Aristocrats
AFTER the Glorious Revolution, ordinary people were sure things would get better. “From now on, Parliament will meet every year,” they told each other. “We’ll have more of a say in things!”
And it was true that the law courts worked better, people could go to church where they wanted, and many became richer (so long as they hadn’t put their money in the South Sea Company). But although Britain was free, it didn’t become more fair. If anything, it became less so, because while the richest people got richer, the poorest stayed hungry.
Aristocrats – the dukes, earls and barons who sat in the House of Lords – were the richest of all. The House of Lords was half of Parliament, so when Parliament became more important, the lords became more important too. They even started to take over the House of Commons, for a lot of MPs were the younger brothers of lords, and the rest were gentlemen, which was the next rank down from a lord. Besides, aristocrats owned so much land that they could get their favourite candidates elected by their tenants.
Once they were in control of Parliament, the aristocrats passed laws to make themselves even richer. They took away the common land where country people used to graze their cows and sheep, enclosing it with hedges to make farms for themselves. They invented jobs paid by the government, and gave them to their families and friends. Politicians became more and more dishonest, and it became harder to get rid of them because aristocrats passed a law to stop elections happening too often. In fact, a lot of MPs were simply chosen by the local lord, so it was hardly worth voting anyway.
As they became richer, aristocrats used their money to build palaces, which they decorated with columns and filled with paintings and statues. Around them they laid out parks with fountains and lakes, and around the parks built high walls to keep everyone else out. Today we can all visit stately homes, and walk through the grand rooms where aristocrats held their parties, but at the time, no one was allowed in. Poor men who were caught climbing the walls to hunt rabbits were hanged as thieves.
For the poor, life seemed to be getting harder just as everyone else was getting rich. So it wasn’t surprising that some of them turned to crime.
Stand and Deliver!
IN London, poor people didn’t have anywhere to live, so they slept in doorways and alleys, or crammed into slums where ten strangers had to share a bed. In those days governments didn’t think it was their business to look after the poor, so there were no doctors to treat them when they grew sick, no schools to educate their children, and if a man had an accident and couldn’t work, his family starved.
Because London was said to be rich, people flocked there from all over the country to make their fortunes. They sailed across the sea from Ireland, tramped down the highways from Glasgow and Cardiff, and left villages where they had lived all their lives. But there was nothing for them in London. All they could do was walk along the streets and gaze in shop windows full of gold watches, jewels, silk handkerchiefs and fine clothes that cost more than they would earn in their whole lives.
Being poor was worse when everyone else was getting richer, so some people started to steal. As pickpockets pushed through crowds, hoping to take a gentleman’s purse or silk handkerchief, the city became more and more dangerous, particularly at night. There were no street lights. Anyone crossing an alley might be set upon and robbed.
“We must punish thieves more harshly,” the politicians decided.
In those days murderers and thieves were killed by the government. They were taken to Tyburn, near Marble Arch, where nooses were put round their necks and they were hanged. Crowds turned up to watch, and cheered as they do at football matches today.
To start with only the worst criminals were killed, but as politicians became more worried about crime, they executed less serious criminals too. A mother who stole bread for her children could be hanged; so could a boy of ten who stole a biscuit. Everyone could see that wasn’t fair. And because the law was unfair, people stopped respecting it. They cheered criminals as if they were heroes, and told stories about their favourites.
Some stories were about pirates like Blackbeard and Captain Kidd, who sailed to the Caribbean to attack ships, stealing their cargo and drowning the sailors. Pirates didn’t have any law to live by or aristocrats to sneer at them, but did as they pleased. Others were about the highwaymen who stopped carriages on lonely roads out of London to steal money and jewels from the passengers.
In these stories highwaymen weren’t villains, but “gentlemen of the road” who fought bravely, and treated their victims with courtesy. And the most famous of all was Dick Turpin, who robbed travellers on the road through Epping Forest.
One day Dick Turpin stopped a gentleman riding a fine black racehorse. “I’ll swap your horse for mine,” he said, and rode away on Black Bess, the fastest horse in England. Soon afterwards, when he was ambushed at Whitechapel, he leaped onto Black Bess, rode out of London, and – so the story went – galloped all the way to York in just fifteen hours.
When he was finally captured and sentenced to death, Dick Turpin spent his last money on fine clothes so he could hold parties in his prison cell. A huge crowd came to cheer him when he was hanged. And even after his death, travellers in Epping Forest still peered nervously out of their carriage windows and shouted at their coachmen to whip the horses harder. They could still imagine Dick Turpin galloping out of the trees on Black Bess to shout the highwayman’s cry: “Stand and deliver!”
Bonnie Prince Charlie
LONG after the 1715 rebellion had failed, Jacobites kept dreaming they could bring back the Pretender, who went on living abroad as King James III. By now he had a son called Charles, so James became known as the Old Pretender, while his son was called the Young Pretender. Gradually, though, most people stopped worrying about the Jacobites. George I died, and his son, George II, became king, but there was no Jacobite rebellion.
