Introduction
There are a number of different ways of referring to the future in English.
It is important to remember that we are expressing more than simply the time
of the action or event. Obviously, any 'future' tense will always refer to a
time 'later than now', but it may also express our attitude to the future
event.
All of the following ideas can be expressed using different tenses:
The example sentences below correspond to the ideas above:
It is clear from these examples that several tenses are used to express the future. The sections that follow show the form and function of each of these tenses.
Simple future, form
The 'simple' future is composed of two parts: will / shall + the infinitive
without 'to'
Subject | will | infinitive without to |
He | will | leave... |
Affirmative | ||
I | will | go |
I | shall | go |
Negative | ||
They | will not | see |
They | won't | see |
Interrogative | ||
Will | she | ask? |
Interrogative negative | ||
Won't | she | take? |
Contractions: | |
I will -> I'll | We will -> we'll |
You will -> you'll | You will -> you'll |
He,she, will -> he'll, she'll | They will -> they'll |
NOTE: The form 'it will' is not normally shortened.
Example: to see, simple future
Affirmative | Negative | Interrogative |
I'll see | I won't see/ | Will I see?/ |
*I will/shall see | I shan't see | Shall I see? |
You'll see | You won't see | Will you see? |
He, she, it will see | He won't see | Will she see? |
We'll see | We won't see/ | Will we see?/ |
*We will/shall see | We shan't see | Shall we see? |
You will see | You won't see | Will you see? |
They'll see | They won't see | Will they see? |
*NOTE: shall is slightly dated but can be used instead
of will with I / we.
Simple future, function
The simple future refers to a time later than now, and expresses facts or certainty.
In this case there is no 'attitude'.
The simple future is used:
NOTE: In modern English will is preferred to shall.
Shall is mainly used with I and we to make an offer or suggestion (see examples (e) and (f) above, or to ask for advice (example (g) above). With the other persons (you, he, she, they) shall is only used in literary or poetic situations, e.g.
"With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes, She shall have music wherever she goes."
Subject | 'to be' | going to | infinitive |
She | is | going to | leave |
Subject | to be to | infinitive without to |
We | are to | leave |
Affirmative | ||
She | is to | travel |
Negative | ||
You | are not (aren't) to | travel |
Interrogative | ||
Am | I to | travel? |
Interrogative negative | ||
Aren't | they to | travel? |
Subject | be | about to | infinitive without to |
I | am | about to | leave |
She | is | about to | arrive |
The excercises of Study guide are sorted according to level of difficulty in order to help you decide at which level you need revision and practice.
There is no point in learning from a comprehensive grammar book without having aquired the basics. Moreover, it can lead to confusion and misunderstanding. In higher-level English grammars which present all the aspects of a particular grammar item it is hard to distinguish the typical from the rare, the regular from the exceptional.
The underlined excercises of the Study guide are of intermediate level. If you don't know the right answer or you are not sure about it, you probably need to revise and practice from English Grammar in Use (EG) or from any grammar practice books of the same level. Otherwise you can refer to Practical English Grammar (PEG, and its excercise book PEGE).
Reference: EG: 19-23; PEG: 198-210, PEGE: 45-56, 132-134. (For abbreviations see Angol 1/Language/Study Guide)
1. Complete the following sentences using present simple or continuous.
2. Complete the sentences using future simple or be going to+verb.
3. Put the verbs in brackets into the suitable tense.
After reading the following texts decide whether the statements are TRUE, FALSE or there is NO EVIDENCE for the statements in the text.
Anyone who has ever watched a toddler erupt from sleep into a buzz of activity cannot help but feel envious. For most adults, waking up is a disconcertingly gradual process, and for some it can take up to an hour to fell fully awake. Sleep researchers have a name for this kind of morning-itis: sleep drunkenness. You know you are a sufferer if you frequently sleep through the alarm, are groggy for more than 15 minutes after waking, and have trouble navigating your way to the bathroom, making coffee or getting dressed.
Only five to ten per cent of adults are frequently sleep drunk, but it is something we all experience occasionally. The trigger can be nothing more than one night without enough sleep, and women with children are particularly vulnerable. But even those of us who regularly get a full night's rest wake up feeling sluggish, dazed and confused from time to time.
Translate the following text into English.
Amint kinyitottam az ajtót, furcsa illat csapta meg az orromat.
Kissé félve léptem be a lakásba, hisz jól emlékeztem a múltkori esetre. Az történt,
hogy véletlenül bezártuk a macskát egy egész napra, s ennek igen nagy rendetlenség
és piszok lett az eredménye. Aztán eszembe jutott, hogy kint láttam a macskát
a tornácon játszani.
