0:00:05 > 0:00:09The story of the British is a tale of creativity,
0:00:09 > 0:00:13resilience, and struggle.
0:00:16 > 0:00:19The tale has been told many times, and in different ways,
0:00:19 > 0:00:22but this is about the people's experience.
0:00:22 > 0:00:25Told from all around the British Isles,
0:00:25 > 0:00:27with the help of today's people.
0:00:30 > 0:00:34So far in this series, we've seen how our society's emerged
0:00:34 > 0:00:36through the trials of the Middle Ages.
0:00:38 > 0:00:40How our people set out on their long march
0:00:40 > 0:00:42to make a free and just society,
0:00:42 > 0:00:45a story that still continues today.
0:00:48 > 0:00:53In this second half of the tale, we leave the mediaeval world behind.
0:00:53 > 0:00:58Now we enter the age of the Tudors,
0:00:58 > 0:01:00and the Protestant Reformation.
0:01:00 > 0:01:03It's the next chapter of the Great British Story.
0:01:18 > 0:01:19In the 16th century,
0:01:19 > 0:01:23a Tudor poet described Britain as, "Its own little world.
0:01:26 > 0:01:30"A sceptred isle. A precious stone set in a silver sea.
0:01:33 > 0:01:37"A fortress built by nature against infection,
0:01:37 > 0:01:39"and the hand of war."
0:01:42 > 0:01:47But in the 16th century, Britain would not be immune to war.
0:01:51 > 0:01:56And nor, especially, to the infection of ideas.
0:01:56 > 0:02:00In our story, we've reached the 1500s.
0:02:00 > 0:02:03In the thousand years or more since the fall of Rome,
0:02:03 > 0:02:06through the Middle Ages, the peoples of Britain
0:02:06 > 0:02:10have developed societies and cultures and nations.
0:02:10 > 0:02:14And as things stand at this point in our history,
0:02:14 > 0:02:15in the islands of Britain,
0:02:15 > 0:02:17there are three kingdoms.
0:02:17 > 0:02:21There are four nations - five, if you include the Cornish.
0:02:21 > 0:02:25There are three parliaments, in Edinburgh, Dublin and in London.
0:02:25 > 0:02:27And there are ten languages spoken,
0:02:27 > 0:02:30including Cornish and Scots and Irish Gaelic.
0:02:30 > 0:02:34But in all this great patchwork of cultures and identities,
0:02:34 > 0:02:36here's the key:
0:02:36 > 0:02:39there's only one religion. The Catholic faith.
0:02:39 > 0:02:44But in a few decades in the 1500s, that situation will change
0:02:44 > 0:02:48so dramatically and so contentiously,
0:02:48 > 0:02:54as to reshape our identities as Britons from then until now.
0:03:04 > 0:03:09This is the village of Llancarfan, near Cardiff.
0:03:11 > 0:03:15Here, only recently, the villagers made an extraordinary discovery.
0:03:16 > 0:03:20From underneath layers of whitewash, a lost world has come to light.
0:03:22 > 0:03:26She's drawing a swan with a feather pen to make it show out.
0:03:26 > 0:03:28Like the painting up there.
0:03:28 > 0:03:31Deliberately defaced in the Reformation,
0:03:31 > 0:03:35the still bright images of the old Catholic universe
0:03:35 > 0:03:37to which we all once belonged.
0:03:37 > 0:03:40You can imagine late-mediaeval painters,
0:03:40 > 0:03:43with all their stuff out here in the church, can't you?
0:03:43 > 0:03:47And all the local kids coming in to watch them!
0:03:47 > 0:03:51'And as the paintings emerge, the villagers have been inspired
0:03:51 > 0:03:55'to explore the lost world of their ancestors.'
0:03:58 > 0:04:01So this is called pigment, OK? Pigment.
0:04:01 > 0:04:05See that? You're going to put it on the wall using these.
0:04:05 > 0:04:07And they are called pouncers.
0:04:07 > 0:04:11Up to 1547, like every church in Britain,
0:04:11 > 0:04:13this was a Catholic Church.
0:04:13 > 0:04:18Its walls covered with paintings of the Christian story, the saints,
0:04:18 > 0:04:22the seven deadly sins, purgatory and hellfire.
0:04:22 > 0:04:25The world that we lost in the 16th century.
0:04:27 > 0:04:32If you want to get an idea of what a mediaeval church looked like
0:04:32 > 0:04:34here in Wales before the Reformation,
0:04:34 > 0:04:38an incredible new discovery here in Llancarfan -
0:04:38 > 0:04:41only found a couple of years ago.
0:04:41 > 0:04:43It's being restored at the moment,
0:04:43 > 0:04:45and it's the story of St George and the dragon.
0:04:47 > 0:04:52'I was in The Fox and Hounds, and the conservator came in,'
0:04:52 > 0:04:55and she said, "Sam! You won't believe it!"
0:04:55 > 0:04:56And showed me the photographs
0:04:56 > 0:05:00of the king's head and the top of the princess.
0:05:00 > 0:05:02She said, "If this is what we think it is,
0:05:02 > 0:05:05"it's going to be one of THE most exciting finds ever."
0:05:09 > 0:05:12There's the king and queen in their castle.
0:05:12 > 0:05:15Their daughter, the princess. She's the dragon's dinner.
0:05:15 > 0:05:18She's been left outside the city as a human sacrifice.
0:05:18 > 0:05:20And there to rescue her,
0:05:20 > 0:05:23St George himself.
0:05:23 > 0:05:27With his huge spear coming down into the dragon's mouth.
0:05:29 > 0:05:32They're just fairy tales to us,
0:05:32 > 0:05:33but to our forebears,
0:05:33 > 0:05:37these supernatural stories were real.
0:05:37 > 0:05:40And as further paintings are uncovered,
0:05:40 > 0:05:45the villagers have been driven to find out more about them.
0:05:45 > 0:05:49- And the egg's a binding element in mediaeval paint?- Absolutely, yeah.
0:05:49 > 0:05:52They've got egg tempera today, that would have been used
0:05:52 > 0:05:54in the more expensive churches and cathedrals.
0:05:55 > 0:06:00And these colours, these mediaeval colours,
0:06:00 > 0:06:03you've actually ground these from the natural elements, have you?
0:06:03 > 0:06:07- Well, I mined the yellow ochre from Clearwell Caves!- You're joking!
0:06:07 > 0:06:09- You mined them?! - Yes, I did! With a pickaxe!
0:06:12 > 0:06:15- Do you see her eyes?- Yeah!
0:06:15 > 0:06:18This was, of course, the centre of the community in its day,
0:06:18 > 0:06:21and it's becoming so again, which is rather splendid.
0:06:21 > 0:06:26And all around, other typical pieces of mediaeval painting.
0:06:26 > 0:06:29The seven deadly sins over there,
0:06:29 > 0:06:31the Virgin Mary you can see.
0:06:31 > 0:06:33And here, the gallant and death.
0:06:35 > 0:06:39"Don't get too tied up with worldly things,"
0:06:39 > 0:06:41the typical warning of mediaeval Christianity.
0:06:43 > 0:06:46These were the beliefs, the feelings
0:06:46 > 0:06:49that once bound us all together.
0:06:49 > 0:06:52But then, in just a few years, the new Protestant rulers in London
0:06:52 > 0:06:55condemned it all as Popeish superstition,
0:06:55 > 0:06:58and it was literally whitewashed away.
0:07:02 > 0:07:05To be rediscovered only in our time.
0:07:09 > 0:07:12The Reformation is an amazing story.
0:07:12 > 0:07:16The greatest destruction of our heritage in British history.
0:07:16 > 0:07:18So how had it happened?
0:07:18 > 0:07:22The story goes that it was started by Henry VIII,
0:07:22 > 0:07:24sparked by his feud with the Pope
0:07:24 > 0:07:27over his right to divorce Catherine of Aragon,
0:07:27 > 0:07:30and marry Anne Boleyn to get a male heir.
0:07:32 > 0:07:36But the beginnings of the attack on the Catholic Church in Britain
0:07:36 > 0:07:40lie much further back in the Middle Ages.
0:07:40 > 0:07:43'Here in Oxford, in the late 14th century,
0:07:43 > 0:07:47'an academic heresy had lit a slow-burning fuse.
0:07:47 > 0:07:51'John Wycliffe and his followers, who became known as Lollards.
0:07:51 > 0:07:54'They were against the power of the Catholic Church,
0:07:54 > 0:08:00'its rituals, its image worship, and its moneymaking.
