Henry

• Social hierarchy of the countryside

  - Nobility

  - Gentry

  - Yeomen

  - Tenant farmers

  - Landless of labouring poor

  - Vagrants, homeless
• Social hierarchy of towns

  - Merchants

  - Professionals

  - Business Owners

  - Craftsmen

  - Unemployed
• Why people accepted the Social hierarchy in 1509

  Many people believed that God had given them their place in society and that they had to respect those above them and care for those below them.
• The significance of the wool trade

  - Was a source of wealth for gentry and nobility who owned large flocks of sheep

  - Wool was exported, mainly to the Netherlands, which increased the wealth of merchants in port cities like London and Bristol

  - Exports increased the wealth of the King as they levied a tax on each sack of wool exported

  - Land owners enclosed land to graze their

  flocks, reducing the common land available to ordinary people
• The significance of the cloth trade

  - Most cloth woven in Yorkshire, SW and SE of England, the industry brought wealth to these areas, particularly areas that could benefit from closeness to the London markets

  - Run by merchants who organised themselves into a guilds which enabled them to keep prices high

  - Exported to Europe especially Netherlands and Belgium, by 1540 80% of cloth in Europe came from England
• Structure of Government in 1509

  - The King

  - Privy Chamber (Kings close friends)

  - The Royal Household (Nobles and servants who advised the king)

  - The Royal Council (Nobles and churchmen who helped govern)

  - The Court (Nobles who entertained and advised the King

  - Parliament (Passed laws proposed by the King)

  - Justices of the Peace (Nobility who kept law and order in different areas of the country)
• The importance of London

  - England's biggest city with a population of 60,000

  - London was a growing trade centre especially in the cloth and wool trade.

  - It was where the King and the Royal Court were frequently
• The kingdom Henry inherited

  - No rival contenders, the throne was secure. Henry was the second son but his brother, Arthur, died in 1502

  - The country was Catholic, which acknowledged the authority of the pope, it was he who controlled the church and not the King, and the church was extremely powerful

  - Henry VII taxed the nobility heavily which meant he was very unpopular with noblemen, who now welcomed a new and less experienced monarch
• Henry the Renaissance Prince


  Henry styled himself as a Renaissance man, picking up on the revival of culture based on the ideas of ancient Greece and Rome. Henry had many talents and skills and also had a keen intellect
• Henry's characteristics


  - Strong athlete, practised archery, wrestling and jousting

  - Was a musician, he sang, played instruments and composed

  - Was a good dancer

  - Spoke French Spanish and Latin
• Henry's views on sovereignty and monarchy

  - He believed he was appointed by God (Divine right of kings)

  - People had a duty to obey him
• Henry's personal style of government

  - Henry usually had help from the Royal Council and the Privy Chamber to help him make decisions

  - Increasingly made use of one personal adviser or chief minister

  - Henry delegated power as routine tasks bored him- increasing the power of his key advisers such as Wolsey and Cromwell
• Henry's strengths


  - He was young and different from his father, who was disliked by noblemen and merchants for imposing high taxes

  - He was handsome and looked like a king

  - He had a team of experienced advisers who helped him rule the country

  - England was stable

  - His wife, Catherine of Aragon, gave him strong connections to Spain

  - England was rich and the Crown was not in debt
• Henry's weaknesses


  - Naive, aged 18, had little experience of

  government

  - His vision of kingship was based on heroic legends meaning he spent lots of money on wars

  - He was disinterested and had little interest in day-to-day government and was happy to delegate his power to others

  - Risk-taker, he took part in dangerous sports such as jousting which was risky when there was no male successor to the throne

  - Egotistical and overconfident, he would not heed advice, leading to costly mistakes
• Henry's aims as king

  - To create a government where the King decided policy and his ministers carried it out

  - To achieve victory in battles abroad and to become a major force in European affairs

  - To win back lands from France

  - To create a dazzling Royal Court through dress, architecture and entertainment

  - To enhance his prestige by attracting great men to his court, including scholars and artists

  - To be an effective monarch, governing well, maintaining law and order, being committed to the church

  - To produce a male heir who would reduce the risk of civil war on his death
• Wolsey's personality


  - not a member of the nobility

  - extremely intelligent

  - Very ambitious

  - Charming and persuasive, which enabled him to build working relationships with the king and rulers of other countries

  - Willing to carry out the King's wishes

  - Ruthless with anyone who threatened him or the King's government

  - Known as Alter Rex (second king) because of his great power and influence
• Wolsey's roles


  Wolsey was both Lord Chancellor and a cardinal by 1515. This strengthened his power, as he was able to exert influence over the king and the church
• Reasons for Wolsey's rise to power

  - Henry did not involve himself in day-to-day government. This increased Wolsey's power as he was left to carry out important tasks Henry found boring

