Why a Specific Year ?

We live in a specific year and any Re-Creation to pretend to any degree of authenticity must do the same. The Year chosen and the events of that year provide the necessary background for the Re-Creation.

Is this so for Weekend Tudor Re-Creations as well as the Great Annual ?

Yes. However, the Easter and May Day Weekend Tudor Re-Creations which occur prior to that year's Great Annual Re-Creation are always set in the year following the previous year's Great Annual Re-Creation year. The August & Michaelmas Weekend Tudor Re-Creations which occur after that year's Great Annual Re-Creation continue with its year.

This Year's Great Annual Re-Creation Year

The year being re-created in 2010 is 1538. That re-created for 2009 was 1535. For the Easter and May Day Weekends in 2010 the Re-Creations will therefore be set in 1536. Re-Creations from and after the Great Annual in 2010 will be set in the year 1538.

What happened in 1538 ?

Religious Houses

The Dissolution of the Monasteries the main purpose of which was to provide the King with much needed finance was well advanced.  Most of the small religious houses (including nearly all those close to Kentwell) had been dissolved and many medium sized ones two.  Cromwell had adopted a policy of divide and rule.  Clear commitments that the bigger monasteries would not be touched were written into Statutes.  These powerful monasteries therefore did nothing to help the lesser houses. The Great Abbey at Bury St Edmunds was one of the biggest and its abbot currently was a Melford man. Relying upon these commitments the Abbey considered itself secure.  John Clopton of Kentwell watched the position with interest.  He was tenant of the Abbey of its Manor of Monks which lay between Clopton owned lands and Melford church. He secretly hoped that if the Abbey did happen to be dissolved he might be able to purchase the lands he tenanted. Similar secret hopes were harboured by other landowners in areas with large monastic holdings.  This was one of the reasons few local landowners put up any resistance to dissolution of religious houses near to them.

Executions

In July 1535 the King had had executed both Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher (Katherine of Aragon's stoutest supporter). This with the execution of leaders of religious houses which resisted showed the King would brook no opposition. The King had also had executed his second wife Anne Boleyn(because of her suspected adultery, itself treason) on 19 May 1536 and then married Jane Seymour on the following day. Katherine of Aragon had died earlier that year leaving him free to remarry in the eyes of all.  

A Male Heir

Jane Seymour was delivered of a son, Edward, in October 1537 but Jane died of complications attending the birth a few days later. The baby boy survived. The pressing need for the King to marry again to produce a male heir was no more.

Reformation

Meanwhile the Protestant reformation was gaining a foothold with the King surrounded by more keen reformists anxious to banish old papist ways.  The King himself might be indifferent to further reforms but those surrounding him were bent on change.

What Happened in 1535

A pivotal year in the reign of Henry VIII (whose accession took place 500 years ago this year (2009). The King of England of whom nearly everyone child and adult in england will have heard. In the year 1535 the King was cementing his recent break with Rome, his divorce from his first Queen, Katherine of Aragon, and his recent marriage to Anne Boleyn.

The break with Rome and King as Head of the Church

Various Statutes designed to displace the Pope and substitute the Crown were enacted. One established the King as supreme head of the Church in England. Another required Bishops to acknowledge the authority of the King over church matters. Yet another obliged Bishops to pay fees to the Crown (not to the Pope) and another required all Church legislation to be subject to the Crown. The Treason Act made it treason to declare the King a heretic (which was the Pope's and the established church's stance). These and other Acts were the brainchild of Thomas Cromwell who had risen from humble beginnings to be the King's chief minister. He was in reality the architect of all the changes done in the King's name.

Prominent people, churchmen and laymen alike were obliged to swear the Oath of Supremacy. A number refused and several, notably Carthusian monks in London, suffered horrible deaths for their 'treason'. Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher were in June 1535 languishing in the Tower because of their refusal to swear the oath.

The Divorce

Katherine was not merely divorced but her status as Queen, and that of her daughter Mary as Princess, were revoked. Mary was declared illegitimate and the children of Ann and Henry were declared the King's true heirs. Katherine and Mary were reduced to become Lady Katherine and Lady Ann and it was treason to treat them as Queen.

Katherine had been extremely popular and her popularity had increased by the manner in which she conducted herself during these trying times. Ann was unpopular, haughty and opinionated (and in Church affairs an ardent reformist). However, she was an East Anglian and quite popular in these parts on that account.

Money

The King was short of it. He had wasted the large inheritance his father had left. He had tried a new taxation in 1525 which had led to rebellion centred in Lavenham and Long Melford, centres of the East Anglian Wool Trade. A rebellion that he had ruthlessly suppressed. He coveted the wealth of the monasteries. Cromwell had started the process by which the King would soon possess himself of all that wealth. Commissioners were despatched round England ostensibly to report upon monastic excesses but actually to record each Monasteries possessions.