Tudor Monarchs PDF

## SOME ENGLISH RENAISSANCE HISTORY ### Table 13.1 Tudor monarchs | Monarch | Reign | Some basic information | |---|---|---| | Henry VII | 1485-1509 | Restored stability to the monarchy. His oldest son, Arthur, was heir-apparent, but died young. | | Henry VIII | 1509-1547 | Henry VII's second son,...

## SOME ENGLISH RENAISSANCE HISTORY ### Table 13.1 Tudor monarchs | Monarch | Reign | Some basic information | |---|---|---| | Henry VII | 1485-1509 | Restored stability to the monarchy. His oldest son, Arthur, was heir-apparent, but died young. | | Henry VIII | 1509-1547 | Henry VII's second son, he had six wives; broke with the Church of Rome. | | Edward VI | 1547-1553 | Son of Henry VIII and his third wife, Jane Seymour. Died aged 15. | | Mary I | 1553-1558 | Daughter of Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. Like her mother, a Catholic; she became known as 'bloody Mary' because of her cruelty towards Protestants during her reign. | | Elizabeth I | 1558-1603 | Daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. An impressive and educated queen who never married, and left no heirs. | of Castile and King Ferdinand of Aragon, was a Catholic, and several other of Henry's wives were brought up as Catholics. Catherine Parr (his last wife), on the other side, was firmly Protestant. Henry himself was responsible for the dissolution of the Catholic monasteries, stripping them of the luxury to which they had become accustomed, and thus acquiring land and riches for himself. At the same time, he took steps to curb the more excessive expressions of Protestantism. Anne Boleyn failed to give the king a son, but she did give birth, before she became queen, in fact. The daughter was named Elizabeth. A daughter was not what Henry wanted, and Anne (who was accused of adultery) became one of the beheaded wives. Immediately after her death, the king married Jane Seymour. But daughter Elizabeth eventually became queen, and ruled during what many regard as England's 'golden age'. Under her rule, the country's cultural life flourished. There were writers like Spenser, Sidney and Shakespeare (all of whom are discussed in Chapter 18). There were adventurers like Drake, the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe. The spirit of the age was for exploration and discovery. It was a time when, according to the Victorian poet Francis Thompson, 'a man got up in the morning and said "I have an idea. If you have nothing better to do, let us go continent-hunting"'. It was also a time of huge English self-confidence. As the Spanish fleet – known as the Armada – came into sight, intent on conquering England, Drake (according to one, possibly apocryphal, story at least) declared he would finish his game of bowls before tackling the enemy. The fleet was formed in 1588 by Philip of Spain, who viewed some of England's actions as anti-Catholic and decided to teach the English a lesson. The fate of the Armada is as well known as that of Henry's wives. The ships were too cumbersome to react quickly to the nimble manoeuvrings of the British fleet and this, together with poor weather, led to the ignominious destruction of the 'invincible' Armada. England's self-confidence increased even more. In Shakespeare's ## EARLY MODERN ENGLISH observation'. This chapter will look at some of these 'manie matters', and will give a general historical background to the sixteenth century, an important part of the Early Modern English (EModE) period. If you look at them in detail, all periods of history can appear full of fascination and interest. But English history of the period we are looking at here is particularly captivating. You have a king (Richard III), sometimes regarded as a wicked hunchback, implicated in the murder of two young princes in the Tower of London. Then there is another king (Henry VIII), who had six wives, and a queen (Elizabeth I), who announced: 'though I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, I have the heart and stomach of a king, yea and a king of England too'. Our period begins with Henry VI, who was king from 1422 to 1461. Here is what Holinshed's Chronicles have to say about him: 'thus farre touching the tragicall state of this land vnder the rent [torn] regiment of king Henrie, who (besides the bare title of roialtie and naked name of king) had little appertaining to the port of a prince'. The nobles, Holinshed said, spent time 'seeking either to suppresse, or to exile, or to obscure, or to make him awaie'. Henry, who was a member of the House of Lancaster, was weak and mentally unstable, and this encouraged others to claim the throne, particularly Richard, Duke of York, who came from another branch of the same Plantagenet dynasty. Conflicting claims to the throne by the two families York and Lancaster led to the 'Wars of the Roses', which lasted for some thirty years, from 1455 till 1487 The 'roses' were the heraldic badges of the two parties involved, the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster. After