The Prince and the Pauper is set during the reign of King Henry VIII, in the 16th century. Henry VIII’s reign was marked by the Protestant Reformation and the breaking away of the Anglican church from the Roman Catholic church. Henry VIII was a true authoritarian who did not tolerate any kind of religious or political dissent; the monarchy as an institution held tremendous power and had begun to acquire huge wealth through taxation. In addition, Henry VIII's seizure of the assets of the Catholic church in England after the Reformation made him one of England’s richest monarchs ever.
The power of the monarchy was absolute by the end of Henry VIII’s reign, but that power was quickly cycled through the hands of several ill-prepared successors, whose personal defects and bad behavior turned the lives of their citizenry upside down. Upon Henry VIII’s death, Edward VI rose to power at age nine in 1547. Edward was precocious and may well have developed into a significant leader, but he caught a fatal case of tuberculosis in 1553. He passed away at 15 years old, in July of the same year. He was succeeded by Lady Jane Grey (she ruled for a little over a week), then Queen Mary I, and finally his famous half-sister Elizabeth.
England was in a period of growth and transition between Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. The population was skyrocketing, especially in London. The transition from Catholicism to Anglicanism was piecemeal and met with opposition at each step. Elizabeth’s reign would ensure true prosperity and security for England, but this golden age was a decade after Edward’s ascension.
London was already the largest city in England in this period, with approximately 200,000 residents. The city was extremely unhygienic; there was no real sewage system, and Londoners still battled seasonal cases of plague (plague usually swept the city in summer). In addition, there was no organized police force, though the law was sometimes enforced by parish constables. As a result, London had an extremely high crime rate; for those who were caught and held accountable, punishments were usually corporal and extreme.
