so I'm gonna do in this video is going to take an introduction to Stuart Britain I'm gonna introduce this this sort of set the stage for what we're gonna look at in this course and we're gonna do that by looking at the idea of the political nation and the solve the social basis of power so we're gonna outline a number of things we have a look at what it means that what the political nation was and what it means I'm gonna look at the Stuart monarchs of Great Britain the power that the monarchy had at the start of the 1600s the way the Constitution influence the power of the monarchy we're gonna have a look at other groups within the political nation and then we're gonna have a look at the social basis of power so as a general introduction to Stuart Britain it must be said that England in the 1600s was a period of social unrest civil war and revolution and this was the generally the view the understanding of the Stuart age and it was a period of time marked by social divisions and while England was still agricultural economy it was still also dominated by small elite groups of landowners so we're going to start to as we go through we're going to have a look and see that the kind of divisions that kind of dichotomies that existed within English society at this time and also religion was still still played a very important role in society and there was a lot of religious divides between Catholicism and Protestantism after the tensions that arose under the Tudor era and it's an example of a of a Tudor monarchs is the final two demonic Elizabeth the first who was the monarch before James the first who is the first monarch of the Tudor Age of that sorry the Stuart age when it comes to the political nation what we mean by the political nation is that it refers to people in early modern Britain who had economic political and social influence a group of people that had economic political and social influence and this was usually expressed and existed as land ownership people who landowners had this ability to influence policy influence politics and had economic standing and of the in this political nation it was seen that the monarch was the head was the top of this political nation okay and the monarchy was still the most important constant throughout the Stuart era when it comes to the Stuart monarch we have James the first who will look at first who reigned from 1603 to 1625 this is followed by Charles from 1625 to 1649 and then Charles the second 1660 to 1685 James the second 1685 to 1688 and then finally we have William and Mary who both started their reign in 1689 and William finished his reign in 1701 Mary 1694 so when it comes to the power of the monarchy again we're looking at this is an image of a Tudor monarch because this is what we're taught taking to understand really the on the Stuart monarchy we have to really have a look where the Tudors left off the how society existed in England so through the Royal Prerogative monarchs led the political nation they would shape politics economics and the social life of Britain the Royal Prerogative gave the monarch power over the following things so we have foreign policy here the power of foreign policy as they were head of state they have the power to declare war as they were commander-in-chief they had the power of a legislation a sort of pseudo power over legislation because they could control Parliament by calling it and dissolving it whenever whenever they wanted okay and they also had power of religion ever since this person here Henry the eighth became the Supreme Governor of the Church of England so this is suggestive that the monarchy as a concept was absolutists by absolutist we mean that had ultimate power and could rule freely the problem with this notion is that it monitor power sits with their finances okay we're gonna look in a couple videos time at the finances of James and Charles and see how the the monix financial position really did domini control the Monarchs power to influence other people so limits to these finances would therefore limit absolutism of the monarchy and a century of inflation made that the monarch meant that the monarch was unable to pay for the things that they wants to pay for with the expenses that they were given so their expenses didn't change but inflation did kept increasing so I should be will be able to see that finances start to become a real big political issue during this period and substantial funds could only be raised effectively raised through parliamentary subsistence subsidies which gave Parliament a certain a certain amount of power so the problem with this idea of parliamentary subsidies was that Parliament was reluctant to vote for these subsidies themselves this is because it would mean great taxation of the political nation so they were the Parliament was ultimately a part of the political nation and they knew that if the monarch wanted subsidies from Parliament then this would this money would come from taxing the political nation and they didn't want to do that so Parliament ultimately represented this political nation despite supposedly representing the country okay so as we will start to see they had a vested interest in not wanting to vote for these subsidies since they were representing the political nation who are the people that would have to pay for this subsidy okay and therefore we start to see tension arise between the monarch and Parliament and this reluctance to vote for subsidies meant that the monarch could rely on the prerogative it could only really rely on the property of income which was mainly things like Crown lands custom duties and feudal dues so the problem with relying on the prerogative for financial financial aid was that Parliament was always uneasy with thinking sint with this thinking since it would mean that the monarch could wield absolute power the Parliament ultimately controlled the monitor power but if the monarch could simply willed this through the royal prerogative then that would take away a certain check on the power of the monarchy from Parliament and the ability to limit the Monarchs power was really a key feature of Parliament during this period of time and it could also be said that the monarch was limited because of his relationship with the political nation because the monarch relied on the political nation for a number of vital roles so ie tax collection so we're gonna start so we start to see that this idea of the monarchy in absolutist is really not a very not