Year 8 History Narration

On this assignment, my directions to Triss were to 1) Read Chapter 7 of The New World by Winston Churchill, 2) Take notes on the chapter while reading, and 3) Write a narration using the notes, taking care to show the overarching idea of the chapter as well as details.

The New World ch. 7:

England was involved in political and religious chaos. Edward led them one way and Mary went the other in a much more violent manner. Edward’s “reign” was mostly rule by regents Seymour and Warwick. Seymour presided over an England on the brink of civil war. The ordinary people were being robbed of jobs, money and cloth by the rich landlords, who took their farmland and common lands, fenced them in, raised sheep there and sold the wool at large profits. Warwick quietly gathered followers, then overthrew Seymour and had him executed in the Tower in 1552. Edward emotionlessly noted his uncle’s death in his diary.

Warwick fared no better. There were two major uprisings, one of the Catholics in the southwest rebelling against a new prayer-book and one of the peasants in the east rebelling against (what else?) the “enclosing landlords”. The only thing of real note that happened in the reign of Edward VI was that the first glimmerings of the Age of Discovery began with the exploration and enterprises between England and Russia, formerly “Muscovy”.

Lady Jane Grey became queen for only a few days when Edward died. The people were heartily against her and wanted a Catholic queen. Lady Jane was beheaded and Mary became queen. She married, as we know, King Philip of Spain, and was by him and against the wishes of her counselors and the English people as a whole dragged into the wars on the continent. This did not improve her popularity ratings. Her health began to deteriorate and she died in 1558. Churchill calls the reformation a “violent convulsion” between the feudal Old England and the emerging New England of ideas, philosophy and fresh views.