THE STUARTS
When the century opened, England was a comparatively poor nation on the fringes of Europe. When it closed, she was one of the major powers. Along the way the country had surmounted a civil war and a major rebellion. Yet her institutions and social structure were, if anything, strengthened: in fact, during this century Parliament evolved into something approaching its present form and function, and the great philosophers Hobbes and Locke fashioned new and far-reaching theories of political obligation to accommodate it. At the same time, scientists, led by Newton, were causing a reappraisal of the way the physical world was viewed, and radicals like John Lilburne were (prematurely) laying the foundations of proletarian socialism.