UNIT 3

DESCRIPTIVE GRAMMAR
SIMPLE PAST & PAST CONTINUOUS

PAST CONTINUOUS

1. Past continuous - form

The past continuous of any verb is composed of two parts : the past tense of the verb to be (was/were), and the base of the main verb +ing.

Subject
was/were
base-ing
They
were
watching

Affirmative
She
was
reading
Negative
She
wasn't
reading
Interrogative
Was
she
reading?
Interrogative negative
Wasn't
she
reading?

Example: to play, past continuous

Affirmative
Negative
Interrogative
I was playing I was not playing Was I playing?
You were playing You were not playing Were you playing?
He, she, it was playing She wasn't playing Was she playing?
We were playing We weren't playing Were we playing?
You were playing You weren't playing Were you playing?
They were playing They weren't playing Were they playing?

2. Past continuous, function

The past continuous describes actions or events in a time before now, which began in the past and was still going on at the time of speaking. In other words, it expresses an unfinished or incomplete action in the past.

It is used:

More examples:

  1. They were waiting for the bus when the accident happened.
  2. Caroline was skiing when she broke her leg.
  3. When we arrived he was having a bath.
  4. When the fire started I was watching television.

Note: with verbs not normally used in the continuous form, the simple past is used.

SIMPLE PAST

1. Simple past, form

Regular verbs: base+ed
e.g. walked, showed, watched, played, smiled, stopped

Irregular verbs: see list in verbs

Simple past, be, have, do:

Subject
Verb
Be
Have
Do
I
was
had
did
You
were
had
did
He, she, it
was
had
did
We
were
had
did
You
were
had
did
They
were
had
did

Affirmative

  1. I was in Japan last year
  2. She had a headache yesterday.
  3. We did our homework last night.

Negative and interrogative

Note: For the negative and interrogative simple past form of "do" as an ordinary verb, use the auxiliary "do", e.g. We didn't do our homework last night. The negative of "have" in the simple past is usually formed using the auxiliary "do", but sometimes by simply adding not or the contraction "n't".
The interrogative form of "have" in the simple past normally uses the auxiliary "do".

Simple past, regular verbs

Affirmative
Subject verb + ed  
I washed  
Negative
Subject did not infinitive without to
They didn't visit ...
Interrogative
Did subject infinitive without to
Did she arrive...?
Interrogative negative
Did not subject infinitive without to
Didn't you like..?

Example: to walk, simple past.

Affirmative
Negative
Interrogative
I walked I didn't walk Did I walk?
You walked You didn't walk Did you walk?
He, she, it walked He didn't walk Did he walk?
We walked We didn't walk Did we walk?
You walked You didn't walk Did you walk?
They walked They didn't walk Did they walk?

Note: For the negative and interrogative form of all verbs in the simple past, always use the auxiliary "did".

Examples: Simple past, irregular verbs

to go

  1. He went to a club last night.
  2. Did he go to the cinema last night?
  3. He didn't go to bed early last night.

to give

  1. We gave her a doll for her birthday.
  2. They didn't give John their new address.
  3. Did Barry give you my passport?

to come

  1. My parents came to visit me last July.
  2. We didn't come because it was raining.
  3. Did he come to your party last week?

2. Simple past, function

The simple past is used to talk about a completed action in a time before now. Duration is not important. The time of the action can be in the recent past or the distant past.

You always use the simple past when you say when something happened, so it is associated with certain past time expressions.

Examples:

Note: the word ago is a useful way of expressing the distance into the past. It is placed after the period of time e.g. a week ago, three years ago, a minute ago.

Examples:

  1. Yesterday, I arrived in Geneva.
  2. She finished her work at seven o'clock.
  3. We saw a good film last week.
  4. I went to the theatre last night.
  5. She played the piano when she was a child.
  6. He sent me a letter six months ago.
  7. Peter left five minutes ago.

STUDY GUIDE

   The excercises of Study guide are sorted according to level of difficulty in order to help you decide on which level you need revision and practice.
   There is no point in learning from a comprehensive grammar book without having aquired the basics. Moreover, it can lead to confusion and misunderstanding. In higher-level English grammars which present all the aspects of a particular grammar item it is hard to distinguish the typical from the rare, the regular from the exceptional.
   The underlined excercises of the Study guide are of intermediate level. If you don't know the right answer or you are not sure about it, you probably need to revise and practice from English Grammar in Use (EG) or from any grammar practice books of the same level. Otherwise you can refer to Practical English Grammar (PEG, and its excercise book PEGE).

Past simple and past continuous: EG 5, 6; PEGE 175-181.

1. Put the verbs in the following sentences into the simple past or the past continuous tense (in some cases both are acceptable).

  1. Just as I (open) the door the alarm (go off).
  2. We met when I (work) in a music shop.
  3. She broke her leg while she (ski) in Austria.
  4. While I (work) you (watch) TV.
  5. How people (travel) in the past?
  6. During that hard winter, people (live) by selling what possessions they had.
  7. As they (drink) tea, John said "Now tell me about yourself".
  8. I (enjoy) the party until Mary arrived.
  9. When I (see) her she (talk) to a man.
  10. Whenever I (call) you, you (talk) on the phone.

