Economic development- Henry VIII

• Trade


  The volume of English trade increased during the first half of the 16th century
• Changes in English trade during HVIII's reign

  • Continued rise in cloth exports, though the market for raw wool declined
  • Woollen cloth exports almost doubled
  • Significant increases in the export of hides and tin
  • Increase in the import of wine which suggests the spending power of the more prosperous classes increased
• Leading routes for exports

  • From London to Antwerp, from where it was frequently sent to customers in Central Europe and the Baltic
  • An increasing proportion of exported cloth was routed through London which had a negative impact of other ports, especially Bristol
  • Southampton enjoyed a boom especially in trade with Venice, but was short-lived and over by the end of the century
• Biggest change in the cloth industry

  Increase in fabrics such as kersey (coarse woollen cloth that was lighter than traditional broadcloth)
• Woollen industry operation


  1. Children carding the wool

  2. Women spinning

  3. Men weaving

  4. Passed from the domestic sphere for more specialist treatment e.g. fulling and dyeing which existed as small-scale industry nationally
• Areas with greatest growth in the cloth industry

  • The West Riding of Yorkshire
  • East Anglia i.e. south Suffolk
  • Parts of the West Country i.e. Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Devon
• The work was not always secure and could lead to poverty
• Serious profits to be made by rich and entrepreneurial clothiers who could achieve social mobility
• Wealthy clothier


  • William Stumpe of Malmesbury, Wiltshire who became MP for Malmesbury, High sheriff of the county, and a wealthy landowner, beneficiary from the dissolution of the monasteries
• Growth in mining industries

  • Cornish tin remained a prize export
  • Lead mining in the high Pennines and coal mining in NE England were growing in importance, with Newcastle supplying an increasingly important London market by sea
  • Blast furnaces produced an increasing amount of iron ore in the Weald of Sussex and Kent- by the mid century there was 26
• HVIII was uninterested in exploration and made no attempt to build on the early achievements of Cabot and the Bristol merchants at the end of the 15th century
• Robert Thorne (Bristol trader) continued his involvement in an Iceland and Newfoundland fishery, but other merchants found they were unable to win royal support
• Sebastian Cabot remained in Spain for most of HVIII's reign apart from 2 short visits; it was only after Edward VI took the throne that he returned
• England was economically healthier, more expansive and more optimistic under the Tudors than at any time since the Roman occupation
• Population grew significantly from 1525 with a general decline in the mortality rate
• From the 1520s, agricultural prices rose significantly


  Increase in farming incomes which was sometimes enhanced by engrossing
• Engrossing


  Merging farms into 1 to improve efficiency
• Debasement of the coinage

  Created a short-term artificial boom in 1544-1546 but at a long term cost to living standards
• Problems during HVIII's reign

  • Bad harvests (1520-21, 1527-29) which led to temporary but significant increases in food prices, almost doubling across the reign
  • Real wages, after a period of stability, declined
  • This heightened at the end of HVIII's reign when the effects of debasement set in
• Assessment for subsidies suggest considerable urban poverty, with over ½ the population of Devon having no personal wealth and ⅓ of Yarmouth
• Growing unemployment amongst rural labourer, some of whom found work in rural industries (e.g. weaving, mining) or migrated to urban areas, with >5000 migrants to London per year
• People made homeless due to engrossing
• Enclosure of common fields existed in the 15th century had relatively little impact but created a moral problem of eviction
• Vague legislation against enclosure was passed in 1489 and 1515 but there was no real grasp on its extent or the scale of the problem
• Its harmful social effects were highlighted in Thomas More's Utopia (1516)
• Wolsey launched an enclosure commission in 1517 which found 188 defendants guilty of illegal enclosure
• The bulk of the damage caused by enclosure and conversion of land from tillage to pasture had taken place before 1485
• Didn't prevent further legislation in 1534 which attempted to limit sheep ownership and engrossing which had limited results
• Increasing population


  Put a strain on food supply
• Wages were stagnating with a plentiful supply of cheap labour


  Wealthy farmers and landowners benefitted
• Agricultural prices rose


  Income rose
• Wealthy farmers and landowners enjoyed better material conditions
• Agricultural improvement promoted economic growth at the cost of peasant distress
• The upper strata of society became richer, but the poor became poorer
• Rich thought the poor were poorer due to their own idleness
• Resulted in stricter measures taken against vagrancy and begging