The Issue of William's Illegitimacy

One point I neglected to discuss on my last post was the issue of William of Normandy's illegitimacy. William is sometimes referred to as William the Bastard. He was the product of a sexual relationship between Duke Robert and the daughter of a tanner (perhaps, certainly she was of relatively lowly birth). William's parents were not married, though Duke Robert was married (just not to William's mother).

The reality is that at the time this was not an barrier to William succeeding his father as Duke. Throughout the 10th and much of the 11th century, marriage was a dynastic and diplomatic arrangement (in many ways it continued to be so) but it was rarely expected to be an emotional attachment. Nobles, princes and Kings usually formed lasting emotional and sexual relationships with a mistress who would in every way fulfil the role of wife with the exception of actually being married. This was accepted practice. All of William's predecessors as Counts of Rouen and Dukes of Normandy were similarly illegitimate, born out of wedlock to their father's mistress, as were many other prominent nobles and princes. What mattered was not the marital status of their mothers but the fact they were the male progeny of their fathers, and more specifically the first born son of their father, irrespective of whom their mother was.

Interestingly, William himself broke this trend. His marriage was a dynastic and diplomatic one but it very soon became and emotional and loving one. His heirs were the product of his marriage and not of a union with a mistress.

It wasn't until later in the 11th century that illegitimacy became a stigma. This was driven in large part by the growing power of the church and its control over aspects of life such as marriage which led to the increasing legal and moral significance of the rite. This made it increasingly difficult for sons born out of wedlock to inherit.

More Background to the Normans

The Normans themselves are a fascinating subject for study. A quick read of the first 2 or 3 chapters of Crouch's book provides a wealth of background to support the study of England from 1066. I have yet to cross the Channel with William in my reading but will get to that soon enough. I wanted to use this post to add some more background to William, the Normans and some of the events of 1066.

What is striking about the Normans between the original settlers under Rollo and William the Conqueror is how swiftly they became assimilated into French/Frankish culture. Within 3 generations (by the end of Richard I Count of Rouen's reign) the Normans were to most intents and purposes French. We need to be careful with such assertions because it would be wrong to suggest that they had completely abandoned their viking roots. chroniclers then and later went to great lengths to sanitise their viking ancestral roots, removing or glossing over suggestions that they were murdering and pillaging savages; but these sanitised roots were acknowledged. Some of the Normans' ruthlessness and warlike vigour can be put down to their viking ancestry.

The assimilation of the Normans as French is seen in several ways. Their adoption of Christianity, indeed their growth as fervent defenders of Christianity and their ambitious and ostentatious building of both castles and religious buildings. Their inter-marriage with many of the leading princely and royal families. William's father Robert was a cousin of Edward the Confessor, King of England. The Norman ruling family had married into both French royal houses - the declining Carolingians and rising Capetians. The development of a clearly defined and powerful court of nobility owing allegiance to the Counts of Rouen and subsequently the Dukes of Normandy. This Norman nobility was made up of both Native French and naturalised Vikings and mixed Viking-French. During the reigns of Richard I and II the Norman rulers went to great lengths to establish their authority along traditional French lines of legitimacy; chroniclers were employed to construct an image of the Norman dynasty as a line of Christian Dukes and lawgivers of great moral integrity; Norman rule was also consolidated on more firmly legal grounds through the use of formal oaths and a more formal feudal type system, moving away from ruling more through military might.

One point of note here is that this assimilation is similar, though more advanced than that of the Vikings in Britain. Large areas of Britain were settled by Vikings and although for many years these areas remained quite separate from Anglo-Saxon England, eventually they became much more assimilated; the old Danelaw became an anachronism rather than a reality. The main difference is that the Vikings did not rule England, whereas the Vikings, or more accurately their descendants, did rule Normandy.

I want to finish this post by talking a little bit about some of the events of 1066 and addressing some of the missing points and oversimplifications I am uncomfortable with from the 1st episode of the BBC series "The Normans".

The first, and perhaps most important, point to address is the sense that the Norman victory at the Battle of Hastings was inevitable. It wasn't. The other points I will raise will serve to support my view here. When Harald Hardrada, King of Norway, sailed up the Rivers Humber and Ouse and landed at Riccall, down stream of York in September 1066 it hastened a chain of events which would end with Harold Godwinson's death at Hastings lest than a month later. Hardrada was a powerful ruler by military might. He had a tenuous claim to the throne of England and he was supported by Tostig, Harold of England's brother. They had already spent the last couple of weeks ravaging Northumbria and had decided to winter in York. To get there they had to pass the army of the Northern earls, Edwin and Morcar. This they did in the Battle of Fulford on 20th September. But Hardrada wanted York on his side so he refrained from sacking the city on the promise of delivery of hostages for good behaviour. The hostages were to be delivered at Stamford Bridge on 26th September. All this was fairly routine for the time. Hardrada expected no trouble and even left roughly 1/3rd of his army at Riccall when he went to Stamford Bridge.

