The Times: 1660-1702
The monarchy was restored and Charles II came to the throne. The episcopacy of the bishops and the Book of Common Prayer were restored. This book retained all its ceremonies, despite opposition by the Presbyterians. The confiscated Royalist, church, and Crown lands were ordered to be restored, and most were. Charles II was presented with the traditional rights of choosing his own Privy Council, ministers of state, and justices; making foreign policy; controlling the armed forces; and approving statutes. He was also presented with the power to call and dismiss Parliament, but later, in 1694, a statute required that Parliament be held at least once every three years, to avoid royal schemes of non-parliamentary government. The House of Lords was reestablished and there were again bishops in it, though fewer than before - about 1/8 instead of about 1/3. There were 160 peers for the next century. The House of Commons was elected in the usual way, but without a king's writ. The Commons was composed mostly of royalist established church members. Its leaders were important members of the King's Privy Council.
The feudal tenures of the crown, such as knights' service, were converted into free socage. They were discharged of homage, reliefs, escuage, and aids. Charles relinquished purveyance, wardships, and forfeitures of marriage. In return, Parliament granted him a fixed yearly income of 100,000 pounds from excise tax on beer, cider, and tea.
Several hundreds of dissenter ministers and school teachers were ejected from their positions, but later those who were not Baptists were returned by statute of Parliament because Baptists did not believe in an established church.
Charles II was an easygoing and kindly man and hard to ruffle. He had a weariness in the folly of men and a cynical disbelief in human virtue. His wit and great sense of humor softened many a potentially tense situation. His restoration to the throne brought in a time of enjoyment of life in reaction to the Puritanism of before. At his succession, the elected Parliament was oriented toward royalty and the established church. He was voted an income of 1,200,000 pounds a year. He also sold many of the last crown lands. But he always had great debts, which he described as a "desperate but not serious" situation. This was in part due to his generous maintenance of several successive mistresses and more than about a dozen illegitimate children. His entourage also included physicians, surgeons, a librarian, a poet laureate, chaplains, painters, an historiographer, musicians, a royal composer, and an astronomer. Charles even joked on his deathbed that "I am sorry gentlemen, for being such an unconscionable time a-dying."
The day of Charles II's restoration and birthday was designated as a day of thanksgiving when all were to participate in prayers and the singing of psalms at some church or other suitable public place.
Charles initiated the return of Sunday afternoon wrestling, archery, music, and dancing. Theaters reopened with actresses playing women's parts, an audience only in front of the stage instead of around it, a drop curtain, and painted two-dimensional scenery. Actresses were allowed pursuant to royal proclamation so that plays should become "useful and instructive representations of human life" rather than "harmless delights". Charles went to plays regularly. Actresses were assumed to be mistresses of patrons in return for their jobs, but one fourth were actually chaste women married to actors. Comedies were the preferred plays. Courtesans were sympathetically and even admirably treated in plays, which mocked all restraints and glorified immorality with the exception of pornography, which was banned. Bad actors were hissed off the stage. Henry Purcell wrote religious music for churches, ceremonial music for the English court, and theater music for English opera. Opera made music a vehicle for human emotions. The gentry sang to the lute and danced to string instruments. Many owned and played musical instruments. Humble people had folksongs and instruments like the pipe and tabor for dancing. Singing in parts was popular in town and country. In 1672 John Banister started the first regular series of public concerts in his house. There were lovely formal gardens in which to walk, to see fireworks, and to buy the new ice cream. Charles did much garden and park planning and let the public enjoy the royal St. James Park. He loved hunting too and had the royal forests replenished with deer after poaching during the Cromwell era had greatly reduced their numbers.
Charles II introduced sailing and yacht racing for pleasure. He also participated in and promoted horse racing. The breeding of thoroughbred horses began with breeding to Arab mares. Gelding horses were now preferred over stallions. There were trotters, cart horses, and some "fast" race horses. Boxing (with no gloves nor ring) was a national sport. Ice skating with iron blades was popular. Valentine's day was celebrated. Italian puppet shows played in London.
Dress returned to elaborateness. Gentlemen wore Cavalier-style long wigs with curls, despite the church's dislike of wigs. This could hide the short hair of a former Puritan Roundhead. In 1666, Charles introduced a new mode of inexpensive court dress which was made entirely from English textiles. This gave rise to gentlemen's weskits to below the knee with a coat of the same length and full sleeves. Stockings and shoes replaced the long fitted boots. Charles set a court tradition of men wearing a scarf tied around the neck. Ladies often wore their hair in masses of ringlets with little corkscrew curls on each side of their heads, and later piled their hair up elaborately on their heads. They wore satin or silk dresses fitted at the waist with a pointed bodice, and full skirt. The shoulder line was low and the sleeves full and open at the front with fastenings of jeweled clasps. The only fast colors were reds, blues, purple, and yellow, but not green. They kept their hands warm in muffs. Women wore perfume, rouge, and face patches. Some women put on a lot of make-up. Many men dressed effeminately with rouge, face patches, heavily scented clothing, muffs, and many ribbons of many colors. The facial beauty patches were in shapes such as stars, crescent moons, and hearts; they diverted attention from the common smallpox scars. There were Oxford shoes, which laced up the front through eyelets. The members of the House of Commons dressed like the gentry and assumed their manners. There was exaggeration in all complimentary and ceremonial language.
The gentry were beginning to be thought of as a "squirearchy".
They owned about half the land of the country.
The population according to class was as follows: N: Number of
Households. T: Titles, Degrees. Social Ranks, H: Household Size, and Y:
Household Yearly Income in Pounds.
___N_______________T______________________________S___________Y__16 Temporal lords 40 3,200 26 Spiritual lords 20 1,300 800 Baronets 16 880 600 Knights 13 650 3,000 Esquires 10 450 12,000 Gentlemen 8 280 5,000 Persons in greater offices and places 8 240 5,000 Persons in lesser offices and places 6 120 2,000 Eminent merchants and traders by sea 8 400 8,000 Lesser merchants and traders by sea 6 198 10,000 Persons in the law 7 154 2,000 Eminent clergymen 6 72 8,000 Lesser clergymen 5 50 40,000 Freeholders of the better sort 7 91 120,000 Freeholders of the lesser sort 5.5 55 150,000 Farmers 5 42.5 15,000 Persons in liberal arts and sciences 5 60 50,000 Shopkeepers and tradesmen 4.5 45 60,000 Artisans and handicrafts 4 38 5,000 Naval officers 4 80 4,000 Military officers 4 60 50,000 Common seamen 3 20 364,000 Laboring people and out-servants 3.5 15 400,000 Cottagers and paupers 3.25 6.5 35,000 Common soldiers 2 14 25,000 Vagrants, as gypsies, thieves, beggars
As can be seen, agriculture is still the most common occupation.
Great houses now had a central dining chamber for dining, with sets of suites, usually for couples, around it. Each suite had an ante-chamber and/or drawing room, and then a bedchamber, off of which there was a servant's room and a closet [cabinet]. No longer did personal servants bed down in the drawing room or outside their master's door or in a truckle bed at his feet. The servant's room was connected to a back staircase for use by servants. Secret guests also used it. The csbinet room was the innermost sanctum for privacy and gave its name to the later cabinet of the government.
There were fewer servants and they were of a lower social status than before. They were often sons of merchants, clergymen, and army officers. Gentlemen no longer advanced by service to a great man, but instead through grammar school and university education, commerce, the law, or the armed services. This change came about because the state now maintained reasonable law and order. There were more female servants, who were paid less to cook and to clean as well as do laundry and nursing. Servants were kept more in the background, preferably out of sight. The elaborate ceremonial ritual with sewer, carver, and cupbearer was gone. A butler replaced the yeomen of the buttery, ewery, and pantry, and footmen began to wait on the table at which the lord, his lady, and other couples sat. Servants no longer had meals in the hall, which now had a grand staircase up to the dining chamber. The highest servants, the officers: clerk of the kitchen, clerk of the check [comptroller], head cook, butler, and groom of the chambers, and female housekeeper ate in the gentleman-of the-horse's room, although at a separate table. The kitchen staff ate in the kitchen. The footmen, underbutler, porters, coachmen, grooms, stable-boys, gardeners, maids ate in a servants' room. The steward was no longer the chief household officer, but had a room near the kitchen. The bulk of the servants slept in the basement or subordinate wings of the house.
Great houses of nobles had more rooms, such as a chapel, library, parlors, dressings rooms, and galleries; there was a variety of architectural floor plans. The structure of a noble household of an earl was as follows: The chief official was the receiver general. He had financial responsibility for the household and prepared accounts for the household and for the tenants' estates. These were checked by an auditor. The receiver general was often the son of a country gentleman and had a salary of 50 pounds raised to 100 pounds with longevity. He had a servant and an assistant. If married, he had a house on the property. There was perhaps an attorney on retainer who were paid for a certain number of hours per week or month. The gentleman of the privy purse kept the accounts of the family and bought them apparel and toiletries. He was in close personal attendance upon the earl. His salary was 20 pounds a year. Besides the receiver general and the gentleman of the chamber, the tutor and chaplain had the closest personal contact with the family. The lady had a gentlewoman with a maid servant. The receiver general supervised most of the staff. There was a steward of 40 pounds a year. He supervised a clerk of the kitchen and a house bailiff of 20 pounds a year. The bailiff had responsibility for the produce of the estate, e.g. the gardens, the deer park, and the fish ponds. Under the clerk of the kitchen was the cook man and kitchen boys, the latter of whom were clothed and fed, but not paid. The steward also supervised the 4 pound yearly porters, who kept the gates; the watchmen outside; and the head housekeeper, usually a woman of 2 to 6 pounds yearly. She supervised the laundry maid and general maids, who spent much of their time sewing. The steward was also responsible for the wine cellar. A dozen footmen belonged partly to the house and partly to the stables and received 2 to 6 pounds yearly. They waited on the lord and lady in the house and accompanied them in travels and did errands for them. The gentleman of the horse supervised the stables, coach, dogs, kennels, and 16 pound yearly huntsman. Boy pages also worked partly in the house and partly in the stables. They were clothed and fed, but not paid. The head gardener received 80 pounds for tending the flowers, vegetables, and fruit trees. He had casual workers as needed to assist him. The steward was also responsible for the London house. Here there was a housekeeper, a watchman, and a 40 pound a year gardener, all there permanently. When the lord was there, bargemen were employed for his barge. The salaries for the family estate totaled about 600 pounds a year. Sometimes married sons' or daughters' families stayed for months at the family estate; then they would pay for their part of the food.
Well-to-do people drank imported tea and coffee, sometimes from porcelain ware, and usually after dinner or supper. Most tea leaves were brewed first for the family and guests and a second time for the servants; then they were given to the servants' relatives or friends. Queen Mary encouraged the fashion of collecting Chinese porcelain. The rich had red or black and gilt lacquered cabinets and cupboards. Oak gave way to walnut, with its variegated surfaces. There were grandfather clocks. Some fireplaces now had cast-iron firebacks. Stuffing began to be upholstered to woodwork benches. Chairs were taller in the back. Ladies did needlework to cover them and also made patchwork quilts. Cane seats came into fashion.
From the spring of 1665 to the end of 1666 there was a Great Plague, mostly in London. It was the last and worst plague since the Black Death of 1348. It lasted over a year and about one-third died from it. Households with a plague victim were walled up with its residents inside to reduce contagion, and then marked with a red cross. Church bells tolling their requiems clanged in ceaseless discord. The mournful cry "bring out your dead" echoed in deserted streets. At night groups of people shoveled the corpses into open graves. To prepare for this revolting task, they often first became drunk out of their senses. People acquired wild beliefs in hope of avoiding the plague. For instance, at one time it was thought that syphilis would prevent it, so maddened hordes stormed the brothels. At another time, it was rumored that the plague could be burned out of the air, and all one day bonfires blazed outside every door and people sweltered in the heat. Other localities posted sentries on the road to keep Londoners out of their areas to prevent the plague from spreading there. Since sneezing was thought to be the first sign of a person getting the plague, it became common to ask God to bless a person who sneezed. In London, statistics were collected on the number of plague victims and their places of death to try to determine the cause of the plague by correlation, a new method. This was a natural sequent to merchant John Gaunt's 1662 book "Natural and Political Observations Made upon the Bills of Mortality", which compiled yearly vital statistics from which to analyze, for instance, causes of death due to particular diseases. It reached conclusions such as that fall was the most unhealthy season; females had longer life spans than males; and infant mortality was very high.
In 1666 a fire destroyed three-fourths of the City of London. The blazing buildings were so hot that people with leather buckets of water, hand squirts, and manually operated water-pumping machines could not get near them. There was a lot of noise from falling buildings. Panic and desperation were widespread. There was a lot of crying out and running about distractedly. People saved some of their possessions by burying them or removing them from the fire's path as they moved to different lodgings. The streets were full of carts piled high with furniture and merchandise. The Thames River was thick with heavily laden barges. Melting lead from St. Paul's church ran down the streets in a stream. The Tower of London, upwind of the fire, was saved by blowing up surrounding buildings. Eventually the wind abated and the fire was put out. A Fire Court with royal justices was created to offer settlement terms about property that were free, fair, fast, and final. Army tents and supplies, and soup kitchens sustained the citizens in the fields.
