TUDOR ENGLAND Henry VII

Absolute monarchy. Henry VII began the move towards royal absolutism. This was a belief in the divine right of kings to rule as they saw fit, without having to answer to nobles, church, or Parliament. Whatever else he was, Henry was an able and active administrator. He was frugal to the point of parsimony. When he came to the throne, the crown was heavily in debt, but when he died he left his son Henry a bulging treasury. What his son did with that money is another story. Court of Star Chamber. Henry's reign saw the beginning of the Court of Star Chamber, so called because the room where they met was decorated with paintings of stars. This court was closed, and answerable to no one but the king. It eventually became synonymous with secretive and autocratic administration. Rebellions. Henry had to deal with two rebellions during his reign, both by probable imposters claiming to be legitimate heirs to the throne. First there was Lambert Simnel, who was eventually captured and made to work as a scullery in Henry's kitchens. He was followed by Perkin Warbeck, who gathered foreign support for an invasion. Warbeck was defeated and eventually hanged with some of his supporters.

HUNDRED YEARS WAR

Edward II and Edward III

Edward II (1307-27) was a poor king, bored by the responsibilities of his position and easily swayed by a succession of male favourites. The first of these was Piers Gaveston. He was seized in Edward's absence by rebellious nobles and summarily tried and executed. The barons forced Edward to agree to reforms in their favour. In 1314 Edward lost the Battle of Bannockburn to Robert the Bruce and Scotland gained its independence. Edward's End. Hugh le DeSpenser was Edward's next favourite and he, along with his father, also named Hugh, were virtual rulers of England from 1322-26. Edward's queen, Isabella, finally had enough and raised a rebellion with French aid. She and her lover, Roger Mortimer, defeated and hanged the DeSpensers and forced Edward to abdicate in favour of his son. The ex-king was kept at Berkeley Castle(Gloucestershire) until brutally put to death in 1327.

Edward III (1327-77) was only 15 when he came to the throne. Isabella and Roger Mortimer ruled as regents for three years until Edward rebelled and had Mortimer hanged. Edward proved to be a popular, approachable king. In 1337 he began the conflict with France known as The Hundred Years War. Actually, it lasted, on and off, for 116 years, and despite early successes at Crecy and Poitiers, it was to end with the loss of virtually all English possessions on the mainland. Edward III and King David of Parliament's Power. As is usual in times of war, Parliament Scotland grew in power, forcing royal concessions in return for grants of money. During Edward's reign the custom evolved of separate sittings for the Commons (burgesses and knights) and a Great Council of prelates and magnates. The system of Justices of the Peace, chosen from among the local nobility, also dates from this time. They became a sort of amateur body carrying on local administration and government for the next 500 years. "Achoo, Achoo, All Fall Down..." In 1348 the Black Death reached England. So named for the black tumours which appeared in a victim's armpits and groin, this flea-born disease was carried to an unprepared Europe by rats on ships arriving from the Far East. The effect of the Black Death on England and the rest of Europe cannot be overstated. In some places up to one-half the population died. This accelerated tremendous social change. Social Changes. There was a drastic shortage of labour on the land. Many landowners began to enclose their lands, turning to sheep raising rather than labour intensive traditional farming. Increased sheep farming meant that fewer farm labourers were needed, so lords often allowed villeins to purchase their freedom from feudal obligation. The villeins became free labourers, and many gravitated to towns. Langland and Chaucer. The first great literary work in the English language appeared in 1362, William Langland's Piers Plowman, which was an indictment of Geoffrey Chaucer making social inequality and injustice. Langland was followed a a point few years later by Geoffrey Chaucer, whose Canterbury Tales remain a vivid and insightful look at medieval English society. Wycliffe and the Lollards. In a more serious vein, it was about 1376 that John Wycliff began to preach church reform, espousing the radical notion of an individual connection with God, without the necessary intermediary of church ritual. Wycliff's followers, called Lollards, were constant agitators for social and religious reform for the next 50 years.

The Wars of the Roses and the Princes in the Tower

Henry VI was troubled all his life by recurring bouts of madness, during which the country was ruled by regents. The regents didn't do any better for England than Henry did, and the long Hundred Years War with France sputtered to an end with England losing all her possessions in France except for Calais. In England itself anarchy reigned. Nobles gathered their own private armies and fought for local supremacy. The Wars of The Roses. The struggle to rule on behalf of an unfit king was one of the surface reasons for the outbreak of thirty years of warfare that we now call the Wars of the Roses, fought between the Houses of York (white rose) and Lancaster (red rose). In reality these squabbles were an indication of the lawlessness that ran rampant in the land. More squalid than romantic, the Wars of the Roses decimated both houses in an interminably long, bloody struggle for the throne. The rose symbols that we name the wars after were not in general use during the conflict. The House of Lancaster did not even adopt the red rose as its official symbol until the next century. Edward IV. Henry VI was eventually forced to abdicate in 1461 and died ten years later in prison, possibly murdered. In his place ruled Edward IV of the house of York who managed to get his dubious claim to the throne legitimized by Parliament. Edward was the first king to address the House of Commons, but his reign is notable mostly for the continuing saga of the wars with the House of Lancaster and unsuccessful wars in France. When Edward died in 1483 his son, Edward V, aged twelve, followed him. In light of his youth Edward's uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, acted as regent. The Princes in The Tower. Traditional history, written by later Tudor historians seeking to legitimize their masters' past, has painted Richard as the archetypal wicked uncle. The truth may not be so clear cut. Some things are known, or assumed, to be true. Edward and his younger brother were put in the Tower of London, ostensibly for their own protection. Richard had the "Princes in the Tower" declared illegitimate, which may possibly have been true. He then got himself declared king. He may have been in the right, and certainly England needed a strong and able king. But he was undone when the princes disappeared and were rumoured to have been murdered by his orders. In the 17th century workmen repairing a stairwell at the Tower found the bones of two boys of about the right ages. Were these the Princes in the Tower, and were they killed by their wicked uncle? We will probably never know. The person with the most to gain by killing the princes was not Richard, however, but Henry, Earl of Richmond. Henry also claimed the throne, seeking "legitimacy" through descent from John of Gaunt and his mistress. The Battle of Bosworth Field. Henry defeated and killed Richard at the Battle of Bosworth Field (1485). The crown is said to have been found hanging upon a bush, and it was placed on Henry's head there on the field of battle. Bosworth marked the end of the Wars of the Roses. There was no one else left to fight. It also marked the end of the feudal period of English history. With the death of Richard III the

crown passed from the new era of history began.

Plantagenet line to the new House of Tudor, and a

Kings were gaining the upper hand in the struggle with the barons. They encouraged the growth of towns and trade. They took more advisors and officials from the new merchant middle class. This eroded the power of the land-based nobility. Further, kings established royal courts to replace local feudal courts and replaced feudal duties (which had been difficult to collect in any case) with direct taxation. They created national standing armies instead of relying on feudal obligations of service from vassals. Feudal kingdoms moved slowly towards becoming nations.

A prosperous merchant in 1475

Henry II and Thomas a Becket (PLANTAGENET)

Henry II (1154-89) was the son of Queen Maud and Geoffrey of Anjou. He took as his emblem the "sprig of broom" of the House of Anjou, which in the French of the day became "plant a genet", or Plantagenet. Henry was a good administrator, but he had a terrible temper, which would get him into trouble. He razed unlicensed castles that had sprung up during the anarchy of the civil war, and reclaimed many of the rights and powers of the crown that had laxed. Becket - Henry's carousing chum and chief administrator was a cleric by the name of Thomas a Becket. When the See of Canterbury fell empty in 1162 Henry convinced a very reluctant Becket to become the new Archbishop. Henry, of course, assumed that his friend would be sympathetic to the royal cause in the escalating battle between church and state. He wasn't. Thomas underwent a change of character as Archbishop. He was ostentatiously severe and strict in his observance of church law. He wore a penitential hair shirt under his vestments, and had his underlings flog him frequently. More importantly, he opposed Henry over the question of the supremacy of ecclesiastical courts. (See The Constitutions of Clarendon) Criminous Clerks - At that time anyone in orders could only be tried in church courts. In practice, the number of clerics was huge, including several levels of lay priests and clerks. Henry, anxious to assert the power of royal justice, claimed that the "criminous clerks" should be tried in royal courts. To his surprise, Becket refused to agree. Becket's Death - The Archbishop fled to France after defying Henry. They eventually were reconciled with the aid of the pope, and Becket returned. He immediately infuriated Henry by excommunicating those bishops who had prudently Becket arguing with Henry II

supported the king during Becket's exile. Henry flew into one of his famous rages. Four knights, perhaps seeking to curry favour with the king, rode from Westminster to Canterbury and killed Becket in front of the main altar of the Cathedral when he refused to relent. Henry's Penance - Henry, full of remorse, did penance imposed by the pope. He walked to Canterbury Cathedral in sack cloth and ashes and allowed himself to be flogged by the monks there. He also gave way for the moment on the question of court authority. Consequences of Becket's Death - Becket's martyrdom did Canterbury Cathedral no harm at all. In a very short time miraculous cures began to be reported at his tomb. The old Cathedral burned down in 1174, and it was the growing popularity of Becket's shrine as a place of pilgrimage that paid for the rebuilding. Much of the magnificent Cathedral that we see today was built on the proceeds of gifts and the sale of "official souvenirs" at the shrine during the next few hundred years. Canterbury became one of the most visited pilgrimage sites in western Christendom. Legal Reforms - Henry introduced several major reforms. Prior to 1166 trial by ordeal was a common way of determining guilt or innocence in criminal cases. Under this system, an accused person might have to pick up a red hot bar of iron, or pluck a stone out of a boiling cauldron. If their hand had begun to heal after three days they were considered to have God on their side, affirming their innocence. One has to wonder how many "not guilty" verdicts were rendered by this system! Henry replaced this rather painful system with a jury of 12 men. He also introduced the first personal property tax. At the same time he forced Wales to at least nominally acknowledge the sovereignty of the English crown. The Devil's Brood - Henry was not so lucky in his family life. He was married to the forceful Eleanor of Aquitaine, and in their squabbling she turned his sons Richard, John, and Geoffrey against him. The "Devil's Brood" intrigued, fought, and rebelled against their father. In the end, the crown went to Richard while John "Lackland" received nothing. Geoffrey received even less; He died before his father.

