1. The English Monarchy and the Rise of Constitutionalism
A. England’s Monarchs in the High Middle Ages
1. William the Conqueror and the Norman Invasion ( )
a. Tribes of people known as Anglo-Saxons settled in
England in the early Middle Ages and ruled the island
until the year 1066
1) Edward the Confessor, the Anglo-Saxon King
of England, died in 1066 and the kingship was
taken by Harold Godwinson who belonged to
one of the most powerful noble families in England
2) Edward the Confessor’s cousin, Duke William of Normandy, also claimed the throne of
England

2. The Battle of Hastings—October 14, 1066
1) The forces of Harold Godwinson and Duke William
met at Hastings, in Southern England, during which
William’s mounted knights defeated the Anglo-Saxon
infantry
c. Duke William of Normandy was crowned King of England
on December 25 (Christmas Day) in 1066
William expanded the power of the king in England
1) King William sent royal officials to collect information regarding who owned how much land in England. They
compiled a book of records known as the “Domesday
Book” in order to tax people effectively
a)William claimed about 20% of the land for he
and his family
2) William required all knights and vassals pledge fealty directly to him, rather than their liege lord
3) William divided England into counties and within each county were smaller “shires.” He appointed a
“royal sheriff” to oversee each shire

3. King Henry II Expands the Administrative and Legal Structure
in England
System of taxation
1) Henry II hired tax officials, known as “barons of
the exchequer” to count the tax payments which were
collected at a local level by sheriffs
Royal Courts
1) Henry II increased the number of cases that were
held in the royal courts which took power away
from local courts
2) Henry compiled a book of “common law” (law
that was common to the whole kingdom) that
was based on custom
a) Royal officials surveyed local officials
throughout England to develop a system of
law based on the customs of the people

4. 3) Henry II claimed the right to punish clergymen in the
royal courts
a) traditionally, members of the clergy had been
tried in Church courts
b)Thomas Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury
resisted Henry and claimed that clerics could
only be tried in Church courts
c) four knights went to Canterbury and murdered
Thomas Becket in a cathedral
d) the public was outraged by this event and the
king was forced to allow the Church to try
members of the clergy

5. King John I (1199-1216): The Nobles Strike Back
a. Many English nobles resented the growth of the king’s
power and rose in rebellion during the reign of Henry’s son,
King John I
b. The English nobles forced King John I to sign the Magna
Carta (The Great Charter) in 1215 which limited the power of
the king to act without first consulting the nobles
1) the Magna Carta was used by the people of England to
argue that the power of the monarch should be limited rather
than absolute
2) the Magna Carta was a “feudal” document and asserted
that the relationship between the king and his vassals was
based on mutual rights and obligations
3) the Magna Carta was aimed at limiting government
practices that affected the relations between the king and his
vassals and between the king and the Church

6. King Edward I (1272-1307) and the Emergence of Parliament
a. Edward I began the long process of uniting all of the British
Isles into a single kingdom
1) he conquered Wales
2) He started a war with Scotland to take control of the
northern regions of the British Isles. He failed in his attempt
to take control of Scotland (Braveheart)
b. Edward I and Parliament
1) originally, the word Parliament applied to meetings of the
king’s Great Council in which the greater nobles met with
leading Church officials, the king’s judges and head advisors
to deal with matters of justice
2) in need of more money, King Edward I invited two
two knights from every county and two residents,
called burgesses, from each city to meet with the
Great Council to agree to new taxes; this was the first
Parliament and is often referred to as “Model Parliament”

7. 3) The English Parliament that Edward I created eventually
divided itself into two houses. The nobles and church
officials became known as the House of Lords and the
Knights and burgesses became known as the House of
Commons (note: we use a two-house system, the Senate
and House of Representatives in the U.S. Congress)
The Hundred Years’ War: Edward III, The Black Prince, & HenryV
a. Series of wars fought between England and France which lasted
from
b. Causes
1) A dispute broke out between England and France when
the King of France, Charles IV, died without an heir
2) as the son of the daughter of King Phillip IV (the father
of Charles IV), King Edward III of England had a claim to
the throne of France as a close male heir
3) French practice, however, emphasized descent through
the male line and a cousin of Charles IV, Philip, duke of
Valois, became king as Philip VI