2. Correct the following sentences (only if they are completely unacceptable).

  1. I was enjoying my holiday last year in spite of that it rained a lot.
  2. As I walked home, I tried to remember what happened.
  3. When I lived in Paris, I was spending three hours a day travelling to and from work.
  4. She got up when the alarm clock went off.
  5. This house was belonging to the king of Sweden.

PHRASAL VERBS

Complete the sentences by choosing a suitable phrasal verb (make, do).

  1. I couldn't ... what he was trying to say because his mouth was full of food. (understand)
  2. The management decided to ... with tea breaks for the workers. (get rid of)
  3. Your son is always ... silly stories to get out of trouble. (inventing)
  4. The fog was so thick that he could hardly ... the car in front. (see)
  5. The two friends stopped swearing at each other and ... . (become friends again)
  6. She was in such a hurry to get to work that she forgot to ... her skirt. (fasten)
  7. He threatened to ... every body on the bus. (kill)
  8. He realized that the only way to ... his rude behaviour was to buy her flowers. (compensate)
  9. The room was beautifully ... in pastel colours. (decorated)
  10. The robbers attacked him and ... his wallet. (took)

READING COMPREHENSION

"RAG DOLL FACTOR" SAVES WOMAN IN 3,500ft PLUNGE

   Doctors believe that Miss Alison Davis, aged 24, survived a fall of 3,500 ft when her parachute failed to open properly on her first jump because she fainted as she saw the ground rushing towards her.

   Miss Davis is in hospital in Scarborough with a fractured pelvis and shoulder, damaged vertebrae, a broken jaw and two broken bones in her neck.

   Miss Davis, who had enrolled for a week's parachute course at Bridlington aerodrome, spoke for the first time about her experience at the weekend. "I had stepped out of the aeroplane, and as I was falling I looked up and saw the cables all twisted up to the canopy," she said. "I thought I was too low by then to use the emergency chute and I panicked. I just blacked out."

   Instructors at the aerodrome believe Miss Davis's loss of consciousness may have helped her sloe her fall, and doctors have told her parents that, because she was unconscious, she was as relaxed as a rag doll when she hit the ground and thus less prone to injury.

   Mr. Peter Davis, her father, said she had been the last trainee to leave the plane before the instructor. "No-one has any idea what happened," he said, "but the instructor said he made the fastest descent he has ever made in his haste to get down and try to help Alison."

   Miss Davis, a music graduate and sales representative, is confident of making a full recovery. Although she has vowed never to jump again, she plans to collect money for charity. Her friends at work in London has sponsored her to make the jump.

   Miss Vesna Volovic, an air hostess in a DC9 which blew up 33,300ft over Czechoslovakia in January, 1972, holds the record for surviving the longest fall without a parachute. In 1944 Flight-Sergeant Stephen Alkemade fell 18,000ft from a blazing Lancaster bomber over Germany and lived.

  1. Miss Davis would not have been injured if she had ...
    1. not been the last one to leave the plane
    2. paid more attention at the preparations
    3. tried to use the emergency parachute
    4. not looked up

  2. Miss Davis works as ...
    1. a sales representative
    2. a parachuting instructor
    3. a music teacher
    4. air hostess

  3. Miss Davis ... that she will get well soon.
    1. hopes
    2. is certain
    3. does not think
    4. has vowed

  4. Miss Davis would probably have died if ...
    1. the instructor had not helped her
    2. she had not fainted
    3. she had used the emergency parachute
    4. she had not enrolled for the course

  5. Miss Davis panicked because ...
    1. she had forgotten what to do.
    2. she thought she was too low
    3. she saw the twisted cables.
    4. she looked up.

  6. The cost of the course was sponsored by ...
    1. Mr Peter Davis
    2. Miss Davis herself
    3. Miss Davis's friends
    4. Miss Davis's employer

  7. The word haste could be replaced by ...
    1. desire
    2. despair
    3. panic
    4. hurry

  8. A synonym for fall is ...
    1. canopy
    2. descent
    3. relax
    4. plunge

  9. A synonym for broken (second paragraph) is ...
    1. damaged
    2. fractured
    3. twisted
    4. prone

  10. A synonym for loss consciousness is ...
    1. vow
    2. survive
    3. faint
    4. panic

- key to Unit 3 -

 

ENGLISH LITERATURE

RENAISSANCE: INTRODUCTION

A golden age of English literature commenced in 1485 and lasted until 1660. Malory's Le morte d'Arthur was among the first works to be printed by William Caxton, who introduced the printing press to England in 1476. From that time on, readership was vastly multiplied. The growth of the middle class, the continuing development of trade, the new character and thoroughness of education for laypeople and not only clergy, the centralization of power and of much intellectual life in the court of the Tudor and Stuart monarchs, and the widening horizons of exploration gave a fundamental new impetus and direction to literature. The new literature nevertheless did not fully flourish until the last 20 years of the 1500s, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Literary development in the earlier part of the 16th century was weakened by the diversion of intellectual energies to the polemics of the religious struggle between the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England, a product of the Reformation.

