Social impact of religious & economic change under Edward VI

• Protestantism

  Convinced Protestants were sparse in number
• 20% of Londoners were Protestant by 1547, meaning 80% were not
• Catholic survivalism remained strong in the north i.e. Lancashire
• Edward VI

  A genuine Protestant convert
• Edward VI welcomed religious radicals into his household e.g. John Hooper, Thomas Becon
• Moderate Book of Common Prayer (1549) by Archbishop Cranmer

  1. Established a single form of services within the Church of England

  2. Translated the services into English to enhance understanding of the key texts

  3. Included an ambiguous Eucharistic declaration which the Catholic Bishop Gardiner (Tower prisoner) thought could still imply the acceptance of transubstantiation
• Religious changes under Somerset

  1. Denunciation of images in London in February 1547

  2. Injunctions issued in July 1547 attacking many features of popular Catholicism

  3. Dissolution of chantries and religious guilds in December 1547

  4. Introduction of Book of Common Prayer in May 1549
• Religious changes under Northumberland

  • Wished to continue the Protestant reforms initiated by Somerset
  • Sought to plunder more of the Church's wealth
• Religious changes under Northumberland

  1. Cranmer was beginning to move in a more radical direction

  2. More radical senior clergy e.g. Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London, John Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester were becoming more influential

  3. Eminent continental reformers such as Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr had moved to England and became very influential

  4. Close links between many English reformers and the Swiss reformer Heinrich Bullinger of Zurich

  5. The firmly Protestant nature of official doctrine was confirmed in Cranmer's Forty-Two Articles of Religion
• The Crown pursued a systematic policy of asset stripping, extracting wealth from the Church through the plundering of bishoprics
• People increasingly felt that there was little point in leaving money to the Church

  If there was a chance that their bequests might be confiscated by the Crown
• January 1553 the Crown started to confiscate church plate
• Eamon Duffy argued this was an attack on the history and collective memory of each parish which encouraged a climate of discontent and disobedience
• Inflation under Somerset

  • Inherited Henry VIII's disastrous policy
  • Reduced real wages
  • Debased the coinage to finance war against Scotland, which raised £537,000 but added to the social distress
  • Poor harvest in 1548 heightened this
• Enclosure under Somerset

  • Somerset was influenced by writer John Hales who argued that enclosure was the root cause of many of the country's socio-economic problems
  • Set up a commission but little was achieved
• Taxation under Somerset

  • Land sales and borrowing used to pay for the Scottish war which added to the long term problems of the Crown finance
  • Somerset's sheep tax of March 1549 to deter enclosure created huge financial pressure on small farmers in upland areas who relied on subsistence farming e.g. Exmoor and Dartmoor
• Economic changes under Northumberland

  • Brought an end to the wars in France and Scotland
  • Ensured a considerable reduction in Crown expenditure
  • Gained £133,333 from the French for the return of Boulogne
  • One final debasement then abandoned the practice
  • Crown income improved, although some of this improvement was achieved by increasing revenue from the Church e.g. melting down of church plate for bullion
  • Under the influence of Walter Mildmay, a commission produced a detailed analysis of the shortcomings in royal financial administration
  • Plans were made for the streamlining of financial administration but didn't come to fruition until Mary
• 1549 was the "closest thing Tudor England came to a class war"
• Somerset's government struggled to cope with rebellions as troops were garrisoning the south of Scotland as well as south east England to ward off French invasion
• Reasons for rebellion

  • Religion
  • Midlands and East Anglia agrarian and social grievances, riots due to enclosure
  • Resentment of taxation
• Earl of Arundel able to stamp out rebellion in Sussex by punishing oppressive landlords and disorderly peasants even-handedly
• Similar methods worked in Cambridgeshire, Yorkshire and the Midlands
• South-west lacked a resident aristocrat like Arundel to bring matters under control and both the Western Rebellion and Kett's Rebellion in East Anglia required significant military action to suppress them
• The Western Rebellion, 1549

  • Prompted by religious grievances
  • Rebels described the new Book of Common Prayer as a "Christmas game"
  • Rebels wanted to reverse the religious reforms which destroyed the way religion had been experienced e.g. HVII role of church
  • Extent of resentment shown in the murder of William Body in April 1548 due to his insensitive approach in removing traditional objects of veneration
  • Rebellion also provoked by distrust between the rural labourers and the landowners as well as grievances over taxation
  • Peasant labourers resented sheep tax
• Kett's Rebellion in East Anglia

  • Class antagonism due to landowner abuse of the Norfolk foldcourse system
  • Hatred of local government officials
  • The release of pent-up frustrations about the maladministration locally of the Howards
  • Rebels wanted the government to act on the promises of reform made by Somerset in his proclamation against enclosures in April
  • Contrasted with the western rebels who wished to reverse government policy
  • They camped at Mousehold Heath outside Norwich where Kett maintained order and negotiated with the civic authorities
• The suppression of the rebellions

  1. Somerset had appointed Lord Russell to deal with the Western Rebellion

  2. Using forces including foreign mercenaries he defeated the rebels at Clyst Heath near Exeter 4th August

  3. The government's original attempt to crush the East Anglican rebellion by the Earl of Northampton ended in humiliating failure

  4. Somerset was forced to send an army including foreign mercenaries under the command of the Earl of Warwick to deal with the rebels

  5. 27th August the rebellion was brutally suppressed and Kett was convicted of high treason and hanged
• Intellectual developments, including humanist and religious thought

  • Evangelical humanism associated with Erasmus
  • More radical forms of Protestantism
  • Moderate humanism still exerted some influence despite divisions of the 1530s
  • Archbishop Cranmer had been influenced by humanism
  • The 1547 injunctions required each parish to acquire a copy of the Paraphrases of Erasmus
  • Humanist John Cheke had been Edward's tutor
  • Humanist writer Nicholas Udall received government encouragement
  • William Cecil, then junior secretary of state in Northumberland's administration, encouraged humanist scholars at Cambridge
  • Humanist-influenced reformers Peter Martyr and Martin Bucer were invited to work in England during Edward's reign
  • Bucer became Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, then replaced by militant Lutheran Philip Melanchthon