The reign of I 1 en ry I V. ( 1399 - 1 113 ) was marked by a strict adherence to constitutional forms. by frequent A. and by the persecu tion of the 1.011ards. As he owed his title wholly to Parliament, Henry felt obliged to pay to it due deferents.; and, as he had received aid as a champion of the Church, lie thought it necessary to pers•eute heresy. The statute De 11 cret iro Com burendo was pawned against the Lollar& in 1401, :tad in the ensuing years many were burned. The four rebellions were eaused by the adherents of Richard. The most, noted was the conspiracy of the Earl of Northumberland, his son. Henry Percy. surnamed `Hotspur; and Owen This was crushed in the great bottle of Shrews bury 11403 . The reigns ni henry ry (I 3-re2) and Ilenry VI. (1122-611 were notable mainly for the continuation of the Hundred Veers' War. henry V. claimed, with pradtieally no right. the French (Town. The claim wary popular in England, as the ear was looked upon as a national one. The 'Irilliant h•tery of Agineonr1 (1115) flat ti red t he I t lona I pride. In 1120, by the Treaty of I kury was declared heir to the French throne His ..anly death. leaving only in infarct Il•nry VI., frustrated all the htyva of the Eovli although 11 e royal infant was a f and the English held most of the french kilted The marvelous career of Joan re (9.v I and a general national rising in ['ranee eau (el the loss of gill the Freneh posses sions except. Calais in 1453. The mental inca pacity of henry VI. and the ill success of the French War caused the House of York to put forward a claim to the throne, which resulted in the War of the Roses. (Sec ROSES, WARS OF THE.) We cannot go into the details of the war, in which there were frequently apparent recon ciliations and alternate victories. Edward, Duke of York, was proclaimed King. as Edward IV.. in 1461, and ruled until 1483, although Henry VI. was restored for a time in 1470-71, through the efforts of the Earl of Warwick, the great king maker. Hi successor was his young son, Edward V.. but the throne was almost immediately usurped by Richard brother of Edward IV. In 1485 Richard met his death on Bosworth Field. when Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, in vaded England. The long war had thus caused two changes of dynasty—from Lancaster to York, and then again to Lancaster or Tudor. Almost all of the old nobility were destroyed while fight ing on one side or the other. The Crown obtained great wealth through confiscation of the prop erty of its opponents, and was thus rendered inde pendent of Parliamentary grants. Consequently, Parliaments were seldom summoned. There was much illegal taxation, in the form of enforced 'benevolences.' or gifts from the subjects. This period paved the way for the despotism of the Tudors.
With the union of the houses of Lancaster and York by marriage under Henry VII. (1485 '509), the modern period begins for England. The great nobles having exterminated themselves in the 1Vars of the Roses. during which, wars the House of Commons had become the mere tool of opposing factions, there was room for that in creased strength of royal power which marks the beginning of the modern epoch. By enforcing the laws against livery and maintenance, Henry VII. curbed the nobles, while his court of Star Chamber gave justice to the weak against the strong, in cases which the ordinary courts could not reach. He levied illegal taxes, called 'benevo lences: from the richer classes without consent of Parliament. Although disturbed by invasions of pretenders to the throne, his reign was one of peace and economy. In 1497 John Cabot sailed from ,Bristol and secured for England the credit of the discovery (or rediscovery) of the main land of "North America. 11 was during Henry
VI l.'s reign that the Renaissance began to pre vail in England. which had not developed there as early as on the Continent. owing to the un settled eondit ions resulting from the constant civic strife of the previous reigns. Henry V111.*s reign ushered in the Reformation.
The origin of the Reformation in England was the divorce which henry V111. (1509-47) desired to have from his wife. Catharine of Aragon. Fail ing to secure this front Pope Clement VII., who was under Spanish influence, be had the English clergy and some of the European universities de clare the marriage void. and married Anne Bo leyn. Ile found in his able Thomas Cromwell. in Arehbishop Crammer of Canterbury, and in a saser•ient Parliament. which sat from 1529 to 1530, the willing agents of his schemes. Parliament passed a series of acts completely separating the Church of England from Rome. renalering the inferior clergy amenable to the civil courts. and placing the laws, as well as the ac of the clerked (salvoes' on limier the King's control. Chief of these acts was the Act of Suprem acy, in 1535, appointing the King 'Protector and only Supreme Head' of the Church of England. In 1536, the smaller monasteries were suppressed and a translation of the Bible was authorized; in 1538 relics and images were destroyed and in 1531) the greater monasteries were suppressed. Nevertheless, the Six Articles of 1539 enforced conformity with the chief doctrines of the Cat ho lie Church. V111.'s ecclesiastical policy was intimately connected with his numerous mar riages, and resulted in changes far beyond what he or his advisers contemplated. His own motives 'were mainly selfish and sensual. He squan dered his father's enormous hoard, plundered the Church, debased coinage, and left the kingdom poor. The confiscated Church property he be stowed on favorites, founding a new aristocracy and gentry, who were the later mainstay of the Tudor dynasty. But these were harder masters than the conservative monasteries, and inclosed the common pasture and arable lands into sheep walks, turning out the peasantry. and other wise disregarding their time-honored customs. This made the Reformation unpopular with the masses.
Under Henry's successor, Edward VI. (1547 53), a minor, the reformation of doctrine fol lowed. The Book of Common Prayer (1549, 1553) established a uniform service in the English language. and the Forty-two Articles (1551) were even Calvinistic in tone. The un scrupulous ministers and courtiers, who used the Reformation only for private gains, made it still more unpopular. Two great rebellions were sub dued by the aid of foreign mercenaries—Jack Kett's rebellion against the inclosure of the com mon lands in Norfolk, and another in Cornwall and Devon against the Reformation itself. Under Mary (1553-58). a devout Catholic, the reaction came. The Parliament of 1553 restored Catholic worship, but was unwilling to return confiscated Church property, to tolerate the subordination of England to Spain by Mary's proposed marriage to Philip. An attempted rebellion under Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Duke of Suffolk was suppressed, and the Queen married Philip of Spain. In 1555 Parliament repealed the laws of Henry VIII., re uniting the Church of England with Rome. In the persecution of the Protestants that followed, nearly 300 victims are said to have been burned, Bishops Ridley and Latimer and Archbishop Cranme• among them. The political character of the religious strife of the times did much to enhance its bitterness.