The English part in the European movement known as humanism also belongs to this time.
Humanism encouraged greater care in the study of the literature of classical antiquity and reformed education in such a way as to make literary expression of paramount importance for the cultured person. Literary style, in part modeled on that of the ancients, soon became a self-conscious preoccupation of English poets and prose writers. Thus, the richness and metaphorical profusion of style at the end of the century indirectly owed much to the educational force of this movement. The most immediate effect of humanism lay, however, in the dissemination of the cultivated, clear, and sensible attitude of its classically educated adherents, who rejected medieval theological misteaching and superstition. Of these writers, Sir Thomas More is the most remarkable. His Latin prose narrative Utopia (1516) satirizes the irrationality of inherited assumptions about private property and money and follows Plato in deploring the failure of kings to make use of the wisdom of philosophers. More's book describes a distant nation organized on purely reasonable principles and named Utopia (Greek for "nowhere").

A. Renaissance Poetry

The poetry of the earlier part of the 16th century is generally less important, with the exception of the work of John Skelton, which exhibits a curious combination of medieval and Renaissance influences. The two greatest innovators of the new, rich style of Renaissance poetry in the last quarter of the 16th century were Sir Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser, both humanistically educated Elizabethan courtiers.

Sidney, universally recognized as the model Renaissance nobleman, outwardly polished as well as inwardly conscientious, inaugurated the vogue of the sonnet cycle in his Astrophel and Stella (written 1582?; published 1591). In this work, in the elaborate and highly metaphorical style of the earlier Italian sonnet, he celebrated his idealized love for Penelope Devereux, the daughter of Walter Devereux, 1st earl of Essex. These lyrics profess to see in her an ideal of womanhood that in the Platonic manner leads to a perception of the good, the true, and the beautiful and consequently of the divine. This idealization of the beloved remained a favored motif in much of the poetry and drama of the late 16th century; it had its roots not only in Platonism but also in the Platonic speculations of humanism and in the chivalric idealization of love in medieval romance.

The greatest monument to that idealism, broadened to include all features of the moral life, is Spenser's uncompleted Faerie Queene (Books I-III, 1590; Books IV-VI, 1596), the most famous work of the period. In each of its completed six books it depicts the activities of a hero that point toward the ideal form of a particular virtue, and at the same time it looks forward to the marriage of Arthur, who is a combination of all the virtues, and Gloriana, who is the ideal form of womanhood and the embodiment of Queen Elizabeth. It is entirely typical of the impulse of the Renaissance in England that in this work Spenser tried to create out of the inherited English elements of Arthurian romance and an archaic, partly medieval style a noble epic that would make the national literature the equal of those of ancient Greece and Rome and of Renaissance Italy. His effort in this respect corresponded to the new demands expressed by Sidney in the critical essay The Defence of Poesie, originally Apologie for Poetrie (written 1583?; posthumously published 1595). Spenser's conception of his role no doubt conformed to Sidney's general description of the poet as the inspired voice of God revealing examples of morally perfect actions in an aesthetically ideal world such as mere reality can never provide, and with a graphic and concrete conviction that mere philosophy can never achieve. The poetic and narrative qualities of The Faerie Queene suffer to a degree from the various theoretical requirements that Spenser forced the work to meet.

In a number of other lyrical and narrative works Sidney and Spenser displayed the ornate, somewhat florid, highly figured style characteristic of a great deal of Elizabethan poetic expression; but two other poetic tendencies became visible toward the end of the 16th and in the early part of the 17th centuries. The first tendency is exemplified by the poetry of John Donne and the other so-called metaphysical poets, which carried the metaphorical style to heights of daring complexity and ingenuity. This often paradoxical style was used for a variety of poetic purposes, ranging from complex emotional attitudes to the simple inducement of admiration for its own virtuosity. Among the most important of Donne's followers, George Herbert is distinguished for his carefully constructed religious lyrics, which strive to express with personal humility the emotions appropriate to all true Christians. Other members of the metaphysical school are Henry Vaughan, a follower of Herbert, and Richard Crashaw, who was influenced by Continental Catholic mysticism. Andrew Marvell wrote metaphysical poetry of great power and fluency, but he also responded to other influences. The involved metaphysical style remained fashionable until late in the 17th century.

The second late Renaissance poetic tendency was in reaction to the sometimes flamboyant lushness of the Spenserians and to the sometimes tortuous verbal gymnastics of the metaphysical poets. Best represented by the accomplished poetry of Ben Jonson and his school, it reveals a classically pure and restrained style that had strong influence on late figures such as Robert Herrick and the other Cavalier poets and gave the direction for the poetic development of the succeeding neoclassical period.

The last great poet of the English Renaissance was the Puritan writer John Milton, who, having at his command a thorough classical education and the benefit of the preceding half century of experimentation in the various schools of English poetry, approached with greater maturity than Spenser the task of writing a great English epic. Although he adhered to Sidney's and Spenser's notions of the inspired role of the poet as the lofty instructor of humanity, he rejected the fantastic and miscellaneous machinery, involving classical mythology and medieval knighthood, of The Faerie Queene in favor of the central Christian and biblical tradition. With grand simplicity and poetic power Milton narrated in Paradise Lost (1667) the machinations of Satan leading to the fall of Adam and Eve from the state of innocence; and he performed the task in such a way as to "justify the ways of God to man" and to express the central Christian truths of freedom, sin, and redemption as he conceived them. His other poems, such as the elegy Lycidas (1637), Paradise Regained (1671), and the classically patterned tragedy Samson Agonistes (1671), similarly reveal astonishing poetic power and grace under the control of a profound mind.

