shopkeeper and wholesale merchant. In London, an enterprising citizen
could pass freely from one occupation to another. Borrowing money for a
new enterprise was common. Industrial suburbs grew up around London and
some towns became known as specialists in certain industries. The
building crafts in the towns often joined together into one company,
e.g. wrights, carpenters, slaters, and sawyers, or joiners, turners,
carvers, bricklayers, tilers, wallers, plasterers, and paviors. These
companies included small contractors, independent masters, and
journeymen. The master craftsman often was a tradesman as well, who
supplied timber, bricks, or lime for the building being constructed. The
company of painters was chartered with a provision prohibiting painting
by persons not apprenticed for seven years.
The prosperous merchants began to form a capitalistic class as
capitalism grew. Competition for renting farm land, previously unknown,
caused these rents to rise. The price of wheat rose to an average of
14s. per quarter, thereby encouraging tillage once more. There was
steady inflation.
With enclosure of agricultural land there could be more innovation and
more efficiency, e.g. the time for sowing could be chosen. It was easier
to prevent over-grazing and half-starved animals as a result. The
complications of the open system with its endless quarrels and lawsuits
were avoided. Now noblemen talked about manure and drainage, rotation of
crops, clover, and turnips instead of hunting, horses, and dogs. The
breed of horses and cattle was improved. There were specializations such
as the hunting horse and the coach horse. By royal proclamation of 1562,
there were requirements for the keeping of certain horses. For instance,
everyone with lands of at least 1,000 pounds had to keep six horses or
geldings able for demi-lances [rider bearing a light lance] and ten
horses or geldings for light horsemen [rode to battle, but fought on
foot]. One with under 100 pounds but over 100 marks yearly had to keep
one gelding for a light horseman. Dogs had been bred into various types
of hounds for hunting, water and land spaniels for falconry, and other
dogs as house dogs or toy dogs. There were no longer any wild boar or
wild cattle. The turkey joined the cocks, hens, geese, ducks, pigeons,
and peacocks in the farmyard. Manure and dressings were used to
fertilize the soil. Hay became a major crop because it could be grown on
grazing lands and required little care.
There are new and bigger industries such as glassware, iron,
brasswares, alum and coppers, gunpowder, paper, coal, and sugar. The
coal trade was given a monopoly. Coal was used for fuel as well as wood,
which was becoming scarce. Iron smelters increasingly used coal instead
of charcoal, which was limited. Iron was used for firebacks, pots, and
boilers. Good quality steel was first produced in 1565 with the help of
German craftsmen, and a slitting mill was opened in 1588. Small metal
goods, especially cutlery, were made, as well as nails, bolts, hinges,
locks, ploughing and harrowing equipment, rakes, pitch forks, shovels,
spades, and sickles. Lead was used for windows and roofs. Copper and
brass were used to make pots and pans. Pewter was used for plates,
drinking vessels, and candlesticks. Competition was the mainspring of
trade and therefore of town life.
The mode of travel of the gentry was riding horses, but most people
traveled by walking. People carried passes for travel that certified
they were of good conduct and not a vagrant or sturdy rogue. Bands of
roving vagabonds terrorized the countryside. After a land survey
completed in 1579 there arose travel books with maps, itineraries, and
mileage between towns in England and Wales. Also, the Queen sent her
official mail by four royal postal routes along high roads from London
to various corners of the nation. Horses are posted along the way for
the mail-deliverer's use. However, private mail still goes by packman or
common carrier. The nation's inland trade developed a lot. There were
many more wayfaring traders operating from town inns. In 1564, the first
canal was built with locks at Exeter. More locks and canals facilitated
river travel. At London Bridge, waterwheels and pumps were installed.
New sea navigation techniques improved voyages. Seamen learned to fix
their positions, using an astrolabe or quadrant to take the altitude of
the sun and stars and to reckon by the north star. They used a
nocturnal, which was read by touch, to help keep time at night by taking
the altitude of the stars. They calculated tides. To measure distances,
they invented the traverse board, which was bored with holes upon lines,
showing the points of the compass; by means of pegs, the steersman kept
an account of the course steered. A log tied to a rope with knots at
equal intervals was used to measure speed. There were compasses with a
bearing dial on a circular plate with degrees up to 360 noted thereon.
