# Tcl Programming/TCL and ADP

`<font size=3>`{=html}**Tcl and ADP Reference**`</font>`{=html}

This is a reference for using Tcl with ADP pages, for people setting up
a site with the ArsDigita Community System (see
OpenACS for details). The first half is just a
Tcl overview; the second half deals with .adp pages, custom tags, and
AOLServer resources and parameters.

## Tcl Overview

### Basic Tcl Language Features

**`; or newline`**` statement separator`\
**`\`**` statement continuation if last character in line`\
**`#`**` comment out rest of line (if 1st non−whitespace char)`\
**`var`**` simple variable`\
**`var(index)`**` associative array variable`\
**`var(i,j)`**` multidimensional associative array variable`\
**`$var`**` variable substitution (also ${var}xyz)`\
**`[expr 1+2]`**` command substitution`\
**`\char`**` backslash substitution`\
**`"hello $a"`**` quoting with substitution`\
**`{hello $a}`**` quoting with no subst (deferred substitution)`\
*The only datatype in Tcl is a string. Some commands interpret arguments
as numbers/booleans; those formats are:*\'\
**`Integer`**`: 12 0xff(hex) 0377(octal)`\
**`Floating Pt`**`: 2.1 3. 6e4 7.91e+16`\
**`Boolean`**`: true false 0 1 yes no`

### Backslash Substitutions

**`\a`**` audible alert (0x7)`\
**`\b`**` backspace (0x8)`\
**`\f`**` form feed (0xC)`\
**`\n`**` newline (0xA)`\
**`\r`**` carriage return (0xD)`\
**`\t`**` horizontal tab (0x9)`\
**`\v`**` vertical tab (0xB)`\
**`\space`**` space`\
**`\newline`**` space`\
**`\ddd`**` octal value (d=0−7)`\
**`\xdd`**` hex value (d=0−9,a−f)`\
**`\c`**` replace ’\c’ with ’c’`\
**`\\`**` backslash`

### Operators and Math Functions

*The **expr** command recognizes these operators, in decreasing order of
precedence:*

    − ~ ! unary minus, bitwise NOT, logical NOT
    * / % multiply, divide, remainder
    + − add, subtract
    << >> bitwise shift left, bitwise shift right
    < > <= >= boolean comparisons
    == != boolean equals, not equals
    & bitwise AND
    ^ bitwise exclusive OR
    | bitwise inclusive OR
    && logical AND
    || logical OR
    x ? y : z if x != 0, then y, else z

*All operators support integers. All support floating point except :
`~, %, <<, >>, %, ^, and |`. Boolean operators can also be used for
string operands, in which case string comparison will be used. This
occurs if any of the operands are not valid numbers. The following
operators have \"lazy evaluation\" as in C:*\
**`&&, ||, ?:`**\
*The expr command recognizes the following math functions:*\
`abs hypot int double floor ceil fmod round`\
`cos sin tan acos asin atan atan2 cosh sinh tanh`\
`log log10 exp pow sqrt'''`

### Regular Expressions

    regex | regex match either expression
    regex* match zero or more of regex
    regex+ match one or more of regex
    regex? Match zero or one of regex
    . any single character except newline
    ^ match beginning of string
    $ match end of string
    \c match character c
    c match character c
    [abc] match set of characters
    [^abc] match characters not in set
    [a−z] match range of characters
    [^a−z] match characters not in range
    ( ) group expressions

### Pattern Globbing

    ? match any single character
    * match zero or more characters
    [abc] match set of characters
    [a−z] match range of characters
    \c match character c
    {a,b,...} match any of string a, b, etc.
    ~ home directory (for glob command)
    ~user match user’s home directory (for glob command)
    Note: for the glob command, a "." at the beginning of a file’s
    name or just after "/" must be matched explicitly and all "/"
    characters must be matched explicitly.

### Control Flow

    break
    Abort innermost containing loop command
    case
    Obsolete, see switch
    continue
    Skip to next iteration of innermost containing loop.
    exit[returnCode]
    Terminate the process, return returnCode (an integer which
    defaults to 0) to the system as the exit status.
    for start test next body
    Looping command where start, next, and body are Tcl command
    strings and test is an expression string to be passed to expr
    command.
    foreach varname list body
    The Tcl command string body is evaluated for each item in the
    string list where the variable varname is set to the item’s value.
    if expr1 [then] body1 [elseif expr2 [then] body2...] [[else] bodyN]
    If expression string expr1 evaluates true, Tcl command string
    body1 is evaluated. Otherwise if expr2 is true, body2 is
    evaluated, and so on. If none of the expressions evaluate to
    true, then bodyN is executed.
    return [−code code] [−errorinfo info] [−errorcode code] [string]
    Return immediately from current procedure with string as return
    value.
    switch [options] string pattern1 body1 [ pattern2 body2 ...]
    The string argument is matched against each of the pattern
    arguments in order. As soon as it finds a pattern that matches
    string, it evaluates the corresponding Tcl command string body. If
    no match is found and the last pattern is the keyword default, its
    command string is evaluated
    while test body
    Evaluates the Tcl command string body as long as expression string
    test evaluates to true.

### Lists

Note: list indices start at 0 and the word end may be used to reference
the last element in the list.

    concat [arg arg ...]
    Returns concatenation of each string
    join list [joinString]
    Returns string created by joining all elements of list with
    joinString.
    lappend varName [value value ...]
    Appends each value to the end of the list stored in varName.
    lindex list index
    Returns value of element at index in list.
    linsert list index element [element ...]
    Returns new list formed by using each arg as an element.
    llength list
    Returns number of elements in list.
    lrange list first last
    Returns new list from slice of list at indices first through last
    inclusive.
    lsearch [mode] list pattern
    Returns index of first element in list that matches pattern (−1
    for no match). Mode may be −exact, −glob(default) or −regexp.
    lsort [switches] list
    Returns new list formed by sorting list according to switches.
    These are:
    −ascii string comparison (default)
    −integer integer comparisons
    −real floating−point comparisons
    −increasing sort in increasing order (default)
    −decreasing sort in decreasing order
    −command cmd Use command which takes two arguments and returns
    an integer less than, equal to, or greater than zero.
    split string [splitChars]
    Returns a list formed by splitting string at each character in
    splitChars.

### Strings

    append varName [value value ...]
    Appends each of the given values to the string stored in varName.

    format formatString [arg arg ...]
    Returns a formatted string generated in the ANSI C sprintf manner.

    regexp [switches] exp string [matchVar] [subMatchVar ...]
    Returns 1 if the regular expression exp matches part or all of
    string, 0 otherwise. If specified, matchVar will be wet to all
    the characters in the match and the following subMatchVar’s will
    be set to matched parenthesized subexpressions. The −nocase
    switch can be specified to ignore case in matching. The −indices
    switch can be specified so that matchVar and subMatchVar will be
    set to the start and ending indice3s in string of their
    corresponding match.

    regsub [switches] exp string subSpec varName
    Replaces the first portion of string that matches the regular
    expression exp with subSpec and places results in varName. Returns
    count of number of replacements made. The −nocase switch can be
    specified to ignore case in matching. The −all switch will cause
    all matches to be substituted for.

    scan string formatString varName [varName ...]
    Extracts values into given variables using ANSI C sscanf behavior.
    string compare string1 string2
    Return −1, 0, or 1, depending on whether string1 is
    lexicographically less than, equal to, or greater than string2.
    string first string1 string2
    Return index in string2 of first occurrence of string1 (−1 if not
    found).

    string index string charIndex
    Returns the charIndex’th character in string.

    string last string1 string2
    Return index in string2 of last occurrence of string1 (−1 if not
    found).

    string length string
    Returns number of characters in string.

    string match pattern string
    Returns 1 if glob pattern matches string, 0 otherwise.

    string range string first last
    Returns characters from string at indices first through last
    inclusive.

    string tolower string
    Returns new string formed by converting all chars in string to
    lower case.

    string toupper string
    Returns new string formed by converting all chars in string to
    upper case.

    string trim string [chars]
    Returns new string formed by removing from string any leading or
    trailing characters present in the set chars.

    string trimleft string [chars]
    Same as string trim for leading characters only.

    string trimright string [chars]
    Same as string trim for trailing characters only.

    string wordend string index
    Returns index of character just after last one in word at index in
    string.

    string wordstart string index
    Returns index of first character of word at index in string.

    subst [−nobackslashes] [−nocommands] [−novariables] string
    Returns result of backslash, command, and variable substitutions
    on string. Each may be turned off by switch.