very concise or convincing idea especially during the Stuart era because you have the power of parliament over the monarchy to ensure that to limit their finances and you also have the power of the political nation over the monarchy for a number of vital roles like tax collection so this reliance ultimately limited absolutism in mark in the monarchy another limit to the Monarchs power and another sort of a big influence that really became important during this period was the role of the UK Constitution so the UK Constitution plays a key role in issues during the Stuart era not necessarily because of the contents of the Constitution but rather the nature of it the Constitution so the UK Constitution was and still is today what we call uncodified this means it's not all written down in one place so this means that the constitute does not exist as like a single document if we wanted to for example get to Google for example the US Constitution you'd be able to find it in one single document you can actually purchase the US Constitution in one single document you can't do that with the UK Constitution the UK Constitution is made up of a number of sources including statute law common law different conventions etc cetera all built over a thousands of years so it becomes less clear what the Constitution actually says which is a which is really where the issue starts to come up so because it's not very clear what the Constitution actually clearly states the UK Constitution is open to interpretation and disagreement and we'll see that that becomes a big issue during the Stuart era moreover we can also look at other groups that formed up this political nation so we've talked a lot about the monarch and the power of the monarch and the power where power ultimately lies within the monarchy let's have a look at other areas of the political nation so the political nation was made up of a number of social groups this included things like the aristocracy the gentry generally based on land ownership and really if we compare the political nation with the rest of the rest of the country the population was around four million at the time of the Stuart Age that's the whole country and of this the political nation made up less than 50,000 people some argue that is even less than 20,000 or 30,000 so if you wanted to do the you know the statistics on that a very altum Utley comes to the point where very very very very small percentage of the population wields the majority of the power and that's the imbalance that will again come up later and we'll start to see the developments of this throughout the 1600s so to be seen as a member of the political nation this is a little bit of information about how how one could become a part of the political nation one must have an income of around forty shillings and this was also the minimum requirement to become a candidate for Parliament to become an MP however it must be said that most MPs were selected rather than you know went themselves to to be come you know become a candidate so as we've generally looked at other groups that form the political nation things like the aristocracy and effectively a the top 1% of of the population what does it mean when we talk about the social basis of the political nation's power so it must be said that the political nation itself had no enforcement power there was no police there was nothing like that going on in this period of time but despite the fact that it couldn't actually physically enforce its power and authority over the rest of the country the power of the political nation was just generally seen and accepted by those who were on the lower end of the social hierarchy so the social basis still remains strong despite this a rapid population growth between 1500 and 1650 a population that doubles effectively in that time and again with the population growth that came with a number of different problems so you have economic inflation you have food shortages land shortages you have unemployment okay these are all the kind of things that happen when you have rapid population growth and you don't have rapid economic development to sort of go alongside it all of these issues would eventually strain the class system in England so coupled the growth of population with harvest failures in the 1620s and we start to begin to see the extent of famine and starvation on the lower social classes so we're gonna start so things start piling up and these the class system in England starts to strain all this was happening while the top of the social class was affecting the game richer and despite all this despite all these problems despite the economic issues despite the the famine despite the fact that the social class at the top of the of the top of the list was getting richer the power of the political nation was very rarely challenged and it was really one of the reasons was this idea of a great chain of being which suggests that God had ordered Society himself to be structured in this sort of hierarchy and so really any kind of you know the structure of society was seen as sacrosanct as in it wasn't really you know you couldn't you wouldn't allow to question the social structure because it was all ordered by God so there were sometimes riots it must be said so despite the high social standing there were sometimes riots however these riots had very little impact and was seen as minor and small disputes rather and rather than you know large-scale revolts so it does still must be said that there were riots and there were sort of social unrest a little bit of social unrest but at the same time the overall view of the political nation was that of just a sort of a passive understanding you know they didn't really have much they didn't really they didn't really care much for it and they generally accepted the power of the political nation so in conclusion from this video we've had a look at the state of society in Britain and the impact that that had on the Stuart age we looked at the idea of the monarch being the top of this political nation we looked at the idea of the monitor not being entirely absolutist because of the impact of Finance controls through Parliament and other political controls from the rest of the political nation and we've also looked for this drive for absolutism creating tension between the monarch and Parliament and despite the huge social inequalities that existed at the start of the 1600s there was very little rebellion against the political nation