such as the fall of the Hansa settlement in London, and the cessation of the visits of the Venetian fleet. On the other hand, the rapid growth of the port of Bristol1 in the west. witnessed to fresh trade with the New World, and the progress of Boston and Hull 2 on the east coast is significant as showing the development of our Northern and Baltic trade, even to the extent of rivalling the great Hansa towns.3 A great stimulus had arisen, and England was now taking a leading position among the nations of the world. It has been well remarked, that in the course of the long reign of Elizabeth the commerce and navigation of England may be said to have risen "through the whole of that space which in the life of a human being would be described as intervening between the close of infancy and commencing manhood. It was the age of the vigorous boyhood and adolescence of the national industry, when, although its ultimate conquests were still afar off, the path that led to them was fairly and in good earnest entered upon, and every step was one of progress and buoyant with hope." We will now survey the condition of the country that was thus setting forth upon a new and active career.

1 The Bristol merchants were most active in sending out exploring and trading expeditions; cf. Cunningham, Eng. Ind., i. 445-448; Rogers, Hist. Agric., iv. 84.

2 They had always been important; cf. p. 144.

3 In fact a Company for trading in the Baltic, called the Eastland Company, was formed in 1579, and was a competitor of the Hansa, which formerly had had the monopoly in that sea. Cf. Macpherson, Annals of Commerce, ii. 164.

4 Craik, British Commerce, i. 239.

CHAPTER XVI

ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND

§ 142. 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 debt from her father,1 Henry VIII., and from her father's counsellors, who guided her young brother, Edward VI. Nor had Mary helped to alleviate it. "The minority of Edward," remarks Froude,2 "had been a time of mere thriftless waste and plunder, while east, west, north, and south the nation had been shaken by civil commotions. The economy with which Mary had commenced had been sacrificed to superstition, and what the hail had left the locusts had eaten." This unfortunate Queen, for whom no historian can fail to have a sentiment of the sincerest pity, believing that the spoliation of the monasteries by her father had caused the wrath of Heaven to descend upon her realm, stripped the Crown of half its revenues to re-establish the clergy and to force upon the country a form of religion which it had made up its mind to reject. But it is only fair to remark that the religious persecution in Queen Mary's reign has been much exaggerated, for it would appear that not more than three hundred persons were actually burnt at the stake as Protestants, and, even including those who died in prison, the total seems not to have exceeded four hundred. But the power of the Romish queen was less than her will, and she certainly lost both the confidence and affection of her people. Her treasury was exhausted, the nation financially ruined, and in the latter years of her reign famine and plague had added their miseries to other causes of suffering. Elizabeth

4

1 Froude, History, vi. 108.

3 Froude (quoting Burghley), History, vi. 102.

♦ Ib., vi. 109, and (famine), p. 29.

2 Ib.

came to the throne not only with the national purse empty, but with heavy debts owing to the Antwerp Jews,1 added to a terribly debased currency and a dangerous undercurrent of social discontent. It is to her credit as a sovereign that at her death danger from this last source had passed away.2 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.3 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, or at least the new owners of the soil, were rich; the farmers and master-manufacturers were prosperous; even the artisans and labourers were not hopelessly poor, especially among the upper working classes. But there was a greater tendency towards the modern conditions of continuous poverty among those less fortunately situated.

§ 143. The Restoration of the Currency.

There was, however, one great reform introduced in Elizabeth's reign which benefited the whole nation, and the working classes by no means least of all. The restoration of the currency put wages and prices upon an assured basis, and from that time to this both master and man, whether paying or receiving wages, knew exactly what each was giving and receiving. No measure of Elizabeth's reign has received more deserved praise than the reform of the coinage, though the praise is due not so much to the Queen, who made a considerable profit out of the transaction, but 1 There was about £200,000 owing to the Jews at 14 and 15 per cent. Froude, vi. p. 118.

2 For discontent at the beginning, cf. Froude, vii. p. 9.

* See below, p. 260.