After the fire, buildings had to be brick or stone rather than wood, except for doors and windows. Also, more plaster and tile was used. All roofs had to be of tile or slate, rather than thatch. There was a general use of tile for roofing. About 1714, came slate for roofings. All buildings had to be at least two stories high, with flat facades rather than overhanging upper floors. They had to have wide brick walls around them to avoid the spread of fires. Many streets, squares, and alleys were professionally planned, after the example of Inigo Jones, who had continued his town planning with Lincoln's Inn field's open square surrounded by houses with iron balconies. Another example was Leiscester Square. Main streets had to be wide enough to stop a fire. The street selling that had caused so much congestion was removed to new market places. The massive rebuilding of London ended the monopoly of the building trade claimed by the Mason's Company. Astronomer and geometrician Christopher Wren designed and built a new St. Paul's Cathedral and many churches in London, thus becoming England's first architect. He worked up from a square base through all sorts of shapes to a circular double dome on top. The fire put an end to Whitehall as a royal residence and St. James Palace was used instead. But at least one fire hazard remained: the practice of lighting new fires by taking buckets of hot coals from one room or house to another. This was faster than the several minutes it took to use a tinder box to start a flame, i.e. striking a piece of flint upon a piece of steel making a spark which was dropped onto tinder and then blown upon. Matches were invented in this period, but expensive and unsafe.
Nicholas Barbon began fire insurance in the 1670s. If fire broke out on an insured premises, the insurance company's firemen would come with leather buckets and grappling irons, and later small hand pumps. Barbon also redeveloped many districts in London, tearing down old buildings without hesitation. He started the system of selling off leases to individual builders, who hoped to recover their building costs by selling their houses before they were completed and before substantial payments on the lease became due. Entrepreneurial master-builders subcontracted work to craftsmen and took a large profit or a large loss and debt. Aristocrats bought large parcels of land on which they built their own mansions surrounded by lots to be rented to building contractors and speculators like Barbon. The houses built on these lots were sold and the underlying land rented. These rentals of land made the mansions self-supporting. Barbon built rows of identical townhouses. Sometimes houses were built on all the lots around a square, which had gardens reserved for the use of those who lived on the square. Most of the new building was beyond the old City walls. Marine insurance for storms, shipwreck, piracy, mutiny, and enemy action was also initiated. Before the fire, e.g. in Tudor times, the writing of risks had been carried on as a sideline by merchants, bankers, and even money lenders in their private offices and was a private transaction between individuals.
London was residential and commercial. Around the outside were tenements of the poor. From 1520 to 1690, London's population had risen tenfold, while the nation's had only doubled. London went from 2% to 11% of the nation's population. In 1690, London's population was about half a million. After 1690, London's population grew at the same rate as the nation's. The first directory of addresses in London was published in 1677. Business began to follow the clock more strictly and many people thought of their watches as a necessity.
London coffee houses, which also sold wine, liquors, and meals, became specialty meeting places. They were quieter and cheaper than taverns; for a penny, one could sip a cup of coffee by the fire, read the newspapers, and engage in conversation. Merchants, stock jobbers, politician groups, soldiers, doctors and clergymen, scholars, and literary men all had special coffee house meeting places. Notices and letters of general interest were posted therein. Many merchants, brokers, and underwriters, especially those whose houses had been burned in the fire, conducted their business at their coffee house and used it as their business address. Men in marine insurance and shipping met at Lloyd's Coffeehouse, which was run by Edward Lloyd who established it for this purpose in 1687. Lloyd provided reliable shipping news with a network of correspondents in the principal ports at home and on the continent and circulated a handwritten sheet of lists of vessels and their latest movements at his coffeehouse. The patrons cheered safe arrivals and shared their grief over ships lost. They insured their own risks at one moment and underwrote those of their friends the next. Auctions of goods and of ships and ship materials which had been advertised in the newspapers were conducted from a pulpit in the coffeehouse.
French wine was consumed less because of heavy taxation and spirits and beer were consumed more. The streets were alive with taverns, coffee houses, eating houses, and hackney coaches past 9 p.m. at night. Coffee houses were suppressed by royal proclamation in 1675 because "malicious and scandalous reports" defaming his majesty's government were spread there, which disturbed the peace and quiet of the realm. But this provoked such an uproar that it was reduced to a responsibility of the owner to prevent scandalous papers and libels from being read and hindering any declarations any false and scandalous reports against the government or its ministers.
London air was filthy with smoke from coal burning. In 1684 the streets were lit with improved lights which combined oil lamps with lenses and reflectors. Groups of householders combined to hire lighting contractors to fulfill their statutory responsibility to hang candles or lights in some part of their houses near the street to light it for passengers until 9:00 p.m., and later to midnight. In 1694 a monopoly was sold to one lighting company. In 1663 a body of paid watchmen was established in London. An office of magistrate was created and filled with tradesmen and craftsmen, who could make a living from the fines and fees. This was to supplement the unpaid Justices of the Peace. The public was encouraged to assist in crime prevention, such as being witnesses, but most policing was left to the parishes. Crowds punished those who transgressed community moral standards, threatened their economic or social interests, or offended their religious or patriotic beliefs. Often a crowd would react before the call of "stop thief" or the hue and cry from the local constable. Pickpockets would be drenched under a pump. Cheats would be beaten up. Dishonest shops and brothels would be ransacked or destroyed. The most common targets were promiscuous women and pregnant servants.
There were many highway robberies and mob actions in London. Mobs in the thousands would turn out against the Catholics, especially at times of unemployment and trade depression. Working people still saw demonstrations and violence as the best way to achieve their economic goals, since strikes didn't work. For example, the silk workers used street violence to get protective legislation against imports and mechanization in 1675. The manufacture of silk material had been brought to England by French workers driven from France. In 1697, three thousand London silk weavers demonstrated outside the Commons and East India House against the importation of raw silks by the East India Co., and a couple months later, they attacked a house in the city owned by a gentleman of the company. In 1701, heavy duties were imposed on the import of Indian silks and wearing of Indian silks was prohibited by statute. Sometimes mobs would break open the prisons to release fellow rioters or take action against strike breakers or informers. Parish constables elected by their neighbors could not control the mobs and stayed within their parishes. Dueling was still prevalent, even though against the law.
In London and Westminster, it was hard to enforce the requirement that inhabitants keep the street in front of their house clean and store the filth until the daily raker or scavenger came with cart and dung pot. So a commission was made responsible for paving and keeping clean the streets, making and repairing vaults, sewers, drains, and gutters, and removing encroachments. It compensated those with encroachments of over 30 years. It assessed inhabitants of such streets 16d. per square yard from the front of their building to the center of the street. Women continued to empty their pails and pans outside their doors and did their washing on stools in the streets. There was a penalty of 5d. for throwing filth in front of one's house, and 20d. for throwing it elsewhere in the streets. Scavengers and rakers could lodge their coal ashes, dust, dirt, and other filth in such vacant public places as the commission deemed convenient for accommodating country carts returning otherwise empty after their loads were sold.
However, this system did not work because people would not pay their assessments. So there was a return to the former system of requiring citizens to sweep and clean the streets in front of their buildings twice a week and keep the filth until a scavenger or raker came. The penalty for not doing so was 3s.4d., later raised to 10s. Any one throwing coal ashes, dust, dirt, rubbish, or dung onto the streets or lanes incurred a fine of 5s. There was a fine of 20s. for hooping or washing any pipes or barrels in any lane or open passage or repairing coaches, sawing wood, or chiseling stones in the streets. Pigs kept in or about one's house had to be forfeited.
One way that people traveled was to be carried in sedan chairs held up by two horizontal poles with one man at the front ends and another man in back. There were so many sedan chairs and coaches for hire in London that the watermen lost business. All hackney coaches in London or Westminster were required to be licensed and marked with their owner's distinctive mark so that complaints could be made. Their maximum rate was 10s. for a 12 hour day, and 18d. for the first hour and 12d. for every hour thereafter. Licensed coachmen were not allowed to practice any other trade. The coaches paid the commission 5 pounds yearly. Hay sold along the road brought 6d. per load, and straw 2d. per load, to the commission. There had to by paid 3d. for every cart load of hay sold at the hay market and 1d. for every cart of straw, to go towards paving and repairing the hay market street.
Overall, agriculture improved. Fields that would have been left fallow were planted with new crops which restored indispensable chemical elements to the soil. At the same time, they supplied winter food for stock. The size and weight of animals for slaughter grew. There was so much stock breeding that it was more economical for a family to buy meat, milk, and eggs, than to maintain its own animals. There was an explosion in the growing of beans, peas, lettuce, asparagus, artichokes, and clover. The demand for food in London and other urban areas made enclosure for crop cultivation even more profitable than for sheep grazing. The government made no more attempts to curtail the enclosure of farm lands. The number of enclosures grew because copyholders were not successful in obtaining the legal security of tenure. But most land was not enclosed.
In 1661 in the county of Essex, the wages for mowing one acre of grass were 1s.10d.; for reaping, shearing, binding one acre of wheat 4s.; and for threshing a quarter of wheat or rye 1s.
Wives participated with their husbands in general agricultural chores and did the dairy work including making cheese. Every householder kept chickens because egg production was cheap, their market price being only 1s. for a hundred. Wives also took care of the gardening work and traditionally kept for their own the cash that came in from garden, dairy, and poultry products. A wife made jellies and preserves when the fruit trees, bushes, and vines were bearing. Imported sugar enabled fruit to be preserved as jam in jars sealed with a layer of mutton fat to make them airtight. She was likely to concoct medications from her herbs. Meat had to be smoked or salted when there was not enough fodder to keep animals alive through the winter. She saw to it that the soap was boiled and the candles molded. She cooked the daily meals, did the washing, produced cloth for the family's use, and sewed the family's clothing.
Women had less work and lower pay than men. Since most cottages had a spinning wheel, spinning work was readily available to wives. In the 1670s, a female weaver or spinner was paid 2-4d. per day. A domestic servant, who was usually female, was paid 40-80s. a year. Men in the trades objected to competition from lower-paid women. Aristocratic ladies actively managed their family's household and estates. The only work available to a high middle- class woman who was waiting to get married was to be a governess in another household or a lady-in-waiting to a gentlewoman. Children often worked; this was recommended so that they were under the direct supervision of their parents rather than getting into mischief in the village. The mother typically mingled severity with gentleness, but the father did not dare to err on the side of leniency. Discipline was by whipping. Children were treated as little adults. The lack of a conception of childhood innocence even extended to the practice of adults to tell bawdy jokes in their presence or play with their children's genitals.
About 1660, the Royal Society of London for the Promotion of Natural Knowledge was founded by Charles II, who became its patron. It was formed from discussion groups of the new experimental philosophy. It included the Baconians formerly at Oxford and Cambridge, who were ejected at the Restoration, and a group of Gresham professors of geometry and astronomy. The Royal Society met at Gresham College. Its goal was to compare ideas in mathematics and science and identify specific aims of science. It published scientific reports to make its findings generally known. This was a great improvement over the private correspondence among scientists, which was limited by the use of various languages. Charles himself had his own laboratory and dabbled in chemistry and anatomy. Similar societies were formed in many places in the world. Theologicians warned that scientific research was dangerous. But it's advances improved agriculture, manufactures, medicine, surgery, navigation, naval architecture, gunnery, and engineering.
Issac Newton was a genius, who in his childhood designed and built model windmills, water wheels, water clocks, sundials, and kites. He came from a family which had risen from the yeomen ranks to the gentry. For a few years after graduating from Cambridge University in 1665, he secluded himself in the countryside to study. Here, using the work of John Wallis, he formulated the binomial theorem that expands (A+B) raised to the nth exponent power, where n is an integer. He also worked with numbers that had exponents that were fractions, unending decimals, or negative numbers. Certain patterns of numbers, such as the sum of doubling each number in a series as in: 1+2+4+8+…never terminates; the series is infinite. He then developed the notion of a number being the limit of the summation of an infinite converging series of a pattern of numbers, such as the limit of 1+(1/2)+(1/4)+(1/8)…= 2. By considering the state of motion of a mass-point in an infinitely short time under the influence of an external force, he developed rules for finding areas under algebraic curves [integration], such as the hyperbola, and finding tangents to algebraic curves [differentiation], which he recognized as inverse processes. That is, differentiating the integral of a function results in a return to that function.
