Tudor Reformation

When Henry VIII wrote his Defense of the Seven Sacraments in opposition to Martin Luther, he probably would have balked at the idea that the reformation would take root in England through his own actions. While Luther was a voice calling for an end of corruption in the Catholic Church, Henry split with Rome for reasons that were much more personal but no less far reaching. One wonders if Henry could possibly envision his quarrel with the pope resulting in England becoming a Protestant nation under his children.

Henry VIII took his place on both sides of Reformation history. His essay disputing Martin Luther earned him the title Defender of the Faith. However, his 1534 Act of Supremacy made the king's word the highest in the land on matters of religion, cutting the pope out of the picture. Henry's Church of England was Catholicism without the pope. It was his insatiable need for authority that drove Henry's move toward Protestantism. Little did he know that the movement would carry on further than he ever intended after his death.

Edward VI became king at the age of nine and became a staunch Protestant. During his reign, Catholic mass was banned and a new Book of Common Prayer was written for Church of England worship. Priests were allowed to marry, while their vestments and churches were stripped of their elaborate splendor. Masses for the dead were no longer said, and veneration of saints was discouraged. Although these were significant changes, some reformers said Edward did not take them far enough. They wanted to see full Lutheranism or Calvinism adopted, while others held tight to their ancestral Catholicism. Edward did not live long enough to see an end to these issues. When he died at age fifteen, his older - and very Catholic - sister became queen.

Queen Mary I quickly and decisively thwarted plans to make her Protestant cousin, Lady Jane Grey, queen in her place. Mary had the support of the people and immediately began reverting the country to Catholic worship. Relations with Rome were reinstated, and Edward's reforms were reversed. While some of Mary's subjects welcomed this counter-reformation, others pushed back. In the 16th century, monarchs were still determining how to cope with competing religions, and the idea that Protestantism and Catholicism could reside side-by-side was unthinkable, so Mary pressed on with her 'true faith' through sermons designed to teach about Catholicism, a return to traditional mass, and, eventually, the burning of Protestant leaders for heresy. In 1558, Mary died, leaving her work undone and her crown to her Protestant sister.

Elizabeth I proved a better politician than either of her siblings. She returned the country to Protestantism while claiming that she would not make religious decisions for her subjects. Instead of burning for heresy, Catholic priests were hanged, drawn, and quartered for treason. Since Elizabeth's reign was much longer than Edward's or Mary's, she is better remembered for other historical events and aspects of her reign. The focus on religion that Edward and Mary are known for was purposely downplayed by Elizabeth. Although she is the one less identified by her religious beliefs, Queen Elizabeth secured England's place in history as a Protestant country.

Jane Grey: Lady or Queen?

Lady Jane Grey
NPG D21393

A recent post of mine brought questions to the forefront regarding Lady Jane Grey's status as a Tudor queen. I included her in my list of monarchs but noted that she is not always included in others. This list, for example, mentions her only parenthetically. Jane is referred to as a ruler by Royal.UK, but is still listed by the name Lady Jane Grey. In fact, we most commonly refer to her as Lady Jane Grey rather than Queen Jane.

Why is that? She had not had a coronation, but there are other examples of monarchs who have been accepted as such despite the lack of this ceremony. Edward V is a notable example quite close to Jane's time. Little Edward is never left out of discussions of England's kings though he ruled even less than his distant cousin Jane did.

Jane was proclaimed and deposed with lightening speed, causing some to refer to her as an unsuccessful usurper rather than a legal queen. Yet she had been accepted by Edward VI's council. They called her before them on July 9, 1553, three days after Edward's death, to inform her that she was her cousin's choice of successor.

On July 10, 1553, Jane was proclaimed queen by her father-in-law, John Dudley duke of Northumberland. Thinking this family affair was neatly wrapped up, they did not count on the bold actions of Mary Tudor. It took only nine days for Mary to proclaim herself queen and defeat the poor resistance put forward by Northumberland on Jane's behalf. Jane was officially deposed on July 19th, causing her to become known throughout history as the Nine Day Queen.

