IN THE BEGINNING

The Roman occupation of Britain.
Julius Caesar invaded Britain in 55 or 54 BC. During the first 20 years of occupation some progress was made in spreading Roman civilization but it was only in AD 69-96 with the occupation of Wales and an advance into northern Scotland that real cultural advances were made. In addition to the local Celtic gods, classical roman deities were introduced and often identified with their Celtic counterparts. The worship of Roman gods and of the imperial cult was observed in official circles but soldiers and merchants also introduced oriental religions, among them Christianity.
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Constantine The Great
Constantine I was born on February 27 in the later AD280's and became the first Roman emperor to profess Christianity. He initiated the conversion of the empire into a Christian state and also inspired a distinctively Christian culture that laid the foundations for the growth of Byzantine and Western medieval civilization. The son of a Caesar (or deputy emperor), Flavius Valerius Constantius, Contantine was brought up in the Eastern Empire at the court of the senior emperor Diocletian at Nicomedia. In 305 Constantine was passed over as a successor to the emperors Diocletian and Maximian (both of whom had abdicated) and was asked by his father to accompany to him to Britain. After a campaign in the north his father died in Eboracum (modern York) and Constantine was immediately acclaimed emperor by the army. Throughout his life, Constantine ascribed his success as emperor to his conversion to Christianity and the support of the Christian God. The triumphal arch erected in his honor at Rome ascribed a military victory to the "inspiration of the Divinity" as well as to Constantine's own genius.
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Roman withdrawal from Britain.
When Constantine III, who was declared emperor by the army in Britain in AD 407, took troops to Gaul he was continuing a pattern of gradual withdrawal which began in AD 350. The forces remaining in the island were insufficient to provide protection against increasing Pictish and Saxon raids. The Britons appealed to the emperor, Honorius, who was unable to send assistance but authorized the cities to provide for their own defense (AD 410). This marks the end of Roman Britain, for the central government never re-established control. Power fell gradually into the hands of tyrants, who, unlike earlier usurpers, made no attempt to become Roman emperors but were content with power in Britain.
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Bishop Paulinus
Paulinus was an Italian missionary who converted Northumbria to Christianity, became the first bishop of York, and was later made archbishop of Rochester. Originally sent to Britain by Pope St. Gregory I, to assist Archbishop St. Augustine of Canterbury in his mission of converting England to Christianity, Paulinus was consecrated bishop at Kent in 625. He escorted the daughter of King Aethelberht (Ethelbert) of Kent to the Northumbrian king Edwin. Paulinus converted and baptized Edwin (627), who made him first bishop of York, after which Paulinus' missions spread throughout Northumbria. When in 632 Edwin was slain by the Anglo-Saxon kings Caedwalla and Penda, Paulinus fled to Kent, where he became bishop of Rochester then archbishop in 634.
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King Edwin
Anglo-Saxon king of Northumbria from 616 to 632. He was the most powerful English ruler of his day and the first Christian king of Northumbria. The son of King Aelle of Deira, one of the two Northumbrian kingdoms, Edwin fled into exile when Aethelric, king of Bernicia, seized power in Deira in 588 or 590. In 616 King Raedwald of East Anglia defeated and killed Aethelric's son Aethelfrith and installed Edwin on the Northumbrian throne. Edwin conquered part of Wales and was recognized as overlord by all the other English rulers except the king of Kent. Edwin's conversion to Christianity resulted from his marriage to the Christian princess Aethelburh of Kent. She brought to Northumbria the Roman missionary Paulinus, who converted Edwin and many of his subjects in 627. In 632 King Cadwallon of Gwynedd and King Penda of Mercia invaded Northumbria and killed Edwin in battle. Paulinus and Aethelburh fled, and the Northumbrian church was temporarily suppressed. The following year, Northumbria was united and ruled by St. Oswald, son of Aethelfrith.
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Northumbria
One of the most important kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England, lying north of the Humber River. During its most flourishing period it extended from the Irish Sea to the North Sea, between two west-east lines formed in the north by the Ayrshire coast and the Firth of Forth and in the south by the Ribble River, or the Mersey, and the Humber.
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The Venerable Bede
