Story of Civilization ~ Will & Ariel Durant

[JoanK]

"I want to know what were the steps by which
man passed from barbarism to civilization (Voltaire)"

What are our origins? Where are we now? Where are we headed? Share your thoughts with us!

  Volume VI THE REFORMATION

       
"Four elements constitute Civilization -- economic provision, political organization, moral traditions, and the pursuit of knowledge and the arts. "
  
"I shall proceed as rapidly as time and circumstances will permit, hoping that a few of my contemporaries will care to grow old with me while learning. "
        
"These volumes may help some of our children to understand and enjoy the infinite riches of their inheritance."
        
"Civilization begins where chaos and insecurity ends."





This volume, then, is about YOU. Join our group daily and listen to what Durant and the rest of us are saying. Better yet, share with us your opinions.
[/center]

SeniorLearn Contact: JoanK & Discussion Facilitator: Trevor
 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Very interesting.

The PBS dramatization of the life of Queen Elizabeth plays up the role of the Earl of Leicester, as her closest, maybe only, friend. He's shown as, while at the beginning perhaps a genuine friend, over the years becoming a conniver, maybe even murdering his wife so that he would be free to marry her.

There is an unforgettable scene where they show how much her ladies had to work on her to make her presentable. The earl surprises her before she is worked on, looking completely ravaged by age and looking terrible. he is loading her with extravagant complements on her beauty, and she is clearly believing him.

I cant wait to see what the Durants have to say.

[3kings(Trevor)]

DURANTS'  S  o  C
Vol. VI  THE REFORMATION
Pgs. 579 - 581



                                       EDWARD VI and MARY TUDOR
The-ten-year-old boy who succeeded to the throne of England as Edward VI had been painted by Holbein four years before in one of the most appealing of all portraits; feathered beret, red hair, ermine-collared robe, and a face of such gentleness and wistful delicacy that we should imagine him to be all Jane Seymour, nothing of Henry VIII. Perhaps he inherited the physical frailty that had made  her life his ransom; he never gained the strength to rule. He showed to all except nonconforming Catholics so much kindness and good will that England thought it had buried an ogre to crown a saint. Educated by Cranmer he had become an ardent Protestant. He discouraged any severe punishment for heresy, but was unwilling to let his Catholic half sister Mary hear Mass, for he sincerely believed the Mass to be the most blasphemous idolatry. He accepted gladly the decision of the Royal Council that chose as regent for him his uncle Edward Seymour – soon to be made Duke of Somerset – who favoured a Protestant policy.
Somerset was a man of intelligence, courage, and integrity imperfect but, in his time, outstanding. Handsome, courteous, generous, he shamed by his life the cowardly and self-seeking aristocracy that could forgive him everything but his sympathy for the poor. Though almost absolute in power, he ended the absolutism of Henry VII and VIII, allowed much greater freedom of speech, required sounder evidence for conviction, returned their dowries to the widows of condemned men, and  repealed the more oppressive laws of the preceding reign concerning religion. The King remained head of the English Church, and to speak irreverently of the Eucharist was still a punishable offence; but the same statute ordered the sacrament to be administered in both kinds, prescribed English as the language of the service, and repudiated purgatory and Masses for the dead. English Protestants who had fled from England returned with the pollen of Luther, Zwingli , and Calvin on them. Anabaptists and Unitarians crossed the channel to preach in England heresies  that shocked Protestants as much as Catholics. Archbishop Cranmer “did eat meat openly in Lent, the like of which was never seen since England was a Christian Country.” Under Somerset’s lead Parliament ( 1547) ordered every picture on church wall or window, commemorating a Prophet, Apostle, or saint, should be extirpated “ so that there should remain no memory of the same.” Most of the stained glass in the churches was destroyed; most of the statues were  crushed;  Crucifixes were replaced with the royal arms; whitewashed walls and windows took the colour out of the religion of England. There was a general scramble in each locality for Church silver and gold; and in 1551 the government appropriated what remained. The magnificent medieval cathedrals barely remained.
The leading spirit in these changes was Archbishop Cranmer; their leading opponents were Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London, and Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester; Cranmer had them sent to the fleet. [ a London Jail so named from its proximity to the Fleet Stream, an estuary (now covered) of the Thames].  Meanwhile the Archbishop had been working for years on an attempt to provide in one book a substitute for both the missal and breviary of the defeated Church. This first book of Common Prayer (1548) was essentially Cranmer’s  personal product, in which zeal for the new faith merged with a fine sense for solemn beauty in feeling and phrase; even his translations from the Latin had  the spell of genius on them. The book was not quite revolutionary; it followed some Lutheran leads, as in rejecting the sacrificial character of the Mass, but it neither rejected nor affirmed transubstantiation; it retained much Catholic ritual, and could be accepted by not too precise a Romanist. The book was made law of the realm, and every church in England was ordered to adopt it. Bonner and Gardiner who were released in a general amnesty (1549) were reimprisoned when they rejected the right of Parliament to legislate on religion. Princess Mary was allowed to hear Mass in the privacy of her chambers.
A dangerous international situation quieted for a time the violent debate between Catholics and Protestants. Henry II of France demanded the evacuation of Boulogne; refused, he prepared to besiege it; and at any moment  Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, then a girl of five in France, might bring Scotland into the war. Learning that the Scots were arming and were stirring up rebellion in Ireland, Somerset  led a force across the border, and defeated them at Pinkie Cleugh ( September 10, 1547). The terms that he offered the Scots were remarkably generous and far seeing; the Scots were not to suffer any forfeiture of liberty or property; Scotland and England were to merge into one “Empire of Great Britain”; each nation was to have self rule under its own laws, but both were to be ruled, after the current reign, by the offspring of the Queen of Scots. This was precisely the union effected in 1603 , except that it would have facilitated a restoration of Catholicism in England and its continuance in Scotland. The Catholics of Scotland rejected the plan for fear that English Protestantism would infect their own land; besides, Scottish nobles were receiving pensions from the French Government, and thought a livre in the hand worth two pounds in the bush.
Frustrated in seeking peace, facing war with France, struggling to establish a compromise among uncompromising faiths at home, and hearing renewed noises of agrarian revolt in England, Somerset drank the cup of power to the dregs when his own brother plotted to overthrow him. Thomas Seymour was not content to be Lord High Admiral and a member of the Privy Council, he would be king. He wooed Princess Mary, then Princes Elizabeth, but in vain. He received money stolen from the mint, and spoils from the pirates whom he allowed in the Channel; and so financed he  gathered secret stores of arms and ammunition. His conspiracy was discovered; he was accused by the Earls of Warwick and Southampton; he was condemned by both houses of Parliament; and on March 20, 1549 he was put to death.  Somerset tried to protect him, but failed, and the protector’s prestige fell with his brother’s head.
 

[mabel1015j]

Loved these three lines......

English Protestants who had fled from England returned with the pollen of Luther, Zwingli , and Calvin on them.

whitewashed walls and windows took the colour out of the religion of England.

a livre in the hand worth two pounds in the bush.

