2.1: Introduction to the Tudor Age

From the Wars of the Roses to the Rise of the Tudors

By deposing Richard II, Henry IV precipitated the dynastic wars, known as The Wars of the Roses, fought by the Lancasters and the Yorks. These rival houses descended from two brothers: John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster (1340 -1399), and Edmund Langley, the Duke of York (1341-1402).

The wars ended in 1485 with the Battle of Bosworth Field and the death of the last Plantagenet king, Richard III (b. 1452). The rule of the Tudors began when Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, was crowned as King Henry VII (1457-1509) and then united the houses of Lancaster and York by marrying Elizabeth of York (1486-1503).

Economic Changes in Early Tudor England

Henry VII’s reign oversaw a major shift in England’s economy. The country began moving away from the medieval agricultural system of landlords and serfs toward a more commercial economy.

Working with Parliament, Henry VII enacted laws and statutes that fostered England’s economic growth. These included protectionist and bullionist policies that strengthened England’s wool trade and cloth industry.

As commerce expanded, cities grew rapidly, especially London, which during the Tudor era became the largest city in Europe and a leading port of trade.

Centralizing Royal Power

Henry VII also oversaw a centralization of court power and the development of the King’s Council, or Star Chamber, which allowed the crown to exercise greater control over the nobility.

The social structure of England was changing as well. The upheavals of the medieval period—including the labor shortages caused by the Black Death—had weakened traditional hierarchies. Under Henry VII, however, a new system of authority began to emerge.

Henry VII encouraged the rise of “New Men,” individuals from relatively humble backgrounds who gained influence through service to the crown. At the same time, he limited the power of the traditional nobility by binding them through debts and legal obligations known as recognizances.

Royal Finances and Foreign Conflicts

Henry VII used money to cement his authority; he accrued wealth through taxes, loans, benevolences, church grants, and even feudal obligations.

One notable example occurred when he received 30,000 pounds for knighting his son Arthur (1486-1502)—two years after Arthur’s death. These funds helped Henry finance wars abroad and suppress rebellions at home.

Henry VII also financed wars in France and the suppression of rebellions at home. England lost its claims to French territory. Though Henry VII retained Calais during his reign, it was lost during Henry VIII’s (1491-1547). While conflicts on the continent decreased, tensions with Scotland increased.

Henry VIII and the English Reformation

After Henry VII’s death, the crown passed peacefully to Henry VIII. Henry VII attempted to correct some of his father’s monetary abuses by executing Sir Richard Empson (c. 1450-1510) and Edmund Dudley (c. 1462-1510), themselves New Men who collected taxes for Henry VII.

Henry VIII’s reign was marked by wars with Scotland, Ireland, France, and Spain, as well as his famous six marriages.

Although Henry VIII’s wars depleted the wealth he inherited, he recovered it by dissolving the monasteries and seizing the church lands. This action was part of the English Reformation, which largely stemmed from Henry VIII’s concern for succession (fear of another dynastic war) and his desire to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon (1485-1536), who had not provided a male heir.

When the Pope rejected his annulment, Henry VIII broke from the Roman Catholic Church and made himself head of the Church of England through the Act of Supremacy in 1534.

The Tudor Succession: Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth

From his marriages, Henry VIII had three children who would each become monarchs.

Their successive rules led to a short rebellion after Edward VI’s (1442-1483) death. Under Mary I (1516- 1558), hundreds of Protestants were executed during the Counter-Reformation. However, Elizabeth I (1533-1603) ushered England into a Golden Age.

Elizabeth I resolved the religious discord by becoming head of the Protestant (Anglican) Church of England. She navigated foreign affairs by considering possible husbands from Spain, Sweden, Austria, and France while ultimately remaining unmarried and presenting herself as “married to England.” 

Her rule was threatened by her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-1587), who plotted Elizabeth I’s assassination in hopes of ascending the throne and returning England to Catholicism. After Mary was implicated in plots to assassinate Elizabeth, she was executed.

Elizabeth’s reign also saw the defeat of the Spanish Armada and a major rebellion in Ireland led by Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone (1550–1616).