  - Wolsey's appointment as Royal Almoner in 1509 made him a member of the Royal Council giving him access to the king. This gave him opportunities to exert influence over Henry and dominate the government by 1515

  - Henry disliked many of his Father's advisers so this removed any rivals for Wolsey

  - The war with France in 1512 enabled Wolsey to prove his worth to Henry by organising a well equipped army by 1513

  - Wolsey's persuasive personality and his ability to flatter enabled him to exert influence over the King. He also was ruthless and willing to financially ruin his rivals
• Wolsey's enclosure reforms


  - Enclosure involved fences to divide land into fields that were often used to graze sheep, allowing land owners to make money through the wool trade

  - Reduced land available to tenant farmers and the poor who had less common land to graze animals

  - Wolsey set up an inquiry in 1517 to investigate this practice and reduce its effect on ordinary people. 260 court cases were brought against land owners
• Effect of Wolsey's enclosure reforms

  The policies achieved very little as enclosures continued to take place

  The policies also angered many landowners, creating enemies for him at courts
• Wolsey and the justice system


  - Wolsey sought to create a fairer system of justice that ensured the rich were not above the law

  - He encouraged the poor to bring cases to court

  - He increased the court's work rate

  - He supported the cases of the poor against the rich

  - He oversaw cases himself
• Effect of Wolsey's justice system reforms

  This reform angers many landowners again who accused Wolsey of victimising them
• The Eltham Ordinances 1526


  To tackle the misspending and bad management of the palaces, Wolsey compiled a list of rules 79 chapters long

  - Cutting spending on meals and servants

  - Laying off sick or unneeded servants

  - Reducing the amount of money paid to people for expenses such as food, fuel etc

  - Reducing the no of men in the privy chamber from 12 to 6
• Effect of the Eltham Ordinances

  They were largely unsuccessful, mainly because Wolsey lost interest in them once he had reduced the size of the Privy council (which was his main aim)
• Wolsey's financial measures


  Wolsey needed to raise money for Henry's battles abroad, this involved:

  - Fifteenths and tenths

  - Crown Lands

  - The subsidy

  - Forced loans

  - Clerical taxation
• Fifteenths and tenths


  These were taxes on moveable goods. 1/15th of their value in rural areas and 1/10th of their value in urban areas
• Crown lands


  Wolsey recovered Crown lands from the nobility increasing the income to the government. This raised £15000 in 1515 alone
• The subsidy


  This was a tax on incomes, a progressive tax, which meant the more you earned the more you paid
• Forced loans 1522 & 1523


  Wolsey forced major landowners to lend the government money in 1522 and then again 1523
• Clerical taxation


  This was a voluntary gift made by the church to the king
• The Amicable Grant


  1525, The Amicable Grant was a tax levied on the King's subjects to pay for an invasion of France

  - Was a tax of a third on the property of priests

  and of a sixth on the property of ordinary

  people
• Why the Amicable Grant was introduced

  - The King of France had been defeated by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor in 1525

  - Henry wanted to take advantage of this by invading France and recovering lands lost by the Crown in the 15th century

  - The grant was to help pay for the invasion
• Why the Amicable Grant was controversial

  - All other taxes such as the subsidy, the fifteenth and the tenth had all been approved by parliament.

  The Amicable Grant had not been approved this way and was being collected by Royal Decree

  - People only had 10 weeks to pay the tax, many people resented it and could not pay it. This gave the possibility of a rebellion against the King
• Short term consequences of the Amicable Grant

  - Many people refused to pay the tax, claiming they had no money

  - In Suffolk, there was a full-scale rebellion with 10000 men gathering in the town, expressing their loyalty to the King but demanding he be aware of their anger of having to pay the tax

  - The tax was abandoned

  - Henry postponed the French campaign and made peace with France
• Long term consequences of the Amicable Grant

  - Wolsey was humiliated and his reputation badly damaged, he had to take responsibility for its failure

  - Henry began, perhaps for the first time, to doubt Wolsey's judgement, beginning a process that would result in Wolsey's fall from power

  - The position of Wolsey's enemies in the Royal Court was strengthened (Eltham Ordinances was an attempt to reduce their power)

  - The failure of the grant demonstrated that there were limitations on the King's power, as he could no longer raise taxes without the consent of parliament
• Scotland


  Independent country traditionally allied to France. For England, war with France could have meant war with Scotland
• England


  A medium-sized power. It controlled Wales, Ireland and Calais
• The Holy Roman Empire


  A collection of 400 semi-in-dependent states controlled by Charles V, the Holy Roman Emporer, who was also the ruler of Spain
• The Ottoman Empire


  A powerful Muslim state that was expanding into Europe and North Africa
• France


  The most populous kingdom in Europe, ruled by Francis 1 who had a fierce rivalry with the Habsburgs