Gave me a smile this morning.

Jean

[3kings(Trevor)]

Durants'  S  o  C
Vol. VI  The REFORMATION
Pgs 582 - 584




                                    Somerset’s  ruin - Ket’s rebellion
Somerset’s ruin was completed by Ket’s rebellion. That uprising illustrated the apparent anomaly that whereas in Germany peasant revolt was Protestant, in England it was Catholic; in each case religion was a front for economic discontent, and in England the front was Catholic because the government was now Protestant. “In the Experience of the agricultural poor,” wrote the Protestant Froude, “an increase of personal suffering was the chief result of the Reformation.” It is to the credit of Protestant divines in this reign – Cranmer, Latimer, Lever, Crowley – that they condemned exploitation of the peasantry; and Somerset with hot indignation denounced the merciless exactions of new landowners “sprung from the dunghill” of city wealth. Parliament could think of no wiser remedies than to pass ferocious laws against beggary, and instruct the churches to take up weekly a collection for the poor. Somerset sent out a commission to get the facts about enclosures and high rents; it met with subtle or open resistance from the landlords; tenants were terrified into concealing the wrongs against them; and modest recommendations of the commission were rejected by Parliament, in which the agricultural districts were represented by landowning gentry. Somerset opened a private court in his own house to hear the complaints of the poor. More and more nobles, led by John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, joined in a movement to depose him.
But now the peasants, furious with accumulated wrongs and frustrated suits for redress, burst into revolt from one end of England to the other. Somersetshire rose first, then Wilts and Gloucestershire, Dorset and Hampshire, Berks and Oxford and Buckingham, in the west Cornwall and Devon, in the east Norfolk and Kent. At Norwich a minor landlord, Robert Ket, organized the rebels, seized the municipal  government, and set up a peasant  commune that for a month ruled the town and its hinterland. On mousehold hill, north of the city, Ket encamped 16,000 men, and there, under an oak tree, he sat daily in judgement upon offending landlords arrested by the peasants. He was not bloodthirsty; those whom he condemned were imprisoned and fed. But of property rights and title deeds he made small account. He bade his men scour the surrounding country, force entry into the manor houses, confiscate all weapons, and corral for the commune all cattle and provisions wherever  found. Sheep – chief rivals of the peasants for use of the soil – were rounded up to the number of 20,000 and were incontinently consumed, along with “infinite beeves,”  swans, hinds, ducks, venison, and pigs. Amid this feasting Ket nevertheless maintained remarkable order, even allowing preachers to exhort the men to abandon the revolt. Somerset felt much sympathy with the rebels, but agreed with Warwick that they must be dispersed least the whole economic structure of English life should be overturned. Warwick was sent against them with an army recently raised to fight in France. He offered the rebels a general pardon if they would return to their homes. Ket favoured acceptance, but hotter heads were for judgement by battle, and Ket yielded to them. On August 17, 1549, the issue was decided; Warwick’s superior tactics won, 3500 of the rebels were cut down; but when the remnant surrendered Warwick contented himself with nine hangings, and sent Ket and  a brother to prison in London. News of the defeat took the heart out of the other rebel groups; one after another laid down their arms on promise of amnesty. Somerset used his influence to have most of the rebel leaders released, and the Ket brothers for a while survived.
The Protestor was accused of having encouraged the revolt by his outspoken sympathy with the poor. He was branded also with failure in foreign affairs, for France was now besieging Boulonge. He was justly accused of allowing corruption among governmental personnel, of debasing the currency, of augmenting his own fortune, of building his own sumptuous Somerset House amid the near bankruptcy of the nation. Warwick and Southhampton led a move to unseat him. The majority of the nobles, who could pardon his wealth but not his tenderness for the peasants, seized the opportunity for revenge. On Oct. 12, 1549, the Duke of Somerset was paraded as a prisoner through the streets of London, and was shut up in the Tower. 
                                  THE WARWICK PROTECTORATE 1549 – 1553.
By the standards of the time Somerset’s enemies were lenient. He was deprived of such property he had acquired during his regency; On FEB 6, 1550, he was released; in May he was restored to membership in the Royal Council. But Warwick was now Protector of the Realm.  He was a frank Machiavellian. Himself  inclined to Catholicism, he adopted a Protestant line because his rival Southampton was the accepted leader of the Catholics, and the majority of the nobles were financially wedded to the new creed. He had learned well the art of war, but he knew that with a bankrupt government and an impoverished people he could not hold Boulogne against a France having twice the resources of England. He surrendered the town to Henry II, and signed an ignominious, inescapable peace (1550).
Under the domination of Landlords noble or common, Parliament passed legislation fearfully punishing the rebellion of peasants. Enclosures were sanctified by express law; the taxes that Somerset had imposed on sheep and wool to discourage enclosures were repealed. Severe penalties were prescribed for workers who combined to raise their wages. Assemblies gathering to discuss a lowering of rents or prices were declared illegal; persons attending them were to forfeit their property; Robert Ket and his brother were hanged. Poverty increased, but the almshouses that had been swept away by the religious movement were not replaced. Sickness became endemic, but hospitals were abandoned. The people were famished, but the currency was again debased, and prices soared. The once sturdy yeomanry of England were perishing, and the poorest of the poor were sinking into savagery.
Religious chaos rivalled economic anarchy. The majority of the people remained Catholic, but the victory of Warwick over Southampton left them leaderless, and they felt the weakness of those who stand for the past. The collapse of the spiritual and moral authority of the priesthood, together with the instability and corruption of government, allowed not only a growth of immorality but a bedlam of heresies that frightened Protestants and Catholics alike. Roger Hutchinson (c. 1550) wrote of “Sadducees and Libertines” (freethinkers), “who say that the Devil is nothing but a filthy affection of the flesh ... that there is neither place of rest nor pain after this life... that hell is nothing but a tormenting and desperate conscience, and that a joyful, quiet, and merry conscience is heaven.” And John Hooper, Protestant Bishop of Gloucester reported that there are some who say “that the soul of man is no better than the soul of a beast, and is mortal and perishable. There are wretches who dare, in their conventicles, not only to deny that Christ is our saviour, but to call that blessed Child a mischief-maker and deceiver.”

[JoanK]

I really like the fact that the Durant's take us beyond the antics of the princes to show us what was going on for ordinary people.

[3kings(Trevor)]

I agree. I did not know of Somerset, Warwick, and Ket until I first read of them in Durants' book. There was no mention of them in my school years. And certainly no word about the economic plight of ordinary folk. We heard only of Henry VIII  and his wives.  Trevor

[JoanK]

We are seeing the start of the conversion of England from a primarily rural to an urban society, much earlier than happened in other countries. Elsewhere, industrialization brought new jobs in the cities and drew people in to fill them. In England, long before there was industrialization, the Enclosure act threw people off the land to allow more raising of sheep for the wool trade, and a mercantile nation. But the wool trade alone couldn't provide enough jobs for the displaced peasants. Beggars and incredible poverty in cities resulted.