What had happened in the meantime shows that Harold Godwinson was no pushover. He was a general of great ability and much renown, his skills having been honed during his service on behalf of Edward the Confessor in campaigns in Wales and East Anglia. Harold had likely heard of Hardrada's landing on the day before Fulford. He acted immediately, gathered the core of his army, the Huscarls or household troops and raced north gathering the rest of his army (the shire levies or Fyrd) as he went. The army travelled some 190 miles in five days - a phenomenal rate for an army primarily on foot. Harold reached York late 24th September and entered the city. From there he marched to Stamford Bridge to await the Vikings. Hardrada was understandably surprised by this alarming turn of events and the ensuing Battle of Stamford Bridge destroyed the Viking army; it is said that only 24 out of the hundreds of boats the Vikings had arrived in were needed to carry the survivors home.

We already know that King Harold's victory celebrations were short lived because the wind had finally changed and William had sailed to England with his invasion fleet. Had the weather not delayed William for so long and therefore had Harold still been lying in wait for him, William's crossing of the Channel and landing in Kent would have been a very different story. Opposed amphibious landings are very dangerous. But the fyrd had been sent home weeks earlier, so William landed at Pevensey unopposed.

Having heard of William's landing, Harold had hurried back south. Much of the victorious army from Stamford Bridge was left behind but the Huscarls and Harold had marched south as swiftly as they had north. Now Harold had to gather an army from his southern fyrd. We know that Harold did not hang around and moved quickly on to oppose William near Hastings. Harold made the choice to strike swiftly and try to surprise William rather than wait until he had raised a much larger army. This neatly shows how the decisions taken can have a huge impact on the outcome - for every decision there is a series of effects. Even so, the outcome of the Battle of Hastings was far from a foregone conclusion. There were many things to favour Harold's decision to move swiftly. Yes, waiting for more numbers would have given Harold overwhelming superiority of force, but it would leave William free to move around and to gather supplies. It would also give him time to entrench his position and bring over reinforcements. whereas if Harold moved south now he would severely limit William's freedom of maneuver and would deny the Normans access to the harvest supplies their army would shortly be in need of. Winter was fast approaching and with it would come storms that would make it very difficult for William to resupply his army by sea and would render his position untenable. Also, the strategic initiative lying with Harold, William would be forced to respond in order to maintain his freedom of movement so Harold could simply occupy a position and expect William to take the burden of attack. In some ways it was to be sheer bad luck that snatched victory from Harold and handed it to William; it is supposed to be Frederick II (the Great) of Prussia who said "all skill is for nought if an angel pees in the touch-hole of your musket" - a lucky Norman arrow (supposedly) struck down Harold and ended the Anglo-Saxon monarchy in England.

The Battle of Hastings, fought on Saturday 14th October 1066, was to be one of the longest medieval battles fought; it lasted some 6 - 9 hours, a phenomenal effort for what were really only quite small armies, one of which was exhausted from its exertions of the previous 3 weeks topped off by a 60 mile march in the last 3 days. The Battle pitched the 2 foremost military systems of Europe against each other. The Anglo-Saxon English army led by Harold was perhaps the most powerful infantry army of its age (not specifically the army which gathered at Hastings). There was little imagination in the fighting but the the solid and stubborn shield wall was a very tough nut to crack. The Normans in their turn were the most powerful cavalry army of the age, backed up by archers and infantry; its use required flexibility and imagination. But numerous battles through history have shown that when each type of army was used properly it could defeat the other type. So what we have here are two very different but very closely matched forces, each commanded by a leader of tried and tested ability.

Ultimately the Normans won. But for a long while it looked to be going the other way. I will not describe the detail, though I think year 7's and older could be really quite fascinated by a good narrative account.

This blog post has really been more of a filler, attempting to expand a little on the origins of the Normans and to give a little more flavour to some of the events of 1066. I hope that I provided a strong argument to support the rather unexpected nature of the Norman victory and the fact that by most standards Harold could and should have won.

What I would like to do in succeeding posts is to explore how William turned victory at Hastings into conquest of England, for once again this was not an inevitable outcome of the victory, and then to explore how the Norman dynasty and Britain developed. at regular intervals I will pause to consider how to teach what I have covered.

The Normans

As my next topic Ruth has asked me to look at the broad subject of Britain from 1066 to 1500, including a look at King John, the barons and Magna Carta; the Black Death and the Peasants Revolt; Henry II and Becket. I am to start with 1066 and the Normans, quite topical given the coverage of them on the BBC.

As my first sources I am using the BBC series on the Normans, currently running on television (luckily I have recorded them) followed by reading David Crouch's book "the Normans" which I already had on my bookshelf at home (I read it several years ago so will be re-reading it).
The Normans were so called because although they were regarded by many at the time (and many now) as French, they were descended from the Vikings - Northmen, hence the name Normans. You might ask why are we looking at the origins of the Normans when my study topic begins in 1066,. That is a very good question and one to which I will give the answer in part now and in part will become obvious throughout the next few blog entries. 1066 was THE most decisive event in British history and it can be argued in European history too. But the events of 1066 did not happen in a vacuum; nor did the events happen suddenly, with no warning and no build up. To understand 1066, why it happened and why the consequences were so significant it is important to start by looking nearly 200 years previously. Some of this will be covered in future posts, some of it here.

