ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR DR.

MAGDA TEODORESCU

A BRIEF COURSE IN ENGLISH CULTURE AND CIVILIZATION

LECTURE 1: SOME REMARKS CONCERNING ENGLAND IN ROMAN TIMES AND

DURING EARLY MIDDLE AGES

I.
1. Introduction
Unlike other European peoples, as we know them today, some of the ancient
inhabitants of today Great Britain, Northern Ireland, and the Irish Republic, still live on
their territories. For instance, the Celts live and speak their language in Ireland,
Scotland, and Wales, but of course, not the original one. Before the Romans advent,
the Celtic tribes were always at strife with each other; in fact, they dominated much of
Europe in the last six centuries B.C., expanding up to todays Romania as well, and
were known as both skilful warriors and craftsmen, which comes as no surprise. They
used to live in treves (hamlets) with timber, wattles structures covered with mud,
which could be easily destroyed. Valuable information about the Celts was provided by
Julius Caesar following his conquest of Britain in 43 A. D. However, the Romans never
occupied Ireland and Wales. The Celtic life was mainly focused on warfare and less on
cultural life. In the 8th century AC they invaded Scotland, inhabited at that time by the
Pitcs, and conquered it. So, when we refer to Celtic traces in England, we have to
consider Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Around the time of Christ, Cunobelinus
(Cymbeline) was their king made by W. Shakespeare a main character of his play (the
only play dedicated to ancient England, whose story was read by Shakespeare in
Raphael Holinsheds Chronicles [1577], who in his turn, took it from the famous history
of Geoffrey of Monmouths Historia Regum Britanniae [1136]. However, besides the
name, the play has nothing to do with the legend/history of this king). Cymbeline is also
mentioned by Dio Cassius and Suetonius as The king of the Britons (Britannorum rex),
and is a character in Welsh legends.

2. The Romans in Britain

When the Romans arrived, they found here several tribes that had their own
organization. There were leaders, slaves, and priests, called Druids, who were
extremely powerful in their society; for instance, if a Druid excommunicated a member
of the tribe, he/she would
be

eliminated

forever.

They had a lunar calendar

and their time unit, the
fortnight, is still used in
English,

meaning

two

weeks.
The

Roman

occurred

occupation

between

the

coming of the Celts and

the coming of the Saxons.
Unlike the Saxons, Celts,
and Dance who came over
to slaughter or expel the
inhabitants and settle in
their place, the Romans made an effort to induce their Western subjects to assimilate
Latin life in all its aspects. The British historians agree that the Britons inherited
practically nothing from the Romans, except for a good amount of infrastructure,
architectural, and design patterns, I would say. However, Hadrian Wall did help the
locals through centuries owing to its defense capacities. Moreover, architecture in the
real sense of the word, appeared for the first time in the island with the Romans. Fine
public buildings, both religious and secular, were built and embellished with statues and
carved relieves. The walls were painted and the floors were of tesserae (square mosaic
tiles) set in various designs.
3

The Romans brought, it seems, a whole lot of

their civilization facilities. Their roads were built to
transport goods to Dover and then to the
continent. The most famous is known as Watling Street ("Item a Londinio ad portum
Dubris") which had been used before by the Britons and paved by the Romans.
Towns developed on former castra (sing. castrum), a term present in locations like
Lancaster, Gloucester, Winchester, etc. In matters of craftsmanship, the pottery for the
table was embellished with a wealth of design. Moreover, there was a connection
between the Celtic and Roman craftsmen.
The former deserted their curvilinear patterns
(much enjoyed by the 19th and 20th century
artists) for the new classical style, and yet
carried on some of their old tradition. An
example of it is the Gorgons head, from the
pediment of the temple of Sulis-Minerva at
Bath (Bath Museum).

Even when the Romans deserted the island, a mixture of Roman-Celtic designs
survived. Modified to suit the Nordic taste, these took their place in the pattern-books of
Anglo-Saxon craftsmen. Obvious pattern traditions could also be traced in the medieval
illuminations of the gospels.
Recent archeological findings point to the migration of European population during the
late Roman period. Thus, the Journal of Archeological Science (volume 33, 2006)
contains an article about a burial place from Hampshire, southern England. By

appealing

to

scientific

methods, the research team1

discovered that the migrants
had come there from the
Danube region. Interesting,
isnt it?

3. London a Roman city

Let us consider now some facts regarding the history of London and its origin as a city.
Finds have been made in the river bed, which suggest that the first edition of London
Bridge may have been erected in timber before the Roman Conquest. There has been
widely debated whether the name of the city has Celtic or Welsh origins. For instance,
Geoffrey of Monmouth argues that the city was conquered by king Lud and the city was
named after him. Modern linguists also think that there must have had a Celtic-Welsh
origin. However, scholars have generally accepted it is a Roman name, Londinium,
since references had been found both in Roman and Greek sources of the day.
Moreover, London was not a great center of Celtic civilization before the Roman
conquest. There was a forest and a marsh that covered much of the area. It was the
Romans who found out the geographic potential of the place. So, they had roads built to
connect London with the rest of the country. Moreover, the Roman walls enclosed an
area corresponding very closely to the walls of the City in medieval times, which were in
fact only the Roman walls restored.

4. The Nordic Roots

Another important chapter in Englands history is the settlement of the Nordic peoples,
the Anglo-Saxons, the Jutes, the Danes, and Norsemen. They started to plunder the

Department of Archeology, University of Nottingham.

coast of Roman Britain before 300 A. D. and the conquest was completed in 1020 by
King Canute, who reconciled the kindred races of the Saxons and Danes.
The gods of the Anglo-Saxons were those of Germanic mythology: Tiw, Woden,
Thor, and the goddess Freya, still present in four days of the week: Tuesday,
Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Under the Anglo-Saxons, the country was divided
into shires governed by aldermen, shire-reeves (from which comes todays word
sheriff) and a bishop. Another institution was the Kings Council, known as Witan, the
ancestor of century-old Privy Council. The Witan is also the ancestor of the medieval
parliament.
Now, if compared to the Goth and Frank invasions, in Saxon England city life,
Christian religion (later restored) and Roman-Celtic language all disappeared. It took
almost one thousand and five hundred years to re-establish the benefits of the Roman
civilization. So, as G. M. Trevelyan, the last Whig-tradition historian, points out: The
first result of the conquest was the loss of the crafts, science, and learning of Rome.
However, the withdrawn Celts, once civilized, became barbarous, while the Saxons
grew more civilized. Nonetheless, the Romans left behind three things as permanent
legacies the traditional site of London, the Roman roads, and Welsh
Christianity. (p. 51) Romes missionaries kept coming to Wales, and among them the
famous Saint Germanus of Auxerre, a former Roman soldier, who won a battle against
the Picts and Saxons. Similarly, the Celtic Christianity developed in Cornwall.

5. Christianity, Arts and Architecture

Some authors believe that the Christian conquest of the island primarily meant the
return of Mediterranean (i.e., Roman) civilization

in a new form and with a new

message. Two figures are of utmost importance: Augustine of Canterbury (circa first
third of the 6th century 26 May 604), responsible for the Christianization of the British,
and Theodore of Tarsus (602 19 September 690) the first Archbishop of
Canterbury to be invested by Rome, following the Synod of Whitby in 664. They brought
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here a hierarchy similar to the former Roman Empire, and

interestingly enough, the English kings borrowed forms
and policies fitted to the need of their early state. In
Ireland a tremendously important role was played by
Saint Patrick who brought to Ireland the Latin language
and the scholarly work. Some authors think that the
acceptance of Christianity in Ireland as later in England
was in part due to the admiration felt by the barbarians
for the Empire even in its fall, and for all things appertaining to Rome. It is worth noting
that the Irish did not imitate the Roman hierarchy, thus theirs was not parochial, it was
monastic mainly, and this is due to their tradition established by St Patrick. As a rule,
the normal Irish monastery was connected with a single tribe and acknowledged no
ecclesiastical superior, even refusing Romes authority. Yet, this monasticism cannot be
compared to the continental one. For instance, Ireland consisted of a congregation of
hermits living each in his own beehive hut of wattle, clay and turf. They were hermits,
scholars, artists, warriors, and missionaries. They would go and preach copy and
illuminate manuscripts in monasteries or seek for more complete seclusion like St
Cuthbert, who left the remote Lindisfarne for the Farne Islands. It is to them that the
Irish and British owe the wonderful manuscript art of Lindisfarne Gospel or the Book
of Kells wherein Celtic and Saxon nature ornamentation were blended in perfect
harmony with southern Christian traditions. Moreover, far from the Papal censorship,
they revived the knowledge of classical secular literature, which had almost died in
Western Europe.
Lindisfarne Bible

Book of Kells

If we cannot speak about a proper

secular

th

architecture earlier than the 11 century,

not

many

Anglo-Saxon or Celtic churches are left

either.

There

are some reasons to it. Firstly, most of

them

were

made of wood, except for the ones in

Ireland

were made of local stone.

Saxon Church at Bardwell

Lindisfarne Abbey
8

that

Bosham Church

St Laurence: Bradford-on-Avon
Secondly, the Normans demolished them just to rebuild them after the conquest.
However, a handful has remained. The typical Anglo-Saxon church has a simple plan:
two rectangles of unequal size linked by an arch, with a smaller rectangle to the east.
An additional chamber or porticus could be attached to the church. The buildings tended
to be of a much greater height than width, as at Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire. The
windows were small and round-headed, set high in the walls. Interiors were often
decoratively painted, with little architectural ornament. The external decoration was
often elaborate, usually pilaster-work (vertical strips of stone on the outside walls). The
exterior might also have round-headed or triangular blank arcading. In some of these
churches, as it happened in most parts of Europe, the builders used bricks from the
Roman ruins or, as it is the case of the crypt at Hexam, Northumberland, and the abbey
9

built by Wilfrid in the 7th century, using stone from the ruined Hadrians Wall. And there
are other examples in Yorkshire.

Bayeux Tapestry
As to the other arts, there are two examples that have been known so far. Firstly, St
Cuthbert Vestments in Durham Cathedral. Secondly, the 11th century Bayeux Tapestry,
which is a long strip of linen, embroidered in colored wools with lively, detailed scenes
from the life of King Harold, the battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest. The
tapestry is exhibited in Bayeux, Normandy, yet there is a Victorian replica in Reading,
Berkshire.

II. The Norman Conquest and its Outcome

1. Introduction
It did not take long after King Canute united Anglo-Saxon tribes at strife, that what we
know as Great Britain today was conquered by the Normans. Culturally, the Canute
kingdom was civilized due to Christian culture but it lacked organization. Thus, England
was invaded by the most highly organized continental state of the day (p. 96), which
also sustained the Church power. The Normans brought to England the luminaries of
the day, like Lanfranc of Pavia and Anselm of Aosta, who became Archbishops of
Canterbury. Moreover, Lanfranc and Anselm brought the knowledge of Roman and
Canon Law, and the latest theology and philosophy of the day. Remember that that
happened before the age of Universities, when the monasteries served as major
centers of learning. At the same time, architecture was already laying its massive
impact on the Norman landscape. You do not have to imagine that the average Norman
aristocrat was a man of letters, a civilized person (in fact, at that time you could find
10

such people only among the clergymen). The Normans were as barbaric as the AngloSaxons or Danes who, under Canute incorporated England into his Nordic Empire.
Sometimes their methods of warfare were as cruel as ever. These Christians converts
were as ruthless and primitive as their Viking ancestors were.

2. Edward the Confessor and his role in the development of London; William the
Conqueror and the outcomes of the invasion
Though less important as a political figure, Edward the Confessor, the half monk AngloSaxon king, (one of the first of Britains kings who grew up in exile in a monastery in
France) was the one who prepared for Westminster the high place that it would hold in
ecclesiastical history and its supreme place in the political development of England. He
moved his residence on the rural island of thorns to be near the church he was
building to St Peter. Besides, during his reign London regained the place it held in the
Roman times, that of a great center of North European commerce. As concerns
Westminster Abbey, which plays a tremendously important role in the history of
England, one should notice that on its site there had been a Benedictine Monastery.
The first monks were brought to Westminster in about 960 AD by St Dunstan, the then
Bishop of London. No trace of the building to which they came has been found. Edward
the Confessors Abbey was consecrated on December 28, 1065 and one year later,
following the battle of Hastings, William the Conqueror forced his way and reached the
Abbey for coronation on Christmas Day. In fact, William, the so-called Duke of
Normandy, was a bastard, and it was through a chain of tricks and force that he
deprived Harold, the rightful heir of the Confessor, of his throne, and got hold of the
crown.

Now let us consider some consequences of the Norman Conquest. Firstly, William
the Conqueror chased away the Anglo-Saxon priests and replaced them with French
ones. During his reign, Lanfranc, whom I mentioned before, was his right hand.
11

Naturally, continental architecture was brought to England by Norman builders who

hastened to replace the largest Saxon churches with more magnificent structures. In
fact, little has remained from the Anglo-Saxon buildings. Another result of the Conquest
was the making of the English language. The language was spoken and written by King
Alfred and Bede (the most important historian of the early medieval times), was
despised as a peasants jargon, the talk of ignorant serfs. Now the clergy talked Latin
and the gentry talked French. Some think it was a chance for the language as such
because it lost its clumsy inflexions and elaborate genders, acquiring the grace,
suppleness, and adaptability which are among its chief merits. At the same time, it was
enriched by many French words and ideas. The English vocabulary is mainly French in
words relating to war, politics, justice, religion, hunting, cooking and art. As for
architecture, it is only partially French. I will gladly quote Trevelyans words on this
matter: It is symbolic of the fate of the English race itself
after Hastings, fallen to rise nobler, trodden under foot only
to be trodden into shape. (p. 117)

3. Some facts about Norman Art and Architecture in

England
The Norman Conquest had little immediate effect on the style of English illumination I
referred to earlier, but there was some influence on details. Some decorative features
became more common, such as historiated initial letters (decorated with figures of men
and animals), and inhabited scrolls, showing arabesques of foliage with animals
inhabiting the branches.

During the first half of the 12th century a new style, the Romanesque, entered the
country. This grew up alongside the surviving Anglo-Saxon style. It derived from
Byzantium and the East and its characteristics were firmness of line, boldness of
execution, and a rigid, monumental dignity in the portrayal of the human figure. A rare
12

example surviving from this time is the wall-painting in St Anselm Chapel of Canterbury
Cathedral, namely St Paul and the Viper.
The most important English contribution to Romanesque painting is the development of
the technique of pictorial narrative and of a complete cycle of ceremonial Bibles which
were produced in the 12th century, in particular the Winchester Bible (Winchester
Cathedral), the Lambeth Bible from Canterbury (Lambeth Palace), and the Bury Bible
(Corpus Christi College, Cambridge). They all are the greatest achievements in
European painting in the 12th century. At the end of the Norman period, they won for
England the pre-eminence in the graphic arts which in sculpture belonged to France.

The Norman or Romanesque style in architecture is magnificent in scale, simple and

inventive. Today we cannot see the churches as they were then. However, three large
churches have stood as they were in Norman times: the cathedrals of Durham, Norwich,
and Peterborough.

13

Durham Cathedral, considered as one of the

finest Romanesque churches in Europe, was
begun by Bishop William of St Carilief in 1093
and completed by 1133, and it was the first large building in northern Europe to be ribvaulted in stone. Formally, it has stood so, I would say, but changes of details still occur.

14

A good example is the stained glass window on the theme of the Last Supper (called
Daily Bread) painted in the eighties of the last century by Mark Angus.

As to castle building, the first Norman forts were simple earth mounds with ditches and
palisades. Their characteristic feature is the square Norman keep combining fortress
and residence functions. Two examples survive from the 11th century: Colchester,
Essex, and the white Tower in the Tower of London, completed by 1097. It is a fourstorey building divided by an internal wall into two parts. One half of the building was
again subdivided to the plain but beautiful Chapel of St John, which is the oldest
complete Norman church in England.

Chapel of St John

III. Some Facts about the English History in the Middle

Ages
1. Introduction

The medieval period begins about the time of the First Crusade (1096), which also
marks the first signs of anti-Semitism in Europe. Society at large consisted on the one
15

hand of the disintegrated secular society of feudal barons and knights, each with an
outlook limited to his province or his manor, while on the other hand there was the panEuropean Church, tightly organized from Rome. Furthermore, since the clergy enjoyed
an almost complete monopoly of learning and clerkship, the control of Church over
State in the early Middle Ages was very great. If for a period of time it was the king who
appointed the Bishops, for instance, in the end it was the Pope who had the last word,
yet with the tacit recommendation of the king. Some think that as compared to other
religions, Christianity was more dynamic in the Middle Ages, and helped the
transformation of society, from uniformity to variety, from the preeminence of the knight
to that of the craftsman and merchant, from the hegemony of priesthood to lay
emancipation, from feudal cosmopolitanism to national monarchy. Behind the fortified
walls of the monasteries the monks were re-interpreting the works of Plato and Aristotle,
while beyond the very same walls there was barbarism mixed with flashing lights of
civilization. After the Norman Conquest, England acquired great institutions:
representative assemblies, universities, juries. Some of these institutions, like the
universities, the legal profession, the city guilds and companies, and Parliament itself,
had their origin or analogy elsewhere because they were characteristic products of
medieval Christendom as a whole. But the English Common Law was a development
peculiar to England. Parliament and the Common Law gave England in the end a
political life of her own in strong contrast to the later developments of Latin civilization.

2. Major Kings
You should not imagine that England was the land of milk and honey, of stories of
knights courting ladies, or ladies waiting for their knights back from the crusade. The
worst happened during the conflict between Stephen of Blois, a distinguished knight,
and Matilda, wife of the great Plantagenet Count, Geoffrey of Anjou. Their fights torn the
country apart. For instance, an English monk wrote about the tortures invented to
oppress the common people. They took those whom they suspected to have goods, by
night and by day, seizing both men and women, and they put them in prison for their
16

gold and silver, and tortured them with pains unspeakable, for never were any martyrs
tormented as these were. Finally, an agreement was reached: Stephen was to wear
the crown till his death, while Matildas son was to succeed as Henry II (1154-89). He
was a great king, the first who tried to separate the church and secular powers. He had
an administrative mind trained in the best European learning institutions of his day. He
was not merely Duke of Normandy but the ruler of Western France. By marriage,
diplomacy, and war, the House of Anjou had accumulated such vast possessions that
the monarchy at Paris and the Holy Roman Empire were of
less account.

