Letteratura Inglese

The Renaissance and
the Puritan Age

Introduction
English life was completely transformed in
the 15th and 16th centuries as Tudor England,
with Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, marked the emergence
of England as a nation with one monarch and one church.
With the Stuart kings of the 17th century, England went through
moments of great tension between the monarchy and Parliament,
(CivilWar and Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell)
The most important novelties were the EnglishReformation, the growth of

the City of London, Humanism and the Renaissance led to new forms of
poetry and the theatre of WilliamShakespeare.
The Tudors
Henry VIII (1509-1547)
Henry VII (1485-1509)

The second Tudor King after Henry VII,was awarded the title
‘Defender of the Faith’ by the Pope, after the King refuted the
Was the first Tudor King, ascended the arguments of Martin Luther’s attack on the doctrine of the Eucharist.
The English Reformation therefore began as
throne at the end of the Wars of the Roses.
a political affair rather than a theological
During his reign he stabilised the country’s
dispute and had to divorce his first wife
economy by raising new taxes and as he did not have a male heir.
supporting the wool industry, and launched
sea exploration towards
the New World
In 1534, Henry VIII proclaimed the Act of Supremacy:
he placed himself at the head of the Anglican Church.
So he married his second wife, Anne Boleyn,
who bore him a daughter, Elizabeth.
Henry VIII gave England a fighting fleet with 40 modern vessels, different
from the heavy Spanish ships, and equipped with much heavier cannons,
Elisabeth I (1558-1603)
The daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, the King’s second wife, was able to
give the English more than forty years of internal peace and prosperity by
firmly confirming the separation of the Anglican Church.
However, Elizabeth’s position in international politics was difficult, as she

was not recognised as a legitimate monarch by the other European
powers after her father’s divorce and new marriage.
Many plots were organised to murder her, also with the assistance of the
Catholic Mary Stuart, the Queen of Scots, who had been brought up in France.
In 1588, he sent his naval fleet to invade England but his ships, stationed
near Calais and waiting to join with the Spanish army coming from the
Netherlands, were attacked by the English fleet, which brought havoc onto the
Spanish Armada.
This much-celebrated victory granted Elizabeth and England a period of

relative peace until her death in 1603. She avoided any risk of a civil war
by choosing her successor in the person of James VI of Scotland and a
Protestant, who came to the throne as James I, the first Stuart King.
The Stuarts
James I (1603-25)
Was a believer in the Divine Right of Kings, rather than the
Charles I (1625-49)
principle of the “love of his people”.
James I reasserted the independence of the Church of England
and oversaw a new, authorised English translation of the Under Charles I, Britain enjoyed peace and
Bible, published in 1611. economic prosperity. In 1637, Charles began a
Also he had to face Presbyterians in Scotland and war against the Presbyterian Scots who had
Puritans in England, who demanded a more radical, ‘purer’ refused to accept a new prayer book based on
form of Protestantism. High-Church ideas; so Charles I summoned
Parliament in 1640. But no agreement was
A compromise was reached in 1604 and the Catholics were excluded
found and a Civil War (1642-49) broke out
from everything; so they tried, in the following year, to start a plot
between the Royalists , the supporters of
to eliminate the king and parliament.
the King, and the Parliamentarians, most of
Later a group of separatist puritans, the Pilgrim Fathers, chose whom were Puritan. During the Civil War, King
exile; left England for America on the Mayflower and founded the Charles I was imprisoned, charged with high
first English colony in North America, Plymouth, treason and then executed in 1649.
Massachusetts(1620), the beginning of the thirteen colonies
The Anglican Reformation and the
Puritans in England
Religion remained a controversial issue in Britain;
before Elizabeth I there were attempts to reintroduce Catholicism in England, with Mary I Tudor
and her bloody persecution of Protestants. Moreover the rise of the Puritans, an extreme group of
Protestants within the Church of England, laid the foundations for the Civil War (1642-49).
During the Civil War the country was split into two factions, Royalists(or Cavaliers) and
Parliamentarians (or Roundheads); the reasons for the war were both religious and political. The
war went through various phases, with Oliver Cromwell leading the Roundheads.
The Civil War ended with the victory of the Puritans led by Oliver Cromwell and the Commonwealth, a
republican government, was created. Cromwell was named Lord Protector of the Commonwealth,
which lasted until shortly after Cromwell’s death in 1658.
Commonwealth was short-lasted and of an uncertain nature, the supremacy of Parliament was
established when Charles II was invited to return to England in 1660
The beginnings of Europ e an
empires
When Elizabeth I came to the throne in 1558, she further expanded the navy and supported exploration.
She sent new explorers who established the first English colony in Newfoundland, and in 1584 Sir Walter Raleighfounded in
North America ‘Virginia’, in honour of Elizabeth, the ‘Virgin Queen’.
Sir Francis Drake, one of Elizabeth’s ‘privateers’ attacked and plundered Spanish ships with cargoes of precious metals.
The attack on Spanish ships and the support that England offered to the Dutch Protestants in Spain finally led to an open
conflict with Spain, which sent its Invincible Armada to invade Britain in 1588;
the English fleet easily defeated them in the Channel,
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The Renaissance and

the Puritan Age

The most important novelties were the EnglishReformation, the growth of

Henry VII (1485-1509)

However, Elizabeth’s position in international politics was difficult, as she

This much-celebrated victory granted Elizabeth and England a period of

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