Society In Elizabethan England Flashcards
What was the highest rank of peerage, and what did Elizabeth do with this title?
The highest peerage title, duke, carried inherent dangers in Tudor England: each of the four ducal titles that existed in England in the period from 1547-1572 - Somerset, Northumberland, Suffolk and Norfolk - met a bloody end with their holders suffering traitors’ deaths. After 1572, Elizabeth was careful not to create anymore dukes.
Summarise the experience of the gentry class
This included the influential knights of the shire and figures of national importance (e.g. Sir Christopher Hatton) and modest local landowners. Between these two came the county gentlemen and esquires who dominated local government through their work as justices of peace and who often took on the burden of local office without receiving any tangible rewards. The gentry class increased in size during Elizabeth’s reign, and the proportion who were seriously wealthy went up.
Describe Elizabethan England by the end of her reign
The gap between rich and poor widened, consumer society amongst prosperous members of landed, mercantile and professional classes began, landed incomes increased and poorer sectors of the population found themselves vulnerable to enclosure and to the persistent decline in real wages. The bulk of people still lived in the countryside, the only large city was London which acted as a huge magnet for migrants from other parts of the country. The largest provincial cities were Norwich and Bristol.
What measures did Elizabeth’s government take to support / deal with the poor?
- Act of 1572 established the principal that local ratepayers should be required to pay a rate for the relief of their own poor.
- The Poor Law Act of 1576 was the first act to attempt to create a national system of poor relief to be financed and administered locally. Under the Act, towns were required to make provision for the employment of the deserving poor.
- Further Acts in 1598 and 1601 completed the legislative process. Under the Elizabethan Poor Law Act of 1601, the parish became designated as the institution required to raise the rates for, and to administer, poor relief. Each parish was to appoint an overseer of the poor who was to ensure both the efficient collection of poor rates and the appropriate distribution of relief to the poor. The overseers’ key responsibilities were relieving the impotent poor, setting the able-bodied to work and apprenticing poor children. Their activities were supervised by justices of the peace.
- An extremely repressive and ultimately unenforceable Act against vagrancy had been passed in 1547. Although it was quickly repealed, the notion remained that the undeserving poor should be whipped.
- In 1572 an Act added branding to the range of punishments available to the authorities. During the panic of 1597, an Act was passed in which laid down that first-time offenders should be whipped and then sent back to the parish of their birth; repeat of offenders could be executed.
What was the difference between ‘deserving’ and ‘underserving’ poor?
The deserving poor were those who were actively seeking work or were too old, too young or too ill to do so; the undeserving poor described those whom society considered to be beggars or vagrants.
What was Elizabeth’s attitude towards Ireland?
Ireland should be subjected to a policy of ‘Englishness’ in both religious and secular matters. Elizabeth was proclaimed Supreme Governor of the Church of Ireland in 1560. However, she lacked the power to impose Protestantism on a population that was largely Catholic, mostly Gaelic in language and whose customary laws and landownership differed hugely from that of the English.
How did relations between England and Ireland sour?
The ‘get-rich quick’ mentality of the English incomers and frequent use of martial law led to bad relations with both the Gaelic Irish and the Old English - the descendants of the Normans and the English who had settled in Ireland since the eleventh century. Rebellions broke out in 1569 to 1573 and 1579 to 1782, this latter rebellion being further soured by the brutality of the response of the Lord Deputy of Ireland, Lord Grey of Wilton.
What happened in the Third Irish Rebellion?
This was centred on Ulster, where the clan chief Hugh O’Neill, created Earl of Tyrone by Elizabeth in 1585, rose up in rebellion in 1595 with the Spanish attempting to exploit the situation by including an Irish contingent in the Armarda of 1596. This was unsuccessful, but the fact that the Spanish had so clearly signalled their intentions caused much unease among Elizabeth and her councillors, made worse when the rebels were victorious at the Battle of Yellow Ford in August 1598. As a result of this battle and its aftermath, Tyrone and his allies were in control of much of Ireland beyond the Pale. It looked as if Tyrone might establish an independent and Catholic Ireland that would look to Spain for support.
What happened when Essex was sent to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant in 1599?
This proved to be an error, thanks to the readiness of Essex to disobey the queen’s orders. Essex had a large force, but, instead of confronting Tyrone, he made a truce before defying the queen’s orders and returning to court. As soon as the truce expired, Tyrone moved south and camped near Kinsale on the coast, to the south-west of Cork, hoping to link up with the Spanish army.
What happened when Mountjoy took over as Lord Lieutenant?
Tyrone seemed saved by the landing in Kinsale of over 3000 Spanish troops during September 1601. However, English triumphed on Christmas Eve 1601. Tyrone retreated back to Ulster before eventually negotiating a peace with Mountjoy in March 1603. By then, unbeknown to Tyrone, Elizabeth had died, and Mountjoy appears to have offered generous terms in order to be able to leave Ireland and attend a new king, James I. James seemed committed to entrusting rule in Ireland to the local nobility, of whom the most important was the unreliable Tyrone. Meanwhile much of Ireland had been destroyed or impoverished by continued conflict, the Crown had expected huge sums of money and the conflict had left a huge legacy of bitterness among the native population.
Summarise what happened in Wales
Much of Wales remained relatively poor, and although linguistic and cultural differences remained, border issues were rarely an issue for the Elizabethan State. Border administration involving the use of the Council of Wales and the Marches remained in operation. The Welsh language disappeared as a medium of government, but was still a medium of religion, with the translation of both the Book of Common Prayer and the Bible into Welsh. The publication of dictionaries and grammars in Welsh also helped preserve the language. Poverty remained an endemic and although many Welsh gentry seem to have prospered under Elizabeth, the disproportionate number of Welshmen implicated in the Essex ‘rebellion’ suggests a significant level of discontent with the political situation towards the end of Elizabeth’s reign.
What policy of her father’s did Elizabeth continue to pursue in the north of England?
She signalled a move away from the policy of appointing wardens of the three border marches from the families of the great northern magnates. Instead, she appointed southerners. However, it was difficult for nobles, without a local landed base to control either the northern landed families or the border clans.
What motivations lay behind the Northern rebellion?
The heavy handed response of the authorities to the ‘Oxfordshire Rising’ of 1596 reflected a fear about social dislocation which did not reflect reality.
Who was involved in the Northern Rebellion?
It was headed by the leading northern nobility, the earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland. Although genuine religious fervour among rebel leaders and ordinary participants played a part, rebel leaders considered themselves dishonoured by having been displaced from their traditional aristocratic role of controlling northern government. Westmorelands brother-in-law, the Duke of Norfolk, proposed Norfolk should marry Mary, Queen of Scots, who could be restored to the Scottish throne.
What happened in the Northern Rebellion?
Began on 9th November 1569. Rebels marched on Durham, seized the city on 14th November and heard Mass in the Cathedral, thereby giving clear indication of the Catholic character of the rebellion. The rebels then marched on York, camping for a time on Bramham Moor, west of the city. However, they made no attempt to capture it; neither did they march south in an attempt to pressurise the government. Instead they moved back into the county of Durham and besieged the Crown’s stronghold of Barnard Castle, which fell to the rebels on 14th December. However, when news came to the rebel leaders that a crown force was on its way north, the earls disbanded their forces and fled over the border to Scotland. The following month, Northumberland’s cousin, Leonard Dacre, restarted the rebellion in Cumberland, only for his force to be heavily defeated at Naworth, east of Carlisle, by a royal force under the command of the queen’s cousin, Lord Hunsdon.
