The Reformation

HOUSE OF TUDOR

1485 – 1603

Tudor rose

The symbol of the Tudor family when its members were the kings and queens of England (1485-1603). It was introduced by Henry VII when he became the first Tudor monarch, and was a combination of the white rose (the symbol of the House of York) and the red rose (the symbol of the House of Lancaster).

Henry VII (1457-1509) king of England (1485-1509). He succeeded Richard III and was the first Tudor king.

Born Henry Tudor, he was brought up in France. In 1485 he led a rebellion against Richard, defeated him at the Battle of Bosworth Field and became king. In 1486 he married the daughter of Edward, uniting the House of Lancaster (to which he belonged) and the House of York and so bringing the Wars of the Roses to an end. Although there were rebellions dur­ing his rule, including those led by Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck, Henry established greater order in the country, introduced a more modern system of government and greatly improved the country's financial position.

Lambert Simnel (c. 1475-1525)

A man who pretended that he had the right to be the king of England during the Wars of the Roses. He was persuaded by supporters of the House of York to pretend to be the Earl of Warwick, whose uncle was Richard III. Simnel was crowned king in 1487 in Ireland, and then invaded England with a small army. They were defeated by the forces of Henry VII, who pardoned Simnel and gave him a job in the royal kitchen.

Perkin Warbeck (c. 1474-99)

A man who claimed that he should be made the king of England because he was really Richard, Duke of York, brother of Edward V and the younger of the two Princes in the Tower. He was supported against the king at the time, Henry VII, by the House of York and by the king of France. He made several attempts to start rebellions against Henry VII but in 1497 he was captured, kept for a time in the Tower of London and later executed.

Henry VIII (1491-1547) king of England (1509-47) and son of Henry VII. He is one of the most famous of all English kings, especially because he had six wives.

For political reasons, he married Catherine of Aragon, the wife of his dead brother Arthur, just he became king. They had a daughter, later Mary I, but because they did not have a son who would be the future king, Henry decided to divorce. However, the Pope refused to give the necessary permission for this, so Henry took England out of the Roman Catholic Church and made himself head of the Church in England. This act, together with others such as the Dissolution of the Monasteries, were the beginning of the establishment of Protestantism in England.

Henry divorced Catherine of Aragon and married Anne Boleyn in 1533. They had a daughter, later Elizabeth I, but Henry had Anne executed for adultery. His third wife was Jane Seymour, who died giving birth to a son (later Edward VI). Henry married his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, for political reasons, but soon divorced her and in 1540 he married Catherine Howard. She too was executed for adultery. Henry's sixth and last wife was Catherine Parr.

As a young man Henry was known for his love of hunting, sport and music, but he did not rule well and the country was in a weak and uncertain state when he died.

Catherine of Aragon (1485-1536)

A Spanish princess who in 1509 became the first wife of King Henry VIII of England. They had six chil­dren, all of whom died soon after being born except for Mary I. Henry wanted a son to be the next king, and had the marriage annulled in 1533. The Pope did not agree with this, and the Reformation was a re­sult of the divorce.

Anne Boleyn (1507-36)

The second wife of King Henry VIII and the mother of Queen Elizabeth I. Her marriage to Henry against the wishes of the Pope led to England's break from the Roman Catholic Church and the start of the Church of Eng­land. However, when she failed to produce a son, Henry lost interest in her. She was accused of having affairs with other men, and her head was cut off.

Jane Seymour /'si:m3:/ (c. 1509-37)

The third wife of King Henry VIII. She married him in 1536, but died soon after the birth of their son Edward, who became King Edward VI.

Anne of Cleves (1515-57)

A German prin­cess who in 1540 became the fourth wife of King Henry VIII. They were divorced after six months.

Catherine Howard (c. 1521-42)

The fifth wife of King Henry VIII. He had her head cut off after they had been married for two years, when he found that she had had sexual rela­tionships with other men.

Catherine Parr (1512-48)

The sixth and last wife of King Henry VIII. She survived him by one year.

The Reformation

The 16th-century European move­ment, led by Martin Luther and others, to reform the Roman Catholic Church. Supporters of the Refor­mation opposed the political powers of the Pope and argued for a simpler religion with less ceremony and more emphasis on the authority of the Bible. In England, King Henry VIII appointed himself head of a new Protestant Church of England in 1534, mainly so that he could get divorced from his first wife and marry again.The new Church was support­ed by bishops such as Thomas Cranmer and Hugh Latimer, and became firmly established under Queen Elizabeth I. In Scotland, the strict Protestant views of John Knox and others led to the creation in 1690 of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.

Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556)

The first Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury. He was influenced by the ideas of Martin Luther, and sup­ported King Henry VIII over the ending of his mar­riage to Catherine of Aragon and in establishing the Church of England. He was responsible for the Book of Common Prayer and had a strong influence on the 'Reformation. He was killed by burning when the Roman Catholic Mary I became Queen.

Hugh Latimer (c. 1485-1555)

An English bishop who became one of the lead­ing figures of the Reformation in England. When Mary I became queen he opposed her Catholic pol­icies and was executed in Oxford by being burned, together with another bishop, Nicholas Ridley (c. 1500-55).

John Knox (c. 1514-72)

A Scot­tish Protestant leader. He began his career as a Roman Catholic priest but became a Protestant at the time of the Reformation. Because of his beliefs he was forced to live abroad for much of his life, and he met John Calvin in Geneva. When he returned to Scotland in 1559 he led the opposition to the Roman Catholic Mary Queen of Scots, and spent the rest of his life establishing the Church of Scotland.

The Act of Supremacy (in Britain)

An Act of Parliament in 1534 that made King Henry VIII the head of the Church of England. This left the Pope with no power in England.

The Dissolution of the Monasteries

The destruction or sale of build­ings and land belonging to religious communities in England by King Henry VIII between 1536 and 1541 after he became head of the Church of England. Henry wanted to make the Church less powerful and he needed money. Many people at the time felt that the Church was too rich and wasted its great wealth, so Henry had little difficulty in taking the Church's wealth for himself, although many fine old buildings were destroyed.

Cardinal Wolsey /'wulzi/ (Thomas Wolsey c. 1474-1530)

An English cardinal (= very senior Roman Catholic priest), who was Henry VIII's most import­ant political adviser in the first half of his reign. Wolsey became very powerful, but was dismissed by Henry when he failed to get the Pope's permission for the king to divorce Catherine of Aragon.

Thomas Cromwell (c. 1485-1540)

The chief minister to King Henry VIII during the 1530s. After the fall of Thomas Wolsey, Cromwell arranged the king's divorce from Cather­ine of Aragon and later organized the Dissolution of the Monasteries. In 1540, Cromwell was made the Earl of Essex, but four months later the King ac­cused him of treason and had his head cut off. Crom­well said at his execution that he died a Catholic.

Thomas More (1478-1535)

An English polit­ician, author and scholar. He became a friend of King Henry VIII who first employed him as a repre­sentative in foreign countries. In 1518 More became a member of the Privy Council, in 1521 he was made a knight, and in 1529 he became Lord Chancellor after Cardinal Wolsey. However, when the king de­cided that he, and not the Pope, was the head of the Church in England, More refused to accept this deci­sion. For this he was put in prison and then exe­cuted. He was made a saint in 1935.

Thomas More was also the author of Utopia (1516), in which he described his ideas of a perfect society. It was very successful all over Europe.

Edward VI (1537-53) the king of England (1547-1553). He was the son of King Henry VIII and his third wife Jane Seymour, and the half-brother (= brother by a different mother) of Mary I and Elizabeth I. He be­came king at the age of ten, so other people, called re­gents governed on his behalf. One of them persuaded him to change his will, giving the throne to Lady Jane Grey, but the plan failed and Mary became queen when Edward died. During this period, with Edward's support, England became much more strongly Protestant, so that Mary was unable to change it back to Catholicism.

Lady Jane Grey (1537-54) the queen of England for nine days (1553). She was a great-granddaughter of Henry VII and a Protestant. She was 15 years old when the Duke of Northumberland persuaded her to marry his son and persuaded the king, Edward VI, to name her as the next queen instead of his Roman Catholic sister, Mary I. Jane became queen when Edward died, but was soon put in prison by support­ers of Mary, and was later killed in the Tower of London.