Bede was an Anglo-Saxon theologian, historian, and chronologist, best known today for his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum ("Ecclesiastical History of the English People"), a source vital to the history of the conversion to Christianity of the Anglo-Saxon tribes. During his lifetime and throughout the Middle Ages Bede's reputation was based mainly on his scriptural commentaries, copies of which found their way to many of the monastic libraries of western Europe. His method of dating events from the time of the incarnation, or Christ's birth--i.e., AD--came into general use through the popularity of the Historia ecclesiastica and the two works on chronology. Bede's influence was perpetuated at home through the school founded at York by his pupil Archbishop Egbert of York and was transmitted to the Continent by Alcuin.
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Penda Of Mercia
Anglo-Saxon king of Mercia from about 632 until 654, who made Mercia one of the most powerful kingdoms in England and temporarily delayed the rise of Northumbria.
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Gregory I (The Great)
Architect of the medieval papacy (reigned 590-604), a notable theologian who was also an administrative, social, liturgical, and moral reformer. Drawing upon St. Augustine of Hippo's City of God for his views, Gregory formulated ideas of a Christian society that became formalized in the Middle Ages. Among his accomplishments were a reform of the mass from which came the Gregorian chant. Since the 8th century he has been regarded as a doctor (teacher) of the church.
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Alcuin
Alcuin was born about 732, in or near York. He was an Anglo-Latin poet, educator, and cleric who, as head of the Palatine school established by Charlemagne at Aachen, introduced the traditions of Anglo-Saxon humanism into western Europe. He was the foremost scholar of the revival of learning known as the Carolingian Renaissance. He also made important reforms in the Roman Catholic liturgy and left more than 300 Latin letters that have proved a valuable source on the history of his time.
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Lindisfarne
Know as Holy Island, Lindisfarne is an historic island in the west North Sea, 2 mi (3 km) from the English Northumberland coast. Lindisfarne's importance as a religious center dates from AD 635, when the ecclesiastic St. Aidan established a church and monastery there with the aim of converting the Northumbrians. The Lindisfarne Gospels (produced on the island and now housed in the British Museum) are fine examples of 7th-century illuminated manuscripts.
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East Anglia
The traditional region of England, the easternmost, consisting of the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, and parts of the counties of Cambridgeshire and Essex. The region has been settled for thousands of years. Colchester, the oldest recorded town in England, was important in pre-Roman and Roman times. East Anglia was one of the kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England, consisting of the north people (Norfolk), the south people (Suffolk), and adjacent communities.  Raedwald (died between 616 and 628) was the first king of East Anglia about whom hardly anything is known.  The Sutton Hoo ship burial and the treasure that it contained, now housed in the British Museum, indicate the wealth of the East Anglican kings.    Queen Boudica - The Warrior Queen
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King Alfred
King of Wessex (871-899), a Saxon kingdom in south-western England. He prevented England from falling to the Danes and promoted learning and literacy. Compilation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle began during his reign, c. 890.
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Norse
A term used to describe ancient Scandinavia, the language of its inhabitants or those who have adopted its customs.
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King Edgar
King of the Mercians and Northumbrians from 957 who became king of the West Saxons, or Wessex, in 959 and is reckoned as king of all England from that year. He was efficient and tolerant of local customs, and his reign was peaceful. He was most important as a patron of the English monastic revival.
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St Oswald Of York
Anglo-Saxon archbishop of Danish parentage who was a leading figure in the 10th-century movement of monastic and feudalistic reforms. Under the spiritual direction of his uncle, Archbishop Odo of Canterbury, Oswald entered the monastery of Fleury, France, then a great center of reformed Benedictinism. Returning just after Odo's death (June 958), Oswald was, in 961, consecrated bishop of Worcester by Dunstan, archbishop of Canterbury. Soon after his appointment, Oswald founded a small Benedictine monastery at Westbury-on-Trym, Gloucestershire. In 972 Oswald was transferred to the archbishopric of York, being allowed to retain the see of Worcester, where he mainly resided. A near-contemporary biography of Oswald notes his esteemed goodness. His support of Dunstan's apostolate and his collaboration with Bishop Aethelwold of Winchester, Hampshire, in establishing religious centers rank Oswald among the chief contributors to Anglo-Saxon monastic reform.
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THE NORMAN MINSTER