Newton discovered that colors arose from the separation, rather than a modification, of white light, that is natural sunlight. He did this using a prism to dissect the white light into its spectrum of constituent colors and then using a prism and lens to recombine the colors to reconstitute white light. The spectrum was the same as that of a rainbow. He determined the angle of refraction of each color by beaming white light through a prism, and then through a hole in a board which isolated one color, to another prism. When he discovered that all colors reflect from a mirror at the same angle, he invented and built the reflecting telescope, which used a parabolic concave mirror and a flat mirror instead of a convex lens, thereby eliminating the distortions and rainbow coloring around the edges that resulted from the refraction of different colors at different angles. He deemed a ray of light to consist of a rapidly moving stream of atomic particles, rather than Robert Hooke's pulses or Christian Huygens' waves, because shadows showed a sharp boundary between the light and the absence of light. He reasoned that if light was made up of pulses or waves, it could spread around obstacles or corners as sound seemed to do. He approximated the speed of sound by timing echoes in corridors of various lengths.
Newton was methodical and combined the inductive and deductive methods of inquiry, first making observations, and then generalizing them into a theory, and finally deducing consequences from the theory which could be tested by experimentation. This was the first clear expression of the basis of the "scientific method". He carried mathematization of data from experiments as far as possible.
Newton theorized that the same gravity force that pulled an apple down from a tree extended out to the moon to hold it in its orbit around the earth. He saw a connection between these movements by imagining a cannon on a mountain shooting a series of cannonballs parallel to the earth's surface. The first shot has only a tiny charge of explosive, and the cannonball barely makes it out of the muzzle before falling to the ground. The second shot is propelled by a larger charge, and follows a parabolic arc as it falls. The next shots, fired with increasingly more propellant, eventually disappear over the horizon as they fall. Lastly, with enough gunpowder, a speeding cannonball would completely circle the earth without hitting it. By extrapolating from these ever faster projectiles, he opined that the moon was held in its orbit by the same earth force that operated on the projectiles. He correlated the moon's orbit with the measured acceleration of gravity on the surface of the earth. He put various substances with different masses and weights into the shell of a pendulum and observed that the pendulum had the same period [time for one oscillation] and fell at the same rate as free-falling objects. Then he formulated the idea that the ultimate agent of nature was a force acting between bodies rather than a moving body itself. Gravity did not act in proportion to the surfaces of bodies, but in proportion to quantity of matter. Gravity penetrated to the very center of all bodies without diminution by the body. Gravity's force extended to immense distances and decreased in exact proportion to the square of the distance.
Newton opined that an object moves because of external forces on it rather than by forces internal to the object. These are his three laws of motion. 1) He connected the concepts of force and acceleration with a new concept, that of mass. Mass is a quantity intrinsic to an object that determines how it responds to forces, such as the force of gravity. The greater the mass of a body, the stronger the force of gravity on it, and the more difficult it is to get it moving. He found that the acceleration of a body by a force is inversely proportional to its mass, and formulated the equation that force equals mass multiplied by acceleration. So if a force acts on a planet, it produces a change in velocity that is proportional to the force and in the same direction as the force.2) His law of inertia is that any body, persists in its state of rest or of uniform motion in a straight line, unless affected by an outside force. 3) His next law is that when a body A exerts a force on a body B, then B also exerts a force on A which is equal in amount but opposite in direction. This means that forces that operate between different parts of a planet produce no net force upon the whole planet, so that the mass of a planet can be treated as if it is concentrated at a point.
His law of gravitation explains how the whole universe is held together. This law holds that every object in the universe attracts every other object with a single gravitational force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between their centers. Newton had at first accepted the Cartesian system of celestial vortices of aether that swirled the planets and comets around their orbits. He determined that Kepler's law that areas were swept out in equal times implied that gravity acts in the direction of a line between the planet and the sun. The gross features of the universe and Kepler's observations led to his recognition that the attraction between two bodies decreases inversely in proportion to the square of the distance between them. Only one kind of force would satisfy Kepler's requirement that the sun was a focus of an ellipse and still be consistent with Kepler's law that the square of a planet's period was proportional to the cube of its mean distance from the sun; that was the inverse square law. Then he came to accept Robert Hooke's hypothesis that planets are kept in their orbits by the combination of an attractive power of the sun and of motion in a straight line that was tangential to their orbits. From astronomical data, he calculated this centripetal acceleration of each planet towards the sun to be proportional to the inverse square of its distance from the sun. He also calculated the "centrifugal" accelerations in a straight line. His experiments showed that the centripetal force in a circular orbit was equal to the mass of the body multiplied by the square of its velocity, all divided by the radius of the circular path. He used calculus and differential equations to determine centripetal forces of elliptical orbits, where the distance from the sun, the velocity, and the acceleration were variables.
Newton showed that his single gravitational force could account for the way free-falling objects descend to the ground, the parabolic trajectory of projectiles, the path of the moon in its orbit around the earth, the course of the tides every twelve hours, the lower densities of the earth's atmosphere at greater heights, the paths of Jupiter's moons, the paths of comets, and the elliptical paths of the planets in their orbits around the sun. This determination discredited the previous belief that invisible angels moved the planets. Newton proved from his law of gravitation and his three laws of motion the truth of Kepler's laws of elliptical planetary motion. Newton demonstrated from data collected from the comet of 1680 that comets moved according to his law of gravitation. He showed that the path of a body traveling within the gravitational force of the sun is a circle, an ellipse, a parabola, or a hyperbola. He used the concept of a common center of gravity as a reference point for other motions. The fact that the center of gravity of the solar system was within the body of the sun verified that the sun was indeed at the center of the solar system.
Newton deduced that the tides were created by the rotation of the earth with bulges of water on the earth's surfaces that were closest and farthest from the moon. The moon "pulled" the water nearest to it with a greater force than average. It "pulled" the water farthest from it with a force weaker than average. These two moving bulges created two tides a day.
Newton's "Principia Mathematica Philosophiae Naturalis", was published in 1687. The established church denounced it as being against the scripture of the Bible. Newton did not agree with the established church on many points, such as the trinity, and was considered a heretic. He had his own interpretations of the Bible and doubted the divinity of Jesus. But it was accepted for dissenters like Newton to qualify for full civil rights by maintaining an outward conformity and taking the sacrament in the established church once a year. Newton was given a royal dispensation from taking holy orders as prescribed by the rules for tenure of fellows of his college at Cambridge University. He did believe in a God who created the universe and who had a ubiquitous presence in all space. When Catholic King James II tried to have a Catholic monk admitted to the degree of a Master of Arts at Cambridge University without taking the oath of adherence to the established Protestant church, so that he could participate in the business of the university, Newton was active in the opposition that defeated this attempt. As a result, he was elected to Parliament by Cambridge.
When Olaus Roemer, a Danish astronomer, was applying Newton's laws to the paths of the moons of Jupiter to make a table of eclipses of Jupiter's moons for use in determining one's longitude, he noticed that the eclipses were five hundred seconds ahead of average time at that time of year when the earth and Jupiter were on the same side of the sun, and five hundred seconds behind average time six months later, when Jupiter was on the other side of the sun. He reasoned that this difference was due to the light from Jupiter's moons taking more time to reach the earth when Jupiter was farther from the earth, i.e. on the other side of the sun. He concluded that light does not travel instantaneously, but at a certain speed. From the fact that it took 1000 seconds for light to travel the diameter of the earth's orbit, he calculated its speed in 1676.
In 1668, Christian Huygens formulated the law of conservation of momentum [mass multiplied by velocity], which held that when objects collide, they may each change direction, but the sum of all their momenta will remain the same. Huygens also recognized the conservation of what was later called "kinetic energy", which is associated with movement. He developed laws of centrifugal force for uniform motion in a circle. He derived the formula for computing the oscillations of a simple pendulum. In 1690, he posited the theory that light consists of a series of waves. It states that all points of a wave front of light in a vacuum may be regarded as new sources of wavelets that expand in every at a rate depending on their velocities. He thought this a better explanation of bending and interference of light than Newton's particle theory.
In 1661, Robert Boyle, called the father of modern chemistry, defined an element as a substance that cannot be further decomposed. He distinguished an element from both a mixture, which is easily separable, and a compound, which is not easily separable. He used an air pump he developed and a glass jar to create a confined vacuum space for experiments to find the properties of heat, light, and sound. He noted that burning objects such as candles and coal, when placed in the receiver of his air pump, went out after a time although air was still present. He opined that animals were dependent upon a fresh supply of air to live. He studied the relationship between the volume, density, and pressure of air and gases. He proved by experiment that the volume of a gas at a constant temperature varies in inverse proportion to the pressure applied to the gas. Since gas is compressible, he opined that gases must be composed of discrete particles separated by void, and also that basic physical properties were due to motions of particles, or atoms, which was an ancient Greek conjecture. This cast doubt on the long-held belief that everything was composed from four basic elements: air, water, fire, and earth. Boyle's laboratory at Oxford was denounced by the Oxford clergy as destroying religion. In 1679, the steam pressure cooker was invented by Denis Papin from France. He invented the atmospheric engine in 1690.
Robert Hooke helped Boyle build his air pump. Hooke was thirteen when his father, a minister, died. Hooke was a genius with innate mechanical skill and was an able mathematician. He applied a spiral spring to regulate the balance of watches. A lord financed him as a Gresham lecturer of geometry for 50 pounds a year. In 1666, he used a pendulum to measure the force of gravity and showed that the center of gravity of the earth and moon is a point describing an ellipse around the sun. In 1667, he explained the twinkling of the stars by irregular atmospheric refractions. He formulated the theory that light is composed of pulses. Hooke's Law states that the amount an elastic body such as a spring stretches out of shape is in direct proportion to the force acting on it: its tension. He invented the odometer, a wheel to measure distances. He constructed an arithmetical machine. He invented the universal joint, which can move in many angles. His book of drawings of microscopic animals is a classic. He proposed that fossils can be used as a source of information about the earth's history. Hooke became rich from his inventions, but this was not known until his death, when thousands of pounds were found in his iron chest.
In 1668, Wallis postulated the correct theory of impacts of inelastic bodies, based on the principle of conservation of momentum. In 1685, he introduced the first graphical representation of complex numbers.
Royal astronomer and genius Edmond Halley, the son of a soap maker, studied tides, magnetism, and the paths of comets and stars. He went on voyages to study the heavens from different positions, thereby laying the foundations of physical geography. He showed that the stars change in position in relation to each other. With Newton's help, he calculated the orbit of a comet he saw in 1682 to be elliptical rather than parabolic and then proved it was the same comet that had appeared in 1531 and 1607, indicating it's regularity; it was then named "Halley's comet". However, the Church of England still embraced the idea that comets and eclipses were evidence of God's wrath. Greenwich Observatory was built in 1675. Halley used a barometer to measure the density of the atmosphere and related its readings to elevations into the atmosphere and to weather. He determined that the cause of the tropical trade winds was the sun warming the tropical air at the equator, causing it to rise and move north as it was replaced by cooler air from the north. This body of air was deflected by the rotation of the earth. He illustrated the tropical winds with the first meteorological map. He made a descent in a diving bell, which was used to try to reach wrecked treasure ships. He studied fossils and perceived them as remnants of living beings that had died long ago, and imagined a succession of living things. Halley surveyed the tides and coasts of the British Channel for the king in 1701.
In 1675, apothecary Nicolas Lemery divided substances into mineral, vegetable, and animal. He wrote a dictionary of pharmaceuticals.
John Ray and Francis Willoughby were friends who traveled together to study plants and animals respectively. John Ray started the science of zoology with his edition of Francis Willoughby's "Ornithology" on birds and his own "History of Fishes". He also attempted the first scientific classification of animals in his "Synopsis of Quadrupeds". Ray compared anatomies and experimented on movements of plants and the ascent of sap. He knew that fossils were remnants of old animals. Ray first suggested the concept of species in classification of animals and plants. He opined that the goodness and wisdom of God was shown not only by the usefulness of animals to man's uses as taught by the church, but also by the adaptation of animals to their own lives and surroundings. The vast array and dispersal of animals found by world explorers all over the world cast doubt on the biblical story of Noah putting two of every kind of animal on an ark. The science of botany began with Ray's "History of Plants" and the researches of Robert Morrison, who was Charles' physician and keeper of his gardens.
Nicholaus Steno, a Danish physician, diagrammed six levels of stratification on the earth's surface and demonstrated in 1669 that layers of strata of rock are always deposited with the oldest layers on the bottom and the youngest layers on the top. This began the science of geology. He argued that shifts in the earth's strata caused the formation of mountains. He identified fossils as ancient creatures. The idea that fossils were remnants of dead animals existing before man conflicted with the religious idea that Adam's fall began sin and caused death. The idea from fossils that existing species of animals were modifications of predecessor animals conflicted with the religious belief that Noah's ark had preserved all the varieties of animals. John Aubrey described Stonehenge, thus founding prehistoric archaeology. He thought it to be a Druid temple.
