The Interregnum to Anne
A quick overview of the Kings and Queens of England from the Interregnum in 1651 to Queen Anne in 1702.
The Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell 1653-1658 to Queen Anne 1702-1714
A quick overview of the Kings and Queens of England from the Interregnum in 1651 to Queen Anne in 1702.
The Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell 1653-1658 to Queen Anne 1702-1714
This post is number 10 in the series Kings and Queens of England
Below is a brief overview of the Kings of England from the Interregnum in 1649, when for eleven years England was a republic, to Queen Anne in 1702, the last of the Stuarts and the first ruler of Great Britain.
OLIVER Cromwell proved no better than the King he had murdered in a military coup, dismissing his Parliament and forcing his religion (a joyless Swiss Protestantism) onto the people. He crushed opposition in Ireland with breathtaking barbarity.
After Cromwell’s death in 1659, Parliament recalled Charles II from exile in France.* He returned to cheering crowds in 1660, and was succeeded in 1685 by his brother, James II. However, James, who had become a Roman Catholic in France, had his father’s aversion to sharing power with Parliament.
In 1688, a constitutional crisis was resolved in the so-called ‘Glorious Revolution’, when Parliament exiled James and invited his Protestant daughter Mary and her Dutch husband, William of Orange, to take his place as William III and Mary II.
To ensure no repeat, the Act of Settlement in 1701 disbarred Catholics from the throne, so after William’s death in 1702 (Mary having predeceased him), he was succeeded not by James’s Catholic son, James Stuart, but by Mary’s Protestant sister, Anne.
Next in series: Anne to George III
The period from 1649 to 1660 is referred to as the Interregnum, since there was no government by King or Queen, even though on Charles’s death in 1649 his son Charles II automatically became King. A ‘Commonwealth of England’ was declared in 1649, to be replaced in 1653 by the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. Richard Cromwell succeeded his father in 1659, but Charles II was restored by Parliament in 1660.