1. Sir Thomas Moore- Utopia

Biography:

Sir Thomas More ( 7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), venerated by Catholics as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was also a councillor to Henry VIII, and Lord High Chancellor of England from October 1529 to 16 May 1532.

More opposed the Protestant Reformation, in particular the theology of Martin Luther and William Tyndale. He also wrote Utopia, published in 1516, about the political system of an imaginary ideal island nation. More opposed the King's separation from the Catholic Church, refusing to acknowledge Henry as Supreme Head of the Church of England and the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. After refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy, he was convicted of treason and beheaded.

Pope Pius XI canonised More in 1935 as a martyr. Pope John Paul II in 2000 declared him the "heavenly Patron of Statesmen and Politicians." Since 1980, the Church of England has remembered More liturgically as a Reformation martyr. The Soviet Union honoured him for the Communistic attitude toward property rights expressed in Utopia

Note: Utopia is a narration of Raphael's words to Giles and More. Peter Giles is a friend of the author, Giles was a printer and editor, also serving as the Clerk of Antwerp. In Utopia, Giles meets More when the Englishman travels to Flanders (present-day Belgium). Giles introduces More to Raphael Hythloday and Hythloday is the main character in Utopia and he is distinct and unique from the others.

Utopus - the ancient conqueror who built the Utopian state. 1760 years before Hythloday's visit to Utopia, Utopus conquered the brutish people and separated the area into its own island by cutting through the narrow isthmus that connected Utopia to the mainland. Most of the laws, institutions, and values passed down by Utopus remained in place 1760 years later, when Raphael visited.

Introduction:More wrote Utopia in 1516, just before the outbreak of the Reformation, but certainly during the time when the stresses and corruption that led to the Reformation were swelling toward conflict. Utopia, originally written in Latin and later translated into many languages, depicts what its narrator, Raphael Hythloday, claimed to be an ideal human society, the island of Utopia. This tradition involves the attempt by an author to describe a perfect, ideal human society. It is clear that the author does not necessarily support the ideas presented by Hythloday. However, while More might not have envisioned Utopia as a perfect society, it is inarguable that he forwarded utilitarian, rational Utopia as a criticism of the European world he saw around him. It is vital, then, to understand that the book is a response to a specific historical time.There are many ways to analyze the society of Utopia. It can be thought of as the culmination of rational thought or Humanist beliefs, as an alternative to feudalism, a

statement in favor of communal society, or an effort to promote reform according to Christian values. These different critical approaches are not mutually exclusive, and Sir Thomas More was certainly aware of the complexity of meanings embedded in his book.

Characters: Peter Giles, Raphael Hythloday, Cardinal John Morton, Lawyer, General Utopus.

Brief summary:Hythloday describes the geography and history of Utopia. He explains how the founder of Utopia, General Utopus, conquered the isthmus on which Utopia now stands and through a great public works effort cut away the land to make an island. Next, Hythloday moves to a discussion of Utopian society, portraying a nation based on rational thought, with communal property, great productivity, no rapacious love of gold, no real class distinctions, no poverty, little crime or immoral behavior, religious tolerance, and little inclination to war. It is a society that Hythloday believes is superior to any in Europe.

** while More has the same name as Sir Thomas More, the pronoun for "I" in the language of Utopia is "he" **Sir Thomas More wrote Book 1 of Utopia in two parts. The first version served only as an introduction to Book 2, while the second version is far more subtle and explores many issues of More's day. The first version of Book 1 ended just before More's final sentence explaining that before going into a description of Utopia, he thought it would be worthwhile to describe the conversation leading up to that discussion.

Geography and History of Utopia

Summary

Utopia occupies a crescent-shaped island that curves in on itself, enclosing a large bay and protecting it from the ocean and wind. The bay functions as a huge harbor. Access to the bay is impeded by submerged rocks, the locations of which are known only to Utopians. The bay allows for easy internal shipping and travel, but makes any sort of external attack or unwanted contact unlikely. This allows the Utopians to remain as isolated as they want to be.

At one time in its history Utopia was called Abraxa. Filled with uncouth and fractious inhabitants, the land that is now an island was then connected to the mainland by an isthmus. The great General Utopus conquered the land, and then set his army and the conquered inhabitants to destroying the isthmus. Utopus inspired great loyalty and effort, and the work was finished remarkably fast.

The present-day island has fifty-four cities, all with the same basic structure, architecture, language, customs, and laws. All citizens are within once day's walk of their nearest neighbor. The city of Amaurot is the political center of the island, simply because it is the city most accessible to all the other cities. Each year, three representatives from each city meet in Amaurot to make island-wide policy.

Commentary

Book Two of Utopia is presented to the reader as a direct discourse on various aspects of Utopian society. It is, however, important to remember the fictional frame in which this discourse exists. Book Two is in fact More's paraphrase of Hythloday's description of Utopia. Between Thomas More the author and Hythloday the teller of the story is a remove of two fictional levels mediated by More the character, who does not agree with the more radical proposals Hythloday makes.

Hythloday begins by discussing the geography and history of Utopia, each of which proves perfect for nurturing an ideal society. Utopia occupies an island that is as isolated as it wants to be; the Utopians interact with the rest of the world on their terms. Utopia needs no real external resources, is well defended against any sort of attack, is fruitful enough to carry on a surplus in trade, and allows for easy transport of goods and people within its own territory. With the story of General Utopus the ideal geography is given a source: the island was built, cut off from the mainland thousands of years ago. General Utopus conquered the territory and installed in a single historical moment the roots of the present-day Utopian society. Utopia, then, did not develop in a way comparable to any other state in the history of mankind. Its geography and history can only be described as ideal. Implicit in the recognition that an ideal society can only emerge out of ideal circumstances is More's criticism that Hythloday's "ivory-tower theorizing" cannot have any effect in a world that, by its very nature, is not ideal. The ideal society of Utopia is not presented by Thomas More as a real possibility for other nations to mimic. Thomas More admits as much by describing Utopia only within a fictional frame. Utopia may be ideal, but in the very structure of Utopia is the understanding that the ideal can never be attained and instead can only be used as a measuring stick.

The description of the cities introduces a general fact of Utopian life: homogeneity. Everything in Utopia is as similar as it possibly can be. According to Hythloday the cities are almost indistinguishable from each other. They have virtually the same populations, architecture, layouts, and customs.

Agriculture, Cities, and GovernmentSummary

Each city is surrounded by farmland, and every member of each city spends occasional two-year stints in the country doing agricultural work. Cities do not attempt to expand their frontiers; they think of the surrounding areas as land to be worked rather than as estates to be owned. When one city has an agricultural surplus, it exports with no charge to its neighbors. Those neighbors do the same in return. When it is time to harvest, extra men are sent from the city to help out. Harvesting usually takes little more than a day.

Cities are distinguishable from each other only by those differences imposed by geographical location and topography. Hythloday describes them all by describing one, choosing the capital city, Amaurot, as his subject. Amaurot is spread along a tidal river that is bridged only at its farthest point from the sea, so that ships can access all of the city quays. A second fresh water stream runs through the city. The source of this stream is enclosed within the city walls, so that the city will never be without a source of drinking water.

The city is surrounded by a thick wall. Its streets are rationally planned to allow for easy movement of traffic. Buildings are well maintained. Every house has a front door that opens on a street and a back door that opens onto a garden. No doors can be locked; there is no private space. Houses are all well built and three stories high, with brick or flint facades.

Households are split into groups of thirty, and every year each of these groups chooses an administrator, called a phylarch. Every ten phylarches operate under a higher official, called a senior phylarch. Senior phylarches meet in a committee chaired by the chief executive. Under pain of death, no person may discuss issues of state outside of the committee, so as to insure no one can conspire against the government and install tyrannical rule. They operate under the rule that no issue brought to committee can be decided upon until the next day, so as to remove any chance of over-hasty action.

Commentary

The communal method of agricultural work was a revolutionary idea for its time for a variety of reasons. In England and Europe agricultural work was an occupation of the poor, disdained by those with any wealth or station. In Utopia, those class distinctions are broken down; working on the land is made a necessary part of life, and the stigma of that work is removed. The sentence stating that Utopians think of the land as something to be worked rather than to be owned is an obvious reference to the enclosure movement that Hythloday attacked in Book 1. The enclosure movement in Britain transformed the wool and agricultural market into an oligopoly that simultaneously drove up prices and deprived small landholders of their livelihood. Utopian agriculture, for that matter, does not operate on any market system whatsoever. Instead of selling off its surplus, a city freely gives it away. As can be seen in its agricultural policy, the economic structures of markets and money simply do not exist in Utopia. More earlier claimed that without the competition inspired by the market Utopian productivity can't possibly match that of a market-based economy. Hythloday's response will be seen later in his description of Utopia.

Amaurot is laid out much as London is. Amaurot's tidal river finds a corollary in the Thames, and both rivers are spanned by bridges at the farthest possible point from the sea in order to provide the greatest number of accessible quays. Thomas More was certainly aware of the resemblance of Amaurot to London, and no doubt created this similarity on purpose. In creating Amaurot as a likeness to London, it is almost as if he wishes the two to be compared in the reader's mind. It should be noted that Hythloday's description of the buildings of Utopian cities were not far off from the cities of Flanders, where Thomas More wrote and set part of the book. Travelers to these cities were often amazed to see their cleanliness and the quality of buildings. This is an interesting fact in that it suggests the possibility that some aspects of the ideal can be achieved in the flawed world, that perhaps More is correct in his argument with Hythloday after all.

Utopian politics seems a strange mixture of freedom and repression. Utopia employs a democratic government, its people represented by two layers of elected public officials, the higher level selected by the lower level. However, the rule abolishing on pain of death any discussion of politics outside of the political arena seems incredibly repressive. This repression, though, is a fair repression in the sense that all citizens of Utopia are equally bound by it. This is a very different repression than those in place in Europe, where the poor

and weak were repressed by the rich and powerful. Utopia is operating under a rule of law, with all citizens subject to that law, even if the law itself strikes modern readers as excessive.

