Was there a mid-Tudor crisis?

Wages - what was the problem?

• A series of economic problems led to significant cut in real wages

• But also a perception that wages were too high

Wages - what action was taken?

• Some local initiatives e.g. Council of the North got York and Hull to enforce the schedule of wage rates from 1514

• Statute of Artificers in 1563 brought in compulsory labour, minimum period of 1 year for the hire of workmen

• No one could enter a craft without a 7 year apprenticeship

• Setting of maximum wage rates by the JPs

Wages - how effective was the action taken?

• Government lacked powers of enforcement

• Difficult for JPs to manage

Poor relief - what was the problem?

• Increasing population and low real wages for labourers, lower than they had been a century earlier

• Maintained widespread poverty and vagabondage

• Harvest failures created food shortages, especially in the mid 1550s and 1590s

• Concerns that this would lead to problems of law and order

Poor relief - what action was taken?

• Private benefactors continued to leave money for alms-houses for the poor despite Reformation

• But this was no longer enough

• Reformation destroyed monasteries which traditionally provided Poor relief

• 1563 Poor Law required all parish residents to contribute to the poor rate if they were able and they could be fined if they didn’t

• Not until 1570s that parliamentary legislation began to take it seriously

Poor relief - how effection was action taken?

• 1563, ineffective

• National legislation lagged behind local problem

• Not until 1570s that parliamentary legislation began to take the problem seriously

Currency - what was the problem?

• Unstable currency due to Henry’s debasement of the coinage to pay for French wars

Currency - what action was taken?

• Announced a scheme early in Elizabeth’s reign

• Announced for the withdrawal of debased coins and their replacement by soundly minted coins

Currency - how effective was action taken?

• Some suffered as a result of the scheme

• Ensured only sound coins were in circulation

• Prices continued to rise but the government could not be held responsible for it

Elizabethan settlement - what was the problem?

• Many returning Protestant exiles intially saw the queen as the ‘English Deborah’

• Elizabeth was reluctant to fill this role

Elizabethan settlement - what action was taken?

• Appointment of new bishops as all but one of the Marian bishops refused to continue in office

• Appointment of Mathew Parker as Archbishop of Canterbury, a moderate Protestant

• Elizabeth disapproved of clergy marrying, distrusted preaching and ensured the preservation of the musical culture of the cathedrals and uni colleges

Elizabeth settlement - how effective was action taken?

• Elizabeth saw the Settlemenet as complete in establishing the relationship between Church and State and the Church’s doctrinal position

• Others saw the Church as ‘half-reformed’

Overall was there a crisis?

• There were causes for concern that never arose to something bigger and were maintained at their level of concern all throughout her reign