merchants of Shrewsbury and Oswestry were protected by
the Crown from competition by London merchants. These
merchants sided with Charles I. On the other side, the
metallurgical industry had flourished around Birmingham
because monopolies were weak there and newcomers to
the industry did not have to serve a seven-year
apprenticeship, as they did in other parts of the country.
During the Civil War, they made swords and produced
volunteers for the parliamentary side. Similarly, the lack of
guild regulation in the county of Lancashire allowed for the
development before 1640 of the “New Draperies,” a new
style of lighter cloth. The area where the production of these
cloths was concentrated was the only part of Lancashire to
support Parliament.
Under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell, the
Parliamentarians—known as the Roundheads after the
style in which their hair was cropped—defeated the
royalists, known as Cavaliers. Charles was tried and
executed in 1649. His defeat and the abolition of the
monarchy did not, however, result in inclusive institutions.
Instead, monarchy was replaced by the dictatorship of
Oliver Cromwell. Following Cromwell’s death, the monarchy
was restored in 1660 and clawed back many of the
privileges that had been stripped from it in 1649. Charles’s
son, Charles II, then set about the same program of
creating absolutism in England. These attempts were only
intensified by his brother James II, who ascended to the
throne after Charles’s death in 1685. In 1688 James’s
attempt to reestablish absolutism created another crisis
and another civil war. Parliament this time was more united
and organized. They invited the Dutch Statholder , William
of Orange, and his wife, Mary, James’s Protestant
daughter, to replace James. William would bring an army
and claim the