13. Instability and consolidation: 'the mid-Tudor Crisis'. 1547-63

Instability and consolidation: ‘the mid-Tudor Crisis’, 1547-63

Religious change

Religious change under Somerset

• ·         Religious policy under Edward VI saw a considerable move in the direction of Protestantism.
• ·         Somerset himself seems to have been a genuine, albeit somewhat late, convert to Protestantism and he welcomed religious radicals such as John Hooper and Thomas Becon into his household.
• ·         For the most part, religious policy under Somerset proved cautious.
• ·         This is exemplified by the moderate Book of Common Prayer written in 1549 by Archbishop Cranmer, who was himself cautious by temperament and anxious to avoid an increase in religious tension.
• ·         It had two key objectives: it established a single form for services within the Church of England and it translated the services into English to enhance understanding of the key texts.
• ·         It therefore simply translated into English many of the traditional Latin services.
• ·         Indeed, it included an ambiguous Eucharistic declaration which the Catholic Bishop Gardiner, a prisoner in the Tower, thought could still imply the acceptance of transubstantiation.
• ·         However, a much more radical approach was adopted in some areas, despite the reluctance of public opinion to embrace religious reform.
• ·         In fact, Somerset’s period of power experienced a sustained attack on popular religious practice, particularly in London.

A closer look: Protestantism

• ·         Convinced Protestants were in a small minority at the start of Edward’s reign.
• ·         Susan Brigden has suggested in The Reformation in London (1991) that roughly 20% of Londoners were Protestant by 1547, which does mean, of course, that 80% were not.
• ·         The leaders of Protestantism, especially Nicholas Ridley, were a vocal lobby who were well placed among Somerset’s supporters.
• ·         Kent, East Sussex, Essex, Bristol and the East Anglian ports were other places with entrenched Protestant minorities.
• ·         Elsewhere, it was almost non-existent.
• ·         Meanwhile, Catholic survivalism remained strong in the north, especially Lancashire, in Midland countries such as Staffordshire and Worcestershire, and in the far south-west.

A Closer Look

• ·         To encourage acceptance of the religious changes, Archbishop Cranmer published a book of homilies.
• ·         Homilies were ‘off-the-shelf’ substitutes for sermons whose purpose was to encourage obedience to both Church and State.

• ·         The social impact of these religious changes was highly significant, given that they amounted to a sustained attack on the religious experience of ordinary people, and enabled a renewed plundering of the Church’s resources.
• ·         The injunctions of 1547 attacked many traditional Catholic practices.
• ·         The subsequent attack on chantries and the plundering of their assets by the Crown destroyed one means of connecting the dead to the communities of which they had once been part, whilst the attack on guilds and confraternities meant that the Crown confiscated money and property which had previously underpinned charitable activities, feasts and celebrations.
• ·         There was widespread fear that this would only be the start of systematic asset stripping of the Church.

Religious change under Northumberland

• ·         Northumberland had a twofold strategy in relation to the Church:

o   He wished to continue the Protestant reforms initiated by Somerset.

o   He sought to plunder more of its wealth.

• ·         Moreover, the wider political context helped to shape a more radical approach to Protestantism than might have been expected of a political figure like Northumberland, who had seemed hitherto to be fairly cautious in religious matters. There a number of reasons for this:

o   The tactically cautious Cranmer was beginning to move in a more radical direction. This was reflected in the much more radical Book of Common Prayer which he introduced in 1552.

• ·         Changes introduced by the revised Book of Common Prayer, 1552

Zwinglian refers to the religious ideas of Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531), a Protestant reformer from Zurich in Switzerland; his ideas, which were more radical than those of Martin Luther, were the most important continental influence on the English Church during Edward VI’s reign; in Zwingli’s view the Eucharist was simply a commemoration of Christ’s sacrifice, and no transformation in the ‘elements’ (the bread and the wine) took place.

o   More radical senior clergy such as Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London, and the even more radical John Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester, were becoming more influential.

o   Eminent continental reformers such as Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr had moved to England and were becoming influential in decisions on religious matters. Moreover, there were very close links between many English reformers and Swiss reformer, Heinrich Bullinger of Zurich, who had carried on the Zwinglian Reformation in that city.

o   Most importantly, it reflected the increasing influence, as the reign progressed, of Edward VI on the policy-making process. The king took his role as head of the Church very seriously and believed it was his mission to destroy idolatry.

• ·         The firmly Protestant nature of official doctrine was confirmed in Cranmer’s Forty-Two Articles of Religion, although these left some ambiguity between competing varieties of Protestantism.
• ·         In addition to the adoption of a more strongly Protestant approach, the Crown, still in financial difficulties after the ruinous expenditure of the protectorate, pursued a systematic policy of asset stripping, extracting wealth from the Church through the plundering of the property of bishoprics.
• ·         For example, the dioceses of Gloucester and Worcester were combined, with two thirds of the Worcester estate going to the Crown; the bishops of Exeter and Winchester made substantial ‘grants’ from their property to the Crown; and there was a plan, never implemented, to divide the bishopric of Durham and to appropriate much of its wealth to the Crown.

