HIST 241   Life & Death-Early Modern Brit

In 1485, Henry Tudor became king of England. A second-rate power in Europe, his kingdom had been torn apart by dynastic struggles and civil war. By 1714, when the last of the Stuart monarchs died, everything had changed. England was now part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, which included Scotland and Wales, and whose king also ruled over the neighboring island of Ireland. The medieval feudal kingship had been replaced by a well-established parliamentary monarchy, with many stops along the way. Britain was now a world power, at the center of a far-flung empire, and competing with France for dominance in Europe and beyond. This course will explore precisely how these monumental changes came about, taking a close look at British history over the long 16th and 17th centuries from a number of different perspectives: political, religious, social, cultural, commercial, and intellectual. (EU)