## The Tcl \<\--\> ADP interface

### Including TCL code in ADP pages

*Inline replacement:*
`<%= tcl code that evaluates to the text you want embedded %>`

*State changing Code:*
`<% tcl commands to change tcl environment (set vars, do db queries, etc) %>`

*Example:* `Two plus two is <%= [expr 2+2] %>`

### Defining custom tags

``` tcl
ns_register_adptag "codeexample" "/codeexample" tcl_adp_codeexample

proc tcl_adp_codeexample {string tagset} {
return "<blockquote>
<code><pre>${string}</pre></code>
</blockquote>
"
}
```

### Using AOLServer Parameters

    [ad_parameter UsersCanCreateRoomsP chat]

### Resourcing tcl in AOLserver

*source−file.tcl − to source a particular file.*

    set_the_usual_form_variables
    ns_eval [list source $file]
    ns_return 200 text/html ok
    wget −O − "http://localhost:8000/source−
    file.tcl?file=/web/server1/tcl/myfile.tcl"

*Note: this does not work for registered tag changes. To cause a reload
of everything:*

    <%
    set dir [ns_info tcllib]
    set list [exec ls $dir]
    foreach file $list {
    source $dir/$file
    ns_puts "sourced: $file
    "}%>

### Using ns_set

*When one queries a database, the variable that is set is an ns_set:*

    # ask AOLserver to give us a database connection
    set db [ns_db gethandle]
    set sql_query "select first_names, last_name
    from users
    where user_id = $user_id"
    # actually send the query to the RDBMS; tell AOLserver we
    # expect exactly one row back
    set selection [ns_db 1row $db $sql_query]

    ''Getting information out of an ns_set:''

    set first_names [ns_set get $selection "first_names"]
    set last_name [ns_set get $selection "last_name"]
    ns_return 200 text/plain "User #$user_id is $first_names $last_name"

### Dealing with Form Variables

*Importing form variables into a tcl or adp page*
`set_the_usual_form_variables` *Manipulating Forms Directly:*
`ns_getform`

### Decode

*Do logic w/o breaking out of an ns_write. Just like SQL !*
`[util_decode unknown val1 res1 val2 res2 valN resN defaultresult]`

### Dealing With .ini file Parameters

*ad_parameter* `ad_parameter name { subsection "" } { default "" }`

    Returns the value of a configuration parameter set in one of the .ini files in
    /web/yourdomain/parameters. If the parameter doesn’t exist, returns the
    default specified as the third argument (or empty string if not default is
    specified). Note that AOLserver reads these files when the server starts up and
    stores parameters in an in−memory hash table. The plus side of this is that
    there is no hit to the file system and no need to memoize a call to
    ad_parameter. The minus side is that you have to restart the server if you
    want to test a change made to the .ini file.

*ad_parameter_section* `ad_parameter_section { subsection "" }`

    Returns all the vars in a parameter section as an ns_set. Relies on
    undocumented AOLserver Tcl API call ns_configsection (analogous C API
    call is documented). Differs from the API call in that it returns an empty
    ns_set if the parameter section does not exist.

### Converting tcl to adp

*inclusion of sub−files*

    # Source user−new.adp. We would redirect to it, but we don’t want
    # the password exposed!
    # source "[ns_url2file "/register/user−new.tcl"]"
    # return
    ns_adp_include user−new.adp
    ns_adp_break


# Tcl Programming/Appendix

## Appendix

### Resources

-   The main page of Tcl developers is the Tcl Developer
    Xchange.
-   Download a free binary ActiveTcl distribution at
    ActiveState.
-   The main USENET forum dedicated to this language is
    *<news:comp.lang.tcl>*.
-   In German, there\'s also <http://www.self-tcl.de/forum> for
    questions and answers
-   The main user wiki is The Tclers Wiki.
-   The Tclers\' Chat can provide quick response to questions: Jabber
    all.tclers.tk:5222, IRC freenode #tcl, or Webchat
    <http://mini.net/cgi-bin/chat.cgi> (all of the three being relayed
    between each other)
-   The Tcl man pages can be found
    here.
-   The Tk man pages can be found
    here.
-   Documentation on Tcllib, the Tcl standard library is
    here.
-   There is a tutorial for Tcl
    here.

For Web development, there are:

-   pure-Tcl Web servers like
    Tclhttpd, which can be
    embedded in your Tcl-enabled applications to provide Web-based
    interfaces,
-   Tcl-based Web servers like AOLServer,
    which are much faster than their pure-Tcl cousins and able to
    support a heavy load, and
-   Tcl Web server modules (see Apache Tcl for
    examples) that enable Tcl Web applications with bog-standard Web
    servers.

### ActiveState Community License

*This is the license of the \"Batteries-included\" ActiveTcl
distribution. Note that you cannot redistribute ActiveTcl \"outside your
organization\" without written permission.* The part between
\"AGREEMENT\" and \"Definitions:\" is the more free, BSD-style license
of Tcl and Tk itself.

**Preamble:**

The intent of this document is to state the conditions under which the
Package (ActiveTcl) may be copied and distributed, such that ActiveState
maintains control over the development and distribution of the Package,
while allowing the users of the Package to use the Package in a variety
of ways.

The Package may contain software covered by other licenses:

**TCL LICENSE AGREEMENT**

This software is copyrighted by the Regents of the University of
California, Sun Microsystems, Inc., Scriptics Corporation, and other
parties. The following terms apply to all files associated with the
software unless explicitly disclaimed in individual files.

The authors hereby grant permission to use, copy, modify, distribute,
and license this software and its documentation for any purpose,
provided that existing copyright notices are retained in all copies and
that this notice is included verbatim in any distributions. No written
agreement, license, or royalty fee is required for any of the authorized
uses. Modifications to this software may be copyrighted by their authors
and need not follow the licensing terms described here, provided that
the new terms are clearly indicated on the first page of each file where
they apply.

IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR DISTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE TO ANY PARTY FOR
DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING
OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, ITS DOCUMENTATION, OR ANY DERIVATIVES
THEREOF, EVEN IF THE AUTHORS HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
SUCH DAMAGE.

THE AUTHORS AND DISTRIBUTORS SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ANY WARRANTIES,
INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ON AN \"AS IS\" BASIS, AND THE AUTHORS AND
DISTRIBUTORS HAVE NO OBLIGATION TO PROVIDE MAINTENANCE, SUPPORT,
UPDATES, ENHANCEMENTS, OR MODIFICATIONS.

GOVERNMENT USE: If you are acquiring this software on behalf of the U.S.
government, the Government shall have only \"Restricted Rights\" in the
software and related documentation as defined in the Federal Acquisition
Regulations (FARs) in Clause 52.227.19 (c) (2). If you are acquiring the
software on behalf of the Department of Defense, the software shall be
classified as \"Commercial Computer Software\" and the Government shall
have only \"Restricted Rights\" as defined in Clause 252.227-7013 (c)
(1) of DFARs. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the authors grant the U.S.
Government and others acting in its behalf permission to use and
distribute the software in accordance with the terms specified in this
license.

**Definitions:**

\"ActiveState\" refers to ActiveState Corp., the Copyright Holder of the
Package.

\"Package\" refers to those files, including, but not limited to, source
code, binary executables, images, and scripts, which are distributed by
the Copyright Holder.

\"You\" is you, if you are thinking about copying or distributing this
Package.

**Terms:**

1\. You may use this Package for commercial or non-commercial purposes
without charge.

2\. You may make and give away verbatim copies of this Package for
personal use, or for use within your organization, provided that you
duplicate all of the original copyright notices and associated
disclaimers. You may not distribute copies of this Package, or copies of
packages derived from this Package, to others outside your organization
without specific prior written permission from ActiveState (although you
are encouraged to direct them to sources from which they may obtain it
for themselves).

3\. You may apply bug fixes, portability fixes, and other modifications
derived from ActiveState. A Package modified in such a way shall still
be covered by the terms of this license.

4\. ActiveState\'s name and trademarks may not be used to endorse or
promote packages derived from this Package without specific prior
written permission from ActiveState.

5\. THIS PACKAGE IS PROVIDED \"AS IS\" AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

ActiveState Community License Copyright (C) 2001-2003 ActiveState Corp.
All rights reserved.


# Wikijunior:Kings and Queens of England/Introduction

Welcome to the Wikijunior book on Kings and Queens of England.

In this book, we will start by looking at the very first Anglo-Saxon
Kings of England. We will then move on to show how the Crown changed
hands many times as a result of conquest. We see some powerful kings and
some weak ones. We see how the Crown has battled Parliament. We look at
the period where power finally did transfer to Parliament through to the
times of our current queen, Elizabeth II. At the end we will also look
at who the next kings of England may be.

We will find out about eleven Kings called Edward and nine called Henry
and a nine-day queen and King Philip, who most people have now forgotten
about. But first let\'s start way back in 871 with the Anglo-Saxons and
the only king of England to be called \"Great,\" Alfred.


# Wikijunior:Kings and Queens of England/The House of Lancaster

## Henry IV (1399- 1413)

!Henry IV{width="190"} **Henry IV** was born on
3 April 1367 at Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire, which was why he was
also known as Henry Bolingbroke. His father was the third son of King
Edward III of England, John of Gaunt. After landing in Yorkshire in
1398, Henry had enough support to be declared king by parliament in
1399. As king, Henry consulted with parliament often, but he sometimes
disagreed with them, particularly over church matters. Henry was the
first English king to allow the burning of heretics.

Henry spent much of his reign defending himself against plots,
rebellions and assassination attempts. Rebellions continued throughout
the first ten years of Henry\'s reign. These included the revolt of Owen
Glendower, who declared himself Prince of Wales in 1400, and the
rebellion of Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland. The king\'s
success in putting down these rebellions was due partly to the military
ability of his eldest son, Henry, who would later become King. In 1406,
English soldiers captured the future King James I of Scotland as he was
going to France. James remained a prisoner of Henry for the rest of
Henry\'s reign.

### Marriages and children

In 1381, 18 years before becoming king, Henry married Mary de Bohun.
They had two daughters and four sons, one of which was the future King
Henry V of England. Mary died in 1394, and in 1403 Henry married Joanna
of Navarre, the daughter of Charles d\'Évreux, King of Navarre. She was
the widow of John V of Brittany, with whom she had four daughters and
four sons, but she and Henry had no children.

The later years of Henry\'s reign were marked by serious health
problems. He had some sort of disfiguring skin disease, and more
seriously suffered acute attacks of some grave illness in June 1405,
April 1406, June 1408, during the winter of 1408-09, December 1412, and
then finally a fatal bout in March 1413. Unusually for a king of
England, he was buried not at Westminster Abbey but at Canterbury
Cathedral, as near to the shrine of Thomas Becket as possible.

