Government, Politics and the state 1536-88: Part Three

Today I have looked at the rule of Mary Tudor:

• Mary was 37 years of age when she came to the throne


• During Edward VI's reign she resisted Protestant reform as strongly as she has during the reign of Henry VIII (her father)


• While Somerset was in power she had been allowed to follow her Catholic religion in private


• With the swing towards Calvinism under Northumberland, increasing pressure had been put on Mary to abandon Catholicism and to conform to the Protestant doctrines of the Church of England


• Thus as a devout Catholic, when Mary came to power she was insistent that England should return to the Church of Rome. At the same time she was convinced that national safety depended on a close alliance with the Hasburgs. (Unitl 1555 this strategy to be prospering but thereafter Mary's popularity declined unter her death in 1558.

Assessments of Mary's character

The cause of the unpopularity of Mary has generally been attributed to Mary's own character:

• depicit as a weak and unsuccessful pro-Spanish monarch, cruel tyrant trying to enforce Catholicism through torture and burnings, 'Bloody Mary'

But recently there have been attempts to revise this critical apprisal:

• showed skill and resolution in defeating Northumberland attempted coup d'etat (his attempt to change the royal succession in order to remove Mary for becoming queen and changing England back to a Catholic country)


• Mary has been criticised for indecision in the negotiations over the restoration of Catholicism to England and her marriage to Philip II: however it has later been suggested, was in fact masterly political inactivity and pretended weakness, designed to win greater concessions from the Papacy and the Habsburgs.


• Mary had broad support of the majorit of the people until 1555 and thus the problem was not the weakness of Mary's character but her failure to produce an heir to consolidate her position as well as the outbreak of war with France and the declining economic position

On the basis of this evidence it is difficult to assess Mary's true character and thus the present consensus of opinion lies between the two extremes.

System of government
The system of central and local government remained fundamentally unchanged during Mary's reign:

• The Privy Council continued to be the centre of the administration

However there are a few criticisms of her council: it was too large to conduct business effectively, and it contained a few members of no real political ability and administrative experience.

There was also strong rivalry between the Catholics led by the Chancellor (Gardiner) and the moderates led by Paget. However in spite of these disagreements, these two politicians co-operated closely to restore effective government.

The main reason the Council failed to run as effectively as it should have done was because Mary did not appear to exert any leadership, or show any real confidence in her council. Furthermore frequently she did not consult the Privy Council until she had already decided matters of policy in consultation with Simon Renard (the Habsburg's imperial ambassador).

It has been maintained that parliament was strongly opposed to Mary policies but this view has been modified by recent research. She had strong support from the higher clergy in the House of Lords and apart from the dislike of the Spanish marriage, both houses seemed to have co-operated with the administration throughout Mary's reign. There were lively debates and criticism of policy but these were generally constructive.

The marriage issue

• First major issue of her reign
• Privy Council divided on the matter
• Two realistic candidates for her hand in marriage:

1. Edward Courtenay (Earl of Devon)- supported by Gardiner


2. Philip of Spain- supported by Paget

Courtenary was a descendant of earlier English kings and such a marriage would have strengthened the Tudor dynasty but Mary favoured a closer link with the Habsburgs through Philip.

On 7 December, a marriage treaty was presented to the Council. The terms of the treaty were very favourable to England: Philip was to have no real power in England, no foreign appointments were to be made to the Privy Council and England was not to be involved in or pay towards the costs of any of Philip's wars.

In spite of these safeguards, Mary's popularity began to drift, as many people still thought that England would be drawn into Philip's wars and become a mere province of the Habsburg Empire. By the end of January 1554, anti-Spanish feelings led to rebellion, the Wyatt Rebellion

The restoration of Catholicism

Once the rebellion was defeated, the restoration of Catholicism became a political issue. Gardiner had lost Mary's favour the Spanish marriage. Thus in an attempt to regain it he pressed for religious change but Paget opposed this and try to block Gardiner's proposals.


This introduced a serious constitutional issue. Mary thought that religion was still part of the royal prerogative but she was forced to concede that doctrinal changes could only be made through parliament. However there were only minor opposition in the House of Commons to the restoration of Catholicism but only because of fears over property rights.


Such worries were removed by guarantees that there would be no attempt to take back monastic and chantry lands already sold by the Crown. By 1555 all Henrician and Edwardian religious legislation had been repealed.


Financial and economic problems

Financial reforms

• Still faced by the problems that Northumberland had been trying to solve


• Mary had also given away more Crown lands in order to re-establish some monastic foundations.


• Need to come up with ways to find new sources of government revenue and to increase the income from existing ones


• In 1554 drastic changes were made to the revenue courts:

1. The exchequer took over the work of the Court of First Fruits and Tenths which had dealt with clerical taxation and the Court of Augmentaions (which had administered income from monastic and chantry lands).


2. The courts of Wards which collected feudal taxation and the Duchy of Lancaster, administering lands belonging to the monarch as Duke of Lancaster retained their independence.


3. Planned to remove the large number of debased coins in circulation and to continue the restoration of the silver content of the coinage (but due to Mary's death not put into effect until 1560)


4. The 1552 proposal to revise the custom rates, which had remained unchanged since 1507 was implemented. In 1558, a new Book of Rates was issued, increasing custom revenue from £29,000 to £85,000 a year.


5. In 155 a full survey of all crown lands was carrried out and as a result the payment made by tenants before they could take over a property were raised in 1557.

Mary died before these measures had any real effort and thus it was Elizabeth who benefited from the increased revenue brought about by these reforms.

The economy

During Mary's reign the general economic situation grew worse with a series of very bad harvests and epidemics of sweating sickness, bubonic plague and influenza. Towns were particularly badly hit with high mortality rates and severe food shortages.

Government reacted by restricting the movement of textile and other industries from the countryside. By doing this it was hoped that it would lessen urban unemployment and reduce the number of vagrants seeking work. However shortsighted, what was needed was an increase in the number and variety of industries in both town and country which would provide jobs for the growing number of unemployed. To achieve this the government needed to encourage the search for new overseas markets to replace the trade lost with the decline of the Antwerp market but government was anxious to avoid offending Spain and Portugal to encourgae overseas enterprise and thus little progress was made.

Reform of the army and navy

In spite of the assurance that England would not be involved in Spain's wars, Mary's strong emotional attachment to Philip made it likely that England would be drawn into the continental conflict.

1555, Privy Council reviewed the condition of the navy, which had been allowed to decline after Northumberland had made peace with France.: A new building programme was started, improvements were made to the dockyards, and naval expenditure was increased through a new system of financing.

Equal attention was paid to the army, arrangements were made for raising and maintaining the county militias which were revised in the Militia and Arms Act of 1557 which also improved the procedureds for supplying arms and equipment.

These reforms brought long-term improvements to England's military organisation.

Assessment of Mary's reign

Philip's visit to England early in 1557, and his success in drawing the country into his war against France, intensified Mary's growing unpopularity.

The last two years of her reign saw rising anti-Spanish feelings, mounting opposition to religious persecution, and discontent with the economic conditions.

Yet despite its apparent failings, important reforms had been made and institution of monarchy and the State machinery remained intact. Some historians would go as far as to claim that Mary's failure was her childlessness and her relatively early death, rather than her policies.