Edward VI: Government, Somerset & Northumberland (AQA A Level History: Component 1: Breadth study): Revision Note

Summary

• Edward VI became king aged nine in 1547

  • Minority rule meant no regent could easily command the full authority of the Crown

• Somerset took power as Lord Protector

  • He was a capable soldier but a poor politician, and he alienated both the gentry and the poor

• The Western Rising and Kett's Rebellion (1549) brought the country to a point of crisis

  • Somerset was overthrown by his own Council in October 1549

• Northumberland restored stability by governing through the Privy Council

  • He accelerated Protestant reform and began tackling the debased coinage

• The Devise for Succession (1553) collapsed within nine days

  • Mary Tudor took the throne under the terms of Henry VIII's will

• Historians disagree on how effectively England was governed

  • Hoak praises Northumberland as one of Europe's ablest governors

  • The traditional view condemns both regents and labels the period a mid-Tudor crisis

Edward VI: A Child King & Problems with Minority Rule

• Henry VIII was succeeded by his nine-year-old son; this single fact shaped every decision made between 1547 and 1553

The structural problems of minority rule

• A minority government is one where the king is too young to rule

  • Power passes to a regent who governs in his name

    • England was governed this way for Edward's entire reign

  • A regent’s authority was temporary and dependent on maintaining support

    • It lasted only until the king came of age or died

    • Every rival knew this

• The Regency Council was a coalition of competing interests

  • Henry VIII intended 16 councillors to govern jointly

  • Somerset quickly manoeuvred his way to personal dominance instead

• Obedience to the Crown depended partly on the personal authority of the monarch

  • The regent therefore had to construct authority through policy and patronage

• England had experienced minority rule before (Henry VI and Edward V)

  • But never alongside such a dangerous combination of inherited financial, military and religious problems

What Henry VIII left behind

• Somerset inherited a near-bankrupt treasury

  • Over £2 million had been spent on the Scottish and French wars

  • England could not afford to continue the wars, but withdrawal would mean losing face

• The coinage had been repeatedly debased

  • Henry reduced the silver content of coins

  • The result was rising prices and falling real wages throughout the 1540s

• Religious policy was unresolved

  • The Break with Rome was complete but there was no Protestant settlement

  • Reformers and conservatives both pressed their claims on whoever held power

• The Privy Council was factional

  • The struggle between reformers and conservatives had intensified in the last years of Henry's reign

    • Somerset temporarily suppressed it; he did not resolve it

• Social unrest was already building

  • Enclosure, rising rents and harvest failures through the 1540s had created widespread rural discontent before Edward ever came to the throne

The Duke of Somerset as Lord Protector: Character, Aims & Policies

• Somerset (Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford) was a proven soldier and a genuine reformer

  • However, his arrogance and poor political judgement destroyed him within two years

Character

• A skilled military commander

  • He had served Henry VIII in the Scottish and French campaigns

  • His victory at Pinkie (1547) gave him further status

  • The battlefield was where his real ability lay

• Arrogant and autocratic

  • He repeatedly bypassed the Privy Council, issuing proclamations in the king's name without consultation

    • This concentrated political resentment on a single individual

• Overconfident due to family ties

  • He was the king's uncle, which gave him an advantage that he used to justify his dominance

  • It also made him overconfident; he acted as if his position was permanent, but it was not

Aims

• A moderate Protestant settlement

  • Reform without the schism

    • He wanted to move the Church in a Protestant direction without provoking outright rebellion

• Genuine sympathy with Protestant ideas

  • He worked closely with Archbishop Cranmer and allowed a degree of religious experimentation from the start of the reign

• Alliance with Scotland

  • Through a proposed marriage between Edward VI and Mary Queen of Scots

    • This was the centrepiece of his foreign policy

• Protection of the rural poor

  • Attempted this through enclosure reform

  • He believed the Crown had a duty to address the social dislocation caused by converting arable land to sheep pasture

Key policies

• Somerset's policies across religion, foreign affairs and the economy were well-intentioned but consistently poorly executed

Religious policy

• Somerset repealed the Six Articles (1539) and the old heresy laws in 1547, along with some treason legislation restricting religious discussion

• He implemented:

  • Chantries Act (1547)

    • Abolished chantries, raising money for the Scottish War

  • Act of Uniformity (1549)

    • Imposed a single standard of worship

  • New Prayer Book (1549)

    • In English for the first time

    • Deliberately vague on the Eucharist in an attempt to satisfy both sides

• Assessment

  • Moderate reform, but too ambiguous to sustain

  • Reformers pushed for more, conservatives resisted change

  • The vagueness satisfied nobody and contributed to the Western Rising in Cornwall and Devon

Foreign policy

• Somerset resumed the Scottish war to secure a proposed marriage between Edward VI and Mary Queen of Scots