Henry VIII
Henry VII's eldest son was Arthur, Prince of Wales. He married Catherine of Aragon, but died shortly thereafter, leaving the throne to fall to his younger brother Henry. History has not proved kind to the memory of Henry VIII (1509-47). He is often remembered as the grossly stout, overbearing tyrant of his later years. In his youth, however, Henry was everything it was thought a king should be. A natural athlete, a gifted musician and composer, Henry was erudite, religious, and a true leader among the monarchs of his day.

Field of the Cloth of Gold

Background In the early 16th century the balance of power in Western Europe was a precarious one; the major players being Francis I of France and Charles, Holy Roman Emperor. Each monarch tried to build a set of alliances to swing the balance in their favour. Into the mix came England, under Henry VIII. Henry's chief advisor, Thomas, Cardinal Wolsey, favoured an alliance with France. Henry's queen, Catherine, favoured the Empire (the Emperor Charles was her nephew). Yet Henry and Catherine's daughter Mary was affianced to Francis's son, the Dauphin. Henry himself was undecided as to which alliance offered him the best chance of personal and national gain. He played a waiting game in an attempt to stay on good terms with both Charles and Francis, hoping perhaps that no matter which monarch gained the ascendancy, England would benefit. The Meeting In 1520 Henry was persuaded to forge an alliance with France. A meeting was arranged between the two monarchs at a location just outside Calais, a bit of unremarkable countryside between the villages of Ardres and Guines. Francis and Henry were personal as well as political rivals, and each king prided himself on the magnificence of his court. Henry brought with him virtually his entire court, and he was determined to impress his host with the size and splendour of his retinue. When it was determined that the castles of both villages were in too great a state of disrepair to house the courts, they camped in fields, Francis at Ardres and Henry at Guines. This was no ordinary camping expedition, however; huge pavilions were erected to serve as halls and chapels, and great silken tents decorated with gems and cloth of gold. Definition Cloth of Gold was a fabric woven with thin strands of gold interspersed with more traditional materials, often silk. It might be used for clothing or for a ceremonial cloth used as a canopy for thrones. It is this ostentatious display of wealth and power that earned the meeting-place between Francis and Henry the sobriquet "The Field of the Cloth of Gold". The meeting lasted for three weeks (June 7-June 24, 1520), during which time each court strove to outdo the other in offering splendid entertainments and making grandiose gestures. Feasts and jousts were held, including a tilt between Henry and Francis themselves. Balls, masques, fireworks, and military sports were just some of the activities on offer. The expense incurred by both monarchs was enormous, and put tremendous strain on the finances of each country. Consequences Yet for all the trouble they went to, the results of the meeting were negligible. Though Henry and Francis agreed in principle to an alliance, it was just two weeks later that Henry met with Charles himself in England. By the terms of this new treaty between England and the Empire, each agreed to not sign any new treaties with France for two years, and the betrothal of Mary to the Dauphin was broken in

favour of a new betrothal to Charles himself (this alliance would later be broken also). Over the next several years the three monarchs formed, broke, and reformed alliances in an ever-shifting attempt to gain ascendance in Europe, with no-one gaining any permanent advantage.

Cardinal Wolsey. Henry had none of his father's drive for the grind of administration. He handed over that role to his advisor, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. This Henry was more concerned with cutting a fine figure than with balancing rows of figures like his father, and the result was predictable. Over the course of his reign he managed to turn a bulging treasury into a gaping blackhole of debt. Thomas Wolsey was the son of a Suffolk wool merchant. He became in turn Bishop of London, Archbishop of An older but no wiser York, Cardinal and Lord Chancellor, and papal legate. He Henry VIII was even at one time considered seriously as a candidate for the papacy itself. Wolsey loved luxury and ostentation. He maintained a household of over 1000 people, and at the height of his power he was more king than Henry himself. Religious Reformers. The whole of Europe was ablaze during Henry's time with the religious fervour of Reformation. Great reformers, religious and secular, called England home. Erasmus, scholar and monk, taught at Oxford, where he agitated for reform within the church. In his In Praise of Folly he lambasted the clergy for "observing with punctilious scrupulosity a lot of silly ceremonies and paltry traditional rules." Sir Thomas More, later Chancellor, wrote Utopia, a vision of an ideal society with no church at all to get in the way of spiritual understanding. Henry himself, despite his later break with Rome, was not a religious reformer. He was fairly orthodox in his own beliefs, and he passed measures against Lutheranism and upheld many traditional Catholic rites from attack by reformers. Marriage to Catherine. Henry received a special dispensation from the pope in order to marry his brother's widow, Catherine. The only child of that marriage was a daughter, Mary. Henry desperately wanted a male heir, and as time went on it became obvious that Catherine would have no more children. Henry began to cast around for a solution. Anne Boleyn. For by now Henry had enough of his marriage, and was eyeing one of the Queen's ladies in waiting, Anne Boleyn. Anne refused Henry's advances without the benefit of a wedding, so Henry sent his chancellor, Cardinal Wolsey, to ask the pope for an annulment of his marriage to Catherine. Unfortunately for the powerful Wolsey, he failed, and was deposed from office. Even the "gift" of his magnificent new palace at Hampton Court to Henry could not save Wolsey, who died shortly after his deposition, saving Henry the bother of a mock trial for treason. In Wolsey's place Thomas More was brought in to be Chancellor.

The Act of Supremacy. Henry's situation was now desperate, for Anne was pregnant, and at all costs the child, which Henry was sure must be a son, had to be legitimate. Henry got Parliament to declare that his first marriage was void, and he secretly married Anne. Unfortunately for Henry, the child proved to be female once again, the future Elizabeth I. Over the next several years Henry's wrangle with the pope grew ever deeper, until in 1534 the Act of Supremacy was passed, making Henry, not the pope, head of the church in England. This was not at first a doctrinal split in any way, but a personal and political move. Sir Thomas More opposed the divorce and was reluctantly executed by Henry. At the foot of the scaffold More is reported to have said, "I pray you, Master Lieutenant, see me safely up, and for my coming down, let me shift for myself". How was Henry able to carry off the split from Rome? For one thing, the church had incurred a tremendous amount of bad feeling over the years. High church officials were seen as rich, indolent, and removed from the people they were supposed to be serving. The abbeys and monasteries were well off, and certainly subject to jealousy. Feelings against priests and churchmen in general ran high. The church had become too far removed from its spiritual roots and purpose.

The Dissolution of the Monasteries

Starting small. Henry VIII took his most decisive step against the power of the church in 1538, when he began the Dissolution of the Monasteries. He did it piecemeal, perhaps to avoid too much outcry at the start. First the small, less powerful houses had their property confiscated and their buildings blighted (made unsuitable for use). They were followed the next year by the large houses. Philosophical concepts of the power of the king over church may have played a part in Henry's decision to suppress the monasteries, but so did greed. The monasteries were rich, and a lot of that wealth found its way directly or indirectly to the royal treasury. Some of the monastery buildings were sold to wealthy gentry for use as country estates. Many others became sources of cheap building materials for local inhabitants. One of the results of the Dissolution of the Monasteries is that those who bought the old monastic lands were inclined to support Henry in his break with Rome, purely from self interest. Attitudes towards the Dissolution. Many of the clerics themselves thought that a change was in order. The difference was, they thought the wealth they possessed should go to charity, "religious and educational enterprises." Everyone else had a personal stake in the matter; Henry wanted money, Parliament wanted to raise money without having to impose unpopular taxes, the gentry saw a chance to increase their own estates, and the merchant middle class saw a chance to become landed gentry themselves. Winners and losers. Henry sold the monastic lands for bargain basement prices, such was his need for ready cash. The real beneficiary of the Dissolution was not the king, but the new class of gentry who bought the lands. The suppression of the monasteries and places of pilgrimages was devastating for those pilgrimage centres that had no other economic base. Income for people on the pilgrim routes dropped, with no way to recover it. The other great loser of the Dissolution was culture ;

many monastic libraries full of priceless illuminated manuscripts were destroyed, with little or no regard for their value. The fate of the monks and nuns. The monks and nuns were treated quite well as a rule. Only a few who resisted were summarily executed. The others, including 5000 monks, 1600 friars, and 2000 nuns, were given reasonable pensions. Many of the monks and friars went into regular church office, so they could not be said to have suffered. Those who did suffer were the thousands of servants attached to the monasteries. They numbered more than the monks, but there was no pension for them, no golden handshake. The English Reformation was slow to gather steam. Catholics were not mistreated (at least not at first), and in many parts of the country religious life went on unchanged. Catholic rites and symbols remained in use for many years.

Thomas, Cardinal Wolsey

Thomas Wolsey (or "Wulcy" as he called himself), was born between 1471 and 1474 in Ipswich, the son of a prosperous merchant. Fanciful legend has always maintained that Wolsey was the son of a simple butcher, but there is no factual basis to bear this out. Butcher or not, his father Robert could afford to send Thomas to be educated at Oxford University, where he was granted his degree at the tender age of only 15, a feat which earned him the sobriquet "the boy bachelor". In 1497 Wolsey was voted a full fellow (roughly equivalent to a modern professor) at Magdalen College. Shortly thereafter he was appointed master of the school there. In 1498 he was ordained a priest of Marlborough (Wiltshire) under the patronage of the Bishop of Salisbury. More patronage was to earn him his second church post; the Marquis of Dorset, whose sons he taught at Magdalen, granted him the rectorship of Limington, Somerset, in 1500. A host of other benefices followed. In this Wolsey was following the accepted practice of his day, where many churchmen were official holders of numerous church positions, including rectorships of places they seldom if ever saw in person. One of Wolsey's mounting number of church posts was as official chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Henry Dean. When Dean died in 1503, Wolsey became chaplain to Sir Richard Nanfan. It was this post that catapulted him to national power. Sir Richard noted his chaplain's genius for administration, and empowered Wolsey to handle his financial affairs. He went so far as to present Wolsey to King Henry VII. On Nanfan's death in 1507 Wolsey joined the royal court as one of its many chaplains. Here he attracted the notice and the friendship of Richard Fox, the powerful Bishop of Winchester.