B. Renaissance Drama and Prose

The poetry of the English Renaissance between 1580 and 1660 was the result of a remarkable outburst of energy. It is, however, the drama of roughly the same period that stands highest in popular estimation. The works of its greatest representative, William Shakespeare, have achieved worldwide renown. In the previous Middle English period there had been, within the church, a gradual broadening of dramatic representation of such doctrinally important events as the angel's announcement of the resurrection to the women at the tomb of Christ. Ultimately, performances of religious drama had become the province of the craft guilds, and the entire Christian story, from the creation of the world to the last judgment, had been reenacted for secular audiences. The Renaissance drama proper rose from this late medieval base by a number of transitional stages ending about 1580. A large number of comedies, tragedies, and examples of intermediate types were produced for London theaters between that year and 1642, when the London theaters were closed by order of the Puritan Parliament. Like so much nondramatic literature of the Renaissance, most of these plays were written in an elaborate verse style and under the influence of classical examples, but the popular taste, to which drama was especially susceptible, required a flamboyance and sensationalism largely alien to the spirit of Greek and Roman literature. Only the Roman tragedian Lucius Annaeus Seneca could provide a model for the earliest popular tragedy of blood and revenge, The Spanish Tragedy (1589?) of Thomas Kyd. Kyd's skillfully managed, complicated, but sensational plot influenced in turn later, psychologically more sophisticated revenge tragedies, among them Shakespeare's Hamlet. Christopher Marlowe began the tradition of the chronicle play, about the fatal deeds of kings and potentates, a few years later with the tragedies Tamburlaine the Great, Part I (1587), and Edward II (1592?). Marlowe's plays, such as The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus (1588?) and The Jew of Malta (1589?), are remarkable primarily for their daring depictions of world-shattering characters who strive to go beyond the normal human limitations as the Christian medieval ethos had conceived them. These works are written in a poetic style worthy in many ways of comparison to Shakespeare's.

C. Shakespeare

Elizabethan tragedy and comedy alike reached their true flowering in Shakespeare's works. Beyond his art, his rich style, and his complex plots, all of which surpass by far the work of other Elizabethan dramatists in the same field, and beyond his unrivaled projection of character, Shakespeare's compassionate understanding of the human lot has perpetuated his greatness and made him the representative figure of English literature for the whole world. His comedies, of which perhaps the best are As You Like It (1599?) and Twelfth Night (1600?), depict the endearing as well as the ridiculous sides of human nature. His great tragedies - Hamlet (1601?), Othello (1604?), King Lear (1605?), Macbeth (1606?), and Antony and Cleopatra (1606?) - look deeply into the springs of action in the human soul. His earlier dark tragedies were imitated in style and feeling by the tragedian John Webster in The White Devil (1612) and The Duchess of Malfi (1613-1614). In Shakespeare's last plays, the so-called dramatic romances, including The Tempest (1611?), he sets a mood of quiet acceptance and ultimate reconciliation that was a fitting close for his literary career. These plays, by virtue of their mysterious, exotic atmosphere and their quick, surprising alternations of bad and good fortune, come close also to the tone of the drama of the succeeding age.

D. Late Renaissance and 17th Century

The most influential figure in shaping the immediate future course of English drama was Ben Jonson. His carefully plotted comedies, satirizing with inimitable verve and imagination various departures from the norm of good sense and moderation, are written in a more sober and careful style than are those of most Elizabethan and early 17th-century dramatists. Those qualities, indeed, define the character of most later Restoration comedy. The best of Jonson's comedies are Volpone (1606) and The Alchemist (1610). Professing themselves his disciples, the dramatists Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher collaborated on a number of so-called tragicomedies (for example, Philaster, 1610?) in which morally dubious situations, surprising reversals of fortune, and sentimentality combine with hollow rhetoric.

The outstanding prose works of the Renaissance are not so numerous as those of later ages, but the great translation of the Bible, called the King James Bible, or Authorized Version, published in 1611, is significant because it was the culmination of two centuries of effort to produce the best English translation of the original texts, and also because its vocabulary, imagery, and rhythms have influenced writers of English in all lands ever since. Similarly sonorous and stately is the prose of Sir Thomas Browne, the physician and semiscientific investigator. His reduction of worldly phenomena to symbols of mystical truth is best seen in Religio Medici (Religion of a Doctor), probably written in 1635.

 

BRITISH HISTORY

FROM THE BEGINNINGS OF PARLIAMENT TO THE WAR OF THE ROSES

Reference: David McDowall, An Illustrated History of Britain, Longman, 1989, 43-65.

Henry III and Edward I

Henry III (1216-1272) tried and failed to regain Aquitaine from France. This and other unsuccessful ventures abroad alienated him from his subjects. He filled the English church with absentee Italian appointees and the civil offices with French bureaucrats. Henry was forced to sign the Provisions of Oxford, which established a council of 15 with the power to veto the king's decisions. Henry tried to back out of the Provisions, leading to civil war in 1264.
   

Simon de Montfort.
The leader of the faction opposing Henry was his brother-in-law Simon de Montfort, a strongly religious man with traces of democratic ideas which must have horrified his more conservative foes. Simon captured Henry following the Battle of Lewes in 1265. It seems that Simon was more interested in reforms than he was in personal power. He summoned a "Parliament" (from the French "parler", to talk).
 
Simon's Parliament drew two knights from each shire and two burgesses from each borough. This was the first summoning of townsmen in Parliamentary history. It was also a sign of the growing wealth and influence of the merchant classes.
 
