Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History

by Bucholz, Robert

  14 Henry also had the proceeds of a French pension of £21,000 a year.

  15 Pope Adrian IV (d. 1159; reigned 1154–9) was the previous, and so far only, English pontiff.

  16 As a consequence, Henry’s sister and James IV’s widow, Margaret, became regent.

  17 The Amicable Grant would have claimed one-sixth of the goods of wealthy lay people, one-third of those of the clergy.

  2 (Dis-)Establishing the Henrician Church, 1525–1536

  1 Matilda was the only surviving child of Henry I (1068/9–1135; reigned 1100–35). In 1141, in the midst of a civil war against her cousin, King Stephen (ca. 1092–1154; reigned 1135–54), she briefly controlled the country. A few months’ rule allowed no time to prove herself, but sixteenth-century historical opinion held that those months were disastrous for England.

  2 For example, Henry Courtenay, marquess of Exeter, George Neville, lord Bergavenny (ca. 1469–1535), Sir Edward Neville (ca. 1482-1538), Margaret, countess of Salisbury, Henry Pole, Lord Montagu (ca. 1492–1539), Reginald Pole (1500–58), and Sir Geoffrey Pole (d. 1558) were all living descendants of either Edward IV or his brother, George, duke of Clarence.

  3 His mother was Elizabeth Blount (ca. 1500–ca. 1539).

  4 Technically, what Henry sought was an annulment (or actually a dispensation and an annulment, because of his previous relations with Anne’s older sister!), that is, a categorical statement that his first marriage violated canon law, was therefore invalid in the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church, and had, thus, in effect, never really existed. But contemporaries, perhaps tacitly recognizing that Henry and Catherine had really been married, usually referred to the king’s wished-for outcome as a divorce.

  5 Brandon had married Anne (d. 1512), the daughter of Sir Anthony Browne (d. 1506), to whom he had been contracted in his youth. This took place after he had married, by papal dispensation, Margaret Mortimer (b. 1466?), whom he abandoned before marrying Anne. In order to wed Mary Tudor, he had to secure an annulment of his marriage to Anne on the grounds that the previous dispensation had been invalid! This example provided some ammunition for Henry’s claim.

  6 This is disputable. Arthur is supposed to have commented to Henry that he had been in “Spain” on his wedding night.

  7 Quoted in J. Guy, Tudor England (Oxford, 1988), p. 115.

  8 See A. G. Dickens, The English Reformation (New York, 1964; 2nd ed., 1989); Dickens, Reformation Studies (London, 1982).

  9 C. Haigh, English Reformations: Religion, Politics, and Society Under the Tudors (Oxford, 1993), p. 28. See also J. J. Scarisbrick, The Reformation and the English People (Oxford, 1984); E. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, c.1400–c.1580 (New Haven, 1992; 2nd ed., 2005).

  10 D. MacCulloch, “England,” in The Early Reformation in Europe, ed. A. Pettegree (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 176–7; D. MacCulloch, The Later Reformation in England, 1547–1603, 2nd ed. (Basingstoke, 2001); E. Shagan, Popular Politics and the English Reformation (Cambridge, 2003).

  11 Quoted in J. A. Guy, “Henry VIII and the Praemunire Manoeuvres of 1530–1531,” English Historical Review 97, 384 (1982): 497.

  12 Quoted in J. J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (Berkeley, 1968), p. 299.

  13 Quoted in Guy, Tudor England, p. 155.

  14 Quoted in R. W. Chambers, Thomas More (Ann Arbor, 1958), p. 350.

  15 25 Henry VIII, c. 12, Statutes of the Realm, 3: 446.

  16 G. R. Elton, The Tudor Revolution in Government (Cambridge, 1953).

  17 In fact, Cromwell’s formulation is somewhat ambiguous on one point: is loyalty owed to the king as a person (Henry VIII himself) or is it owed to his office (the Crown) or perhaps to some even less personal concept like “the State” or “England”? Most contemporaries had not yet thought this through and it is highly doubtful that Cromwell had done so. Later generations would raise the question of precisely who or what was the proper object of those loyalties.

  18 Quoted in M. A. R. Graves, The Tudor Parliaments: Crown, Lords and Commons, 1485–1603 (London, 1985), p. 80.

  19 They were the courts of Augmentations, First Fruits and Tenths, General Surveyors, and Wards and Liveries.

  20 That is, native Welsh law did not distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate heirs. This led to tensions and violence over disputed lands.

  21 The quote is from Guy, Tudor England, p. 358.

  22 Specifically, this 1536 statute forbade bequeathing of land by will and guaranteed that a person having use of a piece of land was its legal owner. This meant that landowners (“users”) were now liable for certain fees and taxes which had previously been avoidable thanks to the fiction that the “user” was not the legal owner. Landowners resented elimination of this legal loophole.

