In 1215, English nobles picked up their weapons against their king. That had a plethora of reasons, but at the heart of their claims was the burden of taxes. King John, Third of the Angevins raised taxes arbitrarily and trampled on the rights of the nobility. Hence, they stood against him until they reached an agreement called Magna Carta that changed the history of the world forever.
Across the pond in France, a similar story will unfold 5 decades later only that it led to the beheading of King Louis XVI in 1793 through the Guillotine. His death was part of the many culminations of events of the French revolution (1789-1799), which started officially after the Estates General, as assemblage of estates in France (Clergy, Nobility and Commoners) moved to form a national assembly against the wishes of King Louis XVI.
The French Revolution was also the result of a core grievance- lack of equity, notably; unequal application of taxes in France.
In both instances in England and France, the powers of monarchs had been questioned over time due to the introduction of taxes which the monarchs largely used to finance their wars and court life.
While the monarchs enjoyed the fruits of subjugation, their subjects increased power by a gradual process of holding their monarchs to account. In Britain, the monarchy was transformed to a constitutional monarchy. In France, the monarchy was abolished and the King was beheaded.
The action of leaders come in various dimensions and activities, but more often, a few of their actions lead to unintended consequences. These consequences often have implications beyond their borders. In this context, multiple taxation led to the issuing of the Magna Carta in England which is the first notable document that captures basic rights, limited government and common law. In France, the chants of “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité”, that is liberty, equality and fraternity rent the air.
The outcome of the events in England and France are the same, and their collective impact is what we witness in the form of freedom, democracy and human rights that has formed the basis of Western foreign policy today. These two countries bear semblance because they are both European, and share a common heritage in their nobility formation and common destiny to raise taxes and wage wars.
Activities upon which kept European empires safe from perennial attacks and maintained a balance of power system.
The interactions between taxes and the need for absolute monarchs to maintain their powers through active consent their aristocrats and passive consent of their commoners birthed discontent in both Britain and France. However, this piece will focus on England/Great Britain, with another piece dedicated to France in the future.
This piece covers the wars, promulgation of laws, statecraft and political economy of Britain between 1215-1689 when the Glorious Revolution happened. It starts with the Magna Carta and its origin.
England: Nobles, Taxation and the Magna Carta
The time is the year 1215 AD, and the reigning monarch of England was King John, Third of the Angevin Kings. His rule was noted for mismanagement and arbitrariness in exacting taxes and rules. This pitted the nobility and commoners against the king, warming up a rebellion against the king.
Activities of the king came to a head when he lost the Duchy of Normandy, which is in France. The loss of the Duchy led to the following for John:
- Loss of revenue
- Loss of prestige
- Need to increase taxes.
Some of the taxes King John increased include; 1. Scutage: A tax on knights and nobles, which King John increased and collected without consent. 2. Tallage: A tax on towns and cities, which King John raised without authorization. 3. Feudal dues: King John exploited his feudal rights to demand excessive payments from nobles and barons.
The nobility led by led by Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Henry de Bohun, Earl of Hereford perfected a plan to;
a.) Limit King John’s power and establish a constitutional monarchy.
b.) Enforce the Magna Carta (1215), a charter of liberties and rights that King John had signed under duress.
This did not bode well for the king and he refused to accede to the request of his nobles, leading to the First Baron War
The First Barons’ War and the Treaty of Lambeth
What followed, later that year (1215), was the First Baron’s War which the nobility organized and fought against the crown. This war ensued because King John refused to enforce the Magna Carta, infact he renounced it. The barons seized London that same year (1215).
King John died in 1216 and his son Henry III was crowned. The war continued, and the barons invited Prince Phillip of France to take the English throne, but he was defeated in 1217.
Finally, in 1217, the Treaty of Lambeth was signed to end the war, after the defeat of the barons. This treaty established that Magna Carta has come to stay and paved way for constitutional monarchy.
