Preface
About 8,000 kilometers west of Beijing lies the western terminus of the Eurasian continent. Across a strait from here lies an island nation called the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", which we usually refer to as "Britain". This country covers an area of only 240,000 square kilometers, and today has a population of only 60 million people, but in the modern history of the world, it occupies a very special place.
It was the first country to enter the modern world, and in the 18th and 19th centuries it was a leader in world development. The proud British used to describe their country as the "Empire of the Sunset" because at the end of the 19th century, it had colonies in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Oceania, covering a total area of 9.3 million square kilometers, and ruled over 300 million of the world's population.
What is it about this island, which was drifting peacefully in the ocean, that bred transcendent energies that transformed itself and influenced the world?
Episode 3 Toward the Modern Age
On July 7, 1588, the currents of the Atlantic Ocean were as rough as they had been during any previous summer.
On this day, 130 ships of war, 8,000 sailors and 20,000 men set sail from Spain, a vast contingent with an illustrious name - the Invincible Armada. The mighty Spanish empire had reigned supreme for more than half a century under its escort.
The Invincible Armada's purpose on this trip was to take control of the English Channel and teach a lesson to England, an island nation in the Atlantic.
Richard Harding, a professor at the University of Westminster in England:
The Anglo-Spanish War had its roots in the Reformation.By the 1630s, England had become a Protestant nation. Catholic Spain wanted England to return to the Catholic faith and accept the control of (Catholic royal family member) Mary, daughter of Henry VIII.
Besides religion, another important reason for the Spanish king to swing into action was that the English were attempting to seize and expand their maritime dominance, and the interests of the Spanish empire were being violated as never before.
Why would a tiny island nation, which had not been taken seriously by the European continent, challenge Spain, the world's number one empire at the time? With what, exactly, did the British dare to confront Spain, which had been riding the seas for nearly a century?
The woman on the painting, adorned with a giant hooped skirt, stiff crumpled collar, wide sleeves, and a gold-embroidered veil, was Elizabeth I, the ruler of England at the time. Under the overlapping and complicated costumes, the women's form disappeared, and what people remember is a solemn and proud icon of kingship. A famous English biographer described the queen, who ascended the throne at the age of 25 and remained unmarried for life, as follows: "This fierce old hen sat motionless, incubating the English nation. The nascent strength of this nation, under her wings, was fast becoming ripe and united. She sat motionless, but every feather stood up."
When Elizabeth I succeeded to the throne in 1558, from that side of the English Channel news continued to arrive of the successful fortunes of Spanish and Portuguese seafaring explorers. The news was a clear signal to the hapless people of an age that was about to come full circle. It meant: in front of a world that had just been rediscovered, whoever could seize the opportunity to embrace new ideas, whoever broke with the old values faster, would become rich and powerful faster. In the new world's rules of the game, winning the sea is more important than winning the land.
History gives every nation a limited opportunity to take off. As the nation's supreme ruler, Elizabeth I did not miss the moment. No part of England was more than 120 kilometers from the sea, and the queen thought she could use this natural advantage to develop maritime trade. But to do so would be tantamount to taking food from the Spanish. Elizabeth I was well aware of the strength of her rivals and she did not want to lose to Spain in an open confrontation.
HARRY DICKENS, VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY:
So the queen encouraged privateers, pirates, like Raleigh and Drake and others to expand English trade, to open up colonies, like Virginia, and even to attack Spanish trade. They acted like privateers, almost pirates, so if they clashed with Spain, the Queen could deny that they were involved with her, and say that they were acting against official government policy. In this way, the Queen can stay out of some of the naval actions, but actively encourage them because she sees it as a way to develop the country.
This is Plymouth Harbor in southern England, where most of the 16th-century English navigators set sail.
In 1580, Plymouth man Francis Drake became the first person in the world to complete a circumnavigation of the globe himself, a three-year voyage in which Drake's fleet not only plundered Spanish colonies in South America but also raided Spanish ports in Europe. Fully loaded, Drake brought his investors 4,700 times their profits. As one of the financiers, Elizabeth I took a share of 163,000 pounds in dividends, a figure almost equal to a year's government spending at the time.
The noble queen herself came to Drake's sitting ship and ceremoniously knighted Drake -- a man whose profession was more accurately described as a pirate -- with the title of knight. The success of his countrymen and the Queen's encouragement bolstered the confidence of the English to travel far and wide, and more and more men came forward to join in overseas plundering and trade.