a complex series of events, Yorkist Richard III became king. Both Holinshed and Shakespeare portray him as a wicked hunchback, though in real life he was apparently not quite so wicked, nor so hunchbacked. Richard was killed in battle at Bosworth (near the city of Leicester) in 1485. Henry Tudor, a Lancastrian and the first of the new Tudor dynasty, was victorious and became king. He, a red rose, reconciled the warring sides by marrying a white rose, Elizabeth of York. Tudor history is complicated. Table 13.1 gives some basic facts about the Tudor monarchs. When Henry VII died, his son Arthur was married to Catherine of Aragon. When Arthur died young, his brother Henry promptly married Catherine himself, even though marrying the wife of a brother was not really permitted. She was the first of Henry VIII's six wives. Their fates are recorded in the rhyme: King Henry the Eighth / to six wives he was wedded. / One died, one survived, / two divorced, two beheaded. Part of Henry's problem with wives was that most were unable to present him with a son and heir. The process of divorcing the first, Catherine of Aragon, and marrying the second – Anne Boleyn – caused a rift with the Pope and the Church in Rome, and led Henry to declare himself head of the English church, thus establishing his right to act without seeking the Pope's consent. This took place against a backdrop of growing religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants a conflict that is reflected in the religious affiliations of Henry's queens. Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Queen Isabella ## EARLY MODERN ENGLISH play Richard II, there is a well-known passage about England and the English. It was not written about the Elizabethan Age, but it no doubt captures the patriotic feeling of that time: >*This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, >*This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, >*This other Eden - demi-paradise >*This happy breed of men, this little world, >*This precious stone set in the silver sea, >*This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, >*This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land, >*(2 2.1.41)* If you would like to see some short descriptions of events described in this section, Activity 13A (From the Chronicles) gives extracts from Holinshed and invites you to identify what is being described. ### 13.2 A happy convergence In 1471, a middle-aged Englishman by the name of William Caxton was living in the German city of Cologne. He was finishing off an English translation of the History of Troy, written by the French author, Raoul Le Fèvre. He was working very hard, translating a thousand words a day, and was exhausted. 'My pen is worn', he wrote, 'mine hand weary and not steadfast, mine eyes dimmed with overmuch looking on the white paper, and age creepeth on me daily and feebleth all the body'. He decided to master a new invention which was just making its appearance in the city. He goes on: 'therefore I have practised and learned at my great charge and dispense to ordain this said book in print after the manner and form as ye may here see'. The new invention – printing – was to save many future authors and copyists from weary hands and dimmed eyes. The printing press was invented in 1439 by the German Johannes Gutenberg. Having learned the craft, Caxton eventually returned to England in 1476, where he opened a printing 'shop' in the precincts of Westminster Abbey. His shop saw the production of over a hundred printed works, including Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Malory's romance Le Morte d'Arthur. Caxton himself made twenty-six translations, including the first in English of Ovid's Metamorphosis. It is hard to exaggerate the effect of printing on society. Perhaps the nearest modern-day equivalent is the introduction of the internet. In both these cases, written communication suddenly became possible to a previously unimaginable degree. In a moment, information and knowledge could be made available to a massive ## SOME ENGLISH RENAISSANCE HISTORY audience. Before Gutenberg's invention, producing a book was a long, expensive task, involving scribes laboriously copying texts out by hand. It was hugely time-consuming to produce even one copy, let alone huge numbers of a book, like the Bible, which was in heavy demand. After Gutenberg it was all very much simpler. A typeset form of the book was fed into the press, and in a very short time out would come as many copies as you wanted, all of them absolutely identical. The cost was comparatively low too. This new technology that sprang into being so suddenly was part of a happy convergence of events. It coincided with a moment in history when there was much to write about. The Renaissance was a time of discovery in very many areas – not just geographical exploration, but science, mathematics, the arts and a huge range of skills including practical ones like – as we shall see in 15.1 – horse riding. There