Part 85

The higher education of the period was confined almost wholly to the study of Latin and Greek. The discipline of all schools was extremely harsh. Nearly every lesson was emphasized by a liberal application of the rod, and the highest recommendation a teacher could have was that he was known as "a learned and lashing master."

V. General Industry and Commerce

524. Manufactures.

Woolen goods continued to be a chief article of manufacture. Silks were also produced by thousands of Huguenot weavers, who fled from France to England in order to escape the persecutions of Louis XIV. Coal was now extensively mined, and iron and pottery works were giving industrial importance to Birmingham and other growing towns in the Midlands.

525. Commerce.

A permanent English colony was established in America in 1607, and by 1714 the number of such colonies had increased to twelve. During a great part of this period intense commercial rivalry existed between England and Holland, each of which was anxious to get the monopoly of the colonial import and export trade. Parliament passed stringent navigation laws, under Cromwell and later, to prevent the Dutch from competing with English merchants and shippers. The East India and South Sea companies were means of greatly extending English commercial enterprise, as was also the tobacco culture of Virginia.

526. Roads and Travel.

Good roads were still unknown in England. Stagecoaches carried a few passengers at exorbitant rates, requiring an entire day to go a distance which an express train now travels in less than an hour. Goods were carried on pack horses or in cumbrous wagons, and so great was the expense of transportation that farmers often let their produce rot on the ground rather than attempt to get in to the nearest market town.

In London a few coaches were in use, but covered chairs, carried on poles by two men and called "sedan chairs," were the favorite vehicles. They continued to be used for a century after this period closes. Although London had been in great part rebuilt since the Great Fire (1666), the streets were still very narrow, without sidewalks, heaped with filth, and miserably lighted.

527. Agriculture; Pauperism.

Agriculture generally made no marked improvement, but gardening did, and many vegetables and fruits were introduced which had not before been cultivated.

Pauperism remained a problem which the government had not yet found a practical method of dealing with. There was little freedom of movement; the poor man's parish was virtually his prison, and if he left it to seek work elsewhere, and required help on the way, he was certain to be sent back to the place where he was legally settled.

VI. Mode of Life, Manners, and Customs

528. Dress.

In the time of Charles II and his successors the dress of the wealthy and fashionable classes was most elaborate and costly. Gentlemen wore their hair long, in ringlets, with an abundance of gold lace and ruffles, and carried long, slender swords, known as rapiers. Sometimes indeed they outshone the ladies in the splendor of their costume, and in one instance the bride at a wedding burst into tears because her gorgeously dressed husband looked so much handsomer than she did that all eyes were fixed on him alone. Later on, large flowing wigs came into fashion, and no man of any social standing thought of appearing without one.

In Queen Anne's reign both ladies and gentlemen powdered their hair. The ladies also painted their faces and ornamented them with minute black patches, which served not only for "beauty spots," but showed, by their arrangement, with which political party they sympathized.

529. Coffeehouses.

Up to the middle of the seventeenth century ale and beer were the common drink of all classes; but about that time coffee was introduced, and coffeehouses became fashionable resorts for gentlemen and for all who wished to learn the news of the day. Tea had not yet come into use; but, in 1660, Pepys says in his diary: "Sept. 25. I did send for a cup of tee, a China drink, of which I never had drank before."

530. The Streets of London.

No efficient police existed in London; at night the streets were infested with brutal ruffians, and, as late as Queen Anne's time, by bands of "fine gentlemen" not less brutal, who amused themselves by overturning sedan chairs, rolling women downhill in barrels, and compelling men to dance jigs, under the stimulus of repeated pricks from a circle of sword points, until the victims fell fainting from exhaustion. Duels were frequent, on the slightest provocation. Highwaymen abounded both in the city and without, and, unless one went well armed, it was often dangerous to travel any distance in the country.

531. Brutal Laws.

Hanging was the common punishment for theft and many other crimes. The public whipping of both men and women through the streets was frequent. Debtors were shut up in prison, and left to beg from passers-by or starve; and ordinary offenders were fastened in a wooden frame called the "pillory" and exposed on a high platform, where they were pelted by the mob with mud, rotten eggs, and other unsavory missiles. In some cases their bones were broken with clubs and brickbats. The pillory continued in use until the accession of Victoria in 1837.

TENTH PERIOD

"The history of England is emphatically the history of progress. It is the history of a constant movement of the public mind, of a constant change in the institutions of a great society."--Macaulay

India Gained; America Lost--Parliamentary Reform--Government by the People

The House of Hanover (1714) to the Present Time

George I, 1714-1727 William IV, 1830-1837 George II, 1727-1760 Victoria, 1837-1901 George III, 1760-1820 Edward VII, 1901-1910 George IV, 1820-1830 George V, 1910-

532. Accession of George I.