England and Her Neighbours

 

 England and Her Neighbours

 IRELAND: The monarchs of the Tudor dynasty tried to extend their control over Ireland. During the reign of Henry VII Poynings' Law (1494) gave the English Parliament control over the Irish Parliament, and in 1541 Henry VIII assumed the title ‘King of Ireland’. Ireland was divided into counties, and brought under English law. The mere fact of English occupation made the Irish hate them, but the Act of Supremacy (1534) and the break with Rome during the Reformation introduced another factor into the conflict: disagreement over religion.

Concerned about growing Catholic Irish conspiracy with their Catholic enemies abroad, Elizabeth I and James I went further, confiscating lands from Irish Catholic rebels and giving them as plantations to ‘loyal’ Protestant settlers, many of them from Scotland.

The result was a string of further revolts and rebellions, the worst of which were the Desmond revolts of 1569–83. These uprisings were put down with great ruthlessness.

 

 

 WALES: In 1485, Henry Tudor defeated Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth. Henry was a Welshman and the involvement of Welsh soldiers at Bosworth played a significant part in Henry’s victory. After he became king, Henry rewarded many Welsh men with government posts in London.

In 1509, Henry VIII succeeded his father to the throne. Henry did not have the same feel for Wales that his father had. Henry VII had a Welsh dragon and a wolfhound on his heraldic insignia. Henry VIII dropped the wolfhound and replaced it with a lion, thus making the royal insignia less Welsh.

Between 1536 and 1543, a compliant English Parliament passed a series of laws that together became known as the Acts of Union. Wales became a united entity and the Principality lands and the Marcher lands both disappeared. The whole of Wales was divided into shires (counties) and each one had a Justice of the Peace – appointed in England.

English control of Wales meant that the border area was no longer the dangerous zone that it had been - which benefited the Welsh as well as the English . The union also allowed Wales to join in the prosperity that England seemed to be going through under Henry’s sovereignty. However, which ever way it was looked at, what Henry did was crude and done in such a way that the Welsh could not openly complain even if they wanted to.

SCOTLAND: During the 16th century, Scotland underwent a Protestant Reformation. In the earlier part of the century, the teachings of first Martin Luther and then John Calvin began to influence Scotland. the execution of a number of Protestant preachers, most notably the Lutheran influenced Patrick Hamilton in 1528 and later the proto-Calvinist George Wishart in 1546 who was burnt at the stakein St Andrews by Cardinal Beaton for heresy, did nothing to stem the growth of these ideas. Beaton was assassinated shortly after the execution of George Wishart.

The eventual Reformation of the Scottish Church followed a brief ciil war in 1559-60, in which English intervention on the Protestant side was decisive.

A Reformed confession of faith was adopted by Parliament in 1560, while the young Mary Queen of Scots was still in France. The most influential figure was John Knox, who had been a disciple of both John Calvin and George Wishart. Roman Catholicism was not totally eliminated, and remained strong particularly in parts of the highlands.

The Refoation remained somewhat precarious through the reign of Queen Mary, who remained Roman Catholic but tolerated Protestantism. Following her deposition in 1567, her infant son James VI was raised as a Protestant. In 1603, following the death of the childless Queen Elizabeth I, the crown of England passed to James. He took the tle James I of England and James VI of Scotland, thus unifying these two countries under his personal rule.

For a time, this remained the only political connection between two independent nations, but it foreshadowed the eventual 1707 union of Scotland and England under the banner of the Great Britain.