How effectively did Elizabeth and her government deal with the problems they faced in the later years of her reign?

Towards the end of Elizabeth’s reign she dealt less with problems of marriage and succession but more to do with rebellions that challenged her and her privy council’s rule, and financial and social issues. However her relationship with parliament was an issue throughout her entire reign.

Elizabeth was somewhat effective when dealing with the social problems that occurred at the end of her reign. Elizabeth tried to prevent poor harvests which would gravely damage the economy and her popularity in the public with the ‘Book of Orders’ which attempted to prevent any poor harvests. This was ineffective in preventing the awful harvests in 1586-87 and in 1594-96. This led to riots in 1595. However, Elizabeth was then very effective in dealing with the riots as a consequence. In 1598 she passed a Poor Law act, which required all parishes to appoint overseers of the poor and provide relief, this also increased employment rates. This therefore increased her popularity and her relationship with parliament. Whilst Elizabeth was effective in dealing with the negative consequences involving the daily lives of her people, she as less effective at managing the financial problems, such as balancing her relationship with parliament to grant her subsidies and money spent during warfare.

Elizabeth was less effective in dealing with finance. Due to the squashing of the rebellion in Ireland that cost £320,000 in 1600, Elizabeth had to resort to forms of increasing crown income that displeased the people and parliament such as monopolies. The subject of monopolies caused friction between Elizabeth and her parliament shown in 1601 when Francis Moore spoke in parliament about the suffering monopolies had brought on those in poverty struggling to meet the inflation