Lesson video

Hello, I'm Mr. Olivey And I'm going to be teaching you for the next four lessons.

In order for us to do lots of good work, do lots of great history, good stuff, you are going to need a couple of items. The first of those items that you will need are a pen and some paper so you can write stuff down and answer the questions and so on.

So if you haven't got those, pause the video now and go and get them.

Good, you have a pen and paper.

Second thing.

Can you just find a reasonably quiet place to work like this room that I'm in.

I've been reading this book, which is about romanticism, which actually isn't really relevant to our period.

So I should probably stop and read something else.

But now that you found somewhere quiet to work, now that you've got your pen and paper, we can make a start.

I'm really excited to do this topic.

So let's get going.

This is lesson one, before lesson inquiry.

Our title for today's lesson is The Restoration and our inquiry question for the next four lessons is going to be, "How revolutionary was the Glorious Revolution?" First, I'd like to tell you a story about this picture.

Because this picture shows an event that took place on the 5th of November in 1688.

And it was when a foreign Prince, William of Orange landed in England with a huge army.

William brought 20,000 soldiers with him and over 500 ships.

And within a few months, the King of England, James, the Second had fled the country and William was crowned the new King of England with his wife, Mary.

Now this event seems shocking to us, a huge invasion force landing in England.

And if you were trying to come up with a name for this, you might've thought people would have chosen The Terrible Betrayal, The Nasty Invasion, The Brutish Plot, The Terrible Trick, The Cruel Attack, but none of those names were chosen for this event.

Instead many English Protestants and Victorian historians refer to this event as The Glorious Revolution.

Okay.

So that's what our inquiry question is going to be about, is trying to understand how revolutionary this Glorious Revolution actually was.

But first, let's just check that you've been paying attention.

So what was the Glorious Revolution? Was it when William of Orange arrived in England and became king in 1688, when Charles the First was executed by the Rump Parliament, when Parliament won the English Civil War, or when the printing press was invented? Pause the video now and work out what the answer is.

Okay.

It's number one, when William of Orange arrived in England and became King in 1688.

Well done.

If you got that one right.

So our inquiry question is all about this event, the Glorious Revolution.

It's just trying to work out, well, how revolutionary actually was this? Now to do that we need to think about the stuff that came before the Glorious Revolution and actually the stuff that came after it, but that can all come later.

So this is a timeline of some events that you might have studied before in history.

And I just want you to try and look at it and make sure you're familiar with it.

So we've got in 1485, Henry the Seventh becomes King and that starts the Tudor dynasty.

And then in 1534, we've got Henry the Eighth's break with Rome.

It starts the English Reformation.

And then you've got some other events there in the 1600s.

Now, if you're not really sure about where this fits, you might want to pause the video and take another look at that timeline.

If not, we'll carry on.

So what is a revolution? Well, Google, our friend Google, defines it as follows: a dramatic and wide ranging change in conditions, attitudes, or operation.

I actually quite like that definition.

I think it's good, which is why I've used it.

So, dramatic or wide ranging change.

That's good.

But then we got this question of, well, what makes something revolutionary? What makes an event revolutionary? I just thought of a few sort of criteria here.

Now there might be others, but these are just some I thought we could think about.

So is there a mass movement? Does it involve lots of people? Is it a sudden change? IE, something that was one way, and then suddenly like that it's changed.

It's all different.

Is it something has never been seen before? Does it have long term consequences? So a thing that happened because of this, that lasts for a very long time.

So there's just some ways of thinking about this word revolutionary.

If you're not sure about the word revolution, you might want to just copy down that definition because it will be really helpful at various points later on.

If not, we can carry on, Right, the first story we're going to look at today involves this man.

And this is Charles the Second.

So, let's find out about Charles the Second.

Who was he? What did he do? Was he good or bad or both? Okay.

The first title or subtitle is From Regicide to Restoration.

So pause the video and write that down now.

Good, let's hear this story.

So it begins with Charles the First, who believes that he has a divine right to rule England however he wishes that comes from God.

However, his Parliament don't believe he has this.

They think he should listen to them.

And actually they get really fed up with Charles.

So they go to war with him twice in the English Civil War, and eventually at the end of these wars, Charles the first loses and he's put on trial by Parliament and they actually find him guilty of being a tyrant, a traitor, and a murderer.

And he's executed on the 30th of January 1649.

And this shocked the people of England.

You can see there in this image, there's a man turning away in disgust and a woman is faint.

And that wasn't the end of the violence, because actually there was terrible warfare in Scotland and in Ireland that followed the execution of Charles the First.

