I recently went on a (fascinating?) two hour distraction, starting with the latest reports about the Colston statue and a question in Bristol 24/7 about who actually owns it, which in turn linked to a page of Colston’s history on the Dolphin Society’s website which made me wonder (in a distracted sort of way but prompted by school work set that day for a family member) where Colston’s timeline fitted in with the Kings and Queens of England.
Civil War and the Commonwealth
Turns out (my knowledge of the English monarchy is not great) that Colston would have been 13 when Charles I was executed in 1649, so he lived through the Civil War and the turmoil that followed.
Until today I knew nothing (or had forgotten since O’ Level history lessons) about the Commonwealth of England (1649-1660), when England was governed as a republic. The first Parliament (the Rump Parliament, made up of those MPs already elected at the time of the execution but who were not royalists) was riven with conflict and vested interest. Cromwell eventually forced its dissolution in 1653 and, after a nominated assembly failed, became the Lord Protector until his death in 1658 (Colston would have been 22 by now and two years into his apprenticeship at the Worshipful Company of Mercers in the City of London, an association for import and export merchants, a trade through which he eventually made his fortune).
Cromwell had nominated his son, Richard, to succeed him but Richard did not have the support of the army and was removed by the Grandees of the New Model Army in 1659 which reinstalled the Rump Parliament.
George Monck
At this time the Governor of Scotland was George Monck, a career soldier from Great Torrington in Devon who had fought for Charles I but whose military prowess led to his release from a two year spell in The Tower so that he could lead the Parliamentary army against the Irish rebels. He was an expedient leader, knowing when negotiation was better than fighting, and earned the trust of Cromwell.
After Cromwell’s death Monck bided his time but was eventually instrumental in the drafting of the Declaration of Breda in which Charles II offered pardon and reconciliation. From Coldstream Monck marched his part of the New Model Army (later to become the Coldstream Guards) to London after which Parliament invited Charles to become King.
Royal African Company
Monck was made a Peer by the new King, stayed in charge of London during the plague (when the royal house left for Oxford), maintained order in London during the Great Fire and fought various battles against the Dutch. Three years before his death he was a signatory, in 1667, to “The Several Declarations of the Company of Royal Adventurers of England Trading in Africa” which sought to establish its monopoly on the slave trade and which was to become the Royal African Company (and which Colston joined in 1680).
Invasion and the Act of Union
Thereon in Colston’s life the subsequent monarchs of England were James II (formerly the Duke of York and first Governor of the Royal African Company), Mary II, William III (aka William of Orange who successfully invaded England with an army of 35,000 men in 1688, when Colston was 52, and whose statue is in Queen Sq, Bristol) and Queen Anne. At this point the Act of Union of 1707 meant that England ceased to exist as a sovereign state (I had no idea of this – Anne was the last Queen of England) and was replaced by the Kingdom of Great Britain (and later still by the United Kingdom).
As the first sovereign of Great Britain, Anne reigned over a time that saw the country’s maritime, commercial and financial supremacy in the world established, with the help of people like Colston. Anne was succeeded by George I in 1714 who was still on the throne when Colston died in 1721. (All info from Wikipedia).