8. 4) English monarchs had maintained possession of Gascony, a
territory in France dating back to King William I so the
king of England was also a vassal to the King of France
a) When Philip VI was named King of France, and
Edward III’s claim denied, King Edward III refused to
pledge homage to King Philip VI
--in response, King Philip VI seized Gascony
--Edward III responded by declaring war on Philip
c. The First Phase of the Hundred Years’ War
1) The French army was made up of mostly mounted knights
who fought on horseback whereas the English army consisted
of cavalry supported by paid peasant foot soldiers and skilled
archers; the English used the longbow which was able to fire
arrows rapidly rather than the more common crossbow
2) The Battle of Crecy: just south of Flanders, the French
forces fought the English army. English archers rained arrows
down on the French and won the battle

9. In the aftermath of battle, Edward and the English
troops captured the French port of Calais to serve as
post from where they could launch future invasions
3) The Campaigns of the Black Prince
a) King Edward III’s son, Edward the Prince of Wales
deliberately ravaged towns in France, burned crops,
and looted anything of value, for this he earned the
name “The Black Prince”
b) The Black Prince avoided fighting big battles
until he was forced to do so in 1356
4) The Battle of Poitiers (1356)
a) English troops, commanded by the Black Prince,
met French forces who were under the command of
King John II
b) The English army was victorious and King
John II of France was taken as a prisoner of war

10. 5) Peace of Bretigny (1359): This treaty ended what is known as
the first phase on the Hundred Years’ War. England won the
Major battles in the war but were not strong enough to place the
Entire country of France under the authority of the King of
England
a) The Peace of Bretigny required that France pay a
large ransom for the release of King John II, the English
territory of Gascony in France was enlarged, and King
Edward III of England agreed to recant his claim to the
throne of France in return for King John II’s promise
to give up control of English lands in France
d. The Second Phase of the Hundred Years’ War
1) King Charles V of France, son of John II, took the throne of
France and set out to recover all lands in France that were
controlled by England
2) Charles V avoided big battles and gradually destroyed
England’s forts in France one by one
a) by 1374 he had succeeded and negotiated a truce with
England that was signed in 1396

11. The Third Phase of the Hundred Years’ War (1415-1425)
1) King Henry V of England and the Battle of Agincourt
a) Henry V and England invaded France in 1415
and defeated the French army on a muddy field
in Agincourt, France
b) As the heavily-plated French cavalry attempted
to cross the field, English bowman and infantry
slaughtered them
c) 1,500 French nobles died in this battle
2) Following Agincourt, Henry V and the English army
conquered Normandy; he signed an alliance with the
duke of Burgundy putting England in control of all
northern France
Joan of Arc and the End of the Hundred Years’ War
1) England seized the province of Orleans in France in
1428

12. 2) Joan of Arc, a peasant girl who claimed God had
communicated with her and wanted her to free France from
England’s control, convinced the king to allow her to march
with the French army and fight to regain Orleans
a) Joan supposedly inspired the French army who
defeated the English and reclaimed Orleans
b) Joan, however, was captured by the English who
turned her over to the Inquisition of the Catholic
Church who tried, convicted, and burned her at the
stake on charges of heresy
c) 25 years later, a Church court exonerated her of
these charges and she was declared a saint by the
Church in 1920
3) The war persisted for two until 1453 when the French
army defeated the English in Normandy and Aquitaine
1) key to France’s success was the use of the
cannon, a new weapon made possible by the
invention of gunpowder

