Lecture Six
Troubles of England in the Late Middle Ages
(1337-1485)
1. The Hundred Years’ War 1337-1453
In 1328, the French king Charles IV died without any son to succeed him. This was during the reign of Edward III (1327-1377) who claimed the throne of France, for his mother, Isabella of France, who was too the French king’s sister. Yet, the French nobles rejected having an English king and crowned a cousin of the dead king. With the new French king, the French nobles attacked Aquitaine in the
southwest of France, which had already been ruled by Edward III. In 1337 king Edward declared war on France. The hundred years’ war began with victory for the English. The French fleet was destroyed at Sluys (Flanders) in 1340. Then, after a short truce, the French cavalry was dispersed by the English archers at Crecy (Flanders) in 1346. In 1349 the Black Death hit England and killed half of the population, that is to say, from 2 to 2.5 million souls. Yet, the war continued and in 1356, the English
defeated the French at the battle of Poitiers. Then in 1360, Edward III renounced his claim to the French throne and the French ceded the southwest of France to England. War broke out again later and more battles were fought. However, inspired by Joan of Arc, the French took the offensive and drove the English out of France in 1453. Two years later, the civil war broke out in England between the house of Lancaster and the house of York (1455-1485).
2. Black Death (1349)
This epidemic plague known as the Black Death in England came from china to Europe and North Africa. It carried away from 2 to 2.5 million of the English population. One of its serious consequences was the big reduction of cultivated lands due to the deaths of thousands of peasants (serfs). This ruined landowners, who were compelled to give farmers high wages. So, by the end of the 14th century, peasants and artisans got high wages and grain prices.
3. Peasants’ Revolt (1381)
In 1381 the peasants, artisans, and the poor of the south and east of England revolted and marched to London under the leadership of Wat Tylor. This revolt was caused by the high taxes, which King Richard II imposed on the English people. It was also inspired by Lollardism, a new religious movement that called for equality. One of the Lollards, John Wycliffe (1320-1384), translated the Bible into English and became available to the masses. This was also the age of Geoffrey Chaucer
(1340-1400), who wrote the first great literary work in English: Canterbury Tales (1387).
The poll tax of 1381 was probably the direct cause of the revolt. King Richard II met the rebels outside London and promised them cheap land, free trade, and the abolition of serfdom. However, a month later, in June the soldiers crushed them and the royal promises were forgotten.
4. Wars of the Roses (1455-1485)
During the 15th century, the throne of England was claimed by the representatives of two rival groups; the Lancastrians, whose symbol was a red rose, supported the Duke of Lancaster, and the Yorkists, whose symbol was a white rose, supported the descendants of the Duke of York. This led to the war between 1455 and 1485. They ended when Henry Tudor (a Lancastrian from Wales) defeated and killed Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field. He became King Henry VII. His reign witnessed strong government and stability, welcomed by the people weakened and impoverished by the long war. Thus, the house of Plantagenet came to an end, because Richard III was the last king of that house. With Henry VII, the Tudor house started to rule England. The Tudors’ reign lasted from 1485 to 1603. Their monarchs were: Henry VII, Henry VIII, queen Mary Tudor I, and finally Elizabeth I.
Lecture Seven
The Tudor House
(1485-1603)
1. Henry VII (1485-1509)
Henry Tudor, son of Edmund Tudor, from the house of Lancaster, was originally from Wales. In the war of the roses, he fought King Richard III (from York) and defeated his army, and killed him at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. It is said that he found the crown of Richard III on the battlefield and took it and crowned himself. A year later, he married Elizabeth of York, the daughter of King Edward IV (brother of King Richard III), and ended the war between these two branches of the royal family of England. To establish his power confidently, he deprived the great feudal lords of their right to maintain armed men. His reign witnessed stability and firm royal authority.
2.Henry VIII and the Church of England
Henry VIII (1509-1547) was the son of Henry VII. He began his reign by fighting France and Scotland and could subdue the latter. In 1521, he received from the Pope, the title of ‘Fidei Defensor’, for writing a treatise in which he defended Catholicism. However, six years later, he asked the Pope for permission to divorce his first of six wives, Catherine of Aragon. The Pope refused and Henry broke all religious relations with the Catholic Pope in Rome and declared himself the sole head of the Church in England in 1534. To do this he was encouraged by his Bishop Thomas Cranmer. He abolished the monasteries, confiscated their goods, and persecuted the papists. The Catholic humanist, Thomas More, was executed in 1535. This event is known as the reformation, by which the official religion of England became Protestantism instead of Catholicism. Thus, England became independent from Rome in religious matters. The Pope could no longer appoint the archbishops and other clergies from Rome and control England through them. The reign of Henry VIII coincided with a tremendous cultural and intellectual event in Europe and, of course, in England, which was the Renaissance.