Most valami más történt, de vajon mi? Mi lehet ennek a furcsa, bár nem kellemetlen
illatnak a forrása? Nagy nehezen rászántam magam arra, hogy beljebb lépjek a
lakásba.
Az orrom után mentem, követve az egyre erősödő illatot. Ahogy közelebb kerültem
a konyhához, egészen tisztán érződött, hogy csakis valamilyen egzotikus étel
illata terjedhet a levegőben.
- key to Unit 6 -
This period extends from 1660, the year Charles II was restored to the throne, until about 1789. The prevailing characteristic of the literature of the Renaissance had been its reliance on poetic inspiration or what today might be called imagination. The inspired conceptions of Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Milton, the true originality of Spenser, and the daring poetic style of Donne all support this generalization. Furthermore, although nearly all these poets had been far more bound by formal and stylistic conventions than modern poets are, they had developed a large variety of forms and of rich or exuberant styles into which individual poetic expression might fit. In the succeeding period, however, writers reacted against both the imaginative flights and the ornate or startling styles and forms of the previous era. The quality of the later age is suggested by its writers' admiration for Ben Jonson and his disciples; the transparent and apparently effortless poetic medium of the "school of Ben," along with its emphasis on good taste, moderation, and the Greek and Latin classics as models, appealed profoundly to the new generation.
Thus, the restoration of Charles II ushered in a literature characterized by reason, moderation, good taste, deft management, and simplicity. The historical parallel between the early imperialism of Rome and the restored English monarchy, both of which had replaced republican institutions, was not lost on the ruling and learned classes. Their appreciation of the literature of the time of the Roman emperor Augustus led to a widespread acceptance of the new English literature and encouraged a grandeur of tone in the poetry of the period, the later phase of which is often referred to as Augustan. In addition, the ideals of impartial investigation and scientific experimentation promulgated by the newly founded Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge (established in 1662) were influential in the development of clear and simple prose as an instrument of rational communication.
Finally, the great philosophical and political treatises of the time emphasize rationalism. Even in the earlier 17th century, Francis Bacon had moved in this direction by advocating reasoning and scientific investigation in Advancement of Learning (1605) and The New Atlantis (1627). Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), by John Locke, is the product of a belief in experience as the exclusive basis of knowledge, a view pushed to its logical extreme in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) by David Hume. Locke himself continued to profess faith in divine revelation, but this residual belief was weakened among the similarly rationalist Deists, who tended to base religion on what reason could find in the world God had created around humans.
In political thought, the arbitrary acceptance of the monarch's divine right to rule (a conception popular in the Renaissance) had so nearly succumbed to skeptical criticism that Thomas Hobbes in his Leviathan (1651) found it necessary to defend the idea of political absolutism with a rationally conceived sanction. According to him, the monarch should rule not by divine right but by an original and indissoluble social contract in order to secure universal peace and material gratification. Similarly rationalistic, but opposed to this rigorous subordination of all organs of the state to central control, were Locke's two Treatises on Government (1690), in which he stated that the authority of the governor is derived from the always revocable consent of the governed and that the people's welfare is the only proper object of that authority.
Perhaps the greatest historical work in English is The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (6 volumes, 1776-1788), by Edward Gibbon. Notable for its stately, balanced style, it is permeated with rationalistic skepticism and distrust of emotion, particularly religious emotion.
The successive stages of literary taste during the period of the Restoration and the 18th century are conveniently referred to as the ages of Dryden, Pope, and Johnson, after the three great literary figures who, one after another, carried on the so-called classical tradition in literature. The age as a whole is sometimes called the Augustan age, or the classical or neoclassical period.
The poetry of John Dryden possesses a grandeur, force, and fullness of tone that were eagerly received by readers still having something in common with the Elizabethans. At the same time, however, his poetry set the tone of the new age in achieving a new clarity and in establishing a self-limiting, somewhat impersonal canon of moderation and good taste. His polished heroic couplet (a unit of two rhyming lines of iambic pentameter, generally end-stopped), which he inherited from less accomplished predecessors and then developed, became the dominant form in the composition of longer poems.
In a number of critical works Dryden defined the stylistic restraint, compression, clarity, and common sense that he exemplified in his own poetry and that he showed to be lacking in much of the poetry of the preceding age, particularly in the exuberant and mechanically complex metaphorical wit of the older metaphysical school. His reputation rests primarily on satire. This form became the dominant poetic genre of the age, both because of the religious and political factionalism of the times and because mocking denunciation of the ludicrousness or rascality of the opposition comes naturally to an age with so strong a public sense of norms of behavior. Absalom and Achitophel (1681-1682) and Mac Flecknoe (1682) are the most remarkable of Dryden's political satires. Among his other poetic works are noteworthy translations of Roman satirists and of the works of Virgil, and the Pindaric ode "Alexander's Feast," a tour de force of varied cadences, which was published in 1697.