were literally hundreds of books just waiting to be translated from the classics, while new writers were anxious to make their own thoughts known in their subject specializations. There was also, just like today with the internet, a large audience ready to devour what was written. Though there are no exact statistics for literacy rates during the period, possibly 20 per cent of men were literate in the 1530s, increasing to 30 per cent by the end of Elizabeth's reign. In London (where Shakespeare and others had their audiences) the figures were doubtless higher, perhaps reaching 50 per cent. All in all, it really was a 'happy convergence': plenty of new subject matter to write about, plenty of new of readers to read it, and new technology able to produce what was required quickly. But in what language was all this going to happen? Latin was traditionally the language of scholastic communication. But it was not a language much known by the population, many of whom were what was quaintly called 'unlatined'. To reach the required audience, communication had to be in English. And that was the rub, because according to the general view held in the first half of the sixteenth century, English was simply not up to it. A characteristic opinion of the time was expressed by one Richard Taverner. He translated a collection of psalms and prayers from Latin, and dedicated it to Henry VIII. 'My translation', the dedication reads, 'is rude, base, unpleasant, gross and barbarous'. He fears 'lest of good Latin I have made evil English, lest I have turned wine into water'. Of course, his tone is modest, as appropriate in a dedication to one's king (especially one celebrated for lopping off the heads of those who crossed him). But behind Taverner's words is a view of Latin common at the time. It is an eloquent, expressive, 'wine-like' language. And his view of English is equally common. It is rude, barbarous and 'watery'. Such complaints about English may have been common but, as time went on, confidence in the new language grew. It had its defenders, none so strong as the pedagogue Richard Mulcaster, whose 1582 book The Elementarie, was a spirited defence of the use of English: 'I love Rome', he says, 'but London better, I favor Italie, but England more, I honor the Latin, but I worship the English'. These attitudes towards English - despair at the language's inadequacies followed ## EARLY MODERN ENGLISH by spirited defence of its value, were also found in relation to other European tongues. The vernaculars, as they were called, were seeking to gain recognition over and above Latin. Thus in 1542, we find an Italian humanist scholar, Sperone Speroni, writing a polemical defence of the vernaculars against Latin, called Dialogo delle lingue. In France, a movement known as La Pléiade was set up with the aim of enriching the French language. The movement's 'manifesto' was a book written by Du Bellay and appearing in 1549. It was called Deffence et Illustration de la Languge Françoyse. The movement to dislodge Latin from its privileged position was Europe-wide. Nowhere was Latin's position more privileged than in religion. Latin was the language of Christianity and of the Church. If Latin could be dislodged from that particular position... The struggle is recorded in CW13.1 (Translating the Bible). What was so inadequate about English that made it difficult for it to meet the challenges that the new 'happy convergence' required? A major one was the lack of vocabulary. There were simply not enough words in English to cope with the expanding mental and physical worlds of the Renaissance. Another was the lack of standard norms. There was too much variation in the language - too many dialects, too many ways in which the language could be spoken, written and spelled. Take a look at CW13.2 (Eggs or eyren?). It contains a story Caxton tells to illustrate this linguistic variation. Caxton, of course, helped to solve this problem. As you can imagine, the introduction of printing played a major part in bringing about standardization of the language. These issues, and how they were met, will be discussed in the next few chapters. But it is worth noting here that the answers to the problems point in rather different directions. If a language's vocabulary is to enjoy creative, unfettered growth, a spirit of 'anything goes' is the order of the day. The last thing you need are prescriptive 'rules' that tell you what words can and cannot be like. On the other hand, if you want standardization, prescriptive rules are part of the answer; 'control' and 'reining in' are key concepts. These opposing principles were both at play in the Renaissance period. ### 13.3 Fine volleys of words Issues like the lack of linguistic standardization were identified and discussed at length in the Renaissance. Thus John Palsgrave, a priest in Henry VIII's court (who, like Richard Taverner, managed to die with his head on), wrote a Latin translation which he dedicated to the king. He hoped that his book