History of England — Winter

The Wars of the Roses and the emergence of the Tudors.
House of York versus the House of Lancaster (Hen IV, Hen V, Hen VI)
The Tudors: A New Dynasty
A new modern government.
England in 1500.

RECOMMENDED READING:

The Tudor period of English history has received considerable attention from the historians and therefore you will find the selection of possible reading during our weeks on Henry VII and his family a bit daunting. You may want one book to help you sort through all the many interesting issues of the age and here is that book.

The Ridley book is a total pleasure to read and sensible in its organization. Ridley packs his 303 pages with immense learning and wit.

RECOMMENDED READING

When we begin this week, we will be jumping into English history just at the moment of the triumph of a new royal family: the Tudors. In order to understand how this relatively unimportant family emerged to dominate the whole of the 16th century in England, you need to study the Wars of the Roses. The best book I know on this complicated subject is the very good one by Dan Jones. It will give you the background you need in order to understand the monarchy of the first Tudor King, Henry VII.

Reviews

“It’s not often that a book manages to be both scholarly and a page-turner, but British historian Jones succeeds on both counts in this entertaining follow-up to his bestselling The Plantagenets. . . . He sets a new high-water mark in the current revisionism of the Tudor era.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Exhilarating, epic, blood-and-roses history. There are battles fought in snowstorms, beheadings, jousts, clandestine marriages, spurious genealogies, flashes of chivalry and streaks of pure malovelence. . . . Jones’s material is thrilling, but it is quite a task to sift, select, structure, and contextualize the information. There is fine scholarly intuition on display here and a mastery of the grand narrative; it is a supremely skilful piece of storytelling.”
—The Sunday Telegraph

“Jones’s greatest skill as a historical writer is to somehow render sprawling, messy epochs such as this one into manageable, easily digestible matter; he is keenly tuned to what should be served up and what should be omitted. And he still finds rooms for the telling anecdote and vivid descriptive passage. It makes for an engrossing read and a thoroughly enjoyable introduction to the Lancastrian-Yorkist struggle.”
—The Spectator

“Jones is a born storyteller, peopling the terrifying uncertainties of each moment with a superbly drawn cast of characters and powerfully evoking the brutal realities of civil war. With gripping urgency he shows this calamitous conflict unfold.”—The Evening Standard (London)“Jones tells a good story. That is a good thing, since storytelling has gone out of favor among so many historians. . . . He admits that the era is at times incomprehensible, yet he manages to impose upon it sufficient order to render this book both edifying and utterly entertaining. His delightful wit is as ferocious as the dreadful violence he describes.”—The Times (London)

The marriage of Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII is one of the most extraordinary royal pairings in all of history. Each of the two were unique, well educated, attractive, independent and accustomed to power. At first they lived a fable of young love. Later their clash changed a whole nation. The story of Henry and Catherine and her five successors are at the center of the reign of Henry VIII. Here below is the great Hans Holbein portrait of Henry painted in 1540 and now in the Galleria Nazionale di Arte Antica in Rome.

 
 

RECOMMENDED READING:

CATHERINE OF ARAGON:

HENRY VIII:

The story of Henry VIII and his six wives is an amazing personal story, but it contained the whole history of the reign and the varying fortunes of the several religious factions vying for his support.
His first wife, Catherine of Aragon, was Spanish and a loyal member of the international Roman Catholic Church. Anne was close to the Protestants and that closeness may have doomed her. Jane Seymore was careful and then she was gone so quickly. Catherine Howard was a dangerous, adulterous child and got herself executed for treason (All of this was against Henry's wishes. He really loved his child bride.) And finally, Catherine Parr, who was the most intelligent of all the wives, and also the most consciously Protestant. She came very near to being executed as Henry swerved to the Catholic conservatives in his last months. But was saved by the intrigues of other Protestants in the court.

The second of the six women who married Henry VIII was the brilliant Anne Boleyn. Her hold over the king was absolute up until the day she gave in to him and slept with him and produced a daughter. At that moment her hold began to wane, and her days were numbered. She survived only three years as Queen of England and her story is one of the most exciting and dangerous stories of all royal marriages. She risked everything for herself and her family and lost everything. But she did one great thing: she gave birth to the greatest English monarch of all time: Elizabeth I.