Map of England under Henry II

Henrys ever-moving court was filled with men of business,

pleasure, and scholarship from every land in Western
Europe. During his reign and that of his sons, the English
knight became less interested in fighting, because he could
buy the military service through what was known as shield
money. So, more and more knights turned into what came to be known as the country
gentleman. For these reasons the stone castle, typical of Stephens reign was gradually
replaced by the stone manor house, typical of the Plantagenet era (1154-1485). The
movement was hastened by Henry IIs demolition of unlicensed castles and his
unwillingness to grant new licenses. The donjon-keep was replaced by a high-ceilinged
stone hall, the lineal descendant of the high timber hall of the Anglo-Danish thong. In
front of it there was a walled courtyard partly surrounded by buildings. The manor house
was only to be entered through the gateway of the courtyard, and was often protected
by a moat. That was true for southern and midland counties, while on the Welsh or
17

Scottish borders, there dwelt the Marcher Lords in high castles. They participated in the
chief fights during the troublesome times of the Plantagenet period.

18

There is one significant fact that distinguishes the English upper class from the
continental one. The feudal law of primogeniture, or the right to the land of the first born,
turned into an advantage, because the other sons were sent out into the world to seek
for their fortune. Unlike the continental upper class, who married inside their own order,
and despised merchants and commerce, the English never became a closed caste, and
that was a rapid way of escaping from feudalism. The great benefit of Henrys reign was
the legal reform, that is, a native system common to the whole land, in place of the
various provincial customs. It meant a step forward towards the emancipation from the
feudal and ecclesiastical courts. He established the jury system that became the boast
of

England,

contrasting

the

French procedure, where torture

was freely used. Yet, Henry
wished greater power and control
over the Church and refused to
become vassal to the Pope a
thing that goes like a red thread
through

the

English

history,

culminating with Henry VIIIs act.

In 1162, Henry II made his friend
Thomas
chancellor

Beckett,
since

his
1155,

Archbishop of Canterbury. However, when the latter became archbishop, he refused to

give up any of the Churchs power. The word goes that when the ill-tempered Henry
heard about it, he shouted: Will none of these cowards rid me of this priest. And his
knights, like any of the contemporary boot-licking officers, took him at his word and went
to Canterbury. On 29 December 1170, they killed the Archbishop while he was praying.
The peoples reaction was so strong that soon he was made a saint. Moreover, Henry
himself went to Canterbury and had himself whipped. The cult of Thomas a Beckett was
the major one throughout Europe of that time.

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King Richard the Lion-Hearted (1189-99) distinguished himself in the Third Crusade
as the greatest of knight-errant, the popular figure in the Middle Ages. He took with him
other men of an adventurous disposition, but not the solid part of the baronage. As for
the English common folk, the emotions of the Third Crusade touched them just enough
to produce some shocking pogroms of Jews, of which the one in York was appalling. To
put it briefly, Richard left England at the mercy of his treacherous brother, John. The
Archbishop of Canterbury, Hubert Walter, whom Richard had appointed, backed by the
official baronage, the Mayor and citizens of London, suppressed Johns treason and
purchased Richards deliverance from the Vienna prison into which his fellow crusaders
had thrown him. But he had just returned home that he fled again and never returned to
England.

King John (1199-1216) had no broad political strategy or foresight. He extorted money
from all classes of his subjects and then spent it in clumsy attempts to defend his
inheritance against the kings of France. The loss of Normandy to Philip Augustus took
place in 1204, and ten years later, his scheme to recover it through a grand European
coalition against France was shipwrecked by the defeat of his German allies. King John
had problems with the Pope as well (he struggled with Pope Innocent III over the
election of Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury, to which he eventually
surrendered). In The Life and Death of King John by W. Shakespeare, King John
sadly notices:
It is the curse of kings to be attended
By slaves that take their humours for a warrant
To break within the bloody house of life,
And on the winking of authority
To understand a law, to know the meaning
Of dangerous majesty, when, perchance, it frowns
More upon humour than advisd respect.
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Oscar Wilde once wrote that children should learn history from Shakespeares historical
plays. Yet Shakespeare himself missed to dramatize one important event of the Middle
Ages: Magna Charta. An important role in the constitutional making, representing the
tension between the king and the people, was played by Magna Charta, the first English
Constitution that led in the end to yet undreamt of liberties for all. More than the
barons, it was Archbishop Stephen Langton whose brain and moral strength helped
the movement. His action was all the more remarkable considering that Pope Innocent
III who had supported him to be appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, disagreed with
him and backed instead King John and declared Magna Charta null and void. The new
English baronial policy, as designed in Magna Charta, was meant to obtain public
liberties and to control the king through the Common Law, baronial assemblies, and
alliance with other classes. It was the first text setting a democratic legal law in
general. Here how Article 1 sounds:
In the first place we have conceded to God, and by this our present charter confirmed
for us and our heirs for ever that the English church shall be free, and shall have her
rights entire, and her liberties inviolate; and we wish that it be thus observed. This is
apparent from the fact that we, of our pure and unconstrained will, did grant the freedom
of elections, which is reckoned most important and very essential to the English church,
and did by our charter confirm and did obtain the ratification of the same from our lord,
Pope Innocent III., before the quarrel arose between us and our barons. This freedom
we will observe, and our will is that it be observed in good faith by our heirs forever.

We have also granted to all freemen of our kingdom, for us and our heirs forever, all the
underwritten liberties, to be had and held by them and their heirs, of us and our heirs for
ever:
Naturally, not all the terms used then have preserved the same meaning. For instance,
free and freemen have to be understood as follows:
21

Free here, particular liberty to obey the canon law of the Western Church which,
amongst other things, insisted on ecclesiastical elections being free from lay pressure.
[Article 1] it should be understood that the Church did not want the State to interfere
with its own rules.
Freeman those of free status in the eyes of the law (that is, not villeins2) and as such
having certain rights denied to villeins, such as access to the Kings courts in certain
actions, freedom to move about and marry and exemption from certain onerous duties.
[Article 1]
One interesting aspect, as it appears in Magna Charta is the problem of Jews, which the
authors gave special attention, meaning that that was a hot issue and the population
had to be educated: And if any one die indebted to the Jews, his wife shall have her
dower and pay nothing of that debt; and if any children of the deceased are left
underage, necessaries shall be provided for them in keeping with the holding of the
deceased. The debt shall be paid out of the residue , save the service due to feudal
lords. Let debts due to others than Jews be dealt with in similar manner.
As to architecture, we find here the first reference to castles which: before the reign of
Henry II even major castles were mostly built of wood, as were the less important
buildings and auxiliary defences long after his time. The reference sounds rather funny
today: Neither we nor our bailiffs shall take, for our castles or for any other of our
works, wood which is not ours, except with agreement from the owner of that timber.
Throughout the 13th century, the struggle for the Charter, with its constant reissues,
revisions, infringements, and reassertions, was the battleground of parties, until the
Edwardian Parliaments were fully established, yet the Charter remained in the
foreground of mens thoughts. However, when the Parliament was established, and in
the 16th century, for instance, the Charter was out of fashion. Shakespeares King John

Etym. Latin villanus. Meaning a sort of serf. There were two types, one assigned to the manor, the other to the
lord and thus transferable from one to another. A newer meaning, though spelled differently, is that of a wicked
person.
2

22

shows that the author knew little about it. But when, under James I, Prince and people
again began to take up opposing ground, Magna Charta came quickly back as the
goddess of English freedom. It always happened so when the battle for freedom was
looming.
The name parliament was firstly applied during Henry IIIs reign to the feudal
assemblies and kings Council. It carried no idea of election or representation. That
particular Parliament was a revolutionary assembly to which only those Barons were
summoned who were of Simons party, but it set a precedent for the summoning of
burghers, imitated more closely the Parliament of Edward I (Apud Trevelyan).
Edward I (1272-1307). It was during his reign that the Parliament was established. I
would like to insist here on Trevelyans opinion of the nature of the English
Parliament:
No man made it, for it grew. It was the natural outcome, through long centuries,
of the common sense and the good nature of the English people, who have usually
preferred committees to dictators, elections to street fighting, and talking shops to
revolutionary tribunals. (p. 152)
And heres another valid remark, in my opinion: The English people have always been
distinguished for the Committee sense, their desire to sit round and talk till an
agreement or compromise is reached. This national peculiarity was the true origin of the
English Parliament. (p. 153)
There is one essential fact that characterized the Parliament life: it abolished the
distinctions of feudalism. The knights of the shire, a semi-feudal class were acting as
elected representatives of the rural yeoman, and were sitting cheek by jowl with the
citizens of the boroughs. Neither was any House of the Clergy formed as part of the
English Parliament. They voluntarily abandoned their seats among the Commons and
the Lords. That explains why the English couldnt understand what in the world the

23

French Revolution was about, although they had their own civil war more than a
hundred years before
*

Ireland, Wales, and Scotland

What happened to Ireland during the period after the Conquest? It mainly remained
disorganized, while the majority of its inhabitants preferred the country life to town life.
Their towns were easily captured and transformed into English ones. The citizens of
Bristol were given the right to inhabit Dublin. Dublin Castle, first built by the Vikings,
became the centre of Saxon rule in Ireland from the 12th century.
To put it briefly, England proved too weak to conquer and govern Ireland, but strong
enough to prevent her from learning to govern herself. It is significant that the island that
once was the lamp of learning in a barbarous Europe, had no university when the
Middle Ages came to an end.
Before the coming of the Anglo-Normans, the Welsh had been a pastoral rather than
an agricultural people. They lived rather in huts than in towns and villages, that is, they
did not have a community life. When the occupation occurred and they saw their valley
dominated by a Norman castle of timber or stone, with an agricultural village attached to
it, a part of them fled higher into the hills, while the others remained vassals of the new
lord. All through the Middle Ages the native Welsh, in imitation of the English lords and
neighbors, were slowly taking to agriculture, erecting permanent houses, trading in
market-towns. Yet they preserved their own tongue [] and developed their bardic
poetry and music destined in our own days to save Welsh intellect and idealism from
perishing in the swamp of modern cosmopolitan vulgarity, Trevelyan says (p. 168).
As you can see, in England there are people living at a different pace and within a
different history. While Wales and Ireland were forced to submit to Englands rule more
24

completely and for a longer time than Scotland, both remained to this day far more
Celtic.
For at least two centuries, Scotland fought for her independence from England, and
remained an extremely poor, savage, bloodstained land of feudal anarchy,
assassination, private wars, and public treason, with constant Border warfare against
England, with peculiarly corrupt Church, no flourishing cities, no Parliament or other
institutions that could promise her a great future. (Of course, this is an Englishmans
opinion). England could have given her wealth and civilization. However, by and by,
Scotland embraced her own religion and, it is worth noting, it gave several monarchs to
Englands throne.
The One Hundred Year War meant a period in which England, equipped with
administrative machinery and national self-consciousness, exercised these new powers
at the expense of the French feudal kingdom. In fact, the English kings tried to regain
their possessions. In 1337, when the Hundred Years War began, Edward III and his
nobles spoke French and were more at home at Gascony than in Scotland. In fact the
Hundred Years War was a label of the transition from Middle Ages to Renaissance.
What the One Hundred Years War did was to intensify the patriotic feeling of the
English, which outlasted the war, and helped to put an end to the subordination of the
English to the French culture, which the Norman Conquest had established. In Henry
VIIs reign, for instance, the Venetian envoy noted:
They think that there are no other men than themselves, and no other world but
England; and whenever they see a handsome foreigner, they say he looks like an
Englishman and that it is a great pity that he should not be an Englishman, and when
they partake of any delicacy with a foreigner they ask him whether such a thing is made
in his country (apud, Trevelyan, p. 189).
Moreover, a law was passed by the Parliament declaring that since the French tongue
was much unknown in this Realm, the judgment in the law courts should be spoken in
25

English and enrolled in Latin. A more profound revolution took place regarding the
language used in schools. English became once more the tongue of the educated and
of the upper classes, as it had never been since Hastings. The Bible was translated into
English by Wycliffes followers, and soon Chaucer was to write his works. Their work
circulated first in manuscript, and then, in the 15th century came Caxtons printing press
at Westminster, which popularized Chaucer and spread through the land translations of
the Bible and Prayer Book in the same dialect, already regarded as the Kings English,
which formed the standard English.

The Dawns of the Renaissance: The Lollardry and Other Cultural Issues
In the 14th century there was a movement resembling Protestantism. It was called
Lollardry and it owed its existence to John Wycliffe, the Oxford scholar, the initiator
of the translation of the Bible in English. After his denial of the doctrine of
Transubstantiation he and his followers were expelled from Oxford in 1382 by a
combined action of Church and State. So, he initiated a popular movement spread by
itinerant preachers. Though persecuted and suppressed, Lollardry never wholly died
out; it revived and merged in the Lutheran movement of early Tudor times. The copies
of the Bible translation were destroyed when possible by the Church authorities.
However, they could not prohibit the lay study of the Scriptures.
The end of the Middle Ages and the emergence of the New Learning was a great period
for the foundation of schools, besides Winchester or Eton. Guilds and private persons
were endowing chantries with priests and schools. Reading and writing ceased to be
the monopoly of the clergy. Geoffrey Chaucer, who died in 1400, had a tremendous
influence on the English letters. All the poets of the age followed him. In their verse they
express their admiration for the beauty of natural sights and sounds in the orchards and
artificial gardens. As you can notice, landscape architecture is very old in England, and
that can be explained psychologically. From the 15th to the early 18th centuries, they
liked artificial gardens because they had so much wild nature. At that time the beauty of
26

domestic architecture of the manor houses, then coming to perfection in stone and
brick, the artistic originality in dress, furniture, and homestead utensils enriched life with
joys, we like to think. The everyday objects have acquired through time an esthetic
value, quite different from the one given by the simple craftsman.

The End of the Middle Ages. Historians think that the Middle Ages ended in England
in a curious way, and through the wars of Roses (the battle between the Houses of
York and Lancaster). On each side was ranged a group of nobles, and each noble had
its clientele of knights, gentry, captains, lawyers, and clergy. Of course, there were
cases when they changed sides. London remained neutral in this civil strife. The fighting
nobles were savage in their treatment of one another, and there were many sudden
turns of the fortunes wheel, leading to confiscations of great estates. The Crown was
enriched by these confiscations, while the nobles were impoverished and their number
reduced. The way was prepared for the Tudor policy of suppressing over mighty
subjects. The Wars of Roses were a bleeding operation performed by the nobility upon
their own body and a blessing in disguise for the rest of the people. The Renaissance
lights were shining already.

27

LECTURE 2: SOME REMARKS ABOUT ENGLAND DURING THE TUDORS

(RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION)

Introduction
Renaissance in England like anywhere else, set religion in the light of the scholarly
examination of the Scriptures, while on the other hand revealed the long forgotten
ancient Greek and Roman ideals. Moreover, it encouraged man to explore the New
World and thus changed the intellectual outlook on the world. All these tendencies
dissolved the fabric of the medieval society in England. There is one thing, however,
that distinguishes England from the rest of the Continent. While in France, Spain, and
Portugal the monarchy was allied with the old Church, in England it was allied with the
Parliament, and the country was more or less a constitutional monarchy. Yet most
institutions remained intact on condition of submitting to the sovereign authority of the
state, including universities, nobles, lawyers, Bishops, secular clergy, and town
corporations. Cosmopolitan church went down before the new idea of a national state
with a national church attached. A sort of labour regulation, started by the Plantagenet
Parliament was carried further in Tudor times, meaning a national control over economy
(one emerging from the Middle Ages, of course!).

Renaissance in England, called Tudor Renaissance was the time of the nation
assertion of her strength, her claim to do whatever it liked within its own frontiers. The
King exercised his power, while the Parliament played a lesser role. By putting himself
at the head of the Anti-clerical revolution that destroyed the medieval power and
privilege of the Church, Henry VIII (1491-1547), the son of the first Tudor King, Henry
VII, set the new monarchy in alliance with the strongest forces of the coming age:
London, the middle class, the seagoing population, and the Protestant preachers. They
all formed a powerful opposition to the forces of the old world: the monks, the friars, the
28

feudal nobility and gentry in the north and popular Catholic piety which was stronger in
the districts far from London. However, both the Catholics and the Protestants were
feeble and neither dared to defy the Crown as the Puritans afterwards defied it in
England (during the 17th century). Renaissance was not an age of religious zeal in
England, like the age of Becket, for instance, or that of Cromwell. So long as men
persisted in the medieval error that there should be only one religion tolerated, so long
the alternative was state supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs. And King Henry VIII was a
living proof to it.

In fact, the first steps towards reforms were taken by Henry VII (from the House of
Lancaster, who married Elizabeth of York, the daughter of Edward IV in an attempt to
unite the factions at war and put an end to the War of Roses. Henry VII used to select
his adviser from lower ranks, following the principle of personal merit.

The Tudors gave new directions to the external and expansive energies of the English.
On the one hand, a new school of diplomacy was set, which from the Cardinal Thomas
Wolsey (1475-1530) to William Cecil (1520-98). The former pursued the Balance of
Power as Englands only chance of security in face of great continental states. On the
other hand, Henry VIII made a really fine Royal Navy that stood against the powerful
Spanish one in the decades to come. Furthermore, the Celtic Welsh were reduced to
order and Wales was annexed on terms of equality to England. That was possible due
to their common Protestant interests. At the same time, the conquest of Ireland was
undertaken in earnest.

The individuals were free to wander and seek for either adventure or new ways of
commerce as the new map of the world yearly unfolded itself. One chief advantage that
England had over Spain in the New World was that England had cloth to sell in
exchange for goods, while the Spaniards had nothing to send except soldiers, priests
29

and colonists. The cloth industry had deep roots in the English medieval industry and
developed later as well. That is to say, the English were more pragmatic when faced
with the inhabitants of the newly discovered territories.

