The Rise and Reign of the Tudors: from Henry VIII to Elizabeth I

The Rise of the Tudors

The Tudors were on the throne and Henry VIII was quite important because he ruled the country in a very different way. He tried to save money and also to make Britain really important.
At that time Spain was the most important and powerful country in Europe. Britain wasn’t so competitive and so Henry VII understood that, in order to make his country bigger, he had to strengthen the economical power. He avoided wars, for example, in order to save more money as possible.

With some agreements with other countries such as Denmark and Flanders, he tried to strengthen the economical position in Europe. He gave England some power by building fleets (both military and for commerce).

The Reign of Henry VIII

When he died his son went to the throne (Arthur) and he married Catherine of Aragon, a Spanish princess. Arthur didn’t last long, he died very young and so his brother, Henry VIII, went to the throne.

Henry VIII married Catherine of Aragon. Apparently he was a good man. He was a very popular king and he was especially tall for that time. He was a typical Renaissance prince (a person who likes to be surrounded by richness and artes. He liked in fact spending money in every kind of luxuries= he was the exact opposite of his father). He maintained a special court, but with a lot of economical problems.

The Skills of Henry VIII

He was also a good singer and a good dancer and an intellectual. He could speak some languages like Spanish, France, Greek and Latin.

He knew about Mathematics and astronomy.

He was strong and full of energy when he was young so he was a very sportive person (he loved playing tennis, hunting, and making tournaments [from Medieval style]).

However he was a lot cruel and at the origin he was a convinced catholic and in fact he wrote a bumble against

One of the things he did was spending a lot of money on the war against French people.

He had been rewarded by the Pope as a special defensor because he wrote against Martin Luther.

The Break with the Catholic Church

The reasons of the brake from Catholic church

Catherine of Aragon couldn’t give him any boys, so he asked the Pope to divorce, because he wanted to have a boy (for his dynasty).

The Pope didn’t give him divorce for two reasons:

the first because Catholicism didn’t accept this

the second because Catherine was the nephew of Charles V, a Spanish king. So it was also a decision based on power.

After this refusal, Henry VIII decided to break from Rome and gave himself the supremacy of being the authority of a new religion. What he did with the reformation was to close all of the monasteries and all the properties that belonged to the Church and they became properties and richness of the king.

There was the necessity for Henry VIII to look for a new source of money. It was both political and familiar.

The document was published in 1534 even though he proclaimed himself in 1530.

The monks and the nuns remained without a shelter and they mostly became vagants on the streets, they had to live on people's charity.

The Wives of Henry VIII

After the document he could divorce from Catherine and could marry Anne Boleyn who gave him Elisabeth I.

Another thing about Anne Boleyn was that she had 6 fingers on her hand.

He accused her of adultery, so she was imprisoned in the tower of London and executed.

Now he could marry another woman:

Jane Seymour became pregnant and gave the King a boy, but she died during giving birth.

After this a servant of the King went through Europe in order to find a beautiful wife for the King. He found a German lady who was called Anne of Cleves. When from Germany she went to England Henry VIII wasn’t really happy because she wasn't as he expected. She didn’t last long because the king divorced, however she didn’t get killed.

After this episode he decided to look for her wife himself, not giving this job to other people. He felt in love with Catherine Howard, a young 17 girl, cousin of Ann Boleyn.

She was found to have another relationship, so she was accused of adultery and killed.

Number 6 was

The Succession and Reign of Edward VI

Henry VIII started having the disease of gout and in fact he didn’t walk anymore.

He died and there were three sons Marry, Elisabeth and Edward.

Edward went to the throne as Edward VI and he was a small boy so he had to be recommended and supported by a series of people who made him approach Protestantism and in fact a book of prayers was introduced,this book was written in English (not Latin), together with some Protestant Reforms .

He also built many schools.

He died of tuberculosis when he was 15 years old.

