The Restoration and its effects, running chaotically behind it

The Glorious Revolution of 1688 occurred with the overthrow of King James II and the ascension to power by the new king William (and his wife Mary) who changed England forever, taking away the absolution of the monarch's power and installing the Parliament with a bill of rights. It also decidedly gave England no hope of a future Catholic rule, all the protesters of the old monarchy being avid Protestants. Even nonconformist Protestants were barely tolerated. The revolution was conspired by William and Mary, both not wanting it to seem like a foreign invasion, but a public overthrow.
Though the Glorious Revolution is also sometimes called the Bloodless Revolution and noted in books by its easy transition, that term ignores the fighting that went down in Ireland and Scotland, and also the war at the time in Europe.
This change in the English government is especially important because it started the slow but steady decline of the king/queen's power contrasted by the increase of parliamentary power. This became the first example of the parliamentary democracy, the first government to state the rights of the public individuals, and the outright opposition of Catholicism. Although most of these changes sounded very good, there was a lot of suppressed opposion, especially presuasive in Ireland and the farther reaches of England.



Satire is humor as criticism.
Often, though satire is supposedly a form of writing or drawing or spoken word that makes people laugh, there is a deep, sad root to their art that in nature is trying to reform something, or correct a human vice.


In A Modest Proposal, Swift proposes that the population of Ireland better the conditions of the poor by using their children as a new fancy meat for the landlord's and "people of quality" of the country. One cannot tell how un-serious he is because he writes with utter sincerity: "I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in endeavoring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the public good of my country" but in some places his rationality, his scientific reasoning, his enumerated benefits, all seem a little too sincere and a little too naive. "I can think of no one objection, that will possibly be raised against this proposal."
This is prime satire: everyone is looking for a way to lower the over-population, lots of people can't stand the Catholics, or "papists" as he calls them, so Swift presents a sure-fire way to horrify or amuse while showing that their are humanitarian concerns and complexities in solving problems. The good of the society also balances of the good of the individual.

In the Diary of Samuel Pepys, Mr. Pepys describes some days of his life in the early reign of King Charles II, including his coronation. Pepys is a decently rich man, not an aristocrat but enough a part of the aristocratic life that he went to the parties and stayed home with his friends from the parties, and got drunk after the king's coronation ceremony. He seemed very happy with his life. There were lots of people in his daily transactions, heworked for a lord that was related in some professional way to the king, but Pepys did not live directly in London. His fears are fears of a rich man, not of the poor and only in entry of his did he mention, after fears of a late night burglar, "the fears of all rich men that are covetous and have much money by them" were his such fears. Obviously a confident young man, unheeded by financial worries, I doubt that his kind were the most common place in England of the late 1600s.

He also experienced the London fire of 1668, but did get all his most precious belongings saved by his wealthy friend who lived beyond the reaches of the fire. "I am eased at my heart to have my treasure so well secured." He was pretty well roundedly secured in all aspects of his life and the fact that he didn't have "any sleep all this night" a few nights during the fire and because of some barking dogs, his life in England was a steady, happy stream of events.

According to these readings, of Swift and Pepys, and from basic research, life in England was a major transition, and things, though they might not have seemed tumultuous to the people living in those times, were producing great change. The fights between the Protestants and the Catholics, the Irish and the English; there were many decisions and choices about the future of the English rule, and the lives of the people of England.