Chapter 5 - The Rising Tide
After James I made Virginia a royal colony, England got on with its usual business of war and imperialism. They aggressively colonized both the United States and Canada, as well as large parts of the West Indies. The Colonies made England wealthy and powerful, and they fought three wars with the Dutch, ultimately coming in a close second. It began when Oliver Cromwell, fresh off of deposing Charles I’s head from his shoulders, passed the first of the Navigation Acts in 1651. In short, anything traded from the Colonies had to either go through England first by way of an English ship, or be traded with another English colony. Naturally this caused some problems—see, First Anglo-Dutch War—but after a while the Colonists largely ignored the Navigation Acts as the fruits of the colonies were outstripping English demand to such a degree that surplus trade was a financial inevitability. Plus, production had exploded once England managed to take New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, effectively running the Dutch government off the continent. In the big picture the ultimate reward was worth more than a couple of sunken first-raters and some lost face in the preceding wars.
On New Year’s Day 1651, Charles I’s son Charles II took the throne. Except he didn’t. Oliver Cromwell had driven Charles II into exile, and upon Cromwell’s death in 1658, his weak son Richard received the title Lord Protector. His rule quickly dissolved into governance by the English Council of State, which terminated in 1660 with the reinstitution of Charles II and the English monarchy. Charles II was retroactively proclaimed king since 1651, in what would henceforth be known as The Restoration. When he died in 1685, his son James II took the throne. However, the future of England not be his to control for long. During a war between France and the Dutch in 1677, James II had foisted his daughter Mary upon William of Orange. This would prove to have serious unintended consequences that would play a pivotal role in shaping the American way of life moving towards revolution.
James II was a practicing Catholic since before Mary and William ever got married. He favored religious tolerance between the Roman Catholics and the Protestants in England, which was highly controversial since the Anglicans were intensely wary of papal intrusion on their politics. After over 400 years of dealing with the Pope trying to run as much of England as possible might have had something to do with it.
As a Catholic, James tended to err, unsurprisingly, on the side ofempowerment of English Roman Catholics. Since Henry VIII had established the Anglican Church, Catholics were, in fact, so reviled that many viewed their best use as good tinder for cold winter nights. A Catholic king was bordering on a public outrage. James himself could see that religious violence and bickering were going to get nowhere, and seeing as how Catholics tended to be on the receiving end of most of the quasi-pogroms, he issued what would be both the most progressive and career-altering proclamation in recent memory.
The Declaration of Indulgence of April 4th, 1687 essentially invented freedom of religion in the modern age, and predictably...
...it did not go well. As diffusive and elegantly written as it was, it basically cost him his job. It also did not help that he suspended Parliament and decreed it, to borrow the term, ex cathedra. The irony is delicious. After centuries of English politics and law gradually pushing the Catholic Church out if its business, it would take a Catholic king suspending Parliament to finally achieve religious tolerance. Among the various courtesies extended to Catholics were the following. To the modern American ear, some of these may sound recognizable. I’ll offer the highlights:
“For after all the frequent and pressing endeavours that were used...to reduce this kingdom to an exact conformity in religion, it is visible the success has not answered the design, and that the difficulty is invincible.
[W]e will protect and maintain the archbishops, bishops, and clergy, and all other our subjects of the Church of England, in the free exercise of their religion, as by law established, and in the quiet and full enjoyment of all their possessions, without any molestation or disturbance whatsoever.
And to the end that by the liberty hereby granted, the peace and security of our government in the practice thereof may not be endangered, we have thought fit, and do hereby straightly charge and command all our loving subjects, that as we do freely give them leave to meet and serve God after their own way and manner, be it in private houses or in places purposely hired or built for that use...and that their meetings and assemblies be peaceably, openly, and publicly held, and all persons freely admitted to them”
And forasmuch as we are desirous to have the benefit of the service of all our loving subjects, which by the law of nature is inseparably annexed to, and inherent in, our royal person...we do hereby further declare...that the oaths commonly called, The Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance, and also the several tests and declarations mentioned in the Acts of Parliament made in the 25th and 30th years of the reign of our late royal brother King Charles the Second, shall not at any time hereafter be required to be taken, declared, or subscribed by any person or persons whatsoever, who is or shall be employed in any office or place of trust either civil or military, under us or under our government.”
If you have a moment to pick through the Constitution, you will discover that not everything in there is made from whole cloth, as inspired as our Founding Fathers were. That being said, keep this all in mind when the subject of Quebec comes up later on. Politics and religion do mix in our country if it happens to be convenient during a Revolution. Regardless, in England this completely enraged the populace, and resulted in the so-called Glorious Revolution, in which the Protestants William of Orange and his lovely wife Mary, whom I’m sure you remember, ended up taking the throne from James II, in 1688. This was contingent upon the following being made law, which definitively eliminated Catholicism from any further influence in England:
The English Bill of Rights of 1689.
Perhaps even more ironic than the birth of religious tolerance is the irony that its elimination is was enabled William and Mary to invent the idea of a bill of rights. It would be the American character, free from such localized social and ideological conflagrations, that would insist that both were critical to liberty and the free state.