Part IV Ríghts or Royals? The Tudors and

Stuarts

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TLidor England had two of the strongest rnonarchs ever to sit on the English throne: Henry VIU and his daugh-

ter Elizal.>eth i . Their portraits si)e;l! power and coiitrol, and so did liíeir governnieíits, yet neither i-oukl crack the niost basic probiein oí ali: Wlio was t o succeed ihem? Henry VIIls desperate search for a niale heir led hini into liis íamons six marriages, vvhiic Elizabeth sougiú refugo in her image as the Virgin Queen, But as long as tl-se succes-sion vvas unclear. evei! tJiese great monarciis couid not iie easy.

IJnderlying ali this was the terribie destructive power of rcligious conflict. As new religious learning found its vvay into Britain. the Britisli peojjie were divided Isetween those vvho enibraced change. and tlK)se wtio upheld tiíeir o!d faitJi. Through ali of tliis. ttie English parliament wa.s speak-ing with increasing confidence: There were arguments about religion and about the crown. but parliament became a central part of the politicai scene. It led to civil war, which heralded ashort-lived republic.

And Tfien Ahnq Carne Hemif (the l/lU, that is)

Henry Vli didn't just spend his time fighting off pretenders. He married his children into the leading rullng houses in Europe and he negotiated good trading agreements with the Netherlands. So there was a lot of money in the treasury that he handed over to his handsome and gifted son, who in 1509

.wo became King Henry VIII.

Bad Ideas of the Sixteenth Centuri^ -No 1: Marri^inç Hemi^ VIU Henry VIII was a good example of the ideal Renaissance Prince (see Chapter 14 for a bit more on what the Renaissance was ali about) - he was handsome, strong, good at jousting and wrestling but also highiy educated, good at

. ^ music, interested in theology, and a good mover on the dance floor. He seemed to have everything he could possibly want - except a son.

If you didn't want lots of squabbiing over the succession in the sixteenth cen-tury you needed a good supply of sons. (Daughters could succeed, but the last time a daughter assumed the throne, England had fallen into a civil war, explained in Chapter 7. As a result, folks weren't too keen on trying that again). That's why you get ali those paintings of large Tudor families through the gen-erations - nothin' wrong with our virility, theyVe saying - and why Tudor men wore those enormous codpieces to show off their manhood. Henry VII had managed two boys. Henry VIU and his older brother Prince Arthur, who died

' young, and two girls, Margaret and Mary (see Figure 1 l - I for details here). • :>l f Henry VIII wanted to do even better, and that meant finding the right wife.

Wife No. 7 : Katharine of Aragon When he came to the throne, Henry was married to Katharine of Aragon. Katharine's family were the up-and-coming Kings of Spain, so marrying her was a major diplomatic coup. She had been married to Henrys brother Arthur, but Arthur died, and in any case, according to Katharine. she and

Part IV: Ríghts or Royals? The Tudors and Stuarts

Arth u r never consummated the marriage (and she ought to l<now), Now, strictiy speal<ing, the BIble said you couldn't marry your deceased brother's wlfe, but Aragon was too good a prize to miss, so Henry had a word with the Pope and the Pope gave him a special dispensation so that Henry and Katharine could get married.

At (irst, the marriage went well . Katharine trashed the Scots at the Battle of Flodden while Henry was away losing to the French (see the section "The Stewarts in a Stew" later in this chapter for info on that event). But then she gave b i r t h to a daughter, Mary. That was no good. Henry wanted a son! Even worse, when she got pregnant again, with boys as it turned out, the children always died. Henry wasn't just angry, he was worried: Was God trying to tell him something?

Henry got his Bible out. There it was, in blacic and white: Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother's wife - Leviticus. Henry reckoned the dead babies were God's way of punishing him for living in sin. But the Pope had given Henry a dispensation. He had specially put the rule aside. Could the Pope possibly put the rule back again?

