11704
ILLUSTRATED
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
Works by
Gwrgt MaraM&j Trtvttj4ft>
ENGLAND IN THB ACE OP WYCUFFE
GREY OF PALLODON
GARIBALDI'S DEFENCE or TICE ROUAN
REPUBLIC
GARIBALDI AND THE THOUSAND
GARIBALDI AND THE MAKING Of ITALY
CLIO, A MUSK, AND OTHER ESSAY*
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND OTHER ESSAY!
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
ILLUSTRATED ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
VOLUME i, Ckaxntr's fOf^W**
VOLtME 2, Th* s\$f <>/ Sttihsf**** *rW ii#
VOLIMI; j, 7V* fa
HISTORY OP KNGLANU
BRITISH HISTOHY IN THE NtNKrKENTH
CENTimY AND ArrEH
ENGLAND UNDKR QimKN ANKE!
ti* U*i** jw
ILLUSTRATED
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
VOLUME TWO
The Age of Sbaktspeare and
tbe Stuart Period
by
G. M. TREVELYAN, O.M.
M*st*r ef Trinity C&fbgt t 1940-195 1
Ftrmtrfr R^JW Proftssor of Mo&rn
History f* ft* Utrwsity
ILLUSTRATIONS SELECTED BY
RUTH C WRIGHT
LONGMANS^ GREEN AND CO
IXWDON NEW YORK TORONTO
LONGMANS. GREEN AND CO LTD
6 & 7 CLIFFORD JTUUnr UWttJON W I
AUO AT UE1-BOCRNH AND CAW TOWN
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO INC
55 FIFTH AVHW/tt NW YO*IC 5
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO
xt 5 vxcroftiA muurr TOUONTO t
ORIENT LONGMANS LTD
ftOUBAY CALCUTTA UAOKA1
1941
ftrtf p*MttM 1990
1951
Ac SONS LTD. Ncmwi
OG LOWV At
OIK LTD.
To tbt mtmory of
EILEEN POWER
Economic and Sotial
Historian
PREFATORY NOTE TO THE
ILLUSTRATIONS
THE choice of illustrations for this volume has been guided by the
same principles as in Volume I, that is to say, they have been
drawn as far as possible from English work (or from that of
foreign artists working in England), and from sources as nearly
contemporary as possible with the scenes they represent
There has, perforce, been a change in the type of sources used;
whereas MSS, supplied the greater part of the illustrative com-
mentary for the mediaeval and early Tudor period in Volume I,
printed books and engravings, ballads, broadsides and tracts
largely provide the material for the late Sixteenth and Seventeenth
Centuries.
I have found it necessary to use such foreign books ts the
GWA*/*/ Orbis Ttrr*r**t and Agricola's D* & MrA5&*> the
former, with its detailed maps and plans, because it provides
unrivalled views of English dry layout in the Sixteenth Century,
*nd the latter, because it is the only source known to me of
Sixteenth-Century mining scenes and appropriate in that German
mining practice was applied In England at this date. Similarly,
I have let de Dry's engravings speak for Virginia ( 57) and
Augustine Ryther*s for the Armada (52,5 5), both being based oa
English drawings.
Artists working 10 a country cot their own often bring to their
work an interestingly different view of the people or scenes they
tee depicting, and so I have used as frontispiece Zuccaro's crayon
drawing of Bttnbeth, where the simplicity of effect serves to con-
centrate the Interest in the Queen's face mid personality, rather
than in her jewels and royal trappings.
As In Volume I, later drawings and modem photographs have
been freely used to illustrate place* as distinct from social scenes,
bat care his been taken to distinguish and specify to the descrip-
tive notes any feature* of a later date that occur thus in Two*
penny's drawing of the Great Gallery at Powys Castle ($ 17),
reference to the node wffl show that whik the ii darotation of
the platter oafling and ftiem is original work of ;f9*~9) tbe
PREFATORY NOTE TO THE IttUSTR ATIONS
panelling, furniture and busts belong to varying and later dates.
Grimm's sketches of Portland stone quarrying have been used
though they belong to the Eighteenth Century, but neither the
method of quarrying nor transport had changed very radically
since Wren's time*
Air photographs have played an important part in this volume
in making it possible to exhibit the layout of the great houses of
the period or the features of a whole area Montacutc and More-
ton Old Hall ( i}, 14) can thus contrast their style and setting,
the Cheviots ( 8) lay bare their almost primaeval wildness, and
the floods of 1947 allow a momentary glimpse of the watery
solitudes and oozy islands of the mediaeval fen (5 ))* F r ^ tt*t,
contemporary printed books, etchings and engravings have been
used to illustrate as many sides as possible of English life and
activities, while portraits record for us at least some of those wlio
left the imprint of their thoughts or discoveries upoo their times.
Detailed notes as in Volume I will be found at the end of the
book, giving sources of the Illustrations, their authorship tod
present ownership, and pointing out any noteworthy feature*,
either in the illustrations themselves or in their history.
I should like to take this opportunity to thank Sir Henry Hake,
Director of the National Portrait Gallery and his Assistant, Mr.
C 1C Adams, for their advice and guidance in the selection of the
earliest or most authentic portraits of the people illustrated in this
volume, <f v^ also Miss Hamilton Jones, Librarian of Aetofilms,
Ltd,, who has been indefatigable in bar efforts to secure the air
photographs I wanted*
ROTH C WAIGHT
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
TUB publishers' grateful thank* an doe to att those who htv
petmittioo for pbotographi to be takoa of tte MSS^ pdmod books,
picture* or anriquibc* in their am or owocuhlp, ot tart aOowtcl
phocogttphs fa tfadr pottrstioQ to be Mptochosd. WB dtttfls of
soch owneohip, ecc, will be foond fa db* dascdpUf* <*** foe och
km*
CONTENTS
Pnfatoty No/t to tbf Illustrations
Introduction
CHAPTU I 1 ****
i SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLAND, i. THE TOWNS. THE k \
COUNTRYSIDE. CUSSES AND MODES OP LIFE.
WALES. THE NORTHERN COUNTIES. ELIZABETHAN
HOMES. INNS. SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS. MILITIA.
LAW. J.P.8. POOR LAW X
ii SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLAND. 2. RELIGION AND UNI-
VERSITIES. THE SOCIAL POLICY OF THE ELIZA-
BETHAN STATE. INDUSTRY AND SEAFARING.
