R for Tudor?
Well, is it?
note to self some months later: R is for Regnant.
No LOL! It is for Regina -- the latin for queen.
I hate people who pretend they're superior; it makes it much harder for those of us who really are.
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The thing is that Elizabeth's claim to the throne was a bit wobbly, so she made a big thing of being God's Annointed by way of compensation.
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Well said! Newsflash: all monarchs become Mary R, George R, William R, etc., as Rex is Latin for king and Regina is Latin for Queen. No less, did Elizabeth herself name a television series made more than 300 years after her death? Hellooooo!
share" How is it wobbly? She was the daughter of Henry VIII and his second Queen, Anne Boleyn? "
True enough, but the Catholic Church did not recognise the marriage and England was effectively a catholic state when Elizabeth became Queen.
True enough, but the Catholic Church did not recognise the marriage and England was effectively a catholic state when Elizabeth became Queen.
Not since the Act of Supremacy. Furthermore, Henry VIII's succession was established by Parliament and it out Elizabeth (and her heirs) after Mary (and her heirs).
The (some) Catholic powers (sometimes) refused to acknowledge Elizabeth's rights, but that has nothiing to do with English law.
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Everyone is replaceable. Even you. share
No, Elizabeth's claim was not wobbly at all. Her father had laid out the succession in just that order, without discriminating between religions, but rather following the order of male child, followed by elder female, then younger female. Even Philip of Spain acknowledged Elizabeth as the rightful heir to Mary, barring her providing an heir by bearing a child. Philip would not allow Mary to execute Elizabeth, as he hoped to marry the younger princess himself upon her accession to England's throne. All monarchs trumpet the divine right of kings/queens until the creation of constitutional monarchy.
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All good stuff but the point is that Elizabeth was claiming the throne of England, not a share of the family silver.
Henry was dead so it didn't matter over much what he wanted.
It was impossible to ignore religion in the England of 1558 which is why one of Elizabeth's first steps was to lay the foundations of that charming nonsense, The Church Of England.
Elizabeth's real claim was that she wasn't her half sister, poor, sad Bloody Mary. She had a lot of popular support but that could not be expected to last long so she went all out to establish the cult of God's Annointed, Glorianna, The Virgin Queen
I have no idea what you meant by the family silver crack, which seems preposterous. I'm well aware of what Elizabeth claimed, having spent the last 40 years reading all I can about her. I never did accept all that claptrap about Elizabeth deliberately setting out to create a cult of Gloriana and still less that Virgin Queen BS. Absolute monarchs ruled absolutely through God's annointing. There was no need to waste time on silly cults. Why ever could her support not be expected to last?
Henry's wishes as the late, legitimate, as much as one can be, monarch, had to be respected by law and tradition. That is why men such as William Cecil, good protestant that he was, flocked to Mary's side when Northumberland tried to place Jane Grey on the throne. Jane had some Tudor blood, but she was a mere great-niece, who could never take precedence over a daughter. Cecil and others realized they had to defend the succession as laid out by Henry. Edward's protectors changed so often that he never had the chance to exclude Mary for religious grounds.
You seem to forget Henry and Edward VI, along with Cranmer, also played major roles in founding the Church of England. I believe Henry waffled a bit about religion as he aged; hence, the inclusion of all his offspring in the succession. Katherine Parr also exerted her influence over the king. Though an ardent Protestant, she also proved a loyal stepmother to all Henry's children. I never meant to imply any of these people could ignore religion, though clearly the English people, ever an independent lot, could not stomach any more burnings and mini-inquisitions courtesy of the Pope. Their general loathing of the Pope and Catholicism's excesses (eg the Inquisition) played straight into Elizabeth's hands.
In what ways was Bloody Mary poor and sad? As a woman, I'll grant you, but any monarch who can slaughter her own people to show allegiance to a misguided twit such as the Pope, cannot garner much empathy. She was not worthy of her royal status, as so many others are not worthy.
Put puppy mills out of business: never buy dogs from petshops!
"Henry was dead so it didn't matter over much what he wanted."
The succession he laid out in his will mattered immensely, and became Third Succession Act of 1543 (which was passed by Parliament and therefore entered into English law).
His son, the ultra-Protestant King Edward VI attempted to alter the succession to exclude the Catholic Mary, and in his will named the Protestant Jane Grey as heir to his throne.
