Biographies

Anne Boleyn
Born – c 1500?
Married – January 1533
Executed – May 19, 1536
Anne’s Early Years
For a woman who played such an important part in English history, we know remarkably little about her earliest years.
Antonia Fraser puts Anne’s birth at 1500 or 1501, probably at Blickling (Norfolk) and the date of birth seems to be at the
end of May or early June. Other historians put Anne’s birth as late as 1507 – 1509.
Anne spent part of her childhood at the court of the Archduchess Margaret. It was from there that she was transferred
to the household of Mary, Henry VIII’s sister, who was married to Louis XII of France. Anne’s sister Mary was already in
‘the French Queen’s’ attendance. However, when Louis died, Mary Boleyn returned to England with Mary Tudor, while
Anne remained in France to attend Claude, the new French Queen. Anne remained in France for the next 6 or 7 years.
Because of her position, it is possible that she was at the Field of Cloth of Gold, the famous meeting between Henry VIII
and the French King, Francis I.
During her stay in France she learned to speak French fluently and developed a tasted for French clothes, poetry and
music.
Anne’s Appearance
The legend of Anne Boleyn always includes a sixth finger and a large mole or goiter on her neck. However, one would
have to wonder if a woman with these oddities (not to mention the numerous other moles and warts she was said to
have) would be so captivating to the King. She may have had some small moles, as most people do, but they would be
more like the attractive ‘beauty marks’.
A quote from the Venetian Ambassador said she was ‘not one of the handsomest women in the world…’ She was
considered moderately pretty. But, one must consider what ‘pretty’ was in the 16th century. Anne was the opposite of
the pale, blonde-haired blue-eyed image of beauty. She had dark, olive-colored skin, thick brown hair and dark brown
eyes which often appeared black. Those large dark eyes were often singled out in descriptions of Anne. She clearly used
them, and the fascination they aroused, to her advantage whenever possible.
She was of average height and had a long, elegant neck. The argument continues as to whether or not she really had an
extra finger on one of her hands.
Life in England and the Attentions of the King
Anne returned to England around 1521 where details for her marriage were being worked out. Meanwhile she went to
court to attend Queen Catherine. Her first recorded appearance at Court was March 1, 1522 at a masque.
After her marriage to the heir of Ormonde fell through, she began an affair with Henry Percy, also a rich heir. Cardinal
Wolsey put a stop to the romance, which could be why Anne engendered such a hatred of him later in life. It has been
suggested that Wolsey stepped in on behalf of the King to remove Percy from the scene because he had already noticed
Anne and wanted her for himself. Fraser asserts that this is not the case since the romance between Anne and Percy
ended in 1522 and the King didn’t notice Anne until 1526.
Somewhere in this time, Anne also had a relationship of some sort with the poet Sir Thomas Wyatt. Wyatt was married
in 1520, so the timing of the supposed affair is uncertain. Wyatt was separated from his wife, but there could be little
suggestion of his eventual marriage to Anne. Theirs appears to be more of a courtly love.
Exactly when and where Henry VIII first noticed Anne is not known. It is likely that Henry sought to make Anne his
mistress, as he had her sister Mary years before. However, Anne refused Henry’s advances. We don’t know who first
had the idea of marriage, but eventually it evolved into “Queen or nothing” for Anne.
At first, the court probably thought that Anne would just end up as another one of Henry’s mistresses. But, in 1527 we
see that Henry began to seek an annulment of his marriage to Catherine, making him free to marry again.
King Henry’s passion for Anne can be attested to in the love letters he wrote to her when she was away from court.
Henry hated writing letters, and very few documents in his own hand survive. However, 17 love letters to Anne remain
and are preserved in the Vatican library.
The Rise of Anne Boleyn
In 1528, Anne’s emergence at Court began. Anne also showed real interest in religious reform and may have introduced
some of the ‘new ideas’ to Henry, and gaining the hatred of some members of the Court. When the court spent
Christmas at Greenwich that year, Anne was lodged in nice apartments near those of the King.
The legal debates on the marriage of Henry and Catherine of Aragon continued on. Anne was no doubt frustrated by the
lack of progress. Her famous temper and tongue showed themselves at times in famous arguments between her and
Henry for all the court to see. Anne feared that Henry might go back to Catherine if the marriage could not be annulled
and Anne would have wasted time that she could have used to make an advantageous marriage.
Anne was not popular with the people of England. They were upset to learn that at the Christmas celebrations of 1529,
Anne was given precedence over the Duchesses of Norfolk and Suffulk, the latter of which was the King’s own sister,
Mary.
In this period, records show that Henry began to spend more and more on Anne, buying her clothes, jewelry, and things
for her amusement such as playing cards and bows and arrows.
The waiting continued and Anne’s position continued to rise. On the first day of September 1532, she was created
Marquess of Pembroke, a title she held in her own right. In October, she held a position of honor at meetings between
Henry and the French King in Calais.
Queen Anne
Sometime near the end of 1532, Anne finally gave way and by December she was pregnant. To avoid any questions of
the legitimacy of the child, Henry was forced into action. Sometime near St. Paul’s Day (January 25) 1533, Anne and
Henry were secretly married. Although the King’s marriage to Catherine was not dissolved, in the King’s mind it had
never existed in the first place, so he was free to marry whomever he wanted. On May 23, the Archbishop officially
proclaimed the marriage of Henry and Catherine was invalid.
Plans for Anne’s coronation began. In preparation, she had been brought by water from Greenwich to the Tower of
London dressed in cloth of gold. The barges following her were said to stretch for four miles down the Thames. On the
1st of June, she left the Tower in procession to Westminster Abbey, where she became crowned and anointed Queen in
a ceremony led by Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury. By August, preparations were being made for the
birth of Anne’s child, which was sure to be a boy. Names were being chosen, with Edward and Henry the top choices.
The proclamation of the child’s birth had already been written with ‘prince’ used to refer to the child.
Anne took to her chamber, according to custom, on August 26, 1533 and on September 7, at about 3:00 in the
afternoon, the Princess Elizabeth was born. Her christening service was scaled down, but still a pleasant affair. The
princess’ white christening robes can currently be seen on display at Sudeley Castle in England.
Anne now knew that it was imperative that she produce a son. By January of 1534, she was pregnant again but the child
was either miscarried or stillborn. In 1535, she became pregnant again but miscarried by the end of January. The child
was reported to have been a boy. The Queen was quite upset, and blamed the miscarriage on her state of mind after
hearing that Henry had taken a fall in jousting. She had to have known at this point that her failure to produce a living
male heir was a threat to her own life, especially since the King’s fancy for one of her ladies-in-waiting, Jane Seymour,
began to grow.
The Fall of Anne Boleyn
Anne’s enemies at court began to plot against her using the King’s attentions to Jane Seymour as the catalyst for action.
Cromwell began to move in action to bring down the Queen. He persuaded the King to sign a document calling for an
investigation that would possibly result in charges of treason.
On April 30, 1536, Anne’s musician and friend for several years, Mark Smeaton, was arrested and probably tortured into
making ‘revelations’ about the Queen. Next, Sir Henry Norris was arrested and taken to the Tower of London. Then the
Queen’s own brother, George Boleyn, Lord of Rochford, was arrested.
On May 2, the Queen herself was arrested at Greenwich and was informed of the charges against her: adultery, incest
and plotting to murder the King. She was then taken to the Tower by barge along the same path she had traveled to
prepare for her coronation just three years earlier. In fact, she was lodged in the same rooms she had held on that
occasion.
There were several more arrests. Sir Francis Weston and William Brereton were charged with adultery with the Queen.
Sir Thomas Wyatt was also arrested, but later released. They were put on trial with Smeaton and Norris at Westminster
Hall on May 12, 1536. The men were not allowed to defend themselves, as was the case in charges of treason. They
were found guilty and received the required punishment they were to be hanged at Tyburn, cut down while still living
and then drawn and quartered. On Monday the 15th, the Queen and her brother were put on trial at the Great Hall of
the Tower of London. It is estimated that some 2000 people attended. Anne conducted herself in a calm and dignified
manner, denying all the charges against her. Her brother was tried next, with his own wife testifying against him. Even
though the evidence against them was scant, they were both found guilty, with the sentence being read by their uncle,
Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk. They were to be either burnt at the stake (which was the punishment for incest)
or beheaded, at the discretion of the King.
The Executions
On May 17, George Boleyn was executed on Tower Hill. The other four men condemned with the Queen had their
sentences commuted from the grisly fate at Tyburn to a simple beheading at the Tower with Lord Rochford.
Anne knew that her time would soon come and started to become hysterical, her behavior swinging from great levity to
body-wracking sobs. She received news that an expert swordsman from Calais had been summoned, who would no
doubt deliever a cleaner blow with a sharp sword than the traditional axe. Interestingly, shortly before her execution on
charges of adultery, the Queen’s marriage to the King was dissolved and declared invalid. One would wonder then how
she could have committed adultery if she had in fact never been married to the King, but this was overlooked, as were
so many other lapses of logic in the charges against Anne.
They came for Anne on the morning of May 19 to take her to the Tower Green, where she was to be afforded the dignity
of a private execution. She made a short speech before kneeling at the block. Her ladies removed her headdress (which
was an English gable hood not her usual French hood, according to contemporary reports) and tied a blindfold over her
eyes. The sword itself had been hidden under the straw. The swordsman cut off her head with one swift stroke.
Anne’s body and head were put into an arrow chest and buried in an unmarked grave in the Chapel of St. Peter ad
Vincula which adjoined the Tower Green. Her body was one that was identified in renovations of the chapel under the
reign of Queen Victoria, so Anne’s final resting place is now marked in the marble floor.
Anne of Cleves
Born – 1515
Married – January 6, 1540
Divorced – July 1540
Died – July 16, 1557
Henry VIII remained single for over two years after Jane Seymour’s death, possibly giving some credence
to the thought that he genuinely mourned for her. However, it does seem that someone, possibly
Thomas Cromwell, began making inquiries shortly after Jane’s death about a possible foreign bride for
Henry.
Henry’s first marriage had been a foreign alliance of sorts, although it is almost certain that the two
were truly in love for some time. His next two brides were love matches and Henry could have had little
or no monetary or political gain from them.
But the events of the split from Rome left England isolated, and probably vulnerable. It was these
circumstances that led Henry and his ministers to look at the possibility of a bride to secure an alliance.
Henry did also want to be sure he was getting a desirable bride, so he had agents in foreign courts
report to him on the appearance and other qualities of various candidates. He also sent painters to
bring him images of these women.
Hans Holbein, probably the most famous of the Tudor court painters, was sent to the court of the Duke
of Cleves, who had two sisters: Amelia and Anne. When Holbein went in 1539, Cleves was seen as an
important potential ally in the event France and the Holy Roman Empire (who had somewhat made a
truce in their long history of conflict) decided to move against the counties who had thrown off the
Papal authority. England then sought alliances with countries who had been supporting the reformation
of the church. Several of the Duchies and principalities along the Rhine were Lutheran. Holbein painted
the sisters of the Duke of Cleves and Henry decided to have a contract drawn up for his marriage to
Anne.
Although the King of France and the Emperor had gone back to their usual state of animosity, Henry
proceeded with the match. The marriage took place on January 6, 1540. By then, Henry was already
looking for ways to get out of the marriage.
Anne was ill-suited for life at the English court. Her upbringing in Cleves had concentrated on domestic
skills and not the music and literature so popular at Henry’s court. And, most famously, Henry did not
find his new bride the least bit attractive and it said to have called her a ‘Flanders Mare’. In addition to
his personal feelings for wanting to end the marriage, there were now political ones as well. Tension
between the Duke of Cleves and the Empire was increasing towards war and Henry had no desire to
become involved. Last but not least, at some point, Henry had become attracted to young Kathryn
Howard.
Anne was probably smart enough to know that she would only be making trouble for herself if she
raised any obstacles to Henry’s attempts to annul the marriage. She testified that the match had not
been consummated and that her previous engagement to the son of the Duke of Lorraine had not been
properly broken.
After the marriage had been dissolved, Anne accepted the honorary title as the ‘King’s Sister’. She was
give property, including Hever Castle, formerly the home of Anne Boleyn.
Anne lived away from court quietly in the countryside until 1557 and attended the coronation of her
former step-daughter, Mary I.
She is buried in a somewhat hard to find tomb in Westminster Abbey.
Catherine of Aragon
Born – December 16, 1485
Married – June 11, 1509
Divorced/Annulled – 1533
Died – January 7, 1536
Catherine of Aragon was the youngest surviving child of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. As was
common for princesses of the day, her parents almost immediately began looking for a political match
for her. When she was three years old, she was betrothed to Arthur, the son of Henry VII of England.
Arthur was not even quite two at the time.
When she was almost 16, in 1501, Catherine made the journey to England. It took her three months,
and her ships weathered several storms, but she safely made landfall at Plymouth on October 2, 1501.
Catherine and Arthur were married on November 14, 1501 in Old St. Paul’s Cathedral, London.
Catherine was escorted by the groom’s younger brother, Henry.
After the wedding and celebrations, the young couple moved to Ludlow Castle on the Welsh border.
Less than six months later, Arthur was dead, possibly of the ‘sweating sickness’. Although this marriage
was short, it was very important in the history of England, as will be apparent.
Catherine was now a widow, and still young enough to be married again. Henry VII still had a son, this
one much more robust and healthy than his dead older brother. The English King was interested in
keeping Catherine’s dowry, so 14 months after her husband’s death, she was betrothed to the future
Henry VIII, who was too young to marry her at the time.
By 1505, when Henry was old enough to wed, Henry VII wasn’t as keen on a Spanish alliance, and young
Henry was forced to repudiate the betrothal. Catherine’s future was also uncertain for the next four
years. When Henry VII died in 1509 one of the new young King’s first actions was to marry Catherine.
She was finally crowned Queen of England in a joint coronation ceremony with her husband Henry VIII
on June 24, 1509.
Shortly after their marriage, Catherine found herself pregnant. This first child was a stillborn daughter
born prematurely in January 1510, but this disappointment was soon followed by another pregnancy.
Prince Henry was born on January 1, 1511 and he was christened on the 5th. There were great
celebrations for the birth of the young prince, but they were halted by the baby’s death after 52 days of
life. Catherine then had a miscarriage, followed by a short-lived son. On February 1516, she gave birth
to a daughter named Mary, and this child lived. There were probably two more pregnancies, the last
recorded in 1518.
Henry was growing frustrated by his lack of a male heir, but he remained a devoted husband. He had at
least two mistresses that we know of: Bessie Blount and Mary Boleyn. By 1526 though, he had begun to
separate from Catherine because he had fallen in love with one of her ladies (and sister of one of his
mistresses): Anne Boleyn.
It is here that the lives of Henry’s first and second wives begin to interweave. By the time his interest in
Anne became common knowledge; Catherine was 42 years old and was no longer able to conceive.
Henry’s main goal now was to get a male heir, which his wife was not able to provide. Somewhere along
the way, Henry began to look at the texts of Leviticus which says that if a man takes his brother’s wife,
they shall be childless. As evidence above, Catherine and Henry were far from childless, and still had
one living child. But, that child was a girl, and didn’t count in Henry’s mind. The King began to petition
the Pope for an annulment.
At first, Catherine was kept in the dark about Henry’s plans for their annulment. When the news got to
Catherine, she was very upset. She was also at a great disadvantage since the court would decide the
case was far from impartial. Catherine then appealed directly to the Pope, which she felt woiuld listen
to her case since her nephew was Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor.
The political and legal debate continued for six years. Catherine was adamant in saying that she and
Arthur, her first husband and Henry’s brother, did not consummate their marriage and therefore were
not truly husband and wife. Catherine sought not only to retain her position, but also that of her
daughter Mary.
Things came to a head in 1533 when Anne Boleyn became pregnant. Henry had to act, and his solution
was to reject the power of the Pope in England and to have Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of
Canterbury grant the annulment. Catherine was to renounce the title of Queen and would be known as
the Princess Dowager of Wales, something she refused to acknowledge through the end of her life.
Catherine and her daughter were separated and she was forced to leave court. She lived for the next
three years in several dank and unhealthy castles and manors with just a few servants. However, she
seldom complained of her treatment and spent a great deal of time at prayer.
On January 7, 1536, Catherine died at Kimbolton Castle and was buried at Peterborough Abbey (later
Peterborough Cathedral, after the dissolution of the monasteries) with the ceremony due for her
position as Princess Dowager, not as a Queen of England.
Christopher Marlowe
(1564-1593)
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, English dramatist, the father of English tragedy and dramatic blank verse, the eldest son
of a shoemaker at Canterbury, was born in that city on February 6, 1564. He was christened at St George's Church,
Canterbury, on the 26th of February, 1563/4, some two months before Shakespeare's baptism at Stratford-on-Avon. His
father, John Marlowe, is said to have been the grandson of John Morley or Marlowe, a substantial tanner of Canterbury.
The dramatist received the rudiments of his education at the King's School, Canterbury, which he entered at Michaelmas
1578. He went to Cambridge as one of Archbishop Parker's scholars from the King's School, and matriculated at Benet
College, on the 17th of March 1571, taking his B.A. degree in 1584, and that of M.A. three or four years later.
Francis Kett, burnt in 1589 for heresy, was a fellow and tutor of his college, and may have had some share in developing
Marlowe's opinions in religious matters. Marlowe's classical acquirements were of a kind which was then extremely
common, being based for the most part upon a minute acquaintance with Roman mythology, as revealed in Ovid's
Metamorphoses. His spirited translation of Ovid's Amores (printed 1596), which was at any rate commenced at
Cambridge, does not seem to point to any very intimate acquaintance with the grammar and syntax of the Latin tongue.
Before 1587 he seems to have left Cambridge for London, where he attached himself to the Lord Admiral’s Company of
Players. Almost at once he began writing for the stage.
Of Marlowe's career in London, apart from his four great theatrical successes, we know hardly anything. He seems at any
rate to have been associated with what was denounced as Sir Walter Raleigh's school of atheism, and to have dallied with
opinions which were then regarded as putting a man outside the pale of civilized humanity.
