ABSTRACT
England in 1547 was a second-rank European power with considerable potential economic resources but thinly populated, beset by social and economic problems, at odds over religion, and increasingly isolated from its traditional allies and trading partners. The government aimed not at change but at social and economic stability after a period of flux and uncertainty. The government had to face opposition to its ecclesiastical policy not only from Catholics but from zealous Protestants. War demanded extraordinary revenue in the form of parliamentary taxation, though gradually the Tudor monarchs moved towards the use of taxation for peacetime government also. Henry VIII was an outstandingly forceful monarch, making himself head of the Church in place of the pope, dissolving the monastic houses, suppressing a major rebellion, executing potential claimants to the throne, and indulging in costly wars which brought little return. In France Henry IV, partly with English help, had won control of his country against the pro-Spanish Guise faction.
