Grab a #2 Pencil

I've never done anything normal in my entire life.

My last semester of college, I only lacked a few hours for graduation; except for a course a never bothered to take my freshman year, I only had two real classes: one writing-intensive political science class and one history class about Tudor/Stuart England.

The history course was taught be a very hip guy. He grew up in Louisiana and the way he tells the story, he flunked out of LSU his freshman year; apparently, he spent more time in New Orleans than he did on campus. He got serious about academics, graduated from school in a couple of years, then on to Cambridge to study some more. He's since written three books about the Tudor/Stuart period. His passion soon became mine.

I took a couple of different courses from him throughout the years and he later became my advisor. Had I ever been sufficiently studious to deserve one, I guess he would have been my mentor.

This prof would walk in the class each day with only two items: a cup of coffee and the sports page. However, his lectures were encyclopedic. Looking back at my notes, there was so much information that it was impossible to digest it all. I remember him stating the per capita pub ratio of 18th century London; the guy was incredible.

What secured his coolness: whenever a student entered his office, you could always find him listening to the Beatles and smoking a pipe, a habit I guess he acquired from his Cambridge days.
Anyway, my last semester, I had decided to move to Dallas. So I had arranged to take the biology-with-lab at a local junior college and the rest of my classes were independent studies. That's my preferred method of learning anyway. Give me a book and let me teach myself. I'll probably learn more than you could ever teach me, anyway.

For this Tudor/Stuart course, I was given about fifteen magazine articles, books, and other works to read that covered the years of English rule from 1485 to 1603. For the next three months, that's all I read.

The reading assignments that interested me the most were not about belligerent foreign policy, religious factionalism, or disputed lines of succession. They dealt with the bureaucratic functions and financial matters of the Court. As each Tudor ruler came into power, he or she preferred different accounting methods, and different advisors to oversee them. Most accounting methods involved a public recording of "official" financial holdings and another book that told the truth. I imagine many medieval Sarbanes and Oxleys were sent to the gallows for not cooking the books. (There's nothing funnier for polisci/history geeks than juxtaposing modern political movements into ancient eras.)

Well, today is the anniversary of the day Elizabeth ascended to the English throne.

It was en vogue about 7 years ago to learn more about Elizabeth when it was more palatable to imagine her looking more like Cate Blanchett instead of a linebacker for the Iron Curtain.

Hers is actually a rather tragic tale. Her father, Henry VIII (go ahead, start singing the song) declared her illegitimate (since she was the child of Anne Boleyn) once he had a male heir from anther wife (Jane Seymour). Elizabeth was sent off to live in exile and it wasn't until almost ten years later Henry's last wife (Catherine Parr) reconciled daughter and father. Henry died soon thereafter and her brother (Edward VI) claimed the crown according to succession. Elizabeth was allowed to live in the royal household and receive a classic education, eventually learning to speak seven languages; her brother's reign, and Elizabeth's freedom, however, only lasted 6 years. His death left a conflicting line of succession; his will claimed one heir while an act of parliament claimed another, Elizabeth's half-sister Mary (nope, not Mary, Queen of Scots, but Bloody Mary, daughter of Catherine of Aragon). Mary, feeling threatened by her smarter and wiser half-sister, threw Elizabeth in the tower. Mary's only significant act of her six-year reign was reuniting Rome and London, defusing that whole Anglican thing her father created.

Elizabeth's reign, however, offered the longest period of domestic stability and international peace within the 120-year Tudor reign. It was during this time period that Shakespeare and Marlowe wrote their classics, that Drake and Raleigh rules the high seas. Her legacy is seen in the arts. But perhaps it was seeing too many plays or reveling in having an American commonwealth named for her that did her in.

Elizabeth's death in 1603 ended the successful Tudor dynasty; her successor was the son of her bitter enemy, her cousin Mary (yes, Mary, Queen of Scots). King James I parlayed her era of peace into his claim to fame: commissioning the translation of the Bible widely used until the NIV was published.

[For the literary inclined, I suggest reading Richard III and Macbeth. While neither directly deals with the Tudor dynasty, both are useful to understanding the mystique and romance that surround this time period.

Have fun reading; I know I will.