As the result of some depositions made by Thomas Kyd under the influence of torture, the Privy Council were investigating
some serious charges against Marlowe when his career was abruptly and somewhat scandalously terminated. The order
had already been issued for his arrest, when he was slain in a at Deptford, at the end of May 1593. He was buried on June
1st in the churchyard of St Nicholas at Deptford. The disgraceful particulars attached to the tragedy of Marlowe in the
popular mind would not seem to have appeared until four years later (1597) when Thomas Beard, the Puritan author of
The Theatre of God's Judgements, used the death of this playmaker and atheist as one of his warning examples of the
vengeance of God. Upon the embellishments of this story, such as that of Francis Meres the critic, in 1598, that Marlowe
came to be "stabbed to death by a bawdy servingman, a rival of his in his lewde love," or that of William Vaughan in the
Golden Grove of 1600, in which the unfortunate poet's dagger is thrust into his own eye in prevention of his felonious
assault upon an innocent man, his guest, it is impossible now to pronounce.
We really do not know the circumstances of Marlowe's death. The probability is he was killed in a brawl, and not
connected to his possible atheism or his investigation by the Privy Council. A few months before the end of his life there is
reason to believe that he transferred his services from the Lord Admiral's to Lord Strange's Company, and may have thus
been brought into communication with Shakespeare.
Biography from luminarium.org
Christopher Marlowe
Marlowe's career as a dramatist lies between the years 1587 and 1593. His four greatest plays were Tamburlaine the
Great, (1587, printed in 1590); Dr Faustus (1588, entered at Stationers' Hall 1601); The Famous Tragedy of the Rich Jew
of Malta (dating perhaps from 1589, acted in 1592, printed in 1633); and Edward the Second (printed 1594).
Tamburlaine leapt with a bound to a place beside Kyd's Spanish Tragedy, and few plays have been more imitated by rivals
or more keenly satirized by the jealousy and prejudice of out-distanced competitors. With many and heavy faults, there is
something of genuine greatness in Tamburlaine the Great; and for two grave reasons it must always be remembered with
distinction and mentioned with honor. It is the first play ever written in English blank verse, as distinguished from mere
rhyme less decasyllabics; and it contains one of the noblest passages in the literature of the world ever written.
In Edward the Second the interest rises and the execution improves with the course of the advancing story. The scene of
the king's deposition at Kenilworth is almost as much finer in tragic effect and poetic quality as it is shorter and less
elaborate than the corresponding scene in Shakespeare's King Richard II. The terror of the death-scene undoubtedly rises
into horror; but this horror is with skillful simplicity of treatment preserved from passing into disgust. In pure poetry, in
sublime and splendid imagination, this tragedy is excelled by Doctor Faustus; in dramatic power and positive impression
of natural effect it is certainly the masterpiece of Marlowe.
A Taming of a Shrew, the play on which Shakespeare's comedy was founded, has been attributed, without good reason, to
Marlowe. The passages in the play borrowed from Marlowe's works provide an argument against, rather than for his
authorship; while the humorous character of the play is not in keeping with his other work. He may have had a share in
The Troublesome Raigne of King John (1591), and Fleay conjectured that the plays Edward III and Richard III usually
included in editions of Shakespeare are at least based on plays by Marlowe. Lust's Dominion, printed in 1657, was
incorrectly ascribed to him, and a play no longer extant, The True History of George Scanderbage, was assumed by Fleay
on the authority of an obscure passage of Gabriel Harvey to be his work. The Maiden's Holiday, assigned to Day and
Marlowe, was destroyed by Warburton's cook. Day was considerably Marlowe's junior, and collaboration between the two
is not probable.
One of the most faultless lyrics and one of the loveliest fragments in the whole range of descriptive and fanciful poetry
would have secured a place for Marlowe among the memorable men of his epoch, even if his plays had perished with
himself. His Passionate Shepherd remains ever since unrivalled in its way — a way of pure fancy and radiant melody
without break or lapse. Marlowe's poem of Hero and Leander (entered at Stationers' Hall in September 1593; completed
and brought out by George Chapman, who divided Marlowe's work into two sestiads and added four of his own, 1598),
closing with the sunrise which closes the night of the lovers' union, stands alone in its age, and far ahead of the work of any
possible competitor between the death of Spenser and the dawn of Milton. In clear mastery of narrative and presentation,
in melodious ease and simplicity of strength, it is not less pre-eminent than in the adorable beauty and impeccable
perfection of separate lines or passages. It is doubtful whether the heroic couplet has ever been more finely handled.
The place and the value of Christopher Marlowe as a leader among English poets it would be almost impossible for
historical criticism to over-estimate. To none of them all, perhaps, have so many of the greatest among them been so
deeply and so directly indebted. Nor was ever any great writer's influence upon his fellows more utterly and unmixedly an
influence for good. He first, and he alone, guided Shakespeare into the right way of work; his music, in which there is no
echo of any man's before him, found its own echo in the more prolonged but hardly more exalted harmony of Milton's. He
is the greatest discoverer, the most daring and inspired pioneer, in all our poetic literature. Before him there was neither
genuine blank verse nor a genuine tragedy in our language. After his arrival the way was prepared, the paths were made
straight, for Shakespeare.
Biography from luminarium.org
Edmund Spenser
1552–1599
To understand Edmund Spenser's place in the extraordinary literary renaissance that took place in England during the last two decades
of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, it is helpful to begin with the remarks of the foremost literary critic of the age, Sir Philip Sidney. In
The Defence of Poetry, (1595), written in the early 1580s, Sidney looked back on the history of English literature and sees little to
admire. He mentions the works of Geoffrey Chaucer and a few sonnets by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey; occasional tragedies such as
those printed in the 1560s in A Mirror for Magistrates; and one book of contemporary poetry, Spenser's Shepheardes Calender
(1579). Although France and Italy and even lesser nations such as Scotland had their notable poets and held them in esteem, England,
according to Sidney, had recently brought forth only "bastard poets" and "poet-apes," and, consequently, the art itself had "fallen to be
the laughing-stock of children." At the time Sidney was writing, moreover, England lacked altogether the sort of thriving literary
culture that was so visible across the Channel in France. Sidney himself set out to repair this deficiency, and with him the other most
important writer of his generation, Edmund Spenser.
Spenser’s attempt to write a neoclassical epic in English was without precedent—unless, perhaps, one includes Sidney 's Arcadia
(1590), which was begun at about the same time. Spencer began, with pastoral poetry, which Spenser published in his first major
work, The Shepheardes Calender . A decade later, in The Faerie Queene, he graduated to poetry on martial and political subjects.
Conscious self-fashioning according to the practices of ancient poets, and also of more-recent ones on the Continent, was an essential
part of Spenser's project—but only a part. With his eye frequently turned to Chaucer and other English authors, he set out to create
poetry that was distinctively English—in religion and politics, in history and custom, in setting and language. In the best sense
Spenser's art is syncretistic, drawing together elements from many traditions. Its aim, however, was to enrich the culture of his native
land.
Edmund Spenser was born into the family of an obscure cloth maker named John Spenser, who belonged to the Merchant Taylors'
Company and was married to a woman named Elizabeth, about whom almost nothing is known. Since parish records for the area of
London where the poet grew up were destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, his birth date is uncertain, though the dates of his schooling
and a remark in one of his sonnets ( Amoretti 60) lend credence to the date traditionally assigned, which is around 1552.
Spenser's parents took what may have been the most important step in advancing their son's fortunes by enrolling him in the Merchant
Taylors' school in London. During the early 1560s, when Spenser began his studies there, it was under the able direction of a
prominent humanist educator named Richard Mulcaster, who believed in thoroughly grounding his students in the classics and in
Protestant Christianity, and who seems to have encouraged such extracurricular activities as musical and dramatic performances.
Mulcaster was also important to Spenser's career for purely pragmatic reasons, since he had good connections with the universities and
sent students of modest means such as Spenser on to them with some regularity.
In 1569, at the usual age of sixteen or seventeen, Spenser left the Merchant Taylors' School for Cambridge, where he enrolled at
Pembroke Hall. Even before he arrived, however, he was already composing poetry and attracting the attention of other writers.
Perhaps with the help of Mulcaster, he arranged to publish thematically linked sets of epigrams and sonnets entitled The Visions of
Petrarch and The Visions of Bellay. Even in his maturity Spenser seems to have thought well of these early translations of French and
Italian poetry, for he revised and reprinted them among his Complaints in 1591.
Such scraps of reliable information as are known about Spenser during his university days suggest that he served as a sizar (a scholar
of limited means who does chores in return for room and board) and that he received his B.A. in 1573 and his M.A. in 1576 with no
official marks of distinction as a scholar.
Spenser became involved in a literary circle gathered around Sidney. The group, which called itself the "Areopagus," was short-lived,
and though it may have been formed with playful reference to the great literary academies of France and Italy, it seems to have been
Biography from The Poetry Foundation (edited)
Edmund Spenser
better known for its high spirits and good conversation than for its seriousness. The writers involved seem to have occupied
themselves primarily with experiments in Latin prosody, attempts at various genres of new poetry based on classical models, and the
promotion of English as a literary language. Spenser's direct involvement with Sidney and his circle in 1579-1580 set him on a literary
course that he would pursue for the rest of his life.
Through his contact with men such as Sidney and Leicester, who were deeply involved in affairs of state, Spenser may have been
emboldened to publish his Shepeardes Calender, which was dedicated to Sidney and dealt with sensitive political controversies of the
day. Appearing in six editions before the end of the century, it became a milestone in the English literary renaissance because it was
the first major published work of new poetry written along the neoclassical lines advocated by nationalistic poets such as those of the
Areopagus.
Spenser also drew upon the visual arts of his day, particularly works known as "emblem books." These typically brought together
three disparate elements: a series of pictures of a figurative or symbolic kind, "mottos" or pithy sayings related to the pictures but
phrased in enigmatic terms, and explanations in prose or verse that interpret the mottos and pictures and draw a moral. Each of
Spenser's twelve eclogues follows a more complicated version of this pattern. First there is a woodcut, then the poem, finally one or
more verbal "emblems" or mottoes in various languages, which briefly sum up the nature or situation of the speakers and the themes
of their songs, but which often tease the imagination with alternative interpretations.
Spenser also added important innovations to the traditional elements in the Calender. One involved poetic technique. In sheer variety
of meter and form, his eclogues are without precedent in earlier pastoral poetry and provided an ample showcase for the experiments
in prosody that so fascinated the poets of the Areopagus. Another conspicuous innovation is his organization of the poems into a
seasonal progression.
In July 1580 he accepted a post as a private secretary to Arthur Grey, the new Lord Deputy of Ireland. Most of the next twenty years
of the poet's life were spent in Ireland, where he served in various governmental posts, from clerk of the Privy Council in Dublin in the
early years to Queen's justice and sheriff-designate for county Cork at the end of his life. His positions allowed him to acquire a
considerable list of landholdings, including most prominently Kilcolman Castle with three thousand acres in county Cork, which
served as his principal residence from 1588 until the year before his death in 1599.
References to Ireland appear frequently in Spenser's later poetry, and some of them reveal a good deal of gentle affection for the land
and its people. In fact, he wrote the official report on the battle of Smerwick and later described it and other incidents during the
turbulent years of his colonial service in his only prose work. A Vewe of the Present State of Ireland.
Until the late 1590s, however, Ireland provided a living, a place to write, and even literary friends. Most important, however, was
Spenser's friendship with Ralegh, who was his neighbor on the former Desmond estates and who, in the summer and fall of 1589,
came to see him at Kilcolman and took a personal interest in his poetry. Spenser later revealed the importance of his relationship with
Ralegh by preserving a poetic account of it in Colin Clouts Come Home Againe and by writing the "Letter to Ralegh" and a dedicatory
sonnet to him in The Faerie Queene. According to Colin Clout, it was Ralegh who arranged for Spenser to travel to London in 1590 to
publish the first three books of his epic and to present them in person to Queen Elizabeth, who was pleased and expressed a desire to
hear it read to her "at timely houres." So pleased was she, in fact, that she granted the poet a pension of fifty pounds a year, which was
more than the parsimonious queen granted to any other poet of the period. Spenser expressed his gratitude for Ralegh's patronage by
writing a sympathetic allegory of the adventurer's often turbulent and romantically tinged relationship with the queen, which appears
in the story of Timias and Belphoebe in Books III, IV, and VI of The Faerie Queene."
When Books I-III of The Faerie Queene were first published in 1590, Queen Elizabeth was not the only one to admire them, and by
1596, when Books IV—VI appeared, her grant of a royal pension was not the only reward that its author had received. The poem won
immediate recognition as the finest poetic achievement of its generation, and further works by the poet were evidently in demand. In
1591 he returned to London to print two other works, Daphnaïda and the Complaints. Just four years later, three more of his works
were published; Colin Clouts Come Home Againe, and the sonnet sequence titled Amoretti with his widely admired Epithalamion.
These were followed in 1596 by the last of works published during his lifetime, Fowre Hymnes and the Prothalamion. The poet’s last
work, the Mutabilitie Cantos, published posthumously in 1609, reflects on themes of time and the sorrows and uncertainties of life.
The last two years of his life allowed him little leisure to write. In 1598 rebels attacked and burned Kilcolman Castle, forcing Spenser
and his family to flee to Cork. In December he returned to England, where he delivered a report on the Irish crisis at Whitehall on
Christmas Eve. Three weeks later, on 13 January 1599, he died, perhaps of illness brought on by exhaustion. He was buried soon after
in the south transept of Westminster Abbey in the Poets’ Corner.
Biography from The Poetry Foundation (edited)
Tudor Who’s Who
Owen Tudor
Owen Tudor was famous for his secret marriage to Catherine of Valois, the widow of King Henry VI. He fought on the
side of the Lancastrians during the Wars of the Roses. He was the grandfather of King Henry VIII.
King Henry VII
Lancastrian Henry Tudor was famous for defeating the Yorkist King Richard III in the Battle of Bosworth Field and
claiming the throne of England to become King Henry VII. He married the York Princess Elizabeth, joining the two houses
that had been feuding in the War of the Roses. Combining the red Lancaster rose and the white York rose, he made the
Tudor Rose and started the Tudor dynasty.
King Henry VIII
Best known to modern audiences from his six wives, Henry was King of England from 1509 to 1547. He established the
Church of England and strengthened the position of the King.
Catherine of Aragon
Originally from Spain Catherine was engaged at three years old to Arthur, the first son of Henry VII and future King of
England. The two married but the death of Prince Arthur left her a widow. His brother Henry took both the crown and
his bride. After only one surviving child, Mary, Henry annulled the marriage to remarry, breaking with the Catholic
Church in the process.
Anne Boleyn
The second wife of Henry VIII is most famous for how she died. After only one child, a girl named Elizabeth, Henry
started to lose interest in his wife. Anne was falsely accused of treason, adultery, and incest resulting in her beheading.
Jane Seymour
As the third wife of Henry VIII, Jane was the only wife to provide a legitimate male heir, Edward. Following the birth of
her son, Jane died of childbirth complications. Henry mourned her loss and, upon his own death, was buried beside her.
Anne of Cleaves
Anne was the fourth wife to Henry VIII and the shortest of his marriages. The two were not attracted to each other and
shortly following their wedding the marriage was annulled. Though originally from Germany Anne stayed in England for
the remainder of her life and had a friendship with her former husband like a sister.
Kathryn Howard
Kathryn was young, only 19, when she became the much older Henry VIII’s fifth wife. After an affair with Richard
Culpeper, which amounted to treason, Kathryn was sentenced to execution. Kathryn stated “I die a Queen, but I would
rather die the wife of Culpeper” at her beheading.
Katherine Parr
Katherine became the sixth and final wife of Henry VIII, ironically named after his first wife. She managed to survive
both plots against her and her husband. After Henry’s death Katherine remarried Thomas Seymour and the two were
guardians of both Princess Elizabeth and Lady Jane Grey. She died from childbirth complications.
King Edward VI
King Edward VI was famous as the only legitimate son of King Henry VIII. He succeeded his father to the throne of
England but died at the age of 15 years old. His mother was Henry’s fourth wife, Jane Seymour.
Lady Jane Grey
Lady Jane Grey was famous as the Queen for Nine Days between Edward and Mary. She had a tragic short reign as the
puppet Protestant Queen of England and was executed by beheading.
Queen Mary I
Tudor Who’s Who
Queen Mary I was famous as the fanatical Catholic Queen of England who gained the nickname of Bloody Mary due to
her persecution of Protestants and for burning then at the stake.
Queen Elizabeth I
The daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth took the throne following the death of her half-sister Mary.
Elizabeth’s reign is known as the “Golden Age” of England. Since she never married, therefore having no children to
pass the throne to, Elizabeth was the last of the Tudor monarchs.
Mary Queen of Scots
Mary Queen of Scots was famous as the tragic Catholic Queen of Scotland whose marriages led to misery and death.
Imprisoned in England by her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I, she became involved in various Catholic plots and eventually fell
into an English trap which proved treason against Queen Elizabeth which led to her execution by beheading.
William Cecil, Lord Burghley
William Cecil, Lord Burghley, was famous for serving Queen Elizabeth I as Diplomat, Politician and Statesman.
Sir Thomas More
Sir Thomas More was a brilliant man of principles, the author of Utopia, who was executed by beheading because he
refused to bow to the will of the king above his religious beliefs and to accept King Henry VIII as the supreme head of the
Church of England.
Mary Boleyn
Mary Boleyn was famous as the sister of Anne Boleyn who gave birth to a son, known as Henry Carey, who some believe
to be the illegitimate son of King Henry VIII.
George Boleyn
George Boleyn was famous as the older brother of Queen Anne Boleyn who was executed on the false charge of treason
and incest with his sister Queen Anne Boleyn.
Lady Jane Rochford
Lady Jane Rochford was famous as the woman who married George Boleyn and was instrumental in the events leading
to the deaths of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, the wives of King Henry VIII and two Queens of England.
Sir Francis Walsingham
Sir Francis Walsingham was famous as the famous Protestant Statesman who served Queen Elizabeth I as a Spymaster.
