Week I: Introduction

Sep 3: Introduction: America's Tudor-Stuart legacy
Sep 5: The early history of Britain and its peoples

Reading:
"Brentry: How Norman Rule reshaped England" in The Economist, Dec 2016
Simon Schama, "King Death" (Ch. 5 in History of Britain, Vol. I)

Week II: A Medieval Prelude

Sep 8: England in the late middle ages
Sep 10: The Wars of the Roses and the rise of the Tudors
Sep 12: Discussion: Utopia

Reading:
Brigden, 1-37
"Nasty, Brutish and not that Short" in The Economist, Dec 2010
Thomas More, Utopia [image from 1555 edition]

Document:
Polydore Vergil, "Description of Henry VII" from Anglica Historia (1512)

Week III: The Tudor Revolution

Sep 15: Henry VIII and the "King's Great Matter"
Sep 16: The English Reformation
Sep 17: Film: A Man for All Seasons, 7-10pm, Miller 105
Sep 19: Discussion

Reading:
Brigden, 84-149, 162-178
Richard Marius, "A Man for All Seasons" in Mark C. Carnes, ed., Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies

Documents:
Thomas Cranmer, Letter on Henry VIII's Divorce (1533)
Parliament, Act of Supremacy (1534)
Henry VIII, Love letters to Anne Boleyn (1530s)
Anne Boleyn, Letter to Henry VIII (1536)
Thomas More, Letter to daughter Margaret (1535)
Richard Pollard, "The Suppression of Glastonbury Abbey" (1539)
Henry VIII, Speech to Parliament (1545)

Week IV: Protestants, Catholics, and the Battle for Supremacy

Sep 22: Edward VI and Mary Tudor: faith, martyrdom, and exile
Sep 24: John Knox and the Scottish Reformation
Sep 26: Discussion

Reading:
Brigden, 179-212

Documents:
Anonymous, "The execution of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer" (1556) [image]
Giovanni Michieli, "A contemporary account of Mary Tudor" (1557)
John Foxe, "Persecutions in England during the reign of Queen Mary" from Foxe's Book of Martyrs (1571) [frontispiece]
John Knox, "Call to the ministry and first public debate" (1547) and "A brief exhortation to England for the speedy embracing of the Gospel heretofore by the tyranny of Mary suppressed and banished"(1559)

Week V: The Age of Elizabeth: Court and Politics

Sep 29: The Virgin Queen and her subjects
Oct 1: Politics, intrigue, and survival
Oct 3: Discussion

Reading:
Brigden, 213-227, 231-238
Duffy, 1-46

Documents:
John Knox, "First blast of the trumpet against the monstrous regiment of women" (1558)
Elizabeth I, "When I was fair and young" (date unknown), Selected writings and speeches and Letter to Mary Queen of Scots (1586)
Mary Queen of Scots, Letter to Henry III of France (1587) [image]

Week VI: The Age of Elizabeth: Religion, Diplomacy, and War

Oct 6: Church and state: Anglicanism, Puritanism, and Catholic recusancy
Oct 8: Elizabeth's foreign policy and overseas expansion
Oct 10: FALL BREAK (NO CLASS)

Reading:
Brigden, 239-253, 263-294
Games, 1-46

Documents:
Pius V, "Regnans in Excelsis" (1570)
Thirty-Nine Articles (1571)
Edmund Campion, "Challenge to the Privy Council" (1581)
Elizabeth I, "Charter to Sir Walter Raleigh" (1584) and Speech at Tilbury against the Spanish Armada (1588)
Francis Pretty, "Sir Francis Drake's famous voyage round the world" (1580)

Week VII: Life in Merrie England

Oct 13: Family life and the social order of village England
Oct 15: Commerce and the growth of towns and cities
Oct 17: MIDTERM EXAMINATION

Reading:
Duffy, 47-190

Document:
William Marshall, "Draft of a poor law" (1536)

Week VIII: All the World's a Stage

Oct 20: Shakespeare and the English literary renaissance
Oct 22: Art and creativity in Elizabethan and Jacobean England
Oct 24: Discussion (meet in Special Collections, Watzek Library)

