Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- TRANSLATORS' PREFACE
- Contents
- BOOK I THE CHIEF CRISES IN THE EARLIER HISTORY OF ENGLAND
- BOOK II ATTEMPTS TO CONSOLIDATE THE KINGDOM INDEPENDENTLY IN ITS TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL RELATIONS
- BOOK III QUEEN ELIZABETH. CLOSE CONNEXION OF ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH AFFAIRS
- BOOK IV FOUNDATION OF THE KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN. FIRST DISTURBANCES UNDER THE STUARTS
- INTRODUCTION
- CHAP. I James VI of Scotland: his accession to the throne of England
- CHAP. II First measures of the new reign
- CHAP. III The Gunpowder Plot and its consequences
- CHAP. IV Foreign policy of the next ten years
- CHAP. V Parliaments of 1610 and 1614
- CHAP. VI Survey of the literature of the epoch
- BOOK V DISPUTES WITH PARLIAMENT DURING THE LATER YEARS OF THE REIGN OF JAMES I AND THE EARLIER YEARS OF THE REIGN OF CHARLES I
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- TRANSLATORS' PREFACE
- Contents
- BOOK I THE CHIEF CRISES IN THE EARLIER HISTORY OF ENGLAND
- BOOK II ATTEMPTS TO CONSOLIDATE THE KINGDOM INDEPENDENTLY IN ITS TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL RELATIONS
- BOOK III QUEEN ELIZABETH. CLOSE CONNEXION OF ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH AFFAIRS
- BOOK IV FOUNDATION OF THE KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN. FIRST DISTURBANCES UNDER THE STUARTS
- INTRODUCTION
- CHAP. I James VI of Scotland: his accession to the throne of England
- CHAP. II First measures of the new reign
- CHAP. III The Gunpowder Plot and its consequences
- CHAP. IV Foreign policy of the next ten years
- CHAP. V Parliaments of 1610 and 1614
- CHAP. VI Survey of the literature of the epoch
- BOOK V DISPUTES WITH PARLIAMENT DURING THE LATER YEARS OF THE REIGN OF JAMES I AND THE EARLIER YEARS OF THE REIGN OF CHARLES I
Summary
Under no dynasty in the world have great national changes been so dependent on the personal aims of princes as in England under the Tudors. Just as all Henry VIII's subsequent proceedings were determined by the affair of the divorce, so also the policy of his three children was due to the relations into which they were thrown by their birth.
No one however could derive the course of English history at this epoch from this cause alone. How could Henry VIII have even thought of detaching his kingdom from the Roman See, but for the ancient and deep-seated national opposition to its encroachments? But the nation had also for ages had manifold and deep sympathies with Rome; and Mary Tudor allied herself with these. Together with subjective personal agencies, national influences of universal prevalence were at work. The different leanings of the sovereigns appear as exponents of opposite tendencies already existing in the nation. The struggle between these was decided when, as in the reign of Elizabeth, the most vigorous nature combined with the most powerful interests and the most influential motives to gain the mastery, although others of a different character were still by no means suppressed.
Now however the energetic race of the Tudors had disappeared from the throne. By the right of natural inheritance another family ascended it, which had its roots and associations in Scotland, the crown of which country it united with that of England.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- A History of EnglandPrincipally in the Seventeenth Century, pp. 359 - 360Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1875