英國史第九集：Revolutions（1649——1689）

[00:00.00] [00:34.35] [00:37.64]On January 30th, 1649, the English killed their king. [00:43.35] [00:44.56]It had happened before - [00:46.55] [00:46.72]all those Edwards and Richards done in by their subjects. [00:51.19] [00:51.36]But this was different. [00:53.75] [00:53.92]The British monarchy itself had been exterminated. [00:57.91] [00:58.08]Now there was just the people and its parliament, [01:01.79] [01:01.96]the keepers of the liberties of England. [01:04.99] [01:05.16]What use was freedom when you were frightened? [01:08.59] [01:08.76]What the people really wanted to know was - who would keep them safe? [01:13.78] [01:19.20]Who'd stop the soldiers burning and pillaging, [01:22.79] [01:22.96]allow people to sleep quietly in their beds? [01:25.95] [01:26.12]Who'd protect them from the wars of religion and politics [01:29.75] [01:29.92]which seemed to go on and on and on? [01:33.43] [01:35.52]Would it be parliament or would it be a great general like Oliver Cromwell? [01:40.51] [01:42.08]"It doesn't matter," said hard-headed philosopher Thomas Hobbes, [01:47.20] [01:47.36]a royalist who'd come back to Cromwell's England. [01:50.83] [01:51.00]"What the country needs is a strong ruler [01:53.99] [01:54.16]"who embodies ALL the people. [01:56.88] [02:00.32]"Whatever or whoever can save the country from anarchy, [02:04.10] [02:04.28]"whatever can save you from yourselves. [02:07.63] [02:07.80]"Never mind about what's right or wrong. [02:10.67] [02:10.84]"Put yourself in the hands of the power that protects, [02:14.39] [02:14.56]"the all-powerful Leviathan." [02:17.31] [02:22.48]If that's Oliver Cromwell, then so be it. [02:26.15] [02:26.32]It's the reasonable thing to do. [02:29.63] [02:29.80]The Scots, the English and the Irish were not about to be reasonable. [02:33.71] [02:33.88]They were much too busy being righteous. [02:36.83] [02:37.00]Over the next half century, righteousness would kill a lot of the British. [02:41.99] [02:42.16]At the end, reason would appear, but not before a lot of tears had been shed. [02:47.75] [02:47.92]Tears of rapture and tears of grief. [02:50.99] [03:31.80]Not everyone was lying awake at night biting their nails about the plight [03:36.55] [03:36.72]of kingless Britain. [03:38.95] [03:39.12]For many, this was the dawn of a new age. [03:42.63] [03:42.80]No one had foreseen this during the civil wars, [03:46.39] [03:46.56]but in giving them victory, the Almighty had shown them [03:49.75] [03:49.92]that Albion must be turned into Jerusalem. [03:53.23] [03:53.40]He had lain the Stuart kings in the dust. [03:56.59] [03:56.76]The only king to follow now was King Jesus, [04:00.43] [04:00.60]and the only true government that of his saints. [04:04.56] [04:10.44]Let them sing aloud, [04:12.63] [04:12.80]let the high praise of God be in their mouth [04:15.79] [04:15.96]and a two-edged sword in their hand! [04:18.27] [04:27.88]The kingdom of God was at hand, the most blessed revolution of all. [04:31.87] [04:32.04]No one was more convinced of this than Albion's holy warrior - Oliver Cromwell. [04:38.27] [04:41.04]Religion was not at first the thing contended for, [04:44.82] [04:45.00]but God brought it to that issue [04:47.31] [04:47.48]and at last it proved that which was most dear to us. [04:51.75] [04:55.24]Cromwell called himself "a seeker", [04:57.83] [04:58.00]and what he sought all his life was God's destiny for himself and for his country. [05:05.27] [05:05.44]At first, he'd been innocent of the Lord's design. [05:08.67] [05:08.84]For years, he'd led the life of an obscure East Anglian country gentleman. [05:13.83] [05:15.00]As Cromwell began to make his way in the world, [05:18.15] [05:18.32]some sort of crisis happened to his modest fortune. [05:21.91] [05:23.16]But what the world might have seen as misfortune [05:26.55] [05:26.72]was, through the cunning of the Almighty, his saving grace. [05:30.95] [05:32.48]He underwent some kind of religious conversion. [05:35.47] [05:35.64]The vanities were stripped away so he might be opened to the light. [05:41.07] [05:43.04]Oh, I lived in and loved darkness and hated the light! [05:47.91] [05:48.08]This is true. I hated Godliness, yet God had mercy on me. [05:53.87] [05:54.04]Oh, the riches of His mercy! [05:57.07] [06:00.76]The sense that God had some special service for him [06:04.19] [06:04.36]made a new man of Cromwell. [06:06.59] [06:06.76]He knew where he was going. He knew what had to be done. [06:11.31] [06:11.48]He must tear the sword out of the hands of the untrustworthy, Papist-loving king. [06:18.43] [06:21.64]He went to war as a complete novice with no military experience. [06:26.35] [06:27.32]His sense of divine appointment was his armour. [06:30.19] [06:30.88]It made him supremely confident, cool under fire, [06:34.47] [06:34.64]but never reckless. [06:36.71] [06:38.88]An aura of invincibility began to cling to him. [06:42.31] [06:42.48]He became the driving force of the Godly Revolution. [06:47.47] [06:49.36]When the vanquished king defied God's judgement, [06:53.55] [06:53.72]his blood was needed to expiate the crime. [06:57.71] [06:57.88]But it became obvious that doing away with the monarch [07:01.07] [07:01.24]was no guarantee of doing away with the monarchy. [07:04.59] [07:04.76]For if Charles couldn't be among his subjects in person, his proxy could. [07:09.99] [07:13.96]The Greek word 'icon' means both an image and a copy. [07:17.55] [07:17.72]The "Eikon Basilike", the spitting image of the king, [07:21.19] [07:21.36]appeared within a week of his execution. [07:24.23] [07:25.24]It was an instant bestseller, going through 35 editions in a year, [07:29.28] [07:29.44]and it made Charles an imperishable martyr... [07:33.03] [07:34.64]...a latter-day Christ sacrificed for the sins of his people. [07:39.19] [07:39.84]Like Christ, Charles would be resurrected wearing his heavenly crown [07:44.75] [07:44.92]and made flesh in the person of his son, Charles II, [07:48.63] [07:48.80]awaiting the call from exile in France. [07:51.83] [07:55.00]The poet John Milton, a champion of the parliamentary Commonwealth, [07:59.99] [08:00.16]was hired to attack the cult of the king martyr as so much wicked idolatry, [08:06.19] [08:06.36]to persuade the fearful and gullible they didn't need a Charles I. [08:10.67] [08:10.84]In fact, they didn't need any Stuart monarch. [08:13.87] [08:14.04]"Look," he wanted to say, "just stop worrying about the dead king. [08:18.43] [08:18.60]"You're the sovereign now. Come to think of it, you've always been