Edward I. Later in 1265 Henry's son Edward defeated Simon de Montfort at the Battle of Evesham. Simon died and Edward became de facto ruler, although he wasn't crowned until his father's death in 1273. Edward I, called Longshanks because of his lanky build, was a good administrator and a very good warrior. He frequently consulted his knights and townsmen about his decisions.
 
Edward in Wales. In 1282 Llewelyn, a Welsh chief, raised a rebellion in that country. Edward subdued Wales but drew a lesson from the efficiency of the Welsh longbow which was used against him. He built a series of castles in Wales, the glories of medieval military architecture. His son, Edward, was born in Caernarfon in 1284, and was later created the first Prince of Wales, a title that every subsequent male heir to the throne of England has worn.
 
Edward in Scotland. In 1291 Edward was asked to arbitrate between three rival claimants for the vacant throne of Scotland. He chose John Baliol, who did homage to England for Scotland. However, Edward's high handed attitude drove the Scots into an alliance with France which was to last over three hundred years.
 
"The Hammer of Scots". In 1296 Edward invaded Scotland, defeated Baliol, and took the crown for himself. He also took the Stone of Scone, upon which Scottish kings had traditionally been crowned, and brought it back to Westminster, where it can be seen today beneath the Coronation Throne in Westminster Abbey.
 
Parliament and Legal Reform. Meanwhile, in 1295, Edward called the Model Parliament. It contained bishops, abbots, earls, barons, knights, burgesses, and representatives of church chapters and parishes. When they convened the clergy separated and sat in their own council. Petitions to Parliament were encouraged, and it began to sit much more frequently. Responsibilities of the various Courts of law became more clearly defined. The Court of King's Bench handled criminal and crown cases, the Court of the Exchequer dealt with royal finance, and the Court of Common Plea with cases between subjects.
 
The Inns of Court. To keep these various courts running smoothly required a trained and efficient legal profession. Edward took the profession of law out of the hands of the clergy, putting lawyers under the control of the judges. This led to the establishment of the Inns of Court, great mansions where students and barristers lived together, establishing a continuity of legal tradition and practice. The barristers taught the students English Common Law, along with necessary social skills such as music and dancing.
 
Summing up Edward. This was the age when English Gothic architecture flourished, eventually evolving into the elaborate tracery designs of the Decorated period. The beginnings of the collegiate system at Oxford University date from this period, perhaps building on earlier schools established by Alfred the Great.
 

Edward II and Edward III

Edward II (1307-27)
was a poor king, bored by the responsibilities of his position and easily swayed by a succession of male favourites. The first of these was Piers Gaveston. He was seized in Edward's absence by rebellious nobles and summarily tried and executed. The barons forced Edward to agree to reforms in their favour. In 1314 Edward lost the Battle of Bannockburn to Robert the Bruce and Scotland gained its independence.
 
Edward's End. Hugh le DeSpenser was Edward's next favourite and he, along with his father, also named Hugh, were virtual rulers of England from 1322-26. Edward's queen, Isabella, finally had enough and raised a rebellion with French aid. She and her lover, Roger Mortimer, defeated and hanged the DeSpensers and forced Edward to abdicate in favour of his son. The ex-king was kept at Berkeley Castle (Gloucestershire) until brutally put to death in 1327.
   

Edward III and
King David of Scotland

Edward III (1327-77)
was only 15 when he came to the throne. Isabella and Roger Mortimer ruled as regents for three years until Edward rebelled and had Mortimer hanged. Edward proved to be a popular, approachable king.

In 1337 he began the conflict with France known as The Hundred Years War. Actually, it lasted, on and off, for 116 years, and despite early successes at Crecy and Poitiers, it was to end with the loss of virtually all English possessions on the mainland.

   
Parliament's Power. As is usual in times of war, Parliament grew in power, forcing royal concessions in return for grants of money. During Edward's reign the custom evolved of separate sittings for the Commons (burgesses and knights) and a Great Council of prelates and magnates. The system of Justices of the Peace, chosen from among the local nobility, also dates from this time. They became a sort of amateur body carrying on local administration and government for the next 500 years.
   
"Achoo, Achoo, All Fall Down..." In 1348 the Black Death reached England. So named for the black tumours which appeared in a victim's armpits and groin, this flea-born disease was carried to an unprepared Europe by rats on ships arriving from the Far East. The effect of the Black Death on England and the rest of Europe cannot be overstated. In some places up to one-half the population died. This accelerated tremendous social change.
   
Social Changes. There was a drastic shortage of labour on the land. Many landowners began to enclose their lands, turning to sheep raising rather than labour intensive traditional farming. Increased sheep farming meant that fewer farm labourers were needed, so lords often allowed villeins to purchase their freedom from feudal obligation. The villeins became free labourers, and many gravitated to towns.
   

Geoffrey Chaucer
making a point

Langland and Chaucer. The first great literary work in the English language appeared in 1362, William Langland's Piers Plowman, which was an indictment of social inequality and injustice. Langland was followed a few years later by Geoffrey Chaucer, whose Canterbury Tales remain a vivid and insightful look at medieval English society.

Wycliffe and the Lollards. In a more serious vein, it was about 1376 that John Wycliff began to preach church reform, espousing the radical notion of an individual connection with God, without the necessary intermediary of church ritual. Wycliff's followers, called Lollards, were constant agitators for social and religious reform for the next 50 years.

