THE HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN
CHAPTER THREE - THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE
TUDOR MONARCHS - 1485 - 1603
HENRY VII (1485-1509)
HENRY VIII (1509-1547) - the eldest surviving son of Henry VII
EDWARD VI (1547-1553) - the only son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour
MARY I (1553-1558) - a daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon
ELIZABETH I (1558-1603) - a daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn
The Tudors were concerned with building their own public image through propaganda of success. They boasted of their achievements and carefully constructed public relations to build a myth of a monarch who is beloved and admired by his people.
HENRY VII (1485-1509) was the first Tudor.
led a matrimonial diplomacy - he married his eldest son Arthur and daughter Margaret into royal Spanish and Scottish houses to strengthen English alliances;
in 1487 he founded the Court of the Star Chamber to deal with lawless nobles;
he accumulated a lot of wealth (through taxes and fines) and got out the country of the economic crisis (which came from the War of the Roses);
he built a fleet of merchant ships and ordered modern weapons;
he erected Richmond Palace and his Chapel at Westminster Abbey;
he appointed many Welshmen and gave them land - to avoid anti-English feelings in Wales;
made his eldest son Prince of Wales;
his efficient management left a healthy surplus to his successor Henry VIII.
COURT OF THE STAR CHAMBER - set up by Henry VII to deal with the misdemeanours of Lords who broke law. Its main aim was to bring to trial and punish all nobles who broke the laws.
HENRY VIII (1509-1547) was the eldest surviving son of Henry VII and was appointed by his father the Prince of Wales.
was determined to make his court the centre of arts and humanist studies;
encourage education by importing French scholars who helped to create the English Renaissance of the Tudor period;
jointed the Holy League formed by pope Julius II with Venice and Spain against France;
wrote a tract against Luther's theses “Defence of the Seven Sacraments” - “Fidei Defensor”
he change his political and religious allegiance when the Pope Clement VII refused him to give him divorce with his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, who did not give him a son;
his close adviser was Tomas Cromwell - the author of the Act of Supremacy (passed in 1534 by the reformation Parliament);
he was made Supreme Head of the Church of England - in this way, the Church of England became an independent national establishment;
under his reign Wales joined to England under one administration in 1543;
he died in 1547 in Whitehall.
ACT OF SUPREMACY - a parliamentary act issued in 1534 that established Henry VIII in place of the Pope as Supreme Head of the Church of England. It gave him control over all ecclesiastical appointments, income and doctrine. The measure was repealed by Mary I. Another Act of Supremacy, passed in 1559, made Elizabeth I supreme governor of the Church of England.
THOMAS CROMWELL (c. 1485-1540) - Henry VIII's closer adviser who presided over the separation of the English Church from Rome. He dissolved monasteries and declared the marriage with Catherine null and void. Cromwell's reforms produced the true Privy Council. He hoped for a Protestant alliance for England and secured a Protestant wife for Henry, Anne of Cleves. However, Henry VIII soon came to detest her and that led to the execution of Cromwell.
CHURCH OF ENGLAND - a national church established during the Reformation. It retained its medieval organisation but lacked a firm confession of faith. The Head of the Church of England until today is the monarch.
EDWARD VI (1547-1553) was the only son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour.
was crowned at the age of nine - the realm was governed by a Regency Council, because he never reached maturity;
is mainly remembered as the founder of a score of grammar schools;
under his reign England finally became a Protestant state - the new Reformation was enforced by Acts of Uniformity for public worship and the issue of a Book of Common Prayer.
MARY I (1553-1558) was a daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon.
she brought up in France;
was a devout Catholic;
she is remembered as “Bloody Mary” because she ordered many executions of Protestants;
under her reign the Roman mass was restored as well as the friendly relationship with the Pope;
was married to Philip of Spain - this marriage drew the two counties into an alliance, so when the war broke out between Spain and France, England had to enter it, too - England lost in this war its last possession in France;
ELIZABETH I (1558-1603) was a daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, and stepsister of Mary I.
was the last Tudor monarch;
was an illegitimate child;
she tried to restore a moderate form of her father's Anglicanism but she failed;
she defeat of the Spanish fleet, Armada, which made England a great European sea power;
she took a keen interest in trade, mainly the slave trade from West Africa to the Spanish in America;
she succeeded in making the state a trading and colonial power with its new colonies in America;
she kept up her public image of the loving monarch by making frequent official journeys across the country to its towns and villages - such occasions strengthened the general confidence of the nation and built up loyalty to the Crown;
her reign was a great epoch of art and theatre expansion - Elizabethan theatre;
her death in 1603 marks the end of Tudor rule.