Cardinal Wolsey
Cardinal Thomas Wolsey was famous as the greatest statesman who served King Henry VIII. He fell from favor when he
failed to secure a divorce for King Henry VIII from Katherine of Aragon to enable him to marry Anne Boleyn. Cardinal
Thomas Wolsey built Hampton Court Palace which was later 'acquired' by the king.
Francesco Petrarch
by: Peter Sadlon
Many people come here looking for a simple answer to the question "Who was Francesco
Petrarch?". If you want a simple answer it is, "He was a man."
Others seek an answer to the question, "What did Petrarch do?". The simple answer is, "Petrarch
wrote a letter."
Born in exile in the town of Arezzo on July 20th, 1304 he was the first son of Pietro di Parenzo di
Garzo (Ser Petracco dell'Incisa) and Eletta Canigiani. His family exiled by the same people who
exiled Dante shortly before from Florence, Petrarch spent the first few years of his life in Incisa (Ancisa) not all that far
away.
In 1307 his brother Gherardo was born. A few years later in 1311 the family moved to Pisa to meet the new Emperor and
in 1312 to Avignon following the Holy See. But because of the popularity of the city at the time and not being able to find
accommodations in Avignon the family settled in Carentras, a small town just outside the city.
In 1316 he went to study in Montpellier with Gherardo. Shortly after in 1319 his mother died of unknown causes. In 1320
he was studying law in Bologna. Petrarch despised the profession of lawyers. Although the logic of law appealed to him,
the dishonest associated with the profession made his stomach turn.
In 1326 when his father dies, Petrarch abandons his study of law and turns to the classics of which he studied in small
amounts during his schooling. His brother, Gherardo, enters the service of the church as Petrarch does as well. Their
family moneys all gone the church would support him for the rest of his life.
On April 6th, 1327, Good Friday by the older calendar and at an Easter mass Petrarch sees Laura for the first time. Who
Laura really was, and even if she really existed is a little bit of a mystery, but she is thought to be Laura de Noves, born in
1310 and married to Hugues II de Sade in 1325. Falling madly in love with a woman he may have never even talked to,
Petrarch would go on to write hundreds of poems to her; which in years to come would get transported around the world
and translated into just about every known language.
By 1330 Petrarch finishes his Minor Orders of the church and enters the service of Cardinal Colonna. He will spend the
rest of his life in the service of the Church under different Cardinals and Bishops. He will undertake many diplomatic
missions across Europe for various reasons. He will become ambassadors and be instrumental in bringing about Italian
unity by fulfilling these roles.
In 1333 Petrarch takes a trip across France and the Netherlands and into Germany. Petrarch spent a great deal of his life in
foreign lands and often wrote on how life itself was a journey, an all too common theme in today's literature, but one
which was not fully explored before Petrarch's time.
While in Liege he comes across Cicero's Pro Archia. Petrarch's love for the classics only grows stronger. He begins to
attempt to revive classical writings believing that their teachings have been lost.
By 1336 Petrarch begins to compile Rerum vulgarium fragmenta also called Il Canzoniere, or in English, The Song Book.
By 1374 when Petrarch dies it contains 366 poems, mostly sonnets to and about the love of his life which he could never
have, Laura. Of the 366 poems 263 would be written while she was alive and 103 after her death. Laura would die while
Petrarch was traveling later in 1348, on Good Friday. As Petrarch writes: on the same hour of the same day but 21 years
after he first saw her. She would leave behind 11 children and a husband who would remarry within a year.
A year later in 1337, and on the road again he travels to Flanders and the Brabant and then to Rome for the first time in his
life. Later that year, his first child, Giovanni is born out of wedlock. Who the mother was is unknown, but by Petrarch's
own account he did not treat her as well as he should have. The relationship between Petrarch and his son was a
disappointment to Francesco. He describes Giovanni as "Intelligent, perhaps even exceptionally intelligent, but he hates
books".
Giovanni will stay with Petrarch until he was 20 years old (1357), at which time living in Italy, Petrarch will send his son
to Avignon and in 1361 Giovanni would die from the plague.
In 1340, as Petrarch writes, on the same day he received two invitations, one from Rome and one from Paris, each asking
him to accept the crown as poet laureate. He chooses Rome and on April 8th, 1341 (Easter Sunday) he is crowned by Orso
dell'Anguillara, a roman noble. Petrarch's speech calls on a rebirth of classical wisdom and poetry. He develops the idea of
the laurel being the symbol for poetic and literary immortality.
By 1343 Petrarch's second child, Francesca is born, again to an unnamed mother out of wedlock. Francesca later marries
Francescuolo da Brossano and bares two children of her own, a daughter named Eletta in 1362 and a son, Francesco
whom Petrarch adored. Francesco, the grandson, will die in 1368, probably of the plague.
In April of the same year (1343) Gherardo, Petrarch's brother, becomes a Carthusian monk. This causes Petrarch to
examine his faith and write Secretum. It is composed of three imaginary dialogues between Petrarch and St. Augustine,
who speak in the presence of Lady Truth. The Secretum is a "secret" book, intended for private meditation; Petrarch kept
it by him for the rest of his life. It reflects his sense of inner crisis and depression, resolved by Augustine's wise counsel
and recollection of his readings, particularly Virgil, Ovid, and Augustine's Confessions.
In 1345 and living in Verona Petrarch discovers a collection of letters written by Cicero and collected by him over 1000
years ago. Petrarch begins to follow Cicero's lead and starts a collection of his own letters which he called Familiares
(Familiar Letters). His Familiares will end up being a collection of 350 letters in 24 books spanning from 1325 to 1366.
Petrarch would terminate Familiares years later and begin Seniles (Letters of the elder years). That collection would
contain 128 letters in 18 books written between 1361 and 1373. Petrarch would spend a considerable amount of time in
these collections, rewriting letters and sometimes composing new ones on the fly. He would write to kings and queens, he
would write to popes and cardinals. He would write to the ghosts of Cicero and Homer.
Petrarch would live out the rest of his life in Italy. Still in the service of the church and going on diplomatic missions from
time to time.
On the morning of July 19th, 1374, a day before his 70th birthday, Francesca who's family was living with him at the
time, would walk into Francesco's study and find him slumped over his desk having died sometime during the night with a
pen in his hand and Laura in his heart. He was buried in the parish church. Six years later, his remains were transferred to
a sarcophagus built in Arquà by his son-in-law.
His writings influenced countless others during his lifetime, others such as Boccaccio to write his own great works. And
centuries later others such as Shakespeare would study his works and copy his sonnets.
Petrarch lived through the harshest bouts of the plague and lost nearly everyone he knew to it. His mother and father had
died in his early years but his son, his grandson, numerous friends, and of course Laura, for which his writings of her will
live on forever, all died as victims of the disease.
So great were his writings that royalty treated him, the son of exiled nobles, like a king and in a letter to a friend he even
goes as far as to say that he has caused his own plague to spread over Europe, one which has caused people to take up pen
and paper and write and read.
And so ended the dark ages and the start of Humanism.
Galileo Galilei
Born – February 15, 1564
Died – January 8, 1642
Galileo Galilei's parents were Vincenzo Galilei and Guilia Ammannati. Vincenzo, who was born in
Florence in 1520, was a teacher of music and a fine lute player. After studying music in Venice he carried
out experiments on strings to support his musical theories. Guilia, who was born in Pescia, married
Vincenzo in 1563 and they made their home in the countryside near Pisa. Galileo was their first child and
spent his early years with his family in Pisa.
In 1572, when Galileo was eight years old, his family returned to Florence, his father's home town.
However, Galileo remained in Pisa and lived for two years with Muzio Tedaldi who was related to
Galileo's mother by marriage. When he reached the age of ten, Galileo left Pisa to join his family in
Florence and there he was tutored by Jacopo Borghini. Once he was old enough to be educated in a
monastery, his parents sent him to the Camaldolese Monastery at Vallombrosa which is situated on a
magnificent forested hillside 33 km southeast of Florence. The Camaldolese Order was independent of
the Benedictine Order, splitting from it in about 1012. The Order combined the solitary life of the hermit
with the strict life of the monk and soon the young Galileo found this life an attractive one. He became a
novice, intending to join the Order, but this did not please his father who had already decided that his
eldest son should become a medical doctor.
Vincenzo had Galileo return from Vallombrosa to Florence and give up the idea of joining the
Camaldolese order. He did continue his schooling in Florence, however, in a school run by the
Camaldolese monks. In 1581 Vincenzo sent Galileo back to Pisa to live again with Muzio Tedaldi and now
to enrol for a medical degree at the University of Pisa. Although the idea of a medical career never
seems to have appealed to Galileo, his father's wish was a fairly natural one since there had been a
distinguished physician in his family in the previous century. Galileo never seems to have taken medical
studies seriously, attending courses on his real interests which were in mathematics and natural
philosophy. His mathematics teacher at Pisa was Filippo Fantoni, who held the chair of mathematics.
Galileo returned to Florence for the summer vacations and there continued to study mathematics.
In the year 1582-83 Ostilio Ricci, who was the mathematician of the Tuscan Court and a former pupil of
Tartaglia, taught a course on Euclid's Elements at the University of Pisa which Galileo attended. During
the summer of 1583 Galileo was back in Florence with his family and Vincenzo encouraged him to read
Galen to further his medical studies. However Galileo, still reluctant to study medicine, invited Ricci (also
in Florence where the Tuscan court spent the summer and autumn) to his home to meet his father. Ricci
tried to persuade Vincenzo to allow his son to study mathematics since this was where his interests lay.
Certainly Vincenzo did not like the idea and resisted strongly but eventually he gave way a little and
Galileo was able to study the works of Euclid and Archimedes from the Italian translations which
Tartaglia had made. Of course he was still officially enrolled as a medical student at Pisa but eventually,
by 1585, he gave up this course and left without completing his degree.
Galileo began teaching mathematics, first privately in Florence and then during 1585-86 at Siena where
he held a public appointment. During the summer of 1586 he taught at Vallombrosa, and in this year he
wrote his first scientific book The little balance [La Balancitta] which described Archimedes' method of
finding the specific gravities (that is the relative densities) of substances using a balance. In the following
year he travelled to Rome to visit Clavius who was professor of mathematics at the Jesuit Collegio
Romano there. A topic which was very popular with the Jesuit mathematicians at this time was centres
of gravity and Galileo brought with him some results which he had discovered on this topic. Despite
making a very favourable impression on Clavius, Galileo failed to gain an appointment to teach
mathematics at the University of Bologna.
After leaving Rome Galileo remained in contact with Clavius by correspondence and Guidobaldo del
Monte was also a regular correspondent. Certainly the theorems which Galileo had proved on the
centres of gravity of solids, and left in Rome, were discussed in this correspondence. It is also likely that
Galileo received lecture notes from courses which had been given at the Collegio Romano, for he made
copies of such material which still survive today. The correspondence began around 1588 and continued
for many years. Also in 1588 Galileo received a prestigious invitation to lecture on the dimensions and
location of hell in Dante's Inferno at the Academy in Florence.
Fantoni left the chair of mathematics at the University of Pisa in 1589 and Galileo was appointed to fill
the post (although this was only a nominal position to provide financial support for Galileo). Not only did
he receive strong recommendations from Clavius, but he also had acquired an excellent reputation
through his lectures at the Florence Academy in the previous year. The young mathematician had
rapidly acquired the reputation that was necessary to gain such a position, but there were still higher
positions at which he might aim. Galileo spent three years holding this post at the university of Pisa and
during this time he wrote De Motu a series of essays on the theory of motion which he never published.
It is likely that he never published this material because he was less than satisfied with it, and this is fair
for despite containing some important steps forward, it also contained some incorrect ideas. Perhaps
the most important new ideas which De Motu contains is that one can test theories by conducting
experiments. In particular the work contains his important idea that one could test theories about falling
bodies using an inclined plane to slow down the rate of descent.
In 1591 Vincenzo Galilei, Galileo's father, died and since Galileo was the eldest son he had to provide
financial support for the rest of the family and in particular have the necessary financial means to
provide dowries for his two younger sisters. Being professor of mathematics at Pisa was not well paid, so
Galileo looked for a more lucrative post. With strong recommendations from Guidobaldo del Monte,
Galileo was appointed professor of mathematics at the University of Padua (the university of the
Republic of Venice) in 1592 at a salary of three times what he had received at Pisa. On 7 December 1592
he gave his inaugural lecture and began a period of eighteen years at the university, years which he later
described as the happiest of his life. At Padua his duties were mainly to teach Euclid's geometry and
standard (geocentric) astronomy to medical students, who would need to know some astronomy in
order to make use of astrology in their medical practice. However, Galileo argued against Aristotle's
view of astronomy and natural philosophy in three public lectures he gave in connection with the
appearance of a New Star (now known as 'Kepler's supernova') in 1604. The belief at this time was that
of Aristotle, namely that all changes in the heavens had to occur in the lunar region close to the Earth,
the realm of the fixed stars being permanent. Galileo used parallax arguments to prove that the New
Star could not be close to the Earth. In a personal letter written to Kepler in 1598, Galileo had stated
that he was a Copernican (believer in the theories of Copernicus). However, no public sign of this belief
was to appear until many years later.
At Padua, Galileo began a long term relationship with Maria Gamba, who was from Venice, but they did
not marry perhaps because Galileo felt his financial situation was not good enough. In 1600 their first
child Virginia was born, followed by a second daughter Livia in the following year. In 1606 their son
Vincenzo was born.
We mentioned above an error in Galileo's theory of motion as he set it out in De Motu around 1590. He
was quite mistaken in his belief that the force acting on a body was the relative difference between its
specific gravity and that of the substance through which it moved. Galileo wrote to his friend Paolo
Sarpi, a fine mathematician who was consultor to the Venetian government, in 1604 and it is clear from
his letter that by this time he had realised his mistake. In fact he had returned to work on the theory of
motion in 1602 and over the following two years, through his study of inclined planes and the
pendulum, he had formulated the correct law of falling bodies and had worked out that a projectile
follows a parabolic path. However, these famous results would not be published for another 35 years.
In May 1609, Galileo received a letter from Paolo Sarpi telling him about a spyglass that a Dutchman had
shown in Venice. Galileo wrote in the Starry Messenger (Sidereus Nuncius) in April 1610:About ten months ago a report reached my ears that a certain Fleming had constructed a spyglass by
means of which visible objects, though very distant from the eye of the observer, were distinctly seen as
if nearby. Of this truly remarkable effect several experiences were related, to which some persons
believed while other denied them. A few days later the report was confirmed by a letter I received from a
Frenchman in Paris, Jacques Badovere, which caused me to apply myself wholeheartedly to investigate
means by which I might arrive at the invention of a similar instrument. This I did soon afterwards, my
basis being the doctrine of refraction.
From these reports, and using his own technical skills as a mathematician and as a craftsman, Galileo
began to make a series of telescopes whose optical performance was much better than that of the
Dutch instrument. His first telescope was made from available lenses and gave a magnification of about
four times. To improve on this Galileo learned how to grind and polish his own lenses and by August
1609 he had an instrument with a magnification of around eight or nine. Galileo immediately saw the
commercial and military applications of his telescope (which he called a perspicillum) for ships at sea. He
kept Sarpi informed of his progress and Sarpi arranged a demonstration for the Venetian Senate. They
were very impressed and, in return for a large increase in his salary, Galileo gave the sole rights for the
manufacture of telescopes to the Venetian Senate. It seems a particularly good move on his part since
he must have known that such rights were meaningless, particularly since he always acknowledged that
the telescope was not his invention!
By the end of 1609 Galileo had turned his telescope on the night sky and began to make remarkable
discoveries. Swerdlow writes (see [16]):-
In about two months, December and January, he made more discoveries that changed the world than
anyone has ever made before or since.
The astronomical discoveries he made with his telescopes were described in a short book called the
Starry Messenger published in Venice in May 1610. This work caused a sensation. Galileo claimed to
have seen mountains on the Moon, to have proved the Milky Way was made up of tiny stars, and to
have seen four small bodies orbiting Jupiter. These last, with an eye to getting a position in Florence, he
quickly named 'the Medicean stars'. He had also sent Cosimo de Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, an
excellent telescope for himself.
The Venetian Senate, perhaps realising that the rights to manufacture telescopes that Galileo had given
them were worthless, froze his salary. However he had succeeded in impressing Cosimo and, in June
1610, only a month after his famous little book was published, Galileo resigned his post at Padua and
became Chief Mathematician at the University of Pisa (without any teaching duties) and 'Mathematician
and Philosopher' to the Grand Duke of Tuscany. In 1611 he visited Rome where he was treated as a
leading celebrity; the Collegio Romano put on a grand dinner with speeches to honour Galileo's
remarkable discoveries. He was also made a member of the Accademia dei Lincei (in fact the sixth
member) and this was an honour which was especially important to Galileo who signed himself 'Galileo
Galilei Linceo' from this time on.
While in Rome, and after his return to Florence, Galileo continued to make observations with his
telescope. Already in the Starry Messenger he had given rough periods of the four moons of Jupiter, but
more precise calculations were certainly not easy since it was difficult to identify from an observation
which moon was I, which was II, which III, and which IV. He made a long series of observations and was
able to give accurate periods by 1612. At one stage in the calculations he became very puzzled since the
data he had recorded seemed inconsistent, but he had forgotten to take into account the motion of the
Earth round the sun.
Galileo first turned his telescope on Saturn on 25 July 1610 and it appeared as three bodies (his
telescope was not good enough to show the rings but made them appear as lobes on either side of the
planet). Continued observations were puzzling indeed to Galileo as the bodies on either side of Saturn
vanished when the ring system was edge on. Also in 1610 he discovered that, when seen in the
telescope, the planet Venus showed phases like those of the Moon, and therefore must orbit the Sun
not the Earth. This did not enable one to decide between the Copernican system, in which everything
goes round the Sun, and that proposed by Tycho Brahe in which everything but the Earth (and Moon)
goes round the Sun which in turn goes round the Earth. Most astronomers of the time in fact favoured
Brahe's system and indeed distinguishing between the two by experiment was beyond the instruments
of the day. However, Galileo knew that all his discoveries were evidence for Copernicanism, although
not a proof. In fact it was his theory of falling bodies which was the most significant in this respect, for
opponents of a moving Earth argued that if the Earth rotated and a body was dropped from a tower it
should fall behind the tower as the Earth rotated while it fell. Since this was not observed in practice this
was taken as strong evidence that the Earth was stationary. However Galileo already knew that a body
would fall in the observed manner on a rotating Earth.
