Part 1: The Most Important Historical Events in Early-Modern England/Britain, 1485-1660.

I was sat in a Year 9 History class and we were looking at the British Empire. We were in the middle of a paired discussion, when my partner said ‘History is boring.’ I never bought what she was trying to sell. Robert Langdon, played by Tom Hanks in The Da Vinci Code said, ‘People don’t hate History, they hate their own histories.’ History has something that can please everyone. When introducing A-Level History students to the course, I lay out the table of what it means to study History: We are preoccupied with politics, the economy, society, culture, foreign policy, the role of key individuals, groups and ideology, war, revolution and genocide. Within all of this, the trends and patterns of causes & consequences and changes and continuities are brought to light. How you could not find something to your taste, would be like going to a Tudor buffet of tens and tens of courses and finding nothing to your satisfaction. It does not make sense. Naturally, we all have our biases. . .I have not looked at Ancient or Medieval History since the start of secondary school in 2003. With two degrees in History, it was time to indulge in favourite pastime topics and test out new ones. This came to depend upon a lot of early and late-modern history. In this blog, I will outline what I think are the most important events in History since the early-modern period.                                                             

The start of the early-modern state under Henry VII: We have to start with Henry VII. For a person with a weak claim to the throne, he surprisingly killed his tyrannical rival, Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 and stole the Crown. It was not just the foundation of the Tudor dynasty, which would facilitate England’s independence from the Catholic Continental Church in the 1530s, but was the birth of the ‘modern’ state. Henry VII had an increasingly tight control over his Royal/Privy Council to cement his regime from 1485. The Privy Council was the equivalent of the cabinet at No. 10 Downing Street, where national policy was formulated. Henry VII, with his close allies, Uncle Jasper Tudor, John Morton, Richard Fox, alongside the penny-pinching tax collectors, Empson and Dudley, set about consolidating the new dynasty with special committees, e.g., the Star Chamber and the Council Learned in Law. With his cleverly pragmatic marriage to Elizabeth of York to unite the two royal families of the Wars of the Roses (Lancaster vs. York), Henry cemented a strong succession. Starting with Prince Arthur and Prince Henry, Henry followed through by fiscally disciplining suspected nobles, e.g., Sir William Stanley in 1495 with an immediate attainder of £9,000 (£6 million in 2017) and then £1,000 per year afterwards, the Earl of Westmorland, after 1485 paid £10,000 and the Council Learned in Law enforced the King’s feudal rights of loans and benevolences with £48,000 (£32.1 million) raised for war during the Breton Crisis, 1487-1491. The crux was a modern cabinet government streamlined the King’s feudal rights and powers to consolidate power at the centre. The addition of the printing press and the spread of Renaissance ideas is another key element to the early-modern period – the advent of the printing press would facilitate the spread of the ‘New Learning’ during the English Reformation under Henry VIII, albeit limited due to poor literacy rates. However, it set the groundwork for later and more modern communications, e.g., it was not plausible for totalitarian regimes to instigate and maintain indoctrination without loudspeakers, cinema and radio. Nevertheless, without Henry VII’s efforts, post-1485, England would not have had its own ‘English Nero’ in the form of Henry VIII, post-1509.                                   

Henry VIII and the 'Break with Rome' in the 1530s: I should set the scene for the Break with Rome by describing a fight between King Henry VII and Prince Henry. After preparing Prince Arthur for the throne and only to suffer a premature death in 1502, Henry VII would suffocate the young Prince Henry. As his last surviving male heir, the loss of his Queen in 1503, Henry VII was paranoid about the English succession. He would isolate and dominate Prince Henry by banning him from playing dangerous sports such as jousting and isolating him in the Royal residence. On one occasion, father and son got into an intense physical tussle – in 1508, the Spanish ambassador noted that the King had clashed with Prince Henry so violently that it seemed “it’s as if he sought to kill him”. Similarly, to the rest of the Court and country, Prince Henry grew tiresome of the king’s financial and fatherly control. Most were happy to see the end of Henry VII in 1509. It was the anticipated dawn of a ‘Golden Age’ when Henry VIII ascended to the throne – such a glorious period had been expected under his father, but with such hopes dashed, Thomas More conveniently rewrote it when recording Henry VIII’s ascension to the throne. The previous wrestle with his father demonstrated that Henry VIII would always have to have his way. Once Henry VIII had an idea in his head, there was no stopping him.. . . Cardinal Wolsey once spoke in private that he should tell the King what he ought to do and not what he could do: ‘For if the lion knows his own strength, no man could stop him’.                      