## Henry V (1413-1422)

!King Henry V. **Henry V**
was born in Monmouth in 1387. He was king from 1413 to his death in 1422
By the time Henry died, he had not only consolidated power as the King
of England but had also effectively accomplished what generations of his
ancestors had failed to achieve through decades of war: unification of
the crowns of England and France in a single person.

### Life before became King

When Henry\'s father, Henry Bolingbroke, was exiled in 1398, Richard II
took the boy into his own charge and treated him kindly. In 1399 the
Lancastrian revolution brought Bolingbroke. He was created Duke of
Lancaster on 10 November 1399, the third person to hold the title that
year. In 1403 the sixteen-year-old prince was almost killed by an arrow
which became lodged in his face. An ordinary soldier would have been
left to die from such a wound, but Henry had the benefit of the best
possible care, and, over a period of several days after the incident,
the royal physician crafted a special tool in order to extract the tip
of the arrow without doing further damage. The operation was successful.

The Welsh revolt of Owen Glendower took up much of Henry\'s attention
until 1408. Then, as a result of the King\'s ill-health, Henry began to
take a wider interest in politics. From January 1410, he had practical
control of the government. In 1413 his father died and Henry became
king.

### Reign

When he became king, Henry had to deal with three main problems: the
restoration of domestic peace, the healing of rift in the Church and the
recovery of English prestige in Europe. Henry tackled all of the
domestic policies together, and gradually built on them a wider policy.
From the first he made it clear that he would rule England as the head
of a united nation. The heirs of those who had suffered in the last
reign were restored gradually to their titles and estates.

Henry then turned his attention to foreign affairs, in particular the
war with France and his claim to be King of it. 25 October 1415 saw
Henry score a great success in this campaign at Agincourt. The command
of the sea was secured by driving the Genoese allies of the French out
of the English Channel. Successful diplomacy saw the Holy Roman Emperor,
Sigismund, cease his support of Henry\'s French foes, whilst the Treaty
of Canterbury helped end the rift in the Church.

With the French having lost the support of the Genoese and the Holy
Roman Emperor, with these 2 allies gone, the war was renewed on a larger
scale in 1417. Lower Normandy was quickly conquered, and Rouen was cut
off from Paris and besieged. The French were paralysed by the disputes
of Burgundians and Armagnacs. Henry skilfully played them off one
against the other, without relaxing his warlike energy. In January 1419
Rouen fell. By August the English were outside the walls of Paris. The
internal disputes of the French parties ended with the killing of John
of Burgundy by men loyal to the heir to the French throne. Philip, the
new Duke of Burgundy, and the French court threw themselves into
Henry\'s arms. After six months\' negotiation Henry was recognised as
heir and regent of France. On 2 June 1420, Henry married Catherine of
Valois, the French king\'s daughter. Following his death, Catherine
secretly married a Welsh courtier, Owen Tudor, grandfather of the future
King Henry VII of England.

### Death

Henry then made plans for a new Crusade began to take shape as the
French situation became clearer. Henry visited to England in 1421, but
returned to France after forces led by the Duke of Clarence were
defeated at the Battle of Baugé. The hardships of the longer winter
siege of Meaux broke down his health, and he died of dysentery at Bois
de Vincennes on 31 August 1422. Had he lived another two months, he
would have been crowned King of France. Henry was buried in Westminster
Abbey. He was succeeded by his infant son, Henry.

## Henry VI (1422-1461, 1470-1471)

!Henry VI{width="150"} **Henry VI**
was born at Windsor Castle on 6 December 1421, the son of King Henry V.
He was King of England from 1422, when he was nine months old. In 1423,
parliament was called and a regency council was appointed. Humphrey,
Duke of Gloucester, Henry IV\'s youngest son, was appointed Protector
and Defender of the Realm and the Church until the King came of age, but
the Council had the power to replace him at any time. His duties were
limited to keeping the peace and summoning and dissolving Parliament.

Henry was eventually crowned King of England in Westminster Abbey on 6
November 1429 a month before his eighth birthday, and as King of France
at Notre Dame in Paris on 16 December 1431. However, during the rule of
the regency council, much of the ground his father gained in France was
lost. A revival of French fortunes, beginning with the military
victories of Joan of Arc, led to the French nobles preferring the French
dauphin, who was crowned as King of France at Reims. Diplomatic errors
as well as military failures resulted in the loss of most of the English
territories in France.

Henry assumed the reins of government when he was declared of age in
1437. On gaining his majority, Henry VI proved to be a deeply spiritual
man, lacking the worldly wisdom necessary to allow him to rule
effectively. Right from the time he assumed control as king, he allowed
his court to be dominated by a few noble favorites, and the peace party,
which was in favour of ending the war in France, quickly came to
dominate.

### Marriage

It was thought that the best way of pursuing peace with France was
through a marriage with King Charles VII of France\'s niece, Margaret of
Anjou. Henry agreed, especially when he heard reports of Margaret\'s
stunning beauty. Charles agreed to the marriage on condition that he
would not have to provide the customary dowry and instead would receive
the lands of Maine and Anjou from the English. These conditions were
agreed to in the Treaty of Tours, but the cession of Maine and Anjou was
kept secret from parliament. It was known that this would be hugely
unpopular with the English populace. The marriage went ahead in 1445 and
Margaret\'s character seems to have complemented that of Henry\'s in
that she was prepared to take decisions and show leadership where he was
content to be led by her. In this much Margaret proved a more competent
ruler than Henry ever was, even though she was only sixteen at that
time. The issue of Maine and Anjou finally became public knowledge in
1446.

### Reign

The government\'s increasing unpopularity was due to a breakdown in law
and order, corruption, the distribution of royal land to the king\'s
court favourites, the troubled state of the crown\'s finances, and the
steady loss of territories in France. In 1447, this unpopularity took
the form of a Commons campaign against the Duke of Suffolk, who was the
most unpopular of all the King\'s favourites was widely seen as a
traitor, partly because of his role in negotiating the Treaty of Tours.
Henry was forced to send him into exile, but his ship was boarded in the
English Channel, and he was murdered. His body was found on the beach at
Dover.

In 1449, the Duke of Somerset, who was leading the campaign in France,
started more battles in Normandy, but by the autumn had been pushed back
to Caen. By 1450, the French had retaken the whole province. Returning
troops, who had often not been paid, added to the sense of lawlessness
in the southern counties of England, and Jack Cade led a rebellion in
Kent in 1450. Henry came to London with an army to crush the rebellion,
but was persuaded to keep half his troops behind while the other half
met Cade at Sevenoaks. Cade triumphed and went on to occupy London. In
the end, the rebellion achieved nothing, and London was retaken after a
few days of disorder, but the rebellion showed that feelings of
discontent were running high.

In 1450, the Duchy of Aquitaine, held since Henry II\'s time, was also
lost, leaving Calais as England\'s only remaining territory in France.
By 1452, Richard, Duke of York, who had been sidelined by being made
ruler of Ireland, was persuaded to return amd claim his rightful place
on the council, and put an end to bad government. His cause was a
popular one, and he soon raised an army at Shrewsbury. The king\'s
supporters raised their own similar-sized force in London. A stand-off
took place south of London, with the Duke of York giving a list of
grievances and demands to the king\'s supporters. One of the demands was
the arrest of the Duke of Somerset. The king initially agreed, but
Margaret intervened to prevent it. By 1453, the Duke of Somerset
regained his influence, and the Duke of York was again isolated. In the
meantime, an English advance in Aquitaine had retaken Bordeaux and was
having some success, and the queen announced that she was pregnant.

However, English success in Aquitaine was short-lived, and on hearing
the news of the English defeat in August 1453, Henry slipped into a
mental breakdown and became completely unaware of everything that was
going on around him. This was to last for more than a year, and Henry
failed even to respond to the birth of his own son and heir, Edward. The
Duke of York, meanwhile, had gained a very important ally, the Earl of
Warwick, who was one of the very influential and rich. The Duke York was
named regent as Protector of the Realm in 1454, and the queen lost all
her power. Somerset was held prisoner in the Tower of London. The Duke
of York\'s months as regent were spent tackling the problem of
government overspending. On Christmas Day 1454, however, Henry regained
his senses.

### Henry\'s character

Henry was kind and generous to those he cared about, giving away land
and titles to his advisors. He dressed simply. He was keen on reading
and \'book-learning\' but did not like leading his country in battle.

Keen on the promotion of education, Henry gave generous grants for the
foundation of both Eton College near Windsor, for the education of
students from poor backgrounds, and King\'s College, Cambridge, where
they could continue their education. Henry seems to have been a decent
man, but completely unsuited to kingship. He allowed himself to
dominated by the power-hungry factions which surrounded him at court and
was later powerless to stop the outbreak of bloody civil war. It was too
much for him to cope with, as his recurring mental illness from 1453
onwards showed.

### The Wars of the Roses

Nobles who had grown in power during Henry\'s reign, but who did not
like Henry\'s government, took matters into their own hands by backing
the claims of the rival House of York, first to the regency, and then to
the throne itself. After a violent struggle between the houses of
Lancaster and York, Henry was deposed on 4 March 1461 by his cousin,
Edward of York, who became King Edward IV. But Edward failed to capture
Henry and his queen, and they were able to flee into exile abroad.
During the first period of Edward IV\'s reign, Lancastrian resistance
continued mainly under the leadership of Queen Margaret and the few
nobles still loyal to her in the northern counties of England and Wales.
Henry was captured by King Edward in 1465 and subsequently held captive
in the Tower of London.

