marked in England
by at least three great movements: a new type of intellectual life, a
new ideal of government, and the Reformation. The greatest changes in
English literature and intellectual interests are traceable to foreign
influence. In the fifteenth century the paramount foreign influence
was that of Italy. From the middle of the fifteenth century an
increasing number of young Englishmen went to Italy to study, and
brought back with them an interest in the study of Greek and of other
subjects to which this led. Somewhat later the social intercourse of
Englishmen with Italy exercised a corresponding influence on more
courtly literature. In 1491 the teaching of Greek was begun at Oxford
by Grocyn, and after this time the passion for classical learning
became deep, widespread, and enthusiastic. But not only were the
subjects of intellectual interest different, but the attitude of mind
in the study of these subjects was much more critical than it had been
in the Middle Ages. The discoveries of new routes to the far East and
of America, as well as the new speculations in natural science which
came at this time, reacted on the minds of men and broadened their
whole mental outlook. The production of works of pure literature had
suffered a decline after the time of Wycliffe and Chaucer, from which
there was no considerable revival till the early part of the sixteenth
century. Sir Thomas More's _Utopia_, written in Latin in 1514, was a
philosophical work thrown into the form of a literary dialogue and
description of an imaginary commonwealth. But writing became
constantly more abundant and more varied through the reigns of Henry
VIII, 1509-1547, Edward VI, 1547-1553, and Mary, 1553-1558, until it
finally blossomed out into the splendid Elizabethan literature, just
at the close of our period.

A stronger royal government had begun with Edward IV. The conclusion
of the war with France made the king's need for money less, and at the
same time new sources of income appeared. Edward, therefore, from
1461, neglected to call Parliament annually, as had been usual, and
frequently allowed three or more years to go by without any
consultation with it. He also exercised very freely what was called
the dispensing power, that is, the power to suspend the law in certain
cases, and in other ways asserted the royal prerogative as no previous
king had done for two hundred years. But the true founder of the
almost absolute monarchy of th