Edward VI's
Devise for the Succession

Edward's Devise for the Succession may have been his will as king, but it was not the law of the land. His father, Henry VIII, had implemented a series of laws that secured the line of succession well beyond his own death. Henry's Third Act of Succession was accepted during the Parliament of 1543/44, reestablishing both Mary and Elizabeth as heirs after their younger half-brother. The Treason Act of 1547 further established this law by making it high treason for anyone, including Edward VI, to interrupt this line of succession. Henry's will again confirmed his desire for these laws to be followed. Both Henry's will and Edward's bypassed Jane's mother Frances in the succession.

The misunderstanding that often takes place is that Henry's will simply took supremacy over that of Edward. That is an oversimplification, however. It was not only Henry's will that created the legal line of succession, it was Parliamentary law. Had Edward acted upon his desire to name Jane as his heir earlier and had time to pass laws to counter those of his father, there is a chance that Jane may have enjoyed a long and happy reign. Simply putting his requests within his will was not enough.

 Queen Mary I
NPG 428

Had the laws been changed, there is still no guarantee that Mary would have been content to let Jane rule. Mary had been raised to rule and had been crushed when her father changed his mind and made her a bastard. Though she had been willing to accept her brother's place above her own, there is no indication that she questioned her own right over Jane's.

So, was Jane a queen? Again, I say yes, and technically I believe I am correct. She was proclaimed and acted as queen officially for nine days. However, history seems to have relegated her to always being simply a Lady, which I suppose is better than the title of usurper.

Read more about Mary and Jane in Queen of Martyrs.

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The Unexpected Tudors

Allegory of the Tudor Succession, 1572

Though the dynasty is fabulously popular today, nobody before 1485 would have wagered too much on the chances of England hosting a Tudor dynasty. The roots of the Tudors can be traced back far earlier than that, but, for today, I would like to look at the individual Tudors and just how unexpected each of their reigns were.

Henry VII

Henry Tudor was a minor nobleman from a bastard royal line. On top of that, he had been in exile for years before the crown was unexpectedly found upon his head. Before the death of Edward IV, there was little thought of Tudor becoming the last red rose or final hope of the Lancastrians or any other such poetic title. He was simply one of many on the losing side. His father and grandfather, Edmund and Owen Tudor, had both been killed in the Wars of the Roses. Left with his uncle, Jasper Tudor, Henry had little reason to think he would return to England, let alone as it's king.

Even with the shocking death of Edward IV and rise of Richard III, Tudor counted on foreign mercenaries, betrayal, and a lot of luck to secure his victory. His marriage to Princess Elizabeth of York eased the minds of many Englishmen that York and Lancaster were finally united and paved the way for a relatively peaceful reign. This unity may have brought peace, but it also caused the end of a three century long dynasty. The Plantagenets had gone down in familial infighting. The Tudors arose.

Henry VIII

For the first decade of his life, little Henry Tudor, named for his illustrious father, had no inkling of becoming king. His older brother, Arthur, was loudly and widely proclaimed the future king that would bring England unprecedented glory. Sadly, Arthur's future was cut short, and England received the unexpected heir who became one of the most famous (infamous?) monarchs in English history.

Upon his father's death in 1509, Henry VIII welcomed his extended family in a way that Henry VII had never been quite comfortable doing. William Courtenay was released from the Tower and carried Henry's sword at his coronation. Margaret Pole was raised as Countess of Salisbury. Only the de la Poles originally bore Henry's wrath.

Then his first wife Catherine failed to have a son. Suddenly, Henry was suspicious of each person with a drop of royal blood, and his insecurity saw to the death of many whom he had formerly raised up. The birth of Prince Edward to his third wife, Jane Seymour, did little to ease his paranoia.

This unexpected Tudor caused England's break with Rome, the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and tyranny that remains fertile ground for historians and fiction writers today.