13. Edward III (1327-1377) and the Evolution of English Political
Institutions
a. due to the need to raise money to fight the Hundred Years’
War, Edward III called Parliament frequently to gain permission
to collect new taxes
b. Edward III allowed Parliament to examine government
accounts to ensure that tax money was being spent properly
c. House of Lords and House of Commons were formally created
during this era
1) House of Lords consisted of leading bishops, abbots, and
top aristocrats and their positions in the House of Lords were
passed down through heredity
2) House of Commons consisted of representatives of the
shires and boroughs
a) although the House of Lords had far more power, the
House of Commons began the practice of drawing up
petitions, which, if accepted by the king, became law

14. King Richard II, Henry IV and Political Instability in England
a. Following the death of Edward III in 1377, England began to
experience internal instability as groups of aristocrats created
factions and rivaled King Richard II for power
1) Henry of Lancaster, the leader of one of the factions,
defeated the Richard II’s forces and killed him
2) Henry of Lancaster became the new king of England as
Henry IV
3) His son, Henry V, was the king who led the English army
to several victories in the Hundred Years’ War
B. The Tudor Monarchs
1. The War of the Roses
a. background
1) the toll of the Hundred Years’ War on the economy in
England created a lot of fighting between aristocrats
b. The War of the Roses was a civil war between the House of
York, whose symbol was a white rose, against the House of
Lancaster, whose symbol was the red rose

15. In 1485, Henry Tudor, duke of Richmond, defeated the last
king from the House of York, King Richard III, at Bosworth Field
and established a new Tudor dynasty
King Henry VII
a. Henry VII ended the practice of “livery and maintenance,”
the practice by which wealthy aristocrats maintained private
armies of followers dedicated to the service of their lord
b. Henry VII established the Court of the Star Chamber which did
not use juries and allowed torture to be used to extract confessions
c. Henry VII saved England a tremendous amount of money by
using diplomacy to avoid costly wars; by avoiding war, he was able
to reduce the taxes of the aristocracy and middle class which made
the Tudor family very popular with the people of England

16. 3. King Henry VIII—See Madness of Henry VIII Worksheet
4. King Edward VI ( )
a. When Henry VIII died in 1547, he was succeeded by his
nine-year-old son Edward
b. Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, a trusted advisor to Henry
VIII, served as regent since Edward was to young to rule
1) Cranmer pushed England in a more Protestant
direction
a) clergy were permitted to marry
b) eliminated Catholic images that
Protestants considered to be false idols
c) issued a Protestant Book of Common
Prayer
2) Many people in England were outraged by the
rapid advances of Protestant views

17. 5. Queen Mary ( )
a. Mary was a devout Catholic who intended to restore
Catholicism in England
1) many members of Parliament opposed this plan
2) she burned over 300 people who were convicted
of heresy because they continued to practice
Protestantism; for this she earned the nickname
“Bloody Mary”
b. Mary married Philip II, the son of Charles V and the
future king of Spain
1) Philip was disliked by the people of England and
the many disapproved of England’s alliance with
Spain
c. as a result of her policies, Mary achieved the opposite of what
she had set out to do at the beginning of her reign; there were
more Protestants in England at the end of her reign than had been
at the beginning as people came to associate defiance of
Catholicism with resistance to Spanish interference
1) with her death ended the restoration of Catholicism

18. Queen Elizabeth
a. Elizabeth is considered the greatest monarch in England’s
history because of the following reasons:
1) England rose from a relatively small island-kingdom to
a leader of Protestant nations during her reign as queen
2) she laid the foundations for a world empire
3) she supported and participated in a cultural renaissance
4 ) she moved swiftly to resolve the difficult religious
problems that she had inherited from Mary
b. Elizabethan Religious Settlement (1559)
1) Elizabeth did not want to see England torn apart by
religious matters; therefore, she created a religious plan for
England based on moderation and compromise
2) The Act of Uniformity restored the Protestant Book of
Common Prayer from the reign of Edward VI with some
changes to make it more acceptable to Catholics
3) Elizabeth’s religious settlement was Protestant but it was
a moderate form of Protestantism

