Like the French Renaissance so the English Renaissance received its first impulse from Italy. But less concerned with culture as such, it was more practical in England and distinguished itself chiefly by the greater attention given to education. While the sons and daughters of the nobility were carefully trained by tutors, the children of the middle class received an education in grammar schools founded during the reign of King Henry VIII.
This interest in education was greatly stimulated by the doctrines of the Reformation, which had spread from Germany to England, and which were favored by the king, as they served his political interests as well as his passion for the beautiful Anne Boleyn, one of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting. That he divorced his wife and married Anne Boleyn, and that she, on September 7th, 1533, gave birth to a girl, are facts familiar to everyone acquainted with English history.
This girl later on ascended the throne and as Queen Elizabeth became famous as one of the most remarkable and illustrious of all female sovereigns.
Most remarkable was her attitude toward Rome. When the “Virgin Queen” in her twenty-fifth year ascended the throne, it was not only as queen, but also as the head of the rebellious Church. Religious strife had already passed the point of reconciliation and Elizabeth’s position was extremely difficult, as the Catholic party was still very strong and was bent on maintaining the connection with Rome. Aware of this fact, the Pope, claiming England as a fief of the Holy See, refused to recognize Elizabeth’s title to the crown, and demanded that she should renounce all her pretensions so much the more since she was an illegitimate child. But whereas many monarchs would have cringed before the Pope, Elizabeth ignored his demands and answered the subsequent bull by Pope Pius V., by which all Catholics were released from their allegiance to the queen, by the famous Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity. Striking directly at the papal power, these acts compelled all clergymen and public functionaries to renounce the temporal and spiritual jurisdiction of every foreign prince and prelate; and all ministers, whether beneficed or not, were forbidden to use any but the established liturgy. These statutes were carried out with considerable severity, and many Catholics suffered death. Thus bending priests and prelates to her fiery will, the queen made England a bulwark of Protestantism.
That the long reign of Elizabeth, which lasted from 1558 to 1603, was also a period of brilliant prosperity and advancement, during which England put forth her brightest genius, valor, and enterprise, has been recorded by history. It is also a well-known fact that the learning of Elizabeth was considerable, even in that age of learned ladies. Horace Walpole has assigned her a place in his “Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors,” and a list of thirteen literary productions, chiefly translations from the Greek, Latin, and French, are attached to her name.
There were quite a number of English ladies interested in literature and poetry. The most remarkable was Mary Astell, born in 1668 at Newcastle-on-Tyne. Having received a careful education by her uncle, a clergyman, she continued her studies in London. Here her attention and efforts were especially directed to the mental uplift of her own sex, and in 1697 she published a work entitled, “A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, Wherein a Method is Offered for the Improvement of Their Minds.” With the same end in view she elaborated a scheme for a ladies’ college, which was favorably entertained by Queen Anne, and would have been carried out had not Bishop Burnet interfered.
During the reign of Queen Elizabeth England was called “the Paradise of Women,” on account of the great liberty, granted to them in all social affairs. There exists an interesting account of a Dutch traveller, Van Meteren, who spent some time in England. With surprise he saw that here the members of the fair sex enjoyed considerable freedom. “They are,” so he says, “not shut up as in Spain and elsewhere, and yet the young girls are better behaved than in the Netherlands. Having fine complexions, they also do not paint like the Italians and others. They sit before their doors, decked in fine clothes, in order to see and be seen by the passers-by. In all banquets and feasts they are shown the greatest honor: they are placed at the upper end of the table where they are the first served. All the rest of their time they employ in walking and riding, in playing cards, or visiting their friends and keeping company, conversing with their equals and neighbors, and making merry with them at child-birth, christening, churchings and funerals. And all this with the permission and knowledge of their husbands.”
In strange contrast herewith was the legal position of women. It was, as D. Staars says in his interesting book “The English Woman,” “entirely detrimental. They were under the absolute authority of their husbands. In regard to property, husband and wife were considered by the law as forming one indivisible person. Therefore a husband could not make a deed of gift to his wife, or make a contract with her. The subordinate position of the married women was evident in the whole of her existence. The husband was his wife’s guardian, and if anyone carried her off he had a right to claim damages. He could also inflict corporal punishment on her sufficient to correct her. All the property which she might afterwards acquire, became by her marriage the common property of husband and wife, but only the husband had a right to the income, because he alone had control and administration of the property. Not only lands, but also funds, furniture, plate, and even the bed and ornaments of a woman, all became the husband’s property on the wedding day, and he could sell or dispose of it as he pleased. A married woman could not even make a will. Only when she became a widow, her clothes and personal possessions again became her own property, provided, however, that her husband had not otherwise disposed of them in his will. Furthermore, she had a right to the income of a third of all the husband’s property.”
These unsatisfactory conditions later on caused the English women to join their American sisters in the struggle for emancipation.