SHAKESPEARE )3
III THE ENGLAND OP CHARLES AND CROMWELL. THE
BEGINNING OF COLONIAL EXPANSION. BAST
INDIA COMPANY. FEN DRAINING. SOCIAL CON-
DITIONS AND CONSEQUENCES OP THE GREAT
REBELLION, HOUSEHOLD LIFE 6)
IV RESTORATION ENGLAND. HI
DESCUPTrVB NOTES TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS I))
INDEX 197
ILLUSTRATIONS
Colour P/atos
I QUEEN ELIZABETH - *A SHREWD,
LEARNED AND MODERATE YOUNG
WOMAN*
U MINIATURE OP A YOUNG MAN BY
NICHOLAS HOXIARD faft*gj>. 1O
III THE PAINTED ROOM AT OLD WILSLET,
KENT (C. l68o) 1 06
IV SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN f , 146
Grown Platis
1-17 Bit**** pp. 16-17
*8~4* M 3*^3}
4J-J9 *. 64-^J
5 60-80 M 111-115
81-105 118-119
S$
m tbi ttxt 9* pp. $ 48, j8, 61, 71, 9J97 109
Map ef L*h Tmbr ml Etrfy Sh*rt LmJm /
INTRODUCTION
THIS second volume of the Illustrated Edition of my Ibtglisb
Social History covers both the Elizabethan and the Stuart eras.
Although the latter half of the period witnessed a series of politi-
cal revolutions, the economic and social aspects of life as here
described are characterized by fruition and steady growth. There
are no such rapid changes as those which began in the following
century and are called the 'Industrial Revolution/ The harmony
of the economic and social structure in the Stuart era was cer-
tainly one reason why England was able to survive the violent
political and religious strife of the period, and arrive at a peaceable
adjustment of these quarrels at the end of the Seventeenth Century-
If the struggle of King and Parliament for power had not been
settled before we were involved in the economic and social up-
heavals of the Industrial Revolution, we should not have got
through so well, as the later history of France, Germany aad
Russia suggests.
Chapter Om
SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLAND [1564-1616]
i. 77* Towns. Tht Coun/rysiJ*. C/asstf and moJts of lift* Waks. Tbt
Norti#ni fQxntits. Eti%ab*t&an homes. Inns. Social rtlatio/tships*
jMitiSta. Lam. J.Pj. Poor Law.
(Q*tt* EJiytbttb, 1558-1603. Tbi Armada, 1588),
AFTER the economic and religious unrest of the middle
,/XTudor period, foUowed the golden age of England. Golden
ages are not ail of gold, and they never last long. But Shakespeare
chanced upon the best time and country in which to live, in order
to exercise with least distraction and most encouragement the
highest faculties of man, The forest, the field and the dty were
there in perfection, and all three arc needed to perfect the poet,
His countrymen, not yet cramped to the service of machines, were
craftsmen and creators at will. Their minds, set free from mediae-
val trammels, were not yet caught by Puritan or other modern
fanaticisms. The Elizabethan English were in love with life, not
with some theoretic shadow of life. Large classes, freed as never
before from poverty, felt the upspring of the spirit and expressed
it in wit, mutic and song. The English language had touched its
paoment of fullest beauty and power. Peace and order at last
prevailed in the land, even daring the sea-war with Spain.
Politics, to long t fear and oppression, and soon in other forms
to be a fear and oppression again, wete for a few decades simplified
into service paid to a woman, who was to her subjects the symbol
of tbdr unity, prosperity and freedom.
Hie Renfimnce, that had known its springtime long ago in
its native Italy, where biting frosts now nipped it, came late to
summer in this a In the day s of Eromue,
bad been coofined to scholacs mvj to
tb* King's Court In Shakespeare's day it had in some
TbeB&kw^the wcddcd*esi^
no faoget left to the famed few. By tbe agency of the
f ftnomar rfar>o)^ through from the study Into
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
the theatre and the street, from the folio to the popular ballad
which familiarized the commonest auditories uhh T/V T\rjxt$ of
]udge Appius and The Miserable state of King Mitiss and the other
great tales of Greece and Rome. The old Hebrew and the
Graeco-Ronian ways of life, raised from the grave of the remote
past by the magic of scholarship, were opened to the general
understanding of Englishmen, who treated them not as dead
archaeological matter, but as new spheres of imagination and
spiritual power, to be freely converted to modern u$c, \Vhilc
Shakespeare transformed Plutarch's IJtvs into his own JHJtus
Caesar and Antony, others took the Bible and fashioned out of it
a new way of life and thought for religious KngLintL
And during these same fruitful years of Eli&ibct h the narrow
seas, amid whose tempests English mariners had for centuries
been trained, expanded into the oceans of the world, whcrt
romance and wealth were to be won by adventurous youth,
trading and lighting along newly discovered shore*. Young,
light-hearted England, cured at last of the PUmagcnct itch to
conquer France, l>ecamc conscious of herself as an island with an
ocean destiny, glad, after that Armada storm, to feel the safety
and freedom that the guarded seas could give* while the burden
of distant Empire was not yet laid upon her i*houldcr*,
There is, of course, another side to all this, as there i* to every
picture of human well-being and weU*doing Tht cruel habit* of
centuries past were not easily or quickly to be shed. The overseas
activity of the Elizabethans paid no regard to the rights of the
negroes whom they transported into slavery, or the Irish whom
they robbed and slaughtered : some even of the noblest English,
like John Hawkins on the Gold Coast and Edmund Spcmctr in
Ireland, failed to sec what dragons' teeth they were helping to
sow. At home* the woman hunted by her neighbour* is a witch,
the Jesuit missionary mounting the scaffold to be cut to pieces
alive, the Unitarian burning at the stake, the Puritan dissenter
hanged or 'laden with irons in dangerous and loathsome gaol*, 1
had little joy of the great era. But in Elizabeth** England such
victims were not numerous, as elsewhere in Europe* We escaped
the pit of calamity into which other nations were being thrust
the Spanish Inquisition and the vast scale of martyrdom and
massacre that turned the Netherlands and France into a shambles
in the name of religion. Looking tcrosi the Channel and teeing
ELIZABETHAN TOWNS
these things, the English rejoiced that they were islanders and that
wise Elizabeth was their Queen.
As the tour of Henry VIll's England was made and recorded
by the antiquary Leland, so the tour of Elizabeth's happier king-
dom was made and recorded by the greatest of all our antiquaries,
William Camden, in his 'Britannia. [See 34.) And just before
him William Harrison, the parson, and just after him Fyncs
Moryson, the traveDcr, left us pictures of the English life of their
Religious Persecution
day, which it is a pleasure to collate with the more vivid glimpses
in Shakespeare* [Cf. also 3}.]
It is probable that the population of England and Wales at the
end of the Queen's reign had passed four millions, about a tenth
of its present size, More than four-fifths lived in the rural parts;
but of these ft fair proportion were engaged in industry, supplying
nearly all the manufactures required by the village, or, like the
clothiers, miners and quarrymen, working for a more general
market. The bulk of the population cultivated the land or tended
sheep.
Of the minority who inhabited towns, many were engaged, at
least for part of their time, in agriculture. A provincial town of
average size contained 5000 inhabitants. The towns were not
overcrowded, and had many pleasant gardens, orchards and
farmsteads mingled with the rows of shops. Some smaller towns
and ports were in process of decay. The recession of the sea, the
silting up of rivers (which gradually put Chester on the Dee out
of action as a port), the increase in the size of ships demanding
NtiLlSH SfU JAl, HISTORY
larger harbours, the continued migration of the cl^rh .md n;H<r
manufactures in rural villages and hamlets, \v<.rc all c,v.!*e$ i>t*thc
decline of some of the older centres of industry or commerce.
