Moreover, the intellectual
awakening of England which had taken place in the time of Henry
VII and Henry VIII now bore fruit in a glorious literary outburst,
which has made the Elizabethan Age the envy and despair of more
recent literary periods.
There were clearly marked causes for this brilliant and patriotic
era. The indiscriminate marriages of Henry VIII had thrown more
than a shadow of doubt upon the legitimacy of every one of his
children. On his death he was succeeded, without serious dispute,
by his only son, Edward VI. Edward did not live to manhood, but
during his short reign his guardians pushed the land far in the
direction of Protestantism. Unfortunately they plundered the
common people cruelly and persecuted, though only in two cases to
the point of burning, both Catholics and the more extreme
Protestants.
The early death of Edward left no male heir to the royal house.
For the first time in English history there were none but women to
claim the crown. Moreover, of these at least four had some show of
right. They were Mary, the Catholic daughter of King Henry's first
wife, and Elizabeth, his Protestant daughter by Anne Boleyn. Or,
if both these were to be considered illegitimate, then came their
cousins, Mary Stuart, descended from one of Henry's sisters, and
Lady Jane Grey, from another.
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