Reading:
Brigden, 295-367
Kishlansky, 1-33

Documents:
Edmund Spenser, "Visions of the world's vanitie" (1591)
Robert Southwell, "Upon the image of death"(1595)
Thomas Campion, "When Laura smiles", "What then is love but mourning" and "Beauty is but a painted hell" (from Booke of Ayres, 1601)
Walter Raleigh, "The passionate man's pilgrimage" and "The silent lover" (1603)
William Shakespeare, Henry VIII [Act V, scene iv] (1613) [image, First Folio, 1623]

Music:
Selections from Elizabethan and Jacobean ensembles, virginals, songs, and lute music

Audio:
NPR, "Shakespeare's Original First Folio Sells For Almost $10 Million" (Oct 2020)

Week IX: The Early Stuarts

Oct 27: James I and the establishment of the Stuart monarchy
Oct 29: Toleration and persecution in Stuart England
Oct 31: Discussion

Reading:
Kishlansky, 34-112
Games, 147-179

Documents:
James I, "True Law of Free Monarchies" (1598) [frontispiece, 1641]
Parliament, "Apology of the Commons" (1604)
James I, Speech to Parliament (1609)
Archbishop William Laud, "Visitation Articles" (1635)

Week X: Britain's Overseas Expansion

Nov 3: The economy and cultures of the Atlantic world
Nov 5: Stuart Britain and the formation of early American society
Nov 7: Discussion

Reading:
Games, 47-146, 181-217
"Colonial Museums: A Different Story" in The Economist, Nov 2013

Documents:
Richard Hakluyt, "Discourse of Western planting" (1584) [frontispiece]
First Charter of Virginia (1606) [image]
Maryland Toleration Act (1649) [image]
William Bradford, "History of the Plymouth Plantation" (c.1650)
Richard Ligon, "A true & exact history of the island of Barbadoes" (1657)
Thomas Mun, "England's treasure by foreign trade" (1664) [frontispiece]

Week XI: The "Celtic Periphery"

Nov 10: Ireland
Nov 12: Scotland and Wales
Nov 14: Discussion

Reading:
Brigden, 149-162, 227-231, 254-263
Games, 255-299

Documents:
Edmund Spenser, "A view of the present state of Ireland" (1596)
Aindrias Mac Marcais, "The Deserted Land" (c.1610)
Plantation of Ulster (1610)
Confederation of Kilkenny (1642)
Parliament, Act for the Reduction of the Rebels (1642)
Oliver Cromwell, Report from Ireland to Parliament (1649)

Week XII: The Great Rebellion

Nov 17: Charles I and Parliament
Nov 19: The English Civil War (or War of the Three Kingdoms), 1642-1649
Nov 21: Discussion

Reading:
Kishlansky, 113-186

Documents:
Parliament, Petition of Right (1628) [image]
Scottish National Covenant (1638) [image]
Oliver Cromwell, Letter to his brother-in-law after the battle of Marsten Moor (1644)

Week XIII: The Interregnum

Nov 24: Lord Protector: Oliver Cromwell and his world
Nov 26: Commonwealth and Protectorate, 1649-1660
Nov 28: THANKSGIVING (NO CLASS)

Reading:
Kishlansky, 187-212
Games, 219-253

Documents:
Statements of the Levellers (1649)
Radical women during the English Revolution [selected documents] (1649, 1656)
Thomas Macaulay, "On Oliver Cromwell" (1848)
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651) [frontispiece]
Commonwealth Instrument of Government (1653) [image]
John Milton, "A treatise of civil power in ecclesiastical causes" (1659)

Week XIV: The Restoration

Dec 1: The return of the king
Dec 3: The exclusion crisis and the beginnings of party politics
Dec 5: Discussion

Reading:
Kishlansky, 213-286

Documents:
The First English Coffee Houses (c.1675)
Parliament, Habeas Corpus Act (1679) [image]
John Evelyn, Diary (1660-1688)

Week XV: A New Nation?

Dec 8: Revolution and realignment
Dec 10: Conclusion: Britain in the Age of Revolution

Reading:
Kishlansky, 287-342

Documents:
Parliament, Bill of Rights (1689)
Gilbert Burnet, "The character of James II and William of Orange" (1689)
An anonymous Jacobite, "Observations upon the late revolution in England" (1690)