I. Sources and Developments of the English Renaissance

All through the 15th c., Oxford suppressed the freedom of thought, mainly represented
by Wycliffism. However, in early 16th c the echoes of Italian Renaissance came to
Oxford. The English scholars and poets like John Lily (1554-1606), the Euphuist,
William Grocyn (1446-1519), the first to teach Greek and Latin at Oxford, and Thomas
Linacre (1460-1524), the physician and professor of Greek and Latin, they all brought a
new interest in Greek literature, Latin grammar and scientific medicine.

The famous Dutch philosopher, Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536) was a friend of

the no less famous English thinker, Thomas More (1478-1535), the author of Utopia,
first written in Latin and then translated into English, and the author of the first biography
of King Richard III. They both gave a new character to Renaissance studies, making
them moral and religious, yet not severe, which would have contradicted the
Renaissance spirit, so different in various parts of Europe but showing an all-embracing
openness. For Erasmus and More, Renaissance meant the New Testament in Greek
and the Old Testament in Hebrew, apart from the ancient philosophers and poets. This
approach is different from the ones taken by the Italians who were far more open to
arts. In England the men of the Renaissance used to study Greek and Latin to reform
not only the schools but also the church itself, calling on both the clergy and laity to act
together.

30

Another leading figure was the scholar John Colet (1467-1519). He and Erasmus were
the Oxford Reformers who, in the name of scholarship, religion, and morality, began a
series of bitter attacks on the monks and obscurantism, on the worship of images and
relics and the worldliness of the clergy. Their influence reached London and,
certainly, Cambridge. Colet also founded, in the shadow of St Pauls Cathedral, whose
Dean he was, St Pauls School, where John Lily, the poet, was the headmaster and
taught Greek and Latin. That was to become the prototype of the reformed grammar
school.

What was the attitude of the Crown to the New Learning, as it is currently called?
Henry VII paid less attention to it. For him the clergy were useful
servants, while the Pope an important person on his personal
diplomatic agenda. Henry VIII had a different story. He
succeeded to the throne and married Catherine of Aragon,
promised to his brother Arthur, who had died prematurely. He
exceeded his subjects both in body and in brain. He was the
paragon of Princes, the patron alike of sportsmen (he was a
champion at tennis and a mighty hunter) and the men of the
New Learning. But just like his father, he continued to encourage the burning of
Lollards, wrote a book against Luther (Erasmus and More were against Luther as well),
for which the Pope named him Fidei Defensor (Defender of Faith). At the same time he
made friends with Colet and More, whom he forced to take up the profession of courtier.
He also defended Colet against the obscurantist clergy by saying: Let every man have
his doctor, this is mine, although Colet had denounced him in a song: For Henry loved
a man. Henry, the young king was a good musician and played well on all known
instruments. Another prominent figure at Henrys Court was Thomas More.
Erasmus, in a letter to Ulbrich von Hutten, where he draws a marvelous portrait of
Thomas More, described Henrys court as follows: You will scarcely find a court so
well-ordered, as not to have much bustle and ambition and pretence and luxury or to be
31

free from tyranny in some form or another. And he continues by praising Thomas More
and his role in the Court: But as this excellent monarch was resolved to pack his
household with learned, serious, intelligent and honest men, he especially insisted upon
having More among them, - with whom he is on such terms of intimacy that he cannot
bear to let him go. (Thomas More, Utopia, A Norton Critical Edition, p. 113).

At this point, I would like to discuss Mores Utopia because it shows on the one hand
the Renaissance ideas, and on the other hand, the conflicting religious visions that led
to the creation of this momentous work in the history of thought. Moreover, Mores book
had a tremendous impact on the 19th century thinkers and artists, from William Morris to
Karl Marx. My question is whether we can hold More responsible for the manner in
which his book was read later. It was published in 1516 in Latin, and translated into
English in 1556 (so, Shakespeare was aware of it). The word itself comes from two
Greek words: ou and topos, meaning no place. Many of ideas Mores ideas come from
Platos famous dialogue Republic, while apparently, the description of extravagant
places reflect the recent geographic discoveries of new worlds. Utopia is composed of
two books, two long chapters; the first debates present or recent ideas and events,
mainly referring to the social conditions in England inherited from Henry VII. For
instance, it is a long debate around the matter of crime; in fact, we can read Mores
opinions on law and ethics and the role of the philosopher (read: intellectual) in
attending a Prince. Nothing new so far, if we remember Machiavellis Il Principe.
However, More wraps his message in a variety of meanings, obviously aiming at
creating the ideal of the Ideal Commonwealth. The traveler who tells the story about
Utopia is Raphael Hythloday. The etymology of his name is quite significant: hythloday,
means to distribute nonsense, while Raphael means God heals; consequently, the
translation would be God heals through nonsense. Having said that, I hope you can
better understand its purpose: to cure people through an invention. Is it the role of any
art? Cant we interpret it, in todays words, an example of meta-fiction? But the 19th
century socialists and communists interpreted it literally and tried to transfer an ideal
32

society on earth or fiction into real world.

So, what is all about? First, Utopia is an island where there is no private property, where
people despise gold (which is worn only by slaves and kids play with it for fun), and has
a rather complicated and picturesque government system. For instance, people have to
change house every ten years not to develop attachment to things. People are
educated in farming and other practical professions since their childhood. However,
there are several symbols/layers underlying the entire construction. For instance,
Utopia is shaped like a new moon, looking very much like England (if you reverse the
map see above) or a maternal womb. The founder, Utopos, changed the name of the
island from Abraxa, which has a mystical connotation alluding to the 365 days of the
year, into Utopia. There are fifty-four similar cities built on the same plan, and the capital
is Amaurot, meaning dark city in Greek. However, it was also interpreted as a
derivation from Amaury of Bne, a medieval heretic from Flanders, whose teachings
were responsible for several medieval communist sects of the Free Spirit. Amaurots
plan is similar to that of London; so, in speaking about Utopia, More has England in his

33

mind. From the description of the city life you can understand something about the
material nature of utopia, echoing Tudor England:

Every house has a door to the street and another to the garden. The doors, which are
made with two leaves, open easily and swing shut automatically, letting anyone enter
who wants to and so there is no private property. Every ten years, they change
houses by lot [lottery]. And he goes into further details: Their houses are all three
stories high and handsomely constructed; the fronts are faced with stone, stucco, or
brick, over rubble construction. The roofs are flat, and are covered with a kind of plaster
that is cheap but fireproof, and more weather resistant even than lead. Glass is very
generally used in windows to keep out the weather; and they also use thin linen cloth
treated with oil or gum so that it let in more light and keeps out more wind (p. 38).

There are two sorts of utopias: one refers to the political and social system, and the
values/virtues attached to them, and the other to technical dreams. We may say the
latter is less dangerous, and from the last part I have quoted, you could notice Mores
ideas about his dream house that, in fact, bears some resemblance to Tudor
constructions. As for the first, it only bogged down when it was read literally.

If you read it from the 15th century point of view, it emphasizes the Ideal Commonwealth
based on Catholic and ancient virtues, which makes his satire upon contemporary
European abuses more pointed. After all, Thomas Mores Utopia is a satire of an ideal
sort: you read the negative through the positive discourse. From this perspective,
Thomas More just opened a door to the 17th-18th century prose writers like the famous
Jonathan Swift.

a) Politics
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The last and the most famous Cardinal who labored over the state business was
Wolsey, who was of humble family (he was the son of a butcher) but behaved like a
Prince of Blood. For the English he epitomized all the faults of the church. Wolsey
received from his bishoprics an income of 35,000 a year and did not conceal it;
instead, he displayed it in the fabulous palace Hampton Court, eventually overtaken by
Henry VIII (which shows the real relationship between the Crown and Church).
However, in his hands the Balance of Power in Europe first became clearly defined as
the object of Englands foreign policy. For several years, he kept the balance with
perfect, consummate skill and with a minimum of expense to the English treasure. In
1513, the victory against the Scots and French raised England to a strong position. After
1521, his skill and foresight failed him. A new era began in Europe, with a strong Spain
and a weak Italy, while the Habsburg supremacy became visible in Europe. Against this
background, England herself was on the brink of destruction, hadnt been for the growth
of popular, maritime, and religious forces in the island which, in fact, Wolsey had
opposed. For one, he discouraged maritime adventure. Though Henry VIII himself did
not encourage it in particular, he founded the Royal Navy. Not only did he create ships
especially commissioned to fight, but his architects (read designers) designed many of
these royal ships on an improved model that made them more adaptable to sea
conditions than the ones built by the Mediterranean powers. In 1545, at the end of
Henrys reign, a French army attempted to invade England, but it was smashed and in
the very same year a baby called Francis Drake was born.

To put it concisely, Henry VIIIs creation of the Royal Navy saved him and later his
daughter, Elizabeth I, when they had to oppose the European Catholic powers. By
comparison, Wolsey was a man of the old school, a diplomatist of the old type, very
good at pulling strings but of a lesser vision. Furthermore, the Tudors were the
prototype of modern man, ready for any sort of adventure.

35

b) The Royal and Parliamentary Reformation under Henry VIII

One important aspect during Henry VIIIs reign was the bitter struggle between the
Catholics and the Protestants who acted against the backdrop of Luthers revolt. Yet
some amazing things did happen. One of the Kings friends and a great scholar, Sir
Thomas More, the scathing critic of religious order, became a martyr of Papal
Supremacy when Henry broke with Rome, while others, known as famous papalists
defended the kings option. Things were not very clear back then, because Henry VIII
burnt Protestants, while hanging and beheading the Catholic opponents of an anticlerical revolution. Later on, under Elizabeth I the English anti-clericals defended
themselves against the Catholic reaction by alliance with the Protestants.

But how did it happen? The Lutheran doctrines became very powerful in England and
acted like a reactive; for instance, men like Erasmus feared Protestantism, More, as I
said, opposed it and wrote against it. Oxford held back in doubt, but Cambridge stepped
in. From 1521, students met at the White Horse tavern in the town to discuss Luther.
The tavern was nicknamed Germany and those haunting it Germans - they were the
makers of the new England.

Under such hazy circumstances, Henry decided to divorce from Catherine of Aragon.
This request that the Popes had granted to other monarchs for government reasons
was denied to him because the Pope himself was at the mercy of Charles V,
Catherines nephew. So, the whole matter became one of national pride. And it was
then that the King remembered the Parliament. So, the instrument chosen by Henry to
effect his Royal Reformation was the Parliament. Unlike his predecessors, this one set
36

for seven years and in the course of its eight sessions acquired a continuity of personal
experience among its members, which helped build up the traditions of the modern
House of Commons as a great instrument of government.

I think that you remember Louis XIV famous phrase, Ltat, cest moi! (I am/embody
the state). Henry VIIIs authority was of a different sort. In 1543, he told the House of
Commons: We be informed by our Judges that we at no time stand so high in our
estate royal as in the time of Parliament, when we as head and you as members are
conjoined and knit together in one body politic. (see Trevelyan, 223).

The Reformation Parliament suppressed the order of monks and friars, and
secularized their property. Henry sold great part of their lands to peers, courtiers, public
servants who resolved them to smaller men, and so we can clearly see a case of real
estate speculation. Many abbeys had become manor houses or a quarry out of which a
manor house was being built. In London, as in every other towns, valuable and
conspicuous sites of religious houses and much house property belonging to them
passed into lay hands, removing the last check on the ever-increasing Protestantism,
anti-clericalism, and commercialism of the capital.

At Oxford and Cambridge, the monks and friars had been very numerous and resisted
the New Learning. They gradually disappeared and were soon replaced by an
increased proportion of gentlemens sons. Such graduates were to govern the
Elizabethan England. People like Francis Bacon (1561-1626), the great
experimentalist and philosopher, father of empiricism and author of Novum Organum,
fostered a new development of intellectual ideas which would have never taken roots if
these universities had been left to the guidance of monks and friars.

37

The anti-clericalism under Henry VIII led to the destruction of country relics and miracleworking images were taken down, while their crude machinery exhibited to the people
on whose credulity it had imposed. The shrine and cult of Thomas a Becket, the center
of English and continental pilgrimage, were suppressed.

The English Reformation, which had begun as a Parliamentary attack on church fees,
and proceeded as a royal confiscation of Abbey lands, found at last its religious basis in
the popular knowledge of the Scriptures which was Wycliffes dream. However, both
Wycliffe and the Lollards would have been burnt because the Act of Six Articles was
passed decreeing death against anyone who denied Transubstantiation, the need of
confession and clerical celibacy.

I. The Elizabethan Era

a). Main Ideas
When Henry VIII died the State was heavily in debt and the religious feuds which he
seemed to have suppressed by violence were bound to break out afresh. Elizabeth I
(1558-1603) came at a right time to prevent civil war caused no less by Queen Mary
Tudor (nicknamed Bloody Mary), her sister, who had almost yielded England to Spain
through her marriage with Philip of Spain. What was more, the other possible successor
to the throne of England was Mary Stuart, married to the Dauphin of France, a staunch
catholic. However, throughout Elizabeths reign it was the rivalry of the two catholic
powers, France and Spain, that saved England, the heretic island, from conquest, till it
was strong enough to defend itself. Elizabeth was a cunning queen who knew how to
fuel the internal fights in Spain and France by sending men and money to keep the
rebellious movements alive. Elizabeth learned the lesson of her youth and understood
that private affections and passions are not for Princes. So, she left to her rival, Mary
Stuart, to lose a world for love. Elizabeth put all her strength and talent in the service of
state. Her public appearances and progresses through the country were no dull and
38

formal functions, but works of art, meant to strengthen the relation between the Queen
and the people. She did not build palaces, but palaces were built to entertain her.
Whenever she addressed the Parliament her speeches were neither stern nor dry. She
could also discourse in Greek and Latin to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge,
and was fluent in Italian. She was rather a child of the Renaissance than of the
Reformation.

I will not go into the complex details of the relation between Scotland and England
during Elizabeths reign. However, I would like to emphasize that an important role was
played by the incessant fight between the Catholics and the Protestants in both
countries. Mary Stuart was executed in 1587, but her son ruled England as James I
after Elizabeths death. However, at the beginning of her reign the anti-clerical party still
consisted of both Catholics and Protestants. When she died, the majority of the English
regarded themselves as ardent Protestants, members of the Church of England, and
not subjects to the Pope.

b) The English Sea Power

If France had not been torn apart by religious strives, it might have become a mighty
sea power. But while the massacre of St Bartholomews night was taking place, Francis
Drake (1540-1596) and his Protestant sailors whom he led became the servants of the
English monarch. We can refer further to the causes of the English supremacy over
France and Spain, and emphasize that it was their medieval order that kept them from
free enterprise. Having said that, there were obvious differences between the English
and the Spaniards, for instance, and that finally led the former to win the battle with the
Armada. The new spirit of private enterprise, individual initiative, and good-humored
equality of classes were on the increase in the defeudalized England and manifested
themselves even stronger among the commercial and maritime population. Francis
Drake understood that discipline was needed on the board ship, but not feudalism and
39

class pride. Richard Hakluyt (?1552-1616) a lecturer of geography or cosmography,

who introduced the use of globes into the English schools, put together the stories of
Drakes sailors in his book Principal Navigation, Voyages, and Discoveries of the
English Nation. [In the footnote you have a sample of the oversea adventures and also
of the written English at that time]. Besides the stories about Drakes robbing of the
Spaniards3 and opening trade with their colonies at the canons mouth, the ten volumes

From R. Hakluyts volume XIII: XXXVII. The relation of Nicholas Burgoignon, alis Holy, whom sir
Francis Drake brought from Saint Augustine also in Florida, where he had remayned sixe yeeres, in mine
and Master Heriots hearing. This Nicholas Burgoignon sayth, that betweene S. Augustine and S. Helen
there is a Casique whose name is Casicla, which is lord of ten thousand Indians, and another casique
whose name is Dicasca, and another called Touppekyn toward the North, and a fourth named Potanou
toward the South, and [pg 535] another called Moscita toward the South likewise. Besides these he
acknowledgth Oristou, Ahoia, Ahoiaue, Isamacon, alledged by the Spaniard. He further affirmeth, that
there is a citie Northwestward from S. Helenes in the mountaines, which the Spaniards call La grand
Copal, and is very great and rich, and that in these mountains there is great store of Christal, golde, and
Rubies, and Diamonds: And that a Spaniard brought from thence a Diamond which was worth fiue
thousand crownes, which Pedro Melendes the marques nephew to olde Pedro Melendes that slew Ribault,
and is now gouerner of Florida, weareth. He saith also, that to make passage vnto these mountaines, it is
needefull to haue store of Hatchets to giue vnto the Indians, and store of Pickaxes to breake the
mountaines, which shine so bright in the day in some places, that they cannot behold them, and therefore
they trauell vnto them by night. Also corslets of Cotton, which the Spanyards call Zecopitz, are necessary
to bee had against the arrowes of the Sauages. He say farther, that a Tunne of the sassafras of Florida is
solde in Spaine for sixtie ducates: and that they haue there great store of Turkie cocks, of Beanes, of
Peason, and that there are great store of pearles. The things, as he reporteth, that the Floridians make most
account of, are red Cloth, or redde Cotton to make baudricks or gyrdles: copper, and hatchets to cut
withall. The Spaniards haue all demaunded leaue at their owne costs, to discouer these mountaines, which
the King denyeth, for feare lest the English or French would enter into the same action once knowen. All
the Spaniards would passe vp by the riuer of Saint Helena vnto the mountaines of golde and Chrystall.
The Spaniards entring 50. leagues vp Saint Helena, found Indians wearing golde rings at their nostrels and
eares. They found also Oxen, but lesse then ours. Sixe leagues from Saint Helena toward the North, there
is a poynt that runneth farre into the sea, which is the marke to the Seamen to finde Saint Helena and
Waterin. Waterin is a riuer fortie leagues distant Northward from Saint Helena, where any fleete of great
ships may ride safely. I take [pg 536] this riuer to be that which we call Waren in Virginia, whither at
Christmasse last 1585. the Spaniards sent a barke with fortie men to discouer where we were seated: in
which barke was Nicholas Burgoignon the reporter of all these things. The Spaniards of S. Augustine
haue slaine three hundred or the subjects of Potanou. One Potassi is neighbour to Potanou. Oratina is he
which the French history calleth Olala Outina. Calauai is another casique which they knowe.
3

40

narrate the history of navigation from ancient times, beginning with King Arthur, to his
time.

