The eighteenth century

Politically, this century was stable. Monarch and Parliament got on quite well together. One reason for this was that the monarch's favourite politicians, through the royal power of patronage (the ability to give people jobs), were able to control the election and voting habits of a large number of Members of Parliament (MPs) in the House of Commons.

Within Parliament the divisions of the previous century, though far less bitter than before, were echoed in the formation of two vaguely opposed loose collections of allies. One group, the Whigs, were the political 'descendants' of the parliamentarians. They supported the Protestant values of hard work and thrift, were sympathetic to Dissenters and believed in government by monarch and aristo­cracy together. The other group, the Tories, had a greater respect for the idea of the monarchy and the importance of the Anglican Church (and sometimes even a little sympathy for Catholics and the Stuarts). The two terms, Whig und Tory, had in fact first been used in the late 1670s, and allegiance to one side or the other was more often the result of family or regional loyalty than of political beliefs. This could be said, however, to be the beginning of the party system in Britain.

The modern system of an annual budget drawn up by the mon­arch's Treasury officials for the approval of Parliament was established during this century. So, too, was the habit of the monarch appointing one principal, or 'Prime', Minister from the ranks of Parliament to head his government.

At the beginning of the century, by agreement, the Scottish Parlia­ment joined with the English and Welsh Parliament at Westminster in London. However, Scotland retained its own system of law. more similar to continental European systems than to that of England. It does so to this day.

The only part of Britain to change radically as a result of political forces in this century was the highlands area of Scotland. This area twice supported failed attempts to put a (Catholic) Stuart monarch back on the throne by force. After the second attempt, many inhabitants of the highlands were killed or sent away from Britain and the wearing of highland dress (the tartan kilt) was banned. The Celtic way of life was effectively destroyed.

It was cultural change that was most marked in this century. Britain gradually expanded its empire in the Americas, along the west African coast and in India. The increased trade which resulted from the links with these new markets was one factor which led to the Industrial Revolution. The many technical innovations in the areas of manufac­turing and transport during this period were also important contributing factors.

In England, the growth of the industrial mode of production, together with advances in agriculture, caused the greatest upheaval in the pattern of everyday life since the Anglo-Saxon invasions. Areas of common land, which had been available for use by everybody in a village for the grazing of animals since Anglo-Saxon times, disap­peared as landowners incorporated them into their increasingly large and more efficient farms. (Some pieces of common land remain in Britain today, used mainly as public parks. They are often called 'the common'.) Hundreds of thousands of people moved from rural areas into new towns and cities. Most of these new towns and cities were in the north of England, where the raw materials for industry were available. In this way, the north, which had previously been econom­ically backward compared to the south, became the industrial heartland of the country. The right conditions for industrialisation also existed in lowland Scotland and south Wales, which accentuated the differences between those parts of these countries and their non-industrialised areas.

In the south of England, London came to dominate, not as an industrial centre but as a business and trading centre. By the end of the century, it had a population close to a million.

Despite all the urban development, social power andprestigerested on the possession of land in the countryside. The outward sign of this prestige was the ownership of a country seat-agraciouscountry mansion with land attached. More than a thousand such mansions were built in the eighteenth century.

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 1034