CHAPTER III. Elizabethan England

ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND

§ 1. PROSPERITY AND PAUPERISM—The reign of Elizabeth is generally regarded as prosperous, and so upon the whole it was. But she had come to the throne with a legacy of pauperism from her father, Henry VIII., and from her father’s counsellors, who guided her weak brother, Edward VI. Nor had Mary helped to alleviate it. Social discontent was at Elizabeth’s accession prevalent, and it is to her credit as a sovereign that at her death danger from that source had passed away. This was partly due to the growth of wealth and industry throughout the kingdom, to the great gains of our foreign trade, and to the rapid expansion of our manufactures. But pauperism was now a permanent evil, and legal measures had to be taken for its relief. One abiding cause of it was the persistent enclosures which still went on, together with the new developments in agriculture. Nevertheless, before the close of her reign the bulk of the people became contented and comfortable, owing to the prolonged peace which prevailed. The merchants and landed gentry were rich; the farmers and master-manufacturers were prosperous; even the artisans and labourers were not hopelessly poor, though to call them well-off would be a misstatement. We may now see how the wealth of the first two classes was produced.

§ 2. THE GROWTH OF MANUFACTURES—The economic transition before alluded to (p. 55), by which England developed from a wool-exporting into a wool-manufacturing country, had in Elizabeth’s reign almost been completed. {101} The woollen manufacture had become an important element in the national wealth. England no longer sent her wool to be manufactured in Flanders, although a good deal of it was dyed there. It was now worked up at home, and the manufacturing population was not confined to the towns only, but spread all over the country; and both spinning and weaving afforded direct employment for an increasing number of workmen, while even in agricultural villages it was a frequent bye-industry. The worsted trade, of which Norwich was still the centre, spread over all the Eastern counties. The broad-cloths of the West of England took the highest place among English woollen stuffs. Even the North, which had lagged so far behind the South in industrial development, ever since the harrying it underwent at the hands of William the Norman, began now to show signs of activity and new life. It had, in this period, developed special manufactures of its own, and Manchester friezes, York coverlets, and Halifax cloth now held their own amongst the other manufactures of the country.

§ 3. MONOPOLIES OF MANUFACTURING TOWNS—One important sign of the growth of manufactures is seen in the fruitless attempts made in the sixteenth century to confine a particular manufacture to a particular town. This is a sure sign that the manufacture of that article was increasing in country districts, and that competition was operating in a new and unexpected way upon the older industries. An example of this may be seen in the monopoly granted by Parliament in Henry VIII.’s reign (1530) to Bridport in Dorsetshire, “for the making of cables, hawsers, ropes, and all other tackling.” This monopoly was granted upon the complaint made by the citizens of Bridport, that their town “was like to be utterly {102} decayed,” owing to the competition of “the people of the adjacent parts,” who were therefore by this monopoly forbidden to make any sort of rope. The only result of this measure, however, was to transfer the rope-making industry from Dorset to Yorkshire, and Bridport was in a worse plight than before.

In the same reign (1534), the inhabitants of Worcester, Evesham, Droitwich, Kidderminster, and Bromsgrove, then the only towns in Worcestershire, complained that “divers persons dwelling in the hamlets, thorps, and villages of the county made all manner of cloths, and exercised shearing, fulling, and weaving within their own houses, to the great depopulation of the city and towns.” A monopoly was granted to the towns, the only result of which was that they became worse off than before, a great portion of the local industry being transferred to Leeds. A little later (1544) the citizens of York complain of the competition of “sundry evil-disposed persons and apprentices,” who had “withdrawn themselves out of the city into the country,” and competed with York in the manufacture of coverlets and blanketings. York got a monopoly, but her manufactures gained nothing thereby. Again, in 1552 Edward VI. enacted that the manufacture of hats, coverlets, and diapers should be confined to Norwich and the market towns of Norfolk. Elizabeth granted numerous trading monopolies for the sale of special articles, but the monopoly system was opposed to the new competitive spirit of the age. In 1601 a great many of the most obnoxious were withdrawn, and by that time few remained imposed upon the manufacture of goods. The above illustrations, however, are interesting as showing the growth of manufactures in all parts of the kingdom, and in rural districts (cf. p. 65). {103} They are useful also as glaring instances of the folly of protective enactments.