Thinking about it, that probably contributed to the eagerness of the English to explore the world and colonize. With no jobs at home, these were probably the only options for many.

[3kings(Trevor)]

DURANTS'   S  O  C
Vol. VI   THE REFORMATION
Pgs. 584 - 587


                        The Warwick Protectorate 1549 – 1553  (cont.)
Utilizing the liberty that had been granted by Somerset, a reckless fringe among the Protestants satirized the old religion heartlessly. Oxford students parodied the Mass in their farces, chopped missals to pieces, snatched consecrated bread from the altar and trampled it underfoot. London preachers called priests “imps of the whore of Babylon” – i.e. the pope. An order of Council confiscated to the treasury all plate remaining in the churches. Later Parliament appropriated for the government the coins in the poor boxes of the churches. Further funds were found for the government or its personnel by cancelling scholarships for poor students, and suppressing the regius (state supported) professorships established at the universities by Henry VIII.
Religious persecution, so long of heretics by Catholics, was now in England, as in Switzerland and Lutheran Germany, of heretics and Catholics by Protestants. Parliament now passed a Second Act of Uniformity, which required of all persons to attend regularly, and only, religious services conducted according to the Book of Common Prayer, three violations of this Act was to be punished with death.
While virtue and orthodoxy became law, the Warwick protectorate was distinguishing itself, in a corrupt age, by its corruption. This did not prevent the malleable young Edward from making Warwick Duke of  Northumberland  (  October  4, 1551 ). A few days later the Duke atoned for an act of political decency - - the release of Somerset by charging his predecessor with an attempt to re-establish himself in power. Somerset was arrested, tried, and convicted, chiefly on evidence given by Sir Thomas Palmer; an order of the King was forged to call for Somerset’s execution. And on January 22, 1552, he met his death with courage and dignity. Northumberland, when he in turn faced execution, confessed that through this means Somerset had been falsely accused; and Palmer, before his death, confessed that the evidence he had sworn to had been invented by Northumberland.
Rarely in English history had an administration been so unpopular. Protestant clergymen, who had praised the new Protector in gratitude for his support, turned against him as his crimes increased. King Edward was sinking towards death; Mary Tudor, by an act of Parliament, had been named heiress to the throne if Edward remained childless; and Mary, if made Queen, would soon revenge herself on those who had led England from the old faith. Northumberland felt that his life was in jeopardy. He induced the dying king to settle the crown upon Lady Jane Grey, daughter of the Duke of Suffolk and granddaughter of Henry VIII‘s sister; moreover, Jane had recently married Northumberland’s son.  Nearly all England took Princess Mary’s accession as inevitable and just; and Jane protested that she did not wish to be queen.  She was a woman of unusual education; she wrote Greek, studied Hebrew, and corresponded with Bollinger in Latin as good as his own. She was no saint; she could be sharply critical of Catholics, and laughed at transubstantiation; but she was far more sinned against than sinning. At first she took her father-in-law’s scheme as a jest. When her mother-in-law insisted, Jane resisted. Finally her husband commanded her to accept the throne, -- “not choosing,” she said, “to be disobedient to her husband” – she obeyed. Northumberland now prepared to arrest Mary’s leading supporters, and to lodge the Princess herself in the Tower, where she might be taught resignation.
Early in July the King neared his end. He coughed and spat blood, his legs swelled painfully, eruptions broke out over his body, his hair fell out, then his nails. No one could say what this strange disease was; many suspected that Northumberland had poisoned him. At last, after long suffering, Edward died  (July 5, 1553 ), still but fifteen, too young to share the guilt of his reign.
The next morning Northumberland rode out toward Hunsdon to seize the princess, but Mary, warned, escaped to Catholic friends in Suffolk, and Northumberland returned to London without his prey. By promises, threats, or bribes, he persuaded the Privy Council to join him in proclaiming Jane Grey queen. She fainted. Recovering, she still protested that she was unfit for the perilous honour forced upon her. Her relatives pleaded with her, arguing that their lives depended on her acceptance. On July 9 she reluctantly acknowledged herself to be Queen of England.
But on July 10 news reached London that Mary had proclaimed herself queen, that northern nobles were flocking to her support, and that their forces were marching on the capital. Northumberland hurriedly gathered what troops he could, and led them out to the issue of battle. At Bury his soldiers told him they would not take another step against their lawful sovereign. Crowning his crimes, Northumberland sent his brother, with gold and jewels and the promise of Calais and Guines, to bribe Henry II of France to invade England. The privy Council got wind of the mission, intercepted it, and announced allegiance to Mary. The Duke of Suffolk went to Jane’s room, informed her that her ten-day reign was over. She welcomed the news, and asked innocently might she now go home; but the Council, which had sworn to serve her, ordered her confined to the Tower. There, soon, Northumberland too was a prisoner, praying for pardon, but expecting death. The Council sent out heralds to proclaim Mary Tudor queen. England received the tidings with wild rejoicing. All through that summer night bells carolled and bonfires blazed. The people brought out tables and food, and picnicked and danced in the streets.
The nation seemed to regret the Reformation, and look with longing upon a past that could now be idealized since it could not return. And truly the reformation had as yet shown only its bitterest side to England; not a liberation from dogma, inquisition and tyranny, but their intensification; not a spread of enlightenment but a spoliation of universities and the closing of hundreds of schools; no enlargement of kindness but almost an end to charity and carte blanche to greed; no mitigation of poverty but such merciless grinding of the poor as England had not known for centuries – perhaps had never known. Almost any change would be welcome that would eliminate Northumberland and his crew. And poor princess Mary, who had won the secret love of England by her patience in twenty two years of humiliation – surely this chastened woman would make a gentle queen. [/b] [/I]. 

[JoanK]

Infuriating how the women are used as pawns!

[3kings(Trevor)]

Durants'  S  o  C
Vol. VI  THE REFORMATION
Pgs. 587  -  589




                                THE  GENTLE  QUEEN

To understand her we should have had to live with her the tragic youth during which she hardly ever tasted happiness. She was scarcely two when her father took to mistresses and neglected her grieving mother; eight when he asked for an annulment of his marriage; fifteen when her parents parted, and mother and daughter went into separate exile. Even when the mother was dying the daughter was forbidden to go to her. After the birth of Elizabeth (1533),  Mary was declared a bastard, and was shorn of the title of princess. The imperial ambassador feared that Anne Boleyn would seek the death of her daughter’s rival for the throne. When Elizabeth was moved to Hatfield, Mary was compelled to go and serve her there, and to live in “ the worst room of the house.” Her servants were taken from her, and were replaced by others subject to Miss Shelton of Hatfield who, reminding her that she was a bastard, said, “if I were in the Kings place I would kick you out of the King’s house for your disobedience,” and told her that Henry expressed his intention to have her beheaded. All that first winter at Hatfield ( 1534 ) Mary was ill, her nerves shattered with contumely and fear, her body and soul not unwillingly near death. Then the King relented and spared her some casual affection, and for the remainder of the reign her position eased. But as the price of this hard graciousness she was required to sign an acknowledgement of Henry’s ecclesiastical supremacy, her mother’s “incestuous marriage,” and her own “illegitimate” birth.

Her nervous system was permanently affected by these experiences; “she was subject to a heart complaint,” and she remained in frail health to the end of her life. Her  courage returned when, under the Somerset protectorate, Parliament declared her heiress-apparent to the throne. Since her Catholic faith, bred into her childhood with Spanish fervour, and strengthened by her mother’s living and dying exhortations, had been a precious support in her grief, she refused to abandon it when she hovered on the edge of power; and when the King’s council bade her cease hearing Mass in her rooms (1549) she would not obey. Somerset connived at her resistance; but Somerset fell, her brother the King approved the order, and three of her servants, for ignoring it, were sent to the Tower (1551) The chaplain who had said  Mass for her was taken from her, she finally agreed to forgo the beloved ritual. Her spirit broken, she begged the Imperial ambassador to arrange her escape to the Continent. The cautious  Emperor refused to sanction the plan, and it fell through.

Here moment of triumph came at  last when Northumberland could find no man to fight against her, and those who came in arms to uphold her cause asked no pay, but brought their own supplies and offered their personal fortunes to finance the campaign. When she entered London as queen (August 3, 1553 ) even that half-  Protestant city rose almost unanimously to welcome her. Princess Elizabeth came diffidently to meet her at the city gates, wondering whether Mary would hold against her the indignities suffered in Elizabeth’s name; but Mary greeted her with a warm embrace, and kissed all the ladies in her half sister’s train. England was as happy when Henry VIII, young and handsome and generous, had mounted the throne.

Mary was now thirty-seven, and heartless time had already crossed her face with omens of decay. She had seldom known an adult year without a serious illness. She was treated with repeated bloodlettings, which left her nervous and pale. Her recurrent amenorrhea plunged her at times into hysterical grief with fear that she would never bear a child. Now her body was thin and  frail, her forehead wrinkled, her reddish hair streaked with grey, her eyes were so weak that she could read only with the page held close to her face. She had some womanly accomplishments-- she knitted patiently, embroidered skilfully, and played the lute; to which she added a knowledge of Spanish, Latin, Italian, and French. She would have made a good woman had she not been cursed with theological certainty and royal power. She was honest to the point of simplicity, incapable of diplomacy, and pitifully anxious to be loved and to love. She was obstinate, but not proud; she recognised her mental limitations, and listened humbly to advice. She was inflexible only where her faith was concerned; otherwise she was clement and compassionate, liberal to the unfortunate, and eager to address the wrongs of the law. Frequently she visited incognito the homes of the poor, sat and talked with housewives, made note of needs and grievances, and gave whatever help she could. She restored to the universities the endowments filched from them by her predecessors.

On August 13 the Queen issued an official declaration that she would not “compel or constrain consciences” in the matter of religious belief; this was one of the first proclamations of religious tolerance by a modern government.

[JoanK]

How sad a story! And religious tolerance comes out of it?

[bluebird24]

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edward,_Prince_of_Wales_(later_Edward_VI)_by_Hans_Holbein_the_Younger_and_Studio.jpg


click on pictures

[3kings(Trevor)]

DURANTS"   S  o  C
Vol. VI  THE REFORMATION 
Pgs. 593  -  595

                                                      Mary Tudor                                             
On August 13 the Queen issued an official declaration that she would not “compel or constrain consciences” in the matter of religious belief; this was one of the first proclamations of religious tolerance by a modern government. The Parliament that met on October 5, 1553, was by no means subservient. It agreed to repeal all the legislation of Edward’s reign concerning religion; it reduced to their earlier proportions the severe penalties prescribed in the laws of Henry VIII and Edward VI; and it graciously informed the queen that “ the legitimation of your most noble person “ was now annulled, and she had ceased to be a bastard. By an edict of March 4, 1554, the Catholic worship was completely reinstated. Protestantism and other heresies were made illegal, and all protestant preaching or publication was prohibited.

The nation was much less disturbed by this return of the theological pendulum, than by Mary's marriage plans. She was constitutionally fearful of marriage, but she faced  the trial in the hope of having an heir who would prevent the accession of Protestant Elizabeth. Mary claimed to be a virgin, and probably was; perhaps if she had sinned a bit, she would have been less sombre, tense, and certain. Charles the V offered Mary his son Philip, to whom he was about to bequeath all but the imperial title; and he pledged the Netherlands as a gift to any male issue of the marriage. Mary thrilled at the thought of having as her husband the ruler of Spain, Flanders, Holland, Naples, and the Americas, and her half Spanish blood warmed at the prospect of a political and religious union of England with Spain. She modestly suggested that her greater age -- ten years above Philip’s -- was a barrier; she  feared that her faded charms would not suffice his youthful vigour or imagination; she was not even sure she would know how to make love. For his part Philip was reluctant; his agents reported that “Mary was a perfect saint.” who “dressed badly.”

Charles persuaded him by pointing out that the marriage would give Spain a strong ally against France, and precious support in the Netherlands, which was bound to England commercially; and the union of the Hapsburgs and the Tudors would constitute a power capable of giving Western Europe a generation of compulsory peace. The Queen’s Council and the English people recognized the force of these considerations, but they feared the marriage would make England an appendage of Spain, and would involve England in recurrent wars against France. Charles countered by offering, in his sons name, a marriage contract by which Philip should bear the title King of England only so long as Mary lived; she was to retain sole and full royal authority over English affairs; she was to share all Philips titles; and if Don Carlos ( Philips son by an earlier marriage) died without issue, Mary or her son was to inherit the Spanish Empire; moreover added the astute Emperor, Mary was to receive 60,000 pounds a year from the Imperial revenues.

But the people of England resented her choice. Protests were voiced everywhere in the land. Four nobles laid plans for an uprising to begin on March 18, 1554. The conspiritors made the mistake of confiding plans to Courtenay, whose task it was to secure Elizabeth’s cooperation. Bishop Gardiner who had kept watch on Courtenay had him arrested, and Courtenay, presumably under torture, betrayed the plot. Mary herself could not understand why the country that had so welcomed her accession should refuse her the happiness and fulfilment that she had dreamed of through so many years of misery. She went in person to the Guildhall and faced an excited assemblage that was debating which side to take. She told it she was quite ready to abandon the Spanish marriage if the commons so wished,. “I cannot tell,” she said, “how naturally the mother loveth her child, for I was never the mother of any; but certainly if a queen may as naturally and earnestly love her subjects as the mother does her child, then assure yourselves that I, being your  lady and mistress, do as earnestly and tenderly love and favour you.” Her words and spirit were warmly applauded, and the assembly pledged her its support. Agents of the day were able, almost in a day, to muster 25,000 men. Mary breathed safely again, but she was never more the gentle Queen.