Seamen had access to compilations of Arab mathematicians and astronomers
and to navigational manuals and technical works on the science of
navigation and the instruments necessary for precision sailing. For
merchants there were maps, books about maps, cosmographical surveys, and
books on the newly discovered lands. In 1569 John Mercator produced a
map taking into account the converging of the meridians towards the
pole. On this chart, a straight line course would correspond to a
mariner's actual course through the water on the earth's sphere, instead
of having the inaccuracies of a straight line on a map which suggested
that the world was flat. It was in use by 1600.
In 1600 William Gilbert, son of a gentleman, and physician to Queen
Elizabeth, wrote a book on the magnetic properties of the earth. He
cultivated the method of experiment and of inductive reasoning from
observation and insisted on the need for a search for knowledge not in
books but in things themselves. He showed that the earth was a great
magnet with a north pole and a south pole, by comparing it to lodestones
made into spheres in which a north and south pole could be found by
intersecting lines of magnetism indicated by a needle on the stone. The
vertical dip of the needle was explained by the magnetic attraction of
the north pole. He showed how a lodestone's declination could be used to
determine latitude at sea. He showed how the charge of a body could be
retained for a period of time by covering the body with some
non-conducting substance, such as silk. He distinguished magnetism from
electricity, giving the latter its name. He discovered that atmospheric
conditions affected the production of electricity, dryness decreasing
it, and moisture increasing it. He expounded the idea of Copernicus that
the earth revolves around the sun in a solar system. However, the
prevailing belief was still that the earth was at the center of the
universe.
Christmas was an especially festive time of good fellowship. People
greeted each other with "Good cheer", "God be with you", or "Against the
new year". Carols were often sung and musicians played many tunes. There
was dancing and gambling. There were big dinners with many kinds of meat
and drink. A hearty fire heated all the house. Many alms were given to
beggars.
Parliament enacted laws and voted taxes. The Queen, House of Lords, and
House of Commons cooperated together. There was relatively little
dissension or debating. Bills in the House of Lords were read, voted on,
discussed, and passed with the lords, peers, bishops, and justices
sitting in their places according to their degree. The justices sat on
the wool sacks. A bar separated this area from the rest of the room,
where the members of the commons stood. There were many bills concerning
personal, local, or sectional interests, but priority consideration was
given to public measures. The House of Lords still had 55 members. The
Queen appointed and paid the Speaker, Clerk, and Sergeant at Arms of the
Commons. The knights in the Commons were almost invariably from the
county's leading families and chosen by consensus of knights with free
land of at least 40s. in the county court. In the towns, the electors
might be the town corporation, holders of certain properties, all the
freemen, all the rate-payers, or all the male inhabitants. Disputed
elections were not usually concerned with political issues, but were
rivalries for power. The Commons gradually won for its members freedom
from arrest without its permission and the right of punishing and
expelling members for crimes committed. Tax on land remained at 10% of
its estimated yearly income. The Queen deferred to the church
convocation to define Christian faith and religion, thus separating
church and state functions.
The Treasury sought to keep a balanced budget by selling royal land and
keeping Crown expenditures down. The Crown carried a slight debt
incurred before the Queen's accession.
Violence was still a part of the texture of everyday life. Private
armories and armed gangs were not uncommon. Agricultural laborers kept
sword and bow in a corner of their fields. Non-political brutal crime
and homicides were commonplace. There were frequent local riots and
disturbances, in the country and in the towns. Occasionally there were
large-scale rebellions. But the rebellion of the Earl of Essex in 1601
had no aftermath in violence. In 1590, the Queen issued a proclamation
enforcing curfew for London apprentices, who had been misruly. The Queen
issued proclamations to certain counties to place vagrant soldiers or
vagrants under martial law because of numerous robberies. She ordered
the deportation of vagrant Irishmen in 1594.
