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The Course of English History.—The century and a half that followed the death of Chaucer appealed especially to Shakespeare. He wrote or helped to edit five plays that deal with this period—Henry IV., Henry V., Henry VI., Richard III., and Henry VIII. While these plays do not give an absolutely accurate presentation of the history of the time, they show rare sympathy in catching the spirit of the age, and they leave many unusually vivid impressions.

Henry IV. (1399–1413), a descendant of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, one of the younger sons of Edward III., and therefore not in the direct line of succession, was the first English king who owed his crown entirely to Parliament. Henry's reign was disturbed by the revolt of nobles and by contests with the Welsh. Shakespeare gives a pathetic picture of the king calling in vain for sleep, "nature's tired nurse," and exclaiming:—

"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."

Henry V. (1413–1422) is one of Shakespeare's romantic characters. The young king renewed the French war, which had broken out in 1337 and which later became known as the Hundred Years' War. By his victory over the French at Agincourt (1415), he made himself a national hero. Shakespeare has him say:—

"I thought upon one pair of English legs

Did march three Frenchmen."

In the reign of Henry VI. (1422–1461), Joan of Arc appeared and saved

France.

The setting aside of the direct succession in the case of Henry IV. was a pretext for the Wars of the Roses (1455–1485) to settle the royal claims of different descendants of Edward III. While this war did not greatly disturb the common people, it occupied the attention of those who might have been patrons of literature. Nearly all the nobles were killed during this prolonged contest; hence when Henry VII. (1485–1509), the first of the Tudor line of monarchs, came to the throne, there were no powerful nobles with their retainers to hold the king in check. He gave a strong centralized government to England.

The period following Chaucer's death opens with religious persecution. In 1401 the first Englishman was burned at the stake for his religious faith. From this time the expenses of burning heretics are sometimes found in the regular accounts of cities and boroughs. Henry VIII. (1509–1547) broke with the Pope, dissolved the monasteries, proclaimed himself head of the church, and allowed the laity to read the Bible, but insisted on retaining many of the old beliefs. In Germany, Martin Luther (1483–1546) was in the same age issuing his famous protests against religious abuses. Edward VI. (1547–1553) espoused the Protestant cause. An order was given to introduce into all the churches an English prayer book, which was not very different from that in use to-day in the Episcopal churches. Mary (1553–1558) sought the aid of fagots and the stake to bring the nation back to the old beliefs.

[Illustration: HENRY VIII. GIVING BIBLES TO CLERGY AND LAITY. From frontispiece to Coverdale Bible.]

While this period did not produce a single great poet or a statesman of the first rank, it witnessed the destruction of the majority of the nobility in the Wars of the Roses, the increase of the king's power, the decline of feudalism, the final overthrow of the knight by the yeoman with his long bow at Agincourt(1415), the freedom of the serf, and the growth of manufactures, especially of wool. English trading vessels began to displace even the ships of Venice.

In spite of the religious persecution with which the period began and ended, there was a remarkable change in religious belief, the dissolution of the monasteries and the subordination of church to state being striking evidences of this change. An event that had far-reaching consequences on literature and life was the act of Henry VIII. in ordering a translation of the Bible to be placed in every parish church in England. The death of Mary may in a measure be said to indicate the beginning of modern times.

Contrast between the Spirit of the Renaissance and of the Middle Ages.—One of the most important intellectual movements of the world is known as the Renaissance or Revival of Learning. This movement began in Italy about the middle of the fourteenth century and spread slowly westward. While Chaucer's travels in Italy; and his early contact with this new influence are reflected in his work, yet the Renaissance did not reach its zenith in England until the time of Shakespeare. This new epoch followed a long period, known as the Middle ages, when learning was mostly confined to the church, when thousands of the best minds retired to the cloisters, when many questions, like those of the revolution of the sun around the earth or the cause of disease, were determined, not by observation and scientific proof, but by the assertion of those in spiritual authority. Then, scientific investigators, like Roger Bacon, were thought to be in league with the devil and were thrown into prison. In 1258 Dante's tutor visited Roger Bacon, and, after seeing his experiments with the mariner's compass, wrote to an Italian friend:—

"This discovery so useful to all who travel by sea, must remain concealed until other times, because no mariner dare use it, lest he fall under imputation of being a magician, nor would sailors put to sea with one who carried an instrument so evidently constructed by the devil."