The English gave the Black people a better treatment than they got from the Portuguese
and tried to avoid conflicts with either black or white. By comparison, the Spaniards
would hand over English merchants and sailors to the Inquisition. Thus the fight
between England and the Catholic countries did not take place only in Europe, but also
in the colonies. Nevertheless, England was aggressive, but hadnt she been so, she
would have been forced to accept exclusion from the trade of every continent save
Europe and abandon her
maritime and colonial
ambitions.

c) Tudor Architecture, Arts

and Literature

Tudor architecture is also

labeled as the age of the
country house (1485-1603), because it is at this time that the country house first
emerged as an architectural form. As you could have seen from the above presentation,
church building had virtually ceased with the Reformation. The house still retained tones
of Gothic, and some of its characteristics persisted until mid 17th c. Fortified gateways,
grand courtyards, battlemented parapets, towers and turrets stayed for ornament rather
than defense. The ornamented chimneys alluded to the interior comfort. In fact they are
an important feature of the Tudor house. Often elaborately carved and decorated, they
offered the bricklayers the chance to exploit their skills. The hall became a symbol of
grandeur, with its carved fire-place, oak-paneled walls and timber roofs. Hampton
Court is a famous surviving example.
41

The original part of the palace is built of red brickwork in

diamond pattern (also called diaper) and has
battlemented parapets, a turreted gatehouse, many
courtyards and ornamental chimneys. Later on, to the end of Henry VIIIs reign, the new
Classicism of Renaissance came to England from France and continued to be
superimposed on Tudor Gothic. An example must have been the Somerset House, now
destroyed. Sir Thomas Gresham (1519-79), the founder of the Royal Navy imported
from Antwerp a Classicism more flamboyant
than the French style, overloaded with bulbous
detail, cartouches or scroll ornament.

About 1580, during the Elizabethan Age,

architecture took another course. It rejected
the classical and returned to the glories of the
English Perpendicular, with huge windows and
a striking skyline. Although architects did not
exist as a professional group before Inigo Jones, at the beginning of the 17th c, two
creators of style could be singled out: Robert and John Smython, father and son.
They designed Longlet and other castles in the neo-medieval style: Woolaton Hall,
Hardwick Hall (more window than wall, as it is characterized), and Bolsover Castle.
The Elizabethan buildings were impressive, set in a dramatic setting, often on hill tops.
Their startling effect is enhanced by symmetry, and by areas of glass, making them look
like lanterns twinkling across the countryside at night.

42

Theater. Theaters were built in London during the reign

of Queen Elizabeth I who was extremely fond of drama.
The most successful company, in which Shakespeare
had share, was the Globe. The Elizabethans followed
the plan of the Roman Coliseum for the building of the
Globe looked, yet they built it at a smaller scale, with a
timber structure, and up to 100 feet in diameter. It
consisted of an open arena, which meant that during winter the plays were performed
in-doors. By following the Classical model, the designers were seeking for
respectability. No evidence has been traced as to the dimensions of the Globe stage.
However, we know that the stage dimensions of Elizabethan theaters varied from 20
foot wide 15 foot deep to 45 feet to 30 feet. The stage was raised - 3 to 5 feet and
supported by bulky pillars.
The Pit, or yard, was the area around the stage. There
was no seating so, the audience had to stand. The
stage structure projected halfway into the ' yard ' (see
the picture below) where the commoners (groundlings)
paid 1 penny to stand to watch the play. They would
have crowded around the 3 sides of the stage structure.
Above the main entrance of the Globe was a crest displaying the classical figure of
Hercules bearing the globe on his shoulders together with the motto "Totus mundus agit
histrionem" (the whole world is a playhouse). This phrase was slightly re-worded in the
William Shakespeare play As You Like It - "All the worlds a stage".4

All the world's a stage,/ And all the men and women merely players:/ They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,/ His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,/ Mewling and puking in the
nurse's arms./ And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel/And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,/ Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad/Made to his mistress' eyebrow.
Then a soldier,/ Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,/ Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation/Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,/ In fair round belly with good capon
lined,/ With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,/ Full of wise saws and modern instances;/ And so he plays his part.
The sixth age shifts/Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,/ With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,/ His youthful
hose, well saved, a world too wide/For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,/ Turning again toward childish

43

The pillars supported a roof called the Heavens '. The Heavens served to create an
area hidden from the audience. This area provided a place for actors to hide. A
selection of ropes & rigging (chains) would allow for special effects, such as flying or
spectacular entries (Deus ex machina).
The stage gallery above the stage wall was called the 'Lord's rooms ' used by the rich
members of the audience, the Upper Classes and the Nobility. Immediately above the
stage wall was the stage gallery, which was used by actors (Juliet's balcony, for
instance). The 'Lord's rooms' were considered the best seats in the 'house' despite the
poor view of the back of the actors. The cost was 5 pence & cushioned seats were
provided for the elite members of the audience.
The stage wall structure contained at least two doors leading to a small structure, back
stage, called the 'Tiring House'. The stage wall was covered by a curtain. The actors
used this area to change their clothes (perhaps from the older word for clothes, attire) thus it was called the 'Tiring House'! The 'Hut' above the ' Tiring House ' was a small
house-like structure called the 'hut' complete with roof. The Hut was used as a covered
storage space for the troupe.
The grounds of the theatre were filled with stalls selling a variety of what we call today
take-away foods and beverages! [In the Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde describes
the interior of a theatre reminding of the atmosphere during Shakespeares time; for
instance, the audience was allowed to eat and drink beer during the performance].
The Globe theatre was also used for gambling and prostitutes who plied their trade
within the confines of the Globe building and grounds! Fights also broke out amongst
audience members adding to the entertainment available!
It would take long to talk about William Shakespeare (1564-1616), who was not only
the genius of Elizabethan England but of all times. Yet, there were other artists of not a
treble, pipes/And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,/ That ends this strange eventful history,/ Is second
childishness and mere oblivion,/ Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. (As you like it, Act II, Scene 7)

44

lesser scope at that time. For one, Christopher Marlowe (1564-93), the author of
Faustus, who is said to have become greater than Shakespeare if he had not died
young (they were born in the same year!). Shakespeare looked at him as his master.
Another prominent literary figure was Philip Sidney, the author of Astrophel and Stella,
that brought with it a flavor of Petrarch sonnet sequences, and so one model of Italian
Renaissance. Ben Jonson was the comic playwright of the age who successfully
speculated the theory of humors in his plays, such as Everyman in his Humor.
However, Shakespeare surpassed them all. He was not only an author of tragedies but
also of comedies and historical plays. He is universal as much as he created both
villains and sublime characters, both Iago and Hamlet, both King John and Prospero.
The essence of this insightful remark belongs to Oscar Wilde, yet he gave other
examples. Shakespeare perceived the philosophical and political ideas of his age with
an inescapable eye and shaped them into art. I shall quote and briefly comment on a
passage from Troilus and Cressida, more precisely from Ulysses discourse:
The heaven themselves, the planets, and this centre
Observe degree, priority, and place,
Insisture [persistency] course, proportion, season, form,
Office, and custom, in all line of order;
And therefore is the glorious planet Sol
In noble eminence enthrond and spherd
Amidst the other; whose medcinable eye
Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil,
And posts, like the commandment of a king,
Sans check, to good and bad: but when the planets
In evil mixture to disorder wander,
What plagues, and what portents, what mutiny,
What raging of the sea, shaking of earth,
Commotion in the winds, frights, changes, horrors,
45

Divert and crack, rend and deracinate

The unity and married calm of states
Quite from their fixture! O! when degree is shakd
Which is the ladder to all high designs,
The enterprise is sick.
The idea of the sick universe, of sick human kind is sustained against the Renaissance
idea of universal symmetry and harmony, and only a genius like Shakespeare could
have articulated it so powerfully in this age of restless pursuits and conflicts. By
choosing a character like Ulysses, he goes against the general classical ideas of
harmony and introduces a modern dimension to his age.

Shakespeare himself paid his homage to the great Elizabeth in The Famous History of
the Life of King Henry VIII, when in the last act of the play Henry VIII speaks about his
newly born infant:

Though in her cradle, yet now promises

Upon this land a thousand thousand blessings,
Which time shall bring to ripeness: she shall be
But few now living can behold that goodness
A pattern to all princes living with her.

So, even the greatest playwright ever described Elizabeth a pattern to all princes. It
was then, in the 16th c, that an exceptional queen was the contemporary of the
unparalleled Shakespeare whose work competes with the Bible.

46

Sculptors were mostly employed to overlay and garnish a building or to carve a tomb
with effigies. They did not carve or paint portraits, busts or mythological groups as in
Italy.
Painting in Renaissance England began quite abruptly with the arrival of a foreigner,
the German Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543). He brought with him all the
discoveries of High Renaissance in Italy: skill in perspective and illusionism, knowledge
of Classical antiquity and acute
psychological observation as can be noticed
in his Portrait of Henry VIII. Another exiled
painter was Hans Eworth who portrayed
Mary I. His style is indebted to Holbein, and
so is Nicholas Hillards (1547-1619),
Queen Elizabeths miniaturist. He portrayed
the queen, the romantic Raleigh, and other
courtiers.

In the Middle Ages, as you already know,

England was famous for its embroideries.
During Elizabeths reign this decorative art
revived. But it was no longer applied to
vestments but to curtains, bed hangings,
cushions, etc. In the Elizabethan period
tapestry was woven in England for the first time under the auspices of the Sheldon
family.

47

Sheldon Tapestry showing the map of England

LECTURE 3: ENGLAND UNDER THE STUARTS

I Introduction
In the Stuart era, the English developed for themselves a system of Parliamentary
government, local administration and freedom of speech and person, contrary to the
absolutist tendencies on the continent that subjected the individual to the state. (Under
Henry VIII England had known that sort of movement, but rejected it).

The Stuart kings were James I (1603-25), Charles I (1625-49) and Charles II (16601685).
If the power of the Tudors was not material but somehow metaphysical because they
appealed sometimes to the love and loyalty of their subjects, struck by awe, in the 17th
century the people showed a less obliging temper. The Stuarts claimed greater powers,
48

higher than the English law and custom. At the same time, the Parliament made their
own claims. The Parliamentary (MP) emerged as a profession under these two kings.
They convinced their fellow citizens that they only claimed ancient privileges deriving
from the spirit and the letter of Magna Charta.
James I, the offspring of Mary Stuart and Lord Darnley, is described as a good-natured
though arrogant person, who knew almost nothing of the English Law. Yet, his election
as heir to Elizabeth mediated by the famous statesman Robert Cecil (1563-1612) is
featured in a hyperbolical language in the Preface of the Bible (known as King James
Bible to this day):
Great and manifold were the blessings, most dread Sovereign, which Almighty God,
the Father of all mercies, bestowed upon the people of England, when first he sent your
Majestys Royal Person to rule and reign over us. For whereas it was the expectation of
many, who wished not well onto our Sion, that upon the setting of that bright Occidental
Star, Queen Elizabeth of most happy memory, some sick and palpable clouds of
darkness would so have overshadowed this Land, that men should have been in doubt
which way they were to walk []. The appearance of Your Majesty as of the Sun in his
strength, instantly dispelled those supposed and surmised mists

However, James I brought with him the union with Scotland (he was also James VII of
Scotland). He knew Scotland but never knew England, which comes as no surprise, and
his son Charles never knew either of the lands. He could not understand the ways of the
Parliament or the position of the Roman Catholic group who formed the conspiracy to
destroy both the King and the Houses of Parliament (see below the information on Guy
Fawkes5). Since then the anti-Roman (read anti-catholic) passion in England remained
a constant and often a determining factor in the history of the House of Stuart.

Guy Fawks - Guy Fawkes (13 April 1570 31 January 1606), also known as Guido Fawkes, the name
he adopted while fighting for the Spanish in the Low Countries, belonged to a group of provincial English
Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Fawkes was born and educated in York. His

49

While Elizabeth and her advisors succeeded in gaining absolute power, they were
careful not to antagonize their ally, the Parliament. James I tended to emphasize his
royal prerogatives publicly but they only accepted provided there had been something
for them too. The Puritans, who had supported him as king of the Presbyterian Scots6
expected his help to purge the Church of all Catholic traces. However, when he became
a king he had to take the side of bishops against the Puritans. Five years after the first
colonists who boarded on the Mayflower and set sail for America in September 1620,
where New England was founded, Charles I became king of England. He was even
more drastic against them, which eventually cost his head. In fact, although the
members of the Church of England rejected Papacy, they did not follow the ways of the
Continental Protestants. Since the Puritans were wealthy burghers and landowners,
with representation in Parliament, they challenged the king on his right to interfere with
the common-law courts. In fact, the conflict started during James Is reign, with the king

father died when Fawkes was eight years old, after which his mother married a Catholic. Fawkes later
converted to Catholicism and left for the continent, where he fought in the Eighty Years' War on the side
of Catholic Spain against Protestant Dutch. He travelled to Spain to seek support for a Catholic rebellion
in England but was unsuccessful. He later met Thomas Wintour, with whom he returned to England.
Wintour introduced Fawkes to Robert Catesby, who planned to assassinate King James I and restore a
Catholic monarch to the throne. The plotters secured the lease to an undercroft beneath the House of
Lords, and Fawkes was placed in charge of the gunpowder they stockpiled there. Prompted by the
receipt of an anonymous letter, the authorities searched Westminster Palace during the early hours of
5 November, and found Fawkes guarding the explosives. Over the next few days, he was questioned and
tortured, and eventually he broke. Immediately before his execution on 31 January, Fawkes jumped from
the scaffold where he was to be hanged and broke his neck, thus avoiding the agony that followed.
Fawkes became synonymous with the Gunpowder Plot, which has been commemorated in England
since 5 November 1605. His effigy is burned on a bonfire, often accompanied by a firework display.
6

The Presbyterian Church is a Protestant denomination which developed from the doctrines of Calvinist
Churches of Switzerland and France. Presbyterianism itself was founded by John Knox in Scotland in
1557 and the standard expression of doctrines and faith can be found in the Westminster Confession of
Faith. This was drawn up by a group of 151 laymen, clergy and scholars who were appointed to the task
by the English Parliament in 1643. Strictly speaking, the term "Presbyterian" refers not so much to a
particular set of doctrines but instead to a particular form of church government. For Presbyterians, their
church is governed by a group of elders, or presbyteros. The denomination comprises teaching elders,
who are the ordained ministers, and ruling elders who are elected from the ranks of church members. In
each individual church, the elders are invested with supreme authority in all spiritual matters.
Presbyterians do not, however, believe that theirs is the "One True Church" or that their system of church
government is the only one authorized by the New Testament.

50

who dismissed judge Edward Coke7 who had denied the kings right to be above the
law. And again, the spirit of Magna Charta prevailed.
The Parliament became even stronger due to its ability to tax. Thus, both James and his
son, Charles I turned to the Parliament for money and, if denied, they started selling
noble titles, which gained them little money and less respect. Thus, the Parliament
became the place of further controversies between king and his wealthy subjects.

In 1625, Charles I obtained money from the Parliament to send ships to plunder Cadiz,
as Drake once had done, hoping he would become very rich. However, the mission that
the king and his protg, the Duke of Buckingham8, sent failed because the admiral
7

Sir Edward Coke (pronounced like "Cook") (1 February 1552 3 September 1634) was a seventeenthcentury English jurist and Member of Parliament whose writings on the common law were the definitive
legal texts for nearly 150 years. Born into a family of minor Norfolk gentry, Coke travelled to London as a
young man to make his living as a barrister. There he rapidly gained prominence as one of the leading
attorneys of his time, eventually being appointed Solicitor General and then Attorney General by Queen
Elizabeth. As Attorney General, Coke prosecuted Sir Walter Raleigh and the Gunpowder Plot
conspirators for treason. In 1606, Coke was made Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, later
being elevated, in 1613, to Lord Chief Justice of England. As a judge, Coke delivered numerous important
decisions, and he gained a reputation as the greatest jurist of his age. Nonetheless, his unwillingness to
compromise in the face of challenges to the supremacy of the common law made him increasingly
unpopular with James I, and he was eventually removed as Lord Chief Justice in 1616. Despite his
dismissal from the bench and his already advanced age, Coke remained an influential political figure,
leading parliamentary opposition to the Crown in the 1620s. His career in parliament culminated in 1628
when he acted as one of the primary authors of the Petition of Right. This document reaffirmed the
rights of Englishmen and prevented the Crown from infringing them.

There were several people for whom the title (and dukedom) was created. In this case, we refer to
George Villiers, James Is protg, who was made Duke of Buckingham. He was made Baron Whaddon,
of Whaddon in the County of Buckingham, and Viscount Villiers in 1616, Earl of Buckingham in 1617,
Marquess of Buckingham in 1618 and Earl of Coventry and Duke of Buckingham in 1623.
Buckingham, who continued in office as chief minister into the reign of James's son, Charles I, was
responsible for a policy of war against Spain and France, and was assassinated by a Puritan fanatic,
John Felton, in 1628, as he prepared an expedition to relieve the Huguenots of La Rochelle. His son,
George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, an extravagant, fashionable person, was a notable advisor in
the reign of Charles II, and, along with Lord Ashley made up the Protestant axis of the famous Cabal
Ministry. He started the first foxhunt in England, The Bilsdale Hunt, in 1668 and later started the
Sinnington Hunt in 1680. He died from a chill after digging for a fox above Kirkbymoorside in the house of
a tenant as he was too far from his home in Helmsley, North Yorkshire. At his death in 1687, the title
again became extinct.

51

was incompetent and a drunk. The king asked the Parliament for more, but the leader of
the House of Commons, Sir John Eliot9 refused him. Then, the king had him
imprisoned. In 1628, the Parliament produced The Petition of Right (see footnote on
page 49), which cited as legal and historical precedent Magna Charta, setting out
limitations upon the power of the king, denying him the right to tax, to imprison, to
punish soldiers or people without due process of law. The kings response was the
dismissal of the Parliament that was to be called back after eleven years. Charles I
turned for help to Archbishop Laud, who supported the kings claim to divine authority.
The Archbishop seeking to strengthen the power of the Church of England turned
against the Puritans of whom
many left the country for the
Massachusetts Bay Colony in
America, where they had a
tremendous

influence.