Edward VI

Edward VI is the only Tudor who was expected from the moment of his birth to rule England. In fact, if there is anything unexpected about poor Edward, it is that his reign was unmercifully short. Only nine years old when he became king and not quite sixteen when he died, Edward's story is a tragic one. He was the most staunchly Protestant of the Tudors and made many reforms in the Church of England in his brief reign. The tragedy did not end with his own death. Due to his hope to disinherit his sisters and place a reformist cousin on his throne, Edward inadvertently caused a revived round of family battles and bloodshed.

Jane

Lady Jane Grey is not typically included in lists of England's Kings and Queens. I have seen discussions on why this is, most notably that she did not have a coronation (but neither did Edward V . . . . so that discussion is for another day). I have chosen to include her here because no Tudor ruler was quite as unexpected and controversial as she was.

Despite what you may have read in sensationalist fiction, Edward's decision to disinherit his sisters came long before his death was eminent. Not wishing to leave the future of his country and the reforms that he had made in the hands of sisters who were not only women but were bastards, Edward had begun work on naming a new heir months before his death. His cousin Jane was by all accounts intelligent, devout, and expected to marry a reputable Englishman to assist her in ruling until her future son could do so.

Nobody expected Mary, the middle-aged daughter of Henry VIII to put up much of a fight.

Mary I

Mary had so much working against her when she decided to boldly proclaim herself queen. Jane was in London, already proclaimed and signing documents as 'Jane the Queen.' She had the support of Edward's council and had been named successor in Edward's will. However, Mary was through cowering and accepting the events that had transformed her from princess to bastard. She would be queen, as her mother and governess had always taught her.

As a girl, Mary had been her father's heir and had been raised to be a queen, if not of England than as a consort of another country. Her reality had turned out quite differently. She was content for her brother to reign, despite the religious differences between them. She understood that he outranked her. The same could not be said for the future sons of Jane Grey.

Mary had a surprising amount of support from East Anglian gentry and had little trouble overpowering the sect led by John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. Jane's nine day queenship was at an end.

Elizabeth I

Elizabeth may be the next most famous Tudor after her father, but she had little reason to believe that she would ever become queen. Bastardized before she would have understood the term, Elizabeth was in line behind a brother and sister who would have each been expected to have sons. Not until the death of a childless Mary in 1558 would Elizabeth's way become clear.

The final Tudor made no plans for the continuation of her dynasty. Though she led many men on for several years, she never married any of them. She failed to name a successor and punished her extended family for daring to marry and have children themselves. While her father had obsessively strove for an heir, Elizabeth avoided them. In doing so, she gave England something even more unexpected than the Tudors: the Stuarts.

Tudor Sons

When Elizabeth of York married Henry Tudor, one of her essential roles was birthing sons to ensure the future of the dynasty that they were creating together. This has long been one of the prime objectives of queens, and Elizabeth would have accepted it and understood its importance. After the usurpation of her brother's crown by her own uncle, the importance - yet at the same time danger - of having men in the family was nothing that she needed explained.

Arthur Tudor

The first royal Tudor couple were quickly rewarded for their efforts, with Prince Arthur arriving a scant 8 months after their marriage ceremony. Efforts to establish this Tudor prince as a uniting force, mingling the bloodlines of Lancaster and York, are evident in the key elements of his short life. Arthur was lauded as even more than the next king. He would be a reincarnation of the King Arthur of legend, bringing peace and prosperity to England.

Arthur was given his own household at Ludlow, just as Elizabeth's brother had before him, demonstrating that traditions would continue under the new regime. A royal princess was found for him to marry, and fate would ensure that Katherine of Aragon became queen of England.

