England and More About the New World



John Cabot



You have heard of Colombus and how he made his voyages. About five years after Columbus found "India", John Cabot, another explorer from England, started out from Europe with only twenty men and one ship! But the journey did not take very long. It was just a matter of weeks before Cabot spotted land. It was an island! The island was huge, and had some grass and plants on it, (from what the sailors could see from the ship.) In the water around the island were many fish. The sailors let down a basket. Almost instantly is was full of good codfish. The men were delighted! This fishing was easy! Of course, Cabot went ashore and claimed the land for England. He sailed back to Europe and told everyone that he had found a shortcut to Asia. He hadn't, really. The land he found was simply part of North America. When he started his 2nd journey to America, he had five ships. But out of all of these five ships, only one made it back. It was all tattered and torn, and John Cabot, on one of the other four ships, was never seen again. However, this did not stop exploration. Many fishermen, hearing of the schools of fish, traveled over in their fishing boats. There they started a colony called St. Johns. When the men came back, their boats laden down with fish, many other fishers sailed over, too. But St. John's was not the most perfect village to live in year round. In the winter there was lots of ice and wind. Hardly anyone lived there in the cold months. St. John's was located in what we now call Canada.



a fish



      There once was another explorer whose name was Jaques Cartier. He was from France, and he was sent by the king of France to gain land for his country. Cartier and his sailors got to North America in less than a month. He made maps of the island of Newfoundland, where the fishing villages were, and of the tiny islands that were closeby. Now, Cartier had been sent by the king of France to get land for France, and he did this. But he also had another idea in mind. Cartier wanted to find the shortcut to China. As he was exploring Newfoundland and its surroundings, he found a river. This is now called the St. Laurence River. He knew that the river went for a long ways, but he did not know how long. He thought that maybe this was a river that cut across the continent  and led to China. So he made friends with the Indians. He met two tribes, one called the Micmacs, and one called the Hurons. The Micmacs had discovered how to survive the hard winters, using wigwams covered with animal skins. Cartier wanted to know what the name of the land was. The Micmacs told him that they called it "our village." But in Micmac, that sounds something like Canada. So Cartier called it that. The Hurons also lived close by. Cartier wanted to sail down the river right away, but he knew that winter was coming, and that his men might not survive it. So he had to sail back to France. But in order to show the king what he had found, he asked that he might take the Huron Chief's two sons back to Europe. When he finally came back the next spring, the two boys were with him, even taller and stronger than before. The chief, Donnaconna, was so glad to see his sons that he allowed Cartier to sail down the river in safety and peace. But as the Frenchmen sailed down the river, they came closer and closer to the home of the Hurons. Donnaconna was getting nervous. How far would they go? Finally, he had had enough.  He stopped Cartier and told him to go away. But Cartier would not listen. He just kept on going down the water. But as they went farther and farther, the water was getting shallower and shallower. There were boulders and rapids. At last, Cartier knew it would be pointless to go further. The river obviously did not lead to China. When he returned to France, he captured and took Donnaconna with him to tell tales of treasure to the king. The chief died in France, and Cartier found no treasure in Canada, only worthless quartz. He never returned to Canada. The Americas were fascinating places to the people back in Europe. The Queen Elizabeth the 1st probably never saw it herself, and neither did many of her people. To some people in Europe, America was little more than a myth. But it was a good one, and many people were interested in seeing for themselves the mysterious "New World."



the spanish armada



              At this time, probably around 1534, ( since Bauer doesn't always tell the history in chronological order,) Spain was probably the biggest country in all of Europe, plus it had many settlements in the New World. Spain wanted to be the biggest country in the world, but she had a problem. Her problem was England. The English sailors were robbing Spanish ships and sailing in Spanish waters. They were sending explorers that got in the way of Spain's settlements. Eventually, Spain got so angry with this, that the king of Spain, King Philip, sent an angy message to Queen Elizabeth. He told her to keep her ships on her own waters, or Spain would begin a war. Elizabeth did not want a war, so she sent a peaceful promise back to Spain saying that she would. But secretly, she told her sailors that she did not care if they robbed the Spanish. So now the English sailors were pirating Spanish fleets more than ever because they did not have to worry about being punished by the Queen. England grew richer and bigger, and Spain grew angrier and angrier. Finally, she declared war on England. The king started builing a large army of ships. The 130 ships were called the Armada. Meanwhile, England was frantically assembling her army of ships. When the Spanish ships came sailing into England, their tactic was "grappling and boarding." That means they planned to hook English ships along side them, and then scramble on board to overtake the ships. But the English had a better plan. Their ships were small with guns in the sides. The English just shot holes in the sides of the Spanish ships, and finally they won. Spain was defeated!!!! Now England was becoming the most powerful country in Europe.

  I have now come to the end of the book by Susan Wise Buaer titled The Story of the World: Volume 2: The Middle Ages. It began from the fall of Rome, and now I have ended in the the Rise of the Rennaissance.

 I really enjoyed reading this book, and I can not wait to start Volume 3.

Exploration

Imagine this. You are the ruler of a country in Europe. Right now, it is pretty peaceful.  You have complete control over your small country, and no wars are going on. You are getting kind of bored with all of it. What can you do to make your life a little more exciting?

Make your country bigger, that’s what! You don’t want to start a war, so the ideal idea would be to find some land that no one else has found or claimed yet. That means that you should send some ships out to sea to where Columbus found land. Since hardly any of it has been claimed and you do not know how big it is, then it would be a perfect place to send settlers.