The first episode of The Normans on the BBC was a fascinating programme. I am pleased to say that it did not teach me much that I did not already know (though had forgotten) from reading Crouch's book some years ago.

William I, known to Britain as William the Conqueror, was also known to his contemporaries as William the Bastard because he was the illegitimate son of Robert I, Duke of Normandy, was born in 1027. His mother was a Tanner's daughter from Falaise. As mentioned already he was descended from the Vikings. During the 9th Century the Vikings began raiding France (according to Crouch this was in large part due to the growing strength and effectiveness of the Anglo-Saxon monarchy of England which meant it was easier for the Vikings to look elsewhere for plunder). In the early 10th Century they decided to stay in the lower Seine valley around Rouen. Their leader, a Viking named Rollo, took advantage of the turmoil in France to bargain with the French king and obtain land in return for converting to Christianity and probably for helping to protect the King's authority from other Vikings.

Within 3 generations the Vikings had been assimilated into Frankish (French) culture and society. Normandy had become a reality complete with its own nobility. Its Viking descended rulers were now French, having abandoned their old language and culture and become fervent Christians who now built great monastic houses (such as Mont St Michel) rather than sacked them; indeed their piety was such that they even developed their own architectural style, known in England as Norman and elsewhere as Romanesque. The rulers of Normandy had used marriage to become dynastically intermingled with many of the great noble and royal lines of North Western Europe, including France and England.

But all this Christian piety did not make them soft. The Normans were a hard, militaristic race who as well as building churches also pioneered the building of motte and bailey castles to defend their lands. They bread big heavy warhorses. They adapted to, and developed, the military system of trained mounted military retainers that we know today as Knights. Though they were hardly the chivalric beacons we usually associate with knights, instead they were often little more than highly trained thugs. One was even so well trained that he could tell from sniffing horse manure if it was a warhorse.

When William was just 8 years old, his father died (1035) and William became Duke of Normandy. This was a perilous time. He was in constant danger of assassination. Indeed almost all of his guardians and close friends were killed and he once had to escape in his underwear on horseback across a raging river. This turmoils lasted some 12 years while William hung onto his inheritance. In 1047, when he was 20, a full revolt broke out under his cousin Guy. At the Battle of Valledun, William defeated the rebels. It is said that he personally led the charge against them. It was to be the making on him. Now he was unstoppable. He restored order to Normandy, moved his capital to Caen, married his distant cousin Mathilda, the daughter of the Duke of Flanders. The Pope had forbidden the marriage on the grounds that they were too closely related, but they married anyway, then built an Abbey each in Caen by way of penance.

Clearly William was a fervent Christian, but his upbringing had mad him a hard and ruthless man and there are plenty of examples of this such as his behaviour at the siege of Alencon where he is said to have cut off the hands of his enemies who had insulted him by hanging animal skins from the castle walls (a reference to the lowly status of his mother as a Tanner's daughter). By the time he reached his 30's he was secure in Normandy and looking to flex his muscle elsewhere and he soon settle on England.

11th Century England was wealthy, very well run with an efficient and centralised government and an excellent taxation system (from the ruler's point of view). But in the 1060's it was ruled by Edward the Confessor who had no heir and was likely to die that way. This was potentially disastrous for any realm. William was one of several who could make a plausible claim to the throne - he was Edward's cousin. Edward has even spent 20 years or so living in exile in England when he was a youth before he became king. But William had a serious rival in Harold Godwinson. Harold was the head of the most powerful family in Anglo-Saxon England. He was also an accomplished general. In 1064 Harold made a trip to Normandy and William later claimed that Harold promised to support his claim to the throne. Certainly Harold was knighted by William for his military services fighting for William.

The programme concludes by covering the events of 1066 themselves which I will summarise here.

