A commonwealth or republican gov ernment was now established, in which the most prominent figure was Oliver Cromwell. Mutinies in the army among Fifth-monarchists and Levellers were subdued by Cromwell and Fairfax, and Cromwell in a series of masterly move ments subjugated Ireland and gained the important battles of Dunbar and Worcester. At sea Blake had destroyed the Royalist fleet under Rupert, and was engaged in an honorable struggle with the Dutch under Van Tromp. But within the governing matters had come to a dead lock. A dissolution was necessary, yet Parliament shrank from dissolving itself and in the meantime the reform of the law, a settlement with regard to the Church, and other important matters re mained untouched. In April, 1653, Crom well cut the knot by forcibly ejecting the members and putting the keys in his pocket. From this time he was practi cally head of the government, which was vested in a council of 13. A Parliament —the Little or Barebones Parliament— was summoned and in December of the same year Cromwell was installed Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of Eng land, Scotland, and Ireland. With more than the power of a king, he succeeded in dominating the confusion at home and made the country feared thoughout the whole of Europe. Cromwell died in 1658, and the brief and feeble protectorate of his son Richard followed.
There was now a wide-spread feeling that the country would be better under the old form of government, and Charles II., son of Charles I., was called to the throne by the Restoration of 1660. He took complete advantage of the popular reaction from the narrowness and in tolerance of Puritanism, and even latter ly endeavored to re-establish the Cath olic religion. The promises of religious freedom made by him before the Res toration in the Declaration of Breda were broken by the Test and Corpora tion Acts, and by the Act of Unifor mity, which drove 2,000 clergymen from the Church and created the great dis senting movement of modern times. The Conventicle and Five-Mile Acts followed, and the "Drunken Parliament" restored Episcopacy in Scotland. At one time even civil war seemed again imminent. The abolition of the censorship of the press (1679) and the reaffirmation of the Habeas Corpus principle are the most praiseworthy incidents of the reign.
As Charles II. left no legitimate issue, his brother, the Duke of York, succeeded him as James II. (1685-1688). An in vasion by an illegitimate son of Charles, the Duke of Monmouth, who claimed the throne, was suppressed, and the king's arbitrary rule was supported by the wholesale butcheries of Kirke and Jef freys. The king's zealous countenance of Roman Catholicism and his attempts to force the Church and the universities to submission provoked a storm of op position. The whole nation was prepared to welcome any deliverance, and in 1688 William of Orange, husband of James' daughter Mary, landed in Torbay. James
fled to France, and a convention sum moned by William settled the crown on him, he thus becoming William III. An nexed to this settlement was a Declara tion of Rights, circumscribing the royal prerogative. This placed henceforward the right of the British sovereign to the throne on a purely statutory basis. A toleration act, passed in 1689, released dissent from many penalties.
In 1692 originated the national debt, the exchequer having been drained by the heavy military expenditure. A bill for triennial Parliaments was passed in 1694, the year in which Queen Mary died. For a moment after her death William's popularity was in danger, but his successes at Namur and elsewhere, and the obvious exhaustion of France, once more confirmed his power. The treaty of Ryswick followed in 1697, and the death of James II. in exile in 1701 removed a not unimportant source of danger. Early in the following year William also died, and by the act of settlement Anne succeeded him.
The closing act of William's reign had been the formation of the grand alliance between England, Holland, and the Ger man Empire, and the new queen's rule opened with the brilliant successes of Marlborough at Blenheim (1704) and Ra millies (1706). Throughout the earlier part of her reign the Marlboroughs practically ruled the kingdom, the duke's wife, Sarah Jennings, being the queen's most intimate friend and adviser, In 1707 the history of England becomes the history of Great Britain, the Act of Union passed in that year binding the Parliaments and realms of England and Scotland into a single and more power ful whole. On the death of Anne, the House of Brunswick came to the throne m the person of George I. (1714-1727). The principal events of the reign were abortive Jacobite risings, the divorce of the queen, and the "South Sea bubble." George II. ascended the throne in 1727. His reign was prosperous, but not very eventful, except for the rebellion under the young pretender. George III. be came king in 1760. Under his rule, the British Empire in India was founded, the American colonies established their independence, and the French Revolu tion burst forth. England was for a time on the verge of ruin. The national debt reached enormous proportions. But the genius of Chatham, Pitt, Fox, Nel son, Clive and Wellington rescued the country, after the failure of George HI.'s plan of personal government had been demonstrated. During this reign the legislative union of Great Britain and Ireland was effected. The king died in 1820, and was succeeded by George IV. His reign of 10 years witnessed' Roman Catholic emancipation, the first development of England as a colonial power in the sense of to-day, and marked industrial expansion. William IV. ruled seven years (1830-1837). During this period the great Reform Bill, extending the suffrage, marked the dawn of the democratic era in English politics.