Through his sister Henrietta Duchess of Orleans, Charles had direct contact with the French court. By the terms of the so-called Secret Treaty of Dover of May, 1670, Charles promised to join in a campaign against the Dutch. And announce his conversion to Roman Catholicism. If this provoked trouble from his subjects he was assured of French military and financial support. By this act Charles fatally compromised himself. He had lost the confidence of his subjects. Another problem was the absence of a legitimate heir, that made possibility the Catholic line of succession, as the king`s brother James's conversion to the Roman church was well known. Between 1679 and 1681 Charles very nearly lost control of his government. Three general elections produced three equally unmanageable parliaments. But his subjects' dread of republican anarchy proved stronger than their suspicion of James, and from March 1681, when he dissolved his last Parliament, Charles enjoyed a nationwide surge of loyalty almost as fervent as that of 1660. Reforms at the Treasury, which he had inaugurated in 1667, provided the crown with a firm basis of administrative control that was among Charles II's most valuable legacies to English government. As a result of these actions, Charles, who died in 1685 at Whitehall in London, was able to end his reign in the kind of tranquil prosperity he had always sought.
In the 70th 2 groups of politicians appeared. One was called the Petitioners (because they asked the king not to dissolve the parliament). The other was called the Abhorrers because they showed abhorrence of the Petitioners. There were 2 groups that later turned into 2 political parties - the Tories and the Whigs. Tories supported landowners and Whigs supported manufacturers. Originally "Whig" and "Tory" were terms of abuse introduced in 1679 during the heated struggle over the bill to exclude James, Duke of York (afterward James II), from the succession. Whig-whatever its origin in Scottish Gaelic-was a term applied to horse thieves and, later, to Scottish Presbyterians; it connoted nonconformity and rebellion and was applied to those who claimed the power of excluding the heir from the throne. Tory was an Irish term suggesting a papist outlaw and was applied to those who supported the hereditary right of James despite his Roman Catholic faith.
I. Read the text, translate it into Russian.
II. Ask 5 questions to the text.
III. Summarize the text in 8 sentences.
Text 3. James II
When Charles II died in 1685 he was followed by his younger brother James II. At the restoration of his brother Charles II to the English throne in 1660, James became lord high admiral and did much to maintain the efficiency and improve the organization of the navy. He also showed considerable interest in colonial ventures; it was on his initiative that New Amsterdam was seized from the Dutch in 1664 and renamed New York in his honour. He commanded the fleet in the opening campaigns of the Second and Third Dutch wars. In 1668 or 1669 he was admitted to the Roman Catholic church, though Charles II insisted that James's daughters, Mary and Anne, be raised in the Protestant faith. He welcomed the prospect of England's reentering the European war on the side of the Dutch; and he consented to the marriage of his elder daughter, Mary, to the Protestant William of Orange in 1677. By 1684 James's influence on state policy was paramount, and when he finally came to the throne in 1685, it was with very little overt opposition. The new royalist Parliament voted James a large income, and there seemed to be no reason why he should not in time secure adequate toleration for his coreligionists. But unsuccessful rebellions led by the Duke of Monmouth in England and the Duke of Argyll in Scotland, in the summer of 1685, marked a turning point in his attitude. James's distrust of his subjects, conceived was at once sharpened. The rebellions were put down with great ferocity, the army was considerably increased, and the new regiments were granted to Roman Catholic officers, whose loyalty was undoubted. This last act of policy provoked a quarrel between king and Parliament. Roman Catholics were admitted to the Privy Council and subsequently to the high offices of state. A commission for ecclesiastical causes was established to administer James's powers as supreme governor of the Anglican church. In 1687 James intensified his Roman Catholic policy. Magdalen College, Oxford, was given over for the use of Roman Catholics, and a papal nuncio was officially accredited to St. James's Palace. He dissolved Parliament, and launched an intensive campaign to win over the Protestant dissenters and with their aid secure a new Parliament more amenable to his wishes. The unexpected news that the queen was pregnant, establishing the prospect of a Roman Catholic succession, had great effect on most Protestants. Since the spring of 1687 many English leaders had been in touch with William of Orange, the husband of the heiress presumptive Mary. When the queen gave birth to a son, seven leading Englishmen sent a letter inviting William of Orange to lead an army to England and call a free Parliament to arbitrate on the legitimacy of the Prince of Wales. In the subsequent "campaign," James's Protestant officers deserted to the enemy in such large numbers that he dared not commit the army to a pitched battle. He was allowed to escape. In February, 1689, the Convention Parliament declared that James had abdicated and next day offered the crown to William and Mary. The Scots Parliament followed suit in May. James made several attempts to restore himself but they failed.