Yet the town population was on the increase in t!;c inland taken
as a whole, York, the capital of the North; Norwich, a rcat
centre of the cloth trade, welcoming skilled refurrcs tY'm Alva's
Netherlands; Bristol with mercantile and inland trade "fit* m\n
wholly independent of London these three were in a ila^ In
themselves, with perhaps 20,000 inhabitants cavh. fScc * ;, ;,)
And the new oceanic conditions of trade f,m ,4r*d oihtr port
towns in the \Vcsr, like Bideford.
Hut, above all* London, absorbing more and nv>rc nf the lv>mc
ami foreign commerce of the country at the rxpcmc <*f num
smaller towns, was already a portent for sbc in I ngUnd and o en
in Europe. When Mary Tudor died it may have had nearly
100,000 inhabitants; when FJixalxrth died it may already have
touched 200,000, It was spreading most rapidly in the libcnic*'
outside its old walls; in the heart of the City there were small
open spaces, and houses with pardens, courtyards and stables,
In spite of the recurrent visits of the Plague (the old Black Death)
and the novel visitation of the 'sweating sickness/ Tud*>r L*m!<>u
was relatively healthy and deaths were fewer than hrti^, It uas
not yet as congested as it became in the early Ki^htccwh f cnturj ,
when its still vaster population was more clinch packed m (hints
further removed from access to the country, and more unhealthy,
although the Plague had by that time disappeared, tn give place
to smallpox and typhus* [Sec 4,]
The London of Queen Kiizaixrrh* by its 5i*c, wealth and power,
was the most formidable unit in the Kingdom, $*xrulJy, intel-
lectually and politically it exercised an influence that went far
to secure the success of the Protestant revolution in fhe Sixiccmh
Century and of the Parliamentary revolution in the Seventeenth,
The area of the City wa now the fortress of a purely civic and
mercantile community* unchallenged v iihin it* ou n bordcn by
any rival influence. The great monasteries and convents af
mediaeval London had disappeared; the laity were supreme^ tnd
refashioned their religion in the City churches and in their own
homes after the Protestant and individual patterns of their prefer-
ence. Neither monarchy nor aristocracy had any stronghold*
within the City boundaries. The royal power lay outside in
THE LONDON MARKET
Whitehall and Westminster on one flank, and in the Tower upon
the other. Even the great nobles were leaving their mediaeval
quarters in the City and migrating to mansions in the Strand or
in the neighbourhood of Court and Parliament at Westminster.
The power and privilege of the Mayor and citizens, with their
formidable militia, formed a State within the State a society
that was purely bourgeois, inside the larger England that was
still monarchical and aristocratic. And the leaven of London
worked throughout the land. [See 23, 24.]
The feeding of Tudor London governed the agricultural policy
of the home counties, and the same influence was felt in varying
degrees further afield. Food was wanted in the capital, in vast
quantity for the population, and of the best quality for the richest
tables of the kingdom, Kent with its enclosed fields, already
called 'the garden of England/ was specifically London's fruit-
garden, rich with *apples beyond measure and also with cherries/
The barley of Hast Anglia, coming through brewing towns like
Royston, quenched the daily thirst of the Londoner; while Kent
and Rsscx were learning to train hops to flavour his been For
the rest, the wheat and rye that made London's bread, were grown
all over the south-eastern counties.
v Thus the great market of the capital helped to change agricul-
tural methods, by inducing districts best fitted for one particular
crop to specialise on that. Near London, Nordcn the topo-
grapher noticed 'another sort of husbandman, or yeoman rather,
who wade in the weeds of gentlemen, , . . who having great
feedings for cattle,' sell their fat stock at Smithfield, 'where also
they store themselves with lean. There are also those that live
by carriage for other men, and to that end they keep carts and
carriages, carry milk, meal and other things to London, whereby
they Uvc very gainfully.* In regions so fortunately situated, the
pressure to enclose the land was strong.
Besides London, there were other markets for agricultural
produce. Few towns, if any, could grow all the food they re-
quired in the *town fields' without need to purchase outside.
And even in the country, if one rural district had a bad season,
it could buy the surplus of other districts through middlemen,
unless the harvest had been poor all over England, when, perhaps
once In a decade, there might be considerable importation from
abroad. In normal years some English corn was exported.
J
ENGLISH SOCIAL, HISTORY
Huntingdonshire, Cambridgeshire and other region* of the Ouse
valley, sent great quantities of wheat through I,\nn and the \\A>h
to Scotland, Norway and the cities of the Netherlands. Much
food came to Bristol and the \Vcsicrn towns from the granary of
central England* the open fields of south-eastern \\uru kkshirc,
the 'Fcldon* lying between the Avon and Lulgehill, But flic other
half of Warwickshire lying north-west of Avon, as Lcland and
Camden both noted, was deep worxiland, thinly studded with
pastoral settlements; it was the Forest of A rdcn, Thus the uind-
ing Avon, spanned hy Stratford's famous bridge of 'fourteen
arches of stone/ divided the lonely forest from the populous
cornlands. One born and bred in the town upon its banks saw,
in his boyhood's rambles, what was best in wild nature on one
side of the river, and what was most characteristic of man upon
the other.
Until the Eighteenth Century with its highly capitalized farm-
ing, it was not possible to ripen enough wheat to feed the whole
population, Oats, wheat, rye and barley were all prmvn, some
more, some less, according to the soil and climate. Oats prevailed
in the North; wheat and rye in most parts of England, except
the south-west where rye was little grown, Everywhere barley
abounded, and much of it went into hcer, The \\V*t t with its
apple orchards, drank cider; and the pcais of \XYtrcc5tcrshirc
gave perry, which Camden condemned as 'a counterfeit wine,
both cold and flatulent/ In all parts of lingland the village grew
a variety of crops for its own use, and its bread was often a
mixture of different kinds of grain, Fyncs Moryson, who knew
the chief countries of Europe well, wrote, shortly after Queen
Elizabeth's death
*The English husbandmen eat barley and rye brown brtad, and prefer
it to white bread as abiding longer in the itomach, and not *o wion
digested with their labour ; but citizen* am) gentlemen cai mmr pure
white bread, England yielding all kind* of corn in plenty. 1
'The English have abundance of white meats, of all kind* of flesh,
fowl and fish and of things good for food. In the ie**oa* of the
1 Harrison, writing generation etrlkr (dec* 1577) wjrt Hc ***t*
'The bread throughout our ItmJ fct m*k of *th grtin * the *o*I ^wUciK. new
ihdcftft the flcnnlity commonly provkk thttmclvr* tuffkkw)? of whc* for
own tblcn, u'UiUt their houftctxikl nd poor rwitfhhnur* m *nmc *birr
fo content thmwclvw with rye or btrl^r, yea inJ m time of <*wih
bread made out of Urtru, pcaton or otti nd *nme neon*
6
THE ELIZABETHAN TABLE
year the English eat fallow deer plentifully, as bucks in summer and
does in u-inter, which they bake in pasties, and this venison pasty is
a dainty, rarely found in any other kingdom. England, yea perhaps
one County thereof, hath more fallow deer than all Europe that I
have seen. No kingdom in the world hath so many dove-houses.
