Stuart Parliaments in the 17th Century
.1 Social Structure
social structure of 17 th-century England was topped after the king by the feudal nobility and the highest clergy, bishops and the like.down, the next rung of the social ladder was occupied by the gentry, smaller landowners turned bourgeois in their interests and way of life, and the bourgeoisie, in its turn divided into three layers: the great city magnates, the middle merchant class and the petty bourgeoisie, small shop owners and the like. Still lower down were the workmen, some of them close to the petty workshop owners, and also enjoying some sort of property, others (in big centralized manufacturies) working fifteen or more hours, deprived of political rights. In the countryside the yeomanry, freeholders (whose status implied almost actual ownership of land which they held on general grounds and could lease it if they wished), copyholders, holding their land for life, paying rent to the owner, paying when they came into it after their parents « death and even having to pay for it in labour if the owner so desired; leaseholders (anybody wishing to augment his holding could get some on lease for payment agreed upon for a certain term). Economically the wealthy copyholders and freeholders whose lands were more or less extensive, constituted the yeomanry »s top layers. [6, p.142] lowest and poorest layers of the peasantry were the cotters, landless hired men exploited by the capitalist farmers, the gentry and the top layers of the yeomanry. The gentry were a sort of link between landowner and merchant for they exploited the land they possessed or leased, and the laboures they hired, organizing agricultural production along capitalist lines.absolute monarchy was established by the first of the Tudors, it was welcomed by the merchants and the landed gentry as a rescue from the bloody feudal conflicts deadlocking the country, precluding any chance of bourgeois development. The merchants and the gentry, «the new nobles» were ready to give the crown every support and aid, so that no permanent army or any sort of paid bureaucratic service was wanted, soldiers being hired and paid out of the city coffers when those coffers « interests were at stake. After the founder of the Tudor House, the thrifty, parsimonious, and resourceful Henry VII no Tudor had any superfluous income to make him independent of the moneyed nobles, for every Tudor could always rely upon the Parliament to vote the necessary supplies, and Elizabeth is said to have always being on friendly terms with the London goldsmiths acting as bankers, ready to lend any sum - in reason of course.the bourgeoisie supported monarchy as long as they wanted the Crown »s protection. But the other feudal component of monarchy was always there and when those feudal survivals came to be felt as obstacles while the bourgeoisie came to realize its economic power, they started getting impatient to feel the chains of absolute monarchy hindering the progress of the bourgeois growth. [3, pp.98-99]
.2 The Growth of Contradictions between the Crown and the Parliament
.2.1 The Age of James I Stuart «s Reign (1603-1625) first signs of trouble between the Crown and Parliament came in 1601, when the Commons were angry over Elizabeth» s policy of selling monopolies . But Parliament did not demand any ch...