As Arthur was being trained for greatness, two brothers were added to the family. Henry and Edmund were certainly welcomed by parents and countrymen alike, though their birth was not as celebrated as Arthur's. Like all good medieval parents, Elizabeth and Henry planned to dedicate one son to the church. Though it is difficult for those of us who know his story to imagine it, Henry probably believed for much of his young life that he would someday become the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Henry VIII

Edmund became the first of the Tudor sons to enter an early grave when he died of a sweating sickness or the plague in 1500. While Edmund was undoubtedly mourned, Arthur's death was a crushing blow to the Tudor parents, whose grief is well documented. His death in 1502 left young Henry as heir and Elizabeth eager to attempt the birth of another son. Her efforts were in vain. The birth of a little girl in 1503 led to Elizabeth's death on her 37th birthday, and Henry VII was left burying both wife and infant daughter.

The difficulty of bearing sons would go on to be a defining element of the Tudor dynasty. Henry VII left his throne to his son in 1509. Henry VIII was a fit, intelligent, and virile 18 year old when his father died, and the future seemed bright. He married his brother's widow and could have never foreseen his challenge to bear an heir.

Edward VI

The Tudor dynasty came to an end within three generations due to the failure of Henry and his children to bear sons. The one hard fought for son that Henry VIII did leave behind became King Edward VI. Unfortunately, he also died at the age of 15, before marrying or bearing sons. Edward's sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, were no more successful in the extending of the family tree.

Where a multitude of sons may have had unforeseeable consequences to the Plantagenet dynasty, eventually causing it to be snuffed out entirely by the Wars of the Roses, a painful lack of sons become the death toll of the Tudor dynasty.

Read more about Tudor sons in the Plantagenet Embers series!

Are English Monarchs Guilty of Legalized Murder?

A few of my recent posts have turned into discussions of executions

performed by various Plantagenet and Tudor monarchs. Often, in a conversation of the end of one dynasty and the beginning of the next, proponents of one king or the other are likely to pull questionable killings out of the debate arsenal. The truth is, whether you think Henry VII was a horrid usurper or saved the country from the evil villain Richard III, most of these men - and women - have some blood on their hands.

Limiting myself to the 15th and 16th centuries, I decided to take a look at executions that may qualify more as murders ordered by the kings and queens of England.

Henry IV

The most infamous execution under Henry IV's reign is that of Richard II. Rumors abound regarding the death of this inept king who was replaced by his royal cousin. While Richard may have starved himself as he suffered from severe depression, there is no doubt that he died under Henry IV's watch on February 14, 1400.

Henry V

Unlike many who would follow him, Henry V does not have a lengthy list of Englishmen who met their end at his hands. One exception is his friend John Oldcastle who was charged with heresy. This Henry is better known for his escapades in France, where he ordered the execution of French prisoners and the starvation of women and children at Rouen.

Henry VI

This gentle and mentally ill monarch may not have ordered questionable executions himself, but England became a bloody killing field during his reign. Many blame his wife, Margaret of Anjou, for sending thousands of soldiers to their deaths rather than let those next in line advise Henry. Others see her as a strong example of a devoted wife and mother. However you judge her, noblemen began to die in droves until the ascendancy of Edward of York.

Edward IV

Edward would eventually follow the example set by his distant cousin, Henry IV, and order the death of Henry VI. Though this did not happen until 1471, after the death of the displaced king's son and heir, Edward undoubtedly saw Henry's death as the beginning of peace after two violent decades of civil war. Officially, Henry died of melancholy.

Some claim that the death of Edward of Lancaster, son of Henry VI, was also murder by Edward or his followers. All that is known for sure is that he fell at Tewkesbury, during or shortly following the battle.

George of Clarence, Edward's own brother, is another mysterious execution that took place at Edward's command. It is also one of the events that got this discussion started here.

Edward was grew bold in his willingness to clear the land of his opponents. Was this in reaction to the death of his father, Richard of York, and brother, Edmund? Richard had hidden behind armies while asking to advise the king. Edward showed no such hesitance. After Hedgeley Moor, he executed the Lancastrian leaders. He was also not afraid to pull his enemies from sanctuary.

