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'England Was Never Well Governed in the Reign of Edward Vi' How Far Do You Agree with This?

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‘England was never well governed in the reign of Edward 6th’
How far do you agree with this?

Edward VI inherited the throne in 1547 at the infant age of 9. Because of his youth, he had two advisors. The first was his uncle, the Duke of Somerset, who became Lord Protector, and for the first two and a half years of Edward’s reign, Somerset advised and guided the young king. Somerset was replaced by the Duke of Northumberland. Edward was a mere figurehead, the Lord Protector controlled the majority of his government but how well was England governed during the reign of Edward VI for the mere 6 six years he was in power?

During the years of 1547-1553 England experienced a handful of serious rebellions during the six-year reign of …show more content…

Once chantries were abolished it, the donated money was used to help as charitable money for public good however there have been suggestions that the majority of the money had gone to Edwards advisors. Religion significantly backs up the statement ‘England was never well governed under in the reign of Edward VI’ because it was a radical change considering the majority of people believed in Catholicism, which was showed through rebellions (western rebellion) and book burnings of the new prayer book. Although by dismantling chantries it did
Benefit those in need.

The abolition of chantries in 1547 under Edward allowed the money gained to help those who most needed, particularly children however what about other finical policies/plans? Throughout this period there were disastrous economic problems. Many of them were caused by debasement. This was where a small percentage of the value was removed from each coin as it was made and then used to make new coins. This helped in the short term, but led to inflation and worse problems later. This was a huge problem for peasants, who normally spent around 80% of their income on food. The population also increased from about 2.3 million in 1500 to 3 million in Edward's reign, as well as continuous military expenditure which amounted to around 3.5 million between 1544 and 1550.All these led to huge inflation and unemployment, moreover there were lower wages and

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