Church and State
John's reign also marked the end of the long struggle between Church and state in England. This had begun in 1066 when the pope claimed that William had promised to accept him as his feudal lord. William refused to accept this claim. He had created Norman bishops and given them land on condition that they paid homage to him. As a result it was not clear whether the bishops should obey the Church or the king.
The first serious quarrel was between William Rufus and Anselm, the man he had made Archbishop of Canterbury. Anselm, with several other bishops, rearing the king, had escaped from England. After William's death Anselm refused to do homage to William's successor, Henry I. Henry, meanwhile, had created several new bishops but they had no spiritual authority without the blessing of the archbishop. This left the king in a difficult position. It took seven years to settle the disagreement. Finally the king agreed that only the Church could create bishops. But in return the Church agreed that bishops would pay homage to the king for the lands owned by their bishoprics. In practice the wishes of the king in the appointment of bishops remained important. But after Anselm's death Henry managed to delay the appointment of a new archbishop for five years while he benefited from the wealth of Canterbury. The struggle between Church and state continued.
The crisis came when Henry IIs friend Thomas Becket was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 1162. Henry hoped that Thomas would help him bring the Church more under his control. At first Becket refused, and then he gave in. Later he changed his mind again and ran away to France, and it seemed as if Henry had won. But in 1170 Becket returned to England determined to resist the king. Henry was very angry, and four knights who heard him speak out went to Canterbury to murder Becket. They killed him in the holiest place in the cathedral, on the altar steps.
Henry VII
During the fifteenth century, but particularly during the Wars of the Roses, England's trading position had been badly damaged. The strong German Hanseatic League, a closed trading society, had destroyed English trade with the Baltic and northern Europe. Trade with Italy and France had also been reduced after England's defeat in France in the mid-fifteenth century. The Low Countries (the Netherlands and Belgium) alone offered a way in for trade in Europe. Only a year after his victory at Bosworth in 1485, Henry VII made an important trade agreement with the Netherlands which allowed English trade to grow again.
The authority of the law had been almost completely destroyed by the lawless behaviour of nobles and their armed men. Henry used the "Court of Star Chamber", traditionally the king's council chamber, to deal with lawless nobles. Local justice that had broken down during the wars slowly began to operate again. Henry encouraged the use of heavy fines as punishment because this gave the Crown money.
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Henry's aim was to make the Crown financially independent, and the lands and the fines he took from the old nobility helped him do this. Henry also raised taxes for wars which he then did not fight. He never spent money unless he had to. One might expect Henry to have been unpopular, but he was careful to keep the friendship of the merchant and lesser gentry classes. Like him they wanted peace and prosperity. He created a new. nobility from among them, and men unknown before now became Henry's statesmen. But they all knew that their rise to importance was completely dependent on the Crown.
When Henry died in 1509 he left behind the huge total of £2 million, about fifteen years' worth of income. The only thing on which he was happy to spend money freely was the building of ships for a merchant fleet. Henry understood earlier than most people that England's future wealth would depend on international trade. And in order to trade, Henry realised that England must have its own fleet of merchant ships.
Life in the Countryside
The countryside changed greatly during the 18th century. At the beginning of the century farming was still done as it had been for centuries. Each village was surrounded by large fields, which were not in individual possession. It was common land, and each villager farmed part of it.
Beginning with the middle of the 17th century farming had become much more profitable. A number of improvements had been introduced in farming methods. Farmers had begun to understand how to improve soil. The improvements made it possible to produce greater crops. But it was difficult to introduce these improvements when land was divided into small parts farmed by individual farmers. Small farmers could not afford the necessary machinery.
People with money and influence, such as the village squire, persuaded their MPs to pass a law through Parliament allowing them to take over common land and to enclose it. With one large area for each farm, the new machinery and methods worked very well.
The enclosures and the farming improvements made agriculture in Britain more efficient than in almost any other country in Europe. At the same time, the enclosures were damaging for a lot of people. When common land was enclosed, the villagers had nowhere to grow their crops, so they could not feed their families. 'Some of them had built their houses on common land. When the common land was enclosed, their houses were destroyed, and they became homeless.
To help homeless and unemployed people, parish workhouses were built, where the poor lived and were fed. Sometimes a local businessman who wanted cheap workers hired a workhouse. The poor people who were kept in this workhouse worked for the businessman, and he provided food in return for work. This quickly led to a system which was little better than slavery. In the workhouses children, as well as adults, worked long hours and got so little food that they were always hungry.
Other people left their village and went to the towns to find work. They provided the cheap working force that made possible an industrial revolution which was to change the face of Britain.
Loss of the American Colonies
In 1764 there was a serious quarrel over taxation between the British government and its colonies in America. It was a perfect example of the kind of freedom for which Wilkes had been fighting. The British government continued to think of the colonists as British subjects. In 1700 there had been only 200,000 colonists, but by 1770 there were 2.5 million. Such large numbers needed to be dealt with carefully.
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Some American colonists decided that it was not lawful for the British to tax them without their agreement.
In 1773 a group of colonists at the port of Boston threw a shipload of tea into the sea rather than pay tax on it. The event became known as "the Boston Teaparty". The British government answered by closing the port. But the colonists then decided to prevent British goods from entering America until the port was opened again. This was rebellion, and the government decided to defeat it by force. The American War of Independence had begun.
The war in America lasted from 1775 until 1783. The government had no respect for the politics of the colonists, and the British army had no respect for their fighting ability. The result was a disastrous defeat for the British government. It lost everything except for Canada.
Many British politicians openly supported the colonists. They were called "radicals". For the first time British politicians supported the rights of the king's subjects abroad to govern themselves and to fight for their rights against the king. The war in America gave strength to the new ideas of democracy and of independence.
