; Barg M. A. The Great English Revolution in portraits of its leaders. M., 1991; The English Civil Wars: local aspects / Ed. by R. S. Richardson. Stroud, 1997; Hill K. The English Bible and the Revolution of the 17th Century. M., 1998; Soldiers, writers and statesmen of the English revolution. Camb.; N.Y., 1998; The English Civil War: the essential reading / Ed. by Peter Gaunt. Oxf.; Malden, 2000.

The victorious bourgeois revolution, which led to the establishment of capitalism and the establishment of the bourgeois system in England; one of the early bourgeois revolutions. Being the first revolution on a European scale, it ushered in the era of the collapse of the feudal system in Europe, marking the beginning of the replacement of the feudal formation with the capitalist one.

By the middle of the 17th century. England has achieved significant success in the development of industry and trade. The basis of the country's economic progress was the development of new forms of production - capitalist manufacture (mainly in the form of dispersed manufacture). However, the system of industrial monopolies, imposed by the kings of the Stuart dynasty, as well as the guild regulation that prevailed in the cities, narrowed the field of activity of manufacturing entrepreneurs.

The kings of the Tudor dynasty managed to mask absolutism with parliamentary forms of government, but already the Stuarts - James I and Charles I - entered into a conflict with parliament, which especially worsened under Charles I. Since 1629, a non-parliamentary regime was established in England, personifying a decadent form of absolutism. Together with his advisers Earl of Strafford and Archbishop Laud, Charles I began to implement a “firm course” in England, Scotland and Ireland, which caused discontent and indignation and increased emigration overseas to North America. In Ireland, the robbery of Irish landowners continued; the policy of “church uniformity” under the dominance of Catholicism in a country oppressed by foreign conquerors, extremely strained relations. In Scotland, an attempt to introduce “church uniformity” led in 1637 to a nationwide uprising against Charles I - to the creation of the so-called. Covenant, and in 1639 to the Anglo-Scottish War, in which English absolutism was defeated. This defeat and the outbreak of peasant and urban uprisings (20-30s) accelerated the start of the revolution. The Short Parliament (13 April - 5 May 1640) refused to provide subsidies for the Scottish war. The lack of money and discontent not only among the lower ranks of the people, but also among financiers and merchants made Charles’s situation hopeless. A new parliament was convened, called the Long Parliament (November 3, 1640 - April 20, 1653); a revolution began in the country.

The Long Parliament destroyed the main tools of absolutism: the extraordinary royal courts were eliminated - the “Star Chamber”, “High Commission” , All monopoly patents and privileges were destroyed, and their owners were removed from parliament, and a bill was passed on the non-dissolution of the existing parliament without its consent. The king's closest advisor, Strafford, was brought to trial by Parliament and executed (May 12, 1641). Later, Archbishop Laud and other advisers to the king shared his fate. However, already in 1641 differences emerged in parliament. Fearing that the principle of “equality and self-government,” having won in church affairs, could influence the political order in the country, landlords and the big bourgeoisie thwarted the decision on the abolition of the episcopate and the reorganization of the church on Calvinist principles. The fear of deepening the revolution was even more evident in the fierce struggle that unfolded in the Long Parliament during the discussion of the so-called. Great Remonstration (See Great Remonstration) , which was adopted on November 22, 1641 by a majority of only 11 votes.

In an effort to suppress the revolutionary aspirations of the people, parliament in the spring of 1647 tried to dissolve part of the revolutionary army. Facing the threat of disarmament and not trusting the independent officers - the “grandees”, the soldiers began to elect the so-called. agitators, to whom leadership in military units and in the army as a whole gradually passed. A conflict began between parliament and the army. The threat of political isolation prompted O. Cromwell, who initially advocated the subordination of the army to parliament, to lead the movement of soldiers in the army in order to stop its further drift to the left. On June 5, 1647, at a general review of the army, the so-called A “solemn undertaking” not to disperse until the demands of the soldiers were met and the liberties and rights of the English people secured. The army, along with the broad peasant-plebeian masses, became the main driving force of the revolution at its bourgeois-democratic stage (1647-49). The Second Civil War, which broke out in the spring of 1648, forced the Independents to temporarily seek reconciliation with the Levellers. But the acceptance by the "grandees" of a significant part of the Levellers' program meant that the social program of the Levellers - in particular on the issue of the fate of the copygold - represented only a more radical version of the program of the "grandees" and " ... that only the intervention of the peasantry and the proletariat, the “plebeian element of the cities,” is capable of seriously moving forward the bourgeois revolution...” (Lenin V.I., Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 17, p. 47). At the Battle of Preston (August 17–19, 1648), Cromwell inflicted a decisive defeat on the Scots and English royalists. On December 1, 1648, the king was taken into custody. The army reoccupied London and finally cleared the Long Parliament of its Presbyterian majority (Pride's Purge, 6 December 1648). On January 6, 1649, the Supreme Court was established to hear the king's case. On January 30, Charles Stuart was executed as a “traitor and tyrant.”