At this time the king began to use Wolsey on diplomatic errands. In one famous episode Henry bade Wolsey travel into Flanders as a special envoy to the court of the Emperor Maximillian. Wolsey travelled like a man possessed; he journeyed to Flanders and returned in three days. The king, believing him still preparing to leave, chided him for tardiness, and Wolsey was able to present his master with a fait accompli! Wolsey's greatest contributions came as Master of the Rolls, in which post he initiated reforms which greatly eased the beaurocratic functioning of the court administration. During this time Wolsey also acquired a bewildering number of church posts, including Dean of Lincoln, and prebend of Hereford cathedral. When Henry VIII came to the throne in 1509 he continued his father's favour towards Wolsey, naming him royal almoner, and shortly after, a canon of Windsor, then registrar of the Order of the Garter. Wolsey did not receive all these posts for nothing. Henry VIII had little of his father's interest or talent for administration, but he was quick to recognize Wolsey's talents and gave the churchman an increasing number of administrative tasks. That in itself may have been enough to earn him the enmity of the nobility, but fuel was added to the fire when Henry began entrusting Wolsey with political power, both domestically and in international affairs. Wolsey could now afford to indulge his love of pomp and lavish living; he maintained a huge household, and lived with a great show of expense. He built a superb palace beside the Thames at Richmond, called Hampton Court (later Hampton Court Palace). He added the Bishopric of Lincoln in 1514, and the following year was named Archbishop (later Cardinal) of York. On December 24, 1515 he reached the zenith of his power when he was named Lord Chancellor of England. His power was so great, and his influence over Henry's policies so great that Wolsey was in some ways more king than the king himself! In 1521 Pope Leo X died, and Wolsey entertained legitimate hopes of election to the Holy See. However, the support he needed from the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles, did not materialize, and Wolsey was left lacking the votes necessary for election. Two years later the new pope died, but once more Wolsey was deserted by Charles, and once more he was disappointed. There appears to be some doubt as to how much Wolsey really wanted the papacy; he protested his relief at not being named, and at least some historians tend to believe him. Wolsey was increasingly unpopular within England, however. The nobility were jealous of his power, the people hated him for imposing new taxes, and everyone hated him for his extravagant lifestyle and lavish displays of wealth and power. At this juncture Henry's personal life intervened. The king wished to rid himself of his queen, Katherine of Aragon, in order to marry Anne Boleyn. Katherine had been a thorn in Wolsey's side, favouring alliance with her nephew Charles, the Holy Roman Emperor, over Wolsey's policies in favour of the French. So Wolsey did what he could to help the king. He had Katherine's marriage declared invalid in his legatine court, hoping that the pope would then feel obliged to officially annul the

marriage. Henry then sent Wolsey to persuade the French king to bring pressure to bear on the pope. All the machinations of kings and emperors, church and state, at long last resulted in the Katherine's trial at Blackfriars, London, in 1519. In the process Wolsey made an enemy of Anne Boleyn, who held him responsible for the long delay in settling her status. The trial failed, and Anne used her influence to bring about Wolsey's fall from royal favour. He was forced to surrender the Great Seal of England, and more painfully perhaps, to cede his possessions to Henry. Although in disgrace, Wolsey was allowed to retain his living as Archbishop of York. He seems to have made a sincere effort to turn these last few months of his life to some good, and to perform his duties as an officer of the church with a commendable conscientiousness. His health, for many years suspect, now failed badly. In late 1530 Henry charged him with treason, and on the slow journey south from York to stand trial Wolsey died at Leicester Abbey.

The Amicable Grant

Background. Henry VIII had a nasty habit of getting embroiled in European conflicts. In the early 1520s his alliance with Charles, Holy Roman Emperor involved Henry in yet another continental imbroglio. Charles declared war on France, and Henry followed suit. To wage a war requires money; lots of money, and Henry needed plenty to pay for his latest military project. He turned to his advisor, Cardinal Wolsey. In 1525 Wolsey ordered the implementation of 'Amicable Grant', in theory a freely given gift from his subjects to the king, but in practice a heavy tax, levied without Parliamental approval. It is perhaps ironic that the Grant was termed 'Amicable', implying a sort of friendly largess on the part of Henry's subjects, when in fact it was unwelcome and burdensome, and evoked heavy resistance. According to the terms of the Amicable Grant, a tax of up to 1/6 was levied on secular goods, and up to 1/3 on ecclesiastical possessions. Such a large tax was bound to stir up considerable opposition, and so it proved. Violence flared in East Anglia, where the cloth-workers strenuously objected to the Grant. Perhaps more importantly, the citizens of London refused to pay. They claimed that under terms of a 1484 statute, all benevolences (gifts of money to the crown) were banned. In the face of the opposition, Henry VIII did an abrupt about turn. He ordered the collection of the grant monies to cease, and claimed that they had been levied without his permission or approval. Technically, this may have been true, as it was Cardinal Wolsey who proclaimed the Grant, but it is very unlikely indeed that Wolsey's actions took place without Henry's knowledge and tacit approval.

The failure of the Amicable Grant was one of the first events that led eventually to Wolsey's fall from power.

Thomas Cranmer
"And forasmuch as my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart, therefore my hand shall first be punished." Cranmer's words at his execution. Thomas Cranmer was born in 1489 at Aslacton, Nottinghamshire, where his father was a poor village squire. He received his basic education at home, then entered Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1503. He became a fellow of the college in 1510, but was forced to abdicate that post after he married his first wife, Joan. After her death in childbirth he re-entered the church and became a fellow of the college once more. Cranmer was an enthusiastic scholar, and he found himself in sympathy with the continental movement toward church reform that emphasized the importance of both the Bible and secular authority over papal authority. Cranmer may have been content to live out his life of study at Cambridge, but the personal life of King Henry VIII was about to bring this obscure churchman to international prominence. When Henry's divorce proceedings against Katherine of Aragon hit legal snags, chance brought Cranmer to Henry's notice. When an outbreak of the "sweating sickness" struck Cambridge in the summer of 1529, Cranmer left the town to stay in Waltham, Essex. There he met two of Henry's chief advisors, Edward Fox and Stephen Gardiner, who were impressed by his theological arguments in favour of the king's divorce. They presented Cranmer to the king, who immediately had Cranmer write a theological defense of his position, arguing that the Henry's marriage with the widow of his deceased brother was not legal. Cranmer defended this treatise before theologians at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, in the process earning the gratitude of Henry and the enmity of Katherine's supporters, including her daughter, Mary. Thereafter Henry employed Cranmer on several embassies abroad, first to the Pope, and later to make surreptitious contact with Protestant leaders in Europe. In 1532 Cranmer married for the second time, to Margaret, daughter of a Lutheran scholar. Margaret's moment in the public eye was brief, however. The following year Cranmer was elevated to the Archbishopric of Canterbury, and in keeping with the king's objections to ecclesiastic marriages, he was forced to send his wife into hiding and later to officially banish her. This peculiar state of affairs continued until reforms in the reign of Henry's son Edward VI allowed clergymen to marry, and Cranmer could once more live openly with his wife. In the meantime Cranmer supported, at least in public, Henry's numerous marital maneuvers. In his role as Archbishop of Canterbury he officially dissolved Henry's

marriage with Katherine of Aragon, and later helped preside over the trial of Anne Boleyne, the divorce from Anne of Cleves, and Catherine Howard's trial and execution. In these proceedings Cranmer showed his pliability; he seemed unable to deny Henry any whim. Cranmer seems to have been genuinely opposed to Henry's Dissolution of the Monasteries, though his devotion to the secular authority of his master did not allow much scope for challenging Henry's decisions! Certainly Cranmer was one of Henry's most valued servants during the Dissolution, and as such he took a lot of the blame from those opposed to the policy. During the reign of Henry VIII, Cranmer worked toward his own version of sensible ecclesiastical reform, including a new translation of the Bible in English. But it was his actions during the reign of Edward VI that made Cranmer a truly controversial figure, alternately despised and applauded by English Catholics and Protestants. In 1549 Cranmer produced The Book of Common Prayer (a second revised version was issued in 1552), which introduced a storm of controversy. Cranmer presented the view that a proper Christian Communion depends more on the heart of the practitioner than the actual bread and wine used in the ceremony. He also encouraged the public reading of the Bible by the entire congregation. Though to modern ears these views seem sensible, or at least worthy of reasoned consideration, at the time they were nothing short of revolutionary. Cranmer was castigated by Catholics and occasionally by zealous Protestant reformers who claimed he was not revolutionary enough! Cranmer's brief reform movement was overturned when Mary I came to the throne in 1552. Mary, a firm Catholic, blamed Cranmer for her mother's divorce. She quickly had Cranmer tried and sentenced to death for treason. The sentence was not carried out, though, and Cranmer was tried anew for heresy. During his trial Cranmer sensibly recanted his reform views, and affirmed the supreme authority of the Pope and the physical presence of Christ in the bread and wine of Communion. He signed an official document renouncing his reformist views. Despite this recantation he was convicted of heresy and sentenced to death. Perhaps realizing that his chances of survival were gone, Cranmer faced death with remarkably calm. On March 21, 1556 he was burned at the stake at Oxford. As the flames rose about him, Cranmer renounced his previous recantation, and held out the treacherous right hand that had signed the documents, so that it might be the first consumed by the fire. His dramatic death notwithstanding, Thomas Cranmer is remembered as one of the prime architects of England's move away from traditional Catholic worship and towards its own form of Anglican religious observance.

