English Revolution
The English Revolution is a term that describes two separate events in English history. Prior to the 20th century, it was generally applied to the 1688 Glorious Revolution, when James II was deposed and a constitutional monarchy established under William III and Mary II.[1]
However, Marxist historians began using it for the period covering the 1639–1651 Wars of the Three Kingdoms and the Interregnum that followed the Execution of Charles I in 1649, before the 1660 Stuart Restoration had returned Charles II to the throne.[2] Writing in 1892, Friedrich Engels described this period as "the Great Rebellion" and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 as "comparatively puny", although he claimed that both were part of the same revolutionary movement.[3]
Although Charles II was retroactively declared to have been the legal and rightful monarch since the death of his father in 1649, [4][5] which resulted in a return to the status quo in many areas, a number of gains made under the Commonwealth remained in law.[6][7]
Whig theory[edit]
Tensions regarding the English monarchy began well before the Glorious Revolution. When Charles I was executed in 1649 by the English Parliament, England entered into a republic, or Commonwealth, that lasted until Charles II was reestablished as king of England in 1660. The intermittent civil wars that lasted between 1649 and 1688 were a “constitutional struggle originating from the unresolved contradictions fostered by the Reformation.”[8] Debates amongst England’s post-Reformation state and the constitutional basis for civil involvement in ecclesiastical and governmental issues continually converged together.[8] During the Glorious Revolution of 1688, King James II was replaced by the monarchs William III and Mary II, and a constitutional monarchy was established that was described by Whig historians as the "English Revolution".[1][9] That interpretation suggests that the "English Revolution" was the final act in the long process of reform and consolidation by Parliament to achieve a balanced constitutional monarchy in Britain, with laws made that pointed towards freedom.[10]
Other uses[edit]
The term "English Revolution" is also used by non-Marxists in the Victorian period to refer to 1642 such as the critic and writer Matthew Arnold in The Function of Criticism at the Present Time: "This is what distinguishes it [the French Revolution] from the English Revolution of Charles the First's time".[23]