Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/363

Rh MODERN ENGLAND.] ENGLAND 343 doubtless one great reason why the English of the sixteenth century is the earliest English which is commonly intel ligible. But this is not the only reason. The reign of Elizabeth is in itself the most marked epoch in English literature. The stirring of men s minds which led to the great political and religious events of the age led also to the sudden burst of a whole literature in verse and prose. In the sixteenth century the English drama began, modern English theology began, the writing of history in the modern sense and in the English tongue began. And with the beginning of a school of new writers came a time of more diligent care towards our ancient writers. The fanatic religionists and greedy spoilers of Henry and Edward s days had destroyed ancient records and chronicles by wholesale. The hand of Elizabeth s first primate, the re nowned Matthew Parker, was stretched out to save instead of to destroy, to publish instead of to tear in pieces. To his pious care more than to that of any other man, we owe it that the ancient history of England can be read and written. And, as it was with language, so it was with everything else which goes to make up the national life. Its modern form is now completed. We feel that the men of Elizabeth s day, her statesmen, her warriors, her poets, and her divines, are men who come near to ourselves in a way which the men of earlier times cannot do. A gap of more than a generation, of more than two generations, seems to part Wolsey from Burghley. The main features of English social life had really been fixed in the fifteenth century ; they do not thoroughly come home to us till the sixteenth. Sliza We see this in its outward form in the houses of wthau Elizabeth s reign. They are the earliest houses, great or small, in which a modern Englishman of any class can live with any degree of modern comfort. In point of style, they have fallen away from the models of the early part of the century, The architecture of this age is primarily domestic. For ecclesiastical art there was little room in a time when more churches were pulled down than were built. Repairs were commonly done in a rough and clumsy fashion. Still there are a few ecclesiastical buildings, ranging from Edward VI. to James I., such as the tower of Probus in Corn wall and the choir of Wadham College chapel, in which the older style is still faithfully carried on. The revived Italian style was brought in by Protector Somerset ; but, as applied to whole buildings, the fashion did not take ; the details became a strange mixture of corrupt English and corrupt Italian ; but the outlines are purely English. The Elizabethan houses, with their endless shifting of gables, are often actually more picturesque in outline than the houses of the beginning of the century. They are more distinctly houses ; the features handed down by tradition from the castle no longer linger, even as survivals. And they are of all sizes, palaces, manor-houses, burgher dwell ings in towns, solitary farm-houses, cottages in the village street. And they are of all materials, stone, brick, or timber, according to the district. They are the houses of an age when law was fully established, and when the different ranks of society, though the distinctions between them were far more sharply drawn, were essentially the same as they are now. The objects of the bounty of founders were now necessarily changed ; but their bounty was by no means worn out. Mary restored several monasteries, which were again suppressed by Elizabeth. Mary also restored a great Plunder part of the alienated bishops lands. The plunder of the ofbishop- bishops also went on all through Elizabeth s reign, and ncs. Burghley, Hatton, and Raleigh, and other statesmen and courtiers, made themselves great fortunes at the expense of the Church. But all was not spoliation in this age. Mary and Elizabeth restored some of the collegiate churches which had been suppressed under Edward; the foundation Founda- of colleges in the universities wont on under both sisters ; tion of and this was a special time for the erection of schools and co, e , ges hospitals. Even Leicester has left a memorial of this kind pitals. behind him. And it may pass for a kind of charitable foundation on the part of the nation itself, when by a statute of Elizabeth a public provision was first made for the relief of the poor. England and the English people are thus thoroughly Sum- formed in the shape which they have kept to this day. Their ma! 7- political constitution has lived through its time of trial, ready to come forth again in its full strength. The religious character of England is fixed; her European posi tion is fixed also. She has become wholly insular, ready to play in European politics the special part of an insular power. At home Wales is incorporated ; Ireland, now a kingdom, is brought more nearly than ever under the rule of its queen. The time has now come for a nearer and a friendly union with the other kingdom which hitherto has divided the isle of Britain with England. The lack of direct descendants of Henry, the ill luck of the descendants of his sister Mary, carried the English crown to the de scendants of Margaret, and called the king of Scots to the English throne. The union of the crowns led, as a necessary though not an immediate effect, to the union of kingdoms, to the time when England and Scotland, political names, so long rival and hostile names, were merged in the common geographical name of Great Britain. 1 (E. A. F.) The defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 had been the final victory gained on behalf of the independence of the English church and state. The fifteen years which followed had been years of successful war ; but they bad been also years during which the nation had been pre paring itself to conform its institutions to the new circum stances in which it found itself in consequence of the great victory. When James arrived from Scotland to occupy the throne of Elizabeth he found a general desire for change. Especially there was a feeling that there might be some relaxation in the ecclesiastical arrangements. Roman Catholics and Puritans alike wished for a modification of the laws which bore hardly on them. James at first relaxed the penalties under which the Roman Catholics suffered, then he grew frightened by the increase of their numbers and reimposed the penalties. The Gunpowder Plot (1605) was the result, followed by a sharper persecu tion than ever. The Puritans were invited to a conference with the king at Hampton Court (1604). They no longer asked, as many of them had asked in the beginning of Elizabeth s reign, to substitute the Presbyterian discipline for the Episcopal government. All they demanded was to be allowed permis sion whilst remaining as ministers in the church to omit the usage of certain ceremonies to which they objected. It was the opinion of Bacon that it would be wise to grant their request. James thought otherwise, and attempted to carry out the Elizabethan conformity more strictly than it had been carried out in his predecessor s reign. In 1604 the Commons agreed with Bacon. They declared that they were no Puritans themselves, but that, in such a dearth of able ministers, it was not well to lose the services of any one who was capable of preaching the gospel. By his refusal to entertain their views James Acces sion of James I. James I. and the Catholics. James I. and the Puritans. James I. find the Com mons. 1 James I. was very fond of calling himself &quot; King of Great Britain,&quot; a geographical description which reminds one of Clint s &quot; King of all England.&quot; And the same style was freely used by his successors. But the kingdom of Great Britain did not really begin till Anne s Act of Union. The more accurate, though rarer, style of the Stewarts is &quot; King of England, Gotland. France, and Ireland.&quot;