Part V
In this part . . .
Three main ruling dynasties - the Tudors, Stuarts, and Hanoverians - held the crown from the 16th to the 19th century. They ruled at a time when the country became the most powerful in the world, exploring the globe’s least-known corners, conquering new territories, and building up a vast empire. Closer to home, England and Scotland were united under one ruler in the early 17th century and became fully united as one country about a hundred years later.
These events were very positive ones for the monarchy, but it wasn’t all power and success. In the 18th century, Parliament and ministers became much more active in governing the country. Slowly but surely, the Crown was losing its grip on the reins of government as Britain became more democratic.
Chapter 13
In This Chapter
● Checking out the new royal ‘brand’, the Tudor dynasty
● Tracing the disputes between Catholics and Protestants
● Understanding the problems faced by married - and unmarried - royals
● Exploring the Tudors’ difficulties in producing suitable heirs to the throne
This chapter is about one of the most powerful royal dynasties in British history - the Tudors. When the first Tudor king, Henry VII, took over the English throne in 1485, the country was in a right royal mess. During a long civil war between the rival houses of Lancaster and York, many had lost their lives, and royal prestige was at a low ebb. The last Yorkist king, Richard III, had even been accused of murder (see Chapter 9). The Tudors at last brought more peace and stability. Henry VII put the royal finances on a sound footing, Henry VIII tried to increase English influence abroad, and Elizabeth I presided over a period when Britain was producing some of the greatest names in literature and the arts.
But it wasn’t all sweetness and light. The Tudors argued constantly over religion, sometimes even putting people to death because of their beliefs. How fanatical was that? And their personal lives were complicated, too, from Queen Mary’s absentee husband to Henry VIII’s six wives - it’s a wonder he found the time or energy to rule at all. But in spite of their marital troubles, the Tudors left the country, and the monarchy, stronger than they found it.
New Broom: Henry VII
The first Tudor king came to the throne after beating Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 and ruled until 1509 (see Chapter 9). After years of political ping-pong between the rival houses of Lancaster and York, Henry Tudor seemed to offer the chance of stability. Henry was a Welshman with strong English connections. His mother was Margaret Beaufort, great-great-granddaughter of Edward III. His father was Edmund Tudor, son of a man called Owen Tudor, who had been Henry V’s personal attendant, had fallen in love with his boss’s wife Queen Catherine of Valois, and married her after Henry V died.
Young Henry VII was tall, strong, and striking, with piercing blue eyes, and he had a reputation as a tough guy who could sort his enemies out. A lot of the English liked him because he seemed a powerful character who could win plenty of support. The Welsh liked him because, well, he was Welsh. But plenty of Yorkist supporters did not want this outsider from the Lancastrian side on the throne. It was not going to be a bed of roses for Henry VII.
But Henry had a cunning plan. He thought he would be safer on the throne if he married a princess from the other side, uniting the houses of Lancaster and York once and for all. It helped that an attractive single woman - Elizabeth of York, daughter of the Yorkist king Edward IV - was available. Henry didn’t waste any time. Soon after he was crowned in October 1485, he jumped into bed with Elizabeth. The following January, he made an honest woman of her.
Elizabeth probably didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter. She was a well-connected princess caught in a national power struggle. A royal bride in the 15th century knew that she was marrying for political reasons. She would be expected to look good at court occasions, produce lots of children, and make the best of it for the sake of king and country. But by all accounts Henry and Elizabeth’s marriage was a happy one. The couple had eight children.
Lancaster and York were united at last. Henry and his advisers came up with a brilliant symbol to advertise this union - the Tudor rose, with its red petals for Lancaster and its white petals for York. It was one of the best bits of royal branding ever.
Bakers and fakers
It wasn’t all plain sailing for Henry. Lancaster and York were united in a way, but some people still wanted a real Yorkist king on the throne. Henry had to deal with several rival claimants to power:
● The Earl of Warwick: The earl was the Yorkists’s favourite claimant because he was Edward IV’s nephew. Henry’s response: He had the earl locked safely away in the Tower of London.
● Lambert Simnel: Simnel was a baker’s son, but the Yorkists dressed him up in fine clothes and claimed that he was the real Earl of Warwick. They wanted him to be Edward VI, and no wonder, with a name like Lambert. The fake earl was soon leading an army across England and preparing for an attack. Henry’s response: He defeated the attackers, captured Simnel - and gave him a job in the royal kitchens.
● Perkin Warbeck: He was another fake, who claimed he was the Duke of York - one of a pair of princes who had disappeared a couple of years ago, presumed murdered by Richard III. The Yorkists wanted him to be Richard IV. Henry’s response: He captured Perkin and had him executed. At the same time, Henry gave the real Earl of Warwick the chop, too, just to be on the safe side.
New monarchy?
When Henry came to the throne, the royal treasury had very little money. Decades of warfare had seen to that. The king realised he had to tighten the royal purse-strings and find ways of raising money. Quickly. Henry became highly skilled at getting money out of his people. He increased customs duties, raised loans, and squeezed the barons for all they were worth.
Henry was especially good at finding excuses to fine his barons. He took advantage of old laws preventing barons from keeping private armies - and these armies could consist of servants, as well as real armies of soldiers. On one occasion, visiting the Earl of Oxford, Henry casually asked how many servants the earl had in his household. ‘Two hundred at least,’ boasted the Earl. Henry pounced and extorted a £10,000 fine from the hapless earl. Ouch!