• 5 January 1066 - Edward the Confessor dies. Harold is crowned King in Westminster Abbey on the same day as Edward's funeral.
• Harold is denounced by chroniclers as an oath breaker (these chroniclers were writing after the events of 1066 and therefore were writing on the behalf of the victor - the victor always gets to write the History!). The appearance of Halley's comet is taken by many as an ill omen for Harold.
• William launches a diplomatic offensive against Harold and obtains support from far and wide including the Pope who sends a Papal Banner. William clearly has God on his side.
• Invasion preparations begin for a fleet of about 700 ships and 7000 men. It is efficient and well run.
• Harold wait son the south coast with his army. But William does not come as the wind remains in the wrong quarter. By Autumn, Harold has to send much of his army home.
• The Vikings under Harald Hardrada, King of Norway, invade in the North, defeat the Army of the northern earls and capture York.
• Harold marches north gathering his army as he goes and on 25th September utterly destroys Hardrada's army at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. But his celebrations are short lived.
• On 28th September the wind changes and William's fleet sails to Sussex. When William lands he stumbles but he quickly turns this ill omen into a positive one by jumping to his feet and crying "look I have grasped the land with both hands!".
• The Normans quickly build 2 motte and bailey castles at Hastings and Pevensey (it takes no more than 2 weeks). The Normans lay waste to the surrounding countryside.
• Harold marches back to London, the 200 mile journey takes his army only 5 days marching on foot! Harold does not wait, despite being begged by his mother, instead he marches his exhausted and by now depleted army towards William at Hastings.
• On Saturday 14th October 1066 the Battle of Hastings is fought at Senlac hill. It will permanently change the course of history in England and beyond.
• William is alleged to have carried saints relics around his neck during the battle, the same relics Harold has sworn his oath of allegiance to William on.
• Despite the tiredness of Harold's army the battle began at 9am and lasted all day but the English line was finally broken when some English pursued the fleeing Bretons and the rest of the Normans took advantage. The end came when Harold was killed by an arrow in the eye. It was the end of Anglo-Saxon England
• Harold's body was so battered that it was recognised by no-one except his mistress who recognised it from certain secret marks known only to her.
• William built an Abbey on the site of the battle as penance for all the bloodshed. The altar is supposed to be on the very spot where Harold died.

I think the episode from the series is fascinating. It gives a good sense of what shaped William to be the ruthless and hard man he was. It gives something of the sense of what drove him to invade England and claim the throne for himself. It would make an interesting source for a lesson. If not all of it then certainly some of it could be shown - especially the sections relating specifically to William's upbringing.

Having said all this, however, I am going to be pedantic and take issue at some of the statements in the programme, especially relating to the military events of 1066 and the suggestion that Harold's defeat at Hastings was both inevitable and the end of resistance in Anglo-Saxon England. The programme oversimplifies these areas and while I believe this to be to the detriment of the broader understanding of the topic, I do understand the need to fit the main events and conclusions into only one hour.

In my next post I will add more detail to the origins of the Normans and the development of their duchy. In due course I will cross the channel and investigate England in the years leading up to 1066 and then move on.

Teaching Game for Elizabeth's Reign

Following prompts from Ruth I have designed a game which I think can be used to teach elements of Elizabeth's reign. The game is a simple role play/card sort type game and I have designed it to teach about the complexities of decision making for Elizabeth. This game is centred on the dilemma and decision of what to do with Mary Stuart when she arrived in England after fleeing Scotland in 1568. The game could be adapted for any other dilemma simply by altering the characters and range of choices and responses they have available.

This version of the game is created as a PowerPoint file. It has 9 characters: Elizabeth, Mary Stuart, France, Scotland (Moray), Spain (Philip II), Norfolk , Northumberland, Cecil and the Pope. (If numbers are tight and combination of Northumberland, Cecil or the Pope may be omitted). Each character has a sheet of traits which covers things like their fears and aims, so for instance Elizabeth's traits include Mary being a threat to her and not liking to help rebels. The traits give flavour. Elizabeth has five options and she can take only one of them: help Mary regain her throne, send Mary to France, send Mary back to Scotland (to be tried), keep Mary in England, or execute Mary. Each option will have pros and cons as represented by the responses available to each of the other characters. They have a set of responses for each option Elizabeth picks. These responses then determine how difficult life might be for Elizabeth and England.

The game would be played with the Elizabeth group using their knowledge of the subject to choose what they think is the best option. Then each other character shares their response with the rest of the class. At the end, the responses and their impact on Elizabeth and England are debated and compared to what we know happened.

I like this approach to learning as I find in my experience that people learn best when they can be involved and can start to get a sense of what it was like to be there and to be involved. Games can really help to drive this kind of experience.

I can't get the PowerPoint onto this blog so I have created an account for SlideShare and have uploaded it to that. If you are interested in it then search for Elizabeth I Lesson Game.ppt. Unfortunately, I have only just started to use SlideShare so don't know how to search on it yet.

I hope to create more games to facilitate the teaching of history as I go through the PGCE course.

Teaching about Elizabeth I and Europe

I have been looking at thinkinghistory.co.uk, the website run by Ian Dawson. This is a phenomenal resource. I found a wonderful activity to help students to understand the European geopolitical situation in 1558/9 and beyond. This involves an activity utilising floor space as a map of Europe and getting the students to represent and sit in the positions of the various countries. It can be a great way to help students understand the complex power politics between the European powers and is certainly an activity I would be keen to try out.

Here is the link to it:
http://www.thinkinghistory.co.uk/ActivityBase/ElizabethIandEurope.html

Teaching about Elizabeth

So far through my blog postings I have only briefly explored ways of teaching elements of Elizabeth, so in this entry I am going to try to expand on that. First lets look at some of the early ideas I have had and expand on them.

