Throughout the sixteen hundreds, Great Britain was more involved in solving the Constitutional issue of who was to have more power in English government, the king or parliament. When this complex issue was finally resolved in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, England turned its attention back to the colonies and found that colonists had developed their own identity as Americans (Blum 28-29).
The executive authority in England was divided among several ministers and commissioners that did not act quickly or in unison. Also, the Board of Trade, the branch of government that knew more about the colonies than any other governing body in England, did not have the power to make decisions or to enforce decrees. Due to the distractions from the complex constitutional issues and ineffective governmental organization, colonists felt further separated from England (Blum 51). .
The political scene in England was laced with corruption. Officers of the government sent to the colonies were often bribe-taking politicians that were not smart enough to hold government positions in England. After Grenville and Townsend the most incompetent was Lord North, who became Prime Minister in 1770 after the death of Charles Townsend. "North was the kind of politician George had been looking for ----a plodding, dogged, industrious man, neither a fool nor a genius, much like the king himself. For the next twelve years, despite the opposition of abler men, he remained at the head of the government" (Blum 83). Corruption and incompetence among governing politicians often made their rule over the colonies ineffective. .
In the years leading up to the final decade before the American Revolution, the relationship between Great Britain and her colonies in North America continued to deteriorate. Relations began to worsen with the great victory over the French and Indians in the Seven Years War. Unwelcome British troops had remained in the colonies after the war.