Chapter 16 - The Social impact of religious and economic changes under Mary I

Question 1

what were the first religious changes of Mary’s reign generated by?

Answer 1

by the willing participation of a largely enthusiatic populace

Question 2

what problems did Mary face when she tried to restore England to catholicism and papal jurisdiction?

Answer 2

• Protestantism, although a minority faith, had attracted adherents in London and in other parts of the south
• The reformed protestant church of england was protected in statute law
• many members of the political elites, on whose support mary depended, had benefitted financially from the acquisition of monastic land and had no desire to surrender what Mary saw as their ill-gotten gains.

Question 3

what happened to some of the most prominent protestant clergy?

Answer 3

they were deprived of their livings, and imprisoned in some cases

Question 4

what were foreign protestants ordered to do?

Answer 4

they were ordered to leave the country, although many had done so already

Question 5

when did the legislative attack on protestantism begin?

Answer 5

the meeting of Mary’s first parliament in October 1553

Question 6

what happened at Mary’s first parliament (October 1553)?

Answer 6

• the religious laws that had been passed during Edward’s reign were repealed
• the order of service as at the time of the death of Henry VIII was restored
• all clergy who had married when permitted to do so could be deprived of their livings
• the legal status of the church of england was upheld.

Question 7

what dilemma did mary face with passing legislation to reverse the royal supremacy?

Answer 7

• it would mean acknowledging that the original laws passed during Henry VIII’s reign were legally valid.
• basically, it would mean mary would have to accept the superiority of statute law over divine law, the opposite of her own fundamental belief

Question 8

when was the status of the church finally resolved?

Answer 8

Mary’s third parliament which lasted from November 1554 to January 1555.

Question 9

what delayed the process of resolving the status of the church?

Answer 9

the issue of what should happen to the lands from dissolved monasteries which had fallen into private hands.

Question 10

what was made clear to the pope and reginald pole about monastic lands?

Answer 10

there was no question that such land could be restored to the church

Question 11

what had Simon renard told Charles V about the monastic lands?

Answer 11

more ex-monastic land was in the hands of catholics than protestants

Question 12

when did Cardinal pole arrive in england to take up position as legate and archbishop of canterbury?

Answer 12

November 1554

Question 13

what did Mary’s third parliament do in relation to cardinal pole?

Answer 13

it reversed the henrician act of attainder that had been passed against Pole

Question 14

what did the first statute of repeal do?

Answer 14

repealed the religious legislation of edward’s reign

Question 15

what year was the first statue of repeal?

Answer 15

1553

Question 16

when were heresey laws restored?

Answer 16

November 1554

Question 17

what act revoked the royal supremacy?

Answer 17

the Act of repeal

Question 18

when was the act of repeal passed?

Answer 18

January 1555

Question 19

what did the second statute of repeal do?

Answer 19

it repealed anti-papal legislation from Henry’s reign

Question 20

why was Pole a subject of suspicion among landowners?

Answer 20

his grudging attitude on the subject of church property, his reputation never really recovered from this

Question 21

when did Pope Julius III die?

Answer 21

1555

Question 22

who succeeded Pope Julius III?

Answer 22

Pope Paul IV, he was fiercely anti-spanish

Question 23

how did Pope Paul IV view Pole?

Answer 23

as a heretic

Question 24

who was Pope Paul IV hostile to?

Answer 24

Mary’s husband Philip, because he was spanish

Question 25

how was Pope Paul IV’s hostility to philip demonstrated?

Answer 25

his open hostility to the spanish side in a war which broke out in 1555, in which Mary found herself effectively at war with the papacy

Question 26

how was Paul IV’s attitude to Pole demonstrated?

Answer 26

when he dismissed him as papal legate in April 1557

Question 27

what was the significance of Pole being dismissed as papal legate?

Answer 27

it was a significant blow to his prestige, but it also meant he could no longer act directly on behalf of the pope in his supervision of the English church

Question 28

what placed Mary in a difficult legal relationship with the pope after he dismissed Pole?

Answer 28

the pope named a new legate, William Peto, but mary trusted pole, and in effect refused to acknowledge superior papal authority that placed peto in a higher position in the english church than the archbishop of canterbury

Question 29

what book became the most widely read book (apart from the bible) in elizabeth’s reign?

Answer 29

Foxe’s book of martyrs, about mary’s burning of protestants

Question 30

how many burnings were there in london?

Answer 30

60, which reflects the concentration of protestantism there

Question 31

where were the main locations of the burnings?

