H.E. Marshall
Our Island Story Volume 2
from the Magna Carta to Queen Elizabeth I
The Magna Carta—the Great Charter—was a
milestone in the social and political
development of England. King John was
forced to admit that he didn’t have total
supreme control and that his subjects were
entitled to have a say in things too.
The great event at Runnymede on 15 June
1215, when the Magna Carta was signed by
King John, gives us a vivid picture of a time
when the barons supported the rights of the
people.
However, we know about the past not
only through major political events, wars, the
passage of kings and queens, and official
records such as the Doomsday Book. We also
gain much information through the art of the
times—not just paintings and sculptures, but
the written word, architecture and music too.
Our Island Story, first published in 1905, is
an enjoyable summary of Britain’s history by
the children’s writer Henrietta Elizabeth
Marshall. This recording covers the reign of
England by two families: the Plantagenets and
the Tudors. Henry II was the first Plantagenet
king when he came to the throne in 1154; and
the dominance of the family lasted until Richard III died in the Battle of Bosworth Field
in 1485, more than 300 years later.
The victor on that day was Henry IV, the
first of the Tudors. The reign of his family
didn’t last for three centuries—in fact, it lasted
for little more than one century. Queen
Elizabeth I was the final Tudor sovereign,
before King James VI of Scotland became King
James I of England in 1603. He was the first of
the Stuarts.
Artistic life changed quite a lot in those
four and a half centuries. The Plantagenet
reign took place in the medieval period, and
the Catholic Church was a dominant force in
artistic life. It was a time when the great
Gothic cathedrals were built: those in
Gloucester, York, Wells, Ely and Durham, for
example. These large and magnificent building
projects were ambitious for the age and costly
to build. Each incredible example of tall,
shaped stone, thrusting up to the sky, could
take as long as one hundred years to
complete.
These cathedrals needed sacred music for
the monks to sing. In the early medieval
period, before the Plantagenents, the choral music was quite simple. There was Gregorian
chant: nobody knew who wrote it and all the
monks sang it in unison. But as the centuries
went by, the music became more complex,
with different lines being sung by different
voices. For the first time, the names of
individual composers began to emerge: John
Dunstable (c. 1390–1453) lived in the reign of
Henry VI; and Robert Fayrfax (1464–1521),
born during the reign of Edward IV, lived into
the reign of Henry VIII.
There was also secular music—music
which was not for religious purposes. It was by
ordinary people for ordinary people, because
music has always been an important part of
everyday life. It was played in towns and
villages by local musicians and travelling
minstrels. But generally the music was not
written down—people played by ear and
passed on tunes from generation to
generation. So we can only guess what it
sounded like from the few pieces of written
music (in quite simple notation) that survive.
There was travelling theatre, but most of
the plays were based on religious stories; or if
they did involve ordinary life, there was always
a moral at the end. People liked laughing, of
course (life was hard but not always
miserable!), and there were entertainers such
as clowns, acrobats, dancers and animal trainers. We know about all these mainly
through passages and illustrations in books.
Books were rare, precious and expensive—but they did exist. The written word played an
increasingly important role in the medieval
world. This was despite the fact that before
the invention of the printing press in the 15th
century, all books were copied by hand.
Sometimes, in the big monasteries, there
would be large rooms where one monk would
read from a book and lines of other monks
seated at rows of desks would write down
what they heard. Many of these books would
also be beautifully illustrated, with tiny
drawings of animals or people decorating a
letter at the start of a paragraph.
The books were mainly religious,
containing stories from the Bible or writings of
monks. Some great folk tales from the past
were written down, like Beowulf, and some
poems. Increasingly, just as composers did,
individual authors began to emerge. One of
the first whom we know about was William
Langland: he wrote Piers Plowman, the story
in verse of a humble ploughman, in 1362.
At the end of the 14th century Geoffrey
Chaucer (c. 1340–1400) wrote his long poem
The Canterbury Tales, which gives us one of
the most colourful pictures of medieval life in
England.
Books, and reading, became more
widespread after 1474 when William Caxton
(c.1422–1491) started printing books in
England. Two of his first books were Chaucer’s
The Canterbury Tales and Sir Thomas Malory’s
Le Morte d’Arthur, the story of King Arthur
and the Knights of the Round Table.
As the circulation of books grew, they
began to play a major role in society’s
development. Many more people started to
think for themselves, and not just do what
they were told to do by the Church and their
lords and masters. This marked a new period
in European history called the Renaissance
(which means ‘rebirth’). A keen interest in the
arts and education spread across Europe—and
that included England.
