THE TUDOR AGE (1485-1603)

The Wars of the Roses ended with thevictory of Henry Tudor, who became king Henry VII of England in 1485. His sonwas Henry VIII. Henry VIII was a typical Renaissance prince: a poet, musician,fine horseman and lover of the arts. When he was 36,he still had no son and becametired of his Spanish wife Catherine of Aragon. He loved Anne Boleyn and askedthe Pope permission to divorce Catherine so he could marry Anne. The Pope saidno, and Henry broke with Rome. There was a lot of anti-Catholic feeling inEngland so Parliament and the people supported Henry against the Pope. Then he splitwith the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England became independentfrom 1534. This was one of the causes for the English Reformation. Parliamentmade the king the “Supreme Head of the Church of England,” and helped him todestroy the Catholic Church. Henry took church lands and buildings and gavemuch of the wealth to his friends. He ordered that church services should be inEnglish instead of Latin and that each church should have an English bible.

 

Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603)

Henry’s first daughter, Mary, was Catholiclike her mother

Catherine, and tried to bring Catholicismback to England. The reign of Elizabeth returned a sort of order to England in1558. The religious question that had divided the country since Henry VIII wasput to rest. Queen Elizabeth exerted great influences on the country. The slavetrade that made Britain a major economic power began with Elizabeth. One of themost famous events in English military history was in 1588 when the SpanishArmada lost against the English navy, commanded by Sir Francis Drake. The reignof Elizabeth was a great age of English exploration. During her reign, many mensought adventure abroad. The expeditions of these men prepared England for anage of colonization and trade expansion. In 1600, Elizabeth herself establisheda trading company known as the East India Company. This expansion ledeventually to the foundation of the British Empire in the seventeenth andeighteenth centuries, but it brought England into conflict with Spain.

Elizabeth I became the Queen of England in1558, six years before Shakespeare's birth. During her 45-year reign, Londonbecame a cultural and commercial center where learning and literature thrived. WilliamShakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Edmund Spenser, and other writers createdenduring drama and poetry. The Elizabethan Period was the age of theRenaissance, of new ideas and new thinking.

 

THE STUARTS(1603-1714)

Queen Elizabeth never married. At her deathin 1603, King James VI of Scotland was named her successor, King James I ofEngland. This was the end of the Tudor dynasty and the beginning of the Houseof Stuart. At this time, there were religious reformers who thought theAnglican Church (Church of England) was not strict enough and they wanted toreform it. These groups of religious reformers were called Puritans, becausethey wanted to purify the church. There was a lot of hostility towards thesePuritans and some escaped England to make a new religious community, first in Holland,and then later in America (in Massachusetts). After King James I died, his sonbecame King Charles I (1625). Charles believed in the divine power of kings andtried to rule without Parliament. He tried to arrest Members of Parliament.Parliament fought back. Thus began the English Civil War. Civil war started in1642, with Oliver Cromwell as the leader of Parliament. The main issues of thiswar were religious toleration (for Puritans and other Protestant groups) and morepower for Parliament (and less power for the king). Puritans supported theParliament against the king. King Charles I was defeated by Cromwell’s army andexecuted on January 30, 1649, and for the first and only time in Englishhistory, there was no monarch.

 

England now had no king. It was ruled byCromwell as a“commonwealth”rather than a kingdom. There were many different groups (religious andpolitical) competing for power, and so the army generals under Cromwell tookcontrol. England became a military dictatorship under Puritan rule. There were strictreligious laws (e.g., the theaters were all closed).

 

Eventually the people got tired of thisPuritan form of government and wanted a king. King Charles II was invited back toEngland and the people rejoiced (1660). Theatres were opened and a period ofgreat artistic and cultural achievement began. The main spirit of theRestoration was that of reason. The power and wealth of the middle classesgrew. This was a time of great commercial success around the world, andscientific achievement. This was also the beginning of science and medicine andthe period known as the English Enlightenment. Also, the king no longer hadabsolute power; from then on, he had to share power with the Parliament.

James II of England/VII of Scotland became King of Scots, King of England, and King of Ireland in 1685, and Duke ofNormandy 1660. He was the last Roman Catholic king of Scotland, England, orIreland. Some of his citizens did not like his religious ideas, leading a groupof them to disobey and fight against him. This was called the GloriousRevolution because no one was killed. He was replaced by his Protestantdaughter and son-in-law, Mary II and William III, who became rulers in 1689. William signed the Bill of Rights and became king, and England became a constitutional monarchy.

 

Queen Anne died without any survivingchildren and was the last monarch of the House of Stuart. The end of the Stuartline with the death of Queen Anne led to the drawing up of the Act ofSettlement in 1701, which provided that only Protestants could hold the throne.She was succeeded by her second cousin George I of the House of Hanover.