The bulk of Dryden's work was in drama. By means of it, following the new mode of living of the professional literary man, he could derive his support from a large public rather than from private patrons. In his heroic tragedies The Conquest of Granada (1670) and All for Love; or, The World Well Lost (1678), a rewriting of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra in the new taste, Dryden showed a different and not always satisfying side of his talent and exemplified the dominant quality of all Restoration tragedy. In order to achieve splendor and surprise on the stage, he sacrificed reality of characterization and consistency in motivation for sensual display in exotic locales and extravagance in plot and situation, presented in a style verging on the bombastic. The affinities of this kind of drama are with Beaumont and Fletcher rather than with the great Elizabethan age; and the indirect influence of Ben Johnson is apparent also, for these two men were Jonson's disciples. Probably the best example of this genre of tragedy was produced by Thomas Otway, whose Venice Preserved (1682) avoids the worst excesses to which this form is liable and also possesses considerable tenderness and sensibility. By this time, however, the vogue of heroic tragedy was coming to an end; the style already had been successfully parodied in The Rehearsal (1671), by George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham, and his collaborators.
The comedy of the time is much more successful than the tragedy. It is derived directly from the comedies of Ben Jonson but tries for more refinement while displaying less strength. In a cool, satiric spirit, it criticizes middle-class ambition and other variations from the courtly social norm, of which the canons are aristocratic good taste and good sense, rarely conventional morality. In the eyes of succeeding generations, the chief defects of Restoration comedy are its reduction of sentiment and emotion to silliness and its frequent amorality. Reaction against this type of comedy, known as the comedy of manners, already had developed by the time that its greatest practitioner, William Congreve, was displaying his subtle artistry in Love For Love (1695) and The Way of the World (1700).
Just as Dryden's poetry defined the tone of his time, so too did his easy, informal, clear prose style, notably in his Essay of Dramatic Poesie (1668) and in various prefaces to his plays and translations. Noteworthy prose of a rather different nature was produced by two other figures of the age, Samuel Pepys and John Bunian. The appetite of the period for life at all levels, but particularly for the life of the senses, is suggested by the secret diary of Samuel Pepys, a high official of the Admiralty Office. This extraordinary work, valuable as it is as a document of contemporary taste, has much to say of the private, unheroic life and longings of people of all times. A figure in stronger contrast to Pepys could hardly be imagined than John Bunyan, a Puritan preacher, completely alien to the aristocratic and professional world of letters. Bunyan wrote The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come (1st part published in 1678; 2nd part, 1684) and The Life and Death of Mr. Badman (1680), two rough-hewn, moving, allegorical narratives of the human journey at the level of the fundamental verities of life, death, and religion. The first of these is now a literary classic, but in spite of the penetrating characterization and vitality of both works, they initially attained popularity only among artisans, merchants, and the poor.
In the age of Alexander Pope (dated from about the death of Dryden in 1700 to Pope's death in 1744), the classical spirit in English literature reached its highest point, and at the same time other forces became manifest. Dryden's poetry had achieved grandeur, amplitude, and sublimity within a particular definition of good taste and good sense and under the tutelage of the Roman and Greek classics. To the poetry of Pope this characterization applies even more stringently. More than any other English poet, he submitted himself to the requirement that the expressive force of poetic genius should issue forth only in a formulation as reasonable, lucid, balanced, compressed, final, and perfect as the power of human reason can make it. Pope did not have Dryden's majesty. Perhaps, given his predilection for correctness of detail, he could not have had it. Also, the readers of succeeding times have concluded that the dictates of reason do not all converge on only one poetic formula, just as the heroic couplet, which Pope brought to final perfection, is not necessarily the most generally suitable of English poetic forms. Nevertheless, the ease, harmony, and grace of Pope's poetic line are still impressive, and his quality of precise but never labored expression of thought remains unequaled.
Pope's reputation rests in large part on his satires, but his didactic bent led him to formulate in verse An Essay on Criticism (1711) and An Essay on Man (1732-1734). The former attempts to show that poetry must be modeled on nature; but his conception of nature, a traditional one shared by all his contemporaries, differs from that of succeeding generations. For Pope, nature meant the rules that right reason has discovered to be immanent in all things, so that what the experience of reasonable minds through the ages has shown to be the greatest poetry-namely, that of classical antiquity-provides a perfect model for modern times. A similar conservatism reappears in An Essay on Man, which concludes with the much debated generalization that "Whatever is, is right."
