I have several general budgets for various things but mostly naval expenditure in Tudor England from 1542 to 1559. So it spans several monarchs. It generally shows a move from annual naval expenditure of approx 7k to 12k over that time frame. What i need is comparisons. Does anyone have a good way of working out or sources of 16th century English inflation (as i know it was a big problem!) or some variation of gdp or total state expenditure etc. Im basically just trying to work out if that is a real increase in budget.
About price there's a vast literature about what's called "price revolution", the inflation that appeared especially in Spain and later in some other parts of Europe in the 16th century, and a lot of debate about whether it was caused by the influx of silver and gold from the Americas or if there was another cause.
This is a paper that argues against the most accepted version that 16th century inflation was caused by American gold:
The Monetary Origins of the ‘Price Revolution’ : South German Silver Mining, MerchantBanking, and Venetian Commerce, 1470-1540'
https://www.economics.utoronto.ca/public/workingPapers/UT-ECIPA-MUNRO-99-02.pdf
Look at its bibliography for lots and lots of works about this (especially in the Journal of Economic History) and for its table for price series in lots of countries.
It's a 2002 paper, so more discussion has happened after it, but it's a beginning.
About GDP there's the Maddison Project Database from the University of Groningen.
https://www.rug.nl/ggdc/historicaldevelopment/maddison/
Be extra careful with GDP. All estimates before the 20th century are very sketchy. National accounts is something that truly started to be measured in the 20th century (and that's one of the reasons macroeconomics truly appears only after reliable data appears).
Modelski and Thompson's 1988 book on seapower may be of help. They don't measure budgets, but they do measure the numbers and types of ships, and they include relative measures. For example, in terms of what they consider to be capital warships, England went from 15.8% of great power naval capability in 1542 (they have yearly data on all the major powers of the time) to 23.4% in 1559 -- a rather substantial increase over such a short period of time (Table 5.6 on p. 115)! In any case, you can track relative naval shares and numbers of ships using this source.