Assess The Impact Of The Kets Rebellion (Ketts Rebellion)

Edward

Economic policy throughout Edward’s reign created a challenge to royal authority as both Catholics and Protestants felt the government was not doing enough to help. Ketts rebellion, 1549, was largely based on the laws to do with enclosures. Guy states that Ketts rebellion was the closest that England had come to class conflict during that period. This is evident in the unrest of the lower class which in turn led to the “protest” being aimed at change. However, the rebellion lacked support from people in higher classes meaning they could not create much of an impact, as the higher classes had more influence on society due to the money they had. Nevertheless, Ketts rebellion affected the local authority as they needed the army to put

it down, but as the army were still on the side of the government the rebellion lacked enough power to challenge the King’s authority. This however showed the government’s failure to create policies to help the common man, for example Somerset’s enclosure laws, which in turn led to challenges to royal authority.

However, these policies were never fully Edward’s but instead were his protectors, Somerset and Northumberland’s.

This means that when we are assessing the character of the monarch we have to look at who was actually ruling the country this was because Edward was only meant to gain the throne at the age of 18. The traditional view was that Somerset was seen as ‘the good duke', whilst Northumberland was seen as ‘the evil duke', this was because Somerset cared about the welfare of the common people, however, majority of these were failures. His actions to reduce the number of enclosures in England had little effect in helping people and in turn led to Ketts rebellion which challenged authority drastically. Heard states that Somerset 'failed to show the leadership necessary', which is proven by the gathering of the nobility to overthrow Somerset. This shows us the power of the nobility and the clear challenge to royal authority Somerset’s views had caused. However even though Northumberland was seen as the evil duke, he did create some reforms, for example, he decreased the inflation of the economy, which significantly helped the common people. Even though Northumberland did not please the common people, he had in fact pleased the nobility, who had the power to challenge his royal authority. Therefore, Edward's character created a huge challenge to royal authority because of his age his protectors represented him in a court; this meant that their policies were represented as his policies to the

public.

The one major challenge to royal authority was religion specifically the Western Rebellion. Caramani even stated that the rebellion was ‘the most formidable opposition to the reformation that England saw’. The rebellion was caused by Catholic frustration towards the Protestant changes occurring at that time, for example, the new English prayer book. Rebellions were not violent, although did make decisive moves such as making a priest carry out a catholic ceremony, this proves that they were willing to undermine the Royal authority, as they were willing to go against the laws set by Edward. Overall, the biggest challenge to Edward’s Royal authority was as a result of the character of the people ruling the country, as many of the challenges happened as a result of government decisions.