The Pilgrimage of Grace

Henry VIII's attacks on the Catholic church and the power of Rome (more details here) had much popular support. But not everyone was happy with Henry's vigorous dismantling of Catholic power in England. The first wave of discontent surfaced in October, 1536, when a large force of rebels occupied the city of Lincoln. The king did little more than express his displeasure, and the rebels dispersed. The Yorkshire Revolt. A much more serious outbreak arose almost immediately in Yorkshire, led by lawyer Robert Aske, whose men occupied York and then Doncaster. Aske was supported by no less a personage than Henry Lee, Archbishop of York. In addition to their complaints against religious policy Aske's rebels added objections to the high rents and taxes faced by the poor. The rebels, which contemporary accounts number as high as 40,000 men, carefully avoided any personal attacks against Henry himself (a wise move), but made a villain of Henry's chief advisor, Thomas Cromwell. This was a common approach by rebels throughout the medieval and Tudor period rather than risk even the perception of an attack upon the monarch, they proclaimed themselves loyal subjects who were simply trying to rescue their king from evil advisors. Rebel demands. The rebels proclaimed that the revolt would "extend no further than to the maintenance and defense of the faith of Christ and the deliverance of holy church, sore decayed and oppressed, and to the furtherance also of private and public matters in the realm concerning the wealth of all the king's poor subjects. " To emphasize the religious nature of their motives, the rebels decked themselves out with badges and banners depicting religious symbols. In other words, they portrayed themselves as defenders of the church and the poor, not as overt rebels against the king. Henry VIII was not moved by such fine distinctions, and he moved quickly to put down the rebellion. He sent an army led by Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, north to confront the "pilgrims". Howard played for time, receiving the rebel demands and negotiating while he brought more troops into position. Confrontation. The rebels at first defied the royal troops, and a battle seemed inevitable. Before the conflict could take place, a sudden downpour caused a stream separating the armies to deepen so much that no troops could cross. Perhaps the rain dampened the rebels spirit, for they accepted the duke's offer of pardon for the leaders, in exchange for vague promises that the king would hear their petitions and hold a parliament at York within a year. Once that agreement had been reached, Aske naively persuaded his men to disperse, assuming that his demands would be favourably received. The rebels melted away to their northern homes, and the revolt was over as suddenly as it had begun.

Treatment of the Leaders. Aske was received by the king in London and treated well. But the story does not end there. A few months later another Yorkshire landowner, Sir Francis Bigod, led a fresh uprising at Beverley. Although Aske and other leaders of the original Pilgrimage of Grace tried to defuse Bigod's revolt, they were held responsible. Aske and his friends were arrested, tried for treason, and executed at London in June, 1537. The entire north of the country was placed under martial law and roughly 250 people were hanged, many on the merest suspicion of sedition. Results. The vigorous repression of the Pilgrimage of Grace and its aftermath effectively ended any popular resistance to Henry's religious policies, and the Dissolution of the Monasteries proceeded without further serious difficulty.

Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn

Anne's Boleyn's Fall. For all the trouble that Henry had undergone to marry Anne Boleyn, their marriage did not last long. First was the disappointment of a female child. Then came rumours that Anne had been unfaithful to Henry, which neatly coincided with Henry's new infatuation for Jane Seymour. Eventually Anne was tried for adultery, which, since Henry was the king, was treason if Henry chose to look at it that way. He did so choose, and Anne was beheaded on the green in the Tower of London. She was little mourned; in her short reign she had managed to alienate just about everyone at court. Wives Three through Six. Henry married Jane, and between them they produced the long awaited male heir to the throne, the future Edward VI. Unfortunately, Jane died in childbirth. Henry then went through the last of his three wives in quick succession. Anne of Cleves, whom Henry married on the basis of a highly flattering portrait which proved to be largely artistic license, was divorced. Catherine Howard was accused of adultery and executed. And finally, Catherine Parr, who was more nursemaid than wife to the ailing Henry, managed to outlive the king. At the end of his life Henry grew grossly fat and was in terrible pain from his swollen legs, probably brought on by gout. He was carried in a chair while indoors, and hoisted up and down stairs with the aid of elaborate machines, but he still insisted on riding on horseback when traveling. Enclosures. The single greatest social issue of the reigns of the first three Tudors was the enclosure movement and the attendant woes to the lower classes who were displaced or had their common grazing privileges denied by the new enclosures. Simply put, enclosure was the fencing or hedging of open farmland for the purpose of raising sheep. As a landowner it made far more economic sense to raise sheep than to rely on traditional feudal arrangements of mutual obligation. Summing up the early Tudors. Early Tudor Britain was a society in turmoil, both religious and economic. Social upheaval and religious strife dominated English

public life. The prosperity of the early years of Henry VII gave way to terrific economic pressures on the lower classes, though the middle class merchants and yeomen continued to grow in strength and wealth. Individual initiative, both economic and religious, was replacing the ordered (or static) conditions of the Middle Ages. Entrepreneurial zeal and religious reformation were overturning a society that had remained largely unchanged for centuries. It was now possible for peasants to rise to high church office, or to great economic power, through their own initiative and drive. This kind of upward mobility was something new and challenging for England. People with no pretensions to a noble title or lands were rising higher than anyone could have imagined a few decades earlier. These changes primarily affected men. The role of women was mostly static, even during the later reigns of the two queens, Mary and Elizabeth. The abolition of monastic settlements must have proved a great hardship to those women who would otherwise have used the church to escape being married off for family profit. The early Tudor period can be summed up in these three characteristics: peace in England, strong central government, and general prosperity.

Elizabeth I and Tudor England

The feeble Edward VI (1537-53) was only ten years old when he came to the throne. The Duke of Somerset (The Lord Protector) acted as regent. Somerset introduced Protestant reforms to the English church. Uniformity of service was ensured by an act of Parliament. In 1551 Archbishop Cranmer's Forty Two Articles of religion laid the foundation for Anglicanism. When the Edward died at the age of sixteen the Duke of Northumberland tried to put a reluctant Lady Jane Grey, great grand-daughter of Henry VII, on the throne ahead of Edward's sister Mary. There was no real public support for the move and it fizzled after only nine days. The Duke, the unfortunate Jane Grey, and all her major supporters were executed at the Tower of London. Overseas, Calais was finally lost to the French, and a legacy of English presence on the continent going back to William the Conqueror disappeared forever. The reign of Queen Mary (1553-58) was marked by religious upheaval and dissension. She had been raised as a Catholic, and she sought to undo the Protestant changes of the past several years. Protestants were suppressed and burned in the hundreds, an act which earned Mary the charming nickname "Bloody Mary". Mary entered into an extremely unpopular marriage with Philip, heir to the throne of Spain. Parliament refused to accept Philip Queen Mary as co-ruler, and after much wrangling he took his place as Mary's consort only, with no right to inherit the throne. Mary seems to have doted on Philip, but he regarded the marriage as an affair of political convenience.

When Mary died the pendulum of English religious life swung once again. Elizabeth I (1558-1603) was raised as a Protestant, but she was shrewd enough to play the game of politics; she was a master of procrastination and of playing one side against the other. Under Elizabeth the Church of England was officially established (1563) with Protestant dogma, but a liturgy, rites, and church organization which were essentially Catholic in form.There were many non-conforming Protestant sects at this time, most of which were tolerated under Elizabeth's policies. Life was not easy for Catholics, though. There were as many executions of Catholics under Elizabeth as there were Protestants under Mary, though over a reign nine times as long. Elizabeth I One of the main thorn's in Elizabeth's side was Mary, Queen of Scots. Mary, a Catholic, fled from Scotland after managing to offend nearly everyone there, and took refuge in England. The trouble was that Mary became the centre of numerous Catholic plots to regain power in England. Elizabeth might have been able to overlook that, but Mary had the gift of indiscretion, and was discovered once too often corresponding with Elizabeth's enemies. Reluctantly, Elizabeth had Mary executed for treason. Tension with Spain was constant during Elizabeth's reign. Philip, who had once been touted as a possible husband for Elizabeth, was now king of Spain. Spain had tremendous wealth pouring into its treasury from its territories in the New World, and English sailors had a habit of capturing Spanish ships on the high seas. This "piracy" was officially reprimanded by Elizabeth and unofficially praised. Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Hawkins were two captains who made their reputations and fortunes playing at piracy. In 1588 Philip assembled a great fleet of warships to invade England. He should have succeeded, as the Spanish Armada had far more fire-power than the English. The Armada was sighted off Plymouth, where the English commander, Drake, was enjoying a game of bowls on the common, or Hoe. In one of those delightful scenes which become legends, Drake calmly insisted on finishing his game before taking ship to meet his foe. In reality his bravado was based on good knowledge of the weather and the tides; he knew full well that he had plenty of time. An English ship in the Armada fight The English used their lighter, more manoeuverable vessels to great advantage against the larger, heavier Spanish. They sent fire-ships into the midst of the Armada to spread panic and disperse the fleet. All might well have been lost, however, but a heavy storm came up and scattered the Spanish vessels. A combination of tactics, luck, and weather sent a tattered Spanish Armada limping around Scotland, down the west coast of Ireland, and home to Spain.

The Spanish Armada

Background. King Philip II of Spain was the most powerful and (seemingly) wealthy man in Europe in the latter half of the 16th century. His territories in the New World brought him enormous wealth, though the expense of administering that far-flung empire meant that Spain was heavily in debt to foreign bankers. England, by comparison, was a relatively small nation, and not a particularly powerful or wealthy one. Why then would Philip spend the money to assemble the largest - and most expensive - naval force ever seen against his island foe? The answer has many parts. In his youth, Philip was married to his fellow Catholic, Mary, Queen of England. He was not king, indeed the only way the English Parliament would countenance the marriage was if Philip was expressly forbidden from ruling.