The Reign of Mary I

Daughter of Catherine of Aragon, so a Catholic queen, in fact the first thing she did when she came to the throne was to introduce the Catholic religion. She started persecuting many Protestants.

She made a fatal error, in fact she married Philip (heir to the throne of Spain). This was a mistake because when you were a female and married a person of another country you had to subornitae yourself and your country to the other country. So this was a ruin both for her and England .

The Rise of Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I came to the throne quite unexpectedly. She had some traits similar to the ones of her father, she was attractive as a young lady (like her father). She had a lively intelligence and she was a well educated lady, she could speak many languages (Latin, Greek) and she was a sporty person (riding and dancing). She also had a talent for music.

{Remeber! At that period women could go to the throne only after the man, even though they were younger }

She was 25 when she went to the throne.

The Religious Policy of Elizabeth I

Her first problem to deal with was the religious question. In fact Henry I introduced the Anglican church. Marry I went back to Catholicism and she persecuted many Protestants, but now with Elizabeth I they English had to go back to Protestantism. However she tried not to exaggerate in both ways and tried to take a middle course and changed her name, so she chose for herself a different name “The Supreme Governor”.

What we know about Elizabeth is that she tried to accept Catholicism even though many Catholicists had gone against her, in fact during her reign there have been many conspiracies ( from the poison in the food to that in clothes, to attempts to kill her while she was outside. She was the target of her enemies)

She also established the book of Pray and she decided people to go to the church every Sunday. At the same time she also accepted some rights that were particularly catholich, in actual fact she liked many of the aspects of this religion.

She divided the church into parishes that were units of a state administration , so she could also control the religious aspect of her country. She also introduced a book where there were bible teachings , and also a rule that said that people couldn’t go against the crown.

Conflicts and Alliances of Elizabeth I

She liked moving around the country and staying with nobles and rich families, and very often they (as a family) went bancroft. She had to face very bad situations like the Irish question , Mary Stuart of Scotland and Spain.

Ireland tried to rebel against England and some noble people, Irish and Scottish were sent to Ireland in order to control the rebellions who have been threatened with a lot of cruelty by soldiers.

The other problem was Mary Stuart of Scotland, she was the queen of Scotland and she married the Dauphin of France. She was Catholic and when she went back from France to occupy the throne she found herself as a Catholic in a Presbiterian country.

John Knox was the leader of the Presbiterians and insisted daily against the queen.

She married twice and had a son,

She also had some lovers, then she decided to move from Scotland and go to England and she asked for help from her cousin (Elizabeth I) that stopped and imprisoned her.

Mary Stuart never came back from that place where she stayed for 26 years. Her son, however, had stayed in Scotland.

During this time alone, she plotted against the queen, but she could do nothing.

The Rivalry with Spain

The last problem to solve was Spain, at that time the most important country in Europe and also the richest. Spain was Elizabeth’s rival and in that period it was fighting against Netherlands because they were protestants. Elizabeth so decided to help the Netherlands and let them use English ports.

Dutch ships from those harvards that were crossing the channel were hut.

The other bad action was piracy with Sir Francis Drake, but also Raleigh and Hawkins. These people were engaged in piracy meaning that they had the job to attack the Spanish ships that were coming back from South America and they were full of treasures like metals and slaves. These ships were intercepted by English, stopped and cleaned of the precious materials.

In 1588 the war between England and Spain started.

Spain decided to use galleons, but they were too big and so slow. England instead had better ships also well equipped.

Spanish ships were blown by the strong winds through the stones of Ireland, in fact the weather influenced a lot. England won.

The Elizabethan Golden Age

There were also a large number of intellectuals who were protected by the queen, and in fact she liked being surrounded by Arts.

That period was also a period of discovery, for example sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the Earth and the queen encouraged people to go abroad so she could have States.

She was sick of smallpox (vaiolo) and in fact she had whimples scars, then because she had red hair during the old age they started becoming grey so she used dyes that contained lead, so she lost much of her hair. She had a sweet tooth and in fact she had many caries and black teeths.