the sovereign. [08:23.19] [08:23.36]"Kings have been yours to hire or fire." [08:26.75] [08:28.60]But when Cromwell and Milton told the people [08:31.39] [08:31.56]that it was time for them to govern themselves, [08:34.28] [08:34.44]they didn't, of course, mean to be taken literally. [08:37.83] [08:38.00]What? Every jumped-up weaver or ploughman [08:40.91] [08:41.08]with some sixpenny book-learning appointing himself the magistrate [08:45.19] [08:45.36]of Mucking-on-the-Wold, granting himself the vote? [08:48.75] [08:48.92]Heaven forbid! That way lay chaos. [08:52.70] [08:55.32]No, the people should put the government [08:57.91] [08:58.08]into the hands of the kind of men God saw fittest to exercise it - [09:02.23] [09:02.40]incorruptible men of substance and piety. [09:06.39] [09:07.32]"Oh, I see," said free-born John Lilburne, the Leveller, [09:11.36] [09:11.52]an ex-army officer who wanted to level the distance [09:14.47] [09:14.64]between the mighty and the humble, the rich and the poor. [09:17.95] [09:18.12]"The same kind of people who got us into this mess." [09:22.16] [09:31.28]We've all known a John Lilburne, some of us have even been John Lilburne. [09:35.95] [09:36.12]First at the barricades, first to be arrested, won't shut up! [09:40.16] [09:40.32]But love him or hate him, you know he won't go away. [09:44.71] [09:47.04]To Cromwell, he was a pain in the neck, [09:49.71] [09:49.88]a dangerous loudmouth, capable of wrecking discipline in the army. [09:53.87] [09:56.56]Lilburne, for his part, detested the new regime. [10:00.34] [10:03.20]All you intended when you set us fighting was to unhorse our old riders and tyrants [10:08.48] [10:08.64]so that you might get up and ride in their stead. [10:12.23] [10:12.40]The soldiers read Freeborn John and believed they should have a vote. [10:17.35] [10:17.96]Give them an inch and they take a mile and, pretty soon, they'd start believing [10:22.67] [10:22.84]their officers were the tyrants Lilburne and the Levellers said they were. [10:26.91] [10:29.84]They had to be stopped. [10:31.83] [10:32.00]An army was not, repeat not, a commune. [10:35.71] [10:39.24]I tell you, you have no other way to deal with these men, [10:43.39] [10:43.56]but to break them or they will break you. [10:46.35] [10:46.52]Yea, and bring all the guilt of the blood and treasure shed and spent [10:51.03] [10:51.20]in this kingdom upon your heads and shoulders [10:54.95] [10:55.12]and frustrate and make void [10:57.31] [10:57.48]all that work that with so many years' industry, toil and pains you have done. [11:03.23] [11:03.40]I tell you again, you are necessitated to break them. [11:07.75] [11:10.44]Off to the Tower went the Leveller leaders like so many traitors. [11:15.95] [11:16.12]Then something astounding happened. [11:18.55] [11:19.88]A petitioning campaign to demand the Levellers' release [11:23.19] [11:23.36]was mobilised in London by Leveller women. [11:27.79] [11:27.96]For the Puritans, the cardinal virtues of women were silence and meekness. [11:33.03] [11:33.20]But these women were shameless, obstinate, loud-mouthed, [11:37.19] [11:37.36]and, it has to admitted, brave. [11:40.31] [11:41.60]Leveller women had always been involved in the movement's campaigns. [11:46.75] [11:46.92]Elizabeth Lilburne had been politicised through her efforts to spring her husband [11:51.91] [11:52.08]from one prison or another. [11:54.51] [11:54.68]Mary Overton had been brutally punished [11:57.14] [11:57.32]for printing and distributing her husband's tracts. [12:00.71] [12:00.88]Tied to a cart and dragged through London's streets [12:04.19] [12:04.36]with her six-month-old baby, pelted and abused like a common whore. [12:09.48] [12:09.64]But the most impassioned and articulate of the sisters was Katherine Chidley. [12:14.63] [12:14.80]She started as a charismatic preacher and turned to politics [12:18.71] [12:18.88]in an attempt to make the Commonwealth understand [12:22.07] [12:22.24]the particular sufferings of her sex. [12:25.03] [12:27.08]We have an equal share and interest with men in the Commonwealth, [12:31.71] [12:31.88]and it cannot be laid waste. [12:34.60] [12:34.76]Considering that poverty, misery and famine, [12:38.15] [12:38.32]like a mighty torrent, is breaking in upon us [12:42.03] [12:42.20]and we are not able to see our children hang upon us and cry out for bread [12:47.59] [12:47.76]and not have wherewithal to feed them, we had rather die than see that day! [12:54.07] [12:56.68]This was not what Oliver Cromwell had expected from Jerusalem. [13:01.63] [13:02.40]It got worse. [13:04.51] [13:09.32]In May 1649, some hundreds of soldiers mutinied [13:13.20] [13:13.36]and tried to combine forces in Oxfordshire. [13:16.51] [13:17.92]Cromwell rode hell for leather - 50 miles in a day - [13:21.63] [13:21.80]and caught them in the middle of the night at Burford. [13:26.15] [13:30.72]One of the prisoners, Anthony Sedley, locked in the church, [13:34.79] [13:34.96]expecting the worst, carved his name into the font. [13:38.92] [13:39.84]The next morning, three of his comrades were led into the churchyard and shot. [13:45.87] [13:49.60]Then Oliver went off to get an honorary degree in law from Oxford. [13:54.99] [13:56.92]He made sure that the mutinous soldiers were shipped off to a place [14:01.23] [14:01.40]where they could vent their frustration on someone else. [14:05.63] [14:05.80]"Angry, are we?" was his line. [14:08.23] [14:08.40]"Want to know who's to blame for prolonging the civil wars?" [14:13.11] [14:15.04]Say hello to the Antichrist across the Irish Sea. [14:19.43] [14:20.36]The target of Cromwell's march through blood [14:23.03] [14:23.20]was an army of royalists holding out in Ireland in the name of the king's son. [14:28.63] [14:28.80]It was as much Protestant as Catholic, [14:31.55] [14:31.72]but in his conviction they were the legions of the Devil, [14:35.11] [14:35.28]Cromwell was not about to make nice distinctions. [14:39.32] [14:41.56]At Drogheda, on the main road between Dublin and Ulster, [14:44.95] [14:45.12]he made it only too clear what he had in mind. [14:49.39] [14:49.56]There's no point side-stepping this horror, is there? [14:53.15] [14:53.32]This was Cromwell's war crime, [14:55.78] [14:55.96]an atrocity so hideous, it's contaminated Anglo-Irish history ever since. [15:01.43] [15:01.60]We need to get right just what this atrocity was. [15:05.38] [15:05.56]What it wasn't was the indiscriminate butchery of women and children. [15:09.75] [15:09.92]No eye-witnesses ever claimed to have seen any such