Edward V

The doomed Edward V had little opportunity to order any executions. As the 12 year old heir to Edward IV, he was soon replaced by his uncle Richard III. Was Edward a bastard or Richard a usurper? We may never know.

Before Richard was crowned, he ordered the executions of Anthony Woodville and Richard Grey. These deaths technically took place during Edward's reign, if we can even call it that, but he certainly didn't order them. Anthony was a father figure to Edward, but a threat to Richard. There is little question who truly ordered these deaths.

Richard III

Richard's short reign is plagued by questionable deaths, starting with those already mentioned. The hasty execution of William Hastings is also often noted by many as evidence of Richard's ruthlessness. Hastings, a friend and counselor of Edward IV was summarily killed when Richard became convinced that he was plotting against him with Woodville allies.

Richard is also responsible for the execution of Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, after his ill-fated rebellion against his one-time friend. Richard refused even to speak to Buckingham or give him an opportunity to defend himself. Though Richard is also criticized for this, it was standard procedure of the day.

Finally and most dramatically, Richard is held responsible for the murder of his nephews, Edward and Richard, better known as the Princes in the Tower. Though some have attempted to clear Richard's name of this crime, the fact remains that the two boys disappeared while in Richard's care.

Henry VII

Henry VII is often overlooked in favor of the more intriguing kings that bookend his reign. While some believe he deserves more credit and attention, others believe his ruthlessness is what is understated.

Henry showed himself merciful when he made the rebel figurehead, Lambert Simnel, a member of his household rather than having the boy executed. However, Henry would later execute others with eyes for his throne. Perkin Warbeck, Edward of Warwick, and Ralph Wilford each met this end. Henry also sent assassins after Richard de la Pole in Europe in much the way his son would later hunt Reginald Pole.

Henry VIII

It would be possible to write quite a long list of those who fell to the ax under Henry VIII's order. Another Duke of Buckingham met a treasonous end, this one the son of Henry Stafford. Not stopping there, Henry also trumped up charges against several remaining Plantagenets, including Henry Pole, Margaret Pole, Henry Courtenay, Edmund de la Pole, and Henry Howard.

Henry was fast to cross the fine line between love and hate, executing several former friends. Most notable among these are Thomas Moore and Thomas Cromwell. Of course we cannot forget his unfortunate wives, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, in addition to the several men who went to their deaths with them.

Deaths at Henry's order could fill a book, so we will simply agree at this point that he may be the bloodiest, and least predictable of the monarchs considered here.

Edward VI

Edward was young and advised by others throughout his reign, leaving little to accuse him of. Possibly the most shocking execution orders signed by him were for his own uncles, Edward and Thomas Seymour. The Tudors like to keep murder in the family.

Mary

Was "Bloody Mary" truly more ruthless than her predecessors or her sister? Protestants, like Thomas Cranmer, would burn at Mary's order, but the same occurred during her father's reign. She gave into pressure to have Jane Grey executed, but Elizabeth went on to make the remaining Grey sisters sorry to be alive. Mary's reign had its fair share of horrid deaths, but they were less than ordered by her father, and at least she remained consistent regarding who she stood against.

Elizabeth

The glorious virgin queen excelled were her sister did not: public relations. Like her father, she executed noblemen who got out of line, including Thomas Percy, Robert Devereux, Thomas Howard, and, of course, Mary Queen of Scots. Several priests met their end, despite Elizabeth's reputation as

religiously tolerant. Elizabeth was also talented in punishments that did not include death. She played a decades' long marriage game with Robert Dudley (and half the other eligible bachelors in Europe), imprisoned the Grey sisters, their spouses, and children when they dared to start families that may match Elizabeth in royal blood.

Many other pieces of evidence could be brought against each of these monarchs, but in the end it may be true that they are each guilty of legalized murder. This seems inexcusable to us by modern standards, but monarchs of the 15th and 16th centuries had long precedent of using ruthless methods to ensure their power.