On May 19, 1649, England became a republic, the supreme power in which belonged to a unicameral parliament (the fate of the monarchy was shared by the House of Lords); in reality, the republic of 1649 turned out to be an independent oligarchy. Executive power was exercised by the State Council, which consisted of “grandees” and their parliamentary associates. The social and protective functions of the independent republic in domestic policy were combined with aggressive aspirations and a policy of suppressing the liberation movement of peoples under British rule. Cromwell's military expedition to Ireland (1649-50) was aimed at suppressing the national liberation uprising of the Irish people; the degeneration of the revolutionary army in Ireland was completed; here a new landed aristocracy was created, which became a stronghold of counter-revolution in England itself. Just as mercilessly, the English republic dealt with Scotland, annexing it to England in 1652. The anti-democratic course in resolving the agrarian and national issues narrowed the social base of the republic. Its only support remained an army of mercenaries, maintained at the expense of the masses. The dispersal of the “rump” of the Long Parliament and the unsuccessful experience for the “grandees” with the Petit (Berbon) Parliament (1653), which unexpectedly for its creators took the path of social reforms (abolition of tithes, the introduction of civil marriage, etc.), paved the way for the regime military dictatorship - Cromwell's Protectorate (1653-59).

Soon after Cromwell's death (September 3, 1658), this regime collapsed. In 1659, a republic was formally restored in England, but its ephemeral nature was predetermined by the entire course of events. Frightened by the strengthening of the democratic movement, the bourgeoisie and the new nobility began to lean toward the “traditional monarchy.” In 1660, the restoration of the Stuarts took place (see Charles II), who agreed to sanction the main gains of the bourgeois revolution, which ensured economic dominance for the bourgeoisie. The coup of 1688-89 (the so-called “Glorious Revolution”) formalized a compromise between the bourgeoisie, which from then on received access to state power, and the landed aristocracy.

The English Revolution gave a powerful impetus to the process of the so-called. initial accumulation of capital (“de-peasantization” of the countryside, turning peasants into wage workers, strengthening enclosures, replacing peasant holdings with large farms of the capitalist type); it provided complete freedom of action for the rising bourgeois class and paved the way for the industrial revolution of the 18th century. just as Puritanism broke ground for the English Enlightenment. In the political field, the revolutionary struggle of the masses in the mid-17th century. ensured the transition from the feudal monarchy of the Middle Ages to the bourgeois monarchy of modern times.

THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT

Enlightenment, intellectual and spiritual movement of the late 17th and early 19th centuries. in Europe and North America. It was a natural continuation of the humanism of the Renaissance and the rationalism of the early modern era, which laid the foundations of the enlightenment worldview: the rejection of a religious worldview and an appeal to reason as the only criterion for knowledge of man and society. The name was fixed after the publication of I. Kant’s article Answer to the question: what is Enlightenment?(1784). The root word “light,” from which the term “enlightenment” comes (English: Enlightenment; French: Les Lumières; German: Aufklärung; Italian: Illuminismo), goes back to ancient religious tradition, enshrined in both the Old and New Testaments. This is the Creator’s separation of light from darkness, and the definition of God himself as Light. Christianization itself implies the enlightenment of humanity with the light of the teachings of Christ. Rethinking this image, the enlighteners put a new understanding into it, talking about the enlightenment of man with the light of reason

The Enlightenment originated in England at the end of the 17th century. in the writings of its founder D. Locke (1632-1704) and his followers G. Bolingbroke (1678-1751), D. Addison (1672-1719), A. E. Shaftesbury (1671-1713), F. Hutcheson (1694- 1747) the basic concepts of enlightenment teaching were formulated: “common good”, “natural man”, “natural law”, “natural religion”, “social contract”. In the doctrine of natural law, set forth in Two treatises on government(1690) D. Locke, fundamental human rights are substantiated: freedom, equality, inviolability of person and property, which are natural, eternal and inalienable. People need to voluntarily enter into a social contract, on the basis of which a body (the state) is created to ensure the protection of their rights. The concept of a social contract was one of the fundamental ones in the doctrine of society developed by the figures of the early English Enlightenment.

