Historia Inglaterra: Chapter 10 - The Tudors

The birth of the nation state
The century of Tudor rule (1485-1603) is often thought of as a most glorious period in English history. Henry VII built the foundations of a wealthy nation state and a powerful monarchy. His son, Henry VIII, kept a magnificent court, and made the Church in England truly English by breaking away from the Roman Catholic Church. Finally, his daughter Elizabeth brought glory to the new state by defeating the powerful navy of Spain, the greatest European power of the time.
There is, however, a less glorious view of the Tudor century. Henry VIII wasted the wealth saved by his father. Elizabeth weakened the quality of government by selling official posts. She did this to avoid asking Parliament for money. And although her government tried to deal with the problem of poor and homeless people at a time when prices rose much faster than wages, its laws and actions were often cruel in
effect.

The new monarchy
Henry VII is less well known than either Henry VIII or Elizabeth I. But he was
far more important in establishing the new monarchy than either of them.
Henry VII believed that war and glory were bad for business, and that business was good for the state. He therefore avoided quarrels either with Scotland in the north, or France in the south.
Henry was fortunate. Many of the old nobility had died or been defeated in the recent wars, and their lands had gone to the king. This meant that Henry had more power and more money than earlier kings. In order to establish his authority he forbade anyone, except himself, to keep armed men.
Henry's aim was to make the Crown financially independent, and the lands and the fines he took from the old nobility helped him do this. Henry also raised taxes for wars which he then did not fight. He never spent money unless he had to. One might expect Henry to have been unpopular, but he was careful to keep the friendship of the merchant and lesser gentry classes. Like him they wanted peace and prosperity. He created a new nobility from among them, and men unknown before now became Henry's statesmen. But they all knew that their rise to importance was completely dependent on the Crown.
When Henry died in 1509 he left behind the huge total of £2 million, about fifteen years' worth of income. The only thing on which he was happy to spend money freely was the building of ships for a merchant fleet. Henry understood earlier than most people that England's future wealth would depend on international trade. And in
order to trade, Henry realised that England must have its own fleet of merchant ships. Henry VIII was quite unlike his father. He was cruel, wasteful with money, and interested in pleasing himself. He wanted to become an important influence in European politics. Henry VIII wanted England to hold the balance of power between France and Spain two giants. He first unsuccessfully allied himself with Spain, and when he was not rewarded he changed sides. When friendship with France did not bring him anything, Henry started talking again to Charles V of Spain.
Henry's failure to gain an important position in European politics was a bitter disappointment. Henry needed money. One way of doing this was by reducing the amount of silver used in coins. But although this gave Henry immediate profits, it rapidly led to a rise in prices.

The Reformation
Henry VIII was always looking for new sources of money. His father had become powerful by taking over the nobles' land, but the lands owned by the Church
and the monasteries had not been touched.
Henry disliked the power of the Church in England because, since it was an international organisation, he could not completely control it. The power of the
Catholic Church in England could therefore work against his own authority, and the taxes paid to the Church reduced his own income. Henry was not the only European king with a wish to "centralise" state authority.
In 1510 Henry had married Catherine of Aragon, the widow of his elder brother Arthur. But by 1526 she had still not had a son who survived infancy and was now unlikely to do so. Henry tried to persuade the pope to allow him to divorce Catherine.
Normally, Henry need not have expected any difficulty. But the pope was controlled by Charles V, who was and also Catherine's nephew. For both political and family reasons he wanted Henry to stay married to Catherine. The pope did not wish to anger
either Charles or Henry, but eventually he was forced to do as Charles V wanted. He forbade Henry's divorce.
Henry was extremely angry and the first person to feel his anger was his own minister, Cardinal Wolsey. In 1531 Henry persuaded the bishops to make him head of the Church in England. Henry was now free to divorce Catherine and marry his new love, Anne Boleyn. He hoped Anne would give him a son to follow him on the throne.
Like his father, Henry VIII governed England through his close advisers, men who were completely dependent on him for their position. But when he broke with Rome, he used Parliament to make the break legal. Through several Acts of Parliament between 1532 and 1536, England became politically a Protestant country, even though the popular religion was still Catholic.
Between 1536 and 1539 they closed 560 monasteries and other religious houses. Henry did this in order to make money, but he also wanted to be popular with the rising classes of landowners and merchants. He therefore gave or sold much of the monasteries' lands to them. Many smaller landowners made their fortunes. Most knocked down the old monastery buildings and used the stone to create magnificent new houses for themselves. Other buildings were just left to fall down.
Meanwhile the monks and nuns were thrown out. Some were given small sums of money, but many were unable to find work and became wandering beggars.
Henry proved that his break with Rome was neither a religious nor a diplomatic disaster. He remained loyal to Catholic religious teaching, and executed Protestants who refused to accept it.

