Welcome back.
We’re going to talk about Elizabeth the First here for a few minutes.
She’s probably one of the more famous monarchs in English history.
We have to talk about Elizabeth because she rules in the second half of the 16th century
and in the 17th century in England is dominated by religious strife, and then of course, the
Puritan Revolution; the English Civil War; and then finally in 1688, the Glorious Revolution,
which will finally sort of put to bed these religious controversies.
So I want to spend a few minutes talking about Elizabeth here, to sort of set up the turmoil
of the 17th century.
Elizabeth ruled from 1558 until 1603, so you can see she ruled for nearly half a century,
and when she ascended to the throne, religion was unquestionably the primary issue.
You probably already know this, but Elizabeth of course, is the daughter of King Henry the
VIII and Anne Boleyn.
This is the one story that most people have heard of.
It’s been endlessly recounted in history books – both scholarly and popular –films;
TV programs; on and on and on – Henry the VIII and his numerous wives have captured
the attention of people’s imagination over the centuries.
Of course, Henry – early in his career and into his middle age – was of course, a fervent
Catholic.
I believe the Pope bestowed upon him the title Defender of the Faith.
This will all change, of course, when Henry tries to secure an annulment from Catherine,
his long-time wife, a Spanish princess.
This attempt to divorce Catherine will, of course, end up breaking Henry and England
away from the Catholic Church and the establishment of the Anglican Church with Henry at its head.
So this is, again, a well-known story that leads us into the story of Elizabeth.
Now when Henry breaks with the Catholic Church, of course, he assumes ownership of all the
Catholic property in England.
This makes him, very quickly, one of the most powerful and wealthy men in Europe.
Henry the VIII invited the nobility and the gentry, who sit in parliament, to legislate
the break with the Pope.
Henry gave his nobles a share of the booty that they confiscated, they took, from the
Catholic Church.
This, of course, keeps Henry and his nobility on the same page, right?
Henry is essentially paying them for their cooperation and making this rather dramatic
and historical break with the Catholic Church.
In those days only a few Englishmen – Sir Thomas Moore comes to mind – were willing
to oppose Henry, and in fact, die for their beliefs.
Sir Thomas Moore is a very famous character.
There have been a number of movies made about him.
There was a really good film in the 60s; it’s called A Man For All Seasons.
You can still find that today.
It’s worth watching.
Only a few Englishmen – I mentioned Sir Thomas Moore – also William Tyndale, a very
interesting story.
Tyndale sought to translate the Old Testament, the Jewish scripture, into English so that
those literate Englishmen and women could actually read the Bible for themselves without
having to depend upon the intermediary of the Pope or the cardinals or the bishops and
the priests.
Tyndale accomplished this.
Of course, he had to master Hebrew in order to do this, and that’s quite a task and
quite a feat.
And then he took on another great endeavor, he decided to translate the New Testament
into English so that the common people could read it.
Now, of course, he has to master Greek.
The New Testament, the letters, the epistles of Paul, the synoptic gospels – these are
all written in Greek.
So Tyndale undertakes this tremendous task.
I wouldn’t have enough lifetimes to learn both Hebrew and Greek, and then to translate
the entire Bible into English.
That seems incomprehensible to me.
Nevertheless, Tyndale does it and he’s charged with heresy and burned at the stake for it.
One the one hand, it’s viewed as political subversion by the English.
On the other hand, it’s viewed as heretical by the church because what Tyndale is doing
is essentially putting the church out of business.
If he translates the Bible into English so the commoners can read it, then who needs
the church to interpret the Latin for the parishioners?
So this is viewed as a body blow against the church and Tyndale pays for it with his life.
Now by the 1550s, of course, Henry the VIII is dead, and his son, Edward the VI assumes
the throne of England, but Edward is sickly and he doesn’t last long.
I believe he only rules for maybe six years or so.
During Edward’s time, radical Protestants sort of overhaul the doctrine and the ritual
of the Anglican or the English church.
Now in the seceding reign, after Edward dies, we have Elizabeth’s half-sister, Mary, who
is fervently Catholic.
Now she rules for a very short time, too, because of ill health.
I believe she dies of cancer.
She ruled from 1553 to 1558, so only about five years.
Mary is significant because she tries to take England back to Catholicism.
Of course, England has now persevered through a couple of generations of Protestantism,
and many of the English have no interest in going back to Catholicism.
This results, of course, in many English Protestants being burned at the stake as martyrs.
They’re regarded as heretics.
When they refuse to recant or to disavow their faith and to rejoin the Catholic Church, many
of them meet their fate by being burned at the stake.
This, of course, is significant because it actually strengthens the Protestant cause.
People watch these public burnings and it’s not unusual for them to ask themselves – why
isn’t my faith so strong that I could withstand a public death by burning instead of simply
disavowing my faith and rejoining the Catholic Church.
What was it one of the church fathers said in the second century?
That the blood of the martyrs was the seeds of the church, and we can see it here in mid-16th
century England.
So we have this period of very violent religious fluctuations.
This arouses, obviously deep passions in the English people.
After Mary dies, Elizabeth comes to the throne and the question of course, is whose example
will she follow – Edward’s tilt toward Protestantism?
Or Mary’s preference to go back to Catholicism.
Well, she does neither.
Queen Elizabeth the First was probably the only ruler in Western Europe in the late 16th
century who was able to sort of skillfully handle these religious controversies.
This achievement along is a good reason for nominating Elizabeth as perhaps one of the
ablest politicians of her time.
Elizabeth’s settlement worked out a compromise, a reorganization of the Church of England,
so as to combine an external Catholic structure with a broadly Protestant dogma.
The intention was to satisfy as wide a spectrum of religious taste as possible.
Now there’s always a Puritan block in the parliament in England.
A Puritan section of the Protestant population of England.
The Puritans were, the English Puritans were probably analogous to the Calvinists, on the
concept of the Calvinists that we’ve talked about.
As much as these Puritans disliked the Queen’s sort of lukewarm Protestantism, the Puritans
accepted membership in the Church of England, and they aimed at purifying the church from
within.
Of course, the Puritans will give James the First fits, too, as we’ll see as we move
into the 17th century.
Let’s stop there with Elizabeth and I want to pick up again in our next lecture by talking
about the English conflict with Spain.
We’ll talk about the great Spanish Armada for a few moments, and then we’ll draw some
conclusions for our discussion of Elizabeth.
Thank you.