0:08:00 > 0:08:04'And new discoveries in the documents show they had wide support
0:08:04 > 0:08:06'among ordinary people
0:08:06 > 0:08:09'in cities like Coventry, Norwich, and Leicester.
0:08:09 > 0:08:12'And in villages all over south-eastern England.'
0:08:13 > 0:08:17Wycliffe thought that his new ideas should be spread
0:08:17 > 0:08:20by an army of what he called "poor preachers".
0:08:20 > 0:08:22And that the law of the Gospel
0:08:22 > 0:08:25should be the law that we were living under.
0:08:25 > 0:08:27And what about images?
0:08:27 > 0:08:30They were against images, were they?
0:08:30 > 0:08:33- That's right.- There were complaints of corruption too, weren't there?
0:08:33 > 0:08:35Were those exaggerated?
0:08:35 > 0:08:37No, I don't think they were exaggerated!
0:08:37 > 0:08:40THEY LAUGH I'm not one of those who thinks that, no!
0:08:40 > 0:08:43No, I think there was quite a lot of corruption.
0:08:43 > 0:08:45And peasants, I think,
0:08:45 > 0:08:49they wanted to know a bit more about what their religion really was.
0:08:49 > 0:08:53To read, in their own language, the Bible,
0:08:53 > 0:08:56which was at the centre of their lives.
0:08:56 > 0:08:59But the English church bishops
0:08:59 > 0:09:02were very against Bible translation.
0:09:02 > 0:09:04Because you couldn't have people,
0:09:04 > 0:09:08just ordinary people, reading the Bible for themselves,
0:09:08 > 0:09:10because there were lots of dangerous ideas in there.
0:09:10 > 0:09:13HE LAUGHS
0:09:13 > 0:09:16For instance, there was a certain wing of the Lollards,
0:09:16 > 0:09:20or the Wycliffites, who believed in community of property.
0:09:20 > 0:09:23Because that's something that was in the Bible.
0:09:23 > 0:09:25I mean, there were some Lollards and Wycliffites
0:09:25 > 0:09:28who believed that women were entitled to go out
0:09:28 > 0:09:29and preach the gospel, even.
0:09:29 > 0:09:34From around 1400, these heretical views
0:09:34 > 0:09:38spread as far as the Welsh borders and up into Scotland.
0:09:38 > 0:09:41"Women have the power and authority to preach
0:09:41 > 0:09:43"and make the body of Christ."
0:09:45 > 0:09:47"That any good man may be a priest."
0:09:47 > 0:09:48"Or any good woman."
0:09:51 > 0:09:53"That every man may lawfully withhold
0:09:53 > 0:09:56"tithes and offerings from priests
0:09:56 > 0:09:59"and give them straight to the poor."
0:09:59 > 0:10:05A Lollard revolt against King Henry V was crushed in 1414.
0:10:05 > 0:10:09But at the grassroots, their ideas survived.
0:10:13 > 0:10:17In the 1530s, when Henry VIII was refused a divorce by the Pope,
0:10:17 > 0:10:21he broke with Rome and made himself head of a Church of England.
0:10:21 > 0:10:25In 1536, at the height of his feud with the Pope,
0:10:25 > 0:10:28and deep in money troubles,
0:10:28 > 0:10:33Henry then ordered the closure, or the dissolution, of the monasteries.
0:10:33 > 0:10:36With wealth built up over 1,000 years,
0:10:36 > 0:10:40the church controlled 40% of the British economy.
0:10:40 > 0:10:43And now the monasteries were to be taken over,
0:10:43 > 0:10:46the monks driven out, and their wealth confiscated.
0:10:50 > 0:10:53One of the abbeys targeted by Henry
0:10:53 > 0:10:58owned the West Midlands market town of Halesowen, near Birmingham.
0:11:02 > 0:11:05The Abbot of Halesowen had been an oppressive landlord,
0:11:05 > 0:11:09and his property was ripe for the picking.
0:11:12 > 0:11:16Henry VIII's agents came here to Halesowen Abbey in 1539.
0:11:20 > 0:11:22The movable wealth was confiscated.
0:11:22 > 0:11:26The treasure, the plates, the timber, the lead, the bells.
0:11:26 > 0:11:29And then the abbey was sold off to a local grandee,
0:11:29 > 0:11:32who leased it to a well-to-do farmer.
0:11:32 > 0:11:35And he demolished the church,
0:11:35 > 0:11:38sold off the building's stone,
0:11:38 > 0:11:40built himself a nice house,
0:11:40 > 0:11:43and turned the rest of the buildings into barns.
0:11:43 > 0:11:46It's Tudor asset-stripping.
0:11:46 > 0:11:49The sharp end of the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
0:11:52 > 0:11:57The monasteries had held a third of all the land in England.
0:11:57 > 0:12:01Much of this now went to Henry's cronies.
0:12:01 > 0:12:03But a great part was sold on
0:12:03 > 0:12:07to a new rising middle-class,
0:12:07 > 0:12:09of merchants and entrepreneurs.
0:12:09 > 0:12:12This huge shift in national wealth
0:12:12 > 0:12:15'gave this new class a stake in the Reformation.'
0:12:15 > 0:12:17And as we see it now,
0:12:17 > 0:12:21it's a key moment in the rise of capitalism in Britain.
0:12:23 > 0:12:27Here in Bristol, then Britain's second city,
0:12:27 > 0:12:30one man who rose on the profits of the Dissolution
0:12:30 > 0:12:32was a merchant called John Smith.
0:12:32 > 0:12:36'His father was a sort of middling Bristol merchant.'
0:12:36 > 0:12:38John Smith became a much wealthier merchant.
0:12:38 > 0:12:39By the end of his career,
0:12:39 > 0:12:41he was the wealthiest merchant in Bristol.
0:12:41 > 0:12:44Served as sheriff, been twice mayor of the city
0:12:44 > 0:12:45and used his great resources
0:12:45 > 0:12:49to buy up lands, largely ex-monastic lands,
0:12:49 > 0:12:51from the Dissolution,
0:12:51 > 0:12:54to establish a foundation for his family,
0:12:54 > 0:12:56which became a gentry family,
0:12:56 > 0:12:59which lasted until the 20th century in Bristol.
0:12:59 > 0:13:02Cor, great story! So he's one of the self-made men
0:13:02 > 0:13:05who do very well out of Henry VIII's Reformation?
0:13:05 > 0:13:06Yes, absolutely.
0:13:06 > 0:13:09He's one of these people who did well in great property bonanza
0:13:09 > 0:13:11which followed the Dissolution.
0:13:19 > 0:13:22His main focuses are the Bordeaux region for wine,
0:13:22 > 0:13:25San Sebastian for iron,
0:13:25 > 0:13:27Lisbon and Lucia for olive oil,
0:13:27 > 0:13:30for dried fruits, raisins, things like this.
0:13:32 > 0:13:34These are the goods he's buying in.
0:13:34 > 0:13:37He'll take those, and then he'll be marketing all those goods.
0:13:37 > 0:13:41Everywhere up as far as places like Manchester, Coventry, Birmingham,
0:13:41 > 0:13:45into Wales and other parts of the West Country.
0:13:45 > 0:13:48So it's the whole west of England.
0:13:48 > 0:13:50And this is his book?
0:13:50 > 0:13:54Yes, this is very typical of a 16th century merchant's ledger.
0:13:54 > 0:13:55This is his handwriting, is it?
0:13:55 > 0:13:59Yes. I mean, to be a merchant in this period,
0:13:59 > 0:14:02you're going to have to be numerate, be literate.
0:14:02 > 0:14:03It's double-entry bookkeeping.
0:14:03 > 0:14:05It's based on the most advanced
0:14:05 > 0:14:07Italian counting techniques of the time.
0:14:07 > 0:14:10So it's a way of tracking your different business ventures,
0:14:10 > 0:14:13establishing how profitable they are,
0:14:13 > 0:14:15so that you can know what's making money,
0:14:15 > 0:14:17what isn't, and therefore what you're going to do next.
0:14:17 > 0:14:20Sounds like the beginning of our world, almost.
0:14:20 > 0:14:21Yes, absolutely.
0:14:21 > 0:14:25It's a world ruled by account books.
0:14:26 > 0:14:31By the mid-16th century, England had only 3 million people.
0:14:31 > 0:14:33By the standards of the time,
0:14:33 > 0:14:35it was an underdeveloped country.
0:14:38 > 0:14:41But with the discovery of the Americas after 1492,
0:14:41 > 0:14:44the centre of gravity of the world's economies
0:14:44 > 0:14:49was beginning to shift to the Atlantic seaboard.