This could not have been truer with the ‘Break with Rome’ in the 1530s. Henry VIII, disillusioned with his marriage to Catherine of Aragon and the gaping absence of a male heir, became captivated with the unique, exotic, clever and pious Anne Boleyn – the Papacy would never recognise divorce, despite the efforts of Cardinal Wolsey in the Legatine Court of 1529 to gain the King his ‘annulment’. The ‘Break with Rome’ was the consequence of Henry disentangling himself from his first marriage. England gained independence from the Holy See of the Roman Catholic Church, but was plagued with economic, social and foreign threats for the remainder of the Tudor dynasty. The Papacy could not accept England’s independence from the Church, even though it was such a small part of the Church compared to France, Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. From the 'Pilgrimage of Grace' Rebellion of 1536-1537, to Henry VIII’s excommunication in 1538, England was on the lookout – the problem of religion and national defence continued until Elizabeth I’s triumph over the Spanish Armada in 1588.                                 

The dissolution of the smaller and larger monasteries between 1536 and 1540 saw the pillage and plunder of England’s national heritage and treasures. The English monasteries were the hub of local and national life – a source of community, worship, education and care for the poor, the closure and burning of between 500 to 800 monasteries saw many employees turned into vagrants. Some nuns were married off with dispensations, if they were sworn in before reaching 20 years old, whilst others became wanderers. Rural poverty rose to a new height under Henry VIII and female education did not recover until the 1700s and especially for the middle class. Cromwell, as the mastermind of the dissolution, argued it was the role of a modern state to take control of religion. Henry VIII redistributed ¼ of the kingdom’s wealth and filled state coffers with an additional £1.3 million (modern equivalent of £547.7 million), but his overexpansive foreign policy, high inflation, paired with poor harvests and a growing population plagued the Tudor economy for the rest of his heirs, whilst changing the face of England’s national religion. Henry VIII sought his desires until the end, but ultimately opened a pandora’s box of religious sects that made religious uniformity impossible. The question of religion would continue to divide, even though England was a predominately Protestant country by 1603, e.g., only 1-5% of England was Catholic. The question of religion was a cause of the English Civil Wars, 1642-1651 as Protestants, Presbyterians, Puritans, Calvinists and Armenians sought to reform the English Church.                                   

Elizabeth I and the triumph over the Spanish Armada in 1588: Elizabeth was the embodiment of English defiance against Spain and Catholicism. Indeed, the defeat of Phillip II’s mammoth fleet of ships has been compared to English boldness during the first Blitz of 1940-1941 and second between 1943-1944. With an Armada of 151 Spanish ships transporting 30,000 soldiers, Phillip II sought to restore Catholicism to England. His apparent outrage over the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots in 1587 was a cover – he could not have been more disinterested in her sufferings and wanted to add England to his profile of overseas territories. It is nearly always assumed that England was outmatched by the Armada, which was simply not true. A new class of battleship was constructed under Elizabeth which was joined with heavy guns and a ship rig (a fast-sailing rig), which made them faster than the Spanish ships. A total of 197 English ships including 30-40 serious fighting ships outmatched the Spanish because, the vast majority were smaller and more manoeuvrable. With the addition of the famous ‘fireships’ in the English Channel, the Spanish fleet was troubled from storms in Spain, the English Channel and the North Sea. Medici in fact wrote to Phillip asking, if God had actually blessed the voyage. With Drake watching the entire coast, with the beacon system, Spain was soundly defeated by losing ¼ of its fleet. It showed English ‘exceptionalism’ – we were an island race with its own liberties and national character that had won through.                                                 

Charles I, Religion and the English Civil Wars, 1642-1651: Whenever students speak of the English Civil War, I just want the world to end. The English Civil Wars saw three conflicts between 1642 and 1651 – a nation was brought to the sword over the question of religious reform, political derision and liberty:

• The First English Civil War, 1642-1646.

• The Second English Civil War, 1648, the defeat of Charles I and the 1649 Regicide.

• The Third Civil Wat between England and Scotland and the defeat of Charles II, 1650-1651.

It is ironic that on his deathbed in 1625, James I warned his son and heir, Charles to avoid squabbling with parliament. The institution of parliament had grown more assertive in its rights of free speech and believed in its role of national government. Indeed, at the end of Elizabeth I’s reign with her final ‘Golden Speech’ to parliament in 1601 and whilst she was still much loved, she commented that if her father knew how parliament treat her, he would be ‘spinning in his grave’. This trend continued under the Stuarts, which would eventually see the collapse of the monarchy in 1649 and the start of the Republic under Oliver Cromwell. With the monarchy restoration of 1660 under Charles II, but with the fallout under his Catholic brother, James II, the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688-1689 saw the slow birth of constitutionalism, which started with a stronger parliament.                                                        

To start with, Charles I did not do himself any favours in the eyes of MPs by marrying Henrietta Maria in 1625 - she was French and a Catholic! The Commons refused to vote for new Tunnage and Poundage for the new king for more than one year, which denied the monarchy’s traditional sources of revenue and financial independence from 1625. The Petition of Right, 1628 to limit royal prerogative, e.g., end forced loans, imprisonment without trial and use of martial law, was reluctantly accepted by the king. The suspect Arminian (pro-Catholic) support for the King’s Church reforms led to the 1629 parliament, which passed the Three Resolutions:

1.              Against growth of Arminianism.

2.              Against the levying of Tunnage and Poundage.

3.              Against those who paid Tunnage and Poundage.

Charles I had enough and instigated a period of ‘Personal Rule’, 1629-1640, with parliament absent.

