Chapter 4

Answer 1

• English society at end of 15th century, while not as rigidly hierarchal as that of France and Spain, was exceedingly stratified
• at one level society had changed little from that which had existed during the high point of the feudal system
• apex of system under monarch = great landowners and senior churchmen
• base of system = those who labourers on their behalf
• in contrast, society also witnessed the growth of a professional and mercantile group who had become increasingly important in London and the major provincial cities (Norwich and Bristol
• the remnants of feudal system still apparent in the Law, social relationships and attitudes
• however, economic pressures, especially since black death of 1348-49, had increased social mobility and had created alarm amongst more conservative-minded members of upper classes who attempted vainly to uphold traditional values by passing sumptuary laws which proved unenforceable

Question 2

how much power/authority did nobles/peerage have

Answer 2

• the nobility still dominated land ownership
• the peerage comprised no more than 50 or 60 men
• the peerage was not a closed caste
• peerage families died out on regular basis but were replaced by others who had acquired or brought the king’s favour
• the crown often relied on such families for the maintenance of order in countryside

Question 3

did Henry VII make new peerage titles

Answer 3

• Henry VII, unlike Edward IV before him or Henry VIII after him, was reluctant to create new peerage titles
• this is possibly because he was deeply distrustful of the nobility as a class

Question 4

Examples of nobility that Henry trusted and didn’t trust

Answer 4

• only trusted Lancastrian military such as the Earl of Oxford and Lord Daubeney had much political influence under Henry
• he never really trusted the Earl of Northumberland, even though he had swung the Battle of Bosworth in Henry’s favour by betraying Richard III
• Nevertheless, Henry relied on Northumberland to control the northeast of England on behalf of the crown

Question 5

evidence Henry trusted the nobility

Answer 5

• he rewarded those who gave him support at Bosworth e.g. the Earl of Oxford became a major landowner in East Anglia
• created 37 nights of the garter - over half were his closest associates in war and government e.g. (Earl of Oxford, Reginald Bray)

Question 6

evidence Henry was fearful of the nobility

Answer 6

• order of the Garter gave recipients no land or power
• Henry’s 5 key councillors had all aligned themselves with him before Bosworth
• Henry punished nobles with acts off attainder and then removed them as reward e.g. Earl of Surrey imprisoned and attained in 1486 and was fully reversed in 1492 after putting down second Yorkshire rising
• bonds and recognisances used to guarantee good behaviour e.g. Marquis of Dorset required to transfer all land except 2 manors to trustees, gave recognisance of £1000 and find others who would give recognisances worth £10,000 on his behalf - for supporting Richard in 1485 BUT by 1499, Dorset proved his loyalty and the agreements were cancelled
• use of feudal dues to assert his rights over nobility e.g. Katherine Dowager, Duchess of Buckingham fined £7000 in 1496 for marrying without King’s licence
• Acts against retaining e.g. 1504 nobles to get licences from King in person to retain

Question 7

example of when Henry punished nobles with acts off attainder and then removed them as reward

Answer 7

Earl of Surrey imprisoned and attained in 1486 and was fully reversed in 1492 after putting down second Yorkshire rising

Question 8

example of when Henry used bonds and recognisances to guarantee good behaviour

Answer 8

• Marquis of Dorset required to transfer all land except 2 manors to trustees, gave recognisance of £1000 and find others who would give recognisances worth £10,000 on his behalf - for supporting Richard in 1485 BUT by 1499, Dorset proved his loyalty and the agreements were cancelled

Question 9

example of when Henry used of feudal dues to assert his rights over nobility

Answer 9

• Katherine Dowager, Duchess of Buckingham fined £7000 in 1496 for marrying without King’s licence

Question 10

What did Henry do to try and control retaining

Answer 10

• 1504 nobles to get licences from King in person to retain
• 1504 act = penalty of £5 per month for illegal retainer applied in 1506 to Lord Burgavenny with a fine of £70,550

Question 11

How did Henry try to control the nobility? What did the nobility do to potentially make them more powerful than the crown?