Her advisers had often condemned  her policy of pardon. How she was asked, could Philip trust himself in a land where his enemies were left unhindered to plot his assassination? Bishop Gardiner argued that mercy to the nation required that traitors should be put to death. The Queen, in a panic of fright, veered to the views of her councillors. She ordered the execution of Lady Jane Grey, who had never wanted to be queen, and of Jane’s husband, who had so wanted to be king.  Jane, still but seventeen, went to her death stoically, without protest or tears  (February 12, 1554). Suffolk her father was beheaded, and a hundred lesser rebels hanged. Wyatt at first incriminated Elizabeth as privy to the plan, but on the scaffold (April 11 1554 ) he exonerated her of all cognisance.  Mary sent for Elizabeth and kept her in the Tower. Renard urged her immediate execution, but Mary objected that Elizabeth’s complicity had not been proved. During these fateful months Elizabeth’s life hung in the balance, and this terror helped to form her character to suspicion and insecurity, and was echoed in the severity of her later reign, when she had the same worry about Mary Stuart that Mary Tudor now had about Elizabeth. 

Mary Tudor’s desire to give Philip a son, and England an heir was so absorbing that she soon conceived herself pregnant. Digestive disturbances were accepted as additional proofs of motherhood. For a long time Mary rejoiced in the thought that she too, like the poorest woman in  her realm, could bear a child; and we cannot imagine her desolation when her doctors finally convinced her that her swelling was dropsy. Meanwhile the rumour of her pregnancy had swept through England; men and women feasted in the streets, church bells rang, and a clergyman announced that the child was fair and  beautiful as becomes a prince. Now broken with frustration and shame, Mary hid herself for months from the public view.

Philip stayed with Mary thirteen months, hoping with her for a child; when no sure sign of it appeared he begged her to let him go to Brussels, where the planned abdication of his father required his presence. She consented sadly, went with him to the barge that was to take him down the Thames, and watched from a window till the barge disappeared. Philip felt he had done his duty through an arduous year of making love to a sick woman, so he rewarded himself with the full blooded women of Brussels.

[JoanK]

Thanks for the picture, BLUEBIRD. Such a sweet child, buried in finery.

Poor Mary -- never had a chance.

[bluebird24]

http://www.nndb.com/people/180/000346139/mary-tudor-1-sized.jpg

[JoanK]

Thanks, Bluebird.

Sigh. She looks so sweet. If only history had given her a different life: she was clearly not queen material.

[mabel1015j]

I remember reading a long time ago something more recently written then Durant that Mary's "pregnancy" was a tumor. I don't remember who authored that, so i can't give it any more credibility then Durant. Wikipedia says it was a "false pregnancy."

Jean

[JoanK]

It could have been a psychological pregnancy. We'll probably never know.

[3kings(Trevor)]

Durants'  S  o  C
Vol. VI  THE REFORMATION
Pgs. 595 - 599

                                                          BLOODY  MARY 


Mary was in a measure consoled by the return of Cardinal Pole to England. Charles had detained him in Brussels because Pole had opposed the Spanish marriage; but now that this had been consummated the imperial objections subsided; The Cardinal, as papal legate, crossed the Channel ( November 20, 1554 ) to the land he had left twenty-two years before; and the warm welcome given him by officials, clergy, and people attested the general satisfaction over renewal of relations with the papacy. He greeted Mary with almost the choicest phrase in his vocabulary. “ Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum, benedicta tu in mulieribus,” and he trusted he might soon add, “blessed is the fruit of thy womb.” When parliament learned that Pole brought papal consent to the retention of confiscated Church property by present holders, all went merry as a wedding should. Parliament, on its knees, expressed repentance for its offences against the Church, and Bishop Gardiner, having confessed his own vacillation, gave the penitents absolution. The old statutes against Lollardry were renewed, and censorship of publications was returned from state to Church authorities. After the turmoil of twenty years everything seemed as before.

Pole was now the most influential man in England. He busied himself with the reorganization and reform of the English Church. With May’s help he restored some monasteries and a nunnery. Mary was happy to see the old religious customs live again, to see crucifixes and holy pictures again in churches, to join in pious processions of priests, children, or guilds, to sit or kneel through long masses for the quick and the  dead. Now that hope of motherhood had gone, religion was her sustaining solace. But she could not resurrect the past. the new ideas had aroused exciting ferment in city minds; there were still a dozen sects clandestinely publishing their literature and creeds. Mary was pained to hear of groups that denied the divinity of Christ, the existence of the Holy Ghost, the transmission of original sin. To her simple faith these heresies seemed mortal crimes, far worse then treason. Word came to her that one preacher had prayed aloud, before his congregation, that God would convert her or soon remove her from the earth. One day a dead dog with a monastically tonsured head, and a rope round its neck, was thrown through a window into the Queen’s chamber.

It seemed unreasonable to Mary that the Protestant émigrés, to whom she had allowed safe departure from England, should be sending back pamphlets attacking her as a reactionary fool, and speaking of the “lousy Latin service” of an “idolatrous Mass.” A meeting of 17,000 persons at Aldgate (March 14, 1554 ) heard a call to put Elizabeth on the throne.

Mary was by nature and habit merciful -- till 1555. What transformed her into the most hated of English queens? Partly the provocation of attacks that showed no respect for her person, her faith, or her feelings; partly the fear that heresy was a cover for political revolt; partly the sufferings and disappointments that had embittered her spirit and darkened her judgment; partly the firm belief of her most trusted advisors that religious unity was indispensable to national solidarity and survival. Cardinal Pole, like Mary, was of a kindly disposition, but inflexible in dogma; he loved the Church so much  that he shuddered at any questioning of her doctrines or authority.. He did not take any direct or personal lead in the Marian persecution; he counselled moderation and once freed twenty persons whom bishop Bonner had sentenced to the stake. Nevertheless he instructed the clergy that if all peaceful methods of suasion failed, major heretics “should be removed from life and cut off as rotten members from the body.” Mary’s own view was expressed hesitantly. “Touching the punishment of heretics, we think it ought to be done without rashness, not leaving meanwhile to do justice to such as by learning would seek to deceive the simple.” Her responsibility was at first merely permissive, but it was real. When (1558) the war with France proved disastrous to her and England, she ascribed the failure to God’s anger at her lenience with heresy, and thereafter she positively promoted persecution.

Gardiner opened the reign of terror by summoning to his Episcopal court (January 22, 1555) six clergymen who had refused to accept the re-established creed. One recanted; four, including John Hooper, deposed Bishop of Gloucester and Worcester, were burned ( February 4-8, 1555 ). Gardiner seems to have had a revulsion of feeling after these executions; he took no further part in the persecution; his health broke down, and he died in November of this year. Bishop Bonner took charge of the slaughter. Philip, still in England, advised moderation; when Bonner condemned six more to the stake the Imperial ambassador, Renard, objected to “this barbarous precipitancy; and Philips confessor, a Spanish friar, denounced the convictions as contrary to the mild and forgiving spirit inculcated by Christ.” Bonner suspended the sentences for five weeks, then ordered them carried out. To each heretic he offered full pardon for recantation, and often added a promise of financial aid or some comfortable employment; but when such inducements failed he passed sentence grimly. In 1555, Cranmer sixty-six, Ridley, sixty-five; and Latimer, eighty, were brought from the Tower to stand trial at Oxford. On October 1 they were condemned; on October 6 they were burned. They were bound with chains to an iron post, a bag of powder was hung round each man’s neck, the faggots were lit. “Be of good cheer, Master Ridley,” said Latimer, “play the man; we shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.”

