Modern monarchy

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Modern monarchy
17th and 18th centuries
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• England and Scotland in the 17th century
• A) regional difference
• B) religion
• C) revolution 1688
• D) Act of Union
• Developments in Ireland
• Rise of GB in 18th century
• A) Society
• B) Politics
• British colonial expansion
• A) first British Empire
• B) wars

• George III. and the American revolution
• A) domestic politics
• B) colonial unrest
• Act of union with Ireland
• Revolution and War
• A) French revolution
• B) Napoleonic Wars
• Industrialization and Progress
• A) The impact of Industrialization
• B) Political reforms

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England and Scotland in the 17th century

• A union of England and Scotland seemed unlikely
  at the beginning of the 17th century. The two
  nations had been periodically at war with each
  other for almost 700 years as a result of
  disputes over control of border regions and
  occasional attempts by the English to expand
  northward into Scotland. In order to protect its
  independence, Scotland maintained a traditional
  alliance with France, Englands primary enemy on
  the European continent. When Elizabeth I of
  England died childless in 1603, James VI of
  Scotland, a member of the royal house of Stuart
  and a relative of Elizabeth, inherited the
  English throne. In addition to ruling as James VI
  of Scotland, he now became James I of England

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Regional Differences

• Scotland
• James held royal authority in two kingdoms that
  were very different Scotland was
• sparsely populated
• its land was largely barren and infertile. Rocky
  soil, a cold and wet climate, and insufficient
  irrigation prevented agriculture from thriving. A
  long tradition of self-sufficient farms and
  estates discouraged trade and limited the growth
  of industry.
• Scotland was divided into two distinct regions,
  the Highlands and Lowlands. By far the largest
  concentration of population in Scotland was in
  the southern Lowlands around the two principal
  cities Glasgow and the capital city, Edinburgh.
  The Lowlands were fully integrated into royal
  government the king ruled with little
  opposition.
• Scotlands Parliament met rarely and dealt with
  limited issues. In the Highlands, however, the
  royal government had little direct influence.
  Clanssocial groups based on extended family
  tiesstill dominated the region.

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England

• In contrast, England at the beginning of the 17th
  century was a dynamic society, growing rapidly in
  population and wealth. Englands south and east
  had fertile agricultural land. In the north and
  west, estates carried out sheep herding on a
  large scale. A thriving export trade existed in
  wool, grain, and other products. Englands
  capital city, London, was one of the largest
  cities in the world.
• The Tudor monarchs, who ruled England from 1485
  to 1603, had effectively centralized English
  government by the early 17th century. The
  nobilitythe once powerful class of landowning
  aristocratsno longer formed a powerful
  independent political force, but instead served
  the Crown and became dependent on royal support.
  The gentrylandowners with country estatesformed
  the core of royal government in the countryside,
  enforcing the law as sheriffs or serving as
  justices in the local courts.
• Although the Tudors centralized administration,
  they failed to implement a financial system to
  pay for the escalating costs of government. Rents
  on royal lands, supplemented by limited taxes on
  imports and on the church, barely financed
  government administration. During wars or times
  of emergency, the monarchy had to request funds
  from Parliament, which alone had the right to
  approve additional taxes and to pass new laws

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Religious Differences

• Religious issues also separated the two nations.
  Both the Church of Scotland and the Church of
  England were Protestant churches. However, in
  England the monarch reigned as head of a
  compliant, centralized church. Henry VIII had
  established the Church of England in 1534 with
  the monarch as its supreme head. His successors
  maintained tight royal control over church
  affairs and held the final say in matters of
  religion.
•  
• John Knox preached a form of Protestantism to the
  people of 16th-century Scotland. Later called
  Presbyterianism, this religion became a symbol of
  Scottish nationalism. Church leaders strongly
  resisted efforts by Scottish monarchs to
  establish control over the church.
• James had less control over Scotlands church.
  Protestantism had made major gains among the
  people, and a Presbyterian system, built upon
  independent local church organizations, formed
  without royal approval. In 1560 the Scottish
  Parliament accepted the Presbyterian form of
  Protestantism as the official religion. James
  appointed bishops to establish his authority over
  the church, but the Presbyterian system remained
  intact on the local level and continued to decide
  many religious matters independently of the king
  and the bishops.