William the Conqueror and the Norman Conquest
King of England from 1066, one of the greatest soldiers and rulers of the Middle Ages. He made himself the mightiest feudal lord in France and then changed the course of England's history by his conquest of that country.

William was the elder of two children of Robert I of Normandy and his concubine Herleva, or Arlette, the daughter of a burgher from the town of Falaise. In 1035 Robert died when returning from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and William, his only son, whom he had nominated as his heir before his departure, was accepted as duke by the Norman magnates and his feudal overlord, King Henry I of France.

Norman interest in Anglo-Saxon England derived from an alliance made in 1002, when King Ethelred II of England married Emma, the sister of Count Richard II, William's grandfather. Two of her sons, William's cousins once removed, had reigned in turn in England, Hardecanute (1040-42) and Edward the Confessor (1042-66). William had met Edward during that prince's exile on the Continent and may well have given him some support when he returned to England in 1041.

When Edward died childless on Jan. 5, 1066, he was succeeded by his brother-in-law, Harold Earl of Wessex. Harold was accepted as king by the English magnates, and William decided on war. Others, however, moved more quickly. In May, Tostig, Harold's exiled brother, raided England, and in September he joined the invasion forces of Harald III Hardraade, King of Norway, off the Northumbrian coast. William assembled a fleet, recruited an army, and gathered his forces in August at the mouth of the Dives River. It is likely that he originally intended to sail due north and invade England by way of the Isle of Wight and Southampton Water. Such a plan would give him an offshore base and interior lines. But adverse winds detained his fleet in harbor for a month, and in September a westerly gale drove his ships up-Channel.

William regrouped his forces at Saint-Val�ry on the Somme. He had suffered a costly delay, some naval losses, and a drop in the morale of his troops. On September 27, after cold and rainy weather, the wind backed south. William embarked his army and set sail for the southeast coast of England. The following morning he landed, took the unresisting towns of Pevensey and Hastings, and began to organize a bridgehead with between 4,000 and 7,000 cavalry and infantry.

William's forces were in a narrow coastal strip, hemmed in by the great forest of Andred, and, although this corridor was easily defensible, it was not much of a base for the conquest of England. The campaigning season was almost past, and when William received news of his opponent it was not reassuring. On September 25 Harold had defeated and slain Tostig and Harald Hardraade at Stamford Bridge, near York, and was retracing his steps to meet the new invader. On October 13, when Harold emerged from the forest, William was taken by surprise. But the hour was too late for Harold to push on to Hastings, and he took up a defensive position. Early the next day William went out to give battle. He attacked the English phalanx with archers and cavalry but saw his army almost driven from the field. He rallied the fugitives, however, and brought them back into the fight and in the end wore down his opponents. Harold's brothers were killed early in the battle. Toward nightfall the King himself fell and the English gave up. William's coolness and tenacity secured him victory in this fateful battle, and he then moved against possible centers of resistance so quickly that he prevented a new leader from emerging. On Christmas Day 1066 he was crowned king in Westminster Abbey. In a formal sense the Norman Conquest of England had taken place.
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The Norman harrying of the north
After a major rising began in the north William waged a savage campaign in 1069-70, the so-called 'harrying of the north' which emphasized William's military supremacy and his brutality.
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Gothic Architecture
Developed in northern France and spreading through western Europe from the middle of the 12th century to the early 16th century the Gothic style is characterized by the converging of weights and strains at isolated points upon slender vertical piers and counterbalancing buttresses and by pointed arches and vaulting
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Cathedral of Saint Etienne (Sens)
The cathedral of Saint-�tienne in Sens (mid-12th to early 16th century), is was one of the earliest important Gothic churches. Its 12th-century architect, the master mason William of Sens, based the design of the choir of Canterbury cathedral in England on that of Saint-�tienne. The facade has three portals with fine 12th- to 14th-century sculptures. The south tower of the west facade is the only tower completed; it collapsed in 1268 and was reconstructed during the 14th-16th century. The cathedral has magnificent 12th- to 17th-century stained-glass windows, and its treasury contains a rich collection of ancient fabrics and vestments, including those of Thomas Becket. The 13th-century Officiality (restored by E.-E. Viollet-le-Duc in the 19th century), which now houses a museum containing important examples of Gallo-Roman sculpture, and the largely 16th-century Archbishop's Palace adjoin the cathedral.
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Canterbury Cathedral
The cathedral has been repeatedly rebuilt - in 1070-89, in the 14th century, and later when the present nave and tower were built. The large crypt was granted to the Huguenot refugees as their church at the end of the 16th century, and weekly services are still held in French. Christchurch Gate gives entrance to the remains of the monastic buildings. A Norman staircase leads to the hall of the King's School, founded in the early Middle Ages and reestablished in 1541 by Henry VIII.
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REBIRTH

