The Renissance is the Age of Kings.
Henry Tudor was crowned King Henry VII of England (1485-1509), the first monarch of the Tudor dynasty. Under his rule, England enjoyed a period of peace and prosperity.
The State was put under the direct and strict control of the king and a mercantile fleet was created. He made political alliances with Spain and Scotland.
Henry VIII (1509-47) completed what his father had begun. At first he was against Martin Luther and was proclaimed ‘defender of the faith’by the Pope, but when Clement VII refused to grant Henry a divorce from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, he broke with Rome. With the Act of Supremacy (1534) the Church of England was declared independent and the king was proclaimed Head of the Church.
Henry VIII’s son Edward VI (1547-53), used an anti-Catholic policy, this led to a Catholic reaction under Queen Mary I, called ‘Bloody Mary" (1553-58), who was the daughter of Catherine of Aragon and the wife of King Philip II of Spain. So we have first the persecution of Catholics then of Protestants: many were put to death.
Elizabeth I (1558-1603), the daughter |of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, was able to give England stability and gained the affection and trust of her subjects. She found a middle way between the two poles of Catholicism and radical forms of Protestantism -Puritanism.
Elizabeth was for a powerful fleet and she wanted control of the immense markets opened up by Columbus’ discovery of America.
In 1588 war broke out with Spain and in the English Channel, the Spanish huge fleet, named the ‘Invincible Armada’, for the invasion of England was defeated giving to England enormous prestige.
Queen Elizabeth died in 1603 without leaving a direct heir, the throne of England went to James VI of Scotland. He became the first of the Stuart kings of England, as James I(1603-25) of England. He believed in the divine right of kings to rule and in the subjection of Parliament to the king’s will. He excluded both Catholics and Puritans from government. English Catholics organized the Gunpowder Plot (November 5, 1605),they tried to blow up the king and Parliament. The plot was denounced and many Catholics were executed. Puritans left the country and went to America.
King James I's son and successor, Charles I (1625- 49) continued his father’s policy. He dissolved Parliament and ruled the country alone as an absolute monarch, but when the Parliament asked Charles I to accept reforms, the King refused and this lead to the English Civil War.
The Civil War (1642-49) war broke out in 1642: the Royalists, or Cavaliers, supported the Crown and the Anglican Church; the supporters of Parliament, or Roundheads (so-called because they wore their hair short), stood for the supremacy of Parliament and for a Puritan reformation of the Church of England. Victory went to the Puritans. Oliver Cromwell defeated Charles I , who was beheaded in 1649.
From 1649 to 1658 England was a Parliamentary republic, called the Commonwealth, under the rule of the House of Commons. After 1653, even that one-house Parliament was dissolved and the country fell under Cromwell’s direct rule as the title of Lord Protector.