Hythloday trumpets the lack of private space as a wonderful idea promoting friendship and stifling pettiness and gossip. Again, though, in the loss of private space is a correspondent loss of privacy and autonomy. Utopia is a society in which everyone watches everyone else, much as everyone does in George Orwell's nightmare world of ##1984##. There is often little differentiating one man's Utopia from another's dystopia

Occupations, Workload, and Productivity

Summary

As mentioned earlier, all people are engaged in farm work. They are taught theories of farming in school, and practical skills in the field.

Other than farm work, every person, woman and man, has a specific occupation. The most common trades are spinning and weaving, masonry, blacksmithing, and carpentry. Women, because they are less strong, are employed in trades that do not demand heavy work. Young boys usually learn their trade through apprenticeship to their fathers, but if a boy shows a particular desire or aptitude for a different career, arrangements are made. People are allowed to apprentice and learn more than one trade, and then practice whichever they prefer, unless the city has a particular need for one rather than the other. Nobody is allowed to lounge while on the job. Those few who do are punished.

However, unlike European societies, working people in Utopia are not forced to toil for unconscionable hours each day. The Utopian day is broken into twenty-four hours; Utopians only work for six hours per day, three before lunch and three after. Utopians also sleep on average about eight hours a day. This leaves them with a great deal of free time, which they are free to do with as they will, as long as they do not spend it in debauchery or idleness. Most people use their free time to engage in intellectual pursuits. They also involve themselves in music, gardening, and physical activity. Those people who demonstrate a keen love and aptitude for intellectual pursuits are identified early and, as long as they are diligent in their studies, they are exempt from physical labor. If a laborer should demonstrate some great skill in his recreational intellectual efforts, he too can become exempt from is work if he desires.

Though the Utopians work such short hours they do not suffer from any lack of productivity. Though Europeans work far longer hours, European populations are also filled with a far larger percentage of people who do no productive work at all, including most women, much of the clergy, the rich gentlemen and nobles and all of their retainers, and all of the beggars. Also, because the Utopians diligently maintain everything they build, they have to expend far less energy undertaking rebuilding projects than Europeans, who instead follow a cycle of build, watch degenerate, rebuild. Because of the general lack of Utopian vanity and an understanding of the value of utility over style, the goods Utopians use are also far less difficult to produce. All of these factors combine so that though the Utopian workday is

relatively short, Utopian society is far more productive than European states, in terms of both necessities and modest luxuries.

Commentary

The degree of choice Utopians can exercise in choosing their vocation likely strikes modern readers as incredibly small. Compared to Europeans of the sixteenth century, however, the range is not small at all. True, a European noble was freer to do what he would--from composing poetry to lying around eating figs--than any Utopian. But the European lower classes had absolutely no mobility in terms of job. If a peasant was born to agricultural parents, he had little choice but to work the land as well. The fact that Utopia allowed all of its citizens to pursue careers purely on the basis of interest was a novel idea.

Hythloday also explains why More's market-based economies are not vastly more productive than Utopia's non-market, communal economy. Whereas one particular individual in a marke- based economy who works incredibly long hours in order to beat out his competition is quite certainly more productive than the average Utopian worker, for every one of the productive people in a market-based economy, Hythloday explains that there are innumerable people from nobles to beggars who make no productive contribution. In contrast, no one in Utopia is phenomenally productive, but everyone is fairly productive. More's comment that in a communal society no one would feel the compunction to work for the simple reason that they would be fed by the work of others is answered in the Utopian law punishing all laziness and lounging on the job. However, again, such a law seems to imply a repression that most modern readers might find unpleasant. In acknowledging the need for such a law Utopian society admits to the flawed nature of man. It is not, then, that More's criticism of communal property is wrong, but rather that it can be overcome through the proper structuring of society. Utopia is not ideal because its people are perfect, but rather because its laws make it so that Utopian citizens must act perfectly despite their inherent failings as humans.

Because Utopian society is so productive its citizens have a lot of free time. Again, a generally cynical understanding of human nature is betrayed in the laws outlawing idleness or debauchery, but this cynicism has the positive effect of pushing Utopians into intellectual or athletic pursuits. The process through which intellectuals are uncovered depends only on individual merit, a remarkable idea in an age dominated by privilege and birthright.

Education, Science, Philosophy

Summary

Though, as has been mentioned earlier, only certain accomplished people are allowed to give up manual labor for intellectual studies, every Utopian child receives a thorough education. The Utopians believe that it is through education that the values and dispositions of citizens are molded. The success of the Utopian educational system is evident in the fact that while most Utopians are engaged in manual labor as a career, in their free time Utopians choose to follow intellectual pursuits. Utopians conduct all of their studies in their native language.

In science the Utopians are rational and accomplished. They have the same general level of understanding as Europeans in the fields of music, logic, arithmetic, and geometry. They are adept at astronomy and no one believes in astrology. They are able to predict changes in weather, though, like the Europeans, the underlying causes of these changes remain at the moment beyond their grasp.

In philosophy, the Utopians are uninterested in the abstract suppositions that are the rage in Europe and which Hythloday finds empty. The foremost topic of Utopian philosophy is the nature of happiness, and the relation of happiness to pleasure. In such matters they ground their reason in religion, believing reason alone is ill equipped to handle such an investigation.

Utopians believe the soul is immortal and that there exists an afterlife in which the deeds of life are rewarded or punished. They further believe that if people were skeptical of an afterlife, all intelligent people would pursue physical pleasure and ignore all higher moral laws. Belief in an afterlife means that pleasure exists only in acts of virtue, because it is these acts that will ultimately be rewarded.

Utopians make a distinction between true and counterfeit pleasure. True pleasure involves any movement of body or mind in which a person takes a natural delight, such as reflecting on true knowledge, eating well, or exercising. Counterfeit pleasures are those sensations that are not naturally delightful, but that distorted desires have tricked people into believing they pleasurable. Examples of such counterfeit pleasures are pride in appearance, wealth, or honorific titles. Pursuit of these counterfeit pleasures often interfere with pursuit of true pleasures, and so Utopians do everything in their power to root counterfeit pleasures out of their society.

Utopians believe that their understanding of the relationship between pain and pleasure is the height of reason. The only possible way to gain a deeper understanding, they hold, would be if God were to send some religion down from heaven to "inspire more sacred convictions."

Commentary

The Utopian belief in education as a right and a necessity is surprisingly familiar to modern readers but a far cry from the policies of Europe in which only the rich and powerful could hope to be educated. Utopian education, moreover, is systematized and uniform, unlike the European system that often involved independent private tutors and certainly differed from school to school. Through this rational educational system, Utopians felt they could shape the morality and values of their children, to instill in their children the ability to be good Utopians. Education, then, in Utopia is not just a means of intellectual enlightenment; it is a program of moral and cultural development designed to make sure that Utopia will always replenish itself through its children.

The reference to science is once again an effort to show the irrationality of Europe. Thomas More's Europe was a society rapidly expanding its scientific knowledge. Yet despite its scientific achievements Europe was filled with believers in astrology, which had no rational or scientific basis whatsoever. This contrast displays that while Europe has the means to think and act rationally, it often does not seem to have the commitment. Utopia, on the

other hand, exists at almost exactly the same level of scientific understanding as Europe, but is committed to rational thought, and so astrology and other similar superstitions do not exist. Similarly, the discussion of Utopian philosophy, which pays no heed to the suppositions of the new European philosophers, is meant to be a biting criticism of the state of European thought. Thomas More's displeasure with the state of European philosophy was not unique to Utopia. During the period in which he wrote Book 2 of Utopia, Thomas More wrote a long letter disparaging the new European philosophers and logicians.

In the matter of the Utopian investigation into the nature of happiness, Utopian reason comes to the conclusion that it is ill-equipped to handle such an inquiry on its own. This seems a strange outcome for reason to come to, and this strangeness underlines a tension between reason and religion that became more evident as the Renaissance led eventually into the Enlightenment and beyond. However, for Thomas More and the Humanists, reason and religion went hand in hand. There simply was no question of the eternal truth of Christ and Christianity. The Utopian investigation of happiness, which begins by categorizing types of happiness and ends with the conclusion that happiness lies in acting virtuously because virtue will be rewarded in the afterlife, comes to much the same conclusion as Christianity. Also, Utopians believe that the only thing better than their philosophical investigation into the nature of things would be a divine revelation, which is exactly what Christianity conceives itself to be. By setting up this situation in which his ideal society, Utopia, venerates the religion of the European society he is trying to criticize, Thomas More manages to endorse the tenets of Christianity itself as the only outcome of rational thought while at the same time forcefully using the model of Utopia to criticize Europe. If the Utopians, with their inferior understanding of the nature of things, can act rationally and justly, then why can't the Europeans, who have the divine revelations of Christ, act similarly? The question is a damning one for Europe as a whole.

Slaves, Euthanasia, Marriage, Treaties

Summary

Slaves, in Utopia, are never bought. Utopian slaves are either people captured by the Utopians in battle, people who have committed a horrible crime within Utopia, or people who have committed crimes in other countries and been condemned to death, and saved from their fates by the Utopians. The children of slaves are not born into slavery. Slaves work constantly, and are always chained.

Sick Utopians receive tremendous care, but there are still people who become terminally ill and suffer greatly. In such instances, the doctors, priests, and government leaders urge the patient to recognize that they are no longer able to fulfill the duties of life, that they are a burden to both others and themselves, and that they should put their hope in the afterlife and choose to let themselves die. Those who agree are let from life during sleep, without pain. Those who do not agree are treated as kindly and tenderly as before.