Gable
The vertical triangular end of a building from cornice or eaves to ridge
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Arcading
A series of arches or arcades used in the construction or decoration of a building
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Lancet window
A high narrow window with an acutely pointed head and without tracery
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THE CHAPTER HOUSE

English Decorated Style
An architectural style featuring heavy surface decoration and complex tracery designs, combined with the existing repertoire of colonettes, attached shafts, and vault ribs. The effects achieved were more inventive generally than those of contemporary continental buildings. The inventive virtuosity of the masons of Decorated style also produced experiments in tracery and vault design that anticipated by 50 years or more similar developments on the Continent.
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THE NAVE

The Black Death
A pandemic of plague, probably both bubonic and pneumonic, the first onset of which ravaged Europe between 1347 and 1351, taking a proportionately greater toll of life than any other known epidemic or war up to that time.

Originating in China and Inner Asia, the plague was transmitted to Europeans (1347) when a Kipchak army, besieging a Genoese trading post in the Crimea, catapulted plague-infested corpses into the town.

The disease spread from the Mediterranean ports, affecting Sicily (1347); North Africa, mainland Italy, Spain, England, and France (1348); Austria, Hungary, Switzerland, Germany, and the Low Countries (1349); and Scandinavia and the Baltic lands (1350). There were recurrences of the plague in 1361-63, 1369-71, 1374-75, 1390, and 1400.
The study of contemporary archives suggests a mortality varying in the different regions between one-eighth and two-thirds of the population, and the French chronicler Jean Froissart's statement that about one-third of Europe's population died in the epidemic may be fairly accurate. The population in England in 1400 was perhaps half what it had been 100 years earlier; in that country alone, the Black Death certainly caused the depopulation or total disappearance of about 1,000 villages. A rough estimate is that 25 million people in Europe died from plague during the Black Death. The population of western Europe did not again reach its pre-1348 level until the beginning of the 16th century.
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The Eastern Arm

Richard II
King of England from 1377 to 1399. His ultimate defeat and death in conflicts with powerful aristocratic opponents contributed to the enfeeblement and instability that characterized the English monarchy for the next 85 years.

He was the son of Edward, the Black Prince and grandson of King Edward III.  Richard succeeded to his grandfather's throne in June 1377. He had not yet come of age, and the government continued to be run by the same nobles dominated by his uncle, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster who had held power in the last years of the reign of Edward III.

Gaunt's misrule hastened the economic deterioration brought on by the Black Death and the prolonged conflict with France (the Hundred Years' War, 1337-1453). The result was the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, the first great crisis of Richard's reign. Although he was probably acting under directions from his counselors, Richard displayed great presence of mind when he pacified the rebels with deceptive promises on June 14-15, 1381. In 1382 the king was married to Princess Anne of Bohemia (d. 1394), to whom he became deeply devoted.  By 1385 he had begun to build up a personal following of such frivolous courtiers as Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford.  At the same time there emerged a ruthless opposition led by Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester; Richard Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel; and Thomas de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick.  Gaunt kept the peace between the factions until, in July 1386, he departed for Spain to pursue his personal dynastic ambitions in Castile, leaving Richard at the mercy of his enemies.  At their instigation Parliament impeached his chancellor, Michael de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk (1386), and created an 11-man commission to oversee the king's activities for a year.  When Richard declared these measures treasonable violations of the royal prerogative, his opponents retaliated by having the Parliament of 1388 outlaw his closest friends, some of whom were executed.  The defenseless king submitted to the five principal opposition leaders--called the appellants--until in May 1389 he announced his intention to rule as an independent monarch of full age.

Gaunt's return from Spain in late 1389 stabilized the situation, and for eight years Richard worked in apparent harmony with Gaunt and the appellant lords.  All this time the king was evidently waiting for an opportunity to revenge himself against his former enemies.  He gradually formed a second and stronger royalist party, and by 1397 he was ready to strike.  He had Arundel convicted of treason and executed; Warwick was banished and Gloucester imprisoned and murdered.