19. 4) Some Catholics and Puritans in England opposed the
Elizabethan settlement and tried to challenge Elizabeth’s
government
a) Elizabeth’s Catholic cousin Mary, queen of Scots,
who was next in line to the throne, participated in
several plots to have Elizabeth removed from power
b) Mary was forced to flee Scotland due to an
uprising led by Calvinist who wanted to remove
their Catholic queen from power
c) Elizabeth placed Mary under house arrest for 14
years and then had her beheaded to protect her
regime from threats
Elizabeth’s Government
1) Elizabeth avoided war through wit and careful planning
2) Unofficially, she encouraged English seaman to raid
Spanish ships and colonies
a) Francis Drake was a well-known privateer who
plundered Spanish ships loaded with gold and silver

20. Elizabeth also provided aid to Huguenots and Dutch
Calvinist to weaken the power of France and Spain, the two
major Catholic powers in Europe
a) an uprising of Calvinists had been ongoing in the
Netherlands which was controlled by Spain and by
assisting the rebels, England weakened Spain
4) The Spanish Armada and the Protestant Wind
a) King Philip II of Spain launched an attack on England
with his powerful navy known as the Spanish Armada
b) The English navy met the Spanish Armada and forced
the Armada to retreat from the English Channel and go
back to Spain
c) The Spanish Armada was battered by storms during
the retreat; the storm that led to the destruction of several
Spanish ships became known as the “Protestant Wind”

21. The Stuart Family Rules England
1. King James VI of Scotland (son of Mary, queen of Scots)
became King James I ( ) of England when Elizabeth died
a. James I believed in the “divine right of kings”, that his power
was given to him by God, and therefore did not respect the
partnership that had developed between Parliament and the
monarchy
b. Problem with Puritans
1) Puritans, or Protestants in the Church of England who
were inspired by the teachings of John Calvin, wanted
James to eliminate the “episcopal” system of Church
organization used in the Church of England
a) the episcopal system allowed the king to appoint
bishops which made them loyal to the crown and
James wanted to retain this system in order to
protect his power
2) Most of England’s gentry, or well-to-do landowners
below the level of nobility had become Puritans and made
up a significant portion of the House of Commons

22. King Charles I ( )
a. Early in the reign of Charles I, Parliament passed the
Petition of Right to limit the power of the king
1) Petition of Right (1628) was passed by Parliament and
prohibited the taxation without Parliament’s consent,
arbitrary imprisonment, the quartering of soldiers in private
homes, and the declaration of martial law in peacetime
The mistakes of Charles I
Charles decided since he could not work with parliament,
he would not summon it to meet and sought to find ways to
Collect taxes without Parliament’s cooperation
a) a “ship tax” was levied by Charles on all costal towns
to pay for costal defense; this alienated many members
of England’s middle class
2) Charles married Henrietta Maria, the Catholic sister of the
King Louis XIII of France, which aroused suspicion about
Charles’ religious beliefs

23. 3) King Charles I and the Archbishop of Canterbury, William
Laud, attempted to introduce more ritual into the Anglican
Church which would make it very similar to Catholicism
a) this angered the Puritans who saw the religion in
England turning toward Catholic popery
When King Charles attempted to impose the Anglican
Book of Common Prayer on the Scottish Presbyterian Church,
the Scots rose up in rebellion against the king
c. Financial Problems cause King Charles I call on Parliament
1) financially strapped, King Charles was forced to call
Parliament into session in order to gain their support in
England’s war with Scotland
2) During the first session, Parliament forced the King to
abolish arbitrary courts, get rid of the new taxes he had levied,
and passed the Triennial Act which required the Parliament and
king to meet at least once every three years
3) One group in Parliament was satisfied with these conditions
but some radical Puritan members tried to push the reforms
further; when King Charles tried to arrest the rebellious
members of Parliament, the English Civil War erupted

