British Royal Society

Examples of British Royal Society in the following topics:

• Roots of the Scientific Revolution

  • Institutions, like for example the British Royal Society, helped validate science as a field by providing an outlet for the publication of scientists' work.
  • The term British empiricism came into use to describe philosophical differences perceived between two of its founders Francis Bacon, described as empiricist, and René Descartes, who was described as a rationalist.
  • At the time, science was dominated by scientific societies and academies, which had largely replaced universities as centers of scientific research and development.
  • Societies and academies were also the backbone of the maturation of the scientific profession.
  • Boyle is known for his pioneering experiments on the physical properties of gases, his authorship of the Sceptical Chymist, his role in creating the Royal Society of London, and his philanthropy in the American colonies.

• The Popularization of Science

  • In the 17th century, the Royal Society of London (1662), the Paris Académie Royale des Sciences (1666), and the Berlin Akademie der Wissenschaften (1700) were founded.
  • With the exception of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society by the Royal Society of London, which was published on a regular, quarterly basis, publications were usually very irregular, with periods between volumes sometimes lasting years.
  • An early example of science emanating from the official institutions into the public realm was the British coffeehouse.
  • Cover of the first volume of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 1665-1666, the Royal Society of London.
  • It is still published by the Royal Society, which makes it also the world's longest-running scientific journal. 

• John Locke

  • Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, he is equally important to social contract theory.
  • Through a friend, Locke was introduced to medicine and the experimental philosophy being pursued at other universities and in the Royal Society, of which he eventually became a member.
  • The Second Treatise outlines a theory of civil society.
  • Similarly to Hobbes, he assumed that the sole right to defend in the state of nature was not enough, so people established a civil society to resolve conflicts in a civil way with help from government in a state of society.
  • However, historians also note that Locke was a major investor in the English slave-trade through the Royal African Company.

• The Battle of Britain

  • The Battle of Britain, when the British Royal Air Force defended the UK against the German Air Force attacks, was the first major Nazi defeat and a turning point of World War II.
  • The Battle of Britain was a combat of the Second World War, when the Royal Air Force (RAF) defended the United Kingdom against the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) attacks from the end of June 1940.
  • Although the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, and certain elements of the British public favoured a negotiated peace with an ascendant Germany, Churchill and a majority of his Cabinet refused to consider an armistice.
  • Upon it depends our own British life and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire.
  • The bombing failed to demoralise the British into surrender or significantly damage the war economy.

• The New Royals and Their People

  • As a daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Francis I and Empress Maria Theresa, the head of the Habsburg Empire, Maria Antonia belonged to one of the most powerful royal families in Europe.
  • The alliance with Austria had pulled France into the disastrous Seven Years' War, in which it was defeated by the British, both in Europe and in North America.
  • In 1782, after the governess of the royal children, the princesse de Guéméné, went bankrupt and resigned, Marie Antoinette appointed her favorite, the duchesse de Polignac, to the position.
  • In the eyes of the public opinion, the lavish spending of the royal family could not be disconnected from France's disastrous financial condition.
  • Characterize the relationship between the royals and the French people at the beginning of Louis XVI's reign.

• Marquis de Condorcet

  • In 1769, he was elected to the French Royal Academy of Sciences.
  • He soon became an honorary member of many foreign academies and philosophic societies but his political ideas, particularly that of radical democracy, were criticized heavily in the English-speaking world, most notably by John Adams.
  • Condorcet took a leading role when the French Revolution swept France in 1789, hoping for a rationalist reconstruction of society, and championed many liberal causes.
  • Even Mary Wollstonecraft, a British writer and philosopher who attacked gender oppression, pressed for equal educational opportunities, and demanded "justice" and "rights to humanity" for all, did not go as far as to demand equal political rights for women.  
  • He envisioned man as continually progressing toward a perfectly utopian society.

• Conflict in the Atlantic

  • The Battle of the Atlantic pitted U-boats and other warships of the Kriegsmarine (German navy) and aircraft of the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) against the Royal Canadian Navy, Royal Navy, the United States Navy, and Allied merchant shipping.
  • In 1939, the Kriegsmarine lacked the strength to challenge the combined British Royal Navy and French Navy  for command of the sea.
  • These ships immediately attacked British and French shipping.
  • The Royal Navy quickly introduced a convoy system for the protection of trade that gradually extended out from the British Isles, eventually reaching as far as Panama, Bombay and Singapore.
  • Convoys allowed the Royal Navy to concentrate its escorts near the one place the U-boats were guaranteed to be found, the convoys.

• England and the High Seas

  • The foundations of the British Empire were laid when England and Scotland were separate kingdoms.
  • From the outset, slavery was the basis of the British Empire in the West Indies.
  • In 1672, the Royal African Company was inaugurated, receiving from King Charles a monopoly of the trade to supply slaves to the British colonies of the Caribbean.
  • From the outset, slavery was the basis of the British Empire in the West Indies and later in North America.
  • Map of the British colonies in North America, 1763 to 1775.

• Louis XIV and the Huguenots

  • Without royal approval, bishops could not leave France and appeals could not be made to the Pope.
  • Although the king could not make ecclesiastical law, all papal regulations without royal assent were invalid in France.
  • Louis saw the persistence of Protestantism as a disgraceful reminder of royal powerlessness.
  • Historians cite the emigration of about 200,000 Huguenots (roughly one-fourth of the Protestant population, or 1% of the French population) who defied royal decrees.
  • However, French society would sufficiently change by the time of Louis' descendant, Louis XVI, to welcome toleration in the form of the 1787 Edict of Versailles, also known as the Edict of Tolerance.

• Louis XVI

  • France's alliance with Austria had pulled the country into the disastrous Seven Years' War, in which it was defeated by the British, both in Europe and in North America.
  • Because of that the royal couple failed to produce children for several years after their wedding, which created a strain upon their marriage.
  • The contemporary French public fervently debated why the royal couple failed to produce an heir for so long as much historians have tried to identify the cause of why, for years, they failed to consummate their marriage.
  • Eventually, in spite of their earlier difficulties, the royal couple became the parents of four children.
  • Even the long period when the royal couple did not produce children was interpreted in light of Louis's unimpressive personality.