- Developments in European culture fuelled by the Renaissance.
- Changes in the Christian religion fuelled by German Martin Luther.
- The race begins between Christian Europeans to find new trade routes
to China for silk and Indonesia for spices as the Muslim Ottomans block
the Mediterranean sea to all Christian shipping.
English and other European Explorers.
500 years ago the
English started exploring the world in sailing ships. (This was the
first step to England creating a world wide empire.) The catalyst to
explore at this time was the blockade of the Mediterranean sea in 1448
by the Islamic Ottoman (Turks) thus closing access to the only known
trade route to the east (India and China.)
500 years ago English, Spanish and Portuguese sailing ships
reached North and South America for the first time. They rightly
thought by sailing west and the world being round that they would come
to China in the east, by-passing the Ottomans. Maps at this time did
not show the Americas. The milestones in finding these trade routes
were as follows:
- 1487 Vasco de Gamma (Portuguese) was the first to sail
down the west coast of Africa and right round the Cape of Good Hope.
(In search of another new route to India avoiding the Mediterranean.
Actually he came in contact with the Ottomans in the Indian Ocean but
being in awe of his large ship they did not attack)
- 1492 The Italian Christopher Columbus,(from Genoa) financed
by the Spanish royal family, was the first to sail due west across the
Atlantic(from Lisbon in Portugal.) Columbus found the Caribbean islands
instead, which he called the West Indies.
- John Cabot an English sailor also sailed west a few years
later (1497)on a similar mission. He found “Newfoundland” No Spices
there but lots of fish (Cod), furs and new building timbers.
- 1498 Vasco de Gamma proved to all Europeans that silk and
spices could be brought back to Europe with out paying blood money to
the Muslim Ottomans. Gamma sailed west across the Atlantic, south to
the bottom of South America, round the treacherous Cape Horn, across
the Pacific to China, Java (Indonesia) as far as India. He returned the
same way with a ship load of silk and spices. Europe had beaten the
Ottoman trade blockade.
500 years ago the English invented the Theodolite which is a
key navigational instrument allowing sailors to position themselves by
latitude in the middle of the ocean.
500 years ago saw the effects of the “Renaissance” come to England.
Renaissance, a French word meaning Re-Birth, started in Italy in 1452,
following the fall of Christian Constantinople to the Muslim Ottomans.
Many intellectuals fled to Venice, Milan and Florence bringing with
them long forgotten books of Greek and Roman culture and art. Henry 7th
(1485-1509) invited Italian artists and scholars to England to debate
and study these long forgotten ideas. This heralded the end of the
“Middle Ages”.
Elizabeth 1st, her pirates and slave traders.
A few years
later (1577) in the reign of Elizabeth 1st Englishman Drake sailed
right round the world. Drake became very rich and popular with the
queen, mainly from pirating the Spanish ships carrying gold and silver
from South America to Spain. In one pirating voyage Drake could net
more income for the Queen than a full years tax from her subjects. The
Queen “Knighted” Drake for this dubious activity!
English Naval captain “Hawkings” also became rich (1562) from
pirating also from buying West African people as slaves and selling
them in the Caribbean islands to work in the sugar plantations. (Called
the triangular trade. England, Africa, Caribbean) The Spanish and
Portuguese were doing the same thing to get cheap slave workers into
their sugar plantations particularly the Portuguese in Brazil for their
sugar plantations and the Spanish to a lesser extent for their gold and
silver mines in Mexico and Peru.
Englishman, Sir Walter Raleigh set up a colony (settlement for
English people) on the east coast of America and called it Virginia.
1585 ( After Queen Elizabeth 1st “the virgin queen” ) Sir Walter became
very rich from growing Tobacco in the warm climate of Virginia and
selling it in England and growing potatoes originally from the same
area in his estates in Ireland. Note potatoes were not grown or eaten
in England until some 200 years later.
At the same time as the English were making their first steps
in North America they were doing the same thing in India setting up the
East India company, a private trading company designed to manage the
trade between England and India and the Far East. The Dutch where the
first into the area, followed by the French, both were doing the same
thing at the same time as the English. The Portuguese set up their
trading post on the other side of India (Goa) 100 years before this.
Shakespeare, the English Language, Printing and Books
500 years ago the English playwright and actor William Shakespeare
wrote plays and poems so beautifully that the Rulers of England saw
English as a real alternative to the educated man to the then more
cultural but descriptively restrictive Latin and French.
500 years ago printing (books and posters) was started in England by
William Caxton allowing religious books now translated from Latin to
English and the plays and poems of Shakespeare to be read country wide.
(Not too many could read at this time.) The printing process was not
available to Chaucer who was the first to write extensively in English
some 200 years previously.