Henrif qets a diiJorce - and a neu/ Church Henry sent his chief minister, Cardinal Wolsey, to Rome to have a word w i t h the Pope, but when Wolsey got there, he found the Pope had been taken prisoner by Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, who just happened to be Katharine of Aragon's nephew. Charles wasn't going to let anyone insult - or divorce - his auntie. Wolsey went home to tell Henry the bad news.

Chapter 11: Uneasy Lies the Head that Wears the Crown

Henry was furious. First, he sacked Wolsey. Then he simply closed down the Pope's Church and opened his own: the Church of England. And this Church gave him his divorce. Some people objected, like the statesman and writer Sir Thomas More and the Bishop of Rochester, John Fisher, but they got their heads cut off, so there weren't many others.

Wife No.2: Anne Boleyn Henry was crazy about Anne. Couldn't resist her. He had spotted her when she was lady-in-waiting to Katharine of Aragon and he couldn't take his eyes off her As soon as he got his divorce from Katharine he married Anne in secret, and nine months later, he got his reward: a healthy baby. Another girl . This one named Elizabeth. He was not pleased.

From then on things went downhil l for Anne. She had enemies at court, and t r y as she might she didn't produce a boy. Three years after her glittering coronation Anne's enemies struck. They had her arrested and charged w i t h adultery - w i t h her own brother, Lord Rochford, if you please. Henry sent for a special executioner ali the way from France, who could cut Anne's head off in one go w i t h his sword, instead of hacking at it the way those axemen used to do it . Wasn't that a kind thought?

íC/Vcs Nos 3-6: A Jane, an Anne, and tWo more Catherínes Jane Seymour was a lady-in-waiting to both Katharine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. They were both dead by the time Henry married her so there was no problem about whether or not the marriage was valid. It was Jane who finally gave Henry the son he had been hoping for for so long, Edward. Edward was a sickiy child (he'd probably inherited Henry's syphilis) , but he lived. Jane didn't . She died giving b i r t h .

Anne of Cleves was a German princess. You can blame Henry's marriage to her on Henry's chief minister and staunch Protestant, Thomas Cromwell. At the time it looked like war w i t h the Catholic Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, so scheming Thomas suggested to Henry that they should link up w i t h the German Protestants. The best way, he said, was for Henry to marry a German princess, Anne of Cleves. To judge by Holbein's portrait , Anne was a bit shy, but not bad lookíng. Henry, however, found her completely unattractive. "Good God, she's like a Flanders mare", he said, but he went through with the wedding anyway, ali the time thinking, "This had better be w o r t h i t" . Then the Emperor changed his mind about attacking England. Henry had got married for nothingi He was the perfect gentleman. He divorced Anne and gave her a nice house and an income. Then he cut Cromweirs head off.

Chapter 11: Uneasy Lies the Head that Wears the Crown

The First Elizabeth Elizabeth I was Anne Boleyn's daughter and nobody's fool. Her sister, Queen Mary, had put her in the Tower because she thought Elizabeth was plotting against her. Elizabeth, therefore, Icnew ali about how dangerous sixteenth century politics could be. When she became Queen, she needed to see to three things straight away: Religion, security, and getting married.

Religion was urgent, and Elizabeth and Parliament set up a not-too-Protestant Church of England which, she hoped (wrongly) both Catholics and Protestants could go to (head to Chapter 12 for more on the religion issue).

Security was always a problem - the Tudors knew ali about people trying to seize the throne. The best way to guard against danger was to have an heir, and that meant that Elizabeth needed to find a husband. Here were her options:

) ^ King Piíilip of Spain: No kidding: he did offer. The English couldn't stand him, and - more importantly - if Elizabeth married him, England would become some sort of Spanish province. No thank you.

1^ A Frencli prince: This made politicai sense. It would mess up France's alliance with Scotiand and set the King of Spain's nose out of joint . The French king sent his son the Duke of Anjou over, and Elizabeth seemed very interested. Danced with him, called him her "frog", and kept him hanging on. And on. Until in the end, he gave up and went home.

