ENGLAND 



2047 



ENGLAND 



The brother of Charles II, and his heir, was 

 an acknowledged Catholic, and attempts were 

 made to exclude him from the succession, but 

 in vain. In 1485 James came to -the throne, 

 and from the first his favoritism for Catholics 

 was as pronounced as the people had feared it 

 might be. He set aside the Test Act and gave 

 positions of trust and honor to Catholics, and 

 he even went so far as to gather an army with 

 which to carry out his plans. So long as it 

 seemed that his line would die out with him, 

 the people bore with his tyranny and the ille- 

 gality of his acts, but when a son was born- to 

 him in 1688, and it became evident that there 

 might be a Catholic succession, several of the 

 great nobles dispatched an invitation to Wil- 

 liam of Orange and his wife Mary, the son-in- 

 law and daughter of James, to seize the Eng- 

 lish throne. They came late in 1688, James 

 fled, and the "bloodless revolution" was accom- 

 plished without striking a blow. 



The Responsible Ministry. William and 

 Mary were made joint sovereigns, but William 

 was the real ruler. He was never popular, be- 

 cause he was looked upon as a foreigner, but 

 he endured his unpopularity in silence, and 

 gave the country a wise and just government. 

 In its foreign relations England was now op- 

 posed to France, which was still under the rule 

 of that old tyrant who had been William's 

 enemy for so many years, Louis XIV, "the 

 Grand Monarch." But the most significant 

 movements of the reign were domestic rather 

 than foreign. The Dissenters, who in the pre- 

 vious reigns had been persecuted, at times bit- 

 terly, were allowed freedom of worship, and the 

 idea of a responsible ministry 'became firmly es- 

 tablished. Hitherto, the kings had chosen or 

 dismissed their ministers as they saw fit, but 

 it was now declared that all Cabinet ministers 

 were responsible to Parliament, and could hold 

 office only during such time as the party to 

 which they belonged was in the ascendancy in 

 that body. 



When William died in 1702, Anne, the sister 

 of Mary, came to the throne. She was well- 

 intentioned, though rather dull, but her reign 

 was made brilliant by the successes of her 

 great general, Marlborough, in the war against 

 Louis XIV (see SUCCESSION WARS, subhead 

 War of the Spanish Succession). In literature, 

 too, her reign was noteworthy, Pope, Swift, 

 Addison and others reflecting such glory upon it 

 that it is commonly known as the Augustan 

 Age. It was while Anne was on the throne, 

 in 1707, that the actual legislative union of 



Scotland with England, begun a century earlier 

 when one sovereign came to reign over the 

 two countries, was at length accomplished. 

 Scotland sent its members to the English Par- 

 liament and save in local affairs ceased to have 

 a separate government. 



From that date, the United Kingdom bore 

 the name of Great Britain. The history of 

 England since the union is continued in the 

 article GREAT BRITAIN. E.D.F. 



Consult Macaulay's History of England ; Mont- 

 gomery's History of England; Greene's History 

 of the English People; Andrews' A History of 

 England. 



Related Subjects. The articles In these vol- 

 umes which deal with some phase of English 

 life or history are numerous. The following 

 classified list will make them easily accessible : 



CITIES AND TOWNS 



Lincoln 



Liverpool 



London 



Manchester 



Middlesbrough 



Newcastle-upon-Tyne 



Northampton 



Norwich 



Nottingham 



Oldham 



Oxford 



Plymouth 



Portsmouth 



Preston 



Sheffield 



Southampton 



Stratford-on-Avon 



Sunderland 



Yarmouth 



York 



Aldershot 



Birmingham 



Blackburn 



Bolton 



Bradford 



Brighton 



Bristol 



Canterbury 



Chester 



Coventry 



Derby 



Dover 



Exeter 



Gloucester 



Greenwich 



Halifax 



Huddersfleld 



Hull 



Kenilworth 



Leeds 



Leicester 



EDUCATION 

 Cambridge, University Oxford University 



of Rugby School 



Eton College 



HISTORY 



For later history, see list of Related Subjects 

 under GREAT BRITAIN. 

 Agincourt 

 Aix-la-Chapelle, 



Congress of 

 Aix-la-Chapelle, 



Treaties of 

 Anglo-Saxons 

 Armada 

 Bannockburn 

 Barebones Parliament 

 Boyne, Battle of the 

 Cavaliers 

 Commonwealth of 



England 

 Crecy 

 Crusades 

 Domesday Book 

 Feudal System 

 Field of the Cloth of 



Gold 

 Flodden Field 



Grand Remonstrance 

 Gunpowder Plot 

 Hampton Court Con- 

 ference 



Hastings, Battle of 

 Heptarchy 



Hundred Years' War 

 Lancaster, House of 

 Long Parliament 

 Magna Charta 

 Marston Moor 

 Naseby, Battle of 

 Normans 

 Petition of Right 

 Picts 



Plantagenet 

 Plymouth Colony 

 Plymouth Company 

 Reformation, The 

 Renaissance 