Answer 31

the south-east, the places which had higher protestant populations

Question 32

how many protestants were burned?

Answer 32

280, including high profile ones like Cranmer, Hooper and ridley

Question 33

how many clergymen were burned?

Answer 33

21

Question 34

how many members of the gentry were burned?

Answer 34

8

Question 35

what status were the majority of those burned?

Answer 35

most were men and women of fairly humble status, wealthier people were able to escape into exile

Question 36

what does the humble background of many of those burned suggest?

Answer 36

that protestantism was important to some people who did not simply benefit financially from religious change

Question 37

what did the deaths of the first two victims, John rogers and rowland taylor, elicit?

Answer 37

widespread public sympathy

Question 38

what effect did extending the range of victims to include humble persons have?

Answer 38

it seems to have strengthened the sympathy for their martyrdom

Question 39

what is evidence that the council started worrying about the effects of burnings?

Answer 39

it attempted to ban servants, apprentices and the young in general from attending burnings

Question 40

what was the catholic reformation?

Answer 40

the attempts of the catholic church to reform itself

Question 41

what was the legatine synod?

Answer 41

a joint assembly summoned by a papal legate; in this context, Pole as papal legate had the right to summon clergy from both provinces of the english church - canterbury and york - to a legatine synod; other archbishops of canterbury did not have this right

Question 42

what did pole try to do?

Answer 42

ensure the quality of pastoral provision

Question 43

what did Pole’s legatine synod of 1555 to 1556 make clear?

Answer 43

it made his expectations clear:
- bishops were to reside in their dioceses, they were to preach and they were to oversee carefully the religious life of their parishes

Question 44

what proposal was put forward (although never put into effect) that reflected the spirit of the catholic reformation?

Answer 44

that each cathedral should have a seminary attached for the training of new recruits to the priesthood

Question 45

how did recruiting priests vary by area?

Answer 45

recruiting priests was easy in areas like durham, however there were very few candidates for ordination in places like kent, for example.

Question 46

what did the bulk of the country remain in sentiment?

Answer 46

catholic

Question 47

what economic problems did Mary face?

Answer 47

• the continued pressure on demand brought about by the rapid increase in the population. this was the key long term factor in increasing inflation
• the inflationary impact of debasement of the coinage. this was the key medium-term factor
• Harvest failures in 1555 and 1556. These brought severe food shortages and severe strain on real wages for the poor
• the devastating impact of the ‘sweating sickness’ which swept through the country in 1557 and 1558 (the death toll was possibly the worst since the black death)

Question 48

why was progress made in revenue administration?

Answer 48

• edward’s premature death had prevented any of the recommendations, from the commission set up by northumberland, being set up in his reign.
• the Court of Exchequer took over both the court of first fruit and tenths and the court of augmentations, but in the process adopted some of the more recent courts’ superior methods.
• financial administration, under lord treasurer winchester, was competent

Question 49

what big finanical mistake did mary make?

Answer 49

remitting the final part of edward’s last subsidy

Question 50

despite the level of royal indebtedness rising during the reign, why did it not do so dramatically?

Answer 50

given that england was at war with france during the later stages of the reign

Question 51

what was the financial record like, seeing as it was a government at war?

Answer 51

satisfactory

Question 52

why was the long-term security of crown finances boosted?

Answer 52

• by the plans for recoinage drawn up from 1556 to 1558 but implemented under elizabeth
• it was the thoroughness of of preparation under mary that enabled efficient implementation under elizabeth
• Elizabeth also reaped the benefit from the introduction of a new book of rates in 1558, which raised customs revenue dramatically

Question 53

what was poor relief under mary partially a response to?

Answer 53

• the extent of the problems the country faced from 1556 to 1558.
• there was a huge mortality rate from the influenza epidemic of those years
• there were a series of harvest failures and taxation was high in order to pay for the war against france

Question 54

what was the emphasis on in terms of help for the poor under Mary?

Answer 54

• the enforcement of laws against grain hoarders
• there was a strong encouragement to convert pasture land to tillage
• however it’s very difficult to assess the success of these measures

Question 55

what rebellion had been planned in november 1553?

Answer 55

there were to be 4 simultaneous risings: in Devon (which would be led by edward Courtenay, earl of Devon), Hertfordshire, Leicestershire and Kent
- the plans leaked in january 1554, forcing the rebels into action

Question 56

which county of those involved in the rebellion plans actually experienced a serious rising?