RECOMMENDED READING

The "divorce" (we call it a divorce but in 16th century terms it was an annulment) between Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon  brought to England an unforeseen revolution in both government and religion. The two men who helped Henry engineer this divorce are the two men we now turn to in our story: Thomas Cranmer, the religious expert, and Thomas Cromwell, the political expert. These two men helped Henry get his divorce, but in the process they pushed Henry into two different kinds of revolutions, neither of which did Henry have any intention of starting. Thus both men were playing a dangerous game with Henry. He did not like being pushed into anything, as Anne Boleyn learned to her sorrow. Butt these four people, Henry and Anne and Cranmer and Cromwell changed England forever and brought their nation rushing toward modernity at a faster pace than all of the other European rivals.

The English Reformation is a totally different thing than the Reformation in Germany. The Lutheran movement was led by a radical Roman Catholic professor. The English Reformation was led by the King of England. The English Reformation is therefore highly political and entwined with royal policy and international politics. The hero of the Reformation in England is not the king, but rather the courageous and brilliant Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer. You see his portrait at the right painted in 1546 by the artist Gerard Flicke and now in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

The English Reformation.
The Reformation and the Divorce.
The Reformation and radical politics.
Thomas Cromwell (Don't mix him up with Oliver Cromwell of the 17th century.)

RECOMMENDED READING:

1. The finest history of the English Reformation ever written is still in print:

2. Also from A. G. Dickens is his excellent book on the role of Thomas Cromwell in the Reformation. Thomas Cromwell and the English Reformation. This book is out of print but there are used copies available.

Institute Library Call Number: 942.052 Dic CROM

3. In addition to the two fine books from A.G. Dickens, there is a spectacular giant of a book which provides us with a great biography of Thomas Cranmer.

 

 

Our subject tonight is one of the most complex and fascinating politicians of the early modern world: Thomas Cromwell. He was brilliant, creative, progressive, modern, and also dark and ruthless and shockingly unscrupulous. See at the bottom of the page the brilliant portrait of Cromwell painted by Hans Holdbein and now in the Frick collection in New York City.

The historian who revealed more about Cromwell than all the previous English historians combined, was G. R. Elton whose book The Tudor Revolution in Government brought about its own revolution in the writing of history about Tudor government.

From Wikipedia article on Sir Geoffrey Elton:

"Elton focused primarily on the life of Henry VIII, but made significant contributions to the study of Queen Elizabeth I. Elton was most famous for arguing in his 1953 book The Tudor Revolution in Government that Thomas Cromwell was the author of modern, bureaucratic government which replaced medieval, household government. This change took place in the 1530s and must be regarded as part of a planned revolution. In essence, Elton was arguing that before Cromwell the realm could be viewed as the King's private estate writ large and that most administration was done by the King's household servants rather than separate state offices. Cromwell, who was Henry VIII's chief minister from 1532 to 1540, introduced reforms into the administration that delineated the King's household from the state and created a modern bureaucratic government. He shone Tudor light into the darker corners of the Realm and radically altered the role of Parliament and the competence of Statute. By master-minding these reforms, Cromwell was said to have laid the foundations of England's future stability and success. Elton elaborated on these ideas in his 1955 work, the best-selling England under the Tudors, which went through three editions after its first appearance, and his Wiles Lectures, which he published in 1973 as Reform and Renewal: Thomas Cromwell and the Common Weal. His thesis has been widely challenged by Tudor historians and can no longer be regarded as an orthodoxy, but Elton's contribution to the debate has profoundly influenced subsequent discussion of Tudor government, in particular concerning the role of Cromwell."

 

RECOMMENDED BOOK

If you would like to read a new biography of Cromwell, here is an excellent study from one of the masters of the history of the Christian church in England.

 

 

RECOMMENDED BOOK:

Here is a great novel about Thomas Cromwell which has been adapted for TV by PBS.

 

 

Upon the death of Henry VIII he left three possible heirs: his son Edward VI who ascended to the throne without challenge; his eldest daughter Mary who followed her half-brother to the throne; and another daughter born to Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth. All three children had grown up under different mothers, different tutors, different religious advisors and in their diversity they reflected the possible directions of the English public in religious affairs. Although Edward VI had a short life, his reign was extremely important since he was a true Protestant, he knew what the Lutheran reformation meant, and he agreed with it.  So for a few years England became part of the larger Protestant movement. One very important person in his life was his dear friend Lady Jane Grey.  Her tragic story will also be part of this evening.