An English ship in action against the Spanish Armada

He was, rather, Mary's consort, a duty he fulfilled with underwhelming enthusiasm. Philip never cared for Mary, indeed, he said while on his way to his marriage, "I am going to a crusade, not to a marriage feast". He was fueled by a religious desire to father a Catholic heir who would keep England within the Roman Catholic sphere. Mary, by now a middle-aged spinster, certainly did care for her new husband, and even managed to convince herself that she was pregnant at one point, but it was not to be. When Mary died in 1558 her very Protestant sister Elizabeth came to the throne. Philip was unwilling to let his precarious grasp on England slip away completely; he proposed marriage to Elizabeth. Elizabeth was a master at procrastination, and playing the game of politics. She kept communication open with Philip, and protested her friendship, all the while encouraging English pirates like Hawkins and Drake to seize Spanish ships and goods in the West Indies. Drake was dubbed by the Spanish "the Master Thief of the Unknown World". In the 1560s Elizabeth also earned Spanish wrath by supporting Protestants in the Netherlands in their revolt against Spanish occupation. Spain also believed, or at least found it useful to believe, that Elizabeth was illegitimate. Under Catholic principles Elizabeth's father Henry VIII had no right to divorce his first wife, Katherine of Aragon, to marry Elizabeth's mother, Anne Boleyne. Therefore Elizabeth was born out of proper wedlock, and thus had no right to the throne. More importantly for the fervently Catholic Philip, he believed that it was his duty to lead Protestant England back to the Catholic faith - by force of necessary. He

managed to get papal approval for his invasion, and a promise of money to be delivered after the Spanish had landed in England. He also got papal permission to name the next ruler of England (by surreptitiously slipping a clause to that effect into the middle of the document of agreement with the pope). Philip planned to name his daughter Isabella as Queen of England, under his control. The Spanish Fleet. Philip began preparing his invasion force as early as 1584. His first choice as commander was the Marquis of Santa Cruz, but when Santa Cruz died Philip ordered the Duke of Medina Sedonia to take command of the fleet. The Duke was an experienced warrior - on land. He had no naval background, and no interest in leading the Armada, as the invasion fleet came to be called. He begged to be dismissed, but Philip ignored the request. Cadiz. Despite Spanish precautions, the English were well aware of the Spanish preparations. In a bold move that was apparently against Elizabeth's wishes, Sir Francis Drake sailed a small English fleet to Cadiz, where they surprised a large number of Spanish warships in the harbour. Drake burned and sunk a number of ships and slipped away before the Spanish could rally. Although the blow at Cadiz was more an annoyance than a major setback, the English took heart from this "singeing of the King of Spain's beard". The Armada sets sail. By May of 1588, however, the Armada was finally ready to sail. The fleet numbered over 130 ships, making it by far the greatest naval fleet of its age. According to Spanish records, 30,493 men sailed with the Armada, the vast majority of them soldiers. A closer look, however, reveals that this "Invincible Armada" was not quite so well armed as it might seem. Many of the Spanish vessels were converted merchant ships, better suited to carrying cargo than engaging in warfare at sea. They were broad and heavy, and could not maneuver quickly under sail. This might not at first glance have seemed a problem to the Spanish. They did not intend to engage the English in a sea battle. The ships of the Armada were primarily troop transport. Their major task was simply to carry armed men to a designated landing point and unload them. Naval tactics were evolving; it was still common for ships to come alongside each other and allow fighting men to engage in hand to hand combat. Advances in artillery were only beginning to allow for more complex strategies and confrontations at sea. At this stage the English were far more adept at artillery and naval tactics than the Spanish, who were regarded as the best soldiers in Europe. The Spanish plans called for the fleet to sail up the English Channel and rendezvous off Dover with the Duke of Parma, who headed the Spanish forces in the Netherlands. This in itself presented huge problems. Communications were slow, and the logistical problems of a rendezvous at sea were immense. Also, the Duke of Parma was a very proud man, and resented the fact that Medina Sedonia had been given command of the operation. Throughout the whole Armada

affair Parma, while not openly obstructionist, did a poor job of cooperating with his titular commander, Medina Sedonia. He did not believe the enterprise could succeed, and he did the absolute minimum possible to help. Perhaps worst of all the problems faced by the Armada was Philip himself. The king insisted on controlling the details of the Armada's mission. He issued a steady stream of commands from his palace of the Escorial, yet he seldom met with his commanders, and never allowed his experienced military leaders to evolve their own tactics. He did not listen to advice, which was a shame, for Philip had little military training and a poor grasp of naval matters. He firmly believed that God guided him, and that therefore his mission would succeed. The English were not idle while the Spanish Armada prepared to sail. A series of signal beacons atop hills along the English and Welsh coasts were manned. When the Spanish ships were at last sighted of The Lizard on July 19, 1588, the beacons were lit, speeding the news throughout the realm. The English ships slipped out of their harbour at Plymouth and, under cover of darkness, managed to get behind the Spanish fleet. The Battle. The Spanish sailed up the Channel in a crescent formation, with the troop transports in the centre. When the Spanish finally reached Calais, they were met by a collection of English vessels under the command of Howard. Each fleet numbered about 60 warships, but the advantage of artillery and maneuverability was with the English. Under cover of darkness the English set fireships adrift, using the tide to carry the blazing vessels into the massed Spanish fleet. Although the Spanish were prepared for this tactic and quickly slipped anchor, there were some losses and inevitable confusion. On Monday, July 29, the two fleets met in battle off Gravelines. The English emerged victorious, although the Spanish losses were not great; only three ships were reported sunk, one captured, and four more ran aground. Nevertheless, the Duke of Medina Sedonia determined that the Armada must return to Spain. The English blocked the Channel, so the only route open was north around the tip of Scotland, and down the coast of Ireland. It was then that the unpredictable English weather took a hand in the proceedings. A succession of storms scattered the Spanish ships, resulting in heavy losses. By the time the tattered Armada regained Spain, it had lost half its ships and threequarters of its men. In England the victory was greeted as a sign of divine approval for the Protestant cause. The storms that scattered the Armada were seen as intervention by God. Services of thanks were held throughout the country, and a commemorative medal struck, with the words, "God blew and they were scattered" inscribed on it. Note: The term "Invincible Armada" was not a Spanish one. It was a sarcastic phrase employed by later English commentators.

Lady Jane Grey

While Henry VIII grumbled towards a cantankerous death, he felt it necessary to settle the matter of his succession. In his will, he named his son Edward to succeed him. After Edward, and the heirs of his body, he named his daughter Mary and the heirs of her body, and after that, his second daughter Elizabeth. Henry's will was duly approved by an acquiescent Parliament. Jane Grey - quick facts Born September 1537 Died February 12, 1554 Father: Henry Grey, Marquess of Dorset Mother: Lady Frances Brandon, daughter of Henry VIII's sister Mary When Henry finally died in 1546, his son Edward took the throne as Edward VI. Since Edward was only 9 years old at the time of his coronation, government was actually conducted by a Council of Executors. The Council was headed by Edward's uncle, the Earl of Hertford, who was named Protector of the Realm. Shortly after taking office Hertford had himself named Duke of Somerset, and it is by that name that he is best known. Somerset was an interesting character; a man of occasional laudable ideals, but with a knack for alienating people and going about his business with the least tact possible. He managed to pass measures aimed at widespread religious tolerance, for example, yet also aroused the church to fury by imposing the Act of Uniformity and the Book of Common Prayer upon it. More importantly, he aroused Parliament to an equal fury by his measures against land enclosure. Somerset found himself wholly without support where it counted the most; amongst his fellow nobles. John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, headed Parliamentary opposition which resulted in Somerset's arrest. Somerset was forced to resign as Protector, had some of his property seized, and was briefly held in the Tower of London. Into the void created by the deposition of Somerset stepped John Dudley, better known by the title he later appropriated, Duke of Northumberland. Where Somerset had been possessed of laudable (by modern standards) motives on occasion, Northumberland was motivated by greed and personal power. His administration was marked by a move towards extremism and harshly repressive laws aimed at squelching any and all opposition to the Duke's power. Somerset fell victim to those laws, and was executed in 1552. Northumberland's position might have seemed unassailable, but there was widespread opposition to his leadership within Parliament. More importantly, Northumberland was well aware that Edward was ill and probably had not long to live.

In a desperate bid to secure his own power upon the young king's death, Northumberland concocted a plan to put a puppet upon the throne. That puppet was Lady Jane Grey, the quiet, devout sixteenyear-old granddaughter of Henry VIII's younger sister, Mary Rose. Northumberland believed that Jane would be pliable enough to do whatever he asked of her.
Lady Jane Grey

It took a hefty measure of gall to put forward Jane Grey as the future queen of England, since her claim to the title was extremely weak. But gall was something Northumberland had in abundance.

He married Jane to his own son Guildford Dudley, and through them believed he would be able to control the crown when Edward finally died. Jane had no inkling that her new father-in-law planned to put her forward in Mary Tudor's place when the king died. Northumberland had little trouble persuading the fervently Protestant Edward that the throne must not fall to his Catholic sister Mary. The king was convinced to circumvent his father's will and name Jane's mother Frances Grey as his successor. Frances then duly relinquished her own "claim" in favour of her daughter, Jane. With great difficulty Northumberland convinced the Council to fall in with his plans. Edward died on July 6, 1553 and four days later Jane Grey was proclaimed Queen of England. But here Northumberland's plans suffered their first check. Jane flatly refused to allow her new husband Dudley to be named king, a title he had manifestly no right to possess. Instead, she proposed he be created Duke of Clarence. Northumberland, his wife, and Jane's own husband, were furious at her refusal, but she would not unbend from what she considered the only right and lawful course. A second setback soon followed; to secure the success of his plans Northumberland needed to capture Mary and prevent support forming around her. But Mary was warned of his plans, and barely escaped the men sent to imprison her. Northumberland abandoned London and set off in pursuit of Mary, who had taken refuge at Framlingham Castle in Suffolk. In his absence the Council acted quickly and declared its support for Mary. Mary was declared queen at Paul's Cross, London, and Northumberland realized that his plans had failed. He threw himself upon Mary's mercy. She was inclined to be magnanimous in victory, but Northumberland's enemies on the Council persuaded her that the Duke was too dangerous, and he was quickly put to death. As for Jane Grey, she and her unwelcome husband Guildford were sent to the Tower. She had spent but nine short days as queen of the realm. Guildford was held in the Beauchamp Tower, and Jane at the house of the Gaoler at #5 Tower Green. Though the couple were neighbours, they were forbidden contact. On November 13 they were brought to trial for treason at the Guildhall and speedily found guilty. Even then, Mary was inclined to be merciful and spare the lives of

