A Timeline of Britain
Right: Shakespeare's birthplace in Stratford-upon- Avon. Below: The Cobbe Portrait of Shakespeare. Bottom: The Great Hall, Christ Church, University of Oxford
The Queen also presided over a glittering era of
high-seas adventures starring the likes of Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh. The defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 marked a high point of Elizabeth’s power, famously captured in George Gower’s Armada Portrait. The arts flourished in this period, too, producing among others William Shakespeare, the world’s most performed playwright, who drew superb drama from his position on the cusp of a changing world, as medieval England was swept away by the Renaissance. There was one major blot on Queen Elizabeth’s
DID YOU KNOW?
• English monarchs have been called Defenders of the Faith ever since 1521, when the Pope granted Henry VIII the title in recognition of the King’s support of the Papacy and Catholic Church against Lutheran attacks. Ironically, Henry later broke with Rome! • At his death in 1547, Henry VIII owned more than 70 residences – more than any other English monarch. London’s redbrick St James’s Palace survives as an example of his mania for building; Hampton Court Palace was his most famous “acquisition”, from Cardinal Wolsey.
70 BRITAIN
• The Dissolution of the Monasteries (1536-40) marked the greatest shift of land ownership since the Norman Conquest, with around one third of confiscated lands given to nobles and gentry to “keep them on side”. Former abbeys that became magnificent homes include Beaulieu, Buckland, Lacock, Stoneleigh and Wilton. • William Shakespeare enriched the English language by inventing or being among the first to use some 1,700 new words. Examples are eyeball, elbow,
laughable, lonely, madcap and moonbeam. • During Elizabeth I’s Golden Age of maritime adventure, Francis Drake became the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe, and he claimed Nova Albion (California) for the Queen. Walter Raleigh organised expeditions to North America and named Virginia in honour of the Virgin Queen. Visit the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, to discover more about these and other great sea dogs (
www.nmm.ac.uk/ places/maritime-galleries).
copybook: the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. Her descent from Henry VII, and involvement in treason, made her too great a threat for the queen to ignore. Otherwise, Good Queen Bess navigated a clever path, knowing throughout her 44-year reign just how to make people love her: whether playing to the crowds on her famous progresses around England, coquetting with court favourites, or using the lure of the royal hand in marriage as a trump card in the game of European politics. But the Virgin Queen remained firmly “wedded” to
her country alone, telling the House of Commons in 1601, “It is not my desire to live or reign longer than my life and reign shall be for your good. And though you have had and may have, many mightier and wiser princes sitting in this seat, yet you never had, nor shall have, any that will love you better…” That love was reciprocated, and the Queen’s death in
1603 was widely mourned, by a country enriched by a new sense of nationalism, potential and power.
IN OUR NEXT ISSUE... The love affair between Crown and country shatters with the arrival of the House of Stuart, unleashing regicide, a brave new Commonwealth, a racy Restoration and a Glorious Revolution.
www.britain-magazine.com
PHOTO: BRITAIN ON VIEW/WIKIPEDIA/CHRIST CHURCH, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
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