Week I: Introduction

Sep 4: Introduction: America's Tudor-Stuart legacy
Sep 6: The early history of Britain and its peoples

Reading:
Collinson, 1-14
Simon Schama, "King Death" (Ch. 5 in History of Britain, Vol. I)

Week II: A Medieval Prelude

Sep 9: England in the late middle ages
Sep 11: The Wars of the Roses and the rise of the Tudors
Sep 13: Discussion: Utopia

Reading:
"Nasty, Brutish and not that Short" in The Economist, Dec 2010
Thomas More, Utopia

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

Suggested film: Henry V (1989)

Week III: The Tudor Revolution

Sep 16: Henry VIII and the "King's Great Matter"
Sep 18: The English Reformation
-------- Film: A Man for All Seasons, 7-10PM, Miller 102
Sep 20: Discussion

Reading:
Simon Schama, "Burning convictions" (Ch. 6 in History of Britain, Vol. I)
Richard Marius, "A Man for All Seasons" in Mark C. Carnes (ed.), Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies

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

Suggested film: Anne of the Thousand Days (1969)

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

Sep 23: Edward VI and Mary Tudor: faith, martyrdom, and exile
Sep 25: John Knox and the Scottish Reformation
Sep 27: Discussion

Reading:
Collinson, 83-111

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

Suggested film: Lady Jane (1986)

Week V: The Age of Elizabeth, Part I: Court and Politics

Sep 30: The Virgin Queen and her subjects
Oct 2: Politics, intrigue, and survival
Oct 4: Discussion

Reading:
Collinson, 47-80

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

Suggested films: Elizabeth (2002) [documentary], Elizabeth I: The Virgin Queen (2005)

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

Oct 7: Church and state: Anglicanism, Puritanism, and Catholic recusancy
Oct 9: Elizabeth's foreign policy and overseas expansion
Oct 11: FALL BREAK (NO CLASS)

Reading:
Collinson, 189-215, 113-142
Games, 1-46

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

Suggested film: Mary, Queen of Scots (1971)

Week VII: Life in Merrie England

Oct 14: Family life and the social order of village England
Oct 16: Commerce and the growth of towns and cities
Oct 18: MIDTERM EXAMINATION

Reading:
Eamon Duffy, The Voices of Morebath
Collinson, 17-44

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

Week VIII: All the World's a Stage

Oct 21: Shakespeare and the English literary renaissance
Oct 23: Art and creativity in Elizabethan and Jacobean England
Oct 25: Discussion

Reading:
Collinson, 145-187, 217-241
Kishlansky, 1-64

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

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

Week IX: The Early Stuarts

Oct 28: James I and the establishment of the Stuart monarchy
Oct 30: Toleration and persecution in Stuart England
Nov 1: Discussion

Reading:
Kishlansky, 65-112
Russell, 26-108

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

Week X: Britain's Overseas Expansion

Nov 4: The economy and cultures of the Atlantic world
Nov 6: Stuart Britain and the formation of early American society
Nov 8: Discussion

Reading:
Games, 47-254

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

Suggested films: Adanggaman (2000), The New World (2005)

Week XI: The "Celtic Periphery"

Nov 11: Ireland
Nov 13: Scotland and Wales
Nov 15: Discussion

Reading:
Games, 255-300
Russell, 1-25

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

Week XII: The Great Rebellion

Nov 18: Charles I and Parliament
Nov 20: The English Civil War (or War of the Three Kingdoms), 1642-1649
Nov 22: Discussion

Reading:
Kishlansky, 113-157
Russell, 109-219

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

Suggested films: Cromwell (1970), By the Sword Divided (1983)

Week XIII: The Interregnum

Nov 25: Lord Protector: Oliver Cromwell and his world
Nov 27: Commonwealth and Protectorate, 1649-1660
Nov 29: THANKSGIVING (NO CLASS)

Reading:
Kishlansky, 158-212

Documents:
Radical Women during the English Revolution [selected documents] (1649, 1656)
Statements of the Levellers (1649)
Thomas Macauley, "On Oliver Cromwell" (1880)
John Milton, "A treatise of civil power in ecclesiastical causes" (1659)
Commonwealth Instrument of Government (1653)
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan [excerpts] (1651)

Suggested film: Winstanley (1975)

Week XIV: The Restoration

Dec 2: The return of the king
Dec 4: The exclusion crisis and the beginnings of party politics
Dec 6: Discussion

Reading:
Kishlansky, 213-286

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

Suggested films: Restoration (1995), Stage Beauty (2004), The Libertine (2005)

Week XV: A New Nation?

Dec 9: 1688: revolution and realignment
Dec 11: Conclusion: Britain in the age of revolution

Reading:
Kishlansky, 287-342

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