thing. [15:14.51] [15:14.68]But what Cromwell did order, unhesitatingly and without any mercy, [15:19.31] [15:19.48]was, in any case, an act of unspeakable murder. [15:24.91] [15:31.96]At least 3,000 royalist soldiers were butchered at Drogheda... [15:37.11] [15:39.16]...the vast majority after they had surrendered and disarmed. [15:43.95] [15:52.44]At St Peter's Church, Cromwell had his soldiers burn the pews [15:56.43] [15:56.60]beneath the steeple to smoke out the defenders, [15:59.51] [15:59.68]who were incinerated in the flames. [16:02.40] [16:03.36]The General saw no need to hang his head about the massacre. [16:07.43] [16:07.60]We are come to break the power of lawless rebels [16:11.03] [16:11.20]who, having cast off the authority of England, [16:13.59] [16:13.76]live as enemies to human society, whose principles are to destroy and subjugate [16:18.75] [16:18.92]all men not complying with them. [16:21.95] [16:22.12]We come by the assistance of God [16:24.84] [16:25.00]to hold forth and maintain the lustre and glory of English liberty [16:29.11] [16:29.28]in a nation where we have an undoubted right to it. [16:33.95] [16:34.12]This is absolutely authentic Oliver Cromwell [16:37.47] [16:37.64]and today it makes for unbearable reading. [16:41.19] [16:41.36]No, it's not the confession of a genocidal lunatic. [16:44.99] [16:45.16]It IS the confession of a narrow-minded, pig-headed Protestant bigot [16:50.11] [16:50.28]and English imperialist, and that surely is bad enough. [16:55.91] [16:58.24]Cromwell treated Ireland like the primitive colony he thought it was, [17:03.71] [17:03.88]moving the native Irish off their farms and using the land to pay his soldiers. [17:09.35] [17:09.52]Before he could finish his pacification, if that's what he thought it was, [17:14.31] [17:14.48]another piece of unquiet Britain rose up to mock him. [17:18.87] [17:20.00]For the Scots had invited the 20-year-old Charles II to come and be their king [17:26.07] [17:26.28]and went to war on his behalf. [17:29.07] [17:31.60]Cromwell lured them into England in the summer of 1651. [17:36.07] [17:36.24]The Scottish army found itself caught between two massively bigger forces. [17:41.47] [17:45.40]At the Battle of Worcester, on the 3rd September, [17:48.39] [17:48.56]it went down to a ruinous and irreversible defeat. [17:53.27] [17:57.00]Charles went on the run, hidden by royalist sympathisers [18:00.43] [18:00.60]until he could get smuggled out of the country. [18:03.91] [18:05.24](TRUMPET FANFARE) [18:08.51] [18:11.24]So when Oliver Cromwell returned to London in the autumn of 1651, [18:16.15] [18:16.32]it was as an English Caesar, the like of whom had not been seen [18:20.67] [18:20.84]since the days of Edward I. [18:23.40] [18:24.56]If Cromwell was God's Englishman, [18:27.15] [18:27.32]it was because he felt in his marrow that England was God's true promised land [18:32.31] [18:32.48]and the best thing for Britain was that it become as English as possible. [18:37.19] [18:39.00]The Stuart dream of the united Britain, of course, [18:42.03] [18:42.20]had been what had started the civil wars. [18:45.11] [18:45.28]Now Cromwell had ended them by making that dream a reality. [18:49.32] [18:49.48]Not as a united kingdom, but as a united republic of Great Britain. [18:54.79] [18:58.48]But what kind of republic was it supposed to be? [19:01.83] [19:02.00]Cromwell knew the county was exhausted [19:04.46] [19:04.64]from almost 15 years of war. [19:07.83] [19:08.00]It was time, as he said, "to heal and settle". [19:12.43] [19:14.20]But this didn't mean business as usual. [19:16.63] [19:16.80]Surely God didn't mean for so much blood and treasure to have been spilled [19:21.27] [19:21.44]only so that ungodly lawyers and money brokers could get richer? [19:26.43] [19:27.24]That seemed to be the way things were going under the parliament - [19:31.23] [19:31.40]the keeper of the liberties of England, as it styled itself. [19:36.63] [19:37.80]It still sat as it had when its members were purged by the army [19:42.15] [19:42.32]to allow the king's trial to proceed, [19:44.78] [19:44.96]ridiculed by its enemies as the "Rump". [19:48.71] [19:48.88]To Cromwell, the Rump was a monstrosity, [19:52.19] [19:52.36]a bastion of selfishness and greed, [19:54.92] [19:55.08]more like Sodom than Jerusalem. [19:58.27] [19:58.44]Worst of all, it showed no signs at all of wanting ever to close down. [20:03.83] [20:04.00]When it designed a bill to replace old members [20:06.99] [20:07.16]and keep itself going indefinitely, this was the last straw. [20:12.11] [20:16.92]On April 20th, 1653, [20:20.23] [20:20.40]Cromwell marched down to Westminster in the company of a troop of musketeers. [20:25.71] [20:32.56]Moses was descending from the mountain [20:35.71] [20:35.88]and he was not a happy prophet! [20:38.99] [20:42.48]At first, it seemed as though the Member for Cambridge might behave himself. [20:47.47] [20:47.64]Cromwell sat in his usual seat, he doffed his hat, [20:51.47] [20:51.64]he asked the Speaker respectfully if he might address the House. [20:55.71] [20:55.88]He even commended the Rump for its care of the public good, [20:59.66] [20:59.84]but as he warmed to his task, niceties were tossed aside [21:03.43] [21:03.60]and he began to berate the astounded members [21:06.32] [21:06.52]for their indifference to justice and to piety. [21:10.43] [21:10.60]"I expect you think this is not parliamentary language," he said. [21:14.87] [21:15.04]"Well, I confess, it is not, [21:17.79] [21:17.96]"and neither are you to expect any such from me." [21:22.35] [21:23.36]The hat went back on, always a very bad sign. [21:26.83] [21:27.00]Cromwell marched up and down the chamber, [21:30.15] [21:30.32]shouting that the Lord had done with them [21:32.91] [21:33.08]and had chosen instruments more worthy of their calling. [21:37.23] [21:37.40]Some poor soul tried to stop him in full spate, [21:40.59] [21:40.76]but Cromwell was in exterminating angel mode [21:43.83] [21:44.00]and brushed him aside contemptuously. [21:46.83] [21:47.00]"You are no parliament!" he bellowed, "I say, you are no parliament!" [21:51.79] [21:51.96]With that, he called in the musketeers. [21:54.19] [21:54.36]The boots entered heavily, noisily. [21:58.19] [21:59.52]Parliament was shut down. [22:02.31] [22:07.56]This was a depressingly modern moment, [22:10.12] [22:10.28]a classic coup d'etat, in fact. [22:13.11] [22:13.28]At this point, Cromwell crossed the line from bullying to outright dictatorship. [22:18.99] [22:19.16]In so doing, he undid at a stroke [22:21.80] [22:21.96]the entire point of the war he himself had fought [22:25.15] [22:25.32]against the king's unparliamentary conduct. [22:28.71] [22:28.88]Cromwell liked to claim he was striking a blow against "ambition" and "avarice", [22:34.00] [22:34.16]but what he really wounded, and fatally, [22:37.07] [22:37.24]was the Commonwealth itself. [22:39.59] [22:49.04]This is the point at which Cromwell could've seized power, [22:53.43] [22:53.60]and everyone expected him to. [22:56.16] [22:57.36]But Cromwell wasn't working for himself, he was working for God. [23:02.11] [23:03.24]In parliament's place, he'd set up an assembly of men [23:06.63] [23:06.80]hand-picked for their piety. [23:09.19] [23:09.36]It would be an assembly of saints, and his language was very different [23:14.64] [23:14.80]as he exhorted them to go about their business. [23:18.58] [23:22.40]Love all the sheep, love the lambs. Love all. [23:27.68] [23:27.84]Tender all. [23:29.83] [23:31.16]But mystical rapture and politics don't go well together. At least, not in Britain. [23:36.91] [23:37.08]In a few months, the unworkable assembly collapsed, [23:40.55] [23:40.72]its leaders begging Cromwell to put it out of its misery. [23:44.91] [23:47.44]He duly obliged. [23:49.83] [23:51.16]Now there seemed no alternative but to take the crown - [23:54.31] [23:54.48]to become Oliver I. [23:56.94] [23:58.00]This was still a step too far for a man God had told [24:01.78] [24:01.96]to punish the haughtiness of kings. [24:04.95] [24:05.12]So instead he chose to become a Lord Protector. [24:08.75] [24:08.92]That had a good ring to it. Authority, but not tyranny. [24:13.94] [24:14.12]He was king in all but name, [24:16.58] [24:16.76]but a constitutional sovereign, [24:18.91] [24:19.08]ruling with a council and a newly-elected parliament. [24:23.43] [24:25.48]His great hope was for a settling, [24:28.55] [24:28.72]but the truth was that the Protector himself was anything but settled [24:32.83] [24:33.00]about the direction he should take the country. [24:35.99] [24:37.04]Should Britain be righteous or reasonable? [24:40.43] [24:40.60]It was a civil war he fought over and over again in his own head. [24:45.83] [24:46.00]Squire Cromwell could see the virtues of a reasonable state of affairs. [24:50.95] [24:51.12]Given a breathing space, the old world of counties [24:53.84] [24:54.00]was coming ever so cautiously back to life. [24:57.91] [24:58.08]Magistrates were sitting at courts, [25:00.43] [25:00.60]gentlemen riding to hounds, war-damaged houses being repaired, [25:05.19] [25:05.36]children being married off, friends and neighbours asked to dinner. [25:10.64] [25:13.04]And when some of those gentlemen were elected to the Protectorate parliaments, [25:17.67] [25:17.84]the old connections between Westminster and the counties, [25:21.31] [25:21.48]the secret of English government, were, at last, being put back together. [25:27.35] [25:28.88]But the righteous side of Cromwell fretted [25:31.63] [25:31.80]that this return to an older way of doing things was too successful. [25:36.15] [25:36.32]It was not so much healing as backsliding. Royalism by the back door. [25:42.76] [25:43.64]So in 1655, Cromwell turned his mastiffs loose. [25:49.07] [25:51.36]The Major Generals. [25:54.51] [25:56.08]They took righteousness out into the shires - [25:59.07] [25:59.24]the Protestant Taliban on horseback. [26:02.55] [26:02.72]"Muffle the bell-ringers, snoop on the ale-houses, [26:06.55] [26:06.72]"lock up the fornicators... cancel Christmas!" [26:10.71] [26:16.16]John Evelyn, ardent royalist and gentleman of letters, [26:19.59] [26:19.76]who grudgingly endured the Leviathan of the Cromwellian state, [26:23.75] [26:23.92]was one of countless people who were on the short end of the generals' bullying. [26:29.51] [26:30.68]I went with my wife to London to celebrate Christmas Day, [26:35.07] [26:35.24]Mr Gunning preaching in Exeter Chapel. [26:37.83] [26:38.44]As he gave us the Holy Sacrament, the chapel was surrounded by soldiers... [26:43.72] [26:45.80]... all the communicants and assembly surprised and kept prisoner by them, [26:49.84] [26:50.00]some in the house, others carried away! [26:52.46] [26:57.40]It was a public relations disaster for the Protectorate. [27:01.39] [27:01.56]The prudent Cromwell reasserted himself over the pious [27:05.44] [27:05.60]and he got rid of the Major Generals in a hurry! [27:09.15] [27:11.72]There were some places where the two instincts worked together, [27:15.50] [27:15.68]and changed Britain as a result, and this is one of them - [27:19.46] [27:19.64]the Synagogue of Bevis Marks in London. [27:22.59] [27:24.20]Historians sometimes complain that it's difficult to find hard evidence [27:28.19] [27:28.36]of any good that came out of the Protectorate. [27:31.59] [27:31.76]Well, this is hard enough evidence for me. [27:34.67] [27:34.84]For it was on these unforgiving backless oak benches [27:38.95] [27:39.12]that the first Jews to be admitted since the expulsion 360-odd years before [27:44.03] [27:44.20]parked their behinds. [27:46.19] [27:47.04]Under the Protectorate, Jews were allowed finally to worship openly and to live openly [27:52.91] [27:53.08]in what became a little piece of early multi-cultural London. [27:56.67] [27:57.44]It's Oliver Cromwell we have to thank [27:59.83] [28:00.00]for opening a new chapter of Anglo-Jewish history - my history. [28:05.28] [28:07.36](JEWISH RELIGIOUS SONG) [28:10.71] [28:18.80]His Apocalyptic timetable told him that the conversion of the Jews [28:23.15] [28:23.32]would herald the coming of the last days. [28:26.51] [28:26.68]His business sense told him that, [28:28.67] [28:28.84]through their network in the Dutch and Spanish trading world, [28:32.03] [28:32.20]the Jews could be a priceless source of commercial and military intelligence. [28:37.59] [28:39.00]Piety and pragmatism, those twin qualities, [28:41.72] [28:41.88]so often at odds inside Cromwell's personality, [28:45.15] [28:45.32]this time came together to make him, as far as the Jews were concerned, [28:49.79] [28:49.96]a true Lord Protector. [28:51.95] [28:53.32]But not king. [28:55.31] [28:55.48]In the end, and so unlike the king he had destroyed, [28:59.59] [28:59.76]Cromwell could never shake off his sense of unworthiness. [29:02.91] [29:03.72]It was what saved him and Britain from a true dictatorship. [29:08.71] [29:08.88]Oliver Cromwell believed he worked for God. [29:12.35] [29:12.52]Real dictators think they are God. [29:14.91] [29:15.08]It was those men who fancied