“It’s ancient history,” everyone said. “We ought to look forward, not back.”
But just when they least expected it, the Young Pretender started a rebellion in Scotland that almost drove the Georges off their throne. It happened in 1745 and became known as the ’45.
The Jacobite plan was for Charles to land in Scotland with a French army, beat the British, and proclaim the Old Pretender king. The French never sent their army, but the Young Pretender sailed to Scotland and began the rebellion anyway.
Charles was young and handsome – so handsome that the Scots called him Bonnie Prince Charlie – and Scottish Jacobites hurried to join him. Bonnie Prince Charlie led his little force into Edinburgh and crowds cheered as he rode up the Royal Mile, smiling and waving his hat in the sunshine. Soon afterwards he beat the British army at the Battle of Prestonpans.
“When we invade England,” he told his generals, “all the Jacobites will join us and we will ride into London in triumph!”
So he led the Scottish Jacobites across the hills into England. Most of his army came from the Highlands, wore Highland clothes and carried the old Highland weapons of sword and shield. They captured Carlisle, and then Manchester. When they reached Derby, news came that everyone in London was panicking, lords and ladies were fleeing the city, and the Bank of England had closed down.
But Bonnie Prince Charlie’s generals were becoming worried, for no English Jacobites had joined them. In fact, there didn’t seem to be any English Jacobites left. They had hoped the Irish would rebel when they heard of the Young Pretender’s landing, but nothing happened in Ireland either. Besides, although Scots had cheered when the Jacobites captured Edinburgh, the generals knew many Scots liked the Union, and wanted to keep King George. They also knew the British army was far bigger than their little band of Highland fighters, and had discovered, by now, that Bonnie Prince Charlie was not the great leader Jacobites had longed for.
“He’s always drunk,” they whispered. “And he behaves like a spoiled child! He has tantrums if he doesn’t get his way!”
So
they told the Young Pretender they had no choice but to return to safety in Scotland. He was furious, but his generals insisted, and they set off north with Bonnie Prince Charlie sulking in his carriage.
No one cheered as they marched back into Edinburgh. People were tired of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s adventure, and many Lowland Scots had joined the British army that was pursuing the Jacobites. There were even some highlanders among them. The army was led by King George II’s second son, the duke of Cumberland, and instead of swords and shields it had muskets and cannon. One by one, Bonnie Prince Charlie’s supporters left to go home. And when the remaining soldiers marched north into the Highlands, the British army followed them.
The two armies camped north of Inverness.
“We’ll take them by surprise!” shouted the prince, who was drunk – as usual – and he ordered a night attack.
In darkness the Jacobites set off towards the British army. It began to rain, the moorland grew boggy and they lost their way. Exhausted, frozen and soaked to the bone, they went back to where they started. They were so tired they lay down to sleep in the rain, and, when the trumpets blew at dawn, could barely get to their feet. They had had nothing to eat since the morning before.
On the other side of the moor, they watched the British army form a line with bugles blaring and flags flying.
“What is the name of this place?” asked Bonnie Prince Charlie.
“Culloden Moor,” said his generals.
The tired and hungry highlanders were as brave as ever. When they were ordered to charge, they waved their swords and ran across the heather towards the British guns. But the battle didn’t last long. By mid-morning Culloden Moor was covered with dead Jacobites, while gun smoke drifted along the lines of British soldiers.
“What shall we do with the prisoners, Your Grace?” a British officer asked the duke of Cumberland.
The duke smiled grimly. “Kill them,” he said. “And destroy their lands.”
Jacobite prisoners were lined up against walls and shot. They were herded into barns and burnt alive. Their villages were set on fire, and their families driven off their farms. Because of his cruel order, the duke was known afterwards as “Butcher” Cumberland.
Many Scots had fought against Bonnie Prince Charlie, and it was completely unfair to punish the whole of Scotland for what the Jacobites had done. But laws were passed to ban highlanders from wearing tartan or playing the bagpipes, and soldiers marched along the glens, building forts and destroying villages.
The Highlands were never the same again. To make things worse, the Highland chiefs turned on their own people soon afterwards. They wanted to be like English lords, with palaces and huge estates, so they drove their followers out of their cottages, set fire to villages, and put up fences around their land. Barefoot and hungry, the highlanders walked west, carrying their children and their few possessions with them. They walked to the sea, because there was nowhere else for them to go. And when they reached it, since they had no other choice, they crossed it to find a new life in America, where their descendants still live today.
And what of Bonnie Prince Charlie?
He escaped from Culloden. Keeping well hidden, he travelled west until he reached the coast. There he met a young woman called Flora Macdonald, who took one look at his handsome face and fell in love with him. She rowed him to the Isle of Skye, and disguised him as a girl until a French ship came to take him away.
Flora Macdonald never saw Bonnie Prince Charlie again. Nor did Scotland. He went to live in Italy and died drunk, and neither he nor his father, the Old Pretender, ever uttered a word of regret about the ruin they had brought on Scotland.