Pope's brilliant satiric masterpiece, The Rape of the Lock (1712; revised edition 1714), makes an epic theme of a trifling drawing-room episode: the contention arising from a young lord's having covertly snipped a lock of hair from a young lady's head. His most sustained satire, The Dunciad (1728; final version 1743), follows Dryden's Mac Flecknoe in its elegantly pointed, often malicious but always high-spirited mockery of the literary dullards who were Pope's enemies.
Like Dryden, Pope made translations of classical works, notably of the Iliad, which was a great popular and financial success. His edition of Shakespeare's works bears witness to a range of taste not usually ascribed to him.
It is only natural that the 18th-century preoccupation with the power of reason and good sense should have produced a large number of works in the more sober medium of prose. Jonathan Swift, who was, like Pope, a Tory conservative for the latter half of his life and a satirist, wrote a number of mordantly satirical prose narratives in which a profound and despairing perception of human stupidities and evil are in contrast with the social criticism of his great contemporaries. Swift's Tale of a Tub (1704) reduces the quarrels among three important religious divisions of his day to an allegory of three disreputable brothers. His generous anger on behalf of the poor of Ireland produced "A Modest Proposal" (1729), in which, with horrifying mock seriousness, he proposed that the children of the poor should be raised for slaughter as food for the rich. His best-known work, Gulliver's Travels (1726), purports to be a ship doctor's account of his voyages into strange places, but in reality it is a castigation of the human race. The accounts of Gulliver's first two voyages are often read as a children's book. The last part abandons, however, delicate fancy and unmasks the selfish and sick bestiality of humanity in the guise of the so-called Yahoos, who are the savage and improvident servants of a race of apparently reasonable and noble horses, called Houyhnhnms. This work, like all of Swift's, is written in a prose of unrivaled lucidity, energy, and polemical skill.
Similarly noteworthy for the quality of their prose are the Spectator papers (1711-1712; 1714), written mainly by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele. Published daily, these essays, like many others, corresponded to the newly felt need of the day for popular journalism, but their enlightened comment and their criticism of contemporary society separate them from the mass of similar publications. The main intent of Addison and Steele may be defined in their own words: "To enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality." In a series of informal, conversational essays describing the activities of various ideal representatives of social groups, such as the Tory country squire Sir Roger de Coverley and the Whig merchant Sir Andrew Freeport, Addison and Steele salvaged and united some of the best sides of the contemporary English character. The lightly borne, free-and-easy manners of the court and the older landed classes should, according to these papers, exist side by side with the industry, uprightness, and deeply felt morality of the newly rich city merchants. The amorality associated with the one and the stubborn narrowness of the other should disappear. The emphasis on public decorum and individual rectitude and on sympathy with one's fellow beings in the Spectator papers is a measure of their distance from the cool indifference and frequent licentiousness of much Restoration literature, particularly comedy, although the purpose of both was to represent reason, moderation, and common sense.
A quite different kind of journalism is represented by the work of the middle-class adventurer, hack writer, and political agent Daniel Defoe. Separated from the life of the upper classes and their erudite writers, as Bunyan had been before him, he produced, among many pieces of commissioned writing, a series of purportedly true but actually fictitious memoirs and confessions. The first of these, and the greatest, is Robinson Crusoe (1719), which reports the life and adventures of a shipwrecked sailor.
The age of Samuel Johnson, from 1744 to about 1784, was a time of changing literary ideals. The developed classicism and literary conservatism associated with Johnson fought a rearguard action against the cult of sentiment and feeling associated in various ways with the harbingers of the coming age of romanticism. Johnson composed poetry that continued the traditions and forms of Pope, but he is best known as a prose writer and as an extraordinarily gifted conversationalist and literary arbiter in the cultivated urban life of his time. His conservatism and sturdy common sense are what might be expected given his intellectual tradition, but his individual quality has little to do with literary tendencies. His curiously lovable and upright personality, along with his intellectual preeminence and idiosyncrasies, have been preserved in the most famous of English biographies, the Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), by James Boswell, a Scottish writer with an appetite for literary celebrities.
Johnson worked his way up from poverty by honest literary labors, among which was his Dictionary of the English Language (1755). A great success, it was the first such work prepared according to modern standards of lexicography. Like Addison and Steele, Johnson produced a series of journalistic essays, The Rambler (1750-1752), but because of their somewhat pedantic style and Latinate vocabulary, they lack the easy informality of the Spectator papers and serve to accentuate the opposition between his neoclassical formality and the succeeding romantic ideal of heart-to-heart communication. Johnson's philosophical tale Rasselas (1759), of which the moral is that "human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed," is reminiscent of Swift (as well as of his contemporary the French writer Voltaire in his tale Candide) in its perception of the vanity of human wishes. For all his pessimism, however, the amazing detail, independence, and intellectual facility of Johnson's critical biographies of English poets since 1600 (Lives of the Poets, 1779-1781), written in his old age, show what critical discrimination and intellectual integrity can accomplish.