  3 Reformations and Counter-Reformations, 1536–1558

  1 N. Harpsfield, A Treatise on the Pretended Divorce Between Henry VIII and Catharine of Aragon (Camden Society, London, 1878), p. 297.

  2 Throughout the following chapter, the word “Catholic” refers to the doctrine, traditions, clergy and laity of the Roman Catholic Church. Other Catholic or Orthodox traditions were nonexistent among the native population of sixteenth-century England. “Protestant” will refer to the beliefs or persons of those who advocated reform of Christian doctrine, practice, or structure and rejected the authority of the pope to accomplish it.

  3 This had been sanctioned by parliamentary acts in 1536 and 1544.

  4 Calendar of State Papers, Spanish, 9: 18–21, quoted in P. Williams, The Later Tudors: England 1547–1603 (Oxford, 1995), p. 36.

  5 J. Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials, Relating Chiefly to Religion, and the Reformation of It (1721), 2, pt. ii: 352, quoted in Williams, The Later Tudors, p. 48.

  6 Lawrence Humphrey, quoted in C. S. L. Davies, Peace, Print and Protestantism, 1450–1558 (London, 1977), p. 281.

  7 She would be known as “Queen Mary” throughout her reign. She only came to be known as “Mary I” upon the accession of Mary II in 1689.

  8 Quoted in Williams, The Later Tudors, p. 104.

  9 Quoted in D. M. Palliser, The Age of Elizabeth: England Under the Later Tudors, 1547–1603, 2nd ed. (London, 1992), p. 381.

  10 Quoted from the 1563 title-page of Acts and Monuments.

  11 J. Foxe, The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe, ed. S. Reed Cattley (London, 1839), 8: 88–90.

  12 Quoted in The Oxford Book of Royal Anecdotes, ed. Elizabeth, Lady Longford (Oxford, 1989), p. 231.

  4 The Elizabethan Settlement and its Challenges, 1558–1585

  1 During her reign she was known simply as “Queen Elizabeth.” She only acquired her distinguishing Roman numeral after the accession of Queen Elizabeth II in 1952.

  2 Armigil Waad (ca. 1510–68), a former clerk of the Privy Council, quoted in P. Williams, The Later Tudors: England 1547–1603 (Oxford, 1995), p. 229.

  3 “Regiment” here means “government” rather than a crack troop of female fighters.

  4 Quoted in C. Haigh, Elizabeth I, 2nd ed. (London, 1998), p. 13.

  5 Attributed to Elizabeth in Haigh, Elizabeth I, p. 18.

  6 Quoted in Haigh, Elizabeth I, p. 24.

  7 Quoted in A. G. R. Smith, The Emergence of a Nation State: The Commonwealth of England, 1529–1660 (London, 1984), p. 121.

  8 Francis Bacon, quoted in Haigh, Elizabeth I, p. 42.

  9 See C. Russell “The Reformation and the Creation of the Church of England, 1500— 1640” in The Oxford Illustrated History of Tudor and Stuart Britain, ed. J. Morrill (Oxford, 1996), p. 280.

  10 Quoted in Haigh, Elizabeth I, p. 22.

  11 The booty was worth twice that amount, but Drake split it with a French privateer who helped in the capture.

  12 Her previous husband, the earl of Bothwell, had escaped to the continent and was languishing in a Danish prison. The pope would formalize their divorce in 1570.

  5 The Elizabethan Triumph and Unsettlement, 1585–1603

  1 “Elizabeth’s Tilbury Speech,” in The No
rton Anthology of English Literature, 6th ed. (New York, 1993), 1: 999. In fact, she would fail abysmally to keep the latter promise: see P. Williams, The Later Tudors: England 1547–1603 (Oxford, 1995), p. 324.

  2 Quoted in M. Nicholls, A History of the Modern British Isles, 1529–1603: The Two Kingdoms (Oxford, 1999), p. 273.

  3 Not to be confused with the later Nine Years’ War, 1688-97 which pitted England, Scotland, Ireland and the Grand Alliance under the leadership of Willim III against Louis XIV’s France. See chap. 10.

  4 E. Spenser, “A View of the Present State of Ireland” (ca. 1596, pub. 1633), quoted in Williams, The Later Tudors, p. 296.

  5 Quoted in Williams, The Later Tudors, p. 380.

  6 In 1576 the Commons themselves sent Wentworth to the Tower – an indication that most members were far more conservative and respectful of the queen’s sensibilities than Mr. Wentworth.

  7 Quoted in Williams, The Later Tudors, p. 360.

  8 Quoted in J. Guy, Tudor England (Oxford, 1988), p. 400.

  9 Elizabeth’s “Golden Speech,” November 30, 1601, quoted in J. E. Neale, Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments 1584–1601 (London, 1953), pp. 388–91.

