Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History

by Bucholz, Robert

  This Seat of Mars – and Less Happier Lands

  Up to this point, we have generally referred to “England,” not Britain. Non- Britons sometimes use the terms “English” and “British” interchangeably, but, as indicated above, that is both inaccurate and insulting to the four distinct cultures which inhabit the British Isles. These cultures, though dominated from London during most of the last few hundred years, are geographically, ethnically, and culturally distinct.

  England, to the south and east, is by far the most populous, the wealthiest and the most powerful country, politically and militarily, in the British Isles. We will explore England’s internal geography and topography later in this introduction. For now, the important thing to remember is that this is the part of the British Isles closest to Europe, and, therefore, most easily invaded and colonized. As indicated previously, the land that would come to be known as England was, like the rest of the British Isles, settled by Celtic peoples who came over in many waves prior to about 200 BCE.2 From this point England’s experience differs from that of Scotland to the north, Wales to the west, or Ireland further west across the Irish Sea (see map 1). Because of England’s proximity to Europe and relatively mild terrain, it continued to experience invasions and migrations – by the Romans, by the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, by the Danes, and by the Norman French. As a result, England developed along a different track from the other lands of the British Isles, for each of these movements brought a new way of organizing society and government, a new language and culture, and, eventually, the assimilation of a new people and their ways.

  In particular, precisely because it was repeatedly threatened with invasion, the people of southeastern Britain (i.e., England) experienced increasing centralization. During the Anglo-Saxon period (410–1066 CE), a series of strong kings of the Wessex dynasty (most notably Alfred the Great, 848/9–99, reigned 871–99) established their control over the whole of “Angle-land.” In order to do this, and above all to repel a series of Viking invasions in the ninth and tenth centuries, they had to develop an efficient military and a reliable system of taxation to support it – or to buy off the invaders when they did not choose to fight. Readers of Beowulf know that Anglo-Saxon tribal kings had always relied upon small bands of noblemen (eventually called thegns), associated with their households, for their military force. Alfred, who came to rule not a tribe but a nation, needed a bigger, more national force. Thus, he established an efficient militia or fyrd, made up of the civilian male population serving in rotation, as well as a strong navy. To pay for their supply on campaign, Alfred’s successors developed an efficient land tax, called the heregeld.

  Anglo-Saxon kings also created institutions to enhance their control of England in times of peace. Thus, by 1066, they had established a capital at Winchester and divided the country into about 40 counties or shires (see map 2). Each shire had a “shire reeve” or sheriff, who acted on the king’s orders to collect the heregeld or raise the fyrd. He received those orders via royal messages called “writs,” which were sent out by the king’s chancellor and other secretaries, called clerks, working out of an office later called the Chancery. The yield from taxes was sent to the king’s Treasury, known as the Chamber because, at first, the king actually kept this money in his bedchamber. After the Norman Conquest of 1066, William the Conqueror (1066–87) and his successors moved the capital to London, but otherwise embraced this administrative system and improved it. These developments tended to make England a more centralized and unified country, and to make the king’s authority more efficient and secure. Admittedly, that process was still incomplete as this book opens in 1485, for the king’s authority was weak in many frontier areas in the north and west, where powerful nobles held sway.

  Still, nothing like this process took place in Scotland, Ireland, Wales (or, for that matter, Cornwall in the remote West). Located farther away from continental Europe, more mountainous or boggy and difficult of access, these regions did not experience large-scale invasions or migrations until much later. Migratory groups might launch periodic attempts at individual settlement, but there was little mass displacement of population, settling down, or intermarriage before about 1150. These lands were therefore not subjected to the cultural clashes and transformations experienced by medieval England. They remained Celtic in culture and, to a great extent, language well into the Middle Ages.

