Tudor Age

The Tudor period usually refers to the period between 1485 and 1603, specifically in
relation to the history of England. The period starts with Henry VII. The term is often
used more broadly to include Elizabeth I's reign (1558 1603), although this is often
treated separately as the Elizabethan era.

Unable to control the feuding nobles, civil war began in 1455. The conflicts are known as
the Wars of the Roses (1455-1485). And this tale of turmoil continued up to the summer
of 1485, the time when Henry VII achieved his throne of England, the first King of Tudor
Dynasty. Henry VII previously was Lord of Ireland. He seized the crown on 22 August
1485. Henry won the throne winning the Battle of Bosworth Field defeating King
Richard III.

The Tudors created the English Reformation and Renaissance leading the English people
from medieval religious dominance to a freer thinks for yourself culture which set the
English on the path of world exploration and scientific thought ahead of its competitors
culmination in the development of Britain as the first world Super Power.

The Tudors brought peace to England after 150 years of virtually continuous warfare,
encouraged new religious ideas, overseas exploration and colonisation. They were the
first English to conquer the whole of Ireland, brought Wales under English rule and set
the scene for the unification with Scotland. They made the first steps in the English
colonisation of North America and India.

Henry VII

With Henry VII's accession to the throne, the Wars of the Roses came to an end. Upon
becoming king, Henry inherited a government severely weakened and degraded by the
Wars of the Roses. The treasury was empty. Through a tight economic policy and
sometimes pitiless tax collection and confiscations (to seize (private property) for the
public treasury), Henry managed to refill the treasury by the time of his death. He also
effectively rebuilt the machinery of government. His foreign policy was also a peaceful
one. When the king himself died in 1509, the position of the Tudors was secure at last,
and his son succeeded him unopposed.

King Henry VIII

Henry VIII ascended the English throne in 1509 at the age of 17. Unlike his father, who
was conservative, the young Henry appeared to be the personification of chivalry and
sociability. He was just opposite in characteristics to his father. Henry's lavish (generous)
court (squad) quickly drained the treasury of the fortune he had inherited. He married
Catherine, his late brothers wife. By the late 1520s, Henry wanted to have his marriage
to Catherine terminated as she had not produced a male heir who survived into adulthood
and Henry wanted a son to secure the Tudor dynasty. Catherine's only surviving child
was Princess Mary.

Henry claimed that this lack of a male heir was because his marriage was "blighted in the
eyes of God". Catherine had been his late brother's wife, and it was therefore against
biblical teachings for Henry to have married her (Leviticus 20:21); a special dispensation
from Pope Julius II had been needed to allow the wedding in the first place. Henry argued
that this had been wrong and that his marriage had never been valid. In 1527 Henry asked
Pope Clement VII to annul the marriage, but the Pope refused. In 1529, the king
summoned Parliament to deal with annulment. But In the matter of the annulment, no
progress seemed possible. Finally, on 10 May, the King demanded of Convocation that
the Church should renounce all authority to make laws. Finally in 1534 the Acts of
Supremacy by the parliament made Henry "supreme head in earth of the Church of
England" and disregarded any "usage, custom, foreign laws, foreign authority [or]
prescription". And, afterwards, in January 1533, Henry married Anne who was maid of
honour to Queen Catherine, a woman of "charm, style and wit, with will and savagery
which made her a match for Henry". Thus, Henry, with all his mal-practices contributed
to the great reformation and, thereby, to the history of English nation. Henry died in
January 1547 at the age of 55 and was succeeded by his son, Edward VI.

Edward VI
Edward VI was only nine years old when he took the throne in 1547. It was during
Edward's reign that England became a Protestant nation as opposed to a Catholic one in
break from Rome. Edward was beginning to show great promise when he fell violently ill
with tuberculosis in 1553 and died that August two months short of his 16th birthday.

Mary I

Mary I took the throne amidst popular demonstration in her favour in London, which
contemporaries described as the largest show of affection for a Tudor monarch. Mary had
never been expected to hold the throne, at least not since Edward was born. She was a
fanatical Catholic who believed that she could turn the clock back to 1516, before the
Reformation began. Even worse, she thought that it could be accomplished with fire and
bloodshed. Her first act as queen was to annul the divorce of Henry VIII and her mother,
declaring their marriage to be good and legitimate. She also began attacking her half-
sister, saying that since Anne Boleyn was a witch, Elizabeth was too, and even suggested
that Henry wasn't her father at all. Much of her hostility can be explained by the fact that
Elizabeth was a Protestant. Mary died in November 1558 suffering in uterine cancer.