The telescope and compound microscope, which has an objective lens and an eyepiece lens for producing a wide range of magnifications, were further developed. The cellular basis of life was discovered and described by Robert Hooke. Nehemia Grew, the son of a grammar school master who became a physician, observed and drew plant anatomy, including leaves, flowers, fruits, seeds, ovules, pollen grains, and stamens. He was the first to observe the existence of plant sexuality. Italian Marcello Malpighi, a physician, used the new compound microscope to study human skin, spleen, kidneys, and liver and also compared the livers of several types of animals. He discovered capillaries linking the arterial and venous circulation in the lungs. Dutchman Anton van Leeuwenhock, a cloth manufacturer who made microscopes to inspect the quality of cloth, turned them to use in understanding the life cycles of mites, lice, and fleas. He correctly described human blood cells. When he found what he described as tiny animals (bacteria, protozoa, and rotifers), he sent clear descriptions of them to the Royal Society in London as proof against the theory of spontaneous generation, which held that lower forms of life could arise from nonliving matter. This started the science of bacteriology. With the discovery of the egg in the female reproductive system, the status of women was lifted.
Physician Thomas Willis, son of a farmer, dissected brains of men and animals to study the anatomical relations of nerves and arteries. Excess urine had been associated with a wasting disease. Willis identified diabetes mellitus with excess of urine that was sweet. Physician Thomas Sydenham, son of a gentleman, observed epidemic diseases of London over successive years, thus founding epidemiology. He also furthered clinical medicine by emphasizing detailed observations of patients and maintaining accurate records. He wrote a treatise on gout and identified scarlet fever. He introduced a cooling method of treating smallpox. But he still relied on the big three treatments: bloodletting, purging, and sweating. Bloodletting was to draw off bad blood so that it could be replaced by a better fluid. Another treatment used was cupping, whereby a vacuum was created by heated glass cups to draw blood to the surface of the skin. John Locke performed one of the first successful operations draining a kind of abscess of a man's liver. It was common for people who felt ill to take a laxative and rest at home.
In 1690, physicians opened the first dispensaries, which gave treatment and medicine together, to take business away from their rivals: the apothecaries. London's apothecaries were released in 1694 from jury service and service as constable, scavenger, or other parish or ward office because it was necessary that they be available to attend the sick at all times. Peruvian bark which had quinine as its alkaloid had been introduced as a proven cure for the ague, a fever with chills usually due to malaria, in 1653. The English ceased to believe in holy wells, but went to spas such as Bath for treatment of disease.
There was more bathing because private homes in towns now had indoor baths. The public baths came into disuse.
For childbirth, only rich women were attended by physicians. Most
physicians used talismen such as the eagle stone at deliveries.
Caesarian section almost always led to the death of the mother.
Midwives were licensed by the church and could baptize babies. Jane
Sharp wrote "The Midwives Book" with anatomical illustrations.
Women over thirty had fewer children and the last child born was at an earlier age than before. This was in part due to birth control such as coitus-interruptus, long breast-feeding of a current child and/or the taboo against sex if the wife was still breast-feeding. Rich women often employed wet-nurses to breast- feed their babies. Babies seldom thrived, or even survived, without out a regular supply of breast milk.
John Locke, an Oxford don, physician, and son of an attorney, expressed a view that the monarchy was not based on divine right, but rather on a contractual relationship with the people, who were reasonable, free, and equal by nature. This idea was first adopted by revolutionists and then became accepted as orthodoxy. Also, he articulated the right of resistance, the supremacy of legislative assemblies, and the responsibility of rulers to answer to their subjects. He theorized that men turn to forming a civil government when there is a need to protect accumulated property from some unreasonable men. This, along with the protection of life and liberty, was the primary function of government, before royal pleasure, national pride, or foreign conquest. He wrote theories on the interaction of supply, demand, interest rates, rents, coinage, and foreign exchange rates. He believed that interest rates should be the natural ones determined by market forces rather than by the legislature, especially if there was an attempt to lower interest rates below their natural rate, which was not only undesirable but easily circumvented. He thought that attempting to legislate contrary to natural economic laws, e.g. prices, was doomed to failure from unexpected consequences. He agreed with most mercantilists that by maintaining a large inflow of precious metals through consistent export of surpluses in foreign trade would lead to low interest rates, increased trade, increased capital stock, high employment, and high prices, and therefore a healthy economy and enrichment of the nation.
Locke thought that knowledge comes primarily from experience, i.e. sensation and reflection, rather than from innate ideas placed in the mind by God, so that observation and experimentation are necessary to find truth. He theorized that propositions of truth have probability rather than certainty. Probable propositions included opinion, belief, and revelation. His "Thoughts on Education" was a great book on the formation of character. Locke also advocated the use of a large field for inventing labor-saving and economic devices for agriculture. He espoused freedom of thought in "Letters on Toleration" and wrote "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding", which described how the mind functions in learning about the world and which attempted to reconcile science and Christianity. He was a great admirer and friend of Newton and they shared religious views. He was also a member of the Royal Society.
At Oxford and Cambridge Universities, there were the most enlightened theologians, classicists, orientalists, philologists, mathematicians, chemists, architects, and musicians. There were professors of Anglo-Saxon, Hebrew, and Arabic. John Locke's influence caused modern philosophy to supercede traditional scholasticism. There were no more disputations to qualify for degrees. Some of the students were the sons of noblemen and sat at meals with the heads, tutors, and fellows of the colleges. Most students were the sons of landowners, clergymen, professional men, or prosperous men of business. They were known as the gentlemen commoner students. The few poor students were known as servitors and paid for their education by menial work. Corporal punishment ceased. Instead there were fines, suspension, and expulsion. Fellows of colleges had common rooms for drinking and smoking together as they had done in taverns outside college walls. The king had authority to grant licenses in sell or give land in perpetuity, to encourage founding and augmenting colleges and schools. The two universities were vested with the presentation of benefices that had belonged to Papists.
English nonconformists such as Presbyterians were excluded from
Oxford and Cambridge Universities, so they were educated at Glasgow in
Scotland.
Grammar schools were blamed for the past civil war by educating too many people above their station, so ecclesiastical control now stifled them. A few dissenting schools were established. Charity was given to schools for children of the poor for placement as apprentices, but not to educate them above their stations.
In the 1670s, about 70% of males in London were literate. By 1680, illiteracy was a special characteristic of the poor instead of a characteristic of the vast majority of common people as in 1580. Fountain pens came into use.
Many books written tended to be about the author's experiences, for instance Samuel Pepys' "Diary", Gilbert Burnet's "History of my own Times", John Evelyn's lifelong diary with vivid descriptions of striking events of the day, and nonconformist Celia Fiennes' description of her tour of England on horseback. There were many political biographies. Historians did not yet study history as a continuous process, but narrated self-contained stories to instruct by example. William Fleetwood wrote about economic history in "Chronicon Preciogum". George Hicks put together a "Thesaurus" of the northern languages. Thomas Hyde wrote on ancient Persian religion. John Spenser compared Jewish rites with those of other Semitic people, thus starting comparative religion. Richard Bentley, William's librarian, wrote a "Dissertation" on the ancient Greeks. He compared the ancient Greek life with modern life. He also confuted atheism on the Newtonian system. A translated version of "Critical History of Old Testament" by Frenchman Richard Simon identified the old testament as history instead of divine revelation. John Milton wrote "Paradise Lost", which retells the Biblical story of the Creation and the fall of Adam and Eve against the backdrop of Satan's rebellion and expulsion from heaven and emphasized God's justice in spite of everything. The poem deals with the puritan struggling against evil and the problem of sin and redemption. It has a cold and severe conception of moral virtue and stoical self-repression in its characters. There is no sympathy with the human condition. Reading this book made the English more serious, earnest, and sober in life and conduct and more firm in the love of freedom. John Bunyan wrote "Pilgrim's Progress" in which a tinker takes a journey to find the Everlasting City of heaven and on the way meets people who try to harm him. But he derives strength from his adversities. The journey is a metaphor for the Christian soul trying to find salvation. It is Puritan in its sympathies and has insights into human nature. John Dryden wrote on large social, political, and humanistic issues, often by political satire. William Congreve wrote plays such as a comedy on manners. William Wycherley wrote cynical satires and portrayed folly, affection, and vice. John Vanbrugh wrote plays satirizing London high society and social institutions. John Toland wrote "Christianity and Mysterious" on deism. "Puss in Boots", "Red Ridinghood", and "Cinderella" became available in print. There were many female poets, bookwriters, and playwrights. Anne Finch, later Vicountess Conway, wrote the philosophical book: "Principle of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy" to reconcile the new science with Christian belief. In it every creature had a body and a spirit. Mrs. Aphra Behn wrote "Oroonoko", one of the first novels. Basua Makin, governess of the little sister of Charles II wrote an essay to revive the education of women, arguing that women's activity in wartime showed that they were fit to be educated. Elizabeth Elstob, who studied Teutonic languages, was one of the founders of women's education. Mary Astell proposed a college for women. Some women painted portraits.
There were rigid censorship acts from 1662 to 1695. The first required that no one could print a book without first registering it with the Company of Stationers of London and having it licensed by appropriate authority: common law books by the Lord Chancellor or the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, affairs of state and history books by the Secretaries of State, heraldry books by the Earl Marshall or Kings of Arms Garter, university books by the Chancellor or Vice Chancellor of either of the universities, and all others including divinity, physics, and philosophy by the Archbishop of Canterbury, or Bishop of London. Books could be imported only into London and not sold until approved by the Archbishop of Canterbury or Bishop of London after being opened and viewed by a scholar appointed by these bishops and a representative of the Company of Stationers. If heretical, seditious, scandalous, schismatic or otherwise dangerous or offensive, the importer could be punished. No one could print or import copies of any books without consent of the owner with right by letters patent. The penalty for not doing so was to forfeit 6s.9d. for each such book, of which the king would receive one half and the owner one half. Printers had to set their own name to the books they printed and also the name of the author or else forfeit such book. Only freemen of London who were members of the Company of Stationers could sell books. The Company of Stationers had the authority accompanied by a constable to search all houses and shops where they knew or had "probable reason" to suspect books were being printed. They could search houses of persons of other trades only by special warrant. They could examine books found to determine if they were licensed and, if not, to seize them. Justices could imprison offenders. The first offense by offending printers was to be punished by suspension from printing for three years, the second offense by permanent disallowance from printing, fine, imprisonment, and corporal punishment not extending to life or limb. This statute was enforced by frequent prosecutions, such as of publishers of pornographic books.
The only newspapers to appear between 1660 and 1679 were official government sheets. But in 1695 the requirement to license publications, including newspapers, was abolished, thereby giving some freedom to the press. Locke had argued for this freedom, stating "I know not why a man should not have liberty to print whatever he would speak and to be answerable for the one just as he is for the other…" In 1702 the first daily newspaper in the world came into existence in England. The Stationer's Company monopoly of printing also ended in 1695. Printing was not regulated and no longer criminal just because it was unauthorized. Printing could now be done in other places than London, York, Oxford, and Cambridge.
The rich got richer and the poor got poorer. Many successful merchants and manufacturers bought landed estates and established a line of country squires or baronets or even peers. The fashion started in the nobility and the richest mercantile families that their wives should become ladies of leisure. For workers though, there was constant underemployment. In periods of economic crisis industrial workers lost their jobs. Much work was seasonal. Anyone who could work most of the time was fortunate. Laboring and out- servants, who comprised one fourth of the population, and cottagers and paupers, who comprised another fourth of the population, had to spend more than they earned. The poor rate collected from the parishes for the cottagers and paupers was 3d. per week. There was an agricultural depression that was deepest in the 1680s after the collapse of a boom. It was the only bad depression experienced in peace time. There was famine in 1698.
Any person receiving relief from any parish and his family members cohabiting with him was required to wear a badge with a "P" which identified his parish. This was to differentiate them from idle, sturdy, and disorderly beggars who were not entitled to relief.
There were more poor people and, despite the poor laws, many became rogues or vagabonds or starved to death. Many went from parish to parish to build cottages and consumed all the wood there and then went to another parish. So the parishes were allowed by statute to remove any person coming to settle in any tenement under the value of ten pounds who was likely to be chargeable to it. They were then removed to the last parish were they had resided for at least forty days. Excepted were people temporarily moving to another parish to work at harvest time. The overall effect was to decrease the mobility of people. But a later statute permitted greater movement of poor people by allowing those who were poor for want of work to go to another parish where labor was wanted. They had to bring a certificate of their present parish membership to the new parish, where they could settle if they rented a tenement worth ten pounds a year or served in a parish office. Later, settlement had to be given to inhabitants paying its parish's rates, and unmarried inhabitants hired for one year, and apprentices bound by indenture. But parishes were displeased with the requirement to give settlements to these people because they feared they would become poor and need parish assistance, thereby increasing the rates to be paid.
Parish poor houses were converted into spinning schools to obtain an income. Parishes of large towns were combined to set up large workhouses, where the poor could be set to unskilled manufacture, but the managers lacked the character and education to make them work.
Because prisoners often died before trial and the poor prisoners became instructed in the practice of thievery in prison, they were set to work on materials provided to them at public expense. No parish was rated at more than 6d. per week for such. The president and governors of corporations oversaw rogues, vagrants, sturdy beggars, and idle or disorderly persons working in corporations or workhouses.
Assessments were made for building and repairing gaols in order to maintain the health and safe custody of the prisoners. Also, gaol fever, a virulent form of typhus, was so prevalent in the large prisons for criminals and debtors that it frequently spread through the adjacent towns. During some assizes, it killed sheriffs, lawyers, and justices.
In 1692, London lands were taxed for the relief of orphans. Churchwardens could seize the goods and chattels of putative fathers and mothers deserting bastard children.
From 1691 to 1740, Societies for the Reformation of Manners prosecuted poor people for moral offenses.
All hackney coaches and stage coaches in all the realm became required to be licensed. The turnpike system came into use. Tolls were paid for road upkeep and repair by private companies. The local parishes ceased to have this responsibility. John Ogilby wrote the first road book based on actual surveys of the roads. Stage coaches cost a shilling for every five miles and went 40-50 miles a day. The trip from London to Oxford was twelve hours. The company of Coach and Coach Harness Makers was founded with the consent of the king. The body of a coach hung from the frame by leather braces. One axle pivoted for turns. Plate glass was used in the windows. Rivers improved so that most places were no more distant from navigable waters than a long day's haul on land.
The several post offices were put under the authority of one Postmaster General appointed by the king for the purpose of speed and safety of dispatches, which were carried by horseback. One sheet letter going less than 80 miles cost 2d., and more than 80 miles, 4d.
When the army was disbanded after the Restoration, its officers and soldiers were allowed return to their trades and their apprenticeships without serving the usual seven years. Parishes were required to provide for poor and maimed officers and soldiers who served Charles I or Charles II. The Royal Hospital founded by Charles as a home for veteran soldiers opened in 1692. Greenwich palace was converted to a hospital for seamen and their widows and children to encourage men to become seamen: mariner, seaman, waterman, fisherman, lighterman, bargeman, keelman, or seafaring man in the king's Navy. Also, children of disabled seamen were to be educated at the expense of the hospital.
Charles retained one regiment from which he started a small standing army, which slowly increased in size ever after. The army was primarily mercenary, as it had been in medieval times, with officers buying their commissions. Colonels were the proprietors of their regiments and captains were the proprietors of their companies. The soldiers were ill mannered, swearing and cursing and stealing, sometimes from peoples' homes, and intimidating people with their swords. The bayonet was invented to attach onto a gun, which were muzzle-loading with a match lock. So pikemen with their long spears became obsolete. Hand grenades and small explosive bombs came into use about 1670.
Explosives were also used in mines. Mines for coal became deeper as coal replaced the use of increasingly expensive wood charcoal for brewing and for brick, glass, and china manufacture. Flooding of coal, tin and copper mines became a problem. In 1698, Thomas Savery invented the Miner's Friend, a practical atmospheric steam engine without a piston.
There was resort to many devices to fund wars. The land tax was still the primary tax. The customs and excise taxes were often extended to more goods and wares. Sometimes there were duties imposed on marriages, births, and deaths. Also, hawkers, peddlers, and other trading persons going from town to town to other men's houses on foot or on horse carrying wares had to buy a license. There were also loans from privileged companies such as the Bank of England, East India Co., and the South Sea Co. Commissioners were appointed to take and state the account of all money in the public revenue. This discouraged the prevalent corruption of government officials and thereby the people were encouraged to pay their taxes.
The Goldsmiths loaned money to the king and to private persons and to the Exchequer. Receipts from Goldsmiths for storage in strong boxes had become a de facto paper currency. But when the Goldsmiths had no more money to lend, the Bank of England was founded in 1694 under whig auspices to provide money for war. It was the first institution to issue notes in excess of its total deposits. However, it was not allowed to lend money to the Crown without the consent of Parliament. It was incorporated as the first English joint-stock bank and had about 1,300 shareholders. These original subscribers were individuals from London from many walks of life, including well-to-do tradesmen and about 12% of whom were women: wives, widows, or spinsters. Not many corporations were original subscribers. Holders of at least 500 pounds could vote, of 2000 pounds could be directors, and of 4000 pounds could be Governor. The Bank issued notes payable to bearer and discounted bills, but these were not legal tender. It lent at 8% to the Crown and occasionally to corporations. Money was also borrowed by offering annuities on single lives. This was the first time the government borrowed directly from the public on a long- term basis.
In 1695 there was inflation due to over issue by the Bank because of inexperience, pressure from government, and the Bank's greed for business. After a dividend of 5% in 1695, the next year there was no dividend and so the bank stock price fell. In 1696, five pound and ten pound short term bonds were sold to the public. Also in that year was the first run on the bank. This occurred two days after clipped money lost currency; people wanted the new recoined money, but the Mint had not supplied the Bank with sufficient supplies. Interest instead of cash was given for notes. Cash was short for months. The Bank's credit was much shaken. It was then given a monopoly so that its notes would not have competition. Thereafter, its dividends were good - about 12% per year. Because of its monopoly, its dividends were about 3% above the current going rate of interest. About this time, Exchequer Bills, with interest, were started by the Exchequer and circulated by the Bank of England. They were frequently endorsed many times by successive holders.
The Bank simply took over from the goldsmiths its main everyday business of deposit, with a running cash note [cashier's note, specie note, cash note], which was payable on demand and normally did not bear interest; and a drawn note [precursor to the check, but not on special paper]. The Bank gradually convinced many of its clients to use its "check" [cheque] paper when drawing. The check paper was unique to the Bank and embellished with distinctive scroll work to serve as an obstacle to fraud. Over time the running cash note tended to be for round sums of at least twenty pounds and multiples of five pounds. The Bank of England had a monopoly on issuing notes in the London area. Country banks arose and issued bearer notes payable on demand and interest-bearing notes in their areas. The Bank of England gave to its depositors the service of paying annually to a designee without further order.
A decision of the common law courts held that bills of exchange (written orders to pay a given a sum on a given date) were transferable to other people by successive endorsements. So long distance payments no longer had to be made in coin, with all the dangers of highway robbery.
The financial revolution of the 1690s meant that the merchant elite could invest in government bonds or company bonds at 5-6%, or London leases at 10%, as opposed to income from landed estates, which was under 3%. Shareholders were no longer personally liable for company losses. Interest on loans was no longer considered sinful as long as it was not oppressive. The greater ability to borrow spurred the growth of capitalism.
All brokers and stock jobbers in London and Westminster of bank stock, bank bills, shares and interests in joint stock must be licensed by the mayor, which shall necessitate their taking an oath to exercise their office without fraud or collusion to the best of his skill and knowledge as of 1697. This is to avoid the collusion of fixing values to their own advantage.
Compilations of tables of mortality originated the science of life-statistics. This made life insurance possible. But it was administered by ad hoc offices rather than companies and was not reliable in making payments.
William Petty made a statistical study of economics and determined that the basic values of an economy derive not from its store of treasure, but from its capacity for production. Trade was studied empirically by statistics by new offices such as the Inspector General of Imports and Exports.
Charles instituted a hearth tax of 2s. per year in 1662, with constables and officers authorized to verify the number of hearths and stoves in houses. It was repealed in 1688 because it could not be enforced except by exposing every man's house to be entered and searched at pleasure by persons unknown to the people, which was oppressive and a badge of slavery.
By bribes, Charles built up a body of support in Parliament which could be relied upon for a majority. They came to be called "tories" by their opponents. "Tory" had been a term of abuse for Irish Catholic bandits. The tory and whig groups were known by their disagreement over the authoritarianism of the Crown. The tories were sympathetic to the doctrine of divine right and favored a doctrinally high church. The tories represented landed property and the established church, and usually wore blue in contrast to the purple of royalty. Many royalists became tories. The whigs refused to accept the sacrosanct character of the monarchy. The whigs opined that government depended upon consent of the people and that the people had a right of resistance. They subordinated the Crown to Parliament. The whigs represented the dissenters and the mercantile classes, and often wore red. Many former Puritans became whigs. "Whig" had been a term of abuse for Scots Presbyterian rebels and horse thieves.
The gout and venereal disease were common among political leaders. A primitive condom just introduced to the aristocracy from France helped deter syphilis, but was uncomfortable and unreliable.
Under Charles II, the Treasury as a supreme financial body separated from the Exchequer as a depository of revenue. A gold guinea coin was issued. From 1690, government policy was controlled by specific appropriations. Money bills had to originate in the Commons, and could not be amended by the House of Lords.
Boards became independent of the king's Privy Council and answerable to the secretary of state.
In the 1680s, Charles compelled some of the livery companies in London to give up their charters to him and he called in many corporation charters of boroughs whenever some light excuse could be found to justify it. This was done by the use of the writ of quo warranto [by what authority] before a court. In London he had the tory mayor revive an ancient custom of selecting a sheriff by drinking to him at the annual feast. Two tory sheriffs were installed into office. All these actions gave the king a voice in selection of the officers of London and boroughs, since Royal commissioners would then determine who the officers would be. This was to assure London's representation in Parliament by Crown loyalists as London had been whig. It also allowed influenced selection of sympathetic jurors.
Criminal seditious libel was brought into the common law courts in 1664, when Benjamin Keach was tried for writing a book containing contradictions of the doctrine of the established church. He wrote against infant baptism and asserted that laymen might preach the gospel. The justice intimidated the jury to find him guilty. He was sentenced to be fined, to spend two hours in the pillory in two successive weeks, and his book to be burned before his face. He was to be imprisoned until he found sureties for his good behavior and renunciation of his doctrine and for his future appearance in court. Juries were loath to find anyone guilty of seditious libel.
James II succeeded Charles II to the throne and fostered Roman Catholicism by appointments and by attempting to suspend laws unfavorable to Catholics. He commanded all bishops to read in the churches his Declaration of Indulgence exempting both Catholic and Protestant dissenters from all penal statutes based on religion. Seven bishops refused to obey and jointly petitioned him, stating that his action was illegal according to Parliament. He prosecuted them for seditious libel in the petition. The jury found them not guilty. James discharged the two justices of the five who had rejected the seditious libel doctrine which had been created by the Star Chamber Court. This roused the whigs and tories in turn to discharge him by joining in inviting Protestants William of Orange and Mary to take the throne in his place. James was effectively chased out of England by William's advancing army in the Glorious Revolution of 1688-9, which took away the powers of final authority from the king, but without transferring them to any other body. A "Bill of Rights" stated that
1. -The king may not suspend laws or dispense with them without consent of Parliament.
2. -The establishment of a Court of Commissioners and like bodies for ecclesiastical causes is illegal.
3. -The king may not levy money or extend an authorized levy without consent of Parliament.
4. -Subjects have a right to petition the king without prosecution.
5. -The king may not raise or keep a standing army within the country in time of peace without the consent of Parliament.
6. -Protestants may have arms for their defense as allowed by law.
7. -The elections of members of Parliament should be free.
8. -The freedom of speech or debates or proceedings in Parliament should not be impeached or questioned in any court or place outside of Parliament.
9. -Excessive bail should not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted (so no more men were whipped to death).
10. Jury selection should not be tampered with, and jurors who try men for high treason should be freeholders.
11. All grants and promises of fines and forfeiture of particular persons, before conviction, are illegal and void.
12. Parliament should be held frequently for redress of grievances and for the amending, strengthening, and preserving of the laws.
13. All Protestants may freely exercise their religion and the king will maintain the Protestant religion and the law and liberty of the realm.
The right of the peoples' representatives to select and depose the king and to change the order of succession was established. There was no divine right or hereditary right to the Crown. An English monarch was created by an act of Parliament. The king still called and dissolved Parliaments, except that Parliament continued for six months after the death of a king. From 1689, Parliament sat every year. Freedom of speech for members of Parliament was established by a resolution overturning a King's Bench felony conviction of Sir John Elliot.
By the act of settlement of 1701, no officer or pensioner of the king could be a member of Parliament. All resolutions by the Privy Council had to be signed by the members consenting to them. No one born outside the realm could be a member of the Privy Council or of Parliament, or could have any civil or military office or place of trust, or any grants of land or tenements from the king. Justices served during good behavior instead of at the pleasure of the king.
After the Glorious Revolution, Tories tended to accept of the Whig principles of limited constitutional monarchy instead of rule by divine right.
Under William and Mary, the ministers were first chosen by them but could be impeached by the Commons and then removed by the Parliament. The Commons removed anyone who disagreed with them as soon as he made a mistake. But the king could pardon anyone convicted by Parliamentary bill of attainder. This was inconsistent, so no one was allowed to plead pardon by the king in an impeachment by the Commons. Thus Parliament gained control of who would be ministers.