And eventually this man, Oliver Cromwell, became the sort of ruler of England.

Now he wasn't a King, even though he basically was in all but name, which is why this cartoon has shown him acting like a King, but he was actually called the Lord Protector.

And he ruled England in an incredibly strict way.

Cause he was a Puritan.

He believed that there shouldn't be dancing.

He believed there shouldn't be excessive drinking or partying.

He believed that there shouldn't be excessive celebration on Christmas.

And all of the rules and the things that he banned made him and the Puritans very unpopular.

In fact they were so unpopular that the English people actually invited back Charles the Second.

He was the son of Charles the First.

They invited back Charles the Second to rule the country.

So after 11 years with no King, known as the Interregnum, England had a King again.

He was called Charles the Second and in general people were quite happy.

Oh and Charles also had a brother called James the Duke of York, but I'm sure he won't come up again.

So let's just focus on Charles the Second.

Wow, look at him.

Isn't he great? England has a king again.

Everything's going to be fine.

No more puritanism.

No more banning Christmas, no more banning theatre, no more banning fun and football and celebrating.

Okay, and just to show that the Interregnum, this period with no Kings was well and truly over, the royalists, Charles the Second, they actually had the head of Oliver Cromwell dug up and stuck on a pike outside Whitehall so that everyone could see that you don't mess with the Kings anymore.

And that was that.

So quick question.

What was the Restoration? Was it when William of Orange arrived in England and became King in 1688, when Charles the First was executed by the Rump Parliament, when Charles the Second was crowned king in 1660, or when Cromwell massacred Irish Catholics in Wexford? Okay.

Pause the video now and think about that.

Right, for the answer.

It is number three.

The restoration was when Charles the Second was crowned king in 1660.

Okay.

So we think about this question of, well, how revolutionary was the restoration? Might want to pause the video now and write down a few thoughts.

I won't ask you about them.

Just keep them to yourself.

Pause the video and just think how revolutionary was the Restoration? Okay, you might put a few ideas down on a piece of paper.

That's good.

We'll come back to them later on, but for now we must carry on with our inquiry and with our story.

The next event we're going to learn about is the Great Fire of London in 1666.

Now the Great Fire of London was when the city of London caught fire and large parts of it burnt down.

And it started in a bakery in Pudding Lane in late August, early September.

And this fire damaged huge amounts of property and caused a large amount of suffering in a city that had already seen its fair share of suffering.

The year before in 1665, there'd be a terrible plague in London that killed 70,000 people.

And when the fire was over, thanks in large part to actually oh it's James the Duke of York James has popped up again.

Thanks the nice parts, James the Duke of York and his efforts to pull down houses to stop the fire spreading, the people of London wanted someone to blame and the people they chose to blame were Catholics and foreigners.

Large numbers of foreigners and Catholics were assaulted in the streets.

And a French person was actually executed for the fire, even though he was almost certainly innocent.

The Great Fire of London led to great suspicion of Catholics in England.

Because lots of people thought that the fire was started by Catholics to try and destabilise the king.

So who was accused of starting the Great Fire? I say accused there because I'm not saying these people are guilty, it's almost certain the fire was actually an accident.

Was it Protestant rebels, Catholic plotters Oliver Cromwell's son, Richard, or was it Guy Fawkes? Pause the video now and have a think about that.

Okay, let's find out the answer.

It was Catholic plotters that were accused of starting the Great Fire of London in 1666.

Okay, once again then, how revolutionary was the Great Fire of London? Again, could you just pause the video now and on your piece of paper, write down some notes about the Great Fire of London.

How revolutionary was that, do you think? Okay, you've done that.

Let's move on.

Number three, Titus Oates and his Popish plot.

Now this story is pretty shocking because it involved a man who was very good at lying called Titus Oates.

And what Titus Oates did was he made up a load of rumours about a plot to kill Charles the Second.

And these rumours really captured the imaginations of people in England.

And over 20 people, I believe, were executed as a result of Titus Oates.

His accusations that there was a plot to kill Charles the Second.

There was only one problem though, Titus Oates had made the entire thing up to try and become famous, and to try and become wealthy.

And when he was found out, it was too late to save all the people who had already been executed.

But Titus Oates was put in stocks and had fruit thrown at him.

And he was called a liar.

But the fact that people were even willing to believe this man who had made up this ridiculous rumour, that people were planning to kill Charles the Second just shows how paranoid, how scared the English people were in the 1670s.

20 people died, were executed and were murdered and many more died in prison because of lies that one man was able to make up.

Okay.

And once again, a lot of this blame was James Duke of York's, who'd be coming up an awful lot.