Theft and robbery were so usual that there were names for various
techniques used. A Ruffler went with a weapon to seek service, saying
that he was a servitor in the wars, but his chief "trade" was to rob
poor wayfaring men and market women. A Prigman went with a stick in his
hand like an idle person, but stole clothes off hedges. A Whipjack
begged like a mariner, but with a counterfeit license (called a "gibe");
he mostly robbed booths in fairs or pilfered ware from stalls, which was
called "heaving of the booth". A Frater had a counterfeit license to beg
for some hospital, but preyed upon poor women coming and going to
market. A Quire Bird was a person recently let out of prison, and was
commonly a horse stealer. An Upright Man carried a truncheon of a staff
and called others to account to him and give him a share or "snap" of
all that they had gained in one month, and he often beat them. He took
the chief place at any market walk and other assemblies. Workers at inns
often teamed up with robbers, telling them of wares or money travelers
were carrying so the robber could profitably rob them after they left
the inn.
Francis Drake sailed around the world from 1577 to 1580. Walter Ralegh
made an expedition to North America in 1584 with the Queen's authority
to "discover barbarous countries, not actually possessed of any
Christian prince and inhabited by Christian people, to occupy and
enjoy". He found and named the land of Virginia in honor of the Queen,
who was a virgin, and started a colony on Roanoke Island there. Drake
and Ralegh plundered Spanish ships for cargo such as American gold and
silver, much of which was used to pay for the war with Spain and much
going to investors. Seamen on navy and pirate ships raided captured
vessels to seize personal possessions of the Spanish on board. The
experience fighting Spanish ships led to improvements in ship design;
building ships was no longer merely by copying another ship or a small
model. When the seas were unsafe because of the war with Spain, the
export of English wool was disturbed and later replaced by trading from
world ports. Many London merchants grew rich from using their ships for
pirating.
In 1588, a Spanish Armada came to invade England, return it to
Catholicism, and stop the pirating of Spanish ships. In that battle off
England's shores, Drake and other experienced sea fighters led two
hundred English ships, of which about 20 were built to sink other ships
rather than to board and capture them. These new English ships were
longer and narrower and did away with the towering superstructures at
bow and stern. This made them more maneuverable and easier to sail.
Also, the English guns were lighter, more numerous, and outranged the
Spanish guns. So the smaller English ships were able to get close enough
to fire broadside after broadside against the big Spanish
troop-transport galleons, without being fired upon. The English sent
fire ships into the Spanish fleet when it was anchored, causing it's
ships to disperse in a panic. Then the direction of the wind forced the
Spanish galleons northward, where most of them were destroyed by storms.
The English seamen had been arbitrarily pressed into this service.
A royal proclamation of 1601 offered a reward of 100 pounds for
information on libels against the Queen. There had been mounting
demonstrations against her monopolies, which mostly affected household
items. There had been abuses of monopolies, such as the steel monopoly
had been sold for 12 pounds 10s., but steel was then sold at 5d. per
pound instead of the former 2 1/2 d. per pound. Further the steel was
mixed and of a lesser quality. This so damaged the knife and sword
industry that about 2000 workers lost their jobs from it and became
beggars. Monopoly was a severe burden to the middle and poorer classes.
Also, the power of patent holders to arrest and imprison persons charged
with infringing upon their rights was extended to any disliked person.