Queen Margaret was exiled, first in Scotland and then in France.
However, she was determined to win back for her husband and son, and
with the help of King Louis XI of France she eventually allied with the
Earl of Warwick, who had fallen out with Edward IV. Warwick returned to
England, defeated the Yorkists in battle, set Henry VI free and restored
him to the throne on 30 October 1470. Henry\'s return to the throne
lasted a very short time. By this time, years in hiding followed by
years as a prisoner had taken their toll on Henry, who had been
weak-willed and mentally unstable to start with. Henry looked tired and
vacant as Warwick and his men paraded him through the streets of London
as the rightful King of England. Within a few months Warwick had gone
too far by declaring war on Burgundy, whose ruler responded by giving
Edward IV the assistance he needed to win back his throne by force.

### Death

Henry VI was again held prisoner, this time in the Tower of London, and
he was murdered there on 21 May 1471. Popular legend has accused Richard
III of his murder, as well as the murder of Henry VI\'s son, Edward.
Each year on the anniversary of Henry VI\'s death, the Provosts of Eton
and King\'s College, Cambridge, lay roses and lilies on the altar which
now stands where he died. King Henry VI was originally buried in
Chertsey Abbey. In 1485 his body was moved to St George\'s Chapel at
Windsor Castle. He was succeeded as king by Edward, son of Richard, Duke
of York.

## References


# Wikijunior:Kings and Queens of England/The House of York

## Edward IV (1461-1470, 1471-1483)

!Edward IV **Edward IV** was born on 28 April
1442 at Rouen in France. He was the eldest son of Richard, Duke of York,
a leading claimant to the throne of England. Richard\'s challenge to the
ruling family started the Wars of the Roses. When his father was killed
in 1460 whilst pressing his claim to be king against Henry VI at the
Battle of Wakefield, Edward inherited his claim.

Edward won the support of Richard Neville, the Earl of Warwick, whose
nickname is \"The Kingmaker\". Edward then defeated the Lancastrians in
a number of battles. While Henry was campaigning in the north, Warwick
gained control of London and had Edward declared king in 1461. Edward
strengthened his claim with victory at the Battle of Towton in the same
year, where the Lancastrian army was virtually wiped out.

### Marriage and children

Edward was tall, strong, handsome, generous, and popular. Warwick,
believing that he could continue to rule through Edward, wanted him to
marry into a major European family. Edward, however, secretly married a
widow, Elizabeth Woodville. They had ten children together. Under an act
of Parliament of 1484, one year after Edward IV\'s death, all of
Edward\'s children by Elizabeth Woodville were declared illegitimate on
the grounds that Edward had been due to marry another woman, Eleanor
Talbot, before he entered into marriage with Elizabeth Woodville. This
claim was only made after all these parties had died. The act was
repealed shortly after Henry VII became king. Edward also had many
mistresses and had several illegitimate children.

### A series of conflicts

Elizabeth\'s family had little land, which was where real power came
from, but Warwick did not like the influence they now had. Warwick
allied himself with Edward\'s younger brother George, Duke of Clarence,
and led an army against Edward. The main part of the king\'s army
(without Edward) was defeated at the Battle of Edgecote Moor, and Edward
was later captured at Olney. Warwick tried to rule in Edward\'s name,
but the nobles, many of whom owed their position to the king, were not
happy. A rebellion forced Warwick to free Edward, who tried to make
peace with Warwick and Clarence. This did not work and they rebelled
again in 1470, after which Warwick and Clarence were forced to flee to
France. There, they allied with Henry VI\'s wife, Margaret, and Warwick
agreed to restore Henry VI to the throne in return for French support.
They invaded in 1470. This time, Edward was forced to flee after
Warwick\'s brother switched to the Lancastrian side, making Edward\'s
military position too weak, and Henry VI was king once more.

Edward fled to Burgundy. The rulers of Burgundy were his brother-in-law
Charles, Duke of Burgundy, and his sister Margaret of Burgundy. After
France declared war on Burgundy, Charles helped Edward to raise an army
to win back his kingdom. When he returned to England with a small force
he avoided capture by saying that he only wished to reclaim his dukedom.
This is similar to the claim Henry Bolingbroke made seventy years
before. The city of York, however, closed its gates to him, but as he
marched southwards he began to gather support, and Clarence reunited
with him. Edward defeated Warwick at the Battle of Barnet. With Warwick
dead, he ended the remaining Lancastrian resistance at the Battle of
Tewkesbury in 1471. The Lancastrian heir, Edward of Westminster, Prince
of Wales, was killed either on the battlefield or shortly afterwards. A
few days later, on the night that Edward re-entered London, Henry VI,
who held prisoner, was murdered to make sure there was no remaining
Lancastrian opposition.

Edward did not face any further rebellions after his restoration. The
only rival left was Henry Tudor, who was living in exile. Edward
declared war on France in 1475, which ended with the Treaty of
Picquigny, under which he was immediately paid 75,000 crowns, and then
received a yearly pension of 50,000 crowns. Edward backed an attempt by
Alexander Stewart, 1st Duke of Albany, brother of the Scottish king,
James III, to take the throne in 1482. Although Edinburgh and James III
were both captured, the Duke of Albany went back on his agreements with
Edward, and the English forces were pulled back. England did, however,
recover the border town of Berwick-upon-Tweed.

### Death

Edward fell ill at Easter 1483, and made some changes to his will, the
most important being his naming of his brother, the Duke of Gloucester,
as Protector after his death. He died on 9 April 1483 and is buried in
St George\'s Chapel at Windsor Castle. He was succeeded by his
twelve-year-old son, Edward. Edward IV\'s daughter, Elizabeth of York,
later became King Henry VII\'s queen.

### Was Edward illegitimate?

There have been many rumours that Edward IV was himself illegitimate, in
which case he should never have been king. In his time, it was noted
that Edward IV did not look much like his father. Before he became king
in 1483, Richard III himself declared that Edward was illegitimate, and
parliament even considered the matter. William Shakespeare, in his play,
*Richard III*, which was written over a hundred years later, also
referred to the claim. To this day it is not known whether these rumours
were true.

## Edward V (1483)

!King Edward V and the Duke of York in the Tower of
London{width="150"}
**Edward V** was born in sanctuary within Westminster Abbey on 4
November 1470, while his mother was taking refuge from the Lancastrians
who were then in charge of the kingdom while his father, the Yorkist
King Edward IV of England, was out of power. After his father returned
to the throne, he was made Prince of Wales in June 1471 and appeared
with his parents on state occasions. Edward IV had set up a Council of
Wales and the Marches, and sent his son to Ludlow Castle to be its
president. The prince was at Ludlow when news came of his father\'s
sudden death. Therefore Edward became king on 9 April 1483, aged only
12.

His father\'s brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was given the role of
Protector to his young nephews, Edward V and Richard, Duke of York. He
caught up with Edward on his journey from Ludlow and took the princes to
London. Less than three months later, Richard took the throne himself
after parliament declared Edward to be illegitimate.

After the two boys went to the Tower of London, they were never seen in
public again. What happened to them is one of the great mysteries of
history, and many books have been written on the subject. It is believed
that they were killed, and the usual suspects are: their uncle, King
Richard; Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham; and Henry Tudor, who
later defeated Richard and took the throne as Henry VII.

In 1674 some workmen remodeling the Tower of London dug up a box that
had two small human skeletons in it. They threw them on a rubbish heap,
but some days or weeks later someone decided they might be the bones of
the two princes, so they gathered them up and put some of them in an urn
that was buried at Westminster Abbey. In 1933 the bones were taken out
and examined and then replaced in the urn. The experts who examined them
could not agree on what age the children would have been when they died
or even whether they were boys or girls.

## Richard III (1483-1485)

!Richard III{width="150"} **Richard III**
was born at Fotheringay Castle on 2 October 1452. He was the fourth
surviving son of Richard Plantagenet, the 3rd Duke of York, who was a
strong claimant to the throne of King Henry VI. He has been portrayed as
having a withered arm, limp and a crooked back, but this is most
probably an invention from many years later. Richard was King of England
from 1483, when he effectively deposed his nephew, Edward V. A rebellion
rose against Richard later that year, and he died at the Battle of
Bosworth Field in 1485. He is the last English king to die in battle,
and he was succeeded by the winner of the battle, Henry Tudor.

### Marriage and children

Richard spent much of his childhood at Middleham Castle in Wensleydale,
under the care of his uncle, Richard Neville, the 16th Earl of Warwick
(the \"Kingmaker\"), as Richard\'s father died when he was young.
Following the Yorkist victory over the Lancastrians at the Battle of
Tewkesbury, Richard married the widowed Anne Neville, younger daughter
of the now dead 16th Earl of Warwick on 12 July 1472. Anne\'s first
husband had been Edward of Westminster, son of Henry VI. Richard and
Anne had one son, Edward Plantagenet, who was born in 1473. He died soon
after being made Prince of Wales in 1483. Richard also had a number of
illegitimate children.

### Reign of Edward IV

During the reign of his brother, King Edward IV, Richard was a loyal and
skilful military commander. He was rewarded with large estates in
Northern England, and given the title Duke of Gloucester and the
position of Governor of the North, becoming the richest and most
powerful noble in England. Richard continued to control the north of
England until Edward\'s death. In 1482 Richard recaptured
Berwick-upon-Tweed from the Scots, and was noted as being fair and just,
making gifts to universities and the Church.