The arts themselves changed too.
Composers still wrote music for the Church
despite battles between the Catholics and the
Protestants. In the reigns of Henry VIII and
Queen Elizabeth I, composers such as William
Byrd and Thomas Tallis wrote beautiful, lofty
choral music to be sung in church. But they,
and many others, also wrote secular music
that has survived through the years—because
music, like words, was printed and distributed
around the country. There was music for the
organ and other keyboard instruments, and
for small orchestras. Other composers such as John Dowland wrote songs for lute and voice.
At the Tudor court, words, and their
inventive and gracious use, were prized.
Courtiers, and explorers such as Sir Walter
Raleigh, wrote poetry. And it was at this time
that great dramatists emerged. Christopher
Marlowe (1564–1593) wrote Dr Faustus,
Tamburlaine the Great. Then came William
Shakespeare (1564–1616). His great plays—Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer
Night’s Dream, Macbeth and many others—form one of the most important bodies of
work ever to be produced by one man.
Theatres, such as the Globe in Southwark,
were built specifically for such plays to be
performed.
Shakespeare didn’t only write plays. As he
produced one masterpiece after another, he
invented many new words. Most people who
speak English throughout the world will
probably say words invented by Shakespeare a
few times a week—though they may not
realise that he invented them. Among
‘Shakespeare’s words’ are ‘lonely’, ‘fixture’,
‘torture’, ‘advertising’, ‘blanket’ and
‘birthplace’. It is said that he invented some
1,700 words which we use regularly.
Castles and cathedrals are the main
medieval buildings that have survived, as well
as some grand banqueting halls. But among the most distinctive Tudor buildings are the
wooden houses seen in Shakespeare’s home
town of Stratford-upon-Avon; the big country
houses such as Hatfield House (where the
young Elizabeth was told that Queen Mary
was dead and she was now Queen of
England); and very ornate chapels such as the
one in Kings College, Cambridge.
Painting also began to play a prominent
role in life. During the medieval period, most
painting concentrated on religious subjects,
and was relatively undeveloped. But as the
Renaissance flowered during the early Tudor
period, painting in England became
increasingly sophisticated. That is why we
have strong portraits of Henry VIII by Hans
Holbein and portraits of other leading men of
his day; and of Queen Elizabeth I and her court
life. We even have exquisite miniatures by
artists such as Nicholas Hilliard.
It was during the Renaissance, too, that
people began to take a renewed interest in the
great times of Classical Greece and Rome—their architecture and their writing. This also
had a strong influence on poetry, drama and
other art forms in Tudor times: we can see it in
Shakespeare’s plays, such as Julius Caesar and
Anthony and Cleopatra.
So, artistic life developed considerably
from the time of the Magna Carta and the Plantagenets to the end of the Tudors and the
beginning of the Stuarts. Religion continued
to play a key part in music, the written word,
the visual arts and architecture. However, the
lives of ordinary people became increasingly
reflected in various art forms, and this
contributed to a broader and more lively
development.
As Shakespeare writes in As You Like It (Act II,
Scene VII):
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts…
Notes by Nicolas Soames
Plantagenet Monarchs
John reigned 17 years, from 1199 to 1216 A.D.
Henry III reigned 56 years, from 1216 to 1272 A.D.
Edward I reigned 35 years, from 1272 to 1307 A.D.
Edward II reigned 20 years, from 1307 to 1327 A.D.
Edward III reigned 50 years, from 1327 to 1377 A.D.
Richard II reigned 22 years, from 1377 to 1399 A.D.
Henry IV reigned 14 years, from 1399 to 1413 A.D.
Henry V reigned 9 years, from 1413 to 1422 A.D.
Henry VI reigned 39 years, from 1422 to 1461 A.D.
Edward IV reigned 22 years, from 1461 to 1483 A.D.
Edward V reigned a little more than two months, from April 6th to June 26th, 1483.
Richard III reigned 2 years, from 1483 to 1485 A.D.
Tudor Monarchs
Henry VII reigned 24 years, from 1485 to 1509 A.D.
Henry VIII reigned 38 years, from 1509 to 1547 A.D.
Edward V reigned 6 years, from 1547 to 1553 A.D.
Mary I reigned 5 years, from 1553 to 1558 A.D.
Elizabeth I reigned 45 years, from 1558 to 1603 A.D.