society

• Elites

  • Remnants of feudal system
  • Growth of professional and commercial bourgise
  • Peers and greater gentry still represented social elite
• Nobility

  • Peerage increased
  • Only 9 more peers at end of reign
  • Natural wastage
  • Successful service
  • Family relationships
• Duke of Buckingham

  • Only duke in 1509
  • Edward Stafford
  • Didn't enjoy royal favour
  • Descendant of Edward 3rd
  • Executed 17 May 1521
• Norfolk

  • Thomas Howard
  • Restored to title of his father
  • Uncle to Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard
• Suffolk

  • Promoted by being close to Henry
  • Charles Brandon
  • Married Mary-heavily fined
  • Criticised by Erasmus
• Nobility and property

  • Did bestow property
  • Suffolk-Lincolnshire - 1536
  • Moved there - authority in person
  • John Baron Russell raised to peerage
  • Lands in Devon after execution of Henry
• Baron Dacre

  • Thomas Fiennes
  • 1541
  • Tried for murder of a neighbours servant
  • Convicted and hanged like common criminal
• Treasonable conspiracies


  • Duke of Buckingham- 1521
  • Henry Pole Baron Montague
  • Henry Courtenay
  • 1538
  • In contact with Catholic Reginald Pole
• Margaret Pole Countess of Salisbury


  • Daughter of George Plantagent
  • May 1539 attained
  • Produced tunic of 5 wounds of Christ- fabrication
  • Held in Tower of London for 2 and a half year
  • Executed 1541- aged 67
• Rebellions


  • Lord Darcy and Hussey
  • 1536
  • Justified according to legal standards to the time