The Story of Britain Read online

  If James had been a wise general he would have given the order to retreat; instead, he thought only of glory.

  “A king never retreats!” he shouted, then gave a great war cry and led his army back into battle.

  The fighting soon came to an end. And when the smoke cleared from the battlefield, it revealed a terrible sight. The Scottish army was destroyed. Five thousand Scots lay dead on the field of Flodden. And among them, still clutching his sword, lay King James IV.

  Young Henry VIII

  HENRY VII had two sons, Arthur and Henry. Arthur was the elder, and was expected to inherit his father’s throne. But he fell ill and died, so Henry became king instead.

  Henry looked and behaved exactly as a king should. He was tall and handsome, wrote poetry and music, and was a fearless fighter and a fine sportsman. He seemed to have enough energy for ten men. He could spend hours hunting with his friends, and in tournaments rode faster and charged harder than anyone else. At the end of the day, when other fighters slumped to the grass exhausted, Henry roared for more opponents. When the tournament was over, his courtiers begged for rest, but Henry never allowed them to stop.

  “Music!” he bellowed.

  And his musicians stayed up late into the night, playing song after song while the king and his friends feasted, danced and drank.

  Thanks to his father, Henry VIII didn’t have to worry about money and could live as grandly as any king in Europe. He hated the Scots having a better navy than his, so he ordered two great ships of his own, the Mary Rose, and the Henry Grace à Dieu, which everyone called the Great Harry, after their king. He hated Francis I having all the best artists, so he persuaded the painter Hans Holbein to come and work in London. Holbein painted a portrait of Henry standing proudly in his royal clothes with his chest puffed out and one hand on his dagger.

  Francis and Henry, the finest young kings in Europe, were always competing. They led their kingdoms to war against each other, and it was during a sea battle against the French that the Mary Rose capsized and sank, drowning every sailor. They didn’t stop competing, even when they made peace and agreed to meet at a field near Calais, where each side would put up tents.

  “My tents must be the most magnificent!” Henry shouted.

  So his designers planned tents of gold cloth with silver poles. But of course Francis wanted his tents to be the most splendid as well. When the day of the meeting arrived, the field was so covered with gorgeous tents, banners and flags that it became known as the Field of the Cloth of Gold.

  Back in England, Henry planned a great palace that he called Nonsuch, because he wanted there to be none such palace in the whole world. And he threw himself into extravagant pleasure, gathering a group of favourites called “the minions” who hunted and feasted with him. He wrote more songs, one of which, “Greensleeves”, is still famous today. In fact, with all his hunting, feasting and music, Henry hardly had any time left to run his kingdom, so he had to find someone else to run it for him. Fortunately he chose a brilliant politician who was only too pleased to make the decisions Henry couldn’t be bothered with.

  But Henry’s minister wasn’t a great lord. The second most powerful man in England and Wales was a butcher’s son from Ipswich. His name was Thomas Wolsey.

  Cardinal Wolsey

  IN those days, if you didn’t come from a great family, the only way to become rich and powerful was to join the Church, so Thomas Wolsey became a priest. Because he was clever and ambitious, people soon noticed him and asked him to help with their affairs. He managed things so well that they gave him more and more important jobs, and eventually one of them introduced him to the king.

  Wolsey was brilliant at flattering the boastful young king.

  “No one is better at tournaments than Your Majesty,” he told him. “No one writes better music than Your Majesty. Anything is possible for Your Majesty.”

  Gradually Henry left more and more of his business to Wolsey. It was Wolsey who read the king’s accounts and answered the king’s letters. It was Wolsey who decided who got which job in the government.

  In return, Henry made Wolsey archbishop of York, the second most important bishop in England, and then allowed him to become a cardinal, the highest rank in the Church under the pope. Lords and earls who had once sneered at the butcher’s boy bowed when he passed in his carriage. And as he grew more powerful, Wolsey became rich. His cardinal’s robes were made of red silk, and the rings on his fingers were studded with rubies. He built a palace at Hampton Court that was grand enough to make even the king jealous.

  But then, at the height of Wolsey’s power, everything went wrong.

  All over Europe cardinals like Thomas Wolsey lived in palaces and dressed in fine clothes. In Rome the pope behaved like an emperor, dining off golden dishes. But some people started to mutter that it was wrong for men of the Church to enjoy such power and wealth. Shouldn’t holy men be humble?

  “Jesus Christ was poor,” they muttered. “Jesus didn’t eat off golden dishes.”

  People had complained about the Church in the past. Long before, an Englishman called John Wyclif had started a campaign to make the Church more humble. He told Christians not to listen to everything the pope said, but to read the Bible instead. But he and his followers, the Lollards, were silenced.

  This time, though, the complaints grew louder and louder, until they turned into the greatest argument Europe had ever known – an argument that split the Church, caused wars for the next two hundred years, and still leaves the continent divided today. It became known as “the Reformation”.

  The Reformation

  THE Reformation began in Germany. One day, a priest called Martin Luther marched up to the church at Wittenberg, took out a piece of paper and nailed it to the church door. The piece of paper listed everything Luther thought wrong about the Church. He hated its love of finery. He hated its dishonesty and greed. Christians believed that if they did something wrong, they would be sent to hell when they died. So the Church sold them pardons, telling them they could do what they liked and still go to heaven.

