Economic developments

Question 1

What did the Tudors not have?

Answer 1

A coherent economic policy; they reacted to events as they unfolded

Question 1

What were governments influenced by?

Answer 1

The need to raise revenue to administer the country and by a desire to prevent disorder and look after their subjects’ welfare

Question 2

When did governments intervene in economic affairs and what was the objective?

Answer 2

To rectify a problem

A short-term fix, not complete reform

Question 3

How many statutes were passed to improve trade and industry, and to control labour relations and social welfare?

Answer 3

300

Question 4

Who was expected to enforce the statutes but what was the case and what did this suggest?

Answer 4

JPs

Few cases were presented to JPs at a local level and fewer prosecutions were brought by the Crown

The Crown was more interested in its own fiscal welfare

Question 5

Why were JPs reluctant to prosecute?

Answer 5

For fear of exacerbating unemployment and fomenting trouble

Question 6

What was the government’s response to raising taxes?

Answer 6

To try to justify the need and to avoid making excessive or innovative demands

Question 7

What did the Amicable Grant demonstrate?

Answer 7

The danger of trying to collect a non-parliamentary tax

Question 8

What happened in 1536 and 1549?

Answer 8

Farmers expressed concern when rumours circulated that the government was planning to increase indirect taxation

Question 9

What had medieval rulers been expected to do but what happened by the end of the period?

Answer 9

‘Live of their own’ to meet the costs of running the country and maintaining the royal household

No longer the case

Question 10

What happened to the costs of the administration?

Answer 10

Doubled

Question 11

What did Henry VII and his successors do?

Answer 11

Used parliamentary grants to pay for wars

Peacetime subsidies introduced in the 1530s

Question 12

What did Henry VIII and Edward do?

Answer 12

Debased the coinage

Sold off Crown lands

Negotiated lands from continental bankers

Question 13

What did Mary and Elizabeth do?

Answer 13

Cut back on expenditure

Made their administrations more efficient

Avoided wars for as long as possible

Question 14

What did Elizabeth not attempt to do?

Answer 14

Reform the system of self-assessment whereby land, property, and goods were rated for tax and confirmed by JPs at levels below their value

Question 15

Since 1547 what was the case?

Answer 15

MPs and peers had begun to revise their parliamentary assessments downwards

Question 16

What was the case by 1558 and what happened in the 1570s?

Answer 16

The assessed landed income of nobles had fallen by 25%

Those rated at £100 or more were taxed at around 10%

Question 17

What happened to William Cecil?

Answer 17

He had estates and goods rated at £133 a year that were valued at over £4000

Question 18

What did the collision between landowners, merchants, nobles, and gentry ensure?

Answer 18

While the wealthy did pay taxes occasionally, there was never going to be any serious resistance or opposition

Question 19

Even during the last decade of Elizabeth’s reign what happened?

Answer 19

When Elizabeth requested large subsidies, MPs approved because national security outweighed any thoughts of complaining

Question 20

What did Mary of Elizabeth not experience and how?

Answer 20

Tax revolts

By judicious financial management and by avoiding excessive demands

Question 21

When was the enclosing of land a major issue?

Answer 21

When it occurred illegally or in times of economic hardship, and then only in areas where fertile land was in short supply

Question 22

What was passed?

Answer 22

Acts in 1489, 1553, 1549-50, 1555, 1563, and 1597 to prevent the conversion of arable land to pasture, the engrossment of farms, and the destruction of common rights

Question 23

What was periodically held?

Answer 23

Commissions of enquiry in 1488, 1517, 1548, 1549, and 1565-6 to ensure that illegal enclosures had not occurred

Question 24

What evidence is there to suggest that plaintiffs turned to litigation?

Answer 24

Wolsey charged 264 landlords and corporations

The privy council took action against illegal enclosures in the wake of the POG

Question 25

What did Northumberland do but what may explain the absence of complaints in the 1550s?

Answer 25

Sided with the landlords and took action to deter protestors

The collapse of the wool trade and a series of good harvests

Question 26

What happened with enclosures during Elizabeth’s reign?

Answer 26

Became less of an issue and anti-enclosure legislation was repealed in 1593

Repeal coincided with a downturn in the economy but there was no strong call to reverse the law

Question 27

What enclosure Act was passed during Elizabeth’s reign and what was the impact?

Answer 27

An Act that made protests against enclosures treasonous

Contributed to a spate of enclosure activity

Question 28

How many harvests failed, how many of the population lived at starvation level, and what is surprising?

Answer 28

One in every four

One-third

The period did not see more grain riots and rebellions

Question 29

Why was there not more grain riots and rebellions?

Answer 29

Lack of interest shown by nobles and gentry in leading rebellions

Government legislation, the enforcement of statutes and proclamations by JPs, and the initiatives taken by municipal authorities

Question 30

What was passed in 1534, 1555, 1559, 1563, 1571, and 1583?

Answer 30

Acts to limit the export of grain and encourage imports

Question 31

What measures were taken in 1527, 1544, 1545, 1550, 1556, and 1562?

Answer 31

Measures to prevent the hoarding of grain

Question 32

What did towns such as Norwich, London, and Ipswich do?

Answer 32

Bought up cheap corn, stockpiled it, and sold it to the poor at below-market rates in times of dearth

Question 33

What were JPs ordered to do?

Answer 33

Search houses for grain and forced farmers to sell corn at a fair price

Question 34

What was issued by the royal council in 1527, 1550, 1556, and 1586?

Answer 34

Books of Orders that gave detailed advice on how to deal with food shortages

Question 35

What did Orders in the 1590s do?

Answer 35

Required towns to transport surplus corn to the most affected areas

Question 36

What was the government more willing to do?

Answer 36

Intervene when there were food shortages than in other fields of economic activity

Question 37

What did JPs do their best to do but what was the case?

Answer 37

Enforce regulations

Towns often looked no further than helping their own citizens and some merchants were interested in profiteering

Question 38

What was there little sign of in the last twenty years of Elizabeth’s reign?

Answer 38

Disorder

Question 39

What did the 1520s, 1550s, and 1590s see?

Answer 39

Slumps in the woollen cloth trade which resulted in bursts of government interventionism

Question 40

What did the Crown have a personal interest in?

Answer 40

Maintaining high levels of cloth production since its customs revenue was directly affected by exports

Question 41

What became serious?

Answer 41

The problem of large numbers of unemployed fullers, carders, weavers, and dyers

Question 42

What did Northumberland’s council issue in 1552?

Answer 42

Rules to control the quality of manufacturing different types of cloth in an attempt to raise export sales

Question 43

What did Mary’s government do in 1555?

Answer 43

Passed laws designed to force weavers to join guilds and maintain a good standard of work

Question 44

What important legislation came in 1563?

Answer 44

The Statute of Artificers which introduced a range of measures intended to restrict the movement of labour and to ensure that relations between employers and workers were put on a fair basis

Question 45

What did the 1563 Act declare?

Answer 45

That all unemployed people aged between twelve and 60 were to be found work

Masters were not allowed to dismiss a servant

Question 46

What did the 1563 statute represent?

Answer 46

A real attempt to control the economy, to find work for unemployed people, and to preserve order

Question 47

Was the 1563 statute successful?

Answer 47

There were no more revolts or rebellions involving unemployed people

JPs were reluctant to impose regulations strictly, and only in years of severe economic depression were laws enforced

Question 48

What did JPs usually do?

Answer 48

Side with the masters, employers, and craft guilds

Only fully applied the laws when it was in their interest to do so