Once again, James Duke of York was actually blamed for being involved in this plot, even though he wasn't because he had married a Catholic princess called Mary of Medina in 1673.

But I'm sure James Duke of York won't come up again.

Right? So let's find out which of these statements about Titus Oates is true.

So did Titus Oates pretend he had uncovered a Catholic plot to kill Charles the Second, did he claim that he was one of Charles the Second's close personal friends, did he invent Quaker Oats, the popular breakfast dish? Or did he plan to assassinate Charles the Second? Pause the video now and have a think about that.

Okay.

Time to un-pause it.

Titus Oates pretended that he had uncovered a Catholic plot to kill Charles the Second.

Now the reality was this plot was completely made up, but the fact that people believe it shows just how paranoid, how scared English people were of Catholics in the 1670s and early 1680s.

Again, think how revolutionary was Titus Oates and his Popish plot that he made up.

Pause the video now and write down a few thoughts about that.

And we'll come back to those at the end of the lesson.

Okay.

Good.

Well done.

Finally then we need to find out a little bit about the death of Charles the Second and why this caused so much panic and fear in England.

Charles the Second reigned until 1685.

When he died, the throne passed to his brother, James, the Duke of York.

Now, obviously this was going to cause a lots of problems for the English Protestants who by this point were terrified of Catholics.

And were constantly seeing Catholic plots, even if they weren't real.

They were imagining them.

Because they believe that James the Second was going to try and model himself on the French absolutist monarch Louis the 14th, referred to as the Sun King.

And they thought he was going to take away all their freedoms rule without Parliament and be a bit of a tyrant.

And this terrified the English, Protestant elite.

They thought that all the work that had gone in during the Reformation was going to be undone and that England was going to have a Catholic King again.

And they could not believe that this was going to happen.

So why was the Duke of York so unpopular? Was it because he pretended that he had uncovered a Catholic plot to kill Charles the Second? Was it because he sold thousands of Africans into slavery with the Royal Africa company? What was it that he had converted to Catholicism in 1673? Or was it that he'd failed to stop the Great Fire of London in 1666? Now the answer, just think about it.

Pause the video.

Okay, let's find out.

It's actually this one.

Now this may surprise a lot of you because James was involved with a company called the Royal Africa company that was instrumental in expanding the slave trade or the trade in enslaved Africans from Africa to North and South America.

But that wasn't the reason why James was unpopular in the 1660s in England, at least.

In the 16th century in England, at least, it was actually that he had converted to Catholicism because the hatred of Catholics was so deep in parts of England.

They could not believe they could not imagine the idea of having a Catholic King once again.

So please could you now pause the video, read the slides on the next page and answer the comprehension questions.

And resume the video once you've finished.

Right, let's go through those answers.

Question one.

What was the Restoration? The correct answer would be when Charles the Second became king of England in 1660, but a better answer would be after Cromwell died in 1658, he left a power vacuum.

Charles the First's sons, Charles and James returned to England and the monarchy was restored in 1660.

Question two, What did the Test Act do? Correct answer would be it banned Catholics from working for the king.

But a better answer would be the Test Act banned Catholics from working for the King and from helping to run the country.

It was passed because many MPs viewed Catholics with suspicion in the 1660s.

Question three, who was blamed for the Great Fire of London? Correct answer is Catholics and foreigners.

But a better answer would be the chaos that followed the Great Fire of London saw rioting and violence on the streets, angry mobs attacked French Catholics, some believed that the fire was all part of a Popish Plot to kill the king.

Question four, what did Titus Oates claim he had discovered in 1678? Correct answer is a plot to kill Charles the Second, but the better answer would be Titus Oates claimed that he had discovered a popish plot to kill Charles the Second.

In fact, he made up the entire plot to try and become rich.

By the time this was revealed, 23 people had been executed.

Question five, why did many of England Protestant elites not want James the Second to become King in 1685? And the correct answer would be because he was Catholic, but a better answer would be James the Second, formerly the Duke of York was unpopular because he had converted to Catholicism in 1673, many Protestants feared that James would try and rule England as an absolutist monarch.

Right? Well done.

If you've got those right or you've got answers close to those.

We're now ready to just have one last sort of think about our inquiry question, which is how revolutionary was the Glorious Revolution? We've already seen then how revolutionary the developments that took place in Restoration Britain were, and we can see that even before the Glorious Revolution, there was lots of revolutionary things going on in England.

Now if you'd like to please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

Well done for all your hard work today.

I can't wait to actually teach you about the story of the Glorious Revolution itself and the events that took place in England from 1668 to 1689.

Next lesson.

Bye for now.