This piece of legislation would later give him the power to over through Catholicism and would which later make him ‘Supreme Head’ of the Church in England. The Dissolution of the Monasteries still, to this day, represents the largest legal transfer of land, property and assets in English history, since the Norman Conquest in 1066. But to what extent can the Dissolution of the Monasteries be considered a landmark? The Dissolution of the Monasteries is down to two occurrences, public and private intensions. Within the public intensions the king wanted to bring the clergymen into the sphere of his subjects.
The imperialistic actions carried out by Britain in 1541 had consequences reaching into the future. This is illustrated through King Henry VIII, forcing the Irish Government to declare him king and later shown by the unrest in Ulster where Irish land was resumed by the British to be handed to British and Scottish Settlers of Protestant faith. The consequences of these events were the Ulster revolts in October 1641 and later the anti-catholic laws, brought in on September 11 1649, while using excuse ‘revenge’, and eventually ended with British military involvement yet again. From these events tensions continued to spiral out of control and the rift between Irish nationalists and the Unionists, along with religion, grew to one of great lengths. The events mentioned were only a starting point, with many violent acts to come but they do provide the base of which the Nationalist feeling of unhappiness stems from.
Unionists were opposed to self-governement for Ireland for economic, religious and political reasons. Ulster, particularly Belfast, had prospered industrially and Belfast’s main industries, shipbuilding and linen, were dependent on the British market. Unionists believed that a Dublin government would take away from their concerns by focusing on agriculture – and lead to the detriment of Ulster’s prosperity. Protestant – Unionists also believed that an Irish Parliament would be Catholic and would dominate their religion and feared their religious freedom would be in danger. Rivalry between Catholics and Protestants was tradition in Ulster so the unionists were set in their ways!
The most important part of his career as home secretary would undoubtedly be his support to pass Catholic Emancipation in 1829. Originally he was completely against the notion of Catholic emancipation but when Daniel O’Connell was elected as M.P for Clare, Ireland, both he and Wellington realised the necessity to pass it to prevent a possible civil war in Ireland. Although a wise and pragmatic decision it came at the price of the Tory party splitting up completely. It took years for the Tory Party to reform and stabilise, but most importantly the Tories began to view Peel as a betrayer. Peel became the leader of the opposition from 1835-41.
This meant when he came to power, there wasn’t really that much religious tension. At this point the most dangerous extremist group was the Catholic, they had been because of the Anti-Catholic laws that she had past once the Catholic Plots had started to appear. James was favoured in the eyes of Catholics as he was the son of the Catholic martyr Mary, Queen of Scots. It has been said that before he came to throne, while he was King of Scotland he has promised the Catholics more tolerance. This has been greatly debated and in the end he didn’t become more tolerant towards the Catholics, he started to suppress them.
Therefore by reforming the English Church and removing the Pope and making Henry VIII the Supreme Head of the Church in England, there was a revolution in the relationship between Church and State. Also as Thomas Cromwell, who masterminded this manoeuvre, had used parliament to enforce the reformation the principle that King-in-parliament was the highest form of authority. This sat very well with Henry VIII and appealed far more to those who lent to the positive and idealistic though secular form of anti-clericalism. This is one reason why the English Church did need to be reformed in the 16th century. Another reason the English Church may have needed reforming would be that many people lost enthusiasm for religious orders and religious images in the 16th century.
As established by Henry VIII in 1550 to distance himself from the Catholic Church and the Pope (and make it possible for him to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon), the official religion of England at the beginning of the Victorian period, circa 1850, was that of the Anglican Church, known as the Church of England. Nonetheless, there were other religions that were quite important in the country, mainly Catholicism and Methodism, which was greatly known thanks to John Wesley and grew under Victorian times. There was also a movement of anti-Church, notably with the Age of Reason of Tom Paine, in 1794, and the apparition of spiritualism. The initiators of such movements where referred to as dissenters, and there were many dissented groups at the time. The Victorian period, up until the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, was therefore a time of religious confusion, but also, as we will see, of great charity, as well as of birth of new beliefs.
This uprising proved to be an utter failure as the French and Irish were severely outmanned and outgunned by English forces, thus prompting a swift end to Tones rebellion. Tone himself was captured in a raid at Donegal in 1798; he was taken to Dublin and court-marshalled. He was scheduled to be executed by hanging after his request to be shot instead like a soldier was declined, but he died in prison of neck wounds. His death is recorded as suicide however this detail remains inconclusive. By 1804 Catholic unrest had kick started once more after a series of meetings which sought to issue a petition to Parliament to remove Catholic disabilities.
One of the major events that assisted the fall of the Holy Roman Empire was Thirty Years’ War. The event that started the Thirty Years’ War was “defenestration of Prague.” Two of Ferdinand’s officials were thrown out a window. The Lutherans violated the Peace of Augsburg by acquiring German Bishops, Calvinists converting princes, and Jesuits reconverting princes to Catholicism. The Calvinists and Catholics had many advantages because of that which made the Lutherans fear the Peace of Augsburg would be negatively impaired. The Lutheran Princes felt it necessary to create the Protestant Union and in retaliation the Catholics formed to Catholic League.
This boycott was an indication of the difficulties that the British government would have in getting any agreement acceptable to both the Catholic and Protestant communities. The Sunningdale Agreement was an attempt to bring about power-sharing in the North by bringing together the different political parties at the time. While the moderate Nationalist