0:14:49 > 0:14:51To small maritime nations,
0:14:51 > 0:14:54individualistic, commercially-minded.
0:14:54 > 0:14:59For the merchants of trading towns like Bristol, their time had come.
0:15:01 > 0:15:06Since the Middle Ages, one of Bristol's staples had been wine.
0:15:06 > 0:15:09And Avery's are one of the city's oldest wine merchants.
0:15:09 > 0:15:11By Tudor times,
0:15:11 > 0:15:15the city imported half a million gallons of wine a year.
0:15:15 > 0:15:18In cash, nearly half of all the city's imports.
0:15:18 > 0:15:22And the younger generation are still involved today.
0:15:22 > 0:15:25So you have various of the finer, sweet wines.
0:15:25 > 0:15:27But beautiful colours.
0:15:27 > 0:15:30My favourite bit of coming in here
0:15:30 > 0:15:32is the colours of the sweet wines.
0:15:32 > 0:15:36The links with France and Spain are eight centuries old.
0:15:36 > 0:15:41We are probably in the oldest trade in the city.
0:15:44 > 0:15:46And the general prosperity of Bristol
0:15:46 > 0:15:48would have been helped considerably
0:15:48 > 0:15:51by the wine and spirit trade, I have to say.
0:15:53 > 0:15:56In fact, it's probably been the most consistent trade
0:15:56 > 0:15:59over the period when Bristol has been
0:15:59 > 0:16:02an important city, or town, in the early days.
0:16:02 > 0:16:05And in the 16th century, all this was part
0:16:05 > 0:16:08of the opening up of the horizons and tastes of the British people.
0:16:08 > 0:16:12Bristol is twinned with Bordeaux.
0:16:12 > 0:16:15And then, of course, both of them, Bordeaux and Bristol,
0:16:15 > 0:16:17became very involved with the trade with the Americas.
0:16:17 > 0:16:18With the New World.
0:16:21 > 0:16:23So hard-headed merchant enterprise
0:16:23 > 0:16:27helped shape 16th-century Britain too.
0:16:27 > 0:16:28And it had many repercussions.
0:16:28 > 0:16:34The first Africans living in Bristol are recorded in the 1560s.
0:16:38 > 0:16:40And in London, too, the world was changing.
0:16:43 > 0:16:45Here in the East End,
0:16:45 > 0:16:48there have been waves of migrants throughout history.
0:16:48 > 0:16:51Flemings, Huguenots, and Jews.
0:16:51 > 0:16:53The Bengalis of Brick Lane.
0:16:55 > 0:16:58But the first Bengalis and the first West Africans
0:16:58 > 0:17:02are all recorded in the mid-16th century.
0:17:08 > 0:17:12This little-known part of Tudor history
0:17:12 > 0:17:17features on Tony Warner's black history tour.
0:17:17 > 0:17:19This was the Jamaica Coffee House,
0:17:19 > 0:17:22where you'd come to do business in Jamaica.
0:17:22 > 0:17:26Only yards from the Bank of England, there are surprises for those
0:17:26 > 0:17:30who thought Britain's black history is a late 20th-century phenomenon.
0:17:30 > 0:17:34This is a really important church in terms of black history,
0:17:34 > 0:17:38because this church has records of the African presence in London
0:17:38 > 0:17:40going back to the 1500s.
0:17:42 > 0:17:45Back at the Marrakesh Cafe, we poured over
0:17:45 > 0:17:47the parish registers of St Botolph's,
0:17:47 > 0:17:52to find the forgotten lives of black Elizabethans.
0:17:52 > 0:17:54This is where we are, in the 1550s. This is Aldgate.
0:17:54 > 0:17:57That's the city, crammed in, and London Wall.
0:17:57 > 0:17:59- There's Botolph's church. - We went there as well, yeah.
0:17:59 > 0:18:03You know, and Aldgate tube. Then, lined with inns.
0:18:03 > 0:18:08And that's where we get hundreds and hundreds of black people.
0:18:08 > 0:18:11You see this guy here, Robert, a servant...
0:18:11 > 0:18:15"Robert Annega, being servant to William Matthew, a gentleman.
0:18:15 > 0:18:17"He was buried in the outer churchyard.
0:18:17 > 0:18:22"He had the second cloth and four bearers."
0:18:22 > 0:18:25The ceremonial, with fine funeral cloths,
0:18:25 > 0:18:28gives a clue to how their employers and friends felt
0:18:28 > 0:18:32towards these black musicians, workers, and servants.
0:18:32 > 0:18:36It's a very interesting indicator of the status of these people.
0:18:36 > 0:18:40And here you've got Cassanggo, a black servant...
0:18:40 > 0:18:43"Cassanggo, a black and Moor servant
0:18:43 > 0:18:46"to Thomas Barbour, a merchant from his house
0:18:46 > 0:18:48"at the sign of the red cross,
0:18:48 > 0:18:53"was buried on the ninth day of October, 1593."
0:18:53 > 0:18:57More surprising perhaps, is the evidence of Tudor mixed marriages.
0:18:57 > 0:18:59Because there's records of marriage
0:18:59 > 0:19:02between black and white people in these records, isn't there?
0:19:02 > 0:19:06Here you go. "Marriage of James Curres, a Moor..."
0:19:06 > 0:19:10Meaning an African, and Christian.
0:19:10 > 0:19:12"..to Margaret Pearson, a maid."
0:19:12 > 0:19:16Yeah, I'm really shocked, you know, that marriage
0:19:16 > 0:19:19within different races was never illegal.
0:19:19 > 0:19:22But in these registers, there are people
0:19:22 > 0:19:25who are obviously marrying because they love each other.
0:19:25 > 0:19:29Yeah, I'm just really interested in the aspect
0:19:29 > 0:19:32that they just assimilated into the community.
0:19:32 > 0:19:34In school, they don't say there wasn't any,
0:19:34 > 0:19:37but they don't say there was any.
0:19:37 > 0:19:39You know, as a black boy, all you learn about
0:19:39 > 0:19:42is slavery and Martin Luther King, and that is it.
0:19:42 > 0:19:45I got taught in school there was no black people here.
0:19:45 > 0:19:47Because in my primary school,
0:19:47 > 0:19:50the teaching that we got was that we just came here.
0:19:50 > 0:19:53There wasn't ever a presence of us, but we came here.
0:19:53 > 0:19:54Yeah, and that was it.
0:19:54 > 0:19:57It will definitely change a lot of people's perspectives,
0:19:57 > 0:19:58cos when I was younger,
0:19:58 > 0:20:01I was told by the old man down the road, "Go back to your own country!"
0:20:01 > 0:20:03I could say, "Well, this is my own country!
0:20:03 > 0:20:06"I was probably here before your family was!"
0:20:06 > 0:20:10'So it was the Tudor age that saw the beginnings
0:20:10 > 0:20:13'of Britain's black community.'
0:20:19 > 0:20:22So the Dissolution of the Monasteries
0:20:22 > 0:20:25opened new directions in our history.
0:20:26 > 0:20:31At this point, most of the English people were still Catholic,
0:20:31 > 0:20:33using a half-Protestant, half-Catholic prayer book,
0:20:33 > 0:20:35bequeathed them by Henry VIII.
0:20:38 > 0:20:40But after Henry's death,
0:20:40 > 0:20:43the new rulers of England began their devastating attack
0:20:43 > 0:20:45on traditional religion itself.
0:20:45 > 0:20:48Now the Dissolution of the Monasteries,
0:20:48 > 0:20:51the destruction of places like Halesowen Abbey,
0:20:51 > 0:20:56had really come about through chance and circumstance.
0:20:56 > 0:21:00Henry's divorce and his financial problems.
0:21:00 > 0:21:03And there, things might have ended.
0:21:03 > 0:21:06In 1539, nobody could have imagined the huge changes
0:21:06 > 0:21:08that the people of Britain would go through
0:21:08 > 0:21:11in the practice of their religion,
0:21:11 > 0:21:15in their ideas about life and death and the afterlife.
0:21:15 > 0:21:22The great change began a few years later with Henry's death in 1547.
0:21:22 > 0:21:27The new government under Henry's teenage son, Edward VI.
0:21:28 > 0:21:32Edward was a pious, cold-hearted swot,
0:21:32 > 0:21:35surrounded by hardline Protestant ministers
0:21:35 > 0:21:37who wished to put through
0:21:37 > 0:21:40a more root and branch reform of the religion.