ARMADA - an large Spanish fleet of ships and tens of thousands of soldiers sent with the blessing of the Pope to:
overthrow the heretical Queen Elizabeth I,
to bring her country back to the Catholic fold
to prevent British troops from interfering in the Netherlands, where Protestant rebels were in revolt against their Spanish masters.
Philip II of Spain made himself the champion of Roman Catholicism and co-operated with Mary Queen of Scots. He wanted to destroy Protestantism and revenge the death of Mary Queen of Scots, who had been executed. Other causes included:
English help giving to the Protestants in the Netherlands, who they revolted against the Spanish domination;
Attacking Spanish ships by the English privateers called “sea dogs”;
Destroying 40 Spanish ships by Sir Francis Drake in the harbour of Cadiz, which postponed the expedition against England for a year.
ELIZABETHAN THEATRE - its establishment was a cultural achievement of the age.
was under the control of the government;
supported financially by the monarch and the nobility
was concentrated in London, and the most famous ones included: The Globe, The Rose, and The Swan.
BRITISH EAST INDIA COMPANY - a massive export company that was the force behind much of the colonization of India.
Tudor reign was a great artistic period during which art, literature and politics flowered under the influence of Greek and Roman models. Many artists, the majority of whom were Protestants from the Netherlands and Germany, were invited. Among them were: Hans Holbein Younger and Anton van Dyke.
Literacy increased, and by the seventeenth century half the population could read and write. More and more books were also printed by William Caxton at Westminster.
Negative aspects of the Tudor reign include:
Bringing England close to bankruptcy by Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, who due to her expensive wars left England to James I in huge debt;
A dishonest way of raising money: the dissolution of monasteries by Henry VIII, the selling of monopolies and official posts by Elizabeth I, which led to mismanagement and corruption of the ministers, and that weakened the quality of her government;
Constant danger of a foreign Catholic invasion from France or Spain;
Mary I's marriage to Philip II of Spain, whose sole interest was to secure England's support for his continental designs. As Spain's ally, England entered war with France, which resulted in the loss of Calais in 1568;
Bad economy as prices rose and wages remained low; an economic decline was responsible for high unemployment, which led to a rise of vagabonds; bad harvests and enclosures of land made poor living conditions for many.
The Tudors were ruthless in dealing with challenges to the monarchy. However, they moved England from a medieval society to one with an international standing where royal power was strengthened by the break with Rome.
MONOPOLY - a market dominated by a single producer or trader. Monopolies in trade were granted to companies to regulate trade, to raise revenue, and very often to favour individuals. Monopolies were abolished by Parliament in 1601.
ENCLOSURES OF LAND - extensive enclosure, especially for sheep farming in the sixteenth century, causing considerable social unrest. Food demands of a growing population caused more enclosures in the second half of the eighteenth century. By 1815 almost all usable farming land was enclosed.
THE REFORMATION
REFORMATION:
was a religious and political movement
in the sixteenth century Europe
was inspired by:
a wish to reform the Roman Catholic Church
launched by Luther's theses at Wittenburg in 1517
The document was a protest against the arrogance and corruption of the Roman Church and spread through Europe causing a split:
Catholicism in Southern Europe
Protestantism in Northern Europe
It resulted in establishing Protestant churches in many countries.
Reasons for Reformation:
Church was growing too powerful and wealthy;
it interfered in monarchical rule;
its leaders were corrupt;
in England the reasons were definitely political as it was an instrument for the Tudors to strengthen their position.
REFORMATION UNDER HENRY VIII
After 20 years of marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII decide to divorce her because she did not give him a son. He instructed Cardinal Thomas Wolsey to petition Pope Clement VII for annulment of his marriage. However, the Pope refused, and Henry VIII reacted by forcing Wolsey to resign as Lord Chancellor and replaced him with Thomas More. Initially, More was devoted to Henry VIII, but when the King bean to deny the authority of the Pope, his worries grew.
1531 - Henry VIII claimed jurisdiction over the English Church for himself, and this marks beginning of Henrician Reformation.
1532 - Archbishop of Canterbury and seven other bishops signed the Submission of the Clergy.
1534 - Act of Supremacy was passed. It was a parliamentary act that established Henry VIII in place of the Pope as Supreme Head of the Church of England. It gave him control over all ecclesiastical appointments, income and doctrine.