Many barons hated the money-grubbing monarch, but they could do little about it. With every new fine, they got weaker and weaker. Taking power away from the barons seemed like a clever new strategy, but, in fact, Henry was doing what previous rulers had done, too. He was just more efficient about it - and more successful.
Henry had it all - power, riches, and a happy home life. He even prepared well for the next generation by arranging for his eldest son, Arthur, to marry a high-profile princess from Spain, Catherine of Aragon. The monarchy was in better shape than it had been for more than a hundred years. But personal tragedy soured the king’s last years. In 1502, Arthur died, leaving the king’s second son, also called Henry, as heir to the throne. The following year, the monarch’s beloved wife Elizabeth also died. Henry VII spent his last six years sad and lonely.
Punching above His Weight: Henry VIII
The new king, Henry VIII (1509-47), seemed like a great white hope - and a breath of fresh air after dusty Henry VII. He was only 17 years old, fit, and intelligent, and he enjoyed good food, good music, boisterous sports like wrestling and jousting, and female company.
Henry was brave, but rather too reckless for his own good. Three times he nearly lost his life because of his addiction to dangerous sports:
● Helmet howler: In 1524, Henry forgot to put his helmet visor down while jousting. The Duke of Suffolk walloped the king on the head with his lance, narrowly missing Henry’s face. Henry laughed it off.
● Lucky leap: In 1525, Henry pole vaulted over a broad ditch when he was out hawking. The pole broke, sending head-first Henry in the mud. With his head wedged under the sticky goo, he nearly drowned, but a footman managed to pull him out - by his foot, presumably!
● Horse horror: In 1536, Henry was unhorsed in a joust, and his mount fell on top of him. The king was unconscious for two hours.
The young king was also intelligent and talented. His accomplishments included:
● A gift for languages - he knew French, Italian, Spanish, Latin, and some Greek.
● A grasp of theology that enabled him to debate with the powerful churchman around his court.
● A knowledge of the sciences, especially astronomy, geometry, and maths.
● A real gift for music - he could play the lute well, was also good on keyboard instruments such as the virginals (no surprises there), and wrote quite a lot of music, including a song called ‘Pastime with Good Company’.
Henry was clever, musical, reckless - and rather lucky. But what sort of king would he make? A careful administrator like his father? Or a chivalrous hero like warrior-ancestors Henry V and Edward III? There was no contest. It was the warrior-hero option for Henry, every time. His father’s money-grubbing held no interest for young Henry.
Henry started his reign by giving two of his father’s hated ministers, Empson and Dudley, the swift heave-ho. They were quickly arrested and bundled off to prison, and the king announced that they would be executed. Henry wanted people to believe that he would have no more extortion or dark threats on his watch. But his father’s henchmen weren’t actually given the chop for 16 months, because Henry had trouble getting Parliament to agree.
It wasn’t the last time that Henry made a big gesture that backfired.
With friends tike these. . .
If Henry was to be a warrior-king, he would have to go war - and who better to fight than the old enemy, France? Henry was hardly on the throne before he was hinting that he was going to fight France’s king, Louis XII, and reclaim some of England’s old lands in Europe. On three occasions at the beginning of his reign, Henry planned attacks on France. Each time, it was a disaster.
Here’s the lowdown on Henry’s French flops:
● Gascony, 1512: The English were meant to meet up with Spanish forces and attack the French. But there was a Spaniard in the works. King Ferdinand of Spain didn’t show up. Henry’s army was left stuck without food and support, in the pouring rain. Result: an expensive, soggy mess.
● Northern France, 1513: This time the campaign was planned by Henry’s ruthless minister Cardinal Wolsey, and the king led the army himself.
The English took many French prisoners and captured the towns of Therouanne and Tournai, but again Henry’s allies started to lose interest. Ferdinand of Spain made his own truce with France, while the Pope and Emperor both pulled out of the alliance. Result: Henry was left high and dry.
● Northern Italy, 1516: In league with the emperor Maximilian I, Henry employed Swiss mercenaries to attack French forces occupying northern Italy. But Maximilian pulled out, the Swiss demanded more money, and Henry pulled out. Result: Henry lost his bottle - and lost face with France’s glamorous new king, Francois I.
Spend, spend, spend
Henry was well out of the war with France, which was expensive, as well as dangerous. But the power and influence of the French still irked him. Together with his minister Wolsey, Henry hatched a clever plan. Instead of war-mongering, England would play the role of peace-broker in Europe. The trouble was, Europe didn’t stay peaceful, and England got broker.
To further his peace mission, in 1520 Henry organised the most lavish summit conference the world had seen. It was called the Field of Cloth of Gold and was a meeting in northern France between Henry and Francois. The kings, together with thousands of courtiers and followers, met in a lavish temporary town made of wooden buildings and tents. Some 2,000 skilled workers from England and Flanders built Henry a makeshift summer palace.
The French camped in top-of-the-range tents made from glittering golden material. The two kings held a series of tournaments and ate and drank tons of food and oceans of wine and beer. The whole event was so grand and costly that it was called the Eighth Wonder of the World.
The food bill alone came to £8,839 - the equivalent of about £2.6 million today. The food purchased by Henry included:
● 2,200 sheep
● 1,300 chickens
● 800 calves
● 340 ‘beeves’ (that’s cattle to you and me)
● 312 herons
● 13 swans
● 17 bucks
● 9,000 plaice
● 7,000 whiting
● 700 conger eels
At this monstrous beanfeast, the two kings tried to outdo each other with displays of swanky clothes, lavish decoration, hoards of attendants, and elaborate settings. The pair were perfectly courteous to each other and challenged each other in different sports. Francois beat Henry in a wrestling bout, while Henry won an archery contest. But nothing political came of the meeting. The end result was a huge bill - and still no peace. Henry was broke and still lacked the power he wanted.
No hope from the Pope
Henry’s biggest problem of all was that he had no male heir. Every king in this period wanted a son to whom he could hand over the crown. But with his wife, Catherine of Aragon, Henry had only one child, a daughter called Mary. In 1527, with Catherine in her 40s, the king felt he had a better chance of producing a boy if he remarried. He had his eyes on a younger woman at court, Anne Boleyn, and was desperate to make her his queen.
In the early 16th century, divorces were hard to come by. You usually had to ask the Pope’s permission to get divorced, and the Pope wasn’t always keen on the idea, unless you had a good theological argument up your sleeve. Henry thought he had the perfect case for dumping Catherine. Catherine had been married to Henry’s elder brother, Arthur, who died, leaving her a widow. Henry married her soon afterwards, but he found a verse in the Bible that seems to condemn such marriages. In the book of Leviticus (chapter 20, verse 21), it says: ‘If a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an impurity’. So Henry thought he might have a chance of the Pope granting his wish.
Thomas Wolsey
Even a king as powerful and willful as Henry could not act alone. Henry employed Thomas Wolsey, one of the slickest politicians of the time, as his Lord Chancellor. Wolsey was from a humble background - his father was a butcher, and young Thomas made a career in the church, rising to the rank of Cardinal. So Wolsey had a foot in both camps as a high churchman and a powerful royal minister - he seemed to be in the ideal position to get Henry the divorce he wanted.
In many ways, Wolsey was successful. He controlled Henry's foreign policy and although it sometimes ended in disastrous wars, Wolsey was probably more competent than Henry would have been if left to his own devices. The king rewarded his Chancellor with money, houses, and other gifts, and Wolsey's home at Hampton Court was nearly as large and lavish as a royal palace.
But Wolsey came unstuck. He could not persuade the church to give Henry the divorce he so badly wanted. Suddenly, he found himself out of favour, and even handing Hampton Court to the king did not help him. Both the king and Anne Boleyn's friends wanted him out, and he lost his job. He would have lost his head, too, but he died on his way to London to face a charge of treason.
But Pope Clement was reluctant. He knew that other parts of the Bible support a man who marries his brother’s widow. And anyway, he was under the thumb of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who hated Henry because the English had pulled out of their war with his enemy, France. In addition, the queen was Charles’s aunt. The Pope sent a representative, Cardinal Campeggio, over to England to hear Henry’s case. But the church couldn’t come up with a decision, and the affair dragged on for several years.
Then, in late 1532, a crisis occurred. Henry got Anne Boleyn pregnant. He knew he had nine short months to sort things out and make his new child legitimate. The king enlisted the help of Thomas Cranmer, the archbishop of Canterbury. Cranmer agreed to declare Henry’s marriage to Catherine invalid, and the poor queen was given the boot and sent into a quiet retirement. She died a few years later. In January 1533, Cranmer married Henry and Anne. It gave Henry a fresh start - and the chance of a son to inherit the English throne.
Head of the church
When Henry ignored the Vatican in his divorce crisis, he knew he was stirring up trouble. He and archbishop Cranmer had overruled the most powerful person in the Catholic Church. Relations with the Pope were breaking down. Henry and his advisers saw that they would have to declare the English church independent from Rome.
Henry pushed a series of laws through Parliament, leading up to a complete break with the Roman church:
● 1532, Act in Conditional Restraint of Annates: Put an end to the practice of English clergy paying taxes to Rome.
● 1533, Act in Restraint of Appeals: Forbade bishops from appealing to the Pope and declared that England was a sovereign state whose king was responsible only to God.
● 1534, Act of Supremacy: Established Henry as the supreme head of the Church of England.
● 1534, Act for First Fruits and Tenths: Diverted church taxes into Henry’s treasury.
● 1539, Act of the Six Articles: Defined the doctrines of the Church of England in law.
Henry now had the new wife he wanted and had freed himself from the influence of the Pope. In this sense at least, Henry was the most powerful English king for centuries.
Bad habits: The monasteries are closed
When he became head of the Church of England in 1534, Henry realised that as well as a source of power, he also had a source of wealth. The church owned lots of land, buildings, and possessions, and Henry quickly commissioned a survey, called the Valor Ecclesiasticus (Ecclesiastical Valuation), to find out how much these items were worth.