### Death and legacy

On 22 June 1483, outside St Paul\'s Cathedral, a statement was read out
on behalf of Richard declaring for the first time that he was taking the
throne for himself. On 6 July 1483, Richard was crowned at Westminster
Abbey. Except for three earls not old enough to be there and a few
lesser nobles, the entire peerage attended his coronation. Richard was
known as a devout man and an efficient administrator. However, he was a
Yorkist and heirless, and had ruthlessly removed many of his enemies but
some, led by Henry Tudor, remained. Richard\'s enemies united against
him and he fought them at the Battle of Bosworth Field on 22 August
1485, where he was killed. Henry Tudor succeeded Richard to become King
Henry VII. Richard was buried at Greyfriars Church, Leicester, but his
body was lost during the later Dissolution of the Monasteries. There is
currently a memorial plaque on the site of the Cathedral where he may
have once been buried. Since his death, Richard III has become one of
England\'s most controversial kings. He was portrayed as a bad king by
historians of the House of Tudor. He has now largely lost his notoriety,
except in relation to the mystery surrounding the two Princes in the
Tower.

## References


# Wikijunior:Kings and Queens of England/The Stuarts

## James I (1603-1625)

!James
I{width="150"} James
I was born at Edinburgh Castle on 19 June 1566. James was the only child
of Mary, Queen of Scots and her second husband, Lord Darnley. James was
a direct descendant of Henry VII through his great-grandmother Margaret
Tudor, sister of Henry VIII. He ruled in Scotland as James VI from 24
July 1567 until his death on 27 March 1625. He was also King of England
and King of Ireland as James I from 24 March 1603 until his death. He
was the first monarch of England from the House of Stuart.

James was a successful monarch in Scotland, but he was an unsuccessful
monarch in England. He was unable to deal with a hostile Parliament, and
the refusal by the House of Commons to levy sufficiently high taxes
crippled the royal finances. However, James is considered to have been
one of the most intellectual British monarchs. Under him, much of the
cultural flourishing of Elizabethan England continued; science,
literature and art, contributed by men such as Sir Francis Bacon and
William Shakespeare grew by leaps.

### Before becoming King of England

In June 1567, Protestant rebels arrested James\'s mother, Mary, Queen of
Scots, and imprisoned her. Mary was forced to abdicate the throne on 24
July, giving it to James, then only thirteen months old. He was brought
up as a member of the Protestant Church of Scotland. During James VI\'s
early reign, power was held by a series of regents, with James taking
power himself in 1581, though he did not rule by himself, relying
instead on the advice of his closest courtiers. He carried on ruling as
King of Scotland, and then, on the death of Queen Elizabeth of England
in 1603, an English Accession Council met and proclaimed James King of
England. However, Scotland and England remained separate states - it was
not until 1707 that the Acts of Union merged the two nations to create a
new state, the Kingdom of Great Britain.

### Early reign in England

James is noted for creating many new lords. In total, sixty-two people
were raised to the English Peerage by James. Elizabeth had only created
eight new peers during her 45-year reign. Upon his arrival in London,
James was almost immediately faced by religious conflicts in England. He
was presented with a petition from Puritans requesting further Anglican
Church reform. He accepted the invitation to a conference in Hampton
Court, which was subsequently delayed due to the Plague. In 1604, at the
Hampton Court Conference, James was unwilling to agree to most of their
demands. He did, however, agree to fulfill one request by authorizing an
official translation of the Bible, which came to be known as the King
James Version.

In 1605, a group of Catholic extremists led by Robert Catesby developed
a plan, known as the Gunpowder Plot, to cause an explosion in the
chamber of the House of Lords, where the King and members of both Houses
of Parliament would be gathered for the State Opening of Parliament. The
conspirators sought to replace James with his daughter, Elizabeth, who,
they hoped, could be forced to convert to Catholicism. One of the
conspirators, however, leaked information regarding the plot, which was
then foiled. Terrified, James refused to leave his residence for many
days. Guy Fawkes, who was to be the one lighting the gunpowder, was
tortured on the rack until he revealed the identities of the other
conspirators, all of whom were executed or killed during capture. Dolls
of Guy Fawkes are still burned each 5 November, which is known as Guy
Fawkes, or bonfire, Night, to commemorate the plot.

### Conflict with Parliament and death

Following the dissolution of the Addled Parliament, James ruled without
a Parliament for seven years. Faced with financial difficulties due to
the failure of Parliament to approve new taxes, James sought to enter
into a profitable alliance with Spain by marrying his eldest surviving
son, Charles, to the daughter of the King of Spain. The proposed
alliance with a Roman Catholic kingdom was not well received in
Protestant England. James\'s unpopularity was increased by the execution
of Sir Walter Raleigh.

James lapsed into senility during the last year of his reign. Real power
passed to his son, Charles, and to the Duke of Buckingham, although
James kept enough power to ensure that a new war with Spain did not
occur while he was King. James died at Theobalds House in 1625 of
\'tertian ague\' (fever one day in every three), probably brought upon
by kidney failure and stroke. He was buried in the Henry VII Lady Chapel
in Westminster Abbey. Charles succeeded him as Charles I.

### Issue

James\'s children included Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales (who died
aged 18 in 1612), Elizabeth, Margaret Stuart (who died in infancy),
Charles, Mary and two more children who died in infancy (Robert and
Sophia).

## Charles I (1625-1649)

!Charles
I{width="160"}
Charles I was born at Dunfermline Palace on 19 November 1600. He was the
second son of James I and Anne of Denmark. He was King of England,
Scotland and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. He
famously engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England.
He was a supporter of the Divine Right of Kings, and many in England
feared that he was attempting to gain absolute power. There was
widespread opposition to many of his actions, especially the levying of
taxes without Parliament\'s consent. Religious conflicts continued
throughout Charles\'s reign. He selected his Catholic wife, Henrietta
Maria, over the objections of Parliament and public opinion.

The last years of Charles\' reign were marked by the English Civil War,
in which he was opposed by the forces of Parliament, who challenged his
attempts to increase his own power, and by Puritans, who were hostile to
his religious policies. The war ended in defeat for Charles, who was
subsequently tried, convicted and executed for high treason. The
monarchy was overthrown, and a commonwealth was established.

### Early life and reign

Charles was not as well-regarded as his elder brother, Henry. However,
when his elder brother died of typhoid in 1612, Charles became heir to
the throne and was later made Prince of Wales. Charles ascended the
throne in March 1625 and on 1 May of that year married to Henrietta
Maria, who was nine years his junior. She was a sister of King Louis
XIII of France. His first Parliament, which he opened in May, was
opposed to his marriage to Henrietta Maria, a Roman Catholic, because it
feared that Charles would lift restrictions on Roman Catholics and
undermine the official establishment of Protestantism. Although he
agreed with Parliament that he would not relax restrictions relating to
recusants, he promised to do exactly that in a secret marriage treaty
with Louis XIII. Charles and his wife had nine children, with three sons
and three daughters surviving infancy.

### Personal Rule

In January 1629, Charles opened the second session of the Parliament
which had been prorogued in June 1628. He hoped that, with the Duke of
Buckingham gone, Parliament, which had been refusing to let him raise
taxes, would finally cooperate with him and grant him further subsidies.
Instead, members of the House of Commons began to voice their opposition
to the levying of tonnage and poundage without parliamentary consent.
When he requested a parliamentary adjournment in March, members held the
Speaker down in his chair whilst three resolutions against Charles were
read aloud. The last of these resolutions declared that anyone who paid
tonnage or poundage not authorized by Parliament would \"be reputed a
betrayer of the liberties of England, and an enemy to the same\". Though
the resolution was not formally passed, many members declared their
approval. Afterward, when the Commons passed further measures, Charles
commanded the dissolution of Parliament.

Charles decided that he could not rely on Parliament for further
monetary aid. Immediately, he made peace with France and Spain. The
following eleven years, during which Charles ruled without a Parliament,
have been known as the Eleven Years Tyranny.

In the meantime Charles still had to get funds to maintain his treasury.
Relying on an all but forgotten feudal statute passed in 1278, requiring
anyone who earned £40 or more each year to present himself at the
King\'s coronation so that he may join the royal army as a knight,
Charles fined everyone who failed to attend his coronation in 1626. He
reintroduced the feudal tax known as ship money, which was even more
unpopular. A writ issued in 1634 ordered the collection of ship money in
peacetime, although laws passed when Edward I and Edward III were on the
throne said it should not be collected in peacetime. This action of
demanding ship money in peacetime led to a rebellion which forced him to
call parliament into session by 1640.

### Short and Long Parliaments

A dispute with the Churches in Scotland meant that Charles needed more
money. He therefore had to end his personal rule and recall Parliament
in April 1640. Although Charles offered to repeal ship money, the House
of Commons demanded the discussion of various abuses of power during the
period of Charles\'s personal rule. Parliament refused to help Charles
and it was dissolved in May 1640, less than a month after it assembled.
It became known as the Short Parliament. Charles still tried to defeat
the Scots, but failed. The peace treaty he agreed required the King to
pay the expenses of the Scottish army he had just fought. Charles took
the unusual step of summoning the *magnum concilium*, the ancient
council of all the Peers of the Realm, who were considered the King\'s
hereditary counsellors. The *magnum concilium* had not been summoned in
centuries, and it has not been summoned since Charles\'s reign. On the
advice of the peers, Charles summoned another Parliament, which became
known as the Long Parliament.