One of the first ideas I put forward was teaching about the Spanish Armada using paper boats and classroom floor space to demonstrate the differing formations and tactic of the Spanish and English fleets. I still think this could work as a highly visual and participative lesson. I would look to expand on it using maps to get students to chart the progress of the two fleets and explore the ultimate dispersal of the Spanish fleet. Additionally, when looking at reasons for the defeat of the Armada I would work with the class to explore the whole variety of reasons and then get the class, working in small groups, to prioritise these reasons. Depending on the age group, critical enquiry can be made into the impact of the English fleet on the defeat of the Armada.

The religious issue which faced Elizabeth at the start of her reign is a complex one, it has many strands, goes back to the early Tudors and beyond and is linked to other factors such as foreign affairs. In covering this, I think the first priority is to set out the key factors in simple and easy to follow terms. By this I mean lets look at what happened, so the acts of Supremacy and Uniformity, the struggle to get these through parliament and what the acts meant for religion in England. Then I would start to look at why this was such a contentious issue. At this point exploring the main themes, including looking back at what occurred prior to 1559, would be crucial. I would do this by exploring a different theme, either each lesson or each section of a lesson. I would then back this up through a summary activity using lists of causes and factors and a spider diagram to draw the links between them. I see this as something that can be prepared as a partially completed handout for the students to complete in groups or individually or as a Wipe Board exercise where the diagram is on the board and the whole class contributes to completing it. One thing I think it is very important to do here is to explore the cause and effect of decision making. I have commented on this before, circumstances are made up of numerous complex and interlinked factors involving not just religion but foreign affairs and legacies from the past. Therefore making decisions cannot be done in isolation, all these factors must be understood and taking into account. This makes the process of decision making more complex and fraught with danger. This is an important aspect to reflect in the teaching of much of Elizabeth's reign but especially the religious and foreign affairs themes. I think this can be explored through activities that allow students to look at a series of choices that Elizabeth could make, for instance the religious settlement of 1559, and then to allow students to examine the possible consequences of each choice. This can be done in small groups and then reflected back to the entire class. I am also looking at devising a card sort game that could demonstrate this (more of that later).

One of the factors in play with the religious issues at the start of Elizabeth's reign is the question of her own religious views. There is not much evidence to support this, but there are some sources, such as the New Years Gift incident of 1561. This source and the other pieces of evidence can be used in class to enable students to work at piecing together what they think Elizabeth's religious views were. This would be a good exercise in the use of evidence.

When covering the issue of Foreign affairs in Elizabeth's reign, it will be important to link back to the religious issues as these had a very strong bearing on foreign affairs. It will also be important to link back to events and trends stretching back some 200 to 500 years to help students understand the issues, fears and perceptions during Elizabeth's time. One exercise I would consider is to get a timeline to explore how Elizabeth's foreign policy changed over time and get the students to populate it. I would then get the students to provide the evidence for the changes by citing the events that demonstrate them. This would be a good way to establish the key facts. A further development of the decision making game idea could be used to explore why England and Elizabeth made the foreign policy choices they did. This could be cross referenced by looking at why both Spain and France made their choices. Again a series of spider diagrams to show how the foreign policies of all three countries were linked in a complex balance would be a very useful and visual way of showing this. I would also use maps of Western Europe to show the positions and strengths of the main protagonists. This would highlight the dangers to England of a hostile power controlling the Channel ports and also show the foundation of French fears of Habsburg encirclement.

One key aspect of foreign affairs I would wish to draw out is the issue of Elizabeth's marriage and who she used suitors to further foreign policy or to stave off problems. For example, getting the class to compare the suitors of Phillip II and Duke of Anjou/Alencon and asking them to compare the results of these in terms of what it meant to England in foreign affairs. A good exercise here would be to get the students to imagine what it must have been like to put aside your own feelings for someone in order to achieve a higher purpose.

The third main theme I have looked at covers Power, Control and Rebellion. Once again, covering this in a lesson would require backtracking over the previous 200 years to look at the power and control of the nobility and the monarch to see how this developed through to Elizabeth's reign. I would start by looking at the two main rebellions of Elizabeth's reign, the 1569 Revolt of the Northern Earls and the Revolt of Essex in 1601. I would also include the shenanigans of Norfolk and his consequent execution in 1572. So the lesson scheme would start with an exploration of the facts of these rebellions. This would then expand to a look at the causes of the rebellions and comparing them. Finally I would look at why they failed. For both the look at the causes and the reasons for failure I would look at comparable rebellions in the previous 200 years, as I discussed during my blog entries on the theme.

Overall, I would present a broad coverage of the facts and time lines of Elizabeth's reign. I think a useful exercise would be to get students to try to group the facts and events of her reign into different categories, Religion, Foreign Affairs, Government and Society. This would show how difficult it is to separate many of the events and facts out and categories them so absolutely. It would show how complex and interlinked all these events and facts were.

Elizabeth - The Hollywood Years

In the last week I have watched both of the Cate Blanchett Elizabeth films. I certainly found them interesting and the first film is markedly better than the second film, but both were beset with errors of fact.