However, without Parliament,

the king continued to collect
ship money from the town
ports, which antagonized the
people even more.

II Everyday life under the Stuarts (Map of London during the Stuarts)

Sir John Eliot (11 April 1592 27 November 1632) was a statesman who was often imprisoned in the
Tower of London, where he eventually died, by King Charles I for advocating the rights and privileges of
Parliament.

52

To meet the increased demands for houses, London expanded westwards towards
Westminster. Though for the most part it remained the haphazard, overcrowded town,
described by John Stow (1525-1605, a tailor who devoted himself to antiquarian
pursuits and became a well-known chronicler), the Italianizing of Londons architecture
began under Inigo Jones. The great trading companies were based in the City, the
cloth trade including. There was also the market for raising loans and buying and selling
land.
The magnetic influence of London was not only economic but also political, social, and
legal. Every session of Parliament brought over 400 members to the city, sometimes
with their families. King James I denounced those swarms of gentry, who through the
instigation of their wives did neglect their country hospitality and cumber [=encumber]
the city. The beginnings of London season can be found in the early seventeenth
century; parks, pleasure gardens, theaters, and transport [hackney coaches a fourwheeled carriage having six seats and drawn by two horses and sedan chairs an
enclosed windowed chair with an upholstered interior suitable for a single occupant,
which was carried by two porters, one in front, one behind, using wooden rails that
passed through metal brackets on the sides of the chair - existed under Charles I] were
developed to meet the demand. The king even issued a proclamation stating that these
countrymen haunting London should return to their estates, and in 1632 some 250 were
prosecuted for disobeying it.
In his diary, Sir Humphrey Mildmay (Royalist Gentleman Glimpses of English Scene,
1633-1652) described what he was doing in London. Besides swimming and boating on
the Thames, dicing and card-playing and going to Hyde Park, he went to wrestling
matches and to the theatre (sometimes three times a week), seeing Fletchers or
Shakespeares plays. Like everybody else, he watched the spectacles of the Court and
the city activity, the reception of an ambassador, the progress of a knight of the Garter,
and the Lord Mayors pageantry.

53

The Court played a central role within society; contact with it could give power, office,
and wealth. Both humble people and intellectuals sought for the kings favors. The Court
imitated the tastes of the sovereign, but Elizabeths successor lacked her dignity.
However, Charles I described as being tempered, chaste, and serious succeeded in
astonishing Rubens for his luxurious Court. Van Dycks10 portraits (almost of the
people in the court circle) reveal the way in which Charles and his Court liked to be
portrayed. Charles was a lover of art and did patronize artists like Rubens and Van
Dyck. He got involved in art collecting-diplomatic ties with the Catholic monarchs and
the Pope. His collection included Mantegna cartoons, the Leonardo sketchbooks, the
Raphael cartoons, and others. The king was an ambitious man, who wanted England to
be in the forefront of artistic taste and achievement. However, Charles competed with
another art collector (as you may notice art collection became fashionable in the 17th
century), Earl of Arundel, who had Holbeins portrait of Erasmus and antique marbles in
his collection.

The two universities were at this period dominated by the Crown and government.
During the two Stuarts, one could see the royal interference not only in the election of
the Chancellors, but also in the Colleges: the curriculum of the universities was matters
of concern to the Crown. Several Chairs were founded at Oxford (Geometry,
Astronomy, History, Music, and Natural Philosophy), while its library, through the
donation of books and manuscripts, became the second after that of the Vatican.
However, the core of education remained the theological studies. London gained the
character of a university town from the Inns of Court11. They taught law, but not only
10

The Flemish Baroque painter, famous for the portrait of Charles I of England and Scotland.

11

Inns of Court in London are the professional associations to one of which every barrister in England
and Wales (and those judges who were formerly barristers) must belong. They have supervisory and
disciplinary functions over their members. The Inns also provide libraries, dining facilities and professional
accommodation. Each also has a church or chapel attached to it and is a self-contained precinct where
barristers traditionally train and practise, although growth in the legal profession, together with a desire to
practise from more modern accommodation caused many barristers' chambers to move outside the
precincts of the Inns of Court in the late 20th century.

54

that. Ben Jonson (the famous comic playwright), for instance, praised the Inns as the
noblest nurseries of humanity and liberty in the kingdom. Oliver Cromwell, the major
figure of the Civil War, was but one of those who went to an Inn. The core of the legal
education until after the Restoration was the readings and public disputations on
matters of law. Moreover, the Inns delighted in dramatic entertainments combining
music, poetry, and spectacle. There were the so-called masques by Chapman and
Francis Beaumont that were played along with Shakespeares plays, mostly his
comedies.

The country life, with both gentry and nobleman interested in literature, arts, optics,
experiments was the foundation of the cultivated society to be found in London, at
Court, and in the universities and Inns of Court, forming the milieu of the artistic life
before the Civil War. They were the people for whom the architects designed manors
and villas.

In poetry, one major trend of the age was marked by the appearance of the so-called
metaphysical poets. They were a loose group who share a new way of conceiving
metaphors and comparisons, mainly based of scientific discoveries (especially the
studies on the nature of light). Of them, the most important was John Donne (15721631), whose poetry combines both wit and metaphysical spirit. Donne was mostly
inspired by Neo Platonism. By wittily combining the spiritual and material (read the
philosophical thought based on science), Donnes refined poetry withstood all fashions.
Here is an example of Donnes art in a poem about taking leave from his lover,
abounding in unusual imagery, such as the comparison between the two lovers with a
pair of compasses:
A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING.
by John Donne

55

AS virtuous men pass mildly away,

And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."
So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.
Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears ;
Men reckon what it did, and meant ;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.
Dull sublunary lovers' love
Whose soul is sensecannot admit
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove
The thing which elemented it.
But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.
Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.
And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run ;
56

Thy firmness makes my circle just,

And makes me end where I begun.

However, he was not the only one. Although they did not form what we may call a
school, many English poets of the 17th century followed this line. George Herbert
(1593-1633), Richard Crashaw (1613-1649) Thomas Traherne (1636-1674), and
Henry Vaughan (1622-1695) have been regarded as the best. Their poetry reflects in a
new manner the new relation between man and God within a world in which the
relationship with God becomes more and more private; it is worth noting that all of them
were priests or involved in religious matters. However, their poetry shows the signs of
their time, and their pursuits are connected to the problem of form and content, as we
may put it today, which is indeed the focus of any art. For instance, George Herberts
poem The Altar (see the Reader) is shaped like an altar and the capitalized words in it
lead to the major theme of his work. George Herbert set an example for other poets of
his time.
Both the modernists and postmodernist artists, including architects returned to the
metaphysical poets as a powerful source of inspiration. However, it was the modern
poet T. S. Eliot who first discussed them in his essay The Metaphysical Poets. His
essay reopens the debate on metaphysical poetry, that is, on the nature of that poetry
bridging between the spiritual and the material. Moreover, the Marxist art critic Georg
Lukasz, advocated that the English metaphysical poets foreshadowed existentialism,
which I find a little bit exaggerated.

III The Age of Inigo Jones and Wren

Inigo Jones (1573-1652) was the outstanding figure of the English art. He was the
arbiter of taste in James I and Charles Is Courts almost for 20 years. He designed
stage designs for the Court ballets and buildings. He worked in Italy and admired the
57

work of the 16th century Venetian architect Palladio, whose style he introduced into
England.

His Banqueting House is thought to have revolutionized the English architecture

through the classical facades and pediments rising among the shambling black and
white timbered houses of Stuart London, almost rural. The interior painting of the ceiling
is the work of Rubens. He also designed the Queens House at Greenwich on an Hplan in the Palladian manner. Briefly speaking, Inigo Jones greatly influenced the
evolution of the English country houses.

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Charles II imposed his own artistic taste inspired

from the French baroque. The second half of the
17th century witnessed the attempt to adapt it to
the English taste.

In fact, this tendency was crystallized in the

career of Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723). He
rebuilt 51 churches and St Paul after the Great Fire (1666). He was also extremely
skilful in planning buildings on awkward sites. Under the later Stuarts, Wren worked on
frustrating palace projects, such as Whitehall, Greenwich, Kensington, and Hampton
Court.

Wren was not fundamentally a domestic architect; his followers Nicholas Hawksmoor
(1661-1739) and Sir John Vanbrugh (1664-1726) were particularly interested in great
houses.

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IV The Civil War

In 1638, Charles I was forced to call the Parliament as he had to put down the rebellion
of the Presbyterian Scots. However, in the following year, the Parliament was dissolved
again that was called The Short Parliament. After the dismissal of the Short
Parliament, the king called again the Parliament that stayed until 1660, eleven years
after the kings execution. That was called The Long Parliament.

However, no simple explanation could account for the way men divided in early 1640;
political and religious issues, social distinctions played their part, but equally personal
characteristics, family traditions, and local feuds. The broad division into Royalist north
and west and Parliamentarians south and east obscures the substantial minorities in
each area. In 1642, there were 300 Parliamentarians and 230 Royalists, which reflected
the real division among the gentry. The issue was the establishment of common law
monarchy. The indecisions and changes of sides at the beginning and the splits within
many families, were the essence of the English War. Cromwell led the Parliament army,
which was better organized and made up mostly of Puritans (he himself had undergone
religious conversion to Puritanism and made it an independent style, which means his
ideas were more moderate at times). The Civil War lasted for ten years, and the number
of country houses and cathedrals destroyed and ransacked was considerable. Many
members of the gentry and Parliament went into exile, following Bonnie Prince Charles
itinerant court or were killed during sieges. The Fellows of the universities were expelled
and many of them went into exile. As Parliament extended its control, taxation and
heavy fines forced many Royalists to sell part of their estates, while many had their
estates confiscated.
Broadly, the forties saw the destruction of the traditional structure of authority in
Church and State. The symbolic climax was the execution of the king and the abolition
of the House of Lords. That was the true turning point in the political history of England.
It not only prevented the English monarchy from hardening into an absolutism of the
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type then becoming general in Europe, but it made a great experiment in direct rule of
the country by the House of Commons. In the course of that experiment the Long
Parliament successfully organised the largest military operation ever till then conducted
by Englishmen, in a four years war against the king. In fact, it taught monarchy a good
lesson. After all those memorable years, the House of Stuart could be restored; it would
never again be possible to govern the country without the participation of the House of
Commons.
Now, let us pick up again the problems of the Civil War. On 20 April 1653, Oliver
Cromwell12 dissolved the Long Parliament with a short yet emotional speech, featuring
the Puritan principles:
It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have
dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye
are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary
wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas

12

Oliver Cromwell (25 April 1599 3 September 1658) was a military and political leader best known in
England for his involvement in making England into a republican Commonwealth and for his later role as
Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland. Events that occurred during his reign and his politics are
a cause of animosity between Ireland and the UK. He was one of the commanders of the New Model
Army which defeated the royalists in the English Civil War. After the execution of King Charles I in 1649,
Cromwell dominated the short-lived Commonwealth of England, conquered Ireland and Scotland, and
ruled as Lord Protector from 1653 until his death from a combination of malarial fever and septicemia in
1658. Cromwell was born into the ranks of the middle gentry, and remained relatively obscure for the first
40 years of his life. His lifestyle resembled that of a yeoman farmer until he received an inheritance from
his uncle. After undergoing a religious conversion during the same decade (conversions became quite
ordinary during that period), Cromwell made an Independent style of Puritanism an essential part of his
life. He was elected Member of Parliament for Cambridge in the Short (1640) and Long (164049)
Parliaments. He entered the English Civil War on the side of the "Roundheads" or Parliamentarians. As a
soldier, he was more than capable (nicknamed "Old Ironsides"), and was soon promoted from leading a
single cavalry troop to command of the entire army. Cromwell was one of the signatories of Charles I's
death warrant in 1649. He was a member of the Rump Parliament (16491653), which selected him to
take command of the English campaign in Ireland during 164950. He led a campaign against the
Scottish army between 1650 and 1651. On 20 April 1653, he dismissed the Rump Parliament by force,
setting up a short-lived nominated assembly known as the Barebones Parliament, before being made
Lord Protector of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland on 16 December 1653. He was buried in
Westminster Abbey. After the Royalists returned to power, they had his corpse dug up, hung in chains,
and beheaded.

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betray your God for a few pieces of money.

Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not
possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have
not barter'd your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least
care for the good of the Commonwealth?

Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defil'd this sacred place, and turn'd the Lord's temple
into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown
intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get
grievances redress'd, are yourselves gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there,
and lock up the doors.
In the name of God, go!

As you might have noticed, the core of the speech was the word vice. It is not opposed
by virtue, yet that was implied indirectly: Puritans were the virtuous lot. Religion played
a major role in the widespread of visionary Utopianism. The Puritans behaved as if the
kingdom of God was waiting behind the door, and later, in the very same year,
Cromwell opened the Parliament of Saints with the words Why should we be afraid to
say or think, that this way may be the door to usher in the things that God hath
promised and prophesized of? Moreover, in his battle with the king, Cromwell, a plain
person yet an excellent commander, found a reason to motivate his small army
(nicknamed Roundheads), capable of fighting the ideals of chivalry of the kings
supporters (also nicknamed the Cavaliers). His was an army of godly men, that is,
with strong religious beliefs, very much like the medieval crusaders fighting the nonChristians. But, as you know, a knight embodied both the religious and chivalry virtues.
Modern times had split the ideal fighter in two. Eventually, they could capture the king
himself. Although some MP wanted the king back to the throne, Cromwell and his army
refused it for fear they might be sent to prison. Instead, they chased all the kings
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supporters from the Parliament and what remained was called The Rump Parliament
(= the piece left) that proclaimed the power of the people. This Parliament tried and
condemned the king, who was beheaded in 1649 just in front of his Banqueting Hall
(designed by Inigo Jones) at Whitehall.

Cromwell, however, had a Great Design by which Protestant countries (Sweden,

Denmark, and Holland) would unite against the Roman Catholic countries (Austria,
France, and Spain). Yet, this design overlooked the rivalries that overrode religious
affinities. Countries like Holland, Denmark and Sweden were more successful in their
trades than England. Fortunately, Cromwell modernized the English Navy that was able
to chase the Dutch away and took Hollands place on the market. That was the
beginning of the so-called mercantilism. Though a Protestant himself, Cromwell was
more tolerant than others; for instance, he accepted the Quakers13 and the Jews. Even
in his army, there were dissenters, the most famous being the Levellers who wanted
the landlords be eliminated along with the king. They proposed the right to vote and an
annually elected Parliament. Cromwell suppressed this movement and had the leaders
shot.

V The Beginning of Restoration

13

Founded in the 1650s by John Fox. Quakers try to bear witness or testify to their beliefs in their
everyday life - an expression of "spirituality in action. The ways in which they testify are often known as
Quaker testimonies or Friends' testimonies: these are not a formal, static set of words, but rather a shared
view or attitude of how many Quakers relate to God and the world. This leads to each Quaker having a
different understanding of what the testimonies are and, while the ideologies remain quite similar for all
Quakers, they go by different names, and different values are included throughout the Religious Society
of Friends. The Testimonies are interrelated and can be seen as a coherent philosophical system, even
outside Christian theology. The testimonies have not always been consistent, but throughout their history
they have challenged Friends and provided them with guidance.

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Cromwells refusal of the crown did not prevent him from assuming many of its
attributes, including the hereditary succession of his son. In fact, he was made Lord
Protector of England. The Puritan zeal for righteousness led him to attempt moral
reform. Thus, after dissolving the Parliament of Saints, he worked for the ideal he set
before his last Parliament, to bring the repairs of breaches, and the restorers of paths
to dwell in. He died in 1658, and soon, the Parliament called Charles II back as king of
England in 1660.

Charles II (1660-1685) or Bonnie Prince Charlie did not persecute those opposing the
Church of England but denied them several rights. At the same time, he made every
effort to put the clock back to the somewhat carefree days of the 1630s. Theatres
reopened, racing started at Newmarket, clothes blossomed out into ruffles and ribbons.

Charless brother, James II (1685-88) had to flee the country in 1688 for promoting the
interests of his Catholic supporters. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 set on the throne
William of Orange from Netherlands, and his wife, Jamess daughter Mary, and
established Parliamentary monarchy (constitutional monarchy). Under William and
Mary, and their successor Queen Anne (1702-14), Britain gained a political and
constitutional equilibrium never again upset.

Intellectual life continued with vigour surprising in view of the purges of Church and
universities. Some were in exile, but at home an active group met first in London and
then in Oxford to discuss science in the Baconian tradition. After the Restoration it was
formally instituted as the Royal Society, whose member was Christopher Wren. Later
he was elected chairman.

