Historical Contexts for Women Writers, 1650s-1760s
Charles I (1600-49) (STUART; nominally Prot.) (Crowned 1625)
m. Henriette Marie of
France, who was Catholic
Civil war throughout the 1640s: Royalists/Cavaliers support the king's absolute authority (and right to govern without consulting Parliament) and Parliamentarians/Roundheads fight against this and what they see as his pro-Catholic leanings. Decapitated 1649.
1649-60 INTERREGNUM - no king
Cromwell as Protector; Charles's family on Continent, broke and urging the French
to intervene and restore the Stuart line.
Charles II (1630-85) (STUART [Charles I's son]; nominally Prot.) (crowned 1660) m. Catherine of Braganza (Catholic)
1660 RESTORATION of the Stuarts to the English throne
· 1665-66 - Plague and Great Fire destroy London and significantly diminish
the population throughout the country.
Throughout the 1670s, a series of pro-Catholic laws and regulations were pushed
through by the king and rapidly countered by Parliament.
· 1672 Declaration of indulgence (allowed Catholics more civil rights)
· 1673 Test Act (excluded Catholics from throne)
· 1678 Popish Plot; Second Test Act (exempted James, Charles's brother)
· 1683 Rye House plot (attempt to assassinate Charles/James)
James II (1633-1701) (STUART - Charles II's brother; converts to Catholicism)(crowned
1685)
m. (2d) Mary of Modena (Catholic)
Throughout the
early 1680s, legal and political tests of James II's authority and support continued.
· 1685 Monmouth's Rebellion (Attempt to put Charles's illegitimate Prot
son on the throne).
· 1687 James suspends the anti-Catholic Test Act via another Declaration
of Indulgence
· 1688 James II's son, James Francis Edward Stuart, is born: a male Catholic
heir to the throne! (Known as the Chevalier, or the Pretender,' he lurked on
the Continent at various Catholic courts until his death in 1766. His son, the
'young Pretender', Charles Edward Stuart (1720-88) kept the Stuart claims alive
until these were crushed in 1745.)
1688 The GLORIOUS REVOLUTION - James II abdicates or is jettisoned, and is replaced by
William III (1650-02) and Mary, the Protestant son-in-law and daughter of James II.
1695 Lapse
of Licensing Act - ends government censorship of what can be published (until
it returns in limited form in 1737)
Anne (1665-1714);
crowned 1702. STUART Prot; m. George of Denmark
In 1700 Anne's only surviving child (a son), from her 17 pregnancies, had died.
* 1702 The 'Abjuration
Act' officially excludes 'the Pretender, from the throne, and makes the Hanoverian
line the future reigning family (that will be George 1, George II, and George
III - who dies in 1820, having been insane for close to twenty years before
his death.)
* 1702 Daily Courant founded (first daily journal/newspaper; followed
by party journals)
* 1707 Act of Union of England and Scotland
* 1709 Copyright Act; State Lottery
* 1712 Tory Stamp Act (limits publication by taxing paper)
* 1713 Treaty of Utrecht - peace with Spain that enhances commercial expansion
in Africa and the Americas.
George I
(Hanover, 1660-1727; crowned 1714.
* 1715 Whig Riot Act (limits street gatherings)
Jacobite Revolt - second-to-last effort to return the Stuarts to the throne
(1745 is the very last)
* 1720 Mississippi Bubble (stock speculation) "bursts"
George II
(Hanover; 1683-1760); crowned 1727
Sources:
J. P. Kenyon, Stuart England (2d edn.; Pelican, 1978)
Graham Parry, The Seventeenth Century. The Intellectual and Cultural Context
of English Literature, 1603-1700 (Longman, 1989).