This meant that the power of the monarch is no longer absolute, but must be within new conventions and the rights of the various classes of subjects in England.
Despite the signing of the Treaty of Lambeth, a Second Barons War broke out in 1258-1267. King Henry III, who took over from King John, his father, relapsed and continued in the fashion of his father. The barons were led by Simon de Montfort. Your guess is right, taxation was also a major cause of the Second Barons’ War.
The Second Barons’ War and the Provisions of Oxford
The Second Baron’s War ended in defeat of the barons again, seeing the death and defeat of Simon de Montfront at Evesham by Prince Edward in 1265. However, the barons were not just defeated on the field, King Henry had his way, renouncing the Magna Carta and The Provisions of Oxford (1258) which the barons put in place to augment Magna Carta, in order to further establish a constitutional monarchy in England.
At this juncture, it is important to know what happened before the breakout of the Second Baron’s War. Simon de Montfront was able to get the king to agree to The Provision of Oxford because the king was vulnerable and was in a poor shape with public finances. His military strength was also not at par with that of the baron’s, and a number of skirmishes between the baron’s and royalist armies proved this with the defeats of the royalist armies.
The Provision of Oxford of 1258 was determined as an ordinance of parliament. As an ordinance, it was a temporary measure, and not constitutional yet. It provided that the king will no longer operate his patronage system or name officials for the Crown.
It further provided that the king must run the affairs of the Crown through a council of 9 people, chosen by electors. This sort of check and balance effectively navigated England to a system of constitutional monarchy.
The fortunes of King Henry III changed and he regained power by 1263 and the baron’s had no choice than to ask for King Louis IX, King of France to arbitrate the matter in 1264. Louis IX ruled in favour of King Henry by renouncing The Provisions of Oxford, restoring the authority of King Henry and asking the barons to surrender their castles and land. This led to the Battle of Lewes ensued in 1264. The baron’s won again and had King Henry III and his son, Prince Edward in their custody.
Prince Edward escaped in 1265 and effectively defeated the baron’s and his father King Henry III was restored to his throne, where he renounced The Provisions of Oxford effectively in 1265. The barons were largely degraded in this entire ordeal.
Britain was now back to absolute monarchy, but the consciousness of the nation and their discontent will not abate.
The English nobility had embarked on the road to constitutional monarchy, and the discussion on the subject will not abate until the Glorious Revolution in 1688. The Glorious Revolution established constitutional monarchy, ridding Great Britain of the reign of absolute monarchy after 423 years, since the end of the Second Barons’ War.
The Glorious Revolution
The Glorious revolution, like other revolutions must not be encapsulated as an event, though it can be marked as one. It is the culmination of a string of events that can be traced to the Magna Carta declaration- a yearning for liberty and individual rights, The Treaty of Lambeth and The Provisions of Oxford. But this time around, the progenitors of the Glorious Revolution started sourcing the building blocks for this revolution by re-asserting the importance of parliament and the need to ensure a well-defined and well-managed fiscal structure and to manage the influence of religion on the politics of England.
King Charles I – The Catholic King
King Charles I of the House of Stuart, a Catholic king, in a country that was firmly rooted in the Protestant tradition. He believed in the ancient “Divine Right of Kings” that holds that monarchs are appointed by God and are accountable to only him. Hence, he exercised powers to impose taxes at will, and restrained parliament meetings. Moreso, there were fears of the impact that a Catholic king might wreak, based on the Thirty Years’ War. These fears appeared to be legitimate to a large degree because of attempts by the king to repeal the Tests Act of 1673 which prevented Roman Catholics adherents from becoming Members of Parliament, studying at a university, joining the army or holding public positions.
In 1629, King Charles I dissolved parliament because of criticism, and this lasted until 1640. The king added a new ship tax in 1634 and made more reforms which favored the Catholics. These religious adjustments continued until 1640 when Scottish covenanters out of protestant religious fervor invaded Northern England.