themselves little gods - [29:18.47] [29:18.64]Charles I or the republican oligarchs - [29:21.31] [29:21.48]who most aroused Cromwell's contempt. [29:24.51] [29:24.68]Simplicity was a word he used all the time about himself [29:28.07] [29:28.24]and it was the highest of moral compliments. [29:31.23] [29:31.40]But to prolong the Protectorate, he needed to be more of a Leviathan [29:35.39] [29:35.56]than he could ever stomach. [29:37.55] [29:37.72]That is both his exoneration and his failure. [29:42.43] [29:43.96]It's one of the most extraordinary ironies of British history [29:47.55] [29:47.72]that Cromwell's Protectorate, demonised by both royalists and republicans alike, [29:53.39] [29:53.56]ultimately formed the blueprint for our constitutional monarchy - [29:57.99] [29:58.16]a chief executive who chose his government, [30:00.83] [30:01.00]but who were both answerable to a regularly elected parliament. [30:05.47] [30:06.68]But Cromwell himself would not live to see this happen. [30:10.75] [30:13.48]On September 3rd, 1658, the anniversary of the Battle of Worcester, [30:18.71] [30:18.88]Cromwell died while an immense black tempest was raging over England, [30:24.08] [30:24.24]ripping out trees and sending belfries crashing to the ground. [30:28.67] [30:36.60]It was, the old wives said, [30:38.91] [30:39.08]the Devil coming for his soul. [30:41.75] [30:46.72]What Oliver Cromwell left behind was not a workable political system, but a vision. [30:51.55] [30:51.72]He may have been an angry, ruthless, overbearing man, [30:55.39] [30:55.56]perhaps even a manic depressive, [30:58.02] [30:58.20]but that vision was something of startling sweetness - [31:01.39] [31:01.56]a sighting of Jerusalem, [31:03.55] [31:03.72]a place where everyone would be free to receive Christ in their own way, [31:08.47] [31:08.64]provided that they did not disturb the peace and conscience [31:12.31] [31:12.48]of anybody else. [31:14.47] [31:14.64]After all his marches and slaughters and fits of table-pounding red-faced fury, [31:20.83] [31:21.00]what, it turned out, Oliver Cromwell wanted for everyone [31:24.71] [31:24.88]was a quiet life. [31:27.83] [31:28.00]But Catholics were excluded from this vision [31:30.79] [31:30.96]because for Cromwell, as for the country at large, Catholicism meant tyranny. [31:35.67] [31:36.48]The Protector may have left the country safe from despots, but not from anarchy. [31:41.63] [31:41.80]After his death, it returned with a vengeance, [31:44.75] [31:44.92]power swinging between soldiers and politicians, [31:47.75] [31:47.92]sleepless nights and nagging questions from ten years before. [31:53.20] [31:53.36]Who'll keep us safe? Who do we obey? [31:55.71] [31:55.88]Where do we find a sovereign to protect us? [31:58.91] [32:00.68]It took another hard-headed soldier to see the only way to restore order. [32:04.83] [32:05.00]General George Monck had been a royalist in the Civil War [32:09.39] [32:09.56]and a Cromwellian when it seemed that only the Protector could keep the peace. [32:14.51] [32:14.68]He realised that, with the Lord Protector gone, [32:17.63] [32:17.80]there was only one person who could take his place. [32:21.79] [32:23.44]That was a new king. [32:26.00] [32:28.68]The irony about the restoration of Charles II [32:31.47] [32:31.64]was he came to the throne not because England needed a successor to Charles I. [32:36.79] [32:36.96]He came to the throne because England needed a successor to Oliver Cromwell. [32:42.03] [32:49.36]There was universal rejoicing, bonfires and feasting. [32:53.51] [32:54.36]The chaos brought by Cromwell's death was ending. [32:57.15] [32:57.32]This new Charles seemed just what everyone had hoped for - [33:00.99] [33:01.16]a model of sweet reason. [33:03.80] [33:03.96]That, at any rate, is what Samuel Pepys thought. [33:07.59] [33:07.76]Pepys was a pure product of Cromwell's England. [33:11.07] [33:11.24]He was present when the new king boarded his flagship home. [33:15.23] [33:15.40]En route, the tall, dark-haired man strode up and down the quarterdeck [33:20.07] [33:20.24]telling the story of his escape after the Battle of Worcester. [33:24.79] [33:24.96]Here was a king full of charisma. [33:27.71] [33:30.24]He had magic. [33:32.63] [33:32.80](CROWDS CHEERING) [33:35.39] [33:37.12]But would his reason survive the emotions stirred by his return? [33:42.24] [33:42.80]The diarist John Evelyn recorded, with unrepentant royalism [33:46.39] [33:46.56]burning in his breast: [33:49.43] [33:49.60]This day came in His Majesty to London [33:52.59] [33:52.76]after a sad and long exile, [33:55.35] [33:55.52]with a triumph of above 20,000 horse and foot brandishing their swords [33:59.87] [34:00.04]and shouting with inexpressible joy, [34:02.76] [34:02.92]the way strewn with flowers, the bells ringing. [34:06.70] [34:06.88]I stood in the Strand and beheld it and blessed God. [34:10.55] [34:10.72]And all this without one drop of blood [34:13.28] [34:13.44]and by that very army which had rebelled against him. [34:17.15] [34:19.04]The king was crowned at Westminster on the 23rd April, 1661. [34:24.91] [34:25.08]His reign was backdated to the day after his father had been beheaded. [34:30.83] [34:31.00]But even before the king was crowned, there were those with long memories [34:34.99] [34:35.16]looking for revenge. [34:37.15] [34:39.52]On January 30th, 1661, [34:42.91] [34:43.08]exactly 12 years after Charles I's severed head dropped into the straw, [34:48.39] [34:48.56]the remains of Cromwell and the regicides were dragged from their tombs [34:53.11] [34:53.28]and hanged from the gallows at Tyburn before being buried in a deep pit. [34:59.55] [35:02.28]Over the next months, eleven other king-killers [35:05.23] [35:05.40]were hanged, drawn and quartered. [35:07.96] [35:12.68]The old Cromwellians watched all this in tactful, furtive silence. [35:17.91] [35:18.08]They wondered just how reasonable this new regime might actually be. [35:23.07] [35:25.16]Killing the killjoys, though, Charles knew, [35:27.75] [35:27.92]would not damage his popularity. [35:30.75] [35:30.92]Given a free vote, the people would, especially after the Major Generals, [35:35.87] [35:36.04]vote for pleasure over piety. [35:38.07] [35:39.28](FEMALE SINGER) # Lavender's green, diddle-diddle... # [35:44.03] [35:44.20]And leading the dance, of course, was Charles himself, [35:48.19] [35:48.36]constitutionally incapable of being so churlish [35:51.55] [35:51.72]as to spurn any woman generous enough to invite him into her bed. [35:56.39] [35:56.56]They all