The valuation showed that a huge amount of wealth was in the hands of the monasteries, which had an income of some £136,000 a year (around £40 million in today’s money). Many people were convinced that the monasteries were not the places of piety and goodness that they were meant to be. Many stories of corruption circulated, including monks cutting mass to go hunting and even abbots keeping mistresses. The Act of Supremacy gave Henry power over the monasteries, so he charged his minister Thomas Cromwell to send out inspectors to see whether the rumours were true. If they were true, Henry could close the monasteries and pocket their wealth.
When Cromwell’s inspectors came back, they had plenty of tales of sin and abuse for Henry. They reported drunken monks at one abbey, and an abbot profiting from piracy at another. Not all abbeys were corrupt, but Henry had enough evidence to do what he wanted. Between 1536 and 1540, all the monasteries in England and Wales were closed, and Henry was loaded. He could start spending again.
Henry used his new-found wealth in all sorts of ways. He outraged the clergy with some of the uses he found for monastic property:
● The chapel of the London Charterhouse, home of pious Carthusian monks, became a store for garden equipment and tents.
● Stone from the walls of Merton Priory was used for Henry’s luxurious palace at Nonsuch.
● God’s House, Portsmouth, became an armoury.
● Maison Dieu, Dover, was used to house provisions for the Army.
Henry also sold off about two-thirds of the monastic property to pay for his lavish lifestyle and yet more wars with France.
The six wives
Henry VIII is famous as Britain’s most-married king. He changed partners frequently for two reasons - he was trying to produce a son to secure the succession, and he wanted to ally himself at different times with different ruling families in Europe.
Henry’s remarriages had a big impact on the royal family. On several occasions, when the king took a new wife, any children from previous marriages were thrown out of the royal household to live with guardians. Only two of Henry’s wives, Jane Seymour and Catherine Parr, tried to bring the family back together again. The following section highlight the key details on Henry’s six queens.
Catherine of Aragon
Henry married the Spanish princess Catherine, his brother’s widow, in 1509, just before he became king. To start with, the partnership was successful.
The couple were in love with each other, and Catherine was pleased to have netted a handsome, powerful husband after the sadness of her first spouse’s death. Henry wore her initials on his sleeve and called himself Sir Loyal Heart. When he captured some French towns on his campaign of 1513, he gave her the keys to their gates. The couple’s happiness was complete when, on New Years’ Day 1511, the queen gave birth to a baby boy.
But their happiness was short-lived. Although apparently healthy, the young prince, Henry, died suddenly when only two months old. It was the beginning of years of sadness for Catherine, with a string of pregnancies, stillbirths, and infant deaths until, in 1516, she produced her only sturdy child, a girl called Mary. More stillbirths followed.
Poor Catherine. Unable to produce the son Henry so desperately wanted, she was getting plump and wrinkly, too. The husband she loved and who she had deputised for in his absence no longer wanted her. It was no more Sir Loyal Heart for Henry. In 1533, Henry divorced Catherine and married one of her ladies-in-waiting, Anne Boleyn.
Anne Boleyn
Anne was an attractive temptress who soon had Henry eating out of her hand. Although not conventionally beautiful, she had eyes that a Venetian visiting Henry’s court described as ‘black and beautiful’. Henry and Anne found each other attractive, but Henry already had mistresses - including Anne’s sister, Mary - and Anne did not want to become part of a kind of royal harem. If Henry wanted her, he had to promise to make her his queen.
Henry, hoping that Anne would produce a male heir, promised exactly that.
He wrote to her saying that he would marry her, and the couple wed in 1533. Even before they tied the knot, the attraction bore fruit. But Anne’s child was a girl, Elizabeth, and Henry was disappointed again. Even so, Anne kept her power over Henry, even influencing the timing of the king’s meetings with his advisers.
But Anne’s power was eventually her undoing. The queen’s enemies at court started to plot against her. They got her charged with adultery - with her brother. Henry could not stand for this betrayal and had her executed in 1536. By then, he had already fallen for another lady-in-waiting, Jane Seymour.
Jane Seymour
Jane Seymour was very different from Anne Boleyn. Quiet and modest, she spurned Henry’s advances, which began well before Anne was beheaded. She sent back his letters unopened, refused a present of gold, and would only speak to him when others were present. Of course, this rejection only made Henry more eager to have his way with her, although it was the very opposite of what Jane wanted.
Once Anne was dead, Jane succumbed to the king, and Henry married wife No. 3 in 1536. Jane had a mellowing influence on Henry. She even persuaded him to welcome back to court his first daughter, Mary, who had been estranged from him since the death of her mother Catherine. But best of all for Henry, Jane gave him the son he so desperately wanted - the prince, Edward, was born in 1537.
But the prince came at a terrible price. The queen had been crudely cut open by the Tudor surgeons whose only thought was for the life of her baby son. Jane caught a fever and died 12 days after giving birth, only 18 months after their marriage, leaving Henry with one weak and sickly son, Prince Edward. Henry was bereft, and Jane was the only one of his wives to be buried with all the high ceremony of the Tudor court in St George’s Chapel, Windsor.
Anne of Cleves
Henry’s fourth wife was a political choice, a Protestant princess from Germany. At the time they married, tensions existed between England and the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. Charles was a Catholic, so Henry wanted to strengthen his ties with Protestant royalty. Anne seemed to fit the bill.