Women cannot marry until they reach the age of 18; men must be 22. No premarital sex is allowed; if anyone is caught they are forbidden to marry for life. This policy exists because Utopians think that if promiscuity were allowed, no one would choose to marry. Before any

marriage takes place, the bride and groom are, in the presence of a chaperone, shown to each other naked, so that neither is surprised by what they find come wedding day. It is a policy that seemed ridiculous to Hythloday, but he soon saw that their was some wisdom in it, as it allowed the man and woman to know exactly what they were committing to. Divorce is allowed only in cases of adultery or extraordinary abuse. Adulterers are condemned to become slaves.

Utopians believe that people should make the most of their physical attributes, but the use of cosmetics or tools of enhancement are disdained.

No one is allowed to campaign for public office. Public officials are not meant to be overbearing or awe-inspiring; rather they should be seen as fathers who the people voluntarily treat with respect. There are very few laws, all clearly written. Utopia has no lawyers. Utopian leaders and judges are immune to bribery because money does not exist.

Utopia never signs treaties with other countries because they believe a country's word should be good enough. They believe the very idea of a treaty implies that countries are naturally enemies rather than friends, and Utopians do not accept that interpretation of the world. Also, few countries in their immediate vicinity ever actually adhere to the treaties that they sign. Hythloday compares this lack of forthrightness with Europeans, sarcastically claiming that of course all Europeans abide by the treaties they sign.

Commentary

Slavery in Utopia is not a question of race, ethnicity, or belief. It is a question of moral behavior. Only criminals can become slaves, and the children of slaves are born free. The slavery that exists in Utopia does not, then, contain all of the moral repugnance we rightfully associate with slavery. The fact that slavery could be conceived of as existing even within a fictional, ideal society is a sign that ideal societies are products of their times, subject to the beliefs and prejudices of the world from which they spring.

Similarly, the description of hospital care is revealing of the state of medicine in the early sixteenth century. The idea that a very sick person would not want to go to a hospital seems unusual to a modern reader, but during a time when it might be said that the only thing more dangerous then being sick was getting treated by a doctor, it is understandable. The Utopian practice of not only allowing but even encouraging euthanasia seems at odds with religious doctrine of the time, which believed suicide was a sin that would send its perpetrator to hell. However, euthanasia was a topic touched upon and supported by Erasmus, and Thomas More was certainly aware of that fact.

The marriage practices of the Utopians are called absurd by Hythloday and More, and seem absurd to the reader. It is not entirely clear what should be made of these practices, as they exist in what is supposedly an ideal society. A number of possibilities seem viable. Perhaps the marriage rites are another indication of the fact that while Utopia is near perfect, it is not actually an ideal society. Perhaps the marriage rites are supposed to be taken seriously, as an actual rational proposal. Perhaps they are simply a joke, since Thomas More was known to be fond of jokes. The text gives very little clue. The issue of divorce is a more concrete matter, and similar to that of euthanasia. The Catholic Church frowned on divorce

even in the case of adultery, but Erasmus believed divorce was acceptable and necessary in certain situations. That divorce is allowed in Utopia is another indication that Utopian society was a realization of Erasmus's Humanist beliefs and arguments.

Visible in the rules guarding against adultery, pre-marital sex, and those abolishing campaigning for office is the Utopian understanding that mankind's baser instincts of lust and greed will never disappear. Utopian laws, for this reason, are formulated so as to powerfully discourage the vices inherent in human nature. These laws demonstrate that Utopia is not a society full of ideal people. Rather, it is a society that is formulated so that the inherent faults of man are contained as stringently as humanly possible.

WarSummary

Utopians hate war and try to avoid it at all costs. They find no glory in the practice of killing, though they do constantly train and if pressed prove a mighty enemy. They engage in warfare only to protect themselves, their friends, or to free oppressed peoples.

Utopians would rather use cunning to win wars than brute strength. They consider strength to be a trait belonging to all animals, while only humans are intelligent. Thus, manly victories come through intelligent maneuverings rather than direct attacks. When a declaration of war is made, the Utopians first rely on propaganda; they secretly put up posters in enemy territory offering huge rewards for the assassination of the enemy leaders. They offer similar rewards to any of those leaders who betray their fellows. Other nations condemn this behavior as dishonorable; the Utopians defend it with the argument that they are in fact humane, ending massive wars with very little bloodshed. Other tactics include causing dissension by, for example, promising the throne to an enemy ruler's brother if that brother will support the Utopian cause. In helping their friends, Utopians do not like to risk their own citizens, but they are unstinting in providing money and material.

When it is necessary for the Utopians to fight, they hire mercenaries, the Zapoletes, at unbeatable prices, and send their own generals to lead them. As a last resort, the Utopians themselves will fight. No Utopian is ever forcefully conscripted except in the case that Utopia itself should be invaded. Wives are allowed to accompany their husbands to war, fighting side by side. In battle, Utopians are dogged and tireless, buoyed as they are by the Utopian values instilled in them from childhood. In the event of victory, the Utopians never let things degenerate into a massacre. While fighting, they act to the best of their ability not to destroy the enemy's land or soil.

Commentary

The Utopian methods of war seem insane and dishonorable to More, Giles, and virtually everyone who comes in contact with them. Yet the Utopian hatred of war and unorthodox tactics have an origin in Erasmus's treatise condemning the legitimacy of warfare, Sweet is War. In the Utopian view, only reason separates man from animals, so cunning tricks that save lives are in fact more "manly" than a love of the glory of battle. It is interesting to note, however, that the Utopian means of winning war is entirely dependent on their ideal

situation, situation meaning their isolation and ability to generate a great surplus in trade. The Utopians can thus follow their inclinations in warfare to perfection, using their money to hire mercenaries, distribute propaganda, and sow dissension in the enemy. But without this trade imbalance, which was created by Thomas More with a stroke of his pen, it is hard to see how the Utopians' war making methods could be successful. Still, perhaps it is not the success of the Utopian methods that is ultimately important. It is, rather, that in Utopia an alternative to standard European war practices is offered. These practices seem like folly, but it is the argument of Erasmus and Thomas More that the more closely something accords with Christianity, the more like folly it will seem, even though it is in fact quite wise.

Religion

Summary

A number of religions exist in Utopia. They all are similar in that they believe in a single god, but the nature of that god is very different, ranging from a sort of animism, to worship of an ancient hero, to worship of the sun or moon, to belief in a single omnipotent, ineffable god. This last religion, according to Hythloday, is in the process of becoming dominant, though all the religions practice complete tolerance of all the other religions. After Hythloday and his fellows spoke to the Utopians about Christ, a good number converted and began to learn as much as they could. These converts also were treated with the utmost respect by the faithful of other Utopian religions. In fact, the only belief that is not tolerated is atheism, as it is seen as immoral. If someone believes there is no afterlife, according to the Utopians, then that person will act selfishly in search of immediate physical and mental pleasure and not act virtuously in hope of future reward.

The different religions meet in the same churches run by the same priests, and services emphasize the similarities between the religions. If some religion demands a rite or prayer that might be offensive to another, then that rite must be performed in a home in private, not in the church.

Utopian priests are men of the highest moral and religious caliber, and, accordingly, there are very few of them. Almost no women are priests, but it is allowed that a woman could become a priest. Priests maintain the religious centers, educate the children, and praise good behavior while criticizing bad. The priests hold the highest power in the land; even the chief executive must listen to them. Before major religious holidays, women prostrate themselves before there husbands, and children before their parents, and all admit their wrongdoings. It is only with a clear conscience that people may attend services. At services all are attentive and incredibly respectful of the priests, and all acknowledge God to be their maker and ruler.

Commentary

It is hard to reconcile the almost absolute toleration advocated by Utopia with the fact that as Chancellor, Sir Thomas More played a central role in intensifying the persecution of Protestants. Perhaps all that can be done is to quote Hythloday's comment on the likelihood

that a Utopian priest might become unjust or act irreligiously, "for human nature is subject to change." It is interesting to note, that Utopia preached toleration in a time just before the Reformation, while Thomas More began to persecute Protestants after the Reformation had attained full flower. Biographical information aside, the toleration described in Utopia has a corollary in the writings of Erasmus, who went so far as to claim a sort of brotherhood with Muslims, claiming them as half-Christians and seeing in them less corruption than he often saw in Christians.

The Utopian priests are quite obviously meant to criticize European priests. Utopia gives two related reasons why there are so few Utopian priests. First, as a means of keeping up respect for the office, the number of priests is limited. Second, Utopians did not believe many people were moral or just enough to fulfill the priestly role, and so not many were made priests. In Europe, the venality, corruption, and often poor education of priests was a matter of public knowledge, humor, and criticism. The friar in Hythloday's story of dinner with Cardinal Morton is a perfect example, a man who barely knew Latin and who was subject to intense and uncontrollable personal rages. The face of the church was its priests, and Utopia implicitly claims that the face of the Catholic Church was covered in numerous warts.

The religious treatment of women is also rather interesting. The practice in which women must prostrate themselves to their husbands and admit their failings while the husbands must do nothing in return but forgive seems highly unfair, and demonstrates an assumption of superiority in the men. This is not all that surprising given the gender situation in the sixteenth century under which women were subservient to first their father, then their husband. However, women in Utopia can become priests, and this would have been shocking to Sir Thomas More's contemporaries. Even today, the Catholic Church does not allow female priests. At once, Utopia holds an implicit disregard for women, and offers them the chance at equality.

Conclusion

Summary

Hythloday believes Utopia to be the greatest social order in the world. As he says, "Everywhere else people talk about the public good but pay attention to their own private interests. In Utopia, where there is no private property, everyone is seriously concerned with pursuing the public welfare." In Utopia, no man worries about food or impoverishment for themselves or any of their descendants. Unlike the rest of the world, where men who do nothing productive live in luxury, in Utopia, all people work and all live well. Only this, in Hythloday's mind, is truly just. Hythloday believes societies other than Utopia are merely conspiracies of the rich, "whose objective is to increase their own wealth while the government they control claims to be a commonwealth concerned with the common welfare." These societies are realms of greed and pride. And pride causes men to measure their welfare not by their well-being, but by having things that others lack, which is irrational and un-Christian. Only in Utopia has pride and all its attendant vices been eviscerated from society.