these unwitting pawns in the schemes of Northumberland. But once again the plots of others ensnared Jane Grey. This time it was her father Henry, now Duke of Suffolk, who brought about her final ruin. Henry Grey joined the ill-fated revolt known as the Wyatt Rebellion. Sir Thomas Wyatt, angered at Mary's plans to marry Phillip of Spain, raised an armed revolt in Kent and marched on London. His cause failed to rouse the Londoner's support, and Wyatt was captured. Grey tried to raise the Midlands in revolt, but he also was swiftly captured. Mary realized that as long as Jane lived she would continue be a focus for rebellion, so on February 7, 1554 she reluctantly signed Jane's death warrant. Guildford begged Mary's leave to visit Jane, which Mary granted, but Jane refused to meet with her husband, saying 'it would disturb the holy tranquility with which they had prepared themselves for death.' On the morning of February 12 Jane watched from her window as Guildford was taken to Tower Hill, and she was still watching when his headless corpse returned to the Tower. Then it was her own turn. At a scaffold erected on the Tower Green, Jane Grey was beheaded. The "Queen for Nine Days" was buried in the Chapel Royal of St. Peter ad Vincula at the Tower, near her husband Guildford and his father Northumberland, who by his ambition had brought about her death.

English History

Wyatt's Rebellion

Edward VI was only xxx when he died in July, 1553. The Duke of Northumberland seized upon Edward's death to put his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey, upon the throne, but this attempt came to nothing. Lady Jane was put in prison, and Mary, eldest daughter of Henry VIII, was crowned queen on 10 July, 1553. Mary was a devout Catholic, and one of the tasks she saw as essential to the spiritual well being of the realm was for her to foster the Catholic faith. One of the ways she could do that was to marry a devout Catholic and produce Catholic heirs. After prolonged negotiations a marriage was arranged between Mary and Philip, son of the Spanish Emperor Charles V. When the Spanish marriage was announced, Sir Thomas Wyatt the younger (born about 1521 - died 1554) took action. Wyatt was a courageous leader and a skilled soldier, but he was also reckless and hotheaded. He had served for a short time as sheriff of Kent, were he had his estate of Allington Castle. Wyatt considered the marriage an affront to English sovereignty - both spiritual and material. He saw it as the thin edge of a Catholic wedge which would undo the reforms of Henry VIII and draw England under the influence of the Catholic church and the very Catholic Spanish empire. Wyatt evolved a daring and dangerous plot to raise armies in different parts of the country and converge upon London. The most prominent of his fellow conspirators were Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, Sir Peter Carew, and Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devon. To Grey fell the task of raising troops in Leicestershire, while Courtenay did the same in Devon. More troops were expected from the Welsh borderland. Like many such plots during the turbulent Tudor period, Wyatt's plans were uncovered. Courtenay turned against him, and the other conspirators did not, or could not, fulfil their part in the plan. But Wyatt, perhaps foolishly, went ahead with his rebellion; he raised an army of some 3000 men in Kent, and marched on London. Wyatt's motives seem hazy; perhaps he did not know himself what his aims were beyond putting a stop to the Spanish marriage. It is possible that Wyatt intended to put Elizabeth on the throne; indeed, it is hard to see how he could have envisaged any other outcome in the event of Mary's removal. There is some suggestion that he wanted to marry Elizabeth to Edward Courtenay. Whether Elizabeth herself knew of Wyatt's intentions is another matter. It was certainly politically expedient for her to not know, so that she could deny involvement should affairs to go to plan. It seems unlikely, though, that she was completely unaware of Wyatt's plans.

There was little popular support for Mary and her Catholic leanings, but even so, Mary was not so secure on the throne that that she could be assured of victory. Wyatt, on the other hand, was counting on the citizens of London to rise up and join him in his rebellion. The first troops sent against him deserted to his cause, and Wyatt must have hoped that his rebellion would succeed against the odds. But Mary did not sit meekly waiting to see what he fate would be; she went in person to the London Guildhall and exhorted the citizens of the city to come to her aid. Twenty thousand men volunteered to act as militia against the insurgents. Wyatt's men entered London on 3 February, 1554, but the expected outbreak of popular support did not materialize, perhaps in part because of Mary's appeal to the Londoners. Wyatt had a minor skirmish with a troop of infantry at Hyde Park Corner on 7 February, and though he escaped, the morale of his men was dropping rapidly as the promised popular support was nowhere to be found. Wyatt reached Ludgate on the morning of 8 February, but the gate was shut against him and he had no means to break through. He retreated as far as Temple Bar, where he finally gave recognized that his cause was lost and he surrendered. Wyatt himself was taken to Whitehall, and thence to the Tower of London. Wyatt was tried for treason on 15 March, found guilty, and executed on Tower Hill on 11 April. Before he died Wyatt was put under extreme duress to implicate Elizabeth in his plot, but this he strenuously denied to the end. In his final address to the crowd gathered to watch his execution, Wyatt exonerated Elizabeth and Courtenay, and took the full responsibility for the rebellion on his own shoulders. Nevertheless, Elizabeth was imprisoned in the Tower of London for alleged involvement in Wyatt's Rebellion. Whether Mary actually believed that her sister had been involved in the plot is another question, but the Rebellion certainly provided a useful pretext for putting Elizabeth out of the way. In the aftermath of the rebellion Mary's advisors were zealous in tracking down and executing conspirators, and alleged conspirators. Many called for Elizabeth to be executed as well, and it is interesting to consider how history would have changed had Mary not resisted those calls. One unfortunate side effect of Wyatt's Rebellion was that it hastened the demise of the unfortunate Lady Jane Grey. The 'Nine Days Queen', who had been little more than a pawn in the hands of her ambitious father-in-law, was considered at threat to the throne, and was beheaded, along with her husband and her father, the Duke of Suffolk.

The Essex Rebellion

Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, was a charming rogue at his best, and a treacherous schemer at his worst. On his best behaviour, he became a firm favourite with an aging Queen Elizabeth I, but Elizabeth, ever cautious, never let him presume too far upon her favour. It was suggested in later novels and films

that Elizabeth was in love with the handsome Essex, but this suggestion is not supported by any firm evidence. Rather, it seems, Elizabeth enjoyed his flattery and his flamboyant company. Whatever the truth of the matter, Elizabeth was never one to let her heart rule her head. The final years of Elizabeth's long reign were fraught with intrigue over her possible successor, given that she had no direct descendants. Elizabeth herself refused to be drawn over the subject, and refrained from favouring any one possible heir. In law there was no question who had the best claim to the throne; James VI of Scotland was the only legitimate legal successor, but legality was sometimes put to one side in the turbulent affairs of Elizabethan England. Various claimants to the throne wee suggested, from Arabella Stuart, great granddaughter of Margaret Tudor, to Isabella of Spain, sister of the Spanish king Phillip III. Though there were religious extremists on both the Catholic and Protestant sides of the spectrum, most moderates would be prepared to accept either a Catholic monarch who supported the rights of Anglicanism, or a Protestant ruler prepared to accept Catholicism. The situation leant itself to plot and counter-plot on all sides. Two of the most active plotters were Robert Cecil, Lord Burghley, and Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex. Though personal enemies, both men ultimately supported James VI of Scotland, though it would seem that their primary objective was the ruin of the other!
The Irish question

In 1598 the English determined to send a large force against Hugh O'Neill, the Earl of Tyrone. Essex was handed the responsibility of carrying out the campaign against Tyrone, and to do so was given sweeping powers of administration in Ireland. Essex's campaign was a disaster, marred by inaction, and refusal to seriously engage the enemy. When at last Essex bowed to pressure from the English government to march against Tyrone, he treated with the Irish earl instead of fighting, and broke off the engagement. Though we do not know for certain what terms the two earls came to, there is a strong suspicion that they agreed to support the succession of James VI, and give support their own claim to authority within their own countries. But Essex had gone too far; he had refused to follow out the express orders given him to fight Tyrone. Elizabeth reproached him sternly, and at that point the impetuous Essex made a fatal decision. Without asking permission to leave Ireland Essex deserted his post, took ship for England, and rode to Greenwich, where he burst in upon the queen and threw himself upon her mercy. Elizabeth was furious at her former favourite; she would hear nothing of his plea, and banished him from her presence. That same day Essex was arrested and put under house arrest. There he languished for over a year, while Cecil carried on his intrigues. When Essex was finally released, he found his support had withered away.

The Essex Rebellion

In a last attempt to regain power he conceived a wild and desperate plan to seize the queen and destroy Cecil. He gathered about him some 300 supporters, and tried to persuade Lord Mountjoy, his successor in Ireland, to bring his troops from Ireland back to England to support him. But the wily Cecil was aware of every move Essex made.
A treasonous play

Essex sponsored a performance of Shakespeare's play, Richard II, at the Globe Theatre in London, on 7 February 1601. This would on the surface appear to be an innocuous event, scarce worthy of mention. But in Elizabethan England nothing was as it seemed. The play revolves around the story of the unfortunate Richard, who lost his throne and his life by listening to evil advisors. It would be very easy to draw parallels with Elizabeth herself as the unfortunate monarch, and cast Cecil and his faction as Richard's advisors. In these circumstances, the play could be seen as a symbolic threat to the queen. The queen sent four of her advisors to Essex house, the earl's London residence. Impetuous to the last, Essex locked the men in his library and took to the streets, hoping to raise support from the Sheriff of London. The Sheriff, Sir Thom as Smythe, put him off, and the expected spontaneous swell of support from the London mob failed to materialize. Essex must have realized the game was up. The Earl of Nottingham led a force of men to Essex House and after a short skirmish, forced Essex to surrender. Essex was brought before a council of his peers, where he was summarily tried and found guilty of treason. Essex may have hoped that the aging queen would come to his rescue, but even she had had enough, and she let the sentence of execution be carried out without intervention. Robert Devereux was executed on 25 February, 1601. The main consequence of Essex's failed rebellion is that Cecil reigned supreme at court, and under his direction, the succession of James VI of Scotland to the English throne was assured when Elizabeth died two years later.

