| 500 Years Ago |
- 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 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.
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.
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