Mary I (Mary Tudor 1516-58) the queen of England and Ireland (1553-1558). She was the daughter of King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, and became queen after the death of King Edward VI. Among her first acts as queen was the execution of Lady Jane Grey, who also had a claim to be queen. Mary was determined to bring back Roman Catholicism to England, and married the Catholic Philip II of Spain in 1554. Many Protestants opposed this, and she ordered hundreds of them to be burned to death, for which she became known as 'Bloody Mary'. Among those who died in this way were Thomas Cranmer and Hugh Latimer. Mary had no children, and after her death she was replaced by her half-sister (= sister by a different mother) Elizabeth I.

Mary, Queen of Scots (Mary Stuart 1542-87) the queen of Scotland from 1542 to 1567. She was the daughter of King James V of Scotland and the cousin of Queen Elizabeth I, and became queen of Scotland shortly after her birth. She did not rule Scotland until 1561 and was instead brought up in France, where she was queen briefly in 1559. She was a Roman Catholic, and after her return to Scotland be­came involved in religious disputes with Scottish Protestants. In 1567 she was forced to give up power in favour of her son James VI (later King James I of England), and moved to England where she was held as a prisoner. In the years that followed there were several attempts by Catholic groups to make her queen of England in place of Elizabeth I, and Eliza­beth finally ordered Mary's head to be cut off. Her adventures, love affairs and three marriages have been the subject of many books, plays and films.

Lord Darnley (Henry Stuart 1545-67)

The second husband of Mary Queen of Scots and the father of King James I of England (James VI of Scotland). Darnley is best known for his murder of Mary's secretary, David Rizzio, in 1566. Darnley was himself murdered the following year, probably by the Earl of Bothwell, who then took Darnley's place as Mary's third husband.

The Earl of Bothwell (c. 1536-78)

The third husband of Mary Queen of Scots. He was probably involved with her in the murder of her second husband, the Earl of Darnley, in 1567. When they got married three months after the mur­der, they were forced to leave the country and finally became prisoners until their deaths. Bothwell died in prison in Denmark.

Elizabeth I (1533-1603) the queen of England and Ireland (1558-1603), after the death of her sister Mary I. She is regarded as one of England's greatest rulers. The daughter of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth was an extremely strong and clever woman who con­trolled the difficult political and religious situation of the time with great skill. She once said to her sol­diers before a battle, 'I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a King, and of a King of England, too.' During her reign the country's economy grew very strong, the arts were very active, and England be­came firmly Protestant and confident in world af­fairs. However, Elizabeth is often seen as a very lonely figure and is known as the 'Virgin Queen' be­cause she never married, although she is known to have had relationships with the Earl of Leicester and, late in life, the Earl of Essex.

The Armada (also the Spanish Armada)

The group of 129 ships sent by Spain in 1588 to attack England. A group of British ships, led by Lord Howard of Effingham's Ark Royal and Francis Drake's Revenge, defeated the Armada in the English Channel. It was the first sea battle in history involving large numbers of ships, and was seen by the English as a great victory. The word ar­mada is now often used to mean any large group of ships: A small armada of fishing boats blocked the port in protest against the new regulations.

Francis Drake (c. 1540-96)

An English sailor who fought against the Spanish and was the first Englishman to sail around the world. After a suc­cessful career attacking and robbing Spanish ships in the Caribbean, he was given five ships by Queen Elizabeth I to sail around the world, attacking Spanish ships along the way. When he returned three years later (1580) in the only surviving ship, the Golden Hind, Queen Elizabeth made him a knight.

In 1587 the Spanish were preparing to attack Eng­land, but Drake led a surprise attack on the port of Cadiz and burnt the Spanish ships. When the Span­ish attack, known as the Armada, finally came in 1588, Drake was one of the leaders who defeated it. There is a popular belief that he was playing bowls when the Armada was first seen and that he calmly finished his game before turning his attention to the enemy.

Walter Raleigh (also Ralegh) (c. 1552-1618)

An English explorer, politician and sol­dier. He began his career fighting the Spanish and the Irish, and was made a knight in 1584 by Queen Elizabeth I. With her support he made several jour­neys to North America (1584-9) and South America (1595), bringing back tobacco and the potato, but failed to establish a permanent base there. After the death of Elizabeth he was put in prison for treason for 13 years, during which he wrote his History of the World (1614). In 1616 he was released by King James I to look for gold in South America. He was not suc­cessful in this, and when he returned he was pun­ished by having his head cut off. One of the most popular stories about Raleigh describes how he once spread his coat over a piece of wet ground so that Queen Elizabeth could walk over it.

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