Did popular protest have any lasting influence on the Royal Policy in the 15th century?

Type :

Case study

Pages :

10 pages

Format :

.doc

Published date :

08/11/2009

Category :

History & geography

Sub category :

Medieval history

Oboulo.com selection criteria

$ 19.95 Add to cart

Summary :

Introduction
1. Charges particularly leveled at the Revolt of 1450
2. The Londoners who turned on Cade's rebels
The case of the 1450 revolt
1. The involvement of popular protesters
2. The mutiny of lordly retinues
Lengthy campaigns in the French wars
1. The lack of personnel
Re-invoking the Statute of Winchester
Popular dissatisfaction with the regime
1. The momentum generated
2. The armigerous quality in England's populace
Attempts to quash popular protest
The commons
1. A sense of hierarchy
2. The sense of devolved responsibility
3. The idea that the Henry was only the monarch
4. The commons: The instruments of justice
5. Receptiveness to the assistance of a usurper
6. The driving force behind dynastic change
The consequence of the increased use of propaganda
1. Royal policy under Henry
Conclusion
Bibliography

Abstract

This was a period of immense political change, both in the way the English people were viewed by the government, and in the way they thought of themselves within it. It was characterised by popular disturbances, pieces of critical literature and seditious speech, and a corresponding increase in the use of proscriptive and propagandist measures by the government to deal with them. In addition to the rather limited initiative of Henry VI, these years saw the direction of royal policy by magnates such as Cardinal Beaufort, the Dukes of Suffolk and Somerset, the Duke of York whilst he was Lord Protector, Henry's queen Margaret and the royal Household, as well as by Edward IV at his accession in 1461. But popular protest was not always directed against the executors of royal policy and the court. It could, as History shows, equally be directed against the Duke of York, after he became the focus of a magnate 'anti-court' faction.

The populace, or commons, for the purposes of this essay this will be defined as the great mass of the country excluded from the lay and clerical aristocracy, both those nominally represented in the Commons and those denied it by the Forty-Shilling Freeholder Act of 1429. It was a people certainly capable of criticizing the official regime.