The Long Parliament assembled in November 1640 and proved just as
difficult to negotiate with as the Short Parliament. To prevent the King
from dissolving it at will, Parliament passed the Triennial Act, which
required that Parliament was to be summoned at least once every three
years. In May 1641, he assented to an even more far-reaching Act, which
provided that Parliament could not be dissolved without its own consent.
Charles was forced into one concession after another. Ship money, fines
in destraint of knighthood and forced loans were declared unlawful, and
the hated Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission were abolished.
Although he made several important concessions, Charles improved his own
military position by securing the favour of the Scots. He finally agreed
to the official establishment of Presbyterianism, and in return got
considerable anti-parliamentary support.

The House of Commons then threatened to impeach Charles\' Catholic
Queen, Henrietta Maria, finally leading the King to take desperate
action. His wife persuaded him to arrest the five members of the House
of Commons who led the anti-Stuart faction on charges of high treason,
but, when the King had made his decision, she made the mistake of
telling a friend who, in turn, told Parliament. Charles entered the
House of Commons with an armed force on 4 January 1642, but found that
his opponents had already escaped. Many in Parliament thought Charles\'s
actions outrageous, but others had similar sentiments about the actions
of Parliament itself. Several members of the House of Commons left to
join the royalist party, leaving the King\'s opponents with a majority.
It was no longer safe for Charles to be in London, and he went north to
raise an army against Parliament. The Queen, at the same time, went
abroad to raise money to pay for it.

### Civil war

The English Civil War had not yet started, but both sides began to arm.
Charles raised the royal standard in Nottingham on 22 August 1642. He
then set up his court at Oxford, from where he controlled roughly the
north and west of England, Parliament remaining in control of London and
the south and east. The Civil War started on 25 October 1642 with the
inconclusive Battle of Edgehill and continued indecisively through 1643
and 1644, until the Battle of Naseby tipped the military balance
decisively in favour of Parliament. There followed a great number of
defeats for the Royalists, and then the Siege of Oxford, from which
Charles escaped in April 1646. He put himself into the hands of the
Scottish Presbyterian army at Newark, and was taken to nearby Southwell
while his \"hosts\" decided what to do with him. The Presbyterians
finally arrived at an agreement with Parliament and delivered Charles to
them in 1647. He was imprisoned at Holdenby House in Northamptonshire,
but was soon transferred to a number of different locations.

### Trial and execution

Charles was finally moved to Windsor Castle and then St James\'s Palace.
In January 1649, the House of Commons without the assent of either the
Sovereign or the House of Lords---passed an Act of Parliament creating a
court for Charles\'s trial. The High Court of Justice established by the
Act consisted of 135 Commissioners (all firm Parliamentarians). The
King\'s trial (on charges of high treason and \"other high crimes\")
began on 2 January, but Charles refused to enter a plea, claiming that
no court had jurisdiction over a monarch. It was then normal practice to
take a refusal to plead as an admission of guilt, which meant that the
prosecution could not call witnesses to its case. Fifty-nine of the
Commissioners signed Charles\'s death warrant on 29 January, 1649. After
the ruling, he was led from St. James\'s Palace, where he was confined,
to the Palace of Whitehall, where an execution scaffold had been erected
in front of the Banqueting House.

Charles was beheaded on 30 January, 1649. One of the revolutionary
leaders, Oliver Cromwell, allowed the King\'s head to be sewn back on
his body so the family could pay its respects. Charles was buried in
private and at night on 7 February 1649, in the Henry VIII vault inside
St George\'s Chapel in Windsor Castle. Charles was father to a total of
nine legitimate children, two of whom would eventually succeed him as
king. Several other children died in childhood.

## Interregnum (1649-1660)

The English Interregnum was the period of parliamentary and military
rule after the English Civil War, between the execution of Charles I in
1649 and the restoration of Charles II in 1660.

This era in English history can be divided into four periods:

1.  The first period of the Commonwealth of England from 1649 until 1653
2.  The Protectorate under Oliver Cromwell from 1653 to 1659
3.  The Protectorate under Richard Cromwell in 1659
4.  The second period of the Commonwealth of England from 1659 until
    1660

### Life during the Interregnum

Four years after Charles I\'s execution, Oliver Cromwell was offered the
Crown. But he refused and chose instead to rule as Lord Protector.
Oliver Cromwell was a Puritan and during the Interregnum, he imposed a
very strict form of Christianity upon the country. Cromwell granted
religious freedom otherwise previously unknown in England, but other
forms of expression were suddenly limited (for instance, theatre, which
had thrived under the Stuart kings and Elizabeth I, was banned).
Cromwell also imposed his own personal vision of Christianity on the
masses, with feasts on days of fast disallowed and work on Sundays
subject to fine. Richard Cromwell was the successor to his father. But
he gave up his position as Lord Protector with little hesitation,
resigning or \"abdicating\" after a demand by the Rump Parliament. This
was the beginning of a short period of restoration of the Commonwealth
of England, and Charles I\'s son, also called Charles, was soon invited
back as king.

## Charles II (1660-1685)

!Charles II{width="160"}
Charles II was born in St James\'s Palace on 29 May 1630. Charles was
the eldest surviving son of Charles I and Henrietta Maria of France. He
was the King of Scots from 30 January 1649 and King of England and
Ireland from 29 May 1660 until his death on 6 February 1685. Unlike his
father Charles I, Charles II was skilled at managing the Parliament of
England, so much so that Charles is still considered one of England\'s
greatest kings. It was during his reign that the Whig and Tory political
parties developed. He famously fathered numerous illegitimate children,
of whom he acknowledged fourteen. Known as the \"Merry Monarch\",
Charles was a patron of the arts.

### Restoration

After the death of Oliver Cromwell in 1658, Charles\'s chances of
regaining the Crown seemed slim. Oliver Cromwell was succeeded as Lord
Protector by his son, Richard Cromwell. However, the new Lord Protector
abdicated in 1659. The Protectorate of England was abolished, and the
Commonwealth of England established. During the civil and military
unrest which followed, George Monck, the Governor of Scotland, was
concerned that the nation would descend into anarchy and sought to
restore the monarchy. Monck and his army marched into the City of London
and forced the Long Parliament to dissolve itself. For the first time in
almost twenty years, the members of Parliament faced a general election.
A Royalist House of Commons was elected. The Convention Parliament, soon
after it assembled on 25 April 1660, heard about the Declaration of
Breda, in which Charles agreed, amongst other things, to pardon many of
his father\'s enemies. It subsequently declared that Charles II had been
the lawful Sovereign since Charles I\'s execution in 1649.

Charles set out for England, arriving in Dover on 23 May 1660 and
reaching London on 29 May. Although Charles granted amnesty to
Cromwell\'s supporters in the *Act of Indemnity and Oblivion*, he went
back on his pardon of the commissioners and officials involved in his
father\'s trial and execution. Many among those who signed Charles I\'s
death warrant were executed in 1660 in the most gruesome fashion: they
were hanged, drawn and quartered. Others were given life imprisonment.
The body of Oliver Cromwell was also \"executed\".

The Convention Parliament was dissolved in December 1660. Shortly after
Charles\'s coronation at Westminster Abbey on 23 April 1661, the second
Parliament of the reign, the Cavalier Parliament, met. As the Cavalier
Parliament was overwhelmingly Royalist, Charles saw no reason to
dissolve it and force another general election for seventeen years.

### Foreign policy

In 1662 Charles married a Portuguese princess, Catherine of Braganza,
who brought him the territories of Bombay and Tangier as dowry. During
the same year, however, he sold Dunkirk, a much more valuable strategic
outpost to his cousin King Louis XIV of France of France for £40,000. In
1668, England allied itself with Sweden, and with its former enemy the
Netherlands, in order to oppose Louis XIV in the War of Devolution.
Louis was forced to make peace with the Triple Alliance, but he
continued to maintain his aggressive intentions. In 1670, Charles,
seeking to solve his financial troubles, agreed to the Treaty of Dover,
under which Louis XIV would pay him £200,000 each year. Meanwhile,
around 1670, Charles granted the British East India Company the rights
to autonomous territorial acquisitions, to mint money, to command
fortresses and troops, to form alliances, to make war and peace, and to
exercise both civil and criminal jurisdiction over the acquired areas in
India. Earlier in 1668 he leased the islands of Bombay for a paltry sum
of ten pounds sterling paid in gold.

### Great Plague and Fire

In 1665, Charles II was faced with a great health crisis: an outbreak of
Bubonic Plague in London commonly referred to as the Great Plague of
London. The death toll at one point reached 7000 per week. Charles, his
family and court fled from London in July 1665 to Oxford. Various
attempts at containing the disease by London public health officials all
fell in vain and the disease continued to spread rapidly. On 2 September
1666 came the Great Fire of London. Although it ended the Great Plague
by burning of plague-carrying rats and fleas, the fire consumed about
13,200 houses and 87 churches, including the original St. Paul\'s
Cathedral.

### Conflict with Parliament

Charles\'s wife Queen Catherine was unable to produce an heir.
Charles\'s heir was therefore his unpopular Roman Catholic brother,
James. In 1678, Titus Oates, a former Anglican cleric, falsely warned of
a \"Popish Plot\" to kill the king and replace him with James. Charles
did not believe the story, but ordered his chief minister to
investigate. He, however, was an anti-Catholic, and encouraged Oates to
make his accusations public. The people were seized with an
anti-Catholic hysteria; judges and juries across the land condemned the
supposed conspirators; numerous innocent individuals were executed.
Later in 1678, however, the chief minister was impeached by the House of
Commons on the charge of high treason. To save Lord Danby from the
impeachment trial in the House of Lords, Charles dissolved the Cavalier
Parliament in January 1679. A new Parliament, which met in March of the
same year, was quite hostile to the king, and this led to the chief
minister being forced to resign and being held prisoner in the Tower of
London.

