THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE AND THE PURITAN AGE

 The English Renaissance is a period covers the whole 16^th century and part of the 17^th up to the Restoration of the monarchy.

ESSENTIAL HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL BACKGROUND

After the end of the Civil war between York and Lancaster in 1485, ashended to the throne Henry VII and started the Tudor dynasty.

New classes bagan to emerge: the gentry, the yeomen and the merchants. This king never summoned the parliament.

After his death his son Henry VIII became king, and followed imperialistic dreams. He was married with Catherine of Aragon (spanish and Catholic). He asked the Pope to declare his marriage null, and the Pope refused. So Henry divorced all the same, and proclamed himself Head of the Church of England, breaking with the Church of Rome. He married Ane Boleyn, he took hold all the possediments of the Catholic Church in England, and with the Oath of Supremacy all Englishmen accepted his authority. He had other five wives after Anne.

After his death the religious struggles went on with an alternation of protestant (Edward VI) and Catholic Kings (Mary Tudor), who persecuted Catholics and then Protestants.

ELIZABETHAN AGE

Eloizabeth I, daughter of Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII, came to the throne in 1558,she restablished Anglican Church, and put it in the middle between Catholic Churc and Reformed one. With a second Act of Supremacy restated the indipendence of the Church of England, and thanks to her policy of compromise in religious field, she ensured England internal peace and encreased wealth and commercial, encouragind some new companies and creating a powerful fleet.

Her Catholic cousin Mary Stuart, next in succession after her was a threat, and after holding her for nineteen years, she condamned her to death.

In 1588 started the war against Spain, but Elizabeth's fleed won the spanish “Invincible Armada”.

JACOBEAN AGE

When Elizabeth died in 1603 the thron passed to James VI of Scotland, Mary Stuart's son. He ruled both England as James I and Scotland as James VI. The two country remaned sapetate with two different Parliament. He was the first king of Stuart dynasty. James believe in Divine Right: a king answered for his actions only to God . James was an Anglican king, he discontented both Catholics and the Puritans. A group of puritans persecuted salied on the board “Mayflower”, arrived in America and found the city of New Playmouth.

THE AGE OF MILTON

James I's son, Charles I, became king in 1625, he tried to be an absolute king, and he summoned Parliament only when he need money. The king refused the Petition of Rights (taxes approved by Parliament: no one could be imprisoned without a regular trial), and called another Parliament in 1640 to face religious trubles in Scotland (it was caled Short Parliament because after only a month it was dissolved). He summoned again in the same year the Parliament (long Parliament) because he need money, but it refused it.

In 1641 a ribellion in Catholic Ireland was military repressed, and in the next year a civil war broke out: on one side there were the Royalist or Cavallier, supported by the Crown and the Anglican Church. On the other side there were the Parliamentarians, or Roundheads, supported by the Puritan like Oliver Cromwell.When Puritans won Charles I was beheaded. England became a Parliamentary Republic: the Commonwealth, and was ruled by the commons. Every form of amusement was prohibited. In 1653 Parliment was dissolved, Cromwell became Lord Protector: the contry was under his direct rule. Puritan rule was brief. In 1660 Parliament recalled king Charles II, who restored the Church of England, and granted freedom of religion to Puritans and Catholics (act of Uniformity, 1662). with the Declaration of Indulgence he suspended penal lawa against Protstant and Catholics.