But it became clear that these new competitors were robbing the world's largest empire at the time, Spain, of its interests. After one fight and conflict after another, King Philip II of Spain was completely enraged, and in the summer of 1588, he sent his invincible fleet across the English Channel with the appalling might of the overshadowing sky to attack England.
Liu Xincheng, a professor at China's Capital Normal University, said:
The Battle of Britain and the West in 1588 was one of the most important naval battles in human history, which decided the fate of Europe in the early modern period and, to a certain extent, had an impact on the world in the early modern period.
Elizabeth I tried to defuse the crisis by negotiating, but Philip II, with a sneer on his face, was convinced that the Invincible Armada would announce the English defeat in two weeks' time.
However, two weeks later the opposite was true. The Invincible Fleet had met its most formidable opponent in the Atlantic, a small fleet of merchant ships and pirates.
Liu Xincheng, a professor at China's Capital Normal University, said:
At first, Spain wanted to wipe out the British fleet based on the advantage of having more men and bigger ships, but it didn't realize that the British fleet, though small, had more advanced artillery, and because of the climate, the British fleet took advantage of its flexibility and mobility and gained the upper hand in the war.
After a few days of fierce fighting, Spain's invincible fleet was half sunk to the bottom of the sea by the British and half fled home. The British captains were even a little disappointed with the victory, as they had not been able to annihilate their rivals. But in fact, the significance of this victory was far beyond their imagination.
Pauline Croft, a professor at the Royal Historical Society:
The victory was also a huge boost to British morale, and in retrospect, it really marked the rise of British maritime power in the 17th century, when Spanish hegemony began to shift to Britain. Spain remained a great power for 50 years after the defeat of the Invincible Armada, but it was clear that its foundations had been shaken.
England's victory in the Battle of Britain and Spain in 1588 was a triumph of the weak over the strong, and it showed once again the power of the nation-state under the rule of the crown. The island nation, which had long been outside the mainstream of European civilization, for the first time raised its voice to the European continent as a powerful nation, and quickly entered the center of the struggle for world maritime and commercial hegemony.
Spain slowly withdrew from the main stage of history, and a new maritime power emerged. How far could Elizabeth I lead this rising island nation?
Harry Dickens, vice-president of the Royal Historical Society:
You need to remember: England was actually a small country with a very small population at the end of the 16th century. England's power was ultimately through commerce and economic expansion of its colonies. Spain stood in its way, the Dutch and later the French stood in its way. So England had to use its navy to challenge the authority and power of all these nations for their colonies and trade, and Elizabeth (I) was the first to actually succeed in doing this.
Pauline Croft, professor at the Royal Historical Society:
I think a strong monarchy was a key part of the transformation of European, and British, societies from medieval to modern. Strong monarchs were beneficial to these countries because they were at the center of patriotism and were able to give the country clear leadership.
A strong monarchy gave Britain its early glory and allowed it to take an important step towards becoming a great power. As overseas expansion and trade continued to expand, the island nation's outlook and temperament quietly transformed.
The City of London doubled in size and by 1600 had a population of more than 200,000, making it the largest city in Europe. The north bank of the Thames, which runs through London, is home to a concentration of the city's magnificent buildings; the south bank is filled with theaters of all kinds. Today, those theaters are hard to find, but one is an exception.
The circular building is called the Globe Theater. It was built in 1997, but the materials and layout of the building remain exactly as they were in Elizabeth I's time. It took nearly 50 years to build the theater, and the purpose of this time-consuming construction was not simply to add to the cultural landscape, but also to show that Shakespeare, the dramatist whom Marx called "one of the greatest geniuses of mankind," was a shareholder, actor, and playwright in the theater four hundred years ago.
The short, rural playwright revealed his astonishing talent and insight into the inner world of man in his 37 plays. Standing at the height of 16th-century thought, Shakespeare unearthed human traits hidden in the depths of history and threw them at people's feet, saying, "Behold, my friends, mankind are not created to my specifications, and all I can do is to show them to you as they really are."
Today, people use the 1,600-seat Globe Theater to pay tribute to the genius. During the season, which runs from May to September, it is still packed, and Shakespeare's classic plays, which are recognized around the world, remain the theater's only choice.