Other observations made by Galileo included the observation of sunspots. He reported these in
Discourse on floating bodies which he published in 1612 and more fully in Letters on the sunspots which
appeared in 1613. In the following year his two daughters entered the Franciscan Convent of St
Matthew outside Florence, Virginia taking the name Sister Maria Celeste and Livia the name Sister
Arcangela. Since they had been born outside of marriage, Galileo believed that they themselves should
never marry. Although Galileo put forward many revolutionary correct theories, he was not correct in all
cases. In particular when three comets appeared in 1618 he became involved in a controversy regarding
the nature of comets. He argued that they were close to the Earth and caused by optical refraction. A
serious consequence of this unfortunate argument was that the Jesuits began to see Galileo as a
dangerous opponent.
Despite his private support for Copernicanism, Galileo tried to avoid controversy by not making public
statements on the issue. However he was drawn into the controversy through Castelli who had been
appointed to the chair of mathematics in Pisa in 1613. Castelli had been a student of Galileo's and he
was also a supporter of Copernicus. At a meeting in the Medici palace in Florence in December 1613
with the Grand Duke Cosimo II and his mother the Grand Duchess Christina of Lorraine, Castelli was
asked to explain the apparent contradictions between the Copernican theory and Holy Scripture. Castelli
defended the Copernican position vigorously and wrote to Galileo afterwards telling him how successful
he had been in putting the arguments. Galileo, less convinced that Castelli had won the argument, wrote
Letter to Castelli to him arguing that the Bible had to be interpreted in the light of what science had
shown to be true. Galileo had several opponents in Florence and they made sure that a copy of the
Letter to Castelli was sent to the Inquisition in Rome. However, after examining its contents they found
little to which they could object.
The Catholic Church's most important figure at this time in dealing with interpretations of the Holy
Scripture was Cardinal Robert Bellarmine. He seems at this time to have seen little reason for the Church
to be concerned regarding the Copernican theory. The point at issue was whether Copernicus had
simply put forward a mathematical theory which enabled the calculation of the positions of the
heavenly bodies to be made more simply or whether he was proposing a physical reality. At this time
Bellarmine viewed the theory as an elegant mathematical one which did not threaten the established
Christian belief regarding the structure of the universe.
In 1616 Galileo wrote the Letter to the Grand Duchess which vigorously attacked the followers of
Aristotle. In this work, which he addressed to the Grand Duchess Christina of Lorraine, he argued
strongly for a non-literal interpretation of Holy Scripture when the literal interpretation would
contradict facts about the physical world proved by mathematical science. In this Galileo stated quite
clearly that for him the Copernican theory is not just a mathematical calculating tool, but is a physical
reality:I hold that the Sun is located at the centre of the revolutions of the heavenly orbs and does not change
place, and that the Earth rotates on itself and moves around it. Moreover ... I confirm this view not only
by refuting Ptolemy's and Aristotle's arguments, but also by producing many for the other side, especially
some pertaining to physical effects whose causes perhaps cannot be determined in any other way, and
other astronomical discoveries; these discoveries clearly confute the Ptolemaic system, and they agree
admirably with this other position and confirm it.
Pope Paul V ordered Bellarmine to have the Sacred Congregation of the Index decide on the Copernican
theory. The cardinals of the Inquisition met on 24 February 1616 and took evidence from theological
experts. They condemned the teachings of Copernicus, and Bellarmine conveyed their decision to
Galileo who had not been personally involved in the trial. Galileo was forbidden to hold Copernican
views but later events made him less concerned about this decision of the Inquisition. Most importantly
Maffeo Barberini, who was an admirer of Galileo, was elected as Pope Urban VIII. This happened just as
Galileo's book Il saggiatore (The Assayer) was about to be published by the Accademia dei Lincei in 1623
and Galileo was quick to dedicate this work to the new Pope. The work described Galileo's new scientific
method and contains a famous quote regarding mathematics:Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the
book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the characters
in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles,
circles, and other geometric figures without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word
of it; without these one is wandering in a dark labyrinth.
Pope Urban VIII invited Galileo to papal audiences on six occasions and led Galileo to believe that the
Catholic Church would not make an issue of the Copernican theory. Galileo, therefore, decided to
publish his views believing that he could do so without serious consequences from the Church. However
by this stage in his life Galileo's health was poor with frequent bouts of severe illness and so even
though he began to write his famous Dialogue in 1624 it took him six years to complete the work.
Galileo attempted to obtain permission from Rome to publish the Dialogue in 1630 but this did not
prove easy. Eventually he received permission from Florence, and not Rome. In February 1632 Galileo
published Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World - Ptolemaic and Copernican. It takes
the form of a dialogue between Salviati, who argues for the Copernican system, and Simplicio who is an
Aristotelian philosopher. The climax of the book is an argument by Salviati that the Earth moves which
was based on Galileo's theory of the tides. Galileo's theory of the tides was entirely false despite being
postulated after Kepler had already put forward the correct explanation. It was unfortunate, given the
remarkable truths the Dialogue supported, that the argument which Galileo thought to give the
strongest proof of Copernicus's theory should be incorrect.
Shortly after publication of Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World - Ptolemaic and
Copernican the Inquisition banned its sale and ordered Galileo to appear in Rome before them. Illness
prevented him from travelling to Rome until 1633. Galileo's accusation at the trial which followed was
that he had breached the conditions laid down by the Inquisition in 1616. However a different version of
this decision was produced at the trial rather than the one Galileo had been given at the time. The truth
of the Copernican theory was not an issue therefore; it was taken as a fact at the trial that this theory
was false. This was logical, of course, since the judgement of 1616 had declared it totally false.
Found guilty, Galileo was condemned to lifelong imprisonment, but the sentence was carried out
somewhat sympathetically and it amounted to house arrest rather than a prison sentence. He was able
to live first with the Archbishop of Siena, then later to return to his home in Arcetri, near Florence, but
had to spend the rest of his life watched over by officers from the Inquisition. In 1634 he suffered a
severe blow when his daughter Virginia, Sister Maria Celeste, died. She had been a great support to her
father through his illnesses and Galileo was shattered and could not work for many months. When he
did manage to restart work, he began to write Discourses and mathematical demonstrations concerning
the two new sciences.
After Galileo had completed work on the Discourses it was smuggled out of Italy, and taken to Leyden in
Holland where it was published. It was his most rigorous mathematical work which treated problems on
impetus, moments, and centres of gravity. Much of this work went back to the unpublished ideas in De
Motu from around 1590 and the improvements which he had worked out during 1602-1604. In the
Discourses he developed his ideas of the inclined plane writing:-
I assume that the speed acquired by the same movable object over different inclinations of the plane are
equal whenever the heights of those planes are equal.
He then described an experiment using a pendulum to verify his property of inclined planes and used
these ideas to give a theorem on acceleration of bodies in free fall:The time in which a certain distance is traversed by an object moving under uniform acceleration from
rest is equal to the time in which the same distance would be traversed by the same movable object
moving at a uniform speed of one half the maximum and final speed of the previous uniformly
accelerated motion.
After giving further results of this type he gives his famous result that the distance that a body moves
from rest under uniform acceleration is proportional to the square of the time taken.
One would expect that Galileo's understanding of the pendulum, which he had since he was a young
man, would have led him to design a pendulum clock. In fact he only seems to have thought of this
possibility near the end of his life and around 1640 he did design the first pendulum clock. Galileo died
in early 1642 but the significance of his clock design was certainly realised by his son Vincenzo who tried
to make a clock to Galileo's plan, but failed.
It was a sad end for so great a man to die condemned of heresy. His will indicated that he wished to be
buried beside his father in the family tomb in the Basilica of Santa Croce but his relatives feared, quite
rightly, that this would provoke opposition from the Church. His body was concealed and only placed in
a fine tomb in the church in 1737 by the civil authorities against the wishes of many in the Church. On 31
October 1992, 350 years after Galileo's death, Pope John Paul II gave an address on behalf of the
Catholic Church in which he admitted that errors had been made by the theological advisors in the case
of Galileo. He declared the Galileo case closed, but he did not admit that the Church was wrong to
convict Galileo on a charge of heresy because of his belief that the Earth rotates round the sun.
Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson
Girolamo Cardano
Born: 24 Sept 1501 in Pavia, Duchy of Milan (now Italy)
Died: 21 Sept 1576 in Rome (now Italy)
Girolamo or Hieronimo Cardano's name was Hieronymus Cardanus in Latin and he is sometimes known by the
English version of his name Jerome Cardan.
Girolamo Cardano was the illegitimate child of Fazio Cardano and Chiara Micheria. His father was a lawyer in
Milan but his expertise in mathematics was such that he was consulted by Leonardo da Vinci on questions of geometry. In
addition to his law practice, Fazio lectured on geometry, both at the University of Pavia and, for a longer spell, at the
Piatti foundation in Milan. When he was in his fifties, Fazio met Chiara Micheria, who was a young widow in her thirties,
struggling to raise three children.
Chiara became pregnant but, before she was due to give birth, the plague hit Milan and she was persuaded to
leave the city for the relative safety of nearby Pavia to stay with wealthy friends of Fazio. Thus Cardan was born in Pavia
but his mother's joy was short lived when she received news that her first three children had died of the plague in Milan.
Chiara lived apart from Fazio for many years but, later in life, they did marry.
Cardan at first became his father's assistant but he was a sickly child and Fazio had to get help from two nephews
when the work became too much for Cardan. However, Cardan began to wish for greater things than an assistant to his
father. Fazio had taught his son mathematics and Cardan began to think of an academic career. After an argument, Fazio
allowed Cardan to go university and he entered Pavia University, where his father had studied, to read medicine despite
his father's wish that he should study law.
When war broke out, the university was forced to close and Cardan moved to the University of Padua to complete
his studies. Shortly after this move, his father died but by this time Cardan was in the middle of a campaign to become
rector of the university. He was a brilliant student but, outspoken and highly critical, Cardan was not well liked. However,
his campaign for rector was successful since he beat his rival by a single vote.
Cardan squandered the small bequest from his father and turned to gambling to boost his finances. Cardan's
understanding of probability meant he had an advantage over his opponents in card games, dice, and chess. He won more
than he lost, but he had to keep dubious company for his gambling. Once, when he thought he was being cheated at cards,
Cardan, who always carried a knife, slashed the face of his opponent. Gambling became an addiction that was to last
many years and rob Cardan of valuable time, money, and reputation.
Cardan was awarded his doctorate in medicine in 1525 and applied to join the College of Physicians in Milan,
where his mother still lived. The College did not wish to admit him for, despite the respect he had gained as an
exceptional student, he had a reputation as a difficult man, whose unconventional, uncompromising opinions were
aggressively put forward with little tact or thought for the consequences. The discovery of Cardan's illegitimate birth gave
the College a reason to reject his application.
Cardan, on the advice of a friend, went to Sacco, a small village 15km from Padua. He set up a small, and not
very successful, medical practice. In late 1531 Cardan married Lucia, the daughter of a neighbor Aldobello Bandarini, a
captain of the local militia. Cardan's practice in Sacco did not provide enough income for him to support a wife so, in
April 1532, he moved to Gallarate, near Milan. He applied again to the College of Physicians in Milan but again was not
allowed membership. Unable to practice medicine, Cardan reverted, in 1533, to gambling to pay his way, but things went
so badly that he was forced to pawn his wife's jewelry and even some of his furniture. Desperately seeking a change of
fortune, the Cardans moved to Milan, but here they fared even worse and they had to ignominiously enter the poorhouse.
Cardan was fortunate to obtain Fazio's former post of lecturer in mathematics at the Piatti Foundation in Milan
which gave him plenty of free time and he used some of this to treat a few patients, despite not being a member of the
College of Physicians. Cardan achieved some near miraculous cures and his growing reputation as a doctor led to his
being consulted by members of the College. His grateful patients and their relatives became whole hearted supporters and
in this way, Cardan was able to build up a base of influential backers.
Girolamo Cardano
Cardan was still furious at his continuing exclusion from the College and, in 1536 he rashly published a book
attacking not only the College's medical ability but their character. This was not the way to gain entry to the College and
not surprisingly Cardan's application to join in 1537 was again rejected. However, two years later, after pressure from his
admirers, the College modified the clause regarding legitimate birth and admitted Cardan. In the same year, Cardan's first
two mathematical books were published, the second The Practice of Arithmetic and Simple Mensuration was a sign of
greater things to come. This was the beginning of Cardan's prolific literary career writing on a diversity of topics
medicine, philosophy, astronomy and theology in addition to mathematics.
In 1539 Cardan approached Taraglia, who had achieved fame in winning a contest on solving cubics, and tried to
get him to divulge the method. Tartaglia eventually agreed after getting Cardan to swear an oath that he would not publish
the method until Tartaglia had himself published it. There followed a period of intense mathematical study by Cardan
who worked on solving cubic and quartic equations by radical over the next six years.
One of the first problems that Cardan hit was that the formula sometimes involved square roots of negative
numbers even though the answer was a 'proper' number. On 4 August 1539 Cardan wrote to Tartaglia:
“I have sent to enquire after the solution to various problems for which you have given me no answer, one of
which concerns the cube equal to an unknown plus a number. I have certainly grasped this rule, but when the cube of onethird of the coefficient of the unknown is greater in value than the square of one-half of the number, then, it appears, I
cannot make it fit into the equation”.
Indeed Cardan gives precisely the conditions here for the formula to involve square roots of negative numbers.
Tartaglia by this time greatly regretted telling Cardan the method and tried to confuse him with his reply even though
Tartaglia, like Cardan, would not have understood the complex numbers now entering into mathematics.
In 1540 Cardan resigned his mathematics post at the Piatti Foundation, the vacancy being filled by Cardan's
assistant Ferrari who had brilliantly solved quartic equations by radicals. From 1540 to 1542 Cardan abandoned his
studies and did nothing but gamble; playing chess all day. During the years 1543-1552, Cardan lectured on medicine at
the universities of Milan and Pavia, as war frequently forced the closure of the university in Pavia.
In 1545 Cardan published his greatest mathematical work Ars Magna. In it he gave the methods of solution of the
cubic and quartic equation. In fact he had discovered in 1543 that Tartaglia was not the first to solve the cubic equation by
radicals and therefore felt that he could publish despite his oath.
He also presents the first calculation with complex numbers in Ars Magna. Solving a particular cubic equation, he
writes:“Dismissing mental tortures, and multiplying 5 + √ - 15 by 5 - √-15, we obtain 25 - (-15). Therefore the product is 40. .... and
thus far does arithmetical subtlety go, of which this, the extreme, is, as I have said, so subtle that it is useless.”
Lucia died in 1546, but Cardan seemed not greatly saddened, being more interested in the fame he had achieved
from his books which were amongst the best sellers of the day. He became rector of the College of Physicians and gained
the reputation of being the greatest physician in the world. Cardan received many offers from the heads of state in Europe.
John Hamilton, Archbishop of St Andrews, had suffered from asthma for ten years but gradually the frequency
and severity of the attacks had grown worse. The court physicians of both the French king and German emperor did their
best but ultimately failed and the Archbishop of St Andrews was near death. He turned in desperation to Cardan,
promising him a huge sum if he would come to Scotland. Cardan was not lecturing when he received the plea and so
accepted the offer, setting out from Milan on 23 February 1552.
Cardan was at the height of his fame and, as a consequence, his journey to Scotland was remarkable in that
everywhere he went scientific communities treated him as a celebrity and the world's leading scientist. He arrived in
Edinburgh on 29 June and saw the Archbishop immediately. By the time Cardan left on the 13 September, the Archbishop
was already recovering. Cardan accepted over two thousand gold crowns but turned down the offer of a permanent place
at the Scottish court. Within two years the archbishop let Cardan know that he had made a complete recovery.
On his return, Cardan was appointed professor of medicine at Pavia University and he was a rich and successful
man. But as Cardan was at the height of his fame, he received what he called his "crowning misfortune". Cardan's eldest
son, Giambatista, had qualified as a doctor in 1557 but he secretly married Brandonia di Seroni, a girl whom Cardan
described as “a worthless, shameless woman.” Cardan continued to support his son financially and the young couple
moved in with Brandonia's parents. However, the di Seronis were only interested in what they could extort from
Giambatista and his wealthy father, whilst Brandonia publicly mocked her husband for not being the father of their three
children.
Girolamo Cardano
These taunts drove Giambatista to poison his wife and, following his arrest, he confessed to the crime. Cardan
recruited the best lawyers but at the trial the judge decreed that to save his son's life, Cardan must come to terms with the
di Seronis. They demanded a sum which Cardan could never have found. Giambatista was tortured in jail, his left hand
was cut off and, on 13 April 1560, he was executed.
This was a blow from which Cardan never recovered. He could not forgive himself for failing to avert the disaster
and the terrible sufferings of his favorite son haunted him constantly. As the father of a convicted murderer, Cardan
became a hated man. Realizing he had to move, Cardan applied for a professorship of medicine at Bologna and was
appointed to the post. Cardan's time in Bologna was full of controversy. His reputation, in addition to his arrogant manner,
ensured he created many enemies. He humiliated a fellow medical professor in front of his students by pointing out errors
in his lectures. After a few years Cardan's colleagues tried to get the Senate to dismiss him, by spreading rumors that his
lectures were practically unattended.
Cardan had further problems with his children. His remaining son Aldo was a gambler and associated with
individuals of dubious character. In 1569 Aldo gambled away all of his own clothes and possessions in addition to a
considerable sum of his father's money. In an attempt to get money Aldo broke into his father's house and stole a large
amount of cash and jewelry. Cardan sadly reported Aldo to the authorities, and Aldo was banished from Bologna.