   

The Black Death in England 1348-1350

In 1347 a Genoese ship from Caffa, on the Black Sea, came ashore at Messina, Sicily. The crew of the ship, what few were left alive, carried with them a deadly cargo, a disease so virulent that it could kill in a matter of hours. It is thought that the disease originated in the Far East, and was spread along major trade routes to Caffa, where Genoa had an established trading post. When it became clear that ships from the East carried the plague, Messina closed its port. The ships were forced to seek safe harbour elsewhere around the Mediterranean, and the disease was able to spread quickly.
   
During the Medieval period the plague went by several names, the most common being "the Pestilence" and "The Great Mortality ". Theories about the cause of the disease were numerous, ranging from a punishment from God to planetary alignment to evil stares. Not surprisingly, many people believed that the horrors of the Black Death signaled the Apocalypse, or end of time. Others believed that the disease was a plot by Jews to poison all of the Christian world, and many Jews were killed by panicked mobs.
   
The truth. The Black Death is a bacteria-born disease; the bacteria in question being Yersinia pestis, which was carried in the blood of wild black rats and the fleas that lived off the rats. Normally there is no contact between these fleas and human beings, but when their rat hosts die, these fleas are forced to seek alternatives - including humans!
   
The symptoms. The plague produces several different symptoms in its victims. Bubonic, the most common form of the plague, produces fist-sized swellings, called bulboes, at the site of flea bites - usually in the groin, armpits, or neck. The swellings are intensely painful, and the victims die in 2-6 days. The buboes are red at first, but later turn a dark purple, or black. This black colouring gives the "Black Death" its name. Pneumonic plague occurs when the infection enters the lungs, causing the victim to vomit blood. Infected pneumonic people can spread the disease through the air by coughing, sneezing, or just breathing! In Septicemic plague the bacteria enters the person's bloodstream, causing death within a day.
   
The speed with which the disease could kill was terrifying to inhabitants of the medieval world. The Italian author Boccaccio claimed that the plague victims "ate lunch with their friends and dinner with their ancestors in paradise."
   
The Black Death reaches England. The summer of 1348 was abnormally wet. Grain lay rotting in the fields due to the nearly constant rains. With the harvest so adversely affected it seemed certain that there would be food shortages. But a far worse enemy was set to appear.
   
It isn't clear exactly when or where the Black Death reached England. Some reports at the time pointed to Bristol, others to Dorset. The disease may have appeared as early as late June or as late as August 4. We do know that in mid-summer the Channel Islands were reeling under an outbreak of the plague. From this simple beginning the disease spread throughout England with dizzying speed and fatal consequences.
   
The effect was at its worst in cities, where overcrowding and primitive sanitation aided its spread. On November 1 the plague reached London, and up to 30,000 of the city's population of 70,000 inhabitants succumbed.
   
Over the next 2 years the disease killed between 30-40% of the entire population. Given that the pre-plague population of England was in the range of 5-6 million people, fatalities may have reached as high as 2 million dead.
   
One of the worst aspects of the disease to the medieval Christian mind is that people died without last rites and without having a chance to confess their sins. Pope Clement VI was forced to grant remission of sins to all who died of the plague because so many perished without benefit of clergy. People were allowed to confess their sins to one another, or "even to a woman".
   
The death rate was exceptionally high in isolated populations like prisons and monasteries. It has been estimated that up to two-thirds of the clergy of England died within a single year.
   
Peasants fled their fields. Livestock were left to fend for themselves, and crops left to rot. The monk Henry of Knighton declared, "Many villages and hamlets have now become quite desolate. No one is left in the houses, for the people are dead that once inhabited them."
   
The Border Scots saw the pestilence in England as a punishment of God on their enemies. An army gathered near Stirling to strike while England lay defenseless. But before the Scots could march, the plague decimated their ranks. Pursued by English troops, the Scots fled north, spreading the plague deep into their homeland.
   
In an effort to assuage the wrath of God, many people turned to public acts of penitence. Processions lasting as long as three days were authorized by the Pope to mollify God, but the only real effect of these public acts was to spread the disease further.
   
By the end of 1350 the Black Death had subsided, but it never really died out in England for the next several hundred years. There were further outbreaks in 1361-62, 1369, 1379-83, 1389-93, and throughout the first half of the 15th century. It was not until the late 17th century that England became largely free of serious plague epidemics.
   
Consequences. It is impossible to overstate the terrible effects of the Black Death on England. With the population so low, there were not enough workers to work the land. As a result, wages and prices rose. The Ordinances of Labourers (1349) tried to legislate a return to pre-plague wage levels, but the overwhelming shortage of labourers meant that wages continued to rise. Landowners offered extras such as food, drink, and extra benefits to lure labourers. The standard of living for labourers rose accordingly.
   
The nature of the economy changed to meet the changing social conditions. Land that had once been farmed was now given over to pasturing, which was much less labour-intensive. This helped boost the cloth and woolen industry. With the fall in population most landowners were not getting the rental income they needed, and were forced to lease their land.
   
Peasants benefited through increased employment options and higher wages. Society became more mobile, as peasants moved to accept work where they could command a good wage. In some cases market towns disappeared, or suffered a decline despite the economic boom in rural areas.
   