However, this breached the laws of England, as it ran contrary to the Succession Act, and it wasn't long before Jane was in the Tower and Mary was restored to the English Throne.
Was Mary's claim any more 'wobbly' because she was inheriting a Protestant throne?
If anything her claim was even less secure than Elizabeth's because the reigning King actually disinherited her...Whereas Mary knew her throne would be left to Elizabeth after her death (as the law dictated) and didn't take any steps to alter the succession.
"...one of Elizabeth's first steps was to lay the foundations of that charming nonsense, The Church Of England"
Elizabeth didn't create "that charming nonsense", as you put it... It was her father, Henry VIII, who broke with Rome, and (though still favouring traditional Catholicism) created himself 'Supreme Head of the Church of England' in 1536. It was under Edward VI that the Church became theologically more radical, before returning to Catholicism under Mary... Elizabeth merely tried to strike a balance between the two by creating "mildly Protestant, Catholic, apostolic, and established church". The "Elizabethan Settlement" attempted to satify both Puritan and Catholic beliefs. Granted this still resulted in religious unrest, but Elizabeth was attempting to resolve issues that had been festering for nearly 30 years by the time she came to the throne.
"She had a lot of popular support but that could not be expected to last long so she went all out to establish the cult of God's Annointed, Glorianna, The Virgin Queen"
The 'cult' of Glorianna and the Virgin Queen wouldn't gain its full momentum until 1582, when Elizabeth's last serious prospect for marriage failed (after a long courtship with François, Duke of Anjou), and it became clear that she really was destined to be a 'Virgin Queen'.
(Though probably this began somewhat earlier, in 1579, with the first allegorical portrait of the queen)
In any event, by that point she had already been on the throne for over twenty years.
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I apologize.
In highlighting the phrase I meant to point out the absurdity of user gregorioos's extremely prejudicial and uninformed posts.
I didn't mean to imply that their views were correct.
(Quite the contrary...I assure you)
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I apologize
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So you should.
God is an Englishman
As to the rest, it didn't matter a bugger what Henry VIII put in his will, once he was dead the crown went to whoever could hang onto it.
By the time of Elizabeth, her father's reformations of the church were largely meaningless with major rows about minor points of doctrine.
The creation of the Church of England dates from her reign because she tried to make religion unimportant, or at least a lot less important than it was.
Wow...Way to take a statement out of context.
So you're going to discount the influence of any previous monarch on the formation of a separate English Church?
Using your logic I could claim that the Church of England wasn't fully established (and therefore didn't exist) until the reign of Charles II.
But I won't, since officially (according to their website) the Church of England traces the roots of the modern, reformed Church back to Henry VIII, even if it culminated under Elizabeth...and I figure they have a pretty good grasp on their own history.
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Jkluska, thank you for your well-detailed post. You are quite correct that Henry's will had force of law long after his death, not because it was his will, but because of the Third Succession Act of 1543.
You could say that "by his will", Edward VI made Jane Grey queen after his death, and such might have had the same force as Henry's will (the legal king at the time decreed his successor), except for the Third Succession Act, which made Edward VI's Devise of the Succession quite illegal.
One of the reasons Elizabeth would not take huge leaps such as Mary, or even Edward, had in majorly changing religion in England from day one was the reason she gave her Council: that most of England's catholics were law-abiding citizens who couldn't care less who was on the throne - unless you start making laws and stirring things up and threatening to burn them if they didn't worship as dictated - then they'd care quick enough. Elizabeth's way kept peace long enough for England to become properous again.
As you are implying, there was an important difference between Henry VIII's will and Edward VI's will leaving everything to Jane Grey: Edward's will didn't have the assent of Parliament behind it, Henry's did.
England was taking baby steps away from absolute monarchy, and towards constitutional monarchy.
Having a teenage boy and then two queens regnant in a row (not counting Jane Grey) somewhat accelerated this process. Both Mary and Elizabeth had to reign in a political cosmos accustomed to male rule. Their councilors were men. Parliament was all men. Neither Mary nor Elizabeth could count on the same kind of near-slavish obedience than Henry VIII could command. No English monarch would ever have that much power again. (See also http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4669262/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2 for a sad example of a king who still thought he could.)
"I don't deduce, I observe."
Gloriana was created by Spenser by the end of the 16th century...
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Everyone is replaceable. Even you.