 

RECOMMENDED READING:

There is a very good new biography of Edward VI: The Boy King Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation, Diarmaid Macculloch

 

SEE BELOW THE MAGNIFICENT PORTRAIT OF LITTLE PRINCE EDWARD BY HANS HOLBEIN WITH FOLLOWING

He holds a golden rattle that resembles a sceptre; and the Latin inscription urges him to equal or surpass his father.

 

Henry VIII's will had made the succession very plain. First Edward, then Mary as the elder daughter, then Elizabeth. When Edward died on July 6, 1553, his successor was his half-sister Mary. Her accession was filled with public dispute most of it centered on her publicly proclaimed adherence to Roman Catholicism. And this meant that the whole nation was going to go through a massive religious reorientation after having just labored through six years of clear Protestant leadership.

 

RECOMMENDED READING:

 

Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, inherited a nation close to collapse. The revolutionary nature of her father's reign, the Protestant years of her brother Edward, and the Roman Catholic years of her sister Mary, had destroyed the unity of the nation. Enemies waited on all sides to strike at the weakened island state. In Rome, the international papal alliance of nations and church leaders plotted to keep England in the Roman Catholic camp. Spain, led by the widower of Queen Mary, plotted to stop the creation of a Protestant England. Within England, dozens of nobles plotted to take power out of the hands of a young woman. English Protestants returning from a Dutch exile now plotted to force the new Queen to purify the nation and bring it back to Protestant orthodoxy. Any political observer would have predicted disaster for the youthful, untried woman who inherited the leadership of Europe's most troubled nation. During the next forty-five years, she proved them all wrong.

 

SEE BELOW A LINK TO A COPY OF THE ELIZABETH CHRONOLOGY.

It will print out to 6 pages. Eliz I Chron

 

SEE BELOW A LINK TO A WEBSITE ARTICLE WITH ALL THE PORTRAITS OF QUEEN ELIZABETH

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portraiture_of_Elizabeth_I_of_England

 

 

REQUIRED READING:

READING ELIZABETH'S WORKS
About the poems, choose among them, we will read some in class.
About the letters, also, read among them for your pleasure.
About the Speeches, here are the most useful for our study:
Speech 1, p. 51, First Speech
Speech 2, p. 53, Passage through London
Speech 3, p. 56, First Speech to Parliament
Speech 5, p. 70, Queens's answer to the Commons
Speech 6, p. 79, Answer to the Lord's Petition
Speech 10, p. 105, Speech Disolving Parliament
Speech 13, p. 167, At the Close of Parliament
Speech 16, p. 181, At Close of Parliamnet 1585
Speech 17, p. 186, About Execution of Mary quen of Scots
Speech 19, p. 325, The Armada Speech
Speech 21, p. 328, At Closing of Parliament, 1593
Speech 23, p. 335, The Golden Speech 1601
Speech 24, p. 346, Last Speech to Parliament, 1601.

LECTURE NOTES:

At the right you will find a link to the biographical notes for our three lectures on Elizabeth. You will want to print out the six pages.

RECOMMENDED READING:

Among the thousands of books available to us on Elizabeth I want to recommend two biographies of Elizabeth:.

1. The Neale biography of Elizabeth is the classic. Prof. Neale was Astor Professor of English History at the University of London for many years. His biography of Elizabeth was first published in 1934 and it is still in print and still praised as the first perfect one in English. All other biographers of Elizabeth acknowledge their debt to Neale.

2. For a newer biography of Elizabeth you may enjoy Anne Somerset, Elizabeth I.

 

From the first moments of her reign, Elizabeth became aware of the dangers of religion in her realm. She knew she had to establish some middle road that would allow her Roman Catholic and Protestant citizens to both proceed with their religious duties unencumbered by the threat of the fires of "heresy." Unfortunately, neither the Protestants nor the Catholics wanted some middle way; they wanted it their way. Complicating matters was the succession: as long as Elizabeth continued single with no heir, her rightful successor was her cousin Mary Queen of Scots. Mary was rabidly pro-Rome. Thus England faced the possibility of another Roman Catholic Queen named Mary. This was intolerable to a huge majority of the English in 1560.