'The old nobility were scanty and weak, the new were richer; Froude, vi. 109.

to the people at large, who had the good sense to bear cheerfully the loss and expense it involved in order to obtain a lasting gain. The whole mass of base money was estimated, somewhat roughly, at some £1,200,000 sterling.1 On the 27th of September 1560, the evils of an uneven and vitiated currency were explained by a proclamation, in which the Queen stated that the crown would bear the cost of refining and recoining the public moneys if the nation would bear cheerfully its share of the loss, and the people were invited to bring in and pay over in every market town, to persons duly appointed, the impure money they possessed. The total amount thus collected was 631,950 pounds in weight, and for this £638,000 in money was paid by the receivers of the Mint. It yielded when melted down 244,416 pounds of silver, worth, under the new coinage system, £733,248 sterling. After paying for the cost of collection, refining, reminting, and other expenses, there was a balance of over fourteen thousand pounds in favour of the Queen. "Thus was this great matter ended, and the reform of the coin cost nothing beyond the thought expended upon it." 2

This important question being now disposed of, we may turn to the condition of the industries of Elizabethan England, and first we must notice the steady growth of manufactures in a land hitherto mainly agricultural.

§ 144. The Growth of Manufactures.

The economic transition before alluded to (p. 131), by which England had developed from a wool-exporting into a wool-manufacturing country, had in Elizabeth's reign been almost completed. The woollen manufacture had become an important element in the national wealth. England no

longer sent her wool to be manufactured in Flanders, although much of it was still dyed there. It was now

1 Froude, History, vii. p. 6.

2 For the whole transaction see Froude, History, vii. pp. 2-9, and the Lansdowne MSS., 4 ("Charges of refining the base money received into the Mint, with a note of the provisions and other charges incident to the same").

3 This continued till James I.'s reign; Craik, British Commerce, ii. 33.

worked up at home, and the manufacturing population was not confined to the towns only, but was spreading all over the country; and both spinning and weaving afforded direct employment for an increasing number of workmen, while even in agricultural villages they were frequent byeindustries. The worsted trade, of which Norwich was still the centre, spread over all the Eastern counties.2 The broad-cloths of the West of England took the highest place among English woollen stuffs.3 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 cottons and friezes, York coverlets, and Halifax cloth now held their own amongst the other manufactures of the country. There are several signs of the progress of manufactures in this period, two of which deserve special attention. We find that it was becoming increasingly the practice for a mastermanufacturer to employ a number of men working at looms, either in their own houses, or more or less under the master's control. So numerous had such employers become,

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1 A well-known historian (Fuller, Church History (ed. 1655), p. 142) has given us a list of the chief seats of the cloth trade and its distribution in the seventeenth century, which will illustrate this period also. In the East of England he mentions Norfolk and the Norwich fustians; in Suffolk the bayes of Sudbury; in Essex the Colchester bayes and serges; and also the broad-cloths of Kent. In the West he notices the Devonshire kersies, Welsh friezes, and the cloths of Worcester and Gloucester. In the South Somerset was known for the Taunton serges, and Hampshire, Berkshire, and Sussex are all mentioned as having manufactures of cloth. In the North the "Kendal Greens" of Westmoreland, and the manu. factures of Manchester and Halifax, in Lancashire and Yorkshire respectively, are duly noted. From this list it is evident that the manufacturing industry was very widely spread, and must often have been carried on by agriculturists as a bye-industry in agricultural districts. It had not yet become specialised.

2 Cf. the 14 and 15 Henry VIII., c. 3, and the 26 Henry VIII., c. 16, which show that Lynn and Yarmouth also had manufactures.

3 Fuller, ut supra.

• Cf. the 5 and 6 Edward VI., c. 6. The "cottons" were at that time a kind of woollen manufacture.

"Mentioned in the 34 and 35 Henry VIII., c. 10.

6 Fuller, ut supra.