Symonds says: "During the Middle Ages, man had lived enveloped in a cowl. He had not seen the beauty of the world, or had seen it only to cross himself and turn aside, to tell his beads and pray." Before the Renaissance, the tendency was to regard with contempt mere questions of earthly progress and enjoyment, because they were considered unimportant in comparison with the eternal future of the soul. It was not believed that beauty, art, and literature might play a part in saving souls.

The Schoolmen of the Middle Ages often discussed such subjects as these: whether the finite can comprehend the infinite at any point, since the infinite can have no finite points; whether God can make a wheel revolve and be stationary at the same time; whether all children in a state of innocence are masculine. Such debates made remarkable theologians and metaphysicians, developed precision in defining terms, accuracy in applying the rules of deductive logic, and fluency in expression. As a result, later scientists were able to reason more accurately and express themselves with greater facility.

The chief fault of the studies of the Middle Ages consisted in neglecting the external world of concrete fact. The discussions of the Schoolmen would never have introduced printing or invented the mariner's compass or developed any of the sciences that have revolutionized life.

The coming of the Renaissance opened avenues of learning outside of the church, interested men in manifold questions relating to this world, caused a demand for scientific investigation and proof, and made increasing numbers seek for joy in this life as well as in that to come.

Causes and Effects of the Renaissance.—Some of the causes of this new movement were the weariness of human beings with their lack of progress, their dissatisfaction with the low estimate of the value of this life, and their yearning for fuller expansion of the soul, for more knowledge and joy on this side of the grave.

Another cause was the influence of Greek literature newly discovered in the fifteenth century by the western world. In 1423 an Italian scholar brought 238 Greek manuscripts to Italy. In 1453 the Turks captured Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire and the headquarters of Grecian learning. Because of the remoteness of this capital, English literature had not been greatly influenced by Greece. When Constantinople fell, many of her scholars went to Italy, taking with them precious Grecian manuscripts. As Englishmen often visited Italy, they soon began to study Grecian masterpieces, and to fall under the spell of Homer and the Athenian dramatists.

The renewed study of Greek and Latin classics stimulated a longing for the beautiful in art and literature. Fourteenth-century Italian writers, like Petrarch and Boccaccio, found increasing interest in their work. Sixteenth-century artists, such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo, and Raphael show their magnificent response to a world that had already been born again.

Many of the other so-called causes of the Renaissance should strictly be considered its effects. The application of the modern theory of the solar system, the desire for exploration, the use of the mariner's compass, the invention and spread of printing, were more effects of the new movement than its causes.

Sir Thomas More (1478–1535), inspired by the spirit of the Renaissance, wrote in Latin a remarkable book called Utopia (1516), which presents many new social ideals. In the land of Utopia, society does not make criminals and then punish them for crime. Every one worships as he pleases. Only a few hours of work a day are necessary, and all find genuine pleasure in that. In Utopia life is given to be a joy. No advantage is taken of the weak or the unfortunate. Twentieth-century dreams of social justice are not more vivid and absorbing than Sir Thomas More's. It is pleasant to think that the Roman Catholic church in 1886 added to her list of saints this lovable man, "martyr to faith and freedom."

When the full influences of the Renaissance reached England, Shakespeare answered their call, and his own creations surpass the children of Utopia.

The Invention of Printing.—In 1344, about the time of Chaucer's birth, a Bible in manuscript cost as much as three oxen. A century later an amount equal to the wages of a workman for 266 days was paid for a manuscript Bible. At this time a book on astronomy cost as much as 800 pounds of butter. One page of a manuscript book cost the equivalent of from a dollar to a dollar and a half to-day. When a member of the Medici family in Florence desired a library, he sent for a book contractor, who secured forty-five copyists. By rigorous work for nearly two years they produced two hundred volumes.