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Revolution of 1688

• Protestant political leaders launched a revolt
  against James II. The Revolution of 1688 deposed
  James in favour of his nephew, William of Orange.
  William was a Dutch Protestant noble who had
  married Jamess daughter Mary. An act of
  Parliament made Mary II and William III joint
  monarchs in 1689.
• The revolution deeply divided the Scots. As the
  head of Scotlands royal family, James II
  continued to attract loyalty, especially in the
  Highlands. The most powerful Scottish politicians
  and aristocrats were willing to accept William
  III only if he gave Scotland greater freedom to
  govern itself. William granted the Scots a nearly
  independent Parliament and pledged not to
  interfere in the Scottish church. William later
  made several overtures for a political union,
  offering the Scots the benefits of free trade
  with England, participation in the emerging
  English Empire, and guarantees to preserve
  Scotlands legal, religious, and political
  institutions. The Scots rejected these proposals.

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The Act of Union

• William and Mary were childless, as was Marys
  sister, Anne, who succeeded to the throne in
  1702. To assure a smooth transition of power to a
  Protestant monarch, in 1701 the English
  Parliament passed the Act of Settlement, which
  stated that a German branch of the royal family,
  the Hannovers, would succeed Anne as the monarchs
  of England. The Scottish Parliament refused to
  ratify the act, creating the potential that the
  two kingdoms would split after more than 100
  years under the same monarchs.

Queen Anne Anne, queen of England, Scotland, and
Ireland, based much of her administration on the
advice of her ministers. Anne had no children,
and her ministers, fearful that Scotland might
ally with the French following her death,
pressured the Scottish Parliament into agreeing
to merge the two nations into a single kingdom.
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• The English feared that an independent Scotland
  might ally itself with France and provide a
  backdoor for a French invasion of England. The
  English fear of an invasion was especially strong
  at the beginning of the 18th century. At this
  time, England led a coalition of nations that
  were struggling to prevent Louis XIV of France
  from gaining mastery over Europe. After 1701 the
  stakes increased as Louis attempted to establish
  his grandson on the throne of Spain. The ensuing
  War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714)
  engulfed most of western Europe as England, The
  Netherlands, Denmark, Austria, and later Portugal
  formed an alliance against France and Spain.
• To avoid facing an enemy on the northern border,
  Annes ministers threatened the Scottish
  Parliament. They warned Scotland that they would
  treat all Scots as aliens in England, stop all
  trade between the nations, and capture or sink
  Scottish ships that traded with France. These
  threats led the Scots to accept the union with
  England.
• In 1707 Great Britain was born. Fear had led the
  politicians of both nations to a union that would
  prove durable for hundreds of years. The Act of
  Union of 1707 created a single national
  administration, removed trade barriers between
  the countries, standardized taxation throughout
  the island, and created a single Parliament.
  However, England and Scotland continued to have
  separate traditions of law and separate official
  churches.

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Developments in Ireland

• Catholics had gained hope of a return to power in
  Ireland during the reign of James II, who
  appointed Catholics to positions of authority in
  the royal administration and the military
  hierarchy of the island. Following the Revolution
  of 1688, James II fled to Ireland, where he
  raised an army of Catholic supporters. William
  III defeated the Catholics and once again imposed
  the firm rule of Protestant nobles. Although
  Ireland had its own Parliament, which was
  composed of Protestant landowners, the real power
  lay with royal officials, who administered the
  island based on orders from London. The
  Protestant rulers of Ireland instituted a series
  of highly restrictive laws that excluded
  Catholics from owning land or firearms, from
  practicing certain professions, and from holding
  public office. These discriminatory laws united
  Irelands Catholic population in opposition to
  Protestant.

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Rise of Great Britain

• Great Britain emerged from the War of the Spanish
  Succession (1701-1714) as one of the worlds
  great military powers. Traditionally a naval
  power, Britain had built a modern, professional
  army during the reign of William III. This army,
  under the brilliant military leadership of John
  Churchill, 1st duke of Marlborough, led the
  anti-French alliance to decisive victories. On
  the seas, the British navy captured the island of
  Minorca in the Mediterranean and the strategic
  fortress of Gibraltar, which guards the entrance
  to the Mediterranean, on the southern coast of
  Spain. These victories gave Britain control over
  the Mediterranean.
• In 1713 and 1714 a series of treaties known as
  the Peace of Utrecht brought the war to a formal
  conclusion. As a result of the war, Britain
  gained Gibraltar and important trade concessions
  from Spain, including a monopoly on the slave
  trade to the Spanish colonies. From the French
  they won the colonies of Nova Scotia,
  Newfoundland, and Hudson Bay