did. [35:58.55] [36:01.60]This was the golden age of ogling. [36:03.71] [36:03.88]If Puritan England had been governed by the ear, [36:07.23] [36:07.40]wide open to receive the word of God, the Restoration restored [36:11.59] [36:11.76]the sovereignty of the eye. [36:14.32] [36:16.12]Its ruling passion was "scopophilia", the addiction of the gaze, [36:21.87] [36:22.04]whether eyeballing an outrageous wig, a plunging neckline, [36:26.31] [36:26.48]a louse caught in the lens of a microscope [36:29.51] [36:29.68]or the constellations of the stars. [36:32.11] [36:32.28]# Lavender's blue, diddle-diddle [36:37.11] [36:37.28]# Lavender's green... # [36:42.27] [36:42.44]Charles's boyish enthusiasm for optical instruments [36:45.91] [36:46.08]suggested he might turn out to be a new kind of Stuart, [36:49.67] [36:49.84]whose vision dwelled not in cloudy realms of absolutism, [36:53.31] [36:53.48]but which was precisely focused, [36:55.67] [36:55.84]concerned to observe reality - political as well as physical. [37:00.31] [37:00.48]He might, in fact, turn out to be that most unlikely thing - a reasonable Stuart king. [37:06.27] [37:07.76]This was the Stuart for whom the physical world was his alpha and omega, [37:12.63] [37:12.80]who was earthy in his realism. [37:15.26] [37:16.28]All too earthy, some thought, as they looked down in disgust [37:20.35] [37:20.52]at a theatre of indolence, punctuated by debauchery, that had become the court. [37:25.95] [37:27.04]They were not so worldly, not so rational, [37:30.35] [37:30.52]as to be free of the fear that some day there would be a reckoning. [37:35.54] [37:35.72]Some day soon, as it turned out. [37:38.31] [37:41.92]In the summer of 1664, a comet appeared in the skies over England. [37:47.35] [37:47.52]Its sallow tail could be seen with unprecedented clarity [37:51.30] [37:51.48]through the lens of the new telescopes owned, among others, by the king. [37:56.68] [37:56.84]But what most people saw was disaster in the offing. [38:01.03] [38:01.20]They had all read their almanacs. [38:03.19] [38:03.36]They knew that the Apocalypse would be heralded by pestilence, fire and war. [38:09.15] [38:15.16]A year later, thousands of bodies killed by bubonic plague [38:18.94] [38:19.12]were being tossed each week into the great pit of Aldgate [38:23.51] [38:23.68]and there was nothing science could do about it, [38:26.51] [38:26.68]except count the dead with the care demanded [38:30.64] [38:30.80]by modern statistics. [38:33.11] [38:35.76](MAN) # My part of death [38:38.95] [38:39.12]# No one so true [38:43.47] [38:45.68]# Did share it [38:49.31] [38:50.92]# Come away [38:53.38] [38:54.36]# Come away... [38:56.67] [38:57.92]#... Death # [39:01.70] [39:04.52]One-sixth of London's population perished. [39:08.35] [39:09.32]The infection ebbed with the onset of autumn, [39:12.07] [39:12.24]but the trepidation hung around [39:14.91] [39:15.08]for the number of the Beast was 666. [39:20.28] [39:23.96]And sure enough, up from the smoky regions of Hell, [39:27.55] [39:27.72]in the first week of September, 1666, [39:31.43] [39:31.60]came the diabolical fire. [39:34.06] [39:38.72]In the early hours of Sunday September 2nd, [39:41.63] [39:41.80]the Lord Mayor of London was woken [39:44.52] [39:44.68]to be told that a fire had started in a baker's shop in Pudding Lane. [39:49.99] [39:50.16]His response was "Pish! A woman might piss it out!" [39:55.75] [40:05.76]As he snored on, the flames reached the warehouses flanking the Thames [40:10.11] [40:10.28]between the Tower and London Bridge, brimful of tallow, pitch and brandy. [40:16.03] [40:18.36]A monstrous fireball came roaring and sucking out of the narrow streets, [40:22.59] [40:22.76]feeding on overhanging bays and gables. [40:24.99] [40:28.72]In another hour, 200 to 300 houses had been swallowed by the flames. [40:35.06] [40:40.80]John Evelyn, who'd said for years [40:43.03] [40:43.20]that overcrowded London was a disaster waiting to happen, [40:46.51] [40:46.68]took no joy in the fulfilment of his prophecy. [40:50.75] [40:53.60]Oh, the miserable and calamitous spectacle. [40:56.99] [40:57.68]God grant mine eyes that I never behold it again, [41:00.83] [41:01.00]who now saw 10,000 houses all in one flame. [41:04.78] [41:06.36]The noise and crackle and thunder of the impetuous flames. [41:10.75] [41:10.92]The shriek of women and children, the hurry of people, [41:14.11] [41:14.28]the fall of towers, houses and churches like a hideous storm. [41:19.03] [41:19.96]London was... but is no more. [41:23.35] [41:40.00]When the rain started, a week after the outbreak of the fire, [41:43.71] [41:43.88]allowing an early stocktaking, [41:45.87] [41:46.04]the scale of the devastation horrified even the pessimists. [41:50.39] [41:50.56]13,200 houses had been destroyed, [41:54.07] [41:54.24]along with some of the most famous buildings of the city. [41:58.23] [41:59.60]St Paul's Cathedral was in ruins. [42:02.67] [42:03.76]The new Leviathan, it seemed, had no fire insurance. [42:08.07] [42:08.76]Still, there were those who were determined [42:11.51] [42:11.68]that London would rise as a phoenix from its ashes [42:15.27] [42:15.44]and, like the reborn, rebuilt Rome, astonish the world. [42:20.56] [42:21.48]This had long been on the mind of Christopher Wren, [42:24.59] [42:24.76]mathematician, architect and brilliant prodigy [42:27.83] [42:28.00]of the Royal Society. [42:29.99] [42:30.16]So when Roman antiquities were found in the debris [42:32.95] [42:33.12]around St Paul's, one of them a tablet bearing the Latin inscription [42:37.39] [42:37.56]"Resurgam" - I shall arise, Wren took the message to heart. [42:42.95] [42:45.00]London had once been a great Roman city [42:47.95] [42:48.12]and now would outdo the ancients, [42:51.27] [42:51.44]with great piazzas, broad avenues, [42:53.83] [42:54.00]calculated to afford geometrically satisfying vistas [42:58.27] [42:58.44]and up to fifty new churches. [43:01.43] [43:02.32]And at its heart would be a new St Paul's, [43:05.59] [43:05.76]a cathedral the like of which had never been seen in northern Europe. [43:10.15] [43:11.32]He built a giant wooden model to show the king and clergy [43:15.15] [43:15.32]just what they would be getting. [43:17.51] [43:18.56]How could they not be awestruck by the huge dome [43:21.95] [43:22.12]that used the same technology as a microscope [43:24.87] [43:25.04]to flood the interior with light? [43:28.19] [43:54.88]But there was a problem. [43:57.44] [43:57.60]Wren had designed his cathedral as a Greek cross, [44:00.83] [44:01.00]sacrificing