Elizabethan Life

High Society. Society began to form along new lines in the Tudor years. If feudal England was an age of community, Tudor England was one of individuality. Nobility and knights were still at the top of the social ladder, but the real growth in society was in the merchant class. Nobles old and new. Within the nobility there was a distinction between old families and new. Most old noble families were Catholic, and most new noble families were Protestant. The upper classes were exempt from the new oaths of allegiance to the Church of England, and many Catholic families maintained private chaplains. Noble obligations. It is easy to think of the nobility as the idle rich. They may have been rich (though not necessarily), but they certainly weren't allowed to be

idle. Often, high office brought debt rather than profit. Honorific offices were unpaid, and visiting nobles to England were the responsibility of the English nobility to house and entertain at their own expense. Appointment to a post of foreign ambassador brought with it terrible financial burdens. The ambassador was expected to maintain a household of as many as 100 attendants. Elizabethan progresses. The most expensive "honour" of all was that of housing Queen Elizabeth and her household. Elizabeth hit on the clever scheme of going on constant "progresses" about the country. Aside from the benefit of bringing her into closer contact with her subjects, she saved a great deal of money by making the nobles with whom she stayed foot the bill for her visit. Many nobles begged off the honour of her stay for fear of bankruptcy. Incidentally, the "progresses" of Elizabeth account for the fact that there are so many places today that advertise "Queen Elizabeth slept here". She slept just about everywhere. Nobility had other expenses besides the monarch. They maintained huge households, and conspicuous consumption and lavish entertainment was expected. The new merchant class. The Tudor era saw the rise of modern commerce with cloth and weaving leading the way. A prosperous merchant class emerged from the ashes of the Wars of the Roses. The prosperity of the wool trade led to a surge in building in the active wool areas. "Wool churches" can be seen today in the Cotswolds, Lavenham, Leominster, and Stamford, among others. The importance of the wool trade in late medieval and Tudor England cannot be overstated. Witness the inscription carved on a monument in a wool church, "I thank God and ever shall, it was the sheep that payed for all". Houses. House designs became more balanced and symmetrical, with E and H shapes common, (possibly as a tribute to Elizabeth and Henry VIII). For the first time greater attention was paid to comfort and less to defence. Battlements disappeared, arches became flattened, and bay and oriel windows grew in size. Houses were often built around an inner courtyard. The hall was still the centre of life, though now space was made in lofts for servants to sleep. The winter parlour appeared, a forerunner of the modern dining room. It acted as a family retreat area, and privacy began to be more prized. The walls were commonly decorated with linen fold panelling and adorned with freshly cut boughs for scent. Tudor houses were generally timber-framed. The oak timbers were usually left to the weather rather than tarred black as is commonly seen in modern restorations and imitations. A new feature of manor houses was the long gallery running the length of the upper floor. It was a place for walks, games, and displaying art. There were few passages; one room opened directly into the next. This also meant that privacy tended to be a foreign concept to most people.

Houses began to be built with many more windows. Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire was known by the rhyme, "Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall". Elaborately carved oak staircases began to be featured in houses, replacing circular stone stairwells. Gardens were a vital feature of Tudor life. Both flower and herb gardens were popular, with formal layouts of straight lines and walks. Topiary made an appearance. Meals were elaborate and large. Breakfast was simply a light snack, while the main meal of the day was dinner, which began at 11 o'clock and lasted for three hours. A smaller supper was usual at 6 o'clock. The lower classes had dinner at noon and supper at 7 or 8 in the evening. The poor ate off wooden vessels, or pewter, the rich off silver, glass, or delft from Holland. China ware was unknown. Food was cooked over open fires. Meat was cooked on a spit which was sometimes turned by a dog running on a circular treadmill attached to the spit end. Baking was done in iron boxes laid on the fire or in a brick oven set into the side of the fireplace. House Interiors. If the medieval period was one of beautiful work in stone the Tudor period was one of beautiful woodwork. The movement began in the 15th century with church carvings (screens, stalls, and pulpits), and by Elizabeth's time the carvings had spread to house interiors. Walls were heavily panelled and furniture grew more elaborate, though it was still heavy and sparse by modern standards. Sideboards became fashionable as a way to display plate. There were few chairs; stools or chests were used instead. Rushes, loose or plaited together to form a rug, were used on the floors. These rushes were swept or replaced haphazardly, if at all, early in Tudor times. They accumulated layers of filth and fleas over the years. By the end of Elizabeth's reign, however, things changed, and the English acquired a reputation for cleanliness. Great attention was paid to beds. The feather bed made an appearance, replacing the straw mattress. Elaborate four poster beds were the mode, and were so highly valued that they are given special mention in the wills of the time. Literature. Latin was still the language of literacy, despite the success of Geoffrey Chaucer. In 1589 Spenser's Faerie Queen was a revelation of the possibilities of the English language in prose. Plays and playwrights proliferated after 1580, notably Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare. Plays were originally performed in the courtyard of inns, whose galleried design influenced the later design of playhouses such as Shakespeare's The Globe (1599). These theatres were open to the air in the centre, or pit. Performances were given in daylight, due to the difficulty of lighting the stage and the unsafe nature of travel after dark. Popular games included bowls, paume (the ancestor of tennis), tilting at quintain, Tudor townhouse

bull and bear-baiting, and cockfighting. Medieval tournaments were replaced by masques, a sort of play or spectacle full of allegory. Sometimes fireworks, which had just been invented, were a part of the masque. Practice with a long bow was still encouraged despite the advent of gunpowder and cannon. Accuracy was expected; a law of Henry VIII decreed that no one 24 years of age or older should shoot at a target less than 220 yards away. Early guns were incredibly slow and proved useless in wet weather. Bowmen could afford to laugh at them.

The Tudor Church

It has been estimated that in Queen Mary's reign 2/3 of the English people were Catholic, but it didn't matter because the leadership and the middle classes were not. At the beginning of the 16th century most priests were illiterate, knew little Latin and not much scripture. Under Elizabeth standards improved and the clergy had to pass examinations. The church began to actively recruit educated men in the universities. Church vandalism... Elizabeth's reign also saw quite a bit of image vandalism in churches, which steadily increased as the more radical Puritan sects grew in influence. Paintings were whitewashed, chalices, roods, and stone altars were removed. A Tudor family at prayer However, screens without roods stayed, as did painted glass, tombs, fonts, and lecterns. Durham Cathedral in particular suffered from the defacement and removal of treasures. ... and greed. Sometimes there was more at work than religious zeal. In Chester the canons removed glass from the cathedral to install in their own churches. The vicar of Islington melted down funerary brasses from the church and made coins from them. Pride goeth before...the sermon. Males and females were separated in the church, and seating was by social rank. This occasionally led to brawls in the church over who outranked who. Churches became the stage for family pride; often altars were pulled down and replaced by elaborate family tombs. This was part of the great surge in social mobility, and hand in hand with it, a great class consciousness. Pretensions to nobility were insisted upon fanatically. Phillip Stubbs called it, "Every man crying with open mouth 'I am gentleman'". These class concerns extended far beyond church; they found an outlet, for example, in heraldry which bedecked the new tombs. Before Tudor times coats of arms were generally simple affairs. Now they became crowded, full of reference to real or imagined family backgrounds. Monastic buildings were adapted to become houses, hospitals, government stores, factories, tenements, and guild halls. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries there were far fewer people in religious orders and the influence of the church

declined drastically. It was said that, "The church no longer ran the country, the country ran the church.

Elizabethan Theatre

Elizabethan theatre and the name of William Shakespeare are inextricably bound together, yet there were others writing plays at the same time as the bard of Avon. One of the most successful was Christopher Marlowe, who many contemporaries considered Shakespeare's superior. Marlowe's career, however, was cut short at a comparatively young age when he died in a tavern fight in Deptford, the victim of a knife in the eye. Theatre had an unsavory reputation. London authorities refused to allow plays within the city, so theatres opened across the Thames in Southwark, outside the authority of the city administration. The first proper theatre as we know it was the Theatre, built at Shoreditch in 1576. Before this time plays were performed in the courtyard of inns, or sometimes, in the houses of noblemen. A noble had to be careful about which play he allowed to be performed within his home, however. Anything that was controversial or political was likely to get him in trouble with the crown! After the Theatre, further open air playhouses opened in the London area, including the Rose (1587), and the Hope (1613). The most famous playhouse was the Globe (1599) built by the company in which Shakespeare had a stake. The Globe was only in use until 1613, when a canon fired during a performance of Henry VIII caught the roof on fire and the building burned to the ground. The site of the theatre was rediscovered in the 20th century and a reconstruction built near the spot. These theatres could hold several thousand people, most standing in the open pit before the stage, though rich nobles could watch the play from a chair set on the side of the stage itself. Theatre performances were held in the afternoon, because, of course, there was no artificial lighting. Women attended plays, though often the prosperous woman would wear a mask to disguise her identity. Further, no women performed in the plays. Female roles were generally performed by young boys Shakespeare

The Act of Supremacy

The name "Act of Supremacy" is given to two separate acts of the English Parliament, one passed in 1534 and the other in 1559. Both acts had the same purpose; to firmly establish the English monarch as the official head of the Church of England, supplanting the power of the Catholic pope in Rome. 1534 Act of Supremacy Henry's actions in assuming for himself the mantle of ecclesiastical authority were tinged with self-interest. He had sought in vain for papal approval for his divorce from Katherine of Aragon, and when it became clear that approval would not be forthcoming, Henry took matters into his own hands. The Act of Supremacy must be seen as part of a broader policy, though, one aimed at increasing the power of the English monarch and decreasing the influence of Rome. To give him his due, Henry was probably sincere in his belief that the Church of England was riddled with poor administration and had long since lost the right to act as an independent body. (See our article on the Dissolution of the Monasteries). At the same time, however, Henry had his eye on the wealth of the church, particularly the property of the monasteries. His lifestyle, and his desire for military glory had left Henry in a precarious financial position; he needed money, the church had lots of it, so the solution was obvious - take control of the church and its assets. This he did by asserting his legal right to act as head of the Church of England. One important point to note is that the Act effectively made it treasonable to support the authority of the Pope over the Church of England. By tying the church and monarch so closely together, support for Catholicism became not simply a statement of personal religious conviction, but a repudiation of the authority of the monarch, and as such, an act of treason punishable by death.

