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Paper 2 - HISTORY OF MODERN ENGLAND
1.
Describe the effect of the Renaissance in England.
Ans. The English Renaissance was a cultural and artistic movement in England dating from the
late 15th and early 16th centuries to the early 17th century. It is associated with the panEuropean Renaissance that is usually regarded as beginning in Italy in the late 14th century; like
most of northern Europe England saw little of these developments for more than a century later.
The beginning of the English Renaissance is often taken, as a convenience, as 1485, when
the Battle of Bosworth Field ended the Wars of the Roses and inaugurated the Tudor Dynasty.
Renaissance style and ideas, however, were slow in penetrating England, and the Elizabethan
era in the second half of the 16th century is usually regarded as the height of the English
Renaissance. England had long had a strong tradition of literature in the English vernacular,
which gradually increased as English use of the printing press became common by the mid 16th
century. By the time of Elizabethan literature a vigorous literary culture in both drama and poetry
included poets such as Edmund Spenser, whose verse epicThe Faerie Queene did not become a
dominating influence on English literature in the way that some foreign equivalents did for their
countries. Instead the lyrics ofWilliam Shakespeare, Thomas Wyatt and others, typically circulating in
manuscript form for some time before they were published, and above all the plays of English
Renaissance theatre, were the outstanding legacy of the period.
The English theatre scene, which performed both for the court and nobility in private
performances, and a very wide public in the theatres, was the most crowded in Europe, with a
host of other playwrights as well as the giant figures of Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare and Ben
Jonson. Elizabeth herself was a product ofRenaissance humanism trained by Roger Ascham, and
wrote occasional poems such as On Monsieur’s Departure at critical moments of her life.
Philosophers and intellectuals included Thomas More and Francis Bacon. All the 16th century Tudor
monarchs were highly educated, as was much of the nobility, and Italian literature had a
considerable following, providing the sources for many of Shakespeare's plays. English thought
advanced towards modern science with the Baconian Method, a forerunner of the Scientific Method.
The language of the Book of Common Prayer, first published in 1549, and at the end of the period
the Authorised Version ("King James Version" to Americans) of the Bible (1611) had enduring
impacts on the English consciousness.
2.
Discuss the colonial expansion that took place in the 16th century.
Ans. As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century lasted from 1501 to 1600. It
is regarded by historians as the century in which the rise of the West occurred.
During the 16th century, Spain and Portugal explored the world's seas and opened world-wide
oceanic trade routes. Large parts of the New World became Spanish and Portuguese colonies,
and while the Portuguese became the masters of Asia's and Africa's Indian Ocean trade, the
Spanish opened trade across the Pacific Ocean, linking the Americas with Asia.
In Europe, the Protestant Reformation gave a major blow to the authority of the Papacy and
the Roman Catholic Church. European politics became dominated by religious conflicts, with the
groundwork for the epochal Thirty Years' War being laid towards the end of the century.
In the Middle East, the Ottoman Empire continued to expand, with the Sultan taking the title
of Caliph, while dealing with a resurgent Persia. Iran and Iraq were caught by major popularity of
the once-obscure Shiite sect of Islam under the rule of the Safavid dynasty of warrior-mystics,
providing grounds for a Persia independent of the majority-Sunni Muslim world.
China evacuated the coastal areas, because of Japanese piracy. Japan was suffering under a
severe civil war at the time.
Mughal Emperor Akbar the Great extended the power of the Mughal Empire to cover most of the
Indian sub continent. His rule significantly influenced arts, culture, and religious tolerance in the
region.
Copernicus proposed the heliocentric universe, which was met with strong resistance, and Tycho
Brahe refuted the theory of celestial spheresthrough observational measurement of the 1572
appearance of a Milky Way Super Nova. These events directly challenged the long-held notion of an
immutable universe supported by Ptolemy and Aristotle, and led to major revolutions
in astronomy and science.
3.
What is Industrial Revolution and what are the causes and results of this
revolution in England?
Ans. English Revolution" has been used to describe two different events in English history. The
first to be so called—by Whig historians—was the Glorious Revolution of 1688, whereby James
II was replaced by William III and Mary II as monarch and a constitutional monarchy was
established.[1]
In the twentieth-century, however, Marxist historians introduced the use of the term "English
Revolution" to describe the period of the English Civil Wars and Commonwealth period (1640–
1660), in which Parliament challenged King Charles I's authority, engaged in civil conflict against
his forces, and executed him in 1649. This was followed by a ten-year period
of bourgeois republican government, the "Commonwealth", before monarchy was restored in the
shape of Charles' son, Charles II in 1660.
he Marxist view of the English Revolution suggests that the events of 1640 to 1660 in Britain was
a bourgeois revolution in which the final section of English feudalism (the state) was destroyed by
a bourgeois class (and its supporters) and replaced with a state (and society) which reflected the
wider establishment of agrarian (and later industrial) capitalism. Such an analysis sees the
English Revolution as pivotal in the transition from feudalism to capitalism and from a feudal state
to a capitalist state in Britain.