Answer 11

• Henry’s most important method of controlling the nobility was through bonds and recognisances
• However, the key to the nobles’ power was the system of bastard feudalism (also known as retaining) by which wealthy magnates (the leading and most wealthy members of nobility) recruited knights and gentleman (‘retainers’) to serve them as administrators or or accountants, or sometimes for military purposes
• potentially, noblemen could use their retained men to bring unlawful influence on others in a court case, or use them against the Crown, so Henry sought to limit the military power of the nobility through the use of legislation against retaining
• however, at the same time he remained conscious of the fact that loyal retainers were essential to maintain the Crown’s security

Question 12

What was Bastard Feudalism

Answer 12

• this system implied a reciprocal relationship between the magnate and his retainers
• in return for service, which could be military service if necessary, a retainer might receive rewards such as local office or grants of land as well as direct payment

Question 13

Henry’s response to bastard feudalism

Answer 13

• Henry VII’s response was to have Parliament pass Acts in 1487 and 1504 and to take strong action against individual nobles who held to abuse the system, such as Lord Bergavenny in 1506
• however, such action had to be balanced with the realisation that nobles were a powerful social force

Question 14

What limits on retaining did Henry employ during his reign?

Answer 14

• in 1486 peers and MPs were required to take an oath against illegal retaining or being illegally retained. However, what constituted illegality in this context remained conveniently undefined
• in 1487 a law against retaining was established
• the 1487 law was reinforced by an Act passed in 1504, under which licences for retaining could be sought

Question 15

How did Henry try to bring as much land as possible into the hands of the crown

Answer 15

• Act of Resumption 1486 = recovered for the crown all properties granted away since 1455
• the lands formerly owned by Warwick and by the Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester were almost all retained by Henry throughout his reign

Question 16

Gentry

Answer 16

• immediately below peerage in status came the greater gentry
• by late 15th century these were often great landowners in their own right
• the most important members of the gentry, such as Sir Reginald Bray, sought knighthoods as confirmation of their social status
• in 1490 there were about 500 knights
• originally status imposed military obligations but this was dying out
• it was assumed that those holding the status would assist in the administration of their localities
• peers and knights together owned 15 to 20% of the country’s land

Question 17

Chrurchmen

Answer 17

• the church was hugely important, not merely for its spiritual role but also as a great landowner
• the social status of the clergy varied enormously
• at the lower parish level, curates and chantry priests were modestly rewarded for dealing with the spiritual needs of ordinary folk
• on the other hand, bishops and the abbots of larger religious houses were important figures who were entitled to sit in the House of Lords and who often had political roles to undertake

Question 18

Examples of clergymen

Answer 18

• Martin V, Pope from 1417 to 1431, famously declared that the King of England rather than the Pope governed the Church in England
• Henry VII tended to use that power to appoint as bishops only men who had legal training and whose administrative competence was valued more than their spirituality
• the two most important clergymen of the reign, John Morton and Richard Fox, both came into this category
• moreover, the King was reluctant to appoint men whose social background was aristocratic
• the higher clergy were thus becoming less socially exclusive than had once been the case

Question 19

Commoners

Answer 19

• below the nobility, gentry and higher clergy were the commoners
• at top level of commoner group = the ‘middling sort’, the rich merchants and craftsmen
• in towns and cities, the relatively small number of educated professionals, of whom the most numerous and influential group were lawyers, exercised considerable influence, often in collaboration with wealthier merchants
• lower down the social scale, but still considered respectable, came shopkeepers and skilled tradesmen
• such groups tended to dominate the borough corporations (town councils) and also played a key role in organisations such as guilds and lay confraternities which were a common feature of urban life in pre-Reformation England

Question 20

yeoman

Answer 20

• in the countryside the middling sort comprised yeoman farmers who farmed substantial properties for an increasingly sophisticated market economy
• the decline in population due to black death in 1348-49 had reduced the demand for land and the resulting from in land values had enabled the emergence of this group

Question 21

husbandmen

Answer 21

• below yeoman came husbandmen who typically kept smaller farms than yeoman and who supplemented their farming incomes through employment by yeoman or gentry

Question 22

regional divisions - where was the main division

Answer 22

• though both relatively small and politically relatively unified, England did demonstrate regional variations
• some of these derived from differences in agriculture
• line drawn from mouth of the Tees to Weymouth in Dorset would have revealed the extent of these contrasts
• even within these two areas, distinctions could be made

Question 23

Why were there regional divisions/how were the regions divided and why?