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I. Read the text, translate it into Russian.
II. Ask 5 questions to the text.
III. Summarize the text in 8 sentences.
Text 4. The Glorious Revolution. William III
and Mary II
The son of William II, Prince of Orange, and of Mary, the daughter of Charles I of England, William was born at the Hague in. He spent his youth trying to defend his right to the throne both in his country and in foreign conflicts with Luis XIV of France and Charles II. In 1677 William married Mary, daughter of the future king James II. William himself stood fourth in the English succession, and this marriage with the heiress presumptive gave him added importance in England. In 1688 the birth of a son to James, which opened the possibility of a Roman Catholic succession, finally brought matters to a head. An invitation to him and his wife, signed by a representative selection of James's opponents, was dispatched. William and his army landed in Devon and proceeded almost unopposed to London. James fled to France, and the so-called Convention Parliament, summoned in January 1689, declared that James had abdicated and offered the vacant throne, with an accompanying Declaration of Right, to William and Mary. They were proclaimed in February and crowned April. The crown of Scotland was offered to them in the same month.
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The revolution in England had been accomplished almost without bloodshed, but in Scotland and Ireland there was armed resistance. This collapsed in Scotland in 1689, but the country remained troubled and unsettled throughout William's reign. Mary II died soon and during his life he remained to the last an alien, unpopular with the ruling classes, though the common people always looked on him as the Protestant hero and hailed his appearances with enthusiasm. His reign was of great importance in the constitutional history of the country, and his own contribution to these developments was great. He was moderate in his exercise of the royal prerogative, and managed to preserve the crown with those elements of stability and continuity that have been the peculiar strength of Great Britain. William hated faction, and his influence brought to an end a long period of murderous party strife. He sponsored the reform of the currency and promoted the Irish linen trade. He did his best to promote religious toleration. In 1689, of his own free will, he granted independence to the judiciary, a grant later given statutory permanence by the Act of Settlement (1700-1701). Contemporaries acclaimed William a great general, loved by his soldiers. He deserves mention as a patron of the arts. On his private estates he was an enlightened lord of the manor in his concern for the welfare of his tenants and the maintenance of his lands; in his private charities he was particularly concerned to help refugees. He could also show himself kindly, courteous, and forbearing, and he had the gift of winning and keeping love.
