1485 - 1603

The Tudor period saw the beginning of modern Britain, starting with the melding of English and Welsh royal lines, as well as the warring houses of York and Lancaster, when Henry Tudor violently wrested the throne from Richard III; and ending with the union of Scottish and English crowns when Queen Elizabeth died childless. The intervening period was one that defined England as a nation distinctly different from those of continental Europe, with the cataclysmic severance from the Catholic church by Henry VIII, followed by the successful maritime defeat of Spain under Elizabeth, laying the foundations of an England independent of European meddling and poised for imperial power. Amblecote too changed in this time, with its place as a simple agrarian community being challenged by a first real understanding of the mineral wealth that lay beneath its the soil. A great many documents relating to the manor of Amblecote survive from this time and, as they are gradually translated, the first beginnings of the proto-industrual revolution in the area will hopefully be revealed.