It has been estimated that 40% of England's priests died in the epidemic. This left a large gap, which was hastily filled with underqualified and poorly trained applicants, accellerating the decline in church power and influence that culminated in the English Reformation. Many survivors of the plague were also disillusioned by the church's inability to explain or deal with the outbreak.
   
The short term economic prosperity did not last; the underlying feudal structure of society had not changed, and by the mid-15th century standards of living had fallen again. Yet for most levels of English society the Black Death represented a massive upheaval, one which changed the face of English society in a profound way.
   

Richard II and the Peasant's Revolt

The Peasant Revolt. In Edward III's dotage John of Gaunt (Ghent, in modern Belgium) was virtual ruler of England. He continued as regent when Richard II, aged 10, came to the throne in 1377. Four years later a poll tax was declared to finance the continuing war with France. Every person over the age of 15 had to pay one shilling, a large sum in those days. There was tremendous uproar amongst the peasantry. This, combined with continuing efforts by land owners to re-introduce servility of the working classes on the land, led to the Peasant's Revolt. The leaders of the peasants were John Ball, an itinerant priest, Jack Straw, and Wat Tyler. The revolt is sometimes called Wat Tyler's Rebellion. They led a mob of up to 100,000 people to London, where the crowd went on a rampage of destruction, murdered the Archbishop of Canterbury, and burned John of Gaunt's Savoy Palace.
   

John Ball preaching

The End of the Revolt.

Eventually they forced a meeting with the young king in a field near Mile End. Things began amicably enough, but Wat Tyler grew abusive and the Lord Mayor of London drew his sword and killed him.

 
At this point Richard, then only 14, showed great courage, shouting to the peasants to follow him. He led them off, calmed them down with promises of reforms, and convinced them to disperse to their homes. His promises were immediately revoked by his council of advisors, and the leaders of the revolt were hanged.
   
In 1399 Henry Bolingbroke, exiled son of John of Gaunt, landed with an invasion force while Richard was in Ireland. He defeated Richard in battle, took him prisoner, and probably had him murdered. Henry's claim to the throne was poor. His right to rule was usurpation approved by Parliament and public opinion.
   
Henry IV (1399-1413) had a reign notable mainly for a series of rebellions and invasions in Wales, Scotland, France, and northern England. He was followed by his son, Henry V (1413-22), whose short reign was enlivened by attacks on the Lollard heresy which drove it underground at last. He also resurrected claims to the throne of France itself. After spectacular success at the Battle of Agincourt (1415), Henry married Katherine, daughter of the mad Charles VI of France. Henry died young, leaving the nine month old Henry VI (1422-61) to inherit the throne.
   

The Cambridge Plot (the Southampton Plot)

The Cambridge Plot (1415) was an attempt by a group of conspirators led by Richard, Earl of Cambridge, to kill Henry V and place the Earl of March on the throne. Other major conspirators included Sir Thomas Grey, and Baron Scrope.
   
The Earl of March (Edmund Mortimer) had been the heir presumptive of Richard II. In 1399 Richard was forced to abdicate in favour of Henry IV, and for the next few decades Mortimer served as a focal point for conspiracies aimed at removing Henry and his heirs from the throne. In 1405 Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, tried unsuccesfully to oust Henry IV and place Mortimer on the throne. In 1415 the Earl of Cambridge and his friends were ready to try again.
   
The conspirators planned to kill the king and his three brothers as they boarded a ship to France at Southampton. The plot was given away when the Earl of March himself revealed the plot to the king. All three major conspirators were taken prisoner and executed for treason at Bargate in Southampton, and their heads were impaled on spikes and kept on public display.
   
Henry sailed as planned to France, and eventual triumph at the Battle of Agincourt.
   
Henry V wisely - as it turned out - left the lesser conspirators unharmed, and as a result faced no further challenges to the throne during the rest of his brief reign. As for Edmund Mortimer, he remained loyal to the crown. He fought with Henry in France, and in 1423 he was named lieutenant of Ireland. He died in 1425.
   

Jack Cade's Rebellion - 1450

Overview. Jack Cade's Rebellion was an uprising against the policies of Henry VI, led by, not surprisingly, Jack Cade. The majority of the participants were peasants and small landowners from Kent, who objected to forced labour, corrupt courts, the seizure of land by nobles, the loss of royal lands in France, and heavy taxation. Led by Cade, an ex-soldier, a mob gathered in Kent, defeated a government force sent to disperse them, and entered London. At first the Londoners supported Cade, but the violent behaviour of Cade's men turned the City against them. Most of the mob accepted a pardon issued by the king, and returned home. Cade himself was also pardoned, but later killed by the Sheriff of Kent.
 
Background. The never-ending struggle with France that we know as the Hundred Years War had depleted the English treasury and left the royal coffers constantly in need of replenishment. Heavy taxation was the result, but added to the burden of this taxation was the greed of royal officials, who lined their own pockets at the expense of proper administration of the tax system.
 
Although Cade's Rebellion has sometimes been characterize as a peasant uprising (similar to the Peasant's Revolt of 1381), such is not really the case. Cade's Rebellion certainly attracted numbers of peasants, but the leaders were men of property who objected to the political climate of the times. Even churchmen joined the rebels, including the rector of Mayfield and the Prior of St Pancras in Lewes.
 