VI The Coffee Houses

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It should be said from the start that the intellectual and civic life of London and England
in general owes much to the tradition of coffee houses/shops. They were the
favorable milieus for long debates. So, you should not wonder that the first coffee
houses was opened at Oxford by Jacob, a Jew, who opened a Coffee house at the
Angel, in the Parish of St Peter in the East, Oxon, and there it was by some, who
delighted in the novelty, drank.
Certainly shortly after this, coffee houses began to open in London. By 1663 it is
recorded that there were 82 coffee houses in London. The popularity of these
establishments led to certain opposition. For example, 'The Women's Petition Against
Coffee' was set up and it claimed in 1674 that coffee: ... made men as unfruitful as the
deserts whence the unhappy berry is said to be brought.
In the following year, King Charles II tried to rid London of its coffee houses with an
edict:
Whereas it is most apparent that the multitude of coffee houses of late years set up and
kept within this kingdom, the dominion of Wales and the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed,
and the great resort of idle and disaffected persons to them, have produced very evil
and dangerous effects, as well as that many tradesmen and others do therein misspend
much of their time, which might and probably would otherwise be employed in and
about their lawful callings and affairs, but also for that in such houses, and by occasion
of the meeting of such persons therein, many false, malicious, and scandalous reports
are devised and spread abroad, to the deformation of his Majesty's government and to
the disturbance of the peace and quiet of the realm, his Majesty has thought it fit and
necessary that the said coffee houses be for the future put down and suppressed.
The edict went on to ban the sale of coffee, chocolate, sherbet, and tea in coffee
houses or private homes. The disagreement was such that Charles decided to back off
and no further mention was made of his edict. However, the several bans on coffee or
tea led to the increase of smuggling.
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The Grecian Coffee House

Different coffee houses acted as the meeting place for different groups of people. In
fact, many people would give a particular coffee house as the address where they might
be contacted. For example Child's Coffee House near Gresham College (the place
where Christopher Wren taught astronomy, and the future Royal Society), was
frequented by the clergy. Lloyd's Coffee House (see below), founded by Edward Lloyd
of Tower Street in the 1680s, had ship owners and merchants as customers and acted
as a hub through which news about ships was passed. It moved to Lombard Street in
1692 and eventually moved into
insurance and became Lloyd's of
London.
In the two pictures you can see
Grecian Coffee House and
Lloyd's Coffee House.
The Grecian, as the name might
suggest, attracted those
interested in philosophy and
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other academic disciplines. Macaulay14 wrote:

Those who wished to find a gentleman commonly asked, not whether he lived in Fleet
Street or Chancery Lance, but whether he frequented the Grecian or the Rainbow.
The second coffee house mentioned in this quote is the Rainbow, the second oldest
coffee house in London, opened by James Farr in Fleet Street in 1657.
Another quote by one who frequented the Grecian is the following:
While other parts of the town are amused with the present actions, we generally spend
the evening at this table in inquiries into antiquity, and think anything news which gives
us new knowledge.
In Inns and Taverns of Old London by Henry C Shelley, one can read:
Men of science as well as scholars gave liberal patronage to the Grecian. It was a
common thing for meetings of the Royal Society to be continued in a social way at this
coffee-house, the president, Sir Isaac Newton, being frequently of the parties. Hither,
too, came Professor Halley, the great astronomer, to meet his friends on his weekly visit
to London from Oxford ...
So, one of the gentlemen one might find in the Grecian Coffee House was Isaac
Newton, where sometimes he met de Moivre (the French mathematician).
Jonathan's Coffee House, in Exchange Alley, had merchants as customers and is now
considered as developing into the London Stock Exchange. Hooke and Wren were
often in Jonathan's taking part in scientific discussions.
Talking of Newton, de Moivre, Hooke and Wren brings us back to the topic of
mathematics in the coffee houses of London. First, let us quote from a play by Thomas

14

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800-1859), politician, poet, historian in the Whig tradition.

67

Sydserf called Tarugo's Wiles, or, The Coffee House. A Comedy. In Act 3 there is a
conversation between two coffee house customers:
Customer 1: I'm told Sir, that coffee inspires a man in the mathematics.
Customer 2: So far as it keeps one from sleep, which you know is the ready way to
distract, consequently the improvement of the mathematics.
Not only were the coffee houses meeting places, but lectures were given in them.
These were not just unprepared lectures given in the course of discussion, but rather
were properly advertised and usually not random lectures but rather organized in a
series of lectures. Because of this educational function coffee houses were often called
the Penny Universities - the name coming from the fact that they charged an entrance
fee of a penny.
Daniel Button owned Button's Coffee House, situated in Russell Street, Covent
Garden. This coffee house had many literary customers and, in particular, Richard
Steele who used it as an office for the Guardian which he began to publish in
1713. Steele placed an advertisement for a course of lectures in Button's Coffee House:
Beginning January 11, 1713-14, a course of philosophical lectures on mechanics,
hydrostatics, pneumatics, optics. This course of experiments is to be performed by Mr
William Whiston and Francis Hauksbee ...
Another frequent customer of Button's Coffee House was John Arbuthnot who wrote
many popular pamphlets. He would sometimes end letters with:
From a sparkish pamphleteer of Button's Coffee House.
Slaughter's Coffee House in St Martin's Lane was established in 1692. It was famed
as a centre for chess players but it was also a popular place for those seeking
mathematical advice. Abraham de Moivre was considered the resident mathematician
at Slaughter's. He would give advice on risk, or chance of loss as he called it. It was a
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way to make a little money, as was chess playing where de Moivre would play for
money. In Inns and Taverns of Old London by Henry C Shelley, the author writes:
Among the earliest coffee-houses to be established in the West-end of London was that
opened by Thomas Slaughter in St Martin's Lane in 1692 and known as Slaughter's. It
remained under the oversight of Mr Slaughter until his death in 1740, and continued to
enjoy a prosperous career for nearly a century longer, when the house was torn down.
The bulk of its customers were artists, and the famous men numbered among them
included Wilkie, Wilson, and Roubiliac. But the most pathetic figure associated with its
history is that of Abraham De Moivre, that French mathematician who became the friend
of Newton and Leibniz. Notwithstanding his wonderful abilities he was driven to support
himself by the meager pittances earned by teaching and by solving problems in chess
at Slaughter's. In his last days, sight and hearing both failed, and he finally died of
somnolence, twenty hours' sleep becoming habitual with him. By the time of De
Moivre's death, or shortly after, the character of the frequenters of Slaughter's
underwent a change ...
To put in a nutshell, the coffee houses were forms of socializing and, when established,
they became the hotbeds of the English cultural and political life, soon to develop in the
famous clubs.

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LECTURE 4:

I. The Aftermath of the Civil War: New Parties and Ways of Life

When Charles II came to the thrown he issued the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion
(= the act of protection and forgiving/forgetting), which was stigmatized by the Cavaliers
(members of the future Whig Party Liberals) as Indemnity for the Kings enemies
and Oblivion for the Kings friends. For instance, the royalists who had suffered under
Cromwell never forgot Clarendon, who had followed the royal family in exile and then
became the Kings Chancellor, for advising him on the act. So, they failed to recover the
lands which they had been forced to sell.
In the 1661 elections, the majority formed a party, later known as Tory (the
Conservatives). The latter were more Anglican than the royalists, and followed their own
interest rather than of the Court. All along there was a bitter fight between the Puritans
and the Protestant Dissenters. After the restoration, the religious settlement was not
conceived in the spirit of compromise, which marked the political and social life. This led
to the variety of competition among the religious bodies, characteristic of modern
England.
The Whig Party had affinities in its rank and file with Puritanism and in its higher grades
with latitudinarianism and rationalism of the new age. The scientific and latitudinarian
movement, to which Sir Isaac Newton belonged, slowly created an atmosphere
favorable to the doctrine of religious toleration as propounded by the famous Whig
philosopher John Locke (1632-1704).

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Within the national Church, latitudinarianism15 had a party, respectable for its learning
and eloquence rather than for its numbers. That was the Low Church party, a name
that then denoted not evangelicalism but what should now be called as broad or
liberal views. They were advocates of toleration and friends of the Protestant
Dissenters. The name of High Church given to the great majority of the clergy did not
mean ritualism; they upheld the doctrine of non-resistance to kings and their hereditary
right, and a high view of the authority of the Church in politics and society.

This is how the social and political stage was shaped in late 17th century. There were
other apparently less important consequences that worked at the level of the average
man. For instance, before the execution of Charles I, Sunday was a day of amusement,
a day in which various plays and games were performed. During Cromwells years and
after, Sunday became a day for rest and religious meditation, showing how profound the
changes were at the grass roots level.

II. The Cultural and Social setting of the Augustan Age

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Augustan derives from the prestige of
Latin literature in the age of Augustus and it is applied to the period of highest
refinement of any national art. Normally it refers in England to the years from about

15

Latitudinarian was initially a pejorative term applied to a group of 17th-century English theologians who
believed in conforming to official Church of England practices but who felt that matters of doctrine, liturgical
practice, and ecclesiastical organization were of relatively little importance. Good examples of the latitudinarian
philosophy were found among the Cambridge Platonists. Currently, latitudinarianism should not be confused with
ecumenical movements, which seek to draw all Christian churches together, rather than to de-emphasize practical
doctrine. The term has taken on a more general meaning, indicating a personal philosophy, which includes being
widely tolerant of other views, particularly (but not necessarily) on religious matters. In the Roman Catholic Church,
latitudinarianism was condemned in the 19th century document Quanta Cura, because Pope Pius IX felt that this
attitude was undermining the Church, with its high emphasis on religious liberty and possibility to discard traditional
Christian doctrines and dogmas. Although the Church's attitude on this has softened a bit since Dignitatis Humanae,
latitudinarianism is still commonly criticized under the epithet of Cafeteria Catholic.

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1680 to 1750, yet some researchers stretched it from 1660 to 1780, so almost one
hundred years. The Augustan Age, roughly corresponding to the reign of the
Hanoverian House, is looked upon as a decorative and elegant period, unadventurous
and rather dull; briefly, an age of prose and reason. In fact, it set a new model: the
normal. The authors addressed to an extended public, and a new relation appeared
between the artist and his patron, who supposedly dictated the public taste. A new
system of interests appeared, sometimes politically oriented, and so taste was
established in circles where social distinction, political importance, and classical reading
predominated. However, the Augustan artists were freer to express themselves than
their predecessors. That was also encouraged by the circulation of the early periodicals,
like Addisons and Steels The Spectator. These editors took seriously their task of
educating the public morality and criticism, as well as amusing it by satire and
portraiture.

Why did the English embrace the ways of reason? One simple answer would be the
effects of the Civil War and the persecution of the Dissenters. The events provoked a
wish for harmony. They discovered that in normality lay novelty. They satirized, and I
would mention Jonathan Swift in particular, the departures from the general bank and
capital of reason, of decent responsible humanity. Originality lies somewhere else and
it is a source of strength. Old ideas of harmony were given new interpretations. For
instance, the medieval and Elizabethan idea of organic harmony between the parts of
the body politic was reinforced and interpreted in terms of economic independence. So,
the nations concern was the organization of its practical affairs. The philosopher John
Locke desired man to be well-skilled in knowledge of material and effects of things in
his power; directing his thought to the improvement of such arts and inventions,
engines, and utensils. In his opinion such improvements had a precise aim:
conveniency and delight.

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Important elements of business organization came into being: the Bank of England
(1694), insurance and trading companies, including Lloyds coffee-house from which
emerged the great shipping agency, and the Society for the Encouragement of Arts,
Manufactures and Commerce. Encyclopedias of the arts and sciences began to
appear, while periodicals ran columns of useful projects. A new character appeared on
the stage: the business man. Trade is defended as a liberal pursuit, while men of all
sects and creeds were, in fact, taking to business as to a philosophy of life.

London was the heart of this change. Between 1660 and 1789, it was transformed from
a late medieval town into an early modern one, not only by the fire of 1666 but by the
steady replacement of medieval brick and timber houses with neoclassic brick and
Portland stone ones. The intellectual centers of debate were the coffee-houses, taverns,
clubs, book-and print shops, while the landscape architects and architects created
pleasure-gardens and new residential squares. Daniel Defoe enthused on London,
describing it as the most glorious sight, without exception, that the whole world at
present can show.

However, for most of the century rural England seemed busy and prosperous. It is the
sense of local vigour that to some extent counterbalances the dominance of London
and gives Augustan culture a healthy wide basis. Again, it is Daniel Defoe who
celebrates the great houses which were the economic and cultural centers of local life,
and a whole series of country towns, with particular praise for their social advantages. If
at the beginning of the 18th c it was Defoe who was delighted by the blooming country,
at the end of the very same century, Horace Walpole, the dilettante architect and
writer, wrote to his cousin of the felicity of my countrymen and of such a scene of
happiness and affluence in every village and amongst the lowest of the people New
streets, new towns, are rising everyday and everywhere; the earth is covered with
gardens and crops of grain.
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Augustan England as it as was described by these authors and later by Jane Austen
and Trollope featured the detailed beauty of enclosed meadows and hedgerows, the
enthusiasm for landscape gardening, new manors, great houses with classical porticoes
and far-spreading symmetrical wings set against the undulating park-lands.

I mentioned the emergence of the businessman as a social figure. The role and concept
of gentlemen is of now lesser importance. Gentlemanliness was not mere outward
decorum or the show of courtesy; it included all the qualities, including religious faith,
moral and physical courage, and mental and physical energy, which make up the force
of the social life. The 34th issue of The Guardian describes him as the most uncommon
of all the great characters of life [] a Man completely qualified as well for the Service
and Good, as for the Ornament and delight, of society. A gentleman had a reasonable
knowledge of Latin authors and some skill in Latin composition. He was educated in the
spirit of humanism, which selected its tradition to produce social man according to the
canons of the best models of the past that showed how to live well in this world.

You should not infer that the gentleman or the philosopher or the artist was just a
reasonable creature, governed merely by the physical world. Religion was the center of
their world and it was served with passion by architects like Wren, Hawksmoor, Gibbs
and their fellows. The Augustans were closer to the Middle Ages in this respect than to
the 20th century rationalism.

To better understand the Romantic reaction, let me tell you something about the
Augustan style. It was extremely clear and the word meant what at first sight appeared
to mean. As the great rationalist of the age, John Locke recommended, the word was
used lucidly and without mystifying aura. Those who tried to find similarities between the
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Augustans and the Postmodern have failed to some extent, because the postmodern
clarity is laid on a maze of connotations. They have not failed as concerns the approach
to Reason. Reason is a powerful talisman in the Augustan understanding of the world.
Maybe they resented too much the turmoil of feelings that had governed the 17th
century.

There is one more thing to be added about the centurys evolution from reason to
sensitivity. An increasing pleasure in natural landscape, after the geometrical French
and Dutch gardens of the late 17th century; a reviving interest in Gothic architecture, a
fashion of twilight or graveyard poetry, a taste for pre-Restoration styles (the return to
Palladianism, for one) and pseudo-medievalism, and interest in the Celtic and Norse art
they all marked the shift to the 19th century rich background.
III A passion for pleasure gardens, parks, and resorts
The 18th century ushered in landscape architecture in England, and with it, key names
of landscape designers. Among the first notable ones was Charles Bridgeman who
became famous and popular due to his designs for the wealthy nobles. For instance, he
designed the extravagant estate garden of Lord Cobham, which included temples, finely
carved statues, pillars, summer houses, a replica of an Egyptian pyramid, that is, the
common elements of design at that time. He also participated into the layout of a garden
at Rousham House, Oxfordshire, that contained cascades, fountains, square pools, and
an open air theatre. Charles Bridgeman is still an inspiration for landscape architects
today.
Some of the private pleasure gardens in this century ended with high walls; on the other
side was the forest where the lords would go hunting, while the ladies would walk and
talk by the garden pool.
Another key landscape designer was Lancelot (Capability) Brown. He preferred the
idea of tended nature, asymmetrical structured landscapes, evergreen trees,
expansive lawns, meandering streams and sylvan lakes. Workers had to grade the
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earth, set up pathways or simply follow the

natural rise and fall of the landscape. It all
resulted in an amazingly beautiful mixture
of

natural

and

manmade

landscape.

Capability Brown designed the famous

gardens at Stowe in the 1740s. To the end
of the decade he met the architect William
Kent whose disciple he became. He created the most important private gardens of the
18th century at Pentworth House, Kew, Blenheim Palace. In general, Kent and Brown
placed a particular emphasis on those elements that could turn the estate into a
landscaped wilderness, which
did

not

imply

the

total

elimination of formal elements

but,

instead

of

grids

they

preferred curved pathways.

The

planting

scheme

dominated

by

species

evergreens

of

was

indigenous
and

hardwoods. As a rule, plants were not manicured as in the past but left in their natural
shape.

Now, I am going to tackle up the issue of public gardens in London. They were called
resorts. First of all, you have to know that the meaning of resort has slightly changed.
Although it means a place, particularly a town, where people go for entertainment, in the
18th century, resort also meant a place, generally a pleasure garden. Two major
pleasure gardens dominated the 18th and 19th century: Vauxhall and Ranelagh. From
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1661 (after the return of the Bonnie Prince Charles) to 1859, Vauxhall ministered to
the amusement of citizens (Henry C. Shelley). The origin of the gardens is pretty
obscure; supposedly, it developed on the grounds of the Faux family who owned a
manor in the area. Some information about the gardens can be found in Samuel
Pepys Diary. He visited the gardens in 1662 and was impressed by the nightingales
and other birds, by the music played and the fact that you could spend hours on end
there. However, he was displeased at the fact that there were also rogues, besides the
fine and honorable people. The gardens were mentioned in several works of fiction and
comedies of the time. For instance, Amelia, a character of Fieldings fiction, describes
the delicious sweetness of the place and like Pepys, she notices the charms of
music. The place contained formal but richly wooded walks, The principal entrance
Shelley writes, led into what was known as the Grand Walk, a tree-lined promenade
some three-hundred yards in length, and having the South Walk, parallel. The latter,
however, was distinguished by its three triumphal arches and its terminal painting of the
ruins of Palmyra. [You should notice that even such places contained hints of the then
archeological findings]. All in all, the Vauxhall gardens had a high quota of popularity
among the general public. Moreover, it was not simply a garden, since it contained
super-boxes and pavilions arranged in long rows or in curving fashion (echoing, of
course, the landscape fashion of the day). There was also a Rotunda of 70 m in
diameter. The Rotunda, where a band used to play on rainy evenings, was connected to
a Picture Room (an art gallery, as we put it today). One of the most popular attractions
was the Cascade. The whole landscape, including the cascade, was illuminated by
hidden lamps.
The best evidence of the importance of the place was the fact that it was chosen as
scene of a national event in 1813. A festival was organized there to celebrate the victory
of the Allies under Wellington against Napoleon.
However, not even the author of Inns and Taverns of the Old London could have
foreseen what Vauxhall would become in the 21st century. Well, today, the former
grounds of the gardens are famous for its gay pubs.
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Ranelagh was a serious rival to Vauxhall. First, the place was owned by the Earl of
Ranelagh who built a house in Chelsea, surrounded by a large garden. On his death,
the grounds and the house were purchased by Swift and Timbrell, who sought to
establish a grander place than that at Vauxhall, and obtained financial support for it.
After the gardens were laid out, the new owners wanted to erect a suitable building. The
famous Rotunda was designed by the architect William Jones, who was later suspected
of having plagiarized a similar building designed in Henry VIIIs time. The Rotunda could
be accessed from four points corresponding to the four points of the compass, each
designed to resemble a triumphal arch. However, the interior looked very much like a
late 19th century opera house. There were 52 boxes around the wall, accommodating 78 people each. Higher up there was a row of windows. Numerous tables were set on the
matted floor. The Rotunda was painted by the Italian painter Canaletto in 1754. The
whole arrangement of the gardens, including its lighting system, was meant for the
upper classes who could afford the expensive entertainment. In the 19th century the
Chelsea Hospital was built on the grounds. Even today, Ranelagh is a green pleasure
ground with finely shaded pathways, part of the grounds of Chelsea Hospital, and the
site of the annual Chelsea Flower Show.