I liked the way the first film portrays some of Elizabeth's wiliness at that same time it shows the moral and emotional dilemma's she must have faced, both with regard to religion and to marriage. She is shown as deeply in love with Dudley (a love which he returns) but ultimately unable to marry him. The portrayal of Elizabeth swaying the House of Lords in favour of the Act of Supremacy is good in that it shows how she used her charm and intelligence to win them over.

Other things the film does well; it shows that now she is queen, Elizabeth's life is no longer her own; the dangers of France and opposition from the Papacy are clear; her dislike of war and some of the inability to pay for it; the pressure for her to marry; some of the nature of life for the nobility in terms of fashions etc.

However, as a learning vehicle both films fall short in my opinion. Too many of the facts are distorted and the timelines twisted in order to make a long and complex tale appear credibnle for a 2 hour film. Both films oversimplify the religious issue, the first film goes to great lengths to show the catholics as sinister even down to Mary's court/chamber being in perpetual darkness and Elizabeth's tower experience as being particularly unpleasant (the reality is that although being there was no picnic, the tower remained a luxurious prison, it was after all a royal palace).

I could list the factual issues with each of the films but I fear that would take too long. I will, however, comment on the fact that both films focus on the role Walsingham played and significantly downplay the role of William Cecil, indeed the second film does not even include him and yet Cecil continued to serve the queen long after Walsingham died. This is an interesting point about the films but it is one which perplexes me for I don't know what has driven it.

All of this makes me very wary to use the films as a method of teaching the subject of Elizabeth in schools. However, that does not mean I wouldn't use the films. Small snippets of the films can be used such as Elizabeth winning over the Lords and scenes reflecting the pressures on Elizabeth to marry would be very useful. If showing the whole film (either of them) then I think a reflective exercise would be a necessary part of it - lets look at what we know about the reign of Elizabeth and how the film differs from the established facts.

Power, Control and Rebellion in Elizabethan England, Part 4

How would I teach this subject? Well, that is rather a difficult question. Personally, while I find the nature of power and control and how it changed over the 2 centuries I have discussed in this series of posts a fairly easy concept to understand I find it rather more difficult to explain. I have, however, thought of an analogy which I believe students would understand, well some of them at least.

I believe the concepts discussed can be likened to gangs and bullies in school. The school serves as the crown in this analogy and the bullies/gang leaders as the nobility, with the gang members and bullies' cronies as the nobility's supporters and retainers. If the school has inadequate control or power over the students then the bullies and gang leaders will be able to fill the power vacuum by offering their cronies and gang members protection from other bullies and gangs and from themselves; roughly the situation in 1485. If the school is able to operate an effective anti bullying regime (government) then the bullies and gang leaders become less able to offer protection to their supporters who are more likely to be "punished" for being in a gang. Significantly the school itself is able to offer that protection to the majority of the other students and thereby undermine the power of the bullies and gang leaders; roughly the situation in 1569. In the analogy, the key to this shift in the balance of power is to give the ordinary students more involvement in the government or policing of the school to act as a counter balance against the bullies and gangs.

I am not making any judgement statement about giving students more involvement in school government, I am simply using the analogy as a means to bring the historical theme to life for school students who might otherwise struggle with the concepts.

An alternative is to create a kind of game for the students to play whereby they play the role of nobles and have various choices they can make about gaining power and influence. Different choices might provide them with varied dilemmas and solutions. The choices, dilemmas and solutions would all be based on historical facts and events. the point of the exercise would be to make the learning experience more real by helping the students to gain a better insight into what it must have been like for the nobility making decisions about their security.

Power, Control and Rebellion in Elizabethan England, Part 3

What had changed in the 84 years between the last successful rebellion against the ruling monarch in 1485 and the rebellion of the Northern Earls in 1569?

There are 2 main interwoven strands to the answer to this question. The first, and perhaps most important, centres on the nature of the power of the nobility, where their power came from in 1485 and in 1569. The other strand relates to how monarchs in the 15th Century worked with the nobility in governing the country and draws a comparison to how this was done by Elizabeth's reign.

In modern psychology there are several categories of power need. Some of these relate closely to the late medieval and early modern nobility of England. Reward power represents the power obtained through the ability to reward, or punish, people. For the nobility this included their own manor courts (which had virtually died out) and their ability to grant lands to their followers. Personal power represents the personal magnetism of some people, Henry VIII is a very good example of this as is Elizabeth I herself. Positional power is that gained through the person's official post or title, e.g. Warden of the Marches was a title commonly held by the Percy Earls of Northumberland and it granted pretty free ranging powers along the border between England and Scotland. Connection power is gained through access to other powerful people e.g. presence at Court could grant a lot of connection power and is summed up by the still common phrase "it's not what you know, but who you know".