0:21:40 > 0:21:44And in 1549, they announced that all churches in the land
0:21:44 > 0:21:48were to destroy their imagery and their statues,
0:21:48 > 0:21:49whitewash their walls,
0:21:49 > 0:21:51dig out their altars,
0:21:51 > 0:21:54and bring in a new, Protestant prayer book.
0:21:54 > 0:21:56The revolution had begun.
0:21:59 > 0:22:02And the revolution would turn out to be an attack
0:22:02 > 0:22:05on the very way of life of the people.
0:22:05 > 0:22:08England then was still a traditional society,
0:22:08 > 0:22:13especially the countryside, where most of the people lived and worked.
0:22:13 > 0:22:17TRADITIONAL MUSIC PLAYS
0:22:17 > 0:22:21Their lives were marked by the cycles of the farming year,
0:22:21 > 0:22:26with fairs like Bampton, here, on the edge of Exmoor.
0:22:26 > 0:22:28'Bampton is a very, very thriving community.'
0:22:28 > 0:22:33We have about 33 different clubs, groups, associations here.
0:22:33 > 0:22:35So we like to keep these old traditions alive
0:22:35 > 0:22:37as much as we possibly can.
0:22:41 > 0:22:45'There's a Devon tradition got to be kept going.'
0:22:45 > 0:22:48We've got several pony fairs around, Chagford Fair, Bampton Fair.
0:22:48 > 0:22:52There's quite a few going. Just keeping the tradition going.
0:22:52 > 0:22:55Hay, straw, bit of farm machinery.
0:22:55 > 0:22:57Poultry, ferrets, ducks,
0:22:57 > 0:22:58guinea pigs. The lot, really.
0:22:58 > 0:23:01AUCTIONEER: At two pound, at two pound...
0:23:01 > 0:23:03In such country communities,
0:23:03 > 0:23:05old-fashioned country religion
0:23:05 > 0:23:08was simply the way things had always been.
0:23:08 > 0:23:10The saints, the feasts, the festivals.
0:23:10 > 0:23:13AUCTIONEER: At five pound...well, where do you want them now?
0:23:13 > 0:23:15Hampshire, 30 guineas!
0:23:15 > 0:23:19And so it was in the little village of Morebath, under Exmoor.
0:23:22 > 0:23:26The vicar here from 1520 to 1574
0:23:26 > 0:23:29was the wonderfully-named Christopher Tricky.
0:23:31 > 0:23:34It would be Tricky's task to steer his village
0:23:34 > 0:23:38through four changes of religion in 20 years.
0:23:38 > 0:23:41And his notes in the church warden's book tell the story,
0:23:41 > 0:23:45starting in the last days of the old faith.
0:23:45 > 0:23:50"William Potter gave his hive of bees to maintain..."
0:23:50 > 0:23:53"..to maintain a lamp,
0:23:53 > 0:23:57"burning before the figure of Jesus and before St Sidwell,
0:23:57 > 0:24:00"every principal feast in the year."
0:24:02 > 0:24:05"And to St Sidwell, a ring of silver,
0:24:05 > 0:24:08"which did help make St Sidwell's shoes."
0:24:08 > 0:24:12I think one of the things that fascinates people
0:24:12 > 0:24:15is the fact that it is just ordinary people.
0:24:15 > 0:24:17You know, just everyday, ordinary people. Nobody special.
0:24:17 > 0:24:22But because they've kept these wonderful records,
0:24:22 > 0:24:25that story, that voice of those ordinary people, can come out.
0:24:25 > 0:24:28It's just... I think that's what attracts people.
0:24:28 > 0:24:30What about Tricky himself?
0:24:30 > 0:24:32Do you get any impression of what he was like as a bloke?
0:24:32 > 0:24:36I think he must have been an incredibly tough, resilient man.
0:24:36 > 0:24:37I mean, there must have been times
0:24:37 > 0:24:40when he really didn't like what was going on.
0:24:40 > 0:24:43THEY LAUGH But he still stuck it out.
0:24:43 > 0:24:47And he didn't leave or do the modern thing.
0:24:47 > 0:24:49He actually just stuck it out
0:24:49 > 0:24:52and took care of the community in the way in which he did.
0:24:54 > 0:24:58"Anno domini, 1548.
0:24:58 > 0:25:02"The warden of the church was Lucy Skelly,
0:25:02 > 0:25:06"and in her time, the church goods were sold away
0:25:06 > 0:25:09"and no gift given to the church.
0:25:09 > 0:25:13"But all taken from the church."
0:25:16 > 0:25:21"1551, paid to John Lowesmore.
0:25:21 > 0:25:25"For taking away the altars and the rood loft.
0:25:25 > 0:25:27"Three shillings."
0:25:30 > 0:25:32These are things that involve
0:25:32 > 0:25:34the very basic human feelings, aren't they?
0:25:34 > 0:25:37About family and the hereafter
0:25:37 > 0:25:42and how you bury your mum and dad, or your child that's died.
0:25:42 > 0:25:45All these things were being in some sense attacked,
0:25:45 > 0:25:47weren't they, by the new rules?
0:25:47 > 0:25:52People don't like change to this day, particularly within the church!
0:25:52 > 0:25:54And how this man ever managed
0:25:54 > 0:25:57the change that they went through is astounding.
0:25:57 > 0:26:01We have a slight change, and it takes counselling!
0:26:01 > 0:26:04THEY LAUGH Yes, yes!
0:26:08 > 0:26:12So, across the country, Edward's government pushed through
0:26:12 > 0:26:16the destruction of the mediaeval Christian heritage.
0:26:16 > 0:26:18From Morebath to Llancarfan,
0:26:18 > 0:26:21and from Long Melford to Halesowen.
0:26:21 > 0:26:24Popular support for Edward's Reformation was strongest
0:26:24 > 0:26:27among the middle classes in London and the South East,
0:26:27 > 0:26:31where Lollard beliefs had been found a century before.
0:26:31 > 0:26:35Loyalty to the old faith was strongest in the North
0:26:35 > 0:26:38and the West, and there, the changes were bitterly resisted.
0:26:41 > 0:26:45Especially down here in Cornwall and Devon,
0:26:45 > 0:26:48where opposition burst out in open warfare.
0:26:54 > 0:26:58As so often in this story, you get a very different perspective
0:26:58 > 0:27:00on the great events of British history
0:27:00 > 0:27:03if you leave London and the South East,
0:27:03 > 0:27:05and you come out to the perimeter Britain.
0:27:05 > 0:27:07Cornwall here in the 1540s,
0:27:07 > 0:27:12was still formally an English county like all the others.
0:27:12 > 0:27:16But actually, everybody saw the Cornish as a different race
0:27:16 > 0:27:18with their own language and their own customs.
0:27:18 > 0:27:21Their own religion in Cornish.
0:27:28 > 0:27:31To the people here, Edward's introduction
0:27:31 > 0:27:34of a Protestant prayer book in English was the last straw.
0:27:34 > 0:27:38Here, the people spoke Cornish and prayed in Latin.
0:27:38 > 0:27:42To them, it was an attack on their Cornish identity,
0:27:42 > 0:27:45and their traditional way of life.
0:27:45 > 0:27:49As they tried to explain to the king himself.
0:27:49 > 0:27:51"It is not the devil's persuasion,
0:27:51 > 0:27:56"nor the temerity of the seditious which caused us to assemble."
0:27:56 > 0:27:59"It is more the responsibility that each of us owes his friend
0:27:59 > 0:28:03"and our common displeasure at seeing the religion of our ancestors
0:28:03 > 0:28:07"now so much changed and reduced by new ways."
0:28:12 > 0:28:15The revolt began down in the Lizard Peninsula,
0:28:15 > 0:28:17and it spread like wildfire
0:28:17 > 0:28:21among the fishermen, farmers, and tin miners.
0:28:21 > 0:28:23They formed a Cornish army,
0:28:23 > 0:28:26in what became known as the Prayer Book Rebellion.
0:28:28 > 0:28:31Here at Sampford Courtenay,
0:28:31 > 0:28:33the Cornish army joined forces
0:28:33 > 0:28:34with the men of Devon.
0:28:34 > 0:28:38Suddenly, a threat to the Tudor state.
0:28:40 > 0:28:43- You've said, a conservative part of the world.- Yeah.
0:28:43 > 0:28:45Different reactions across Britain.
0:28:45 > 0:28:48Yes, and this seems to be an area that is perhaps in some ways
0:28:48 > 0:28:51particularly remote from the main swim of national life.
0:28:51 > 0:28:53Protestantism was not at all strong in Devon and Cornwall,
0:28:53 > 0:28:57and I think this particular region of Devon was probably even more
0:28:57 > 0:29:00conservative than the other regions of the county.
