In this lecture Professor Wrightson considers the events leading to the execution of Charles I in 1649, and the republican regimes of 1649-60 (the Commonwealth and the Protectorate), with particular attention to the role of Oliver Cromwell. He begins with the unsuccessful attempts to negotiate a settlement with Charles I after the civil war, the intervention of the army in 1647 and the outbreak of the second civil war in 1648, which culminated in Pride's Purge and the trial and execution of Chares I. He then considers Cromwell's campaigns in 1649-51, his expulsion of the Rump Parliament in 1653, the nominated parliament of 1653 (Barebone's Parliament) and the two phases of the Cromwellian Protectorate 1654-8, ending with the instability following Cromwell's death and the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. Professor Wrightson notes that although the Restoration marked the failure of the revolution, the political landscape had been irrevocably changed. The restored monarchy lived in the shadow of the civil war, the politicization of a large section of society was not reversed, religious dissent was now a permanent reality, and a plethora of new political and religious ideas had been advanced.

Reading assignment:
Kishlansky, Monarchy Transformed, pp. 170-222

1. General Introduction
2. "The Tree of Commonwealth": The Social Order in the Sixteenth Century
3. Households: Structures, Priorities, Strategies, Roles
4. Communities: Key Institutions and Relationships
5. "Countries" and Nation: Social and Economic Networks and the Urban System
6. The Structures of Power
7. Late Medieval Religion and Its Critics
8. Reformation and Division, 1530-1558
9. "Commodity" and "Commonwealth": Economic and Social Problems, 1520-1560
10. The Elizabethan Confessional State: Conformity, Papists and Puritans
11. The Elizabethan "Monarchical Republic": Political Participation
12. Economic Expansion, 1560-1640
13. A Polarizing Society, 1560-1640
14. Witchcraft and Magic
15. Crime and the Law
16. Popular Protest
17. Education and Literacy
18. Street Wars of Religion: Puritans and Arminians
19. Crown and Political Nation, 1604-1640
20. Constitutional Revolution and Civil War, 1640-1646
21. Regicide and Republic, 1647-1660
22. An Unsettled Settlement: The Restoration Era, 1660-1688
23. England, Britain, and the World: Economic Development, 1660-1720
24. Refashioning the State, 1688-1714
25. Concluding Discussion and Advice on Examination

This course is intended to provide an up-to-date introduction to the development of English society between the late fifteenth and the early eighteenth centuries. Particular issues addressed in the lectures will include: the changing social structure; households; local communities; gender roles; economic development; urbanization; religious change from the Reformation to the Act of Toleration; the Tudor and Stuart monarchies; rebellion, popular protest and civil war; witchcraft; education, literacy and print culture; crime and the law; poverty and social welfare; the changing structures and dynamics of political participation and the emergence of parliamentary government.

Course Structure:
This Yale College course, taught on campus twice per week for 50 minutes, was recorded for Open Yale Courses in Fall 2009.