Edward VI: Economy & Rebellion (AQA A Level History: Component 1: Breadth study): Revision Note

Summary

• Edward VI inherited serious economic problems from Henry VIII

  • Debasement, rising population and enclosure all drove inflation and rural hardship

• Somerset's enclosure commissions (1548) raised expectations among the rural poor that the government could not meet

  • The sheep and cloth tax alienated the gentry at the same time

• The Western Rising (1549) was primarily religious in character

  • Cornish rebels demanded the restoration of the Latin Mass and rejected the 1549 Prayer Book

• Kett's Rebellion (1549) was primarily economic in character

  • Around 15,000 people assembled at Mousehold Heath, Norfolk under Robert Kett

• Both rebellions were suppressed, around 4,000 people were killed

• The Commonwealth Men, led by Hugh Latimer, used Protestant ideas to criticise enclosure and social injustice

• Historians disagree on how serious the social impact of change was

  • Rathbone argues that Somerset promised more than he could deliver

  • Others point to lasting disruption from religious and economic change combined

Somerset's Social and Economic Policies: Enclosure Commissions

• Somerset was genuinely concerned about the condition of the rural poor

  • But his policies made things worse, not better

What was enclosure?

• Enclosure was the process by which landowners converted open arable fields into fenced sheep pasture

  • Tenant farmers who had farmed strips of land for generations were displaced

  • Common land, shared by whole communities, was taken into private ownership

  • Rural communities were disrupted and sometimes destroyed

  • The conversion from crops to sheep reduced the labour needed

    • This caused a rise in unemployment

The enclosure commission, 1548

• Somerset established an enclosure commission in 1548 to investigate illegal enclosures

  • Government inspectors toured the countryside

  • The commission was led by John Hales, a committed social reformer

• New taxes on sheep and cloth were introduced in 1548, directly targeting gentry income

Why did the policy backfire?

• The poor welcomed the commissioners and expected the government to reverse enclosures and restore their rights

  • When nothing drastically changed, their frustration turned into anger

• The gentry feared that their profitable sheep pastures would be threatened

  • The sheep tax was a direct attack on their income

• Both the poor and the gentry had turned against Somerset by 1549

• Somerset's Act for the Punishment of Vagabonds (1547) contradicted his image as a friend of the poor

  • It allowed vagabonds to be branded with a hot iron and enslaved for two years

Economic Problems under Edward VI: Inflation, Debasement and Enclosure

• Edward VI inherited a deeply unstable economy from Henry VIII

  • The problems were structural and long-term

Debasement of coinage

• Henry VIII had repeatedly reduced the silver content of coins from the 1540s to fund his wars

  • By 1546, the silver content of coins had fallen to 33%

  • Under Edward VI, debasement initially continued, worsening inflation before reforms began in 1551

  • This meant that coins looked the same but were worth less

    • Merchants raised prices to compensate

    • Real wages, therefore, fell as prices rose faster than incomes

• Debasement was one of the most important causes of inflation in this period

Other Causes of the Economic Crisis:

The Western (Prayer Book) Rising, 1549: Causes, Events and Significance

• The Western Rising was the most serious religious uprising of Edward VI's reign

  • Its grievances were primarily about the pace and nature of Protestant reform

Background

• Religious change under Somerset had been causing unease in the conservative south-west since 1547

• William Body, a royal commissioner sent to enforce the removal of Catholic images, was killed by a mob in Helston, Cornwall in 1548

  • This was an early warning sign of the tensions building

  • When the government ordered the 1549 Prayer Book to be used in all churches from Whitsun, the rebellion began

Causes, Events and Significance:

Kett's Rebellion, 1549: Causes, Events and Significance

• Kett's Rebellion was the largest popular uprising in Norfolk's history

  • Its grievances were primarily economic and social, not religious

Background

• Norfolk had experienced rising prices, enclosures and poor harvests

• Somerset's enclosure commission had raised expectations that were not being met

• In May and June 1549, gangs began breaking down enclosure fences across Norfolk

Robert Kett

• Robert Kett was a tanner and a landowner from Wymondham

  • When rebels attacked his own enclosures, he did not resist

  • Instead, he joined the rebellion and offered to lead it

  • He agreed to end enclosure on his own estates

The camp at Mousehold Heath

• The rebels assembled at Mousehold Heath, near Norwich

• At its height, the camp held around 15,000–16,000 people

  • Most Tudor rebellions numbered a few thousand at most

• The camp was remarkably ordered and peaceful

  • Kett ran it like a parallel government

    • He established a court under the "Oak of Reformation" where complaints were heard and justice administered