• The Battle of Pinkie was fought, on September 1547:

  • A decisive English victory, but it was extremely expensive

• French troops arrived in Scotland (1548)

  • Mary, Queen of Scots, was sent to France for protection

• Assessment

  • Military success, but little strategic value

  • The campaign united Scotland against England, rather than dividing it

  • The Franco-Scottish alliance was strengthened, not broken

  • England gained nothing lasting

Social and economic policy

• An enclosure commission was launched in 1548 to investigate illegal enclosures

• New taxes were placed on sheep and cloth (1548)

• Government inspectors toured the countryside to monitor activity

• Assessment

  • Well-meaning but misjudged

  • The commissions raised expectations among the poor that the government could not meet

  • The sheep tax alienated the gentry

    • Both groups had turned against Somerset by 1549

The Fall of Somerset, 1549: Why was he Overthrown?

• Somerset's fall was caused by political isolation and personal arrogance

  • The 1549 rebellions can be seen as the trigger, and the Council’s accumulated hostility as the underlying cause

The 1549 rebellions: a brief summary

• In summer 1549, two major rebellions broke out simultaneously

  • The Western Rising in Devon and Cornwall was triggered by the 1549 Prayer Book

    • Its grievances were primarily religious

  • Kett's Rebellion in Norfolk was driven by economic grievances:

    • Enclosure, rising rents and poor local government

• Both were eventually suppressed, but Somerset was paralysed by having to deal with both at once while also facing threats from Scotland and France

• Around 4,000 people were killed across both risings in total

• For the full causes, events and significance of both rebellions, see the Economy and Rebellion Revision Note

Somerset's Fall

• Somerset was arrested in October 1549

  • He was released in February 1550 and allowed to rejoin the Council

• In early 1552, he was arrested again on charges of plotting against his rivals

  • He was executed in January 1552

The Duke of Northumberland: Government, Policies & Ambition

• Northumberland governed more effectively than Somerset

  • But he did so in less difficult circumstances

  • His power depended entirely on Edward VI staying alive

How did Northumberland govern differently?

• His title was Lord President of the Council, not Lord Protector

  • This was deliberate

    • It placed collective Council authority at the centre of the regime, not personal power

• He worked through the Council, not around it

  • This dispersed resentment rather than concentrating it on a single target, as Somerset had done

• He removed conservative opponents

  • Bishop Gardiner was imprisoned in the Tower

  • Bishop Bonner was deprived of his diocese

  • The Council was built around reformers

• He encouraged Edward VI to take an active role in government

  • This gave legitimacy to the regime

  • It allowed Northumberland to build a genuine working relationship with the king

• He was a pragmatist

  • Traditional historians called him a ruthless opportunist

  • Revisionist historians argue he was a capable governor making the best of difficult circumstances

Key policies

• Northumberland's policies were more pragmatic and more effective than Somerset's

  • Where Somerset raised expectations he could not meet, Northumberland focused on stabilising what he had

Religious policy

• Northumberland implemented:

  • Second Act of Uniformity (1552)

    • Attendance at Church of England services was made compulsory

  • Prayer Book (1552)

    • Removed all traces of Catholicism from the Mass

  • 42 Articles (1553)

    • Listed the doctrines of a clearly Protestant Church of England

• Altars were replaced by communion tables

• Clergy were ordered not to wear vestments

• Assessment

  • The most complete Protestant settlement of the reign

  • Achieved without civil war or foreign intervention

Foreign policy

• Peace of Boulogne (1550)

  • Ended the French and Scottish wars

  • England returned Boulogne to France and withdrew garrisons from Scotland

• Alliance with France agreed

  • Edward VI betrothed to Elizabeth, daughter of the French king Henry II

• Assessment

  • Widely seen as humiliating, but it freed up resources and stabilised England’s position

Social policy

• A new Poor Law (1552)

  • Parishes were made responsible for collecting money for the deserving poor

• Acts were passed to protect arable farming against further enclosure

  • Anti-enclosure legislation was enforced through normal courts rather than divisive commissions

• Assessment

  • Practical and lasting

  • Northumberland balanced gentry and rural interests without the confrontation Somerset had caused

Trade and exploration

• New trade routes to West Africa were opened by 1553

• The 1553 voyage of Richard Chancellor opened the way for the later Muscovy Company

• Explorers searched for a north-east passage to reduce English dependence on Antwerp

• Assessment

  • The origins of the commercial expansion that would flourish under Elizabeth

  • A long-term strategic response to the slump in Antwerp cloth exports

How ambitious was Northumberland?

