Крестьянские восстания

To continue the war with France the English king needed money. Ordinary people had to pay new taxes: England was being defeated when Richard II became king.

The war and the Black Death led the peasantry to demand more for their labour. Ultimately the discontent produced the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 (Watt Tyler). The king agreed to meet the rebels and promised to fulfill their requirements. Many of them believed him and left London. Ричард же издал указ, отменявший все ранее сделанные уступки крестьянам.

By 1450 with the appearance of Joan of Arc (the French military leader) the English were driven out of France. This produced a conflict between the royal houses of Lancaster and York resulting in the Wars of the Roses. (They were the series of dynastic civil wars fought between the Houses of Lancaster and York for the English throne, the wars were named many years afterward from the supposed badges of the contending parties: the white rose of York and the red of Lancaster, both houses claimed the throne through descent from the sons of Edward III.). These wars (1455-85) distracted the country at intervals without disturbing its social life. The conflict was brought to an end by the victory of the Lancastrian heir, Henry Tudor, over Richard III at Bosworth Field in 1485.

(Part II) the nation state, 1485-1688

1. Reformation

In 1485 a most glorious period in English history had started. It had begun with the Tudor rule in the country. Henry Tudor became King Henry VII of England. He was determined to make monarchy rich and strong. 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 did not fight wars. He was careful to keep the friendship of the merchant class. He created new nobility from among them. He also encouraged the spread of education by importing French scholars. One of the most prominent figures of the Tudors was Henry VIII who ascended the throne in 1509. He followed the advice of his father and married the widow of his elder brother, Catherine of Aragon.

The English Reformation occurred as a direct result of King Henry VIII's efforts to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. The formal break was masterminded by Thomas Cromwell, the king's chief minister. (Henry considered it essential to have a son to succeed him, and Catherine was already 40 and had only one child, Princess Mary. The king argued that his marriage to Catherine was unlawful, as the Bible forbade the marriage of a man to his brother’s widow. Henry diplomatic efforts to secure a divorce in Rome failed and he turned to a policy of force against the Church, which ended in a complete break with Rome. The enormous task of carrying out the Reformation in England was accomplished by Thomas Cromwell, the king’s chief minister. He arranged for Parliament to pass statutes which swept away the power of the papacy in England and vested it in the Crown instead. This led to a breach between the Roman Catholic Church and the reformers whose beliefs and practices came to be called Protestantism. So his marriage with Catherine of Aragon was pronounced null and he got married to Ann Boleyn who was crowned as Queen of England, but Henry was bitterly disappointed at the birth of long-awaited child. Princess Elizabeth. It was not for another daughter that he had broken with Rome. Following the break with Rome, Henry and Cromwell undertook a reorganisation of Church and State. Henry was declared supreme head of the Church of England in1534, and all the payments made to the pope now went to the Crown. Ann Boleyn, accused of adultery was beheaded. The only son of Henry VIII and his third wife Jane Seymour was Edward VI. After King Edward died, his half-sister Mary became queen. She was a devout Roman Catholic and tried to bring England back to the Roman Catholic Church. Mary became known as “Bloody Mary”. More than 300 protestant were burned at the stake during her reign for their beliefs. Among them were Thomas Cranmer, Hugh Latimer, all high-ranking protestant clergymen.

Conclusion: during his 38-year reign, England experienced profound changes. Despite his despotic tendencies, Henry VIII was not a tyrant. He ruled with the general consent and with no standing army to back up his authority. Parliament was a vital part of his governmental procedure, and he summoned it far more regularly than his father had.