Answer 23

• roughly three quarters of population lived below this line, which divided country into two basic agricultural areas
• South and East of that line, mixed farming predominated in the more densely populated counties, especially Norfolk, Suffolk and Kent
• in more sparsely populated areas to North and West, pastoral farming predominated with the rearing of sheep, cattle and horses
• there were exceptions to this rule
• contemporaries were aware of regional differences
• Londoners tend to look down upon northerners for their perceived savagery, while northerners were envious of southern riches

Answer 24

• regional identity was also reinforced by local government structures
• justice was increasingly administered at a county level and country towns often contained jails and major churches
• on other hand, areas of magnate influence often cut across county boundaries
• local identities were also reinforced by saints’ cults which placed importance on centres of pilgrimage (Canterbury and Durham)

Question 25

Social discontent during the fifteenth century

Answer 25

• during much of second half of fifteenth century, living conditions for poor appeared to be improving
• real wages seem to have increased, but towards end of fifteenth century inflationary pressures were becoming more evident
• though evidence points tentatively towards a further slight increase in real wages in 1490s, by following decade this situations seems to have reversed
• compared with later in Tudor Period, does not seem to have been much social discontent
• England also seems to have avoided the subsistence crises which affected other countries

Question 26

the Yorkshire Rebellion

Answer 26

• Yorkshire rebellion = 1489
• sparked off by resentment of the taxation granted by parliament in 1489 in order to finance the involvement of English forces in the campaign in Brittany
• became particularly notorious because of murder of Earl of Northumberland by rebels just outside Topcliffe near Thirsk in the North Riding of Yorkshire in April of that year
• details on rebellion are sparse
• Earl of Northumberland = a victim of resentment against taxation
• he was murdered by his tenants, but what enabled them to murder the earl was the fact that Northumberland’s retainers allowed them to do so by deserting him in his hour of need = as punishment for his own desertion of Richard III at Bosworth

Question 27

Cornish rebellion - when was it and what was It triggered by?

Answer 27

• Cornish Rebellion = 1497
• revolt triggered by the need for revenue to finance the campaign against Scotland

Question 28

which rebellion was more threatening to the stability of Henry’s rule and why?

Answer 28

• though Cornish rebellion did not murder high-profile political figure like Earl of Northumberland, their rebellion posed much greater threat to stability of Henry’s rule. This was a reflection of key three factors:
• sheer number involved (15,000)
• the attempt to exploit the rebellion made by Perkin Warbeck
• the fact that the rebels marched on London, only being halted at Blackheath = rebels could have marched such a long distance without any serious attempt being made to stop them - raises questions about how effective Crown System’s were at maintaining order in countryside = by reaching London they were in effect challenging the security of Henry VII’s regime

Question 29

What problem did the Cornish rebellion create for Henry?

Answer 29

• the rebellion created problem for Henry in that in order to ensure its effective suppression he needed to withdraw Lord Daubeney and his troops from defending Scottish border

Question 30

How was the rebellion dealt with?

Answer 30

• in the end the rebellion was crushed easily enough by Daubeney
• the rebel leaders, including the peer Lord Audley, were executed
• however, Henry punished only the leaders, and treated bulk of rebels with conspicuous leniency

Question 31

What did the Cornish rebellion mean for Anglo-Scottish relationship?

Answer 31

• the rebellion shocked Henry into ensuring that Anglo-Scottish tensions were eased and made him particularly cautious about entering into any further foreign conflicts

Question 32

Were rebellions a big problem for Henry VII?

Answer 32

• the two rebellions of the reign (Yorkshire 1489 and Cornish 1497) were exceptional , and easily suppressed
• so, no