1^ Robert Dudiey, Earl of Leicester: Ah, Elizabeth liked him! He was her "Robin". But there was a problem. He was already married, to a lady called Amy Robsart - at least he was until they found poor Amy lying dead at the foot of the staircase one day. Very fishy. After that, there was no way Elizabeth could marry her Robin. Just think of the scandal.

Whoever Elizabeth chose, there would be trouble: Either there would be protests, or her husband would t r y to take over So she decided not to choose. She would remain a virgin, married only to her people, and not share her power with anyone. Not an easy decision to make.

The Virgin Queen i/s. the not'SO'(/irçin Mari^ Elizabeth didn't like talking about the succession, but other people had to. She had only been on the throne for a few years when she nearly died of smallpox. She might not be lucky enough to survive the next illness. Her clos-est adviser, Sir William Cecil, was desperately worried and with good reason.

Part IV: Rights or Royals? The Tudors and Stuarts

First there was Mary, Queen of Scots who was aiready saying that she was the rightfui Queen of England and having the royal arms of England put into her own coat of arms. Second, but even worse, was the major biow that fell in 1570 when the Pope excommunicated Elizabeth. Like it or not, she was now in serious danger.

Excommunication was the most dire punishment the Catholic Church could issue. It meant casting someone out of the Church, with no hope of salvation after death unless they performed a very big act of penance. In the case of a monarch, like Elizabeth, it could also mean that they had no right to be on the throne, and that loyai Catholics were allowed - supposed, even - to over-throw her

Catholic piots aqainst Elizabeth The following are the Catholic pIots to kill Elizabeth and put Mary, Queen of Scots on the throne:

1^ Revolt of the Northern Earls, 1569: Earis oí Northumberland and Westmorland stage a major rising to rescue Mary. Revolt defeated; Earls flee to Scotiand; hundreds of their followers executed. Ridolfi Plot, 1571: Florentine banker Roberto Ridolfi and the Catholic Duke of Norfolk plan a coup with help from Philip II of Spain and the Pope. Plot discovered. Both piotters executed. Jesuits, 1580: Jesuit missionaries Robert Parsons and Edmund Campion arrive secretiy in England and are suspected (wrongly) of plotting against the Queen. Campion is arrested and executed; Parsons escapes to Spain.

1^ T h r o c k m o r t o n Plot, 1584: Catholic Francis Throckmorton arrested and tortured . Reveals plot with Spanish ambassador to murder Elizabeth and stage a French invaslon. Throckmorton executed, ambassador sent home.

These pIots are getting more serious. Cecil and Secretary of State Sir Francis Walsingham decide to play dirty. Mary is kept in ever-closer confinement in England, and they keep a dose watch on her. In particular, they read ali her letters, especially the secret ones hidden in kegs of ale - which reveal that she is up to her neck in the Babington Plot.

lhe Babinçton Plot (1586) and the end of Marif Catholic Anthony Babington piotted to murder Elizabeth, and he got Mary, Queen of Scots, to agree to it . Thafs when Cecil and Walsingham, who'd been reading Mary's correspondence, decided to pounce. They had Mary just where they wanted her

Chapter 11: Uneasy Lies the Head that Wears the Crown 18] Off With her head! Even before the Babington Plot carne to light Cecil was desperate for Elizabeth to put Mary to death. Keeping her alive was far too dangerous -well , you can see why. But Elizabeth wouldn't hear of i t . First, Mary was her C o u s i n (well , first-cousin-once-removed). Second, Mary w a s n t a n English sub-ject, so how could you accuse her of treason? And t h i r d , but most important, Mary was a Queen and so was Elizabeth. Start putting monarchs on trial and executing them and heaven knows where it ' l l end up.

But even Elizabeth couldn't ignore the Babington Plot. So Mary, Queen of Scots, went on tr ia l , and the court found her guilty. Ali they needed was a death warrant, and ali that needed was Elizabeth's signature. Elizabeth didn't want to sign the warrant, so her secretary put it in the middle of a lot of other papers that needed signing so that Elizabeth could "pretend" she hadn't known it was there. (This ruse nearly cost the secretary his life: Elizabeth tried to make out that she hadn't known anything about it and had the poor fellow sent to the Tower. If Cecil hadn't stepped in , he'd have been executed.)