[Illustration: BOOK ILLUSTRATION, EARLY FIFTEENTH CENTURY. British Museum.]

One of the most powerful agencies of the Renaissance was the invention of printing, which multiplied books indefinitely and made them comparatively cheap. People were alive with newly awakened curiosity, and they read books to learn more of the expanding world.

About 1477 William Caxton, who had set up his press at the Almonry, near Westminster Abbey, printed the first book in England, The Dictes and Notable Wish Sayings of the Philosophers. Among fully a hundred different volumes that he printed were Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Malory's Morte d'Arthur, and an English translation of Vergil's AEneid.

[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF CAXTON'S ADVERTISEMENT OF HIS BOOKS. Bodleian Library, Oxford.]

Malory's Morte d'Arthur.—The greatest prose work of the fifteenth century was completed in 1470 by a man who styles himself Sir Thomas Malory, Knight. We know nothing of the author's life; but he has left as a monument a great prose epic of the deeds of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. From the various French legends concerning King Arthur, Malory selected his materials and fashioned than into the completest Arthuriad that we possess. While his work cannot be called original, he displayed rare artistic power in arranging, abridging, and selecting the various parts from different French works.

Malory's prose is remarkably simple and direct. Even in the impressive scene where Sir Bedivere throws the dying King Arthur's sword into the sea, the language tells the story simply and shows no straining after effect:—

"And then he threw the sword as far into the water as he might, and there came an arm and an hand above the water, and met it, and caught it, and so shook it thrice and brandished, and then vanished away the hand with the sword in the water … 'Now put me into the barge,' said the king; and so he did softly. And there received him three queens with great mourning, and so they set him down, and in one of their laps King Arthur laid his head, and then that queen said, 'Ah, dear brother, why have ye tarried so long from me?'"

After the dusky barge has borne Arthur away from mortal sight, Malory writes: "Here in this world he changed his life." A century before, Chaucer had with equal simplicity voiced the Saxon faith:—

"His spirit chaunged hous."[1]

Sometimes this prose narrative, in its condensation and expression of feeling, shows something of the poetic spirit. When the damsel on the white palfrey sees that her knightly lover has been killed, she cries:—

"O Balin! two bodies hast thou slain and one heart, and two hearts in one body, and two souls thou hast lost.' And therewith she took the sword from her love that lay dead, and as she took it, she fell to the ground in a swoon."

[Illustration: MALORY'S MORTE D'ARTHUR. From De Worde's Ed., 1529.]

Malory's work, rather than Layamon's Brut, has been the storehouse to which later poets have turned. Many nineteenth-century poets are indebted to Malory. Tennyson's Idylls of the King, Matthew Arnold's Death of Tristram, Swinburne's Tristram of Lyonesse, and William Morris's Defense of Guinevere were inspired by the Morte d'Arthur. Few English prose works have had more influence on the poetry of the Victorian age.

Scottish Poetry.—The best poetry of the fifteenth century was written in the Northern dialect, which was spoken north of the river Humber. This language was just as much English as the Midland tongue in which Chaucer wrote. Not until the sixteenth century was this dialect called Scotch.

James I. of Scotland (1406–1437) spent nineteen years of his youth as a prisoner in England. During his captivity in Windsor Castle, he fell in love with a maiden, seen at her orisons in the garden, and wrote a poem, called the King's Quair, to tell the story of his love. Although the King's Quair is suggestive of The Knightes Tale, and indeed owes much to Chaucer, it is a poetic record of genuine and successful love. These four lines from the spring song show real feeling for nature:—

"Worshippe, ye that lovers be, this May,

For of your bliss the kalends are begun,

And sing with us, 'Away, Winter, away,

Come, Summer, come, the sweet season and sun!'"

Much of this Scotch poetry is remarkable for showing in that early age a genuine love of nature. Changes are not rung on some typical landscape, copied from an Italian versifier. The Northern poet had his eye fixed on the scenery and the sky of Scotland. About the middle of the century, Robert Henryson, a teacher in Dunfermline, wrote.—