The nobility of the day were still humans just like us and had psychological needs as we do. Their need for power was heightened by the fact that already being in positions of power and wealth simply increased the psychological pressure to maintain that position. In 1485 the nobility were the great landowners of the country, along with the crown. Although theoretically their land was granted to them by the crown and held in exchange for services and loyalty to that same crown, by 1485 such a purist view of feudalism was long obsolete. The land and the income it provided gave the nobility their wealth and power. Each noble had more land than they could manage themselves and so they granted land to tenants of their own - lesser nobles and knights or gentry. This land was granted in exchange for services and loyalty in what is commonly called patronage. The same applied to the crown as a landowner in its own right. For some of the nobility this power was supplemented by crown offices (performing important government functions on behalf of the crown) in a system of royal patronage. In 1485 these offices were almost exclusively filled by nobles of career clergy (see earlier posts about religion). Problems between the crown and the nobility occurred when one noble, or group of them, felt their interests were not being adequately represented by crown policy to such an extent they felt threatened. When this occurred, if the noble or faction were sufficiently powerful rebellion could result. The more powerful the noble or faction the greater the chance of success in the rebellion, either overthrowing the reigning monarch or controlling him or her.

What had changed by 1569 was the degree of power and wealth obtained from land compared with that obtained from royal patronage. Throughout much of the 16th century inflationary pressures reduced the value of the generally fixed income obtained from land rents and therefore reduced the comparative wealth of the nobility. This was all the more acute in a time of increasing splendour and costs represented in lavish living. To combat this, land usage started to change and as a result nobles generally had fewer tenants to cover the land. Certainly less wealth meant that the nobility struggled to provide as much patronage for their followers as before. So increasingly they had to look elsewhere both to bolster their income and to increase their ability to grant patronage. The primary source of this additional wealth and patronage was the crown. The wealth came from crown offices, being paid to perform government duties. To get appointed to crown offices required access to, and presence at, Court. Court and the crown were also where additional patronage came from. If a noble had access to Court and was appointed to crown positions this would provide him with more money and with increased patronage which he could distribute to his followers and thereby increase their ability to attract more followers and thus more power.

In summary, in 1485 a noble's power came from his wealth and ability to reward his followers through patronage. This was not much different to 1569. The difference is where the balance of this wealth and patronage came from. In 1485 it came from the noble's landed wealth. In 1569 it came from the crown.

The second main strand in answering what had changed between 1485 and 1569 was in the way the crown governed the country. To state this simply, in 1485 the country was governed by the crown through the nobility. Important offices were given to the nobility who then either fulfilled the roles directly or farmed them to their supporters, thus reinforcing their power through patronage. In 1569 the crown governed the country through crown officials who were increasingly recruited from the gentry rather than the nobility and all of whom held their office directly from the crown. Powerful nobles close to the crown could still draw upon their Court influence and use patronage to recruit supporters from the gentry and lesser nobility but the ability had been diminished and the loyalties of these supporters lay more closely with the crown from whom their positions ultimately came. Additionally it was very much more difficult to secure crown positions if you were not present at Court.

This shift in the balance of power in the way the country was governed meant that the nobility had increasingly to share their power and wealth with up and coming gentry whose rise in power was due entirely to the crown not the nobility. The Cecils provide a perfect example of these new and powerful gentry. So when, in 1569 and 1601, great nobles rebelled against the crown, they no longer commanded the power and support to enable their rebellions to be a success. Too many people had a vested interest in the rebellions failing.

Power, Control and Rebellion in Elizabethan England, Part 2

Both Henry VII and Henry VIII spent time and energy removing threats to their rule in the form of rival claimants to the throne. The Wars of the Roses may have resulted in the deaths of several generations of noble families and completely wiped out others but after 1485 there remained a number of people, both male and female, of royal blood. In reality most probably posed little or no real threat to both monarchs' power. Popular rebellion was a different matter, however, especially for Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary.

Henry VIII faced the powerful Pilgrimage of Grace based in the North East and Lincolnshire. Edward faced both the Kett and Western Rebellions in 1549 and Mary faced the Wyatt Rebellion in 1554. All of these were heavily driven by religious opposition to the crown's policy at the time though it would be fair to state that economic difficulties might have had an impact too. These rebellions were led and composed of gentry (in some cases) yeoman farmers and labourers - ordinary people in short. None of these was supported, openly by nobility, though the Pilgrimage of Grace was supported by the Earl of Northumberland's younger brothers. Indeed the nobility sided with the crown and helped suppress the revolts. Perhaps the only exception to this was The Duke of Northumberland's attempt to prevent Mary from taking the throne in 1553.

Compare this to the rebellions against the crown from 1455 to 1485 (the core period of the Wars of the Roses). During the 15th Century the rebellions were led by powerful nobles whose power could command the loyalty of lesser nobility and the gentry. The ordinary people did not get involved except where they were recruited into the relatively small armies of the period to fight for one faction or the other. The power of a very small number of nobles was sufficient to challenge, control and even and overthrow the ruling monarch on several occasions. During the reigns of all the Tudors before Elizabeth no rebellion was really supported by the nobility in this way.