John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough John
Churchill, known as Marlborough, was one of
Englands greatest military commanders
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18th-Century Britain

• British society was stratified in the 18th
  century, with a tiny aristocracy and landed
  gentry at the top and a vast mass of poor at the
  bottom. For the aristocracy, the 18th century was
  its greatest age. British lords who controlled
  large estates saw their wealth increase from a
  boom in agricultural production, an expansion of
  investment opportunities, and the domination of
  the government by the aristocracy. They built
  vast palaces and developed new areas of London,
  Edinburgh, and Dublin. The monarchy almost
  exclusively appointed aristocrats to the most
  important political offices.

• Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, England, was
  designed in 1705 by British architects Sir John
  Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor. Blenheim is an
  example of the stately mansions constructed
  during the 18th century by Englands increasingly
  wealthy aristocracy.

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• In contrast to the aristocracy, the gentry lost
  much of the political and financial influence it
  had wielded since the days of the Tudor monarchs.
  Many holders of small estates found that land was
  no longer the secure source of wealth it had once
  been, especially with the high taxes imposed on
  landowners to finance Britains wars. The immense
  estates of Britains aristocratic class provided
  their owners with a constant flow of funds, while
  higher taxes often consumed the profits generated
  by the smaller estates of the gentry. Although
  the gentrys status in the local community was
  secure, merchants who traded luxury commodities
  overseas soon eclipsed the gentry in wealth and
  influence on the national level during the 18th
  century.
• Society in the 18th century was becoming more
  fluid than in the past, in part because of the
  growth of the middle classes in towns and cities.
  Middle-class families earned their livings in
  trade or in professions, such as law and
  medicine. They valued literacy, thrift, and
  education, ideas that were spread by thinkers of
  the Age of Enlightenment. Especially influential
  were philosophers John Locke and David Hume and
  economist Adam Smith. Locke and Hume stressed the
  importance of the senses and the environment in
  shaping the individual. Locke also described the
  human mind as a blank slate that was to be filled
  by education and experience. Smith, in his book
  The Wealth of Nations (1776), demonstrated how
  the efficient organization of economic activity
  created wealth.

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• Increased literacy and education spread
  throughout the country. In towns, the middle
  classes established lending libraries to
  distribute books, clubs to discuss ideas, and
  coffeehouses to debate politics. Newspapers
  became the most popular form of media, and more
  than 50 towns produced their own newspapers by
  the end of the century..
• The newest form of literature was the novel.
  Pamela or Virtue Rewarded (1740) by Samuel
  Richardson was one of the first works of this
  genre. The writings of novelist Jane Austen were
  popular toward the end of the century. The rise
  of the middle class was also seen in the most
  important religious movement of the era,
  Methodism. Founded by theologian John Wesley,
  Methodism encouraged the population at large to
  believe personal salvation could be achieved
  without relying on the formal rituals of the
  Church of England. Wesley directed his energies
  to labourers and the poor, but his message was
  derived from the attitudes of the middle class.
•  

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• Poverty dominated the lower reaches of British
  society, especially as the population grew and
  food prices rose in the middle of the century.
  Towns swarmed with homeless families, the sick,
  and individuals with disabilities. The government
  and charitable organizations established
  orphanages and hospitals, as well as workhouses
  where the unemployed could find temporary work.
  While women and children were left to live in
  poverty, the government forced able-bodied men
  into military service by the thousands. London
  experienced the worst of this situation. Poor
  migrants flooded the city seeking work or
  charity most found an early death instead.
• Paradoxically, improvements in sanitation,
  medicine, and food production allowed many poor
  people to live longer lives, increasing the
  population of poor and adding to the problems.
  The epidemics of plague and smallpox, which had
  routinely killed a third of the people in towns
  during earlier centuries, were now a thing of the
  past. The production of cheap alcoholic
  beverages, such as gin and rum, eased some of the
  pain of the poor, but increased alcohol
  consumption also raised the level of violence and
  crime.
• Crime was so common in 18th-century Britain that
  Parliament made more than 200 offences punishable
  by death. Executions were weekly spectacles. To
  deal with excess prison populations, the British
  government deported many inmates to British
  overseas colonies. The government sent tens of
  thousands of convicts to the Americas as
  indentured servants and established the colony of
  Australia as a prison colony at the end of the
  century.