  “Only God can pardon people!” Luther said.

  The Church told everyone to do as the pope commanded.

  “The pope is a man, just like any other,” Luther said. “If you want to know what God wants, read the Bible!”

  Most people couldn’t read the Bible, because it was written in Latin and the pope wouldn’t let anyone translate it. Many years before, John Wyclif and the Lollards had wanted to translate the Bible into English, but the pope had stopped them.

  Luther thought that was wrong.

  “The Bible is God’s word,” he said. “Everyone should be able to read it in their own language.” And he translated the Bible into German so it could be used in churches all over Germany.

  The pope was furious with Martin Luther, and so were many Christians. The Church ought to be rich and glorious, they said – it was God’s kingdom on earth. They loved the Latin Bible and the sound of Latin prayers. They loved the idea that all over Europe, from Madrid to Glasgow, worshippers believed the same things and prayed in the same words. Kingdoms were divided, but everyone in Europe belonged to the Church – French and Italian, Portuguese and Irish, German and Swede. And the pope, their leader, was God’s representative on earth. Disobeying him was like disobeying God himself!

  Because of Luther’s protest, he and his followers became known as Protestants. The argument between Protestants and Catholics became more and more bitter until towns were divided and families split apart.

  The pope called a council, or diet, at the town of Worms, in Germany. He wanted Luther to admit he had been wrong, but Luther refused. “I do not trust either in the pope or in councils,” he told the Diet, “I am bound by the Scriptures. I cannot and will not retract anything. Here I stand. I can do no other.”

  Nothing is more bad-tempered than an argument about religion, because what people believe matters more to them than anything. It matters so much t
hat they will fight, kill or die for their faith – as people still do today.

  The Protestants became more extreme. They declared that everyone was the same in God’s eyes, from the humblest beggar to the pope himself. A French Protestant called John Calvin went even further.

  “Why not do without the pope altogether?” he demanded. “And get rid of bishops and priests as well!”

  “And if we’re all equal,” some Protestants muttered, “why not get rid of kings too?”

  At last the Church split in two. Luther declared he wouldn’t obey the pope any more, and began his own Protestant Church which most people in Germany and Scandinavia joined. Calvin went to Geneva, in Switzerland, and started a Church of his own. Meanwhile, in countries where Protestants and Catholics lived alongside one another, like France, arguing turned into fighting.

  For a long time, though, people in Britain and Ireland didn’t seem interested in the Reformation. An Englishman called William Tyndale translated the Bible into English, but that got him into trouble and he ran away to Germany. King Henry VIII wrote an article in favour of the pope, and was given the title Fidei Defensor – “Defender of the Faith”. FID DEF or FD, is still printed on British coins today. All over England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland, people went on praying in Latin and obeying the pope. In fact, the Reformation might never have reached Britain at all, if King Henry hadn’t begun it himself.

  It wasn’t because he agreed with Martin Luther. He quarrelled with the pope because his marriage ran into trouble. And to Henry that meant only one thing: he had to get rid of the pope.

  The King’s Great Matter

  WHEN Henry’s elder brother, Arthur, died, Henry married his widow, a Spanish princess called Catherine of Aragon. Spain was the most powerful country in the world then – a bit like America today – and it seemed a good idea for the king of England to keep in with Spain. Henry and Catherine were married for many years, and had a daughter called Mary. But as time went by, Henry started to complain.

  “She’s ugly,” he grumbled. “She’s boring. She spends all her time in church.”

  Like most Spaniards, Catherine was a devout Catholic and hated Protestants.

  Thomas Wolsey noticed the king eyeing the pretty young women at court. One of them in particular caught his fancy. Her name was Anne Boleyn, and she had just come back from France, where she had picked up all the latest French fashions. She was clever, she was funny, and she had beautiful auburn hair.

  By this time, twenty years after becoming king, Henry was no longer young or handsome. He had grown fat from years of feasting. Each spring he had to buy a new suit of armour because he could no longer squeeze into the old one. His temper had got worse, and he glanced suspiciously about the court as if he no longer trusted anybody.

  Wolsey knew why Henry was so angry with the queen. She hadn’t given him a son to rule after him when he died. Henry wanted the Tudors to rule for generations, like the Plantagenets.

  “If I divorced Catherine,” he muttered, “I could marry someone else and have a son.” And he licked his lips and glanced at pretty Anne Boleyn.

  But in those days divorce was hardly ever allowed.

  “Quite impossible, Your Majesty,” Wolsey said. “The pope would never permit it.”

  Henry swung his bristling red beard towards Wolsey and his piggy little eyes flashed nastily. “You once told me anything was possible,” he hissed. “See to it!”

  Wolsey did his best. He wrote to the pope, pointing out that men weren’t usually allowed to marry their brothers’ widows, so maybe Henry’s marriage to Catherine didn’t count and he was free to marry again. But the pope refused to listen and Henry was stuck with Catherine.

