The restoration of monarchy; Glorious Revolution; The enlightenment

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act that excluded dissenters from public offices. ● Then, another important act was the act of uniformity that imposed the use of the common prayer: was a book imprinted many years before it was a book of english prayers in opposition to the book of the latin prayers. • Then, the text act that required that all the public employees had to conform to the Church of England. And then the royal society was created under the reign of Charles II, in 1662. The motto of this society was in Latin "nullius in verba" means don't trust anybody's words. This group was formed by philosophers, scientits, intellectuals. The aim of this group was to use reason as a way to overcome problems/ to study reality. This is the period in which an important movement developed, which was the enlightenment. The enlightenment was based on the use of reason, the power of reason. When Charles II died he was succeeded in 1685 by his brother James. Under his reign some religious problems might started because James II had converted to catholicism then he wanted to place catholics in position of authority and this cause a conflict with the parliament and then there was another problem that is in 1688 he married an italian woman, who was catholic, they had son that was catholic too and so the parliament feared a possible catholic succession and so the wings and the tories negotiated with William of Orange, he was the husband of Mary who was the daughter of James II but she was protestant and actually the parliament invited them to invaded England and this is the so-called "Glorious Revolution". Glorious Revolution It is also called the Bloodless revolution because it was not a war where there was any blood. William of Orange landed with an army in Devon in 1688 and James III had to escape abroad and so William and his wife became joint monarchs, they were both monarchs. It is called a glorious revolution because it was a revolution in the sense of change and the change was that the monarch was not chosen by divine right but the monarch was chosen by parliament. The reign of William and Mary was characterized by economic progress/development was a period in which the finances improved, London in particular became a very important financial center and again under the reign of william and mary other important acts were passed, like: the bill of rights in 1689 that like the Magna Carta prevented the king from putting taxes without the consent of parliament, or raising an army or suspending the laws. Another important act was the act of settlement which excluded the catholics from the throne. And also the triennial act established the duration of the parliament: it couldn't last more than 3 years. When William and Mary died they were succeeded by Queen Anne, she was the sister of Mary, she was a very popular queen, she was anglican she also took part in political debates in the house of lords. Under her reign an important act was passed that was the act of union, it established that England and Scotland were reunited and so the so-called United Kingdom of Great Britain was formed. Instead Ireland remained a separate kingdom with its own parliament (today southern Ireland is an independent republic). Under the reign of Queen Anne first of all, there was the end of the war of spanish succession that ended with the treaty of Utrecht so with it the french recognised the portestant succession and expelled the exiled stuarts and also it gave England the possessions in Canada and the monopoly of the slave trade with Spanish America. The enlightenment A GOLDEN AGE In literature this period was called "Augustan Age". It was called the Augustan Age because now in England there was a period of stability and a period in which the arts flourished. So this period was similar to the Roman period in which emperor Augustus reigned. This period was also called "A golden age" like the Elizabethan age, because it was a period in which any forms of extremism were abolished and rejected, it was a period in which there was an interesting cultural public debate; in this period the virtues of politeness, moderation and rationality were exalted, and then, started to understand that in every person there was an innate sense of what is right and what is wrong and also that virtue lies in "good breeding" (good education) so, having a good education is important to the development of person. As i said the virtue of civility and moderation became the most important ideals of 18th-century, in this period also the figure of the gentleman was born, this figure was characterized by morality, fashion and elegance but in the meantime he was someone simple, so simplify and emotional authenticity were considered important in a gentleman, but in contrast with this figure of the gentleman there was the development of a counter-culture, for example mainly sports such as boxing, racing and fox-hunting. As we know the most important movement that influenced this period was the "Enlightenment", it was an European intellectual movement, it was born in France and then developed in other country and the aim was the use of reason to free the mind from ignorance and superstition that characterized basically the Middle-Age, also, as I said before, reason had to be developed by education. We can also say that there was a rediscovery of nature (doesn't mean just the landscape), in particular of the natural state, for example they believed that what is natural is rational and so it's common to every human being. THE ROLE OF WOMEN During the Augustan Age, in England the condition of women was better than the condition of women in other countries, in the sense that they were more emancipated, they had a more active role in society in fact for example they could visit friends, they could go to the theater even alone and they could go to the coffee houses that were places where people could go, and for the prize of a coffee they could discuss so, there were cultural debates and especially they could read newspapers, because this is the period in which in England there was the rise of journalism, the two most important English newspaper that influenced also other countries were The Tatler and The Spectator. Some women could also write like for example a woman called Aphra Behn that can be considered as the first English female novelist. As I said some women were writers, but there were some women that were readers because women had more time than men, so they influenced the rise of the novel. Also when women read books they were not influenced by heroic stories of the past but they were interested in ordinary events. A NEW VIEW OF THE NATURAL WORLD As I said before, also nature was very important and Enlightened thinkers wanted to give their contribution to improve the world, they rejected the Calvinist belief that life was controlled by God because they believed that men could control their own life, so there was a new optimistic view of the natural world, so nature was considered as something beautiful, so, since nature was really important also influenced painting, for example through the landscape painting, also in real life they started to invent something that was called the "English garden", it was a green area that was not natural but it was created by men, usually in an English garden we may find a lake, a temple, a bridge etc. the English garden developed also in other country, for example in France but also in Sicily in particular in Palermo. EXPLORATIONS This period is also important for the explorations, these voyages to new lands were commissioned to Captain Cook by the Royal Society, and through these voyages there was the encounter with native peoples but also the mapping of Australia, New Zealand and the Hawaiian Islands.