Elizabeth

The reign of Elizabeth restored a sort of order to the realm following the disorder of the
reigns of Edward and Mary when she came to the throne following the death of Mary in
1558. The religious issue which had divided the country since Henry VIII was in a way
put to rest by the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, which re-established the Church of
England. Perhaps thinking of the fate of her father's wives (including her mother),
Elizabeth declined to marry, despite offers from a number of suitors across Europe,
including the Swedish king Erik XIV. This created endless worries over her succession,
especially in the 1570s when she nearly died of smallpox. It has been often rumored that
she had a number of lovers (including Francis Drake), but there is no hard evidence.

Elizabeth maintained relative government stability. She was effective in reducing the
power of the old nobility and expanding the power of her government. Elizabeth's
government did much to consolidate the work begun under Thomas Cromwell in the
reign of Henry VIII, which is, expanding the role of the government and effecting
common law and administration throughout England.

In all, the Tudor period is seen as a decisive one which set up many important questions
which would have to be answered in the next century and during the English Civil War.
These were questions of the relative power of the monarch and Parliament and to what
extent one should control the other.
 Renaissance Humanism
Humanism is the term generally applied to the predominant social philosophy and
intellectual and literary currents of the period from 1400 to 1650. The return to favor of
the pagan classics stimulated the philosophy of secularism, the appreciation of worldly
pleasures, and above all intensified the assertion of personal independence and individual
expression. Zeal for the classics was a result as well as a cause of the growing secular
view of life. Expansion of trade, growth of prosperity and luxury, and widening social
contacts generated interest in worldly pleasures, in spite of formal (allegiance)
faithfulness to ascetic (severe) Christian doctrine. Men thus affected -- the humanists --
welcomed classical writers who revealed similar social values and secular attitudes.

Historians are pretty much agreed on the general outlines of those mental attitudes and
scholarly interests which are assembled under the rubric (an explicit set of criteria) of
humanism. The most fundamental point of agreement is that the humanist mentality stood
at a point midway between medieval supernaturalism and the modern scientific and
critical attitude. Medievalists see humanism as the terminal product of the Middle Ages.
Modern historians are perhaps more apt (fitting) to view humanism as the germinal
(relating to, or having the nature of a germ cell) period of modernism.

Perhaps the most we can assume is that the man of the Renaissance lived, as it were,
between two worlds. The world of the medieval Christian matrix, in which the
significance of every phenomenon was ultimately determined through uniform points of
view, no longer existed for him. On the other hand, he had not yet found in a system of
scientific concepts and social principles stability and security for his life. In other words,
Renaissance man may indeed have found himself suspended between faith and reason.

As the grip of medieval supernaturalism began to diminish, secular and human interests
became more prominent. The facts of individual experience in the here and now became
more interesting than the shadowy afterlife. Reliance upon faith and God weakened.
Fortuna (chance) gradually replaced Providence (preparation in advance; foresight) as
the universal frame of reference. The present world became an end in itself instead of
simply preparation of a world to come. Indeed, as the age of Renaissance humanism wore
on, the distinction between this world (the City of Man) and the next (the City of God)
tended to disappear.

Beauty was believed to afford (pay for) at least some glimpse of a transcendental
existence. This goes far to explain the humanist cult (alternative) of beauty and makes
plain that humanism was, above everything else, fundamentally an aesthetic movement.
Human experience, man himself, tended to become the practical measure of all things.
The ideal life was no longer a monastic escape from society, but a full participation in
rich and varied human relationships.

The dominating element in the finest classical culture was aesthetic rather than
supernatural or scientific. In the later Middle Ages urban intellectuals were well on the
road to the recovery of an aesthetic and secular view of life even before the full tide of
the classical revival was felt. It was only natural, then, that pagan literature, with its
emotional and intellectual affinity (similarity) to the new world view, should accelerate
the existing drift (flow) toward secularism and stimulate the cult (A system or community
of religious worship and ritual) of humanity, the worship of beauty, and especially the
aristocratic attitude.