Likewise brawn is a proper meat to the English, not known to others.
English cooks, in comparison with other nations, are most commended
for roasted meats.*
Tliis experienced traveller goes on to praise our beef and
mutton as the best in Europe, and our bacon as better than any
except that of Westphalia.
*Thc English inhabitants [he continues] cat almost no flesh commoner
than hens, and for geese they eat them in two seasons, when they arc
fatted upon the stubble after harvest and when they are green about
Whitsuntide, And howsoever hares arc thought to nourish melan-
choly, yet they are eaten as venison both roast and boiled* They have
also great plenty of conies [rabbits] the flesh whereof is fat, tender and
more delicate than any I have eaten in other parts. The German conies
[our traveller declares] arc more like roasted cats than the English
conies/
Meat and bread were the chief foods. Vegetables were little
eaten with meat; cabbages helped to make the pottage. Potatoes
were just beginning to come in to some garden plots, but were
not yet grown as a crop in the fields.
Puddings and stewed fruit did not yet play so great a part in the
Englishman's table as in later centuries, though sugar was already
obtained in mcxlcrate quantities from Mediterranean lands. The
time of dinner, the chief meal, was at eleven or twelve, and supper
some five hours later. [Sec i 27,]
Since the English village, whether in the western lands of old
enclosure or in the "champion* regions of the open field, still grew
its own food, 'subsistence agriculture* was the basis of English
tile. But, as we have seen, the self-supplying village also grew
wool and food-stuffs for some special market at home or abroad.
'Industrial crops* were also coming much into use; flax grew well
in some parts of Lincolnshire; woad, madder and the great fields
of saffron in Essex (whence 'Saffron Walden* already had taken
its name) supplied the dyers of cloth, who had previously de-
pended oo foreign imports.
Such specialization for the market demanded enclosure and
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
Huntingdonshire, Cambridgeshire and other regions of the Ouse
valley, sent rcat quantities of wheat through Lynn and the VX'ash
to Scotland, Norway and the cities of the Netherlands. Much
food came to Bristol and the Western towns from the granary of
central England, the open fields of south-eastern Warwickshire,
the 'Feldon* lying between the Avon and EdgchilJ. But the other
half of Warwickshire lying north-west of Avon, as Lclarul and
Camdcn both noted, was deep woodland, thinly studded with
pastoral settlements; it was the Forest of A rden. Thus the wind-
ing Avon, spanned by Stratford's famous bridge of 'fourteen
arches of stone/ divided the lonely forest from the populous
cornlands. One born and bred in the town upon its banks saw,
in his boyhood's rambles, what was best in wild nature on one
side of the river, and what was most characteristic of nun upon
the other.
Until the Eighteenth Century with its highly capitalized farm-
ing, it waa not possible to ripen enough wheat to feed the whole
population. Oats, wheat, rye and barky were all grown, tome
more, some less, according to the soil and climate* Oats prevailed
in the North; wheat and rye in most parts of England, except
the south-vest where rye was link grown. Everywhere barley
abounded, and much of it went into beer. The West, wkh its
apple orchards, drank cider; and the pears of Worcestershire
gave perry, which Camden condemned as 'a counterfeit wine,
both cold and flatulent 1 In alJ parts of England the village grew
a variety of crops for its own use, and its bread was often a
mixture of different kinds of grain. Fyac* Morysoo, who knew
the chief countries of Europe well, wrote, shortly after Queen
Elisabeth's death
The Bagliih husbandmen eat barky and rye brown bread, aod prefer
it to white bread as abiding lodger io the stomach, and not to 000
digested with their labour ; but dtfaens and gentlemen eai nx*t pore
white bread. England yielding all kiads of com io plenty,'
The English have abundance of white meats, of all kinds of Beah,
fowl and fish and of things good for food. la the seasons of tbe
, wridM a pamdoo wiltr (d*ca 1577) ya At M d**
Tha bread throughout our lux* fe owfe of mcb fi* 4* tofl yfcldb*, am*.
ktt (be grotiUty cammaaly provfck dwoulm dfcfaailv of wtwi Jb* iMk
n ttbfe, whilst tbdr boo^hold tnd poor adfbbom fe mm *im an faml
to ooomnt themasJrta with 170 or b*Hty, ?t* tod in dkM of iluiili mmy wfcfc
brad made oat of bout, pawm or oa tad MM Kocm aaMMf.*
6
THE ELIZABETHAN TABLE
year the English eat fallow deer plentifully, as bucks in summer and
docs in winter, which they bake in pasties, and this venison pasty is
a dainty, rarely found in any other kingdom. England, yea perhaps
one County thereof, hath more fallow deer than all Europe that I
have seen. No kingdom in the world hath so many dove-houses.
Likewise brawn is a proper meat to the English, not known to others.
English cooks, in comparison with other nations, are most commended
for roasted meats.*
This experienced traveller goes on to praise our beef and
mutton as the best in Europe, and our bacon as better than any
except that of Westphalia.
*The English inhabitants [he continues) eat almost no flesh commoner
than hens, and for geese they eat them in two seasons, when they are
fitted upon the stubble after harvest and when they are green about
Whitsuntide. And howsoever hares are thought to nourish melan-
choly, yet they are eaten as venison both roast and boiled. They have
also great plenty of conies [rabbits] the flesh whereof is fat, tender and
more delicate than any I have eaten in other parts. The German conies
[our traveller declares] are more like roasted cats than the English
conies/
Meat and bread were the chief foods. Vegetables were little
eaten with meat; cabbages helped to make the pottage. Potatoes
were just beginning to come in to some garden plots, but were
not yet grown as a crop in the fields*
Puddings and stewed fruit did not yet play so great a part in the
Englishman's table as in later centuries, though sugar was already
obtained in moderate quantities from Mediterranean lands. The
time of dinner, the chief mealy was at eleven or twelve, and supper
some five hours later. [See $ r, 27.]
Since the English village, whether in the western lands of old
enclosure or in the 'champion* regions of the open field, still grew
its own food, 'subsistence agriculture* was the basis of English
life. But, as we have seen, the self-supplying village also grew
wool tod food-stufis for some special market at home or abroad
Industrial crops 9 were also coming much into use; flax grew well
in some parts of Lincolnshire; wood, madder and the gtftt fields
of Mf&txt in Essex (whence 'Safifron Walden* already hid taken
its name) supplied the dyers of doth, who had previously de-
pended OQ foreign imports.
