Key Issue 3: Rebellion + unrest 1547-1558

Economic and social problems

• Vagrancy, People who moved from area to area
• Population increase, rising population casued lower living standards (allowed for diseases) + more food is needed
• Debasing the coinage, mixing gold with other metals to increase the amount of money but decreasing the worth
• Rising food prices, farmers began to farm sheep rather than crops (more money + bad harvests) results in less food
• Enclosure, higher gentry fence off common land preventing common people from using it - Common land was availible to all people to farm and collect fruit. Rich men (sheep farmers) enclosed the land preventing others from using it = economic problems as the produce was unaffordable
  • POPULATION RISE
  • ENCLOSURE
  • DECLINE IN LIVING STANDARDS
  • POVERTY/VAGRANCY
  • RISING RENTS
  • POOR HARVESTS 
  • INFLUENZA/EPIDEMICS

- Most likely cause of economic problems was rising population 

• 1525-1551 rose from 2.3 million to 3 million
• Agricultural productivity was unable to keep up withe the increase
  • price of food rose
  • bad harvests
  • grain prices rose faster than meat + dairy (staple diet)
  • land given to sheep farmers not crops
  • land not fertile enough
• Young population meant the dependency ratio increased (children consume not contribute)

Enclosure

• Putting up a fence or hedge around that has previously been open
  • landowners often ignored the rights of others
  • enclosed common land caused villagers to destory the fences
  • given to those who changed it from crops to sheep = unemployment

- Rent + new leases are more money than what the farmers earn so it has become too expensive

Debasing the coinage

• More money was put in circulation
  • gold mixed with other metals 
  • impacted prices as more money was availible but not food
  • resulted in poverty + inflation
  • used to finance war

- Poor Harvests , made the situation worse by driving the price of food up even more. 6 years of failed harvests = not enough food

- Dissolution of the monasteries , removed an institution that helped the poor. Increased unemployment + depression in the cloth trade = more problems

Vagrants

• Authorities perceived vagrants to be a threat to law and order
  • many turned to crime or became beggars
• No police, so used harsh measures to prevent unrest 
• 1547 Vagrancy Act
  • condemned vagrants to slavery for two years for a first offence and life for a second

Somerset's government

• Debasement of money to fund war in Scotland (resulted in inflation)
  • some believed it was the greed of the landowners
• Tried to commissions in both 1548 + 1549 to look into the problem of enclosure
  • achievements were limited as landowners blocked attempts to legislate the issue
• Forced Somerset to issue proclaimations to force landowners to reverse their policy
  • lost him the support of landowners
  • encourage lower classes to see Somerset as their champion 
  • as a result it encouraged the lower orders to take law into their own hands on what they thought was illegal (believed Somerset would support them)

Unrest 1549

• No guarantee that Somerset would be accepted as protector after Henry VIII's death
  • fears of unrest
  • clergy ordered to preach obedience from the pulpit
  • Somerset lacked royal authority that an ordained monarch would have
    • unpopular policies could eaily be challenged

- Late spring/summer = central+southern England facing riot and rebellion

Prayer Book Rebellion

• Traditionally called the prayer book rebellion (suggests religious motivation)
• 1547, William Body (local archdecan + protestant sympathiser) attacked when he returned to oversee iconoclasm
  • 1548, murdered 
• Significant number of peasants gathered at Bodwin (the country town of Cornwall)
  • to protest against the imposition of the Act of Uniformity
  • much larger disturbance at Sampford Courteny 
    • objected to the new prayer book 
    • religion dominated the demands

Rebels

• Dominated (religious) demands
  • probably drawn up by the catholic priests 
  • wanted a restoration of traditional doctrine 
  • asserted belief in transubstantiation + purgartory
• Some non-religious demands 
  • sheep and cloth tax
    • would have hit pastural areas like Devon and Cornwall hard
  • considered the gentry to be enemies 
    • attacked and robbed the gentry
    • Devon rebels kiled gentry William Helyces

- Gentry gained financially from the dissolution of the monasteries + chantries

- Leader, Robert Kett

• Started as an enclosure riot in Norfolk 
• Angry at lawyer John Flowerdew
• 16,000 men
• Local forces unable to difuse the rebels
• Government sent a force of 14,000 troops under the Marquis of Northampton
• Earl of Warwick sent
  • rebels masacred 

29 Demands

• Complaints of gentry manipulation of the system (excluding pasture/grazing time)
• peasants forced off common land
• Fishing rights, rivers availible for all
• Rising rents as landowners put them up to combat inflation
• More protestant demands, new prayer book
• Attacked nobles, gentry (landowners) + running of local government
  • conservative with demands

- Did not develop into a full-scale rebellion 

• Primarily caused by long-term economic developments + religious changes
• Evidence of opposition to enclosure in Lincolnshire, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, suffolk + Kent
  • Surrey rebels threw down enclosures at Witley Park
• Religion main cause in Oxfordshire and Yorkshire
  • due to religious changes 
  • blamed catholics

- Kett is executed after the rebellion 

- Only Western + Kett's became full-scale rebellion

Earl of Arunder

• Sussex, met the rebels face to face
  • found out the causes of their grievances
  • 'good lord' behaviour + hospitality
  • discovered the gentry were at fault and ordered them to fix their ways 
    • rebels were satisfied and dispersed 
    • stoppped the rebellion through good lordship
• Northampshire, local gentry used their own retainers to contain the unrest
• Leicestershire + Rutland, 
  • Marquis of Dorset + Earl of Huntingdon put down the unrest

- Riots could have escalated under good leadership (e.g Ketts)

- Government was already vulnerable, forces were stretched by the battle against Scotland + other forces on standby due to the threat of France

West country

• Devon + Norfolk
• Nobility and gentry were either absent or unable to act because of the scale of the unrest
• Gov, unaware of the unrest + rebels joined forces
• Tried to disperse the rebellion by offering pardons
• 3,000 rebels killed in battle

Norfolk

• Somerset only sent a small force under the marquis of Northampton at first 
  • pardon offer refused
  • troops had to be sent from Scotland and mercenaries were employed
    • Warwick arrived at Norwich with 12,000 men
  • 27th August, rebels were slaughtered 
    • 3,000 men were killed on the battlefield (only 49 executed as punishment)
    • government forced to abandon its policy in Scotland

Western rebellion - more of a serious religious threat

• Wanted religious change (did not aim to remove Edward)Not a threat in desire for political change
  • did not advance on London + failed to take regional capital
  • lacked noble + gentry support 
  • Battles to defeat the rebels 
  • serious threat, troops had to be brought back from Scotland

Kett's rebellion - more of a strategic military threat

• Did not aim to remove monarch 
  • did not march on London but defeated Northampton and took Norwich 
  • 16,000 rebels, 3,000 killed (serious threat)
  • troops brought back from scotland rebels established organised camps 
    • risk of invasion from France
    • government resources are more stretched 

• May have rebelled due to Mary's decision to marry Phillip of Spain (timing suggests this was the main cause)
• Dec 1553, rumours to remove Mary became a plot 
  • plotters were going to marry Edward Courtenay to Elizabeth 
  • replace Mary with Elizabeth
  • examination of Edward.C revealed the plot

Thomas Wyatt 

• Loyal to the Tudors 
• Fearful of loosing his position + influence in local society
• Appealed to nationalism + xenophobia

- Economic reasons, decline in kent cloth trade