Society remained unequal even though feudalism was no more. Rebellion against the Tudors was not about class or fairness, it was, after the Wars of the Roses, about belief and, of course, money! Equality and democracy were not always reasons to protest.
Kings should only tax their subjects to meet the needs of war or other exceptional circumstances. In 1483 an act of parliament made non-parliamentary taxation illegal. In medieval times this was eventually worked out as a fixed about known as fifteenths and tenths and was a valuation made upon a whole communities. The Tudors came up with the idea of assessing individuals. These taxes were known as subsidies and were arbitrary. They were levied in 1489, 1497 and 1536. Opposition to the subsidies in Parliament led to heated arguments and to outbreaks of violence in the wider realm. Tax collectors were not popular men. Between 1485-1547 there were 11 recorded cases of tax collectors being assaulted and more than 100 occasions when goods and property seized by the tax collector was forcibly taken back. On occasion resistance to taxation resulted in the challenge to royal authority turning into rebellion.
In April 1489 the 4th Earl of Northumberland tried to collect a subsidy that had been granted to Henry VII by Parliament so that he could support Brittany against the French. Northumberland confronted a gathering near Thirsk and was promptly assassinated. He was the only person to be killed during the uprising. Polydore Virgil and the Great Chronicle of London suggested that Northumberland was killed by men sympathetic to the Yorkist cause. Although the Percy family was traditionally Lancastrian in sympathy, the 4th earl was a teenage in 1461 at the Battle of Towton and was eventually rehabilitated by Edward IV who he served in various roles. In 1485 he was at the Battle of Bosworth in charge of the reserves. His failure to enter the fray was regarded as extremely treacherous by the Yorksist supporters of Richard III and even today historians regard him as being a supporter of Henry VII rather than the man whose colours he wore. Vergil and the writer of the Great Chronicle of London thought much the same. In either case Northumberland was either killed because of the loyalty of the north to the memory of Richard or because Henry wished to impose his will on the north – and Northumberland paid the price for forcing it upon the men of Yorkshire.
The rebellion of 1497 was perhaps more serious. Taxation became a major issue in Cornwall where Henry was levying a subsidy to raise an army to deal with the Yorkist pretender Perkin Warbeck (obviously if you’re a Yorkist then he wasn’t a pretender but this isn’t the time or the place for that discussion). Parliament granted the king two fifteenths and tenths and a subsidy equating to £120,000 which was huge. In addition wealthier members of society found themselves subject to a forced loan. The Cornish were already fairly irritated by regulations imposed on the tin mining industry and the loss of their privileges which were an important part of the local economy.
Recognising that blaming the king would be treason the agitators blamed the king’s advisors Cardinal Morton and Reginald Bray. They marched to London to present their grievances to the government and to demand an end to the taxation. They were led by a blacksmith and a lawyer. As well as gentry, and tin miners there were men from all the working class ranks of society and by the clergy. At Wells in Somerset they even gained the support of Lord Audley – who was fairly cash strapped at the time. In a way it made the rebellion more alarming because it crossed the social hierarchy.
By the 13 June 15,000 protesters were at Guildford. The army that Henry intended to send to Scotland had to be diverted south. On 16 June the rebel army arrived at Blackheath causing panic in London but the support wasn’t as widespread as many of the protesters hoped. Plus no one wanted to be a rebel – the consequences were unpleasant. A large number of men deserted, especially when they heard that Henry’s army had swelled from 8,000 to 25,000 – making it one of the largest armies ever gathered by a king of England.
The Battle of Blackheath took place on 17 June 1497 at the bridge at Deptford Strand. Lord Daubeney, the king’s commander crossed the bridge, was captured by the Cornish but quickly rescued. The Cornish didn’t have any reserves or any artillery. They were soon defeated. The leaders of the rebellion, including Lord Audley, were hanged, drawn and quartered. Originally the king thought he would send the butchered body parts to Cornwall as a warning but decided that it wouldn’t be wise – he was right. Instead he fined everyone involved with the rebellion – he was systematic and severe – unsurprisingly the Cornish promptly rebelled again, still in 1497, and joined forces with Perkins Warbeck who landed in Cornwall that September.
Polydore Vergil, who was a Tudor historian, recorded that resistance to Tudor taxation did not always take the form of violence. When Cardinal Wolsey tried to raise funds for Henry VIII’s French campaigns between 1513 and 1525 many men simply shrugged their shoulders and said they couldn’t afford the payments. The Amicable Grant of 1525 was aimed specifically at the clergy but Wolsey found that many abbots simply claimed not to have the money or that the economy was so bad that even if they sold goods they would be unable to afford what the king wanted. At Lavenham in Suffolk the subsidy was largely paid by wealthy clothiers but they owned less than 3% of the property and many of the adult males of the area were out of work. As a consequence some 4,000 men from all walks of life banded together to protest – the tax collectors, on this occasion the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, were hesitant to stir the anger of the protesters and had some sympathy with their difficulties. Public opinion wa becoming more vocal and it meant that the first two Tudor kings were forced to recognise that the Crown rested on partnership with the men who paid tax. Popular opinion was becoming more important than ever before.
For a comprehensive overview of Tudor Rebellions click on the image to open the link.
Henry VII was twenty-eight when he returned to England from Brittany in 1485 after an exile of fourteen years. Griffiths makes the point that ‘Illicit relationships may have flourished,’ which is a very polite way of saying that penniless male Lancastrian exiles may have looked for a little local female company on occasion.