§ 4. OUR EXPORTS OF MANUFACTURES—Besides these monopolies we have ample evidence of the growth of our cloth manufactures in the statements made by Ludovico Guicciardini (1523–89), as to our exports to Antwerp. “It is marvellous,” he says, “to think of the vast quantity of drapery sent by the English into the Netherlands, being undoubtedly one year with another above 200,000 pieces of all kinds, which, at the most moderate rate of 25 crowns per piece, is 5,000,000 crowns, so that these and other merchandise brought by the English to us, or carried from us to them, may make the annual amount to more than 12,000,000 crowns,” which is equivalent to some £2,400,000. One great cause of our progress in manufactures was the immigration of persecuted Dutch and Flemish Protestants, previously mentioned, which formed so important a feature in the new growth of manufactures and agriculture in Elizabethan England.

§ 5. THE FLEMISH IMMIGRATION IN THIS REIGN—This influx of foreign manufacturers and workmen began to occur soon after Elizabeth’s accession, when the death of Mary had relieved men from the fear of Romish persecution. A numerous body of Flemings came over in 1561, and starting from Deal, spread to Sandwich, Rye, and other parts of Kent. Another body settled in Yarmouth, and over Norfolk generally. In 1570 there were 4000 natives of the Netherlands in Norwich alone. And after the sack of Antwerp in 1585, the immigration largely increased. The new arrivals introduced or improved many manufactures, such as those of cutlery, clock-making, hats, and pottery. But the greatest improvements they made were in weaving and lace-making. They greatly developed “every sort of workmanship in wool and flax.” {104} The lace manufacture was introduced by refugees from Alençon and Valenciennes into Cranfield (Beds), and from that town it extended to Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, and Northamptonshire; while other immigrants founded the manufacture of the well-known Honiton lace in Devon. It is interesting thus to notice how much we owed to foreign teachers in earlier times, for the reigns of Edward III., Elizabeth, and later of Charles II. were all signalized by large influxes of people from the Low Countries, bringing with them increased skill, and often considerable capital.

An interesting testimony to the influence of these refugees is afforded by Harrison in his Description of England (in the time of Elizabeth). He says about our wool: “In time past the use of this commodity consisted for the most part in cloth and woolsteds; but now, by means of strangers succoured here from domestic persecution, the same hath been employed unto sundry other uses; as mockados, bays, vellures, grograines, &c., whereby the makers have reaped no small commodity.”

§ 6. AGRICULTURE—The growth of our manufactures helped of course to promote sheep farming, not only on the part of great land-owners, but even of ordinary moderate farmers. Upon this point also Harrison mentions an important fact: “And there is never an husbandman (for now I speak not of our great sheep-masters, of whom some one man hath 20,000) but hath more or less of this cattle (sheep) feeding on his fallows and short grounds, which yield the finer fleece.” Besides sheep farming, however, which had long since risen into importance, our agriculture had improved in several respects. Here foreign influence is again visible. Already a change in the mode of cultivation had been brought about, not so great as that which took place in {105} the two succeeding centuries, but still quite perceptible. A larger capital was brought to bear upon the land, the breed of horses and cattle was improved, and more intelligent use was made of manure and dressings. It was said that one acre under the new system produced as much as two did under the old. In addition to these improvements, the coming of the Flemings and Dutch introduced several new vegetables. The refugees cultivated in their gardens, carrots, celery, and cabbages, which were previously either unknown or very scarce in this country. The most important service to agriculture, however, was the introduction of the hop, which is said to have been brought to England by some Flemish, as early as 1524, and later in the century, in Elizabeth’s reign, the hop-gardens of Kent had already become famous, and have remained so ever since. The introduction of hops of course led the way to a better method of brewing beer, and from this time forward beer became a national beverage.

§ 7. SOCIAL COMFORTS—All this increase of the national wealth, in commerce, manufactures, and agriculture, produced important changes in the mode of living. The standard of comfort became higher. Food became more wholesome. As agriculture improved, and animals could be kept through the winter with greater ease, salt meat and salt fish no longer formed the staple food of the lower classes for half the year. Brickmaking had been rediscovered about 1450; and by the time of Elizabeth the wooden, or wattled houses (p. 19) had generally been replaced, at least among all but the poorest class, with dwellings of brick and stone. The introduction of chimneys and the lavish use of glass also helped to {106} improve the people’s dwellings; and indeed the houses of the rich merchants, or the lords of the manors, were now quite luxuriously furnished. Carpets had superseded the old filthy flooring of rushes; pillows and cushions were found in all decent houses; and the quantity of carved woodwork of this period shows that men cared for something more than mere utility in their surroundings. The lavishness of new wealth was seen, too, in a certain love of display, of colour, of “purple and fine linen,” which characterizes the dress of the Elizabethan age. The old sober life and thought of mediæval England had been entirely revolutionized by the sudden opening of the almost fabulous glories of the New World, and men revelled joyously in the new prospects of the wealth of the wondrous West. But yet there were the seeds of pauperism in the land, and all the wealth of the merchants and the adventurers of Elizabethan England did not prevent the sure and inevitable Nemesis that followed upon the crimes and follies of Elizabeth’s father.