 

SEE BELOW A LINK TO A COPY OF THE ELIZABETH CHRONOLOGY.

It will print out to 6 pages. Use this in place of the previous PDF I sent out. I have corrected some dates on this PDF.

Eliz I Chron

 

SEE BELOW A LINK TO A WEBSITE ARTICLE WITH ALL THE PORTRAITS OF QUEEN ELIZABETH

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portraiture_of_Elizabeth_I_of_England

 

REQUIRED READING:

RECOMMENDED READING:

 

During our third evening discussing Elizabeth I, we will turn to the incredible story of The Armada of 1588. In 1587-88, one nation, Spain, led by Elizabeth's former brother-in-law, Philip II, took on the task of overthrowing the government of England. This was most unusual. Although Europeans nations warred with one another almost continually, there was a certain code among sovereigns that recognized that they were all in the same boat. And that a certain respect for the power of sovereigns required that one king treat with another king or queen as legitimate and as fellow royalty. In many cases they were also "family." The decision of King Philip II of Castile to organize a naval fleet of many hundreds of ships and thousands of soldiers set up one of the most important confrontations in all of early modern history. The two parties were badly mismatched. The population and territory of Spain was several times that of England. And the resources of the government of Spain drew on the riches of almost the whole world. England was small and its government was weak. All observers predicted the defeat and destruction of the government of Queen Elizabeth I. That the outcome of the Battle of 1588 was different than expected is owed to the leadership genius of one of the greatest sovereigns in all of European history.

 

SEE BELOW A LINK TO A COPY OF THE ELIZABETH CHRONOLOGY.

It will print out to 6 pages. Use this in place of the previous PDF I sent out. I have corrected some dates on this PDF.

Eliz I Chron

 

 

REQUIRED READING:

Spring Vacation (2 weeks) - No class March 17 to March 28
First class of Spring Quarter is Thursday April 3, 2025

The Wars of the Roses and the emergence of the Tudors.
House of York versus the House of Lancaster (Hen IV, Hen V, Hen VI)
The Tudors: A New Dynasty
A new modern government.
England in 1500.

RECOMMENDED READING:

The Tudor period of English history has received considerable attention from the historians and therefore you will find the selection of possible reading during our weeks on Henry VII and his family a bit daunting. You may want one book to help you sort through all the many interesting issues of the age and here is that book.

The Ridley book is a total pleasure to read and sensible in its organization. Ridley packs his 303 pages with immense learning and wit.

RECOMMENDED READING

When we begin this week, we will be jumping into English history just at the moment of the triumph of a new royal family: the Tudors. In order to understand how this relatively unimportant family emerged to dominate the whole of the 16th century in England, you need to study the Wars of the Roses. The best book I know on this complicated subject is the very good one by Dan Jones. It will give you the background you need in order to understand the monarchy of the first Tudor King, Henry VII.

Reviews

“It’s not often that a book manages to be both scholarly and a page-turner, but British historian Jones succeeds on both counts in this entertaining follow-up to his bestselling The Plantagenets. . . . He sets a new high-water mark in the current revisionism of the Tudor era.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Exhilarating, epic, blood-and-roses history. There are battles fought in snowstorms, beheadings, jousts, clandestine marriages, spurious genealogies, flashes of chivalry and streaks of pure malovelence. . . . Jones’s material is thrilling, but it is quite a task to sift, select, structure, and contextualize the information. There is fine scholarly intuition on display here and a mastery of the grand narrative; it is a supremely skilful piece of storytelling.”
—The Sunday Telegraph

“Jones’s greatest skill as a historical writer is to somehow render sprawling, messy epochs such as this one into manageable, easily digestible matter; he is keenly tuned to what should be served up and what should be omitted. And he still finds rooms for the telling anecdote and vivid descriptive passage. It makes for an engrossing read and a thoroughly enjoyable introduction to the Lancastrian-Yorkist struggle.”
—The Spectator

