England in the 15th Century

1
England in the 15th Century

• The 15th century was a time of trouble and
  change. The country was ravaged by war and
  plague, and the population did not begin to
  increase again until near the end of the century.
  
• The weakness of the royal government allowed a
  breakdown of law and order. Feudal barons became
  powerful.
• The once great export of wool declined sharply
  but was gradually replaced by woollen cloth, the
  product of a new cottage industry. Landlords
  exploited the demand for wool by enclosing land
  and raising more sheep, disrupting the age-old
  economy of the countryside.
• All that England needed was a king who could
  restore efficiency to the royal government and
  bring law and order to the countryside. Henry VII
  in 1485 appointed himself to do just that. Seldom
  have a man and his mission been more happily
  matched.

2
Tudor and Stuart England
Henry VII possessed only his ability and the
ancient name and audacity of his Welsh ancestors.
His grandfather had married the widow of Henry V,
and his father had married Margaret Beaufort, who
was descended illegitimately from Edward III.
Henry's only claim to the throne was his victory
at Bosworth and his subsequent success. The
pragmatic Tudors gave England the government it
wanted with the exception of Mary I, they seldom
tried to lead where their subjects were not ready
to follow. Henry got rid of his York's rivals,
including some impostors. He married Elizabeth,
Edward IV's daughter, and soon had a nursery full
of babies, the only Tudor so blessed. He gained
recognition abroad, from Spain in 1489 by the
Treaty of Medina del Campo, and then from France,
the Netherlands, and Scotland. He restored
strong, efficient government, such as England had
once enjoyed but lacked for many years. He
promoted English trade, which he could tax,
avoided foreign wars, and saved money. He became
rich and powerful, commanding England's respect
if not its love.
3
Henry VIII

• Ambitious and bold, Henry VIII was a vivid
  contrast to his careful, workaday father.
  Humanist scholars praised him one of them,
  Thomas More, served in his government. In 1513
  Henry won the Battle of the Spurs in France and
  beat the Scots at Flodden. He exhausted his
  inherited wealth, but won fame and discovered the
  talents of Thomas Cardinal Wolsey, who as
  chancellor and archbishop of York dominated the
  years 1514 to 1529. The blight on Henry's reign
  was his desire for a male heir. Although his
  wife, Catherine of Aragón, bore him six children,
  only onelater Mary Isurvived infancy. Wanting a
  son, and smitten by Anne Boleyn, Henry appealed
  to the pope for a divorce. When the all-capable
  Wolsey could not obtain it, Henry dismissed him
  and summoned the Reformation Parliament. The
  result was the Church of England, with Henry as
  supreme head, separate from Rome but otherwise
  Catholic.
• Anne Boleyn, whom Henry was now free to marry
  (1533), gave birth not to a son but to another
  daughter, Elizabeth. Anne soon lost the king's
  favour and was beheaded for alleged adultery.
  Henry's third wife, Jane Seymour, died giving
  birth to Edward, his only surviving son. Three
  later wives, one of whom he divorced and another
  of whom was beheaded, had no children.
• Thomas Cromwell, Henry's second administrative
  genius, oversaw the revolutionary changes of the
  1530s. These included the break with Rome and
  dissolution of the monasteries, the new growth of
  Parliament, especially the House of Commons, and
  the creation out of the old King's Council of a
  new bureaucratic structure, including the Privy
  Council and the prerogative courts, which were
  controlled by the Crown.

4
                                 Sir Thomas
More Sir Thomas More was known for his
intelligence and devotion to the Catholic church.
That devotion put him at odds with his one-time
friend, King Henry VIII, who had More beheaded
for refusing to sanction, as lord chancellor,
Henrys divorce from Catherine of Aragón.
Thomas Wolsey a Roman Catholic Cardinal, was
perhaps the most powerful person in England
during the early 1500s, but he lost his power in
a dispute with King Henry VIII. Wolsey refused to
sanction the divorce between Henry and Catherine
of Aragón, which led to Englands break with
Rome.
5
Description of Henry VIII

