The Tudor Kings and Queens by Alex Woolf

Author:Alex Woolf
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History
ISBN: 9781784281939
Publisher: Arcturus Digital Limited
Published: 2019-03-12T14:36:05+00:00

War, religion and rebellion

Somerset, a soldier by background, was intent on pursuing the war with Scotland and forcing the Scots to accept the marriage between Mary, their queen, and King Edward. Following a decisive victory at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh in September 1547, Somerset established a network of garrisons in Scotland, stretching as far north as Dundee. But the Scots refused to submit. Their French allies sent reinforcements to defend Edinburgh in 1548. Meanwhile Mary, Queen of Scots was moved to France where she was betrothed to the Dauphin, the French crown prince. The cost of maintaining the garrisons began to strain the royal treasury, and when the French attacked Boulogne in August 1549 (the port had been seized by Henry VIII in 1544), Somerset began to withdraw his armies from Scotland. The French cut off supplies to Boulogne, but an English naval victory over the French off the Channel Islands ensured that Boulogne could be supplied, and the English clung on.

At home, Somerset undertook a series of ambitious religious reforms, turning England into a truly Protestant realm. In 1549 Archbishop Cranmer compiled a Book of Common Prayer, its use in churches enforced by an Act of Uniformity, and this became the standard liturgy for the Anglican Church. Cranmer changed doctrine on the Eucharist, legalized clerical marriage, imposed compulsory services in English, and ended the veneration of saints and the use of images in worship.

The enforcement of church services in English provoked an uprising in 1549 in Devon and Cornwall, sometimes called the Prayer Book Rebellion. The rebellion was easily dealt with but, put together with failures in Scotland and the threat to Boulogne, added to Somerset’s growing reputation for mismanagement.

However, the main cause of his downfall was his hostility to land enclosures. Somerset believed in giving peasants security of land tenure, and wished to curtail the practice by rich landowners of enclosing areas hitherto regarded as common land. In 1548 and 1549, he sent out commissions of enquiry to investigate complaints by villagers. This brought him into conflict with Parliament, most of whose members were themselves landowners. Serious opposition to Somerset began to form under the leadership of John Dudley, Earl of Warwick.

Somerset’s stance also had the effect of encouraging peasants in Norfolk to rise up against the landlords, believing they were acting with the full support of the Lord Protector. Kett’s Rebellion, as it became known, broke out in July 1549, led by a yeoman farmer, Robert Kett. Under his command, a rebel army numbering 16,000 stormed Norwich on 21 July. The rebels were ultimately defeated by an army led by Dudley, Earl of Warwick, on 27 August. Kett was tried for treason and hanged from the walls of Norwich Castle in December 1549.

By the autumn of 1549, Somerset had lost the support of most of his councillors. In October, John Dudley led a coup against him, ousting him from office. Dudley had already prepared the ground for his assumption of power by winning the support of the King and the Privy Council and, by January 1550, was de facto regent.

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