Henry’s minister Thomas Cromwell inflamed the king’s ardour by talking up Anne’s beauty. Henry asked for more particulars of the princess’s attractions and charged his ambassadors to report back on her looks - and on those of Anne’s sister, for good measure. The ambassadors complained that the sisters’ clothes did not allow them to inspect the princesses properly, a remark that enraged their host, the Chancellor of Cleves. ‘Why? Would you see them naked?’ he asked. Fortunately Henry was not there; otherwise, the answer would probably have been an emphatic, ‘Yes, please!’
The king solved the problem by sending over his court painter, the renowned Hans Holbein, to do portraits of both sisters - with their clothes on, of course. When the pictures were sent back to England, Henry chose Anne, and the couple married in 1540.
But Henry didn’t find Anne attractive when he met her in the flesh - he said she looked like ‘a Flanders mare’. When the threat from Charles V receded, Henry divorced Anne - a mere six months after the wedding - and the poor woman went to live in quiet retirement in the country. Henry, meanwhile, went in search of wife No. 5.
Catherine Howard
By now, the king was getting old and was often ill. A problem with his lungs in 1538 had given him breathing difficulties, and he spent a whole week speechless, which was intolerable for noisy Henry. But in 1540, he married teenage Catherine Howard. The new young bride seemed to make Henry feel younger, too. He seemed to have been given a new lease of life.
Catherine had stolen Henry’s heart, and he repaid her with lavish gifts - one was a brooch containing 33 diamonds and 60 rubies. But sadly another man, Thomas Culpeper, had stolen hers. After marrying the king, she carried on her relationship with Culpeper. A notorious flirt-about-the-court, Catherine also had relationships with other men in Henry’s circle. At first, Henry refused to believe the stories that circulated about his queen’s affairs. When he finally accepted the truth, it was the chop for both Catherine and Thomas. They were executed in 1542.
Catherine Parr
Henry’s last wife, whom he wed in 1543, was the lucky one. Already twice a widow, she survived him. While married to Henry, Catherine gained power in the court, and, like the king’s first wife, sometimes deputised for her husband. She also pulled the royal family back together, reuniting the king’s children from his previous marriages and employing good tutors to teach them. Their relationship was much closer to being one of equals. And Catherine was almost Henry’s equal in another way. After the king died, she remarried once more, to make her England’s most-married queen.
The last years
By the 1540s, Henry’s love of good food had got the better of him. He was hugely overweight, with a belly like a barrel and a face like parchment. To make matters worse, he had ulcers on both his legs, which made them swell painfully. For long periods, he also shivered with fevers.
Henry could no longer run, jump, and brandish his sword. He was almost immobile. Servants carried him around on a litter, and special machinery was installed to haul him upstairs. By Christmas 1547, he had drawn up his will, arranged for a council of advisers to help his son Edward when he became king, and prepared for the end. He died on 28 January 1547.
Henry’s most important legacy was the break with Rome (see the earlier section, “Head of the Church”). By severing England’s links with the Catholic Church and making himself head of the church in England, he created a new connection between monarch and English church, one that that endures today.
His other great legacy was his youngest child. Although Henry spent his life trying to produce a male heir, his daughter Elizabeth was to prove one of the greatest rulers Britain has known. It was the crowning irony of Henry’s reign. He would not have been amused.
Boy-King: Edward VI
When Henry VIII died in 1547, he had one surviving son, the boy of nine who became Edward VI. Edward, whose mother was Henry’s favourite wife, Jane Seymour, inherited his father’s strong will and fierce intelligence, but he did not have Henry’s athleticism and rude health. Pale and frail, Edward did not seem likely to live long, and his rule only lasted until 1553.
Prayer Book in ... Mass out
Henry had Edward educated by some of the greatest scholars of the time. These men, such as the Oxford divine Roger Ascham and Cambridge man John Cheke, gave Edward the most thorough education of any monarch to date. At a time when many princes could hardly read or write, Edward had to do loads of Latin and bags of Greek. Boring? Well, Edward seems to have enjoyed it and been very good at it. He had neat handwriting, too.
Edward’s teachers were staunch Protestants who wanted the English church to move still further from the ways of Roman Catholicism. Leading Protestants also acted as Edward’s Protectors, advising the boy-king and steering his rule. The first of these Protectors was his uncle, Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset. Somerset was quite popular amongst ordinary people, because he tried to curb the power of the barons, who had been nicking common land by fencing it off. People needed this land to graze their livestock and were pleased when Somerset put a stop to the barons’ foul fences.
Under Edward and Somerset, England became a truly Protestant country. In 1549, they introduced the Book of Common Prayer, which contained complete texts for Protestant prayers and services. For the first time, these prayers were in English, not the Latin that the Catholics had used. While many people liked Somerset, not everyone liked the new prayer book. Some people were attached to the old Latin Mass and felt that it was improper to talk to God in common or garden English. The people of Devon and Cornwall even launched a rebellion about it.
Edward and Somerset’s troubles got even worse when another rebellion occurred. This time, trouble broke out in East Anglia, because the bumptious barons there were still fencing off common land. It was all too much for Somerset to cope with, and in 1550, he lost his power to a new Protector,
John Dudley, Earl of Warwick. Dudley immediately made himself look still more powerful by appointing himself as Duke of Northumberland.
