Vocabulary Flashcards
Petition of Rights
a major English constitutional document that sets out specific liberties of the subject that the king is prohibited from infringing.
Long parliament
an English Parliament which lasted from 1640 until 1660. It followed the fiasco of the Short Parliament which had been held for three weeks during the spring of 1640, and which in its turn had followed an 11-years parliamentary absence.
Short parliament
a Parliament of England that sat from 13 April to 5 May 1640 during the reign of King Charles I of England, so called because it lasted only three weeks.
Cavaliers
a supporter of King Charles I in the English Civil War.
Oliver Cromwell
an English military and political leader and later Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Cromwell was born into the middle gentry, albeit to a family descended from the sister of King Henry VIII’s minister Thomas Cromwell.
Commonwealth
an independent country or community, especially a democratic republic.
Declaration of Rights
a document drafted in 1776 to proclaim the inherent rights of men, including the right to reform or abolish “inadequate” government.
Monarchy
a form of government with a monarch at the head.
Torries and wigs
members of two opposing political parties or factions in England, particularly during the 18th century. Originally “Whig” and “Tory” were terms of abuse introduced in 1679 during the heated struggle over the bill to exclude James, duke of York (afterward James II), from the succession.
English bill of rights
was a British Law, passed by the Parliament of Great Britain in 1689 that declared the rights and liberties of the people and settling the succession in William III and Mary II following the Glorious Revolution of 1688 when James
William and mary
King William III and Queen Mary II of England, who ruled jointly after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 had expelled Mary’s father, King James II.
Enlightenment
the action of enlightening or the state of being enlightened.
Philosophers
a person engaged or learned in philosophy, especially as an academic disciplin
John Locke
an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the “Father of Liberalism
Voltaire
French writer, playwright, and poet; pseudonym of François-Marie Arouet. He was a leading figure of the Enlightenment, and frequently came into conflict with the Establishment as a result of his radical views and satirical writings.