Civil Wars- 1640-1649
King Charles I wanted to fight the Scottish covenanters and he needed to raise new taxes, but he needed parliament to do this. There was no more auspicious time for parliament to make new demands than this period. Between 1640 and 1642, the horse-trading between parliament and the King’s belief in his divine rights made progress impossible. Parliament issued a document named- The Grand Remonstrance, which included a list of indictments and proposals which angered the king. Parliament passed The Grand Remonstrance document in December 1641, and the king tried to arrest some Members of Parliament in January of 1642, but failed.
In August, 1642, the king grew weary of the antics of parliament and declared war on parliament. After a series of wars, the royal army lost, and King Charles I was tried and executed in 1649.
Progress was made on the part of parliament to hedge the aims of installing a Catholic monarchy, as well as to restore fiscal discipline. But the contention of the absolute monarchy still persisted, since the parliament of Scotland in January 1651 proclaimed Charles II king after the execution of his father, King Charles II.
This led to another war with Scotland, led by Oliver Cromwell- leader of the New Model Army, the army of parliament. Cromwell gained victory at Worcester in 1651. Cromwell was appointed Lord Protector of the commonwealth, but very soon, around 1660, King Charles II assumed the throne of England, Scotland, and Ireland.
The reign of Charles II of England ended when he suffered a stroke and died on February 6, 1685, at Whitehall Palace in London, England. He was 54 years old.
The path for a constitutional monarchy was now closer, but no one imagined it. But as usual, and as revealed by the patterns of this revolution, the elite and nobility never yielded on the subject of making laws and managing the fiscal health of England and Great Britain. Between the First Baron War and the victory of the parliamentarians at Worcester was now a space of 436 years. The nobility were willing to fight for this cause and employed every opportunity to demand it, for 436 years.
The political economy behind this will be explained in the concluding part of this article.
King James II assumed the throne of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1685 after the death of his brother- King Charles II. In his time, the dream of a constitutional monarchy and free parliament was achieved, but not without external help this time around. The British nobles got help from William of Orange, the stadtholder of Netherlands, and husband to Mary, daughter of King James II himself. Mary was herself a Protestant.
King James II, William of Orange and Mary of Orange: Netherlands and England, an Intertwined Protestant Fate
The reign of James II was plagued with similar issues that other Stuart kings had to deal with, that is; the need to ensure religious tolerance, promotion of Catholicism, the divine right of the king and his need to be able to raise taxes and revenue as he wills.
In 1687, he issued a declaration of indulgences and suspended laws that penalized Catholics. Finally, he dissolved parliament and created a new parliament that constituted his loyalists.
These actions led to the nobles guaranteeing their support for William of Orange, the executive leader of the Netherlands, though styled as a form of monarch, he deferred and reported to a parliament in Netherlands.
He agreed to invade England through Devon in 1688, not because he was being magnanimous. He did so to neutralize Louis XIV of France who had invaded Netherlands in 1672, and truncated its dominance of the economy of Europe.
Louis XIV was also a propagator of the Catholic faith, and was responsible for the earlier conversion of King James II to Catholicism. Whereas, the Netherlands was a Protestant republic and the greatest European economic power in the 15th century. The Dutch nation boasted of a modern republican government, which required that the decentralized leadership answer to a parliament. Compared to the rest of Europe that answered to a central and absolute monarch, though with unstable parliaments, like England and the Estates Generale in France. It also permitted individual freedoms in an unprecedented manner that Europe had never seen.
In addition, Netherlands was not naturally blessed with land, it had to employ water and land management to create land, hence, instead of being dominated with a landed gentry like England and France, it was dominated by people who had to be innovative and entrepreneurial. Hence, we hear aphorisms like; “God created the world, but the Dutch created the Netherlands.”
Netherlands was also the first country to incorporate a public liability company, which is the Dutch East India Company. The other innovations pioneered by Netherlands includes; the first stock exchange, wind mills for water management, the Fluyt – a revolutionary cargo ship, Textile manufacturing, Land reclamation etc.