Elizabeth I, however, faced 2, potentially serious rebellions against her rule in England. The first was the Revolt of the Northern Earls in 1569 and the second was the Revolt of Essex in 1601. Although both of these have in common the fact that they were led by powerful nobles (the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland in 1569 and the Earl of Essex in 1601) at face value they have little else in common other than they were unsuccessful. In 1569 the rebellion was ostensibly religiously motivated and had strong local popular support, the rebels wanted to remove Elizabeth from the throne and replace her with Mary Queen of Scots and reinstate Catholicism as the official religion. In 1601, Essex wanted to dominate and control the queen and in so doing defeat his enemies at court and in the Privy Council.

In reality they had more in common. In both cases the nobles involved felt isolated from the centre of power and that their advice was being ignored or not even sought. As powerful nobles they felt it was their right to have the monarch consider their advice. Worse, in each case they felt they had been overlooked in the matter of important offices. The Percy Earl of Northumberland was aggrieved that he had not be given his family's traditional role in running the North of England. In the case of Essex, he had been stripped of certain monopolies, banished from court, suspended from the Privy Council and his role as Master of Ordnance. The details are different from the 15th Century, but the sentiments behind the rebellions in the minds of the nobles involved and their need for security through power are not.

What is most noteworthy then, is why the two potentially dangerous rebellions faced by Elizabeth failed, when similar rebellions a century previously had succeeded. What had changed?

Power, Control and Rebellion in Elizabethan England - Part 1

Elizabeth I faced only 2 rebellions during her reign, 1569 Revolt of the Northern Earls and the Essex Rebellion in 1601, although she faced numerous plots against her, some of which involved members of the nobility, especially Norfolk. The question of why only two (and why these two) is an interesting one when we consider that Elizabeth was ruling as a queen in a male dominated age (and rule by a queen was regarded as a disaster) and that it was a period of religious upheaval and consequent unrest across most of Europe. If we also consider the previous 100 years we can see that times had changed quite markedly for the nobility and their relationship with the crown.

The Tudor dynasty came to the throne on the back of a prolonged and vicious, if intermittent, factional war known as the Wars of the Roses. This saw two branches (York and Lancaster) of the royal house of Plantagenet fight for the throne of England. Although some troubles continued, the wars essentially ended in 1485 when Henry Tudor defeated Richard III in the Battle of Bosworth and took the crown for himself. It is not the purpose of this discussion to look at the causes of the Wars of the Roses, but a look at how they started and a review of some key factors is useful in a discussion of how the relationship between the Nobility and the Crown changed over the two centuries.

Although it was not seen at the time, the overthrow of Richard II by his cousin Henry Bolingbroke in 1399 paved the way for the family squabble which became the Wars of the Roses. Henry represented the House of Lancaster, a branch of the Plantagenet ruling family; Henry was the son of John O' Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and 4th son of Edward III. Richard II was the son of Edward, Prince of Wales (Edward III's eldest son) who had died shortly before his father thus leaving his infant son Richard to inherit the crown. Therefore both Richard and Henry were grandsons of Edward III. In many respects Richard was ahead of his time but this also made him rather an unsatisfactory medieval king. He chose to rule in defiance of the advice of his great magnates and in the end one of them, his cousin Henry, supported by the powerful Percy Earl of Northumberland, rebelled against him, defeated and deposed him, and ultimately had him murdered.

Henry IV, as Henry Bolingbroke became, had a troubled reign partly as a result of the "violent" manner in which he came to the throne. His former supporters, the Percies, felt they were not receiving their due rewards for their services and rebelled, an action which nearly lost Henry the throne. Thereafter things settled down, helped from 1415 onwards by the renewal of the Hundred Years War with France. This took the excessive energies of the nobility to France where it found an external focus. Even the minority of Henry VI and his subsequent unsuitability to rule when he reached majority did not lead to trouble until the 1450's when the unsuccessful conclusion of the Hundred Years War ended the external focus of the nobility.

Henry VI's inability to rule with strength of purpose allowed the growth of factions at court to get out of hand and this reignited the old rivalries amongst the nobility and between the different branches of the house of Plantagenet. Without going into the complex genealogy it is sufficient to say that these rivalries coalesced behind the House of Lancaster (currently occupying the throne in the person of Henry VI) and the House of York in the person of Richard, later Edward, Duke of York. Various noble families exploited the divisions and Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, like the Percies before him, took on the mantle of Kingmaker. Initially he supported Edward of York and helped him attain the throne as Edward IV in 1461. When he felt he was not receiving his due from Edward IV he conspired to remove him and replace him with Henry VI in 1470. Edward IV returned to the throne in 1471 and the House of York seemed secure until 1483 when Edward died and ultimately his brother ascended as Richard III. Richard suffered from over mighty nobles in the form of Buckingham and then at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 he was deserted by both the Stanleys and the Percies. The result was Henry Tudor becoming Henry VII.

So the Tudor dynasty emerged from a turbulent period where nobles had used their power to determine and control the crown. Both Henry VII and his son Henry VIII faced threats to their rule from powerful nobles. In most cases these were perceived rather than real. the reign of Edward VI saw nobles such as Seymour and Dudley vying for power. Mary escaped such issues in her short reign.

In the next post I will explore the nature of these power struggles a little more.