  Nor did strong centralized kingship emerge in these countries as in England. Once again, their harsher climates, poorer soils, and rougher topography (craggy, boggy, forested) made agriculture more difficult and worked against the growth of a central court city, large urban administrative centers, nucleated villages, or easy communication. Rather, people lived in isolated settlements, far from each other. This made it difficult for even a strong ruler to gain the cooperation or loyalty of his subjects. During the Middle Ages there arose a king of Scotland, a high-king of Ireland, and a prince of (North) Wales, but most people’s effective loyalty went to their individual tribe or, later, their clan or (in Ireland) their sept. A clan or sept was a political and social unit whose members claimed to be descended from a common ancestor; in practice, many had no blood relationship to each other. Rather, most clansmen were simply the tenants of their chief. Like an extended family, the clan provided sustenance, protection, and a sense of belonging, sometimes over very long distances, in return for loyalty and, especially, military service. This system left no room for a powerful sovereign or overarching “national” institutions. Rather, rival clans often fought long, bloody feuds, sometimes over broad issues such as the Crown of Scotland or the principality of Wales, but more often over local dominance, land, cattle, or women.

  As a result, when the medieval English began to move aggressively into the Celtic lands, there was no strong unifying power or national institutions to stop them. Indeed, some clans found it convenient to collaborate with the English Crown, in order to gain a powerful ally in their feuds against rival clans. This disunity and disorganization, combined with English wealth and military efficiency, enabled the English gradually to dominate the whole archipelago – though never easily. For example, it took a century of warfare before King Edward I (1239–1307; reigned 1272–1307) managed to unite the principality of Wales to England by the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284. In future, there would be a prince of Wales, but he would be the eldest son of the king of England. English criminal law was imposed, though the Welsh were allowed to retain their civil law until the early sixteenth century. The English established government centers at Caernarvon and Carmarthen, divided outlying parts of Wales into shires (see map 2), and filled high government offices with Englishmen. To maintain their authority, late-medieval English kings relied on English settlers who displaced the native population from the fertile valley areas to the rugged uplands, as well as powerful nobles who lived along the Anglo-Welsh border and the south coast. This borderland area was known as the Welsh Marches (a term probably derived from “mark” or boundary) and these nobles came to be known as Marcher Lords. Later, the early Tudors (1485–1547) abolished the Marcher lordships, imposed the full structure of English counties and sheriffs, and, after the Reformation, established a Protestant Church in Wales (see chapter 2). But the Welsh retained their language and many of their cultural traditions. Southern Wales, closest to England, is the most populous and wealthiest part of the country – at the beginning of our period because of its rich farmland, at the end because of its rich coal deposits. Northern Wales is more remote, less populated, less well integrated into the English political and economic system. Today, Wales remains part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and is ruled largely from London. But, since 1998, it has had a separate assembly to decide upon policy and administer some internal affairs.

  Map 2 The counties of England and Wales before 1972.

  Scotland resisted absorption by England all through the high medieval (1066–1330), late medieval (1330–1485), and Tudor (1485–1603) perio
ds despite a smaller population, a poorer economy, and a weaker monarchy.3 That monarchy had theoretically united the country toward the beginning of the eleventh century. But it had done so, in part, by seeking English help, won through marriage alliances and the assumption of feudal obligations to the English king. Moreover, the clans, especially in Scotland’s rugged northern Highlands, often paid little attention to their king’s wishes and sometimes allied with the English ruler against him. Disputes over royal marriages, the Scottish king’s subordinate feudal status, and the incursions of aggressive nobles on both sides of the border often led to wider conflict. In 1295 John de Balliol (ca. 1250–1314; reigned 1292–6) renounced his allegiance to Edward I and launched what became a series of wars for control of the northern kingdom. King Edward defeated the Scots at Dunbar in 1296 and crushed another rebellion led by Sir William Wallace (aka “Braveheart”; d. 1305) in 1303, but the struggle was revived by Robert the Bruce (1274–1329; reigned 1306–29). Bruce’s resounding victory over the English at the battle of Bannockburn in 1314 paved the way for the reestablishment of Scottish independence under a Scottish king, recognized by the Treaty of Edinburgh of 1328.

