early modern england c1500-c1700

• Two crimes that took on new significance during the Reformation were heresy and treason.
• Henry VIII executed several Catholics for refusing to swear the Oath of Supremacy.
• Edward VI’s religious policy became much more actively Protestant.
• Mary I’s religious policy was to return England to Catholicism.
• During Mary I’s reign, almost 300 Protestants were burnt at the stake as heretics.
• Elizabeth I’s religious policy was Protestant but tolerating Catholics.
• The Act of Uniformity required everybody to attend Protestant church on Sunday or pay a fine.
• After the Rebellion in 1569 and excommunication by the Pope in 1570, Elizabeth I’s policy towards Catholics became more harsh.
• James I succeeded Elizabeth as monarch and passed stricter anti-Catholic laws.
• The Popish Recusants Act forced Catholics to swear loyalty and pay much higher fines for not attending church.
• The Vagrancy Act of 1547 decreed that able-bodied people who were without work for three days should be branded with a ‘V’ and sold as a slave for two years.
• The new set of laws in 1601, known as the Poor Laws, attempted to make treatment of the unemployed more fair.
• The Poor Laws used the terms deserving poor and undeserving poor to distinguish between those who could not work and those who supposedly chose not to.
• Parishes were required to provide poor relief to those who could not work.
• During the 16th century, land was enclosed for sheep grazing or to create large estates for houses.
• People sometimes defied enclosure by pulling down new fences and hedges.
• The Game Act made poaching illegal in 1671.
• The Game Act sometimes made criminal activity worse as people joined together in gangs to poach.