the traditional floor plan of a Protestant church [44:05.19] [44:05.36]in favour of perfect acoustics and light. [44:08.19] [44:09.04]You can almost hear the mystified, angry complaints of the reverends. [44:13.75] [44:13.92]"Where exactly is the choir supposed to go? [44:17.63] [44:17.80]"How do we process up a nave which isn't there?" [44:21.71] [44:21.88]Mostly they said, "Call us old-fashioned, [44:24.60] [44:24.76]"but this looks suspiciously to us like a Catholic basilica. [44:28.67] [44:28.84]"We'll be damned [44:30.83] [44:31.00]"if we're going to let St Paul's turn into St Peter's." [44:34.96] [44:36.68]When the king told him to go back to the drawing board, [44:41.11] [44:41.28]Wren's normally very dry eyes are said to have filled with tears. [44:46.15] [44:46.32]He would have his chance to build his dome, [44:49.11] [44:49.28]but only when it was joined to a long nave, [44:52.43] [44:52.60]something resembling a traditional church. [44:55.87] [44:56.76]The irony was, for all his Roman enthusiasm, [44:59.59] [44:59.76]Wren believed he was building a truly Protestant church... [45:04.88] [45:05.04]but his timing was terrible. [45:07.99] [45:08.88]Ever since the Reformation, Britain had been victim to anti-Catholic fear [45:15.07] [45:15.24]and, once again, in Charles's reign, it erupted. [45:18.47] [45:22.40]Not all of it was misplaced. [45:24.96] [45:25.12]Charles was suspected of having secret Catholics in his government, and so he did. [45:30.63] [45:30.80]He was also suspected of making secret treaties [45:33.79] [45:33.96]with the militantly Catholic Louis XIV of France. [45:38.23] [45:38.40]And so he had. [45:40.39] [45:40.56]But there was worse... much worse. [45:43.87] [45:44.04]The king's own brother, James, Duke of York, [45:46.76] [45:46.92]had actually converted to the Roman Church [45:49.38] [45:49.56]and he made no secret of it. [45:51.99] [45:52.16]With no children born to the king, the first Catholic ruler since Bloody Mary [45:56.87] [45:57.04]was an imminent prospect. [45:59.43] [45:59.60]There was shivering in the shires. [46:02.35] [46:03.68]A century before, Queen Elizabeth had been threatened [46:07.46] [46:07.64]with Catholic assassination plots. [46:09.63] [46:09.80]The Jesuit lurking in the shadows was a permanent fixture in popular nightmare. [46:15.00] [46:17.32]When an ex-Jesuit called Titus Oates [46:19.51] [46:19.68]concocted a pack of lies about a plot to murder the king, [46:24.11] [46:24.28]invite a French invasion and create a Catholic state under James, [46:28.91] [46:29.08]he tripped the Guy Fawkes alert. [46:31.95] [46:32.96]And when the magistrate investigating the charges [46:35.75] [46:35.92]was found mysteriously murdered on Primrose Hill, it seemed obvious [46:40.27] [46:40.44]that Oates knew what he was talking about. [46:43.27] [46:43.44]It set the jittery country [46:45.51] [46:45.68]right over the edge. [46:47.99] [47:01.48]Anti-Catholic violence swept the country. [47:04.39] [47:04.56]Riots, burnings, lynch mobs, kangaroo courts. [47:09.03] [47:11.68]For some politicians, the ugly mood of the country [47:14.67] [47:14.84]was a golden opportunity to press their favourite cause. [47:19.19] [47:19.36]James, Duke of York, should never be allowed to sit on the throne. [47:23.87] [47:24.04]He had to be excluded. [47:26.35] [47:26.52]Anything to stop the cycle of religious wars from breaking out again. [47:31.19] [47:32.76]It was an extraordinary crisis in the history of the British monarchy. [47:37.15] [47:37.32]At stake were not only the lives of hundreds of those victimised [47:41.20] [47:41.36]by all the lies and hysteria, [47:43.63] [47:43.80]but the fate of the polity itself. [47:46.23] [47:46.40]Because to concede exclusion was to accept parliament had the right [47:50.31] [47:50.48]to judge who was fit or unfit to occupy the throne. [47:54.55] [47:54.72]And that was a concession Charles II was absolutely not about to make. [48:01.43] [48:02.52]Charles met the most serious crisis of his reign [48:05.75] [48:05.92]with his most powerful weapon - reason. He offered a compromise. [48:11.23] [48:11.40]His brother would be allowed to succeed if he agreed to be a private Catholic [48:16.39] [48:16.56]and not to lay a finger on the Church of England. [48:20.34] [48:20.52]Riding the wave of paranoia, [48:22.71] [48:22.88]the newly elected parliament summoned to Oxford turned him down. [48:27.19] [48:27.36]They assumed that memory was on their side, [48:30.47] [48:30.64]that Charles would remember the fate of his stubborn father, who'd triggered a war [48:35.47] [48:35.64]when he too had been suspected of being soft on Catholicism. [48:40.23] [48:41.64]But historical memory is a double-edged sword. [48:45.71] [48:45.88](TRUMPET FANFARE) [48:49.07] [48:50.28]When the Commons met in the Great Hall of Christchurch [48:53.31] [48:53.48]to hear what they thought would be the royal capitulation, [48:56.55] [48:56.72]they found themselves instead confronted by a Leviathan in ermine. [49:02.47] [49:05.24]"This is the king's will," he said. [49:08.11] [49:08.28]"Take it or leave it." [49:11.03] [49:13.04]It was a breathtaking gamble. [49:15.79] [49:15.96]Backed up by the House of Lords, Charles had left the exclusionists in the Commons [49:20.91] [49:21.08]no alternative but to go to war. [49:23.80] [49:26.56]He was betting that the memory of the last round [49:29.59] [49:29.76]would be a deterrent. He was right. [49:33.87] [49:34.04]The tombs of the dead from Edgehill, Marston Moor and Worcester [49:38.59] [49:38.76]were still being carved. [49:41.51] [49:41.68]That war began as a parliamentary protest [49:44.27] [49:44.44]and ended in Puritan crusade. [49:47.51] [49:47.68]Who wanted that back? Not the exclusionists. [49:51.43] [49:51.64]They blinked first. [49:53.91] [49:56.88]James did get the keys to the kingdom when his brother died in 1685, [50:01.95] [50:02.12]and he inherited a new parliament with a massively royalist majority, [50:06.43] [50:06.60]along with widespread public sympathy. [50:09.63] [50:09.80]Within three years, though, he had squandered it all. [50:13.58] [50:19.36]James never had any intention of hiding his faith. [50:23.35] [50:23.52]His Catholicism wasn't just a private comfort [50:26.35] [50:26.52]to be celebrated away from the public gaze. [50:29.87] [50:30.04]No, James was going to be a visible Catholic king... [50:34.15] [50:34.96]but he was playing a dangerous game. [50:38.55] [50:41.64]When James tried to reverse anti-Catholic laws, [50:44.83] [50:45.00]pillars of the