Such spfdatiacarion for the market demand^ enclosure tod
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISCORV
private methods of farming. The new lands won from forest,
marsh and waste, u-ere now always enclosed with hedges and
farmed on the individualist system. The area of open field and
common pasture did not increase as the total area under cultiva-
tion increased. The bleak open fields, though not much reduced
in acreage, were relatively a smaller part of the farmlands of the
Kingdom than they had formerly been,
It was the low-lying clay districts that produced the surplus
corn for the home and foreign market. The sheep, that supplied
the wool and cloth trades, fed on the thin upland pastures u hich
alternate with the clay valleys in the geographic structure of the
island* The chalk downs and the \vulds ihc Chiltcrn*. the
Dorset Heights, the Isle of Wight, the Cotswnlds, the Lincoln
and Norfolk ridges, and many moorlands of the North, had
always produced the best wool On such hillsides, foreign and
native travellers in Tudor England marvelled at the number and
size of the flocks, unparalleled elsewhere in Europe, The sheep
on the less fertile lands were often half starved, but their fleeces
were the most valuable in the world, owing to some quality
latent in the soil.
The increased demand for sheep and cattle in Tudor times
caused, as we have seen, some highly unpopular enclosures of
arable clay-land for pasture. The valley sheep were fetter, but
their wool proved less good than that of their leaner brethren
of the uplands. Yet the new lowland pastures were not unprofit-
able: though their fleeces wete less fine, the demand for coarser
wools was also on the increase, and larger supplies of mutton
and beef were consumed by a prosperous and hospitable genera-
don, whose carnivorous habits amazed foreign visitors accus-
tomed to a more farinaceous diet. The Midlands therefore
continued In Elizabeth's reign to add sheep and cattk to corn.
Rugby 'abounded in butchers,* The cattle fairs of Lekestershirc
and Northamptonshire were famous, The great quantities of
cattle in the island helped all leather industries; the southern
English walked oa leather, and dfadsfocd the Sroodea shoes 9
that foreigners were fata to wear, dogs, however, were very
generally worn in the thrifty North, and Scots lads and lasses
went barefoot*
The breeding of horses had to keep pace with an ever-increasing
demand. The horse was very gradually replacing the oat at cart
I
THE FENLAND
and plough; l and the general prosperity of the country demanded
more riding-horses, as in good years we demand more motor-cars,
In many parts of Yorkshire and on the grass moors of the turbulent
Border country, the breeding of horses and cattle was more im-
portant than the sheep-farming which prevailed there in later
and more settled times. It was not sheep but cattle that the
Mosstroopers drove off in their midnight raids*
Though sheep and cattle were now reared in such abundance
in England, they were, by our modern standards, small and thin
until the era of the Eighteenth Century improvements. For as
yet there were only very inadequate means of feeding them during
the winter months.
Trom Christmas to May
Weak cattle decay*
sang Thomas Tusscr, the poet of Elizabethan agriculture. And
the open-field system, still prevalent in half the country, afforded
neither sufficient shelter nor sufficient grazing for beasts,
One region of England was still a world by itself, the great
fen that stretched from Lincoln to Cambridge, from King's Lynn
to Peterborough, Already in the later years of Elizabeth there
were projects debated in Parliament, to drain Fenland as the
Dutch had drained Holland, and so reclaim its watery, reedy
solitudes to rich cornfields and pasture. But the great design was
not carried out till an age when more capital was to be had for
such ventures in Stuart times for the south half of the fen> and
in Hanoverian times for the north. Meanwhile the fenmen con-
tinued to dwell round its shores and on its innumerable oozy
islands living an amphibious life, and varying their traditional
occupations with the changing seasons of the year* [See j.]
The upper and north part of Cambridgeshire [Camdcn writes] is all
over divided into river isles, which til summer long afford a most
delightful green prospect, but in winter time are almost all laid under
water, farther every way than t man can see, and in some sort re*
scmhUog the let itself. The inhabitants of this and the twt of the
fenny country (which reaches 68 miles from the borders of Suffolk to
Wainflcet in Lincolnshire) are a sort of people (much like the place)
1 Tbt proem was wy fttdual, from Tudor to Hanoverian tkm; petsora aow
tfrfcf bm sm own pkmfhfef to Vkaodt't Bngkad,
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
of brutish, uncivilized tempers, envious of all others, whom ihcy call
Upland mtn\ and usually walking aloft upon a son of stilts they all
keep to the business of grazing* fishing and fowling, All this country
in the winter time, and sometimes for the greatest part of the year,
is laid under water by the rivers Ouse, Grant (Cam), Ncn, \VclIand t
Glene and Witham, for want of sufficient passages, Bui when they
once keep to their proper channels, it so strangely abounds with rich
grass and rank hay (by them called IM) that when they've mown
enough for their own use, in November they burn up the rest to make
it come again the thicker, About which time a man may ce all the
moorish country round about of a light fire, to his great wonder.
Besides it affords great quantity of turf and sedge for firing* reeds for
thatching. Elders also and other watershrubs, especially willows,
either growing wild, or else set on the banks of riven to prevent their
overflowing; which being frequently cut down come agtio with a
Dumcrous offspring. Ti* of these that baskets are made.' (Camdcn's
Brita&M, p. 408, Gibson's edition,)
The taking of wild fowl for the market was conducted by the
fenmen on an immense scale. The wild geese and duck were
captured hundreds at a time, being driven or lured into long cages
of netting called 'decoys/ Rents were paid largely in fixed
quantities of eels, counted by the thousand.
It may perhaps be doubted whether the Fenmen had such
'brutish uncivilised tempers* as the 'upland men' told Camden*
In any case it is a mistake to suppose, as many writers have done,
that because their life was amphibious, because they herded their
cattle and sheep on stilts, and because they went about in boats,
fishing, fowling and reed cutting, that therefore they were any
more 'lawless* than the farmer who carted his corn oo dry land.
Recent research (H. C Darby, Tl* Afo&W F*tW, 1940) has
shown that throughout the Middle Ages, from the time of Domes*
day Book and beyond, the taws and customs of the Manorial
system held good throughout Feoland; that rents and services
were regularly paid to the great Abbeys and to their successors
after the Dissolution; that the most complicated laws, rules tod
divisions of proprietary and fishing rights were observed among
the fenmen; that the most elaborate system of embankment and
'sewerage* was maintained by constant labour and skill, without
which the great waterways would have become unnarigable, and
Lincoln, Lynn, Boston, Wisbech, Cambridge, St Ives, Peter*
borough and the lesser towns of the region would have lost most
to
ELY ISLE
of their trade and communications. 'Almost every stream and
bank in Fenland,* writes Dr. Darby, 'had, in one way or another,
someone who was held responsible for it.* In short, the Fcnland,
before its reclamation by the great drainage operations of Stuart
and Hanoverian times, was indeed an amphibious region, but
with a highly specialized economic system of its own. [See 6.]