Although they did call for some social change, notably to the Statute of Labourers, which made peasants subject to compulsory labour, social change was not the rebel's root concern
 
Instead, most of these minor gentry wanted an end to poor government. They did not call for sweeping social change, but for the removal of certain councilors, the return of royal estates that had been granted out, and improved methods of taxation.
 
Cade. Jack Cade is something of a mystery man; even his name is uncertain. Some of his followers called him John Mortimer, and claimed that he was related to Richard, Duke of York, and also that he had fought for France against England in the Hundred Years War. He appeared to history out of nowhere in the spring of 1450, and by sheer dint of personality became the recognized leader of the Kentish protests.
 
The rebellion. Government troops were sent to disperse the protesters in Kent. They met Cade and his men at Sevenoaks, where the rebels emerged triumphant. Cade's men marched on London, where they were welcomed by the Londoners, who were in sympathy with many of Cade's aims. The rebels stormed the Tower of London, but just failed to take the fortress. They killed the Archbishop of Canterbury and Henry's treasurer, Sir James Fiennes, as well as the Sheriff of Kent. These first two had their heads cut off and placed on placed on poles kissing each other.
 
The royal troops regrouped and fought the rebels to a standstill. In an arranged truce Cade presented a list of his demands to royal officials. The officials assured Cade that the demands would be met, and Cade in turn handed over a list of his men so that each could receive a royal pardon.
 
Most of the mob accepted the promise of pardon and slipped away. But neither the king nor Parliament had agreed to any of the rebel's demands, and neither seemed prepared to do so anytime soon. Henry VI demanded Cade's arrest and the rebel leader fled London. The new Sheriff of Kent, Alexander Iden, pursued Cade and caught him on July 12, 1450, at a little hamlet near Heathfield in Sussex. The hamlet is now known as Cade Street. There Cade was mortally injured, and he died on his way back to London. His corpse was hung, drawn, and quartered, and his head placed on a pole on London Bridge.
 
Aftermath. Although many of the ringleaders of the rebellion were captured and killed, in general the king's men honoured the promise of pardon for participants in the rebellion. In practical terms, the rebellion failed to achieve its aims, for the abuses of which the rebels complained did not cease.
 
The story of Jack Cade's Rebellion was later dramatized by William Shakespeare in his play, Henry VI.
 

The Wars of the Roses and the Princes in the Tower

Henry VI was troubled all his life by recurring bouts of madness, during which the country was ruled by regents. The regents didn't do any better for England than Henry did, and the long Hundred Years War ??? with France sputtered to an end with England losing all her possessions in France except for Calais. In England itself anarchy reigned. Nobles gathered their own private armies and fought for local supremacy.
 
The Wars of The Roses. The struggle to rule on behalf of an unfit king was one of the surface reasons for the outbreak of thirty years of warfare that we now call the Wars of the Roses, fought between the Houses of York (white rose) and Lancaster (red rose). In reality these squabbles were an indication of the lawlessness that ran rampant in the land. More squalid than romantic, the Wars of the Roses decimated both houses in an interminably long, bloody struggle for the throne. The rose symbols that we name the wars after were not in general use during the conflict. The House of Lancaster did not even adopt the red rose as a symbol until the next century.
 
Edward IV. Henry VI was eventually forced to abdicate in 1461 and died ten years later in prison, possibly murdered. In his place ruled Edward IV of the house of York who managed to get his dubious claim to the throne legitimized by Parliament. Edward was the first king to address the House of Commons, but his reign is notable mostly for the continuing saga of the wars with the House of Lancaster and unsuccessful wars in France. When Edward died in 1483 his son, Edward V, aged twelve, followed him. In light of his youth Edward's uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, acted as regent.
 
The Princes in The Tower. Traditional history, written by later Tudor historians seeking to legitimize their masters' past, has painted Richard as the archetypal wicked uncle. The truth may not be so clear cut. Some things are known, or assumed, to be true. Edward and his younger brother were put in the Tower of London, ostensibly for their own protection. Richard had the "Princes in the Tower" declared illegitimate, which may possibly have been true. He then got himself declared king. He may have been in the right, and certainly England needed a strong and able king. But he was undone when the princes disappeared and were rumoured to have been murdered by his orders.
 
In the 17th century workmen repairing a stairwell at the Tower found the bones of two boys of about the right ages. Were these the Princes in the Tower, and were they killed by their wicked uncle? We will probably never know. The person with the most to gain by killing the princes was not Richard, however, but Henry, Earl of Richmond. Henry also claimed the throne, seeking "legitimacy" through descent from John of Gaunt and his mistress.
 
The Battle of Bosworth Field. Henry defeated and killed Richard at the Battle of Bosworth Field (1485), claiming the crown which was found hanging upon a bush, and placing it upon his own head. Bosworth marked the end of the Wars of the Roses. There was no one else left to fight. It also marked the end of the feudal period of English history. With the death of Richard III the crown passed from the Plantagenet line to the new House of Tudor, and a new era of history began.
   

A prosperous merchant in 1475
Kings were gaining the upper hand in the struggle with the barons. They encouraged the growth of towns and trade. They took more advisors and officials from the new merchant middle class.
 
This eroded the power of the land-based nobility. Further, kings established royal courts to replace local feudal courts and replaced feudal duties (which had been difficult to collect in any case) with direct taxation. They created national standing armies instead of relying on feudal obligations of service from vassals. Feudal kingdoms moved slowly towards becoming nations.

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