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Penal Colony The Port Arthur penal settlement in
Australia was in service from 1830 to the 1870s.
The high-security colony housed 2000 prisoners at
a time and was known for its harsh discipline. It
was restored in 1979 and today is a popular
tourist destination.
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18th-Century British Politics

• Following the union with Scotland, the British
  government functioned according to an unwritten
  constitution put in place after the Revolution of
  1688. This agreement between the monarchs and
  Parliament provided for the succession of Annes
  German Protestant cousin, George of Hannover, and
  his heirs. It excluded from the throne the
  Catholic descendants of James II who now lived in
  France and who periodically attempted to regain
  the throne. Their supporters were known as
  Jacobites, and they rose in an unsuccessful
  rebellion in 1715. The Church of England remained
  the official religious establishment, but most
  Protestants who belonged to other churches
  enjoyed toleration.

• The revolution also resolved the struggle for
  power between the monarch and Parliament, which
  had been an ongoing issue under the Stuarts.
  Parliament emerged as the leading force in
  government. The Hannoverians ruled as
  constitutional monarchs, limited by the laws of
  the land. During the 18th century, British
  monarchs ruled indirectly through appointed
  ministers who gathered and managed supporters in
  Parliament..

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• The Hannoverian monarchs associated the Whig
  Party with the revolution that brought them to
  power and suspected the Tory Party of Jacobitism.
  As a result, the Whigs dominated the governments
  of George I (1714-1727) and his son, George II
  (1727-1760). Neither king was a forceful monarch.
  George I spoke no English and was more interested
  in German politics that he was in British
  politics. George II was preoccupied with family
  problems, particularly by an ongoing personal
  feud with his son. Although they both were
  concerned with European military affairs (George
  II was the last British monarch to appear on a
  battlefield), they left British government in the
  hands of their ministers, the most important of
  whom was Sir Robert Walpole.
• George II
•  

• Walpole led British government for almost 20
  years. He spent most of his life in government,
  first as a member of Parliament, then in
  increasingly important offices, and finally as
  prime minister. Walpole had skillful political
  influence over a wide range of domestic and
  foreign policy matters.. Walpole kept Britain out
  of war during most of his administration. A
  growing sentiment in Parliament for British
  involvement in European conflicts forced Walpole
  to resign in 1742.
• In 1745 a Jacobite rebellion posed a serious
  threat to Whig rule. Led by Charles Edward
  Stuart, the grandson of James II, the rebellion
  broke out in Scotland. The rebels captured
  Edinburgh and successfully invaded the north of
  England. The rebellion crumbled after William
  Augustus, who was the duke of Cumberland and a
  son of George II, defeated the Jacobites at
  Culloden Moor in Scotland in 1746.

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British Colonial Expansion

• First British Empire
• Britain already controlled many overseas areas by
  the 18th century. For more than 100 years English
  explorers had ventured east and west in search of
  raw materials, luxury goods, and trading
  partners. The eastern coast of Canada gave the
  British access to rich fishing grounds, New
  England provided timber for the Royal Navy, the
  southern American colonies exported tobacco, and
  the West Indies produced sugar and molasses. From
  Asia came coffee, tea, spices, and richly colored
  cotton cloth. From western Africa came slaves who
  were sent to work on plantations in the Americas
  and the Caribbean.
• The first British Empire sprang from the
  enterprises of individuals and government-sponsore
  d trading companies. They risked money, ships,
  and lives to establish Englands presence around
  the world. The British government created royal
  monopoliesprivate companies to whom the monarch
  granted exclusive rights to trade in a particular
  region or field of commerce. For example, the
  East India Company had a monopoly to trade in the
  east, the Royal African Company to enter the
  slave trade, and the Hudsons Bay Company to
  exploit the fisheries of Nova Scotia and
  Newfoundland. The lands that these companies
  claimed became possessions of the Crown, and
  investors bought shares in successful companies
  on the London Stock Exchange.