I. Read the text, translate it into Russian.
II. Ask 5 questions to the text.
III. Summarize the text in 8 sentences.
Text 5. Queen Ann
William and Mary were followed by Mary`s sister Ann who got to the throne in 1702. Anne was the second daughter of King James II. Although her father was a Roman Catholic, she was brought up a Protestant at the insistence of her uncle, King Charles II. In 1683 Anne was married to Prince George of Denmark (1653-1708). Of greater political consequence was Anne's intimate relationship with her childhood friend Sarah Jennings Churchill, wife of John Churchill (later 1st Duke of Marlborough). It was Sarah who persuaded Anne to support the Protestant ruler William III of Orange, when William overthrew James II in 1688. Anne was placed in line for the succession to the throne. Anne became queen upon William's death in March 1702. From the first she was motivated largely by an intense devotion to the Anglican church. She detested Roman Catholics and Dissenters and sympathized with High Church Tories. At the same time, she sought to be free from the domination of the political parties. Her first ministry, was headed by two neutrals, Sidney Godolphin and the Duke of Marlborough, who remained commander of the British forces. Anne soon discovered that she disagreed with the Tories on strategy for the war with France; they believed England should lead the war only at the sea. The queen, her minister Marlborough, and the Whigs wanted to commit English troops to continental campaigns. Consequently, as Marlborough accumulated impressive victories on the Continent, pressure was exerted on Anne to admit Whigs to the ministry. In 1708 she was forced to admit the most prominent Whigs into her administration. As the war dragged on, the nation turned against the Whigs. In 1710 Anne was able to expel them and appoint a Tory ministry. She dismissed both Marlboroughs from her service in 1711.The queen's advancing age and her infirmities made the succession a crucial issue. Leading Tories were in constant communication with Anne's exiled Roman Catholic brother, James, the Old Pretender, who had been excluded by law from the succession. But her last act was to secure the Protestant succession by placing the lord treasurer's staff in the hands of a capable moderate, Charles Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury, who presided over the peaceful accession of the Hanoverian prince George Louis (King George I, 1714-1727). The most important issue of her reign concerned the relations between England and Scotland. In 1707 the two countries were united. The Scottish Parliament stopped its existence and the country got the official title UK.
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I. Read the text, translate it into Russian.
II. Ask 5 questions to the text.
III. Summarize the text in 8 sentences.
Text 6. The Hanoverians. George I
George of Hanover came to the throne in 1714. He was the son of Ernest Augustus, elector of Hanover, and Sophia, a granddaughter of King James I of England. He succeeded his father as elector of Hanover in 1698. The English Parliament's Act of Settlement (1701) made George third in line for the throne. During the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714) George fought with distinction against the French. England's Whig politicians began to court his favour, but many Tories remained loyal to the son of James II. On the death of Queen Anne, the Whigs, who had just gained control of the government, ushered him into power. George formed a predominantly Whig ministry. Although the Jacobite rebellions of 1715 and 1719 were readily suppressed, he was far from popular in England. He attempted diligently to fulfill his obligations to his new kingdom. But he could not speak English, he communicated with his ministers in French. His shrewd diplomatic judgment enabled him to help forge an alliance with France in 1717-1718. But he often found it difficult to get his way in domestic politics, in which he had to deal with such strong-willed ministers as Robert Walpole, James Stanhope, and Viscount Charles Townshend. In 1716-17 Townshend and Walpole left his government in protest over Stanhope's alleged efforts to mold English foreign policy to the needs of George's Hanoverian possessions. By joining with George's son, the prince of Wales (later King George II), whom the king detested, these dissidents formed an effective opposition movement within the Whig Party. Shortly after this faction was reconciled to George in 1720, the South Sea Company suffered a financial collapse. In the following scandal it became apparent that George had taken part in South Sea Company transactions of questionable legality, but Walpole's skill in handling the House of Commons saved the king from disgrace. As a result, George was forced to give Walpole and Townshend a free hand in the ministry. They pushed several of the king's friends out of office, and by 1724 George had come to rely completely on their judgment. George died of a stroke on a trip to Hanover. In addition to his son and successor, George II, he had a daughter, Sophia Dorothea (1687-1757), wife of King Frederick William I of Prussia and mother of Frederick the Great.
