Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots; the Spanish Armada; Drake, Hawkins,
Gilbert, Raleigh, Shakespeare.

The Stuarts: "Divine Right of Kings" supported by majority of gentry and
landowners (cavaliers), opposed by the commercial and trading classes
and yeomen (roundheads). The Kings strove for absolute power, the
Parliament for constitutional government.

James I: Union of the English and Scottish Crowns.

Charles I: Struggle between King and Parliament; Petition of Right, Ship
Money, rebellion, execution of Charles.

Commonwealth: nominally a republic, really a dictatorship under
Cromwell. He gave Britain a strong government at home, and made her
respected abroad, and laid the foundations of Britain's foreign trade
and colonial empire.

Charles II: The Restoration: Reaction in state, church, and society;
King striving for absolute power; Nonconformists persecuted; society
profligate in its revolt against the strictness of Puritanism; Habeas
Corpus Act; Test Act; Plague and Great Fire.

James II: Revolution of 1688, the death-knell of "divine right";
Parliament supreme; Declaration of Rights.

William and Mary: Party government--Whigs and Tories; King to act by
advice of his ministers; each parliament limited to three years; Bill of
Rights; Act of Settlement.