Religion, Resistance, and Rebellion in Early Modern Britain

Undergraduate / Graduate

Early modern Britain was a society in the grip of profound flux. From 1500 through to 1660, Henry VIII changed his country's religion with almost as little care as he changed wives; Mary I established a reputation as 'Bloody Mary' for her burning of hundreds of English Protestants at the stake; entire swathes of the country regularly erupted in rebellion and armed resistance culminating in civil war and regicide; Oliver Cromwell presided over an astonishing period of religious freedom in which radical sects sprang up in their dozens; and, amid the chaos and cacophony, thousands of puritans left Old England for New England during the Great Migration. Historians still debate the significance and causes of these events today, and they have continued resonance in contemporary British life, as illustrated by the frequent comparisons between Brexit and the Henrician Reformation made by English media outlets in 2016. This course offers an overview of early modern Britain in the period from 1500 to 1660, with an especial focus on religion, resistance, and rebellion.