I. Read the text, translate it into Russian.
II. Ask 5 questions to the text.
III. Summarize the text in 8 sentences.
Text 7. George II
George II was the king of Great Britain and elector of Hanover from 1727 to 1760. Although he possessed sound political judgment, his lack of self-confidence caused him to rely heavily on his ministers, most notable of whom was Sir Robert Walpole. George Augustus was the only son of the German prince George Louis, elector of Hanover. He grew up in Hanover and married the beautiful and intelligent Caroline of Ansbach. George I and his son quarrelled openly. The prince's London residence, Leicester House, became the gathering place for a dissident Whig group headed by Walpole and Viscount Charles Townshend. The reconciliation that took place between George I and the prince in 1720 led to the inclusion of Walpole in George I's administration. During the first two decades of his reign George II followed foreign and domestic developments closely. He supported Walpole's policy of peace and allowed the minister to use crown patronage to build up his majority in Parliament. Walpole won acknowledgment of George's legitimacy from many influential Tories who had been Jacobites-supporters of the exiled Stuart pretender to the English throne. But the opposition to George and Walpole grew and the prince became a leader of an antiadministration faction. By 1742 these dissidents were strong enough to force Walpole to resign. George II quickly found another mentor in John Carteret (later Earl Granville), whose haughty ways proved unpopular in political circles. The two men brought England into the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748), and in doing so they gave their opponents an opportunity to charge them with subordinating the interests of England to the needs of George's German possessions. In November 1744 George bowed to parliamentary pressure and accepted Carteret's resignation. Fifteen months later the king's ministers forced George to accept into office William Pitt. During the last decade of his life George II's interest in politics declined. He was little more than an observer of the events of the Seven Years' War (1756-63) against France, when England fought for its colonies in America. It was Pitt who devised the brilliant strategy that eventually brought about a British victory. George died suddenly and was succeeded by his grandson King George III. Throughout his life George II maintained a passion for anything military. He displayed courage while fighting the French at the Battle of Dettingen in 1743 and it was the last time a British king appeared on the battlefield. His other major interest was music; he loved opera and was a patron of the German composer George Frideric Handel.
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I. Read the text, translate it into Russian.
II. Ask 5 questions to the text.
III. Summarize the text in 8 sentences.
Text 8. George III
In 1760 George II`s grandson became king George III. George III was the son of Frederick Louis, prince of Wales, and Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. From his parents the young George imbibed an unreasonable dislike of his grandfather, King George II, and of all his policies. George was a child of strong feelings but of slow mental development. His affection for his immediate family circle dominated his life. He had an ideal, his teacher and future minister John Stuart, Earl of Bute. In 1761 George married Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. At the beginning of the reign the government of England lacked effective executive machinery, and members of Parliament were always more ready to criticize than to cooperate with it. The King's first responsibility was to hold coalitions of great peers together. But under Bute's influence he imagined that his duty was to purify public life and to substitute duty to himself for personal intrigue. The two great men in office at the accession were the elder Pitt and Thomas Pelham-Holles, duke of Newcastle. Pitt was allowed to resign (October 1761) over the question of war against Spain. Pelham followed into retirement when his control of treasury matters seemed to be challenged. The government had two principal problems: to make peace and to restore peacetime finance. Peace was made but in such a way as to isolate Britain in Europe, and for almost 30 years the country suffered from the new alignments of the European powers. In 1763 Bute resigned and George turned to George Grenville, to his uncle, William Augustus, duke of Cumberland, to Pitt, and to the 3rd Duke of Grafton for help. The first decade of the reign was one of such ministerial instability that little was done to solve the basic financial difficulties of the crown, made serious by the expense of the Seven Years' War. Overseas trade expanded, but the riches of the East India Company made no significant contribution to the state. The attempt to make the American colonists meet their own administrative costs only aroused them to resistance. Nor was there consistency in British colonial policy. The Stamp Act (1765) passed by Grenville was repealed by Lord Rockingham in 1766. Indirect taxes, in the form of the Townshend Acts (1767), were imposed without calculation of their probable yield and then repealed (except for that on tea) as