Augustian Age

Augustian Age

At the beginning of the 18^th century Mary Stuart was the Queen of England.

In that period the 'slave trade', that was started in the 16^th century, has develop.

Scotland doesn't have its 'hometrute', an own Parliament, and it wanted to be independent. But in that period was reunited to Britain; Scotland has own hometrute only in 1999.

When the George's of Hanover had the power, there was the opposition to them by the Jacobeans: there was some tension.

Britain wanted to destroy French because in America there was the problem of the colony, which were both English and French.

With the 30-years-war England won on France.

Then England gave heavy taxation to American colonies. They say: 'NO TAXATION WITHOUT RAPPRESENTATION', and they refused to pay. In 1773 the 'Boston Tea Party' made start the revolution.

At the end of 18^th century there was the 1^st industrial revolution. Britain was the first because:

Britain was rich in IRON and COAL.

In this century you saw a changing in agriculture. There were big landowers, but from this point on was introduced the 'FOUR COURSE ROTATION', that caused different and bigger productions. That fact had 2 consequences in particular: 1) people were more sane 2) lots of people went to town to find new jobs.

Britain was very famous for her cotton, but the production was realized at home and so wasn't enough to satisfy the big European question. These things pushed to the invention of machines.

The most important new inventions were: the POWERLOOM (telaio meccanico) and then, a bit later, the STEAM ENGINE (locomotiva). So in town you have a big grown of factories. Many people went to town and worked there. Also children and women worked 15-16 hours a day too. And all this was right for the low.

Consequently you see the birth of new social class: the WORKING CLASS. There was also a grown up of people, called LUDDITES, that hated progress and so, because they were afraid to lost job, they destroyed the machines, and other consequence was the big expansion of railways.