3. Edward VI
After the death of Henry VIII, it was the turn of his son King Edward VI (1547- 1553), to rule England. Under this king, parliament passed the act of uniformity, which emphasized the Protestant character of the Anglican liturgy and made obligatory the use of the Book of Common Prayer by Bishop Thomas Cranmer.
4. Mary Tudor and the Catholic revenge
Mary I or Mary Tudor (1553-1558), daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, was a passionate Roman Catholic. In 1554, she married the future Philip II of Spain and re-established the Papal authority in England. The Protestants were persecuted and she burned more than 300 of them in three years. Bishop Cranmer was burnt alive in 1556. Under the reign of Mary I, the French recaptured Calais, which had been under English rule for 211 years.
5. Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603)
After the death of Mary Tudor, Queen Elizabeth I, daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, ascended the throne. She, first of all, re-established the Protestant Church of England, because Mary Tudor had banished Protestantism and reestablished Catholicism before her. So, under Elizabeth I, protestantism became the official religion of England again. However, she followed a policy of tolerance towards her Catholic subjects and did not persecute them. This did not please the Puritans, who were extremist Protestants. The Puritans had succeeded Lollardism as a religious movement. To protect herself against Scotland which was always trying to ally with France against England, she deposed her cousin Mary Stuart, the Queen of Scots. Mary of Scots was the only daughter of King James V of Scotland and her French mother, Mary of Guise. However, she inherited Tudor's blood through her grandmother Margaret, the sister of Henry VIII. Because she was
supposed become Queen of England after the death of Elizabeth I, Catholic France and Spain were plotting to make her Queen of England to control England. King Philip II of Spain had even started to plot with Mary Stuart and others to assassinate Elizabeth I. That was the reason why Elizabeth deposed her and imprisoned her in the Tower of London and executed her for treason in 1587.
Above all, she made England a great maritime power and challenged the Spanish American Empire. An attempted Spanish invasion of England under Philip II led to the defeat of the invincible Spanish Armada in 1588. Now, England became the mistress of the seas and started to establish a colonial empire overseas. Sir Walter Raleigh established Virginia in North America and named it after the Virgin Queen. The merchant middle class became very rich from the slave trade. The last India Company was founded in 1600. It was in her reign that Modern England was born. There was also a great blossoming of literature in her time. William Shakespeare was the best fruit of her late Renaissance age. Elizabeth I, the last Tudor monarch, died in 1603 and was succeeded by James Stuart, the son of Mary, Queen of Scots. He was already King James VI of Scotland when he became King James I of England. With James I, a new royal family began in England, the Stuart dynasty that ruled England from 1603 to 1714. The Stuart monarchs were James I, Charles I, Charles II, James II, William and Mary, and Queen Anne.
Lecture Eight:
The Stuart Dynasty (1603 -1714)
1. James I (1603 -1625)
Although he was a Stuart and not a Tudor, his troubled reign continued and completed that of Elizabeth. He was the son of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, and already King of Scotland when he became King of England. As a result, he united both kingdoms in his person. A well-intentioned King, he wished to consolidate the Anglican position and ordered to an official translation of the Bible in 1611. The unhappy Roman Catholics plotted to assassinate him, especially in the Gunpowder Plot in 1605. On the other hand, the Puritans, an extremist Protestant group, were discontent with his religious policy and preferred to emigrate to America rather than follow Anglicanism. The Pilgrim Fathers, who settled in Plymouth Plantation in 1620, The most dangerous legacy of Queen Elizabeth, however, was an affluent and powerful middle-class, who now controlled the Parliament, and did not fear the crown.
2. Charles I (1625 – 1649)
The second Stuart king, Charles I, acceded to the throne in 1625, and troubles with Parliament began right from the start. First, there were financial difficulties. To wage his costly wars, the King needed money; the parliamentary middle class, however, whose authorization was needed to pass laws for new taxes rejected the royal demands unless Charles I ensured them certain political guarantees. As a reaction, he dissolved three successive parliaments, and in 1628 Lord Buckingham, Charles's minister, was assassinated. This forced the King to sign the Petition of Rights, a modern version of the Magna Carta.
On the advice of his ministers, Charles I decided to rule without a parliament and imposed the illegal “Ship Money” tax to fill his coffers. There were many protests and rebellions against this taxation. Then, Charles I summoned a fourth and a fifth parliament, when peace returned. The latter opened in 1640, lasted 13 years in office, and is known as the “Long Parliament”. It deprived the King of all his power, so the latter took up arms and the Civil War broke out in 1642. The twisted poetic talent of John Donne (1573-1631) founder of the ‘metaphysical’ school reflects this troubled age.