Nine-day wonder
By 1552, things looked bad for Edward. Always pale, he was now thin and spluttering. He had caught tuberculosis, and his doctors could see that he probably only had a short time to live. As usual, thoughts turned to the succession. Protector Northumberland thought he could hang on to power by marrying his son to Lady Jane Grey, a sort of grand-niece of Henry VIII, who had a claim to the throne.
Once the pair were wed, the Protector started to work on Edward, persuading the boy-king to name Jane as his successor. On 6 July 1553, Edward died, and Northumberland had Jane crowned. But Edward’s half-sister, Mary, had a better claim to the throne - after just nine days of Queen Jane, Mary entered London and had Jane, her husband, and the scheming Northumberland locked in the Tower. Mary was now queen.
Bloody Mary: Mary I
Mary Tudor, who ruled from 1553-58, had Spanish blood in her veins, and it showed. She was the daughter of Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, and, like her mother, she was a devout Catholic. Today, Mary has a bad reputation because of the way she persecuted Protestants, but at the time, most of her subjects liked her.
Mary had had a hard time of it as a girl. When Henry VIII turned against Catherine of Aragon in favour of his second wife, Anne Boleyn, he turned against Mary, too. He referred to her as illegitimate and, like the royal bully he was, tried to cow Mary into submission. But Mary was feisty and stood her ground - she refused to accept that her mother should be denounced.
Some time after Catherine died, Henry accepted Mary back into court life, but she did not fit in easily. It probably didn’t help that she was not conventionally pretty and felt herself to be an outsider. She also knew her father could easily throw her out again. The one constant thing in Mary’s existence was her passionate devotion to her Catholic faith. Her faith was the main influence on her entire life and on her short reign as England’s queen.
The Spanish question
Less than a year after coming to the throne, Mary announced her marriage plans. And they were a bombshell. Mary had decided to wed the king of Spain - the most powerful Catholic ruler in Europe. Most English people were amazed. They were going to be ruled not only by a Catholic but by a foreign Catholic. Philip, the Spanish king, was to be joint ruler with Mary - his head was even put on the coinage, which was not a popular measure. Trouble was brewing for England’s Protestants.
The Protestants’ fears were justified. Mary brought Catholicism back to England, and she did so with a ruthlessness that looked far from Christian.
As soon as she was on the throne, she began to act:
● She ordered the church to celebrate the Catholic Mass in Latin once more.
● She repealed all the anti-Catholic laws passed by Henry VIII.
● Around 1,000 Protestants left England for friendlier countries in Europe.
● More than 300 Protestants who would not give up their faith were burned at the stake.
Long-distance loving
While all this was going on, Mary was also getting to know her new husband.
After a few months of marriage, Mary believed herself to be pregnant. After another few months, it turned out to be wishful thinking. Philip, who didn’t find his new wife very attractive, had high-tailed it back to Spain, leaving Mary high and dry. Mary was upset, lonely, and left with only her religion to console her.
Mary threw herself into her work, spending hours on state business and engagements, and then sitting up half the night writing letters to Philip. She was often heard crying when alone in her room, and one ambassador reported a rumour that the queen was tortured by dreams of love and passion.
But they were just dreams. It was two whole years before Philip returned to England, and this time he was more interested in organizing England’s Navy for his planned war with France than in the pleasures of the marriage bed. In any case, Mary was now in her late 30s, which in Tudor times was very late to be planning a family. Even so, there was hope when the queen once more seemed to be pregnant.
Meanwhile, Philip’s war in France seemed at first to be going well, but a blow came for the English in January 1558 when the French counter-attacked and took Calais, the one part of France that had remained in English hands since the Hundred Years War (see Chapter 8) in the 15th century. Mary was devastated, and political defeat was replaced by personal tragedy when her second pregnancy turned out to be cancer. She fell ill and died, of a mixture of grief and physical illness, aged only 42.
Gloriana: Elizabeth I
When Mary died in 1558, the way was left clear for her half-sister, Elizabeth, to be crowned queen. Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn, is one of the most famous British monarchs, and understandably so. She reigned for 45 years, presided over a time of English success in all sorts of fields from exploration to the arts, sent her enemies packing, and did all this work without what every woman at the time would have expected as her right - the support of a husband.
Elizabeth could manage all these responsibilities because she was highly intelligent. She could speak and write Latin, Greek, French, and Italian, wrote poetry, and could play keyboard instruments as well. But she wasn’t a swot. She liked big banquets and lavish state occasions, and she was especially partial to court ceremony - all her officials and courtiers had to line up in strict order of rank when waiting to speak to her.
Elizabeth adored clothes and jewellery. Her dresses were studded with gems, and one of her most prized possessions was a ruby the size of a tennis ball. She also had a passion for dancing, which all the eligible young men at court were very willing to indulge. Historians remember Elizabeth as the Virgin Queen, but her contemporaries had a more impressive-sounding nickname for her: Gloriana. However, her glorious life started with setbacks and trauma.
Troubled childhood
Before Princess Elizabeth was 3 years old, her father had her mother beheaded for adultery. As a child, she had her own household and visited court occasionally. When her father died, she lived with his last wife, Catherine Parr, and Catherine’s second husband, Sir Thomas Seymour.