Johnson's friend Oliver Goldsmith was a curious mixture of the old and the new. His novel The Vicar of Wakefield (1766) begins with dry humor but passes quickly into tearful calamity. His poem The Deserted Village (1770) is in form reminiscent of Pope, but in the tenderness of its sympathy for the lower classes it foreshadows the romantic age. In such plays as She Stoops to Conquer (1773) Goldsmith, like the younger Richard Sheridan in his School for Scandal (1777), demonstrated an older tradition of satirical quality and artistic adroitness that was to be anathema to a younger generation.
The signs of this newer feeling, which resulted in romanticism, can be traced in the poetry of William Cowper and of Thomas Gay. The cultivation of a pensive and melancholy sensibility and the interruption of the rule of the heroic couplet, as in Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" (1751), hint at the period to come, as does Gray's interest in medieval, nonclassical literature. New interests are even more obvious in the highly original poetry of the self-educated artist and engraver William Blake. His work consists in part of simple, almost childlike lyrics (Songs of Innocence, 1789), as well as of powerful but lengthy and obscure declarations of a new mythological vision of life (The Book of Thel, 1789). All Blake's poetry expresses a revolt against the ideal of reason (which he considered destructive to life) and advocates the life of feeling-but in a more vital and assertive sense than is the case with the other previously mentioned preromantics. Similarly robust and passionate are the lyrics of the Scottish poet Robert Burns, which are characterized by his use of regional Scottish vernacular. The simplicity, forcefulness, and powerful emotion of the ancient ballads of the Scottish-English border region, as revealed in Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765), by Bishop Thomas Percy, were likewise influential in the development of romanticism.
Among writers of the novel-a newly popular form in this period-an advocate of sentiment and simple, innocent feelings had already appeared in the person of Samuel Richardson. In his sentimental novel Clarissa (1747-1748), the plight of a young, innocent girl, destroyed by the man she loves, is represented through lengthy letters interchanged among the characters. This device permits an unprecedented revelation of motives and feelings. Richardson's contemporary Henry Fielding evinced his connection with the earlier satirical spirit in his novel Joseph Andrews (1742), which parodies Richardson's other novel of virtue besieged, Pamela (1740). Fielding's greatest novel, Tom Jones (1749), reveals a robust and healthy spirit of good sense and comedy, in which well-intentioned vigor wins out over excessive hypocrisy. Fielding's contemporary, the Scottish-born Tobias Smollett, wrote a number of novels of picaresque adventure, the last and probably best of which is Humphry Clinker (1771). The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759-1767), the masterpiece of another great British novelist of the century, Laurence Sterne, indulges in the new cult of sentiment, but by reason of its cast of eccentric characters and the skilled weaving of the most extraordinary behavior into the depiction of their personalities, this novel lies outside the usual historical categories.
Reference: David McDowall, An Illustrated History of Britain, Longman,
1995, 87-93.
James I |
James I. Elizabeth was followed to the throne by James VI of Scotland, who became James I of England. James believed in the absolute power of the monarchy, and he had a rocky relationship with an increasingly vociferous and demanding Parliament. It would be a mistake to think of Parliament as a democratic institution, or the voice of the common citizen. Parliament was a forum for the interests of the nobility and the merchant classes (not unlike today, some would say). The Gunpowder Plot. James was a firm protestant, and in 1604 he expelled all Catholic priests from the island. This was one of the factors which led to the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. A group of Catholic plotters planned to blow up Parliament when it opened on November 5. However, an anonymous letter betrayed the plot and one of the plotters, Guy Fawkes, was captured in the cellars of the Houses of Parliament with enough gunpowder to blow the place sky high. Most of the plotters were captured and executed. (See our in-depth examination of the Gunpowder Plot here). |
The Rise of the Puritans. During James' reign radical Protestant groups called Puritans began to gain a sizeable following. Puritans wanted to "purify" the church by paring down church ritual, educating the clergy, and limiting the powers of bishops. King James resisted this last. The powers of the church and king were too closely linked. "No bishop, no king," he said. The Puritans also favoured thrift, education ,and individual initiative, therefore they found great support among the new middle class of merchants, the powers in the Commons.
James' attitude toward Parliament was clear. He commented in 1614 that he was surprised his ancestors "should have permitted such an institution to come into existence....It is sedition in subjects to dispute what a king may do in the height of his power".
