Why This Blog is for Boys

Several years ago I taught a homeschool co-op class in Reno, Nevada. This blog served as a companion to the class. All of my students were boys, as the co-op was in desperate need of a class specifically for boys. Hence, the reason this is addressed to boys. However, the material is wonderful and is a great resource for anyone that wants to teach a class on Medeival English history.

Enjoy!

Mary Queen of Scots

Okay boys. I am checking to see who has read the website this week. First of all, make sure you watch the videos I have linked up over here on the right.

The lesson this week is on Mary, Queen of Scots.

I am going to tell you all about her and then we will end the class with a BANG!!!

But what I want you to do is to look on Google and find out how many times Mary Queen of Scots was married and what were their names?

And if you really want to impress me, tell me...how did Mary Queen of Scots die?

Francis Drake, Patriot or Pirate? Or Both?

During Queen Elizabeth's reign, England rose to become a great naval power. And one of the most important men to make this happen was Sir Francis Drake.

He was born in humble circumstances in 1540 and started as a cabin boy. Because of his sheer determination and hard work, he rose to the highest rank in the English navy.

In 1567, he was on a slave trading voyage in the West Indies. They were driven off course by a bad storm, and had to seek shelter in the harbor of San Juan de Ulua, a Spanish port on the coast of Mexico. At first they were received with kindness, but were afterward attacked by bigger ships, and only escaped with two vessels. After this act of treachery (evil plotting), Drake decided that he would take every opportunity in the future to rob and plunder the Spanish to pay them back for this betrayal.

After 1570, Drake made many voyages to the New World to spy on the Spanish and steal as much stuff from them as possible. In Panama, he planned on capturing an entire Spanish town where they were shipping gold and silver from Peru, and take it for England. But he got wounded badly, and they had to give up the plan.

But from then on, he would sail up and down the coast, seizing a large number of ships and taking the Spanish wealth, both in money and goods. He even decided to hike across the isthmus of Panama and from a tree on a hill, he was able to see both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Drake returned to England in 1573 with many riches. He bought three new ships and set out to sail around the world. He followed the same path that Magellan, the Portuguese navigator had taken 70 years before. When they got around Cape Good Horn in South America, he lost several ships and some turned back. But Drake kept going with his single ship, the Marigold. On the western side to North America, he plunder lots of Spanish settlements, with the permission and blessing of Elizabeth I. Frances Drake stopped to make repairs at a place called Drakes Point (named after him) in the San Francisco Bay area. Then he set sail across the Pacific Ocean.

It took Drake exactly 2 years and ten months to sail around the world. There was a big banquet on his ship and Queen Elizabeth was one of his guests. This is where Drake became a knight with the title 'Sir'. The Marigold couldn't sail anymore, but it was made into a monument that lasted 100 years until it was too rotted. But they saved a piece of the wood and made it into a chair for King Charles II, who afterward gave it to the University of Oxford, where it can still be seen today!

A few years later, Sir Francis Drake would help to save England. King Phillip of Spain was planning to invade England (remember Mary Queen of Scots?) and had a large fleet of ships in a harbor in Cadiz. Drake sailed quickly to Cadiz and sent a fire ship into the harbor, destroying nearly 100 ships and was able to escape unharmed. This delayed the Spanish invasion 1 year.

But the Spanish still collected over 130 vessels and more than 50,000 men, which was called the 'Invincible Armada'. They planned to attack the English in three different places. They thought the English would be so bewildered that they would just surrender.

But the English were ready. Troops were collected in case the Spanish landed on English soil. The queen gave a rousing speech to encourage her people. Merchants offered their ships for the fight, the rich donated money, the poor volunteered to fight. The English didn't have half the soldiers that the Spanish had, but they were tough. Sir Francis Drake was one of the commanders, along with Howard, Frobisher, and Hawkins. In Late July 1588, the coast of England was lit with warning beacons telling the news of the Spanish invasion. They were coming.