In the midst of these scenes of wild nature, Ely Cathedral had
for centuries floated like an ark upon the waters, its two towers
and two long shining roofs far seen on distant horizons. In its
shadow lay the Palace where the Bishop held his court. [See
7.] He still exercised remnants of the authority which his
mediaeval predecessors had enjoyed in the so-called 'County
Palatine' of Ely Isle. But in fact the Reformation had reduced the
independent power of the Clergy. The State now held the Church
in check, sometimes with an arrogant disregard of spiritual in-
terests. Queen Elizabeth compelled Bishop Cox to surrender Ely
Place in Holborn, London, and its famous fruit-gardens to her
favourite. Sir Christopher Hatton. And when Cox died she kept
the see vacant for eighteen years for the benefit of the Crown. Yet
whenever a Bishop of Ely was allowed to exist, he was the chief
ruler of Fenland till first Oliver Cromwell and then the draining
Dukes of Bedford acquired in the region an influence more than
episcopal*
Besides Fenland, two other regions, the Principality of Wales
and the Northern Border, differed from the social and economic
structure of the rest of Elizabethan England. But they were
approximating to the general pattern, and of the two, Wales had
recently moved furthest along the road leading to modern life*
Throughout the Middle Ages, Wales had been the seat of
military and social conflict between the wild Welsh, nursing their
ancient tribal ways in the high places of the hills, and the 'Marcher
Lord*,* champions of English feudalism in their castles along the
vtlky. During the Wars of the Roses, the Marcher Lords had
turned eastwards to play leading parts in the dynastic strife of
England, with the happy result that their independent power was
extinguished. By the end of the Fifteenth Century their principal
castle* and estates had passed into the King's hand*.
Here then was an opportunity for the amalgamation of Wales
with England under the Crown, provided only that the operation
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
were affected without wronging and exacerbating the national
feeling and traditions of the Welsh, as the sentiment of the Irish
was so disastrously alienated by Tudor policy. Fortunately in
Wales the circumstances were more propitious. No religious
difference arose to divide the old inhabitants from the Ivnglish,
and there was no movement to 'colonize* the Principality by
robbing the natives of their land, By good chance, Bosworth
Field placed a Welsh dynasty on the throne of England, thereby
making loyalty to the Tudors a point of national pride with all
the inhabitants of Wales.
Under these happy auspices Henry VIII effected the legal,
parliamentary and administrative union of the two countries,
The English county system, the rule of the Justices of the Peace,
and the body of English law were extended ail over the Princi-
pality, and the leading Welsh gentry were flattered by representing
their counties in the Parliament at Westminster, The G>unnl of
Wales, a court of monarchial power analogous to the Star
Chamber and the Council of the North, usefully enforced order
during the long period of transition from old to new. Feudalism
in the vaUcys had been extinguished with the Marcher Lords, and
tribalism in the hills now also disappeared, without any violent
conflict such as marked its end in (he Scottish Highlands two
centuries later, In Elizabeth's reign Wales was in process of
settling down as a part of England. Already the structure of
government, and to a large extent the form of society bid been
adapted to the English model. But Wales retained her native
language, poetry and music Her soul was still her own.
The Welsh gentry, an amalgam of former tribal chiefs, former
Marcher Lords, and 'new men* of the type so veil known in
that era, were well content with the Tudor rule, which gave ihdr
claw the game advantages in Wales as in England Some of them
were already accumulating great estates under the recently intro-
duced English land-laws, and these properties swelled to vast
size in years to come. But in Elizabeth's reign and for some dmc
afterwards there was also a numerous class of Welsh gentry of
smaller wealth and pretension. Major Genetal Berry reported to
Oliver Cromwell from his flf*mmand in Wales *You can aooocr
find fifty gentlemen of 100 a year than five of joo v Most of
them, like the corresponding class of small squires in R^gUty^
flourished in Tudor and early Stuart rime*, but disappeared b
it
TUDOR WALES
the course of the Eighteenth Century;, leaving Wales a land of
great estates.
But the essential part of the Welsh people was to be sought not
among the landowners but among the small tenant farmers,
Large farms of the commercial type did not grow up Jn Wales
to the same extent as in England. Nor, on the other hand, were
the farms divided and sub-divided to excess as among the un-
fortunate peasantry of Ireland. The sound basis of modern Welsh
society was laid in tenant farms of the peasant and family type,
small, but not too small to maintain the cultivators in hardy
self-respect. Their relation to the landlords, who undertook
improvements and repairs, resembled the system of agricultural
England, rather than the less happy relationship of the impover-
ished tenant to the exploiting landlord in Ireland or the Scottish
Highlands.
The Dissolution of the Monasteries had been carried through
in Wales in the same way and with the same social consequences
as in England. There had been no revolt against it, like the
northern Pilgrimage of Grace, The Welsh upper class found
their advantage in the Reformation, and the peasantry accepted
it with indifference born of ignorance* If they did not understand
the Prayer Book and Bible in the foreign tongue of England,
neither had they understood the Latin Mass. As yet religion
passed them by.\JE**ty in Elizabeth's reign the Welsh peasantry
were in a state of intellectual torpor and educational neglect,
compatible indeed with all that is good in country life and old
tradition, but certain ere long to be disturbed by some outside
influence, i What would it be? The Jesuit missionaries, who might
have broken the virgin soil, left Wales alone, At length, in the
last decades of Elizabeth's reign the Established Church began
to do its duty, and brought out a Welsh translation of Bible and
Prayer Book* The foundations were thereby laid for popular
Welsh Protestantism, and for the great educational and religious
movements of the Eighteenth Century.
Under the Tudor Kings the life of England north of the Trent
bore a character of its own. The constant troubles of the Scottish
bolder, the poverty of the whole region except the clothing
valleys and the mining district*, the greater strength of old feudal
and pretentious, tod the greater popularity of the
ENGLISH SOCIAL BISTORT
monasteries and the old religion differentiated it from the rest of
England in the reign of Henry VIII, and to a less extent under
Elizabeth.
In the early years of Henry, the Border was still ruled by
its fighting families, particularly the Percics and Nevilles, of
whom the Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland were the
heads* Among the armed farmers of these pastoral shires, a fierce
spirit of personal independence was combined with loyalty to the
hereditary chiefs who led them to war, not only against occasional
Scottish invasion and frequent cattle raiding, but sometimes
against the Tudor government itself. The Pilgrimage of Grace
(1556) was made in defence of monasteries, and also in defence
of the quasi-feudal power of the noble families of the Border
against the intruding force of the new Monarchy. Henry seized
the opportunity of the suppression of that rising to crush feudal-
ism, and to extend the royal power, governing Yorkshire tod the
Border Counties through Wardens of the Marches dependent on
the Crown's commission instead of their own hereditary influence*
Much of Henry's work was never undone, particularly in York-
shire, But Northumberland and Cumberland were seldom really
at rest The policy of Henry VHI and Edward VI was foolishly
hostile to Scotland, and the occasional wars and perpetual illwill
between the two nations prolonged the disturbed tarc of the
border shires. Under Mary the Roman Catholic influence wt$
revived, and with it the power of the Percy family which
Henry VIII had broken.