The King James Bible. In 1611 the King James version of the Holy Bible was issued, the result of seven years of labour by the best translators and theological minds of the day. It remained the authoritative, though not necessarily accurate, version of the Bible for centuries.
Charles I (1625-49) continued his father's acrimonious relationship with Parliament, squabbling over the right to levy taxes. Parliament responded with the Petition of Right in 1628. It was the most dramatic assertion of the traditional rights of the English people since the Magna Carta. Its basic premise was that no taxes of any kind could be allowed without the permission of Parliament.
Charles finally had enough, and in 1629 he dissolved Parliament and ruled without it for eleven years. Some of the ways he raised money during this period were of dubious legality by the standards of the time.
Between 1630-43 large numbers of people emigrated from England as Archbishop Laud tried to impose uniformity on the church. Up to 60,000 people left, 1/3 of them to the new American colonies. Several areas lost a large part of their populations, and laws were enacted to curb the outflow.
Ship Money. In 1634 Charles attempted to levy "ship-money", a tax that previously applied only to ports, on the whole country. This raised tremendous animosity throughout the realm. Finally Charles, desperate for money, summoned the so-called Short Parliament in 1640. Parliament refused to vote Charles more money until its grievances were answered, and the king dismissed it after only three weeks. Then a rebellion broke out in Scotland and Charles was forced to call a new Parliament, dubbed the Long Parliament, which officially sat until 1660.
Civil War. Parliament made increasing demands, which the king refused to meet. Neither side was willing to budge. Finally in 1642 fighting broke out. The English Civil War (1642-1646) polarized society largely along class lines. Parliament drew most of its support from the middle classes, while the king was supported by the nobility, the clergy, and the peasantry. Parliamentary troops were known as Roundheads because of their severe hair style. The king's army were known as Cavaliers, from the French for "knight", or "horseman".
Oliver Cromwell |
The war began as a series of indecisive skirmishes notable for not much beyond the emergence of a Parliamentary general from East Anglia, Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell whipped his irregular volunteer troops into the disciplined New Model Army. Meanwhile, Charles established the royalist headquarters in Oxford, called his own Parliament, and issued his own money. He also allied himself with Irish Catholics, which alienated some of his supporters. |
To the poor, the turmoil over religion around the Civil War meant little. They were bound by tradition and they supported the king, as they always had. Charles encouraged poor relief, unemployment measures, price controls, and protection for small farmers. For most people, life during the Civil War went on as before. Few were involved or even knew about the fighting. In 1644 a farmer at Marston Moor was told to clear out because the armies of Parliament and the king were preparing to fight. "What?" he exclaimed, "Has them two fallen out, then?"
Marston Moor. The turning point of the war was probably that same Battle of Marston Moor (1644). Charles' troops under his nephew Prince Rupert were soundly beaten by Cromwell, giving Parliament control of the north of England. Above the border Lord Montrose captured much of Scotland for Charles, but was beaten at Philiphaugh and Scot support was lost for good.
The Parliamentary cause became increasingly entangled with extreme radical Protestantism. In 1645 Archbishop Laud was executed, and in the same year the Battle of Naseby spelled the end of the royalist hopes. Hostilities dragged on for another year, and the Battle of Stow-on-the-Wold (1646) was the last armed conflict of the war.
The death of a king. Charles rather foolishly stuck to his absolutist beliefs and refused every proposal made by Parliament and the army for reform. He preferred to try to play them against each other through intrigue and deception. He signed a secret treaty which got the Scots to rise in revolt, but that threat was snuffed out at Prestonpans (1648). Finally, the radical core of Parliament had enough. They believed that only the execution of the king could prevent the kingdom from descending into anarchy. Charles was tried for treason in 1649, before a Parliament whose authority he refused to acknowledge. He was executed outside Inigo Jones' Banqueting Hall at Whitehall on January 30.
Overview. The Gunpowder Plot of 1605 was an attempt to kill James I, King of England. Catholic conspirators led by Robert Catesby placed kegs of gunpowder in the cellars of the Parliament Buildings on the night of November 4, 1605. They planned to ignite the gunpowder the following day when James, his eldest son, Prince Henry, and Queen Ann attended the opening of Parliament the following day. One of the conspirators, Guy Fawkes, was deputed to stay with the gunpowder and ignite it at the opportune moment.
However, word of the conspiracy leaked out, and royal officials captured Fawkes with the gunpowder. Fawkes, and several other of the conspirators, were put to death.
Background. When James VI of Scotland came to the English throne as James I, the country was highly polarized along religious lines. The English Reformation begun by Henry VIII had created a climate of religious intolerance, and radicals of both the Roman Catholic and Protestant camps had high hopes that the new king would champion their cause. Both sides were destined for disappointment; James was inclined towards neither camp.