• This description of King Henry VIII of England,
  by the Venetian ambassador Giustiniani,
• His Majesty is twenty-nine years old and
  extremely handsome nature could not have done
  more for him. He is much handsomer than any other
  sovereign in Christendom a great deal handsomer
  than the king of France very fair, and his whole
  frame admirably proportioned. On hearing that
  Francis I wore a beard, he allowed his own to
  grow, and, as it is reddish, he has now a beard
  that looks like gold. He is very accomplished, a
  good musician, composes well, is a most capital
  horseman, a fine jouster, speaks good French,
  Latin, and Spanish is very religious,hears
  three masses daily when he hunts, and sometimes
  five on other days. He hears the office every day
  in the queen's chamber,that is to say, vespers
  and compline.
• He is very fond of hunting, and never takes his
  diversion without tiring eight or ten horses,
  which he causes to be stationed beforehand along
  the line of country he means to take and when
  one is tired he mounts another, and before he
  gets home they are all exhausted. He is extremely
  fond of tennis, at which game it is the prettiest
  thing in the world to see him play, his fair skin
  glowing through a shirt of finest texture. He
  gambles ... to the amount occasionally, it is
  said, of from six thousand to eight thousand
  ducats in a day.

6

• He is affable and gracious, harms no one, does
  not covet his neighbor's goods, and is satisfied
  with his own dominions, having often said to me,
  Sir ambassador, we want all potentates to
  content themselves with their own territories we
  are satisfied with this island of ours. He seems
  extremely desirous of peace.
• He is very rich. His father left him ten millions
  of ready money in gold, of which he is supposed
  to have spent one half in the war against France,
  when he had three armies on foot one crossed the
  Channel with him, another was in the field
  against Scotland, and the third remained with the
  queen in reserve ...
• The queen is the sister of the mother of the king
  of Spain, now styled King of the Romans. She is
  thirty-five years old and not handsome, though
  she has a very beautiful complexion. She is
  religious, and as virtuous as words can express.
  I have seen her but seldom.
• The cardinal of York is of low origin, and has
  two brothers, one of whom holds an untitled
  benefice, and the other is pushing his fortune.
  He rules both the king and the entire kingdom. On
  my first arrival in England he used to say to me,
  His Majesty will do so and so. Subsequently, by
  degrees, he forgot himself, and commenced saying,
  We shall do so and so. At this present he has
  reached such a pitch that he says, I shall do so
  and so. He is about forty-six years old, very
  handsome, learned, extremely eloquent, of vast
  ability, and indefatigable. He alone transacts as
  much business as that which occupies all the
  magistracies, offices, and councils of Venice,
  both civil and criminal and all state affairs
  likewise are managed by him, let their nature be
  what it may.

7
Henry's Heirs

                                 Edward VI
         














Under Edward VI, a minor dominated successively
by Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, and John
Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, the English
church became Protestant. Parliament's Acts of
Uniformity enforced the Book of Common Prayer.
When Edward died at the age of 16, Northumberland
tried but failed to save Protestantism and
himself by preventing the succession of the
king's half-sister, Mary.









8
Lady Jane Grey (1537-1554),

• queen of England for nine days, born in
  Bradgate Park, near Leicester, a
  great-granddaughter of King Henry VII and
  daughter of Henry Grey, duke of Suffolk and 3rd
  marques of Dorset. When Lady Jane was 15 years
  old, England's powerful lord chamberlain John
  Dudley, duke of Northumberland, arranged a
  marriage for her with his son, Guildford Dudley.
  The lord chamberlain's purpose was to change,
  through Lady Jane, the royal succession upon the
  death of the ailing young king, Edward VI, so
  that he could continue to control the country
  through her. Edward approved the marriage and
  secured witnesses to a deed declaring Lady Jane
  his successor. Upon the death of the king, on
  July 6, 1553, Lady Jane was proclaimed queen, but
  Edward's half sister, Mary Tudor, contested the
  succession. Lady Jane was subsequently imprisoned
  in the Tower of London. She and her husband were
  accused of treason, and both were beheaded on
  February 12, 1554.