Henry died in 1547, leaving behind his sixth wife, Catherine Parr, and his three children. Nine-year-old Edward was the son of Jane Seymour, the only wife whom Henry had really loved, but who had died giving birth to his only son.

The Protestant—Catholic struggle
Edward VI, Henry VIII's son, was only a child when he became king, so the
country was ruled by a council. All the members of this council were from the new nobility created by the Tudors. All the new landowners knew that they could only be sure of keeping their new lands if they made England truly Protestant.
Most English people still believed in the old Catholic religion.
Mary, the Catholic daughter of Catherine of Aragon, became queen when Edward, aged sixteen, died in 1553. A group of nobles tried to put Lady Jane Grey, a Protestant, on the throne. But Mary succeeded in entering London and took control of the kingdom. She was supported by the ordinary people, who were angered by the greed of the Protestant nobles.
She was the first queen of England since Matilda, 400 years earlier. At that time women were considered to be inferior to men. The marriage of a queen was therefore a difficult matter. If Mary married an Englishman she would be under the control of a man of lesser importance. If she married a foreigner it might place England under foreign control.
Mary, for political, religious and family reasons, chose to marry King Philip of Spain. It was an unfortunate choice. The ordinary people disliked the marriage, as Philip's Spanish friends in England were quick to notice. Popular feeling was so strong that a rebellion in Kent actually reached London before ending in failure. Mary dealt cruelly with the rebel leader, Wyatt, but she took the unusual step of asking Parliament for its opinion about her marriage plan. Parliament unwillingly agreed to Mary's marriage, and it only accepted Philip as king of England for Mary's lifetime. Mary's marriage to Philip was the first mistake of her unfortunate reign. She then began burning Protestants. Three hundred people died in this way during her five-year
reign, and the burnings began to sicken people. At the same time, the thought of becoming a junior ally of Spain was very unpopular. Only the knowledge that Mary herself was dying prevented a rebellion.
Elizabeth, Mary's half sister, was lucky to become queen when Mary died in 1558.

When she became queen in 1558, Elizabeth I wanted to find a peaceful answer to the problems of the English Reformation. She wanted to bring together again those parts of English society which were in religious disagreement. And she wanted to make England prosperous. In a way, she made the Church part of the state machine.

The area served by one church, usually the same size as a village, became the unit of state administration. People had to go to church on Sundays by law and they were fined if they stayed away. This meant that the parish priest, the "parson" or "vicar", became almost as powerful as the village squire. Elizabeth also arranged for a book of sermons to be used in church. Although most of the sermons consisted of Bible teaching, this book also taught the people that rebellion against the Crown was a sin against God.

The struggle between Catholics and Protestants continued for the next thirty years. Both France and Spain were Catholic. There was a danger from those Catholic nobles still in England who wished to remove Elizabeth and replace her with the queen of Scotland, who was a Catholic.

Mary, the Scottish queen, usually called "Queen of Scots", was the heir to the
English throne because she was Elizabeth's closest living relative, and because Elizabeth had not married. Mary's mother had been French, and Mary had spent her childhood in France, and was a strong Catholic. When she returned to rule Scotland as queen, Mary soon made enemies of some of her nobles, and to avoid them she finally escaped to the safety of England. Elizabeth, however, kept Mary as a prisoner for almost twenty years. During that time Elizabeth discovered several secret Catholic plots, some of which clearly aimed at making Mary queen of England.
It was difficult for Elizabeth to decide what to do with Mary. She knew that France was unlikely to attack England in support of Mary. But she was afraid that Spain might do so. So for a long time Elizabeth just kept Mary as a prisoner and Elizabeth finally agreed to Mary's execution in 1587. In England Mary's execution was popular. The Catholic plots and the dangers of a foreign Catholic invasion had changed people's feelings. By 1585 most English people believed that to be a Catholic was to be an enemy of England. This hatred of everything Catholic became an important political force.