Hampton Court Conference. During the course of his journey south from Scotland, James was presented with the Millenary Petition, signed by a thousand clergymen. The Petition called for relaxation of ecclesiastical rules in favour of Nonconformist (i.e. Puritan) views. The king called the Hampton Court Conference to hear arguments on the points raised by the Petition. At Hampton Court the claims of the Nonconformists were rejected almost without exception. Round one to the Roman Catholics?
Not only were the rules governing clergy not changed, new laws were passed which enforced those regulations even more strictly. Many clergy resigned their livings rather than toe the line. Despite James' lack of support for the Puritans, Parliament itself was highly sympathetic to the Puritan cause.
The Main and Bye Plots. James was disposed to be tolerant of the Catholic cause; certainly he favoured and end to hostilities with Catholic Spain. Unfortunately for the Catholics, however, two half-baked radical plots turned the king against them. The Main Plot planned to depose James and set his cousin Arabella Stuart on the throne. The Bye Plot was even more far-fetched; the conspirators hoped to kidnap James and force him to repeal anti-Catholic legislation. The ultimate result of these plots was that James banished all Catholic priests from the kingdom.
Recusancy. Laws were in place which fined lay people for missing church service. Those (usually Catholics) who refused to attend service were called recusants. James initially favoured a relaxation of these laws, but it quickly became apparent that a great many people desired to skip church service! The laws were once more rigorously enforced.
The Plot. A group of Catholic extremists led by Sir Robert Catesby decided that the only hope for their cause lay in killing the king and raising the country in revolt. They hoped that in the confusion following the death of the king and his heir, along with many of the peers of the realm in the House of Lords, that they would be able to put a sympathetic king on the throne and foster a climate of freedom for Catholics. They believed, probably wrongly, that there was adequate public support for their cause.
The Conspirators. The initial plot was hatched by five men, Robert Catesby, Thomas Percy, Thomas Wintour, John Wright and Guy Fawkes. Of these, the undoubted leader was Robert Catesby, son of Sir William Catesby, a prominent Catholic leader in the reign of Elizabeth I. Of these men the first four had noble connections, but Fawkes was nothing more than a disaffected soldier.
At first the men hired lodgings near the Parliament buildings and attempted to tunnel into the cellars of Parliament. The tunnel scheme was quickly abandoned, however, either because of water from the Thames seeping into the tunnel, or because the going proved too difficult. Instead, Thomas Percy used his influence to gain access to cellars beneath Parliament, and into these cellars they secretly brought 36 barrels of gunpowder, which they carefully hid.
The opening of Parliament was put off, but Catesby used the time to draw more men into the circle of conspirators, including Jesuit leaders, while Fawkes made trips to the Low Countries for fresh powder to replace that which was beginning to spoil.
The Monteagle Letter. On October 26, 1605, the whole conspiracy began to unravel. A mysterious letter was sent to Lord Monteagle, a former Catholic supporter, warning him not to attend the opening of Parliament set for November 5. Monteagle, however, at once passed the letter on to Robert Cecil, the king's chief secretary. The conspirators found out about the letter; indeed they blamed one another for writing it. But still, they did not cancel their plans, convinced that the government knew nothing. On the night of November 4, Guy Fawkes was found in the cellars with the gunpowder.
Fawkes was forced under torture to reveal the names of his fellow conspirators, most of whom were rounded up by the authorities near Holbeche House in Staffordshire. Robert Catesby, Percy, and Wright were shot and killed while attempting to evade arrest, but on January 27, 1606, Fawkes and seven others were brought to trial before Sir Edward Coke.
Cecil, for his part, tried to blame the Jesuits for the plot, as that would generate support for his anti-Catholic policies. On January 30 four of the conspirators were put to death in St. Paul's churchyard. The following day the remaining four were executed at the Old Palace Yard, Westminster. All eight men were hung, drawn, and quartered, that being the standard punishment for those convicted of treason. Catesby and his fellows who had died at Holbeche House were exhumed and their heads placed on pikes for public display.
Cecil's conniving? Persistent rumour has implicated Robert Cecil directly in the Gunpowder Plot. The story goes that Cecil manufactured the plot in an attempt to discredit the Catholic cause. If that was indeed the case, it was a master stroke. Public opinion weighed in heavily against the Catholics, though most recusants were not in sympathy with the conspirators.
In the climate of fear and paranoia following the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, Cecil and his supporters were able to pass restrictive anti-Catholic legislation. Also, fear of Catholic plots was a constant theme throughout the Stuart years.
The Gunpowder Plot is rembered each year on Guy Fawkes Night, November 5, when human effigies called "guys" are joyfully burned on bonfires across England.
