Henry VIII's split with Rome was not popular in Herefordshire. During 1536 the northern English movement in opposition to the policy, the Pilgrimage of Grace, found sympathy in the county and several people were imprisoned in the castle. Roman sympathy remained strong during the reign of Elizabeth I, and the local law enforcement authorities were constantly being reprimanded by central government for their leniency.

Herefordshire was fairly lawless in the second half of the 16th century. In June 1571 the people of Bromyard rioted against their lord, the bishop of Hereford. In 1581 there were more murders committed in the shire than any two 'thereabouts or in all Wales'.

The authorities knew whom to blame - the Roman Catholics. Thefts and burglaries were committed every day without punishments because the local justices of the peace were negligent and more concerned with their own religious differences. In the December of 1588, the year of the Armada, the sheriff was strictly ordered to lock up Catholic recusants and to no longer permit them to be 'free prisoners'. John Leland

The city seems to have remained fairly prosperous in the 16th century. In the 1530s John Leland found good walls around the town and describes pleasant suburbs. The distance between the Wye Bridge and the easternmost point of the castle, almost the whole width of the city, he describes as being a bow shot.

We do not know where Leland stayed when he visited the town but we know what sort of prices he would have paid had he stayed in a local inn. Prices in inns were regulated - in 1555 the mayor ordered that ale should cost no more than one penny (0.4 new pence) for three pints and that lodgings, with a meal consisting of two dishes of boiled meat and one of roasted, should cost no more than 4 pence.

As the dispute between King Charles I and parliament intensified, Herefordshire remained a deeply conservative county and royalists greatly outnumbered the supporters of parliament.

There were eight members of parliament representing the county at that time - two members for the county, and two each for the boroughs of Hereford, Leominster and Weobley. The two county MPs, Fitzwilliam Coningsby and Sir Robert Harley were to take prominent parts in the coming war on opposing sides, and in the Spring of 1642 Harley began strengthening his castle at Brampton Bryan.

Parliament appointed the Earl of Essex lieutenant of Herefordshire but his authority was ignored and commissions issued by the king raised such military force as existed in the county in the Royalist cause. The county magazine, in St Owen's Gate in the city was seized and the leading local Royalist, Lord Scudamore, collected materials of war at his seat at Holme Lacy.