These deaths marked the zenith of the persecution. Some 300 persons died in its course, 273 of them in the last four years of this reign. As the Holocaust advanced it became clear that it had been a mistake. Protestantism drew strength from its martyrs as early Christianity had done, and many Catholics were disturbed in their faith, and shamed in their Queen by the sufferings and fortitude of the victims. Bishop Bonner, though he did not enjoy the work, came to be called “Bloody Bonner”; one woman called him “the common cutthroat and general slaughter-slave to all the bishops in England.” In April 1556, British agents discovered a conspiracy, to depose Mary and enthrone Elizabeth.. The movement was suppressed, but it left Mary in constant fear of assassination. 

[3kings(Trevor)]

DURANTS'   S  o  C
Vol. VI  THE REFORMATION
Pgs. 599  -  601




                                                    BLOODY  MARY  (cont.)
One group of fugitives encountered tribulations that reveal the dogmatic temper of the times. Jan Laski, a Polish Calvinist, had come to London in 1548, and had founded there the first Presbyterian church in England. A month after Mary’s accession Laski and part of the congregation left London in two Danish vessels. At Copenhagen they were denied entry unless they signed the official Lutheran confession of faith. As firm Calvinists they declined. Refused permission to land, they sailed to Wismar, Lubeck, and Hamburg, and in each case met with the same demand and repulse. The Lutherans of Germany shed no tears over Mary’s victims, but denounced them as detestable heretics and “Devil’s martyrs” for denying the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.  Calvin condemned the merciless sectarianism of the Lutherans, and in that year ( 1553 ) burned Servitus at the stake. After buffering the North Sea through most of the winter, the refugees at last found entry and humanity at Emden.

Mary moved with sombre fatality to her end. Her pious husband, now anomalously at war with the papacy as well as France, came to England (March 10,1557) and urged the Queen to bring Britain into the war as his ally. To make his mission less hateful to the English, he persuaded Mary to moderate the persecution.. But he could not so easily win public support; on the contrary, a month after his arrival, Thomas Stafford, a nephew of Cardinal Pole, fomented a rebellion with a view to freeing England from both Mary and Philip. He was defeated, and hanged (May 28, 1557 ) To fill the Queen’s cup of misery the Pope in that month repudiated Pole as papal legate, and accused him of heresy. On June 7 Mary, anxious to please Philip, and convinced that Henry II had supported Stafford’s plot, declared war against France. Having accomplished his purpose, Philip left England in July. Mary suspected she would never see him again. In this unwanted war England lost Calais (Jan. 6, 1558 ) which it had held for 211 years, and the thousands of Englishmen and women who had lived there, and now fled as penniless fugitives to Britain, spread the bitter charge that Mary’s government had been criminally negligent in defending England’s last possession on the Continent. Philip made a peace favourable to himself, without requiring the restoration of Calais. It was an old phrase that that precious port was the “brightest jewel in the English crown.”

Early in 1558 the Queen again thought herself pregnant. She made her will in expectation of a dangerous delivery, and despatched a message to Philip, beseeching his presence at the happy event. He sent his congratulations, but he did not have to come; Mary was mistaken. She was now quite forlorn, perhaps in some measure insane. She sat for hours on the floor, with knees drawn up to her chin; she wandered like a ghost through the papacy galleries; she wrote tear-blotted notes to a king who, anticipating her death, ordered his agents in England to incline the heart of Elizabeth toward marriage with some Spanish grandee, or with Philip himself.

In Mary’s final summer a plague fever moved through England. In September 1558, it struck the Queen.  Combined with dropsy and a “superfluity of black bile,” it so weakened her that her will to live fell away. On November 6 she sent the crown jewels to Elizabeth. It was a gracious act, in which love of Church yielded to a desire to give England an orderly succession. She suffered long periods of unconsciousness; from one of these she awoke to tell how she had happily dreamed of children playing and singing before her. On November 17, she heard Mass early, and uttered the responses ardently. Before dawn she died.

On the same day died Cardinal Pole, as profoundly defeated as his Queen. In estimating him we must record the bitter fact that at the beginning of his last month he had condemned three men and two women to be burned for heresy. Nowhere in contemporary Christendom -- not even in Spain -- were so many men and women burned for their opinions as during Reginald Pole’s primacy of the English Church.

For Mary we may speak a more lenient word. Grief, illness, and many suffered wrongs had warped her mind. Her clemency passed into cruelty only after conspiracies had sought to deprive her of her crown or her head. She does not quite deserve the name “Bloody Mary”; it simplifies pitilessly a character in which there had been much to love. It is a strange distinction that she carried on the work of her father in alienating England from Rome. She showed to an England still Catholic the worst side of the Church she served. When she died England was readier than before to accept the new faith that she had laboured to destroy.
 

[JoanK]

"Grief, illness, and many suffered wrongs had warped her mind. Her clemency passed into cruelty only after conspiracies had sought to deprive her of her crown or her head. She does not quite deserve the name “Bloody Mary”; it simplifies pitilessly a character in which there had been much to love".

How tragic. And even more so that her personal tragedy became the tragedy of hundreds of others. I wish I could say that humanity has learned from this and countless other stories of the use and abuse of power, but I can't.

[mabel1015j]

OMG, this is like reading science fiction, except it's not. And we think ISIS is bad!?!

[3kings(Trevor)]

DURANTS'   S  o  C
Vol. VI  THE REFORMATION
PGS 602  -  603





         FROM ROBERT BRUCE TO JOHN KNOX J                                                                                                                                              
                       The Indomitable Scotts  

The warm and genial south generates civilization; the cold and hardy north repeatedly conquers the lax and lazy south, and absorbs and transforms civilization. The extreme north  --  Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Finland -- fights the almost arctic elements to provide some welcome to civilization, and to contribute to it in the face of a thousand obstacles.

In Scotland the sterile, roadless Highlands encouraged feudalism and discouraged culture, while the green and fertile Lowlands invited invasion after invasion by Englishmen who could not understand why Scotland should not receive their overflow and their kings. The Scots anciently Celtic, medievally mingled with Irish, Norse, Angles, Saxons, and Normans, had by 1500 merged into a people narrow as their peninsular in feelings and ideas, deep as their mists in superstition and mythology, proud as their promontories, rough as their terrain, impetuous as their torrents; at once ferocious and tender, cruel and brave, and always invincible. Poverty seemed rooted in geography, and manners in poverty; so parsimony grew out of the grudging soil. The peasants were too burdened with toil to have time for letters, and the nobles who kept them in bondage prided themselves on illiteracy, finding no use for the alphabet in their feuds or wars. The mountains and the clans divided the sparse population into passionate jealousies that gave no quarter in war, no security in peace. The nobles, having nearly all the military power in their private bands, dominated Parliament and the kings; the Douglases alone had 5000 retainers, and revenues rivaling the crown’s.