The English vessels were light and could maneuver easily. The Spanish had large, clunky ships. The English sailed with skill and could fire their guns with precision. The Spanish guns would sail over head. The fighting went on for a week! Finally the Spanish fleet went back to the harbor in France and the English couldn't attack. So once again, they sent 8 fire ships into the harbor. It didn't destroy any ships but it scared the Spanish and they sailed out to sea again. The English attacked and many ships were disabled and 4,000 Spaniards were killed in one day's fighting.

The Spanish wanted to sail home, but were blocked by the English fleet. They decided to sail around Scotland, but bad weather pushed most of the ships onto jagged rocks and the Spanish Armada was annihilated, like completely destroyed. Only 54 vessels made it home and 10,000 men survived.

England was victorious.

But Sir Francis Drake was not done sailing. He took another trip to the West Indies to try to capture a Spanish town on the Panama isthmus. But he caught a fever and died on board his ship on January 28, 1596.

Sir Francis' body was buried at sea. Lord Macaulay wrote these lines in reference to his burial:

“The waves became his winding sheet:

The waters were his tomb.

But for his fame-the mighty sea

Has not sufficient room.”

He left no children, but his nephew was made a baronet in the reign of James II. England will always remember with gratitude the services Sir Francis rendered in the days of her struggle to become 'mistress of the sea.'

-from Famous Men of Modern Times by John H. Haaren & A.B. Poland, 2008 Memoria Press

John Cabot

1492 was a remarkable year in the history of the world. And that was because three little ships made a remarkable and daring journey to a land never seen before by much of the world. The Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria thankfully landed on an island in the Caribbean on October 12 after a harrowing (scary and slightly dangerous) trip across the great unknown, the Atlantic Ocean. Their fearless leader, Christopher Columbus had done what he said he was going to do...find the Indies by sailing west instead of east.

But what did they really find? A whole new world, a big mass of land that was smack dab in the way of China and the riches of the indies: spices and more spices. Can you imagine how bad that European food must have tasted if they were willing to risk everything to find a quicker way to the Indies and cinnamon, pepper, nutmeg, cloves.

Well, they didn't just go because of spices, but it was a BIG part of it. They wanted to find gold, and they wanted to save the world from hell by bringing Christianity to people, whether they wanted it or not.

King Ferdinand V and Queen Isabella of Spain provided Columbus with the boats and supplies and so they quickly benefited from the riches they found in this new world. Spain was becoming very rich and powerful. Portugal also sent out explorers like Vasco de Gama, Cabral, and Magellan. Portugal and Spain were raking in the riches.

So, what about England? After all, they were an island nation and should be cashing in on all of this new discovery.

In 1496, King Henry VII issued letters to allow John Cabot to sail in eastern, western, and northern seas that had not been explored by the Spanish and Portuguese. Cabot was not even English. He was born in 1451 as Giovanni Caboto. He was from Italy, just like Christopher Columbus. At first he went to Spain and Portugal to get them to give him ships to explore this new world. He thought that Asia could be reached easily and quickly by sailing more to the north.

 

But Spain and Portugal didn't want to help him because they felt they already had enough explorers out there. They didn't need anymore.

Guess who had to pay the most for spices? England. They were the farthest away from the traditional spice route to India. They wanted to get the spices themselves and of course, riches.

On his second try, Cabot set sail in May, 1497. He had one small ship, the Matthew, with a crew of about 18 men. He sailed the same route the Vikings had used hundreds of years before.

Eventually, he did find land, but no spices. He came back over a year later in August 1497 with glowing reports of what he had found. He provided the first mapped details of the North American coast.

King Henry called Cabot's discovery “new-found-land”. It would eventually become known as Newfoundland, part of present-day Canada. Cabot became famous. Everyone thought he had found Asia.

He sailed again in May 1498 with five ships. The weather was bad and one ship sailed back while four continued on. They were never heard from again.

Though Cabot didn't know it, he had discovered North America for the Europeans. His discovery would become more valuable than a ship's hull filled with treasure. It allowed England to claim North America.

Elizabeth I, Queen of England

Now that Elizabeth was queen of England, she had a lot of hard challenges in front of her. England in 1559 was weak and unstable. The treasury did not have much money. Powerful countries like Spain and France were a threat. And then a lot of people had been killed because of religion.