• The traditional view held that Northumberland was a ruthless self-seeker

  • The 1553 succession plot seemed to confirm this

• Revisionist historians argue that he was a competent governor working in near-impossible circumstances

  • His Council management was skilled

  • His economic and religious reforms were effective

• Matthew Christmas (History Today, 1997) argues the Devise for Succession originated with Edward VI himself, not Northumberland

  • Edward's Protestant convictions drove the attempt to exclude Mary from the throne

Northumberland's Economic Reforms: Addressing Debasement & Inflation

• The economic crisis of the late 1540s was perhaps the most serious domestic challenge of the reign

  • Northumberland addressed its root causes more directly than Somerset had managed

Northumberland's solutions

• Northumberland's solution to the most pressing economic problem was the revaluation of the coinage (1551), overseen by William Cecil and Thomas Gresham:

  • It addressed the root cause of inflation rather than its symptoms

  • It was the most important economic measure of the reign

    • It helped restore confidence in the currency and stabilise prices, though inflation remained a problem in the short term

The Devise for Succession: Lady Jane Grey & the Crisis of 1553

• The crisis of 1553 was the ultimate test of minority government

  • It showed how fragile the regime had become and how resilient the Tudor succession remained

Background

• Spring 1552:

  • Edward VI survived measles and smallpox, his death was not anticipated

• January 1553:

  • The first signs of a serious chest illness appeared

  • It became clear that he would not survive

• Under Henry VIII's will and the 1544 Succession Act, the Crown was to pass to Princess Mary

  • She was a committed Catholic who had spent Edward's reign in open opposition to his religious reforms

  • Northumberland feared that Mary's accession would reverse everything

    • His religious reforms and his political position would be undone

The Devise

• A Devise was a legal document setting out the succession to the throne

  • Edward VI used it to override Henry VIII’s will and redirect the Crown away from Mary Tudor, reflecting his own Protestant convictions

• Matthew Christmas (History Today, 1997) argues the Devise originated with Edward VI himself, not Northumberland

  • Edward’s own Protestant convictions drove the plan to exclude Mary from the throne and shaped the direction of the Devise

• Mary and Elizabeth were both excluded on the grounds of illegitimacy, though both had been restored to the succession by Henry VIII's will

• Lady Jane Grey was named as heir under Edward's Devise

  • She was the Protestant great-granddaughter of Henry VIII's sister Mary

• May 1553:

  • Jane married Northumberland's son, Guildford Dudley

  • Northumberland tied his family to the Protestant succession, aligning himself with Edward's plan

• Edward VI finalised and signed the Devise in June 1553, confirming his personal commitment to excluding Mary shortly before his death in July at the age of 15

Why did the plot fail?

• Most ruling elites backed Mary's legitimate claim, whether Catholic or Protestant

  • The Privy Council's initial support for Jane had been thin and conditional

• Northumberland had not had time to prepare

  • Edward's chest infection grew worse quickly

  • There was no provincial network, or reliable army

• The Tudor succession proved stronger than any individual regent

  • The only serious attempt to overturn the Tudor succession, it lasted just nine days

How Effectively was England Governed under Edward VI?

• Use the evidence below to build your own analytical argument

• The question asks you to weigh structural constraints against individual performance, and to judge whether the achievements outweigh the failures

Evidence that England was not governed effectively

• Somerset's paralysis during the 1549 rebellions was damaging

  • Two simultaneous uprisings exposed his inability to govern under pressure

• The Western Rising was a direct consequence of Somerset's religious policy

  • His 1549 Prayer Book failed to satisfy either reformers or conservatives and triggered rebellion in the south-west

• Kett's Rebellion grew from Somerset's economic failures

  • His enclosure commissions raised expectations among the poor that the government could not then meet

• The Scottish war was extremely expensive and achieved nothing lasting

  • France and Scotland were more closely allied at the end of Somerset's foreign policy than at the beginning

• Somerset was overthrown by his own Council and eventually executed

  • This raises questions about the stability of a government that removes its own chief minister

• Economic problems persisted throughout the reign

  • Inflation, bad harvests in the early 1550s, the Antwerp cloth slump of 1551 and continued population pressure

• The Devise for Succession revealed the ultimate fragility of the regime

Evidence that England was governed more effectively than often credited

• Northumberland restored order after 1549 and held it for four years

  • The most serious popular uprisings of the Tudor century had just occurred

• Protestant reform was advanced without full civil war

  • The 1552 Prayer Book and 42 Articles created a more Protestant church

  • No foreign military intervention followed

• The revaluation of the coinage in 1551 addressed the root cause of inflation

  • It was the most important economic measure of the reign

• The new Poor Law (1552) placed responsibility for the deserving poor on parishes

  • It was a practical, lasting piece of local government

• Commercial expansion began under Northumberland

  • West African trade routes, the Muscovy Company (1553) and the search for a north-east passage all took place

  • England's maritime commercial future was being built

• The Tudor dynasty survived

  • Mary's succession followed after just a nine-day interlude with Lady Jane Grey

  • Legitimate succession held

Key historian