James' son, Charles I, was very interested in art and created one of Europe's

greatest art collections. He married Henrietta Maria, the Catholic daughter of the
King of France. Charles was also deeply religious. He favoured the high
Anglican form of worship, with much ritual, while many of his subjects,
particularly in Scotland, wanted plainer forms.
Like his father he ruled without Parliament under the divine right of the king,
this provoked the Petition of Right, (1628) petition sent by the
English Parliament to King Charles I complaining of a series of breaches of law.
The petition sought recognition of four principles: no taxation without the
consent of Parliament, no imprisonment without cause, no quartering of soldiers
on subjects, and no martial law in peacetime.Parliament found this to be a
violation of the spirit of the Magna Carta, which provided that the monarch could
not levy taxes without common consent or imprison a free man without cause,
and thus drafted the Petition) to reclaim the rights of Parliament and of free men.
To continue receiving subsidies for his policies, Charles was compelled to accept
the petition, but he later ignored its principles.

But he needed to ask to Parliament for money, so when they refused to give him
money he elected the so-called Long Parliament, which also reflected the change
in wealth that England had. Only when the Parliament tried to obtain power over
the king, this last one killed five of his opponents and declared war.

This struggle, which took place between 1642 and 1649, was fought by Royalists
(which represented the Stuart absolutism and the aristocracy) and the
Parlamentarians, also called Roundheads because they considered sinful to have
long hair so they cut theirs short (which represented the middle class). The
Parlamentarian army was stronger, with professional soldiers, better armed and
equipped and good trained, so that Charles I was captured and condemned to
death
Here, the Parliament declared a republic, the Commonwealth. The House of Lords
was abolished and Cromwell took the power. Parliament's army was used for a
campaign of repression and dictature. He divided the country in 11 regions and
adopted puritan rules, like the execution for adultery. Dances, games, theatre
performances were banned and pubs and theatres were closed. In 1651
Parliament had passed the Navigation Acts, giving a sort of monopoly of trade to
British ships. The Navigation Acts (1651, 1660) were acts of Parliament intended
to promote the self-sufficiency of the British Empire by restricting colonial trade
to England and decreasing dependence on foreign imported goods. The Navigation
Act, aimed primarily at the Dutch, required all trade between England and the
colonies to be carried in English or colonial vessels, resulting in the Anglo-Dutch
War in 1652
When Cromwell died in 1658, the army decided to invide Charles II, King of
Scotland and Charles I's son, to come back from France and so the monarchy
was restored
Puritanism, a religious reform movement in the late 16th and 17th centuries that
sought to “purify” the Church of England  in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.
Puritans became noted in the 17th century for a spirit of moral and religious
earnestness that informed their whole way of life, and they sought through
church reform to make their lifestyle the pattern for the whole nation. Their
efforts to transform the nation contributed both to civil war in England and to the
founding of colonies in America as working models of the Puritan way of life.
Theology

Puritans believed that it was necessary to be in a covenant relationship with God

in order to be redeemed from one’s sinful condition, that God had chosen to
reveal salvation through preaching, and that the Holy Spirit was the energizing
instrument of salvation. Calvinist theology and polity proved to be major
influences in the formation of Puritan teachings. This naturally led to the
rejection of much that was characteristic of Anglican ritual at the time, these
being viewed as “popish idolatry.” In its place the Puritans emphasized preaching
that drew on images from scripture and from everyday experience. Still, because
of the importance of preaching, the Puritans placed a premium on a learned
ministry. The moral and religious earnestness that was characteristic of Puritans
was combined with the doctrine of predestination inherited from Calvinism to
produce a “covenant theology,” a sense of themselves as the elect chosen by God
to live godly lives both as individuals and as a community.

The Puritans disapproved of many things in Elizabethan society, and one of the
things they hated most was the theater. Their chief complaint was that secular
entertainments distracted people from worshipping God, though they also felt
that the theater’s increasing popularity symbolized the moral iniquity of city life.
For instance, they regarded the convention of boy actors playing women’s roles as
immoral. During the 17th century literary was characterized by an increase in
introspection and self-criticism with more acute psychological analysis of human
feelings and experiences and an emergent emphasis on realism. The need for
introspection and psychological examinations of human moods led to the
appearance of the Metaphysical poetry, which was in part already present
in Shakespeare sonnets, but that found full expression in John Donne’s poetry.

The austere view of life of the puritans found its counterpart in the Cavalier
Poets, a number of minor poets inspired by Ben Johnson, who wrote about
women, wine and song following ideals of elegance and courteous manners. In
this poets and their view of appreciation of life’s ephemeral beauty we see the
influence of Latin poets such as Catullus.
A difference with the poetry that characterized the Renaissance was in the
remarkable development of religious poetry which found its most well-known
authors in Donne
During the puritan age, the Civil War influenced the development of prose and
many were the piece of work written for political purposes such as pamphlets and
books dealing with social equality
The phrase “Metaphysical poetry” derives from the scornful remarks
of some Restoration and 18th century critics. The Metaphysical poets,
who wrote during the first three quarters of the 17th century were led
by John Donne.
They reflected the intellectual and spiritual crisis of their age, the
difficult transition from the Renaissance to the modern age. The poet
was expected to be a man of wit, displaying not only his sensitivity
but also his knowledge and cleverness.
Wit was the ability to make up unusual metaphors and images and
arrange them in an unexpected way so as to surprise the reader.
The unusual feature of Metaphysical poetry is the repeated
combination of these “metaphysical elements” with that particular
type of metaphor called “conceit”.
“Paradox” and “epigrammatic conciseness” are another strength of
Metaphysical poetry just as much as the element of drama. Donne
uses the words and the rhythms which common people were using.
The language of Metaphysical poets was rich and varied. Latinisms
and words of Anglo Saxon origin were both used.
The shape of the poem: poems may consist of verses, that is, divisions
in the poem marked by a line-space; some poems are divided into
stanzas, that is, verses repeating the same pattern, and each line
begins with a capital letter.
The conceit: it is a comparison between two objects which at first
glance seem to have nothing in common.
The paradox: a paradox is a statement which is apparently
contradictory though in some sense true.