# England 1588

The year the Spanish Armada broke against England, and the arc around it that carried a small Protestant kingdom toward sea power, empire, and the English-speaking modern world. In one reading, the modern world starts here.

*This story part of: State, law, and coercion*

> The break with Rome set England on a Protestant course and against Catholic Spain. Everything that follows runs along that fault line.

## November 1534 — Act of Supremacy creates the Church of England

Parliament declares Henry VIII supreme head of the Church of England, severing it from papal authority. The break founds Anglicanism, driven by the king's annulment dispute as much as by doctrine.

> A Protestant queen on a contested throne, excommunicated by the Pope, made England the standard-bearer of the Reformation and the target of Catholic Europe.

## 1558 — Accession of Elizabeth I

Elizabeth Tudor becomes queen, restoring the Protestant settlement and beginning a 45-year reign that would define an age.

> English seamanship and English piracy against Spanish treasure fleets were the same thing. Drake made England a maritime menace and a fortune for the crown.

## 1577 to 1580 — Drake's circumnavigation of the globe

Francis Drake returns from the second circumnavigation of the world, laden with Spanish plunder; Elizabeth knights him on his own ship.

> With the Catholic claimant gone, Philip II of Spain resolved to invade and restore England to Rome by force. He assembled the greatest fleet Europe had seen.

## 8 February 1587 — Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots

Elizabeth reluctantly signs the death warrant for her Catholic cousin Mary, removing the focus of Catholic plots and giving Philip II his pretext for war.

> This is the hinge. A second-rank Protestant kingdom broke the superpower of the age at sea. English confidence, sea power, and national myth all date from this summer.

## August 1588 — Defeat of the Spanish Armada

The 130-ship Spanish Armada, sent by Philip II to invade England, is scattered by English fireships off Gravelines and wrecked by storms on the voyage home. England survives.

> Freed to look outward, London merchants chartered the company that would, over two centuries, conquer India. Sea power became commercial empire.

## 31 December 1600 — Founding of the English East India Company

Elizabeth I grants a royal charter to the East India Company with a monopoly on English trade east of the Cape of Good Hope. The company later conquers and rules much of India before the Crown takes over in 1858.

> The same outward turn planted England in the Americas. The English-speaking world begins here.

## May 1607 — Founding of Jamestown

English settlers establish Jamestown in Virginia, the first permanent English colony in the Americas.

> A common scripture in a common tongue set the English language and bound the nation. The modern English world had its book.

## 1611 — Publication of the King James Bible

The Authorized Version of the Bible in English is published, shaping the English language and Protestant identity for centuries.