establishment - the country gentry and the Church - were horrified. [50:49.67] [50:51.64]When the bishops complained, the king declared, [50:54.43] [50:54.60]"I shall find a way to do my business without you." [50:58.03] [50:59.80]The protesting bishops were locked up in the Tower. [51:03.63] [51:07.48]James's timing was disastrous. [51:10.75] [51:11.68]For he was doing all this when Louis XIV, [51:14.59] [51:14.76]the militantly Catholic King of France, was threatening Europe. [51:19.15] [51:20.52]By January, 1688, [51:22.71] [51:22.88]James had managed to alienate all his natural allies [51:27.19] [51:27.36]and turn himself into a more dangerous version of his father, Charles I. [51:32.07] [51:33.24]He was even filling the officer ranks of the army with Irish Catholics. [51:38.26] [51:40.80]The only consolation was that, at 52, he had no son. [51:44.95] [51:46.00]Next in line to the throne was his daughter Mary, a staunch Protestant, [51:50.63] [51:50.80]who'd married the Dutch prince, William of Orange, [51:53.39] [51:53.56]hero of the resistance to Louis XIV. [51:56.71] [51:57.44]On June 10th, 1688, all this changed. [52:01.91] [52:02.44]James's wife, Mary of Modena, gave birth to a boy, [52:05.83] [52:06.00]who was duly baptised with Roman rites. [52:09.07] [52:10.44]Now, not only was the king Catholic, [52:13.43] [52:13.60]so was his dynasty. [52:15.63] [52:16.40]What could be done? Well, something quite extraordinary. [52:21.79] [52:21.96]Seven leading statesmen sent a message to Holland [52:25.55] [52:25.72]with an explosive request. [52:27.75] [52:28.28]"Prince William," they asked, "would you mind invading Britain [52:31.87] [52:32.04]"and saving us from a Catholic king?" [52:34.35] [52:37.92]William of Orange wanted to save his country from Catholic despots, [52:42.11] [52:42.28]but the country he had in mind - first, foremost and always - [52:46.27] [52:46.44]was the Dutch Republic. [52:48.43] [52:48.60]English politics were always a sideshow for William to the main event. [52:52.87] [52:53.04]That was the great European war against Louis XIV. [52:57.11] [52:59.72]What choice did he have? There would be British troops in that war. [53:04.19] [53:04.36]To ensure they'd be fighting for him, not against him, [53:07.55] [53:07.72]100 years after the Spanish Armada had failed to do the very same thing, [53:13.03] [53:13.20]William set out to conquer Britain. [53:16.51] [53:20.76]He was nothing if not thorough. [53:23.11] [53:23.28]60,000 copies of William's manifesto [53:25.87] [53:26.04]blanketed England in an effort to present the planned invasion as a response [53:30.95] [53:31.12]to a spontaneous uprising against the Catholic tyrant. [53:35.55] [53:35.72]It was so persuasive that he succeeded [53:38.36] [53:38.52]in making James seem the foreigner in his own land [53:41.63] [53:41.80]and the Dutchman the true Brit. [53:44.71] [53:48.40]The fate of the Armada was a sobering thought, [53:51.43] [53:51.60]so his Dutch invasion force made the Spanish one seem puny. [53:55.64] [53:55.80]This time there were 600 vessels [53:58.75] [53:58.92]and up to 20,000 troops. [54:01.51] [54:03.44](WOMAN) # Lero, lero, lilli burlero [54:06.03] [54:06.20]# Lilli burlero, bullen a la [54:08.76] [54:08.92]# Lero, lero, lilli burlero [54:11.75] [54:11.92]# Lilli burlero, bullen a la # [54:14.64] [54:16.04]He landed at Torbay on November 5th - Guy Fawkes Day. [54:20.08] [54:20.24]Obviously, God was a Protestant! [54:24.51] [54:24.68]When he realised that this Protestant invasion was really going to oust him, [54:28.95] [54:29.12]James' courage failed him. [54:31.68] [54:31.84]His resolution in meltdown, his nights haunted by the ghost of his daddy, [54:37.27] [54:37.44]he fled the kingdom. [54:39.83] [54:47.16]William claimed that he'd come just to restore English liberties, [54:51.83] [54:52.00]but now he had Dutch soldiers in the streets, [54:55.23] [54:55.40]and if he decided to be king after all, who was going to say otherwise? [55:00.87] [55:07.08]In February 1689, William of Orange and Mary Stuart [55:11.55] [55:11.72]were proclaimed King and Queen of England. [55:14.51] [55:17.44]But during the ceremony, something profoundly novel happened. [55:21.40] [55:21.56]A Declaration of Rights was read out [55:23.99] [55:24.16]listing the conditions under which the new monarchs [55:26.88] [55:27.04]would be allowed to sit on the throne. [55:29.76] [55:31.76]Parliament had changed the job description of the ruler. [55:35.11] [55:35.28]It turned out that the country did not need Leviathan. [55:39.03] [55:39.20]It wanted a chairman of the board, and Dutch William fitted that role to a tee. [55:45.07] [55:47.12]William III would fight his wars by asking, not demanding funds [55:51.79] [55:51.96]from the elected representatives of the people. [55:55.51] [55:55.68]Ruling together with parliament, [55:57.71] [55:57.88]his government looked remarkably like a reasonable version [56:01.59] [56:01.76]of Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate. [56:04.32] [56:07.76]History has called this a "Glorious Revolution". [56:11.83] [56:12.00]It was probably neither, [56:14.07] [56:14.24]but afterwards, the British monarchy would never be the same again. [56:19.26] [56:25.36]But the old monarchy had one last desperate play to make. [56:30.59] [56:30.76]In March, 1689, James landed in Ireland [56:34.35] [56:34.52]with 20,000 French troops. [56:37.27] [56:38.76]The Catholic Irish flocked to their king. [56:41.32] [56:42.16]Like the English, they'd become pawns in someone else's chess game. [56:47.71] [56:52.52]Outside Drogheda, two armies, two worlds, [56:56.30] [56:56.48]faced each other across the River Boyne. [56:58.94] [56:59.12]One belonged to the old world of faith and fervour, [57:03.31] [57:03.48]the other, Dutch and German professionals, [57:06.15] [57:06.32]were part of a modern war machine. [57:09.23] [57:19.72]No prizes for guessing who won. [57:22.91] [57:23.60]Nobody. [57:25.59] [57:35.60](MAN) It is the patriotic duty of Irish men and Irish women [57:39.95] [57:40.12]to engage in that legitimate armed struggle. [57:43.59] [57:43.76]We will never surrender! [57:46.63] [57:46.80]Never, never, never, never! (PEOPLE CHEERING) [57:52.08] [57:54.00](NEWSPEAKER) I appeal to Unionists to engage fully [57:56.99] [57:57.16]in the search for a lasting peace. [57:59.35] [57:59.52]I, too, am an Ulsterman [58:02.11] [58:02.28]and we don't need the British ministers to rule us... [58:06.06] [58:08.28]The End! [58:39.06]

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