British Monarchy and its influence upon governmental institutions
EDWARD VI (1547-1553 AD)
Edward VI, son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, was
born in 1537. He ascended the throne at age nine, upon the death of his father.
He was betrothed to his cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, but deteriorating
English-Scot relations prohibited their marriage. The frail, Protestant boy
died of consumption at age sixteen having never married. Edward's reign was
beset by problems from the onset. Ascending the throne while stillin his
minority presented a backdrop for factional in fighting and power plays. Henry
VIII, in his last days, sought to eliminate this potential problem by decreeing
that a Council of Regency would govern until the child came of age, but Edward
Seymour (Edward VI's uncle) gained the upper hand. The Council offered Seymour
the Protectorship of the realm and the Dukedom of Somerset; he genuinely cared
for both the boy and the realm, but used the Protectorship, as well as Edward's
religious radicalism, to further his Protestant interests. The Book of Common
Prayer, the eloquent work of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, was instituted in 1549
as a handbook to the new style of worship that skated controversial issues in
an effort to pacify Catholics. Henrician treason and heresy laws were repealed,
transforming England into a haven for continental heretics. Catholics were
pleased with the softer version of Protestantism, but radical Protestants
clamored for further reforms, adding to the ever-present factional discord.
Economic hardship plagued England during Edward's rule and foreign relations
were in a state of disarray. The new faith and the dissolution of the
monasteries left a considerable amount of ecclesiastical officials out of work,
at a time when unemployment soared; enclosure of monastic lands deprived many
peasants of their means of subsistence. The coinage lost value as new coins
were minted from inferior metals, as specie from the New World flooded English
markets. A French/Scottish alliance threatened England, prompting Somerset to
invade Scotland, where Scottish forces were trounced at Pinkie. Then general
unrest and factional maneuvering proved Somerset's undoing; he was executed in
September 1552. Thus began one of the most corrupt eras of English political
history. The author of this corruption was the Earl of Warwick, John Dudley.
Dudley was an ambitious political survivor driven by the desire to become the
largest landowner in England. Dudley coerced Edward by claiming that the boy
had reached manhood on his 12th birthday and was now ready to rule; Dudley also
held Edward's purse strings. Dudley was created Duke of Northumberland and
virtually ruled England, although he had no official title. The Council, under
his leadership, systematically confiscated church territories, as the recent
wave of radical Protestantism seemed a logical, and justifiable, continuation
of Henrician reform. Northumberland's ambitions grew in proportion to his gains
of power: he desperately sought to connect himself to the royal family.
Northumberland was given the opportunity to indulge in king making - the practice
by which an influential noble named the next successor, such as Richard Neville
during the Wars of the Roses - when Edward was diagnosed with consumption in
January 1553. Henry VIII named the line of succession in his will;next in line
after Edward were his sisters Mary and Elizabeth, followed by the descendants
of Henry's sister, Mary: Frances Grey and her children. Northumberland
convinced Edward that his Catholic sister, Mary, would ruin the Protestant
reforms enacted throughout the reign; in actuality, he knew Mary would restore
Catholicism and return the confiscated Church territories which were making the
Council very rich. Northumberland's appeal to Edward's radicalism worked as
intended: the dying lad declared his sisters to be bastards and passed the
succession to Frances Grey's daughter, Lady Jane Grey, one of the boy's only
true friends. Northumberland impelled the Greys to consent to a marriage
between his son, Guildford and Lady Jane. Edward died on July 6, 1553, leaving
a disputed succession. Jane, against her wishes, was declared queen by the
Council. Mary retreated to Framlingham in Suffolk and claimed the throne.
Northumberland took an army to capture Mary, but bungled the escapade. The
Council abandoned Northumberland as Mary collected popular support and rode
triumphantly into London. Jane after a reign of only nine days, was imprisoned
in the Tower of London until her 1554 execution at the hands of her cousin
Mary. Edward was a highly intellectual and pious lad who fell prey to the
machinations of his powerful Council of Regency. His frailty led to an early
death. Had he lived into manhood, he potentially could have become one of
England's greatest kings. Jane Austen wrote, "This Man was on the whole of
a very amiable character...", to which Beckett added, " as docile as
a lamb, if indeed his gentleness did not amount to absolute sheepishness."
LADY JANE GREY (10-19 July 1553)
The Accession of Lady Jane Grey was engineered by the
powerful Duke of Northumberland, President of the King's Council, in the
interests of promoting his own dynastic line. Northumberland persuaded the
sickly Edward VI to name Lady Jane Grey as his heir. As one of Henry VIII's
great-nieces, the young girl was a genuine claimant to the throne.
Northumberland then married his own son, Lord Guilford Dudley, to Lady Jane. On
the death of Edward, Jane assumed the throne and her claim was recognised by
the Council. Despite this, the country rallied to Mary, Catherine of Aragon's
daughter and a devout Roman Catholic. Jane reigned for only nine days and was
later executed with her husband in 1554.
