What should you know about the Tudors and Stuarts for the Life in the UK test?

What should you know about the Tudors and Stuarts for the Life in the UK test?

Know the Tudor and Stuart years as one long argument about two questions. Who runs the church, and who runs the country: the king or Parliament?

The Tudors, from 1485, moved the church away from Rome. The Stuarts, from 1603, fought a civil war over the king's power and then, in 1688, accepted that Parliament had the stronger voice.

What did Henry VII and Henry VIII do?

Henry VII won the throne at Bosworth in 1485 and wanted a quiet kingdom. He made the central government stronger, took power away from the nobles and saved money.

His son Henry VIII was king from 1509 to 1547. He is known for two things: six marriages and the break with the Church of Rome. The two are connected. Catherine of Aragon had only one surviving child, Mary. Henry wanted a son as heir, and he needed the Pope to approve a divorce. The Pope refused, so Henry made himself head of a new Church of England.

Hold the wives in order by what happened to each. Catherine of Aragon was divorced. Anne Boleyn was executed, and her daughter was the future Elizabeth I. Jane Seymour gave him a son, Edward, and died soon after. Anne of Cleves was divorced. Catherine Howard was executed. Catherine Parr outlived him. Many people remember "divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived".

In Henry's reign Wales was formally united with England, and Welsh members began to sit in the House of Commons.

How did religion change after Henry VIII?

All over Europe the Reformation was growing. Protestants read the Bible in their own language and did not pray to saints. Their own bond with God mattered more to them than the authority of the church.

Edward VI, a strong Protestant, became king as a boy. The Book of Common Prayer was written in his reign. He died at 15. His half-sister Mary, a devout Catholic, burned Protestants and was called "Bloody Mary". Then Elizabeth I, daughter of Henry and Anne Boleyn, made the Church of England the church of the state again. She did not ask what people really believed, and so avoided a religious war at home.

In Scotland the Parliament abolished the Pope's authority in 1560. The Church of Scotland was Protestant but, unlike in England, was not a state church. Mary, Queen of Scots, a Catholic, fled to England. Elizabeth held her prisoner for 20 years and she was finally executed.

What marks the reign of Elizabeth I?

Elizabeth was popular, especially after 1588, when the English defeated the Spanish Armada. It was a time of pride in being English. Sir Francis Drake sailed his ship the Golden Hind around the world. English settlers first reached the east coast of America. It was also the age of William Shakespeare, born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564. Remember him as the writer of plays such as Hamlet, Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet.

How did the Stuarts lose the peace?

Elizabeth had no children. When she died in 1603, James VI of Scotland also became James I of England, Wales and Ireland. Scotland stayed a separate country. His reign gave us the King James Bible, an English translation still used in some Protestant churches. In Ireland, Protestant settlers from Scotland and England were sent to Ulster. These settlements were called plantations.

James I and his son Charles I believed in the Divine Right of Kings. That means the king is chosen by God, so he does not need Parliament. Charles ruled without Parliament for 11 years. He then had to recall it in 1640 for money, after a revised Prayer Book caused unrest in Scotland. The Puritans in Parliament refused. Charles tried to arrest five leaders in the Commons, and no monarch has entered the Commons since.

The civil war began in 1642. Cavaliers fought for the king and Roundheads for Parliament. Parliament won by 1646, and Charles was executed in 1649. England became a republic called the Commonwealth, led by Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector until his death in 1658. Cromwell is still controversial in Ireland, because of the violence of his campaign there.

What came back with the Restoration?

In May 1660 Parliament asked Charles II to return. He knew he could not always do as he wished. Two great disasters came during his reign. The plague hit London in 1665, and a great fire in 1666 destroyed much of the city, including St Paul's Cathedral, which Sir Christopher Wren rebuilt. The Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 gave every prisoner the right to a court hearing. Charles also supported the Royal Society, where Isaac Newton was an early member.

His brother James II was a Catholic and many people feared he would make England Catholic again. In 1688 important Protestants asked William of Orange, who was married to James's daughter Mary, to invade. James fled. It was called the Glorious Revolution because no blood was shed in England. The Bill of Rights of 1689 confirmed that the monarch must be a Protestant and could not tax or rule without Parliament.

To read about the battles of this age, see battles and wars. The reigns are also listed in kings and queens. The whole chapter is on the history chapter page, and you can try the free practice test when you are ready.

Check yourself

Say in one sentence why Henry VIII broke with Rome.

Why did Charles I have to recall Parliament in 1640?

What did the Bill of Rights change about the monarch's power? Write two points.