Remember, Henry VIII, Elizabeth's father had broken away from the Catholic church and made his own church in which he was in charge. He called it the Church of England. Now that she was Queen Elizabeth, she was also the head of the Church of England. She had to make sure that everyone was a member of the Church of England so that they would be loyal to her. But, unlike her sister Mary, she said she did not want to make “windows into men's souls”. As long as the people were loyal to her, she would not force anyone to do anything.

Queen Elizabeth had a bad temper and a strong will. But she was very careful and not willing to make quick, sudden decisions on big things.

But the big question was marriage. Queen Elizabeth was a woman so naturally she had to get married. Who would it be? Monarchs did not marry for love, but for power. The match had to be right for England so that it could be strengthened and not weakened. Elizabeth was very clever. She had many offers of marriage and she stalled for years and years, waiting to make a decision. Everyone wanted her to get married so that she could have children and secure a successor for the future of England. But Elizabeth only pretended to be interested in marriage.

By pretending, Elizabeth was able to protect her country from powerful European nations that could harm a weakened England. There was no way she would ever marry someone who had invaded her country! It was a smart strategy...and it worked.

To the north of England was Scotland. Unlike today, back in Elizabethan times, Scotland was an independent country and England was always trying to invade it and take it over. The Scottish wanted help to keep the English out, so they looked to France for aid. Soon after Elizabeth was crowned queen, Scotland got a new queen as well, Mary Stuart. She was known as Mary, Queen of Scots. Mary and Elizabeth were related. They were cousins!

Mary was related to Henry VIII and had a claim to the English throne. And Mary Stuart was a Catholic. Many Catholics wanted Mary to be the queen for that very reason. She thought she should be queen of England as well. But Mary was not very popular in Scotland. She angered the people by marrying someone they did not like. The Scottish rebelled and Mary fled Scotland on horseback in the middle of the night. She ended up in England and asked Queen Elizabeth for protection.

Elizabeth didn't like Mary, but she agreed to help another queen-a queen who was her cousin. Mary lived in England for the next 19 years. But Elizabeth kept guards on her so that she wouldn't start a rebellion against Elizabeth. And boy, was she right. Mary was trying to stir up a rebellion so that she could take the throne from Elizabeth. Spies were able to find proof because Mary had been sneaking letters out of her castle in beer barrels.

Elizabeth was furious! The rebels' leader was put to death. But what would Elizabeth do about Mary? Mary was put on trial and found guilty of treason. Elizabeth only had to sign the death warrant, but she hesitated for days. She didn't particularly like Mary Stuart, but she didn't want to kill a queen.

In the end, Elizabeth signed the warrant, and Mary, Queen of Scots was executed. This did not go over well in Spain. They already didn't like the English because they had broken away from the Catholic church and were big rivals with Spain. King Philip (the guy who was married to Bloody Mary and then wanted to marry Elizabeth) needed some kind of excuse to invade England, and with the execution of a fellow Catholic, Mary Stuart, it was the excuse he needed. He sent a huge fleet of ships, called an Armada, to invade England in 1588.

 

The Spanish had a powerful navy because of their many successes in exploration, thanks to men like Christopher Columbus, De Soto, and such. It did not look good for England. They did not have nearly as many ships. The sea battle lasted for days. But luck was with the English. First, they burned some of the enemy ships. Then a great storm came through the English Channel. Spanish ships crashed against the rocks and were destroyed.

 

It was a great moment for England. The storm was seen as a blessing from God. Elizabeth had shown that she, a woman, could fight a war as well as any king. The English navy had proven itself by defeating the powerful Armada. In the coming years, England would rule the seas with its great navy.

It was a turning point in the history of the world.

Henry VIII's Children

Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry VIII. Her mother was Anne Boleyn. Queen Anne was very beautiful. Remember, she was the second wife of Henry VIII. He divorced his first wife Catherine, because she did not give him a son.

Anne promised that their child would be a son, so when Elizabeth was born, it was a huge disappointment. Queen Anne had three miscarriages after Elizabeth's birth and the king was not happy. Henry was convinced Anne would never bare a son, so he had her arrested for treason for some flimsy reason. She was locked in the Tower of London and four days later, she was executed. They chopped off her head!