MARY I (1553-1558)
Mary I was the first
Queen Regnant (that is, a queen reigning in her own right rather than a queen
through marriage to a king). Courageous and stubborn, her character was moulded
by her earlier years: an Act of Parliament in 1533 had declared her
illegitimate and removed her from the succession to the throne (she was
reinstated in 1544, but her half-brother Edward removed her from the succession
once more shortly before his death), whilst she was pressurised to give up the
Mass and acknowledge the English Protestant Church.
Mary restored papal supremacy in England, abandoned
the title of Supreme Head of the Church, reintroduced Roman Catholic bishops
and began the slow reintroduction of monastic orders. Mary also revived the old
heresy laws to secure the religious conversion of the country; heresy was
regarded as a religious and civil offence amounting to treason (to believe in a
different religion from the Sovereign was an act of defiance and disloyalty).
As a result, around 300 Protestant heretics were burnt in three years - apart
from eminent Protestant clergy such as Cranmer (a former archbishop and author
of two Books of Common Prayer), Latimer and Ridley, these heretics were mostly
poor and self-taught people. Apart from making Mary deeply unpopular, such
treatment demonstrated that people were prepared to die for the Protestant
settlement established in Henry's reign. The progress of Mary's conversion of
the country was also limited by the vested interests of the aristocracy and
gentry who had bought the monastic lands sold off after the Dissolution of the
Monasteries, and who refused to return these possessions voluntarily as Mary
invited them to do.
Aged 37 at her accession, Mary wished to marry and
have children, thus leaving a Catholic heir to consolidate her religious
reforms, and removing her half-sister Elizabeth (a focus for Protestant
opposition) from direct succession. Mary's decision to marry Philip, King of
Spain from 1556, in 1554 was very unpopular; the protest from the Commons
prompted Mary's reply that Parliament was 'not accustomed to use such language
to the Kings of England' and that in her marriage 'she would choose as God
inspired her'. The marriage was childless, Philip spent most of it on the
continent, England obtained no share in the Spanish monopolies in New World
trade and the alliance with Spain dragged England into a war with France.
Popular discontent grew when Calais, the last vestige of England's possessions
in France dating from William the Conqueror's time, was captured by the French
in 1558. Dogged by ill health, Mary died later that year, possibly from cancer,
leaving the crown to her half-sister Elizabeth.
ELIZABETH
I (1558-1603)
Elizabeth I - the last Tudor monarch - was born at
Greenwich on 7 September 1533, the daughter of Henry VIII and his second wife,
Anne Boleyn. Her early life was full of uncertainties, and her chances of
succeeding to the throne seemed very slight once her half-brother Edward was
born in 1537. She was then third in line behind her Roman Catholic half-sister,
Princess Mary. Roman Catholics, indeed, always considered her illegitimate and
she only narrowly escaped execution in the wake of a failed rebellion against
Queen Mary in 1554.
Elizabeth succeeded to the throne on her half-sister's
death in November 1558. She was very well-educated (fluent in six languages),
and had inherited intelligence, determination and shrewdness from both parents.
Her 45-year reign is generally considered one of the most glorious in English
history. During it a secure Church of England was established. Its doctrines
were laid down in the 39 Articles of 1563, a compromise between Roman
Catholicism and Protestantism. Elizabeth herself refused to 'make windows into
men's souls ... there is only one Jesus Christ and all the rest is a dispute
over trifles'; she asked for outward uniformity. Most of her subjects accepted
the compromise as the basis of their faith, and her church settlement probably
saved England from religious wars like those which France suffered in the second
half of the 16th century.
Although autocratic and capricious, Elizabeth had
astute political judgement and chose her ministers well; these included
Burghley (Secretary of State), Hatton (Lord Chancellor) and Walsingham (in
charge of intelligence and also a Secretary of State). Overall, Elizabeth's
administration consisted of some 600 officials administering the great offices
of state, and a similar number dealing with the Crown lands (which funded the
administrative costs). Social and economic regulation and law and order
remained in the hands of the sheriffs at local level, supported by unpaid
justices of the peace.
Elizabeth's reign also saw many brave voyages of
discovery, including those of Francis Drake, Walter Raleigh and Humphrey
Gilbert, particularly to the Americas. These expeditions prepared England for
an age of colonisation and trade expansion, which Elizabeth herself recognised
by establishing the East India Company in 1600.
The arts flourished during Elizabeth's reign. Country
houses such as Longleat and Hardwick Hall were built, miniature painting
reached its high point, theatres thrived - the Queen attended the first
performance of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The image of
Elizabeth's reign is one of triumph and success. The Queen herself was often
called 'Gloriana', 'Good Queen Bess' and 'The Virgin Queen'. Investing in
expensive clothes and jewellery (to look the part, like all contemporary
sovereigns), she cultivated this image by touring the country in regional
visits known as 'progresses', often riding on horseback rather than by
carriage. Elizabeth made at least 25 progresses during her reign.