In September 1398 a quarrel between two former appellants, Gaunt's son Henry Bolingbroke and Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, gave the king an opportunity to banish both men.  Hence, upon the death of John of Gaunt in February 1399, Richard had an excuse to confiscate the vast Lancastrian estates, which would have passed to Bolingbroke.  He then made the disastrous mistake of leaving for Ireland (May 1399).  In his absence Bolingbroke invaded England and rallied the nobility around himself.  Returning to England in August, Richard surrendered to Bolingbroke without a fight.  He abdicated (September 30) in favor of Bolingbroke, who ascended the throne as King Henry IV.  In October, Richard was imprisoned in Pontefract Castle, where he died four months later, possibly by starving himself to death.  William Shakespeare's story of his murder in Richard II rests on no reliable authority.  Richard revealed a sensitive appreciation of literature by patronizing Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, and Jean Froissart.
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Austin (Augustinian) Order
In the Roman Catholic Church, member of any of the religious orders and congregations of men and women whose constitutions are based on the Rule of St. Augustine, instructions on the religious life written by Augustine, the great Western theologian, and widely disseminated after his death, AD 430.
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The Tower Of London
Royal fortress and London landmark, on the north bank of the River Thames, on the east side of the City of London.
Immediately after his coronation (Christmas, 1066), William I the Conqueror began to erect fortifications there to dominate the indigenous mercantile community and to control access to the Pool of London, the major port area before the construction of docks farther downstream in the 19th century. The central keep--known as the White Tower--was begun about 1078 close inside the Roman City wall and was built of limestone from Caen in Normandy. During the 12th and 13th centuries the fortifications were extended beyond the City wall, the White Tower becoming the nucleus of a series of concentric defenses enclosing an inner and an outer ward.
The inner "curtain" has 13 towers, of which the best known are the Bloody Tower, the Beauchamp Tower, and the Wakefield Tower. The outer curtain, with six towers and two bastions, is surrounded by the moat, originally fed by the Thames but drained since 1843. The wall outside the moat has embrasures for cannons, some of which are still fired ceremonially on state occasions. The whole complex of buildings covers 18 acres (7 hectares). The only entrance from the land is at the southwest corner, from the City; when the river was still a major highway of London, the 13th-century watergate was much used. Its nickname, Traitors' Gate, derives from the prisoners brought through it to the Tower, which was long used as a state prison. Many prisoners were murdered or executed there, either on Tower Green or, outside the castle, in public on Tower Hill. The armories that now occupy the White Tower, as well as a later 17th-century brick building alongside, house arms and armor from the early Middle Ages to modern times. Much of this collection will be moved to a Royal Armories museum scheduled to open in Leeds in 1996.

The Tower was a royal residence until the 17th century. In its time it has also housed the Royal Mint, the ordnance store, the public records, and the Royal Menagerie (the Lion Tower). Most of these functions have been dispersed to other places. Until 1994 the British crown jewels and regalia were kept in the underground Jewel House; they are now housed in a more spacious aboveground facility. During the 1990s restoration work was carried out in various parts of the Tower, notably in the medieval apartments in Wakefield and St. Thomas's towers.

A military garrison is maintained within the Tower, which with its precincts constitutes a "liberty" outside the jurisdictions of the lord mayor and the bishop of London. It is held for the sovereign by a constable, who is now always a field marshal. There is a resident governor, who occupies the 16th-century Queen's House on Tower Green and is in charge of the yeoman warders, or "beefeaters," as they are popularly called. They still wear a Tudor uniform and live within the Tower. By the Tower is Tower Bridge (1894), the only central-city bridge across the Thames below London Bridge.
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The End Of The Middle Ages

The War Of The Roses
(1455-85), the series of dynastic civil wars whose violence and civil strife preceded the strong government of the Tudors. Fought between the Houses of Lancaster and York for the English throne, the wars were named many years afterward from the supposed badges of the contending parties: the white rose of York and the red of Lancaster.
Both houses claimed the throne through descent from the sons of Edward III. Since the Lancastrians had occupied the throne from 1399, the Yorkists might never have pressed a claim but for the near anarchy prevailing in the mid-15th century. After the death of Henry V in 1422 the country was subject to the long and factious minority of Henry VI. Great magnates with private armies dominated the countryside. Lawlessness was rife and taxation burdensome. Henry later proved to be feckless and simpleminded, subject to spells of madness, and dominated by his ambitious queen, Margaret of Anjou, whose party had allowed the English position in France to deteriorate.

