Summary

Professor Robert Bucholz presents a sweeping, 48-lecture course on one of the most intriguing times in modern history. England's changing social, economic, religious, and political structures unfold while first the Tudors (1485–1603) and then the Stuarts (1603–1714) establish their monarchies, and you hear the facts behind dramatic stories: •Henry VIII's wives and his fear that a woman would rule •The reigns of Henry's three children: Edward VI, "Bloody Mary," and popular Elizabeth I •James I's insistence that the monarchy be stronger than Parliament •Charles I in his best attire, walking to his own beheading •James II believing Britain couldn't live without him •William III, invited by the British to invade their country •Queen Anne's War and her immense popularity •The great, tumultuous city of London •Continuing religious persecution and change, including the Reformation and the relationships between the royalty and the pope •Change through the onset of the printed word •Problems of law and order, witchcraft, the Poor Law, and the rise of Puritanism •The blossoming of Elizabethan and Jacobean culture in art, music, and literature.