And so, when Elizabeth came to the throne, the battle between
the old and the new religion, between the power of the Crown
and the power of feudalism was not yet fully decided in the far
North* Such was the state of things in the more civilhcd parts
of the Border, the seaward plains of Northumberland on the
Bast, and of Cumberland on the West. Between them lay the
Middle Marches, the moors and hilb of the Cheviot district,
where a yet more lawless and primitive state of society survived
in the regions of Redesdale and North Tyne. Thote robber
valleys, cut off by trackless wastes of gnus *bent/ heather and
wet moes-hag from the more civilized lands round about, were
inhabited by clans who paid link heed to the King's writ or even
to the feudal power of the Perdes, Nevilles and Dacrct. Indeed,
the only allegiance of the warriors of these wild regions
14
THE NORTHERN BORDERLANDS
loyalty towards their own clans. Family feeling served, more than
anything else, to protect culprits and defy the law. Stolen pro-
perty could not be followed up and recovered in the thieving
valleys* because each raider was protected by the revengeful
jealousy of a warlike tribe. Small families came for protection
under the rule of the Charltons who answered for North Tyne,
The Halls, Reeds, Hedleys, Fletchers of Redesdale, the Charltons,
Dodds, Robsons and Milbournes of North Tynedale, were the
real political units within a society that knew no other organisa-
tion. The Crown when it raised taxes, secured the tribute through
the agency of the clan chiefs, [See 8.]
The royal commissioners, reporting in 1542 and rj 50 on the
state of the Border (Hodgson's Northumberland) ii, ppayi-248),
estimated that there were 1500 armed and able-bodied men in
these two lawless valleys. The meagre soil could not yield food
enough for their families, so, like the Scottish Highlanders, they
eked out thek living by raids on the cattle of their richer neigh-
bours in the seaward plains to east and west. They were in dose
league with the robbers of Scottish Liddesdale, where a similar
state of society coasted. The Mosstroopers of either nation, when
close pressed by the *fray* of the men they had robbed, could slip
over the Border and be safe till the danger had passed. But
usually no English officer dared 'follow the fray* even into North
Tyne or Rede, still less into Liddesdale* The robber strongholds,
built of oak trunks, covered with turf to prevent the application
of fire, were hid in unapproachable wildernesses, among treach-
erous mosses, through which no stranger knew the paths.
Henry VlITs commissioners did not venture to suggest to thek
royal mister the expense of conquering and occupying North
Tyne and Rede, but only a better system of watch and ward
against the raiders, and a stronger force of lances in Harbottle
and ChJpchase Castles on the edge of the lawless region, to bridle
|he constant invasion of the Lowlands.
^^uch was the society, much the same on both sides of the
Border, which produced the popular poetry of the Border
Ballads, transmitted by word of mouth from one generation to
another. Many of the stanzas took the shape we know in the
days of Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots. These ballads,
ftlmott always tragic, describe such incidents of life and death aa
were of daily occurrence in thote regions. Utterly different from
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
the songs and poetry of Shakespeare's more ^trnlc England, arc
these rough outpourings of the sombre North, A pair of lovers
in South English song or ballad run a fair chance of Miving
happily ever afterwards.* But to assume the part of lover in a
Border Ballad is a desperate undertaking. No father, mother,
brother or rival will have pity before it is too late. Like the
Homeric Greeks, the Borderers were cruel and barbarous men,
slaying each other like beasts of the forest, but high in pride and
honour and rough faithfulness; and they were also (what men
no longer are) untaught natural poets, able to express in words
of power the inexorable fate of man and woman, and pity for the
cruelties they nevertheless constantly inflicted on one another.
In Elizabeth's reign politicaJ relations with Scotland were
greatly and permanently bettered, because the government* of
the two countries had now a common interest in defending the
Reformation against its enemies at home and abroad. Border
warfare between Scottish and English armies came to an end,
and cattle raiding as between the two nations was at least dimin-
ished. But the English robbers of Redesdak and North Tjmc
continued to raid the farms of their more civiliftedi fellow-
countrymen. In the middle of Elizabeth's reign, Camdcn was
unable to pay an antiquarian visit to Hou*cstcatU on the Roman
Wall 'for fear of the Mosstroopers,* who occupied that region in
force* And the Grahams of Nethcrby* a clan situated on the Esk
near where it flows into Solway, wert perpetually harrying the
lands of their Cumbrian neighbours. The levy of blackmail and
the abduction of men and women from their homes to be held
to ransom, were common incidents of life till the end of the
Queen's reign*
But although mosstrooping continued, the fcudbU power of
the Perdes, Oacres and Nevilles was wholly destroyed after the
suppression of their rebellion in 1570. After that crisis, North-
umberland and Cumberland were governed by oobkmeo loyal
to government.
Early in the reign, Mass was still said in parish churches within
thirty miles of the Border* under the protection of Catholic
nobles and gentry, But Protestantism mtde progress among the
people with the help of missionaries like Bernard GUpin, 4 tbe
Apostle of the North. 1 The Bishops of Carlisle wen mlou* in
the work of gradually enforcing uniformity, as the Queen's
16
i A royal picnic
$t Norwich "ft g*t centre of the etc* tpdn*
ft B*ta^*VidifcKKtffettd feted
$j "The oozy ultndi of the Pen". Air view of Crowbnd. Ijncolnthin
during the flood* of 1947
$6 Map of the Fen round WUbech, Ombridgwhire, 1)97
"THI-; STIU, Vi.XKD BORDER WITH ITS C.RIM
STONM <;ASTIJ;S ANI>
9 Ncwtrk Castk, Selkirkshire, fifteenth century
"THE iiNGLAND OF KL1ZABETH . . . THE LAND
OF MANOR HOUSES"
' t
$11 Stokcuy Qutlc, Shropthire, a thirteenth-century manor with
Elizabethan gateway
i$ Monttcutc House, Somerset, "in id glory of dull gold"
14 Morcton Old Hall, Cheshire, "of black and white half timber*
Jij Elizabethan needlework detail from the Bradford table carpet
$16 The great hall, Montacute House, Somerset
$17 Pwrjn Cuds, MaetgamujMn
THE MOSSTROOPERS
government grew stronger* But the warrior farmers of the
'riding 1 districts were not men to be coerced or easily led, either
in religion or anything else* Change came slowly up that way.
Until the end of Elizabeth's reign many farmers of Cumberland
and Northumberland held their land by rendering military service
when called upon by the Wardens of the Marches* These light
horsemen of the North, whether in the service of the govern-
ment or of freebooting clans, wore leather coats and steel caps,
were armed with a lance and bow or pistol, and rode surefooted
nags of a local breed that knew their way through the mosses.
After the Union of the Crowns of England and Scotland on
the head of James I (1605) co-operation became possible between
the authorities on the two sides of the Border who were able at
last to suppress the Mosstroopers and carry the King's peace into
the heart of the thieving valleys. 'Belted Will Howard* of
Naworth, though a Catholic recusant, loyally served King James
as his Warden of the Western March. He hunted down the
Grahams and the other mosstrooping clans, following them into
their lairs with sleuth-hounds. North Tyne and Redesdale were
gradually brought under the law. In the early years of the
Seventeenth Century the gentlemen of Northumberland first
ventured to build manor-houses instead of peel-towers and castles,
as homes in which it was safe to live.
