Assess the view that ... reign was the most successful in the use of legislation to increase stability

Question 1

Religious legislation

Answer 1

• Tudors were unwilling to reverse or change their religious policies.
- Prompted rebellions particularly between 1536 and 1569.
• HVIII
o PoG made Henry VIII more determined to sever links with RCC.
- Participation in revolt by mocks and abbots convinced him that their continued existence presented a security risk
- HVIII & Cromwell dissolved larger monasteries 1537-8
- 1538, Cromwell’s Injunctions removed saints, pilgrimages and holy days
However…
- Henry VIII’s Six Articles saw reversal of many Protestant measures
• Edward VI
o Religious legislation forwarded Protestantism.
- Contrary to Western but wanted by Kett’s rebels.
• Mary I
o Mary went ahead with her marriage to Catholic Philip II of Spain, in spite of Wyatt’s rebellion
o Stepped up her campaign against heretics
• Elizabeth I
o Not intimidated by reaction and rebellion of Northern Earls to her religious settlement of 1558-9
o 1571 the council introduced penal laws specifically against Catholic recusants

Question 2

Ireland

Answer 2

• Replaced Irish office holders in Dublin with English ones.
E.g. After Silken Thomas
• After Silken Thomas also established small permanent garrison - aimed to deal with rebellion quickly and easily, before escalated into a full scale rebellion.
- Not the case - E.g. Tyrone 1595-1603 (Cost £2mill, 2 armies under Essex then Mountjoy)
o Restrengthened border fortresses
o Seized Kildare’s lands

Question 3

Social legislation

Answer 3

• Henry VIII
o Amicable Grant
- No one paid any tax
- No benevolence received
- Parliamentary subsidy reassessed at more modest rates.
o 1536-7 landlord-tenant relations examined in Kendal
o Statute of Uses replaced 1540 following complaints by the gentry and lesser nobility
o When collected benevolences 1540s - HVIII targeted wealthier groups
• Edward VI:
o Subsidy and vagrancy acts repealed after 1549.
o Enclosure acts introduced - protect peasants from future enclosure of the commons.
o Fixed grain prices, prohibited exports and maintained arable land
• Elizabeth I
o Two acts against the decaying of towns and the maintenance of tillage after Oxfordshire
o Wealthier subjects were reminded that they had a Christian duty to organise special charity collections
o 1597 prosecuted seven leading Oxfordshire landowners who had enclosed local common and wasteland

Question 4

Economic legislation

Answer 4

• Henry VII
o Yorkshire 1486, Cornish 1497 did not have to pay their war tax
• Henry VIII
o 1534 subsidy was abandoned after PoG
• Elizabeth I
o After 1596 no legislation to tackle taxation - issue brought on by wars against Spain.

Question 5

Political legislation

Answer 5

• Henry VII
o 1487 – Star Chamber Act established additional legal powers to deal with nobles
o After 1487 – Act of Livery and Maintenance limits number of servants and private armies
• Henry VIII
o Reforms to Council of the North after Amicable Grant Rising - all sheriffs and JPs to take their orders from it. Its membership was reformed
o Henry purged the bench of magistrates who had shown sympathy to PoG rebels
• Edward VI
o After 1549 rebellions the Duke of Somerset was arrested and imprisoned – he was held responsible for the political crisis
o Act for the Punishment of Unlawful Assemblies and Rising of the King’s subjects” declared it high treason if 12 or more people gathered to alter existing laws or tried to kill or imprison a privy councillor or refused to disperse within one hour
• Elizabeth I
o Elizabethan reforms to the Council of the North after the Northern Earls rebellion:
o 1570 – magistrates purged in North