Conclusion: why did rebellions occur? Flashcards
What rebellions were categorised as having one cause?
Taxation, dynastic, and Irish political revolts
What was evident in most of the uprisings between 1536 and 1569, but what factor was also present?
Religious issues
Political
When were dynastic causes most prominent?
In Henry VII’s reign
What role did concerns over the succession play?
Was a constant theme throughout the period and in later years assumed religious connotations
What was most acute in the mid-sixteenth century?
Socioeconomic problems
What happened in Yorkshire in 1536 and 1569 and Maidstone in 1554 and Durham in 1569?
Yorkshire: some rebels were forced by their landlords to take part
Maidstone/Durham: some rebels were paid to join
What did John Proctor in 1554 in Historie of Wyates claim?
That the rebels were ‘solely motivated by xenophobia’
What role did rumour play in Yorkshire in 1536?
People believed that their parish plates and jewels were going to be seized, their churches destroyed, and taxes imposed on sacraments
News spread to neighbouring areas and triggered further disturbances, often out of solidarity
What circulated in 1540?
Stories in the south-west of England that babies would be baptised only on Sundays
What was alleged in Norfolk?
That gentlemen’s servants had ‘killed poor men in their harvest work and also killed women there with child’
What role did rumour play during Wyatt’s rebellion?
On the eve of the rebellion it was reported that 100 Spaniards occupied Rochester and it was rumoured in Plymouth that they planned to rape all the women in Devon
What do demands reflect?
The interests of the literate minority
What rebellions were triggered by religious reforms?
POG: the presence of commissioners surveying the smaller monasteries in northern counties
WR: four days before the new prayer book was due to be used in Bodmin and the day after it was used at Sampford Courtenay, violence broke out
What does the dissolution of the chantries suggest and why?
Not all religious reforms evoked immediate popular revolts
The Act of 1547 was implemented in the spring of 1548 but no rebellions occurred until the following year
What did socioeconomic factors take and give an example:
A long time before they had an impact on society
Population levels had been steadily rising but their real effects were not felt until the 1540s
What did whether or not a revolt broke out depend on?
Local conditions and unrelated factors (e.g. Devon, Cornwall, Norfolk, and Suffolk)
What were most riots and what usually happened?
Local incidents
Suppressed by town and county authorities before they got out of hand
What were the tenants on Clifford’s estates in Westmorland concerned about in 1536?
Unfair rents and entry fines levied by the earl
What were rebels in Cumberland concerned about?
Endemic thieving and robbery
What were disturbances inspired by in northern Lancashire?
The threatened closure of monasteries
What were the concerns on the Percy estates in Yorkshire and Durham in 1536?
Tenant-landlord relations were not an issue, and instead, peasants joined their landlords in protesting at a range of government policies
What would none of the peasants have the slightest interest in during the POG?
The Statute of Uses or the high fees charged by feodaries and escheators
What would only theologians (Lincoln clerks) be in?
A position to demand the condemnation of heretics of continental reformers such as Melanchthon and Oecolampadius
What were the POG rebels united on?
Their hatred for the government for being extortionate and heretical
What did the POG rebels profess to be and what were they marked by?
‘a rising of the commons’
‘a concern for both the Faith of Christ and the Commonwealth; each hated the government for being extortionate and heretical’