0:29:02 > 0:29:05The rebel army now marched on Exeter,
0:29:05 > 0:29:09the main centre of Tudor power in the South West.
0:29:10 > 0:29:14News of the rising soon reached little Morebath,
0:29:14 > 0:29:16on the edge of Exmoor.
0:29:20 > 0:29:22Here, vicar Christopher Tricky, true to the old faith,
0:29:22 > 0:29:25was on the side of the rebels.
0:29:25 > 0:29:29Morebath has heard the call, and is preparing to answer.
0:29:29 > 0:29:31And the people of Morebath have decided
0:29:31 > 0:29:34to send their young men to assist the rebels.
0:29:34 > 0:29:39And here we have an actual recording of that fact. "Paid to William...
0:29:39 > 0:29:41"...to William Hurley, the young man,
0:29:41 > 0:29:47"at his going forth to the camp on St David's Down.
0:29:47 > 0:29:50"Six shillings and eight pence."
0:29:50 > 0:29:53And it's interesting, this word, "camp",
0:29:53 > 0:29:55was used a great deal by the rebels at the time.
0:29:55 > 0:29:58Sometimes the rebels themselves were called camp men,
0:29:58 > 0:30:00and just this word
0:30:00 > 0:30:03is actually dangerous for Sir Christopher to have recorded it.
0:30:03 > 0:30:06And he later goes along and scrubs this out.
0:30:06 > 0:30:09- Erased three times. - Three times, yes.
0:30:09 > 0:30:12Gosh! So, do we get the names of the other boys?
0:30:12 > 0:30:14Yes, we do. We have here Thomas Borridge...
0:30:14 > 0:30:18"Thomas Borridge, the younger,
0:30:18 > 0:30:22"be paid for his going to the camp six shillings and eight pence.
0:30:22 > 0:30:24"To John Taywoll, Christopher Morse,
0:30:24 > 0:30:28"and Robert Sayer, at their going forth
0:30:28 > 0:30:30"to St David's Down camp..."
0:30:30 > 0:30:34Two shillings here, I think. And fourpence.
0:30:34 > 0:30:36They're sending several young men,
0:30:36 > 0:30:38we think a total of five set off from Morebath.
0:30:38 > 0:30:41That's a large number of young men from such a small place
0:30:41 > 0:30:44with a very small population. They were sending probably
0:30:44 > 0:30:48their bravest and best to fight alongside the rebels.
0:30:52 > 0:30:56So Morebath's boys went to Exeter.
0:30:57 > 0:31:02Behind the city's massive walls, the royalist mayor refused to surrender,
0:31:02 > 0:31:04and the siege began.
0:31:04 > 0:31:06Here we are in the castle,
0:31:06 > 0:31:08the strongest point of the city's defences.
0:31:08 > 0:31:10We know it was garrisoned by troops during the siege.
0:31:10 > 0:31:13And looking out beyond them, there would have been rebel positions
0:31:13 > 0:31:17all the way along here, from the big camp at St David's Down,
0:31:17 > 0:31:20stretching along the hillside here and right round to St Sidwell's.
0:31:20 > 0:31:23They'd have been taking pot shots at you,
0:31:23 > 0:31:26there'd have been abuse and catcalls coming up from down below.
0:31:26 > 0:31:27The rebels were very close.
0:31:29 > 0:31:32The siege lasted six weeks.
0:31:32 > 0:31:35Eventually, a government army 8,000 strong,
0:31:35 > 0:31:38stiffened by foreign mercenaries, closed in,
0:31:38 > 0:31:40and the rebels were routed.
0:31:44 > 0:31:49Their last desperate stand took place on a windswept hill,
0:31:49 > 0:31:51outside Sampford Courtenay.
0:31:52 > 0:31:55Over the next weeks, the survivors were hunted down
0:31:55 > 0:31:57in the lanes around Dartmoor.
0:31:57 > 0:32:00The Morebath boys among them.
0:32:00 > 0:32:03Well, I suppose we should reconsider those myths
0:32:03 > 0:32:07which we read about, certainly when I was a kid in my schoolbooks,
0:32:07 > 0:32:09that somehow the Reformation was consensual,
0:32:09 > 0:32:12we got rid of all that superstitious stuff and moved on.
0:32:12 > 0:32:15- It wasn't quite like that, was it?- Not at all.
0:32:15 > 0:32:17I think it's remarkable that Henry VIII succeeded
0:32:17 > 0:32:19in pushing through the Reformation in the first place
0:32:19 > 0:32:23and then Edward and his government succeeded in going as far as they did
0:32:23 > 0:32:26because there was such resistance to what they were trying to do.
0:32:26 > 0:32:28I think the great surprise of the English Reformation
0:32:28 > 0:32:30is the fact it actually succeeded.
0:32:35 > 0:32:40So the Reformation was forced from above on a divided population.
0:32:40 > 0:32:43In Wales, which had been joined to the English crown
0:32:43 > 0:32:49since Henry VIII, the bards bitterly lamented the end of the old ways.
0:32:49 > 0:32:51THEY SPEAK IN WELSH
0:33:07 > 0:33:10"We have been changed by the faith of the English,
0:33:10 > 0:33:14"our hearts are not inclined towards it."
0:33:18 > 0:33:20SHE SPEAKS IN WELSH
0:33:34 > 0:33:37Up in the north, in the kingdom of Scotland,
0:33:37 > 0:33:41the Protestant Reformation unfolded later than in England and Wales.
0:33:41 > 0:33:44In 1559, the great cathedral at St Andrews
0:33:44 > 0:33:50was stripped of its altars and images and left in ruins.
0:33:50 > 0:33:54The Reformation here was driven by the firebrand preacher,
0:33:54 > 0:33:56John Knox.
0:33:56 > 0:34:00Knox's ideals, shaped in Geneva by John Calvin himself,
0:34:00 > 0:34:05made Scottish Protestantism much stricter than England's,
0:34:05 > 0:34:09and those differences still mark the Scots and the English today.
0:34:09 > 0:34:11In these small islands,
0:34:11 > 0:34:13we all have a lot of stereotypes about each other,
0:34:13 > 0:34:16but these are things...The Kirk and Presbyterianism
0:34:16 > 0:34:19and Calvinism and, you know, even not that long ago
0:34:19 > 0:34:22we had all those stories about places in the Western Isles
0:34:22 > 0:34:25who wouldn't allow the ferries to go on a Sunday.
0:34:25 > 0:34:28Why did Scotland become different?
0:34:28 > 0:34:32I think it - it's partly the form of organisation
0:34:32 > 0:34:33that is put in place.
0:34:33 > 0:34:36They act as a kind of moral police force.
0:34:36 > 0:34:40The Kirk session records are full of examples of people
0:34:40 > 0:34:44being hauled up before the Kirk session
0:34:44 > 0:34:49for transgressing in terms of Sabbatarianism,
0:34:49 > 0:34:52violating the Sabbath, blasphemy is another one.
0:34:52 > 0:34:55And fornication, the number of cases of fornication,
0:34:55 > 0:34:59which is extra-marital-sex, basically, are legion.
0:34:59 > 0:35:03"Margaret Raining, reported to be scandalous
0:35:03 > 0:35:06"in entertaining the dragoons.
0:35:06 > 0:35:09"Also alleged to be guilty of fornication
0:35:09 > 0:35:11"with Patrick Robertson."
0:35:11 > 0:35:15"George Martin, Isabel Hardy and Isabel Dunbar
0:35:15 > 0:35:18"accused of laughing in church."
0:35:18 > 0:35:22"Six young boys were found playing golf in time of preaching
0:35:22 > 0:35:26"and are convicted of profaning the law of Sabbath."
0:35:26 > 0:35:30The effectiveness of these Kirk sessions is really quite remarkable.
0:35:30 > 0:35:33As they spread throughout the kingdom,
0:35:33 > 0:35:36and I think it's that system and the moral discipline
0:35:36 > 0:35:39and Godly discipline, as they liked to call it,
0:35:39 > 0:35:40which they tried to inculcate,
0:35:40 > 0:35:43which in a way differentiates the Scottish situation
0:35:43 > 0:35:45from the English one.
0:35:45 > 0:35:47So how long does it take them
0:35:47 > 0:35:50to achieve that across the whole country?
0:35:50 > 0:35:52It's very difficult to say,
0:35:52 > 0:35:55but we're talking at least one, two, three generations.
0:35:55 > 0:35:58And perhaps because it's gradual, it's able to take root
0:35:58 > 0:36:02in a more radical form that it does in England.