Mary went to her execution in a black velvet dress. She whipped it off to reveal a blood-red dress underneath. Everyone was in floods of tears. It took three gos to chop her head off, and when the executioner finally held her head up by the hair for everyone to see, the head fell out - her fine "hair" was a wig . Even after death, Mary could upstage them ali .

Enqtish sea do^s 0s. the Spanish Armada During Elizabeth's reign is when the English first really started messing about in boats. There were two main reasons: one was adventure and the other was money. You could t r y and make your fortune finding a way round the top of Canada (the "Northwest Passage") to the wealthy spice islands of Asia, or you could just steal from the Spanish.

The Spanish were sitting on gold and silver mines in their colonies in South America, so sea dogs like John Hawkins and Francis Drake simply sailed to the Spanish colonies, opened fire, took what they could, and ran - and very wealthy this enterprise made them. Drake even sailed ali the way round the w o r i d to show the Spanish that they could run from him, but they couldn't hide. Hawkins found a nice lucrative market supplying the Spanish colonies w i t h African siaves. Ali this experience was to be very usefui for the English when Spain decided to t u r n the tables and attack England.

By 1588, King Philip II of Spain had had enough. Not only were Drake and Hawkins and Co. attacking his ships, but Elizabeth was knighting them for it . It was time to teach England a lesson once and for ali. And so Philip put together the largest fleet in history, the Great Armada, and sent it against England. And it was a total disaster.

Bm(e in the Channei Everything went wrong. Philip's best commander died, so he had to put the Duke of Medina Sidónia, who had never fought at sea and suffered from sea-sickness, in charge, Then Drake suddenly appeared at Cadiz and burned the still harbour-bound fleet - "singeing the King of Spain's beard" Drake called i t . Finally in 1588, the massive Armada set sall up the Channei in a tight crescent shape that the English weren't able to break. What the English did instead was to prevent the Spanish from landing in England. The Spanish, kept on the move, had to put into Calais, which meant that they couldn't pick up the pow-erful Spanish army in the Netherlands. Then the English sent fire ships -think floating bombs - into Calais harbour. Panicking, the Spanish scattered any which way, enabling the English to pick them off one by one. Then fierce storms forced the Spanish to keep going north , round Scotiand and Ireland, where many of them sank. Less than haif of Philip's Grand Armada limped back to Spain.

The seeds of an Empire Henry VII started the practice of sending English expeditions overseas when he sent John Cabot to the New World to see what he could find (you can find out more about ali this in Chapter 19) - and he found Newfoundland. But there didn't seem much to do in Newfoundland, and it wasn't until Eli2abeth's reign that the English had a serious go at settling in North America. In the 1580s Sir Walter Raleigh set up a colony at Virgínia, but it didn't take off. The English had better luck trading in Rússia and the Baltic. In 1600 the Queen granted a char­ter to the East Indía Company which went on to lay the foundations for the British Empire in índia and the east. See Chapter 19 for the full story.

õon't (et the sun qo doWn on me Elizabeth hated the idea of getting old . She plastered herself w i t h make-up and hid her thinning hair under a great red wig. Artists had to use a stencil of her face which showed her as a handsome young woman. Even when she was dying, Elizabeth was still a prince and proud of it . When her chief minister, Lord Robert Cecil (son of old Sir William - they were a family on the up) told her she must rest, she turned on him: "Must! Is must a word to be addressed to princes? LIttle man, little man! Thy father, if he had been alive, durst not have used that w o r d . " Ouch!

As death approached, Elizabeth was carried to the throne room and laid down on the steps of the throne. Almost her last words were to say who should succeed her: King James VI, the son of Mary, Queen of Scots. Henry VII had married his daughter Margaret to the King of Scotiand and now a King of Scotiand was to inherit his throne. The Tudor wheei had come full circie: How would the Stewarts fare? Find out in Chapter 13.