ENGLAND 1485 TO 1556 AD

 

Henry VII 1485 AD. Henry VIII 1509 AD. Dissolution of the Monasteries 1536 AD to 1539 AD. Edward VI 1547 AD. Mary 1553 AD. Elizabeth I 1556 AD to 1603 AD.

 

When was ‘The End of the Middle Ages in England’?

 

There is no date for the beginning or end of the Middle Ages. It is a period. Not a factual dateline. Many things overlapped such as the Anglo-Saxon methods of field farming.

 

Despite the victory of Henry ‘the Welshman’ Tudor over Richard III at Bosworth in 1485 AD, England did not change as radically as it did after 1066 AD. Unfortunately and despite the likes of Langland, Chaucer and Wycliffe, the Church went of juts as before. With its intolerances, unpopularity, and denunciation. It has to be wondered that when it came, why there was such little if any resistance to the dissolution of the monasteries.

 

Trade in the 1500’s still ran on the lines of the old mediaeval trade routes into northern Europe. The new look across the Atlantic to the New World Americas had not yet grabbed the English imagination. That would come later with Drake, Frobisher, Hawkins and Raleigh.

 

The English were French hating. Not yet Spanish hating. That would come with Mary ‘Queen of Scots’ and her dangerous liaisons.

 

The End of the Middle Ages comes with the Renaissance and in England the Reformation. That is the Elizabethan age, which combines both powerhouses of change from 1556 AD. It is, however, the massive changes during Henry VIII reign that provoke this gap between the old Mediaeval and the ‘new’.

 

Yet the Protestantizing and secularizing of England was completed after the Puritan Revolution in England as it was in the 1600’s.

 

1534 AD. England and the anti-clerical revolution.

 

John Leland travelled through England for nearly 10 years. 1534 to 1543 AD. He`saw dilapidation. Towns and castles falling apart. He detailed it in the Itinerary of John Leland. Like a version of William Cobbett’s Rural Rides. Civic pride was declining. Notable in the lack of investment in town walls, which could not survive Tudor cannon at any rate.

 

The Dissolution of the Monasteries and the English Reformation.

 

The Reformation was brought about by several factors at once. Education had provided increased secularisation at ever-lower levels. No longer the simple Yeoman or peasant. And serfdom had gone. National independence had seen a massive social and religious event. Massive estates were divided up amongst laymen. The modern London Royal parks such as Hyde Park and Richmond Park are what remains of old Monasteries. The wealth was divided up too.

It was not Protestants who did this. It was a huge anti-clerical movement. People had just had enough of the excesses of the clergy. A state of affairs that had been building for two centuries. It led to a counter revolution, a short lived Pilgrimage of Grace, led by clerics and others wanting the old religion back. It gathered as the largest army since the Wars of the Roses, but was eventually crushed by Henry VIII.

 

Erasmus.

The anti-cleric Erasmus at Oxford had educated Henry VIII. He and Colet hammered the clergy. In Praise of Folly Erasmus denounces Monks for:

 

‘a lot of silly ceremonies and paltry traditional rules.’

 

The Bishops, priests, friars and monks were also divided. They themselves partly agreed. The feeling against a Papal system, which had bled England for centuries also ran deep in laypeople and clergy. ‘Better the King than the Pope’ was the feeling. The old English Shieldwall of Hastings in 1066 AD had reformed in people’s minds against an outside force. UT! UT! UT! Almost the war cry again.

 

1536 AD.

 

The north of England did try and challenge Henry VIII’s decision to attack the clergy in the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536 AD. But, it was ruthlessly put down. However, More and Fisher died rather than see the Papal authority decline.

The Dissolution led to massive distribution of wealth. The coalfields of Durham and Northumberland, hereto owned by the Church, were divided up. But, the loss of clerical libraries was a great shame. Many monastic servants lost their jobs, but many were paid off for their cooperation. To deal with many ‘sturdy beggars’ (ex-soldiers and the like) who roamed free, Poor Relief was put in place paid for by levies to fill the gap where the monasteries had helped.

 

Grammar schools in Tudor England.

 

Both Latimer and Camden commented upon England’s Grammar schools, which were increasing in number. Uppingham

and Oakham were new ones. But an opportunity was actually missed to create an almost universal secondary education system hundreds of years ahead of its time, though people like Nicolas Bacon’s father of Francis bacon did set up free Grammar schools.

 

Population and Land in Tudor England.

A big cry if many is that the English are a very mixed people genetically. In fact after the Black Death the gene pool became a tighter factor across the whole island that England sits on. Deforestation and the huge bands of ‘sturdy beggars’ led to much mixing of that tight gene pool and an explosion in the population in Elizabethan times. After the Black Death land had been plentiful. Now people began to rework it with vigour. From coalmines of the north to tin mines of Cornwall. A common homogeneity was gained in England, which was to prove powerful later, as England was ahead of France, Germany and the rest of Europe, which retained servitude and serfdom. France with its Basques is far less homogenous amongst its aboriginal indigenous people than England is, due to a static population.

 

Enclosures of land began in earnest and many railed against it. As this often meant an increase in Land Rent. Thomas Trusser in his ‘A Discourse of the Common Weal’ says:

 

‘More plenty of mutton and beef
Corn, butter and cheese at best
More wealth anywhere
More people, more handsome and prest
Where find ye
Then there, where enclosures are most?'

 

Prices were irregular and unpopular. It was not until 1560 AD that prices began to stabilize.

 

The English Yeoman of Tudor Times.

 

‘Íf the Yeomanry of England were not the, in time of war we would be ij shrewd case. For in them standeth the chief defence of England.’

 

At Agincourt they beat the French. At Flodden they beat the Scottish invaders. They were the Tudor middle classes. And gave a good backbone of non-professional soldiery to call upon. Both Yeoman and Squire began to do well in Elizabethan times.

After Elizabeth broke The Rebellion of the Earls in 1570 AD along the Scottish border the old style nobles were gone. In their place came the Russells, Cavendishes, Seymours, Bacons, Dudleys, Cecils and Herberts.

There was toughness here, seen by the habit of making the sons go out into the world and earn a living, and not hang around the manor. Even taking apprenticeships. This is possibly an attitude that lingers today and provokes a pride to go and work. But equally estates were handed down to eldest sons such that huge estates were possessed by Hanoverian times.

Protestantism and The Protestant Religion in England.

The main attributes of the protestant religion were to exalt the family, and to dedicate oneself to business life as opposed to the catholic concept of celibacy and monastic separation. Otherwise it is juts a Christian as the Catholic faith. But, English Protestants rode on the back of success with increased economic progress. This type of Anglicanism idealized hard work, business and farming and dedicated them to God. Powerful stuff.

 

The English Royal Navy in Tudor Times.

 

Alfred the Great was the first to set up a standing English Navy. But cannon were beginning to change tactics. The Spanish Armada learned the hard way that old galleon style warfare was going. Fast tactical sailing that could cope with all weathers was the way forward.

 

The Tudor Court.

It was still the age of the tournament. And armour was still worn. But times were becoming more sophisticated. Henry VIII had a lively court for example. He was young and athletic. The court reflected this:

 

‘The dances were short, long tales of great delight;
With words and looks that tigers would rue’

 

The Elizabethan court ideal was ‘The Courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword.’  An all rounder. A loyal servant of the sate on land or at sea.