Liu Xincheng, a professor at China's Capital Normal University, said:
In Shakespeare's history plays, the monarch is often the antagonist. Queen Elizabeth, of course, knew this, and she didn't order a ban on performances of Shakespeare's plays. This is despite the fact that in plays like Hamlet, there are lines like "O frailty, thy name is woman!" lines like that. But then, that didn't stop Queen Elizabeth from sitting in a box right across the stage and watching the play.
The Queen's tolerance has contributed to the height of Shakespeare's art, and the Queen's open-mindedness is not just in her attitude toward art, but also in her skill and wisdom in dealing with the affairs of state. The Queen understood that the basis of power was the nation composed of all Englishmen, and that without the support of the people to back it up, the dynasty would have no possibility of standing. In order to gain the support of the people, Elizabeth I, while strengthening the power of the king, adhered to an important political tradition passed down from her ancestors.
This political tradition comes from an ancient past.
This powerful-looking man was one of the most important kings of early English history, known by the title of William I, and it was from this king that the English royal family was able to establish an authentic line of descent and a feudal system, as was the case in continental Europe.
Professor Guo Fang of the Institute of World History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences:
European feudal system is based on the manor as the basic unit of the manor, the manor, it is not only a piece of real estate, but also a unit of political power, aristocratic lords in the manor, not only the right to justice, but also the right to operate, there is also administrative jurisdiction, and thus the manor is just like an independent kingdom.
Hou Jianxin, professor of history and culture at Tianjin Normal University in China:
"Feudal" is a word that has different meanings in Europe and China, and in China, it means that "there is no king's land under the sky and no king's subjects on the shore of the land". "
In Europe, the feudal system is the manor system, so it means decentralization, which means that the king does not have the power of unification.
In the early days of the feudal system in England, the king and the nobles were very clear about their status, and knew what they should and should not have according to their own points. Although there was no written law, over time, the king and the nobility followed each other's promises, each fulfilling their obligations and enjoying their rights, which became a rule of engagement in British society. The relationship between the king and the nobility, however, was not static.
Early in the 13th century, England saw a warlike King John, who lost many battles. In successive foreign wars, he lost almost all of England's territories on the European continent. For this reason, King John was also known as the "Lost King". In order to maintain the war effort, King John stepped up his exploitation of the citizens and nobles.
He raised the inheritance tax on the nobles by 100 times and the exemption from military service by 16 times, while the prices of cattle, sheep, and wheat all rose exponentially.
Hou Jianxin, a professor at the School of History and Culture at Tianjin Normal University in China:
King John became more and more reckless, and he kept imposing new taxes and raising them, thus breaking the unwritten but long-standing custom between the nobles and the king. obligations, but demanded more power than custom dictated.
This peaceful and beautiful lawn by the River Thames, with its Greek-style domed pavilion, stood between the victorious nobles and King John's quarters, and on June 15, 1215, King John, faced with the prospect of extinction, had to agree to a negotiation with 25 representatives of the nobility around this pavilion. It was a difficult negotiation, and after four full days of sword fights and compromises between the representatives of the nobles and the king, the Magna Carta - a declaration of peace and truce - was finally signed.
At the time, none of the contracting parties would have realized that what they were doing was writing an important chapter in British history.
Hou Jianxin, a professor at the School of History and Culture at China's Tianjin Normal University, said:
The Magna Carta contains two of the most famous clauses, which have since been written into the UK's Magna Carta, the first of which is that the king must swear an oath that he will "do justice to no man, and not deprive any man of his rights", and the other is that the king must not be deprived of his rights without the judgment of the court. The other was that the king could not arrest or deprive a person of his property without a judgment of a court of law. These two clauses show that the rights of the subjects are independent, not granted by the king, and therefore the king cannot deprive them.
In the British Library's Hall of Treasures, a black, rough, yellowed parchment lies silently in the dim light under a glass panel. The thin parchment is the Magna Carta, some 800 years old, and although its edges are tattered and the handwriting written with a quill pen has long since been blurred, it is a permanent testament to the limits of the monarch's power.
It is a **** only 63 paragraphs, just a few thousand words, but for the first time between the king and the nobility has always been both agreed but vague relationship between the rights, into a clear legal text. From then on, the power of the King of England is no longer supreme, he can only exercise power under the limitations of the law.
After King John signed the League of Nations, successive British monarchs continued to promulgate Magna Carta with slight amendments. Over the centuries, the Magna Carta was enacted more than 40 times in total***. Although in many cases the Magna Carta was not clearly perceived by the majority of the British people, this long period of reaffirmation and popularization has accumulated a deep traditional force, which has infused the basic spirit of the contract and the rule of law into the roots of the British people's thinking.