Almost everywhere, humanism began as a rather pious, timid, and conservative drift
away from medieval Christianity and ended in bold independence of medieval tradition.
Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536), one of the greatest humanists, occupied a position
midway between extreme piety (faithfulness) and frank secularism. Francesco Petrarch
(1304-1374) represented conservative Italian humanism. Robust (strong) secularism and
intellectual independence reached its height in Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) and
Francesco Guicciardini (1483-1540). Rudolphus Agricola (1443-1485) may be regarded
as the German Petrarch. In England, John Colet (c.1467-1519) and Sir Thomas More
(1478-1535) were early or conservative humanists, Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
represented later or agnostic (doubter) and skeptical humanism. In France, pious
classicists like Lefvre d'taples (1453-1536) were succeeded by frank, urbane, and
devout (devoted) skeptics like Michel Montaigne (1533-1592) and bold anti-clerical
satirists like Franois Rabelais (c.1495-1533).
 The Reformation
The English Reformation started in the reign of Henry VIII. The English Reformation
was to have far reaching consequences in Tudor England. Henry VIII decided to rid
himself of his first wife, Catherine, after she had failed to produce a male heir to the
throne. He had already decided who his next wife would be - Anne Boleyn. By 1527,
Catherine was considered too old to have anymore children.

However, a divorce was not a simple issue. In fact, it was a very complicated one. Henry
VIII was a Roman Catholic and the head of this church was the pope based in Rome.

The Roman Catholic faith believed in marriage for life. It did not recognise, let alone
support, divorce. Those who were widowed were free to re-marry; this was an entirely
different issue. But husbands could not simply decide that their marriage was not
working, divorce their wife and re-marry. The Roman Catholic Church simply did not
allow it.

This put Henry VIII in a difficult position. If he went ahead and announced that as king
of England he was allowing himself a divorce, the pope could excommunicate him. This
meant that under Catholic Church law, your soul could never get to Heaven. To someone
living at the time of Henry, this was a very real fear, and a threat which the Catholic
Church used to keep people under its control.

Another approach Henry used was to make a special appeal to the pope so that he might
get a special "Papal Dispensation". This meant that the pope would agree to Henrys
request for a divorce purely because Henry was king of England but that it would not
affect the way the Catholic Church banned divorce for others. The pope refused to grant
Henry this and by 1533 his anger was such that he ordered the Archbishop of Canterbury
to grant him a divorce so that he could marry Anne Boleyn.

The Archbishop granted Henry his divorce - against the wishes of the pope. But what else
could the archbishop do if he wanted to remain on good terms with Henry?

This event effectively lead to England breaking away from the Roman Catholic Church
based in Rome. Henry placed himself as head of the church and in that sense, in his eyes,
his divorce was perfectly legal. In 1533, few were brave enough to tell him otherwise!

How did the people of England react to this? In fact, the vast bulk of the population were
very angry at the way the Roman Catholic Church had used them as a source of money.
To get married you had to pay; to get a child baptised (which you needed to be if you
were to go to Heaven - so the Catholic Church preached) you had to pay; you even had to
pay the Church to bury someone on their land (which you had to do as your soul could
only go to Heaven if you were buried on Holy Ground). Therefore, the Catholic Church
was very wealthy while many poor remained just that.poor. Their money was going to
the Catholic Church. Therefore, there were no great protests throughout the land as many
felt that Henry would ease up on taking money from them. Henry knew of the Catholic
Churchs unpopularity and, therefore, used this to his advantage.

Henry was made Supreme Head of the Church by an Act of Parliament in 1534. The
country was still Catholic but the popes power had been ended.

The most wealthy Catholics in England were the monasteries where monks lived. They
were also the most loyal supporters of the pope. This made them a threat to Henry.

By the time of Henry, many monks had grown fat and were lazy. They did not help the
community as they were meant to do. All they seemed to do was take money from the
poor. Also some monasteries were huge and owned vast areas of land. So here were
monks not loyal to Henry who were also very wealthy. Henry decided to shut down the
monasteries of England. The monasteries were to disappear like sugar dissolves in hot
liquid. This is why Henrys attack on the monasteries is called the 'Dissolution' - they
were to be dissolved!

Henry wanted to make the Dissolution appear to be backed by law. He sent round
government officials to check up on what the monks were doing. This was organised by
his chief minister, Thomas Cromwell. The officials knew what the king wanted in their
reports - information that the monks were not working, were not saying their prayers etc.
Anything to discredit the monks was considered useful. Sometimes, the monks were
asked trick questions. "Do you keep all of your vows?" If the monks answered "yes", but
had taken a vow of silence, they had not kept all of their vows. If they refused to answer
because of their vow of silence, they would be accused of failing to help the king. Or
worse, were they trying to hide something?

