Master of Arts

thesisThe discovery of the New World, the coming of the Spanish Armada, and the uncovering of the gunpowder Plot were three Renaissance episodes that influenced the attitude of Englishmen toward each other and toward other European countries, particularly Spain. When the Spanish followed Columbus to the New World in the late fifteenth century, they initiated a series of events that the English quickly noticed and exploited to their advantage. Spain's killing of Indian savage in America and her zeal to Catholicize the New World provided England with the opportunity that she needed to incite the emotions of both the English people and the people of other nations against this her wealthiest enemy. Spain herself was responsible for the birth of la leyenda negra, the Black Legend, but England nurtured it in the years to follow. During the invasion of the Spanish Armada, in 1588, the English government mad constant allusions to the atrocious deeds that had been perpetrated by the Spanish against the natives of the New World. Their purpose was to incense all English people, Catholics and Protestants alike, to that they would not hesitate to defend their country against the popish antichrist. Again in 1605, Spain became a prime suspect for her alleged participation in the Gunpowder Plot. At this time, accounts of the Gunpowder events often included references to the Armada, which indirectly revived the stories of Concurrently, the opposition between England and Spain was also one of Protestant against Catholic. Each of the three Renaissance episodes consistently juxtaposed these two religious forces against each other. In the New World, the encounter was external, English Protestants against Spanish Catholics. However, in England, in 1588 and 1605, the religious battle assumed political overtones that incited internal conflict. The Protestants accused the Catholics of favoring and being ready to assist with the Armada invasion. The Catholics demanded that the government had spread many of these stories. The Protestants charged that the Catholics and Jesuits had instigated the Gunpowder Plot. The Catholics answered that the stories were concocted to enrage the Protestants of England against them. During these years of heated emotion, confusion and violence beset the country, and issues often became so blurred that one was not sure of what had really happened or of who was involved. Although the more formal, polished literature of the time makes little mention of these current events, the sub-literary output of ballads, sermons, treatises, proclamations, and other miscellaneous writing captures vividly the contemporary feelings of the people and the rendering of the facts of each moment as Englishmen of the time viewed them. These three essays, in companionship with the contemporary contemporary accounts, attempt to depict the making of the Black Legend and to examine the impact upon the English mind of two of the most exiting and important events of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the coming of the Spanish Armada and the uncovering of the Gunpowder Plot