Tombland

There are two views of Somerset. One is that he was ‘the Good Duke’, concerned for the welfare of the poor, who abolished the draconian treason legislation of Henry VIII and led the country, for a time at least, into ‘milder climes’. The second, to which I subscribe, is that Somerset was obsessed with the war he instigated against Scotland, despite its military failure and disastrous economic effects. All other issues were secondary. Meanwhile the ‘milder climes’ soon turned into a new religious authoritarianism, radical Protestantism. ² As a man, Somerset was widely viewed as proud, tactless and obstinate. ³ His incompetence speaks of a man promoted beyond his abilities; his performance in dealing with the 1549 rebellions was remarkably inept. Though he often acted like an autocrat, in the end Somerset’s position depended on the Council’s consent, something he realized too late.

Henry VIII had left England in a mess. Since the break with Rome in 1532–3, his religious policy had oscillated between semi-Protestantism and a conservative ‘Catholicism without the Pope’, leaving an atmosphere of religious division and uncertainty. His wars with France and Scotland had been costly failures; he made a peace with France in 1546, which included France’s Scottish ally, though details remained to be negotiated with Scotland. ⁴ But in 1547 Somerset launched a full-scale war against Scotland. This in turn affected relations with France, making Henry’s peace a short one.

THE GREAT INFLATION

Henry’s wars had been enormously costly. The state coffers were emptied, heavy taxation levied, and much former monastic land sold. To obtain gold and silver, the silver coinage especially was debased, adulterated with copper. In domestic as well as foreign markets, sellers became reluctant to accept these coins at full value. The result was high inflation, previously unknown in England. ¹ In 1549 prices were over fifty per cent higher than in 1540, and in that crucial year spiked by eleven per cent. ² The poor were worst affected, as wages, limited by statute and local custom, did not rise. The earnings of a semi-skilled workman remained steady at around fourpence a day, a sum whose purchasing power fell by a third in less than a decade, causing drastic impoverishment. ³ Financially, the last thing England needed after Henry died was another large-scale war.

There were two contemporary explanations for the inflation. One, which was wrong, concentrated on agrarian factors – high rents, marketing problems and enclosure – the replacement of food-producing agriculture by sheep farming. The agrarian situation indeed caused major social problems and huge injustice, but the second explanation, that inflation stemmed mainly from the debasement of the coinage, caused in turn by war, was the right one. Somerset, however, determined on his Scottish war, was naturally predisposed to the ‘agrarian’ explanation. ⁴

THE SCOTTISH WAR

Why was Somerset so fixated on Scotland? In 1547 it was no threat to England. However, Henry VIII had wanted to marry Edward VI to his fellow child-monarch Mary, Queen of Scots, thus ending for good the ‘Auld Alliance’. Somerset, though, intended fully to unite the two countries. Protestantism was growing in Scotland, and Somerset believed many Scots would support his invasion. He also believed, wrongly, that he had the military key to conquering Scotland – the building of a series of forts in the lowlands on the new Italian model, which would act as local bases for attack and also attract Protestant Scots.

In September 1547 Somerset met initial success at the Battle of Pinkie, defeating a massive Scottish army. ¹ However, the number of sympathetic Scots proved to be small, and his fortresses fell one by one to the Scottish Governor, Arran. In 1548 Mary, Queen of Scots was shipped to France, which was already providing aid to the Scots, killing the marriage plan stone dead. By early 1549 the remaining English garrisons, with up to 17,000 men, were under siege, underpaid and ravaged by plague. Conditions in Scotland were so bad that foreign mercenaries refused to serve there. ²

The Scottish war was a contributory cause of the 1549 rebellions, not only because it made inflation worse but, I suggest, also because of the importance of angry deserters from the English army in helping instigate rebellion. Desertion rates in Tudor armies were about fifteen to twenty per cent and, given the conditions and lack of pay in Scotland, the figure for that war may be higher. ³ Interestingly, the contemporary soldier Elis Gryffydd noted during the 1544 French campaign that it tended to be prosperous yeomen who urged poorer soldiers to desert. ⁴

Despite the complete failure of his war, Somerset planned yet another campaign for 1549. This, however, was overtaken by the rebellions. ⁵

RELIGIOUS CHANGE