The Glorious Revolution favored the capitalists and the commercial magnates even though it had been started by the landed families, with whom they now intermarried. There were companies in the fishing, silk, baize [a coarse wool], sugar, rope, paper, iron, hardware, cutlery, gunpowder, saw milling, and pottery trades. These industries for manufacturing were organized on capitalist lines rather than being subject to guilds. That is, production was controlled by men with money and the means of manufacture. The largest pottery workshops employed about six men. One man shaped the pots, another made the handles and put them on, while the others did the decoration, the glazing, and the firing. New companies could be formed without royal or Parliamentary consent. Regulated companies declined. There were no more commercial monopolies. The Merchant Adventurers lost their last monopoly privileges and their entrance fees were abolished. Their method of limiting the volume of their exports of English cloth to Germany to keep up prices was obsolete. Now they tried to capture the market by selling cheap. There were more joint-stock companies and on a larger scale. They also no longer restricted output to keep prices high, but geared to export many inexpensive goods.
Drinking of gin, which had first been made by a Flemish physician, became popular under King William, who was Dutch. The year of his accession, the gin monopoly ended.
From the mid-1500s to 1700, coal production increased fourteen times. Sir Ambrose Crowley, an iron maker with coal works, established disability and medical benefits and pensions for his workers.
The capitalist organization of the mining, glass manufacture, salt, soap, wire and other monopolized industries was made possible only by government support. Salt and glass manufacture expanded. Glass drinking vessels were in common use. Mirrors of blown plate glass were manufactured in England. In 1670, Vauxhall glass works were opened with workmen brought from Venice to blow their fine glass and make mirrors. Some plate glass by casting was imported. Plate glass was a large and strong glass piece, which was formed by the liquid glass being poured on a table. This glass was not distorted, so mirrors could be made perfectly reflective. Then plate glass for coaches, mirrors, and windows became manufactured in England; this new industry was organized on capitalist lines.
The domestic or "putting out" system came into use. In this system, the worker usually owned his own machinery and the capitalist owned the material, which he put out to the worker at home. The merchant manufacturer bought raw wool and had it carded, spun, woven, fulled, and dressed at his own expense. Some farmers became spinners in the winter when outside work was impossible. The manufacture of nails was also done by this system. Accordingly, the guilds and municipal corporations in towns ceased to control the recruiting, conditions of work, and pay of industries. Only a quarter of 200 towns had any organized guilds at all. The growing town of Birmingham was not a chartered borough, so never was encumbered with guild regulations. Overall, the guild and apprentice regulations were effectively enforced only in agriculture work. Artisans became known as tradesmen. Work was usually irregular, some seasonal. In bad years, when a worker had to borrow money, he used work tools, such as his loom, as security. In this way, one's work tools often became the property of a merchant. Some merchant clothiers also owned a fulling mill and a shop where the cloth was sold. The capitalists first became owners of the materials, then of the implements, and then of the work places. But production was still confined to the known wants of its habitual market. Men used to working at home were generally not inclined to go to work in a factory. So there was an assortment of unskilled factory labor, such as country people driven from their villages by the growth of large estates, disbanded soldiers, and paupers. They had to be taught, trained, and above all disciplined.
Smiths used trip hammers powered by watermills which turned axles with cams on them. They made iron gates, fences, balconies, and staircases with hammer, anvil, and chisel. Cast iron was made by running liquefied metal into molds. This was harder but more brittle than the tough but malleable wrought iron. Tinkers went from house to house to repair metal items such as pots and pans.
The East India Company had about half the trade of the nation. Its shares were frequently bought and sold. It responded to anger over its semi-monopoly status by granting liberty to all English subjects below the age of forty to live in its Indian settlements and to trade practically everywhere. Bombay, India became subject to the East India Company. Charters gave the East India Company the right to coin money, to exercise jurisdiction over English subjects, to levy taxes, to build and command fortresses, to command English and Indian troops, to make peace and war, and to enter into alliances with Indian rulers. The Company always paid high dividends and the market price of its shares generally rose. 100 pound stock was worth 130 pounds in 1669, 245 pounds in 1677, 280 pounds in 1681, 360 and even up to 500 pounds in 1683, and then fell to 190 pounds in 1692. In 1693 a new charter for the Company included loss of monopoly status by resolution of the Commons. With this resolution, Parliament assumed the right of regulating commerce, now no longer the king's province. Thereafter the Commons regulated trade with India and determined who could participate in trade there. Political issues developed, which initiated corruption at elections by entertainment and bribes to candidates, which were later proscribed. The trade opened up to many more traders and investors. Ordinary investors came to include women and Quakers. The Stock Exchange was incorporated about 1694. Exports included grain, silk, metal wares, foodstuffs, lead, and tin. Cloth and manufactures were exported to America. Dyeing and dressing of cloth became the norm and undressed cloth exports fell sharply. Imports included linen; flax; hemp; timber; iron; raw, thrown, and woven silk; wine; brandy; fruit; coffee; chocolate, served as a drink or used in cooking; cauliflower; and oil. From America came molasses, sugar, tobacco, and dyes. Sugar was in great demand for tea, coffee, and chocolate. The East India Company imported calico, silk, pepper, spices, China tea, potions, and saltpeter. Tonnage of English shipping doubled by 1688 Exports and imports increased 50% by 1700.
When there was a surplus of grain, it was exported. About 1696, the king set up a board of trade of eight paid members and great officers of state, who nominally belonged to it, and a staff. This was to achieve a favorable balance of trade. For instance, it imposed tariffs to protect internal markets and put restraints on imports of goods producible in the country, e.g. live cattle, dairy products, and woolen goods. It also restricted the export of raw wool. England led the way in protectionist measures.
Parliament required an oath of allegiance to the new sovereigns William and Mary from all those in public functions, including the clergy. By extending this rule to the clergy, Parliament asserted a supremacy of Parliament over the church. It also asserted a supremacy over the king by requiring all monarchs to take a coronation oath promising to govern according to the statutes, laws, and customs of Parliament, to make judgments with law and justice in mercy, and to maintain the Protestant religion established by law.
England competed with other nations for land in the New World. Carolina, named for Charles II, was colonized for commerce in 1663. The Episcopal Church, an analogue of the Church of England, was established there by law. The whole coast became English after war with the Netherlands gave New York, named for Charles II's brother the Duke of York, and New Jersey to England in 1667. Presbyterians and Baptists fled from religious tests and persecutions in England to colonize New Jersey. For free passage to the English colonies, people became indentured servants, agreeing to serve the master of the ship or his assigns with a certain kind of labor for a term of a few years according to a written contract made before departure. Also, various statutes made transportation to any part of America available to any person who would pay for his transportation, for a term of years, usually seven, as a new possible penalty for offenses. In 1636, Harvard College was founded in New England to advance literature, arts, and sciences, as well as to train ministers. Some American colonists sent their sons to be educated at the Inns of Court in London.
In 1682, Quaker William Penn, son of an Admiral, founded the colony of Pennsylvania for Quakers in a "Holy Experiment" in political and religious freedom. The king had granted proprietary rights to this land to him to discharge a Crown debt to his father. When Penn refused to take off his hat before King Charles and asked why Charles took off his own, Charles, unruffled, replied that "It's the custom of this place that only one man should remain uncovered at a time". The Pennsylvania Charter of 1701 went beyond Magna Carta and England's law in guaranteeing right to counsel and giving a right to defendants to summon witnesses in all criminal cases. It gave Penn absolute authority and he established liberty of conscience, i.e.freedom of religion, and freedom from arbitrary arrest. In 1751, some Quakers founded a small hospital in Pennsylvania as an asylum for the insane, where they would be treated humanely.
Proprietary colonies, in which an individual or syndicate held under the crown a sort of feudal overlordship, were founded in America: namely, Virginia, Maryland, Carolina, New York and New Jersey in 1663, and Pennsylvania and Delaware in 1682. New Hampshire was made a royal province in 1680 to cut off the expansion of Massachusetts, which had been avoiding the trade laws. These colonies were distinguished from the corporate colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, which made their own arrangements for internal government without a royal executive. Charles persuaded the Chancery Court to declare the charter of Massachusetts void; it was given a new charter in 1691 which made it a royal province. New York was made a royal province in 1691. Maryland's proprietor gave way to a royal governor in 1692. Soon all colonies except Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania were royal provinces, with governors nominated by the Crown. This bringing of union to the colonies was done for maintenance of order, to coordinate defense, and to enforce trade laws.
In 1670, the Hudson's Bay Company was incorporated to engage in fur trade with Indian trappers in the Hudson Bay and to find a northwest passage to China.
In 1701 the founding of the "Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel in Foreign Parts" by the Church of England created many
missionaries in the colonies, where they called their churches
"Episcopalian".
Increase Mather and his son Cotton Mather were Puritan ministers in colonial Boston. Increase was for a time the President of Harvard College and participated in obtaining the new charter of colonial Massachusetts of 1691. He and his son tried to maintain the principles of the Puritan founders of Massachusetts, which included the theories of diabolical possession and witchcraft. But the thought of Presbyterians, Anglicans, and Baptists became influential also. In 1692 in the small town of Salem, Massachusetts, some hysterical girls showing strange spasms and sounds charged they had been bewitched by certain other residents. Victims were deceived, flogged, or tortured into forced confessions and then excommunicated from the church. They were then hanged and their property confiscated. One man endured being pressed to death for refusal to plead so that his property would be inherited by his family rather than confiscated due to being convicted. Eventually, some prominent citizens including judges were accused. Then the more thoughtful people began to doubt the whole phenomenon and admitted error. The excommunications were revoked. Cotton Mather came to accept Newton's science and advocated inoculation. He encouraged Puritanism into a simpler piety and charity. This influenced American Protestantism toward a generalized concern with good works, morality, and social leadership.
The Law
Treason to the king is to compass, imagine, or intend death or any bodily harm tending to death, or maiming or wounding, or imprisonment, or restraint as well as trying to depose him or levy war against him. Also included is printing, writing, preaching, or malicious speaking. Traitors shall suffer death and forfeiture as in high treason.
The fine for having, buying, or selling clipped coins is 500 pounds, one-half going to the informer, and one-half going to the king. The offender shall also be branded in the right cheek with the letter "R". He shall be imprisoned until he pays the 500 pounds. No hammered coins are lawful. Anyone except a smith in the king's mint making tools or presses or other machines that can make counterfeit coins or having such which were stolen from the mint shall be guilty of high treason.
Any malicious and willful burning or destroying of stacks of hay, grain, or barns, or killing any horses, sheep, or cattle at nighttime shall be felony and punished by transportation to the American colonies for seven years.
Any person apprehending a thief or robber on the highway will be rewarded 40 pounds from the local sheriff, to discourage the many robberies and murders which have made travel dangerous. Also, executors of persons murdered while trying to apprehend a robber shall have the reward.
Anyone killing, hurting, or taking away deer from any forest or park or other ground without consent of the owner or custodian shall pay a 20 pound fine. This was later increased to 20 pounds for hunting deer and 30 pounds for wounding or killing deer, with the pillory for one hour on market day and gaol for a year without bail for those who couldn't pay.
Any person privately and feloniously stealing any goods, including horses, by day or night, in any shop, warehouse, coach stable, or stable, whether there is a break-in or not, and whether or not the owner is present, or anyone assisting or hiring such person may not have benefit of clergy. Any person who apprehends and prosecutes such person is excused from having to serve in parish and ward offices. An offender being out of prison who informs against two other offenders who are convicted is to be pardoned. Any person convicted of theft or larceny and having benefit of clergy is to be burnt in the cheek nearest the nose instead of on the hand.
When a bill of exchange drawn to at least five pounds is not paid on demand at the time it is made payable, the person who accepted it may make a protest in writing before a notary public, which shall be served on the maker of such bill, who must pay it and all interest and charges from the date of the protest. But if a bill of exchange is lost or miscarried, another shall be given in its place.
No one may take more than 6 pounds in interest for a 100 pound
loan.
Persons seeking election to Parliament may not give or promise
money, meat, drink, entertainment, present or gift to any elector.
Because the gaols were full of people in debt due to the late unhappy times such as the London fire, all prisoners for debt were released upon taking an oath that they had no property over ten pounds nor had disposed or conveyed property to defraud creditors. Creditors not wanting them released had to contribute to their maintenance in gaol.
Any sale of land or lease or estate of freehold or copyhold shall be in writing and signed. An interest in land given orally shall have only the force of estates at will. All contracts for sale of goods or merchandise for the price of at least 10 pounds shall be in writing and signed by the parties or shall be accompanied by part payment or partial acceptance of the goods. This is to deter fraud. This statute caused many small freeholders, including yeomen, who paid rent by custom to be dispossessed.
Mortgagees can hold the land of any mortgagor who borrows money upon security of the land or obtains another mortgage without prior notice to the initial mortgagee. The mortgagor has six months to pay off the mortgage and all interest and charges or vacate the land and lose his equity therein. But a widow's dower will not be affected if she did not join with her husband in the mortgage.
