ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the great changes took place in England during the reigns of the Stuarts, and one might be forgiven for taking these changes together as evidence that at some point during that period there occurred the beginnings of modern England and the end of the Middle Ages. The fact that the Stuart age was an important period of constitutional change can lead to two misleading assumptions: that the constitution inherited by the Hanoverians in 1714 was completely different from the ancient constitution, and that by 1714 the long search for a constitutional settlement had been successful. Late Stuart monarchs still ruled as well as reigned. Government in 1714 was still largely personal government by the monarch. Both the royal government and parliament emerged in 1714 with enhanced powers, with the crown heavily dependent on parliament. But no system had been devised of establishing a working harmonious relationship between the two.
