The Tudors

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Marina Spiazzi, Marina Tavella,
Margaret Layton 2016
 The Tudors

1. The Tudor dynasty

Henry VII (1485-1509)

Henry VIII (1509-1547)

Edward VI (1547-1553)

Mary I (1553-1558)

Elizabeth I (1558-1603)

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2. Henry VII (1485-1509)

Came to the English throne when the Wars of the Roses ended.

Banned nobles from raising their own armies.

Had to deal with frequent Yorkist plots.

His foreign policy was cautious.

He married his son Arthur to the Spanish

princess, Catherine of Aragon, and two of his
daughters to the Kings of France and
Scotland.
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 The Tudors

2. Henry VII (1485-1509)

He sponsored John Cabot to explore eastern America
and planted the Tudor flag in Nova Scotia.

During his reign

Erasmus of Rotterdam brought the Humanism of

the Renaissance to the universities of Oxford and
Cambridge.

Sir Thomas More moved England closer to

North-European origins of Protestantism.

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3. Henry VIII (1509-1547)

Henry VIIs second son.

A natural sportsman, popular both with the English elite

and the English public.

Called the Golden Prince both for his
natural good looks and his chivalry and
education.

Granted the title of defender of the faith

by the Pope in 1521 for his Latin treatise

defending the sacraments.

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3. Henry VIII (1509-1547)

Married Catherine of Aragon who bore him a daughter, Mary.

Asked the Pope for a divorce to marry his pregnant mistress Anne

Boleyn.
Broke with Rome when the Pope refused and

declared himself Supreme Head of the Church

of England with the Act of Supremacy (1534).

Monastic chapels became parish churches and

the land of the monasteries was sold.

The new merchant class had access
to a landed status.

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3. Henry VIII (1509-1547)

Anne Boleyn gave him a daughter, Elizabeth.

She was tried and executed for treason in 1536.

Henry went on to have

four more wives and

one son, Edward, later

Edward VI, from Jane

Seymour.

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 The Tudors

4. Edward VI (1547-1553)

The son of Jane Seymour and Henry VIII.

Made Protestant doctrine more fully accepted.

Religious services were held in English

instead of Latin.
The Book of Common Prayer, mainly
prepared by the Archbishop of
Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, became
compulsory.

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 The Tudors

5. Mary I (1547-1553)

Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragons

daughter.
Refused to abandon the Catholic faith.
Tried to restore England to papal
obedience.
Married the Catholic Philip II of Spain.

The burning of Protestants earned her the nickname

Bloody Mary and alienated public opinion.
Died without an heir.

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6. Elizabeth I (1558-1603)
Henry VIII and Anne Boleyns daughter.
Became queen of a divided nation, the majority of which
was anti-Catholic and anti-Spanish.
She was twenty-five and had a strong
personality, a lively intelligence and a
passionate character.
She had received an excellent
education: she could speak French,
Latin and Italian.

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 The Tudors

6. Elizabeth I (1558-1603)
She consolidated the Reformation by reintroducing the Acts of
Supremacy and Uniformity.
She allowed tolerance in church and
ceremony ornaments.

Was unmarried and used this as a

political weapon.
Said that the Queen was married to
her people and became the Virgin
Queen.

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6. Elizabeth I (1558-1603)

Went on royal progresses to be seen and to get to

know her people.

Inspired literature, music, drama and

poetry.

Several portraits of the queen were

painted as part of royal propaganda,
showing her as a symbol of unity and
peace.

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6. Elizabeth I (1558-1603)
Danger from Scotland
Mary, Queen of Scots, was the great-granddaughter of
Henry VII and had a claim to the English throne.

She had married the Stuart Lord Darnley and had a

son, James.

When the court forced her to abdicate in favour of her

one-year-old son, she went to England hoping to
receive help from her cousin Elizabeth.

She was arrested and kept prisoner.

She started to conspire against Queen Elizabeth.

She was executed for treason in 1587.

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6. Elizabeth I (1558-1603)
Recognised Spain as her main trade rival and enemy.
Encouraged sea-captains Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh in
their piracy against Spanish ships and took a share of their
profits.

Defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588.

Managed to create a popular, majestic

image of a sovereign who had been the
defender of the nation and the
preserver of peace.

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7. The chain of being

The Tudors inherited a general concept of order from the Middle
Ages.
They represented the universal order
as a chain of being.

The chain stretched from Gods

throne to the inanimate world: a
place for everything, and everything
in its place.

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7. The chain of being

There were three parts of the chain corresponding to each other:

Macrocosm: the universe, nature and the skies.
Microcosm: the human body.
The body politic: the kingdom.
The universe was governed by divine will.

Subordination and unity were the

natural rules for the state.
The king or the queen became the
symbol of unity and stability.

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7. The chain of being

The Chain of Being represents the social order of the time.

Anything that is outside the chain was considered to be

chaos/nothingness/madness/evil.

Therefore, by implication, if the chain is broken the order

in the world is broken and it can descend into chaos and
civil disorder.

Nothingness, chaos, madness, evil all of these things

are outside the chain and are not considered to be made
by God.

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8. Man in the chain of being

Just below the angels.

Could aspire to greater perfection Had the unique
(angelic or god-like).
Had spirit in common with angels. function of binding
Shared the body (mortality) with together all the
the lower creations. levels of being.
Had also feeling and
understanding.

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9. The English Renaissance

It meant the rebirth of intellectual and artistic energies.

Had a strong Protestant, and in some aspects, Puritan

basis influenced by the Reformation.

The English literature of the period lacked the pagan

serenity of the Italian Renaissance and was less
committed to the visual arts.

This explains the baroque exuberance of the powerful

speeches of Marlowes and Shakespeares plays or in
Donnes poetry.

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