  Then Henry’s friends – who were jealous of Wolsey – whispered that Wolsey had let the king down, and Henry grew angry.

  “Get out of my sight!” he roared at Wolsey one day.

  In a panic Wolsey did everything he could to get back in the king’s favour. He even gave Henry his great palace at Hampton Court. But it was no good. Cardinal Wolsey, who had once been the second most powerful man in England, was arrested for high treason. On his way back to London to stand trial, he fell ill.

  “If I had served God as diligently as I have served the king,” he muttered sadly, “he would not have given me over in my grey hairs.”

  But at least he died before Henry could execute him.

  “Someone must think of a way I can divorce,” said the king.

  Then a young man called Thomas Cromwell stepped forward. Thomas Cromwell had been a servant of Wolsey’s. He was very quiet, with cold black eyes, and most people were afraid of him.

  “The pope won’t let you divorce Catherine,” he murmured to Henry, “but why must you obey the pope?”

  “You sound like a Protestant!” roared Henry, thrusting out his beard.

  Cromwell just smiled coldly. “If the pope is no longer head of the Church,” he said, “you can be head of the Church yourself. You can divorce Catherine and marry Anne Boleyn. If you become head of the Church, you can do anything you like!”

  The Dissolution of the Monasteries

  KINGS had always been jealous of the Church. Hundreds of years before, Henry II had wanted to run it, which was why he argued with Thomas Becket. Now, thanks to the Reformation, Henry VIII had a chance to take it over completely. England became Protestant not because ordinary people wanted it, but to give the king more power.

  Henry appointed Thomas Cromwell his new minister, and got Parliament to pass an Act of Supremacy that made him head of the Church in England and Wales. He divorced Queen Catherine and married Anne Boleyn. He chose a Protestant called Thomas Cranmer as archbishop of Canterbury, and ordered the Bible to be translated into English.

  As head of the Church, he also took over the Church’s property. And that gave Henry and Thomas Cromwell an idea. They couldn’t sell cathedrals or seize village churches. But monasteries were a different matter.

  Before the Reformation, England was full of monasteries, and everyone was used to the sight of monks with their robes and shaven heads. Monks were supposed to live simply, like Jesus Christ, but in fact, monasteries were rich. They owned huge estates, and when people died they left them money so the monks would pray for them – and that way monasteries grew even richer.

  “If you shut them down,” Cromwell whispered to Henry, “you can take their lands and sell them. All their wealth will be yours!”

  Henry had used up all his father’s money by now, so he jumped at the chance to become rich again. Cromwell passed an Act to close the monasteries and take their land, and royal officers went from one to another, driving out monks and locking doors. They counted up the wealth of each monastery, its income, gold and silver. Ancient halls, where monks had lived for centuries, were stripped of their valuables and fell silent.

  The monasteries weren’t particularly popular, but that didn’t mean people wanted to shut them down. They were used to the sight of monks visiting town or working in the fields. For centuries they had been woken by the sound of bells ringing and the chanting of monks at morning prayers.

  “The monks used to pray for us!” they said.

  Some people in the north started a rebellion. All their lives they had honoured monks as holy men; now they were told they were frauds. All their lives they had obeyed the pope; now they were told he was a villain. Surely something was wrong! They didn’t want to be Protestant. They wanted the king to put things back the way they had been before. Calling themselves pilgrims – people who were making a journey in God’s service – they began a rebellion that became known as the Pilgrimage of Grace.

  Then Henry showed how cruel he had become. He pretended to come to an agreement with the rebels, then arrested and killed them. And he went on closing monasteries until none were left.

  Hardly anyone was brave enough to challenge the king after that. Only one man dared stick up for the old Church and the old Catholic ways – Henry’s chancellor,
Thomas More. More was famous all over Europe for his wisdom and learning, and he didn’t think it right for Henry to take over the Church. He knew the king might kill him if he complained, but decided to stand up for his principles. So he resigned as lord chancellor and refused to work for Henry any more. Henry arrested More and sentenced him to death.

  The night before he was killed, More wrote a letter to his daughter Margaret. “Farewell, my dear child, and pray for me,” he wrote, “and I shall for you and all your friends, that we may merrily meet in heaven.”

  The next morning, he was taken to a platform outside the Tower of London. He saw the executioner waiting on the platform, holding the axe, but stayed calm.

  “See me safe up,” he joked to the soldier who helped him climb the ladder to the platform. “As for coming down, I can shift for myself!”

  Henry didn’t even feel guilty about killing Thomas More. He ruled both kingdom and Church, both what people did and what they thought. What Cromwell said had come true: he could do anything he liked!

  Henry’s Wives

  QUEEN Anne Boleyn became pregnant. At the time for her to give birth, people gathered in the corridors of the palace, hoping Henry would get the son he wanted. But when a child’s cry was heard, a rumour quickly spread along the corridors and around the streets of London.

  “A girl! The queen’s given birth to a girl!”

  The child had auburn hair, like her mother. They called her Elizabeth, but Henry would hardly even look at her. He didn’t want a girl; he wanted a son to follow him as king! When Anne Boleyn returned to court, Henry complained that her looks had faded, and snapped at her when she spoke.