1559 Act of Supremacy Not surprisingly, Henry VIII's Act of Supremacy was repealed (1554) in the reign of his staunchly Catholic daughter, Mary I. Equally unsurprisingly, it was reinstated by Mary's Protestant sister, Elizabeth I, when she ascended the throne. Elizabeth declared herself Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and instituted an Oath of Supremacy, requiring anyone taking public or church office to swear allegiance to the monarch as head of the Church and state. Anyone refusing to take the Oath could be charged with treason. There were three levels of penalties for refusal to take the Oath of Supremacy. A first refusal to resulted in loss of all movable goods. A second offence could mean life in prison and a loss of all real estate Possessions. A third offence would result in a charge of High Treason and death. A few years later the Oath was extended to include M.P.s and anyone taking a university degree.

Tudor London

When Henry VII took the throne in 1485, the population of the city of London was about 75,000. By 1600 that figure had risen to 200,000. London under the Tudors was a prosperous, bustling city. Henry's son Henry VIII made Whitehall Palace the principle royal residence in the city, and after Cardinal Wolsey "gave" Hampton Court to Henry, that palace became a countryside retreat for the court. During Henry's Dissolution of the Monasteries, the 13 religious houses in London were either converted for private use or pulled down for building materials. All that now remains are the names they gave to areas of the city, such as Whitefriars and Blackfriars. Many areas that are now London parks were used as Royal hunting forests during the Tudor period. Richmond Park served this purpose, so did Hyde Park, Regent's Park, and St. James Park. An international exchange was founded by the mercer Thomas Gresham in 1566 to enable London to compete for financial power with Antwerp, at that time the financial centre of Europe. This became the Royal Exchange in 1570, by proclamation of Elizabeth I, and is now housed in a massive Victorian building beside the Bank of England Museum in Mansion House Square. In 1598 John Stow, a retired tailor, wrote a survey of the city of London, which gives a wonderful historic snapshot of the state of Tudor London and its history. Stow is buried at St. Andrew Undershaft, and a ceremony is held there every year celebrating his life. After the Reformation, theatres were banned in the city of London, but it wasn't for religious objection to the play's contents. Rather, the city authorities (read guilds) thought they wasted workmen's time. Rather than disappearing, the theatres moved across the Thames to Southwark, outside the authority of the city government. Southwark became the entertainment district for London (it was also the red-light area). The Globe Theatre, scene of many of Shakespeare's plays, was built on the South Bank in 1599, though it burned down in 1613. A modern replica, also called the Globe, has been built near the original site. Southwark was also a favorite area for entertainment, like bull and bear-baiting. Unfortunately, many of London's Tudor buildings were destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, so it is difficult to get a real sense of what the city was like at that time.

Marprelate Tracts

The Marprelate Tracts were a series of seven printed pamphlets appearing in late 1588. The tracts, whose authorship was a well-guarded secret, lampooned individual bishops in the Anglican church, and viciously attacked the church in general. They were signed 'Martin Mar-Prelate', and thus became known as the Marprelate Tracts. The government of Elizabeth I went to great lengths to track down those responsible for the publication of the tracts, and eventually executed one man, John Penry. The author of the Marprelate Tracts was never uncovered, but the finger of suspicion points at a man named Job Throckmorton. Though not of great importance of themselves, the Marprelate Tracts were part of a larger movement of presbyterian radical reform of the established church. Background The late Elizabethan church was in great flux, with more or less incompatible sects struggling to gain the upper hand. A severe Court of High Commission was set up to deal with ecclesiastical matters, and the Court gained a reputation for severity and high-handed action. The more severely the Court of High Commission acted, and the more it tried to enforce rigid uniformity in religious matters, the louder bayed the voices of its opponents. The established Church responded to the tracts and other similar voices for reform with an increasingly severe crackdown on Catholicism and all other forms of non-conformist theology. In a sense, the Church leadership turned its energy in two directions at once; against the Catholics at one extreme, and more radical religious reformers at the other extreme. A few of the non-conformists left the country, but most stayed, not just within England, but within the Church as well; choosing to continue their clamour for reform from within the church rather than without it. Eventually the established church metamorphosed into the so-called 'High Church', while the reformers became what we now know as the Puritans.

The Early Stuarts and the English Civil War

James I. Elizabeth was followed to the throne by James VI of Scotland, who became James I of England. James believed in the absolute power of the monarchy, and he had a rocky relationship with an increasingly vociferous and demanding Parliament. It would be a mistake to think of Parliament as a democratic institution, or the voice of the common citizen. Parliament was a forum for the interests of the nobility and the merchant classes (not unlike today, some would say). The Gunpowder Plot. James was a firm protestant, and in 1604 he expelled all Catholic priests from the island. James I This was one of the factors which led to the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. A group of Catholic plotters planned to blow up Parliament when it

opened on November 5. However, an anonymous letter betrayed the plot and one of the plotters, Guy Fawkes, was captured in the cellars of the Houses of Parliament with enough gunpowder to blow the place sky high. Most of the plotters were captured and executed. (See our in-depth examination of the Gunpowder Plot here). The Rise of the Puritans. During James' reign radical Protestant groups called Puritans began to gain a sizeable following. Puritans wanted to "purify" the church by paring down church ritual, educating the clergy, and limiting the powers of bishops. King James resisted this last. The powers of the church and king were too closely linked. "No bishop, no king," he said. The Puritans also favoured thrift, education ,and individual initiative, therefore they found great support among the new middle class of merchants, the powers in the Commons. James' attitude toward Parliament was clear. He commented in 1614 that he was surprised his ancestors "should have permitted such an institution to come into existence....It is sedition in subjects to dispute what a king may do in the height of his power". The King James Bible. In 1611 the King James version of the Holy Bible was issued, the result of seven years of labour by the best translators and theological minds of the day. It remained the authoritative, though not necessarily accurate, version of the Bible for centuries. Charles I (1625-49) continued his father's acrimonious relationship with Parliament, squabbling over the right to levy taxes. Parliament responded with the Petition of Right in 1628. It was the most dramatic assertion of the traditional rights of the English people since the Magna Carta. Its basic premise was that no taxes of any kind could be allowed without the permission of Parliament. Charles finally had enough, and in 1629 he dissolved Parliament and ruled without it for eleven years. Some of the ways he raised money during this period were of dubious legality by the standards of the time. Between 1630-43 large numbers of people emigrated from England as Archbishop Laud tried to impose uniformity on the church. Up to 60,000 people left, 1/3 of them to the new American colonies. Several areas lost a large part of their populations, and laws were enacted to curb the outflow. Ship Money. In 1634 Charles attempted to levy "ship-money", a tax that previously applied only to ports, on the whole country. This raised tremendous animosity throughout the realm. Finally Charles, desperate for money, summoned the so-called Short Parliament in 1640. Parliament refused to vote Charles more money until its grievances were answered, and the king dismissed it after only three weeks. Then a rebellion broke out in Scotland and Charles was forced to call a new Parliament, dubbed the Long Parliament, which officially sat until 1660. Civil War. Parliament made increasing demands, which the king refused to meet. Neither side was willing to budge. Finally in 1642 fighting broke out. The English Civil War (1642-1646) polarized society largely along class lines.

Parliament drew most of its support from the middle classes, while the king was supported by the nobility, the clergy, and the peasantry. Parliamentary troops were known as Roundheads because of their severe hair style. The king's army were known as Cavaliers, from the French for "knight", or "horseman". The war began as a series of indecisive skirmishes notable for not much beyond the emergence of a Parliamentary general from East Anglia, Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell whipped his irregular volunteer troops into the disciplined New Model Army. Meanwhile, Charles established the royalist headquarters in Oxford, called his own Parliament, and issued his own money. He also allied himself with Irish Catholics, which alienated some of his supporters.

Oliver Cromwell

To the poor, the turmoil over religion around the Civil War meant little. They were bound by tradition and they supported the king, as they always had. Charles encouraged poor relief, unemployment measures, price controls, and protection for small farmers. For most people, life during the Civil War went on as before. Few were involved or even knew about the fighting. In 1644 a farmer at Marston Moor was told to clear out because the armies of Parliament and the king were preparing to fight. "What?" he exclaimed, "Has them two fallen out, then?" Marston Moor. The turning point of the war was probably that same Battle of Marston Moor (1644). Charles' troops under his nephew Prince Rupert were soundly beaten by Cromwell, giving Parliament control of the north of England. Above the border Lord Montrose captured much of Scotland for Charles, but was beaten at Philiphaugh and Scot support was lost for good. The Parliamentary cause became increasingly entangled with extreme radical Protestantism. In 1645 Archbishop Laud was executed, and in the same year the Battle of Naseby spelled the end of the royalist hopes. Hostilities dragged on for another year, and the Battle of Stow-on-the-Wold (1646) was the last armed conflict of the war. The death of a king. Charles rather foolishly stuck to his absolutist beliefs and refused every proposal made by Parliament and the army for reform. He preferred to try to play them against each other through intrigue and deception. He signed a secret treaty which got the Scots to rise in revolt, but that threat was snuffed out at Prestonpans (1648). Finally, the radical core of Parliament had enough. They believed that only the execution of the king could prevent the kingdom from descending into anarchy. Charles was tried for treason in 1649, before a Parliament whose authority he refused to acknowledge. He was executed outside Inigo Jones' Banqueting Hall at Whitehall on January 30.