    • Local gentry who had broken the law were brought before the court

• The rebels held and used the 1549 Prayer Book in camp services

  • This was not a primarily religious (Catholic) rising

Causes, Events and Significance:

Intellectual Developments: Humanist and Protestant Thought Under Edward VI

• The reign of Edward VI saw a remarkable flowering of humanist and Protestant ideas among the educated classes

What was humanism?

• Humanism was an intellectual movement that emphasised:

  • The study of classical Greek and Latin texts

  • Education and the individual's capacity for reason

  • Critical thinking, including criticism of Church corruption

• It had been growing in England since the early 16th century

  • It was associated with Erasmus, Thomas More and John Colet in the Henrician period

  • By 1547, it was deeply embedded in the educated elite and at Oxford and Cambridge Universities

Two strands of humanism

• Catholic humanism:

  • Associated with figures like Bishop Gardiner

  • Critical of Church abuses but opposed to Protestant reform

• Protestant humanism:

  • Increasingly dominant under Edward VI

  • Scripture, individual faith and education as the tools of reform

• Continental reformers like Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr represented the Protestant humanist tradition and directly influenced Cranmer

• The two strands were in contest throughout the reign

  • By 1553, the Protestant strand had the upper hand at court

The Commonwealth Men

• The most significant intellectual development of the reign was the emergence of the Commonwealth Men

• They were a loose group of preachers, writers and officials who combined Protestant faith with calls for social justice

• Their central idea was that England was a commonwealth:

  • A community in which all members had obligations to each other

• In their view:

  • The rich had a religious duty to care for the poor

  • Greed and enclosure were sins, not just social problems

Hugh Latimer

• Hugh Latimer was the most prominent Commonwealth Man

  • He served as court preacher to Edward VI from 1547 to 1550

  • His Sermon of the Plough, preached at St Paul's Cross in January 1548, was widely circulated

  • He attacked greedy landlords, enclosure and the exploitation of the poor

  • He argued that England's social problems were a religious failure, not just a political one

• Other Commonwealth Men included Thomas Lever and Robert Crowley

The printing press and the spread of ideas

• The relaxation of censorship after the repeal of heresy laws in 1547 led to an explosion of Protestant publishing

• Metrical psalms, vernacular Bibles, theological tracts and social commentary all circulated widely

• The printing press became an important means of spreading ideas beyond the educated elite

• By 1553, a significant body of Protestant and humanist literature existed in English for the first time

What was the social impact of religious and economic change under Edward VI?

• Use the evidence below to build your own argument

• Consider what changed, what stayed the same, and who was affected the most

Evidence of significant negative social impact

• The dissolution of chantries removed welfare, education and employment from hundreds of local communities

• Enclosure deprived many rural families of land and the rights they had held for generations

• Debasement and inflation eroded the purchasing power of wages

  • The poor spent most of their income on food, so rising food prices hit them hardest

• The 1549 rebellions killed around 4,000 people

  • Both risings reflected deep social distress

• The removal of familiar religious ceremonies caused genuine distress

  • Many people experienced religious change as loss

• Church plate and wealth were confiscated

  • Local communities lost resources that had supported the sick, the poor and the elderly

Evidence of positive or limited social impact

• Humanist ideas expanded education

  • Grammar schools grew

  • More people had access to learning

• The printing press spread Protestant ideas and literacy more widely than ever before

• The Commonwealth Men gave the poor a public voice

  • Their critique of enclosure and poverty was heard at the highest levels

• Northumberland's poor law (1552) placed responsibility for the poor on parishes

  • A practical step towards organised welfare

• The social hierarchy remained intact

  • The Reformation did not overturn the existing order

• Many in the educated and propertied classes benefitted from the purchase of monastic land and the new Protestant culture

Continuity under change

• Most ordinary people were still poor and vulnerable to harvest failure in 1553, exactly as they had been in 1547

• The religious Reformation was real at the official level but patchy at the parish level

• Many communities continued Catholic practice in private long after the law had changed

• The social hierarchy was unchanged by the reign