Oliver Cromwell |
Oliver Cromwell was born on April 25, 1599, in Huntingdon, near Cambridge. His father Thomas was the younger son of a knight, which in those days meant that he had very little property. Cromwell grew up in genteel poverty; not quite a member of the nobility, yet not a commoner either. In 1620 he married Elizabeth Bourchier. |
For the early part of his adult life, Oliver scraped along, barely making ends meet on the scraps he had inherited from his father. Then in 1630 the failure of his business caused him to move to St. Ives and begin again as a yeoman farmer. However in 1637 he inherited a modest income and property when his mother's brother died without heirs.
Despite Cromwell's impoverished circumstances, he had many opportunities to interact with powerful figures at court. His grandfather lived in state at his house outside Huntingdon, where he frequently entertained royalty and court officials. And through his wife's father, Sir James Bourchier, Cromwell was brought into contact with London merchants and leading Puritan figures.
In 1630 Cromwell suffered what we would today term a mental breakdown. At the same time he underwent a powerful religious conversion to the Puritan cause. He afterwards said that he felt as though he was waiting for God to give him a mission.
In the meantime Cromwell was elected as a member of Parliament for Huntingdon, a post he owed more to patronage and aristocratic connections than to any great merit. He attended the Parliament of 1628-9 (and was likely the poorest MP there). He seems to have been overawed by his elevated status, and hardly made any contribution to the Parliamentary sessions.
However, in 1640 Cromwell was back in Parliament, this time representing Cambridge. And this time he had quite a lot to say! He was one of the most outspoken critics of royal policies and of the established Anglican church. He also advocated increased Parliamentary powers, calling for annual sessions of Parliament, and for Parliament, not the king, to have the power to name army generals.
When fighting finally broke out in 1642, Cromwell was named
a captain of horse (a minor cavalry commander). But now his military leadership
qualities came to the fore. Within a year he was Lieutenant General of Horse
for the Army of the Eastern Association (essential equivalent to modern East
Anglia).
In 1645, the three largest Parliamentary armies were combined. Parliamentary
leaders could not agree on who should lead the cavalry of the new army, so they
appointed Cromwell as temporary commander for 40 days. The temporary appointment
was renewed many times over until finally becoming permanent in 1647.
In the meantime Cromwell led his cavalry in some of the most vital battles of the Civil War. His horsemen were responsible for major contributions to the victories at Marston Moor (1644) and Naseby (1645).
It is easy to regard Cromwell as a fire-breathing radical, but that assessment is not a fair one. To be sure, he roundly castigated Parliamentary leaders who advocated a negotiated settlement with the king. Cromwell wanted to settle for nothing less than total victory over the Cavaliers.
On the other hand, Cromwell rigorously opposed the religious intolerance of the Presbyterians, and the political intolerance of the Levelers. He seems to have made a genuine effort to work within the existing forms of government and negotiate in good faith with King Charles for governmental and religious reforms.
Cromwell's resolve towards tolerance was tested in 1647 when Charles prompted a Scottish rising. He put down the royal allies at Preston, and Yorkshire. Though he felt betrayed by Charles, Cromwell held out against a trial, and when he agreed it was with the idea that Charles would abdicate in favour of one of his sons. But Charles was obstinate to the last, and refused to step aside. Once it became clear that the king would not be swayed, Cromwell became one of the most vocal supporters of regicide.
After the death of Charles, further rebellions in favour of the future Charles II arose in Ireland and Scotland. Cromwell dealt with Ireland first, and his ferocious retribution for Irish actions earned him a reputation for cruelty. Scotland was next, and finally Cromwell defeated the younger Charles at the Battle of Worcester in 1651.
Cromwell then participated in the debates of the "Rump Parliament", which sat until 1653. Finally, tired of the continuous bickering and lack of real desire for reform, he dissolved the Rump by the crude expediency of armed force. He tried to work with religious leaders to " to design a blueprint for a godly commonwealth", but once again his efforts were done in by the inability of the various parties to work together.
Finally, and probably with a sense of exasperation, Cromwell himself took up the reigns as Lord Protector, head of an executive council. Several efforts were made to have him named king, but this Cromwell resisted firmly. His rule was a time of rigid social and religious laws on radical Protestant lines.
On September 3, 1658, Oliver Cromwell died and was buried at Westminster Abbey. After abortive attempts by his son, Richard Cromwell, to govern as Lord Protector, Charles II was called back from exile to resume the monarchy. In 1661 Oliver Cromwell's body was exhumed from its grave and hung at Tyburn. Then his head was cut off and put on public display for nearly 20 years outside Westminster Hall.
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