In Early Modern England the main methods of reducing and punishing crime were through the clerical, civil and crown courts with the monarch through Parliament or by royal decree being able to change the law. The system had been that way for around four centuries although the Reformation would affect the roles of clerical courts and Parliament. The importance of an effective monarch had been demonstrated by the breakdown in law and order caused by the minority of Henry VI and the disruption caused by the War of the Roses. On some occasions juries were bribed or threatened into acquitting criminals that were supported by or connected to local nobility or merchants. The most powerful families maintained their own private armies and believed that they and their entourages were above the law. Henry VII succeeded in restoring royal authority and the criminal justice system (Elton, 1991 pp. 4-6).

Courts did keep records of those that were sentenced or acquitted yet there must have been crimes that were not reported and criminals that remained unpunished. If the crime figures are more accurate then Early Modern England saw higher levels of crime than in the preceding and succeeding periods despite social control been stronger than before (Gardiner & Wenborn, 1995 p.211).

Social control came via the religious and moral teachings of the church, the clerical, civil and crown courts plus the Justices of the Peace that carried out the royal will and punished criminals. The clerical courts could pass judgements could pass verdict on religious crimes and serious moral misconduct yet had to revert heresy cases to the crown if they wished to enforce the death penalty. The nobility believed that their rights were enshrined in the Magna Carta although they should not be regarded as being rights for ordinary people (Lockyer, 1989 p.39) Ultimately it was the monarch that decided the level of social control they considered necessary to ensure that England was secure. The church could provide the monarch with moral and spiritual guidance as well as a means of providing social control. The Tudor monarchs were great believers in using Parliament to recognise, enforce and increase their power. They also recognised that both the House of Lords and the House of Commons contained the people most concerned with maintaining social control, those that held property (Elton, 1991 pp. 19-20).

The punishments for crimes were often severe, with hundreds of different capital offences yet that did not seem to stop crimes being committed. Judges were often keen to pass capital sentences in order to deter further crime, although poverty as much as poor morals often pushed people towards committing crimes. The main crimes that would nearly always result in the death penalty were murder, rape, theft, serious assault, treason and heresy. The method of execution could depend on the nature of the crime and the social status of the criminal. For instance the wealthy tended to be beheaded, the poorest were hung, heretics got burnt at the stake and traitors were hung, drawn and quartered (Gardiner & Wenborn, 1995 p.130). In the Early Modern period there were concerns about declining morality even before the Reformation began. The English church and its clergy although not perfect had fewer problems with morality than its continental and Irish counterparts (Scarisbrick, 1984 pp. 49-50).

There were also some legal loopholes that the governments of this period attempted to reduce, such as gaining sanctuary when been inside a church. As a rule the government was content to allow the courts to deal with criminals and would only intervene when it considered acts or crimes to be a threat to social control or a treat to the government’s security. Serious breakdowns in social control would prove not to be so frequent as ordinary crimes. Yet such breakdowns were greatly feared by English governments and were usually crushed with great severity. Breakdowns in social control were caused by various social, economic, religious and political factors. Government policies could cause or contribute to such breakdowns in social control that were frequently against change rather than in favour of it.

For instance the dissolution of the monasteries prompted the Pilgrimage of Grace in order to reverse Henry VIII religious policies. Through appeals to loyalty and broken promises of pardons Henry VIII and the Duke of Norfolk got the rebels to disband. Then they had the ringleaders executed as a demonstration of the fatal consequences of rebelling against the government. The king had told Norfolk to provide false pledges of “free pardon and Parliament” to regain social control (Kerr, 1990 p.87).

Aside from the Pilgrimage of Grace the dissolution of the monasteries faced little resistance. The sale of monastic lands increased government revenue and meant that those that brought land were committed to the government’s religious changes. The dissolution of the monasteries could have been regarded to have some impact on crime as people that may have been given relief by monasteries may have had to beg or steal to survive, both considered as serious crimes in Early Modern England (Chadwick, 1990 pp. 108-09).

Henry VIII did not pursue any radical Protestant and was content to have Roman Catholics that did not accept the Royal Supremacy executed alongside radical Protestants that believed that the Reformation in England had not gone far enough. As far as the government was concerned the moral teachings of the church still had to be observed whether it was Catholic or reformed. Henry was not interested in radical reform for its own sake and rather more interested in maintaining the greater power that the break with Rome had given him. Thomas Cromwell and Thomas Cranmer slowly promoted Protestant reforms. Both men wanted religious reform endorsed by the government to maintain order and social control. Thomas Cromwell did not survive losing Henry VIII’s favour whilst Archbishop Cranmer was only able to carry out a more radical reformation in Edward VI’s reign (Schama, 2000 p. 307).

The reign of the child Edward VI ushered in an era of regency government with his uncle becoming Lord Protector. War and economic recession made the social and economic conditions less favourable for social control and forced more people towards crime. Protector Somerset wished to remove the visual and ritual remnants of Roman Catholicism in England. He therefore ordered the closure of the chantries and the removal of Roman Catholic images and statues. Whilst the majority of Protestants adopted these changes such changes threatened social control in more conservative areas like Yorkshire, Lancashire and the south-west. Somerset also raised the hopes of the poor that he would introduce social and economic reforms (Morgan, 1993 pp. 295-96).

Thomas Cranmer had been unable to abolish the Latin Mass during Henry VIII reign yet had produced the first Book of Common Prayer by 1549. Brought in by the Act of Uniformity the prayer book was unpopular in conservative areas of the country was a major factor in causing rebellions in the West Country and Norfolk. Cranmer had not liked the 1549 prayer book because it was too conservative, for the rebels it was too radical (Chadwick, 1990 p. 118).

The moderate nature of the first prayer book did not prevent it from threatening the breakdown of social control. The economic downturn of the 1540s had produced higher levels of poverty than normal and influenced Parliament into passing the most draconian Poor Laws of the 16^th century. The poor were unhappy with the enclosure of farm and common lands for the raising of sheep, it was a constant grievance that remained throughout good times and lean times. Protector Somerset promised to stop enclosures yet although ineffective his promises slackened social control. Protests against enclosures may have been illegal yet they were not unpopular or considered unjustified by the population as a whole. Such crimes have often been described by historians, as social crimes as they were committed to promote social good rather than personal gain (Gardiner & Wenborn, 1995 p. 701).

 Enclosures were difficult to stop legally as many of the landlords that made such changes were either Justices of the Peace, MPs, or were close to such people in their social and economic interests. The most serious threat to the government and social control was centred on Norwich and was led by Robert Kett. Kett and his followers believed that they were upholding religious, social and economic traditions and rights whilst the government were the ones that were either carrying out morally repulsive changes or allowing the rich and powerful to do so. The riots and rebellions of 1549 were “the culmination of this sporadic and spontaneous movement” against social and economic changes imposed from above (Elton, 1991 pp. 206-07).

The other rising in Devon and Cornwall had only been crushed after a month long siege of Exeter. That was followed by the death of around 4000 rebels once government forces caught up with them at Samford Courtenay. Kett’s rebellion was a more serious threat to the government and its ability to maintain social control. Protector Somerset’s inability to crush that rebellion led to his replacement by the more competent Earl of Warwick. Warwick had ruthlessly crushed the Kett rebellion with German mercenaries. Warwick promoted himself to Duke of Northumberland and tried to subvert the succession of Mary Tudor in order to save the Protestant Reformation and save his own skin in the process. That was something that no rebel had tried to do in 1549 (Schama, 2000 pp. 321-22).

Arguably the government’s obsession with maintaining tight social controls and trying to enforce religious conformity could backfire. For instance, Mary Tudor had at first been popular yet her persecution of the Protestants and her marriage to Phillip of Spain prompted the Wyatt Rebellion that was a greater threat to the safety of Princess Elizabeth than Queen Mary herself (Starkey, 2001, p.140).

Given time and an heir Mary’s restoration of Roman Catholicism may have succeeded despite Protestant propaganda. However the predetermined persecution of hundreds of Protestants as heretics made many of their compatriots regard them as martyrs rather than subversive criminals (Ivory, Weston et al, 2002 p.65). Elizabeth I only faced one rebellion in England during her long reign, the Northern Rising of 1569. That rebellion was ineptly led and ineffectively organised by Lord Darcy and the Duke of Northumberland and its military threat would prove insignificant. The rising did succeed in inducing panic in the government fearing that it could succeed in placing Mary Queen of Scots onto the throne. Elizabeth ordered the execution of 700 rebels to show that rebellions would not succeed and that involvement in them was foolish, although if she had ordered the execution of Mary Queen of Scots she would have saved herself a lot of trouble (Fletcher & MacCulloch, 1997 p. 102).

A consequence of the Northern Rising was that the Pope issued a bull excommunicating Elizabeth and calling for her removal from the English throne. That bull created a dilemma for Catholics of whether to obey the Pope or remain loyal subjects of the Queen. It is allowed the government to treat radical Catholics and missionary priests sent from Europe as traitors and have them executed (MacCulloch, 1990, p.145).

The Stuarts inadvertently changed the balance of the English constitution and legal system. James I insisted upon the divine right of kings and argued with Parliament and leading lawyers such as Sir Edward Coke over the royal prerogative to raise taxes and make legal decisions. James argued that kings were above the law, whilst Coke countered that not even kings were above English common law (Schama, 2001 p.27). James I declared that he liked common law as it was “favourable and advantageous for a king” to use it to maintain his power and status (Lockyer, 1989 p. 59).

There was perhaps one set of sentences that Coke passed, which James would not have disagreed with. He condemned the Gunpowder Plotters to death and made everybody aware of the significance of having traitors hung, drawn and quartered (Ivory, Weston et al, 2002 p. 103). The government’s ability to effectively maintain social controls was undermined by the disputes between Charles I and Parliament that led to the English Civil War and eventually a constitutional monarchy that protected the interests of the rich and powerful more effectively than before (Schama, 2001 p. 244).

Early Modern England did seem to have a problem with crime if not social control. It would be unrealistic to believe that any country could totally eradicate crime or the need for some form or level of social control. In a sense Early Modern England witnessed a return to tighter social control once the Tudor dynasty was secure and the instability of the Wars of the Roses became a thing of the past. Law was based on the clerical, civil and Crown courts with Parliament passing legislation and the monarch being the final arbiter.

 Social control was based on the social and economic order, the teachings of the church, the effectiveness of the courts and the power of the Crown. The Reformation, imposed as it was from above altered the balance between the Crown, Parliament and the church. The church was the loser whilst the enhanced power of the Crown would bring it conflict with Parliament at the end of the Early Modern period. Crime did not go away during this period and most evidence suggests that it actually increased. The courts tried to deter crime by passing the harshest sentences available to them. Economic necessity rather than the moral failings of those that committed them drove most crime.