William of Orange III after consultations with other Netherland nobles determined that another Catholic dynasty with total control of state power in Great Britain will spell doom to its republic and way of life. Hence, he accepted the invitation from British nobles to liberate that country from the impending doom feared by Protestant British nobles and Dutch nobles. He invaded Great Britain on November 11, 1688 through Torbay, Devon and finally landed in London on December 18, 1688.
King James II fled to France, where he remained until his death at his palace- Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye. His cousin- King Louis XIV played host to him and his small court, as well as providing a pension, as agreed when the former converted to Catholicism.
William of Orange III and his wife- Mary now ascended the throne of Great Britain, but the work was not done. Parliament had to pass a law to cement the work the barons had begun in 1215, and others like Simon de Montfront and Oliver Cromwell had fought so dearly for.
The Bill of Rights was promulgated by parliament in 1689
The Bill of Rights – 1689
In January 1689, William of Orange III and parliament met at the convention parliament, where British nobles got him to agree to a joint-monarchy with his wife. The other agreements included; distribution of powers across various points in the British realm, including parliament, thus making the monarchy more constitutional.
The agreement also included guarantees for freedom of speech, regular parliaments, free elections and exclusion of Catholics from being monarchs.
While the Bill of Rights of 1689 has been styled as the document that established Britain as a constitutional monarchy, some historians have described it as the beginning of the journey, implying that constitutionalism can itself be fraught with inconsistency in its execution, thereby rendering it null. A similar sentiment was expressed by Benjamin Franklin after the American constitutional convention of 1787. Franklin was asked; “What kind of government the Founding Fathers had created, Franklin replied: ‘A republic, if you can keep it.
The above has the implication that there can only be a constitution if its provisions are insisted upon, protected and in some cases, fought for in the courts, and on the battle field.
A review of the events from 1215 till 1689 reveals certain patterns which are discussed in the conclusion below.
What we see with the Glorious Revolution is an interplay of religious dogma, conflict between nobles and kings, demand for decentralization of power, and the underlying distaste for arbitrary taxation and revenue generation. There is also the international influence of the Dutch on groups such as the Whigs.
Religious Dogma, Taxes and Revenue Generation
The argument between the preference of Protestantism and Catholicism appears from the text of various arguments to be that of piety, when in reality it was all political. It was also not a singular issue that could be treated as though it had no impact on other issues like taxation and preservation of freedoms.
The central theme of Catholic monarchs was that of “Divine Right of Kings”, hence the king or queen can do as they please, even upstaging established landed gentry and nobles, as well as exploiting them and their estates. This divine right ran contrary to the history of the landed gentry and aristocracy in Europe. These people yielded their historical powers and swore fealty to absolute monarchs, with the principle that their control over their lands at their local levels.
A tendency for kings to have undue power always posed unease and anxiety to this class of people. While taxes may not have affected them directly, it affected their ability to administer their estates, and even posed a risk to their maintenance of law and order in their domains. The nobles were more or less like local government chairmen, lawmakers and governors of their day.
The king also always needed the nobles to raise taxes, because it was the nobles who will have the prerogative to ensure compliance.
The political economy of taxation in Great Britain was something of great concern because of what was considered as the waste of needless religious wars, some in duty of Great Britain and others, in duty of the Catholic Church. This the nobles considered an unnecessary burden.
There was no more contentious issue than the influence of religion on all other aspects of the realm. Thus, religious dogma needed resolution because it was a matter of politics, hence a matter of power and survival.
The Dutch Influence and the Whigs
The Whigs in Britain are a people of political orientation different from royalists. They are a group of Scottish Presbyterians that gained prominence in the 17th century, and term “Whig “can mean “cattle driver” or “rebel”. Presbyterians are noted for values such as having congregational churches, rather than churches driven by bishops or Episcopalism. They also believed in individual interpretation of scripture, as well as pre-destination. These beliefs rested squarely on the centrality of the individual in advancement of one’s life, and not the sometimes coercive nature of denominations run by Bishops.
