I'm no expert on the subject, but I'm to understand things were somewhat cleaner in the past. A critical problem is that, like many languages, English's pronunciation shifted over the years, but the spelling did not. In truth, I think the spelling was somewhat unstable. It was somewhat subjective back then.

But the spelling became exceptionally bad after the printing press with movable type (i.e. Gutenberg's printing press). The printers decided for themselves on certain spellings and the spellings really froze in place based on the choices the printers made. This was also the period of rapid changes in pronunciation, particularly vowels. But English never really had a spelling reform except Webster's small one in early USA. And yet the spelling was locked in place. Whoops!