In 1570 Cardan was put in jail on the charge of heresy. He had cast the horoscope of Jesus Christ and written a
book in praise of Nero, tormentor of the martyrs. These may have been a deliberate attempt on Cardan's part to gain
notoriety - he wrote a whole chapter in his autobiography on wishing to "perpetrate his name" - and thus gain a place in
history. It is strange for in all other respects Cardan gave the church his full support. However the inquisition was looking
to make examples of prominent men whose commitment could be questioned and Cardan fitted the bill nicely.
Cardan was treated leniently, perhaps because public opinion was that he had been treated harshly and so he was
only imprisoned for a few months. On his release, he was forbidden to hold a university post and barred from further
publication of his work.
On his release Cardan went to Rome, where he received an unexpectedly warm reception. He was granted
immediate membership of the College of Physicians and the Pope, who had now apparently forgiven Cardan, granted him
a pension. It was in this period that his autobiography was written, although it was not published. It was published in Paris
in 1643 and Amsterdam in 1654. Italian translations were published in Milan (1821 and 1922) and Turin (1945). A
German translation appeared in Jena in 1914, and a French translation in Paris in 1936.
Cardan is reported to have correctly predicted the exact date of his own death but it has been claimed that he
achieved this by committing suicide.
In addition to Cardan's major contributions to algebra he also made important contributions to probability,
hydrodynamics, mechanics and geology. His book Liber de Ludo Aleae was published in 1663 but the book on games of
chance was probably completed by 1563. Cardan makes the first ever foray into the, until then untouched, realm of
probability theory. It is the first study of things such as dice rolling, based on the premise that there are fundamental
scientific principles governing the likelihood of achieving the elusive 'double six', outside of mere luck or chance.
Cardan is also credited with the invention of the Cardan joint a type of universal joint in a shaft that enables it to
rotate when out of alignment. Cardan also published two encyclopedias of natural science.
Inigo Jones
The first and greatest of English Renaissance architects, Inigo Jones was an unlikely candidate to change the landscape of
British style and design. Yet this self-taught son of a Smithfield cloth maker had an enormous effect on the course of
British art and architecture.
He had none of the advantages of birth, influence, and education possessed by his successors, such as Christopher Wren,
yet this man with the unusual name rose to the post of Surveyor-General of the King's Works on the basis of his enormous
talent, and in the process changed history.
It is thought that Jones visited Italy twice, once in his late 20's, when he attended theatre events at the Medici court in
Florence. This helped prepare him for his first major post at the court of James I, where he designed stage settings,
costumes, and decorations for court masques.
Later, Jones was taken up by the influential art collector Lord Arundel, who sent him to Italy and France in 1613 to find
new works of art. Jones spent a year and a half traveling and studying Roman classical architecture and the more modern
European Renaissance attempts to copy it. He was especially taken by the work of the influential Italian architect, Andrea
Palladio.
His budding talent was recognized, and in 1615 Jones was elevated to the post of Surveyor-General under James I. This
placed him in charge of planning and building royal architectural projects throughout the realm. Now it was time for Jones
to put all his study to work.
It is unfortunate for Jones, and for us, that for the rest of his tenure as Surveyor-General, Parliament was very tight with
the purse strings. Jones is only known to have undertaken about 40 works for the crown, and very few of these have
survived unaltered. The first major project Jones undertook for the king was Queen's House, in Greenwich. The house was
begun for James' queen, Anne of Denmark. However, Anne died soon after building started, and the project was put on
hold for almost 15 years before being finished for another queen, this time Henrietta Maria.
Modeled on an Italian palace, Queen's House may appear plain to a modern eye, but at the time it caused a sensation.
Even more successful was Jones' next major commission, Banqueting House in Whitehall. The building was part of an
extensive palace remodeling planned at Whitehall, but much of the plans were later scrapped.
Banqueting House was intended to be a setting for formal banquets and court masques, and it was based on the design of a
Roman basilica. The upper hall is built to a "double cube", that is 110 x 55 x 55 ft., and classical orders are used in both
exterior and interior. The building was for many years the home of the Imperial War Museum, though now it has been
restored to its original purpose as a venue for state occasions.
Inigo Jones was also called upon to do ecclesiastical work, the most famous of his designs being Queen's Chapel at St.
James Palace (1623-25), and his restoration work on old St. Paul's Cathedral. The former building is now Marlborough
House Chapel, but the latter was lost entirely in the Great Fire of London.
The other famous project in which Jones was involved was the ambitious Covent Garden. Here he was commissioned by
the Duke of Bedford to build a residential square along the lines of an Italian piazza.
The Duke felt obliged to provide a church. He told his architect to simply erect a "barn". Jones' oft-quoted response was
that his lordship would have "the finest barn in Europe". Sadly, little remains of the original church, and the square has
been remodeled several times. For many years it served as London's chief produce market, though now it is given over to
very trendy shopping.
For many years Jones was thought to have been responsible for the work at Wilton House, Wiltshire. This is now believed
to be the work of his pupil and nephew James Webb. Many years later the Italian influence that Jones introduced to
Britain was revived by Lord Burlington and the Palladian movement. Inigo Jones died in 1652.
By David Ross
Jane Seymour
Born – c. 1509
Married – May 30, 1536
Died – October 24, 1537
Jane Seymour may have first come to court in the service of Queen Catherine, but then was moved to wait on Anne
Boleyn as she rose in the King’s favor and eventually became his second wife.
In September 1535, the King stayed at the Seymour family home in Wiltshire, England. It may have been there that the
King “noticed” Jane. But, it isn’t until February of 1536 that there is evidence of Henry’s new love for Jane.
By that point, Henry’s disinterest in Anne was obvious and Jane was likely pegged to be her replacement as Queen.
Opinion is divided as to how Jane felt about being the new object of Henry’s affections. Some see Jane’s calm and
gentle demeanor as evidence that she didn’t really understand the position as political pawn she was playing for her
family. Others see it as a mask for her fear. Jane probably had some trepidation; although Anne Boleyn’s final fate had
not been sealed at that time.
One other view was that Jane fell into her role quite willingly and actively sought to entice the King and flaunt her favor
even in front of the current Queen.
However Jane actually felt, we will never know. Henry’s feelings were pretty clear though. Within 24 hours of Anne
Boleyn’s execution, Jane Seymour and Henry VIII were formally betrothed. On the 30th of May, they were married.
Unlike Henry’s previous two Queens, Jane never had a coronation. Perhaps the King was waiting for Jane to “prove”
herself by giving him a son.
Less than two months after Henry and Jane’s marriage, the Duke of Richmond, Henry Fitzroy died at the age of 17.
Fitzroy was the King’s bastard son by his mistress Elizabeth Blount.
It wasn’t until early 1537 that Jane became pregnant. During her pregnancy, Jane’s every whim was indulged by the
King, convinced that Jane, whom he felt to be his first ‘true wife’ carried his long hoped for son. In October, a prince was
born at Hampton Court Palace and was christened on 15th of October. The baby was named Edward. Mary, daughter of
Catherine of Aragon, was godmother and Elizabeth, daughter of Anne Boleyn, also played a role in the ceremony.
There has been much written over whether or not Jane gave birth to Edward by cesarean section. It seems unlikely that
if she had, she would have lived as long as she did after the birth. Jane attended her son’s christening, although she was
weak. She died on October 24th, just two weeks after her son was born.
Henry had already been preparing his own tomb at St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, which was where Jane was
buried. In the end, she would be the only of Henry’s six wives to be buried with him.
JOHN FOXE, the author of the famous Book of Martyrs, was born at Boston, in Lincolnshire, in 1516. At
the age of sixteen he is said to have entered Brasenose College, Oxford, where he was the pupil of John
Harding or Hawarden, and had for room-mate Alexander Nowell, afterwards dean of St. Paul's. His
authenticated connection at the university is, however, with Magdalen College. He took his B.A. degree in
1 537 and his M.A. in 1543. He was lecturer on logic in 1540-1541. He wrote several Latin plays on
Scriptural subjects, of which the best, De Christo triumphante, was repeatedly printed, (London, 1551;
Basel, 1556, &c.), and was translated into English by Richard Day, son of the printer.
He became a fellow of Magdalen College in 1539, resigning in 1545. It is said that he refused to conform to
the rules for regular attendance at chapel, and that he protested both against the enforced celibacy of
fellows and the obligation to take holy orders within seven years of their election. The customary
statement that he was expelled from his fellowship is based on the untrustworthy biography attributed to
his son Samuel Foxe, but the college records state that he resigned of his own accord and ex honesta
causa. The letter in which he protests to President Oglethorpe against the charges of irreverence, &c.,
brought against him is printed in Pratt's edition (vol. i. Appendix, pp. 58-61).
On leaving Oxford he acted as tutor for a short time in the house of the Lucys of Charlecote, near
Stratford-on-Avon, where he married Agnes Randall. Late in 1547 or early in the next year he went to
London. He found a patron in Mary Fitzroy, Duchess of Richmond, and having been ordained deacon by
Ridley in 1550, he settled at Reigate Castle, where he acted as tutor to the duchess's nephews, the orphan
children of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. On the accession of Queen Mary, Foxe was deprived of his
tutorship by the boys' grandfather, the Duke of Norfolk, who was now released from prison.
He retired to Strasburg, and occupied himself with a Latin history of the Christian persecutions which he
had begun at the suggestion of Lady Jane Grey. He had assistance from two clerics of widely differing
opinions — from Edmund Grindal, who was later, as Archbishop of Canterbury, to maintain his Puritan
convictions in opposition to Elizabeth; and from John Aylmer, afterwards one of the bitterest opponents
of the Puritan party. This book, dealing chiefly with Wycliffe and Huss, and coming down to 1500, formed
the first outline of the Actes and Monuments. It was printed by Wendelin Richelius with the title of
Commentarii rerum in ecclesia gestarum (Strasburg, 1554). In the year of its publication Foxe removed
to Frankfort, where he found the English colony of Protestant refugees divided into two camps. He made a
vain attempt to frame a compromise which should be accepted by the extreme Calvinists and by the
partisans of the Anglican doctrine.
He moved in 1555 to Basel, where he worked as printer's reader to Johann Herbst or Oporinus. He made
steady progress with his great book as he received reports from England of the religious persecutions
there, and he issued from the press of Oporinus his pamphlet Ad inclytos ac praepotentes Angliae
proceres ... supplicatio (1557), a plea for toleration addressed to the English nobility. In 1559 he
completed the Latin edition' of his martyrology and returned to England. He lived for some time at
Biography from luminarium.org
Aldgate, London, in the house of his former pupil, Thomas Howard, now duke of Norfolk, who retained a
sincere regard for his tutor and left him a small pension in his will. He became associated with John Day
the printer, himself once a Protestant exile. Foxe was ordained priest by Edmund Grindal, bishop of
London, in 1560, and besides much literary work he occasionally preached at Paul's Cross and other
places. His work had rendered great service to the government, and he might have had high preferment in
the Church but for the Puritan views which he consistently maintained. He held, however, the prebend of
Shipton in Salisbury cathedral, and is said to have been for a short time rector of Cripplegate.
In 1563 was issued from the press of John Day the first English edition of the Actes and Monuments of
these latter and perillous Dayes, touching matters of the Church, wherein are comprehended and
described the great Persecution and horrible Troubles that have been wrought and practised by the
Romishe Prelates, speciallye in this Realme of England and Scotland, from the yeare of our Lorde a
thousande to the time now present. Gathered and collected according to the true Copies and Wrytinges
certificatorie as well of the Parties themselves that Suffered, as also out of the Bishop's Registers, which
were the Doers thereof, by John Foxe, commonly known as the Book of Martyrs. Several gross errors
which had appeared in the Latin version, and had been since exposed, were corrected in this edition.
Its popularity was immense and signal. The Marian persecution was still fresh in men's minds, and the
graphic narrative intensified in its numerous readers the fierce hatred of Spain and of the Inquisition
which was one of the master passions of the reign. Nor was its influence transient. For generations the
popular conception of Roman Catholicism was derived from its bitter pages. Its accuracy was immediately
attacked by Catholic writers, notably in the Dialogi sex (1566), nominally from the pen of Alan Cope, but
in reality by Nicholas Harpsfield, and by Robert Parsons in Three Conversions of England (1570).
These criticisms induced Foxe to produce a second corrected edition, Ecclesiastical History, contayning
the Actes and Monuments of things passed in every kynges tyme... in 1570, a copy of which was ordered
by Convocation to be placed in every collegiate church. Foxe based his accounts of the martyrs partly on
authentic documents and reports of the trials, and on statements received direct from the friends of the
sufferers, but he was too hasty a worker and too violent a partisan to produce anything like a correct or
impartial account of the mass of facts with which he had to deal. Anthony a Wood says that Foxe "believed
and reported all that was told him, and there is every reason to suppose that he was purposely misled, and
continually deceived by those whose interest it was to bring discredit on his work," but he admits that the
book is a monument of his industry, his laborious research and his sincere piety.
The gross blunders due to carelessness have often been exposed, and there is no doubt that Foxe was only
too ready to believe evil of the Catholics, and he cannot always be exonerated from the charge of wilful
falsification of evidence. It should, however, be remembered in his honour that his advocacy of religious
toleration was far in advance of his day. He pleaded for the despised Dutch Anabaptists, and
remonstrated with John Knox on the rancour of his First Blast of the Trumpet. Foxe was one of the
earliest students of Anglo-Saxon, and he and Day published an edition of the Saxon gospels under the
patronage of Archbishop Parker. He died on the 18th of April 1587 and was buried at St Giles's,
Cripplegate.
Biography from luminarium.org
Katherine Parr
Born – 1512
Married – July 12, 1543
Widowed – January 28, 1547
Died – September 5, 1548
Katherine Parr was the eldest daughter of Sir Thomas Parr and his wife Maud Green, both of whom were at the court of
Henry VIII in his early reign. Maud was a lady-in-waiting to Queen Catherine of Aragon and named her daughter, born in
1512, after her. So, Henry VIII’s last wife was named after his first. Thomas Parr died in November 1517, leaving his
three children, William, Katherine, and Anne in the care of their mother. Maud managed the children’s education and
the family estates and must have left an impression on her daughter of the greater role an independent woman could
have in society. The education that Maud arranged for the children was similar to that of other noble figures of the time
and at least in the cast of Katherine, it ignited a lifelong passion for learning. She was fluent in French, Latin and Italian
and began learning Spanish when she was Queen.
Katherine Parr’s first marriage was to Edward Borough, the son of Thomas, third Baron Borough of Gainsborough in
1529 when she was 17 years old. Edward died only a few years later, probably in early 1533. It was during this marriage
that Katherine’s mother Maud died, in December 1531. Katherine’s second marriage was to John Neville, third Baron
Latimer of Snape Castle in Yorkshire, whom she married in the summer of 1534 when he was 41 and she was 22.
Latimer had two children from his previous marriages so Katherine also became a stepmother for the first time. During
the Pilgrimage of Grace a rebel mob forced Latimer to join them and later took Katherine and her stepchildren hostage
at the castle. Latimer was able to eventually secure their freedom and managed to escape arrest for his associations
with the rebellion after it was finally put down.
Katherine’s ailing husband died in March 1543, leaving her a widow for the second time, now at the age of 31. It was
around this time that Katherine was noticed by not only the King, but also Thomas Seymour, brother of the late Queen
Jane Seymour.
Katherine expressed her desire to marry Thomas Seymour after Latimer’s death, but the King’s request for her hand was
the one that Katherine felt it was her duty to accept. Katherine and Henry VIII were married on July 12th in the Queen’s
closet at Hampton Court Palace in a small ceremony attended by about 20 people.
Katherine was interested in the reformed faith, making her enemies with the conservatives of Henry’s court. It was
Katherine’s influence with the King and the King’s failing health that led to a plot against her in 1546 by the conservative
faction. Katherine and her ladies were known to have had banned books which was grounds for arrest and execution on
charges of heresy. To gain evidence against the Queen, Anne Askew, a well known and active Protestant, was
questioned and tortured, but refused to recant her faith or give evidence against Katherine and her ladies. However,
there was enough other evidence against the Queen to issue a warrant for her arrest. The warrant was accidently
dropped and someone loyal to the Queen saw in and then quickly told her about it. After learning of the arrest warrant,
Katherine was said to be very ill, either as a ruse to stall or from a genuine panic attack. Henry went to see her and
chastised her for her outspokenness about the reformed religion and his feeling that she was forgetting her place by
instructing him on such matters. Katherine’s response in her defense was that she was only arguing with him on these
issues so she could be instructed by him, and to take his mind off other troubles. Playing to Henry’s ego no doubt
helped and Katherine was forgiven.
Katherine was close with all three of her stepchildren as Henry’s wife and was personally involved in the educational
program of the younger two, Elizabeth and Edward. She was also a patron of arts and music. Katherine’s own learning
and academic achievements, as alluded to previously, were impressive, and in 1545, her book “Prayers or Meditations”
became the first work published by an English Queen under her own name. Another book, “The Lamentation of a
Sinner”, was published after Henry VIII’s death.
Henry VIII died in January 1547 and Katherine had probably expected to play some role in the regency for the new nineyear-old King, Edward VI, but it was not to be. Only a few months after Henry’s death, Katherine secretly married
Thomas Seymour, but the quickness and secret nature of the union caused a scandal. Katherine was still able to take
guardship of Princess Elizabeth and Seymour purchased the wardship of the King’s cousin, Lady Jane Grey.
After three previous marriages and at the age of 37, Katherine was pregnant for the first time and in June 1548, she
moved to Sudeley Castle in Glouchestershire to await the birth of her child. On August 30th she gave birth to a daughter
named Mary. Katherine soon fell ill with puerperal fever, which was to claim her life in the morning hours of September
5th. Katherine was buried, with Lady Jane Grey as the chief mourner, in the chapel at Sudeley Castle, where the tomb
can still be visited today.
Kathryn Howard
Born – c. 1521
Married – July 28, 1540
Executed – February 13, 1542
Kathryn Howard was the daughter of Lord Edmund Howard, a younger brother of Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk. She
was also first cousin to Anne Boleyn, Henry’s ill-fated second Queen. She was brought up in the household of the
Dowager Duchess of Norfolk. As part of the Duchess’ household, she would have spent most of her time at Lambeth and
Horsham Palaces.