  10 Quotations from Guy, Tudor England, pp. 445–6, upon which this paragraph is based.

  6 Merrie Olde England?, ca. 1603

  1 Below, the terms “aristocracy” and “aristocrat” will refer to the landed nobility and gentry together.

  2 See L. Stone, The Crisis of the Aristocracy 1558–1641 (Oxford, 1965); L. Stone, “Social Mobility in England, 1500–1700,” Past and Present 33 (1966): 16–55.

  3 The debate, which began with R. H. Tawney in 1941, is well summarized in L. Stone, Social Change and Revolution in England, 1540–1640 (1965). See, now, F. Heal and C. Holmes, The Gentry in England and Wales, 1500–1700 (Stanford, 1994), esp. chap. 3.

  4 Quoted in D. M. Palliser, The Age of Elizabeth: England Under the Later Tudors, 1547–1603, 2nd ed. (London, 1992), p. 82.

  5 Stone, “Social Mobility,” p. 24. For more conservative estimates, see J. Guy, Tudor England (Oxford, 1988), pp. 47–8; P. Williams, The Later Tudors: England 1547–1603 (Oxford, 1995), p. 203; and Palliser, Age of Elizabeth, pp. 81–3. For a more expansive one, A. Woolrych, Britain in Revolution 1625—1660 (Oxford, 2002), pp. 11–12.

  6 Quoted in K. Wrightson, Earthly Necessities: Economic Lives in Early Modern Britain (New Haven, 2000), p. 49.

  7 Quoted in A. Fletcher, Gender, Sex and Subordination in England, 1500–1800 (New Haven, 1995), p. 9.

  8 Quoted in Palliser, Age of Elizabeth, p. 77.

  9 Heal and Holmes, Gentry in England and Wales, p. 255.

  10 Arranged marriages of children, as opposed to adolescents, were extremely rare.

  11 William Harrison, quoted in K. Wrightson, English Society, 1580–1680 (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1982), p. 19.

  12 However, if one survived childhood, one stood an excellent chance of living through what we would, today, call middle age: that is, a person who lived to 30 years was likely to live another 30 or more.

  13 Essex Record Office, Maldon Borough, D/B3/3/397/18, cited in P. Fumerton, Unsettled: The Culture of Mobility and the Working Poor in Early Modern England (Chicago, 2006), p. 1.

  14 Quoted in A. Macfarlane, The Family Life of Ralph Josselin, a Seventeenth-Century Clergyman: An Essay in Historical Anthropology (New York, 1970), p. 165.

  15 See L. Stone, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500–1800 (London, 1977); R. A. Houlbrooke, The English Family, 1450–1700 (London, 1984); L. Pollock, Forgotten Children: Parent–Child Relations from 1500 to 1900 (Cambridge, 1983); and Wrightson, English Society, chap. 4.

  16 Quoted in Williams, The Later Tudors, p. 507.

  17 Such registers record marriage dates and baptismal dates. When a baptism occurred significantly less than eight months after marriage, it is safe to conclude that intimate relations had begun before the date of the ceremony.

  18 Quoted in Williams, The Later Tudors, p. 503.

  19 Quoted in Fletcher, Gender, Sex and Subordination, p. 194.

  20 Quoted in Wrightson, Earthly Necessities, p. 45; J. A. Sharpe, Early Modern England: A Social History, 1550–1760, 2nd ed. (London, 1997), p. 69.

  21 This paragraph follows Williams, The Later Tudors, pp. 206–7.

  22 Quoted in Heal and Holmes, The Gentry in England and Wales p. 140.

  23 R. Gough, The History of Myddle,ed. D. Hey (Harmondsworth, 1981).

  24 The Autobiography of Richard Baxter, ed. N. H. Keeble (London, 1974), p. 6.

  25 Quoted in B. Coward, The Stuart Age: England, 1603–1714, 2nd ed. (London, 1994), p. 79 (parishioners sleeping); and D. Underdown, Fire From Heaven: The Life of an English Town in the Seventeenth Century (New Haven, 1992), p. 81.

  26 Quoted in Palliser, Age of Elizabeth, p. 94.

  27 Quoted in Palliser, Age of Elizabeth, p. 92.

  28 Quoted in Williams, The Later Tudors, p. 513. In popular mythology, horns grew on the heads of cuckolds, i.e., husbands whose wives were committing adultery.

  29 Quoted in P. A. Fideler, Social Welfare in Pre-Industrial England (Basingstoke, 2006), p. 77. Much of this section is indebted to this work.

  30 This paragraph follows C. Roberts and D. Roberts, A History of England, vol. 1, Prehistory to 1714, 2nd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1985), p. 304.

