ENGLAND UNDER THE TUDORS

INTRODUCTION

THE TUDOR PERIOD, 1485-1603

[Sidenote: An era of Revolutions]

The historian of the future will, perhaps, affirm that the nineteenth
century, with the last years of the eighteenth, has been a period more
fraught with momentous events in the development of the nations than any
equal period since the Christian era commenced. Yet striking as are the
developments witnessed by the last four generations, the years when England
was ruled by Princes of the House of Tudor have a history hardly if at all
less momentous. For though what we call the Tudor period, from 1485 to
1603, is determined by a merely dynastic title affecting England alone, the
reign of that dynasty happens to coincide in point of time with the
greatest territorial revolution on record, a religious revolution
unparalleled since the rise of Mohammed, and an intellectual activity to
match which we must go back to the great days of Hellas, or forward to the
nineteenth century: revolutions all of them not specifically English, but
affecting immediately every nation in Europe; while one of them extended
itself to every continent on the globe. Moreover, the accompanying social
revolution, though comparatively superficial, was only a little less marked
than the others. Nor was there any country in Europe more influenced by the
general Revolution in any one of its aspects than England.

_Nihil per saltum_ is no doubt as true of historical movements as of