0:36:06 > 0:36:07In both Scotland and England,
0:36:07 > 0:36:11there was a link between Protestantism
0:36:11 > 0:36:13and the rise of capitalism and industry.
0:36:14 > 0:36:17In the Black Country, Tudor iron masters are now working
0:36:17 > 0:36:22the coal seams on the old monastic lands of Halesowen.
0:36:23 > 0:36:29In Cornwall, Tudor entrepreneurs opened tin and copper mines.
0:36:33 > 0:36:38And up here on the Firth of Forth, an amazing discovery has revealed
0:36:38 > 0:36:41the ambitions of Scottish industrialists
0:36:41 > 0:36:43at the former monastic town of Culross in Fife.
0:36:46 > 0:36:51Culross now became a centre for the export of coal and salt
0:36:51 > 0:36:53to the Baltic and Scandinavia.
0:36:53 > 0:36:58It's one of those places in Britain where, with their innovations,
0:36:58 > 0:37:01early capitalists anticipated the Industrial Revolution,
0:37:01 > 0:37:04in this case by a couple of hundred years.
0:37:04 > 0:37:09Here, believe it or not, they dug a coalmine in the sea.
0:37:15 > 0:37:16Coal would be the driving force
0:37:16 > 0:37:20behind the Industrial Revolution across Britain.
0:37:20 > 0:37:23And we now know that it's extraction was underway,
0:37:23 > 0:37:26if only on a small scale, far earlier than has been thought.
0:37:28 > 0:37:32And here, they were pioneers of a new technology.
0:37:32 > 0:37:37So, Douglas, that's where the shaft is, that little island peeping up?
0:37:37 > 0:37:39Very much so, it's just starting to show itself now.
0:37:39 > 0:37:43You imagine we were standing here in, say, 1590,
0:37:43 > 0:37:45shortly after the pit had been constructed.
0:37:45 > 0:37:49What we would see is a tower about perhaps 10 metres,
0:37:49 > 0:37:51sticking out of the ground.
0:37:51 > 0:37:53A round tower some 15 metres in diameter.
0:37:53 > 0:37:57It's like a very, very, heavy, thick chimney,
0:37:57 > 0:38:00with a small four metre wide shaft in the middle,
0:38:00 > 0:38:03which was travelling all the way down, some 40, 50 feet,
0:38:03 > 0:38:05to the galleries of coal that were being mined below it.
0:38:05 > 0:38:07Incredible! Incredible!
0:38:07 > 0:38:09It's absolutely fantastic, cos we have to remember
0:38:09 > 0:38:13this is the 16th century and this is half a kilometre out to sea.
0:38:13 > 0:38:15They're actually mining under the sea bed -
0:38:15 > 0:38:17and not only are they under the sea bed,
0:38:17 > 0:38:20once they're down there, they're going for another half mile or so,
0:38:20 > 0:38:23and what I think we're seeing here is the very origins,
0:38:23 > 0:38:25the earliest glimmerings, of the Industrial Revolution.
0:38:28 > 0:38:30The plan is to go out to the moat pit
0:38:30 > 0:38:32and to try and strip it of seaweed
0:38:32 > 0:38:36so we can get some really clear pictures of the site
0:38:36 > 0:38:37to enable us to survey it.
0:38:39 > 0:38:42On a very low tide, these local volunteers are hoping
0:38:42 > 0:38:47to expose the remains of the top of the shaft.
0:38:50 > 0:38:52In a minute, you will be amazed
0:38:52 > 0:38:54when you see just how lovely this thing is.
0:39:04 > 0:39:07Well, what we're actually seeing here just coming to light,
0:39:07 > 0:39:09just in the last few moments,
0:39:09 > 0:39:11we can actually see this large circular enclosure,
0:39:11 > 0:39:14this is the actual inner shaft, the shaft itself.
0:39:14 > 0:39:17I'm standing on part of the wall of the vertical shaft
0:39:17 > 0:39:19that dropped 40 feet below us.
0:39:19 > 0:39:21So below us now,
0:39:21 > 0:39:24probably 100 metres either side, we have a complex of galleries.
0:39:24 > 0:39:27I just find it a really exciting structure.
0:39:27 > 0:39:31We sort of know the story of the pit but you somehow can't believe it
0:39:31 > 0:39:36until you see the distance it is from the shore.
0:39:36 > 0:39:40Did you realise it's tongue and groove board they put in here?
0:39:40 > 0:39:44It's tongue and groove board. That's incredible.
0:39:44 > 0:39:47Well, that gives you a watertight line into the tower.
0:39:47 > 0:39:48Yeah, yeah.
0:39:48 > 0:39:52Now we can see very, very clearly the moat pit in front of us,
0:39:52 > 0:39:55we can see the outer wall, we can see the inner wall.
0:39:55 > 0:39:57We've exposed some structural details of the timbering,
0:39:57 > 0:40:00which held the clay in place to keep the structure watertight
0:40:00 > 0:40:02and of course we've got this lovely inner shaft,
0:40:02 > 0:40:05and this is the coal mine in front of us. Right here.
0:40:05 > 0:40:08Would the coal have been taken out from here?
0:40:08 > 0:40:12Very much so, absolutely, and ships would have - small ships -
0:40:12 > 0:40:13would have come alongside,
0:40:13 > 0:40:16and the coal would have been loaded directly from the top of the actual
0:40:16 > 0:40:20shaft itself, straight into the ships and off it would have gone.
0:40:28 > 0:40:31By the time the Culross pit was dug,
0:40:31 > 0:40:36down in England, the Reformation had taken further extraordinary twists.
0:40:36 > 0:40:40The Protestant Edward was followed by the Catholic Mary,
0:40:40 > 0:40:44and then in 1558 by Elizabeth I,
0:40:44 > 0:40:48who steered England and Wales back to the Protestant religion.
0:40:52 > 0:40:56Elizabeth was a convinced Protestant but not a zealous one,
0:40:56 > 0:40:58let alone fanatical.
0:40:58 > 0:41:02She had no desire to open windows on men's souls, she said.
0:41:02 > 0:41:06But events in England now were no longer determined
0:41:06 > 0:41:08simply by what happened within the country,
0:41:08 > 0:41:13but by the wider stage, both of Ireland and of Europe.
0:41:13 > 0:41:16And the threat of Spain.
0:41:18 > 0:41:22Across Europe, the Reformation had produced a deep religious divide.
0:41:24 > 0:41:26The looming power of the Spanish Catholic empire,
0:41:26 > 0:41:29which occupied the Netherlands,
0:41:29 > 0:41:33provoked English paranoia about Papist invasions and plots.
0:41:33 > 0:41:37Especially in English-occupied Catholic Ireland.
0:41:37 > 0:41:41Here, the Protestant Reformation had made no headway.
0:41:43 > 0:41:46So, fatefully, the Elizabethans began
0:41:46 > 0:41:48the conquest and colonisation of Ireland,
0:41:48 > 0:41:52an event which has marked our common histories to this day.
0:41:54 > 0:41:59To the English, the Irish were uncivilised barbarians
0:41:59 > 0:42:02and the Irish tried to persuade Elizabeth otherwise.
0:42:04 > 0:42:05Here in Dublin,
0:42:05 > 0:42:08there's an extraordinary survival from that time.
0:42:08 > 0:42:12A presentation booklet asking Elizabeth herself
0:42:12 > 0:42:15to see Ireland as one of Europe's ancient cultures.
0:42:17 > 0:42:19This is it!
0:42:19 > 0:42:22It's a very delicate, almost flimsy document,
0:42:22 > 0:42:24but it's quite beautiful.
0:42:24 > 0:42:29It's talked of being put together around 1563-64,
0:42:29 > 0:42:32in anticipation of Elizabeth's visit to Cambridge.
0:42:32 > 0:42:38The author of it is the Baron Of Delvin, Christopher Nugent.
0:42:38 > 0:42:43And what this is, at the very start is an address to Queen Elizabeth,
0:42:43 > 0:42:46thanking her for according him the honour of inviting him
0:42:46 > 0:42:49to supply her with an account of the Irish language.
0:42:49 > 0:42:50It's gorgeous.
0:42:50 > 0:42:53"Among the many fold actions, most gracious
0:42:53 > 0:42:55"and virtuous Sovereign,
0:42:55 > 0:43:01"that bare testimony to the world of your Majesty's great affection,
0:43:01 > 0:43:03"tending to the Reformation of Ireland."
0:43:03 > 0:43:06- So this is politically loaded, then. - It is indeed.
