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, was 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
are 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, 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, which founded the science of electricity. 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 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.
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.
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 in the first part
of Elizabeth's reign. 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.
After exhausting every other alternative, the Queen reluctantly
agreed with her Privy Council on the execution in 1572 of Mary,
Queen of Scots, who had been involved in a plot to assassinate her
and claim the throne of England. Her Council had persuaded her
that it was impossible for her to live in safety otherwise.
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. Mnay 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.
- The Law -
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.
No one shall make false linen by stretching it and adding little
pieces of wood, which is so weak that it comes apart after five
washings.
Timber shall not be felled to make logs for fires for the making
of iron.
No one may take small fish to feed to dogs and pigs. Only nets
with mesh leaving three inches spaces may be used to catch fish.
No attainder shall result in the forfeiture of dower by the
offender's wife nor disinheritance of his heirs.
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, so that
agriculture will be advanced and idleness diminished. 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. (This was designed to inhibit
migration to the towns. It excluded three fourths of the rural
population.)
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.
Fish, but no meat, may be eaten on Wednesdays so that there will
be more fishermen and mariners and repair of ports. (This was done
because fishing had declined since the dissolution of the
monasteries. Eating fish instead of meat in Lent in the springtime
remained a tradition.)
For repairing of highways, the supervisors may take the rubbish or
smallest stones of any quarry along the road in their precinct.
Embezzlement or theft by a servant of his master's goods of 40s.
or more is a felony.
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.
Cut-purses and pick-purses shall not have benefit of clergy.
A debtor may not engage in a fraudulent collusion to sell his land
and goods in order to avoid his creditors.
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.
When the hue and cry is raised for a robbery in a hundred, and
other hundreds have been negligent, faulty, or defective in
pursuit of the robber, then they must pay half the damages to the
person robbed, while the hundred in which the robbery occurred
pays the other half. Robbers shall be pursued by horse and by
foot.
The price of barrels shall be set by mayors of the towns where
they are sold.
No man under the degree of knight may wear a hat or cap of velvet.
Caps may not be made of felt, but only knit wool. Only hats may be
made of felt. This is to assist the craft of making wool caps.
Every person over 6 years of age shall wear on Sundays a wool
knitted cap made by the cappers, except for maidens, ladies,
gentlewomen, noble persons, and every lord, knight, and gentlemen
with 2,667s. of land, since the practice of not wearing caps has
damaged the capping industry. This employed cappers and poor
people they had employed and the decrepit and lame as carders,
spinners, knitters, parters, forsers, thickers, dressers, dyers,
battelers, shearers, pressers, edgers, liners, and bandmakers.
Rugs shall weigh 44 pounds at least and be 35 yards at least in
length and at most 3/4 yard wide.
The incorporated company of ship masters may erect beacons and
marks on the seashores and hills above, because certain steeples
and other marks used for navigation have fallen down and ships
therefore have been lost in the sea.
There shall be one sheriff per county, because now there are
enough able men to supply one per county.
Trials of noblemen for treason shall be by their peers.
A native or denizen merchant in wholesale or retail goods who
leaves the nation to defraud his creditors shall be declared a
bankrupt. The Chancellor may conduct an investigation to ascertain
his land, house, and goods, no matter who may hold them. They
shall be appraised and sold to satisfy his debts.
Loan contracts for money lent may not be for more than 200s. for
each 2000s. yearly (i.e. 10% interest). All loans of money or
forbearing of money in sales of goods not meeting this requirement
shall be punishable by forfeit of the interest only.
No cattle may be put in any enclosed woods that have been growing
less than five years. At the end of five years growth, calves may
be put in. At the end of six years growth, cattle may be put in.
The mother and reputed father of any bastard who has been left to
be kept at the parish where born must pay weekly for the upkeep
and relief of such child, so that the true aged and disabled of
the parish get their relief and to punish the lewd life.
No master at a university may lease any land unless 1/3 of it is
retained for raising crops to supply the colleges and halls for
food for their scholars.
Persons with 100s. in goods or 40s. in lands shall find two able
men in their parish community to repair the highways yearly.
Landowners of Oxford shall be taxed for the repair of the highway
and bridge there.