When the House of Commons protested against monopolies in 1601,
Elizabeth reduced them. She addressed her Council and the Commons saying
that "Mr. Speaker, you give me thanks, but I doubt me that I have more
cause to thank you all than you me; and I charge you to thank them of
the Lower House from me. For had I not received a knowledge from you, I
might have fallen into the lapse of an error only for lack of true
information. Since I was queen yet did I never put my pen to any grant
but that upon pretext and semblance made unto me, it was both good and
beneficial to the subject in general, though a private profit to some of
my ancient servants who had deserved well. But the contrary being found
by experience, I am exceedingly beholding to such subjects as would move
the same at the first. And I am not so simple to suppose but that there
be some of the Lower House whom these grievances never touched; and for
them I think they speak out of zeal to their countries and not out of
spleen or malevolent affection, as being parties grieved. And I take it
exceedingly gratefully from them, because it gives us to know that no
respects or interests had moved them other than the minds they bear to
suffer no diminution of our honor and our subjects' love unto us, the
zeal of which affection tending to ease my people and knit their hearts
unto me, I embrace with a princely care. For above all earthly treasures
I esteem my people's love, more than which I desire not to merit. That
my grants should be grievous unto my people and oppressions to be
privileged under color of our patents, our kingly dignity shall not
suffer it. Yea, when I heard it I could give no rest unto my thoughts
until I had reformed it. Shall they (think you) escape unpunished that
have thus oppressed you, and I have been respectless of their duty and
regardless of our honor? No, no, Mr. Speaker, I assure you, were it not
more for conscience' sake than for any glory or increase of love that I
desire, these errors, troubles, vexations, and oppressions done by these
varlets and low persons (not worthy the name of subjects) should not
escape without condign punishment. But I perceive they dealt with me
like physicians who, ministering a drug, make it more acceptable by
giving it a good aromatical savor; or when they give pills, do gild them
all over. I have ever used to set the Last Judgment day before my eyes
and so to rule as I shall be judged, to answer before a higher judge. To
whose judgment seat I do appeal that never thought was cherished in my
heart that tended not unto my people's good. And now if my kingly
bounties have been abused and my grants turned to the hurts of my
people, contrary to my will and meaning, or if any in authority under me
have neglected or perverted what I have committed to them, I hope Good
will not lay their culps [sins] and offenses to my charge. Who, though
there were danger in repealing our grants, yet what danger would I not
rather incur for your good than I would suffer them still to continue? I
know the title of a king is a glorious title, but assure yourself that
the shining glory of princely authority hath not so dazzled the eyes of
our understanding but that we well know and remember that we also are to
yield an account of our actions before the great Judge. To be a king and
wear a crown is a thing more glorious to them that see it than it is
pleasant to them that bear it. For myself, I was never so much enticed
with the glorious name of a king or royal authority of a queen as
delighted that God hath made me His instrument to maintain His truth and
glory, and to defend this kingdom from peril, dishonor, tyranny, and
oppression. There will never queen sit in my seat with more zeal to my
country, care to my subjects, and that will sooner with willingness
venture her life for your good and safety, than myself. For it is not my
desire to live or reign longer than my life and reign shall be for your
good. And though you have had and may have many princes more mighty and
wise sitting in this seat, yet you never had or shall have any that will
be more careful and loving."
About 1584, Richard Hakluyt, a Bristol clergyman, wrote "A Particular
Discourse concerning Western Discoveries". This was to become the
classic statement of the case for English colonization. It held out hope
that the English would find needed timber for masts, pitch, tar, and
ashes for soap.
In Rome in 1600, Giordano Bruno, an Italian monk and priest, was burned
alive at the stake by a court of the inquisition for not recanting,
although tortured, his heretical and blasphemous philosophy. He had
opined that Christianity was irrational and had no scientific basis. He
declared that Christ was only a skillful magician, that the Bible could
not be taken literally, that God and nature were not separate as taught
by Genesis, that the Catholic Church encouraged ignorance from the
instinct of self-preservation, and that the earth and planets revolved
around the sun, as did other planets around the "fixed" stars and other
suns.
The Jesuits, a new Catholic order brimming with zeal, sent missionaries
to England to secretly convert people to Catholicism. The practice of
Catholicism had gone underground in England, and some Catholic
householders maintained Catholic priests in hidden places in their
homes.
Although estate tails (estates descendible only to the heirs of the body
of the original feofee) by law could not be sold or given away, this was
circumvented by the fraudulent use of a "straw man". In collaboration
with the possessor of the property, this straw man sued the possessor
asserting that the property had been wrongfully taken from the straw
man. The possessor pleaded that the crier of the court who had warranted
the title should be called to defend the action. He failed to appear
until after judgment had been given to the straw man. Then the straw man
conveyed it to the possessor or his nominee in fee simple.