If rent is not paid in a reasonable time, the renter's goods and grain may not only be distrained, but sold.
One coparcener [one person of two or more persons who inherit as co-owners of land] of a joint tenancy [land held that descends to the heir of a co-owner who dies] or tenancy in common [land held that accrues to the surviving co-owner if one dies] may have a court partition the property without the presence of other coparceners, because such coparceners are often difficult to find. This is to avoid wasting of land lying uncultivated and unmanured.
After the intestate death of a father of any sons or daughters without wives or children of their own in the life time of their mothers, the mother and every brother and sister shall share equally except the customs of London and York shall not be affected. Administrators have to make an inventory. They have to account on request by an interested person. They must be bonded by two sureties.
Executors and administrators of estates of deceased persons must pay the debts of the deceased person rather than waste or convert the goods and chattels to their own use. Creditors may recover their debts from heirs or devisees of the will of a debtor.
Men gone beyond the sea who could not be accounted for were deemed dead after seven years, so their life estates could be terminated.
Whereas lawful games are not to be used as constant callings for a livelihood, and young people are deceived and debauched and their money taken, anyone "winning" money by deceitful or fraudulent gambling shall forfeit three times his "winnings".
The making or selling of fireworks is forbidden or else forfeit 5 pounds. Firing or throwing such from one's house onto or across the street is a common nuisance with a penalty of 20s. This is to avoid the loss of life and of eyes.
No more than 20 people may petition the king nor more than 10 people may assemble to present a petition to the king, because more has been tumultuous and disorderly.
Anyone may without fee set up a hemp business including breaking, hatchelling [separating the coarse part and broken pieces of the stalk from the fine, fibrous parts by drawing the material through long iron teeth set in a board], and dressing it; or a flax business, including making and whitening thread, spinning, weaving, making, whitening, or bleaching hemp or flax cloth; making twine or nets for fishing or treating cordage for tapestry or hangings, because the daily importation of such has in effect taken the work from the poor and unemployed of England.
No sheep, wool, woolfells, shearlings, yarn, fuller's earth, or fulling clay may be exported as has secretly been done, so that the poor of the realm may have work.
Fishermen may sell their fish to others than Fishmongers at Billingsgate fish market because the Fishmongers have forestalled the market and set their own prices. The buyers of such fish may resell them in any other London market by retail, except than only Fishmongers may sell in shops or houses.
No tanned or untanned skin or hide of any ox, steer, bull, cow, or calf may be exported because the price of leather has risen excessively and leather workers can't get enough raw material to carry on their trade and because poor people cannot afford leather items they need.
The newly incorporated Company of Silk Throwers (drew the silk off the cocoon) employs many of the poor, but others practice the trade, so an apprenticeship of seven years is required to practice the trade in the realm. Winders or doublers who purloin or embezzle and sell silk from the thrower who employs him and the buyer of such silk shall make such recompense as ordered by a Justice of the Peace or be whipped or set in the stocks for the first offense.
The regulation of the Silk Throwers company restricting the number of spindles to be worked at one time is voided because it has taken livelihoods away and caused foreign thrown silk [silk twisted from cocoons into thread] to be imported.
Buttons on garments must be made of silk, mohair, gimp, and thread and by needle to keep employed the many throwers, twisters, spinners, winders, and dyers preparing the materials for these buttons. No button may be made of cloth or wood.
When a bill of exchange drawn to at least five pounds is not paid on demand at the time it is made payable, the person who accepted it may make a protest in writing before a notary public, which shall be served on the maker of such bill, who must pay it and all interest and charges from the date of the protest. But if a bill of exchange is lost or miscarried, another shall be given in its place.
No one may take more than 6 pounds in interest for a 100 pound
loan.
Persons seeking election to Parliament may not give or promise
money, meat, drink, entertainment, present or gift to any elector.
Because the gaols were full of people in debt due to the late unhappy times such as the London fire, all prisoners for debt were released upon taking an oath that they had no property over ten pounds nor had disposed or conveyed property to defraud creditors. Creditors not wanting them released had to contribute to their maintenance in gaol.
Retailers of wine may not add to imported wines cider, honey, sugar, molasses, lime, raisin juice, or herbs.
Butter sold must be of one sort and not contain bad butter mixed in with good butter. Butter pots must bear the name or mark of their potter.
Salt may be sold only by weight, to avoid deceit by retailers and wrong to buyers.
No tobacco maybe grown in England because the colonies would be discouraged from growing it and the king would not receive customs from it.
No goods are to be imported to or exported from America, Asia, or Africa except in English ships, with masters and 3/4 of the mariners Englishmen. No manufacture of Europe may be imported into any colony or territory except shipped from England in English ships manned by Englishmen. As of 1672, if bond is not given for colonial exports of sugar, ginger, tobacco, cotton, indigo, cacao nuts, or fustic [tree that yields a yellow dye] and other dye- woods going to England, a duty must be paid. As of 1696, no colonial goods are to be imported or exported or carried from one colony to another, except in ships owned and built in England, Ireland, or the colonies with the masters and three fourths of the mariners from such places. These navigation acts were strictly enforced.
Only persons with lands and tenements or estate worth over 100 pounds per year or having a lease of at least 99 years worth 150 pounds per year and owners and keepers of forests or parks may have any guns, bows, greyhounds, hunting dogs such as setting dogs, snares, or other hunting equipment. These persons may kill hare, pheasants, partridges, and other game. Gamekeepers authorized by Justices of the Peace may search houses and outhouses and seize unlawful hunting equipment. If hunting equipment or game is found in a house without good account to the Justices of the Peace, they shall impose a fine of 5s. to 20s., one-half going to the informer and one-half going to the poor of the parish.
Army officers or soldiers who desert or mutiny shall suffer death or such other punishment as decided by a court martial of senior officers rather than the usual form of law, which is too slow.
Seamen not showing up on board after notice shall serve six months without pay, but shall not suffer as deserters. Seamen do not have to perform service in the Army.
Pirates may be punished by death and loss of all lands and chattels. Any person aiding, advising, or concealing pirates may be likewise punished. Officers and seamen killed or wounded in the defense of a ship or who seize or destroy pirates may be paid by the owners an amount up to 2 pounds per 100 pounds of freight as determined by a group of disinterested merchants and the judge. The amount due to a man killed will be paid to his widow and children. This is to be done when the ship arrives in port. Any person who informs of any combinations or confederacies planning to run away with or to destroy a ship shall be rewarded by the commander or master of such 10 pounds for a ship 100 tons or under, and 15 pounds for a ship over 100 tons. The trial may be in England or the American colonies, whose authorities may issue warrants for arrest of alleged pirates. Deserters from ships, because they often become pirates, shall forfeit all wages. Masters forcing any man fit to travel to stay on shore or willfully leaves him behind shall suffer three months in prison without bail.
Persons may mine for ores on their own land, but must turn it over to the king who will give compensation for it, including gold, silver, copper (16 pounds per tun), lead (9 pounds per tun), tin (40s. per tun), and iron (40s. per tun).
By statutes of 1660 and 1662, when goods have been carried off ships without customs being paid, the Chief Magistrate of the place where the offense was committed or the adjoining place, or the Lord Treasurer, or a Baron of the Exchequer may, upon oath, issue out a warrant to any person to enter, with the assistance of a sheriff, constable or other public official, any house, shop, cellar, warehouse, or room in the day time where the contraband goods are "suspected to be concealed", and in case of resistance, to break open doors, chests, trunks, or other packages and to seize such goods, provided that if the information whereupon any house is searched proves to be false, the injured party shall recover his full damages and costs against the informer by action of trespass. This was extended to the colonies in 1696.
The penalty for cursing or swearing by a servant, day laborer, soldier, or seaman is 1s. For others, it is 2s. The fine is doubled for the second offense, and tripled for the third offense. If an adult offender can't pay, he shall be put in the stocks for one hour. If a child offender can't pay, he shall be whipped by the constable or by a parent in the presence of the constable.
The equity courts are now conceding limited proprietary rights to married women by enforcing premarital settlements or trust arrangements that designate certain property as a wife's separate estate and exempt it from control by the husband. Such protective devices generally reflected a father's desire to shield his daughter from poverty and benefited only the landed aristocracy in practice. Also, husbands are not allowed to punish and beat their wives as before. But the lower rank of men were slow to give this up. A wife could have the security of the peace against her husband. He could restrain her liberty only for gross misbehavior.
In 1685, the courts ruled that apprenticeships were necessary only for servants hired by the year, thus exempting most wage laborers.
There were many variations in religious practices for statutes to address. The Quakers and Baptists were opposed to any state church. The Independents and Presbyterians accepted the idea of a state church. The members of the established church and Roman Catholics adhered to their version the state church as they had experienced it in the past. Atheism had a bad reputation. In 1662, the Jews established the first synagogue in London. The Privy Council recognized their religious status as long as they were peaceful and obeyed the laws. They engaged in pawn-broking as well as money-lending.
There were various statutes enacted over the course of time regarding religion, as follows:
All ministers, school teachers, mayors and other town officials, including magistrates, were required to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy [of the King over the church] or be removed from office.
A great number of people refused to come to their parish church or other public place where common prayer and sacraments were administered and the word of God was preached according to the established church. The morning and afternoon Sunday services with sermons, sometimes by guest preachers, continued. So factions and schisms developed. In response, the king changed the Book of Common Prayer and its prayers were required by statute in 1662 to be read by some priest or deacon in all the churches and places of public worship wherever and whenever there was any preaching or lecturing. Attendance at one's local parish church was never again required.
Attendance at the established Church of England was never again required. Nor was preaching or lecturing constrained. Instead, a statute was passed in 1677 that: Every person shall be pious and exercise religion publicly and privately on Sunday. No work may be done or goods sold or else forfeit 5s. or the goods respectively. No one may travel or else forfeit 5-20s. In a further statute of 1688, because some ease to scrupulous consciences in the exercise of religion may be an effectual means to unite Protestant subjects in interest and affection, Protestant nonconformists who took the oaths, or declaration in the case of Quakers, and a declaration that they were not Catholic, did not adore the Virgin Mary or any saint, and did not go to mass were declared not liable for punishment in any ecclesiastical court by reason of their nonconformity to the Church of England, except Protestant dissenters meeting behind locked doors. But payment of tithes and performance of parish duties were still obligatory. Non-conformist preachers had to subscribe to the tenets of belief listed in the first eighteen Articles of Religion, but were exempted from the articles on expounding inconsistencies in scripture, the traditions of the church, homilies, and consecration of bishops and ministers of the Elizabethan statute and the statute on uniformity of prayers and sacraments of Charles II.
As of 1665, no nonconformist minister, i.e. one who endeavored any alteration of government either in church or state, was allowed to live or visit within five miles of any corporate town or any place where he had acted as minister or else forfeit 40 pounds. Persons not frequenting the established church were not allowed to teach in any public or private school or else forfeit 40 pounds.
By statute of 1670, anyone at least sixteen years old who is present at any assembly, conventile [private meeting of religious dissidents to pray and expound scripture], or meeting under pretence of any exercise of religion in other manner than according to the established Church of England at which there are at least five persons present shall be fined 5s. for the first offense and 10s. for the second offense. This does not include members of the same household meeting in their home. Anyone who preaches or teaches at such a meeting shall pay 20 pounds for the first offense, and 40 pounds for further offenses. The householder who permits such a meeting shall pay 20 pounds. A justice or Justice of the Peace or chief magistrate may break open doors and enter by force any house or other place where they have been informed of any such meeting and take persons there into custody for prosecution. This is to discourage the growing of dangerous seditious persons under pretence of tender consciences.
Religious nonconformity continued especially among the humble people. The penal statutes caused hundreds of these nonconformists to be put in gaol. From time to time, the king would release them and suspend these laws. Sometimes, Charles II allowed dissenters to meet in private for worship if they got a license from him. Religious gatherings grew in numbers, size, and geographical extent. Dissenters were then allowed by statute to meet behind locked or barred doors. But they had to pay tithes and could be prosecuted in the ecclesiastical courts for not doing so. By statute, all congregations and assemblies for religious worship had to register with the local bishop or archbishop. Disturbers of religious worship were required to find two sureties for the amount of 50 pounds.
Quakers were active in the countryside. They were about one tenth of the population and did not believe in a state church. There were some Quakers schools and some Quaker workhouses to give work to the poor. For the reason that they met together in large numbers to the great endangering of public peace and safety and to the terror of the people, and because they had secret communications and separated themselves from the rest of the people and from the usual places of worship, a statute was passed in 1662, that any Quakers who assembled to the number of five or more under the pretense of unauthorized religious worship and any person maintaining that taking an oath before a magistrate was unlawful and contrary to the word of God or refusing to take a required oath was to forfeit 5 pounds for the first offense or be imprisoned for 3 months if he couldn't pay. For the second offense, the penalty was 10 pounds or imprisonment for 6 months with hard labor. The third offense required abjuring the realm or being transported to a plantation of the king beyond the seas. The policy of Charles II was to allow Quakers to meet undisturbed, to keep their hats on before magistrates, and to not come to the parish church. But this policy was only partially adopted in the country. From 1689, by statute, the Quakers were allowed to affirm or declare instead of making the customary oath.