  Over the next three centuries the English tried repeatedly to reverse the results of Bannockburn, while the Scots returned the favor by interfering in English politics. As we shall see, the Tudor kings of England, in particular, sought to control Scotland, sometimes through conquest, sometimes through diplomatic marriage (see chapters 1–4). They did so because they were tempted by Scotland’s relative poverty and small population; because they wanted to pacify the 110-mile Anglo- Scottish border; because traitors to the English king could always find refuge with the Scots; and because a hostile Scotland could be used by England’s greatest medieval rival, France, as a base from which to invade England. Franco-Scottish friendship was so longstanding that it became known as the “Auld Alliance.” Finally, in 1603, as we shall see in chapter 5, the Tudor dynasty died out and a distant relative who happened to be already the king of Scotland, James VI (1566–1625; reigned 1567–1625), became king of England as well. There he was known as James I and ruled from 1603 to 1625 (see genealogies 2–3, pp. 430–1). But the enmity between the two countries remained, in part because, though they both embraced Protestantism at the Reformation, they differed vehemently as to proper Church government and liturgy. The two countries continued to be governed by one monarch through separate institutions until the Act of Union of 1707 united England (and Wales) with Scotland in the kingdom of Great Britain. The union was controversial in the eighteenth century and remains so today: many Scots saw its economic benefits, but resented the loss of initiative to London. Scotland remains part of the United Kingdom, but for some years there has been a movement urging devolution (i.e., independent government), and the Scotland Act of 1998 established a separate Scottish executive and a parliament with taxraising powers. Nevertheless, the northern kingdom continues to elect members to the Westminster parliament as well.

  In all this history, the relationship of Ireland to England and to Great Britain as a whole is the one that is most complicated and fraught with bitterness and tragedy – with profound consequences for the whole Atlantic world. Briefly, beginning in the Norman period, the population of Celtic or Gaelic Ireland was very gradually colonized and partly subdued by a small minority of English adventurers. Some Irish septs allied with the English newcomers, others opposed them. In any case, these new Anglo-Irish nobles soon became the dominant power in Ireland. Officially, they acknowledged the English king as feudal overlord of all Ireland, but, in practice, there was little to restrain their local control. Though they regarded the native Irish as uncivilized bandits, they gradually took up many of their customs, dress, and even the Gaelic Irish language. As a result, to the English across the Irish Sea, the independent Anglo-Irish looked very Irish; but to the native Irish (Gaelic) population, they were the English oppressors.

  Theoretically, that Gaelic population was relegated to second-class status: according to the Statutes of Kilkenny of 1366, the native Irish were forbidden to marry the English, excluded from serving in cathedral or collegiate churches, and even prohibited from speaking the Gaelic language if living among English settlers. (This was meant as much to preserve the Englishness of the Anglo-Irish as to quash the Irishness of the natives.) Within areas of English rule, the native Irish were excluded from the protections of the common law and membership in mercantile or craft guilds. But in reality, this harsh overlordship did not extend very far. By the time this book opens in 1485, the authority of the English monarchy in Ireland had been contracting; since the early fourteenth century it controlled only a small part of eastern Ireland around the city of Dublin, known as the Pale. To be beyond it was to be in an area dominated by feuding Anglo-Irish nobles, such as the Butlers, earls of Ormond, and the Fitzgeralds, earls of Kildare, and Gaelic septmen. English monarchs vacillated among delegating authority to these great families; playing them off against each other; or trying to break them and rule directly. This, plus Tudor attempts to push the Protestant Reformation on a predominantly Catholic population, resulted in a series of rebellions which reached their climax in the 1590s. They were put down by the English, but at great cost in lives and resentment. After 1608, the English Crown attempted to strengthen its control by displacing the Gaelic population of the northern counties (Ulster) with Scots Presbyterians. This forced plantation increased native Irish resentment while introducing yet a third interest group into this volatile mix. The result was more rebellions and English reprisals under Oliver Cromwell (from the conquest of Ireland in 1649 to his death in 1658) and William III (1689–1702).

