Late-Mediaval Period and Early Renaissance England

Start of an opposition against the Church

1410

The reputation of the church is being harmed, because of its own power struggles (between the popes and his bishops), and corruption.

Henry VI rose to the throne.

1422

He became king at a very young age, 1 year old. During the years when he was a minor, the country was ruled by a council of nobles, bishops and barons.

Margaret gave birth to a son, Edward

1453

Henry’s only son, a real descendent from the Lancastrian House.

Henry suffered from his first bout of madness;

1454

When he actually came of age, he wasn’t a really good king. He didn’t care for the ruling of the country, he suffered from mental problems and was very religious and distracted. He was not a good leader. Because of his mental instability, the council became a strange place, a place where people were competing for more influence and power.
His madness was the perfect excuse for Richard to try to assert himself as the new most powerful man in the king’s court.

The War of the Roses

Period: 1455 to 1485

For 40 long years, England was ravaged by a series of civil wars. They were 2 families which descended from the Plantagenet family, the house of Lancaster and the House of York, which were both vying for the English throne.

First Battle of the Roses.

May 22, 1455

Leading to a Yorkist victory in St Albans. It is during this battle that Beaufort dies, and Henry is wounded and taken as a prisoner. Richard becomes Lord protector of England again. Margaret and her son flee to France to find refuge there.

Richard is killed during the Battle of Wakefield.

Dec 30, 1460

Edward IV dies.

1483

Henry Tudor defeats Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth.

Aug 22, 1485

He becomes Henry VII after Richard III’s death. Legend says that the crown was placed on Henry’s head at the very spot where Richard was killed.
As a last act, Henry VII decides that the time of war is over. As a sign of reconciliation between the 2 families, he marries Elizabeth of York. This puts a formal end to this long-standing feud between the two Houses. And the new emblem, symbol of this dynasty, is of White and Red Roses together. A unified symbol for the Tudor dynasty.

Luther Martin’s ideas reach England.

1520

They were mostly discussed by the White Horse group, and they are open to an opportunity to change. They welcome this new questioning of the Church, religion, of how things were done in the past.
Everything that the church had done in the past, ceremonies, rituals, sacraments, was challenged. And the idea of salvation and miracle was also radically questioned.
We are presented with a harsher view of humanity.

Henry VIII is given the title of "Defender of the Faith" by the pope.

1521

Henry VIII is given the title of "Defender of the Faith" by the pope after he wrote a treatise called "Defence of the seven sacraments". It attacked the theological positions of Luther.
And yet, he was going to be the man who broke away from Rome and the Church because he desperately needed a son.

The pope refuses to grant Henry VIII's divorce.

1527

His marriage was not the best and he eventually married a younger woman, Ann Boleyn, who had very strong protestant sympathies. He asks for divorce to the pope, but he refuses. So the situation gets worse because Ann gets pregnant, and he needs to marry to make the child legitimate. He does a very subversive thing, he ignores the pope and asks the archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, a man open to protestantism, to grant him the divorce. Which will be conceded.

Henry VIII becomes Supreme Head of the Church of England.

1534

He is made Supreme Head of the Church of England by passing the Act of Supremacy.

William Tyndale is executed.

1536

William Tyndale doesn’t heed the ban of the church and prints an English ’new testaments’. He will pay that with his life, he is executed by strangulation in 1546, put on a stake and burned.
With his revolutionary action, he became the man who launched the English reformation.

Ann Boleyn is beheaded

1536

She is falsely accused to having an improper relationship with her brother, as a plot, and is beheaded in 1536. So now two women have passed in Henry’s life, there will be another 4 (so 6 women).

Act of expropriation to assert the king's power.

Period: 1536 to 1540

About 850 churches and monasteries were destroyed or assessed and sold with the land.

Henry VIII dies

1547

Act of Uniformity

1549

Mary I dies childless

1558

Elizabeth I is crowned Queen

1558

The Elizabethan settlements

1559

New Act of Supremacy

1559

The Elizabethan settlements

1563

Elizabeth asked the Civil Service to take an Oath of loyalty.

1571

They had to agree to her settlements, and if they didn’t accept them, they had to resign. She made great effort to stress the fact that she did it in the name of religious reconciliation. She indeed retained some Catholic traditions, and Catholics were not persecuted overall... If they abode by the new settlements and respected the state, they could practice in their privacy their own beliefs, as long as they didn’t challenge the power.

Elizabeth I dies.

1603

Only 2% of the English population is Roman Catholic.

King James VI of Scotland becomes James I.

1603