Elizabeth Threats in 1558

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What problems faced Elizabeth in 1558? To understand the issues that Elizabeth faced in her reign it is important to look at the problems that preceded her. Historians such as Whitney Jones have written about a mid-Tudor crisis starting for the last years of Henry VIII’s reign and it’s characterised by weak leadership from the monarchs and their courts. Inflation was a serious issue in late Tudor England, triggered by the debasement of the coinage under Henry VIII and Edward VI. It was a period of intense rebellions such as the Wyatt’s rebellion, or factional fighting in court for example; Edward’s court was ridden with the visions of the dukes of Northumberland (John Dudley) and Somerset (Edward Seymour). But perhaps the most fundamental division of the mid Tudor crisis was thrown up by the reformation of the church and Mary’s brutal Counter Reformation. This leads me on to talk about one of the largest perceived problems at the start of Elizabeth’s reign. Henry VIII reigned against the background of the dramatic upheaval of the English church known as the Reformation. This is when the authority of the Roman Catholic Church led by the pope was rejected by those known as Protestants. Henry had imposed his own version on Protestantism where the English monarch became the head of the English church. Edward VI continued the reformation in England as to convert to a purer form of Protestantism. Under the guidance of his protestant council such as Thomas Crammer, Edward reshaped the face of the English church. However on his death, Catholicism returned to England in the form of Mary I. With King Phillip II of Spain as her husband, she brutally forced Catholicism back into England, even burning 300 Protestants at the stake. So once Mary’s reign was over, Elizabeth was forced into a country that was in a state of religious flux with varying religious group all vying to
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