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The Renaissance Period {1485-1660}
 Henry VIIIHenry VIII was a very important figure. He created the Royal Navy, which put a stop to foreign invasions of England and provided the means for this island kingdom to spread its political power, language, and literature all over the globe.Henry VIII ( 1509–1547) had six wives. The fates of these unfortunate women are summarized in a jingle: Divorced, beheaded, died, Divorced, beheaded, survived |  Mary IMary (r. 1553–1558) was a devout, strong-willed Catholic determined to avenge the wrongs done to her mother. She restored the pope’s power in England and ruthlessly hunted down Protestants. Mary’s executions earned her the name “Bloody Mary.” When Mary died of a fever, childless, her sister Elizabeth became queen. |
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 Queen ElizabethElizabeth I (r. 1558–1603) was one of the most brilliant and successful monarchs in history. She reestablished the Church of England. Elizabeth resisted marriage all her life and officially remained “the Virgin Queen”. A truly heroic person, Elizabeth survived many plots against her life. Several of these plots were initiated by her cousin, another Mary—Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. She was also a passionate lover of the arts. |  King James VIJames I tried hard. He wrote learned books in favor of the divine right of kings and against tobacco, he patronized Shakespeare, he sponsored a new translation of the Bible, and he was in many respects an admirable man and a benevolent, peaceful ruler.Yet his relationship with many of his subjects, especially with pious, puritanically minded merchants, went from bad to worse. The difficulties of James’s reign became the impossibilities of his son’s, Charles I. |
 Charles IICharles I, the father of Charles II, was murdered by his most powerful subjects. They had him beheaded in 1649. For the next eleven years, England was ruled by Parliament and the Puritan dictator Oliver Cromwell, not by an anointed king. Charles’s self-indulgent son returned to power eleven years later, in 1660, England had changed in many important ways. Of course the Renaissance did not end in 1660 as Charles II returned from exile in France, just as it had not begun at any specific date. |
The Rulers
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