Power, Control and Rebellion in Elizabethan England, Part 3

What had changed in the 84 years between the last successful rebellion against the ruling monarch in 1485 and the rebellion of the Northern Earls in 1569?

There are 2 main interwoven strands to the answer to this question. The first, and perhaps most important, centres on the nature of the power of the nobility, where their power came from in 1485 and in 1569. The other strand relates to how monarchs in the 15th Century worked with the nobility in governing the country and draws a comparison to how this was done by Elizabeth's reign.

In modern psychology there are several categories of power need. Some of these relate closely to the late medieval and early modern nobility of England. Reward power represents the power obtained through the ability to reward, or punish, people. For the nobility this included their own manor courts (which had virtually died out) and their ability to grant lands to their followers. Personal power represents the personal magnetism of some people, Henry VIII is a very good example of this as is Elizabeth I herself. Positional power is that gained through the person's official post or title, e.g. Warden of the Marches was a title commonly held by the Percy Earls of Northumberland and it granted pretty free ranging powers along the border between England and Scotland. Connection power is gained through access to other powerful people e.g. presence at Court could grant a lot of connection power and is summed up by the still common phrase "it's not what you know, but who you know".

The nobility of the day were still humans just like us and had psychological needs as we do. Their need for power was heightened by the fact that already being in positions of power and wealth simply increased the psychological pressure to maintain that position. In 1485 the nobility were the great landowners of the country, along with the crown. Although theoretically their land was granted to them by the crown and held in exchange for services and loyalty to that same crown, by 1485 such a purist view of feudalism was long obsolete. The land and the income it provided gave the nobility their wealth and power. Each noble had more land than they could manage themselves and so they granted land to tenants of their own - lesser nobles and knights or gentry. This land was granted in exchange for services and loyalty in what is commonly called patronage. The same applied to the crown as a landowner in its own right. For some of the nobility this power was supplemented by crown offices (performing important government functions on behalf of the crown) in a system of royal patronage. In 1485 these offices were almost exclusively filled by nobles of career clergy (see earlier posts about religion). Problems between the crown and the nobility occurred when one noble, or group of them, felt their interests were not being adequately represented by crown policy to such an extent they felt threatened. When this occurred, if the noble or faction were sufficiently powerful rebellion could result. The more powerful the noble or faction the greater the chance of success in the rebellion, either overthrowing the reigning monarch or controlling him or her.

What had changed by 1569 was the degree of power and wealth obtained from land compared with that obtained from royal patronage. Throughout much of the 16th century inflationary pressures reduced the value of the generally fixed income obtained from land rents and therefore reduced the comparative wealth of the nobility. This was all the more acute in a time of increasing splendour and costs represented in lavish living. To combat this, land usage started to change and as a result nobles generally had fewer tenants to cover the land. Certainly less wealth meant that the nobility struggled to provide as much patronage for their followers as before. So increasingly they had to look elsewhere both to bolster their income and to increase their ability to grant patronage. The primary source of this additional wealth and patronage was the crown. The wealth came from crown offices, being paid to perform government duties. To get appointed to crown offices required access to, and presence at, Court. Court and the crown were also where additional patronage came from. If a noble had access to Court and was appointed to crown positions this would provide him with more money and with increased patronage which he could distribute to his followers and thereby increase their ability to attract more followers and thus more power.

In summary, in 1485 a noble's power came from his wealth and ability to reward his followers through patronage. This was not much different to 1569. The difference is where the balance of this wealth and patronage came from. In 1485 it came from the noble's landed wealth. In 1569 it came from the crown.

The second main strand in answering what had changed between 1485 and 1569 was in the way the crown governed the country. To state this simply, in 1485 the country was governed by the crown through the nobility. Important offices were given to the nobility who then either fulfilled the roles directly or farmed them to their supporters, thus reinforcing their power through patronage. In 1569 the crown governed the country through crown officials who were increasingly recruited from the gentry rather than the nobility and all of whom held their office directly from the crown. Powerful nobles close to the crown could still draw upon their Court influence and use patronage to recruit supporters from the gentry and lesser nobility but the ability had been diminished and the loyalties of these supporters lay more closely with the crown from whom their positions ultimately came. Additionally it was very much more difficult to secure crown positions if you were not present at Court.

This shift in the balance of power in the way the country was governed meant that the nobility had increasingly to share their power and wealth with up and coming gentry whose rise in power was due entirely to the crown not the nobility. The Cecils provide a perfect example of these new and powerful gentry. So when, in 1569 and 1601, great nobles rebelled against the crown, they no longer commanded the power and support to enable their rebellions to be a success. Too many people had a vested interest in the rebellions failing.