Hythloday finishes his narration and More comments that all three of them were too tired to discuss the portrait of Utopia that Hythloday had painted. They agree to get together soon in order to more fully analyze and argue over the merits of what was said. More does comment to the reader, however, that he thinks many of the Utopian ways of life are absurd, from their methods of warfare to religion, but most especially in the doctrine of communal property. It is from private property that all nobility, magnificence, splendor, and majesty spring, and it is these things, in More's view, that are the crowning glory of European society. Nevertheless, More also claims there are many Utopian policies (though which he leaves unidentified) that he would like to see employed in Europe, though he does not believe that wish will be soon fulfilled.

Commentary

Utopia ends, first with a rousing flourish by Hythloday in which he claims Utopia to be the most perfect of societies, followed by More's assessment that many Utopian policies are absurd, though some might be worthwhile to employ in Europe. The book gives very little indication of which of these two sides it most supports; More and Hythloday are interested by each other, but though More has learned much from Hythloday he has not been convinced that his initial position against communal property was wrong. In this ambiguous ending the book's overarching theme of worldly pragmatism versus philosophical idealism is crystallized: between the two a choice must be made. A choice for either comes with inherent limitations. Entering politics demands a sacrifice of idealism. Eschewing politics for the pure world of philosophy entails an inability to even try to push one's pure vision into reality. Utopia sits in the span between these two positions. It is a working society in which there is no evil, but the book can offer no means by which an existing society might be transformed into a Utopian model. But in the figure of the fool, of the patient figure of Christian Folly secure in the knowledge of the coming of the Kingdom of Christ, Utopia does offer a means out of the impasse it sees between More and Hythloday. Utopia offers a criticism of European society, offers a model against which that society can be measured and perhaps repaired, but the book ultimately concludes that the only way to perfection is through Christianity and the coming of Christ. One might argue that this is a journey Thomas More himself took, constantly mediating between the ideals of Humanist philosophy and service to his king and country. Ultimately, he became a martyr for religious convictions that few others shared, and for that he was beatified.

Study QuestionsDiscuss the status of women in Utopia.

Utopia is based on egalitarian principles, and these principles extend to issues of gender. Utopian women are allowed to work, vote, become priests, fight, and generally have just as much influence over Utopian affairs as do men. True, some pragmatic constraints are placed on women. For example, they are not expected or allowed to engage in heavy labor since in general they are not as strong as men. But these pragmatic constraints do little to alter the staggering degree of freedom that Utopian women are afforded in contrast to European women. However, while Utopian women hold a basically equal secular standard as the men,

Utopian religion, with its demand that women prostrate themselves before their husbands, is formulated in such a way that it implicitly holds men as more religiously pure. There does not seem to be any way to reconcile these differences in the status of Utopian women as secularly equal but religiously inferior. Rather, the differences seem to betray the underlying influence of sixteenth century Europe; Thomas More creates a society in which women are given more rights and power than any in existence, and yet even he cannot completely escape the European conviction that women were inferior.

What is the nature of Utopian society? Is it an ideal society? If so, is it a society made up of ideal people?

Utopia is the most perfect embodiment of humanist rational ideas. But because it has not received the direct revelation of Jesus Christ, and, furthermore, simply because it exists in the kingdom of Earth rather than the kingdom of Heaven, it cannot be ideal. Utopia, then, is not ideal, but quasi-ideal. It demonstrates that Christian tenets can only truly be the basis of an egalitarian society, and it simultaneously shows that supposedly Christian Europe drastically fails to follow these tenets in the formulation of its own political processes.

It would be incorrect to assume, however, that Utopia is as close to ideal as it is because its inhabitants are ideal. In fact, the opposite is true: Utopia is close to ideal because it assumes that its population is not ideal. Utopia has built its laws to make acting immorally irrational, and then uses its schools to teach its inhabitants how to think rationally. In other words, Utopia operates with the understanding that people act in their own best interests, and then formulates its laws and institutions so that an individual's best interest is also the best interest of the community.

There are many aspects of Utopian life and policy that More describes as absurd. There are some, even, that Hythloday sees as absurd. Discuss the meaning of the absurd in Utopia. Are absurd practices always absurd in the same way? Are some absurd practices simply absurd while others betray deeper significance? Is the sometimes absurdity of Utopia meant to imply that Utopia is ideal or less than ideal? How do the absurdities of Utopia play into Erasmus's notion of Christian Folly? Identify the moments of absurdity in Utopia and analyze them separately and in contrast.

Unlike Plato's Republic, Utopia is not presented to the reader as a blueprint for an ideal state. It is presented as a fiction rather than as a possibility. How does the fictional frame change the way a reader understands the book? How does the fictional frame in Utopia function? What are the consequences of making Utopia fictional? How does it offer protection to Thomas More the author?

Discuss the ways in which the ideal Utopian society resembles some dystopian societies, such as those in ##Brave New World## and ##1984##. What are the differences between Utopia and these dystopias? Consider the different times in which Utopia and the worlds of Brave New World and 1984 were conceived. How do the conceptions and beliefs of a particular time affect their understanding of what is ideal?

Discuss the relationship between the two books of Utopia. Is there a seamless argument between the two, or do Thomas More's sense of things change? Utopia has often been described as a society based entirely on Humanist thought. Does Thomas More stray from Humanism? Are there tensions evident in the text between the humanist Utopia and the commentary in Book 1? Hythloday himself might be described as a Humanist. Is Thomas More in perfect agreement with Hythloday?

2. Queen Elizabeth I: Against the Spanish Armada, 1588 ( From the selected texts on the divine right of kings:

Summary

By the 1580s, Elizabeth had fallen into definite disfavor with Philip II of Spain. Not only was she a Protestant, not only had she refused his marriage proposals years before, she had also sent Leicester to the Netherlands to fight the Spanish in 1585. Moreover, she had covertly supported Sir Francis Drake's attacks on Spanish treasure galleons returning from the New World; in September 1580, Drake had returned from sailing around the world with a cargo of Spanish gold, worth 1.5 million ducats, raided from galleons in the New World. When Elizabeth killed off her Catholic rival Mary Queen of Scots, Philip lost his patience. Personally angered and wanting England for himself, decided in 1587 that the time was ripe for an invasion of England.

Philip was readying the Spanish Armada when Drake led a raid on the armada at Cadiz in April 1587. This attack took the Spanish entirely by surprise, and Drake's maneuver set back the Spanish invasion by about a year. Drake also managed to steal some Spanish treasure in his raid. In July 1588, Philip finally managed to launch the supposedly invincible Spanish Armada. His hope was to swing the fleet by the Netherlands, pick up his army there, and transport them across the English Channel for a ground invasion.

England's competent navy, helped by a fortuitous wind (referred to as the "Protestant Wind"), managed to defeat the Armada, forcing Philip's remaining ships into the North Sea, where they then destroyed much of Spain's remaining military might. On July 28, England defeated Spain in a decisive battle, preventing the Spanish from landing in England. Fleeing north, the Armada was wracked by storms. Of the 30,000 Spanish soldiers Philip had sent to invade, only 10,000 survived.

Meanwhile, Britain's army prepared for battle on land, assuming that the "Invincible" Armada would be able to land Philip's troops. To inspire the troops at Tilbury, Elizabeth made one of the most famous speeches of her career. She said, "I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king... and think foul scorn that any Prince in Europe should dare to invade the borders of my realm." Yet there was no need of land battles, and on November 24, 1588, the nation celebrated a national day of Thanksgiving for its victory over Spain.

Commentary

The conflict with the Spanish Armada represented the height of the long struggle between Protestant England and Catholic Spain. Right up until the attempted invasion by Philip, Elizabeth had continually tried to negotiate her way to peace. In fact, stubbornly believing that peace could be achieved without fighting, she did not attend sufficiently to ready her navy, which, as a result, entered into battle somewhat unprepared. However, the navy had been a priority of Elizabeth's throughout her reign, and when the Armada faced the British ships, they were in for a surprise. England had 34 ships in good condition, and Philip was operating on the egregiously mistaken information that the British ships were rotting hulls. During the war, Elizabeth micro-managed all expenditures, infuriating Walsingham.

Elizabeth had a private arrangement with Sir Francis Drake. She encouraged and partially financed him in his raiding of Spanish treasure ships, and rewarded him handsomely for his exploits. She even promised to disavow any knowledge of his actions were he to be caught. As Elizabeth loved nothing so much as making money, Drake was one of her famed "favorites". When the voyage that returned in 1580 brought a 100% return, doubling Elizabeth's investment, she held a massive feast aboard his ship, the Golden Hind, the following April, knighting him for his service. Drake was ready with an exotically themed gift for the Queen: a frog made of diamonds.

Philip had other reasons for invading England besides his outrage at Drake's exploits, his fellow Catholic's execution, and the multiple injuries to his pride: by an obscure genealogical path, Philip had some minor claim to the English crown himself. Although he should have known better, he harbored the fantasy that the English Catholics were waiting for him to arrive and liberate them. If he had been a better judge of human nature, he would have realized that the English people would never accept their Spanish foe as a ruler. Philip tried to diminish the English people's anger regarding the invasion by claiming that the attack was not aimed against the people, but at the illegitimate Queen. This was a well-calculated move to get the Catholics on his side, but unfortunately for Philip his army never landed.