### Later years

The Parliament of 1679 was elected at a time when there were strong
anti-Catholic sentiments. It was opposed to the prospect of a Catholic
monarch. An Exclusion Bill, which sought to exclude James from the line
of succession, was introduced. The \"Abhorrers\", those who opposed the
Exclusion Bill, would develop into the Tory Party, whilst the
\"Petitioners\", those who supported the Exclusion Bill, became the Whig
Party. Fearing that the Exclusion Bill would be passed, Charles
dissolved Parliament in December 1679. Two further Parliaments were
called in Charles\'s reign (one in 1680, the other in 1681), but both
were dissolved because they sought to pass the Exclusion Bill. During
the 1680s, however, popular support for the Exclusion Bill began to
dissolve, and Charles experienced a nationwide surge of loyalty. For the
remainder of his reign, Charles ruled as an absolute monarch, without a
Parliament.

In 1685 Charles died suddenly. When he knew he was dying and in great
secrecy, a priest was summoned to his bedside. Charles was admitted into
the Catholic Church and received the last rites. He was buried in
Westminster Abbey. He was succeeded by his brother, who became James II
in England and Ireland, and James VII in Scotland.

## James II (1685-1688)

!James II{width="160"} James II of
England and VII of Scotland was born at St James\'s Palace on 14 October
1633. He was the second surviving son of Charles I and Henrietta Maria
of France. He became King of England, King of Scots and King of Ireland
on 6 February 1685. He was the last Roman Catholic monarch to reign over
England, Scotland and Ireland. Some of his subjects distrusted his
religious policies and alleged despotism, leading a group of them to
depose him in the Glorious Revolution. He was replaced not by his Roman
Catholic son, James Francis Edward, but by his Protestant daughter and
son-in-law, Mary II and William III, who became joint rulers in 1689.
The belief that James remained the legitimate ruler became known as
Jacobitism (from *Jacobus*, the Latin for James). However, James did not
try to return to the throne, instead living the rest of his life under
the protection of King Louis XIV of France. His son James Francis Edward
Stuart and his grandson Charles Edward Stuart (*Bonnie Prince Charlie*)
attempted to restore the Jacobite line after James\'s death on 16
September 1701, but failed.

### Early life

Like his brother, James sought refuge in France during the Interregnum,
and he served in the French army. In 1656, when his brother, Charles,
entered into an alliance with Spain, an enemy of France, he joined the
Spanish army. Both armies praised James\'s abilities. In 1660, Charles
II was restored to the English Throne, and James returned to England
with him. Though he was the heir, it seemed unlikely then that he would
inherit the Crown, as it was thought that Charles would have legitimate
children. In September 1660, James married Lady Anne Hyde, the daughter
of Charles\'s then chief minister, Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon.

### Religion

James was admitted to the Roman Catholic Church in 1668 or 1669. His
Protestant enemies in the Parliament of England then passed the Test
Act, which made all civil and military officials swear an oath against
certain practices of the Roman Catholic Church and receive communion in
the Church of England. James refused to do this and gave up his post of
Lord High Admiral as a result. Charles II opposed James\'s conversion,
and ordered James\'s children be raised as Protestants, but in 1673, he
allowed James (whose first wife had died in 1671) to marry the Catholic
Mary of Modena.

In 1677, James allowed his daughter, Mary, to marry the Protestant
Prince of Orange, William III, who was also his nephew. However, fears
of a Catholic monarch remained, and got greater as Charles II\'s wife
continued to fail to provide an heir.

### Reign and the Glorious Revolution

Charles died without legitimate offspring in 1685, and James became
king. At first, there was little opposition to him and many Anglicans
supported him as the legitimate monarch. The new Parliament which
assembled in May 1685 seemed favourable to James, agreeing to grant him
a large income. James, however, faced the Monmouth Rebellion, which was
led by Charles II\'s illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth. James
Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth declared himself King on 20 June 1685, but
was defeated at the Battle of Sedgemoor. Monmouth was executed at the
Tower of London soon after. Despite the lack of popular support for
Monmouth, James began to distrust his subjects. His judges, most notably
Judge Jeffreys (the \"Hanging Judge\"), punished the rebels brutally.
Judge Jeffreys\' Bloody Assizes led the people to see their King as a
cruel and barbarous ruler. To protect himself from further rebellions,
James sought to establish a large standing army. By putting Roman
Catholics in charge of several regiments, the King was drawn into a
conflict with Parliament. Parliament was prorogued in November 1685,
never to meet again during James\'s reign.

Religious tension intensified in 1686. In the Declaration of Indulgence
in 1687, he suspended laws punishing Roman Catholics and other religious
dissenters. In April 1688, James re-issued the Declaration of
Indulgence, and ordered Anglican clergymen to read it in their churches.
When the Archbishop of Canterbury and six other bishops petitioned for a
change in the King\'s religious policies, they were arrested and tried
for seditious libel, but were acquitted. Public alarm increased with the
birth of a Catholic son and heir, James Francis Edward, to Queen Mary in
June, 1688. Several leading Protestants then entered into negotiations
with William, Prince of Orange, who was James\'s son-in-law, for him to
invade and become king. By September, it had become clear that William
was looking to invade. James believed his army could fight them off, but
when William landed on 5 November 1688, all of the King\'s Protestant
officers went over to William\'s side. On 11 December, James attempted
to flee to France. He was caught in Kent, but allowed to escape to
France on 23 December.

When James left, no Parliament was in session, so William convened a
Convention Parliament. The Convention declared on 12 February 1689 that
James\'s attempt to flee on 11 December meant that he had abdicated and
that the throne had then become vacant (instead of passing to James
II\'s son, James Francis Edward). James\'s daughter Mary was declared
Queen. She was to rule jointly with her husband William III. The
Scottish Estates followed suit on 11 April.

William and Mary then granted their assent to the Bill of Rights. This
confirmed that William III and Mary II were to be King and Queen. It
also charged James II with abusing his power by suspending the Test
Acts, the prosecuting of the Seven Bishops for petitioning the Crown,
establishing a standing army and imposing cruel punishments. The Act
also set out who would be heirs to the Crown. First were any children of
William and Mary, to be followed by the Princess Anne and her children,
and finally by the children of William by any subsequent marriage.

### Later years and legacy

With a French army on his side, James landed in Ireland in March 1689.
The Irish Parliament did not follow the example of the English
Parliament and instead declared that James remained King. He was,
however, defeated at the Battle of the Boyne on 1 July 1690. He fled
back to France after the defeat departing. In France, James was allowed
to live in a royal castle. An attempt was made to restore him to the
throne by killing William III in 1696, but the plot failed. Louis XIV\'s
offer to have James elected King of Poland was rejected, after which
Louis no longer helped James. He died in 1701 at Saint-Germain-en-Laye,
where he was buried.

The son of James II, James Francis Edward Stuart (known to his
supporters as \"James III and VIII\" and to his opponents as the \"Old
Pretender\"), took up the Jacobite cause. He led a rising in Scotland in
1715 shortly after George I became king, but was defeated. Further
risings were also defeated. After the rising of 1745 led by Charles
Edward Stuart, no serious attempt to restore the Stuart heir has been
made.

James Francis Edward died in 1766, when he was succeeded by his eldest
son, Charles Edward Stuart (known to his supporters as \"Charles III\"
and to his opponents as the \"Young Pretender\"). Charles in turn was
succeeded by his younger brother Henry Benedict Stuart, a cardinal of
the Catholic Church. Henry was the last of James II\'s legitimate
descendants.

### Children

James had eight children by Anne Hyde, of whom only two, Mary and Anne,
survived infancy. They became the next two Queens. By Mary of Modena he
had six children, two of whom survived infancy. The most famous of his
children by Mary of Modena was James Franci Edward Stuart. He also had a
number of illegitimate children.

## William III (1689-1702) and Mary II (1689-1694)

After the Glorious Revolution, William III and his wife, Mary II, became
joint rulers.

### William

!William III{width="200"}
William was born in The Hague in the Netherlands on 14 November 1650. He
was the son of William II, Prince of Orange, and Mary Stuart. He was
Dutch aristocrat and a Protestant Prince of Orange from his birth. He
was King William III of England and of Ireland from 13 February 1689,
and William II, King of Scots from 11 April 1689 in each case until his
death on 8 March 1702.

Eight days before he was born, his father died from battle wounds, and
so William became the Sovereign Prince of Orange at the moment of his
birth. On 23 December 1660, when William was just ten years old, his
mother died of smallpox while visiting her brother, King Charles II in
England. In her will, Mary made Charles William\'s legal guardian.
Charles passed on this responsibility to William\'s paternal
grandmother, the Princess Dowager Amalia, with the understanding that
Charles\'s advice would be sought whenever it was needed. In 1666, when
William was sixteen, the States General of the United Provinces of the
Netherlands officially made him a ward of the government, or as William
himself called it, a \"Child of State\". This was one in order to
prepare William for a role in the nation\'s government. When his time as
the government\'s ward ended three years later, William returned to
private life.

### Mary

!Mary II{width="150"} Mary II was born
in London on 30 April 1662. She was the eldest daughter of James II and
his first wife, Lady Anne Hyde. She reigned as Queen of England and
Ireland from 13 February 1689 until her death on 28 December 1694, and
as Queen of Scotland from 11 April 1689 until her death. Mary came to
the throne after the Glorious Revolution. Mary reigned jointly with her
husband and first cousin, William III, who became the sole ruler upon
her death. Mary, although a sovereign in her own right, did not wield
power during most of her reign. She did, however, govern the realm when
her husband was abroad fighting wars.