24. The English Civil War and Oliver Cromwell (1642-1646)
1. Supporters of Parliament fought against those loyal to King
Charles I in the first phase of the English Civil War
a. Supporters of Parliament
1) Oliver Cromwell created the New Model Army
that consisted mainly of extreme Puritans who
believed they were doing God’s work
2) the New Model Army captured King Charles I in
1646
3) a division occurred among the supporters of
Parliament when a group of Presbyterians tried to
disband the New Model Army and restore Charles I
as king of a Presbyterian state; Charles I fled to
Scotland
2. Puritans fought against the Presbyterians in the second phase of
the English Civil War
a. the Puritans were victorious and recaptured and
beheaded King Charles I

25. Oliver Cromwell Rules England
After the death of Charles I, Parliament abolished the system
of monarchy and the House of Lords and proclaimed England a
republic or commonwealth
Cromwell faced many obstacles as Lord Protector of England
1) Cromwell sent the English army to crush a rebellion in
Ireland during which he gained a reputation for the brutality
with which the English treated the Irish
2) Levellers in England sought further reform in government
by advancing the ideas of freedom of speech, religious
toleration, and the right to vote for all male householders
over the age of 21
3) Cromwell disbanded Parliament after some members
advocated for the creation of a Presbyterian state church
c. Since Cromwell was unable to rule using a constitutional basis,
he used his military to maintain his authority
1) Cromwell divided England into eleven regions and assigned
a major general to rule each as a military governor

26. E. Restoration of the Monarchy
1. Oliver Cromwell died in 1658 and the military establish-
ment decided that arbitrary rule would not work so they
decided to reestablish the monarchy in the person of Charles
II.
2. The Government of King Charles II
a. he reestablished the House of Lords
b. Parliament maintained the power for which it had
fought during the English Civil War like voting on
new taxes and the abolition of arbitrary courts
c. Parliament reestablished the Anglican Church as
the official Church in England
d. Charles reopened the theaters and taverns that
were closed during the time that Oliver Cromwell
ruled through Puritan principles.

27. e. Trouble for Charles II
1) the English people were suspicious of the brother of
Charles II because he was Catholic and heir to the throne
2) Declaration of Indulgence: this was a bill passed by
Charles II that suspended the laws that Parliament had
passed against Catholics and Puritains
a) Parliament forced the king to suspend the
declaration
3) Test Act of 1673: Parliament passed this act which
specified that only Anglicans could hold military and civil
offices
4) Parliament attempted to pass a bill that would prevent
James II from becoming king; although this bill failed, the
division in Parliament created two political groups, the
Tories and the Whigs
a) Tories were suspicious of James II but did not
believe that Parliament should interfere with
the lawful succession to the throne

28. Whigs wanted to ban James from becoming king
and establish a Protestant king and they also
tolerated dissenting ideas
5) Charles dismissed Parliament in 1681 and relied on
loans from France to keep his government functioning
3. King James II ( )
a. when Charles II died, James became king and immediately
attempted to promote Catholicism
1) against the Test Act, James named Catholics to high
positions in the government, army, navy, and universities
2) he suspended the Declaration of Indulgence
b. Parliament dealt with this issues because James II was an
old man and his two daughters, Mary and Anne, were both
Protestants
c. Problems arose when James II’s second wife gave birth to
a son, who would be raised Catholic and many in England
feared the possibility of long-standing Catholic rule

29. F. The Glorious Revolution
1. A group of seven prominent English noblemen invited
William of Orange, the husband of James’s daughter Mary, to
invade England
2. William and Mary invaded England while James, his wife,
and their infant son fled to France
3. With almost no bloodshed, William and Mary took the
throne of England
4. William and Mary were required to sign the English Bill of
Rights, which was written by Parliament, before being
recognized as king and queen
a. the Bill of Rights affirmed Parliament’s right to:
1) make laws
2) levy taxes
3) consent to the raising of a standing army
G. Other Liberal Reforms
1. Toleration Act of 1689 granted Puritans the right of free
public worship (Catholics were still excluded)

30. Although this act did not grant complete toleration in
England, it marks a turning point in English history since
very few people would ever again be persecuted for their
religious beliefs in England.
2. Parliament abolished the idea of divine-right-theory of kingship
3. Parliament did not have complete control of government but it
Now had an unquestioned role in affairs of state