Only two weeks later, King Henry VIII remarried. Her name was Jane Seymour and she quickly got pregnant and luckily enough had a son. Unfortunately, Jane got really sick and died a few days later.

Things did not look good for Elizabeth. She was the second daughter from a denounced marriage, where her own mother was killed by her father. In her father's eyes, she was no longer a princess. She was sent to live far away from her father. She hardly ever saw him.

But Elizabeth grew up well. She was incredibly smart and was surrounded by people who loved her. Elizabeth studied math, history, literature, astronomy and geography. She especially loved reading books in Latin and Greek. She knew five languages besides English: Italian, Spanish, Greek, and Latin.

When Elizabeth I turned thirteen, her father died. Her brother Edward became king, but he was a sick thing and did not last long. So he died when he was fifteen and the crown went to Elizabeth's older sister Mary, the daughter of Henry VIII first wife Catherine.

Now this is really important. Catherine and Mary were extremely devoted Catholics. But Elizabeth and Edward had been raised Protestant. Their father had accidentally become an important leader of the Reformation, because he wanted to divorce Catherine (Mary's mother) to marry Anne (Elizabeth's mother). The Catholic Church absolutely forbid it, so Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic Church and told everyone in England that he was now the leader of the church in England. But Henry VIII still was a Catholic, even though he disagreed with the Church not letting him get a divorce.

Confused yet?

Henry wanted to be in charge! He was the King! No Pope was going to tell him what to do.

Remember...Mary was now the queen, but a lot of people in England did not like the Catholic Church and the last monarch, her brother Edward didn't like the Catholic Church either. It was a very dangerous time in England because things were changing and most of the time, people in power do not like change.

So what was Mary supposed to do? She was now the queen. She decided that she was going to make everyone be Catholic again. But what if you didn't want to be a Catholic? Simple enough, Mary had those people burned at the stake! More than 250 people were killed like this and it didn't make people like Mary very much. They gave her a wretched nickname, Bloody Mary.

Not only did Mary not like people who weren't Catholic, she also did not like her half-sister Elizabeth. After all, Mary's poor mother Catherine was discarded and thrown away by Henry to marry Elizabeth's mother Anne Boleyn. This was a humiliating thing. Mary was also suspicious that Elizabeth was a Protestant and not a devoted Catholic.

So what did Mary do to Elizabeth? Simple enough. She had her thrown into jail! Elizabeth now found herself in the Tower of London like her mother before her. Things did not end well for Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth was very afraid that the same thing was going to happen to her. She had to be really careful what she said and did. The littlest thing could be the excuse Mary was looking for to be able to chop off her head.

The Tower of London

Elizabeth was kept in the Tower of London for two long months, never knowing if she would live or die. Finally, Queen Mary released her sister, but put her under house arrest for a year in a nearby palace. She was watched closely so she had to be really careful what she said and did.

Meanwhile, Mary was desperately trying to have a child. She was married to Phillip of Spain. Phillip was the son of Ferdinand and Isabella. Do you know who they were? They were the ones that gave Christopher Columbus the money to sail west, where he accidentally discovered America! Anyways, Mary wanted to have a child, but it didn't work out so well for her. Instead of getting pregnant, she got really sick with cancer and died.

On her deathbed, Mary declared that Elizabeth should be the next queen. Elizabeth was sitting under a tree reading a book when two officers came racing towards her. Can you imagine how scared she might have been? What if they were coming to arrest her again, and this time kill her? But no, the men presented Elizabeth with the royal ring. It was the one Mary had worn. Elizabeth said a prayer of gratitude, in Latin. She must have been very glad that she survived Mary's rule. Now she was queen. Elizabeth was only 25 years-old.

On January 15, 1559, Elizabeth was crowned queen of England at the famous Westminster Abbey in London.

Elizabeth had learned a lot over the past ten years. She knew how people close to her could turn against her. She would have to be careful and smart if she was going to remain queen.