Charles was never a Catholic and only appeared to have sympathies towards the Arminians/Catholics because, he believed the doctrine could better organise the English national Church. The watershed moment in the 'Break with Rome' under Henry VIII had made religious pluralism possible and Cahrles wanted to create a more organised national church. Similarly, Arminian leader, William Laud, who became Bishop of London in 1628 and Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633, was more invested in ideas of order, respect and authority in the Church of England, which appealed to Charles. The Arminians believed Catholicism was misguided rather than evil, but the nation without and without parliament did not concur.                                                    

Archbishop Laud limited preaching to Sunday mornings and evenings and used the teaching of the Catechism in the afternoon. What was the Catechism? It outlined the key doctrine of Anglicanism as already set out in the Prayer Book, which supported uniformity of belief and recalled Catholic practice. Laud vouched for the Catechism because it represented the ritual, authority and communal worship, instead of the intensely personal and Bible-based faith wanted by the Puritans. He also banned weekday lectures, thereby removing opportunities for Puritan ministers to criticise the national Prayer Books and its normalised Church services. Churches were decorated, music was encouraged, and the Communion table was redressed with cloth, therefore recalling the Catholic High Altar. Charles I believed in the role of bishop leadership, decorations, music and the tablecloth, but to a Protestant nation were Catholic superstitions that obstructed the congregation’s personal relationship with God.

Furthermore, the ‘Eleven Years Tyranny’ saw the controversial ‘Ship Money’ policy, which may be compared to Margaret Thatcher’s Poll Tax in 1990 – each district was charged with a tax to fortify the English Navy and defend the country. Charles did have valid reasons for demanding ship money, e.g. English ships were raided by Dutch, French and Spanish privateers and Englishmen had asked for protection from these attacks.. Ship Money started in 1635 as a global tax levied against everyone, which contrasted with a parliamentary tax that depended on one’s income. It reached coastal areas in 1634 and extended to inland areas in 1635. With the annual post-1635 Ship Money payments, an average of £107,000 was made (£12.5 million today).

The Scottish Rebellion and the First Bishops’ War, 1637-1639 was made possible by royal authority imposing religious uniformity on Scotland, which had grown increasingly Presbyterian since the time of Elizabeth I. A new Prayer Book, based on the English version was legislated to be adopted into Edinburgh churches in 1637. The order was imposed without reference to the Scottish Parliament or the Assembly of the Kirk (Scottish Church), and through royal proclamation. The Scottish reaction drew up the Scottish Covenant in 1638 calling for the Scottish clergy and nobility to defend Presbyterianism and the Scottish Kirk. Charles signed the Treaty of Berwick in 1639, as he realised, he did not have the strength to win the war. Scotland removed the Scottish Prayer Book and the Scottish bishops. Charles was not happy with the results and wanted to raise another army, which lead to the Short Parliament, 1640.

The Short Parliament of April-May, 1640 was called for due to the financial gains of ‘Personal Rule’ having been wiped out by the First Bishops’ War. With emerging parliamentary opposition to the King in the House of Lords with the Earl of Bedford, Lord Saye, Lord Sele, and Lord Montague (later, Earl of Manchester) and in the Commons with John Pym, there were no concessions and no results. Instead, the King borrowed from Catholics and used Catholic officers, but the English Army was unequipped and unenthusiastic to match the Scots in the Second Bishops’ War, 1640. The Scottish Army entered England and with a brief battle at Newburn-on-Tyne, the English forces disintegrated and left the Scots in control of Newcastle. The Treaty of Ripon, 1640 saw another truce with the Scots and Charles had to pay for Scottish expenses. With more financial headache, Charles had to recall parliament again – the Long Parliament.                                                                             

Perhaps, the King did not mean to spark a civil war after leaving London for York in 1642? The King had accepted parliament’s choice of Sir John Hotham as Governor to avoid confrontation and accepted the exclusion of all bishops from the House of Lords. The Battles of Edgehill in 1642, Marston Moor in 1644, Naseby in 1645 and the creation of parliament’s New Model Army in 1645 saw the defeat of Charles I in 1646. After escaping and starting a brief civil war in 1648, the first and only execution of a British monarch in 1649 saw the slow birth of an English Republic. English stubbornness had driven a monarch to achieve his own ends and what he believed to be right for the three kingdoms, but English perseverance had met the challenge under the belief that they were facing down a tyrant. The so-called tyrant in the form of Charles I had apparently become mired in Catholicism, which was seen as dictatorial and foreign , which the English could not stomach. The same principle applied when the Republic and Commonwealth tired of Oliver Cromwell and parliament invited Charles II to rule, which saw the Restoration of 1660.

Next Week: ‘Part 2: The Most Important Historical Events in Late-Modern Britain, 1876-Present.’ 

Be Happy, be a Historian!

PS. The key battles of the English Civil Wars will be explored further in a future blog, along with other topics in this blog.