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LECTURE 5: The Background of Pre-Victorian and Victorian Age

The Romantic Mood; Major personalities; Major concepts; Major events; The City.
This introduction is not a lecture on William Wordsworths poetry, but an attempt at
catching the spirit of an age through the mind of a great poetic mind. Moreover, my
approach considers the sometimes-traumatic changes that occurred at the turn of the
18th century triggered by both the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars.

At the turn of the 18th century, fancy becomes for poets a land where wounds are
healed. As Wordsworth puts it, fancy peoples the harmless fields with signs of
woe:/Beneath her sway, a simple forest cry/Becomes an echo of mans misery (Poems
of the Fancy, A Morning Exercise).

Poets like Wordsworth, Coleridge, in a word, the Romantic generation, seek for new
ways of contemplation and comprehension of reality. Most of them lived through the
Napoleonic wars and the changes brought about the industrial revolution in Europe. I
think I am not wrong when stating that the Napoleonic wars shuttered the grounds of
old Europe as much as World War I did in the early 20th century. Thus, in his volume
Memorials of a Tour on the Continent (1820), the poet contemplates the field of
Waterloo, and comments:
While glory seemed betrayed, while/patriot-zeal/Sank in our hearts, we felt as one
should feel/With such vast hoards of hidden carnage/near/And horror breathing from the
silent/ground!

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Likewise, other places from Europe are marked and marred by the memory of battles.
Fancy, that inner land of sorrow, escape and healing, is called upon to testify to the
terrible losses: What lovelier home could gentle Fancy/choose?/ Is this the stream
whose cities, heights,/and plains,/Wars favourite playground, are with
crimson/stains/Familiar, as the Morn with pearly dews? (Between Namur and Liege).

Certainly, the tone of such poems differ from those written at the turn of the century,
when Europe was smashed by Napoleons army, and the poet evokes the spirit of John
Milton, the poet of the Civil War. Wordsworth, like many other poets of his time, was
thrilled with the promised freedom that made Napoleon the role-model of the age. In the
poets words, Milton should be living at this hour because England has become a fen
of stagnant waters and betrayed, forfeited their ancient English dower/Of inward
happiness. We are selfish men. The stagnant waters are somehow alluded to in a
famous sonnet (Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 2, 1802), yet from an
aesthetical point of view. I am going to quote the whole sonnet here:
Earth has not anything to show more
Fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could
Pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples
Lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless
Air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill
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Neer saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! The very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still.

As you might have noticed, this is not only a composition made of words but a paintinglike picture of London, one still remembered today.

After this prelude (to name the title of Wordsworths autobiographical poems), I am
going to approach the Victorian Age from diverse perspectives. I have found that the
best way of doing it is through the mind of a historian, not a simple historian dedicated
to facts and dates, but a true intellectual who was also a dedicated art critic. Lytton
Stratchey belonged to a circle of intellectuals based in Londons posh district,
Bloomsbury. Several personalities from a wide range of fields were part of the
Bloomsbury Group like John Maynard Keynes, Virginia Woolf, Leonard Woolf, E. M.
Foster, Lytton Stratchey, Vanessa Bell, Clive Bell, Dora Carrington and many others. It
is good to know they had a liberal attitude towards civilization and life in general. Lytton
Stratchey published several books on the Victorian Age: French Literature (1912),
Eminent Victorians (1918), Queen Victoria. He developed his own theory of biography,
which he sketched in his Introduction to Eminent Victorians.
THE history of the Victorian Age he thinks, will never be written; we know too much
about it. Quite ironically, he adds: For ignorance is the first requisite of the historian
ignorance, which simplifies and clarifies, which selects and omits, with a placid
perfection unattainable by the highest art. Concerning the Age which has just passed,
our fathers and our grandfathers have poured forth and accumulated so vast a quantity
of information that the industry of a Ranke16 would be submerged by it, and the
perspicacity of a Gibbon17 would quail before it. It is not by the direct method of a
scrupulous narration that the explorer of the past can hope to depict that singular epoch.
If he is wise, he will adopt a subtler strategy. He will attack his subject in unexpected
places; he will fall upon the flank, or the rear; he will shoot a sudden, revealing
16

Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886) a famous German historian who insisted on the precision of sources (he is said to
have invented the footnote).
17
Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), Englands most famous historian, author of The History of the Decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire.

81

searchlight into obscure recesses, hitherto undivined. He will row out over that great
ocean of material, and lower down into it, here and there, a little bucket, which will bring
up to the light of day some characteristic specimen, from those far depths, to be
examined with a careful curiosity. Guided by these considerations, I have written the
ensuing studies. I have attempted, through the medium of biography, to present some
Victorian visions to the modern eye. Like a true aesthete, Stratchey circumscribes
history to art, converting it into a way of illustration rather than explanation, yet
explanation you will find to a full extend, even if not explicit. He is aware, as any
modernist that he has to deal with fragments of truth and not to cling to facts. Was he
also a philosopher of history? Yes, he was indeed, as he underlined that Human beings
are too important to be treated as mere symptoms of the past. They have a value which
is independent of any temporal processes which is eternal, and must be felt for its
own sake. The art of biography seems to have fallen on evil times in England. We have
had, it is true, a few masterpieces, but we have never had, like the French, a great
biographical tradition; we have had no Fontenelles and Condorcets, with their
incomparable eloges, compressing into a few shining pages the manifold existences of
men. What about his attitude? Well, he declares himself uninvolved but committed,
dispassionate, impartial, without ulterior intentions, but you will judge for yourselves.

When approaching the Victorian Age, we should bear in mind that much of it is still with
us, or it was with my generation, and the generation of the Beatles, Led Zeppelin. For
people like Stratchey, things were even more complicated. Though they were not so
much aware of it, they lived with its haunting memories; they praised or rejected many
of the things Victorians themselves did. Never were such seemingly unending debates
about moral values, about the role of the artist, about decency, about better housing
and better life in general. Yet, critics like Stratchey will give us a more comprehensive
picture about the period. Besides the eminent Victorians studied by the critic (Florence
Nightingale, Cardinal Manning, etc), there were other eminent Victorians, famous critics
and theorists like John Ruskin, Thomas Carlyle, William Morris.

The truth is that much of the opposition to Victorianism came from poets and artists,
whether they shared Carlyles bitter criticism or not. Their protests could be summed up
in the all-too-comprehensive word materialism. At the beginning of the 19th century,
William Wordsworth, the great poet of the Lake School, had noted the combined force
to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, while at the turn of the century, the
novelist D. H. Lawrence described it in terms of ugliness: meanness and formless and
ugly surroundings, ugly ideas, ugly religion, ugly hope, ugly love, ugly clothes, ugly
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furniture, ugly houses, ugly relationship between workers and employers. The human
soul needs actual beauty even more than bread, he concluded. In fact, the 20th century
criticism shares much of the artists perception of their century. If you read Ruskins
books or Wildes essays, you will find fine and comprehensive statements about their
own world. We shall discuss at length about artists and their ideas, but first you should
know something about the general scene. Many still refer to the 19th century as the age
of industrialization and rise of democracy. The former created what is currently labeled
as the economic man, while the latter is treated as the democratic experiment.
I. A Queen that Gave a Name to an Age
Queen Victoria (1819-1901) was the only child of Edward, Duke of Kent, and Victoria
Maria Louisa of Saxe-Coburg, a fact that related the English royal family of the German
one. However, she became a queen in 1837 because her uncle, William IV had no
legitimate surviving heirs. When she came to the throne, the Prime Minister was Lord
Melbourne, a Whig. He treated her as if she were her own daughter, yet rumors were
spread about their intimate relationship. However, he kept away from the misfortunes of
the daily life, advising her, for instance, against reading Oliver Twist because it
narrated about paupers, criminals and other unpleasant subjects.

In 1839, her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg visited London and she fell madly in
love with him and got married in 1840. Prince Albert played a key role in the British
politics, as much as it was allowed to the royal family, competing with Lord Melbourne
for a while. Anyway, never had she a better relation with a PM to follow Melbourne.
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert believed that the British government should do
whatever it could to help preserve European royal families against revolutionary groups
advocating republicanism, also present in England. This was very important to Victoria
and Albert, and for the heir to the throne, the future king Edward VII, because they were
closely related to several of the European royal families that faced the danger of being
overthrown, which eventually happened. But, for a long time they sustained a sort of
United Royal Europe. Prince Albert was her valuable advisor, and we could say he
opened her eyes on the dark side of Englands life, like child labor. He was also
involved in cultural projects, among which the competition for the Crystal Palace. In
1861, Prince Albert died and she mourned for him for a long time, withdrawn in her
castle at Balmoral, in the Scottish Highlands, a place where the family used to reunite
and live a quiet, domestic life surrounded by their nine children. However, her grief was
so deep that she refused to open Parliament and the government began to question
whether they were going to pay her any longer.
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In 1884, The Reform Act, initiated by the Prime Minister William Gladstone, a liberal,
and her archrival, was voted against her conservative convictions. Nevertheless, the Act
was necessary, because it restrained many of the Lords privileges, allowing the uppermiddle class member to have access to the House of Lords.

Much of the attention of the country was focused abroad during her reign. In 1876, she
was declared Empress of India and the English Empire constantly expanded, turning
London in the capital of the world. The prevailing attitude in Britain was that expansion
was good for everyone and the queen became an extremely popular figure, an example
as a mother and queen.

Now, let us consider Lytton Stratcheys final portrait of the queen

from the book I have already mentioned: Queen Victoria (1921).
A PORTRAIT OF QUEEN VICTORIA BY LYTTON STRATCHEY

Queen Victoria & Prince Albert

The queens religious opinions:
Her piety, absolutely genuine, found what it wanted in the sober exhortations
of old John Grant and the devout saws of Mrs. P. Farquharson. They
possessed the qualities, which, as a child of fourteen, she had so sincerely
admired in the Bishop of Chester's "Exposition of the Gospel of St.
Matthew;" they were "just plain and comprehensible and full of truth and
good feeling." The Queen, who gave her name to the Age of Mill and of
Darwin, never got any further than that.
The queens social opinions/attitudes:
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Lytton Strachey
From the social movements of her time Victoria was equally remote.
Towards the smallest no less than towards the greatest changes she
remained inflexible. During her youth and middle age smoking had been
forbidden in polite society, and so long as she lived she would not withdraw
her anathema against it. Kings might protest; bishops and ambassadors,
invited to Windsor, might be reduced, in the privacy of their bedrooms, to lie
full-length upon the floor and smoke up the chimneythe interdict
continued! It might have been supposed that a female sovereign would have
lent her countenance to one of the most vital of all the reforms to which her
epoch gave birththe emancipation of womenbut, on the contrary, the
mere mention of such a proposal sent the blood rushing to her head. In
1870, her eye having fallen upon the report of a meeting in favour of
Women's Suffrage, she wrote to Mr. Martin in royal rage"The Queen is
most anxious to enlist everyone who can speak or write to join in checking
this mad, wicked folly of 'Woman's Rights,' with all its attendant horrors, on
which her poor feeble sex is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly feeling
and propriety. Ladyought to get a GOOD WHIPPING. It is a subject which
makes the Queen so furious that she cannot contain herself. God created
men and women differentthen let them remain each in their own position.
Tennyson has some beautiful lines on the difference of men and women in
'The Princess.' Woman would become the most hateful, heartless, and
disgusting of human beings were she allowed to unsex herself; and where
would be the protection which man was intended to give the weaker sex?
The Queen is sure that Mrs. Martin agrees with her." The argument was
irrefutable; Mrs. Martin agreed; and yet the canker spread.

The queens knowledge of English polity [general organization of the state]:

The English polity was in the main a common-sense structure, but there was always a
corner in it where common-sense could not enterwhere, somehow or other, the
ordinary measurements were not applicable and the ordinary rules did not apply. So our
ancestors had laid it down, giving scope, in their wisdom, to that mystical element
which, as it seems, can never quite be eradicated from the affairs of men. Naturally it
was in the Crown that the mysticism of the English polity was concentratedthe Crown,
with its venerable antiquity, its sacred associations, its imposing spectacular array. But,
for nearly two centuries, common-sense had been predominant in the great building,
and the little, unexplored, inexplicable corner had attracted small attention. Then, with
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the rise of imperialism, there was a change. For imperialism is a faith as well as a
business; as it grew, the mysticism in English public life grew with it; and simultaneously
a new importance began to attach to the Crown. The need for a symbola symbol of
England's might, of England's worth, of England's extraordinary and mysterious
destinybecame felt more urgently than ever before. The Crown was that symbol: and
the Crown rested upon the head of Victoria. Thus it happened that while by the end of
the reign the power of the sovereign had appreciably diminished, the prestige of the
sovereign had enormously grown.

Peoples opinions about their queen:

And then, she was a character. The outlines of her nature were firmly drawn, and, even
through the mists which envelop royalty, clearly visible. In the popular imagination her
familiar figure filled, with satisfying ease, a distinct and memorable place. It was,
besides, the kind of figure which naturally called forth the admiring sympathy of the
great majority of the nation. Goodness they prized above every other human quality;
and Victoria, who had said that she would be good at the age of twelve, had kept her
word. Duty, conscience, moralityyes! in the light of those high beacons the Queen
had always lived. She had passed her days in work and not in pleasurein public
responsibilities and family cares. The standard of solid virtue which had been set up so
long ago amid the domestic happiness of Osborne had never been lowered for an
instant. For more than half a century no divorced lady had approached the precincts of
the Court. Victoria, indeed, in her enthusiasm for wifely fidelity, had laid down a still
stricter ordinance: she frowned severely upon any widow who married again.

The Queens nature:

For, though many of her characteristics were most often found among the middle
classes, in other respectsin her manners, for instanceVictoria was decidedly
aristocratic. And, in one important particular, she was neither aristocratic nor middleclass: her attitude toward herself was simply regal. [...]She moved through life with the
imposing certitude of one to whom concealment was impossibleeither towards her
surroundings or towards herself. There she was, all of herthe Queen of England,
complete and obvious; the world might take her or leave her; she had nothing more to
show, or to explain, or to modify; and, with her peerless carriage, she swept along her
path. And not only was concealment out of the question; reticence, reserve, even dignity
itself, as it sometimes seemed, might be very well dispensed with. [...]Her utterly
unliterary style has at least the merit of being a vehicle exactly suited to her thoughts
86

and feelings; and even the platitude of her phraseology carries with it a curiously
personal flavour. Undoubtedly it was through her writings that she touched the heart of
the public. Not only in her "Highland Journals" where the mild chronicle of her private
proceedings was laid bare without a trace either of affectation or of embarrassment, but
also in those remarkable messages to the nation which, from time to time, she
published in the newspapers, her people found her very close to them indeed. They felt
instinctively Victoria's irresistible sincerity, and they responded. And in truth it was an
endearing trait.
Relationship between Queen and her subjects:
The last and the most glorious of such occasions was the Jubilee of 1897. Then, as the
splendid procession passed along, escorting Victoria through the thronged re-echoing
streets of London on her progress of thanksgiving to St. Paul's Cathedral, the greatness
of her realm and the adoration of her subjects blazed out together. The tears welled to
her eyes, and, while the multitude roared round her, "How kind they are to me! How kind
they are!" she repeated over and over again. That night her message flew over the
Empire: "From my heart I thank my beloved people. May God bless them!" The long
journey was nearly done. But the traveller, who had come so far, and through such
strange experiences, moved on with the old unfaltering step. The girl, the wife, the aged
woman, were the same: vitality, conscientiousness, pride, and simplicity were hers to
the latest hour.

When, two days previously, the news of the approaching end had been made public,
astonished grief had swept over the country. It appeared as if some monstrous reversal
of the course of nature was about to take place. The vast majority of her subjects had
never known a time when Queen Victoria had not been reigning over them. She had
become an indissoluble part of their whole scheme of things, and that they were about
to lose her appeared a scarcely possible thought. She herself, as she lay blind and
silent, seemed to those who watched her to be divested of all thinkingto have glided
already, unawares, into oblivion. Yet, perhaps, in the secret chambers of
consciousness, she had her thoughts, too. Perhaps her fading mind called up once
more the shadows of the past to float before it, and retraced, for the last time, the
vanished visions of that long historypassing back and back, through the cloud of
years, to older and ever older memoriesto the spring woods at Osborne, so full of
primroses for Lord Beaconsfieldto Lord Palmerston's queer clothes and high
demeanour, and Albert's face under the green lamp, and Albert's first stag at Balmoral,
and Albert in his blue and silver uniform, and the Baron coming in through a doorway,
and Lord M. dreaming at Windsor with the rooks cawing in the elm-trees, and the
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Archbishop of Canterbury on his knees in the dawn, and the old King's turkey-cock
ejaculations, and Uncle Leopold's soft voice at Claremont, and Lehzen with the globes,
and her mother's feathers sweeping down towards her, and a great old repeater-watch
of her father's in its tortoise-shell case, and a yellow rug, and some friendly flounces of
sprigged muslin, and the trees and the grass at Kensington.

II. Some Remarks about the 19th Century Scene

There was a great amount of discussion about democracy, individualism, nationalism,
and liberalism through the century. Education becomes a general concern, while the
place of religious teaching in a national system of education is sharply debated. The
early and middle Victorian periods were intensely moralistic, heavy with responsibility
and anxiety. The century produced a large number of theories of society, party,
government, yet the peacefulness of social evolution, contrary to Marxs prophesies,
should be ascribed to the empirical, unideological, trademanlike qualities of the rising
middle class. It struggled to shape the turbulent lower levels of society in its own image
by example, by preaching, and propaganda. The main topic was democracy and its
good to remember De Tocquevilles words in Democracy in America: The nations of
our time cannot prevent the conditions of men from being equal; but it depends upon
themselves whether the principle of equality is to lead them to servitude or to freedom,
to knowledge or barbarism, to prosperity or to wretchedness. The English democracy
led people to knowledge and prosperity, not that kind of prosperity Marx prophesized.
Which was the strategy? Mainly the moralizing attitudes of the mind, that is, to mingle
business with moralism that can make good intentions seem hypocritical or brutal. And
it is hypocrisy and rudeness that woke up the criticism of Ruskin and Carlyle. Quite
subtly, the latter called it the Age of Machinery in a philosophical sense, in his book
Signs of Time: It is the Age of Machinery, in every outward and inward sense of that
word; the age which, with its whole undivided might, forwards, teaches, and practices
the great art of adapting means to ends. Nothing is now done directly, or by hand; all is
by rule and calculated contrivance. On every hand, the living artisan is driven from his
workshop to make room for a speedier, inanimate one. [] Not the external and
physical alone is now managed by machinery, but the spiritual also [] Men are
grown mechanical in head and heart, as well as in hand.

III. An Age of Contrasts and Its Key-Concepts

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The Age of Machinery went hand in hand with standardization. The ugly combination
of slate and brick, which became the standard materials for the new working-class
houses, was the cheapest available in quantity. Thomas Carlyle denounced it in moral
terms. However, the worst aspect of town development following the Napoleonic Wars
and in early Victorian times was the overcrowding, especially in back- to-back terraces.
It was only in the second half of the century that legislation was passed to impose
tolerable standards in structure and sanitation, but the absence of any kind of townplanning has left permanent evils. I mention such aspects because there is much of one
side of the Victorian period reflected in housing and planning. Even the houses of the
middle-class seemed spacious, solid, and immensely dignified, though they needed
huge quantities of coal to be heated, since wood had to be imported.

At that time, Englands Empire grew stronger and the colonies offered opportunities to
her citizens. New Zeeland, Australia, Canada, South Africa, and America were places of
emigration and fortune seekers created a new world there. We could draw a parallel
between 17th century England and 19th century England in this respect, and note that
the New Babylon (London) was generating new worlds.

A new concept arose: self-help; it reflected the new values of the great doers, and
features many characters of the period novel, from Dickens to Henry James. This idea
counterbalanced the emerging working-class which through the Trade Union Act of
1871 was recognized as part of the mechanism of modern life. Thus, they were no
longer dependent on humanitarian sentiment that had pervaded the thought of Carlyle
and Ruskin, much indebted to the earlier Romantics and the revival of religious feeling
and speculation about more Christian order of society.

There are other key-concepts that occupied the Victorian stage and the general
literature, like: political economy, utilitarianism, and religious revivalism. Many
critics pointed out that the stress on self-interest of utilitarian political economy was
reinforced by Calvinist-Evangelical emphasis on personal salvation and on the
conviction that poverty was ordained. However, utilitarianism was full of paradoxes and
some of its supporters were also humanitarians (Oscar Wilde used to call them
Philistines). Although based on a minimal view of human nature, the economic man, it
inspired many of the most important reforms of the age in parliamentary and local
government, in the working of the law, in standards of sanitation and in education. The
core concept of utilitarianism was the laissez-faire, theorized by Jeremy Bentham. The
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Benthamite legislator artificially harmonizes interests in order to ensure the greatest

happiness of the greatest number, while economic interests would seem to be selfharmonizing and require little intervention from the legislator. Many thought it full of
contradictions, which made room for stronger determinism. The most incisive critic of
utilitarianism was Dickens who entitled his first chapter of Hard Times that takes place
in a classroom, Murdering the Innocents. There he describes the psychological and
educational ideas which formed the philosophical part of utilitarianism. In fact
utilitarianism had erased from the vocabulary words like conscience, moral sense, love,
and right, because it thought they were fictions, that is vague. Instead, it established a
moral arithmetic by which the greatest happiness of the greatest number might be
calculated, thus making traditional ethics superfluous. Just imagine: one can calculate
happiness, the degree of pleasure or dissatisfaction. You needed much courage to
resist, living outside this caged rationalism, which in psychology was based on the
associations logic deriving from John Locke and David Hartley, and which Bentham
and J. S. Mill incorporated into their scheme of man and of society. According to this
pattern the mind was made up of an increasing complexity of associations originating in
sensations. In this determinism of self-interest there was no room for the growth of
conscience, but this kind of theory was made the substratum of utilitarian political
thought and was an essential part of the theoretical justification for the reform of the law,
and for majority government:
Nature has placed man under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and
pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine
what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the
chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we say,
in all we think; every effort we make to throw off our subjection will serve but to
demonstrate and confirm it The principle of utility recognizes this subjection and
assumes it for the foundation of that system, the object of which is to rear the fabric of
felicity by hands of reason and law. (Introduction to the Principles of Morals and
Legislation).

However, they all claimed that their moral was scientific and banished the old-fashioned
moral. As you can note, in this chain of associations, there is no much room for
imagination and feeling, and so the artists reaction was powerful. One of them was
Oscar Wilde who insisted on free imagination, and the other one was a mathematician,
poet, and humorist: Lewis Carroll, both precursor of the 20th century modernism. Let us
end these few remarks by saying that 19th century tried to be materialist but it could not
hold there were too many tendencies that diversified the mainstream.
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IV. Some Key-Events of Victorian England

As you might know, the 19th century was marked by some essential changes in various
realms. In fact, it was the turning point of modernity, its move towards the 20th century
modernism. You could sense it in the concepts discussed above as well as in the
following brief presentation.
In the realm of human rights the battle waged in the early days of her reign. For
instance, in 1839 the movement known as Chartism started. The document was created
for the Working Mens Association, and was it was mainly the work of William Lovett.
They demanded universal male suffrage, and the authorities dealt with it harshly. Here
are their demands that were later supported by the PM to be, Benjamin Disraeli:
- Institution of a secret ballot;
- General elections be held annually
Members of Parliament not be required to own property
MPs be paid a salary
Electoral districts of equal size
Universal male suffrage
Some believe that the authority reaction was strong because the memory of the
French Revolution was still fresh and they feared a popular upheaval. Though it failed,
because it could not gather either the Parliament support or the middle class approval,
its demands were introduced in the Election Bills of 1864 and 1867. As you may notice
that happened in the middle of Queen Victorias reign, a time when her sympathies
changed, and men like Benjamin Disraeli, a brilliant writer and political thinker was
chancellor of the Exchequer and for a short period of time, Britains Prime Minister, yet
not as liberal and trenchant as Gladstone. In fact he was an open-minded Tory.
Women Movements, who equally demanded woman suffrage and rights for women,
paralleled their claims. In fact, their actions brought them some victories, but only in
house planning for the moment, so at the private level. Women became more and more
outspoken and their liberalism contrasted with the conservative pattern established by
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, the Consort Prince.

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It was also in mid century that Indias administration was taken over by the British
Government, following an army mutiny (1857). England was also involved in the
Crimean War (1854) with no other outcome but its promoting of nurses practices, under
the influence of Florence Nightingale also known as The Lady with the Lamp.
As concerns the prevailing position in the world that England held, there is one event
that reflected it: The Great Exhibition of 1851, initiated by the Prince Consort. He
envisaged a self-financing event, and gave an impetus to the rather reluctant
government to set up a Royal Commission to survey the Exhibition to be held in Hyde
Park. There were 200 projects submitted, but the Commission selected one that proved
to be less feasible because of its const. There came Paxton who had submitted a
project too, but was rejected. Paxton had a good sense of the power of the press and
used it for his ends and finally his project was approved. This gigantic glass and steel
construction, based on a greenhouse pattern (Paxton was a gardener) revolutionized
the world of both construction and architecture, setting an example. The event itself
opened on May 1, 1851, with 17,000 exhibitors from as far away as China, and over 6
million visitors who enjoyed the fantastic display of goods, from silks to clocks, and
furniture to farm machinery. Its worth noting that in fact, it celebrated the Industrial
Revolution. The construction itself, the first example of temporary architecture, was
dismantled and reassembled in Sydenham, South London and it stayed there until
1936, when it burnt down.

V. Some Facts about the Role of London as the Metropolis of the Empire

First, the population increased in the 19th century, from about 1 million to over 6 million
at the end of the century. This fact exceeded London capacity to look after the basic
sanitation and building needs of the inhabitants. A combination of coal-fired stoves and
poor sanitation made the air heavy and foul smelling, which also affected the
Buckingham Palace. London as much as other cities in the country to which a large of
population moved resulted in horrifying slums and cramped areas. The city was
organized into geographical zones based on social class: the poor in the inner city, with
the more fortunate living further away from the city core. However, a providential
engineer appeared: his name was Joseph Bazalgette. He was responsible for the
building of over 2,100 km of tunnels and pipes to divert sewage outside the city. This
helped drop the outbreaks of cholera dramatically. He also built pumping stations and
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designed the fitting out of the Thames project resulting in the Embankment, and some
bridges like Battersea, Hammersmith, and Albert Bridges.

In 1834, the Houses of Parliament at Westminster Palace burned down. They were
gradually replaced by the triumphant mock-Gothic design of Charles Barry and A. W.
Pugin, both stark advocates of Gothicism. Remaining in the same area, Id like to
mention the construction of Big Ben in 1859, one of the symbols of London for almost
one hundred and fifty years.

Londons transport system also expanded. In 1863, the first underground railway was
built from Paddington (the railway station) to Farringdon Road. The project was so
successful, that other lines soon followed.

As to architecture, London became more and more a city of contrasts, from the
Italianate villas to those infamous back-to-backs. However, a project, initiated among
others by William Morris intended to bring rural cottage comfort to the desolate
neighborhoods. The Garden City Movement took roots in London, and many cottages
were built by the city council, yet they failed to provide the comfort they claimed to.

Both the lower and middle-class changed their taste during the century, and the
industrial revolution also meant mass production reflecting in the house decoration,
even in the low-cost cottages I mentioned. The dark crimsons of fabrics and wallpaper,
and the grained and varnished woodwork were replaced by more adventurous color
schemes. Velvet, serge, or damask curtains trimmed with ball fringes, dark green, or
blue, covered with exaggerated damask patterns, and almost hidden by large realistic
paintings in wide, heavy gilded frames were replaced by vivid colors of dazzling effect.
To the end of the century, white was preferred, for instance. The major designer of the
age was William Morris.

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LECTURE 6: EDWARDIAN ENGLAND; ENGLAND DURING AND AFTER THE FIRST

WORLD WAR

When Queen Victoria died in 1901, her eldest son, Edward, Prince of Wells, and his
spouse, Princess Alexandra of Denmark became king and queen. The king to be had
already been popular with artists and liberal minded elite, though he was more inclined
to tradition. His reign, which was of short duration, until 1910, coincided with what we
currently label as fin de sicle or Art Nouveau period in art.
It is interesting to note the reaction of some intellectuals such as Beatrice Webb,
co-founder with her husband of the Fabian Society, I am going to approach below. She
remarks with bitter irony that We are at last free of the funeral. It has been a true
national wake, a real debauch of sentiment and loyalty and a most impressive
demonstration of the whole people in favor of the monarchical principle. The streets are
still black with the multitudes in mourning, from the great ladies in their carriages to the
flower girls, who are furnished with rags of crepe. The king is hugely popular as for
the German Emperor, we all adore him. H. G. Wells, the science-fiction writer felt relief,
while the famous novelist, Henry James, thought Bertie, the new king a vulgarian and
believed Victoria had died after being sickened and humiliated by the Boer War. Young
Winston Churchill, whose father clashed with Bertie in the past, in a mocking letter,
wondered if Bertie would revolutionize his way of life, sell his horses, scatter his Jews or
he would enshrine Reuben Sassoon among the crown jewels.
The Edwardian kings were not merely monarchs at home but they also enjoyed
the title of King-Emperor. Though this is the beginning of the democratic age, the old
web of royal marriages still spread across Europe, making diplomacy familial, which is
no longer a case today, when royalties prefer to marry into commoner families. As for
Bertie, he preferred France to Germany, being suspicious of his German cousin. That
explains Englands choices in the First World War. Actually, Bertie was much known in
Paris, where he frequently visited brothels and caused gossips across European royal
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families. He even appeared in a Toulouse-Lautrec poster with top hat and bulging belly.
This jocular, Falstaffian side of him also made him popular at home, where he had
many mistresses ranging from cockney girls to Mrs. Keppel, a devoted liberal who
influenced his political choices.
As to the political weather during what we call La Belle poque, the English had
to confront with a disastrous war, the Boer War(s); there we could see various
reactions. For instance, Winston Churchill was appalled by the British cruelty against
the native population (Dutch colonists).
Another important figure in British politics in pre-war and post-war England was
Lord Herbert Henry Asquith 1st Earl of Oxford (1852-1928), who was famous for his
academic merit and great appetite for hard work. He was the countrys Prime Minister
from 1908 until 1916, the longest career as PM until Margaret Thatchers. He was a
Liberal and brought about several reforms, particularly those regarding social welfare,
which infuriated the landowners who had to pay heavy taxes.
The period was strongly marked by the Suffragettes Movement that started in
Manchester. As Andrew Marr puts it: The Edwardian suffragette campaign was
extraordinarily violet. It involved arson and death as well as marches and windowsmashing. Members of Emmeline Pankhursts Womens Social and Political Union
disrupted meetings of Liberal politicians, heckled (booed), petitioned and sold their
newspaper on the streets. But they also rushed Parliament, challenged the police with
mass marches which turned violent, smashed huge numbers of shop windows, set fire
to letter-boxes, slashed famous paintings in art galleries, disrupted courtrooms and
deliberately got themselves arrested, refusing to pay fines and therefore facing
imprisonment, during which many went on hunger strike and had to be force fed (The
Making of Modern Britain, p. 56). In a word, many of these rebel girls died for the
cause willingly.
The Fabian Society started as a Fellowship of New Life setting to change the
society gradually by setting a good example for other people. When some of its
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members decided to enter the political arena, they changed their name into Fabian
Society in honor of the Roman general Fabius Maximus, also nicknamed Cunctator,
meaning the Delayer), which meant they chose a strategy of harassment. The first
Fabian Society pamphlets advocating tenets of social justice coincided with the zeitgeist
of Liberal reforms during the early 1900s. The Fabian proposals however were
considerably more progressive than those that were enacted in the Liberal reform
legislation. The Fabians lobbied for the introduction of a minimum wage in 1906, for the
creation of a universal health care system in 1911 and for the abolition of hereditary
peerages in 1917. At the same time, since most of its members belonged to the middleclass and even upper-middle class, they initiated a network of vacation houses,
sometimes old restored mansions, that could be accessed by workers. Their socialism
laid the foundation for the Labour Party that was to be created in 1900. People like
Beatrice and Sidney Webb, George Bernard Shaw, members of the London School of
Economics, Leonard Woolf and others who later formed the Bloomsbury Group, the
finest intellectual movement during interwar England.
Here are some points about entertainment during the period before the First World
War. The former shows that took place in the back of the pub made their way to the city
center and so the music hall won the hearts of the general public and even of the royal
family. A new star system emerged encouraged by the songs that became popular very
quickly among a growing audience that started to buy pianos, music sheets and so
everybody was singing! What is interesting about this phenomenon is that a new
architectural programme emerged: music hall theatres. The greatest architect of music
halls was Frank Matcham. He had a hand in no fewer than 150 theaters between 1879
and 1920. However, most of them were demolished, burned down or were altered
beyond recognition. As Andrew Marr remarks Only a few of the grandest, such as
Londons Coliseum and hippodrome, the Shepherds Bush Empire and the Bristol
Hippodrome remain. [] In Matcham halls, the classic tiers and stalls arrangements of
conventional theatres were copied, and ever more fantastic decorations were added.
His grandest confection, the Coliseum, boasted the first lift in any theatre in the world, a
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revolving stage for horse-races and other spectacles, and a small railway to convey the
King and his party to the royal box. []
There were great singers like Mark Sheridan, famous for his hit I do like to be beside
the seaside, launched in 1909 [see link] but he saw his career on the slide, was booed
and shot himself. Again, there was the famous Harry Houdini, the magician who
became famous after escaping the prison of Sheffield after having been locked with
seven locks. So, the star system started in early 1900s and with it, a new class of
successful and rich artists. Of course, there were no pre-recordings and so singers
would go from theatre to theatre and all depended on the manager and the audience.
Here are two examples. Its a long way to Tipperary, written by a composer and a
semi-professional singer who ran a fish stall, was sheet-music hit when it came out in
1912 and two years later and towards the end of the war was selling and astonishing
10,000 copies every day. Another example is that of Katie Lawrence who sang Daisy,
Daisy, Give me Your answer Do; when she was about to drop it, she heard it hummed
in a London railway station; in fact, it was all over the city. So, it all depended on the
audience who at that time did not have records or CDs; they simply heard the song and
then bought the music. But this is not all, the song is still sung today by both babies and
adults.
However, we must beware golden-ageism. As the novelist Colin MacInnes, a lover of
music hall tradition put it, Theyre [the songs] inhibited emotionally, too limited
intellectually, too frankly commercial in their intentions. I think the highest one can claim
for them is that they are a sort of bastard folk song of an industrial-commercial imperial
age.

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Bibliography:
Histories:
The Pelican Guide to English Literature (vol. 1-6), Pelican Books, 1980
Trevelyan, G. M, A Shortened History of England, Penguin Books, 1987
Dictionaries:
Chambers Biographical Dictionary, New Edition, W&R. Chambers, LTD, 1961
Works of:
Anthony Trollope;
Charles Dickens;
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D. H. Lawrence
John Donne;
John Locke;
John Ruskin;
Lytton Stratchey;
Oscar Wilde;
Thomas More
William Morris;
William Shakespeare;
William Wordsworth
Books:
Uglow, Jenny, A Gambling Man; Charles II and the Restoration, Faber and Faber, 2009
Marr, Andrew, The Making of Modern Britain, from Queen Victoria to VE Day, Pan
Books, 2009
Shelley, C, Henry, Inns and Taverns of Old London, www.buildinghistory.org

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