World-System (12 October 1537) Wolf Hall, Henry VIII's first Son, and the Death of Jane Seymour

 

In prior posts (here and here) I introduced a real character (John Dee) who was not in Wolf Hall but gave me the opportunity to speculate on what kinds of "future forecasts" might have been given to Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell during the time of Wolf Hall. In this Sunday's episode of the TV Series (and in the book) Hilary Mantel  introduces a fictional character, Jenneke (pictured above) who is presented as Cromwell's illegitimate daughter (a daughter Cromwell may or may not have had). Jenneke is introduced by Hilary Mantel, at the end of Season 2, Episode 3, to probe deeper into Cromwell's personal  life and character right before his fall.

From the perspective of World-System history, the interesting events in Episode 4 are: (1) Jane Seymore finally delivers Henry VIII an heir who will become Edward VI and ensure survival of the dynasty. At the same time, Jane Seymore's death after childbirth has opened the possibility of Henry remarrying and forming new Geoplitical alliances to counter the alliance forming between France and Spain. The search for a suitable marriage partner and powerful alliance begins Cromwell's downfall.

John Dee's future forecasts for Spain (here) and France (here) don't look particularly good (I'll discuss them in a later post) and you have already seen the forecast for England (here) and the best future doesn't have anything to do with Spain or France. Keep these in mind when you are watching Episode 4: Jenneke tomorrow night.

18 April 1536: Italian Ambassador Eustace Chapuys, Ann Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell.

 

What was so important about Catherine of Aragon's marriage to Henry VIII? The marriage is typically presented as a failure due to Catherine's inability to provide Henry VIII with a son, Pope Clement VII's  unwillingness to grant  Henry VIII a divorce to find a queen who could give him an heir, the resulting English Reformation (breakaway from the Catholic Church), Catherine of Aragon's unwillingness to enter a convent, and Henry VIII's ultimate execution of the Queen. Maybe all that is enough for a TV Drama, but there were deeper issues that had to do with Geopolitical Alliances.

In the video above, Eustace Chapuys (France's ambassador England) is set up to encounter Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's new Queen. Chapuys is reluctant to acknowledge Anne because he wants England to return to the Roman Catholic Church and become aligned with France.

 

The conflict here is that recently executed Catherine of Aragon is part of the Spanish Branch of the Habsburg Monarchy (graphic above, double click to enlarge).  Anne Boleyn, on the other hand, was English (educated in the Netherlands and France) and offered (1) no opportunity for Geopolitical Alliances and (2) was the daughter of Thomas Boleyn (later Earl of Wiltshire) that created favorites among the English Nobility. But Henry was in love with Anne Boleyn and alliances be damned.

Eventually, Chapuys and Thomas Cromwell became friends (as a result of a long discussion presented after Chapuys acknowledges Anne Boleyn). But much is potentially lost here to include the Spanish Habsburg foothold in the New World (graphic above--I live in what was once the Habsburg-Spanish Empire in the US--favored by John Dee) and Henry and Catherine's daughter, Mary I, who would go on to be Mary I Queen of England.

We know so much about Eustace Chapuys because he carried on extensive correspondence with France (one of the major attributes of a good ambassador) and he is a great character in Wolf Hall! John Dee's future forecasts for Spain (here) and France (here) don't look particularly good and you have already seen the forecast for England (here) and the best future doesn't have anything to do with Spain or France.

 

World-System (1460-1540): The WL16 Model

The Long Sixteenth Century Model (WL16) looks at the first Volume of Immanuel Wallerstein's World-System I, Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy. The model uses the Maddison Data Base and global temperature data from the IPCC to estimate a state space model (see the Measurement Matrix, below). The results are presented in the graphic above.

The first state variable, W1=(Q+N-T) is an Environmental Controller (Error Correcting Controller, ECC). The first sate variable in most 20th Century models (here) are growth components weighting all the available indicators positively. In the Long 16th Century, growth was controlled by global temperature.

The second state variable, W2=(Q+T) captures overall growth and eventual decline in production (Q) and global temperature (T). The decline starts in about 1575.

The decline in (Q+T) has been conventional called the Little Ice Age (see the graphic above from Waldinger, 2022).

The third state variable, W2=(Q-N), is the Malthusian ECC which is cyclical and hits the Malthusian crisis low point in 1600, right at the bottom of the Little Ice Age.

You can run the WL16 model here. The model is unstable due to the unstable (Q+T) component. Instructions for stabilizing the model are contained within the code. Boiler Plate can be found here.

Notes

The three state variables presented at the beginning of this pose were constructed from standardized data using the following Principal Components measurement matrix.

For more technical information about Dynamic Component Models (DCMS) read the Boiler Plate.

 

Boiler Plate

 

Notes

 Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) for alternative models shows that the RW model is a strong competitor for US Growth, at least in the short-term.

State Space Model Estimation

The Measurement Matrix for the state space models was constructed using Principal Components Analysis with standardized data from the World Development Indicators. The statistical analysis was conducted in an extension of the dse package. The package is currently supported by an online portal (here) and can be downloaded, with the R-programming language, for any personal computer here. Code for the state space Dynamic Component models (DCMs) is available on my Google drive (here) and referenced in each post.

Atlanta Fed Economy Now

My approach to forecasting is similar to the EconomyNow model used by the Atlanta Federal Reserve. Since the new Republican Administration is signaling that they would like to eliminate the Federal Reserve, the app might well not be available in the future.

While the app is still available, there have been some interesting developments. In earlier forecasts, the Atlanta Fed was showing GDP growth predictions outside the Blue Chip Consensus. Right now, after unorthodox economic policies from the Trump II Administration, the EconomyNow model is predicting a drastic drop in GDP (The Financial Forecast Center is only predicting a slight drop here).

Climate Change

Another comparison for what I have presented above are the IPCC Emission Scenarios. These scenarios are for the World System. Needless to say, (1) the new Right-Wing Republican administration plans on withdrawing the US from all attempts to study or ameliorate Climate Change and (2) the IPCC does not produce any RW modes for the World System (but seem my forecasts here).

The World-System (1460-1540): About

 

The Long 16th Century (1460-1540) was a period of history used by Ferdinand Braudel in his two volume History of the Mediterranean World.

On the World History Timeline (above), it covered the transition from Feudalism to Capitalism. The Takeoff associated with GDP in the Industrial Revolution was in the future.

I have developed state space models for the period based on the Maddison Historical Statistics. The models, written in the R programming language using the dse package are available here and can be run in the Snippets browser here.