The document provides a summary of the Tudor dynasty in England from Henry VII to Elizabeth I. It discusses the key events and monarchs during this period. Henry VII consolidated his position by making alliances through marriage. Henry VIII broke with the Catholic Church and established the Church of England after failing to obtain an annulment from the Pope. His daughters Mary I and Elizabeth I succeeded him but had differing approaches to religion, with Mary attempting to restore Catholicism and Elizabeth establishing Protestantism. The Tudor line ended with Elizabeth I's death in 1603.

1. The Tudors

2. Henry VII
VII Henry VII, who came to the English throne when
the Wars of the Roses ended, was the first king of the
Tudor dynasty. He tried to consolidate his position
through: a treaty with France; a trade treaty with the
Netherlands and the dynastic marriage in 1501
between his son Arthur and the Spanish princess,
Catherine of Aragon. During his turned England
modern state. He also laid the foundations of English
naval power.

3. Henry VIII
Henry VIII was Henry VII’s second son. From an early age he was a known
figure at court, he was a natural sportsman. He was called the Golden Prince'
both for education his natural good looks and for his chivalry and the Faith in
1521 he was granted the title of Defender of defending by the pope. After the
death of his brother Arthur, Hen married his widow, Catherine of Aragon. In
twenty years of marriage Catherine only produced a daughter, Mary, and Henry
desperately wanted a male heir. He began to consider marriage to his
pregnant mistress Anne Boleyn and asked the pope for a divorce in order to
marry her. Henry broke with Rome and declared himself "Supreme Head on
Earth of the Church of England”. This meant that he had the right to appoint
bishops, decide on articles of faith and impose his will on the monasteries.
The king soon dissolved the monasteries, taking their wealth, and social
charities -such as schools and hospitals for poor-. Henry married Anne Boleyn
in 1533, and she gave him a second daughter, Elizabeth. Henry on have four
more wives in quick succession went to and one son, Edward, from his third
wife, Jane Seymour.

4. Mary I
Mary I was born in 1516, the only surviving child of
Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. Rejection by her
father and the cruel treatment of her mother were to
have a fundamental influence on her life. She refused to
abandon her own traditional faith, and when she
became queen in 1553 she believed be the agent of a
Counter-Reformation. This attempt to restore England to
papal obedience, her marriage to the Catholic Philip of
Spain and the burning of Protestants, earned her the
nickname "Bloody Mary”. Mary's end was tragic: deserted
by her husband, without an heir, her foreign and
domestic policies were a failure, and her country was
still divided over religion when she died.

5. Elizabeth I
In 1558 Elizabeth, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn's daughter, became queen of a
divided nation the majority of which was anti-Catholic and anti-Spanish She
was twenty-five and had a strong personality, a lively intelligence and a
passionate character. She had received an excellent education and could speak
French, Latin and Italian with ease, but above all she was a political genius. As
queen she faced the problems of marriage and succession, religious division,
domestic discontent and foreign threats. Her Church of England restored the
country firmly to Protestantism, yet she granted Catholics freedom of worship.
She was unmarried and used this as a political weapon. She often repeated
that “the Queen was married to her people”. She recognised Spain as her main
trade rival and enemy. At first, open war was avoided and exploration and
overseas trade expanded, making England a commercial and sea power. English
sea captains, like Francis Drake (ca 1540-96), were secretly encouraged by the
queen in their piracy. They captured ships. In 1588 the Spanish decided to
invade England and sent a great armada of 30 galleons to the English Channel,
but the English defeated the Spanish Armada. Supremacy at sea enabled
Elizabeth to lay the basis of England's empire.

6. King by divine right
With the death of Elizabeth l in 1603, the Tudor line died out and James VI
(1566-1625) of Scotland became the first Stuart king in England, with the title of
James l. He was a Protestant, and instead of basing his rule on the love of his
people', he based it on the theory of the divine right of kings'. He believed that,
as a monarch. he was the representative of God on earth. He summoned
Parliament only to ask for money. He was interested in witchcraft and the
supernatural. As in the early days of Elizabeth I, religion was the most urgent
problem of the new reign. Catholics were barred from public life and were fined
if they refused to attend the Church of England; extreme Protestants, called
Puritans, disapproved of both the rites and the bishops of the Church of England.
These Puritans had a high sense of duty and morality a hundred of them, the
Pilgrim Fathers, applied for a government pate to colonise New England. In 1620
they left England for America on the Mayflower and founded New Plymouth. King
James authorised a new translation of the Bible in 1604. this version would be
heard and read by laymen. The Protestant religion actively encouraged personal
knowledge of the Bible, and this version would be used by the Church of England
for more than three hundred years. In 1605 some radical Catholics, led by Guy
Fawkes, plotted to blow up the king in the Houses of Parliament.

8. The restlessness of the 16th century was increased by new geographical and scientific
discoveries which weakened the old models of the world and the universe, By around 150 AD,
the Alexandrian astronomer Ptolemy (2nd century AD) had written the Geography, which
defined the discipline of geography and laid down the principles of global mapping.
In Ptolemy's view of the universe, the sun and the planets revolved around a stationary earth.
Below the moon was the world of mutability; above it, that of permanence. This old order of
ideas was weakened by new cultural influences.