Seymour meant trouble for Elizabeth. Big trouble. He planned to marry her when Catherine died, hoping that the young princess would become queen, and he would worm his way on to the throne beside her. Seymour also fancied his teenage ward and was always making up to her sexually. Stories went around that Seymour would try to fondle Elizabeth, that he had romps in bed with her, and that on one occasion he ripped off one of her dresses because he said the colour didn’t suit her.
Elizabeth managed to ward off Seymour’s advances, but they left her psychologically damaged. Her experience with Seymour, plus her father’s troubled marriage history and her mother’s violent death, made Elizabeth suspicious of marriage. She saw sex as a threat - but she also saw that her sexuality could give her power, so long as she kept control.
High-maintenance monarch
When Elizabeth was crowned queen she was already popular. She had the Tudor red-headed, fair-skinned good looks, a ready wit, and lots of glamour. People were so obsessed with her that on coronation day, they ripped up the blue carpet that was laid to the door of Westminster Abbey because they wanted a piece of the material on which she had walked. The souvenir-hunters nearly tripped up several of Elizabeth’s attendants. Who said celebrity was a modern invention?
Elizabeth quickly turned out to be very demanding. She expected expensive gifts from her courtiers at least three times a year - every New Year, on her birthday, and on her accession day, the anniversary of the day she came to the throne. One New Year, she got from various favourites:
● A purse and brooch encrusted with jewels from the Earl of Leicester.
● A golden jewel from the Earl of Essex.
● A gold pomander and a chain set with pearls from Sir Thomas Heneage.
● A coronet and collar of gold, diamonds, and jewels from Sir Christopher Hatton.
● A jewelled fan that opened to show her portrait from Sir Francis Drake.
Jewels rule. Elizabeth loved gifts like these, especially if they had her own portrait on them as well. It wasn’t just vanity - she needed to convince people that she was a powerful ruler who would not be overthrown.
The queen put the generosity of her courtiers to another, more cunning use. Most monarchs splashed out lots of money building palaces, but not Elizabeth. She spent a lot of time staying in her courtiers’ houses instead. Some courtiers forked out a fortune doing up their houses, just in case she came to stay. They had to foot the bill, so she lived the high life and saved money at the same time - a royal double whammy.
Like a virgin?
The people were hysterical and her courtiers vied with each to get their houses made over, but Elizabeth was determined to keep her head. She pledged that she would be a good queen. She was also determined to stay single. She knew that if she gave in and got married, it would be the end of her personal power in male-dominated Tudor England. She quickly realised that any man who asked to marry her would want one thing - a seat on the English throne.
And another thing. Nearly all the eligible princes in Europe were from Catholic families. Elizabeth was a Protestant, so the last thing she wanted was some European Catholic ruler taking the country back to Rome again. One Catholic king who was interested in Elizabeth was none other than Queen Mary’s widower, Philip of Spain. If he got his hands on Elizabeth, not only would England be Catholic again, but it would become a distant outpost of Spain. So Elizabeth gave suitors the brush-off.
But the problem was that Elizabeth actually rather liked male company, and she got really jealous when any of her maids married - especially if they didn’t ask her permission. One got her ears boxed for this mistake; another had her husband thrown into prison. Talk about a green-eyed monster! State business meant that Elizabeth met men all the time, and all those palace dances threw her into the arms of many courtiers - literally. Many of these courtiers were men who helped Elizabeth rule. They weren’t royals, so they weren’t really serious suitors, but the queen flirted with them to make them do what she wanted.
Elizabeth even gave them nicknames:
● Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley, Secretary of State and Lord High Treasurer, was Spirit.
● Sir Francis Walsingham, Privy Councillor and spy-master, was Moor.
● Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, military commander, was Eyes.
● Sir Christopher Hatton, eventually Lord Chancellor, was Lids.
● Sir Walter Raleigh, seaman and explorer, punning on his first name, was Water.
Most of the men were seriously interested in Elizabeth and fantasised about marrying her. Raleigh wrote poetry about her, and a jealous looker-on said that Hatton, ‘had more recourse to Her Majesty in her Privy Chamber than reason could suffice’. Phew! Hanky panky in the Privy Chamber? It’s unlikely. Elizabeth knew how to flirt, but she only went so far. She knew she had to be in control.
Even so, two courtiers got very close to the queen, and their closeness to her was more than fantasy:
● Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester: Elizabeth and Eyes had the hots for each other and were even rumoured to have had a child. But really, Elizabeth kept her distance. Leicester was most important to her as a military man when England joined the Dutch in going to war against the dreaded Spanish.
● Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex: The Earl of Essex was Leicester’s stepson. Another military commander, he led English forces in Europe and rose in favour at court. But he and Elizabeth had a quarrel when he turned his back on her - oops! - and she boxed his ears. As a punishment, Essex was sent to fight for Elizabeth in Ireland, but he made an unauthorised peace deal with the Irish - big mistake! When he got back to England, Elizabeth put him under house arrest. Finally, Essex, miffed at his treatment but still eager for power, plotted a rebellion against the queen, but was discovered and found guilty of high treason. There was only one thing for it: off with his head.
Rivals and spies
Life wasn’t easy for Elizabeth, as the story of Essex (see preceding section) makes clear. She was surrounded by ambitious men, who either wanted to marry her or overthrow her. What’s more, she had a serious rival for the throne in her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots (see Chapter 12 for more about Mary). Elizabeth and Mary were strong personal rivals. Once, when visited by Mary’s envoy, Elizabeth jealously asked him whether she or the Scottish queen was the more beautiful. The envoy replied that Elizabeth was ‘whiter’, but that Mary was also ‘very lovesome’. White was beautiful in Tudor times, so it was a good answer.