would help to make English 'uniforme throughe out all your graces domynions'. This was all part of a new awareness of 'matters linguistic'. Language was the subject of debate – it was something that people talked about. The number of scholars who wrote on linguistic topics shows this. One of these was William Bullokar. He ## SOME ENGLISH RENAISSANCE HISTORY wrote a grammar of English, and, in 1580, a Booke at large, for the Amendment of Orthographie for English speech. This was one of a number of attempts in the period to develop a more 'phonetic' way of writing. Another was Richard Mulcaster's The Elementarie, which deals with the teaching of English and is full of linguistic advice. Seven years later comes George Puttenham's The Arte of English Poesie, a handbook on poetry and rhetoric. This new linguistic awareness also made people particularly conscious of how they - and others – spoke. The comedies of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson are full of speakers who attract ridicule because they misuse words ('malapropisms' are discussed at length in 15.3). There are also plenty of judgemental comments on 'poor' linguistic practices. Here is one Richard Stanihurst describing, in his 1577 Description of Ireland, how people spoke in 'Weisforde' (the town of Wexford is in today's Ireland): 'they haue so aquainted themselues with the Irishe, as they have made a mingle mangle, or gallamaulfrey of both the languages, ... so crabbedly iumbled them both togyther [that they] speake neyther good English nor good Irishe'. A mingle mangle is a 'mishmash', and a gallamaufrey (or 'gallimaufry') is a 'confused jumble'. But this self-consciousness about language also had a more positive side. There is a scene in Shakespeare's early comedy The Two Gentlemen of Verona where two characters, both courting the same lady (Silvia), enter into a complex play of words, both trying to impress Silvia, who is present, and both poking fun at each other. The jokes and puns come thick and fast, so much so that today's reader can only really follow by constant reference to an editor's commentary. It is a little piece of linguistic theatre, and at the end Silvia shows her appreciation by saying: 'A fine volley of words, gentlemen, and quickly shot off.' In the BBC DVD production of the play, the audience is enlarged to include a group of onlookers, who clap when particularly witty remarks are made – rather as today one would applaud a particularly funny joke of a stand-up comedian, or even (as one meaning of the word 'volley' suggests) an exceptional 'volley' in a tennis match. You can find this passage at CW13.3 (The word-volley). It shows that in Renaissance England, linguistic sophistication – 'fine volleys of words' – were much admired. What this passage captures (and there are very many similar ones in Shakespeare) is that language was seen as something to be played with. This spirit accounts for Shakespeare's love of puns. According to Samuel Johnson, they were for the poet 'the fatal Cleopatra for whom he lost the world'. As a further Shakespearean example of word-play, take his Sonnet 135, which plays on the shortened version of his name: Will. Here are the first two lines (the word overplus means 'excess', and to boot means 'in addition'): >*Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will, >*And Will to boot, and Will in overplus; There are at least seven meanings of the word will played with in the poem. For a detailed look at the Renaissance in full 'pun', look at Activity 13B (Where there's a Will), which contains the sonnet and explores its uses of the word will. ## EARLY MODERN ENGLISH ### 13.4 The rogues in buckrom For Old English we had the 'lettuce story' to help us approach the language, and for Middle English the 'Chaunticleer passage'. We need an EModE passage as a starting-point for exploring this stage of the language. Here is one. We shall call it the 'buckrom story'; buckrom or buckram was a coarse cloth used to make cheap clothes. The passage is taken from Act 2, Scene 4 of Shakespeare's play Henry IV, Part 1. The first to speak in the extract is Prince Hal, the king's son, who at the end of Henry IV, Part 2 becomes Henry V. He is at this point busy misspending his youth, wasting away his hours with disreputable characters. Chief among these is Shakespeare's comic masterpiece, Jack Falstaff, a feckless mountain of a man who, though a knight, lives a life of debauchery. Falstaff and his companion Gadshill have attempted to rob some travellers on the highway, and have failed miserably. Prince Hal, with his friend Poins, question Falstaff and Gadshill on what happened. Falstaff's story is a pack of lies, invented to make him sound brave. The main joke is that he constantly tries to make his story more impressive by adding to the number of adversaries they encountered, like a fisherman exaggerating the number of fish caught. There is a glossary below the passage, which is given here using the spelling and orthography of the 1623 