§ 8. THE CONDITION OF THE LABOURERS—For it is impossible, in glancing at the condition of labour in the days of Elizabeth, to forget the disastrous economic changes wrought by the criminal follies of Henry VIII. and his followers since the earlier days of the fifteenth century. Compared with the fifteenth century, the poverty of the wage-earners in Elizabeth’s reign was great indeed, though even then not so bad as it subsequently became. But the whole of the next two centuries show a steady deterioration in the lot of the English labourer and artisan. Of course the condition of labour will be best seen by taking examples of the wages then given. In Elizabeth’s reign, then, we may reckon the yearly wages of an agricultural labourer at about £8, 4s., and the cost of living, which now included house rent, formerly {107} unknown, at £8, thus leaving a very narrow margin for contingencies. Daily wages were (in 1564)—for artisans, 8d. a day in winter and 9d. in summer; for labourers, 6d. in winter and 7d. in summer, and in harvest-time occasionally 8d. or even 10d. This is not very much more than the wages paid at the close of the fifteenth century (viz. artisans 3s. a week, and labourers 2s.), but the price of food had risen almost to three times the old average.

§ 9. ASSESSMENT OF WAGES BY JUSTICES. THE FIRST POOR LAW—Wages in husbandry and in handicrafts were now fixed, under the statute 5 Elizabeth, cap. 4 (1563), by the justices in quarter sessions, and of course these employers of labour would hardly fix an unnecessarily high rate of wages; and, what is more, wages did actually conform to their assessments in spite of the continual rise in the price of the necessaries of life. It is not surprising that under these conditions the problem of pauperism in England speedily took a very pronounced form. Even in 1541, under Henry VIII., it was found that some system of relief was necessary; but a system of voluntary contributions was for a time sufficient to meet the difficulty. But in Edward VI.’s reign pauperism began to increase alarmingly, though now we see that it was only natural; and finally Elizabeth found it necessary to institute a regular system of poor-law relief. In 1601, therefore, by Act 43 Elizabeth, cap. 3, it was legally enacted that all property should be duly assessed by regular assessors, in order that rates might be levied for the relief of pauperism. After a few renewals this law was made permanent in Charles I.’s reign (1641), and continued legally in force till 1812; and its general principles lasted till 1835. The effect of this poor law {108} was to keep the wages of labour at the very lowest possible level, for now the employers (chiefly, at that time, the land-owners) knew that if a labourer’s wages could not maintain him, he would have to be relieved from the rates. In other words, part of the labourers’ wages would be, and was, paid by the general public, and thus expense would be saved to individual employers. This state of things did not, perhaps, ensue immediately upon the passing of this law, but became more common later. The results of the system were seen more clearly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, to which we shall subsequently refer.

§ 10. POPULATION—The marked improvement in agriculture and the increase of wealth brought with them, at the close of the sixteenth century, an equally marked increase of population. We saw that at the time of Domesday the population of England was under two millions. When the poll-tax of 1377 was levied, in the last year of Edward III.’s reign, it had not much increased, being at most not more than two and a quarter millions, according to careful calculations based upon the returns of this tax. But by the end of Elizabeth’s reign it had rapidly risen to some 5,000,000 souls, at which figure it remained for some hundred and fifty years longer. The bulk of the population was still in the southern half of the country, although the north was now becoming more prosperous, owing to the extension of manufactures. It will be seen that England was by no means overcrowded, and yet people were found who complained of the increase of population. William Harrison in his Description of England (written between 1577–87) remarks: “Some also do grudge at the great increase of people in these days, thinking a necessary brood of cattle far better than {109} a superfluous augmentation of mankind. But,” he adds severely, “I can liken such men best unto the Pope or the Devil,” and adds that in case of invasion they will find “that a wall of men is far better than stacks of corn and bags of money.” Even without the fear of invasion before our eyes, it is well for us to-day not to forget this latter sentence in the modern international race for wealth.