But the trouble between the two queens was more serious than this personal rivalry. Assuming that Elizabeth had no children, Mary was next in line to the English throne. She was also a Catholic, so the Scottish queen became a focus for anyone who wanted a Catholic on the throne in England. When Mary was in trouble at home and fled to England, Elizabeth pounced and put her dangerous rival straight in prison.
Many Catholics in England and Europe were desperate to rescue Mary and put her on the throne. In 1569, a pair of northern noblemen, the Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland, organised a revolt in the north with the aim of rescuing Mary. The revolt was defeated, but Elizabeth knew there would be other attempts to sweep her off the throne.
But Elizabeth had a secret weapon. She had one of the most efficient networks of spies in Europe, all under the watchful eyes of shady operator Moor Walsingham. He and his spies rooted out several Catholic plots against the queen:
● The Ridolfi Plot: In 1571, a banker from Florence teamed up with the Duke of Norfolk to dethrone Elizabeth. They were backed by the Pope and the Spanish. Result: Plot discovered, and plotters beheaded.
● Jesuit Plot: In 1580, two Jesuit priests, newly landed in England, were accused of plotting against the queen. Result: One, Edmund Campion, beheaded; the other, Robert Parsons, escaped back to Europe.
● Throckmorton Plot: In 1584, Catholic conspirator Francis Throckmorton was plotting to kill the queen and follow the murder with a French invasion. Again, the Spanish were involved. Result: Throckmorton arrested and beheaded.
● Babington Plot: In 1586, another Catholic, Anthony Babington, plotted to kill the queen, this time with Mary’s backing. Walsingham, however, had been intercepting Mary’s letters. Result: Babington executed, and Mary beheaded.
Blown away: The Spanish Armada
Elizabeth’s other problem was King Philip of Spain. He was involved in several of the Catholic plots against the queen (see preceding section), and it was clear that if he could not get England by marrying Elizabeth, he would try to take the country by force. Elizabeth didn’t make it any better by encouraging her seamen to attack Spanish ships. To do so, the queen turned pirate. Not literally, of course. She got her best sea captains to attack Spanish ships and bring the booty back home. It helped the treasury, too.
Sir Francis Drake
Several old English salts collected Spanish gold and silver from the high seas. Sir Francis Drake was probably the most famous. A notable navigator, he was the first Englishman to see the Pacific and the first from his country to sail all the way around the world. He brought home tobacco and potatoes from America - and a load of gold from the Spanish ships he plundered. Elizabeth knighted him and encouraged his expeditions pillaging Spanish ports, such as Cadiz. Drake also played a key part in the defeat of the Spanish Armada.
Philip got miffed that his ships were being robbed - and that the English queen was encouraging the thieving by giving her captains licences to take booty and knighting them when they did. In 1588, Philip decided to retaliate. Big time. He put together the biggest collection of ships anyone had ever seen and planned to attack England. The great Spanish Armada was gathering.
But Philip hit problems before the Armada even set off. Drake sailed into Cadiz harbour and set fire to lots of the Spanish ships moored there, ‘singeing the King of Spain’s beard,’ as he put it. As if that attack wasn’t a big enough pain in the face for Philip, his best naval commander died, and he had to put an inexperienced man, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, in charge of the fleet. Even so, when it did set off, the Armada looked impressive - 141 ships sailing in a crescent formation up the English Channel. But the Spanish hadn’t reckoned on two English secret weapons:
● Secret weapon No. 1 - Sir Francis Drake: Well, he wasn’t really much of a secret, but Drake turned out to be a better naval tactician than Elizabeth dared hope. He kept the Spanish ships moving so that they couldn’t land in England. He attacked the Armada with flaming fire ships, setting many of them alight. These attacks panicked the Spanish and broke up their formation, so the English fleet could attack individual enemy ships. The Armada was on the back foot.
● Secret weapon No. 2 - The weather: A great storm got up, sending the Spanish fleet further up the Channel and then northwards, along the east coast, around Scotland, and, eventually, Ireland. Lots of them sank, leaving surviving sailors to crawl up the Irish beaches. Only a few made it back to Spain.
The great Armada was blown away and Elizabeth was safe.
Past and future
Elizabeth was in her mid-50s when the Armada was defeated. She reigned for another 15 years, turning into a formidable old woman who kept her spirit almost to the end. Desperate to keep up appearances, she coated her face with white makeup to hide her wrinkles, wore an auburn wig, and had herself painted in bigger, richer dresses than ever.
The queen loved her country and was proud of its achievements. Her explorers, such as Sir Francis Drake and Martin Frobisher, sailed all over the world.
Writers, such as William Shakespeare, were world class - Elizabeth adored his plays. And so were some of the musicians, like composers Thomas Tallis and William Byrd.
Elizabeth herself had shown that England could stand up against the most powerful countries in Europe. But she had no children. As she lay dying, she realised she had to name an heir. Perhaps reluctantly, Elizabeth ordered that James of Scotland, the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, should be the next English king.