a manoeuvre in home politics. George III was personally blamed for this instability. It was suggested that the power should be given to the Cabinet and the king play the role of a bridge between them. In 1770 the King was lucky in finding a minister, Lord North, who was able to submit the Commons. As a result, 12 years of stable government followed a decade of disturbance. But America was the greatest and the fatal issue, and North could not avoid it because the English squires in Parliament agreed with their king that America must pay for its own defense and for its share of the debt remaining from the war that had given it security. George III's personal responsibility for the loss of America lies not in any assertion of his royal prerogative. Americans, rather, were disposed to admit his personal supremacy. Their quarrel was with the assertion of the sovereignty of Parliament, and George III was eventually hated in America because he insisted upon linking himself with that Parliament. North inevitably took the steps that led to war in 1775. By 1779 the typical English squires in Parliament had sickened of the war, but the King argued that though the war was indefensible on economic grounds it still had to be fought because it could incite Ireland to follow the example. The period from 1779 to 1782 left a further black mark upon the King's reputation. By 1780 a majority in Parliament blamed North's government for the calamities that had befallen the country. When North fell at last in 1782, George III's prestige was at a low ebb. The failure of Shelburne's ministry (1782-83) reduced George to the lowest point of all. George even contemplated abdication. But within a year the King reemerged as the guardian of the national interest. When Fox and North produced a plan to reform the East India Company, he let it be known that anyone who supported the plan in the House of Lords would be reckoned his enemy. The bill was defeated, and the ministers resigned. The King was ready with a new "patriotic" leader, William Pitt, the Younger. This initiative was dangerous. Pitt's government was in a minority in the Commons, and the discarded ministers were in a mood to threaten a constitutional upheaval. Everything depended on the verdict of a general election in March, 1784. Though many of Pitt's ideas were unwelcome to him, he contented himself with criticism and a few grumbles. The king and the minister compromised.
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The king was depressed by the Prince of Wales's coming of age in 1783 as it meant emancipation from the family. The King's ruefulness was soon converted into rage. The Prince associated politically with his enemies and the king fell into insanity. The King's incapacity produced a political storm. But while Pitt and Fox battled over the powers that the Prince of Wales should enjoy as regent, the King suddenly recovered in 1789. For the last decade of the 18th century, he was bothered more about the details than about the main lines of policy. Pitt ruled the country almost independently. After the outbreak of war with Revolutionary France in 1793, the war with France seemed to most of the aristocracy and the upper middle class to be waged for national survival. The old king, an object of compassion in his collapse and obviously a well-meaning man, was soon a symbol of the old English order for which the country was fighting. The French war had made the issue of Roman Catholic emancipation urgent. It also brought the king into the conflict with the Prime minister who supported emancipation. Rebellion in Ireland, in Pitt's view, could not be cured simply by the union of the British and Irish Parliaments. Conciliation, by the political emancipation of the Roman Catholics, was a necessary concomitant of union. George III believed this proposal to be radical ruin and used all his personal prestige to have emancipation defeated. Pitt resigned (1801), and George persuaded Henry Addington to form a less adventurous Cabinet. The collapse of Addington's administration in 1804 brought Pitt back into office but he returned at the cost of giving up his emancipation proposals. On the death of Pitt (January 1806), the King accepted Fox as foreign secretary in a coalition "ministry of all the talents". During this short period of Whig administration, the King allowed his ministers to discuss peace with Napoleon and to abolish the slave trade; he asserted himself and forced their resignation only when they dared to propose some amelioration of the laws against Roman Catholics. This second break on the Roman Catholic issue came about in circumstances which witnessed to George's declining abilities. Still strong in body, he had become almost blind. Much of the remainder of the King's lifetime was a living death. In 1811 it was acknowledged that he was violently insane. The doctors continued to hope for recovery, but Parliament declared the regency of the Prince of Wales (the future George IV) and decreed that the Queen should have the custody of her husband. He remained insane, with intervals of senile lucidity, until his death at Windsor Castle. George III's reign, on its personal side, was the tragedy of a well-intentioned man who was faced with problems too great for him to solve but from which his conscience prevented any attempt at escape.