William Tyndale, A Man To Be Admired

William Tyndale was a native of Gloucester and began his studies at Oxford in 1510, later moving onto Cambridge. By 1523 his passion had been ignited; in that year he sought permission and funds from the bishop of London to translate the New Testament. The bishop denied his request, and further investigations convinced Tyndale that the project would not be welcomed anywhere in England.

To find a friendly environment, he traveled to the free cities of Europe – Hamburg, Wittenberg, Cologne, and finally to the Lutheran city of Worms. There, in 1525, his New Testament emerged: the first translation from Greek into the English language. It was quickly smuggled into England, where it received a less-than-enthusiastic response from the authorities. King Henry VIII, Cardinal Wolsey, and Sir Thomas More, among others, were furious. It was, said More, “not worthy to be called Christ's testament, but either Tyndale's own testament of the testament of his master Antichrist.”

Thomas More did everything he could to stop Tyndale and the translation of the Bible into English. He was a ruthless man when it came to disagreement in the Catholic Church.  But he was consistent.  This poor guy ended up getting beheaded by order of King Henry VIII because he would not support Henry's break with the Pope and the Church.

Authorities bought up copies of the translation (which, ironically, only financed Tyndale's further work) and hatched plans to silence Tyndale.

Meanwhile Tyndale had moved to Antwerp, a city which he was relatively free from English agents and those of the Holy Roman (and Catholic) Empire. For nine years he managed, with the help of friends, to hide from authorities, review his New Testament, and begin translating the Old.

His translations, it would turn out, became decisive in the history of the English Bible , and of the English language. Nearly a century later, when translators of the Authorized, or King James Version, debated how to translate the original languages, eight of ten times, they agreed that Tyndale had it best to begin with.

During these years, Tyndale also gave himself over to good works because as he said, “My part be not in Christ if mine heart be not to follow and live according as I teach.” On Mondays he visited other religious refugees from England. On Saturdays he walked Antwerp's streets, seeking to help the poor. On Sundays he dined in merchants homes, reading Scripture before and after dinner. The rest of the week he devoted to writing tracts and books and translating the Bible.

Conspiracy to Capture!

We do not know who planned and financed the plot that ended his life (whether England or continental authorities), but we do know it was carried out by Henry Phillips, a man who had been accused of robbing his father and of gambling himself into poverty. Phillips became Tyndale's guest at meals and soon was one of the few privileged to look at Tyndale's books and papers.

In May 1535, Phillips lured Tyndale away from the safety of his quarters and into the arms of soldiers. Tyndale was immediately taken to the Castle of Vilvorde, the great state prison of the Low Countries, and accused of heresy.

Trials for heresy in the Netherlands were in the hands of special commissions of the Holy Roman Empire. It took months for the law to take its course. During this time, Tyndale had many hours to reflect on his own teachings, such as this passage from one of his tracts:

“Let it not make thee despair, neither yet discourage thee, O reader, that it is forbidden thee in pain of life and goods, or that it is made breaking of the king's peace, or treason unto his highness, to read the Word of thy soul's health-for if God be on our side, what matter maketh it who be against us, be they bishops, cardinals, popes.”

Finally, in early August 1536, Tyndale was condemned as a heretic, degraded from the priesthood, and delivered to the secular authorities for punishment.

On Friday, October 6, after local officials took their seats, Tyndale was brought to the cross in the middle of the town square and given a chance to recant. That refused, he was given a moment to pray. English historian John Foxe said he cried out, “Lord, open the King of England's eyes!”

Then he was bound to the beam, and both an iron chain and a rope were put around his neck. Gunpowder was added to the brush and logs. At the signal of a local official, the executioner, standing behind Tyndale, quickly tightened the noose, strangling him. Then an official took up a lighted torch and handed it to the executioner, who set the wood ablaze.

One brief report of that distant scene has come down to us. It is found in a letter from an English agent to Lord Cromwell two months later.

“They speak much,” he wrote, “of the patient sufferance of Master Tyndale at the time of his execution.”

**This was originally printed as an article for Christianity Today, with slight revisions to simplify for kids.

 

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/131christians/scholarsandscientists/tyndale.html