9
Mary I, called Mary Tudor (1516-1558), queen of
England (1553-1558).

• Mary I, the daughter of Catherine of Aragón,
  restored the Roman Catholic church and married
  her cousin, Philip II of Spain. Her burning of
  almost 300 Protestants made the people hate her
  and Rome, however, and her marriage led to war
  with France and the loss of Calais. When Bloody
  Mary, as she was known, died in November 1558,
  England rejoiced in the accession of her
  half-sister, Elizabeth.
• Mary was born in London on February 18, 1516, the
  daughter of Henry VIII of England, by his first
  wife, Catherine of Aragón. On the death of her
  half brother, Edward VI, on July 6, 1553, she
  became the legal heir to the throne. Lord High
  Chamberlain John Dudley, duke of Northumberland,
  however, favoured the succession of his
  daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey. He proclaimed
  her queen on July 10, but the country supported
  Mary.

10

• Mary began her reign by sweeping away the
  religious innovations of her father. Mass was
  restored without opposition and the authority of
  the pope re-established, but Parliament refused
  to restore the church lands seized under Henry
  VIII. Mary, however, restored the property that
  the Crown still possessed. Even more disastrous
  was her marriage in 1554 to Philip II, king of
  Spain. The engagement was greeted in England by a
  formidable rebellion under the leadership of Sir
  Thomas Wyatt to depose Mary and put her half
  sister, Elizabeth, later Elizabeth I, on the
  throne. Philip was an uncompromising Roman
  Catholic and unpopular in England. At his order,
  Mary joined in a war against France, with the
  result that Calais, the last remnant of the
  English conquests won during the Hundred Years'
  War with France, was lost in 1558.
• The ferocity with which Mary's personal character
  has been assailed by certain writers must be
  ascribed to religious zeal. She was called Bloody
  Mary because of a large number of religious
  persecutions that took place during her reign
  almost 300 people were condemned to death as a
  result of trials for heresy. Mary died in London
  on November 17, 1558, and was succeeded by
  Elizabeth

11
Elizabeth I (1533-1603),

• Elizabeth I (1533-1603), queen of England and
  Ireland (1558-1603), daughter of Henry VIII and
  his second wife, Anne Boleyn. Elizabeth was the
  longest-reigning English monarch in nearly two
  centuries and the first woman to successfully
  occupy the English throne. Called Glorianna and
  Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth enjoyed enormous
  popularity during her life and became an even
  greater legend after her death.
• Elizabeths reign was marked by her effective use
  of Parliament and the Privy Council, a small
  advisory body of the important state officials,
  and by the development of legal institutions in
  the English counties. Elizabeth firmly
  established Protestantism in England, encouraged
  English enterprise and commerce, and defended the
  nation against the powerful Spanish naval force
  known as the Spanish Armada. Her reign was noted
  for the English Renaissance, an outpouring of
  poetry and drama led by William Shakespeare,
  Edmund Spenser, and Christopher Marlowe that
  remains unsurpassed in English literary history.
  She was the last of the Tudor monarchs, never
  marrying or producing an heir, and was succeeded
  by her cousin, James VI of Scotland.

12
BACKGROUND AND EARLY LIFE

• Elizabeth was born at Greenwich Palace in London
  on September 7, 1533. Her parents, Henry VIII and
  Anne Boleyn, wanted a son as heir and were not
  pleased with the birth of a daughter. When she
  was two her mother was beheaded for adultery, and
  Elizabeth was exiled from court. She was later
  placed under the protection of Catherine Parr,
  Henrys sixth wife, and educated in the same
  household as her half-brother, Edward. Both were
  raised Protestant. The noted scholar Roger Ascham
  later served as her tutor, and he educated her as
  a potential heir to the throne rather than as an
  insignificant daughter of the monarch. Elizabeth
  underwent rigorous training in Greek, Latin,
  rhetoric, and philosophy and was an
  intellectually gifted pupil.
• Edward VI succeeded his father in 1547 at the age
  of nine. Because of her position as a member of
  the royal family, Elizabeth became a pawn in the
  intrigues of the nobles who governed in the boys
  name. One of them twice proposed marriage to her.
  When her Roman Catholic half-sister, Mary I,
  inherited the crown in 1553, Elizabeth faced
  different dangers. She was now sought out to lead
  Protestant conspiracies, despite the fact that
  she had supported Marys accession and attended
  Catholic services. In 1554 Mary had Elizabeth
  imprisoned in the Tower of London, briefly
  threatened her with execution, and then placed
  her under house arrest. Elizabeth lived quietly
  at her familys country retreat north of London
  until she became queen upon her sisters death in
  1558. Elizabeths experiences as a child and
  young adult helped her develop keen political
  instincts that allowed her to skillfully balance
  aristocratic factions and court favorites during
  her long reign.

13
ELIZABETHAN ECONOMY

• The nation that Elizabeth inherited was
  experiencing a steady increase in population.
  During the 16th century the population of England
  and Wales would roughly double, and by
  Elizabeths death in 1603 would reach 5 million.
  The continued population growth placed strains on
  the economy, which was made worse by serious
  harvest failures in every decade of Elizabeths
  reign. Prices for food and clothing skyrocketed
  in what became known as the Great Inflation. The
  1590s were the worst years of the century, marked
  by starvation, epidemic disease, and roving bands
  of vagrants looking for work.
• Elizabeths government enacted legislation known
  as the Poor Laws, which made every local parish
  responsible for its own poor, created workhouses,
  and severely punished homeless beggars.
  Parliament also passed bills to ensure fair
  prices in times of shortage and to regulate wages
  in times of unemployment. One of the queens most
  important economic decisions was to issue a new
  currency that contained a standard amount of
  precious metal. This raised confidence in the
  currency and also allowed businesses to enter
  into long-term financial contracts.
• During Elizabeths reign, England expanded trade
  overseas and the merchant community grew. Private
  shipbuilding boomed and navigational advances
  made long sea voyages safer. Englands chief
  commodity was woolen cloth, traded mostly at the
  Dutch port of Antwerp for finished goods and such
  luxuries as French wines. Cloth exports grew over
  the course of the reign, but suffered from
  competition from finer Spanish products and from
  Antwerps decline after its harbor silted up and
  became impassable by the mid-1560s. In the 1560s
  financier Sir Thomas Gresham founded the Royal
  Exchange to help merchants find secure markets
  for their goods.
• At the same time, new enterprises like the
  Muscovy Company were chartered to find outlets
  for English products. In 1600 the government
  granted the English East India Company a monopoly
  to trade in Asia, Africa, and America. The desire
  to expand overseas trade was also a motive in the
  ventures of English explorers such as Sir Francis
  Drake, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and Sir Walter
  Raleigh. Such adventurers established the first
  English outposts in North America.

14
ELIZABETHAN RELIGION

• Elizabeths accession marked the final change in
  the nations official religion. Her father and
  half-brother established Protestantism in
  England, but her half-sister, Mary, attempted
  forcibly to restore Catholicism. As Henry VIIIs
  reign had terrorized Catholics, so Marys
  persecuted Protestants. Under Mary, prominent
  Protestant clergymen were either executed or they
  fled abroad. The power of the pope was
  reestablished in England, though even Mary could
  do nothing to restore the church lands sold off
  during Henrys reign.
• Elizabeth inherited a highly charged religious
  situation, which she handled with great skill.
  Although there was never any doubt she would
  return England to Protestantism, Elizabeth had to
  contend with opposition from both Catholics and
  radical Protestants. Catholic bishops and peers
  controlled the House of Lords and fought
  Elizabeths first attempts to bring back
  Protestantism. Protestants exiled under the reign
  of Mary I returned to England, and many brought
  with them new and radical Protestant ideas,
  especially those of John Calvin, a French
  religious reformer. Calvin stressed the
  importance of predestination, the belief that
  salvation was predetermined for some people and
  not for others. Calvin also wanted the clergy to
  play a less important role in the state church
  and to concern themselves with preaching the
  gospel rather than in becoming bishops.
• Under Elizabeth, England again broke with the
  pope, Catholic services were forbidden, priests
  were allowed to marry, and relics and decorations
  were removed from the churches. In attempting to
  diffuse the religious situation, Elizabeth tried
  to accommodate Catholic sensibilities in matters
  she judged less essential. She used Parliament to
  establish the official doctrine of the new
  church, which ensured that the voice of Catholic
  peers would be heard. Under the Act of Supremacy,
  she assumed the title of Supreme Governor of the
  Church, rather than the title of Supreme Head, a
  move to placate critics because Supreme Governor
  sounded less powerful. She would not allow
  retaliation against those who had assisted Mary,
  and she treated with some leniency those who
  refused to swear an oath to her supremacy.

15

• The English form of Protestantism was defined in
  part by two measures enacted during Elizabeths
  reignthe Act of Uniformity of 1559 and the
  Thirty-nine Articles of 1563. The Act of
  Uniformity established a common prayer book and
  set the basic ceremonies of the church. The
  Thirty-nine Articles established religious
  doctrine that governed the church until the
  English Revolution in the 1640s. Both acts were
  compromises that favored the views of more
  conservative or moderate Protestant groups.
• Elizabeth viewed the church as an inseparable
  part of her monarchy and would not tolerate
  challenges to it. Such challenges came from both
  Catholics, who clung to the old faith and plotted
  to remove the queen, and from Puritans, radical
  Protestants who wanted to abolish all traces of
  Catholicism (see Puritanism).
• Catholic challenges and plots persisted through
  much of Elizabeths reign, and Elizabeth reacted
  to them strongly. In 1569 a group of powerful
  Catholic nobles in northern England rose in
  rebellion but were savagely repressed. The
  northern earls were executed, their property and
  those of their followers was confiscated, and
  their heirs were deprived of their inheritance.
  In 1570 the pope excommunicated Elizabeth,
  sanctioning Catholic efforts to dethrone her. In
  1571 an international conspiracy was uncovered to
  assassinate her in favor of her cousin, Mary,
  Queen of Scots. Although Mary was beheaded in
  1587 after years of being at the center of
  Catholic plots against Elizabeth, such plots did
  not end until England defeated the Spanish Armada
  in 1588.
• Elizabeths battles against the Puritans were
  less conclusive. She suspended Archbishop of
  Canterbury Edmund Grindal when he would not
  punish Puritans who refused to kneel or make the
  sign of the cross. She also imprisoned a member
  of Parliament in 1576 for introducing a bill to
  change the prayer book, and she refused to accept
  the Lambeth Articles of 1595, which contained a
  Calvinist, and more radical, interpretation of
  the doctrine of predestination. But Elizabeths
  efforts did not stop the Puritans from
  criticizing the established church, attacking
  bishops, and converting others to their views.
  The significance of the Elizabethan religious
  settlement is that it was able to hold the vast
  majority of the people together, despite being a
  compromise few would have chosen.

16
ELIZABETHAN GOVERNMENT

• The difficulties Elizabeth experienced governing
  the English state were enhanced by prejudices
  against women rulers. Though she presented
  herself in the traditional images of the
  monarchy, such as carrying the sword of state,
  commissioning a portrait showing her bestriding
  the counties of England, and even appearing in
  armor, Elizabeth realized the importance of
  securing the cooperation of powerful men in order
  to rule effectively. She made extensive use of
  the Privy Council and summoned ten parliaments
  during her reign. She used Parliament to raise
  taxes and to endorse her policies, but also
  allowed its members to suggest laws regarding
  local issues, something rarely permitted by prior
  monarchs. The House of Lords and the House of
  Commons both grew in size during her reign, but
  they remained councils of the queen rather than
  parts of an independent legislature. When she did
  not like the advice Parliament offered, she ended
  its sessions.
• At the center of her government, Elizabeth was
  fortunate in having a succession of capable
  ministers, including Sir Nicholas Bacon, Sir
  Francis Walsingham, and Robert Dudley, earl of
  Leicester, who was her personal favorite. She
  favored Leicester so extensively their
  relationship became the subject of rumors. But
  the ablest of all Elizabethan ministers was
  William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, who held the
  offices of secretary and treasurer. Burghley
  served the queen loyally for 40 years and more
  than anyone else guided Elizabeths policies.