One report sent to Cromwell commented that the head of the monastery visited, the prior,
was a "virtuous man". However, his monks were "corrupt" and "full of vice". The report
claimed that the monks had eight to ten girl friends each. This was all that Cromwell
needed to shut down the monastery.

The allegations against some monks and nuns 'spoke' for themselves. At Bradley
monastic house, the prior was accused of fathering six children; at Lampley Convent,
Mariana Wryte had given birth to three children and Johanna Standen to six; at Lichfield
Convent, two nuns were found to be pregnant and at Pershore Monastic House, monks
were found to be drunk at Mass.

The smaller monasteries were shut down by 1536 while the larger and more valuable
ones were shut by 1540. Few people in England were sorry to see them go. Few monks
protested as they were given pensions or jobs where their monastery was. The abbot of
Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire, Marmaduke Bradley, was given a 100 pension a year for
life - a considerable sum of money then. Some chief monks - abbots - were hanged but
this was a rarity.
Some monastery buildings were reduced to ruin as the local population was allowed to
take what they wanted as long as the silver and gold in the monastery went to the Crown.
This meant that expensive building bricks etc. could be acquired for free. This alone
made the Dissolution popular with the majority of the people who tended to dislike lazy
monks anyhow.

However, the vast bulk of the wealth of the monasteries went to Henry. Some was spent
building defences against France on the south coast around Portsmouth; a small amount
went on paying pensions to monks and abbots.

The only real protest in England to what Henry was doing came in 1536 with the
Pilgrimage of Grace. This was lead by Robert Aske, a lawyer. He wanted the monasteries
left alone. Aske, along with several thousands of others, marched to London. Henry
promised to look into their complaints and many of the protesters went home satisfied
with this. Their complaints were never looked into.

Aske was arrested and hung from a church tower in chains until he died of starvation.

When Henry became king in 1509, the church in England was as follows:

Head of the Church: the pope based in Rome.

Church services: all were held in Latin.
Prayers: all said in Latin Bible: written in Latin.
Priests: not allowed to marry

By the death of Henry in 1547, the church in England was as follows :

Head of the Church : the king.

Church services : held in Latin.
Prayers: most said in Latin.
The "Lords Prayer" was said in English Bible: written in English.
Priests: not allowed to marry.

To reform means to change. This is why this event is called the English Reformation as it
did change the way the church was run throughout England. However, the death of Henry
in 1547 did not see an end of the religious problems of England.
Puritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th
centuries. Puritanism was founded shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of
England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England. Puritans by
definition felt that the English Reformation had not gone far enough, and that the
Church of England was tolerant of practices which they associated with the Catholic
Church. They formed into and identified with various religious groups advocating
greater "purity" of worship and doctrine, as well as personal and group holiness.
Puritan culture emphasized the need for self-examination and the strict accounting for
ones feelings as well as ones deeds. In modern usage, the word puritan is often used to
describe someone who has strict views on sexual morality, disapproves of recreation, and
wishes to impose these beliefs on others. However, the puritans were interested to form a
new English Church.

Puritans who felt that the Reformation of the Church of England was not to their
satisfaction but who remained within the Church of England advocating further reforms
are known as non-separating Puritans. This group differed among themselves about how
much further reformation was necessary. Those who felt that the Church of England was
so corrupt that true Christians should separate from it altogether are known as separating
Puritans or simply as Separatists.

In the relation of churches to civil power, Puritans believed that secular governors are
accountable to God to protect and reward virtue, including "true religion", and to punish
wrongdoers. They opposed the supremacy of the monarch in the church, and argued that
the only head of the Church in heaven or earth is Christ.

The idea of personal Biblical interpretation, while central to Puritan beliefs was shared
with Protestants in general. Puritans sought both individual and shared agreement to the
teaching of the Bible, with moral purity pursued both down to the smallest detail as well
as ecclesiastical purity to the highest level. They believed that man existed for the glory
of God; that his first concern in life was to do God's will and so to receive future
happiness.

Puritans were politically important in England, but it is debated whether the movement
was in any way a party with policies and leaders before the early 1640s. In alliance with
the growing commercial world, the parliamentary opposition to the royal prerogative, the
Puritans became a major political force in England.

Some strong religious views common to Puritans had direct impacts on culture. John
Milton wrote Samson Agonistes, and Paradise Lost based on puritan themes. But the
sexualisation of Restoration theatre was attacked by them. Puritans eliminated the use of
musical instruments in their religious services, for theological and practical reasons.
Education for the masses was so they could read the Bible for themselves.