Kathryn came to court at about the age of 19 as a lady in waiting to Anne of Cleves and there is no doubt that the
spirited young girl caught Henry’s attentions. Kathryn’s uncle probably encouraged the girl to respond to the King’s
attentions and saw it as a way to increase his own influence over the monarch. The Duke of Norfolk also took advantage
of the debacle of the Anne of Cleves marriage as a chance to discredit his enemy, Thomas Cromwell. In fact, Cromwell
was executed shortly after the marriage was nullified.
Sixteen days after he was free of Anne, Henry took his fifth wife, Kathryn Howasrd, on July 28, 1540. Henry was 49 and
his bride was no older than 19.
For all that can be said against this match, Kathryn did manage to lift the King’s spirits. Henry had gained a lot of weight
and was dealing with the ulcerated leg that was to pain him until his death. The vivacious young girl brought back some
of Henry’s zest for life. The King lavished gifts on his young wife and called her his ‘rose without a thorn’ and the ‘very
jewel of womanhood’.
Less than a year into Kathryn’s marriage, the rumors of her infidelity began. In a way, one couldn’t blame her for
seeking the company of handsome young men closer to her own age. But to do so, even if only in courtly flirtations, was
dangerous for a Queen, especially one who came from a powerful family with many enemies. Kathryn didn’t help
matters much by appointing one of her admirers as her personal secretary.
By November 1541, there was enough evidence against the Queen that Archbishop Cranmer informed the King of
Kathryn’s misconduct. At first Henry did not believe the accusations, but he agreed to allow further investigations into
the matter. Enough evidence was gathered that the Queen had been promiscuous before her marriage and may have
had liaisons after becoming Henry’s wife. She was executed on the Tower Green on February 13, 1542 and laid to rest
near her cousin Anne Boleyn in the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula at the Tower of London.
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci, a true Renaissance Man, embodied the spirit of discovery of the Renaissance period.
The scope of his work was unequaled in his time. Best known for works such as the Mona Lisa and The
Last Supper, he was a painter, inventor, engineer, architect, sculptor and scientist. His lifelong pursuit of
knowledge is a model for us all.
Born in 1452 near the village of Vicini, Italy, he showed his artistic talents at an early age and was
apprenticed in 1469 to one of the leading Renaissance masters, Adrea Verrocchio. His skills soon
surpassed his master and he joined the painters’ guild in 1472. Da Vinci’s works are scattered
throughout Italy and France, as he was constantly moving during his life.
By the 1490’s da Vinci’s interest in non-artistic matters became apparent. He studied anatomy and
biology using living models and dissecting animals and human cadavers to discover their inside workings.
The natural world also drew his attention; the stratification of rocks, the flow of water, the growth of
plants, and the action of light were all subjects of his studies. His interests also encompassed math and
physics. The knowledge gained from these studies was put to good use in his scientific and architectural
drawings, as well as adding to the quality of his artistic works.
Da Vinci’s notebooks, called the Codex Atlanticus, contains anatomical drawings and such information as
how to grind lenses, construct canals and fortifications, and build flying machines and helicopters.
These books only became widely known in the twentieth century, with two new notebooks found in
Madrid in 1965. The curious left-to-right writing in these notebooks can be easily read in a mirror. May
2, 1519 marked the death of Leonardo da Vinci and he was buried in the cloister of San Fiorentino at
Cloux, France.
Facts about Leonardo Da Vinci
Leonardo is considered by many as the father of modern science.
He was one of the most acclaimed artists of the Renaissance (a period when the arts and
sciences flourished).
He was born on April 15, 1452 in the small town of Vinci, in Tuscany (Toscana), near
Florence (Italy).
He was the illegitimate child of Messer Piero Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci, a Florentine
notary, and Caterina, a peasant.
His nationality is Italian.
Leonardo was raised by his single father.
He began his career as an apprentice to Florentine artist Andrea del Verrochio.
Leonardo was an architect, musician, engineer, scientist and inventor.
He wrote most of his notes using mirror writing. Some believe that this was to keep his
ideas secret.
Leonardo sketched the first parachute, first helicopter, first aeroplane, first tank, first
repeating rifle, swinging bridge, paddleboat and the first motorcar.
Leonardo was very much interested in the possibility of human flight. He produced many
studies of the flight of birds and plans for several flying machines.
He was also a sculptor, designer of costumes, mathematician and botanist.
He made maps of Europe.
He invented the scissors and hydraulic pumps.
He designed a movable bridge for the Duke of Milan.
He invented the bicycle 300 years before it appeared on the road.
Leonardo’s first solo painting, completed in 1478, was ‘Madonna and Child’.
In 1481 he left Florence for Milan to offer his service to the local duke.
In 1481 he began painting ‘Adoration of the Magi’, an unfinished work that reveals his
technique of beginning with a dark painting surface and adding elements of light, unlike
most painters of his time who started with outlined figures on a white surface.
In 1483 he started to paint the first version of the ‘Virgin’. He completed it in 1485.
He drew the plans of the first armored car in 1485.
In 1495 Leonardo made a clay model for the statue of Francesco Forza, and put it on
display.
He took part as an engineer in the war against Pisa.
‘The Mona Lisa’ is perhaps his most famous work. The subject of this portrait is still
debated to this day, the most popular current view being that it is of Lisa Gherardini del
Giocondo. One of the most unusual hypotheses is that it is a self-portrait of Leonardo as a
woman.
It took him about ten years to paint Mona Lisa's lips.
Leonardo was famous for the way he used light in his portraits.
He painted ‘The Last Supper’ at Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan; a dramatic depiction
of the moment Jesus announced that he would be betrayed. By 1500 the painting’s
deterioration had begun. Since 1726, many attempts have been made to restore it.
Leonardo changed the way people painted and made sculptures.
He established modern techniques of scientific illustration with highly accurate
renderings such as ‘Embryo in the Womb’.
Leonardo would wear pink to make his complexion look fresh.
He never married or had children.
Leonardo had a reputation of being a man of high character.
He drew a self-portrait in 1515.
He was undeniably one of the greatest thinkers and well ahead of his time by hundreds of
years.
Leonardo died on May 2, 1519 and was buried in San Fiorentino in Amboise
Mary (Sidney) Herbert (1561-1621)
Mary Sidney was born at Ticknall Place, Bewdley, Worcestershire in England on October 27, 1561.
She was the daughter of Sir Henry Sidney, Lord Deputy of Ireland, and sister of the poets Sir Philip Sidney
and Sir Robert Sidney. She was educated at home in French, Italian, Latin and Greek, and music.
Lady Mary was well favored of Elizabeth I who invited her to court in 1575. In 1577 Mary wed Henry
Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke—they lived mostly at the Pembroke family estate, Wilton House, near
Salisbury, Wiltshire. They had four children, including the two sons, William (later 3rd Earl of Pembroke)
and Phillip, to whom Shakespeare's First Folio (1623) was dedicated.
After her marriage, Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, gathered around her a group of notable
poets, musicians, and artists. Among those who praised her patronage of the arts were Edmund Spenser,
whose Ruines of Time were dedicated to her, as well as Michael Drayton, Sir John Davies, and Samuel
Daniel. She was second only to the queen as an Elizabethan femme savante. In 1586 not only Mary's
mother and father died, but also her brother Philip, to whose memory she dedicated much of her career.
After her husband's death in 1601 she led a private existence, and died in London on 25 September 1621
and was buried in Salisbury Cathedral.
Her literary works include a composite edition of her brother Philip Sidney's Arcadia, translations of
Garnier's tragedy Antoine (1592), Duplessis-Mornay's Discours de la vie et de la mort (1592), and
Petrarch's Trionfo della morte (in terza rima), and a few original poems, including dedicatory poems, an
elegy for her brother Sir Philip Sidney ("The Dolefull Lay of Clorinda", 1595), and a short pastoral
entertainment for Queen Elizabeth. After Philip's death she completed the verse translation of the psalms
he had begun, contributing 107 of the 150 psalms. The manuscript was widely circulated and admired,
and it influenced many of the great poets of the 17th century, most notably George Herbert and Jon
Donne.
Biography from luminarium.org
Mary Stuart
Mary, Queen of Scots (born as Mary Stewart and known in French as Marie Stuart; 8 December 1542 – 8
February 1587) was Scottish queen regnant from 14 December 1542 to 24 July 1567. In the lists of
Scottish sovereigns, she is recognized as Mary I, and is hence sometimes confused with Mary I of
England. Her great-great-granddaughter was Mary II of England and Scotland.
She was the only surviving legitimate child of King James V. She was six days old when her father died
and she was crowned nine months later. In 1558, she married Francis, Dauphin of France, who ascended
the French throne as Francis II in 1559. Mary was not Queen of France for long; she was widowed on 5
December 1560. After her husband's death, Mary returned to Scotland, arriving in Leith on 19 August
1561. Four years later, she married her first cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. Their union was unhappy
and in February 1567, there was a huge explosion at their house, and Darnley was found dead,
apparently strangled, in the garden.
She soon married James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, who was generally believed to be Darnley's
murderer. Following an uprising against the couple, Mary was imprisoned in Loch Leven Castle on 15
June and forced to abdicate in favor of her one-year-old son, James VI. After an unsuccessful attempt to
regain the throne, Mary fled to England seeking protection from her first cousin once removed, Queen
Elizabeth I, whose kingdom she hoped to inherit. Elizabeth ordered her arrest because of the threat
presented by Mary, who had previously claimed Elizabeth's throne as her own and was considered the
legitimate sovereign of England by many English Catholics, including participants in the Rising of the
North. After 19 years in custody in a number of castles and manor houses in England, she was tried and
executed for treason for her involvement in three plots to assassinate Elizabeth.
Sonnet to Queen Elizabeth I of England by Mary Stuart of Scotland
One thought, that is my torment and delight,
Ebbs and flows bittersweet within my heart
And between doubt and hope rends me apart
While peace and all tranquility take flight.
Therefore, dear sister, should this letter dwell
Upon my weighty need of seeing you,
It is that grief and pain shall be my due
Unless my wait should end both swift and well.
I've seen a ship's sails slackened by taut ropes
On the high tide at the harbour bar
And a clear sky suddenly fill with cloud;
Likewise fear and distress fill all my hopes,
Not because of you, but for the times there are
When Fortune doubly strikes on sail and shroud.
Nicolaus Copernicus
1473-1543
Polish name: Mikolaj Kopernik.
Polish astronomer and mathematician who, as a student, studied canon law, mathematics, and medicine at Cracow,
Bologna, Rome, Padua, and Ferrara. Copernicus became interested in astronomy and published an early description of
his "heliocentric" model of the solar system in Commentariolus (1512). In this model, the sun was actually not exactly
the center of the solar system, but was slightly offset from the center using a device invented by Ptolemy known as the
equant point. The idea that the Sun was the center of the solar system was not new (similar theories had been proposed
by Aristarchus and Nicholas of Cusa), but Copernicus also worked out his system in full mathematical detail. Even though
the mathematics in his description was not any simpler than Ptolemy's, it required fewer basic assumptions. By
postulating only the rotation of the Earth, revolution about the sun, and tilt of Earth's rotational axis, Copernicus could
explain the observed motion of the heavens. However, because Copernicus retained circular orbits, his system required
the inclusion of epicycles. Unfortunately, out of fear that his ideas might get him into trouble with the church,
Copernicus delayed publication of them.
In 1539, Copernicus took on Rheticus as a student and handed over his manuscript to him to write a popularization of
the heliocentric theory, published as Narratio Prima in 1540. Shortly before his death, Rheticus convinced Copernicus to
allow publication of his original manuscript, and De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium was published in 1543.
Copernicus proposed his theory as a true description, not just a theory to save appearances. Unlike Buridan and Oresme,
he did not think that any theory which saved appearances was valid, instead believing that there could only be a single
true theory. When the work was published, however, Andreas Osiander added an unauthorized preface stating that the
contents were merely a device to simplify calculations.
Copernicus adapted physics to the demands of astronomy, believing that the principles of Ptolemy's system were
incorrect, not the math or observations. He was the first person in history to create a complete and general system,
combining mathematics, physics, and cosmology. (Ptolemy, for instance, had treated each planet separately.)
Copernicus's system was taught in some universities in the 1500s but had not permeated the academic world until
approximately 1600. Some people, among whom John Donne and William Shakespeare were the most influential, feared
Copernicus's theory, feeling that it destroyed hierarchal natural order which would in turn destroy social order and bring
about chaos. Indeed, some people (such as Bruno), used Copernicus's theory to justify radical theological views.
Before Copernicus formulated his theory of the solar system, astronomy in Europe had stagnated. After the Almagest
had been translated into Latin, European astronomers such as the Austrian mathematician Georg von Peurbach and the
German astronomer Regiomontanus proposed no new theories, attempting instead to refine the flawed system already
laid out by Ptolemy. The astronomy textbook used for teaching was still The Sphere, the same book that had been in use
since the 1200s. Rather than formulating new theories, astronomers had busied themselves in "saving appearances,"
which consisted of trying to patch it up Ptolemy's cumbersome and inaccurate model. Copernicus, however, wiped the
slate clean in a single broad stroke, and proposed a fundamentally different model in which the planets all circled the
Sun in De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium. While radically different from Ptolemy's model, Copernicus's heliocentric
theory was hardly an original idea. Similar theories had been proposed by Aristarchus as early as the third century B. C.,
and Nicholas de Cusa, a German scholar, had independently made the same assertion in a book he published in 1440.
We know for a fact that Copernicus was well aware of Aristarchus's priority, since his original draft of De Revolutionibus
has survived and features a passage referring to Aristarchus which Copernicus crossed out so as not to compromise the
originality of his theory. In his belief that his theory was an accurate description of nature rather than just a
mathematical model, Copernicus was therefore not truly revolutionary.
What was a little revolutionary was that Copernicus worked out his system in full mathematical detail in De
Revolutionibus. By doing this, Copernicus went a step beyond Ptolemy, de Cusa, and Aristarchus. Ptolemy had regarded
his theory as simply a mathematic tool for calculation, having no physical basis. On the other side of the coin, de Cusa
and Aristarchus had proposed a purely physical model, not endeavoring to mathematically investigate its consequences.
Copernicus's most significant achievement was his combination of mathematics and physics, adapting physics to
conform to his view of astronomical truth, with a good bit of cosmology thrown in for good measure.
This achievement alone, however, hardly qualifies as a "revolution." Copernicus offered mathematics which were every
bit as entangled as Ptolemy's, and because he retained circular orbits, his system required the inelegant inclusion of
epicycles and their accompanying complication. To Copernicus's credit, although his description was not any simpler
than Ptolemy's, it did require fewer basic assumptions. In addition, Copernicus's theory explained some problems, such
as the reason that Mercury and Venus are only observed close to the Sun (their orbits always kept them nearer the sun
than Earth) and Mars's retrograde motion (the Earth, traveling in its smaller orbit, overtakes Mars, causing Mars to
appear to move change direction and move backward relative to distant "fixed" stars). However, like Ptolemy,
Copernicus could still not explain variations in the brightness of Venus.
Copernicus was the first person in history to create a complete and general system, combining mathematics, physics,
and cosmology. Yet, by themselves Copernicus's achievements, do not constitute a revolution. Copernicus had been
motivated to this theory by Neoplatonic and Pythagorean considerations. His reasoning seems to have been
predominantly motivated by aesthetics. In his view, equally spaced planets in circular orbits would represent harmony in
the universe. But Copernicus had made no observations and stated no general laws. His mathematics could describe the
motion of the planets, but his theory was of a very ad hoc nature.
It took the accurate observational work of Brahe, the exhaustive mathematics of Kepler, and the mathematical genius of
Newton to take Copernicus's theory as a starting point, and glean from it the underlying truths and laws governing
celestial mechanics. Copernicus was an important player in the development of these theories, but his work would likely
have likely remained in relative obscurity without the observational work of Brahe. It would have been discarded by the
wayside, until subsequent investigation brought it back to light. It is likely, in fact, that given Kepler would have
independently arrived at a heliocentric theory just in the process of interpreting Brahe's data, and the scientific
revolution would have been born anyway. To a large extent, then, Copernicus has achieved his prominent place in
history through what amounted to a lucky, albeit shrewd, guess. It is therefore more appropriate to view Copernicus's
achievements as a preliminary step towards scientific revolution, rather than a revolution in itself.
Nicolo Tartaglia
Born: 1500 in Brescia, Republic of Venice (now Italy)
Died: 13 Dec 1557 in Venice, Republic of Venice (now Italy)
Niccolo Fontana, known as Tartaglia, was born in Brescia in 1499 or 1500, the son of an honest mail rider
Michele Fontana who was known as 'Micheletto the Rider'. Although he was poor, Micheletto did his best for
his wife, daughter and two sons, and Niccolo attended school from the age of about four years. Life might have
been very different for Niccolo had tragedy not come when he was six years old, for at that time his father was
murdered while out making deliveries. From being a child in a poor family, he was suddenly plunged into total
poverty.
Niccolo was nearly killed as a teenager when, in 1512, the French captured his home town and put it to the
sword. They decided to teach the local inhabitants a lesson and 46,000 residents of the city were killed. Amidst
the general slaughter, the twelve year old Niccolo took refuge in the cathedral with his mother and younger
sister, but was dealt horrific facial sabre wounds by a French soldier that cut his jaw and palate. He was left for
dead and even when his mother discovered that he was still alive she could not afford to pay for any medical
help. However, his mother's tender care ensured that the youngster did survive, but in later life Niccolo always
wore a beard to camouflage his disfiguring scars and he could only speak with difficulty, hence his nickname
Tartaglia, or stammerer.
Tartaglia was self-taught in mathematics but, having an extraordinary ability, his mother was able to find him a
patron. Ludovico Balbisonio took him to Padua to study there, but when he returned with his patron to Brescia
he made himself unpopular by having an inflated opinion of himself. He left Brescia to earn his living teaching
mathematics at Verona which he did between 1516 and 1518. Later, still in Verona, he taught at a school in the
Palazzo Mizzanti but it is recorded that at that time he was married with a family, yet was very poor. He moved
to Venice in 1534. As a lowly mathematics teacher in Venice, Tartaglia gradually acquired a reputation as a
promising mathematician by participating successfully in a large number of debates.