Answer 56

Kent, Sir Thomas Wyatt raised a force of about 3,000 men

Question 57

what were the motives of the rebels in wyatt’s rebellion?

Answer 57

• some were motivated by religion, with many of Wyatt’s urban supporters coming from Maidstone, a protestant stronghold
• xenophobia towards philip certainly motivated many
• the decline in the local cloth industry might well have prompted some poorer rebels to use the revolt as a means of expressing their social and economic grievances
• the rebellion seems to have attracted some gentry who had lost office within the county

Question 58

what was clearly the main motive of wyatt’s rebellion?

Answer 58

resentment of the proposed royal marriage, especially among the rebellion’s leaders

Question 59

what caused further confusion to the rebels?

Answer 59

• the involvement of lady Jane grey’s father in the rebellion implied a desire to restore jane to the throne; other rebels would undoubtedly preferred elizabeth

Question 60

what was an implicit objective of wyatt’s rebellion?

Answer 60

getting rid of mary, although this was never stated openly

Question 61

what caused furthre confusion for the rebels?

Answer 61

the involvement of Lady Jane Grey’s father implied a desire to restore Jane to the throne; other rebels would undoubtedly preferred elizabeth

Question 62

when did Wyatt’s rebellion start?

Answer 62

25 January 1554

Question 63

when was Norfolk’s force unable to engage the rebels and forced to retreat?

Answer 63

28 January 1554

Question 64

when did mary rally support with a speech at the guildhall in the city of London?

Answer 64

1 February 1554

Question 65

where did Wyatt surrender?

Answer 65

Ludgate, on the edge of the city of london

Question 66

why was wyatt’s rebellion significant?

Answer 66

• it showed that, although protestants were a minority, their religious opinions could not be ignored
• in demonstrated the extent to which there was popular suspicion of the proposed spanish marriage
• it resulted in the execution of Lady Jane Grey, an innocent victim of her father’s support for the rebellion

Question 67

what happened to elizabeth after wyatt’s rebellion?

Answer 67

• she was arrested and confined to the tower
• mary was convinced that elizabeth was aware of the rebels intentions
• however wyatt didn’t implicate her
• her interrogators Gardiner and Paget had a vested interest in not finding out the truth
• gardiner because of his links with courtenary
• Paget because he recognised that elizabeth was likely to one day be queen
• in the end she was eventually released

Question 68

how had Wyatt come close to success?

Answer 68

• he had raised - and kept - a large following
• outmanouvered the duke of norfolk and came close to securing the city of london

Question 69

how did mary and her councillors act in the face of wyatt’s rebellion?

Answer 69

she behaved bravely and resolutely, and her councillors kept their heads, with no important defections to the rebel cause

Question 70

did humanism have influence in mary’s reign?

Answer 70

• her reign showed little influence of humanism
• there was no scope under marian catholicism for the expression of evangelical humanism which had been linked to religious reform
• there was also very little sign of the catholic humanism which had been linked with the catholic martyrs
• reginald pole’s governance of the church seemed to have little influence of humanism

Question 71

how did the catholic church want to consciously dissociate itself with humanism?

Answer 71

• Pope Paul IV regarded the greatest of all catholic humanist scholars, erasmus, as a heretic
• his works were placed on the Catholic Index Librorum Prohibitorum (index of prohibited books)

Question 72

how was official religious thought in mary’s reign designed?

Answer 72

• at a more practical level to assist the process of catholic reform at a parish level
• Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London, published A Profitable and Necessary Doctrine, which explained the faith at a straightforward level, and a book of homilies to replace that which had been issued by the edwardian church

Question 73

what was pole keen to stress?

Answer 73

• the importance of papal supremacy, which had not been an especially strong feature of pre-reformation catholicism
• this was somewhat ironic given Paul IV’s hostility towards him
• had pole and mary survived and outlived paul IV, the nature of english catholicism would have developed into a very different form compared with its pre-reformation character

Question 74

what did protestant exiles do during mary’s reign ?

Answer 74

they sent back to england numerous publications

Question 75

why were exiled protestants not a united group during Mary’s reign?

Answer 75

• they were divided between those who were happy to use the 1552 prayer book as the basis for church services and those who wished to move in a more radical direction
• this did not merely reflect religious discipline; it also reflected a split between those who wished to operate politically within existing structure and those, led by john knox and christopher goodman, who wished to adopt a more radical appraoch involving active resistance to the regime