9. Copernicus was born in but Poland studied in Italy. He created a new model of the
solar system in which the sun was at the centre, with the earth and the other
planets moving around it. The invention of the telescope by Galileo Galilei (564-
1642) proved that the earth turns around the sun; moreover, the Italian astronomer
established the scientific method, that is, the study of the physical world by sensory
observation, experiment and by mathematical measurement.

10. The English Renaissance

11. The English Renaissance covers the
historical period from 1509, the year Henry
VIII ascended the throne, to 1660, the year
which marked the beginning of the
Restoration. The English Renaissance
developed later than its European
equivalents and was an original, typically
English movement. Its main feature was its
strong Protestant basis influenced by the
Reformation under the reign of Henry
VIII, who broke with Rome and declared
that the king was the head of the English
Church.
England fought to free itself from the ltalian
influence, which was identified with Rome and
the papacy. The new literature was also influenced
by the training in classical imitation of a number
of Humanist scholars and translators, reaching
back to the time of Erasmus of Rotterdam (ca
1469-1936) At the beginning of the century, he
had stressed the importance of studying classical
literature for the Christian student, The New
Learning', as Humanism was also called, was
established in schools all over the country and in
the two universities, Oxford and Cambridge.
The English Renaissace New Learning

12. The Sonnet
The Renaissance is considered the olden age of poetry because l of the flourishing of love songs and
sonnets. The sonnet was introduced into England by Sir Thomas Wyatt, from Italy, where it had been
experimented with and refined by Dante and Petrarch, whose Canzoniere had become the model for all
European Renaissance poets. As a metrical form, the sonnet is composed of fourteen lines.
‘The Italian', or 'Petrarchan', sonnet is divided into one octave plus a sestet. The most frequent rhyme
schemes are: ABBA ABBA CDE CDE or ABBA ABBA CDC DCD. The octave generally presents an
issue or a situation, while the sestet contains the solution of the problem or personal reflections.
After a period the English sonnet came to be evolution, identified with the Shakespearean model. It
consists of three quatrains and a final couplet; the rhyme scheme is ABAB EFEF GG. Through this
structure, the poet can use the quatrains to present a theme or three different arguments and draw a
conclusion in the final couplet. The traditional subjects of the sonnet are love, faith, beauty, art and the
destructive action of time.

14. The life
 William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1564,
possibly on 23rd April which is also said to be the date of his death, His
father was a yeoman (a successful tradesman), until be met with financial
difficulties. William was the eldest son and attended the local grammar
school, which gave him a thorough grounding in the use of language and
classical authors. In 1584 he left Stratford and went to London. It was at that
time that he first experienced the playhouse. He was received into one of
the acting companies at a very minor level at first, but his admirable wit
soon distinguished him if not as a great actor, as an excellent writer. In 1593
the London theatres were closed because of the plague and Shakespeare
needed the support of a private patron. When the theatre reopened,
Shakespeare became a shareholder and of the main playwright of the most
successful company actors in London: the Lord Chamberlain's Men. In 1599
his company built the Globe Theatre, where most of his plays were
performed. The latter part of was his life spent in retirement in Stratford. He
died in 1616 when he was 52 years old.

15. Romeo and Juliet
 The plot
The setting is Verona, where two families, the Montagues and the Capulets, are locked in a violent feud.
First Act. The first act covers a whole day and it opens in a street in Verona. This act is composed of a series of dialogues about
the courtly concept of love, which was linked to melancholy holy devotion and the idealisation of the object of desire. It ends
with the scene of the masque and the meeting of the main characters, Romeo.
Second Act. The second act concentrates on the development of the relationship between Romeo and Juliet. The dialogue
between the two lovers deals with the theme of love in a way that departs from courtly conventions.
Third Act. The pace of events increases. It is the longest act and can be divided into two parts: that of public events, full of action
and movement, and the part devoted to private events. Mercutio, Romeo's friend, is killed by Tybalt, Juliet's cousin. In revenge
Romeo kills Tybalt and is banished from Verona to Mantua. The act ends with Romeo and Juliet's wedding night.
Fourth Act. It is the preparatory act to the final tragedy. Juliet takes a drug given to her by Friar Laurence. This potion makes her
seem dead. The friar sends a messenger to Mantua, but before he arrive Romeo is told that Juliet is dead and decides to come
back to Verona.
Fifth Act. The fifth act consists of three scenes. first breaks the unity of place, moving from Verona to Mantua. In the last scene
Romeo poisons himself after seeing Juliet apparently dead in the tomb, while Juliet, waking from her trance, sees Romeo dead
and stabs herself with his dagger. Unlike most Shakespearean heroes, Romeo and Juliet will never know the truth about their
death.

16.  Themes
The main themes of the play are:
• The lack of knowledge which necessarily derives from
bad communication: Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy of
not knowing and unawareness; it cannot be summed
up as the tragedy of ‘old hate’ and ‘young love', since
the tragic final destruction results from a pattern which
includes the elements of chance.
• The reflection upon language made by Juliet, who
shows a tendency to realism in her use of language:
though she is set within the court love convention and
she stands for innocence, she returns Romeo’s love. She
belongs to no characterization. She is in love with
Romeo, and the first obstacle to their love is ‘his name’.
She reflect upon the symbolic order of language and its
links to ‘reality’.