Philip blamed the weather (the so-called "Protestant Wind") for his loss, and excused himself with the statement, "I sent the Armada against men, not God's winds and waves." But the weather alone did not bring the English their victory: the English vessels outmaneuvered and outfought the Armada. They won several decisive battles with a naval technique called "broadsiding" that they had newly begun to perfect: this technique involved facing the enemy with the port (left-hand) or starboard (right-hand) side of a ship, rather than facing them head-on; this brought a higher number of guns into action at any one time. Furthermore, popular legend has it that the English ships were smaller than the Spanish, and because of this the ships were more maneuverable. Whether or not they were actually smaller is still debated; however, they were more maneuverable: the English ships were designed lower to the water

than the tall galleons, which were meant to be intimidating but which ultimately presented large targets towering out of the waves.

Even as England faced invasion from Catholic Spain's Armada, the large number of Catholics in England remained loyal to Elizabeth. After leading England through 30 years of prosperity, she enjoyed popularity even among her religious opponents.

3. The Farewell Speech, 1601

The speech, which Elizabeth I gave in the Palace of Whitehall on November 30th, 1601, was know at once, and ever afterwards, as Queen Elizabeth's Golden Speech. On November 30th the Speaker and 140 members of the Commons crowded into the council chamber at the palace and kneeled respectfully. The Queen was a highly accomplished speaker and she welcomed them in ravishing Elizabethan English .Telling them all to stand, she proceeded to a magnificent peroration. Everyone knew that she was speaking to them almost certainly for the last time, and she knew they knew, and asked every one of them to kiss her hand before they left. The members went out transfigured, many of them in tears. No one who heard the oration ever forgot it and it was known at once and ever afterwards as Queen Elizabeth’s Golden Speech.

Norman Davis- The Isles

Norman Davis -Ivor Norman Richard Davies (born 8 June 1939) is a British-Polish historian noted for his publications on the history of Europe, Poland and the United Kingdom. He is widely regarded as one of the preeminent historians of Central and Eastern European history. Davies was born to Richard and Elizabeth Davies in Bolton, Lancashire. He is of Welsh descent. He studied in Grenoble, France, from 1957 to 1958 and then under A. J. P. Taylor at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he earned a BA in History in 1962. Davies' first book, White Eagle, Red Star: The Polish-Soviet War, 1919–20 was published in 1972. His 1981 book God's Playground, a comprehensive overview of Polish history, was published officially in Poland only after the fall of communism. In 1984, Davies published Heart of Europe, a briefer history of Poland, in which the chapters are arranged in reverse chronological order.

In the 1990s, Davies published Europe: A History (1996) and The Isles: A History (1999), about Europe and the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, respectively. Each book is a narrative interlarded with numerous sidepanel discussions of microtopics.

The Isles: A History is a narrative history book by Norman Davies. The Isles is a puzzle of a book - more to be explained, perhaps, by the politics of publishing than by its actual programme.

The introduction:

Dute to England's Protestants who established cultural monopoly no one could publish any reviews on the causes and effect of Reformation prior to 1829. English Catholics were able to do it only if they lived somehwere abroad (safety). If they, however, wrote anything like that then it wasn't able for people to read that. So, as a result, the first Catholic histories were written by foreigners and the first major Catholic-inspired History of England didn't appear in its eight volume edition until 1819. Its author was Father John Lingard (1771-1851)- he was the son of a recusant family from Winchester, who had been sent abroad to study at the English Jesuit College at Douai (explain Jesuit order). He as a mild-tempered scholard who spent much time examining original documents in Continental Libraries. After his return to England, he passed most of his career working quietly in the village of Hornby in Lancashire. Due to his religious, his works were mostly ignored by a British Establishment which effectively excluded Lingard from the historical roll of honour. Its main achievemnt, in abridged form, was to provide the standard history textbook for English Catholic schools in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, he didn't enter in Encyclopedia Britannica (1999).

His narrative starts with Roman times to 1688. But beside the A-S period in which he expreses specialist expertise, the core of the work is concentrated on the Tudor age.His opinions are extremely interesting because he often relies on telling and well-substantiated detalis whih open up new vistas of interpretation. Despite his religious views, which are Catholic, he's not one-sided and he dares to show the truth and serve out the facts of which even Protestans were afraid. e.g. in description of Hundred Year's War he follows each of the political and military twists of the conflict and therefore he omits the nationalist rhetoric that had been standard since Shakespeare's day and he doesn't hesitate to cricize English conduct.

Moreover, he (Lingard) talks about the absurdity of the consequences derived from the Reformation. (British coins, Papal title etc.)His review on Queen Mary's reign and the persecution of Protestants is written without reservation. He called it 'the foulest blot'. *foulest changed to worst by the editors of the second abridgement).

Page 437.

Religious prosecution was almost an universal phenomenon in sixteenth century. Perscution of catholics-protestants-cahtolic lutherans-calvinists-non-confrimists like everyone else. Everyone-women suspected of witchcraft.

This description leads to the conclusion that England could hardly escape from the religion wars in that period. However, it was a period of religious intolerance and it became aprt of the public law which shows that any predominant doctrine in certain period had to be hihgly accepted and respected as the only true religion and if anyone tried to dissenter from it was subjected to civil restriction and therefore that led him to imprionment and death. Lingard was even brave enough to criticize the Elizabeth and her prosecutions of Catholics and Puritans. When he came to the period of Tudors he faced some doubts, for example, in case of Henry VIII but he escaped that comparing the young Henry and the older Henry, as two periods

when in the period of young Henry people had more freedom and even Henry was more tolerate himself, and by the period of older Henry the country faced some chaotic and confusing times. With regard to Elizabeth, he described her by pointing out her political and victories with the importance of nation and state generally and by describing her as unchaste, irritable, vain, overbearing, bloodthirsty woman. He focused on her famous victory over the Spanish Armada.

Lingard even excercised restraing regarding the fate of the Catholic martyrs which subsequent Catholic writers did not. Others were incensed by the English public's refusal to judge Catholic and Protestant suffering by the same standards and by the persistent idea that saintly men like Edmung Campion had been executed for their politics.

Generally, Lingard's achievemnt was colossal. He succeeded in writing a ten or twelve volume survey of the whole of English History and has seen his work run into several editions. He produced an independent, unconventional interpertation.

On the other side, Norman Davis writes about Protestant writers of English History. Since, English Catholics were free to write the history from their point of view, Protestants started writing more as a reaction than a need. The leading Protestant writers were- - James Anthony Froude (1818-94) – History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the defeat of the Spanish Armada (1856-70). Written in dramatic style. His theory held that the British Empire of his own day had grown from the policies of Henry VIII.

-C.R.L. Fletcher (1857-1934)- Fellow of Magdalen college, Oxford and co-author with Rudyard Kipling of an influential turn-of-the-century history. Both of them left their readers in no doubt. Fletcher's text is prime example of vulgar Protestant mode. He focuses namely on the period of the Reformation as he sees it as the most important period of the English history. According to him, Henry VIII wasn't bad at all. Elizabeth I is beyond criticism, he celebrates her victory over the Armada.

-George Gordon Coulton (1858-1947)- professor of Medieval History at Cambridge. He denounced the evils of Papal Infallibility, the English Catholic hierarchy and Catholic doctrine in general. According to him, the 'Break with Rome' had damaging consequences far beyond the political and religious spheres. It cut England off from the cultural and intellectual community to which she had belonged for nearly a thousand years and it forced her to develop along isolated, eccentric lines. In fact, England's cultural isolation dates not from 1066 but from 1534. In the era of More and Erasmus, they reached their peak. They were severed by a self-inflicted injury.

Divine rights of King from

4. The Dutie of a King in His Royal Office - Sir Walter Ralegh 1599

The theme of this reading is absolutism and revolves around the king having absolute power. The reading suggests that a king is a god, a father, and the head. The reading suggest that kings are referred to as gods by God and have God-like attributes. Kings can create or destroy, give life or send death, judge all yet not be judged, to raise things high or make them low, and to require love of the soul and the work of the body. The reading claims the king is a father as the king can give his inheritance out if he wishes, or disinherit the ones expected to receive the inheritance and prefer another. A father can make his children rich or make them beggars. A father can be near to his children or far from them. A father can forgive or cast away. Finally the reading suggest the king is like the head of a physical body in that the head directs all the members of the body and uses judgement.

Kings never had complete power because the laws did not permit the kings to have such absolute power. Even during the seventeenth century when the monarch power was "absolute" it was still limited because other politicians and high class men were still involved in political matters. Kings could not afford to lose the support of these men. What is really meant by absolute power is that the king has the highest legislative power in the kingdom. Kings were viewed as above the law, but they were still expected to observe peoples' rights and the moral law of God in their actions.

The very first sentence stands out to me: "The state of the manarchie is the supremest thing upon the earth; for kings are not only Gods lieutenants upon earth, and sit upon God's throne, but even by God himself they are called gods." I would like to see what scripture they were referring to here. The second commandment is to have no other gods before me. God did not want Israel to have a king; God wanted to be their only king. However, the people demanded to have a king so He gave them Saul, but God warned them all the king would do that would be oppressive. God always says to respect authorities and recognize that God is in control of those in power, but it doesn't sound like God to refer to any man as a "god".

Sir Walter Raleigh (circa 1554 – 29 October 1618) was an English landed gentleman, writer, poet, soldier, politician, courtier, spy, and explorer. He is also well known for popularising tobacco in England. Raleigh was born to a Protestant family in DevonHe rose rapidly in the favour of Queen Elizabeth I and was knighted in 1585. Raleigh was instrumental in the English colonisation of North America and was granted a royal patent to explore Virginia, which paved the way for future English settlements. In 1591, he secretly married Elizabeth Throckmorton, one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting, without the Queen's permission, for which he and his wife were sent to the Tower of London. After his release, they retired to his estate at Sherborne, Dorset. After Queen Elizabeth died in 1603, Raleigh was again imprisoned in the Tower, this time for being involved in the Main Plot against King James I, who was not favourably disposed toward him. In 1616, he was released to lead a second expedition in search of El Dorado. This was unsuccessful, and men under his command ransacked a Spanish outpost. He returned to England and, to appease the Spanish, was arrested and executed in 1618.