1536 - Henry VIII ordered the DISSOLUTION OF MONASTERIES and marked the disappearance of the monastic system. Dissolution was organised by Tomas Cromwell. Its consequences were:
the Treasury grew three times bigger;
the land was mainly sold to gentry whose social position was strengthened;
the dissolution speeded up the capitalization of the countryside;
commercialization of agriculture;
enclosure of land.
The Dissolution of Monasteries was the greatest act of official destruction.
thousands of monasteries - their libraries with numerous works of art - were looted and destroyed;
the dissolution provoked a series of risings against Henry VIII known as the Pilgrimage of Grace.
PIGRIMAGE OF GRACE were a series of risings against Henry VIII during 1536-7 as a protest against the dissolution of the smaller monasteries.
the rebels supported the traditional religion;
they demanded the restoration of the Roman Catholic religion and the removal of Cromwell from the office;
they were joined by feudal magnates opposed to the extension of the royal control over the north and by peasants worried by the enclosure of arable lands for pasture;
the rebels did not coordinate their efforts and were arrested and executed;
no battle took place.
1536 - Ten Articles were introduced. They were the official doctrine showing a measure of compromise with Lutheran theology. According to them:
Confession was still to be heard individually;
The Real Presence in the Eucharist was stressed but the definition given was vague and near to that of Luther;
Images were to remain in churches but not to be worshipped; however, later all shrines were to be destroyed;
There were only three sacraments: penance, baptism and the Mass;
Praying to saints was permitted but their role in salvation was denied;
No changes in ceremonies;
The existence of purgatory was denied as a Roman abuse but praying for the dead could continue.
1537 - Cromwell ordered all the main prayers to be translated into English and the English Bible appeared.
1538 - Cromwell issued Injunctions.
1539 - Six Articles - they reflected Henry VIII's conservatism in religion. They reimposed strict catholic orthodoxy in with the papal supremacy was replaced with the king's authority.
REFORMATION UNDER EDWARD VI
Under Edward VI reign England turned into a Protestant country.
1549 - Act of Uniformity
the First Book of Common Prayer was introduced.
English was to be the language of the Church.
it kept a conservative English Mass, vestments, prayers for the dead, private confession, extreme unction and commemorations of saints.
1552 - Second Act of Uniformity
imposed the use of the Second Book of Common Prayer;
a stricter Protestant liturgy was introduced;
Mass, prayers for the dead and private confession were abolished;
BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER was the prayer book of the Church of England which was one of the instruments of the Protestant Reformation in England. It replaced the various Latin rites, which had been used in different parts of the country, with a single compact volume in English. First produced in 1549, it was drastically revised in 1552 and more subtly changed in 1559 and 1662.
THOMAS CRANMER (1489-1556) was Archbishop of Canterbury and Edward VI's chief advisor. One of more radical reformers who introduced Protestantism into the English Church. He was largely responsible for the two Books of Common Prayer. After Mary I's succession, he was burnt at the stake.
REFORMATION UNDER MARY I
Mary I was determined to restore the Catholic faith to England and its involved both her foreign and domestic policies. Under her pressure, Parliament passed an act reestablishing papal authority and undoing the Edwarian Reformation. England became reconciled with Rome.
1554 - The Injunction required all bishops to:
Suppress heresy;
Remove married clerics;
Divorce ex-religious persons who had married;
Re-ordain any priests ordained under Edward VI;
Restore all Catholic ceremonies, processions and holy days.
1555 - Mary I ordered religious persecutions of Protestants. These were really cruel acts and earned Mary I an infamous nickname Bloody Mary.
REFORMATION UNDER ELIZABETH I
1558 - Elizabeth I ascended the throne. Then Act of Supremacy was passed again and Elizabeth I was made Head of the Church of England. Once again:
papal authority was abolished
the Oath of Supremacy was to be taken by all clergy, justices, officers, royal servants and university graduates;
the Book of Common Prayer was to be used by all clergy;
all people were obligated to attend church regularly - if they failed to do it, they were to pay a fine.
Elizabeth I rejected the extreme Protestantism of Edward VI and the Roman Catholicism of Queen Mary. She strove to establish a church with an elastic doctrine to satisfy the major of her subject. However, political events prevented her from achieving this aim.
1572 - Elizabeth was excommunicated by Pope Pius V and all Catholics urged to help in her deposition. In response to this, she declare every Catholic priest in England to be a traitor Parliament, where Puritans were the majority, passed serve laws against Roman Catholics.