Henry lapsed into insanity in 1453, causing a powerful baronial clique, backed by Richard Neville, the earl of Warwick (the "kingmaker"), to install Richard, duke of York, as protector of the realm. When Henry recovered in 1455 he reestablished the authority of Margaret's party, forcing York to take up arms for self-protection. The first battle of the wars, at St. Albans (May 22, 1455), resulted in a Yorkist victory and four years of uneasy truce. Civil war was resumed in 1459. The Yorkists were successful at Blore Heath (September 23) but were scattered after a skirmish at Ludford Bridge (October 12). In France Warwick regrouped the Yorkist forces and returned to England in June 1460, decisively defeating the Lancastrian forces at Northampton (July 10). York tried to claim the throne but settled for the right to succeed upon the death of Henry. This effectively disinherited Henry's son, Prince Edward, and caused Queen Margaret to continue her opposition. 

Gathering forces in northern England, the Lancastrians surprised and killed York at Wakefield in December and then marched south toward London, defeating Warwick on the way at the Second Battle of St. Albans (Feb. 17, 1461). Meanwhile, York's eldest son and heir, Edward, had defeated a Lancastrian force at Mortimer's Cross (February 2) and marched to relieve London, arriving before Margaret on February 26. The young Duke of York was proclaimed King Edward IV at Westminster on March 4. Then Edward, with the remainder of Warwick's forces, pursued Margaret north to Towton. There, in the bloodiest battle of the war, the Yorkists won a complete victory. Henry, Margaret, and their son fled to Scotland. The first phase of the fighting was over, except for the reduction of a few pockets of Lancastrian resistance. 

The next round of the wars arose out of disputes within the Yorkist ranks. Warwick and his circle were increasingly passed over at Edward's court; more seriously, Warwick differed with the King on foreign policy. In 1469 civil war was renewed. Warwick and Edward's rebellious brother George, duke of Clarence, fomented risings in the north; and in July, at Edgecote (near Banbury), defeated Edward's supporters, afterward holding the King prisoner. By March 1470, however, Edward regained his control, forcing Warwick and Clarence to flee to France, where they allied themselves with the French king Louis XI and their former enemy, Margaret of Anjou. 

Returning to England (September 1470), they deposed Edward and restored the crown to Henry VI. Edward fled to the Netherlands with his followers and, securing Burgundian aid, returned to England in March 1471. Edward outmaneuvered Warwick, regained the loyalty of Clarence, and decisively defeated Warwick at Barnet on April 14. That very day, Margaret had landed at Weymouth. Hearing the news of Barnet, she marched west, trying to reach the safety of Wales; but Edward won the race to the Severn. At Tewkesbury (May 4) Margaret was captured, her forces destroyed and her son killed. Shortly afterward, Henry VI was murdered in the Tower of London. Edward's throne was secure for the rest of his life (he died in 1483). 

In 1483 Edward's brother Richard III, overriding the claims of his nephew, the young Edward V, alienated many Yorkists, who then turned to the last hope of the Lancastrians, Henry Tudor (later Henry VII). With the help of the French and of Yorkist defectors, Henry defeated and killed Richard at Bosworth Field on Aug. 22, 1485, bringing the wars to a close. By his marriage to Edward IV's daughter Elizabeth of York in 1486, Henry united the Yorkist and Lancastrian claims. Henry defeated a Yorkist rising supporting the pretender Lambert Simnel on June 16, 1487, a date which some historians prefer over the traditional 1485 for the termination of the wars.
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Richard Earl of Warwick, the Kingmaker
(b. Nov. 22, 1428--d. April 14, 1471, Barnet, Hertfordshire, Eng.), English nobleman called, since the 16th century, "the Kingmaker," in reference to his role as arbiter of royal power during the first half of the Wars of the Roses (1455-85) between the houses of Lancaster and York. He obtained the crown for the Yorkist king Edward IV in 1461 and later restored to power (1470-71) the deposed Lancastrian monarch Henry VI.
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The Reformation
The roots of the reformation in England were political rather than religious as they had been in other areas of Europe. A quarrel between the king and the pope of the sort that had occurred in the Middle Ages without resulting in a permanent schism, and might not have in this instance save for the total European situation. The dispute had its root in the assumption that the king was a national stallion expected to provide an heir to the throne. England did not have the Salic law, which in France forbade female succession, but England had just emerged from the Wars of the Roses and the fear was not unwarranted that the struggle might be resumed if there were not a male succession. Catherine of Aragon, the queen of Henry VIII, had borne him numerous children of whom only one survived, the princess Mary, and more were not to be expected. The ordinary procedure in such a case was to discover some flaw in the marriage that would allow an annulment or, in the terminology of that day, a divorce. In this instance the flaw was not difficult to find, because Catherine had been married to Henry's brother Arthur, and the law of England, following the prohibition in the book of Leviticus, forbade the marriage of a man with his deceased brother's widow.

At the time of the marriage the pope had given a dispensation to cover this infraction of the rule. The question now was whether the pope had the authority to dispense from the divine law. Catherine said there had been no need for a dispensation because her marriage to Arthur had not been consummated and there had been no impediment to her marriage to Henry. The knot would have been cut by some casuistry had Catherine not been the aunt of Emperor Charles V, who was not prepared to see her cast aside in favor of another wife, and who controlled the pope. Clement VII, wishing neither to provoke the emperor nor to alienate the king, dallied so long that Henry took the matter into his own hands, repudiated papal authority, and in 1534 set up the Anglican Church with the king as the supreme head. The spiritual head was the archbishop of Canterbury, now Thomas Cranmer, who married Henry to Anne Boleyn. She bore the princess Elizabeth. By still another wife Henry did have a son who succeeded as Edward VI.

Although the basic concern of Henry was political, the alterations in the structure of the church gave scope for a reformation religious in character. Part of the impulse came from the survivals of Lollardy, part from the Lutheran movement on the Continent, and even more from the Christian humanism represented by Erasmus. The major changes under Henry were the suppression of the monasteries, the introduction of the Bible in the vernacular in the parish churches, and permission to the clergy to marry, though this was later revoked. The resistance to Henry's program was not formidable and the executions resulting were not numerous. Henry was impartial in burning some Lutherans who would not submit to his later reactionary legislation and toward some Catholics who would not accept the royal supremacy over the church, notably John Fisher and Thomas More.
On his ascension to the throne in 1547, young Edward VI was hailed by Cranmer and other Protestants as England's Josiah, the young 7th-century-BC king of Judah who enforced the Deuteronomic reform. Edward, it was held, would rid the land of idolatry so that England might be blessed. Protestantism advanced rapidly during his reign through the systematic reformation of doctrine, worship, and discipline--the three external marks of the true church. A reformed confession of faith and a prayer book were adopted, but the reformation of the ecclesiastical laws that would have defined the basis of discipline was blocked in Parliament by the most powerful of the English nobility.

The death of Edward and England's return to Roman Catholicism in 1553 under Queen Mary was interpreted by Protestants as a judgment by God upon a nation that had not taken the Reformation seriously enough. Many, including Cranmer, died as martyrs to the Protestant cause. Others fled to the European continent. Those in exile experimented with more radical forms of worship and discipline. Leading clergymen published material justifying rebellion against an idolatrous ruler. Many saw in Geneva, which was a haven for English exiles, a working model of a disciplined church. Exiles produced two large volumes of incalculable consequence for English religious thought. John Foxe's Actes and Monuments, popularly known as The Book of Martyrs, and the Geneva Bible were the most popular books in England for many years after they were published. They provided a view of England as an elect nation chosen by God to bring the power of the Antichrist (understood to be the pope) to an end. An England obedient to God would receive his favor. Otherwise, it would experience his plagues.

Elizabeth I, beginning her rule in 1558, was hailed as the glorious Deborah (12th-century-BC Israelite leader), the "restorer of Israel." She did not restore it far enough for English Protestants, however. Two statutes promulgated in her first year--the Act of Supremacy, stating that the queen was "supreme governor" of the Church of England, and the Act of Uniformity, ensuring that English worship should follow The Book of Common Prayer--defined the nature of the English religious establishment. In 1563 the primary church legislative body, the Convocations of Canterbury and York, defined standard doctrine in the Thirty-nine Articles, but attempts in the Convocation to reform the prayerbook further and to produce a reformed discipline failed. Defeated there, the reformers came to rely more on Parliament, where they could always depend on strong support.