Artists and thinkers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were moving rapidly forward in their methods and approaches. New discoveries and inventions made new methods possible, and a rebirth of classicism took hold of Europe. The English Renaissance was a bit slower to start because England, as an island, was partially cut off from the rest of European culture. Generally, the English Renaissance refers to the period from 1509-1660 (during the reigns of Henry VIII, his children Edward VI, Mary Tudor, Elizabeth I, and the first two Stuarts, James VI/I and Charles I). It was a period of evolution in many respects, but also one of sometimes unpleasant change.
   
Thomas More, as Lord Chancellor, refused to acknowledge Henry VIII's split from the Catholic church over a divorce, and like many others, he lost his head for daring to disagree with his king. Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, became a victim of Mary Tudor during her reign. Elizabeth I returned Protestantism to the nation during her reign, but Catholicism remained a threat to England throughout her reign. Spain also threatened until the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588.

Martin Luther's theses of 1517, John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, and Henry VIII's declaration of himself as Supreme Head of the Church of England were signs of the reformation of religion and religious ideals in England. The Reformation as an institutional process established Protestant churches. Beyond the institutional process, however, it extended to make places for new religious thinkers and philosophies. The Catholic church reacted to the rise of Protestantism in what was termed the Counter-Reformation. It held the Council of Trent between 1545 and 1563 in order to restructure the Catholic doctrine.

James VI of Scotland became James I of England in 1603. In 1600, he had introduced bishops into Presbyterian Scotland, the action that would, in 1639, lead to the "Bishop's War". James's son, Charles I, tried to allow Anglicizing of the Scottish church by the new Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud. This, along with the fact that his wife was a French Catholic, began to threaten his title of Defender of the English Faith.

Three years after Charles I took the throne, he agreed to Parliament's Petition of Right, which essentially established parliamentary law's supremacy over royal authority. Though Charles agreed, however, he ignored the Petition for the most part, ruling from 1629 to 1640 without holding audience with Parliament at all. When he finally had to call Parliament in 1640 because he needed money, the result was the Long Parliament, lasting from 1640 to 1642. When, in 1642, Charles tried to have five members of Parliament arrested, Civil War began. Charles surrendered after four years, escaped his first imprisonment, and after he was recaptured he was executed for being a tyrant, traitor, and murderer in 1649. Oliver Cromwell took control of England. Charles II, who had crowned himself in Scotland, attempted to attack England in 1651and was defeated and driven into exile in France. After nine years and Cromwell's death, Charles II was restored to the English throne.