PURITANS were members of the radical Protestant movement in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The term covers a range of doctrines and attitudes and never had a precise definition. They identified with the parliamentary opposition to the monarchy and allied themselves with Scottish Presbyterianism in order to resist the bishops. They emphasised:
preaching;
observance of the Sabbath;
moral strictness;
abstinence from pleasure;
wanted simpler forms of church ceremony.
JESUITS were members of the Society of Jesus, founded by St Ignatius Loyola in 1534 to promote Roman Catholicism and oppose heresy. They were implicated in plots to place Mary Queen of Scots on the English throne and were even involved in a gunpowder plot. Thus, successive attempts were made to expel them and they suffered under the penal laws against Catholics.
Elizabeth I's Royal injunctions demanded:
The clergy to teach Royal supremacy;
Frequent sermons to be preached;
The English Bible to be available to all;
Images and decorations to be destroyed;
No images to be kept by private persons;
Priests free to marry;
Kneeling at the Communion to continue;
The re-introduction of the Second Book of Common Prayer.
OVERSEAS EXPANSION
The XIV and XV centuries were a period of great discoveries. It was also a time of growing national imperialism and economic competition between developing states, including Britain. They sought wealth and thus were concerned with the establishment of trade routes and colonies.
GREAT EXPLORERS:
Christopher Columbus was the most renowned explorer of that time, whose voyages to the Americas began as European effort at exploration and colonization of the continent.
Amerigo Vespucci was an Italian merchant, who played a senior role in two voyages which explored the east coast of South America between 1499 and 1502. On the second of these voyages he discovered that South America extended much further south than previously known by Europeans. This convinced him that this land was part of a new continent, which after Vespucci's first name was called “America”.
Ferdinand Magellan the man who led the first successful attempt to sail around the entire Earth. He did not complete his final, westward voyage as he was killed during the Battle of Mactan in the Philippines. However, he became the first person to lead an expedition sailing westward from Europe to Asia and to cross the Pacific Ocean.
John Cabot was Italian mariner sponsored by Henry VIII. He sailed from Bristol in 1497. He landed at a place that may have been in southern Labrador, Newfoundland. Cabot, however, believed it to be Asia. He died at sea during his second expedition.
Sir Francis Drake was an admiral and explorer. He abandoned the crosschannel trade for more adventurous and lucrative expeditions to the Spanish Main. He explored the Pacific and the Pacific coast of South America and claimed New Albion, now California, for England. He returned to England via the East Indies and Cape of Good Hope and became the first Englishman to circumnavigate the world. For this achievement, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth L Drake renewed his raids on Spanish ships and possessions in the West Indies, and in Cadiz harbour he sank or crippled some Spanish ships, thus delaying the planned invasion on England. For that reason he played an important part in the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588.
Sir Walter Raleigh - in the 1580's he organised several voyages of discovery along the Atlantic coast of North America but an attempt to colonize a region called Virginia was unsuccessful. In 1595 he set off on a fruitless search for the legendary Eldorado. In 1603 he was accused of conspiring against James I and was imprisoned in the Tower. He was released for the purpose of undertaking a second voyage in search of Eldorado. The expedition ended in the English destruction of a Spanish settlement and, on his return to England, Raleigh was executed.
Henry VII established the modem English merchant marine system and founded the modem English navy, the Royal Navy. Now shipbuilding was expanded, docks were built and lighthouses were constructed to facilitate coastal navigation. Henry VIII also sponsored the voyages of the Italian mariner John Cabot.
Elizabeth I, like her father, promoted Atlantic explorations by English sailors such as Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh. Under her reign:
British colonisation of North America began
the English established colonies along the east coast of North America, from Newfoundland in the north, to as far as Florida in the south;
among the early colonies was Virginia, named after Queen Elizabeth I and organised by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584.
However, these colonies proved to be short-lived and had to be abandoned due to food shortages, severe weather and hostile encounters with Indians.
The first English settlement in North America was Jamestown established in 1604 on the James River in Virginia. Both the river and the new settlement were named after King James I, who ascended to the English throne after Elizabeth I.
Elizabeth I also encouraged trade, especially with the Netherlands, and had many trading companies in India, America and Africa established. England traded mainly in slaves and spices and soon became a trading power. The defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. during the Anglo-Spanish war, put an end to Spanish dominance in sea expansion and strengthened England's position as a major naval power, too. This all led to Britain's colonial growth in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
SUMMARY
The reign of the Tudors began in 1485 after the Battle of Bosworth. Among the Tudor Monarchs were: Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I.
