Power, Control and Rebellion in Elizabethan England - Part 1

Elizabeth I faced only 2 rebellions during her reign, 1569 Revolt of the Northern Earls and the Essex Rebellion in 1601, although she faced numerous plots against her, some of which involved members of the nobility, especially Norfolk. The question of why only two (and why these two) is an interesting one when we consider that Elizabeth was ruling as a queen in a male dominated age (and rule by a queen was regarded as a disaster) and that it was a period of religious upheaval and consequent unrest across most of Europe. If we also consider the previous 100 years we can see that times had changed quite markedly for the nobility and their relationship with the crown.

The Tudor dynasty came to the throne on the back of a prolonged and vicious, if intermittent, factional war known as the Wars of the Roses. This saw two branches (York and Lancaster) of the royal house of Plantagenet fight for the throne of England. Although some troubles continued, the wars essentially ended in 1485 when Henry Tudor defeated Richard III in the Battle of Bosworth and took the crown for himself. It is not the purpose of this discussion to look at the causes of the Wars of the Roses, but a look at how they started and a review of some key factors is useful in a discussion of how the relationship between the Nobility and the Crown changed over the two centuries.

Although it was not seen at the time, the overthrow of Richard II by his cousin Henry Bolingbroke in 1399 paved the way for the family squabble which became the Wars of the Roses. Henry represented the House of Lancaster, a branch of the Plantagenet ruling family; Henry was the son of John O' Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and 4th son of Edward III. Richard II was the son of Edward, Prince of Wales (Edward III's eldest son) who had died shortly before his father thus leaving his infant son Richard to inherit the crown. Therefore both Richard and Henry were grandsons of Edward III. In many respects Richard was ahead of his time but this also made him rather an unsatisfactory medieval king. He chose to rule in defiance of the advice of his great magnates and in the end one of them, his cousin Henry, supported by the powerful Percy Earl of Northumberland, rebelled against him, defeated and deposed him, and ultimately had him murdered.

Henry IV, as Henry Bolingbroke became, had a troubled reign partly as a result of the "violent" manner in which he came to the throne. His former supporters, the Percies, felt they were not receiving their due rewards for their services and rebelled, an action which nearly lost Henry the throne. Thereafter things settled down, helped from 1415 onwards by the renewal of the Hundred Years War with France. This took the excessive energies of the nobility to France where it found an external focus. Even the minority of Henry VI and his subsequent unsuitability to rule when he reached majority did not lead to trouble until the 1450's when the unsuccessful conclusion of the Hundred Years War ended the external focus of the nobility.

Henry VI's inability to rule with strength of purpose allowed the growth of factions at court to get out of hand and this reignited the old rivalries amongst the nobility and between the different branches of the house of Plantagenet. Without going into the complex genealogy it is sufficient to say that these rivalries coalesced behind the House of Lancaster (currently occupying the throne in the person of Henry VI) and the House of York in the person of Richard, later Edward, Duke of York. Various noble families exploited the divisions and Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, like the Percies before him, took on the mantle of Kingmaker. Initially he supported Edward of York and helped him attain the throne as Edward IV in 1461. When he felt he was not receiving his due from Edward IV he conspired to remove him and replace him with Henry VI in 1470. Edward IV returned to the throne in 1471 and the House of York seemed secure until 1483 when Edward died and ultimately his brother ascended as Richard III. Richard suffered from over mighty nobles in the form of Buckingham and then at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 he was deserted by both the Stanleys and the Percies. The result was Henry Tudor becoming Henry VII.

So the Tudor dynasty emerged from a turbulent period where nobles had used their power to determine and control the crown. Both Henry VII and his son Henry VIII faced threats to their rule from powerful nobles. In most cases these were perceived rather than real. the reign of Edward VI saw nobles such as Seymour and Dudley vying for power. Mary escaped such issues in her short reign.

In the next post I will explore the nature of these power struggles a little more.