According to Marxist historian Christopher Hill:
The Civil War was a class war, in which the despotism of Charles I was defended by the
reactionary forces of the established Church and conservative landlords, and on the other side
stood the trading and industrial classes in town and countryside . . . the yeomen and progressive
gentry, and . . . wider masses of the population whenever they were able by free discussion to
understand what the struggle was really about.[2]
Later developments of the Marxist view moved on from the theory of bourgeois revolution to
suggest that the English Revolution anticipated the French and later revolutions in the field of
popular administrative and economic gains. Along with the expansion of Parliamentary power the
Revolution broke down many of the old power relations in both rural and urban English society.
The guild democracy movement of the period won its greatest successes among London's
transport workers
4.
Write an essay about the great strides that took place in the field of transport
and communication during the Victorian era.
5. British King as The Supreme Head of the Church in England.
Ans. This list of English monarchs begins with Offa of Mercia, who was dominant in the late
eighth century, although his power did not extend to Northumbria and did not survive him. In the
9th century Wessex became dominant over the other English kingdoms under Egbert, who
conquered Kent and Sussex fromMercia in 825. Alfred the Great and his son Edward the Elder used
the title "King of the Anglo-Saxons". After Athelstan conquered Northumbria in 927, he adopted
the title Rex Anglorum. Starting with Henry II in 1154, the title became Rex Angliae (King of
England).
The Principality of Wales was incorporated into the Kingdom of England under the Statute of
Rhuddlan in 1284, and in 1301 Edward I invested his eldest son, the future Edward II, as Prince of
Wales. Since that time, with the exception of Edward III, the eldest sons of all English monarchs
have borne this title. After the death of Elizabeth I without issue, in 1603, the crowns of England
and Scotland were joined in personal union under James VI of Scotland, who became James I of
England. By royal proclamation James titled himself "King of Great Britain", but no such kingdom
was created until 1707, when England underwent legislative union with Scotland to form the United
Kingdom of Great Britain, during the reign of Queen Anne.[1]
Causes for dissolution of Monasteries.
Counter Reformation. The Counter-Reformation (also the Catholic Revival[1] or Catholic
Reformation) was the period of Catholic revival beginning with the Council of Trent(1545–1563)
and ending at the close of the Thirty Years' War, 1648 as a response to the Protestant Reformation.
The Counter-Reformation was a comprehensive effort, composed of four major elements:
1. Ecclesiastical or structural reconfiguration
2. Religious orders
3. Spiritual movements
4. Political dimensions
Such reforms included the foundation of seminaries for the proper training of priests in the spiritual
life and the theological traditions of the Church, the reform of religious life by returning orders to
their spiritual foundations, and new spiritual movements focusing on the devotional life and a
personal relationship withChrist, including the Spanish mystics and the French school of spirituality. It
also involved political activities that included the Roman Inquisition.
6. initiated the Council of Trent (1545–1563), a commission of cardinals tasked with
institutional reform, addressing contentious issues such as corrupt bishops and
priests, indulgences, and other financial abuses. The Council upheld the basic
structure of the Medieval Church, its sacramental system, religious orders, and
doctrine. It rejected all compromise with the Protestants, restating basic tenets of the
Roman Catholic faith. The Council upheld salvation appropriated by grace through
faith and works of that faith (not just by faith, as the Protestants insisted) because
"faith without works is dead", as the Epistle of St. James states (122:26). Transubstantiation, during which the consecrated bread and wine were held
to be transformed wholly and substantially into the body, blood, soul and divinity of
Christ, was also reaffirmed, along with the other six Sacraments of the Catholic
Church. Other practices that drew the ire of Protestant reformers, such
as pilgrimages, the veneration of saints and relics, and the veneration of the Virgin
Mary were strongly reaffirmed as spiritually commendable practices. The Council
officially accepted the Vulgate listing of the Old Testament Bible which included
the deuterocanonicalworks (also called the Apocrypha, especially by Protestants) on
a par with the 39 books customarily found in the Masoretic Text and the Protestant
Old Testament. This reaffirmed the previous council of Rome and Synod of Carthage
(both held in the 4th century, A.D.) which had affirmed the Deuterocanon as
Scripture.[2] The Council also commissioned the Roman Catechism, which still serves
as authoritative Church teaching (the Catechism of the Catholic Church).
Various educational reforms instituted during the 19th century.