Printing, Literacy, and the English Renaissance

Before Henry VII ascended the throne, William Caxton (c.1422-1491) introduced the printing press to England. Printing increased the availability of books and reduced their cost, encouraging reading and literacy.

Under Henry VII, England shifted from being a bilingual nation. Initially, French or Latin dominated as the courtly language, and English remained the common language. However, English increasingly became the language of literature and learning.

This change was part of the broader Renaissance, a cultural movement centered on the recovery and study of classical texts.

Humanism and Education

The stability that Henry VII brought to England and that his son protected—even at the expense of Catherine of Aragon, Roman Catholicism, and Anne Boleyn (c. 1501-1536)—expanded individual learning (mainly for men) and intellectual thought.

Renaissance humanism, particularly its English version, emphasized the education of the individual, be he a courtier or a gentleman. For the English, that education was linked to Christianity. The individual’s role in Christian faith, worship, understanding, and expression shaped the religious controversies that marked the Tudor era. Humanist ideas influenced thinkers such as Thomas More (1478-1535), who offered political and theological critiques in his book Utopia. Because of More's understanding of Christianity, he refused to accept Henry VIII as supreme head of the church. Thus, More was consequently executed.

The Rise of English Literature

More wrote Utopia in Latin, reflecting the humanist interest in classical learning. The Reformation, the beginning of which he witnessed, led to close, individual scrutiny of ideologies and theologies. This scrutiny shaped England’s consciousness as a nation.

Over time, the dominance of classical Latin models in education, including Cicero (106- 43 BCE), Virgil (70-19 BCE), Terence (185-159 BCE), Plautus (c. 254-185 BCE), Seneca (4 BCE-65 CE), or others, was challenged by the growing development of a national literature written in English across many genres.

Poetry in the Tudor Age

The Tudor era saw great development in English poetry and drama, with modes such as pastoral and lyric and forms such as epic and tragedy.

Edmund Spenser followed Chaucer in shaping ideal poetic diction, meter, and rhyme in English. In his sonnet sequence Amoretti, he adapted the Italian sonnet form introduced earlier by Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey.

Spenser also wrote an English epic, the most ambitious and weighty of classical genres. He intended his epic, The Faerie Queene, to be a national poem that would rival classical epics such as Virgil’s Aeneid (c. 29-19 BCE). Spenser used the great national myth/hero of King Arthur as his epic’s model for the ideal gentleman or noble person, the epitome of Christian virtues. Elizabeth I also appears in this epic in many female roles, particularly Gloriana, the Faerie Queene, Arthur’s beloved. Starting with Henry VII, who named his firstborn son Arthur, all the Tudors claimed descent from King Arthur.

The Development of English Drama

English drama developed in part from classical and neoclassical drama.

William Shakespeare’s comedies owe much to Plautus and Seneca. Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors (1594) takes its plot from Plautus’s The Menaechmi, or The Twins. English drama also developed in part from the Medieval cycles and morality plays. Like the morality play Everyman, Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus struggles between good and evil.

Shakespeare’s tragedies similarly trace the Tudor era’s growth of personal religion, with his characters demonstrating the shift from Medieval Fortuna, fate, or destiny to reason and responsibility. Shakespeare's characters are free to make choices but are held accountable for them, either by people or by principles. If a character/ individual has to make decisions and act accordingly, they always face the possibility of making wrong decisions. Like Faustus, Shakespeare’s Hamlet fears behaving wrongly; Hamlet suffers from a divided self as he tries to align his actions and choices with divinity.

More than almost any other writer of the period, Shakespeare demonstrated the expressive power of the English language, helping to shape both English national identity and broader ideas of human experience.

Works Cited

Marlowe, Christopher. Doctor Faustus. Doctor Faustus with Related Texts, edited by Stephen J. Lynch, Hackett Publishing Company, 2023, pp. 1-77. EBSCO, (CRC Library).

More, Thomas. Utopia. 1516. P. F. Collier & Son, 1993. EBSCO, (CRC Library).