England and the New Learning 283 by means of the printing-press, the increased intercourse among nations which followed upon the consolidation of the great states of France and Spain,- all these things combined to bring about the spiritual and intellectual awakening of western Europe. Arch During the civil wars intellectual interests had little chance, but early in the sixteenth century the new learning made itself felt. Although the English Renaissance. received its impulse from Italy, it at once assumed a character of its own. It was less concerned with culture as such, it was more moral and practical. Numbered among its patrons were the great men of the time, bishops Warham and Wolsey and Henry VIII. At Oxford The Oxford a remarkable group of scholars was gathered, and under reformers. their influence education was transformed. In the life and work of Colet, Erasmus, and More the diverse aspects of the new learning found expression. In Colet was typified the religious rationalism of the new movement; Erasmus reflected its more purely intellectual character; while in More, all its vigor and audacity of thought were brought to bear on the practical questions of the day. Utopia, More's most famous work, was a satire on the defects of English society veiled under a description of the condition of life in "Nowhere." More's views were strangely at odds with the tendencies of his age; but progress since his time has been mainly along the lines which he indicated. Renaissance and the The promise of the Renaissance was overwhelmed before The it had reached its fulfilment by the fierce tide of religious. revolution. Reason and reform were trampled under foot Reformaby dogma and fanaticism. During the middle years of the tion. century, the influence of the new learning was shown chiefly in the great attention given to education. The sons and Source-Book, daughters of the upper classes were carefully trained, and Pp. 193-196. the founding of grammar schools1 under Henry VIII 1 Over fifty grammar schools were established before the end of the reign of Henry VIII, and Edward VI endowed twenty more from the plunder of the chantries. Green, pp. 398-401, 420-442. and Edward VI testified to an increased interest in the education of the children of the middle class. The settlement of the religious question under Elizabeth left men free to consider other things, and the earlier revival of letters bore fruit in the wonderful outburst of literary activity which marked the close of the century. The vigor of the national life was reflected in the originality of thought, the boldness of conception, that characterized the world of letters. Its restless curiosity, the many-sidedness of its interests, found expression in a literature which included the Novum Organum of Bacon and the Ecclesiastical Polity of Hooker, Spenser's Faerie Queene, and Shakespeare's Hamlet. CHAPTER X THE PURITAN REVOLUTION Books for Consultation SOURCES Calendars of State Papers. Parliamentary History. Journals of the House of Commons. Laud, Diary. Strafford, Letters. Cromwell, Letters and Speeches (Carlyle). Clarendon, History of the Great Rebellion. Ludlow, Memoirs. Hutchinson, Life of Colonel Hutchinson. Letters and Papers of the Verney Family. Prothero, Select Statutes. Gardiner, Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution. SPECIAL AUTHORITIES Gardiner, History of England from 1603-1642, History of the Great Civil War, History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate. Jenks, Constitutional Experiments of the Commonwealth. Hallam, Constitutional History of England. Forster, Sir John Eliot. Masson, Life of Milton. Traill, Strafford. Goldwin Smith, Essays on Pym and Cromwell (in Three English See p. 236. Bright, II, 581-584. James I (1603-1625). — Mary Stuart's son succeeded Elizabeth on the throne without dispute. The will of Henry VIII was quietly ignored. There was doubt as to the legitimacy of the heir to the crown in the Suffolk line; the Scotch king was a Protestant, his hereditary right was undoubted, the union of Scotland and England under one crown promised to put an end to the long-standing enmity between the two kingdoms. The accession of the house of Stuart1 marks the close of a century of personal rule based on public opinion, and the opening of a century of conflict for supremacy between crown and Parliament. England had acquiesced in the Tudor despotism, because in the royal power lay the only means for securing peace at home and for carrying on the struggle against Spain and the papacy. Even after the danger was passed, habit and respect for Elizabeth still held in check the growing spirit of independence. But now the nation was ready and determined to take more active part in the control of affairs. James I came to the throne imbued with a belief in the divine right of kings, and he held exalted ideas of the royal prerogative. The great power of the Tudors, the circumstances of his accession, the attitude of the party by James and the Religious Issue 287 Puritan which he was surrounded,- all combined to strengthen him in a conception of the English kingship as something above the law. Moreover, he insisted, as the Tudors had never done, on a formal recognition of his claims. There was little in the Stuart king to make his preten- Gardiner, sions acceptable to the English people. He was of an alien and unpopular race. His undignified bearing was in sharp contrast to the royal carriage of his predecessor. His shrewd sense and rough wit could not make amends for the coarseness of his uncouth speech, and the national sense of decency was shocked by the grossness and unveiled immorality of his court. James and the Religious Issue. - The fundamental differences between the king and the people in respect to the power of the crown were certain to cause trouble, but James precipitated the conflict by his treatment of the religious situation. Green, PP. 474-480, 482, 483. Men were beginning to think for themselves in matters of conscience; they were no longer willing to change their beliefs at the dictation of the ruler. Deepening religious feeling meant increased difference of opinion. At the death of Elizabeth the royal supremacy and the ecclesiastical hierarchy were accepted by the bulk of the nation, but within the Church two parties were becoming sharply defined. One, the High Church party, laid great stress Parties in upon Episcopacy and external forms. The other, the the Church. Puritan party, which included a large part of the laity and many of the lower clergy, thought more of conduct than of church government, and desired greater simplicity of worship. Nowhere was there a spirit of toleration. One church for all was the conception of the seventeenth century as it had been of preceding centuries. In Elizabeth's reign religious differences were silenced in the face of national danger, but now there was no moderating influence present among the people. The several parties looked forward to the coming of James with deep interest. Roman Catholics hoped for |