  31 Surviving but fragmentary court records suggest that prosecutions were rising to about 1620. But this may reflect the increasing amount of criminal legislation and growing responsibilities and competence of JPs, constables, etc., as much as it does a real increase in actual wrongdoing on the part of the English people. See J. A. Sharpe, Crime in Early Modern England, 1550–1750, 2nd ed. (London, 1999), esp. chap. 2.

  32 Tudor Parliaments imposed the death penalty on rioters, damagers of property, clippers of coins, nocturnal hunters, and witches.

  33 One could only do this once and anyone who had escaped civil punishment in this way would be branded or, later, transported to the colonies.

  34 Quoted in Palliser, Age of Elizabeth, p. 365.

  35 Woolrych, Britain in Revolution, p. 43.

  36 Quoted in P. Clark, “The Alehouse and the Alternative Society,” in Puritans and Revolutionaries, ed. D. Pennington and K. Thomas (Oxford, 1978), p. 47. This and the following paragraph are based upon this article and P. Clark, The English Alehouse: A Social History (London, 1983).

  37 Additional legislation followed in 1563 and 1604. All such statutes were repealed in 1736.

  38 Only one section of K. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (New York, 1971) was devoted to witchcraft. A 1991 conference and resulting book reevaluated Thomas’s interpretation in light of further work: see Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe: Studies in Culture and Belief, ed. J. Barry, M. Hester, and G. Roberts (Cambridge, 1996).

  39 Figures derived from S. Inwood, A History of London (London, 1998), pp. 158–9. Note the discussion of the difficulties in estimating London’s population.

  40 Quoted in Coward, Stuart Age, 2nd ed., p. 31.

  41 The following paragraphs are based upon E. A. Wrigley, “A Simple Model of London’s Importance in Changing English Society and Economy 1650–1750,” Past and Present 37 (1967): 44–70; amplified by the discussion in Inwood, History of London, pp. 157–61; and Williams, The Later Tudors, p. 164. Many of the phenomena Wrigley describes clearly began in or applied equally to the period covered by this chapter.

  42 Quoted in Inwood, History of London, p. 204.

  7 The Early Stuarts and the Three Kingdoms, 1603–1642

  1 Unlike the first Mary or Elizabeth, James was proclaimed in England as “James the first” to distinguish his English from his Scottish title.

  2 L. Stone, The Causes of the English Revolution, 1529–1642 (New York, 1972), p. 146. Of course, since he wrote, scientists have done just that; perhaps there is hope yet!

  3 Quoted in S. Brigden, New Worlds, Lost Worlds: The Rule of the Tudors, 1485–1603 (New York, 2002), p. 163. />
  4 Quoted in B. Coward, The Stuart Age: England, 1603–1714, 2nd ed. (London, 1994), p. 122.

  5 Francis Osborne, quoted in E. S. Turner, The Court of St. James’s (London, 1959), p. 128. See additional contemporary comment in M. B. Young, King James and the History of Homosexuality (New York, 2000).

  6 Select Statutes and Other Constitutional Documents Illustrative of the Reigns of Elizabeth and James I, ed. W. G. Prothero (Oxford, 1913), pp. 293–5.

  7 Form of Apology and Satisfaction (1604), quoted in Constitutional Documents of the Reign of James I, 1603–1625, ed. J. R. Tanner (Cambridge, 1930), p. 222.

  8 Quoted in Tanner, ed., Constitutional Documents, p. 204.

  9 Quoted in Tanner, ed., Constitutional Documents, p. 221.

  10 Quoted in D. M. Loades, Politics and Nation: England, 1450–1660, 5th ed. (Oxford, 1999), p. 306.

  11 Quoted in P. Croft, King James (Basingstoke, 2003), pp. 61–3.

  12 In D. H. Willson, James VI and I (London, 1956), p. 171, quoted in R. Lockyer, The Early Stuarts: A Political History of England, 1603–1642, 2nd ed. (London, 1999), p. 31.

  13 Quoted in L. L. Peck, Court Patronage and Corruption in Early Stuart England (London, 1993), p. 13.

  14 Thomas Wentworth, 1608, quoted in D. L. Smith, The Stuart Parliaments, 1603–1689 (London, 1999), p. 108.

  15 Salisbury may not have been a paragon of virtuous retrenchment himself, given that his prodigy house at Hatfield cost £40,000 and that he derived at least £17,000 per annum from the profits of office.

  16 Quoted in A. G. R. Smith, The Emergence of a Nation State: The Commonwealth of England, 1529–1660 (London, 1984), p. 258.

  17 Quoted in R. Lockyer, James VI and I (New York, 1998), p. 95.

  18 Commons Protestation of December 18, 1621, in Tanner, ed., Constitutional Documents, pp. 288–9.

  19 He would become “Charles I” only at the accession of his son, Charles II (see chaps. 8–9).