Before 1500 industry was primitive and domestic, commerce was precarious, cities were few and small. All Scotland had some 600,000 inhabitants -- half of Glasgow’s number today. Glasgow was a minor fishing town; Perth was, until 1452, the capital; Edinburgh had 16,000 souls. The individual, local, and national spirit of independence expressed itself in village and township institutions of self-government within the framework of feudalism and monarchy. The burghers -- the enfranchised citizens of the towns -- were allowed representatives in the Parliament or Assembly of Estates, but they had to sit, not in their own Commons as in England, but amid the feudal landowners, and their voice and vote were lost in the noble majority. Unable to buttress their power against the nobles by an alliance, as in France, with rich merchants and populous cities, the kings sought support in the affluence and influence of the Church. The nobles, always at odds with the kings, learned to hate the Church and love her property, and joined in a universal cry that national wealth was being siphoned to Rome. In Scotland it was the nobles -- not, as in England, the kings and merchants who made the Reformation i.e. freed secular from ecclesiastical power.

Through its hold on the piety of the people the Scottish Church achieved opulence amid dulling poverty and transmundane hopes. A papal envoy,  toward the end of the fifteenth century, reported to the pope that ecclesiastical income in Scotland equaled all other income combined. The preachers and the burghers almost monopolized literacy. The Scotish clergy were already in the sixteenth century noted for scholarship, and it was the Church of course, who founded and maintained the universities of St. Andrews and Aberdeen. After 1487 the bishops and abbots were “nominated” -- in effect appointed -- by the kings, who used these offices as rewards for political services or as sinecures for their illegitimate sons. James V endowed three of his bastards with the ecclesiastical revenues of Kelso, Melrose, Holyrood, and St. Andrews. The wordly tastes of these royal appointees were in a measure responsible for the deterioration of the clergy in the sixteenth century. The pre-Reformation poets of Scotland spared no words in satirizing the clergy; and the clergy themselves, ascribed the degredation of the Church in Scotland to corruption in morals and profane lewdness of life in churchmen of all ranks. We should add that the morals of the clergy merely reflected those of the laity -- above all, of the nobles and kings.  

[JoanK]

" a people narrow as their peninsular in feelings and ideas, deep as their mists in superstition and mythology, proud as their promontories, rough as their terrain, impetuous as their torrents; at once ferocious and tender, cruel and brave, and always invincible."

Wow! Any Scots here to comment? (It sounds awfully good, but that doesn't mean it makes any sense).

[bluebird24]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Cardinal_Reginald_Pole.jpg

[mabel1015j]

Here i am, Scotch-Irish in my bones, descendent of founders of 3 Presbyterian Churches in central Pa in the 18th century. The arguments here against Catholicism sound much like what i heard from my , still, Presbyterian grandparents, Mother and aunts and uncles. The only prejudice i remember hearing in my house was against Catholics. AND - i know, my 9th grade English teacher would have a fit at my starting a sentence with a conjunction, but i use it for emphasis - how ironic to be reading these arguments against the Church and England as Scotland prepares to vote on secession from the UK!!! In 2014!!!

I love the second paragraph, it could be used all alone to teach analogy, "deep as", "rough as", "proud as"............... Miss High (9th grade English teacher) would love it too. JoanK, i don't know if they were much different then people all over the world at the time. What do you think?

Jean

[JoanK]

Undoubtedly there were cultural differences between England and Scotland (and probably proud of it!). Why wouldn't there be? The problem with descriptions like the Durants', while they undoubtedly contain some truth, they are often used as a basis for unfair prejudice and discrimination.

[bluebird24]

When is the reformation?

[mabel1015j]

Martin Luther starts the Reformation in Germany in 1517.

Joank, yes cultural differences, but the attributes to Scottish behavior seems to me to be typical human behavior. Maybe i'm not breaking it down enough.

Jean

[JoanK]

JEAN: good point!

[mmahoney]

Hello,

I'm a first generation Scottish and Irish person. My mother was from a Presbyterian family from Forfar, Scotland and my blessed father was an Irish Catholic from Cork. My dear father always said that every Scotsman's dream was to marry an Irishman.

Peg Mahoney

[mabel1015j]

Hi Peg, welcome!

Why did a Scots man want to marry an Irishmen? 

Jean

[JoanK]

Hi, Peg. Welcome. You're just in time to hear the Durants' take on Scottish history.

[3kings(Trevor)]

Durants'  S  o  C
Vol.VI  THE REFORMATION
Pgs. 604 - 606

                         ROYAL CHRONICLE  1314 - 1554


The basic fact in the history of the Scottish state is fear of England. English kings, for England’s safety from rear attack, time and again tried to annex Scotland to the English crown. Scotland, to protect itself, accepted alliance with England's perennial enemy, France. Thereby hangs this chronicle.

With bows and arrows and battle axes the Scots won freedom from England at Bannockburn ( 1314 ). Robert Bruce, having there led them to victory, ruled them till his death by leprosy ( 1329) His son David II, like the Scottish kings from time beyond memory, was crowned on the sacred “Stone of Destiny” in the abbey of Scone. When Edward III of England began the Hundred Years’ War with France he thought it wise first to secure his northern front; he defeated the Scots at Halidon Hill, and set up Edward Balliol as his puppet on the Scottish throne ( 1333) David II regained the crown only by paying the English a ransom of 100,000 marks, ( $6,667,000). As he left no direct heir at his death ( 1371), the kingdom passed to his nephew Robert Stuart, with whom the fateful Stuart dynasty began.

The  war of Britains two halves against the whole was soon resumed. The French sent an army to Scotland; Scots and French ravaged the border countries of England, took Durham and put to death all its inhabitants-- men, women, children, nuns, monks, priests.. Playing the next move in this royal chess, the English invaded Scotland, burned Perth and Dundee, and destroyed Melrose abbey.( 1385) Robert III  carried on; but when the English captured his son James (1406)  he died of grief. England kept the boy king in genteel imprisonment until the Scots signed the perpetual peace ( 1423 ), renouncing all further co-operation with France.

James I picked up, in captivity, considerable education, and an English bride. In honour of this “milk white dove” he composed, in the Scots tongue, “The King’s Quair “(i.e. book) an allegorical poem of surprising merit for a king. Indeed James was remarkable in many ways. He was one of the best wrestlers, runners, riders, archers, spearmen, craftsmen, and musicians in Scotland, and he was a beneficent and competent ruler. He imposed penalties upon dishonest commerce and negligent husbandry, built hospitals, required  taverns to close at nine, turned the energies of youth from football to martial exercises, and demanded a reform of ecclesiastical discipline and monastic life. When his active reign began ( 1424 ) he pledged  himself to put down chaos and crime in Scotland, and to end the private wars of the nobles and their feudal despotism; “ if God gives me but a dog’s life I will make the key keep the castle and the bracken keep the cow” i.e. end robbery of homes and cattle -- “through all Scotland”.