Impact on society of the religious changes

• ·         Evidence from churchwardens’ accounts suggest that the Crown’s orders regarding the destruction of old Catholic habits seem gradually to have been put into effect, although responses to the restoration of Catholicism in 1553 were often rapid.
• ·         Expenditure on church goods declined after 1540.
• ·         This seems to have been a reaction to the destructive attitudes of the Crown.
• ·         In other words, 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.
• ·         The evidence from wills has been much debated.
• ·         Many wills have not survived and in any case most people did not leave them.
• ·         It is sometimes possible to make deductions about religious beliefs both from declarations of faith, found at the beginning of wills and from individual bequests, although such evidence needs to be treated with some caution.
• ·         What is evident is that by the reign of Edward VI people were much less likely to leave money to their parish church.
• ·         To historian Christian Haigh, this represents nothing less than a crisis in religion at the parish level.
• ·         “As services became plainer, plays and ales were suppressed, guilds and special funds were abolished, so churches attracted less affection – and much less money – from their people.”
• ·         There is evidence of a decline in church attendance in the diocese of Exeter and it has also been claimed that there was a decline in the number of candidates for ordination as priests, which could potentially have left the Church with a severe manpower shortage.
• ·         In 1550 the radical John Hooper admitted that the pace of reform was hampered by uncooperative public opinion.
• ·         The crisis at parish level was made worse by fear of a Crown attack on church plate, although some resourceful parishes were able to hide their treasures.
• ·         Not only was this an attack on the assets of parishes, it was also, as Eamon Duffy had argued, an attack on the history and collective memory of each parish, which encourages a “climate of discontent and disobedience.”
• ·         In such a climate it was, perhaps, unsurprising that the accession of Queen Mary should have witnessed a spontaneous return to the old ways in many parishes.

Economic changes

Economic changes under Somerset

• ·         There were a number of interconnected economic factors which helped bring about discontent during Somerset’s period of rule. These included:

o   Inflationary pressures

o   Agrarian issues, particularly enclosure and harvest failure

o   Taxation.

• ·         The rate of inflation had been increasing rapidly during the later stages of Henry VIII’s reign, bringing about a marked reduction in real wages for many people, particularly those at the lower end of the oncome scale.
• ·         There problems grew worse under Somerset.
• ·         He continued Henry’s disastrous policy of debasing the coinage in order to finance the war against Scotland.
• ·         Although this raised £537,000, it heightened the inflationary pressures and added to the social distress that many were feeling at the time.
• ·         A poor harvest in 1548 reinforced inflationary pressures even more.
• ·         Enclosure became a serious political issue during Somerset’s protectorate.
• ·         Somerset was much influenced by the writer John Hales who argued that enclosure was the root cause of many of the country’s social and economic problems.
• ·         Somerset therefore, like Wolsey before him, agreed to set up a commission to investigate the problem and issued a proclamation against enclosure.
• ·         Enclosure commissioners were duly appointed, but little was achieved apart from raising the expectations of the poor, and annoying landowners.
• ·         In fact, despite the scale of controversy, the rate of enclosure seems to have been slowing down and Somerset’s proclamation might well have been wrong-headed.
• ·         Taxation caused great discontent. Money had to be raised to pay for the Scottish war; this was mostly financed by land sales and borrowing, which simply added to the long-term problems of Crown finance.
• ·         What caused even more short-term problems was a failed social experiment.
• ·         The main driver of increasing amounts of enclosure was perceived to be the profits that could be gained by converting land from arable to pasture in order to graze large flocks of sheep; these would provide wool and cloth for the export market.
• ·         In order to deter this process Somerset introduced a tax on sheep. It was intended to deter enclosure.
• ·         Its main effect, however, was to create huge financial pressure on small farmers in upland areas who had little choice but to rely on sheep for subsistence.

Economic change under Northumberland

• ·         After the disastrous final years of Henry VIII’s reign and the protectorate, Northumberland achieved a measure of stability in the national finances.
• ·         He brought an end to the wars against Scotland and France, and this not only ensured a considerable reduction in Crown expenditure but also brought in £133,333 as a French payment for the return of Boulonge.
• ·         He succumbed to the temptation of one final debasement, but then abandoned the practice.
• ·         Crown income improved, although some of this improvement was achieved by increasing revenue from the Church by unscrupulous methods, including the melting down of church plate for bullion.
• ·         Under the influence of Walter Midmay, a commission produced a detailed analysis of the shortcomings in royal financial administration and plans were made for the streamlining of financial administration, although most of these did not come to fruition until the reign of Queen Mary.