Lecture (25.02.20)

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HENRY VIII

Legitimate children of Henry VIII

1. with Catherine of Aragon: daughter Mary (Queen Mary I)

2. with Anne Boleyn: daughter Elizabeth (Queen Elizabeth I)

3. with Jane Seymour: son Edward (King Edward VI)

EDWARD VI (1447-53)

- Becomes king at the age o 9

- his uncle Edward Seymour, Dukeof Somerset, appointed to serve as Lord Protector and rule the state in his name

- Protestant Council

- Archbishop Cranmer prepared The Book of Common Prayer (1552) based on his translations from Latin into English;

- basis of anti-clerical revolution

- emphasised the English king is the head of the English church

- The Protector Duke of Somerset persecuted neither Catholics nor Protestants

- permitted free discussion of religious differences

- Yet: serious religion-based disturbances in various parts of the country

- majority of English people were not truly Protestant yet

- Somerset replaced by Dudley, Earl of Warwick and later of Northumberland

- Dudley: man of no strong religious opinions

- but worked with Protestants and gave more impetus to the Reformation

- returned to some of Henry's strict laws against Catholics

- Dudley - unpopular s a ruler: it was the timef corruption and greed among courtiers; the country was weak, there was no King to solve the problems.

LADY JANE GREY

- As Edward was close to death, Dudley planned to exclude both of Henry's daughters and plant on the throne his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey, a great granddaughter of Henry VII (through his younger daughter), Edward VI died in 1553 at the age of 15

- Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed queen, but ruled only 9 days, was later nicknamed The Nine Day's Queen

MARY I (1553-58)

- Mary Tudor acceded to the throne in 1553 at the age of 37;

- daughter of Catherine of Aragon, brought up in the Catholic religion of her mother, Spanish by origin;

- supported by many common English people who, actually, had begun to hate the greed of the new Protestant nobles;

- Protestantism associated with violence, robbing the churches etc.

- when she succeded to the throne Mary was unmarried

- decided to marry Philip of Spain

- asked Parliament for their opinion on her engagement to Philip

- Parliament agreed to the marriage

- the agreement, Queen Mary's Marriage Act, stipulated that Philip will be king for Mary's lifetime only.

- growing feeling of dissatisfaction with the new queen and her marital choice

- the rising in Kent (1554) under Thomas Wyatt (the son of the poet of the same name)

- Wyatt was defeated at the gates of London, then executed

- Mary married Philip