By W.K. Jordan
The Laymen and the Moderates:
The revolutionary period witnessed the triumph of the lay spirit in England. We have previously observed that an important body of lay thought had been developing in England which had embraced the principles of religious toleration and which was disposed to wrest from the hands a divided clergy the solution of the complex problems of the settlement of religion and the treatment of dissent. The outbreak of civil war had the immediate effect of intensifying religious conflict within the realm of losing for the time being the destructive forces of fanaticism and sectarian intolerance. The cool and reasoned persuasions of moderate counsels were for the moment engulfed by a tide of religious extremism. It was again demonstrated that war and the fanaticisms which undergird it are destructive to the slow but constructive processes by which reasonable and moderate men seek to solve the problems that confront mankind.
…by the time of the Restoration the lay mind was finally convinced of the futility of persecution and of the necessity, whether upon religious, social, economic, or political grounds, of toleration. Men had arrived at this important and common conviction by the laborious ascent of a variety of ways, but it was even as early as 1660 almost axiomatically entertained by the lay mind. Two generations of bitter and destructive warfare on the Continent and a generation of fratricidal struggle in England had, after a terrible toll in the coin of blood and civilization, left the balance between Catholic and Protestant, between sect and sect, practically unchanged. Men were at last persuaded by the harsh tuition of history that persecution could never achieve the announced purposes. The disillusionment that followed the age of faith in Europe expressed itself in a number of mental and moral attitudes, but it was rooted in the conviction that neither the state nor organized religion could long survive unless tolerance were imposed upon the warring factions, each of which had sought to arrogate to itself the title of Christian.
…Men were turning from theology to science and philosophy. The percentage of books and pamphlets on theological topics, which had loomed so large in the decade of the Civil War, shows a sharp diminution in the decade beginning in 1650 and a startling decline in the first decade of the Restoration.
GP: While England was moving away from absolutism, King Louis XIV of France was moving the country to a more absolutist government. In the words of Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, France was becoming an extractive economy, winner take-all. It is a striking contrast:
Louis XIV presumably once stated “l’etat c’est moi.” He was known as the Sun King, and declared himself nec pluribus impar (without equal.) He is generally considered to be the most powerful monarch to ever rule in Western Europe. Louis ruled with an iron fist, and never became dependent on a single advisor. He often spied on ministers, even opening their mail. In one instance, Louis visited a minister whom he planned to remove, and was served on gold plates with gold flatware, and even saw large salt water pools filled with fish. Louis ostensibly took offense at this ostentatious display, ordered the minister arrested, and confiscated the minister’s mansion for himself. In religious matters, Louis revoked the Edict of Nantes primarily to prevent religious differences from erupting into a civil conflict.
In England, the English people had been proud of their “rights as Englishmen” which dated to the Magna Carta of 1215. They were never ruled by an absolute monarch and had no intention of submitting. When Charles I attempted to dissolve Parliament and ultimately declared war on it, he was executed for treason, the first monarch to be executed by his own people. After a brief experiment with the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, Charles II returned to England as monarch. He was succeeded by James II who also alienated the English people and was forced to flee. At the invitation of Parliament William of Orange (in the Netherlands) and James’ daughter Mary were invited to assume the English throne; (this was the “Glorious Revolution of 1688) but were required as a condition of accepting the Throne to sign the Engish Bill of Rights, which stated the monarch could not suspend laws passed by Parliament,
judges would hold office “during good behavior, and the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defense suitable to their conditions and as allowed by Law.”
In other words, only Protestants were allowed to keep and bear arms; Catholics could not. This was because the Protestant majority in Parliament feared there might be a rebellion led by Catholics.
The Glorious Revolution forever ended the idea of divine right or absolute monarchy in England. It was to support the Glorious Revolution that John Locke wrote his Two Treatises on Civil Government, the second of which was relied upon by Thomas Jefferson in writing the American Declaration of Independence.