Edward VI Under Somerset (1547-1549) Flashcards
What was the result of the New Chantries Act and when was it passed
Passed in 1547
Closed the Chantries
How can the years after 1547 and Somerset’s rule be described and why
A crisis due to religious, political, financial, social and economic problems.
Country divided over religion
At war w/ Scotland
Debased coinage>inflation
Somerset didn’t have capacities or abilities to overcome problems facing the minority gov.
What was Somerset’s religion and how had he benefited from religious events under Henry VIII
He and his followers were moderate Protestants, standing for paternal social reforms but was incapable of implementing them.
I’m past helped w/ dissolution and profited and even tried to destroy Westminster Abbey.
Built Somerset House on the Strand out of ruined churches
What class/status was Somerset
A first-class military man.
What was the result of Somerset’s campaigns vs Scotland
Failed as drove Scots deeper into ‘Auld Alliance’ with France
When was the Battle of Pinkie and what was it’s outcome
- 10 September 1547
- Battle vs Scotland
- Somerset won, establishing garrisons around Scotland funded purely by English taxes
How did Somerset eventually achieve a peaceful union with Scotland and what ruined this
Eventual peace union of Scotland and England in ‘one empire’.
Planned to be symbolised by marriage of Edward VI to child-Queen of Scotland, Mary Stuart
Ruined by his military actions, especially
Battle of Pinkie and Mary Stuart was eventually shipped off to France to marry the dauphin ( Auld Alliance strengthened)
Describe/Examples of the financial problems under Somerset
- Henry VIII’s ‘Great Debasement’ of coinage and dissolution meant crown was wealthy in 1549s, enabling Henry and Somerset to spend around £3.5 million on six years of warfare in France and Scotland.
- Crown bankrupt by 1552. Tudors never again had enough money to launch major military campaigns on scale of those of France and Spain
- Coin debasement continued under Ed VI. A rapid price rise was followed by a boom in the export of cloth and wool, which ,in turn, hastened the enclosure movement. This was accompanied by all kinds of ills: profiteering, increased unemployment and poverty and distress amongst the rural peasantry. Wages decrease.
- Steep increase in price of land when a run of bad harvests coincided with setbacks in overseas trade.
- Gentry had capital to exploit their opportunities and yeomen and husbandmen could profit from the rise in the price of farm produce the poorer husbandmen. Cottage class had little or no land so became impoverished.
- End to rack renting, fines and enclosure of common land for deer parks and for sheep would all be found in the demands of the peasantry as they rose in rebellion in the great disturbances of 1549.
How much money did debasement of coinage in 1536,1544 and 1549 bring in for the crown. How much of this was spent on war vs Scot and France
Brought in £1.3 million
Spent £1 million on Scot and France
Example of Auld Alliance vs Eng
June 1547 Henry II Andy 4000 troops to Scot to help them defend vs English invasion
Religious change under Somerset
- Somerset surrounded himself with Protestant reformists and removed leading catholics from his circle. This made him popular in London.
- William Paget, the ablest of his advisors, felt it necessary to warn Somerset not to put popular Protestantism above the peace of the realm.
- Somerset moves cautiously, brought some of the Cambridge reforming school into politics, men of the calibre of William Cecil and Thomas Smith.
- Under Cranmer Henry’s heresy laws and Act of the Six Articles repealed. Caused London mobs to meet in a frenzy of iconoclasm breaking church images, whitewashing walls, breaking up alters and selling vestments to City Tailors.
- New act vs election of bishops and arranged for their appointment by letters patent issued by the king.
- Act ordered administration of the Sacrament to all who so desired in both kinds.
- Cranmer produced first Protestant Prayer Books in English and had it enforced by a mild Act of Uniformity in 1549.
- New Chantries Act of 1547: ordered over 2000 chantries (chápela employing priests to say Mass for the souls of the dead and all the properties of all guilds) to be confiscated
- New generation of clergy taught reformed doctrines by foreign scholars from Germany and Italy, including Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr and many supporters of Zwingli.
- Royal Chaplains began to read all their church services in English.
- Weight put by Catholic’s on the sacraments and good works diminished. More stress out on vernacular scriptures, services in English and on preaching. Emphasis placed on the pulpit and congregation, rather than on an alter and the priest.
- New prayer book, Book of Common Prayer of 1549, dictated a decidedly Protestant mode of worship.
- Cranmers and Somerset’s principles resisted by Howard, Duke of Norfolk and Stephen Gardiner, the bishop of Winchester, arguing that the changes being enforced during the king’s minority, supremacy no longer belonged to king but to council.
Social policy and rebellion under Somerset
- 1548: Somerset set up a commission to enquire into enclosures. This increase his unpopularity with the nobility leading to peasantry to believe he was on their side.
2.
When did the alert Rebellion take place
1549
What was the cause of the 1549 Kett Rebellion.
Caused by widespread discontent.
Largely economic causes.
Hugh Latimer’s sermons highlighted all that was wrong with the regime.
String gov under Henry contrasted with rule of a minor; economic depression, high prices, inflationary coin debasement, religious innovation, social reforms which raised expectations but which failed to deliver results and Somerset’s inability to work w/ the rest of the council all caused resentment.
Where did the Kett Rebellion take place
Norfolk
Discontent and widespread rioting also broke out in Devon, Cornwall, Suffolk, most of the Midland shires and in Yorkshire.
