Economic developments

• Trade

  • 'Merchant Adventurers' dominated English trade, gave large loans to the crown in return for privileges denied to other merchants.
  • Antwerp, trading centre for dyeing and finishing cloth.
  • Focus on increasing trade, rivals e.g Hanseatic League.
  • Only 70% of exports were transported by English merchants
  • Trade embargo (restriction) with Netherlands in 1527.
• Agriculture and Industry

  • Crops and crop rotation introduced.
  • Improvements made in breeding of cattle and sheep
  • Woolen cloth exports doubled
  • Cornish tin and coal mining in the North East also important, 26 blast furnaces to smelt iron ore in Kent.
• Enclosures

  • Enabled the growth of more medium size farms.
  • More common land enclosed
  • 1517 Cardinal Wolsey, commission of enquiry to determine whether enclosure offences had taken place and to ensure the Crown received its half-share of annual agricultural profits.
  • 118 people found guilty.
  • 1534 Act against Enclosure aiming to end rural depopulation by limiting the number of sheep a person could own to 2,400.
• Money

  • Henry VII left his son an inheritance of around 1.8 million in 1509.
  • Crown income was £110,000 in 1509 and £240,000 in 1547
  • Wolsey raised £322,000 in subsidies and £240,000 in clerical taxation.
  • Parliament reluctant to grant extraordinary revenue to fund wars.
  • Less than half of the £800,000 anticipated was raised in 1523, further resistance in 1525
  • Gov expenditure between 1509-1520 was £1.7m
• Economy timeline

  • 1515 legislation against enclosures
  • 1520-21 bad harvests
  • 1520s growth in agricultural prices
  • 1525 population boom began
  • 1527-29 bad harvests
  • 1534 legislation to limit sheep ownership and engrossing.
  • 1544-46 debasement of coinage
• Exploration

  • Henry VIII had no interest in continuing exploration as his father did.
  • No investment in explorers and lost out on opportunities, which other countries capitalised on, especially in the New World.
• Extent of economy changes in Henry VIII's reign

  • Rise in population and onset of inflation.
  • Increase in commerce and industry, search for new markets and countries to trade with.
  • For some, brought wealth and opportunity, others, made the difference between life and death.
  • Wolsey failed to address the problems of enclosures in 1515
  • Inflation, debasement, population rises and bad harvests contributed to increasing poverty.
  • debt of £100,000 by the time of his death.