The first person known to have solved cubic equations algebraically was del Ferro but he told nobody of his
achievement. On his deathbed, however, del Ferro passed on the secret to his (rather poor) student Fior. For
mathematicians of this time there was more than one type of cubic equation and Fior had only been shown by
del Ferro how to solve one type, namely 'unknowns and cubes equal to numbers' or (in modern notation) x3 + ax
= b. As negative numbers were not used this led to a number of other cases, even for equations without a square
term. Fior began to boast that he was able to solve cubics and a challenge between him and Tartaglia was
arranged in 1535. In fact Tartaglia had also discovered how to solve one type of cubic equation since his friend
Zuanne da Coi had set two problems which had led Tartaglia to a general solution of a different type from that
which Fior could solve, namely 'squares and cubes equal to numbers' or (in modern notation) x3 + ax2 = b. For
the contest between Tartaglia and Fior, each man was to submit thirty questions for the other to solve. Fior was
supremely confident that his ability to solve cubics would be enough to defeat Tartaglia but Tartaglia submitted
a variety of different questions, exposing Fior as an, at best, mediocre mathematician. Fior, on the other hand,
offered Tartaglia thirty opportunities to solve the 'unknowns and cubes' problem since he believed that he would
be unable to solve this type, as in fact had been the case when the contest was set up. However, in the early
by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson
Nicolo Tartaglia
hours of 13 February 1535, inspiration came to Tartaglia and he discovered the method to solve 'squares and
cubes equal to numbers'. Tartaglia was then able to solve all thirty of Fior's problems in less than two hours. As
Fior had made little headway with Tartaglia's questions, it was obvious to all who was the winner. Tartaglia did
not take his prize for winning from Fior, however, the honor of winning was enough.
At this point Cardan enters the story. As public lecturer of mathematics at the Piatti Foundation in Milan, he
was aware of the problem of solving cubic equations, but, until the contest, he had taken Pacioli at his word and
assumed that, as Pacioli stated in the Suma published in 1494, solutions were impossible. Cardan was greatly
intrigued when Zuanne da Coi told him about the contest and he immediately set to work trying to discover
Tartaglia's method for himself, but was unsuccessful. A few years later, in 1539, he contacted Tartaglia, through
an intermediary, requesting that the method could be included in a book he was publishing that year. Tartaglia
declined this opportunity, stating his intention to publish his formula in a book of his own that he was going to
write at a later date. Cardan, accepting this, then asked to be shown the method, promising to keep it secret.
Tartaglia, however, refused.
An incensed Cardan now wrote to Tartaglia directly, expressing his bitterness, challenging him to a debate but,
at the same time, hinting that he had been discussing Tartaglia's brilliance with the governor of Milan, Alfonso
d'Avalos, the Marchese del Vasto, who was one of Cardan's powerful patrons. On receipt of this letter, Tartaglia
radically revised his attitude, realizing that acquaintance with the influential Milanese governor could be very
rewarding and could provide a way out of the modest teacher's job he then held, and into a lucrative job at the
Milanese court. He wrote back to Cardan in friendly terms, angling for an introduction to the Signor Marchese.
Cardan was delighted at Tartaglia's new approach, and, inviting him to his house, assured Tartaglia that he
would arrange a meeting with d'Avalos.
So, in March 1539, Tartaglia left Venice and travelled to Milan. To Tartaglia's dismay, the governor was
temporarily absent from Milan but Cardan attended to his guest's every need and soon the conversation turned
to the problem of cubic equations. Tartaglia, after much persuasion, agreed to tell Cardan his method, if Cardan
would swear never to reveal it and furthermore, to only ever write it down in code so that on his death, nobody
would discover the secret from his papers. This Cardan readily agreed to, and Tartaglia divulged his formula in
the form of a poem, to help protect the secret, should the paper fall into the wrong hands. Anxious now to leave
Cardan's house, he obtained from his host, a letter of introduction to the Marchese and left to seek him out.
Instead though, he turned back for Venice, wondering if his decision to part with his formula had been a
mistake.
By the time he had reached Venice, Tartaglia was sure he had made a mistake in trusting Cardan and began to
feel very angry that he had been induced to reveal his secret formula. Cardan published two mathematical books
later that year and, as soon as he could get copies, Tartaglia checked to make sure his formula was not included.
Even though he felt a little happier to find that the formula was not included in the texts, when Cardan wrote to
him in a friendly manner Tartaglia rebuffed his offer of continued friendship and mercilessly ridiculed his books
on the merest trivialities.
Based on Tartaglia's formula, Cardan and his assistant Ferrari made remarkable progress finding proofs of all
cases of the cubic and solving the quartic equation. Tartaglia made no move to publish his formula despite the
fact that, by now, it had become well known that such a method existed. Tartaglia probably wished to keep his
formula in reserve for any upcoming debates.
Cardan and Ferrari travelled to Bologna in 1543 and learnt from della Nave that it had been del Ferro, not
Tartaglia, who had been the first to solve the cubic equation. Cardan felt that although he had sworn not to
by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson
Nicolo Tartaglia
reveal Tartaglia's method surely nothing prevented him from publishing del Ferrro's formula. In 1545 Cardan
published Artis magnae sive de regulis algebraicis liber unus, or Ars magna as it is more commonly known,
which contained solutions to both the cubic and quartic equations and all of the additional work he had
completed on Tartaglia's formula. Del Ferro and Tartaglia are credited with their discoveries, as is Ferrari, and
the story written down in the text.
Tartaglia was furious when he discovered that Cardan had disregarded his oath and his intense dislike of Cardan
turned into a pathological hatred. The following year Tartaglia published a book, New Problems and Inventions
which clearly stated his side of the story and his belief that Cardan had acted in extreme bad faith. For good
measure, he added a few malicious personal insults directed against Cardan.
Ars Magna had clearly established Cardan as the world's leading mathematician and he was not much damaged
by Tartaglia's venomous attacks. Ferrari, however, wrote to Tartaglia, berating him mercilessly and challenged
him to a public debate. Tartaglia was extremely reluctant to dispute with Ferrari, still a relatively unknown
mathematician, against whom even a victory would do little material good. A debate with Cardan, on the other
hand, held great appeal for Tartaglia. Not only did he hate him but Cardan was a leading figure in the
mathematical, medical and literary worlds, and even to enter a debate with him would greatly enhance
Tartaglia's standing. For all the brilliance of his discovery of the solution to the cubic equation problem,
Tartaglia was still a relatively poor mathematics teacher in Venice.
So Tartaglia replied to Ferrari, trying to bring Cardan into the debate. Cardan, however, had no intention of
debating with Tartaglia. Ferrari and Tartaglia wrote fruitlessly to each other for about a year, trading the most
offensive personal insults but achieving little in the way of resolving the dispute. Suddenly in 1548, Tartaglia
received an impressive offer of a lectureship in his home town, Brescia. To clearly establish his credentials for
the post, Tartaglia was asked to journey to Milan and take part in the contest with Ferrari.
On 10 August 1548 the contest took place in the Church in the Garden of the Frati Zoccolanti. Tartaglia was
vastly experienced in such debates and he expected to win. However, by the end of the first day, it was clear
that things were not going his way. Ferrari clearly understood the cubic and quartic equations more thoroughly,
and Tartaglia decided that he would leave Milan that night and thus leave the contest unresolved. With Tartaglia
departing ignominiously, victory was left to Ferrari.
Tartaglia suffered as a result of the contest. After giving his lectures for a year in Brescia, he was informed that
his stipend was not going to be honoured. Even after numerous lawsuits, Tartaglia could not get any payment
and returned, seriously out of pocket, to his previous job in Venice, nursing a huge resentment of Cardan. The
defeat in Milan would appear to be responsible for Tartaglia's non-payment.
Tartaglia is now remembered in that the name of the formula for solving the cubic has been named the CardanTartaglia formula. However, Tartaglia did contribute to mathematics in a number of other ways. Fairly early in
his career, before he became involved in the arguments about the cubic equation, he wrote Nova Scientia (1537)
on the application of mathematics to artillery fire. In the work he described new ballistic methods and
instruments, including the first firing tables. He also wrote a popular arithmetic text and was the first Italian
translator and publisher of Euclid's Elements in 1543. In 1546 he published Quesiti et Inventioni diverse de
Nicolo Tartalea referred to above.
Tartaglia also published Latin editions of Archimedes’ works. He died in poverty in his house in the Calle del
Sturion near the Rialto Bridge (not the present one which was constructed about 30 years later) in Venice.
by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson
Sir Philip Sidney
(1554-1586)
Sir Philip Sidney was born on November 30, 1554, at Penshurst, Kent. He was the eldest son of Sir Henry Sidney, Lord
Deputy of Ireland, and nephew of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. He was named after his godfather, King Philip II of
Spain.
After private tutelage, Philip Sidney entered Shrewsbury School at the age of ten in 1564, on the same day as Fulke
Greville, Lord Brooke, who became his fast friend and, later, his biographer. After attending Christ Church, Oxford, (15681571) he left without taking a degree in order to complete his education by travelling the continent. Among the places he
visited were Paris, Frankfurt, Venice, and Vienna.
Sidney returned to England in 1575, living the life of a popular and eminent courtier. In 1577, he was sent as ambassador
to the German Emperor and the Prince of Orange. Officially, he had been sent to condole the princes on the deaths of their
fathers. His real mission was to feel out the chances for the creation of a Protestant league. Yet, the budding diplomatic
career was cut short because Queen Elizabeth I found Sidney to be perhaps too ardent in his Protestantism, the Queen
preferring a more cautious approach.
Upon his return, Sidney attended the court of Elizabeth I, and was considered "the flower of chivalry." He was also a
patron of the arts, actively encouraging such authors as Edward Dyer, Greville, and most importantly, the young poet
Edmund Spenser, who dedicated The Shepheardes Calender to him. In 1580, he incurred the Queen Elizabeth's
displeasure by opposing her projected marriage to the Duke of Anjou, Roman Catholic heir to the French throne, and was
dismissed from court for a time. He left the court for the estate of his cherished sister Mary Herbert, Countess of
Pembroke. During his stay, he wrote the long pastoral romance Arcadia.
At some uncertain date, he composed a major piece of critical prose that was published after his death under the two titles,
The Defence of Posey and An Apology for Poetry. Sidney's Astrophil and Stella ("Starlover and Star") was begun probably
around 1576, during his courtship with Penelope Devereux. Astrophil and Stella, which includes 108 sonnets and 11
songs, is the first in the long line of Elizabethan sonnet cycles. Most of the sonnets are influenced by Petrarchan
conventions — the abject lover laments the coldness of his beloved lady towards him, even though he is so true of love and
her neglect causes him so much anguish. Lady Penelope was married to Lord Rich in 1581; Sidney married Frances
Walsingham, daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham, in 1583. The Sidneys had one daughter, Elizabeth, later Countess of
Rutland.
While Sidney's career as courtier ran smoothly, he was growing restless with lack of appointments. In 1585, he made a
covert attempt to join Sir Francis Drake's expedition to Cadiz without Queen Elizabeth's permission. Elizabeth instead
summoned Sidney to court, and appointed him governor of Flushing in the Netherlands. In 1586 Sidney, along with his
younger brother Robert Sidney, another poet in this family of poets, took part in a skirmish against the Spanish at
Zutphen, and was wounded of a musket shot that shattered his thigh-bone. Some twenty-two days later Sidney died of the
unhealed wound at not yet thirty-two years of age. His death occasioned much mourning in England as the Queen and her
subjects grieved for the man who had come to exemplify the ideal courtier. It is said that Londoners, come out to see the
funeral progression, cried out "Farewell, the worthiest knight that lived." 1
Biography from luminarium.org
THOMAS CRANMER, Archbishop of Canterbury, was born at Aslacton or Aslockton in Nottinghamshire on July 2,
1489. He was the second son of Thomas Cranmer and Anne Hatfield. He received his early education, according to
Morice his secretary, from "a marvellous severe and cruel schoolmaster," whose discipline must have been severe indeed
to deserve this special mention in an age when no schoolmaster bore the rod in vain. The same authority tells us that he
was initiated by his father in those field sports, such as hunting and hawking, which formed one of his recreations in after
life. To early training he also owed the skillful horsemanship for which he was conspicuous.
At the age of fourteen he was sent by his mother, who had in 1501 become a widow, to Cambridge. Little is known with
certainty of his university career beyond the facts that he became a fellow of Jesus College in 1510 or 1511, that he had soon
after to vacate his fellowship, owing to his marriage to "Black Joan," a relative of the landlady of the Dolphin Inn, and that
he was reinstated in it on the death of his wife, which occurred in childbirth before the lapse of the year of grace allowed by
the statutes. During the brief period of his married life he held the 'appointment of lecturer at Buckingham Hall, now
Magdalene College. The fact of his marrying would seem to show that he did not at the time intend to enter the church;
possibly the death of his wife caused him to qualify for holy orders. He was ordained in 1523, and soon after he took his
doctor's degree in divinity.
It was a somewhat curious concurrence of circumstances that transferred Cranmer, almost at one step, from the quiet
seclusion of the university to the din and bustle of the court. In August 1529 the plague known as the sweating sickness,
which prevailed throughout the country, was especially severe at Cambridge, and all who had it in their power forsook the
town for the country. Cranmer went with two of his pupils named Cressy, related to him through their mother, to their
father's house at Waltham in Essex. The King (Henry VIII) happened at the time to be visiting in the immediate
neighborhood, and two of his chief counselors, Gardiner, Secretary of State, afterwards Bishop of Winchester, and Edward
Fox, the Lord High Almoner, afterwards Bishop of Hereford, were lodged at Cressy's house. Meeting with Cranmer, they
were naturally led to discuss the King's meditated divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Cranmer suggested that if the
canonists and the universities should decide that marriage with a deceased brother's widow was illegal, and if it were
proved that Catherine had been married to Prince Arthur, her marriage to Henry could be declared null and void by the
ordinary ecclesiastical courts. The necessity of an appeal to Rome was thus dispensed with, and this point was at once
seen by the King, who, when Cranmer's opinion was reported to him, is said to have ordered him to be summoned in these
terms: "I will speak to him. Let him be sent for out of hand. This man, I trow, has got the right sow by the ear."
At their first interview Cranmer was commanded by the King to lay aside all other pursuits and to devote himself to the
question of the divorce. He was to draw up a written treatise, stating the course he proposed, and defending it by
arguments from scripture, the fathers and the decrees of general councils. His material interests certainly did not suffer
by compliance. He was commended to the hospitality of Anne Boleyn's father, the earl of Wiltshire, in whose house at
Durham Place he resided for some time; the King appointed him archdeacon of Taunton and one of his chaplains; and he
also held a parochial benefice, the name of which is unknown. When the treatise was finished Cranmer was called upon to
defend its argument before the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, which he visited, accompanied by Fox and
Gardiner. Immediately afterwards he was sent to plead the cause before a more powerful if not a higher tribunal. An
embassy, with the earl of Wiltshire at its head, was dispatched to Rome in 1530, that "the matter of the divorce should be
Biography from luminarium.org
disputed and ventilated," and Cranmer was an important member of it. He was received by the Pope with marked
courtesy, and was appointed "Grand Penitentiary of England," but his argument, if he ever had the opportunity of stating
it, did not lead to any practical decision of the question.
Cranmer returned in September 1530, but in January 1531 he received a second commission from the King appointing him
"Conciliarius Regius et ad Caesarem Orator." In the summer of 1531 he accordingly proceeded to Germany as sole
ambassador to the Emperor. He was also to sound the Lutheran princes with a view to an alliance, and to obtain the
removal of some restrictions on English trade. At Nuremberg he became acquainted with Osiander, whose somewhat
isolated theological position he probably found to be in many points analogous to his own. Both were convinced that the
old order must change; neither saw clearly what the new order should be to which it was to give place. They had frequent
interviews, which had doubtless an important influence on Cranmer's opinions. But Osiander's house had another
attraction of a different kind from theological sympathy. His niece Margaret won the heart of Cranmer, and in 1532 they
were married. Hook finds in the fact of the marriage corroboration of Cranmer's statement that he never expected or
desired the primacy; and it seems probable enough that, if he had foreseen how soon the primacy was to be forced upon
him, he would have avoided a disqualification which it was difficult to conceal and dangerous to disclose.
Expected or not, the primacy was forced upon him within a very few months of his marriage. In August 1532, Archbishop
Warham died, and the King almost immediately afterwards intimated to Cranmer, who had accompanied the Emperor in
his campaign against the Turks, his nomination to the vacant see. Cranmer's conduct was certainly consistent with his
profession that he did not desire, as he had not expected, the dangerous promotion. He sent his wife to England, but
delayed his own return in the vain hope that another appointment might be made. The papal bulls of confirmation were
dated February and March 1533, and the consecration took place on the 30th March. One peculiarity of the ceremony had
occasioned considerable discussion. It was the custom for the archbishop elect to take two oaths, the first of episcopal
allegiance to the pope, and the second in recognition of the royal supremacy. The latter was so wide in its scope that it
might fairly be held to supersede the former in so far as the two were inconsistent. Cranmer, however, was not satisfied
with this. He had a special protest recorded, in which he formally declared that he swore allegiance to the pope only in so
far as that was consistent with his supreme duty to the King. The morality of this course has been much canvassed,
though it seems really to involve nothing more than an express declaration of what the two oaths implied. It was the
course that would readily suggest itself to a man of timid nature who wished to secure himself against such a fate as
Wolsey's. It showed weakness, but it added nothing to whatever immorality there might be in successively taking two
incompatible oaths.