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Hudsons Bay Company For over 200 years the
Hudsons Bay Company sent explorers and traders
into the wilderness of Canadas Northwest
Territories. This 1882 illustration shows an
expedition loading up on supplies at one of the
companys trading posts.
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• The most important of Britains imperial
  possessions, however, were not trading posts but
  settled colonies in the Americas. In
  Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island,
  settlers established communities for religious
  reasons in Virginia and Barbados, farmers,
  trades people, and merchants were in search of
  economic opportunity. As a result of successful
  wars with The Netherlands and Spain, England
  acquired New York and Jamaica, both thriving
  settlements. Prosperous cities sprang up along
  the eastern seaboard of North America in
  imitation of the towns of Britain. Englands
  colonies grew rapidly. The tens of thousands of
  settlers in the mainland North American colonies
  in 1650 grew to 1.2 million inhabitants by 1750.
• The Navigation Act of 1651 regulated trade
  between England and its colonial outposts. The
  act followed an economic philosophy known as
  mercantilism. Under this system, governments
  regulated economic activities by increasing
  exports and limiting foreign imports in an effort
  to generate wealth. According to the theory of
  mercantilism, the value of colonies lay in their
  natural resources, which could be transported to
  Britain and converted into exportable products.
  The Navigation Act benefited British merchants by
  restricting the types of products produced in the
  colonies, mandating that only British ships
  transport products to and from the colonies, and
  prohibiting direct trade between the colonies and
  other nations. Mercantile policies made Britain
  the greatest centre of trade in the world.

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Imperial Wars

• As a consequence of its military exploits under
  William III and the duke of Marlborough, Britain
  had become a great power. Britains military
  strength and its growing prosperity created an
  international rivalry among the three great
  colonial powersBritain, Spain, and France.
• Spain controlled extensive colonies in Mexico and
  Central and South America. Because the Spanish
  and British empires both employed the restrictive
  mercantile system to regulate trade with their
  colonies, Spanish and British colonies were not
  allowed to trade directly with one another. The
  Spanish navy attacked British ships when they
  attempted to trade in South American ports.
  However, Spanish traders carried on a lucrative
  smuggling operation with the British colonies,
  exchanging sugar, rum, molasses, and other goods
  for raw materials and agricultural products from
  the British colonies.

• Relations were particularly tense between Britain
  and France. The French resented the expansion of
  Britains American colonies as well as the ban on
  direct trade between the colonies and non-British
  merchants. French territories in the Americas
  included Saint-Domingue (the largest of the
  Caribbean sugar islands), mainland North America
  from the Ohio Valley to the Mississippi River,
  and all but the easternmost part of Canada.
  Clashes between French and English forces became
  frequent in the North American colonies.
• . In the mid-1700s Britain became embroiled in
  two major wars. Both the War of the Austrian
  Succession (1740-1748) and the Seven Years War
  (1756-1763) were world wars, fought by great
  armies on the European continent, by navies in
  the Atlantic, and by privateers in the West
  Indies and the spice-rich islands of Asia.
•  

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• British prime minister William Pitt, 1st earl of
  Chatham, engineered the expansion of the war.
  Pitt was known as William Pitt the Elder to
  differentiate him from his son, William Pitt the
  Younger, who served as Britains prime minister
  in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Pitts
  family made its fortune in colonial trade, and
  Pitt saw clearly that Britains best interest lay
  in enlarging its colonial empire rather than in
  dominating Europe.
• In 1757 he captured Chandernagore, the principal
  French settlement in India, and at the Battle of
  Plassey he defeated the army of the Indian ruler
  of Bengal. These victories established a
  permanent British foothold in India. In North
  America, where the war was known as the French
  and Indian War, British general James Wolfe took
  Québec and drove the French from the province. At
  the conclusion of the war, Britain secured all
  French territory in Canada and east of the
  Mississippi and acquired Florida from Spain. The
  Treaty of Paris, which ended the war in 1763,
  represented a French surrender around the globe.

• The War of the Austrian Succession erupted
  following the death of Charles VI, Holy Roman
  emperor and archduke of Austria. The war was
  fought over the succession of his daughter, Maria
  Theresa. It pitted England, The Netherlands, and
  Austria, who were trying to defend Maria
  Theresas succession, against an alliance of
  France, Spain, Bavaria, Prussia, Saxony
  (Sachsen), and Sardinia. After eight years of
  fighting, the conflict ended when the Treaty of
  Aix-la-Chapelle confirmed Maria Theresa as
  Charless heir. The treaty returned almost all
  the conquered lands to their original owners,
  except for the Austrian province of Silesia,
  which was ceded to Prussia.
• The Seven Years War was one of the greatest of
  all British triumphs. A coalition of Britain,
  Prussia, and Hannover fought against France,
  Spain, Russia, Austria, Sweden, and Saxony. The
  war began as a European conflict, when Maria
  Theresa attempted to regain Silesia from Prussia.
  It soon expanded into a major contest between
  Britain and France for control of their colonial
  empires.

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Seven Years' War, Indian Theater Britain
defeated the French at the Battle of Plassey,
thus denying France control of Indian
territories. The victory paved the way for more
control by the English East India Company, which
became the de facto government of the region.
25
William Pitt, the earl of Chatham William Pitt,
the earl of Chatham, led his country to victory
over France in the Seven Years' War. He is also
known for his defense of the rights of the
American colonists. His son, William Pitt, became
one of England's great prime ministers and led
his country to prosperity after the financial
ravages of the American Revolution.
26
George III and the American Revolutionon

•  
• Although William Pitt had become a national hero,
  he did not survive the change of monarchs in
  1760. George III came to the throne determined to
  rule Britain without the help of the Whigs. He
  chose his former tutor, Lord Bute, as his first
  chief minister, but quickly replaced him with a
  series of successors. George III was determined
  to participate actively in Parliaments political
  decisions this brought him into conflict with
  his own ministers, who foresaw parliamentary
  opposition to a politically active monarch. The
  king also faced opposition from critics such as
  political reformer John Wilkes, a member of
  Parliament who was arrested for libel when he
  criticized one of the kings speeches.

George III Britains King George III governed
during the time of the American Revolution.
Besides losing the American colonies, the war
nearly bankrupted his country. He took an active
role in the British government and new
territories were acquired to replace the loss of
the American colonies. In his later years he
suffered from bouts of insanity.
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Colonial Unrest

• Britains role in the imperial wars cost the
  country a staggering amount, and the national
  debt rose higher than it had ever been before. In
  order to lower the national debt, the kings
  ministers decided to make colonial government pay
  for itself. Beginning in 1763 Parliament passed
  laws to tax colonial commodities such as sugar,
  glass, cider, and tea. The most controversial of
  these duties was the Stamp Act of 1765, which
  taxed legal documents and publications. Americans
  not only complained about the cost of these
  taxes, they also questioned the British
  governments right to impose them. They decried
  being taxed by Parliament when they were not
  allowed representation in British government.

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• The American Revolution (1775-1783) divided the
  governing classes in Britain. Prominent
  intellectuals such as political philosopher
  Edmund Burke were accused of treachery for
  supporting the colonists. However, the government
  of Prime Minister Lord North continued to try to
  enforce colonial taxation. In 1775, 13 of the
  American colonies rebelled against British rule.
• The American Revolution gave France and Spain an
  opportunity to strike back at the British Empire.
  Both supported the American colonists with money
  and ultimately declared war on Britain. The
  British army was unprepared for war in North
  America, and it suffered a series of humiliating
  defeats, culminating in the surrender of British
  general Charles Cornwallis to American forces at
  Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781. When hostilities
  ended, Florida was returned to Spain, and the 13
  rebellious colonies achieved independence as the
  United States of America.

• The loss of the American colonies came at great
  cost to Britains self-image. George III was
  blamed for the disaster, and he decided to
  withdraw from direct control of government. He
  would soon have the first of a series of bouts
  with mental illness that eventually left him
  incapable of ruling the nation.

Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquis Cornwallis
British general, who achieved initial success
against the American continental army in the
American Revolution. But General George
Washington, with the aid of a French fleet,
surrounded Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia, and
forced Cornwallis to surrender, ensuring an
American victory in the war.
29
Act of Union with Ireland