version:¹ #### Rogues in buckrom Prince: Speake firs, how was it? Gad: We foure ſet vpon ſome dozen. Falft: Sixteene, at leaſt, my Lord. Gad: And bound them. Peto: No, no, they were not bound. Falft: You Rogue, they were bound, euery man of them, or I am a Iew elſe, an Ebrew Iew. Gad: As we were ſharing, ſome fix or feuen freſh men ſet vpon vs. Falft: And vnbound the reſt, and then come in the other. Prince: What, fought yee with them all? Falft: All? I know not what yee call all: but if I fought not with fiftie of them, I am a bunch of Radiſh: if there were not two or three and fiftie vpon poore olde Iack, then I am no two-legg'd Creature. Poin: Pray Heauen, you haue not murthered ſome of them. Falft: Nay, that's paſt praying for, I haue pepper'd two of them: Two I am fure I haue payed, two Rogues in Buckrom Sutes. I tell thee what, Hal, if I tell thee a Lye, ſpit in my face, call me Horſe: thou knoweſt my olde word: here I lay, and thus I bore my point: foure Rogues in Buckrom let driue at me. Prince: What, foure? thou ſayd'ſt but two, euen now. Falfs: Foure, Hal, I told thee foure. Poin: I, I, he said foure. Falst: These foure came all a-front, and mainely thruſt at me; I made no more adoe, but tooke all their ſeuen points in my Targuet, thus. Prince: Seuen? Why there were but foure, euen now. Falst: In Buckrom. Poin: I, foure, in Buckrom Sutes. Falst: Seuen, by these Hilts, or I am a Villaine elfe. Prin: Prethee let him alone, we fhall haue more anon. Falst: Doest thou heare me, Hal? Prin: I, and marke thee too, lack. Falst: Doe so, for it is worth the liftning too: these nine in Buckrom, that I told thee of. Pron: So, two more alreadie. Falst: Poin: Falst: Their Points being broken. Downe fell his Hofe. Began to giue me ground: but I followed me clofe, came in foot and hand; and with a thought, ſeuen of theeleuen I pay'd. Prin: O monſtrous! eleuen Buckrom men growne out of two? Falst: But as the Deuill would haue it, three miß-begotten Knaues, in Kendall Greene, came at my Back, and let driue at me; for it was so darke, Hal, that thou could'st not see thy Hand. Prin: These Lyes are like the Father that begets them, groffe as a Mountaine, open, palpable. Why thou Clay-brayn'd Guts, thou Knotty-pated Foole, thou Horſon obſeene greafie Tallow Catch. ### Glossary | Word | Meaning | |---|---| | Iew, Jew | Ebrew, Hebrew | | sharing, sharing out the money | bunch of Radish, radishes symbolized leanness (and Falstaff was a very fat man) | | that had been stolen | pepper, trounce | | murther, murder | word, (ward) posture of defence | | horse, ass | I, aye, yes | | point, sword | targuet, shield | | a-front, abreast | point, sword point, but also the laces holding up stockings | | sute, suite | pay, kill | | hose, stockings | clay-brayned, stupid | | Kendall greene, a coarse type of cloth | knotty-pated, block-headed | | guts, fat person | tallow catch, dripping pan (to collect fat from cooking meat) | | horson, whoreson | | We will start looking at the 'buckrom story' in the next chapter. But here, in preparation, are some points to ponder: (a) The passage contains the letter f. It is sometimes called long s, to distinguish it from the shorts ('s') we use today. The two letters do not represent different sounds, but they are used in different contexts. Try to work out from the story when the two are used. (b) The difference between 'u' and 'v' is also interesting. In PDE they represent different sounds, and there were two sounds in EModE as well. But both 'u' and 'v' could be used for each sound. Again, the use of the letters depends on context. Try to work out when they are used. (c) The story is full of words that look like PDE words, but with slight spelling differences. Make a note of these. Are there any differences which occur sufficiently often for you to work out any general principles? (d) Find examples of apostrophes in the story. What function do they serve? Compare what you find with how we use apostrophes in PDE. (e) The use of capital letters in the story is at odds with PDE usage. When do we use word-initial capitals in PDE? Can you find any logic to how they are used in the story? (f) What about the use of italics? When are they used? (g) Look at the punctuation marks used in the story and note any differences from PDE usage. The next chapter (14.2), takes up these issues. To finish the present chapter on a rude note: notice at the end of the 'buckrom story' the glorious barrage of insults the Prince looses on Falstaff. Shakespeare was a master in the art of the insult. Here is Falstaff, a few lines later, giving back to the Prince as good as he got. You do not have to understand all the words to savour the delights of these insults: >Away you Starueling, you Elfe-skin, you dried Neats tongue, Bulles-piffell, you ſtock-fiſh... You Tailors yard, you ſheath you Bow-case, you vile ſtanding tucke. Literary critics from outside Britain have sometimes wondered how we can have a national writer capable of such rudeness! ==End of OCR for page 1==