“Jones is a born storyteller, peopling the terrifying uncertainties of each moment with a superbly drawn cast of characters and powerfully evoking the brutal realities of civil war. With gripping urgency he shows this calamitous conflict unfold.”—The Evening Standard (London)“Jones tells a good story. That is a good thing, since storytelling has gone out of favor among so many historians. . . . He admits that the era is at times incomprehensible, yet he manages to impose upon it sufficient order to render this book both edifying and utterly entertaining. His delightful wit is as ferocious as the dreadful violence he describes.”—The Times (London)

The marriage of Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII is one of the most extraordinary royal pairings in all of history. Each of the two were unique, well educated, attractive, independent and accustomed to power. At first they lived a fable of young love. Later their clash changed a whole nation. The story of Henry and Catherine and her five successors are at the center of the reign of Henry VIII. Here below is the great Hans Holbein portrait of Henry painted in 1540 and now in the Galleria Nazionale di Arte Antica in Rome.

 
 

RECOMMENDED READING:

CATHERINE OF ARAGON:

HENRY VIII:

The story of Henry VIII and his six wives is an amazing personal story, but it contained the whole history of the reign and the varying fortunes of the several religious factions vying for his support.
His first wife, Catherine of Aragon, was Spanish and a loyal member of the international Roman Catholic Church. Anne was close to the Protestants and that closeness may have doomed her. Jane Seymore was careful and then she was gone so quickly. Catherine Howard was a dangerous, adulterous child and got herself executed for treason (All of this was against Henry's wishes. He really loved his child bride.) And finally, Catherine Parr, who was the most intelligent of all the wives, and also the most consciously Protestant. She came very near to being executed as Henry swerved to the Catholic conservatives in his last months. But was saved by the intrigues of other Protestants in the court.

The second of the six women who married Henry VIII was the brilliant Anne Boleyn. Her hold over the king was absolute up until the day she gave in to him and slept with him and produced a daughter. At that moment her hold began to wane, and her days were numbered. She survived only three years as Queen of England and her story is one of the most exciting and dangerous stories of all royal marriages. She risked everything for herself and her family and lost everything. But she did one great thing: she gave birth to the greatest English monarch of all time: Elizabeth I.

RECOMMENDED READING

The "divorce" (we call it a divorce but in 16th century terms it was an annulment) between Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon  brought to England an unforeseen revolution in both government and religion. The two men who helped Henry engineer this divorce are the two men we now turn to in our story: Thomas Cranmer, the religious expert, and Thomas Cromwell, the political expert. These two men helped Henry get his divorce, but in the process they pushed Henry into two different kinds of revolutions, neither of which did Henry have any intention of starting. Thus both men were playing a dangerous game with Henry. He did not like being pushed into anything, as Anne Boleyn learned to her sorrow. Butt these four people, Henry and Anne and Cranmer and Cromwell changed England forever and brought their nation rushing toward modernity at a faster pace than all of the other European rivals.

The English Reformation is a totally different thing than the Reformation in Germany. The Lutheran movement was led by a radical Roman Catholic professor. The English Reformation was led by the King of England. The English Reformation is therefore highly political and entwined with royal policy and international politics. The hero of the Reformation in England is not the king, but rather the courageous and brilliant Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer. You see his portrait at the right painted in 1546 by the artist Gerard Flicke and now in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

The English Reformation.
The Reformation and the Divorce.
The Reformation and radical politics.
Thomas Cromwell (Don't mix him up with Oliver Cromwell of the 17th century.)

RECOMMENDED READING:

1. The finest history of the English Reformation ever written is still in print:

2. Also from A. G. Dickens is his excellent book on the role of Thomas Cromwell in the Reformation. Thomas Cromwell and the English Reformation. This book is out of print but there are used copies available.

Institute Library Call Number: 942.052 Dic CROM

3. In addition to the two fine books from A.G. Dickens, there is a spectacular giant of a book which provides us with a great biography of Thomas Cranmer.

 

 

Our subject tonight is one of the most complex and fascinating politicians of the early modern world: Thomas Cromwell. He was brilliant, creative, progressive, modern, and also dark and ruthless and shockingly unscrupulous. See at the bottom of the page the brilliant portrait of Cromwell painted by Hans Holdbein and now in the Frick collection in New York City.

