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Home Domestic Affairs, 1689-1714 England; Part 5 |
England; Part 5Two features in our National Penance make their appearance during the reigns of William and Mary. The first was the National Debt, which dates from 1693. By 1697 it had reached £20,000,000; by 1713, £78,000,000; and by 1815 it was to rise to the stupendous total of £840,000,000. The other was the Bank of England, which was founded in 1694, and which in the course of its history has gone through many crises (As, for instance, in the Jacobite rising of 1745, when there was a run on the Bank, which only saved itself by causing as much delay as possible, and paying out in sixpences; or again in a commercial crisis in 1826, when the Bank owed its solvency to the fortunate discovery of a large number of bank notes of whose existence the governors had been ignorant). But amongst the most important of all the changes made at this time was the restoration, in 1695, of the currency; the old money, which was much worn, and was often " clipped" round the edges, was called in, and a new coinage was issued, whose milled edges made clipping impossible in the future.The Princess Anne succeeded to the throne, under the terms of the Bill of Rights, on William's death, in 1702. The story of the great War of the Spanish Succession, which was waged during her reign, has been already told. The Union with Scotland (1707)- perhaps the most important result of her reign-will be discussed later. The history of the domestic politics whilst Anne was queen remains to be narrated. Two features deserve special notice. One is the fierceness of the party strife, especially towards the close of the reign, when it extended even to the ladies of the two parties, who, it is said, patched upon different sides of their faces, and had different designs upon their fans. It is to the struggle over the Excision Bill in Charles II’s reign that these two great parties, known as Whigs and Tories- nicknames given to those parties by their respective opponents-owe their origin, and in Anne's reign the differences between them were sharply defined. The Whigs were in favour of Toleration, whilst the Tories were strong upholders of the Church of England, and were jealous even of the liberties which the Dissenters had recently acquired under the Toleration Act. The Whigs upheld the constitutional government that had developed as a result of the Revolution, but the Tories still had ideas of divine right and passive obedience. The Whigs supported the War of the Spanish Succession; the Tories, on the other hand, in the earlier stages of the war, wished it to be chiefly maritime, and in the later stages were opposed to it altogether. Finally, whilst all the Whigs were in favour of the succession, on Anne's death, of the Electress Sophia of Hanover and her son George, many of the Tories favoured James II’s son. The other feature to be noticed in Anne's reign is the close connection between politics and literature. In those days the reporting of speeches in Parliament was forbidden, whilst the age of public meetings had not begun. But the increased interest that was being taken in public questions and the increased importance of Parliament made it necessary for the rival parties to influence the country; and this was done through the papers and pamphlets of the great literary men of the period. Thus Addison, a Whig and the editor of the Spectator, eventually became a Secretary of State, though he never opened his mouth in the House of Commons; whilst Swift, a Tory and a clergyman, composed pamphlets which had enormous political influence, and, when towards the end of Anne's reign the Tory party was in power, used to dine every week with the two leaders of the Government, in order to assist in formulating their policy. |
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