In the 18th century, France became the center of the educational movement. At the first stage of the French Enlightenment, the main figures were S. L. Montesquieu (1689-1755) and Voltaire (F. M. Arouet, 1694-1778). In the works of Montesquieu he received further development Locke's doctrine of rule of law. In the treatise About the spirit of laws(1748) the principle of separation of powers into legislative, executive and judicial was formulated. IN Persian letters(1721) Montesquieu outlined the path that French educational thought was to take with its cult of the reasonable and natural. However, Voltaire held different political views. He was an ideologist of enlightened absolutism and sought to instill the ideas of the Enlightenment in the monarchs of Europe (service with Frederick II, correspondence with Catherine II). He was distinguished by his clearly expressed anti-clerical activities, opposed religious fanaticism and bigotry, church dogmatism and the supremacy of the church over the state and society. The writer’s work is diverse in themes and genres: anti-clerical works Virgin of Orleans (1735), Fanaticism, or Prophet Mohammed(1742); philosophical stories Candide, or Optimism (1759), Simple-minded(1767); tragedy Brutus (1731), Tancred (1761); Philosophical letters (1733).

In the second stage of the French Enlightenment, Diderot (1713-1784) and the Encyclopedists played a major role. Encyclopedia, or Explanatory Dictionary of Sciences, Arts and Crafts, 1751-1780 became the first scientific encyclopedia, which outlined the basic concepts in the field of physical and mathematical sciences, natural sciences, economics, politics, engineering and art. In most cases, the articles were thorough and reflected newest level knowledge. Inspirers and editors Encyclopedias Diderot and J. D'Alembert (1717-1783) appeared; Voltaire, Condillac, Helvetius, Holbach, Montesquieu, Rousseau took an active part in its creation. Articles on specific areas of knowledge were written by professionals - scientists, writers, engineers.

The third period brought forward the figure of J.-J. Rousseau (1712-1778). He became the most prominent popularizer of the ideas of the Enlightenment, introducing elements of sensitivity and eloquent pathos into the rationalistic prose of the Enlightenment. Rousseau proposed his own way of political structure of society. In the treatise On the Social Contract, or Principles of Political Law(1762) he put forward the idea of ​​popular sovereignty. According to it, the government receives power from the hands of the people in the form of an assignment, which it is obliged to carry out in accordance with the will of the people. If it violates this will, then the people can limit, modify or take away the power given to them. One means of such a return of power could be the violent overthrow of the government. Rousseau's ideas found their further development in the theory and practice of the ideologists of the Great French Revolution.

The period of the late Enlightenment (late 18th - early 19th centuries) is associated with countries Eastern Europe, Russia and Germany. German literature and philosophical thought gave new impetus to the Enlightenment. German enlighteners were spiritual successors to the ideas of English and French thinkers, but in their writings they were transformed and deeply accepted national character. The originality of the national culture and language was asserted by I.G. Herder (1744-1803). His main work Ideas for the philosophy of human history(1784-1791) became the first thorough classical work with which Germany entered the arena of world historical and philosophical science. The work of many German writers was in tune with the philosophical quest of the European Enlightenment. The pinnacle of the German Enlightenment, which gained worldwide fame, were such works as Robbers (1781), Deceit and love (1784), Wallenstein (1799), Maria Stuart(1801) F. Schiller (1759-1805), Emilia Galotti, Nathan the Wise G.E. Lessing (1729-1781) and especially Faust(1808-1832) I.-V. Goethe (1749-1832). The philosophers G.V. Leibniz (1646-1716) and I. Kant (1724-1804) played an important role in the formation of the ideas of the Enlightenment. The idea of ​​progress, traditional for the Enlightenment, was developed in Critique of Pure Reason I. Kant (1724-1804), who became the founder of German classical philosophy.

Throughout the development of the Enlightenment, the concept of “reason” was at the center of the thinking of its ideologists. Reason, in the view of the Enlightenment, gives a person an understanding of both the social structure and himself. Both can be changed for the better, can be improved. In this way, the idea of ​​progress was substantiated, which was conceived as the irreversible course of history from the darkness of ignorance to the kingdom of reason. Scientific knowledge was considered the highest and most productive form of activity of the mind. It was during this era that sea travel acquired a systematic and scientific character. Geographical discoveries in the Pacific Ocean (Easter Islands, Tahiti and Hawaii, east coast of Australia) J. Roggeveen (1659-1729), D. Cook (1728-1779), L.A. Bougainville (1729-1811), J. F. La Perouse (1741-1788) laid the foundation for the systematic study and practical development of this region, which stimulated the development of natural sciences. C. Linnaeus (1707-1778) made a great contribution to botany. In progress Plant species(1737) he described thousands of species of flora and fauna and gave them double Latin names. J.L. Buffon (1707-1788) introduced the term “biology” into scientific circulation, denoting the “science of life”. S. Lamarck (1744-1829) put forward the first theory of evolution. In mathematics, I. Newton (1642-1727) and G. W. Leibniz (1646-1716) almost simultaneously discovered differential and integral calculus. The development of mathematical analysis was promoted by L. Lagrange (1736-1813) and L. Euler (1707-1783). The founder of modern chemistry A.L. Lavoisier (1743-1794) compiled the first list chemical elements. Characteristic feature The scientific thought of the Enlightenment was that it was oriented towards the practical use of scientific achievements in the interests of industrial and social development.