The historian who revealed more about Cromwell than all the previous English historians combined, was G. R. Elton whose book The Tudor Revolution in Government brought about its own revolution in the writing of history about Tudor government.

From Wikipedia article on Sir Geoffrey Elton:

"Elton focused primarily on the life of Henry VIII, but made significant contributions to the study of Queen Elizabeth I. Elton was most famous for arguing in his 1953 book The Tudor Revolution in Government that Thomas Cromwell was the author of modern, bureaucratic government which replaced medieval, household government. This change took place in the 1530s and must be regarded as part of a planned revolution. In essence, Elton was arguing that before Cromwell the realm could be viewed as the King's private estate writ large and that most administration was done by the King's household servants rather than separate state offices. Cromwell, who was Henry VIII's chief minister from 1532 to 1540, introduced reforms into the administration that delineated the King's household from the state and created a modern bureaucratic government. He shone Tudor light into the darker corners of the Realm and radically altered the role of Parliament and the competence of Statute. By master-minding these reforms, Cromwell was said to have laid the foundations of England's future stability and success. Elton elaborated on these ideas in his 1955 work, the best-selling England under the Tudors, which went through three editions after its first appearance, and his Wiles Lectures, which he published in 1973 as Reform and Renewal: Thomas Cromwell and the Common Weal. His thesis has been widely challenged by Tudor historians and can no longer be regarded as an orthodoxy, but Elton's contribution to the debate has profoundly influenced subsequent discussion of Tudor government, in particular concerning the role of Cromwell."

 

RECOMMENDED BOOK

If you would like to read a new biography of Cromwell, here is an excellent study from one of the masters of the history of the Christian church in England.

 

 

RECOMMENDED BOOK:

Here is a great novel about Thomas Cromwell which has been adapted for TV by PBS.

 

 

Upon the death of Henry VIII he left three possible heirs: his son Edward VI who ascended to the throne without challenge; his eldest daughter Mary who followed her half-brother to the throne; and another daughter born to Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth. All three children had grown up under different mothers, different tutors, different religious advisors and in their diversity they reflected the possible directions of the English public in religious affairs. Although Edward VI had a short life, his reign was extremely important since he was a true Protestant, he knew what the Lutheran reformation meant, and he agreed with it.  So for a few years England became part of the larger Protestant movement. One very important person in his life was his dear friend Lady Jane Grey.  Her tragic story will also be part of this evening.

 

RECOMMENDED READING:

There is a very good new biography of Edward VI: The Boy King Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation, Diarmaid Macculloch

 

SEE BELOW THE MAGNIFICENT PORTRAIT OF LITTLE PRINCE EDWARD BY HANS HOLBEIN WITH FOLLOWING

He holds a golden rattle that resembles a sceptre; and the Latin inscription urges him to equal or surpass his father.

 

Henry VIII's will had made the succession very plain. First Edward, then Mary as the elder daughter, then Elizabeth. When Edward died on July 6, 1553, his successor was his half-sister Mary. Her accession was filled with public dispute most of it centered on her publicly proclaimed adherence to Roman Catholicism. And this meant that the whole nation was going to go through a massive religious reorientation after having just labored through six years of clear Protestant leadership.

 

RECOMMENDED READING:

 

Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, inherited a nation close to collapse. The revolutionary nature of her father's reign, the Protestant years of her brother Edward, and the Roman Catholic years of her sister Mary, had destroyed the unity of the nation. Enemies waited on all sides to strike at the weakened island state. In Rome, the international papal alliance of nations and church leaders plotted to keep England in the Roman Catholic camp. Spain, led by the widower of Queen Mary, plotted to stop the creation of a Protestant England. Within England, dozens of nobles plotted to take power out of the hands of a young woman. English Protestants returning from a Dutch exile now plotted to force the new Queen to purify the nation and bring it back to Protestant orthodoxy. Any political observer would have predicted disaster for the youthful, untried woman who inherited the leadership of Europe's most troubled nation. During the next forty-five years, she proved them all wrong.

 

SEE BELOW A LINK TO A COPY OF THE ELIZABETH CHRONOLOGY.