5.King Charles I's Speech at his Trial – January 1649

In London, King Charles I is beheaded for treason on January 30, 1649.About speech:

Charles had exposed the court’s shaky foundations, arguing that it had no right in established law to bring him to trial, and saying that it was not possible for a King to commit treason against his own people.  As he pointed out, he was not even being made to answer to Parliament; but was being tried before an illegal, ad hoc assembly of dubious commissioners, only 67 of which had had the courage to turn up.

Why was he executed?

Charles' problems revolved around religion and a lack of money. His marriage to the Roman-Catholic French princess Henrietta Maria in 1625 did not please his Protestant subjects and led to suspicions of his motives. In 1637 he totally misgauged the sentiments of his Scottish subjects when he attempted to impose an Anglican form of worship on the predominantly Presbyterian population. Riots escalated to general unrest; forcing Charles to recall Parliament in 1640 in order to acquire the funds necessary to quell the Scottish uprising. This so-called "Short Parliament" refused Charles' financial demands and disbanded after only one month.

By 1647 the Parliamentarians had won the military battle, scattering the Royalist armies and holding Charles in custody at Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight. Their leaders, Cromwell and General Henry Ireton, made a number of attempts to negotiate a new constitutional settlement with Charles but he refused to co-operate with any of them. Indeed Charles, who was by turns awkward, aloof and devious, had no compunction about lying or breaking agreements.

Even from his cell, he secretly negotiated for the Scots to invade the North of England in 1648 but they were brutally crushed by Cromwell’s forces. Faced with this latest act of betrayal, and exasperated with Charles’ attempts at escape – one of which ended with him stuck fast in a window – Cromwell finally lost his patience. Encouraged by Ireton, he resolved to put the King on trial for treason. Charles, the Immovable Object, had clashed head on with the Irresistible Force of Cromwell, and in so doing contributed to the building of his own gallows.

Note * The trial and execution of Charles I was a microcosm of the English Civil War which had preceded it, in that both trial and war hinged on whether the King should be accountable for his actions to his people. The war had been bitterly fought since 1642 between the Royalist supporters of Charles I and the Parliamentarians led by Oliver Cromwell and had claimed an estimated 185,000 lives.

The Royalists defended the ‘divine right’ of the King to rule unfettered by Parliament, and to account for his actions ‘but to God alone’. By contrast, the Parliamentarians sought to limit the King’s powers by requiring him to obtain the consent of the House of Commons: what we now recognise to be a constitutional monarchy. Many of them, including Cromwell, were

devout Protestants who believed that God was on their side. *

After a very short pause, his Majesty stretching forth his hands, the, executioner at one blow severed his head from his body; which, being held up and showed to the people, was with his body put into a coffin covered with black velvet and carried into his lodging.

His blood was taken up by divers persons for different ends: by some as trophies of their villainy; by others as relics of a martyr; and in some hath had the same effect, by the blessing of God, which was often found in his sacred touch when living."

6. The Declaration of Breda

The Declaration of Breda is a manifesto (a written proclamation) issued by the exiled king Charles II in April of 1660 and it was named after the town of Breda in Holland which was the king's residence during the latter part of his exile.

Copies of the Declaration were sent together with separate cover letters to the House of Lords, the House of Commons, the Army, the Navy and the City of London, and variously dated as either the 4th or the 14th April.

The document was composed by Charles II and his three principal advisors - Edward Hyde, Edward Nicholas and James Butler.

• In The Declaration of Breda, Charles II detailed his proposal to recover the throne once held by his father and:

1. promised his people a general pardon in respect of the various offences committed during the period of the Civil Wars and the Commonwealth and Protectorate;

2. expressed a desire for liberty of conscience in religion: "we do declare a liberty to tender consciences, and that no man shall be disquieted or called in question for differences of opinion in matter of religion, which do not disturb the peace of the kingdom“;

3. promised an equitable settlement in respect of any land disputes which had arisen which would "be determined in Parliament, which can best provide for the just satisfaction of all men who are concerned“;

4. promised a “full satisfaction of all arrears due to the officers and soldiers of the army under the command of General Monk“.

7. English Bill of Rights (1689)

The Bill of Rights is an Act of the Parliament passed on December 16, 1689 declaring the rights and liberties of the subject and settling the succession of the crown.

It is a a restatement in statutory form of the Declaration of Right presented by the Convention Parliament to William and Mary in February 1689, inviting them to become joint sovereigns of England.

The act deals with constitutional matters and sets out certain basic civil rights. It lays down limits on the powers of the monarch and sets out the rights of Parliament, including the requirement for regular parliaments, free elections, and freedom of speech in Parliament. It states that no taxes could be levied, without the authority of Parliament. It sets out certain rights of individuals including the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment and reestablished the liberty of Protestants to have arms for their defence within the rule of law. Furthermore, the Bill of Rights described and condemned several misdeeds of James II of England.

English Bill of Rights ended ‘Divine right of Kings’ – it established a constitutional monarchy is which the King or Queen has a ceremonial position.

8. The Act of Settlement (1701)

• An act of Parliament that since June 12, 1701 has regulated the succession to the throne of Great Britain:

• It declared that the crown was to pass to Sophia, electress of Hanover and granddaughter of James I, and to “the heirs of her body being Protestants.” The act was thus responsible for the accession of Sophia’s son George I in 1714.

• In addition to settling the crown, the act contained some important constitutional provisions:

1. All future monarchs must join in communion with the Church of England;2. If a future monarch is not a native of England, England is not obliged to engage in any

war for the defense of territories (e.g.,Hanover) not belonging to the crown of England;

3. Judges were to hold office during good behaviour rather than at the sovereign’s pleasure, though they are subject to impeachment by both houses of Parliament;

4. Impeachments by the House of Commons are not subject to pardon under the Great Seal of England (i.e., by the sovereign)

9. Individualism and Laisser-Faire

Adam Smith, (baptized June 5, 1723, Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland—died July 17, 1790, Edinburgh) Scottish social philosopher and political economist. After two centuries, Adam Smith remains a towering figure in the history of economic thought. Known primarily for a single work—An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), the first comprehensive system of political economy—Smith is more properly regarded as a social philosopher whose economic writings constitute only the capstone to an overarching view of political and social evolution. If his masterwork is viewed in relation to his earlier lectures on moral philosophy and government, as well as to allusions in The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) to a work he hoped to write on “the general principles of law and government, and of the different revolutions they have undergone in the different ages and periods of society,” then The Wealth of Nations may be seen not merely as a treatise on economics but also as a partial exposition of a much larger scheme of historical evolution.

Many believed at that time that wealth was land, precious metals and gems. Adam Smith proposed a new and broader view of wealth. He saw wealth in the great variety of goods that people traded and consumed. Smith viewed gold and silver as not having an absolute value. Instead there were commodities whose value rose and fell with supply and demand. Smith held that it is not the possession of gold and silver or other items of wealth that creates a nation's economic power; it is the production of what people want and can use.Smith had not been one to let religious attitude restrict his thinking. He believed that more wealth to common people would benefit a nation's economy and society as a whole.

In The Wealth of Nations, Smith described a self-regulating market. It was self-regulating because people produced according to what people would buy and people consumed according to what they wanted and could afford. Freedom to trade was part of the self-regulating market – a freedom believed in by some Frenchmen in the 1700s using the phrase laissez faire.

Competition was a part of the self-regulating market. If a grocer charged too much, people could go farther down the street and buy from someone trying to attract more customers by selling at a lower price. Smith was opposed to business people joining together to stifle competition and maintain higher prices. He favored government intervention to prevent this, to prevent various dishonest practices and to promote matters that benefited society. Smith saw competition in the market place as better discipline than poverty. Competition he saw as creating incentives for efficiency.

And Smith saw greater efficiency in labor specialization. Greater productivity, he believed, created greater wealth for society as a whole.

10. The position of women miners in the English Coal Pitswomen, children and men working in the coal mines in England. It had mentioned that girls would be dressing as men and doing work as men would do in the coal mines. Even little girls who were dressed as little boys that you had a hard time telling them a part. The working conditions were very harsh for both the women, men and children. Women were treated worst then men at times, the coal mines had work that was distributed to all of them and it

had been put into danger situations. The coal mines seemed like that they were not supervised to the safety of the employees. Women working in the mines had the almost the same jobs as men carried,but some struggled because they were not as strong as the men in the mines.

In the 1800's was the time when conflicts began with the industrialization along with the rights of women. There were several views about woman, one was that they were considered to be the weaker sex, and to be treated like delicate creatures. The request or demands that there should be done for them. There were several different opinions about how woman are to be treated and that they have little power. With the factories coming in to production they were being formed by Arkwright and with the development of the steam engine was known as Watt. While more and more production was happening the coal mines were coming in to the revolution. They had children working in the mines that were called trappers which were young children for assistance, they would sit underground opening and shutting the doors that went across the mine. Since in the coal mines had a very high risk of explosive, Sir. Humphrey Davy invented a safety lamp in 1815, that was told to miners that if they went underground they would have to take this lamp with to see their way through the mines. Even though this was a way to help them through the mines they still were unsafe on so many levels. When woman began to work during this time, in 1910 they were starting to to make up almost one third of the workplace.Works they did: filling, trapping, hurrying( yorkshire terms for drawing the loaded coal corves), riddling, tipping.

11. The coming of blight- The Real Potato Blight of Ireland

Potato blight- a destructive fungal disease of potatoes resulting in dry brown rot of the tubers.

Introduction of potato in Ireland and its usage

The potato was introduced to Ireland during the colonial settlements of the late 16th and early 17th century. In that time ( which was period of James I, of Oliver Cromwell and of William III ), the coniditons of life were very bad and potato became the prinicipal food of the poor. In 1662 the potato had kept thousands alive at a time of general famine. By the 1840 it was the staple food of the majority of the population and accounted for just over two million statute acres (800 000 ha). The potato is also rich in Vitamin C and was healthy so many diseases were very rare because of its usage. It was hard to transport. In northern counties people ate fish- herring and other kinds of fish were transferred for sale to urban markets.