They can be referred to as the progressives of their time, due to their concentrated ability to conceptualize and intellectually advance things like; limited government, Religious toleration and Individual rights. They were the intellectual powerhouse behind the Glorious Revolution of 1688, where they established William III and Mary II as co-rulers, the Bill of Rights of 1689, which limited monarchical power and protected individual rights and the Hanoverian succession of 1714, where they supported the accession of George I, ensuring a Protestant monarchy.
While, the tendency is for political development to overshadow economic undertones and development, the role and motive of the Whigs went beyond limitation powers of the monarchy for the sake of limiting it. Their campaign was driven by the need to restore fiscal health, industrialization and economic development to Great Britain.
The Whigs were involved in establishment of Bank of England and restructuring of the national debt. The contributed to trade and commerce policy, tolerance and pluralism of religion and technological advancement. The supported private ownership of land, as in Netherlands, which ensured agricultural modernization and growth. They were also involved in development of the factory system, Steam Engine, promotion of Laissez-Faire economics and colonial enterprise.
All of these reforms laid the path for the British Industrial Revolution which took place between the 18th and 19th century.
Political Economy Lessons from Great Britain (1215-1689)
The political economy lessons from the events in Great Britain, under the time of consideration as follows:
- i) The economic well-being of any country can be linked more to the quality of the elite, and not a strong leader. Whereas a strong leader can inspire, he or she needs people that have different capabilities to carry out reform, as well as sustain institutional memory of habits and behavior’s that support economic progress.
- ii) In every politics, there is an economic story. It was Harold Lasswell who wrote a book titled; Politics: Who Gets What, When, How. Behind the visible struggles for power may lie tools such as religion, which has formed the Superstructure for European elite in the past, but right beneath the struggle lies the need to control economic resources? In what we may allude to Karl Marx’s “historical materialism”.
While there was a struggle to prevent the entrenchment of a Catholic king or monarch, the real issue was that the nobles wanted a more stable economic climate, which will ensure real progress and not raising of taxes to fund Holy Wars, like; “The Eighty Years War (1568-1648): A Dutch revolt against Spanish rule, with religious and political dimensions”, “The Crusades (1095-1291): A series of military campaigns launched by Christians to reclaim the Holy Land from Muslims”.
iii) At any given point in time, the elite that will save any country may be concentrated in one part of the country, hence, such a country must have elites that are divorced from identity politics, which makes elite consensus impossible.
- iv) Before any country embarks on economic reforms, there should be efforts to restructure faulty politics. This will help accelerate the gains of such reforms, or quick correction of mistakes that may occurred along the way. The politics first, then the economy.
- v) Finally, the elite of any country must be beholden to their individual advancement, which can only be guaranteed by advancement of other citizens. If they tie their advancement to a benevolent dictator, the risk loss of their lives, relevance or position. Hence, they must work for advancement of themselves, through people.
The succession of British Industrial Revolution to the Glorious Revolution is a testament to this. Similarly, the liberal and republican environment in Netherlands helped foster a culture of immigration and innovation in that country. For instance, the Huguenots, who were Protestants were forcefully ejected from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 made their way to Netherlands and came with skills, capital, and entrepreneurial spirit which helped drive a wave of innovation in Netherlands. Meanwhile, France in 1789 could not boast of a strong scientific community or the industrial prowess of Britain and Netherlands.
Fiscal health of a country is often reflective of the health of its politics and orientation of its elite. Countries that seek development must correct their politics, and this includes the ideology of the elite.
Follow us on Twitter at @thesignalng
Copyright 2024 SIGNAL. Permission to use portions of this article is granted provided appropriate credits are given to www.signalng.com and other relevant sources.