Henry VII, who was born in XV-th century, filled up the royal coffers because he wanted to got the country out of the economic crisis resultant from the War of the Roses. He spent the money mainly on a fleet of merchant ships, modern weapons or to erected Richmond Palace. To avoid anti-English feelings in Wales, he appointed many Welshmen and gave them land. He Was succeeded by his son, who is best known for his tract “Fidei Defensor”. By the Act of Supremacy he was made Supreme Head of the Church of England.
The Dissolution of Monasteries started. It had many consequences, namely: the Treasury grew three times bigger, capitalisation of the countryside, commercialisation of agriculture and enclosure of land. A series of risings against destroying monasteries followed. These were known as Pilgrimage of Grace. The church liturgy did not change much. However, the Bible was translated into English and was from now on to be available to everyone. Henry VIII did not like the changes and the Six Articles were passed which reimposed strict Catholicism. To avoid the spread of heresy, Henry VIII restricted the reading Bible to only upper class men and women.
Edward VI was too young to rule on his own. One of his Protectors was Edward Seymour who wanted England to become a truly Protestant country. The main breakthrough that took place under the king's short reign was the introduction of First Book of Common Prayer. The language of the church was now English. The Second Act of Uniformity imposed in 1552 introduced a more Protestant liturgy.
Mary I was the daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragorn. She was brought up in France and was married to Philip II of Spain. Her ambition was to restore the Catholic faith to England. Under her reign war with France broke out. That campaign turned out to be disastrous for England as Calais was lost to France in 1558. The Queen was called “Bloody Marry” because of her cruel executions of Protestants.
Elizabeth I was much like her father. Like him, she was made her court the centre of arts and humanist studies and once again England strengthened its royal power by break with Rome. Now, England became vulnerable to a Catholic invasion from Scotland or Jesuit. The Queen's ambition was to restore a moderate form of her father's Anglicanism. However, she failed to achieve it. There were many Catholic plots and Elizabeth I suspected her cousin Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, to be implicated in them so she had her executed in 1587. After her excommunication, Elizabeth I regarded all Catholic priest in England to be traitors and that is why many Puritans' bills were passed. Many of Jesuits were forced to go into exile.
In 1588 the English defeated of the Spanish fleet, Armada in 1588. Now the balance of power changed and England became a great European sea power. The country was also emerging as a trading and colonial power. It was possible because ___ and ___. Another thing was that Elizabeth I encouraged her traders and explorers to settle in newly discovered places. The two famous explorers of those times were: Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh.
Elizabeth I needed money to fight expensive wars with Spain and France and quite often she raised it in a dishonest way by selling of monopolies and official posts.
A cultural achievement of Elizabethan reign was Elizabethan Theatre, which provided a new kind of entertainment. Her death in 1603 marks the end of Tudor rule.
DATES:
Christopher Columbus discovered America 1498
The Church of England became an independent national establishment and the King is made Head of the Church by the Act of Supremacy 1534
Wales was legally incorporated into England
The dissolution of monasteries began 1536
The Six Articles re-imposed Catholicism 1539
The introduction of the First Book of Common Player (the First Act of Uniformity) 1549
The introduction of the Second Book of Common Prayer (the Second Act of Uniformity) 1552
England lost its last possession in France 1558
The defeat of the Spanish Armada 1588
DATES
1485 - Henry VII become King.
1487 - Court of the Star Chamber
1498 - Christopher Columbus discovered America.
1499 - 1502 - Amerigi Vespucci explored the east coast of South America.
1509 - Henry VIII become King.
1517 - the beginning of Reformation launched by Luther's theses at Wittenberg.
1531 - the beginning of Henrician Reformation
1532 - Submission of Clergy
1534 - Act of Supremacy - Henry VIII was made the Supreme Head of the Church of England.
1534 - Wales jointed to England under one administration.
1536 - Dissolution of the Monasteries
1536-1537 - Pilgrimage of Grace
1536 - Ten Articles
1537 - the English Bible appeared and all the main prayers to be translated into English
1538 - Tomas Cromwell issued Injurisdiction
1539 - Six Articles
1547 - Edward VI become King.
1549 - Act of Uniformity - the First Book of Common Prayer
1552 - Second Act of Uniformity - the Second Book of Common Prayer
1553 - Mary I become Queen.
1554 - the Injuction
1555 - Mary I ordered religious persecutions of Protestants.
1558 - England lost Calais - its last possession in France
1558 - Elizabeth become Queen.
1558 - Act of Supremacy was passed again.
1572 - Elizabeth I was excommunicated by Pope Pius V.
1588 - Elizabeth defeated of the Spanish Armada.
1601 - Parliament abolished monopolies.