- The Law -
The following statute of artificers regulated labor for the next two
centuries: No master or mistress may employ a servant for a term less
than one year in the crafts of clothiers, woolen cloth weavers, tuckers,
fullers, clothworkers, shearmen, dyers, hosiers, tailors, shoemakers,
glovemakers, tanners, pewterers, bakers, brewers, cutlers, smith,
farriers, curriers, saddlers, spurriers, turners, cappers, hatmakers,
feltmakers, bow-makers, arrow-makers, arrowhead-makers, butchers, cooks,
or millers. Also, every craftsman unmarried or under age 30 who is not
working must accept employment by any person needing the craft work.
Also, any common person between 12 and 60 who is not working must accept
employment in agriculture. And, unmarried women between 12 and 40 may be
required by town officials to work by the year, the week, or day for
wages they determine.
All artificers and laborers hired by the day or week shall work from 5
am to 7 PM. All artificers must labor at agriculture at haytime and
harvest to avoid the loss of grain or hay. Every householder who raises
crops may receive as an apprentice a child between 10 and 18 to serve in
agriculture until he is age 21. A householder in a town may receive a
child as an apprentice for 7 years, but merchants may only take as
apprentices children of parents with 40s. freehold.
No one may be a craftsman until he has served seven years as an
apprentice. These artificers may have children as apprentices: smith,
wheelmaker, ploughmaker, millmaker, miller, carpenter, rough mason,
plasterer, a timber sawer, an ore burner, a lime burner, brickmaker,
bricklayer, tilemaker, tiler, layer of slate roofs, layer of wood
shingle roofs, layer of straw roofs, cooper, earthen potter, linen
weaver, housewife who weaves wool for sale or for household use.
Purposes of the statute of artificiers were to advance agriculture,
diminish idleness, and inhibit migration to the towns. It excluded three
fourths of the rural population.)
Troops of vagabonds with weapons in the highways who pretend to be
soldiers or mariners have committed robberies and murders. So all
vagabonds shall settle down in some service or labor or trade.
A vagabond or mighty strong beggar [able to work] shall be whipped.
Incorrigible and dangerous rogues shall be branded with an "R" mark on
the left shoulder and be put to labor, because banishment did not work
as they came back undetected. If one is caught again begging, he shall
be deemed a felon.
If a person marries a second time while the first spouse is still
living, it shall be a felony and thus punishable by death.
No attainder shall result in the forfeiture of dower by the offender's
wife nor disinheritance of his heirs.
No one shall forge a deed of land, charter, sealed writing, court roll
or will.
No one shall libel or slander so as to cause a rebellion.
Embezzlement or theft by a servant of his master's goods of 40s. or
more is a felony.
Cut-purses and pick-purses shall not have benefit of clergy.
A person robbing a house of 5s. by day when no one is there shall not
have benefit of clergy, because too many poor persons who cannot hire a
servant to look after their house when they go to work have been robbed.
Benefit of clergy may not be had for stabbing a person who has no
weapon drawn, if he dies within six months.
Fraudulent and secret conveyances made to retain the use of one's land
when one sells the land to a bona fide purchaser for value in fee
simple, fee tail, for life, for lives, or for years are void.
Crown officials such as treasurers, receivers, accountants, and revenue
collectors shall not embezzle Crown funds and shall be personally liable
for arrears.
Persons forcibly taking others across county lines to hold them for
ransom and those taking or giving blackmail money and those who burn
barns or stacks of grain shall be declared felons and shall suffer
death, without any benefit of clergy or sanctuary.
Any person killing any pheasant, partridge, dove, pigeon, duck or the
like with any gun, crossbow, stonebow, or longbow, or with dogs and nets
or snares, or taking the eggs of such from their nests, or tracing or
taking hares in the snow shall be imprisoned for three months unless he
pays 20s. per head or, after one month's imprisonment, have two sureties
bound for 400s. This is because the past penalty of payment hasn't
deterred offenders, who frequently cannot pay.