• In Ireland, Protestants formed volunteer military
  groups during the war, supposedly to defend the
  island from a French invasion. Backed by these
  groups, the Irish Protestants pressured the
  British government into granting greater
  independence to the Irish Parliament in 1782.
  This independence did not last long.
• In 1798 three antigovernment activities shook the
  confidence of the Irish Protestants. A revolt
  broke out in May and June among Catholic
  peasants, while a group of dissenting Protestants
  in Ulster also rose in rebellion in August a
  small French army landed in western Ireland. All
  three challenges were handled by British troops.
  These events caused widespread concern among the
  Protestant elite about their ability to maintain
  political power in Ireland. In 1800 the Irish
  Parliament approved an Act of Union that made
  Ireland an integral part of the new United
  Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The Irish
  Parliament was dissolved, and Irish
  representatives were seated in the British
  Parliament

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Revolution and War

• In 1783 the king turned power over to William
  Pitt the Younger, who was only 24 when he became
  prime minister. Pitt, the son of a former prime
  minister, immediately set about repairing the
  damage that had been done to the colonial empire
  by the recent losses. The India Act of 1784
  removed the administration of India from the
  English East India Company and placed it directly
  under the control of the British government.
  Pitts greatest concern was to reduce the huge
  debt acquired from nearly a half century of
  warfare. He encouraged the resumption of trade
  with the United States. Pitt also created a fund
  to pay government creditors and to accumulate the
  money necessary to repay long-term loans. This
  strategy might have resulted in financial
  stability had it not been for developments in
  France.
• French Revolution
• In 1789 the French Revolution erupted. French
  citizens rose against their monarch, Louis XVI,
  eliminated the ancient legal distinctions based
  on social class, and established a republican
  government. The French revolutionaries invited
  all of the peoples of Europe to follow their
  example. Conservative monarchs throughout Europe
  were hostile toward the revolution. Within a few
  years wars broke out between France and a number
  of European powers.

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Battle of Trafalgar Britains warships defeated
the combined fleets of France and Spain off
Cape_at_ÿrafal?ÿ?ÿ?ÿ 1805N?ÿhe victory gave Britain
maritime supremacy that, except for clashes with
French fleets during the Napoleonic Wars,
remained unchallenged for more than a century.
Horatio Nelson British naval commander Horatio
Nelson gained fame and the gratitude of his
country when he destroyed a combined French and
Spanish fleet led by Napoleon that was prepared
to invade England
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• In 1793 France declared war on Britain, and the
  final phase of nearly 500 years of warfare
  between France and Britain began. It was a
  titanic struggle. Initially, Britain stayed out
  of the land war in Europe and chose instead to
  focus on defending its colonial possessions and
  maintaining control of the seas. In 1798 British
  admiral Horatio Nelson defeated the French navy
  in Egypt, securing Indias safety throughout the
  war. The Royal Navy captured nearly all of the
  important French colonies in the West Indies and
  Africa. In 1805 Nelson achieved one of the
  greatest of all naval victories at the Battle of
  Trafalgar when he defeated a combined French and
  Spanish fleet.
• Napoleonic Wars
• The Napoleonic Wars were fought between France
  and a variety of European nations from 1799 to
  1815.
• Napoleons policy of blockading trade between
  Britain and the European continent hurt British
  trade. In response Britain instituted a blockade
  of goods going into or out of European ports
  controlled by Napoleon. The British policy of
  stopping and searching ships suspected of
  travelling to French-held areas of Europe led to
  the War of 1812 (1812-1815) between Britain and
  the United States. The war began when the United
  States insisted that Britain had no right to
  stop, search, or seize ships belonging to neutral
  countries.

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• After Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812 and
  suffered a disastrous defeat, Britain mobilized
  its forces for a land war and joined a coalition
  with Russia, Austria, and Prussia. The center of
  fighting shifted to Spain, where a British force
  under the duke of Wellington successfully fought
  its way across the country and invaded France in
  1813. Two years later Wellington led the
  coalition of forces that decisively defeated
  Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo and ended the
  French revolutionary wars.
• The Congress of Vienna, which ended the
  Napoleonic Wars, was a great diplomatic victory
  for Britain. France was left intact but its
  continental neighbors achieved security of their
  borders. The treaty created a balance of power
  among the nations of Europe that led to 40 years
  of peace on the continent. With peace established
  in Europe, Britain was free to spend its energy
  and resources on expanding its overseas empire.

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington British
general Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington,
is best known for his victory over Napoleon at
the famous Battle of Waterloo in 1815. A leader
of the Tory party in the British Parliament as
well as a soldier, Wellington was known as the
Iron Duke for his steadfastness.
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Industrialization and Progress
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