That is what Queen Elizabeth the First was thinking, (more or less,)when she sent ships to America to claim land for England. One reason why she did this, was that Spain was getting bigger and bigger. It now covered most of Italy, all of Spain itself, and other parts of Europe. If Spain took over North and South America, it would be the biggest country in the world! So Elizabeth gave the job of organizing the exploration to one of her favorite knights, Sir Walter Raleigh. Raleigh filled two ships with food, men, and provisions, and sent them off to America. When the sailors returned, they were very optimistic. There had been fertile soil, friendly Indians, black pearls, soft animal skins, and some new plants that they had never seen before. These were potatoes and tobacco. So Raleigh sent more ships, this time filled with settlers, to settle in the New World. But the people begged to be allowed to come back. The winters were cold, the ground was not very fertile, they were hungry, and the Indians were not being too friendly.  Finally, they sailed back in their ships.  But they left 15 soldiers to try and guard their town. When the second group of settlers sailed past the island the earlier colonists had been living on,  they saw no one. All the houses were in ruins, and there was no sign of human life. But they found only the skeleton of a soldier. But the commander of the ship was tired of having the colonists on board. He told them to get off and to go live on Roanoke Island. The settlers could not get off because they had only a few small boats, and so the commander and his sailors sailed away. The colonists persuaded a man named John White to England in one of the small boats. He arrived safely and asked for more food and provisions for the colonists, but England was now at war, and Elizabeth the First could not spare any ships for the mission at this point.

 White was not able to get back to the colony for at least three years! Finally, he got on a warship headed to fight the Spanish in South America. The captain agreed to stop at Roanoke Island to see the colonists, but when White  got there, as before, there were only ruins. There were no signs of life anywhere. There were no windows, doors, or walls, only the foundations of the houses. This made White think that the people might have moved there houses somewhere else. But he searched the whole island to no avail. He found only a word carved into a tree; CROATION. No one knows what happened to the lost colony of Roanoke.

Eventually, Sir Walter Raleigh lost his favor with the queen because he fell in love with one of her maids, and the maid became pregnant. Elizabeth wanted her knights to be only dedicated to her service, and when she died there were still no English colonies in America.

Changes in the World

You have probably heard of Martin Luther King and the changes he made in society. He helped the African-American black people gain their rights. You might also have heard of Martin Luther. He is not quite so recent, but he made a lot of important changes in the world that affect you whether you have heard of him or not. And in England, King Henry the 8th was building on those changes, building to his own advantage. In the early middle ages, Catholics were basically the only kinds of Christians, and the pope was the head of the church. This meant that because most people were Catholic, the pope had a lot of power. He could even tell kings what to do! The Catholic church frightened many people into giving them a lot of money, by saying that God would forgive all their sins if they gave a certain amount. That was called "indulgence". Martin Luther read the Bible carefully and he found out that God does not save us if we do good deeds, or if we give a lot of money to the church. God has already saved us, if we will believe in him. Martin Luther wrote a long list of things that were wrong about the Catholic church and indulgences. People began to think about what he was saying, and many of them started to disagree with the Catholics, too.The Catholic church did not like this, but the king of England did.

          The King of England at this time was a man named Henry the eighth. He did not want a war to start after he died over who would become the next king. He wanted his son to get immediate access to the royal throne. But his current wife did not bear him any sons, only a daughter named Mary. Henry wanted to get rid of his wife, and so he had to ask the pope if he was allowed to. But the pope said no, and so Henry got angry. He liked Martin Luther's ideas, that the pope should not always be the one in charge. He quickly told his kingdom that he was the all supreme ruler, and he got to make his own decisions. Now he could divorce his wife, Catherine.

Henry the eighth married again. His new wife, Anne Boleyn, had her head cut off because she did not give him a son either. Just another daughter named Elizabeth.

His third wife was a little luckier. Jane Seymour bore him a son named Edward, but she died in the process.

 Anne of Cleves was next, but Henry didn't like how she looked, so he sent her back to Germany, where she came from. Anne was happy, too. The king was getting old and did not look all that great either.

 Catherine Howard's head was cut off, not to long after she became the fifth wife of the king.

Catherine Parr, the king's 6th and last wife did a good job of taking care of him in his old age. She was also a good nurse to the children. This third Catherine died after Henry the eighth's death.

Susan Wise Bauer has a rhyme to help you remember all Henry King of England's wives.

Divorced, beheaded, died,

Divorced, Beheaded, survived

Martin Luther was not the only one who was changing things. All over Europe, people were settling down, because there was not much war going on, and so they had more time to make art and read. People began to read the manuscripts from the Romans and the Greeks, and so they were able to make science discoveries based on what they learned from the papers. They tried making Roman-style sculptures and painting Greek-style pictures. Architects began to build in the styles that had developed hundreds of years ago. And people began to "relearn" how to read.

 How many books are in your church, your house, your library? Probably more that five, at least, that is what I am guessing. But that is about how many were found in a church, because libraries had not been invented yet, and books were only found in the houses that had very rich owners, because they were very, very expensive.. The books were chained to the wall, so that no one would steal them. A book might take a lifetime to finish. Books were very valuable and very rare, even when the discovery of paper was made by the Egyptians. But one day, a guy called Johannes Gutenberg made a discovery. He learned how to make a printing press. And what is more, he made it out of an old wine press! Because of Gutenberg, books became much easier to make, and so more people were able to have them. They became less expensive, and more people learned to read. I can not now imagine a life without books.