I. Read the text, translate it into Russian.
II. Ask 5 questions to the text.
III. Summarize the text in 8 sentences.
Text 9. George IV
In 1820 George III died and his son George IV came to the throne. He was the eldest son of George III and Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. His way of life and his close friendship with Charles James Fox and other loose-living Whig politicians caused his father to regard him with contempt.
In November 1810 George III became permanently insane, and shortly afterward the prince became regent under the terms of the Regency Act (1811). In February 1812, when the restrictions of that statute expired, George decided to retain his father's ministers rather than appoint survivors from among his old Whig friends. His decision benefited the nation, because the 2nd Earl Grey and other leading Whigs were prepared to abandon the war with France and leave Napoleon the master of the European continent. As it was, Great Britain and its allies finally triumphed over Napoleon in 1815. George IV's accession on the death of his father did not add to the powers that he had possessed as regent. He insulted and intrigued against the 2nd Earl of Liverpool, prime minister from 1820 to 1827. George IV's character was in part redeemed by his linguistic and other intellectual abilities and especially by his astute judgment in the arts; he patronized the architect John Nash, who developed Regent Street (1811-c. 1825) and Regent's Park, London; and he sponsored Sir Jeffry Wyatville's restoration of Windsor Castle. George's most famous effort was the exotic Royal Pavilion at Brighton with its Mughal Indian and Chinese decorations, designed by Nash.
George`s only daughter Charlotte died when she was rather young and he was succeeded by his brother William, who became king William IV.
I. Read the text, translate it into Russian.
II. Ask 5 questions to the text.
III. Summarize the text in 8 sentences.
Text 10. William IV
William was bynamed "The Sailor King". He came to the throne in 1830. He reigned for 7 years. He got the throne at the age of 64. Some important acts took place during the reign. In 1832 the Reform Act gave the right to vote to the people who paid 10 pound annual rent. In 1833 slavery was abolished on the territory of the British Empire. The Factory Act of 1833 forbade the employment of children under 9 years of age. Personally opposed to parliamentary reform, he grudgingly accepted the epochal Reform Act of 1832, which, by transferring representation from depopulated "rotten boroughs" to industrialized districts, reduced the power of the British crown and the landowning aristocracy over the government. After succeeding George IV as king, William proved to be less brilliant but also less selfish and moreover attentive to official business than his brother had been. In May 1832 the prime minister, Charles Grey, the 2nd Earl Grey, asked the King to create at least 50 new peers to overcome the House of Lords majority hostile to parliamentary reform. At first William refused, but after Wellington had failed to form a Tory (Conservative) ministry, Grey's Whigs resumed office with the King's written promise to create enough peers to carry the Reform Bill. The Lords, sufficiently threatened, allowed the bill to pass. As a consequence of redistricting, Sir Robert Peel's Tories were unable to gain a Commons majority in the election of January 1835; and from April of that year the King had to deal with an uncongenial Whig premier, William Lamb,Viscount Melbourne, whom he had previously dismissed. On William's death, therefore, the British crown passed to his niece Princess Victoria, and the Hanoverian crown passed to his brother Ernest Augustus, duke of Cumberland.
I. Read the text, translate it into Russian.
II. Ask 5 questions to the text.
III. Summarize the text in 8 sentences.
Text 11. The Victorian Age
Queen Victoria was the daughter of king George III`s second son Edward. Her father died when she was a little girl and after her uncle George IV`s death she became the heiress. She was the last monarch of the dynasty of Hanover. Her full title was Alexandrina Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and empress of India. It was she who gave her name to an era, the Victorian Age. She and her husband, Prince Consort Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, had nine children, who through their marriages and their descendants linked the British royal house with many of the royal families of Europe. Victoria's long reign restored dignity and popularity to the British crown and may have saved the monarchy from abolition. She was devoted to her husband, relied on his advice, and mourned his premature death (1861) for the remaining 40 years of her reign. Despite Victoria's determination to retain political power, her actual influence on governments was slight..
