As the feudal nobility of the island had been engaged in one of
those strange feuds which were as common in the middle ages
as measles and small-pox, and as the greater part of the old
landed proprietors had been killed during these so-called Wars
of the Roses, it was quite easy for the Kings to increase their
royal power. And by the end of the fifteenth century, England
was a strongly centralised country, ruled by Henry VII
of the House of Tudor, whose famous Court of Justice, the
``Star Chamber'' of terrible memory, suppressed all attempts
on the part of the surviving nobles to regain their old influence
upon the government of the country with the utmost severity.
In the year 1509 Henry VII was succeeded by his son
Henry VIII, and from that moment on the history of England
gained a new importance for the country ceased to be a
mediaeval island and became a modern state.
Henry had no deep interest in religion. He gladly used a
private disagreement with the Pope about one of his many
divorces to declare himself independent of Rome and make
the church of England the first of those ``nationalistic churches''
in which the worldly ruler also acts as the spiritual head of his
subjects. This peaceful reformation of 1034 not only gave
the house of Tudor the support of the English clergy, who
for a long time had been exposed to the violent attacks of many
Lutheran propagandists, but it also increased the Royal power
through the confiscation of the former possessions of the
monasteries.
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