The beginning of the disease

The beginning of the famine was founded in the USA, in the summer of 1843 and it was called phytophtora infestans- the fungus which invades the potato plant and causes its rapid decay. Then, the invisible fungus spores were transported to Belgium in a cargo of apparently healthy potatoes and in the summer of 1845 the fungus revived and reproduced, devasting the potato crop in Flanders, Normandy, Holland and southern England.

By 20 August, blight was recorded at the Dublin Botanical Gardens by Dr. David Moore. A week later, a total failure of the crop was reported from County Fermanagh. The blight destroyed healthy potatoes which were harvested in August.In November, half the crophad been destroyed by the mysterious potato disease.

When the winter came, people thought that disease had gone and they starved themselves in order to save the potatoes for the following year's crop. But by the following February new potatoes, displayed at the London Royal Horticultural Society showed signs of blackening decay. CAUSES:One of the main causes was continual rain.People had different theories on its cause. Some of them thought it was work of a supernatural influence; or as a work of evil spirits or God's curse on Ireland following the Catholic Emancipation Act or even the Government's support of the establishment of a seminary at maynooth. Others blamed it on the use of guano fertiliser or regarded the blight as a lesson to the Irish poor against overbreeding or reliance on the lazy man's crop , the potato. Although, the government decided that the disease was a result of the wet weather which had rotted the plants.People used different means in order to get rid of the disease such as bluestone, copper sulphate. The French government said that the main cause was peronospora ( parasite) which had a beneficial effect on diseased potatoes planted nearby. According to that, they made a Bordeaux mixture (bluestone and lime) which was sprayed on to the plant to kill the spores. However, Irealnd didn't use that until the close of the nineteenth century by which time pyhtophtora infestans had destroyed the crop again in 1862 and 1880.

Land clearance and emigration: dispossesion and exile.

All of this caused different problems. The pressures of an expanding population, overcrowding and the competetion for land had led to a constant stream of emigrants from Ireland during the late 18th and early 19th c. Emigration increased when the end of the Napoleonic Wars brought enonomic crisis and food shortages throughout Europe.

EmgrationsBetween 1815 and 1845 one and half a million people left Ireland for North America.Between 1845 and 1850 another one and half millon emigrated which is almost one-fifth of Ireland's pre-Famine population. It all produced the chaos and made it as the largest single population movement of the nineteenth century. In the 1847, 230 000 sailed to North America and Australia. 40 000 died at sea or in Canadian quarantine stations.

In the first half of 1847 between one-tenth and one-fifth of the population of certain parishes left for North America.

Often and chaotic emigrations led to reducing the number of passengers per tonnage of

ships and by which the cost of passage to the USA had increased. After which it was decided to send the emigrants on the less expensive passage such as Canada.

The Poor Law Extension Act- made landlords responsible for the maintenance of their own poor and by which they had to clear their estates by paying for the emigration of their poorer tenants. For some of them this was a chance to redivide their land into larger house holdings but for others it claimed necessity and humanitarian motives.

Another problem occured- between the landowners and tenants because some of them didn't want to pay them and they tried to make a compensation. They'd give 5-12 pounds for their crops and livestock. They'd be given money towards the fare or a sea-store consisting of tea, coffee, sugar, rice, oatmeal, dried fish and vinegar. A lot of people lost their lives during the passage to their destinations. Such as the arrival of Virginius- out of 496 passengers, 158 had lost by death, 180 sick etc.It has been calculated that five and a half thousand Irish emigrants died on Grosse Ile that summer.

Moreover, many middlemen had accumulated huge rent arrears and were evicted from their holdings along with their undertenants. They didn't have money to pay for their rent. The areas of the country where evictions took place during the Famine: Tipperary, Limerick, Clare, Leitrim and Roscommon. e.g. when a tenant fell into arrears, a warrant was issued by sheriff and cattle, crops and other property was seized. A Bill of Ejectment- was introduced and it compelled the tenant to surrender his or her holding and cabin. Frequently, tenants were turned out by force, with help of the militia and the house was often demolished in their abscence.

To conclude: In 1846- 4 600 ejectemnt were brought in urban and rural properties. In 1849- 16 686 families were evicted. In the 1859 19 949.

A token compensation was occasionally given to the evicted tenants- a small amount of money, a forgiving of arrears, sometimes the right to keep the crops and livestock. It usually granted the right to keep the thatch and timbers of the destroyed cabin so they could build it up again.

Waste ground- scailpin : holes in banks of earth- scalip

News sought to raise public sympathy by showing the homeless as passive, dazed and helpless. It has negative effect of reinforcing the existing stereotypes of the Irisih poor. They were deprived of their only homes.

12. On the Meaning of Britishness- it's time, says John Tyndall, that we knew precisely who we are.

Johny Tyndall –as British National socialist. As a prominent figure in British nationalism in the second-half of the twentieth century, Tyndall was involved during the 1960s with neo-Nazi movements, most notably being the deputy leader of the openly neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement under Colin Jordan.[1] However, he is best known for leading the National Front (NF) in the 1970s and founding the contemporary British National Party (BNP) in 1982.John Tyndall was born in Exeter in Devon, England, on 14 July 1934. The son of the warden of St George's House, a YMCA hostel at Southwark, he grew up in London. He was related to the early English translator of the Bible, William Tyndale, his ancestors having moved to County Waterford in Ireland in the 16th century as land owners to assist in controlling the native Irish population on behalf of the monarch.[2]

In his essay he discusses the meaning of Britishness, he defines who they are and where they're coming from and what gives them their identity. * inidgenous people, Northeuropean people, white people and of British Race*They're not mixture of races.No hate, no racism.He want's his his people to remain as they are, to have basic instinct of self-presevation which is the right of every people, nation, tribe, best, fish to survive with its unique identity maintained intact.

Their achievement

What does it mean to be British?British are a race of truly remarkable accomplishments which are equal to any othery and greater than most.They played the main role in the discovery of America. Others achievements such as:* „ the founding of great states, the establishment of advanced civilisations, the taming of wilderness, the prudent adminisitration of regions larger than Europe itself, the building of railways, bridges, dams, cities and a host of other amentities which enormously enhanced the lives of those living in or by them „ *

Also: * the military and naval actions fought which acquire and defend their enormous state.Battles at Rorke's Drift, a barely hundred British troops in seeing off an attack by thousands of Zulus or just a few regiments in sustaining British rule over hundreds of millions in former India. ** other qualities which they do not talk about it but their deeds speak instead of them*

Other contributions

Contributions to technology, science, medicine to human inventiveness, development of modern industry, culture and arts- with literature and theatre in the forefront. They are possibly equal to Germans only. He also claims the Americans have english and german blood.

A sense of specialness- is seen as a part of the essential survival mechanism of races and nationalities, particulary those perceiving themselves to be under threat.

Debatable attributes

He has excluded them because what constitutes them is highly debatable and has shift of perspectives, depends on the way one looks at history. Abstractions such as *tolerance, fair play.*

What does being British mean to them?

*It means being an heir to a great and glorious national heritage which has an immense achievement in almost all human activitiy, which has no rivals and certainly not among the people who had settled in their country and claim it as their own. *They have those special characteristics such as reticence, good manners and most of them are loath when speaking to other races to talk up their own virtues by comparison with theirs.

13. The discovery of the large, rich and beautiful Empire of Guiana- Sir Walter Ralech

Sir Walter Ralegh was born in 1552. He was educated at Oxford. Throughout his life Ralegh held many different jobs. He was a soldier, sailor, writer, scientist, and a distinguished figure in his society. Ralegh gained attraction from Queen Elizabeth while on military duty in Ireland. In 1594 Sir Walter Ralegh set out on a voyage to South America in search of treasure and new land, which is what he writes about in his narrative The discovery of the large, rich, and beautiful Empire of Guiana.

The main subject of Ralegh’s narrative is the land of the Empire of Guiana and what there is to offer.A religious man, Ralegh, wrote about Guiana as if it were very pure. “Guiana is a country that hath yet her maidenhead, never sacked turned, nor wrought, the face of the earth hath not been opened for gold, the mines not broken with sledges, nor their images pulled down out of their temples” (Ralegh, 925). He wrote about Guiana as if it had never been touched and was no man’s land.

He explored the world in search of gold, but, enjoyed his visits to Guiana above all other places. He had a fascination for Guiana and believed that someone needed to conquer it. Ralegh wrote, “For whatsoever prince shall possess it shall be greatest, and if the King of Spain enjoy it, he will become irresistible” (Ralegh 936). He knew it needed to be someone who possessed a lot of talent and skill, someone who could command an army and navigate well.Raleigh’s next performance was a much more elaborate one. In 1596 (December 1595) he published The Discovery of Guiana, a record of the author’s romantic expedition to El Dorado, and the great

and golden city of Manoa. This was a work of high importance in the development of English prose, the most brilliant and original contribution to the literature of travel which had been made during the reign of Elizabeth, rich as that had been in work of the same class. Hume, who spurned the Discovery from him as “full of the grossest and most palpable lies,” showed an eighteenth-century blindness to the truth which lay under the magnificent diction of Raleigh’s narrative, but it is strange that the conduct of that narrative itself could win no word of praise from such a critic. The story of the advance upon South America, the curious little prologue in Trinidad, the romantic voyage to the Orinoco, the gorgeous denizens of the river-banks, the dreary and mysterious country into which the bewildered explorers penetrated, all these are described in language the peculiar charm of which is its simplicity, laced or embroidered at successive moments by phrases of extreme magnificence. We are not dazzled and wearied by the cumulative richness of diction, as is the case in those tracts of the Euphuists which were at this very time being produced, but the sobriety of the general texture justly relieves the occasional splendour of embroidery. It would not be uninstructive to compare a page of The Discovery of Guiana with one from another famous South American volume of the same year, 1596, the Margarite of America of Lodge. The studied mellifluous harmony of the latter seems very fine, until we are sated with its sumptuousness; but Raleigh’s stronger and simpler narrative gives the ear a far more lasting pleasure. It is remarkable that the publication of the Discovery is almost exactly coeval with the first appearance of Hooker and of Bacon. In company with these great writers, Raleigh comes forward as a defender of lucid and wholesome prose, against the captivating malady of the Euphuists.

14. A Brief and True Report of the Newfound Land of Virginia- Thomas Hariot

Thomas Harriot, also spelled Hariot (born 1560, Oxford, Eng.—died July 2, 1621, London) mathematician, astronomer, and investigator of the natural world.Little is known of him before he received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Oxford in 1580. Throughout his working life, he was supported by the patronage, at different times, of Sir Walter Raleigh and Henry Percy, the 9th earl of Northumberland; he was never, after his student years, affiliated with an academic institution or commercial organization. From 1585 to 1586 he participated in Raleigh’s colony on Roanoke Island, and he may have visited Virginia as early as 1584; upon his return, he published A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (1588). This was his only work published during his lifetime. Very soon after the Virginia sojourn, Harriot was living on and surveying Raleigh’s estates in Ireland. In particular, he performed experiments in ballistics and the refraction of light. He was one of the first, if not the first, to consider the imaginary roots of equations. Much of his earliest as well as latest mathematical work bore on questions of navigation, including such issues as the construction of rhumb lines (or loxodromes) on sailing charts. He also devised a novel form of cross-staff, an early navigational instrument. Although, after his early voyages, he pursued a life of research, it was not a life free of turmoil, since his principal patron, Raleigh, was imprisoned in 1603 in the Tower of London on orders of King James I of England. Harriot witnessed Raleigh’s execution in 1618. In the turmoil following the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605, Harriot was arrested upon suspicion of having cast the king’s horoscope, though he was soon released. (Percy, as a co-conspirator in the plot, joined Raleigh in the Tower of London.) From the early 1590s, Harriot had developed a reputation for atheism and was referred to rather obliquely as a conjurer by Raleigh’s enemies. However, there is nothing in Harriot’s writings or those of his friends to substantiate any non-Christian beliefs; the accusations may merely reflect his likely belief in atomism, which at the time was considered by some to obviate the

necessity for the existence of God. During his lifetime Harriot was known in England among the philosophically inclined, and his reputation extended to the continent to the extent that the astronomer Johannes Kepler initiated a correspondence with him.

He made only one expedition, around 1585-86, and spent some time in the New World visiting Roanoke Island off the coast of North Carolina, expanding his knowledge by improving his understanding of the Carolina Algonquian language. As the only Englishman who had learned Algonkin prior to the voyage, Harriot was vital to the success of the expedition.[6]

His account of the voyage, named A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, was published in 1588 (probably written a year before). The True Report contains an early account of the Native American population encountered by the expedition; it proved very influential upon later English explorers and colonists. He wrote: "Whereby it may be hoped, if means of good government be used, that they may in short time be brought to civility and the embracing of true religion." At the same time, his views of Native Americans' industry and capacity to learn were later largely ignored in favour of the parts of the "True Report" about extractable minerals and resources.

15. Of Plantations- Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon BiographyScientist, Lawyer (1561–1626)Francis Bacon was born on January 22, 1561 in London, England. Bacon served as attorney general and Lord Chancellor of England, resigning amid charges of corruption. His more valuable work was philosophical. Bacon took up Aristotelian ideas, arguing for an empirical, inductive approach, known as the scientific method, which is the foundation of modern scientific inquiry.

Published in 1625 as part of a collection of 58 essays, “Of Plantations” is part of Francis Bacon’s Essays. Originally published in English, the collection was later translated into Latin as well. Though the essay as a genre was very much a new form of literature in Bacon’s time, they gained popularity because they covered a wide range of topics that were relatable to the reader through straightforward language and observations. Bacon published his Essays three different times (1597, ten essays; 1612, thirty-eight essays; and 1625, fifty-eight essays), each edition containing revised versions of the previously published essays as well as new ones. It was not until the last edition was published in 1625 that “Of Plantations” was included.Bacon has been called the father of empiricism.[6] His works argued for the possibility of scientific knowledge based only upon inductive and careful observation of events in nature. Most importantly, he argued this could be achieved by use of a skeptical and methodical approach whereby scientists aim to avoid misleading themselves. While his own practical ideas about such a method, the Baconian method, did not have a long lasting influence, the general idea of the importance and possibility of a skeptical methodology makes Bacon the father of scientific method. This marked a new turn in the rhetorical and theoretical framework for science, the practical details of which are still central in debates about science and methodology today.

Bacon was generally neglected at court by Queen Elizabeth, but after the ascension of King James I in 1603, Bacon was knighted. He was later created Baron Verulam in 1618[4] and Viscount St. Alban in 1621.[3][b] Because he had no heirs, both titles became extinct upon his death in 1626, at 65 years of age. Bacon died of pneumonia, with one account by John Aubrey stating that he had contracted the condition while studying the effects of freezing on the preservation of meat.

Bacon’s Essays were praised by his contemporaries for both their style and content. He wrote about things that were important not only to his life, but to people in general. His Essays were simply titled and discussed ideas that everyday men could relate to. (This applies to “Of Plantations” in that there was an ever-increasing interest in Bacon’s time of colonizing America and establishing plantations.) “Of Plantations” was significant during the time period in which it was published because it illustrates the interest in English colonization in America. One of the main reasons for the English settlements in the New World, particularly the first in Jamestown (beginning in 1607), was to profit off of the land. However, only several years after they arrived, both famine and drought had taken its toll on the settlers. Without sufficient knowledge about how to plant and cultivate and only livestock to eat, many of them starved to death. They needed to learn how to survive by utilizing the land, therefore creating plantations. But plantations were not just about food. They were about the settlers’ interest in and need to establish a strong foundation of community. Overall, this essay exemplifies what the colonists were striving for, which was a successful start in the New World.

17. The New Atalntis- Francis Bacon (Solomon's House)

An unidentified narrator, who is a member of a crew of 150 men sailing to China and Japan from Peru, records the events that transpire when their ship is blown off course. After some months at sea, they arrive at the port of a large island in an uncharted part of the South Sea.

Salomon's House (or Solomon's House) is a fictional institution in Sir Francis Bacon's utopian work New Atlantis, published in English in 1627, the year after Bacon's death. In this work, he portrayed a vision of the future of human discovery and knowledge. The plan and organization of his ideal college envisioned the modern research university in both applied and pure science.

Bacon stresses the importance of ‘light’ as the precursor of ‘fruit’ to suggest that they are following the divine instrument. There are two images used by Bacon to refer to knowledge, torture and light. The torture refers to the violent twisting of nature’s secrets. Nature must be conquered but is not adverse to the conquest. The forces of Nature are against us, but in a rather passive manner. Light, on the other hand, is the meaning for natural philosophy. From Salomon’s house there go forth ‘merchants of light’ and ‘lamps’. Light is identified with truth. Supposing that light is symbolic of natural philosophy, then it dismisses the case of light being divine philosophy. The light in Bacon is primarily the light of Nature. The obvious contrast here is one between “gold and silver and light” (Bacon, 437). Light, here is noble where gold and silver are base. The ‘noble light’ is for the beneficence of all man. Bcaon took the modern spirit and weaved them together so as to suggest a method by which man could master the universe. He did this to the end that he might exhibit therein a model or description of a college instituted for the interpreting of nature and the producing of great works for the benefit of man.

The society of the NEW ATLANTIS is a scientific society. It is dominated by scientists and guided by

science. Science conquers chance and determines change thus creating a regime permanently pleasant. Bensalem, meaning “perfect son” in Hebrew, has shunned the misfortunes of time, vice and decay. Bensalem seems to combine the blessedness of Jerusalem and the pleasures and conveniences of Babylon. In Bacon’s NEW ATLANTIS, the need for man to be driven does not exist. Scarcity is eliminated thereby eliminating the need for money.In Bacon’s NEW ATLANTIS, religion plays an important role. However, it is a role of cover-up. It covers up the true idea that Bacon is trying to get across – science as the new civil religion. Although he relegated religion into a realm of its own outside of and different from philosophy, he held that there were religious laws that man must obey whether or not they appeared reasonable. By freeing theology and philosophy, Bacon was able to shape philosophy so that it might undertake an unbiased study of the universe. This left man subject to the will of God and thereby shorn of his freedom. It is obvious that this creation could not long satisfy the thinking mind as it was far too contradictory. The laymen have a genuine thirst for knowledge yet they cannot know what is uncovered either by religion or by science.

18. England's Mission – William Ewart Gladstone September 1878

William Ewart Gladstone; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British Liberal politician. In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four separate times (1868–74, 1880–85, February–July 1886 and 1892–94), more than any other person, and served as Chancellor of the Exchequer four times. Gladstone was also Britain's oldest Prime Minister; he resigned for the final time when he was 84 years old.Gladstone proposed Irish home rule but this was defeated in the House of Commons in July. The resulting split in the Liberal Party helped keep them out of office, with one short break, for twenty years. In 1892 Gladstone formed his last government at the age of 82. The Second Irish Home Rule Bill passed the Commons but was defeated in the Lords in 1893. Gladstone resigned in March 1894, in opposition to increased naval expenditure. He left Parliament in 1895 and died three years later aged 88.

Gladstone is famous for his oratory, his religiosity, his liberalism, his rivalry with the Conservative Leader Benjamin Disraeli, and for his poor relations with Queen Victoria, who once complained, "He always addresses me as if I were a public meeting."