3. The Civil War (1642 – 1649)
The ‘Cavaliers’, the King's supporters, were opposed by the ‘Roundheads’, or Puritans, with their soldiers ‘Ironsides’, under the command of Oliver Cromwell. Charles I was defeated in Naseby in
1645 and surrendered to the Scots who delivered him to Parliament in 1646. Parliament, under the control of Cromwell, condemned the King to death and executed him in 1649.
4. Cromwell and the Commonwealth
Having abolished the monarchy and the House of Lords, the Rump Parliament, proclaimed the Republic, or Commonwealth. This theocratic republic was in the hand of Oliver Cromwell, the victorious Puritan general. Cromwell crushed the last royalists and ruled Scotland and Ireland fiercely. It was the first time that the three countries of the British Isles were united under one law. In 1651 he passed the Navigation Act which gave to the English fleet the monopoly of trade with England and her possessions. To consolidate his power, Cromwell dissolved the Rump Parliament and declared himself Lord Protector in 1653. Because of his exaggerated authority, his former soldiers were discontented and in 1658, he died and his son Richard succeeded him. However, in 1660, General Monk brought the Stuarts back to the throne.
5. The Restoration (1660)
What an explosion of ‘joie de vivre’! No period of English history has been so exceptional if none has been so brutal and dissolute. The theatres reopened; the Restoration ran to extremes in both the naughtiness of its comedies and the bombast of tragedies. It is rich in talent and immorality. The fallen Puritans saw the vengeance of God in the Great Plague of 1665 and the Great Fire of London which destroyed the greater part of London in the following year.
5.1 Charles II (1660-1685)
The restored Stuart King, had re-established Anglicanism, intending to revert to Catholicism; however, Parliament, which was Protestant, passed the Test Act in 1673 which excluded Catholics from all public office.
5.2 James II (1685-1688)
He was an avowed Catholic. The famous Judge Jeffreys established a reign of terror in his name. In 1687, by the Declaration of Indulgence, James II attempted to cancel the anti-Catholic regulations, despite Parliament. Seeing this, Parliament appealed to William of Orange, the Prince of Holland (of Stuart descent), a Protestant and brother in-in law to the King ( He was the husband of Mary, the King's daughter.) James II abdicated from the throne and fled. This bloodless Glorious Revolution was over. William and Mary ruled as joint monarchs.James II fled to France and attempted to reconquer England with the help of Louis XIV but was defeated.
5.3 Mary II and William III (1688-1702)
Mary II was the legitimate Queen, but she reigned with her husband. The most important events of their reign were the establishment of the Bank of England and the freedom of the press. Whigs and Tories Two groups rose in the English governing class: the Tories and Whigs. The Tories represented the landed aristocracy, authoritarian and favourable to the Stuarts. The Whigs represented the new and powerful moneyed class and became the defenders of the new regime based on the power of Parliament.
5.4 Queen Anne (1702 – 1714)
She was the sister of Mary II and the last Stuart monarch. She was Anglican and Tory. Following the War of Succession with Spain, the English won the victories of Blenheim and Malplaquet. They established their influence over Portugal and gained control of Gibraltar. They also won Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and The Hudson Bay territory from France, so a network of commercial and military bases was established to form the framework of British imperial power. After the death of Queen Anne in 1714, the successor was King George I, another great-grandson of James I. He was from the House of Hanover, Germany.
The Sixteenth Century
The outbreak of the bubonic plague or the Black Death in the middle of the fourteenth century, killed about a third of Britain’s population, caused a shortage of labor, increased the importance of trade and towns and made the ties between lord and peasant weak. These developments increased largely the power of English monarchs. Establishing a system of government departments run by professionals during the Tudor’s rule (1485-1603) weakened the position of the feudal aristocracy, who needed the monarchy’s support to maintain their position. Another considerable change witnessed during the period is the important role acquired by the house of commons. The monarch now is in need of the house agreement to have his policies implemented, being the house where the powerful merchants and landowners are represented explains this. The rise of Protestantism in England led to a divorce with the Pope and Rome. The king declared himself head of the 'Church of England’ thus, all church lands fell under his control and became a new source of income. Rejection of the Roman Church was combined with a spirit of patriotism in England. After losing all claims to lands in France, the country became a distinct ‘island nation’ and geographically the center of western civilization after the European exploration of the Americas grew. The last quarter of this adventurous and optimistic century saw the beginning of Shakespeare’s famous works which paved the way to modern English.
By the end of the century, Protestantism prevailed in England taking the form of Anglicanism which not so very different from Catholicism in its organization and ritual. In Scotland it took an idealistic form which stressed dislike of ritual and elaboration. This form of religion is Calvinism. However, Catholicism remained in the highlands and Ireland. remained and so further widened the gulf between the two parts of the nation.