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the eyes and opinion of another. The last is what the author says about them. In using this way the author speaks as a storyteller or an observer. The author
describes the characters directly.
B. Review of England in the 16
th
Century
It is important to review the historical background of The Prince and the Pauper in analyzing this novel in order to have a better understanding of the novel.
It is related to the socio-historical context of England in the reign of King Henry VIII in the 16
th
century. This part contains of the society systems, the nobles, the common people and the social values.
1. The Society Systems
a. The Government
Chrimes 11 states that the Government of England officially and legally is His Majesty’s Government the king and the crown. Therefore, Tregidgo 73
describes that the government of Britain had for many centuries been shared by three supreme authorities: the Monarch i.e. the King or Queen, the Lords i.e. the
hereditary nobility, and the Common i.e. ordinary people. The monarch, according to the hierarchy, consisted of the king, the queen and the prince. The
title of prince belonged to the kings eldest son, who was called Prince of Wales. The kings younger sons were called after their names, like Lord Henry or Lord
Edward. While the Lords, according to the hierarchy, consisted of the dukes, the
marquesses, the earls, the viscounts, and the barons. Their titles were created by PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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the monarch or come to that honour by being the eldest sons or highest in succession to their parents. For the eldest son of a duke during his fathers life was
an earl, the eldest son of an earl was a baron, or sometimes a viscount. The monarch got their original donation and condition of the honour for good service
done by the first ancestor. The nobles have great influence to the government. According to
Wikipedia’s Nobility, in many countries the nobility dominated great social and political importance. Therefore it also happened in England, that the English
Government was dominated by the nobles until the twentieth century, with no exception it also happened in the 16
th
century. In the 16
th
century, the nobles not only have influence in political and social aspects, but also in the religion aspect.
There were a lot of noblemen who tried to influence the government’s policy. Carrie’s England and Scotland in the Sixteenth Century states about the Duke of
Northumberland’s policy which arranged to move English policy in a more Protestant direction. In the reign of Edward Tudor VI, John Dudley Earl of
Warwick represents the actual behavior of the nobles in the real life. Jeremy Black in A New History of England states:
The Crucial new figure was John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, who became Lord President of the Council 1550-1553, and Duke of Northumberland in
1551. A member of Henry VIII’s service nobility, he was representative of general aristocratic views on economic regulation and social policy, in
being uninterested in either 119.
Duke of Northumberland tried to influence the government policy not only in political and social aspects, but also in religion aspect.
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1 King Henry VIII 1491 - 1547
Henry VIII, the second monarch of the House of Tudor, ruled England from 1509 until his death. Henry VIII was the second son of Henry VII and
Elizabeth of York. Many significant pieces of legislation were made during Henry VIIIs reign, including the several Acts which separated the Church of England
from the Roman Catholic Church Morgan 240-7. Henry and Parliament finally threw off England’s allegiance to Rome in an
unsurpassed burst of revolutionary statute-marking: the Act of Annates 1532, the Act of Appeals 1533, the Act of Supremacy 1534, the First
Act of Succession 1534, the Treasons Act 1534, and the Act against the Pope’s Authority 1536. The act of Appeals proclaimed Henry VIII’s new
imperial status—all English jurisdiction, both secular and religious, now sprang from the king—and abolished the pope’s right to decide English
ecclesiastical cases. The Act of Supremacy declared that the king of England was supreme head of the Ecclesia Anglicana, or Church of
England—not the pope Morgan 246-7.
There were a lot of people who disagreed towards the Act of Supremacy, which established related to the Roman Catholic Church law about his divorce,
and those people were cruelly executed. “The victims of the act, who were in reality martyrs to Henry’s vindictive egoism, were cruelly executed in the summer
of 1535” Morgan 247. Henry forced the clergy to admit his position in the English church.
Henry, however, ordered the clergy to make explicit admission that they had broken the law and that their gift was offered for a royal pardon of
their offence. They were also told to style the King ‘Protector and Supreme Head of the English Church and Clergy’. Opinion in convocation
was divide, but eventually a compromise formula was accepted, in which the clergy acknowledged the king as ‘their singular protector, only and
supreme lord, and, as far as the law of Christ allows, even Supreme Head’ Lockyer 55.
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Henry were described as a king who was very autocratic in temper and high-handed in methods, and were not shy, on occasions, of straining and even
perverting the law in order to get his own objectives Chrimes 120. Kent McCroskey’s English Occupation states that he was a king who is infamous for his
cruelty. Henry, the greatest nobleman in his reign, liked to spend his time for his own pleasure. “During the first years of his reign, Henry VIII seemed willing to
devote himself to enjoyment, spending freely the hard-won treasure of his father. He seemed content in those early days to let others govern for him…” England
and Scotland in the Sixteenth Century. Wikipedia’s Lady Jane Grey describes that Henry VIII’s policies actually
were also affected by his own noblemen. No wonder, several Protestant nobles had become wealthy when Henry VIII closed the Catholic monasteries and divided
the Churchs assets among his supporters. John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, figured prominently among the Protestant nobility.
2 King Edward Tudor VI 1537 - 53
Edward ruled England at the age of nine from 1547 to 1553. He was the son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour. He was the third monarch of the House of
Tudor and Englands first ruler who was Protestant. Edwards council was first led by his uncle, Edward Seymour, the Duke of Somerset who also served as his ‘Lord
Protector of the Realm and Governor of the Kings Person’ Lockyer 107-20. Then the Duke of Somerset was sent to prison by John Dudley, the Duke of
Northumberland, who wanted his position. “Somerset was allowed to retain his seat in the council, and gathering his old friends around him, plotted to regain his
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authority. Northumberland, fearing his influence, caused him to be arrested at the council board. He was tried, condemned, for treason, and executed” Carter 61.
Edward VI ruled in a short time, he died on 6 July 1553 at the age of fifteen. While the Duke of Northumberland wanted to prolong his position and his
influence in the England government. He persuaded the King in the name of God to take Lady Jane Grey who was also a Protestant as his successor. Therefore,
actually Lady Jane Grey was ordered to marry Northumberland’s fourth son Lockyer 120.
3 Queen Mary I 1516 - 1558
Mary brought to her throne in 1553 in the age of thirty- seven after the dead of Edward VI. She was the daughter of Henry VIII and his first wife,
Catherine of Aragon. The opening of her reign was marked with the execution of the Duke of Northumberland, Lady Jane Grey and her husband Lockyer 121-2.
Morgan 260 states that Mary got the throne of England because of she cheated by executing Lady Jane Grey.
Mary tried to turn England Church back to Roman Catholic Church. This effort was carried out by force, and hundreds of people were executed, that is why
she was called ‘The Bloody Mary’. Between February 1555 and November 1558 just under three hundred men
and women were burnt for heresy. The punishment of death by burning was appallingly cruel one, but it was not this that shocked
contemporaries—after all, in an age that knew nothing of anaesthetics, a great deal of pain had to be endured by everybody at one time or another,
and the taste for public executions, bear-baiting and cock-fighting suggests a callousness that blunted susceptibilities Lockyer.127.
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Many of them who were executed were common people. “The list of martyrs under Mary includes only nine who were described as gentlemen. Just
over a quarter of those burned were in holy orders; the rest came from the lower levels of English society, and included weavers, fullers, shearman, tailors, hosiers,
cappers, husbandmen, labourers, brewers and butchers” Lockyer.127. Some of the gentlemen were the Protestant Leader. Queen Mary died in 1558 after she
spent long time in coma in her palace of St. James.
b. The Law