  These events will be explored below. Their long-term result was the gradual reduction in the eighteenth century of the Catholic Irish to a state of servitude and economic misery under the domination of Protestant landowners. London, perhaps sensing that these landowners were acting not unlike the Anglo-Irish earlier, attempted to increase its control with the Act of Union, which, in 1801, absorbed Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Another century of English dominance and, in the eyes of many natives, misrule (for example, the British failure to support the Irish people adequately during the potato famine of 1846–51), culminated in the Irish (Easter) Rebellion of 1916. In 1921 the 26 counties of southern Ireland achieved semi-independent dominion status as the Irish Free State, moving, in 1949, to full independence as the Republic of Ireland. The six predominantly Protestant counties to the north (in the region known as Ulster) continue to be ruled from London in what is known, officially, as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. However, a sizeable and growing Catholic minority in Ulster, until recent years treated in law as inferiors to the Protestant majority, long chafed under British rule. Many Northern Irish Catholics, known as Republicans, support withdrawal from the United Kingdom and absorption into the Republic of Ireland. These demands were staunchly resisted by the Protestant majority, or Unionists, who wish to remain part of Britain. In the late 1960s these tensions boiled over into violence, known as “the Troubles,” which, in its most extreme form, was undertaken by paramilitary and terrorist groups, such as the Irish Republican Army (IRA) on the Republican side or the Ulster Defence Force (UDF) on the Unionist side. In recent years the British Crown and the Irish Republic have worked together to persuade representatives of both sides to accept governance by an independent legislature under the terms of a compromise known as the Good Friday Accords (1998). The basic question of Ulster’s ultimate political allegiance remains unresolved, as does the tragic legacy of Anglo-Irish animosity.

  Thus, the problem of central control vs. local autonomy, of London’s authority in all three kingdoms, will persist throughout the period covered by this book, and beyond. Today, it remains to be seen whether the English dominance of the archipelago achieved by 1714 will continue or whether Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland will go their separate ways as has the Republic of Ireland. The Catho
lic minority in Ulster apart, many inhabitants of these parts of Britain still feel resentment at the sense of being second-class citizens. Old prejudices across ethnic lines die hard. Moreover, in the 1980s the fiscal policies of Margaret Thatcher’s government did little to assist these regions, while reminding them of how economically dependent they were on England. More recently, the formation of a European Union has opened the prospect that Ireland, Scotland, and even Wales might be able to stand on their own feet economically within such a Union. This led to revived calls for devolution for Scotland and Wales, in addition to the already rancorous debates about the ultimate possession of the six counties of Northern Ireland. As we have seen, the British government has responded by granting increased measures of self-government to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland – with varying degrees of success.

  This England

  What of England itself? What is it like, physically; and how has its geography and topography influenced its history? In some ways, the regional tensions and issues of control noted above between England and the Celtic lands exist in microcosm in England, between the fertile and economically powerful southeast and the outlying parts of the country to the north and west.

  For the purposes of this discussion, southeastern England comprises London and what are now called the Home Counties (Middlesex, which includes London, and, clockwise, Hertfordshire, Essex, Kent, Surrey, Berkshire, and Buckinghamshire), as well as, a bit farther out, Bedfordshire to the north, Sussex and Hampshire to the south, and possibly Oxfordshire to the northwest (see map 2). This part of the country is relatively flat or is characterized (on the South coast) by gently rolling “downs.” It is the most fertile part of England because of its rich, deep soil, its milder weather, and its longer growing season, and this implies arable farming of grains like wheat and barley. Moreover, its many placidly flowing rivers allowed, in our period, for easy transportation. Add the fact that, since Roman times, it also contains London, the largest city and greatest port in the British Isles, and it will be clear why the southeast has always tended to be the wealthiest and most populous region. After the area was absorbed in the ninth century by the Wessex kings who united England, its economic importance and proximity to Europe naturally made it the seat of the nation’s capital (first Winchester, then London). Altogether, these features made the southeast the cultural center of the country as well. One major theme of this book is how this part of the country attempted to assert control over the rest. That attempt was successful to the extent that, when non-Britons think of England, they usually imagine a southeastern landscape; when they conjure an English accent, they tend to think of one from the Home Counties.