The Reign of Elizabeth, 1558-1603

Prof. J. B. Black

• Publisher: Papamoa Press
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781789121339
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

First published in 1936, this is a classic account of the reign of Elizabeth Tudor during the Sixteenth Century. The book provides a comprehensive account of the political, economic, social, literary, artistic, scientific, and cultural features that made it one of the richest periods in British history. It ranges from the Religious Settlement, England's relations with France, and the succession to Catholic and Puritan challenges to the establishment, the execution of Mary Stuart, the Armada, the Irish problem, and the later years of Elizabeth's reign.
"Professor Black brought to his task the knowledge and experience of a scholar who is a specialist in the period, the balance and wisdom of a philosophical mind, and the skill of a distinguished stylist. Need one be surprised that his book is not merely a first-rate text-book but a work which any serious-minded person will read with abounding pleasure."—Sunday Times
"This volume is one of those books which are so packed with information that its value can only be discovered in use. For those about to make a serious study of a difficult and complex period of English history it should be a most useful introduction, for Professor Black has the rare virtue of being impartial, even on the most controversial topics….The best advanced text-book of the Elizabethan period that has yet been written."—Listener
"Professor Black's book is a solid achievement of sound and accurate scholarship, whose clearness of thought and balance in judgement make it a pleasure to read."—Oxford Magazine
"A most moderate, well-balanced, and ably written work, which should form a useful corrective to the many biased and unscholarly publications associated with the period it covers."—Glasgow Herald

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{1} Anne Boleyn was executed on 19 May 1536.

{2} The best account of Elizabeth’s youth is L. Wiesener’s La Jeunesse d’Élisabeth d’Angleterre, 1878, trans. C. M. Yonge, 2 vols., 1879; but cf. J. E. Neale, Elizabeth, 1934, chaps, i, ii.

{3} i.e. release, a corruption of quietus est.

{4} ‘Fully conscious of his own dignity, he regarded princes not as his sons but as his subjects. . . . He told the ambassadors that the place of kings was at the feet of the pope, from whom they should receive their laws as his pupils. . . . The utterances of his volcanic nature were as sudden as the eruptions of Vesuvius.’ (L. Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. xiv, ch. iii, pp. 69–70.)

{5} ‘It is true that in the proclamation by the queen “that no one was to dare (of his own authority) … to alter the present state of religion”, the phrase “of his own authority” is construed to imply that the queen, at her own time, will herself give the authority.’ (Michiel Surian to the Doge and Senate, 10 Dec. 1558: Venetian Calendar, 1557–8.)

{6} The ‘etc.’ had indeed been used by Mary until Wyatt’s rebellion; but with the opposite intention, i.e. as a means of dropping the supreme headship.

{7} The Catholics are very fearful of the measures to be taken in this parliament.’ (De Feria to the king, 31 Jan. 1559: Span. Cal., 1558–67.)

{8} F. W. Maitland, Collected Papers, iii, pp. 185–204.

{9} i.e. Reginald Pole, who died on 19 Nov. 1558.

{10} The italics are ours.

{11} Span. Cal., 1558–67, p. 39.

{12} ‘The English common people consist of farmers, shepherds, and artisans. The two former are Catholics. Of the others none are schismatic except those who have sedentary occupations, as weavers and shoemakers and some idle people about the Court. The remote parts of the kingdom are still very averse from heresy, as Wales, Devon, Westmorland, Cumberland, and Northumberland. As the cities in England are few and small, and as there is no heresy in the country, nor even in the remoter cities, the firm opinion of those capable of judging is that hardly one per cent, of the English people is infected.’ (Cath. Res. Soc. I: Report to Cardinal Morone.)

{13} For the philosophical basis of the supremacy see Richard Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity, bk. viii; and for its legal implications, Sir William Holdsworth, History of English Law, i. 589–91; cf. also W. P. M. Kennedy, Elizabethan Episcopal Administration, I, ch. viii, and F. Makower, Constitutional History of the Church of England, pp. 251–9.

{14} For the subsequent history of the deposed bishops see Bridgett Knox, The True History of the Catholic Hierarchy deposed by Elizabeth (1889), and G. E. Phillips, The Extinction of the Ancient Hierarchy (1906).

{15} The following figures show the extraordinary discrepancy in the estimates. Camden (Annales) places the number of livings at 9,400 and the non-jurors at 175. H. N. Birt (The Elizabethan Religious Settlement) reduces the former figure to 8,000 and increases the latter to 700. J. H. Pollen (The English Catholics in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth) follows Birt fairly closely, but scales down the non-jurors to 600. Both writers, however, reckon between 1,000 and 2,000 unexplained ‘disappearances’ which may have been due to non-acceptance of the religious changes. A. O. Meyer (England and the Catholic Church under Queen Elizabeth) is content with the remark that out of a...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• PREFACE
• LIST OF MAPS (at end)
• I - THE QUEEN AND THE RELIGIOUS SETTLEMENT
• II - ENGLAND AND FRANCE
• III - MARY STUART AND THE SUCCESSION
• IV - YEARS OF CRISIS: 1568-75
• V - CATHOLIC AND PURITAN
• VI - THE CONSTITUTION
• VII - THE EXPANSION OF ENGLAND, AND THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION
• V - LITERATURE, ART AND THOUGH
• IX - ELIZABETH AND THE NETHERLANDS 1575-86
• X - THE EXECUTION OF MARY STUART: THE SPANISH ARMADA
• XI - THE LAST YEARS OF THE REIGN
• XII - THE IRISH PROBLEM
• THE END
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• LISTS OF THE HOLDERS OF CERTAIN OFFICES
• MAPS
• REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER