ABSTRACT
The defeat of the northern earls represented a turning-point for theElizabethan government; afterwards Protestant dominance was notseriously challenged. For twenty years, despite many alarms about Catholic intentions, and genuine Catholic plotting, there was no attempt at rebellion. Yet in the last decade of Elizabeth’s life, there were plenty of reasons for her and her ministers to feel anxious. Even the climate seemed to conspire against them, with a run of disastrous harvests resulting in full-scale famine in some regions. The price of food nearly doubled while the real value of wages declined (Clark, 1985: chs 1-3).