In the last as in the first step of Cranmer's promotion, Henry had been actuated by one and the same motive. The business
of the divorce — or rather, of the legitimation of Anne Boleyn's expected issue — had now become very urgent, and in the
new archbishop he had an agent who might be expected to forward it with the needful haste. The celerity and skill with
which Cranmer did the work entrusted to him must have fully satisfied his master. During the first week of April,
Convocation sat almost from day to day to determine questions of fact and law in relation to Catherine's marriage with
Henry as affected by her previous marriage with his brother Arthur. Decisions favorable to the object of the King were
given on these questions, though even the despotism of the most despotic of the Tudors failed to secure absolute
unanimity.
The next step was taken by Cranmer, who wrote a letter to the King, praying to be allowed to remove the anxiety of loyal
subjects as to a possible case of disputed succession, by finally determining the validity of the marriage in his
archiepiscopal court. There is evidence that the request was prompted by the King, and his consent was given as a matter
of course. Queen Catherine was residing at Ampthill in Bedfordshire, and to suit her convenience the court was held at the
priory of Dunstable in the immediate neighborhood. Declining to appear, she was declared contumacious, and on the
23rd of May the archbishop gave judgment declaring the marriage null and void from the first, and so leaving the King free
to marry whom he pleased. The Act of Appeals had already prohibited any appeal from the archbishop's court. Five days
later he pronounced the marriage between Henry and Anne — which had been secretly celebrated about the 25th of
January 1533 — to be valid. On the 1st of June he crowned Anne as Queen, and on the l0th of September stood godfather
to her child, the future Queen Elizabeth.
The breach with Rome and the subjection of the church in England to the royal supremacy had been practically achieved
before Cranmer's appointment as archbishop: and he had little to do with the other constitutional changes of Henry's
reign. But his position as chief minister of Henry's ecclesiastical jurisdiction forced him into unpleasant prominence in
connection with the King's matrimonial experiences. In 1536 he was required to revise his own sentence in favor of the
validity of Henry's marriage with Anne Boleyn; and on the 17th of May the marriage was declared invalid. The ground on
which this sentence is pronounced is fairly clear. Anne's sister, Mary Boleyn, had been Henry VIII's mistress; this by
canon law was a bar to his marriage with Anne—a bar which had been removed by papal dispensation in 1527, but now the
Biography from luminarium.org
papal power to dispense in such cases had been repudiated, and the original objection revived. The sentence was
grotesquely legal and unjust. With Anne's condemnation by the House of Lords, Cranmer had nothing to do. He
interceded for her in vain with the King, as he had done in the cases of John Fisher, Thomas More and the monks of
Christchurch. His share in the divorce of Anne of Cleves was less prominent than that of Bishop Gardiner, though he did
preside over the Convocation in which nearly all the dignitaries of the church signified their approval of that measure. To
his next and last interposition in the matrimonial affairs of the King no discredit attaches itself. When he was made
cognizant of the charges against Catherine Howard, his duty to communicate them to the King was obvious, though
painful.
Meanwhile Cranmer was actively carrying out the policy which has associated his name more closely, perhaps, than that of
any other ecclesiastic with the Reformation in England. Its most important feature on the theological as distinct from the
political side, was the endeavor to promote the circulation of the Bible in the vernacular, by encouraging translation and
procuring an order in 1538 that a copy of the Bible in English should be set up in every church in a convenient place for
reading. Only second in importance to this was the re-adjustment of the creed and liturgy of the church, which formed
Cranmer's principal work during the latter half of his life.
The progress of the archbishop's opinion towards that middle Protestantism, if it may be so called, which he did so much
to impress on the formularies of the Church of England, was gradual, as a brief enumeration of the successive steps in that
progress will show. In 1538 an embassy of German divines visited England with the design, among other things, of
forming a common confession for the two countries. This proved impracticable, but the frequent conferences Cranmer
had with the theologians composing the embassy had doubtless a great influence in modifying his views. Both in
parliament and in Convocation he opposed the Six Articles of 1539, but he stood almost alone. During the period between
1540 and 1543 the archbishop was engaged at the head of a commission in the revision of the "Bishop's Book" (1537) or
Institutions of a Christian Man, and the preparation of the Necessary Erudition (1543) known as the "King's Book," which
was a modification of the former work in the direction of Roman Catholic doctrine. In June 1545 was issued his Litany,
which was substantially the same as that now in use, and shows his mastery of a rhythmical English style.
The course taken by Cranmer in promoting the Reformation exposed him to the bitter hostility of the reactionary party or
"men of the old learning," of whom Gardiner and Bonner were leaders, and on various occasions — notably in 1543 and
1545 — conspiracies were formed in the council or elsewhere to effect his overthrow. The King, however, remained true to
him, and all the conspiracies signally failed. It illustrates a favorable trait in the archbishop's character that he forgave all
the conspirators. He was, as his secretary Morice testifies, "a man that delighted not in revenging." Cranmer was present
with Henry VIII when he died (1547). By the will of the King he was nominated one of a council of regency composed of
sixteen persons, but he acquiesced in the arrangement by which Somerset became Lord Protector. He officiated at the
coronation of the boy King Edward VI, and is supposed to have instituted a sinister change in the order of the ceremony,
by which the right of the monarch to reign was made to appear to depend upon inheritance alone, without the concurrent
consent of the people. But Edward's title had been expressly sanctioned by act of parliament, so that there was no more
room for election in his case than in that of George I, and the real motive of the changes was to shorten the weary
ceremony for the frail child.
During this reign the work of the Reformation made rapid progress, the sympathies both of the Protector and of the young
King being decidedly Protestant. Cranmer was therefore enabled without let or hindrance to complete the preparation of
the church formularies, on which he had been for some time engaged. In 1547 appeared the Homilies prepared under his
direction. Four of them are attributed to the archbishop himself—those on Salvation, Faith, Good Works and the Reading
of Scripture. His translation of the German Catechism of Justus Jonas, known as Cranmer's Catechism, appeared in the
following year. Important, as showing his views on a cardinal doctrine, was the Defence of the True and Catholic Doctrine
of the Sacrament, which he published in 1550. It was immediately answered from the side of the " old learning " by
Gardiner. The first prayerbook of Edward VI was finished in November 1548, and received legal sanction in March 1549;
the second was completed and sanctioned in April 1552. The archbishop did much of the work of compilation
personally. The forty-two articles of Edward VI, published in 1553, owe their form and style almost entirely to the hand of
Cranmer.
The last great undertaking in which he was employed was the revision of his codification of the canon law, which had been
all but completed before the death of Henry. The task was one eminently well suited to his powers, and the execution of it
was marked by great skill in definition and arrangement. It never received any authoritative sanction, Edward VI dying
before the proclamation establishing it could be made, and it remained unpublished until 1571, when a Latin translation
by Dr. Walter Haddon and Sir John Cheke appeared under the title Reformatio legum ecclesiasticarum. It laid down the
lawfulness and necessity of persecution to the death for heresy in the most absolute terms; and Cranmer himself
condemned Joan Bocher to the flames. But he naturally loathed persecution, and was as tolerant as any in that age.
Biography from luminarium.org
Cranmer stood by the dying bed of Edward as he had stood by that of his father, and he there suffered himself to be
persuaded to take a step against his own convictions. He had pledged himself to respect the testamentary disposition of
Henry VIII by which the succession devolved upon Mary, and now he violated his oath by signing Edward's "device" of the
crown to Lady Jane Grey. On grounds of policy and morality alike the act was quite indefensible; but it is perhaps some
palliation of his perjury that it was committed to satisfy the last urgent wish of a dying man, and that he alone remained
true to the "nine days' Queen" when the others who had with him signed Edward's device deserted her.
On the accession of Queen Mary, he was summoned to the council—most of whom had signed the same device—
reprimanded for his conduct, and ordered to confine himself to his palace at Lambeth until the queen's pleasure was
known. He refused to follow the advice of his friends and avoid the fate that was clearly impending over him by flight to
the continent. Any chance of safety that lay in the friendliness of a strong party in the council was more than nullified by
the bitter personal enmity of the Queen, who could not forgive his share in her mother's divorce and her own disgrace. On
the 14th of September 1553 he was sent to the Tower, where Ridley and Latimer were also confined. The immediate
occasion of his imprisonment was a strongly worded declaration he had written a few days previously against the mass,
the celebration of which, he heard, had been re-established at Canterbury. He had not taken steps to publish this, but by
some unknown channel a copy reached the council, and it could not be ignored.
The Arrest of Thomas Cranmer During Cole's Sermon in St. Mary's Church.
From Foxe's Book of Martyrs.
In November, with Lady Jane Grey, her husband, and two other Dudleys, Cranmer was condemned for treason. Renard
thought he would be executed, but so true a Romanist as Mary could scarcely have an ecclesiastic put to death in
consequence of a sentence by a secular court, and Cranmer was reserved for treatment as a heretic by the highest of
clerical tribunals, which could not act until parliament had restored the papal jurisdiction. Accordingly in March 1554 he
and his two illustrious fellow-prisoners, Ridley and Latimer, were removed to Oxford, where they were confined in the
Bocardo or common prison. Ridley and Latimer were unflinching, and suffered bravely at the stake on the 16th of October
1555. Cranmer had been tried by a papal commission, over which Bishop Brooks of Gloucester presided, in September
1555. Brooks had no power to give sentence, but reported to Rome, where Cranmer was summoned, but not permitted, to
attend. On the 25th of November he was pronounced contumacious by the pope and excommunicated, and a commission
was sent to England to degrade him from his office of archbishop. This was done with the usual humiliating ceremonies in
Christ Church, Oxford, on the 14th of February 1556, and he was then handed over to the secular power.
About the same time Cranmer subscribed the first two of his "recantations." His difficulty consisted in the fact that, like all
Anglicans of the 16th century, he recognized no right of private judgment, but believed that the state, as represented by
monarchy, parliament and Convocation, had an absolute right to determine the national faith and to impose it on every
Englishman. All these authorities had now legally established Roman Catholicism as the national faith, and Cranmer had
no logical ground on which to resist. His early recantations" are merely recognitions of his lifelong conviction of this right
of the state. But his dilemma on this point led him into further doubts, and he was eventually induced to revile his whole
career and the Reformation. This is what the government wanted. Northumberland's recantation had done much to
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discredit the Reformation, Cranmer's, it was hoped, would complete the work. Hence the enormous effect of Cranmer's
recovery at the final scene.
On the 21st of March he was taken to St Mary's church, and asked to repeat his recantation in the hearing of the people as
he had promised. To the surprise of all he declared with dignity and emphasis that what he had recently done troubled
him more than anything he ever did or said in his whole life; that he renounced and refused all his recantations as things
written with his hand, contrary to the truth which he thought in his heart; and that as his hand had offended, his hand
should be first burned when he came to the fire. As he had said, his right hand was steadfastly exposed to the flames. The
calm cheerfulness and resolution with which he met his fate show that he felt that he had cleared his conscience, and that
his recantation of his recantations was a repentance that needed not to be repented of.
The Burning of Thomas Cranmer. From Foxe's Book of Martyrs.
It was a noble end to what, in spite of its besetting sin of infirmity of moral purpose, was a not ignoble life. The key to his
character is well given in what Hooper said of him in a letter to Bullinger, that he was "too fearful about what might
happen to him." This weakness was the worst blot on Cranmer's character, but it was due in some measure to his painful
capacity for seeing both sides of a question at the same time, a temperament fatal to martyrdom. As a theologian it is
difficult to class him. As early as 1538 he had repudiated the doctrine of Transubstantiation; by 1550 he had rejected also
the Real Presence (Pref. to his Answer to Dr Richard Smith). But here he used the term "real" somewhat unguardedly,
for in his Defence he asserts a real presence, but defines it as exclusively a spiritual presence; and he repudiates the idea
that the bread and wine were " bare tokens." His views on church polity were dominated by his implicit belief in the divine
right of kings (not of course the divine hereditary right of kings) which the Anglicans felt it necessary to set up against the
divine right of popes. He set practically no limits to the ecclesiastical authority of kings; they were as fully the
representatives of the church as the state, and Cranmer hardly distinguished between the two. Church and state to him
were one.
Biography from luminarium.org
Thomas Hariot, 1602.
THOMAS HARIOT, (or Harriot), an eminent mathematician and astronomer, was born at Oxford in the
year 1560. He took his degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1579, and in 1584 he accompanied Sir Walter Ralegh
in his expedition to Virginia, where he was employed in surveying and mapping the country, and upon his
return to England in 1588 he published his ' Report of the New found land of Virginia, the commodities
there found to be raised, &c.'
Hariot was introduced by Sir Walter Ralegh to the earl of Northumberland, whose zeal for the promotion
of science had led him to maintain several learned men of the day, such as Robert Hues, Walter Warner,
and Nathaniel Tarporley. This enlightened nobleman received Hariot into his house, and settled on him
an annual salary of 300l., which he enjoyed to the time of his death, in July 1621. His body was interred in
St. Christopher's Church, London, and a monument erected to his memory, which, with the church itself,
was destroyed by the great fire of 1666.
During his lifetime Hariot was known to the world merely as an eminent algebraist; but from a paper by
Zach in the 'Astronomical Ephemerish' of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin for the year 1788, it
appears he was equally deserving of eminence as an astronomer. The paper referred to contains an
account of the manuscripts found by Zach at the seat of the earl of Egremont, to whom they had
descended from the earl of Northumberland. From it we learn that Hariot carried on a correspondence
with Kepler concerning the rainbow; that he had discovered the solar spots prior to any mention having
been made of them by Galileo, Scheiner, or Phrysius: also that the satellites of Jupiter were observed by
him January 16, 1610, although their first discovery is generally attributed to Galileo, who states that he
had observed them on the 7th of that month. A correspondence with Kepler on various optical and other
subjects is printed among the letters of Kepler.
Ten years after Hariot's death his algebra, entitled 'Artis Analyticæ Praxis, ad Æquationes Algebraicas
nova, epedita, et Generali Methoda, resolvendas,' was published by his friend Walter Warner. It is with
reference to this particular work that Descartes was accused of plagiarism by Wallis, whose admiration of
its author was so high, that he could not even see the discoveries of Vieta anywhere but in the 'Praxis' of
Hariot. This charge however has sunk with time, though the French writers still continue to answer it. The
geometry of Descartes appeared in 1637, six years after the publication of Hariot's algebra.
Sir Thomas Wyatt
"A hand, that taught what might be said in rhyme;
That reft Chaucer the glory of his wit.
A mark, the which (unperfected for time)
Some may approach, but never none shall hit."
—Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey.
(1503-1542)
Thomas Wyatt was born to Henry and Anne Wyatt at Allington Castle, near Maidstone, Kent, in 1503. Little is known of
his childhood education. His first court appearance was in 1516 as Sewer Extraordinary to Henry VIII. In 1516 he also
entered St. John’s College, University of Cambridge. Around 1520, when he was only seventeen years old, he married
Lord Cobham's daughter Elizabeth Brooke. She bore him a son, Thomas Wyatt, the Younger, in 1521. He became
popular at court, and carried out several foreign missions for King Henry VIII, and also served various offices at home.
Around 1525, Wyatt separated from his wife, charging her with adultery; it is also the year from which his interest in
Anne Boleyn probably dates. He accompanied Sir Thomas Cheney on a diplomatic mission to France in 1526 and Sir
John Russell to Venice and the papal court in Rome in 1527. He was made High Marshal of Calais (1528-1530) and
Commissioner of the Peace of Essex in 1532. Also in 1532, Wyatt accompanied King Henry and Anne Boleyn, who was by
then the King's mistress, on their visit to Calais. Anne Boleyn married the King in January 1533, and Wyatt served in her
coronation in June.
Wyatt was knighted in 1535, but in 1536 he was imprisoned in the Tower for quarreling with the Duke of Suffolk, and
possibly also because he was suspected of being one of Anne Boleyn's lovers. During this imprisonment Wyatt witnessed
the execution of Anne Boleyn on May 19, 1536 from the Bell Tower, and wrote V. Innocentia Veritas Viat Fides
Circumdederunt me inimici mei. He was released later that year. Henry, Wyatt's father died in November 1536.
Wyatt was returned to favor and made ambassador to the court of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, in Spain. He
returned to England in June 1539, and later that year was again ambassador to Charles until May 1540. Wyatt's praise of
country life, and the cynical comments about foreign courts, in his verse epistle Mine Own Jon Poins derive from his
own experience.
In 1541 Wyatt was charged with treason on a revival of charges originally levelled against him in 1538 by Edmund
Bonner, now Bishop of London. Bonner claimed that while ambassador, Wyatt had been rude about the King's person,
and had dealings with Cardinal Pole, a papal legate and Henry's kinsman, with whom Henry was much angered over
Pole's siding with papal authority in the matter of Henry's divorce proceedings from Katherine of Aragon. Wyatt was
again confined to the Tower, where he wrote an impassioned 'Defence'. He received a royal pardon, perhaps at the
request of then queen, Catherine Howard, and was fully restored to favor in 1542. Wyatt was given various royal offices
after his pardon, but he became ill after welcoming Charles V's envoy at Falmouth and died at Sherborne on October 11,
1542.
None of Wyatt's poems had been published in his lifetime, with the exception of a few poems in a miscellany entitled
The Court of Venus. His first published work was Certain Psalms (1549), metrical translations of the penitential psalms.
It wasn't until 1557, 15 years after Wyatt's death, that a number of his poetry appeared alongside the poetry of Henry
Howard, Earl of Surrey in printer Richard Tottel's Songs and Sonnets written by the Right Honorable Lord Henry
Howard late Earl of Surrey and other. Until modern times it was called simply Songs and Sonnets, but now it is
generally known as Tottel's Miscellany. The rest of Wyatt's poetry, lyrics, and satires remained in manuscript until the
19th and 20th centuries "rediscovered" them.
Wyatt, along with Surrey, was the first to introduce the sonnet into English, with its characteristic final rhyming couplet.
He wrote extraordinarily accomplished imitations of Petrarch's sonnets, including 'I find no peace' ('Pace non trovo')
and 'Whoso List to Hunt'—the latter, quite different in tone from Petrarch's 'Una candida cerva', has often been seen to
refer to Anne Boleyn as the deer with a jewelled collar. Wyatt was also adept at other new forms in English, such as the
terza rima and the rondaeu. Wyatt and Surrey often share the title "father of the English sonnet."
Biography from luminarium.org