17

• Burghleys lifelong concern was for the queen to
  provide an heir for succession. Having refused
  suitors pressed upon her when a princess, as a
  queen, Elizabeth was never able to make a
  decision to marry and she had no desire to share
  power with a husband. She rejected her sister
  Marys husband, Philip II, king of Spain, who
  wished to remain allied with English naval power,
  as well as nearly every eligible European royal
  bachelor, including a future king of France. At
  first Burghley feared Elizabeth would marry his
  rival, the earl of Leicester, whose wife had died
  under mysterious circumstances. Then he feared
  Elizabeth might suddenly die, throwing the
  kingdom into chaos, a fear magnified by her bout
  with smallpox in 1562.
• The failure to settle the succession encouraged
  aristocratic factions to grow around the queen.
  Until her execution, Mary, Queen of Scots, was a
  focus of intrigue. In her prime, Elizabeth was
  adept at balancing competing claimants for her
  favor, keeping them loyal and dependent. But
  toward the end of her reign, the contest between
  Burghley and Robert Devereux, earl of Essex, led
  to an open rebellion against her. Essexs attempt
  to overthrow Elizabeth in 1601 was successfully
  put down, but it demonstrated that the queens
  power had weakened.

18
FOREIGN POLICY

• The failure to secure her succession was also a
  factor in the international struggles for power
  in which England engaged. Because she would not
  marry a Catholic prince, she was drawn into the
  conflicts of European Protestants. Elizabeth came
  to the throne in 1558 at the end of a disastrous
  war that her sister Mary fought against France.
  One of Elizabeths first acts was to conclude a
  treaty that gave up English control over the
  French port of Calais, a blow to Englands
  prestige. Despite this truce, trouble with France
  continued over developments in Scotland. Mary,
  Queen of Scots, a Catholic, was married briefly
  to the king of France, and after his death in
  1560 returned to rule Scotland. But Scotland was
  undergoing its own Protestant Reformation that
  was supported by Elizabeth and, with Frances
  assistance, opposed by Mary. In 1568 Mary lost
  her Scottish crown and was exiled to England,
  where she continued to conspire against
  Elizabeth.
• Philip feared that English assistance would
  hinder his efforts to reconquer the Dutch,
  especially since English ships could easily send
  vital supplies. In 1587 Philip began organizing
  an immense naval fleet, the Spanish Armada, for a
  direct attack upon England. His objectives were
  to destroy the English navy, force Elizabeth out
  of the war in the Netherlands, and gain
  concessions for English Catholics. The Spanish
  Armada, one of the most powerful fighting forces
  ever known, was no match for the Protestant
  wind that blew many of the Spanish ships off
  course in August 1588, or for the smaller,
  swifter English vessels that were able to fire
  cannonballs more quickly than the Spanish
  galleons. The defeat of the Spanish Armada was
  the high point of the queens reign and united
  the nation. But it did not end the war with
  Spain, which continued for the remaining 15 years
  of Elizabeths life. She died on March 23, 1603,
  and was succeeded by her cousin James VI of
  Scotland, who became James I of England.

19
ASSESSMENT

• When Elizabeth died, one of the great epochs of
  English history ended. Her 45-year rule
  decisively shaped the future of England as a
  stable monarchy governed through the cooperation
  of crown and local elites. The roles played by
  Parliament and the justices of the peace, two of
  the most characteristic of all English
  institutions, solidified during her reign and
  were indispensable thereafter. The Protestant
  religion was firmly established as Englands
  faith, and though religious conflict was to be a
  serious problem for another century, it was
  within the context of the Elizabethan church
  settlement that the battles were fought. The
  defeat of the Spanish Armada was a cause for
  national celebration, and Glorious 88 was
  spoken of generations later when Elizabeths
  birthday was still celebrated as a national
  holiday. The defeat of Spain established the
  glory of the English navy and inspired merchants
  and explorers toward colonization of a wider world