Many Presbyterians became Unitarians, who rejected the trinity of "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost" and doubted the divinity of Jesus, but accepted revelation. This statute was then passed in 1697: Any person having been educated in or having at any time made profession of the Christian religion who, by writing, printing, teaching, or advised speaking, denies the Holy trinity, asserts that there is more than one god, or that the Bible is not of divine authority, shall be disabled for any ecclesiastical, civil, or military office. The penalty for a second offense is being disabled from suing or pleading any action in any court, being guardian of any child, or executor or administrator of any estate, or receiving any legacy or deed of gift and imprisonment for three years without bail or mainprize.
Catholicism was always disfavored. Catholic priests were executed with little evidence. At times, Charles commuted the death penalty for them to banishment. Sometimes there were effigies of the pope burned in the streets. Such burnings were later banned. At times Charles allowed Catholics to attend mass.
By statute of 1672, all civil and military officers and king's officials must take the oaths of supremacy and allegiance and take the sacrament of the established Church of England or be incapable of office. They also had to make a declaration that they believed that there is not any transubstantiation in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, or in the elements of bread and wine, when they were consecrated. This is to prevent dangers from Papists. As of 1678, no one may be a member of Parliament if he has refused to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy and the declaration that they were not Catholic, did not adore the Virgin Mary or any saint, and did not go to mass.
Papists were made to pay higher taxes. Every temporal and spiritual person, corporation, and guild had to pay taxes to subsidize the king in the amount of 2s.8d. for every pound's worth of personal property and money. But Papists had to pay 5s.4d. for such. Persons and corporations having land worth at least 20s. yearly, had to pay 4s. for every pounds' worth. But Papists and aliens had to pay 8s. for such.
But Charles' successor, King James II was Catholic and gave many offices to Catholics. This prompted a reaction against Papists and more statutes restricting them. After James II was chased out of England, a statute of 1688 required suspected Papists in London to make a declaration that they were not Catholic, did not adore the Virgin Mary or any saint, did not go to mass, or else stay ten miles outside of London. Excluded were tradesmen and manual workers, who had only to register. All Papists had to forfeit their arms and any horse worth more than 5 pounds. Also, no King or Queen or spouse of such could be a Papist, but had to make the same declaration as members of Parliament, and join in the communion of the established Church of England. As of 1696, a person who was serjeant at law, counsellor at law, barrister, advocate, attorney, solicitor, proctor, clerk, or notary had to take the oath of supremacy and allegiance. As of 1698, Papists who kept a school or tried to educate the young were threatened with perpetual imprisonment. Also, Popish parents were prohibited from forcing their children who were inclined towards Protestantism to become Catholic by refusing them suitable maintenance. As of 1699, a reward of 100 pounds was offered to any person who apprehended a Popish bishop, priest, or Jesuit saying mass. Also, no Papist was allowed to buy land.
Judicial Procedure
After the Restoration, all legal decisions of the Commonwealth and Protectorate were confirmed subject to a right of appeal.
The Star Chamber was not restored, and Parliament assumed its control of the press. The King's Bench succeeded to most of the Star Chamber's jurisdiction. No longer could the Privy Council influence criminal cases and the general supervision of legal processes through the Star Chamber.
The High Commission court was not restored, but church courts were, but with depleted powers. They accepted subordination to the common law courts. Because the church's administration was inefficient and corrupt and its punishments inadequate, they gradually lost their power to the common law justices and Justices of the Peace. They had virtually no authority over laymen. They could still punish heresy, but lost jurisdiction over the law of libel and slander, which then were transformed by the civil courts, and over prostitution and scandalous lewdness. Local ordinances for suppression of brothels, which were run by madams, were founded on breach of the peace. In 1678, the death sentence was taken away from the church courts. In 1697, church sanctuary was abolished.
The county courts faded into insignificance, as the Justices of the Peace took on more jurisdiction.
In 1668, new justices were issued patents with "at pleasure" instead of "during good behavior" describing their tenure. Charles II and James II frequently dismissed justices not favorably disposed to the Crown. In 1697, they were to have fixed salaries instead of the profits of justice. By statute of 1701, justices' commissions were to be made with an established salary determined by Parliament and a tenure to last during good behavior. They could be removed only by the address of both Houses of Parliament. This gave them independence from the king. Their tenure lasted for the life of the monarch.
As of 1679, no man could be held in prison but on a charge or conviction of crime or for debt. Every prisoner on a criminal charge could demand as a right from the Court of the King's Bench the issue of a writ of habeas corpus which bound his gaoler to produce the prisoner and the warrant on which he was imprisoned for review as to legality. This forced trials to be speedy, which they had not hitherto been. Now it was impossible for the Crown to detain a person for political reasons in defiance of both Parliament and the courts, as Charles I had done. The writ was suspended in times of war and domestic unrest: 1689, 1696, 1708.
In 1670, William Penn was arrested for sedition for delivering a sermon in London, contrary to the statute that only the Church of England could conduct meetings for worship. The jurors would not convict him, so were gaoled and fined by the justices. The jurors filed a writ of habeas corpus in the Court of Common Pleas, which held in their favor. Thereafter the English jury had full independence to decide verdicts. By court decision of 1679, jurors were held not to be responsible to the justice for their verdict.
After 1688, hearsay was inadmissible as evidence, which Coke had recommended. The old system of original writs was abandoned, and the general concept or a wrong to person or property took its place.
A person who was sergeant at law, counselor at law, barrister, advocate, attorney, solicitor, proctor [supervisor of students taking an eexam], clerk, or notary in the courts had to take the required oaths of allegiance and supremacy.
As of 1692, persons outlawed could appear by attorney as well as in person to argue reversal of such outlawry, except in cases of treason and felony.
As of 1696, persons accused of high treason where there might be corruption of the blood or for misprison [concealing knowledge] of such treason had to be taken before a grand jury for indictment within three years of the offense. Those indicted or outlawed for such were given a copy of the whole indictment, but not the names of witnesses, at least five days before trial in order to prepare their defense. They could have a copy of the panel of jurors at least two days before trial. They could be represented in their defense by not more than two counsel learned in the law and assigned by the court. Their counsel had free access to them at all reasonable hours. They could make proof through lawful witnesses under oath. In a trial of commoners for their lives, a jury of twelve freeholders had to all agree on acquittal or conviction. In a trial of a peer, the others peers in Parliament determined the outcome by a majority vote.
Jurors were required to have at least 20 pounds income from freehold land or rents in fee, fee tail, or for life. This increase in the quality of the jury enabled it to better discern the issues in dispute.
Jury sympathy was determined by the sheriff who chose the jury. So if a sheriff was popularly elected, as in London, he chose jurors who favored individual and corporate liberty. If the king selected the sheriff, he chose tories, who supported the Crown.
Issues of bastardy or lawfulness of marriage had to be tried by a jury.
The civil suit of trespass on the case branched into assumpsit [a promise], trover [to recover goods converted to the use of another], deceit, negligence, and libel and slander. The latter supplements bad words punished by the local courts and defamation punished by the church courts. Trover becomes the normal mode of trying the title to personal property and goods as the courts oblige the defendant to answer the charge of conversion without permitting him to dispute the loss and finding of the goods by the plaintiff.
This is an example of the initiation of a suit by a writ for trespass on the case: "The King to the sheriff &c. as in Trespass to show: wherefore (e.g.:___) he fixed piles across the water of Plim along which, between the Humber and Gaunt, there is a common passage for ships and boats, whereby a certain ship, with thirty quarters of malt of him the said A, was sunk under water, and twenty quarters of the malt of the price of one hundred shillings perished; and other wrongs &c. as in trespass."
This is an example of a writ for trespass on the case in assumpsit: "The King to the sheriff greeting &c. as in Trespass to show: wherefore whereas he the Said X undertook well and competently to cure the right eye of the Said A, which was accidentally injured, for a certain sum of money beforehand received, he the same X so negligently and carelessly applied his cure to the said eye, that the said A by the fault of him the said X totally lost the sight of the said eye, to the damage of him the said A of twenty pounds, as he saith, and have there &c. wherefore whereas he the said X undertook to make and build three carriages for conveying victuals of him the said A to parts beyond the sea for a certain sum of money beforehand received, within a certain term between them agreed; he the said X did not take care to make and build the carriages aforesaid within the term aforesaid, by which he the said A hath wholly lost divers his goods and chattels, to the value of one hundred marks, which ought to have been conveyed in the carriages aforesaid, for want thereof to the great damage of him the said A as it is said: and have there &c."
This is an example of a writ for case on indebitatus assumpsit: "The King to the sheriff &c. as in Trespass to show: for that, whereas the said X heretofore, to wit (date and place) was indebted to the said A in the sum of for divers goods wares and merchandises by the said A before that time sold and delivered to the said X at his special instance and request, and being so indebted, he the said X in consideration thereof afterwards to wit (date and place aforesaid) undertook and faithfully promised the said A to pay him the said sum of money when he the said X should be thereto afterwards requested. Yet the said X, not regarding his said promise and undertaking but contriving and fraudulently intending craftily and subtly to deceive and defraud the said A in this behalf, hath not yet paid the said sum of money or any part thereof to the said A (although oftentimes afterwards requested). But the said X to pay the same or any part thereof hath hitherto wholly refused and still refuses, to the damage of the said A of ——— pounds as it is said. And have you there &c."
This is an example of a writ for case for trover: "The King to the sheriff greeting &c. as in Trespass to show: for that, whereas the said A heretofore to wit [date and place] was lawfully possessed as of his own property, of certain goods and chattels to wit, twenty tables and twenty chairs of great value to wit of the value of ___ pounds of lawful money of great Britain; and, being so possessed thereof he the said A afterwards, to wit (date and place aforesaid) casually lost the said goods and chattels out of his possession: and the same afterward, to wit (date and place aforesaid) came into the possession of the said X by finding; Yet the said X well knowing the said goods and chattels to be the property of the said A and of right to belong and appertain to him, but, contriving and fraudulently intending craftily and subtly to deceive and defraud the said A in this behalf, hath not as yet delivered the said goods and chattels, or any part thereof, to the said A (although often requested so to do) but so to do hath hitherto wholly refused and still refuses; and afterwards to wit (date and place aforesaid) converted and disposed of the said goods and chattels to his the said X's own use, to the damage of the said A of ____ pounds as it is said; and have you there &c."
The rigid writs with specific forms of action for common law cases started to fall into disuse. Later, trespass on the case bifurcates into misdemeanor and the tort of trespass.
Persons in prison on suspicion of treason could not be released on bail as of 1688.
If one of several defendants of a case was acquitted, all defendants recovered their costs from the plaintiffs. A person found guilty of malicious prosecution recovered his costs from his accuser.
Mercantile cases were decided in light of mercantile custom
rather than according to the strict rules of the common law.
Merchants and traders could settle their trade disputes by
arbitration, which decision could be enforced by court order.
The chief justice could empower persons by commission to take affidavits from people in the country for court proceedings in Westminster.
Judgments were docketed so they could easily be found e.g. by
heirs, executors, administrators, purchasers, and mortgagees.
Court judgments and fines could be challenged for error only
within twenty years.
Court decisions were still appealable to the House of Lords. In 1668, Skinner v. East India Company held that the House of Lords could not exercise original jurisdiction in civil cases between commoners as it had claimed, but retained its appellate jurisdiction. In 1675, the House of Lords acquired the new judicial function of hearing appeals from the Chancery Court by virtue of the case of Shirley vs. Fagg.
Any gaol keeper allowing a prisoner to escape in return for
money lost his office forever and had to forfeit 500 pounds.
The last burning of a woman as a penalty for an offense, which
had been only occasional, was in 1688.
The last bill of attainder, which condemned a person to death,
occurred in 1697.
The pillory was still in use.
Benefit of clergy was taken away from those who stole cloth or woolen manufactures from their drying racks or who embezzled military stores or ammunition worth at least 20s, or stole goods of over 5s. value from a dwelling house with a person therein put in fear, a dwelling house in daytime with a person therein, or by day or night a shop or warehouse.
A statute of 1661 gave jurisdiction to naval courts-martial to decide cases at sea, e.g. insubordination; failure to fight the enemy, a pirate, or rebels; not assisting a friend, mutiny, drunkenness, creating a disturbance to protest the quality of the food, quarreling, sleeping on watch, sodomy, murder, robbery, theft, and misdemeanors. Usually the penalty was to be determined by the courts-martial, but sometimes death was decreed.
In the American colonies, judges were still appointed by the royal governors and paid by the local legislatures. They still served at the pleasure of the king.