0:43:06 > 0:43:09But, of course, she ignored it, I don't know that it ever left
0:43:09 > 0:43:12the area of Cambridge, it was found there in the mid-19th century.
0:43:12 > 0:43:15Don't know if she ever even read it. So it's a poignant document.
0:43:15 > 0:43:17It's very poignant, isn't it?
0:43:17 > 0:43:20Her interest in Irish, as we know now,
0:43:20 > 0:43:25was purely in using the language as a vehicle for the propagation
0:43:25 > 0:43:28of the reformed religion.
0:43:28 > 0:43:31This is where he is laying out the parallels between
0:43:31 > 0:43:36Latin, Greek, Hebrew and the Irish language.
0:43:36 > 0:43:38Not barbarian, it's a classical language!
0:43:38 > 0:43:41Precisely, that is the subtext.
0:43:41 > 0:43:45And then he gets around to giving Elizabeth what she wants,
0:43:45 > 0:43:48which is the... as we said, is the alphabet
0:43:48 > 0:43:51and then he finishes off with some useful phrases, you might...
0:43:51 > 0:43:54Great! Will you read them in Gaelic if I read them in English?
0:43:54 > 0:43:58So, well, it's, "How do you do?" Which is "quomodo habes?"
0:43:58 > 0:44:00"Cones ta tu?"
0:44:00 > 0:44:01"I'm well." "Benesum."
0:44:01 > 0:44:03"Taim to maih."
0:44:03 > 0:44:06And here's one for you. "God save the queen."
0:44:06 > 0:44:07HE LAUGHS
0:44:07 > 0:44:09Never thought I'd find myself saying this.
0:44:09 > 0:44:11"Dia shabhail banrion."
0:44:13 > 0:44:17But Elizabeth couldn't listen with an open mind.
0:44:17 > 0:44:22Tensions were ratcheted up as the English feared the Irish Catholics
0:44:22 > 0:44:25would make common cause with Spain.
0:44:25 > 0:44:28It was the thorn in the side of the Tudor administration.
0:44:28 > 0:44:30And it was the area over which they -
0:44:30 > 0:44:33certainly the Henrytian administration -
0:44:33 > 0:44:37and later the Elizabethan one, had so little influence,
0:44:37 > 0:44:41and in fact it was the frustration, I suppose, that encouraged
0:44:41 > 0:44:44Elizabeth to try to bring it under her control to a greater degree.
0:44:48 > 0:44:51Elizabeth's government committed itself
0:44:51 > 0:44:53to making Ireland British.
0:44:53 > 0:44:56And they met fierce resistance,
0:44:56 > 0:45:00especially from the great Ulster Catholic clans, like the MacDonalds.
0:45:00 > 0:45:04And in the summer of 1575, an Elizabethan army
0:45:04 > 0:45:09besieged the MacDonald stronghold out there on the island of Rathlin,
0:45:09 > 0:45:13where the MacDonald lords had put their families for safety.
0:45:13 > 0:45:17It was a four-day bombardment by the English commanders,
0:45:17 > 0:45:18including Francis Drake.
0:45:18 > 0:45:21And in the end the garrison surrendered,
0:45:21 > 0:45:23believing they had safe conduct.
0:45:23 > 0:45:28200 of them were massacred and so were 300 or 400 women and children,
0:45:28 > 0:45:31hunted down in the caves and sea cliffs,
0:45:31 > 0:45:33in revenge against the rebels.
0:45:34 > 0:45:37And the MacDonald lords themselves,
0:45:37 > 0:45:39believing that their families were safe out there,
0:45:39 > 0:45:43stood here on the coast, powerless to intervene
0:45:43 > 0:45:45as the tragedy unfolded.
0:45:45 > 0:45:51It was a grim foretaste of what was to come in the 17th century.
0:45:51 > 0:45:56In 1588, Spain attempted a full-scale invasion of England,
0:45:56 > 0:45:58the Spanish Armada.
0:46:00 > 0:46:06Defeated in the channel by Drake and his captains, the invasion failed.
0:46:10 > 0:46:13That autumn, the returning Armada was destroyed
0:46:13 > 0:46:17here on the rocky shores of Antrim and Donegal.
0:46:17 > 0:46:20The victory set the seal
0:46:20 > 0:46:23on Elizabeth's fledging English Protestant state.
0:46:24 > 0:46:28On the victory medal, a proud inscription,
0:46:28 > 0:46:31"God blew and they were scattered".
0:46:38 > 0:46:42In Ireland, the English began a policy of plantations,
0:46:42 > 0:46:44shipping over settlers from Devon and Cornwall,
0:46:44 > 0:46:46and especially from Scotland.
0:46:46 > 0:46:52The English regarded colonisation as a kind of civilising mission.
0:46:54 > 0:46:57TRADITIONAL IRISH MUSIC
0:47:00 > 0:47:03The English poet Edmund Spencer said
0:47:03 > 0:47:06the Irish must be made to forget their Irish nation,
0:47:06 > 0:47:09and that meant a war on Irish culture.
0:47:11 > 0:47:16Now, in traditional societies, still strongly oral societies
0:47:16 > 0:47:20like 16th century Ireland, Tudor Wales or Cornwall for that matter,
0:47:20 > 0:47:24the bards, the poets, the harpers were not just entertainers,
0:47:24 > 0:47:28they were the custodians of history and language, of genealogy,
0:47:28 > 0:47:31of the people's claim to the land -
0:47:31 > 0:47:36in other words, of the communal identity and collective memory.
0:47:36 > 0:47:37But in Queen Elizabeth's reign,
0:47:37 > 0:47:42the Irish people were faced with an occupying English state
0:47:42 > 0:47:46that remorselessly pushed nationalistic propaganda,
0:47:46 > 0:47:47English identity,
0:47:47 > 0:47:50the Irish didn't have that.
0:47:50 > 0:47:54In the 1590s, Irish bards and poets
0:47:54 > 0:47:59responded by speaking of the single Irish people.
0:48:00 > 0:48:04Elizabethan government's answer was to declare war on the poets.
0:48:08 > 0:48:12So it was in the face of this cultural oppression
0:48:12 > 0:48:17that the people of Ireland began to form an Irish national identity.
0:48:19 > 0:48:23And by the end of the century, right across the British isles
0:48:23 > 0:48:26these religious and national divisions had hardened.
0:48:27 > 0:48:31And they would shape our modern world.
0:48:34 > 0:48:37In England, too, national identity
0:48:37 > 0:48:40had been moulded by Reformation politics.
0:48:42 > 0:48:45Flushed with patriotic pride after the Armada,
0:48:45 > 0:48:50by the 1590s, England could now call itself a Protestant nation.
0:48:50 > 0:48:55And the English people could begin to look back more calmly
0:48:55 > 0:48:57on the tumultuous events of the century.
0:48:57 > 0:49:01They'd gone through four changes of religion in a single lifetime,
0:49:01 > 0:49:03at times they can't have known
0:49:03 > 0:49:06what the government would tell them to believe next.
0:49:08 > 0:49:14But now the mass of the people had accepted the changes and moved on.
0:49:14 > 0:49:18And here in Long Melford, a remarkable manuscript
0:49:18 > 0:49:19gives us a sense of what that meant.
0:49:19 > 0:49:23Written by the churchwarden Roger Martin,
0:49:23 > 0:49:28it sums up Britain's age of new worlds and lost worlds.
0:49:28 > 0:49:33Yes, this is the so-called black book of Melford.
0:49:33 > 0:49:40This page shows his account of the contents of the book.
0:49:40 > 0:49:46Listed here are the documents that he thought it was important
0:49:46 > 0:49:48to record for all time.
0:49:48 > 0:49:52This is his characteristic hand, with his Rs and Hs
0:49:52 > 0:49:54and the tendency to write uphill.
0:49:56 > 0:49:59And then Martin gets into his stride and he says,
0:49:59 > 0:50:03"Item of the silver plate,
0:50:03 > 0:50:10"that did belong unto Melford Church before the spoil, a remembrance."
0:50:10 > 0:50:14There's a very important dig
0:50:14 > 0:50:18that something pretty dramatic has happened.
0:50:18 > 0:50:21And that this is worth recording for posterity.
0:50:21 > 0:50:25In just a few decades, the British people had been forced
0:50:25 > 0:50:27to leave their old world behind,
0:50:27 > 0:50:33and many of them, like Roger Martin, with profound regret.
0:50:34 > 0:50:36Yes, must have been very confusing times
0:50:36 > 0:50:40for ordinary people in Britain, mustn't they?
