impact of the religious change in Northumberland's period of power

The impact of the relgious change in Northumberlands reign 

• Protestantism was a small miniority at start of Ed's reign- Susan Brigden  suggested there was roughly 20% of Londoners were Protestants by 1547, meaning that 80% were not.
• Kent, East Sussex, Essex, Bristol, and East Anglian ports were places with entrenched Protestant minorities ( else where is was almost non-existent)
• Catholic survivalism remained strong in the North, especially Lancashire, in the Midlands counties, such as Staffordshire and Worcestershire, and in the far south-west
• In reccent years historians have closely examined parish records, especially churchwardens accounts, and wills to assess what the ordinary people really believed.
• Churchwardens were in charge of finance- accounts can often signify how readily a particular parish acceded to the requirements of the crown- e.g. The Cromwellian injunctions and Somerset's commisioners
• Churchwardens seem gradually to have put into effect the crowns decrees regarding the destruction of old Catholic habits, although responses to the restoration of Catholicism in 1553 were often rapid
• Nevertheless, Hutton, and Whiting have suggestd that expediture oon church goods declined after 1540- MacCulloch's suggested that 'already in the 1540's the old world was losing its enchantment.'
• Haigh and Scarisbrick arged that, if this were the case, it was largely a reaction to the destrictive attitudes of the Crown- In other words people felt there was very little point in leaving money to the Church…