However, Elizabeth's reign was one of considerable
danger and difficulty for many, with threats of invasion from Spain through
Ireland, and from France through Scotland. Much of northern England was in
rebellion in 1569-70. A papal bull of 1570 specifically released Elizabeth's
subjects from their allegiance, and she passed harsh laws against Roman
Catholics after plots against her life were discovered. One such plot involved
Mary, Queen of Scots, who had fled to England in 1568 after her second
husband's murder and her subsequent marriage to a man believed to have been involved
in his murder. As a likely successor to Elizabeth, Mary spent 19 years as
Elizabeth's prisoner because Mary was the focus for rebellion and possible
assassination plots, such as the Babington Plot of 1586. Mary was also a
temptation for potential invaders such as Philip II. In a letter of 1586 to
Mary, Elizabeth wrote, 'You have planned ... to take my life and ruin my
kingdom ... I never proceeded so harshly against you.' Despite Elizabeth's
reluctance to take drastic action, on the insistence of Parliament and her
advisers, Mary was tried, found guilty and executed in 1587.
In 1588, aided by bad weather, the English navy scored
a great victory over the Spanish invasion fleet of around 130 ships - the
'Armada'. The Armada was intended to overthrow the Queen and re-establish Roman
Catholicism by conquest, as Philip II believed he had a claim to the English
throne through his marriage to Mary.
During Elizabeth's long reign, the nation also
suffered from high prices and severe economic depression, especially in the
countryside, during the 1590s. The war against Spain was not very successful
after the Armada had been beaten and, together with other campaigns, it was
very costly. Though she kept a tight rein on government expenditure, Elizabeth
left large debts to her successor. Wars during Elizabeth's reign are estimated
to have cost over £5 million (at the prices of the time) which Crown
revenues could not match - in 1588, for example, Elizabeth's total annual
revenue amounted to some £392,000. Despite the combination of financial
strains and prolonged war after 1588, Parliament was not summoned more often.
There were only 16 sittings of the Commons during Elizabeth's reign, five of
which were in the period 1588-1601. Although Elizabeth freely used her power to
veto legislation, she avoided confrontation and did not attempt to define
Parliament's constitutional position and rights.
Elizabeth chose never to marry. If she had chosen a
foreign prince, he would have drawn England into foreign policies for his own advantages
(as in her sister Mary's marriage to Philip of Spain); marrying a fellow
countryman could have drawn the Queen into factional infighting. Elizabeth used
her marriage prospects as a political tool in foreign and domestic policies.
However, the 'Virgin Queen' was presented as a selfless woman who sacrificed
personal happiness for the good of the nation, to which she was, in essence,
'married'. Late in her reign, she addressed Parliament in the so-called 'Golden
Speech' of 1601 when she told MPs: 'There is no jewel, be it of never so high a
price, which I set before this jewel; I mean your love.' She seems to have been
very popular with the vast majority of her subjects.
Overall, Elizabeth's always shrewd and, when
necessary, decisive leadership brought successes during a period of great
danger both at home and abroad. She died at Richmond Palace on 24 March 1603,
having become a legend in her lifetime. The date of her accession was a
national holiday for two hundred years.
THE STUARTS
The Stuarts were the first kings of the United
Kingdom. King James I of England who began the period was also King James VI of
Scotland, thus combining the two thrones for the first time.
The Stuart dynasty reigned in England and Scotland
from 1603 to 1714, a period which saw a flourishing Court culture but also much
upheaval and instability, of plague, fire and war. It was an age of intense
religious debate and radical politics. Both contributed to a bloody civil war
in the mid-seventeenth century between Crown and Parliament (the Cavaliers and
the Roundheads), resulting in a parliamentary victory for Oliver Cromwell and
the dramatic execution of King Charles I. There was a short-lived republic, the
first time that the country had experienced such an event. The Restoration of
the Crown was soon followed by another 'Glorious' Revolution. William and Mary
of Orange ascended the throne as joint monarchs and defenders of Protestantism,
followed by Queen Anne, the second of James II's daughters.
The end of the Stuart line with the death of Queen
Anne led to the drawing up of the Act of Settlement in 1701, which provided
that only Protestants could hold the throne. The next in line according to the
provisions of this act was George of Hanover, yet Stuart princes remained in the
wings. The Stuart legacy was to linger on in the form of claimants to the Crown
for another century.
JAMES I (1603-25 AD)
James I was born in 1566 to Mary Queen of Scots and
her second husband, Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley. He descended from the Tudors
through Margaret, daughter of Henry VII : both Mary Queen of Scots and Henry
Stewart were grandchildren of Margaret Tudor. James ascended the Scottish
throne upon the abdication of his mother in 1567, but Scotland was ruled by
regent untilJames reached his majority. He married Anne of Denmark in 1589, who
bore him three sons and four daughters: Henry, Elizabeth, Margaret, Charles,
Robert, Mary and Sophia. He was named successor to the English throne by his
cousin, Elizabeth I and ascended that throne in 1603. James died of a stroke in
1625 after ruling Scotland for 58 years and England for 22 years.
James was profoundly affected by his years as a boy in
Scottish court. Murder and intrigue had plagued the Scottish throne throughout
the reigns of his mother and grandfather (James V) and had no less bearing
during James's rule. His father had been butchered mere months after James'
birth by enemies of Mary and Mary, because of her indiscretions and Catholic
faith, was forced to abdicate the throne. Thus, James developed a guarded
manner. He was thrilled to take the English crown and leave the strictures and
poverty of the Scottish court.
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