0:50:40 > 0:50:42By the end of the 16th century,
0:50:42 > 0:50:45toward the end of Elizabeth's reign,
0:50:45 > 0:50:50you're dealing with a nation which, religiously, was fractured.
0:50:50 > 0:50:54And never the same again.
0:50:54 > 0:50:57With various bodies of opinion, there were those who decided,
0:50:57 > 0:51:01either by conviction or out of caution,
0:51:01 > 0:51:06to conform to the new established Protestant Church Of England,
0:51:06 > 0:51:10but, as we know from the case of Roger Martin and others,
0:51:10 > 0:51:13others remained true to the old faith.
0:51:13 > 0:51:20And Roger Martin was true in that way right up to his death in 1615.
0:51:20 > 0:51:24He survived the whole of the Reformation,
0:51:24 > 0:51:26across five reigns of different monarchs
0:51:26 > 0:51:30but he still remained true to his faith.
0:51:30 > 0:51:33On the other hand, of course, there were plenty of people
0:51:33 > 0:51:40who were far more liberal and unlikely to conform to anything.
0:51:40 > 0:51:43Who were much more convinced about the personal relationship
0:51:43 > 0:51:49between the individual and God, and the importance of the word.
0:51:49 > 0:51:54The word in the scriptures and as expounded from the pulpit,
0:51:54 > 0:51:57far more than, you know, tradition,
0:51:57 > 0:52:02and the theatre and the colour of old worship.
0:52:02 > 0:52:05- I suppose...the dust settled? - Has the dust settled?
0:52:05 > 0:52:07- Has the dust settled?- Probably not!
0:52:09 > 0:52:14For after all, even today across the British Isles and Ireland,
0:52:14 > 0:52:18we're still negotiating the fallout of these great events.
0:52:20 > 0:52:25And again, as always in history, there were unforeseen consequences.
0:52:25 > 0:52:29For once Pandora's box had been opened,
0:52:29 > 0:52:33out came Pandora's Protestants.
0:52:36 > 0:52:40# The tax man's taken all my dough... #
0:52:40 > 0:52:44This is Scrooby in Nottinghamshire. Here, late in Elizabeth's reign,
0:52:44 > 0:52:49events began that would lead to the triumph of the Puritans in England,
0:52:49 > 0:52:51the overthrow of the British monarchy,
0:52:51 > 0:52:55and even the founding of America.
0:52:55 > 0:52:56# In the summer time... #
0:52:56 > 0:52:58By now, Elizabeth's government
0:52:58 > 0:53:01thought the Reformation had gone far enough,
0:53:01 > 0:53:05but up here there were many who didn't agree.
0:53:05 > 0:53:09We're very proud of our history, we really are.
0:53:09 > 0:53:11The residents of Scrooby, I think,
0:53:11 > 0:53:15see themselves as part of the British history
0:53:15 > 0:53:17because it was a fundamental change in British religion
0:53:17 > 0:53:22and of course it affected the Americans as well.
0:53:22 > 0:53:26I think we see ourselves as almost a small republic today.
0:53:26 > 0:53:28Fighting against the evils of oppressive government
0:53:28 > 0:53:30and the nanny state!
0:53:30 > 0:53:32But, in a funny way, don't you think that's what
0:53:32 > 0:53:34they were about too?
0:53:34 > 0:53:36They were against being told what to do, in a sense.
0:53:36 > 0:53:40Well, absolutely, and, you know, they suffered for it.
0:53:40 > 0:53:43It was the freedom that they desired that they couldn't get here.
0:53:43 > 0:53:49# Help me, help me, help me sail away... #
0:53:49 > 0:53:53Out of these villages came sturdy Puritan separatists,
0:53:53 > 0:53:58far more radical in their politics than the Tudor government
0:53:58 > 0:54:02could ever have foreseen when they started their Reformation.
0:54:02 > 0:54:06Difficult question, but why did it happen here?
0:54:06 > 0:54:10I mean, this tiny little area, this side of the Trent,
0:54:10 > 0:54:11this cluster of villages.
0:54:11 > 0:54:14The people in this area are certainly very spirited.
0:54:14 > 0:54:15HE LAUGHS
0:54:15 > 0:54:17They are!
0:54:17 > 0:54:20Maybe it's just that by chance that we have this
0:54:20 > 0:54:24clump here of like minded people, able to support each other
0:54:24 > 0:54:26and thank goodness that they did
0:54:26 > 0:54:28because they changed the world, really,
0:54:28 > 0:54:30when you look at what this did.
0:54:33 > 0:54:37Ladies and gentlemen! The raffle will now be drawn in the tent.
0:54:40 > 0:54:44The movement gathered momentum
0:54:44 > 0:54:48and this part of the East Midlands became a hotbed of non-conformity.
0:54:48 > 0:54:51Secret religious services were held in the surrounding villages.
0:54:53 > 0:54:57This is the path that was used by those early separatists
0:54:57 > 0:55:04from Scrooby on their journeys to listen to a charismatic preacher,
0:55:04 > 0:55:08another core member of the group. Richard Clifton
0:55:08 > 0:55:12was vicar in a tiny church in the woods here, of Babworth.
0:55:17 > 0:55:22And here today, you'll still find both memories and physical traces
0:55:22 > 0:55:25of this radical religious past.
0:55:26 > 0:55:30In Babworth, a remarkable discovery was made only recently.
0:55:30 > 0:55:33As the workmen went down,
0:55:33 > 0:55:37they came across this old tin can, as they thought.
0:55:37 > 0:55:40And they realised it was something more important.
0:55:40 > 0:55:45So this would have been used for communion? 1593.
0:55:45 > 0:55:46Yes.
0:55:46 > 0:55:50But 1593, Clifton's here preaching in this church
0:55:50 > 0:55:52and doing the rituals.
0:55:52 > 0:55:57And to realise that Clifton's hands, all those years ago,
0:55:57 > 0:56:03held that, it is quite humbling in a way, I suppose, really.
0:56:03 > 0:56:05He must have been a great preacher
0:56:05 > 0:56:10because he attracted people to come this church from villages
0:56:10 > 0:56:13round about, and farther than villages, and he collected
0:56:13 > 0:56:17this rather dedicated band of people who were willing to follow him.
0:56:17 > 0:56:22When James I heard about it, they were reporting to him
0:56:22 > 0:56:27saying that they thought there should be no bishops in the church.
0:56:27 > 0:56:31He said, "What? No bishop? No king! So get them out."
0:56:31 > 0:56:33And he did.
0:56:33 > 0:56:37The other way of looking at it is that the people of Babworth
0:56:37 > 0:56:39were just bloody minded!
0:56:39 > 0:56:41Yes, they were.
0:56:41 > 0:56:44And to a certain extent we still are, those in the church.
0:56:44 > 0:56:46The last parson said,
0:56:46 > 0:56:50"Separatists, what makes them think they went away?"
0:56:50 > 0:56:51THEY ALL LAUGH
0:56:56 > 0:57:00These ideas now spread out from the villages of the Trent valley
0:57:00 > 0:57:04to towns like Gainsborough, where they were supported
0:57:04 > 0:57:06by wealthy Puritan patrons.
0:57:06 > 0:57:10And from here, they went to Europe and America.
0:57:11 > 0:57:15You have to remember, these ideas have been running
0:57:15 > 0:57:17under the surface of society for a long time.
0:57:17 > 0:57:23Indeed, that idea of intensive private reading
0:57:23 > 0:57:25of the religious text
0:57:25 > 0:57:29would be as important to the religious separatists here
0:57:29 > 0:57:31as it had been to the Lollards.
0:57:31 > 0:57:34Those ideas didn't go away, the Lollards' battle
0:57:34 > 0:57:37had been against the Pope in Rome and the Catholic Church.
0:57:37 > 0:57:41Now, there was an established Protestant Church of England,
0:57:41 > 0:57:45but it was still state religion, tied to the monarchy,
0:57:45 > 0:57:47and backed by force.
0:57:47 > 0:57:50So the issue was still the same.
0:57:50 > 0:57:55By whose authority is my personal path to God to be mediated?
0:58:00 > 0:58:05So, in the 16th century, the British people went through
0:58:05 > 0:58:07a tremendous psychological rupture
0:58:07 > 0:58:09at the hands of their own government.
0:58:10 > 0:58:13MUSIC: "When The Saints Go Marching In"
0:58:14 > 0:58:20But resilient and adaptable, they came out of it with new energies.
0:58:20 > 0:58:23With new ideas about personal freedom,
0:58:23 > 0:58:29ideas which will lead to the age of revolution.
0:58:45 > 0:58:48Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd