The dramatic social, religious and political changes which occurred in Tudor and Stuart England caused a rise in crimes associated with poverty such as theft and vagrancy. It also resulted in the prosecution of hundreds of innocent women for witchcraft.
Between 1520 and 1600 the population of England doubled. In the same period wages fell and prices rose. In addition to this, there were years of particular hardship when harvests failed. The dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII removed the traditional institution people could apply to for charity and vagrants and begging became more common. A stereotype of criminals posing as vagrants became generally accepted and this was ref lected in laws directed against ‘sturdy’ beggars in the late sixteenth century.
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