This broad, gentle river is the Thames, a river Churchill called "the river that runs through the history of England". Britain's Houses of Parliament are some of the most striking buildings on the Thames.
Just 21 years after the signing of the Magna Carta, the word "parliament" appeared in official British documents. This body, transformed from a council of nobles and kings, became an important force in limiting the power of the monarch by relying on the legal principles of the Magna Carta. The famous clock on the Houses of Parliament, which strikes every 15 minutes, is a vigilant and faithful guardian of its duties, never more than a second off.
Elizabeth I was able to bring early glory to England, to a considerable extent, because she, like the hands of this Big Ben, kept the Magna Carta agreement, maintaining the balance between the royal power and the aristocratic parliament.
Harry Dickens, Vice-President of the Royal Historical Society:
Elizabeth (I) was an authoritarian monarch, but not a tyrant or one who tried to do what she wanted. She tried to rule under accepted laws and conventions. She convened parliament often - not every year, but then she convened it every year - to implement policies that most people, especially influential people, wanted.
During Elizabeth I's 45 years of rule, the queen, who was skilled at harmonizing relationships, did not abuse her power or prestige; she was frugal throughout her life and did not take war lightly. When there was a conflict between royal power and parliament, she would always make necessary concessions according to the situation. Throughout her life, the expansion of royal power was always kept within the limits of what Parliament could tolerate. The balance and order between these two brought England a relatively stable and relaxed social environment.
In 1603, at the age of 80, Elizabeth I died. In order to avoid political marriages that would harm the country's interests, the queen remained unmarried for the rest of her life and finished her life in solitude, leaving behind an England that was growing in strength and on the upswing.
Twenty-two years later, another king came to the throne who had a profound impact on British history. This was a young monarch who could ride a fiery horse as well as shoot arrows and guns, and his title was Charles I.
After Elizabeth I used the monarchy to bring England into the ranks of the great powers, could Charles I carry on the favorable course that the queen had begun? Can he lead England onward? This is Whitehall Street in London, where almost all of Britain's major government departments are concentrated on both sides of the street. The oldest building on Whitehall Street is the Banqueting House, built in 1619 and recorded as the tallest building in the city of London at the time. On the broad ceiling of the hall, the works of Rubens, the master oil painter, are still vividly colored, and the story of an aged king who was awarded a crown by an angel still exudes the vividness of the earth. It is said that the man who solemnly invited Rubens to create these oil paintings was Charles I, the 18th king in English history.
Professor Xiang Rong of the School of History at China's Wuhan University:
This king especially believed in the divine right of kings, and in the banquet hall he asked the artist to portray his father as a saint, and he also asked Rubens to portray Britain's foreign expansion as a kind of conquest in accordance with God's will. In his mind, these paintings, on the one hand, symbolize God's divine right of kingship, and on the other hand, it is also a kind of foreign expansion of his ambitions.
Faced with the glory of Elizabeth I's kingship, the young monarch stood above the authority of his predecessors, convinced that he was God's highest authority on earth and possessed supreme power. But he neglected one thing: the support of the people and the interests of the nation. This concept, which often appeared in the mind of Elizabeth I, gradually disappeared from Charles I's thoughts.
Charles I soon suffered a financial crisis after his succession. Those intricate religious wars, led by him personally, between England and Spain, and with France, had left the treasury empty and the finances strained, and in order to maintain the war effort, the primary means Charles I thought of was to increase taxes.
However, the King of England could not do as he pleased in this matter. Because since the signing of the Magna Carta, the right to levy new taxes belonged to Parliament. The king had to get the approval of Parliament if he wanted to impose new taxes.
Professor Xiang Rong of the School of History at Wuhan University in China:
The parliament at this time did not approve Charles I's marriage contract, which called for sufficient funds; in addition, it also rejected the king's request for a tax increase because of the war; not only that, but the parliament also stipulated that the king could only collect tariffs for one year, and could not enjoy the right to collect tariffs for life.
Charles I, who was intent on creating the same achievements as Elizabeth I, was pushed to the limit by the tightening of Parliament's grip,
and began to impose new taxes on merchants and to make compulsory loans to the burghers on his own, without going through Parliament.
A fierce contest between the king and Parliament began.