Rule, Britannia!
FROM then on, there were no more Jacobite rebellions. The British became strong and successful together. They grew to love their Union Jack, made of the linked flags of England and Scotland, and their favourite songs, “God Save the King” and “Rule, Britannia”.
Rule, Britannia! Britannia rules the waves!
Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.
And it wasn’t long before a new war with France gave them the chance to show how strong their country was. It became known as the Seven Years War, because it lasted for exactly seven years, and it turned Britain into the most powerful country on earth.
By this time, thanks to their great ships and guns, European countries were taking over the rest of the world. The Spanish and Portuguese ran South America; the British and French had colonies in North America; while the British, French and Dutch owned trading towns in India and China. No one else had fleets so powerful; no one could defeat European armies. But wherever they met, Europeans attacked one another’s ships, colonies and trading towns, so the Seven Years War was fought all over the world.
The war started with disaster for Great Britain. The French attacked the island of Minorca, which the British owned. They sent a fleet to the rescue, but its admiral, John Byng, arrived too late to help. He was sentenced to death for cowardice, and shot on the deck of his own ship.
Then, in India, a prince called Siraj ud-Daulah attacked the British town of Calcutta (which is now called Kolkata). After capturing it, he ordered all the British prisoners to be locked in a cell, so men, women and children were forced together into a single tiny room. Children were crushed underfoot, people screamed as they were squeezed against the walls, and there was only one small window, so no one could breathe properly. By morning, only twenty-three of the one hundred and forty-six prisoners were still alive. Afterwards the survivors called their prison the Black Hole of Calcutta.
Finally, Britain and Prussia (Britain’s German ally) were beaten by the French in a battle in Europe.
Angry and confused, the British gathered in the streets of Edinburgh, Cardiff, Dublin and London. Politicians argued in Parliament, and at last chose a new leader called William Pitt. He wasn’t a lord, so people called him The Great Commoner, but William Pitt turned out to be a brilliant leader. While he was in charge, Britain won its greatest victories yet. First the British and Prussians beat the French at the Battle of Minden. Next, Admiral Hawke destroyed the entire French fleet at the Battle of Quiberon Bay. Then the British captured most of the French islands in the Caribbean.
The most spectacular victory of all was in North America. Much of Canada belonged to the French, and its biggest town was Quebec, which stood on a high cliff. Everyone said it couldn’t be captured, but General James Wolfe came up with a plan. At dead of night, his soldiers climbed the cliff, moving carefully so their weapons didn’t make a sound. At dawn they fell on the French, and although James Wolfe himself was killed, Quebec was captured and all of North America became British.
The year 1759 was known as Britain’s “year of victories”, or, in Latin, “annus mirabilis”. All over the country, people waved flags and sang songs. Once, Britain and Ireland had been two small, distant islands; after the Seven Years War they were at the very centre of the world. Ships of the Royal Navy commanded every ocean. Soldiers from Scotland, Ireland, England and Wales marched over European plains and through American forests.
And they marched across Asia as well. For one of Britain’s most important victories in the Seven Years War took place in India, where the British defeated Siraj ud-Daulah and founded an empire that lasted for the next two hundred years.
India
CENTURIES before, India had been conquered by the Mughals, who came from the north. But the empire of the Mughals had grown weaker, and they couldn’t stop Britain and France setting up trading towns where merchants of the British East India Company went to buy tea, silks and spices. The merchants loved India for its ancient palaces and temples, its elegance, luxury and learning. Many of them married Indian women and dressed in the Indian way.
As the East India Company grew richer, it became more powerful. It hired soldiers to protect its trading towns, fought wars with the French towns near by, and joined in quarrels between Indian princes. That was why Siraj ud-Daulah
attacked the British town of Calcutta.
The British were determined to have their revenge, so the East India Company sent its best general, Robert Clive, to win Calcutta back. Clive, who had been so wild as a boy that his family sent him to India to get him out of the way, turned out to be a brilliant soldier. With only a small army he defeated Siraj ud-Daulah at the Battle of Plassey, then beat the French and drove them out of India.
That left the British the most powerful people in India, and the East India Company richer than ever. But Clive wanted more, so he approached the Mughal emperor and offered to buy the whole of Bengal. Indians couldn’t believe the East India Company could actually buy part of their country. “The transaction was done and finished,” one of them wrote sadly, “in less time than would have been taken up in the sale of a jackass!” But from then on, the British took over more and more land until they ruled the whole of India.
Many Hindu Indians were glad to see the Mughals go, because they were Muslim. As for the East India Company, it didn’t seem to believe in anything except money. Robert Clive became rich, and hundreds of merchants from Britain arrived in India to make themselves fortunes. The Indians watched them building houses and offices. They watched the East India Company’s soldiers marching across the plains, and its sailors loading ships with cargoes to take back to Britain. They found that some Britons loved India, learned its languages and became their friends, while others treated them cruelly, as if they were inferior.
The Story of Britain Page 16