I.
Introduction
What is monarchy? Does it bring benefit,
prosperity and advantages or disadvantages?
There are many opinions on this matter.
Some consider that Monarchy is inalienable part of life. Of course, Monarchy
has advantages. Every monarch makes
a considerable contribution in the building of his or her nation. There is no civilization living today which did
not originate in the work and effort of Monarchy. Thus, Monarchy is a force for
civilization. Another point about the Monarchy in my view is that monarchs, by
their very nature, are more patriotic than either Prime Ministers or
Presidents. They hold great affection for their respective countries.
Others think that the monarchy is
undemocratic. Expenditures on monarchs are enormous & even unfounded. It
seems to me that surely, there are
some weak points of Monarchy. Firstly, a single person rules in a state for a long time or even for
life time, so peoples have no chance to remove him if he or she is not
functioning properly or according to the will of people.
Then, when a person knows that is an authority
for life time, he/she does not take any tension to work for the betterment of
peoples as he/she knows that they are not answerable to anyone. At last, a huge
amount of money is spent on king/queen and their family for nothing.
However, nowadays there are a lot of
countries with monarchs at the head. For example, Great Britain, Spain, Norway,
Sweden, Japan, etc.
As for me, I learn English as a foreign
language at school, so I’m interested in the history of English-speaking
countries, & especially, Great Britain. It is amazing & fantastic
country. One of its peculiarities is political system which is presented by
constitutional monarchy. So, the monarch is the official head of state & an
integral part of Parliament in her constitutional role. I think the benefits of monarchy in Great
Britain are truly very high.
II.
The
main body
I believe that the most interesting &
prosperous time of ruling was Tudor period in British history.
As I learned,
it occupies the period from 1485 till 1603 in England and Wales. The Tudor age was characterized by rapid inflation, Reformation
and religious disagreements between Catholics and Protestants (fig. 1)
Fig.1. Steps of Reformation
It is known that England under the Tudors
was economically healthier, more expansive and more optimistic than at any time
in thousand years. What was the progress? First of all, population growth began
to increase.
Secondly, Thomas Cromwell, who was Henry
chief minister from 1532 to 1540, was the author of modern, bureaucratic
government which replaced medieval, government-as-household-management.
Thirdly, the Tudor Government raised a
huge amount of revenue from the dissolution of the monasteries. The clerical
income from First and Tenths, which previously went to the Pope, now went to
the King.
Precisely at that period there was
improved financial system which worked with admirable precision.
The Reformation transformed English
religion during the Tudor period. The Church of England broke away from Rome
and came under royal control.
The five sovereigns of the Tudor dynasty
are among the most well-known figures in Royal history (fig. 2). Of Welsh
origin, Henry VII succeeded in ending the Wars of the Roses between the houses
of Lancaster and York to found the highly successful Tudor house. Henry VII,
his son Henry VIII and his three children Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I
ruled for 118 eventful years.
Fig.
2 The House of Tudor
During this period, England developed into
one of the leading European colonial powers, with great wish to take part in
the conquest of the New World.
The
brightest monarch of that epoch was, in my opinion, is Queen Elizabeth I
(fig.3). She was the last ruler of
Tudor. The period of her ruling was called the Elizabethan era & nowadays
the historians have come to agreement that it was the Golden Age in English
history.
Fig.
3 The last of the Tudor dynasty – Queen Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I was wise and a just Queen, she could
choose the right advisors but never allowed them to dominate on her. She ruled
for 45 years and during this time were the height of the English Renaissance
and the time of the development of English poetry and literature. She
had received an excellent humanistic education and gathered about her a circle
of courtiers who became patrons of the new culture, especially in the fields of
poetry and drama. Thus, the English Renaissance reached its peak during the
reign of Elizabeth.
Many great men wrote poetry, drama was
also famous. William Shakespeare's plays were written in the years of her
reign. Elizabeth herself was a good musician. English music was then among the
best in Europe.
Moreover, England succeeded in the
Anglo-Spanish War. In 1588 an immense armada of Spanish warships was sent by
the king of Spain, scattered by storms in the English Channel,
marking the rise of English power on the continent and the beginning of a
steady decline in the power of Spain (fig.4). The English
defeated the naval expedition, the Armada, sent by Philip II of Spain to
conquer England. As a result, England
became powerful naval country.
Fig. 4
Battle of Gravelines Part of the Anglo-Spanish War
I decided to compare ruling of Elizabeth
with Russian one coinciding in time.