In 1629, Charles I sent troops to forcibly dissolve Parliament, which had been meeting in England for more than three centuries. But during the 11-year period without parliament, the English did not forget the rules that had developed over centuries.
Qian Yuandan, a professor of history at China's Peking University, said:
There are two major principles that have developed over the course of England's history, one is that the king is in parliament, which means the king must rule through parliament. The second is that the king is under the law, which means that the law is above the king, and the king must obey the law. However, what Charles I did was to destroy these two principles. As a result, the conflict between Parliament and the king became greater and greater, and the rivalry became more and more acute, eventually leading to the outbreak of the war in 1642, which is the very famous "English Revolution" in modern history, also known as the "English Civil War".
It was a war over who would have supreme power in the country. In the war, a parliamentary general named Oliver Cromwell stood out, and under his leadership, the king's army was completely defeated, the Anglo***an state was formed, and Charles I was captured.
The Banqueting House in Whitehall Street was not a witness to the realization of Charles I's ambitions, but witnessed another important moment in English history. Not long after Rubens' painting was completed, Charles I himself, outside this banquet hall that he had so carefully created, even as far as the eyes of the saintly father who was depicted as a saint could see, came to the end of his life.
On January 30, 1649, a clear winter's day, the square in front of the Banqueting House was filled in the early hours of the morning with thousands of Londoners, with conflicting expressions of sadness, fear, excitement, and bewilderment hanging on their faces. In uncontrollable anxiety, they were waiting for the execution of a severed head of King Charles I, who was condemned by Parliament as a "tyrant, murderer and enemy of the state".
Charles was stoic. Before embarking on his execution, he insisted on wearing two shirts so he wouldn't shiver in the cold and give onlookers the false impression that he was afraid. After leaving his last words and saying his prayers, the 49-year-old monarch, who had been in power for 24 years, placed his head on a padded anvil and reached out to the executioner to signal that it was time to drop the axe.
The events of 1649 had little effect on China's Qing dynasty, which had just entered the country five years earlier, but on the European continent it was a different story. Europe's courts, large and small, were shocked, at a time when they were either under monarchical rule or were aspiring to one. What Britain, the island nation across the sea, did transcended the prevailing political notions of the era.
Chinese professor of history at Peking University, Qian Zhandan:
In the final analysis, Charles I went against the so-called tradition of liberty that had been established in Britain since ancient times, and in the beginning the so-called liberty referred to the aristocracy's confrontation with the king, but later on it gradually turned into a rebellion of the whole country against the king's tyranny. Over the centuries, this struggle between the king and the people has been one of the main lines of development in English political history. It was in this struggle that Britain emerged from the Middle Ages into the modern world.
After the death of Charles I, Parliament handed over executive power to the Council of State, headed by Cromwell. But the new life that the English had hoped for did not come.
Soon, Cromwell began to impose a military dictatorship. The results of the English Civil War, which had overthrown the autocratic dynasty, were like watercolors attached to a glass plate, washed away by Cromwell's dictatorship and social upheaval. The revolution had begun as a revolt against one man's tyranny but ended with another's, and Cromwell, the "Lord Protector," had become a "king" without a king's name, and in 1653 Parliament was again dissolved.
The opposite was always true. After Cromwell's death, the fallen dynasty was brought back with great pomp and ceremony, and in 1685, after a series of complicated changes of power, Charles I's son, James II, succeeded to the throne. James II, who was y affected by his father's tragedy, did not want to repeat it, and he prepared to expand his army in an attempt to return England to the days of Charles I's rule.
Harry Dickens, vice-president of the Royal Historical Society:
The people didn't want to risk the possibility of civil war, and they wanted James II to be an honorable and sensible king. But he proved to be a very bad king. He was bent on breaking away from parliamentary rule, threatening the City of London and many other towns. Acting like a despotic dictator. He made most of England's productive elite feel they had to overthrow him.
Faced with the despotism of James II, the English, at a crossroads, would choose to rebel in what way?
A nation's political choices are often influenced by tradition and certain major events.
This time, the British did not resort to violent revolution as they did with Charles I. Lessons had taught them that it is easy to overthrow a dynasty, but difficult to establish a new system; they did not call for Cromwell either, because the Cromwellian revolution did not bring real progress and development to the country. And so, in 1688, the English
Unfinished ~~~~~~~ There is a second half.
This is the narration for The Great Power Rising, which I'm sure you've seen 。。。。。