James II converted to Roman Catholicism in 1668 or 1669, but Mary and
Anne were order by Charles II to have a Protestant upbringing, pursuant
to the command of Charles II. At the age of fifteen, Princess Mary
became engaged to the Protestant Stadtholder and Prince of Orange,
William. William was the son of her aunt and Prince William II of
Nassau. They married in London on 4 November 1677. Mary went to the
Netherlands, where she lived with her husband. She did not enjoy a happy
marriage, with her three pregnancies ended in miscarriage or stillbirth.
She became popular with the Dutch people, but her husband neglected or
even mistreated her and had an affair with one of Mary\'s
ladies-in-waiting.

### Reign

Although most in England accepted William as Sovereign, he faced
considerable opposition in Scotland and Ireland. The Scottish Jacobites,
who believed that James II remained the legitimate monarch, won a
stunning victory on 27 July 1689 at the Battle of Killiecrankie, but
were later beaten within a month. William\'s reputation suffered after
the Massacre of Glencoe in 1692, when almost one hundred Scots were
murdered for not properly pledging their allegiance to the new King and
Queen. Accepting public opinion, William sacked those responsible for
the massacre, though they still remained in his favour.

In Ireland, where the French aided the rebels, fighting continued for
much longer, although James II fled the island after the Battle of the
Boyne in 1690. This Battle is still commemorated each year by the
Protestants in Northern Ireland. After the Anglo-Dutch Navy defeated a
French fleet at in 1692, the naval supremacy of the English became
apparent, and Ireland was conquered shortly after.

From 1690 onwards, William often remained absent from England. Whilst
her husband was away, Mary ruled. She was a firm ruler, and even ordered
the arrest of her own uncle for plotting to restore James II to the
throne. In 1692, she dismissed and imprisoned the influential John
Churchill, 1st Earl of Marlborough on similar charges. In this case the
dismissal reduced her popularity and harmed her relationship with her
sister Anne. When William was in England, Mary stepped aside from
politics. She did, however, get involved in the affairs of the Church,
in particular with Church appointments. Mary died of smallpox in 1694.
After Mary II\'s death, William III continued to rule as king. Although
he had previously mistreated his wife and kept mistresses, William
deeply mourned his wife\'s death. Although he was brought up as a
Calvinist, he converted to Anglicanism, but his popularity fell greatly
during his reign as a sole Sovereign.

### William as sole ruler

William, like many other European rulers, became concerned about who
would succeed to the throne of Spain, which brought with it vast
territories in Italy, the Low Countries and the New World. The question
became important as The King of Spain, Charles II, was an invalid with
no prospect of having children, and had amongst his closest relatives
Louis XIV, the King of France, and Leopold I, the Holy Roman Emperor.
William wanted to stop either of these inheriting all Spanish lands.
William and Louis XIV agreed to the First Partition Treaty, which
provided for the division of the Spanish Empire: Duke Joseph Ferdinand
of Bavaria (whom William himself chose) would obtain Spain, while France
and the Holy Roman Emperor would divide the remaining territories
between them. The Spaniards, however, wanted to keep the Spanish
territories united.

After Joseph Ferdinand died of smallpox, William and Louis In 1700, the
two rulers agreed to the Second Partition Treaty in 1700, under which
the territories in Italy would pass to a son of the King of France, and
the other Spanish territories would be inherited by a son of the Holy
Roman Emperor. This infuriated both the Spanish, who wanted the empire
intact, and the Holy Roman Emperor, who wanted the Italian territories.
Unexpectedly, King Charles II of Spain changed his will as he lay dying
in late 1700. He left all Spanish territories to Philip, a grandson of
Louis. The French ignored the Second Partition Treaty and claimed the
entire Spanish inheritance. Louis also angered William by recognising
James Francis Edward Stuart, the son of the former King James II, who
had died in 1701, as King of England. The subsequent conflict, known as
the War of the Spanish Succession, continued until 1713.

Princess Anne\'s last surviving child, William, Duke of Gloucester, died
in July 1700, and, as it was clear that William III would have no more
children, Parliament passed the Act of Settlement in 1701, which
provided that the Crown would go to the nearest Protestant relative,
Sophia, Electress of Hanover and her Protestant heirs when William III
died.

### William\'s death

In 1702, William died of pneumonia, a complication from a broken
collarbone, resulting from a fall off his horse. It was believed by some
that his horse had stumbled into a mole\'s burrow, and as a result many
Jacobites toasted \"the little gentleman in the black velvet
waistcoat\". William was buried in Westminster Abbey alongside his wife.
He was succeeded by Queen Anne.

## Anne (1702-1714)

!Anne{width="150"} Anne was born in St
James\'s Palace on 6 February 1665. She was the second daughter of
James, who went on to become James II, and his first wife, Lady Anne
Hyde. She was Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland from 8 March 1702
until her death on 1 August 1714. Anne was the last monarch of the House
of Stuart. She was succeeded by a distant cousin, George I. Anne\'s
reign saw the two party political system develop.

### Early life

On 28 July 1683, Anne married the Protestant Prince George of Denmark,
brother of the Danish King Christian V. The union was unpopular because
Denmark was pro-France union, but it was a happy one for Anne and
George. Sarah Churchill became Anne\'s lady of the bedchamber, and, by
the latter\'s desire to mark their mutual intimacy and affection, all
deference due to her rank was abandoned and the two ladies called each
other Mrs Morley and Mrs Freeman. Sarah remained Anne\'s closest friend,
and later married John Churchill, the 1st Duke of Marlborough. However,
they had a falling out and Sarah was banned from court during the War of
the Spanish Succession, when her husband was leading the English armies
in the War.

By 1700, Anne had been pregnant at least eighteen times. Thirteen times,
she miscarried or gave birth to stillborn children. Of the remaining
five children, four died before reaching the age of two years. Her only
son to survive infancy, William, Duke of Gloucester, died at the age of
eleven on 29 July 1700. William and Mary did not have any children, and
therefore Anne was the only individual remaining in the line of
succession established by the Bill of Rights. If the line ended, then
the deposed King James may have reclaimed the Throne. To stop a Roman
Catholic from becoming king, Parliament enacted the Act of Settlement
1701, which provided that the Crown would go to Sophia, Electress of
Hanover, and her descendants, who descended from James I of England
through Elizabeth of Bohemia.

### Early reign

William III died on 8 March 1702, leaving the Crown to Anne. At about
the same time, the War of the Spanish Succession began. It would
continue until the last years of Anne\'s reign, and would dominate both
foreign and domestic policy. Soon after becoming Queen, Anne made her
husband Lord High Admiral in control of the Royal Navy. Control of the
army went to Lord Marlborough. The Duchess of Marlborough was appointed
to the post of Mistress of the Robes, the highest office a lady could
attain.

Anne\'s first government was mostly Tory. The Whigs, who were, unlike
the Tories, big supporters of the Warm became more influential after the
Duke of Marlborough won a great victory at the Battle of Blenheim in
1704. The Whigs quickly rose to power, and almost all the Tories were
removed from the ministry. The Act of Union between England and Scotland
was then passed. Under the Act, England and Scotland became one realm
called Great Britain on 1 May 1707.

The Duchess of Marlborough\'s relationship with Anne worsened during
1707. Anne\'s husband, Prince George of Denmark, then died in October
1708, after which Anne grew even more distant from the Duchess of
Marlborough. The Queen ended their friendship in 1709.

The fall of the Whigs came about quickly as the expensive War of the
Spanish Succession grew unpopular in England. In the general election of
1710, the electorate returned a large Tory majority. The new Tory
government began to seek peace in the War of the Spanish Succession. The
Tories were ready to compromise by giving Spain to the grandson of the
French King, but the Whigs could not bear to see a Bourbon on the
Spanish Throne. The dispute was resolved by outside events, when the
elder brother of Archduke Charles (whom the Whigs supported)
conveniently died in 1711 and Archduke Charles then inherited Austria,
Hungary and the throne of the Holy Roman Empire. To also give him the
Spanish throne was no longer in Great Britain\'s interests, as he would
become too powerful. The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 provided that peace,
although it only got ratified by Great Britain when Anne created twelve
new peers in one day to make sure it had enough support in the House of
Lords.

Under the terms of the ratified treaty, Philip, grandson of the French
King Louis XIV, was allowed to remain on the Throne of Spain, and kept
Spain\'s New World colonies. The rest of the Spanish territories,
however, wer spliy amongst various European princes. Great Britain kept
of Gibraltar and Minorca, and got some French colonies in North America.

### Death and legacy

Anne died of an abscess and fever arising from gout, at approximately on
1 August 1714. Her body was so swollen that it had to be buried in
Westminster Abbey in a vast almost-square coffin. She died shortly after
the Electress Sophia (8 June 1714) and so the Electress\'s son, George,
became king of Great Britain.

Anne\'s reign saw greater influence in government by ministers and a
decrease in the influence of the Crown. In 1708, Anne became the last
British Sovereign to withhold the Royal Assent from a bill. The shift of
power from the Crown to the ministry became even more apparent during
the reign of George I, whose chief advisor, Sir Robert Walpole, is often
described as the first Prime Minister. The age of Anne was also one of
artistic, literary and scientific advancement. In architecture, Sir John
Vanbrugh constructed elegant buildings such as Blenheim Palace (the home
of the Marlboroughs) and Castle Howard. Writers such as Daniel Defoe,
Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift flourished during Anne\'s reign. Sir
Isaac Newton also lived during Anne\'s reign, although he had reached
his most important discoveries under William and Mary.

## References