Approximately
at the same time we can see at the Russian throne Ivan IV (better known as Ivan
the Terrible), who was the earliest ruler to call himself a tsar (fig. 5). He
was rather controversial figure in the Russian history. Even
Ivan’s nickname has left a controversial legacy. The English word “terrible” is
usually used to translate the Russian word Grozny. Yet, Grozny’s
meaning is closer to inspiring fear or terror, threatening or awesome rather
than sinister or cruel. Some believe the original intended sense could have
been Ivan the Fearsome or Ivan the Formidable.
The role of the man who spent 37
years on the Russian throne is still disputed. A ruthless monarch and skilled
manipulator, he was also a prominent theologian, an accomplished public speaker
and one of the most well-educated people of his time.
Being a child, Ivan started dreaming
of unlimited power. In 1547, aged 16, he was finally crowned Tsar of all
Russia, the first ruler to officially assume the title. The young ruler started
out as a reformer, modernizing and centralizing the country. He revised the law
code, created an elite standing army and introduced local self-management in
rural regions. The first printing press was introduced in Russia and new trade
routes opened up.
Fig. 5 Russian tsar,
Ivan IV
In Russia it
was the period of
political crisis provoked by the rule of struggling boyar clans. Ivan’s IV
reign is remarkable for the conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan (fig. 6),
colonization of Siberia and unsuccessful Livonian war. He also convened the Land Assembly (Zemsky
sobor), which included representatives of all classes. The tsar sought to
centralize the government and to limit the power of the duma of boyars. In the
early 1560s, Ivan dissolved the select assembly and persecuted the former
members. In 1565, he introduced a form of dictatorship known as the oprichnina –
a state within a state under his own personal control. This personal fiefdom
was ruled by the oprichniki – an elite corps of lifeguards who wore black robes
similar to monks’ habits. They tied dogs’ heads and brooms to their saddles,
symbolizing their intention of brushing or tearing away their enemies.
Ivan’s reign of terror was a period
of executions, plots and open gangsterism. In 1570, the oprichniki murdered
almost the entire population of Novgorod, including all the infants. The total
number of victims was more than fifteen thousand people.
Fig. 6 Kazan’s invansion
Ivan the Terrible was intelligent but prone to violent mood swings. He
expanded his empire and opened trade routes with Europe. He was the first to establish diplomatic and trading links with Britain in
1553.
By doing so,
he increased his wealth, centralized his government, and increased availability
to natural resources. He was not popular among his people due to his ruthless
nature. Although he was successful at his military campaigns, he spent much of
his later life working to destroy boyar families (fig. 7).
Fig. 7 The boyars
I think that British Queen Elizabeth I & Russian Tsar
Ivan IV the Terrible are two grandiose figures. I’ve got interested, what
unites them? I learned that the history of the
Russia-Britain relations goes back to the middle of the 16th century, when
Britain & Russia were ruled by these brilliant personalities. Queen
Elizabeth I ruled in 1558 – 1603 & Russian Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible ruled
in 1533 – 1584.
So imperial relations between Britain and Russia
started in the days of Queen Elizabeth I.
During
Elizabeth's reign England sent its explorers to different lands. Elizabeth I considered trade to be the most important foreign
policy matter. She encouraged English traders
to settle abroad and to create colonies.
Moreover the English tried to find a quick
way to India round the north of Russia. In 1553 Sir Hugh Willoughby took
three ships to find the Northeast Passage. Two ships were lost, but the third
captained by Richard Chancellor reached
Archangel.
Chancellor went to Moscow, met Ivan the
Terrible, and opened a new trade with Russia (fig. 8). As a result they found
the Muscovy Company. No other
country in Europe had a trading company with Russia that could compare with the
Muscovy Company of London. “The poor is very innumerable, and live most
miserably: for I have seen them eat the pickle of herring and other stinking
fish: nor the fish cannot be so stinking or rotten, but they will eat it and
praise it to be more wholesome than other fish or fresh meat. In mine opinion
there be no such people under the sun for their hardness of living.”
Fig.
8 Richard
Chancellor & Ivan
the Terrible
It seems to
me, Elizabeth I and Ivan IV are similar in some ways, yet different in others. I read that it was much common in their characters. Thus, the execution of Elizabeth’s mother and two stepmothers had a
negative impact on her psychology. These tragic events became the reason for
her negative attitude towards marriage.
What about Ivan the Terrible? Sensitive and
intelligent, Ivan became cruel, secretive, suspicious, shy, mistrustful and
irritable. He always thought that he was surrounded by enemies and betrayers.
Besides,
Elizabeth
I and Ivan
the Terrible were the best educated persons of their time.
Elizabeth I was good at Latin, Greek, Spanish, French, History, Philosophy,
Mathematics, Art. Ivan IV considered Reading, Writing, and the Bible to be the
preferable affairs.
2.5 Correspondence between two sovereigns
With the use
of English merchants, Ivan engaged in a long correspondence with Queen Elizabeth. Each of their letters took about 5 weeks to be delivered and this was
regarded as a miracle of communication at the time. While the queen focused on
commerce, Ivan was more interested in a military alliance. During his troubled
relations with the boyars, the tsar even asked her for a guarantee to be
granted asylum in England should his rule is jeopardized.
A letter written by the tsar to Elizabeth
I in 1570 suggests relations were not all plain sailing. He called the queen’s
advisers “boors” who sought only “their own profit” and compared the Queen to
an old maid. This letter has been discovered at the National Archives at Kew in
London. Historians believe that the Tsar was miffed by Elizabeth's failure to
take his marriage proposals seriously and railed against her
"boorish" advisors in the letter. Dated Oct 28, 1570, the letter was
doubly untimely since the ruler felt he might need to seek asylum in England if
his subjects turned against him.
"We had thought that you had been
ruler over your land, and had sought honor to your self and proffitt to your
Countrie, and therefore we did pretend those weightie affairs between you and
us," wrote the Tsar. "But now we perceive that there be other men
that doe rule, and not men but bowers [boors] and marchaunts [merchants], the
wich seeke not the wealth and honnor of our majesties, but they seeke there
owne proffitt of marchandize. And you flowe [flourish] in your maydenlike
estate like a maide".
The letter backs claims that Elizabeth I rejected a secret marriage proposal
from Ivan the Terrible. The historian Felix Pryor, author of “Elizabeth I – Her
Life in Letters”, has called it “quite simply the rudest letter Elizabeth ever
received”.
So, I can
make a conclusion what were the results of the reigns of Elizabeth I and Ivan
IV.
Elizabeth I
|
Ivan IV
|
The Virgin Queen, Gloriana
|
The Terrible, tyrant and despot
|
England – a powerful trading
empire
|
Russia – a multiethnic and
multiconfessional state
|
III.
Conclusion
The Tudors were important for their
actions. They ruled England during the era when Western Europe moved from the
medieval to the early modern, and they instituted changes in government
administration, the relationship between crown and people, the image of the
monarchy and the way people worshipped. They also oversaw a golden age for
English writing and exploration. None of Henry VIII’s children had any
offspring of their own, and when Elizabeth I died she was the last of the Tudor
monarchs. She was followed by James Stuart from Scotland. Culturally and
socially, the Tudor period saw many changes. The Tudor court played a prominent
part in the cultural Renaissance taking place in Europe, nurturing all-round
individuals such as William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser and Cardinal Wolsey.
The Tudor period also saw the turbulence of two changes of official religion,
resulting in the martyrdom of many innocent believers of both Protestantism and
Roman Catholicism. The fear of Roman Catholicism induced by the Reformation was
to last for several centuries and to play an influential role in the history of
the Succession. So, Elizabeth restored the Church of England and encouraged
playwrights, musicians, and poets at her court. Talented men such as William Shakespeare,
Christopher Marlowe, and Ben Jonson flourished during the Elizabethan Age, when
England was also home to a leading scientific philosopher, Sir Francis Bacon.
During her reign England began to colonize North America,
and the English captain Sir France Drake led the first voyage of English ships
around the world.
Bibliography
Griffiths R. A. The making of the Tudor dynasty.
Gloucester, 1985
Guy, John. The Tudors: A Very Short Introduction
(2010)
Фрэнсис Бэкон. История правления короля Генриха VII. М., 1990
Mackie J. D. The earlier Tudors, 1485-1558. Oxford; New York, 1994
Лоудз Д. Генрих VIII и его королевы. Ростов-на-Дону, 1997
Хейг К. Елизавета I Английская. Ростов-на-Дону, 1997
The Tudor monarchy. London; New York, 1997
Дмитриева О. В. Елизавета I. М., 1998
Plowden A. The House of Tudor. Stroud, 1998
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Useful English dictionary
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