It will print out to 6 pages. Eliz I Chron

 

SEE BELOW A LINK TO A WEBSITE ARTICLE WITH ALL THE PORTRAITS OF QUEEN ELIZABETH

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portraiture_of_Elizabeth_I_of_England

 

 

REQUIRED READING:

READING ELIZABETH'S WORKS
About the poems, choose among them, we will read some in class.
About the letters, also, read among them for your pleasure.
About the Speeches, here are the most useful for our study:
Speech 1, p. 51, First Speech
Speech 2, p. 53, Passage through London
Speech 3, p. 56, First Speech to Parliament
Speech 5, p. 70, Queens's answer to the Commons
Speech 6, p. 79, Answer to the Lord's Petition
Speech 10, p. 105, Speech Disolving Parliament
Speech 13, p. 167, At the Close of Parliament
Speech 16, p. 181, At Close of Parliamnet 1585
Speech 17, p. 186, About Execution of Mary quen of Scots
Speech 19, p. 325, The Armada Speech
Speech 21, p. 328, At Closing of Parliament, 1593
Speech 23, p. 335, The Golden Speech 1601
Speech 24, p. 346, Last Speech to Parliament, 1601.

LECTURE NOTES:

At the right you will find a link to the biographical notes for our three lectures on Elizabeth. You will want to print out the six pages.

RECOMMENDED READING:

Among the thousands of books available to us on Elizabeth I want to recommend two biographies of Elizabeth:.

1. The Neale biography of Elizabeth is the classic. Prof. Neale was Astor Professor of English History at the University of London for many years. His biography of Elizabeth was first published in 1934 and it is still in print and still praised as the first perfect one in English. All other biographers of Elizabeth acknowledge their debt to Neale.

2. For a newer biography of Elizabeth you may enjoy Anne Somerset, Elizabeth I.

 

From the first moments of her reign, Elizabeth became aware of the dangers of religion in her realm. She knew she had to establish some middle road that would allow her Roman Catholic and Protestant citizens to both proceed with their religious duties unencumbered by the threat of the fires of "heresy." Unfortunately, neither the Protestants nor the Catholics wanted some middle way; they wanted it their way. Complicating matters was the succession: as long as Elizabeth continued single with no heir, her rightful successor was her cousin Mary Queen of Scots. Mary was rabidly pro-Rome. Thus England faced the possibility of another Roman Catholic Queen named Mary. This was intolerable to a huge majority of the English in 1560.

 

SEE BELOW A LINK TO A COPY OF THE ELIZABETH CHRONOLOGY.

It will print out to 6 pages. Use this in place of the previous PDF I sent out. I have corrected some dates on this PDF.

Eliz I Chron

 

SEE BELOW A LINK TO A WEBSITE ARTICLE WITH ALL THE PORTRAITS OF QUEEN ELIZABETH

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portraiture_of_Elizabeth_I_of_England

 

REQUIRED READING:

RECOMMENDED READING:

 

During our third evening discussing Elizabeth I, we will turn to the incredible story of The Armada of 1588. In 1587-88, one nation, Spain, led by Elizabeth's former brother-in-law, Philip II, took on the task of overthrowing the government of England. This was most unusual. Although Europeans nations warred with one another almost continually, there was a certain code among sovereigns that recognized that they were all in the same boat. And that a certain respect for the power of sovereigns required that one king treat with another king or queen as legitimate and as fellow royalty. In many cases they were also "family." The decision of King Philip II of Castile to organize a naval fleet of many hundreds of ships and thousands of soldiers set up one of the most important confrontations in all of early modern history. The two parties were badly mismatched. The population and territory of Spain was several times that of England. And the resources of the government of Spain drew on the riches of almost the whole world. England was small and its government was weak. All observers predicted the defeat and destruction of the government of Queen Elizabeth I. That the outcome of the Battle of 1588 was different than expected is owed to the leadership genius of one of the greatest sovereigns in all of European history.

 

SEE BELOW A LINK TO A COPY OF THE ELIZABETH CHRONOLOGY.

It will print out to 6 pages. Use this in place of the previous PDF I sent out. I have corrected some dates on this PDF.

Eliz I Chron

 

 

REQUIRED READING:

Spring Vacation (2 weeks) - No class March 17 to March 28
First class of Spring Quarter is Thursday April 3, 2025