Do you remember Mary Queen of Scots? She had a son named James who became the king of Scotland after she died. (He is the king in the title.) James also inherited England, because Elizabeth the First left her throne to him. So now James was the king of two countries. What is the first thing you would do if you became king? You might want to fortify your kingdom against attack or start educating your people. But what did James do? He did not do those things. He made enemies of the Protestants, the Catholics, and the Parliament. First, he made the Puritan Protestants angry. They came to him with a petition to purify the English church of all Catholic ideas. Even though James was Protestant, he rejected all their ideas and sent them home. He decided that whatever he wanted was what God wanted. He also made Puritan church services illegal.
Next, he made the Catholics angry. He ordered all the Catholic priests to go out of the country. He made a law that if anyone went to a Catholic service, he would have to pay a fine. But not all the people agreed with this law, as you can probably guess. Two men, Robert Catesby and Guy Fawkes, dug a tunnel under the building where Parliament had meetings. They would smuggle barrels of gunpowder into the house. But before the explosion could take place, Fawkes was discovered holding a match, and he was put to death.
But soon, Parliament got angry at James, too. Because James insisted that whatever he wanted was the will of God, he fired all of the Parliament. Even though James made many people angry at him, he also did something that changed the world. He had many scholars make a new translation of the Bible so that all the people in his country could read it. The King James Version is still used today,
James saw how rich Spain was becoming because of the gold they were finding in South America. Soon, he, too, sent off three ships to find gold and to start a colony, this time in North America. When the colonists got there, they thought the land was lush and perfect- and it was, but they spent all their time looking for gold, instead of farming or finding food. Many colonists were dead by the time October came around. In Winter, it was even worse. The cold only helped to exaggerate the hunger the few men that were left felt. Around Christmas time, John Smith, one of the colony's leaders, went with a few other men to search for food. But Smith was captured by the Indians. He was taken to the chief, and eventually became friends with the tribe. The colony got strong again, in their friendship with the Indians. (That was the colony.)
There once was an explorer, sent by the king of France, and named Samuel Champlain. He set off with some ships and got to North America. The land was beautiful, and Champlain knew it would be perfect for a colony. When he returned to France, the king agreed to let him make a colony there. The first try failed, for the colonists nearly starved to death during the long winter. But finally supply ships came, and the colony prospered. But then, the king of France decided that he had spent enough money on the colony, and he sent a ship over to take the colonists back home. Once back in France, Champlain did all he could to get the king of France to let him try again. Finally, the king agreed. The brave explorer started a colony near the St. Lawrence river in what is now Canada. The winters were unbearably hard, but the colony survived, with only about a fourth of the original inhabitants. But the colony prospered, slowly growing. Now it is called Quebec, and most of the people who live there speak French.
Many people who went to the Americas wanted gold, furs, or land. But there were some explorers who were looking for the "Northwest Passage," a passage through North America which would lead them straight to India or China. One such English explorer was Henry Hudson. He knew that all the explorers who had gone looking for this way had failed. But he had a different idea. He wanted to sail way up north and over Asia, then, he would sail down into China. The sun shines all day and night at the North Pole in the summer, so Hudson figured that would melt the ice to let his ships get through. But he was wrong, and because of the immense cold, he and his ship were forced to turn around and sail back to England. Hudson did not give up, though. He decided to try another route around the Northern coast of Russia. But as they sailed along their route, it started to get cold. He couldn't find a way through the ice, so he turned around. But he didn't go back to England this time. He sailed straight towards North America. When the crew saw that he was not giving up, they threatened mutiny if he did not turn around. So Hudson was forced to go back to Europe anyway. Hudson tried again, this time along a different route. It was a hard route, and the sailors begged to go back, but Hudson would not be moved. Finally, the crew did what they had threatened to do on the second voyage. They set Hudson, his son, and some of the sickest sailors in a small life boat with no food or water. The rest of the crew had very hard time finding England again without their captain. No one ever saw Hudson again.
No comments:
Post a Comment