Elizabethan England

• Problems from 1558-66


  • Legitimacy
  • Gender and heir
  • Finances
  • French alliance with Scotland (Auld Alliance) and Mary Queen of Scots link to France (Half French and married to King of France)
  • Calais returned to France
  • Religious settlement
  • Puritan Challenge
  • Recusants fail to attend the new church. Worsens after 1566
  • Papacy's counter reformation/ Pope's Papal Bull for Catholics not to attend English Protestant churches
• Problems from 1566-88


  • Dutch rebelling against the Spanish (Dutch Revolt)
  • Dutch Rebelling and sheltering rebels (Sea Beggars)/Genoese Loan
  • Mary Queen of Scots in England
  • Revolt of the Northern Earls + Papal Bull
  • Further plots (Ridolfi 1571, Throckmorton Plot 1583, Babbington Plot 1586)
  • Execution of Mary Queen of Scots
  • Spain angered over Drake's piracy
  • England and Spain clash over Netherlands (non direct and direct action)
  • Spanish Armada attack
• Elizabethan timeline


  • 1558: Elizabeth crowned queen
  • 1559: Elizabeth's Religious settlement
  • 1563: Statute of Artificers
  • 1568: Mary Queen of Scots flees to England
  • 1569: Revolt of the Northern Earls
  • 1570: Pope excommunicates Elizabeth from Catholic Church
  • 1571: Ridolfi Plot
  • 1572: Vagabonds Act
  • 1576: Poor Relief Act
  • 1583: Throckmorton Plot
  • 1585: All Catholic priests ordered to leave country
  • 1586: Babington Plot
  • 1587: Mary Queen of Scots is executed
  • 1603: Death of Elizabeth
  • 1566: Dutch Revolt
  • 1568: Genoese Loan
  • 1576: Spanish Fury
  • 1576: Pacification of Ghent
  • 1577-80: Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe
  • 1580: Drake knighted
  • 1584: Treaty of Joinville
  • 1585: Treaty of Nonsuch
  • 1585: War begins with Spain
  • 1588: Spanish Armada attacks
  • 1601: Poor Law
• Elizabethan society worked on a clear social structure
• When analysing markets, a range of assumptions are made about the rationality of economic agents involved in the transactions
• The Wealth of Nations was written

  1776
• Elizabethan social structure


  • Nobility (including Queen)
  • Gentry
  • Yeoman
  • Tenant farmers
  • Landless or labouring poor
  • Vagrants
• In towns the importance of jobs was based on the wealth it created
• Rational

  (in classical economic theory) economic agents are able to consider the outcome of their choices and recognise the net benefits of each one
• Elizabethan government organisations


  • The monarch
  • The Secretary of State
  • The Monarch and parliament
• Consumers act rationally by


  Maximising their utility
• Divine Right


  It was believed that god had chosen the monarch to rule
• Producers act rationally by


  Selling goods/services in a way that maximises their profits
• Patronage


  The monarch could grant titles or positions to people
• Workers act rationally by


  Balancing welfare at work with consideration of both pay and benefits
• Elizabeth's character and strengths

  • She was very intelligent with an excellent grasp of politics
  • She spoke multiple languages (Latin, Greek, French and Italian)
  • She understood the dangerous world of court politics and betrayals
  • She did have a temper that people feared
  • She was very persuasive and spoke confidently
  • She sometimes took a long time to make a decision
• The government could raise extraordinary taxes in an emergency
• Governments act rationally by


  Placing the interests of the people they serve first in order to maximise their welfare
• Some laws needed to be approved by parliament
• Royal Prerogative


  Things only the monarch decided, like foreign policy, a monarch's marriage and succession
• Rationality in classical economic theory is a flawed assumption as people usually don't act rationally
• Marginal utility


  The additional utility (satisfaction) gained from the consumption of an additional product
• When analysing markets, a range of assumptions are made about the rationality of economic agents involved in the transactions
• To be a legitimate monarch it was expected the parents would be married
• The Wealth of Nations was written

  1776
• Rational


  (in classical economic theory) economic agents are able to consider the outcome of their choices and recognise the net benefits of each one
• Consumers act rationally by


  Maximising their utility
• If you add up marginal utility for each unit you get total utility
• Producers act rationally by


  Selling goods/services in a way that maximises their profits
• Workers act rationally by


  Balancing welfare at work with consideration of both pay and benefits
• Henry VIII had to form his own church & break away from Catholicism to get a divorce as the Pope would not grant one
• Governments act rationally by


  Placing the interests of the people they serve first in order to maximise their welfare
• Rationality in classical economic theory is a flawed assumption as people usually don't act rationally
• Marginal utility


  The additional utility (satisfaction) gained from the consumption of an additional product
• Many Catholics didn't accept Henry's new marriage. The Pope hadn't agreed & so Elizabeth was therefore illegitimate & could not be queen
• If you add up marginal utility for each unit you get total utility
• Paper Two: Elizabethan England 1568 - 1603
• Henry himself even said at one point Elizabeth was illegitimate
• Paper Two: Elizabethan England 1568 - 1603
• AQA exam board, Specification code 8145, Teaching from September 2016, exams from June 2018