A Highland thief robbed a woman of two cows, she vowed that she would ne’er wear shoon till she had walked to the King to denounce the weakness of the law. “You lie “ said the thief; “I will have you shod.” and he nailed horse-shoes to her naked feet. She found her way to the King nevertheless. He had the robber hunted down, had him led about Perth with a canvas picture of the crime, and saw to it that the brute was safely hanged. Meanwhile he quarrelled opportunely with obstructive barons, brought a few to the gallows, confiscated excess holdings, taxed the lords as well as the burgesses and gave the government the funds needed to replace many tyrannies with one. He called to the Parliament the lairds -- proprietors of the lesser estates -- and made them and the middle class an offset to the nobles and the clergy. In 1437 a band of nobles killed him.

The sons of the nobles whom he had cut down in life or property continued against James II their struggle against the centralising monarchy. While the new king was still a lad of seven his ministers invited the young Earl of Douglas, and a younger brother, to be the King’s guests; they came, were given a mock trial, and were beheaded(1440)  Twelve years later James II  himself invited William, Earl of Douglas, to his court at Stirling, gave him safe conduct, entertained him royally, and slew him on the charge that he had had treasonable correspondence with England. The King captured all English strongholds in Scotland but one, and was blown to bits by the accidental exp-losion of his own cannon. James III paid the penalty of his father’s lawlessness; after many ferocious encounters he was captured by nobles and killed(1488). James IV married  Margaret Tudor , sister of Henry VIII. Through that marriage Mary Queen of Scots would later claim the English throne. Nevertheless, when Henry joined Spain, Austria, Venice, and the papacy in attacking France ( 1511), James felt bound to help- Scotland’s old ally, now so  imperilled, by invading England. On Flodden Field he fought with mad courage while many of his men turned and fled; and in that disaster he died (1513).

James V was then but a year old. An involved struggle ensued for the regency. David  Beaton -- an ecclesiastic distinguished by ability, courage, and an appreciation of women-- secured the prize, was made Archbishop of St. Andrews, then Cardinal, and trained  the young King in fervent allegiance to the Church. In 1538  James married  Mary of Lorraine, sister of Francis, Duke of Guise, the leader of the Catholic party in dogma-divided France. The Scottish nobility, increasingly anticlerical, looked with interest at the current divorce of England from the papacy, envied English lords appropriating or receiving church property, and took “wages” from Henry VIII to oppose their King’s alliance with France. When James V  waged war on England the nobles refused to support him. Defeated at Solway Moss (1542), he fled in shame to Falkland, and died there December 14. On December 8 his wife had given birth to Mary, who, six days old, became Queen of Scots.

[JoanK]

I'm hoping someone here will explain the current upcoming vote in Scotland to clueless me.

[mabel1015j]

Joan - here is the wiki site - very up to date - on the issue of Scotland's independence. If you don't want to read the whole history click on "reasons" under "support" and "opposition" at the bottom of the index list. No news channel did a good job on explaining the reasons.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_independence#Independence_referendum.2C_2014

[3kings(Trevor)]

Durants'  S  o  C
Vol. VI  THE REFORMATION
Pg. 606



                             THE ROYAL CHRONICLE  (cont.) 

Beaton produced a will in which the late King had named him regent for the infant Queen. The nobles questioned the authenticity of the document, imprisoned the Cardinal, and chose as regent James, Earl of Arran; but Arran released Beaton and made him chancellor. When Beaton renewed the alliance with France, Henry VIII resolved on merciless war. To his army in the north he sent orders to burn and destroy everything in its path, “putting man, woman, and child to fire and sword without exception where any resistance shall be made,” and particularly “sparing no creature alive” in Beaton’s St. Andrews. The army did its best; “abbey and grange, castle and hamlet, were buried in common ruin”; for two days Edinburgh was sacked and burned; farm villages for seven miles around were pillaged and razed; 10,000 horned cattle, 12,000 sheep, 1,300 horses, were led away to England( 1544). Sir James Kirkcaldy, Norman Leslie, and other Scottish gentlemen offered to help the English “burn places belonging to the extreme party in the Church, to arrest and imprison the principal opponents of the English alliance, and to apprehend and slay the Cardinal himself.” Henry welcomed the offer, and promise a thousand pounds toward expenses. The plan fell through for a time, but was carried out on May 29, 1546. Two Kirkcaldies, two Leslies, and a numerous band of nobles and cutthroats forced entry  into the Cardinal’s palace, and slew him almost ‘in flagrante delicto,’ “for,” said Knox, “he had been busy at his accounts with Mistress Ogilvy that night.” “Now because the weather was hot,” Knox added, “it was thought best, to keep him from stinking, to give him great salt enough, a cope of lead . . . to await what exequies his brethren the bishops could prepare for him. These things we write merrily.” The assassins retired to the castle of St. Andrews on the coast, and awaited aid from England by sea.

Arran resumed charge of the government. To assure French help he promised the infant Queen Mary Stuart to the French Dauphin; and to prevent her seizure by the English she was clandestinely sent to France ( Aug 13, 1548) The accession of Mary Tudor in England ended for a time the danger of further English invasions; Catholicism now ruled on both sides of the border. French influences prevailed upon Arran to resign the regency ( 1554), to Mary of Lorraine, mother of the absent Queen. She was a woman of intelligence, patience, and courage, who yielded only to the overwhelming spirit of the age. Dowered with the culture of the French Renaissance, she smiled tolerantly at the rival religious dogmas that raged around her. She ordered the release of several imprisoned Protestants, and allowed such freedom of preaching and worship to ‘heretics’ that many French Protestants, fleeing from Mary Tudor, found refuge, and were allowed to form congregations, under Mary of Lorraine. She was the most humane and civilized ruler that Scotland had known for centuries.

[3kings(Trevor)]

I don't think it matters at all in the great scheme of things, but according to the heading of these current pages we are still on vol. V THE RENAISSANCE, but we have been on Volume VI THE REFORMATION, for quite some time now. And my post numbers are stuck at Trevor 299. or some such. LOL.

Speaking of print errors, the phrase 'in flagrante delicto' as given in the volume  I'm copying from is written as "fragrante delicto". I wonder if Durant was having a little joke ? Trevor

[JoanK]

TREVOR: thanks for the heads up. I'll see what the techies can do about your number of posts. I'll see if I can fix the heading (knock on wood).

[JoanK]

the heading seems to have worked and I reported the number of posts problem. You certainly deserve credit for all the work you've done.

Thank you for that piece on the referendum. I don't know which way I would have voted; thank goodness I didn't have to decide.

In recent (to me anyway) times, I've seen a lot of small states split off from bigger ones, only to find they had no independent source of economic prosperity. There is a relatively minor (to me anyway) case of that here in California. Many in Northern California really want to split off as a separate state. But all the money is in the South (all the water is in the North).