Some quality English Kings and Queens
500 years ago England
had a succession of good Kings and Queens notably King Henry the 7th ,
and his son Henry the 8th. Soon after, Queen Elisabeth 1st Henry 8th ‘s
daughter.
- Henry 7th 1485-1509 finished the long civil war in England the “Wars
of the Roses” and brought a period of peace and economic stability.
- Henry 8th 1509-1547 is well remembered for his 6 wives, married in a
desperate attempt to produce a son to succeed him. Effectively they all
failed. Henry’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon (Barcelona area in
Spain) was the widow of his elder brother who died young. Princess
Catherine was the daughter of the Spanish rulers Ferdinand and Isabella
who financed the voyage of Christopher Columbus.
Henry 8th should also be remembered for questioning the “official”
Roman Christian religion of England where any major changes had to be
authorised by the Pope in Rome. Eventually while still remaining
Catholic he separated the English Church from Rome.
Christian religious upheaval
The Roman Catholic Church at
this time, in Europe and also in England, had become decadent but was
very rich. Henry (initially with the approval of the Pope) closed down
many of the Catholic monasteries and took their riches for himself and
England.
Henry then appointed himself head of the Church of England and
separated the Church of England from the Church of Rome. This gave him
many huge benefits including.
- He could divorce his wife to find a woman who would hopefully bear him a son.
- He did not have to pay any “taxes” to the Pope in Rome
- He
did not have to obey orders from Rome telling him for example to fight
a particular (and expensive) battle on be half of the Church of Rome.
And very importantly he permitted the business of money
lending (early banking) which was forbidden by the Roman Catholic
Church. Banking had not been seen in England since Roman times and
English Kings who needed this service would have to travel to the
Jewish ghettos in Amsterdam or Venice or Genoa. In addition he
commenced taking the Church of England towards the Protestant version
of Christianity aided by his Archbishop Thomas Cramner.
On the death of Henry 8th his only son, Edward 6th (by Jane Seymour
who died having produced him) became King at the age of only nine. It
was during his reign (mainly under his uncle’s official guidance,
another Edward, Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector and aided by Thomas
Cramner) that the Church moved further towards the Protestant version
of Christianity as preached at that time by Martin Luther in Germany.
The “Reformation”.
This period also saw the introduction of the “common prayer
book” in English rather than Latin which enabled more folk to follow
the service. Priests were also no longer forbidden to marry.
Edward died when he was only 15 years old and was eventually succeeded
by the next in line Mary, daughter of Henry 8th and Catherine of Aragon
of Spain. For five years there was a blood bath as the devout Catholic
Mary tried to reverse England back to Catholicism. Some 300 Protestants
were burnt at the stake (that is burnt alive) including many of Henry
the 8th ‘s right hand men, notably including Thomas Cramner. Mary
(nicknamed Bloody Mary) wedded King Philip 2nd of Catholic Spain in
Winchester Cathedral to gain a Catholic ally and a sire for a son and
heir. She died at 42 years old of cancer of the ovaries. (No
connection!)
Elisabeth the 1st 1558- 1603 (Henry 8th daughter by Anne
Boleyn) then comes to the throne and finally settles this religious see
saw ruthlessly sealing England as a Protestant country.
England’s exploration abroad culminating in the British Empire
plus this fundamental change of religion owed much to the support of
Elisabeth 1st. Elizabeth had a tough and risky reign as the first fully
Protestant Monarch. Ireland remained Catholic to the west and Spain and
France the then most powerful countries in Europe also remained
staunchly Catholic on England’s east side. The Pope in Rome placed a
death order on Elizabeth which in 1588 was taken up by King Philip 2nd
of Spain who sent a huge fleet (130) of huge ships full of solders to
England to execute her (The Spanish Armada). One of the most famous
stories in English history describes how ex pirates Sir Frances Drake
and Sir John Hawkins in charge of a smaller English fleet with smaller
but more manoeuvrable ships routed the Spanish fleet in the English
Channel.
Education
About this time, 500 years ago with the interest in
education fuelled by the Renaissance, schools were beginning to appear
generally financed by local benefactors. For example, Oundle school on
the west of Peterborough was formed and started teaching Latin and
Greek to local boys. It however took another 350 years before schools
started teaching science and engineering. Oundle was the first under
visionary headmaster Sanderson.
The two most famous schools in England Eton and Harrow were
founded in 1440 by King Henry 6th and 1571 respectively. Winchester is
England’s oldest public school, was founded in 1382 by William of
Wykeham.
Emigration commences to North America
During this period the
English began the arduous journey across the Atlantic to the new
colonies in North America. Some driven by Religious persecution and
some by starvation as harvests were poor due to the on set of a mini
ice age.
Previous Next
