An unmarried female ruler was inconceivable to sixteenth-century Europeans. There were two major threats to the peace of her reign, the reigns of Edward and Mary had left England as a divided country religiously. Elizabeth’s religious ideals were unknown, but both Catholics and Protestants hoped for her support. She brought Protestants who had been exiled back into England. As for the religious divide, Elizabeth created a Church of England where Protestants and Catholics alike could go to pray and let people decide what religion they would like to follow.
The cause of the English civil war The title ‘The cause of the English civil war’ means, what happened to make the civil war start. A civil war is when a country fights against itself with different beliefs. In 1625 King James died and Charles I came to the throne. James had strongly believed in the divine right of kings he had thought that monarchs got their power and the right to rule from God and that because of this they must be obeyed, the people of England were not very happy with this because it meant that the king could do whatever he wanted and claim that God had told him to. England for a long time had been told to hate Catholics and when James came from Scotland and became king he decided to marry Henrietta Maria, a Catholic, the people became unhappy because they did not know if their heir would be Protestant or Catholic.
Luther and Henry VIII’s motives for reform sprung from entirely different sources. Luther disagreed with the Catholic church over the doctrine that allowed the selling of indulgences to lay people. After study of the Scriptures, Luther decided that salvation was achieved not by indulgences or even good works, but only by faith alone. Henry VIII’s reasons for his break with the church came from his desire to divorce his wife at the time, Catherine, and marry Anne Boleyn. He asked Pope Clement VII to announce that the king’s previous marriage to Catherine of Aragon was invalid.
During the next few years, Henry fell in love with Anne, and in May 1527, he decided to divorce Catherine, in order to marry Anne. Not only could he find love with Anne, but she might also give him the son that he so desired, and what was the most important factor to Henry. David Starkey – The Reign of Henry VII - ‘It was Anne’s very unwomanishness that made her so effective... she was one
King Henry VIII of England was at first opposed to Luther’s ideas, but when he broke with the Roman Catholic Church in the 1530s, he supported Protestantism. When he died and his daughter Mary took over the throne in 1553, she persecuted many Protestants trying to restore England to Catholicism because she was a devout Catholic, (John H. Ratliff, page 4). In 1558 Elizabeth I succeeded Mary restoring order to England. Elizabeth being a Protestant queen only intensified problems with Spain. This lead to problems between Catholic Spain and
However, Wolsey wasn’t able to maintain his power and a number of factors influenced Henry’s decision to strip Wolsey of his powers in 1529. These factors included Wolsey’s failure to achieve The King’s Great Matter, opposition from The Boleyn Faction and his failure in foreign and domestic policy. Although all of these factors contributed to Wolsey’s downfall, I believe his failure to grant Henry with a divorce was the most important factor. Historians often refer to this as the nail in Wolsey’s coffin. Henry approached government about a divorce as he claimed that his marriage to Catherine of Aragon was a sin as the Leviticus states that marrying your brother’s wife will be punished by remaining childless.
Also, Mary struggled to re-establish the Catholic faith as she was unable to restore monasteries and chantries and unable to restore land due to rested interests. When Mary came to power, she was determined to crush the Protestant faith. It was part of her policy to reverse the religious changes made by Henry VIII and Edward VI, she wanted to restore Papal Supremacy and she supported a reconciliation with Rome. It could be viewed that this was a public display of force to impress the Pope and exiles such as Reginald Pole. Mary’s chief advisor, Gardiner, supported this policy.
He married a Catholic woman named Henrietta Maria and made people suspicious. This is because he probably wanted the country converted to Catholics. What Charles later did is he got Archbishop Laud to decorate the churches to make them look “more catholic”. This made people angry because people were happy with being protestant so there’s one reason for a war. But that’s not the only reason religion caused the civil war, King Charles believed in the divine right.
Robert Bolt’s “A Man For All Seasons” A Man For All Seasons is a great movie which mainly focuses on the life of Sir Thomas More from England and the current king at the time King Henry VIII. The time period was during King Henry the VIII's period of reigning. King Henry wanted to marry his brother's widow, and eventually received a special dispensation from the Pope. After learning that his new wife Catherine whom he married was not able to have children, he started to search again for another wife. It was thought that since King Henry VIII had married his brother’s wife that he was cursed in regards to Catherine not being able to have any children.
Mary was called this for a reason, as Mary ascertained that all Protestants of England who declined to become a Catholic were killed. But Mary made sure that they went through pain, and made them go through a harsh and brutal death, which was by burning them alive at the stake near the South-East of London. Horrifically, between the period of 1555-1558, Mary had 284 Protestants burned, including Thomas Cranmer, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury at the time, as had given Henry VIII a divorce form Mary’s mother, Catherine of Aragon. People of London