Chapter 2 empire & democracy
H
enry
VIII and the Church
Henry VIII (1491-1547) is famous for his six wives and his ambitions. He married Catherine
o
f
Aragon, niece of Emperor Charles V, ruler of most of Europe and the
Americas. They had one daughter, but not the son and heir Henry
wanted. When his mistress, Anne Boleyn, became pregnant, Henry asked
the pope for a divorce. The Pope did not answer, so Henry got a
divorce from the Archbishop of Canterbury. Henry then made the
Church in England independent of
Rome. Parliament’s Act of Supremacy in 1534 made the king Head of the Church of England, which became Protestant. This was popular with many English people who were already Protestant.
The Pope gave the title Fidei Defender, Defender of the Faith, to Henry VIII. Henry kept this title, in spite of divorcing the English Church from the Roman Catholic Church. Queen Elizabeth II still holds this title today and the abbreviation F.D. is printed on every coin.
It was Henry’s second daughter, Elizabeth I, who became one of the England’s greatest monarchs. During her reign (1558-1603), England’s sailors captured many Spanish ships bringing treasure from the Americas. King Philip of Spain, encouraged by the Pope, who wanted to restore Catholicism to England, sent the Spanish Armada, a fleet of 130 ships, to invade England in 1588. It was defeated. England became the most important Protestant power in Europe.
The rise of Parliament
King Charles I (1600-1649) believed that the monarch was appointed by God to rule and had absolute power. The elected English Parliament disagreed. The result was the Civil War, leading to the execution of the king in 1649. for the next 11 years, England was a republic, though Oliver Cromwell, the parliamentary leader and most important man in England, took more and more power until he himself became a dictator.
After his death, Parliament asked the executed king’s son to return to England. In spite of this, there was no return to the absolute rule of kings and no future monarch would ever seriously challenge the power of Parliament.
Empire and industry
During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Britain itself was peaceful. Abroad, however, it was aggressively expanding its Empire. Britain was a powerful and rich country because of its Empire and its industry. Cheap raw materials, produced by badly paid and unpaid workers, were imported from the colonies. The technological changes of the Industrial Revolution allowed Britain to manufacture products cheaply for export.
The Industrial revolution caused great social changes in Britain. Many people had moved from the land to the cities. These people now worked in the factories, an urban working class which was often very poor. In Queen Victoria’s reign (1837-1901), children, as young as four, had jobs in factories. Their parents did not have the vote and so could not change things. Many children worked in very bad conditions in Victoria’s reign. In 1833, it became illegal to employ children below the age of 13 for more than 48 hours per week.
The Reform Act of 1832 gave the vote to all men who owned the house, but it was not until 1918 that the right to vote was given to all men over 21 and to women over 30. Women under 30 had to wait until 1928 for the vote.
Britain at its most powerful had colonies in every continent, but the end of the Empire happened quickly, just after the Second World War (1939-1945). India, one of the most important colonies, became independent in 1948. In the 1960s, the African and Caribbean countries also became independent. British people began to realize that their country was no longer an imperial, world power but just one country in a European Community.
1. Read the text and be ready to discuss the following:
Why Britain is the Protestant country?
The move towards parliamentary democracy.
The rise and fall of the British Empire.
2. a) Did our country ever have any overseas colonies?
b) When were women given the vote in Russia?
Did it happen sooner or later than in Britain?
3. a) Choose one of the following dates and give a short
description of what happened in Britain:
1534, 1588, 1649, 1833, 1948