It is ittttge that the barbarous old-worldHife of the Border,
as it sdll was in Queen Elizabeth^ day, lay in close juxtaposition
to the mott forward-looking of Industrie*, the coal-mining of the
lower Tjrne and East Durham. The winning of surface coal
dated from befbrt the Roman occupation; but now the pits
were getting deeper and die work of the miner was beginning to
approximate to tfatt of hi* present-day successor. Newcastle,
the centre of the great business of shipping the 'sea-coal* of
Loodoo, was unique as a meeting-point of the feudal world of the
Bttdet, the tribal world of the mowtrooper, and the coal taufe
not faadameotaDy dttftmttftomttooftOHJay. (For the Border
taadot the Tudota, tee tffc*r& C*K&Htfty>Om\ml*^ Rev, J,
Hodg*oc*s Hrf. ^N^Aw**rvW,andDr. lUdbel Reid's
Jtaftrarir i Tatar ift TWr St*ikf> ed Seton Wfttftoa
oath of the *ffl reted Boeder with in grim
OHttit Mki ptrinhMHOUj thff TViiglMiri of BttsHtbat^
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
becoming par txalleitct the land of manor-houses, bc\x i
different from one another in size, material and style of architec-
ture, but aJJ testifying to the peace and economic prosperity of
the age, its delight in display, in beauty and in the plory of man's
life on earth. [See 9-1 *,] Wealth and power, and with them the
lead in architecture had passed from the Princes of the Church to
.the gentry. The great era of ecclesiastical building, after lasting
for so many centuries, had at length come to an end. The new
religion was the religion of the Book, the sermon and the psalm f
rather than of the sacred edifice; there were already fine churches
enough to satisfy the religious requirements of Protestant
England.
Elizabethan architecture contained strong dements both of
the Gothic and the clinical, in other words, the old English
and the new Italian. In the early part of the reign the more
irregular and picturesque Gothic was most uted, especially in
converting old fortified manor-houses into more peaceful and
splendid homes, such as Penshurst and Haddon Hall But side
by side with them, and increasingly as the reign went on, came in
the more regular planning of the new private palaces in an
Italianate or classical style, like Longieat, Audley End, Leicester' t
buildings at Kcnilworth, and Mootacute in its glory of dull gold
just a country gentleman's bouse in a remote district of Somerset,
built in the local stooe, yet certainly ooe of the most beautiful aod
magnificent homes in the wodd* [Seejij.]
In country houses of the aew style Hke Audley End, aod in
public buildings til? Graham's Royal P^ r hf n ffi, iotriotte
Renaissance ornament dorpfj the stooo-wotk of the fabric **vl
the woodwork of the interior A fine aod pate cramplct is the
Gate of Hooour at Caius College, Cambridge (i 575), tod a later
instance is found hard by in the roof aod town imkk the haD
of Trinity (1604-1605)* The dedga tad ooMtmcottdoa of
Bflaabethaa maottoos were ofeco carded out by Geximm bcougfac
orcf foe the puxpoM. As thefar taste aod tpxnrtnfl wete oooc of the
bttt, te was fortunate that tface were aba mM
bdldersandarcbimctt, fSeeJil,^]
Besides the lordlier tunl pebn^ thete
tnanor-bousce arising in ercry Ttdety of styto and
T irfirnn *^m+ / UU.iL ^rl Mill It tiialf ^
C lfOtK% vOCDe Of MftCvwMrWlBEOB ONI ttt
Old JHWB In ObUc^ mt eene of cod bridk
ELIZABETHAN COUNTRY HOUSES
regions where neither stone nor timber were plentiful. 1 fSee 14.]
Though the windows were not yet plate glass but lattice, they
occupied a much larger area of the wall space than in former
times, and let floods of light into the pleasant chambers and long
Elizabethan galleries. Plain dear glass was now used in the lat-
tices, which in early Tudor times had often been filled up with
'wicker or fine rifts of oak in chequerwise,* as Harrison tells us,
'but now only clearest glass is esteemed/
Formerly the best glass had come from abroad* but early
in Elizabeth's reign the industry in England was improved by
foreign workmen from Normandy and Lorraine* Works in the
Weald* Hampshire, Staffordshire and London supplied not only
window glass but bottles and drinking-glasses, in imitation of
the fashionable Venetian ware from Murano that only the wealthy
could afford.
In rooms of the better kind the stucco work on the white-
washed ceiling was often 'most expressed in fancy/ and its
mouldings were sometimes picked out in colours or in gold,
The walls were warmed and adorned with 'tapestry, arras work
or piloted cloth, wherein cither diverse histories, or herbs,
beasts and knots and such like are stained*; or else they are pan-
ncllcd with *oak of our own, or wainscot brought hither out of
the east countries/ that is, the Baltic lands. (Harrison.) (See
$15,16,17.)
A less expensive way of decorating the walls, recommended by
FalstafF to the Hostess, was to paint pictures on them;
Horrsss: I mutt be fidto to pawn both my plate and the tapestry of
FAXSTAFP: Glasses, gla*a*s is the ooly drinking. And for thy walls,
a pretty slight drollery, or the story of the Prodigal, or the German
homing to the water-work,!* worth a thousand of thoe bed-hang-
ing* awl tbeae fly-bhten tapestries,
Framed picturee, except family portraits, were few cron in
gentlemen's houses. Bt the mow princely xmnsUma ha4 pktawi
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTOHY
in the Venetian style. Thus the Lord's servants say to the be-
wildered Christopher Sly
*Dost thou love pictures ? We will fetch thcc straight
Adonis painted by a running brook
And Cythcrtet all in sedges hid."
The homes of common folk in town and village had changed
less than the manor-houses of the rich. They were still the old-
fashioned gabled and thatched cottages of timber with city,
loam, rubble and wattJe-work filling up the spaces between the
uprights and crossbeams.
'Certes this rude kind of building [wrote Harmon] made the Spaniards
in Queen Mary's days 10 wonder r but ctoe8y when they taw whar
large diet was used in many of these so homely cottages. In to much
that one of no small reputation amongst them said after this manner
'These English (quoth he} have their bouses made of socks and dirt,
^ut they fare commonly to well as the King.*' *
The greatness of the Elizabethan English in poetry, muak
and the drama was not equalled by their school of painting,
though many competent portraits of the Queen tod her courtiers
were produced, on canvas. Nicholas Milliard, son of t citiien of
Exeter, founded the school of English miniature. [See Plate II.)
There was much demand for this delicate and beautiful art, not
only among courtiers ostentatiously vying with one toother for
the Queen's 'picture in little* at 'forty, fifty or t hundred duetts
apiece,* but among til who desired mementoes of their family or
friends. Miniature painting went oo tt t high lerel in Engltod
until the era of Corwty tt the eod of George Hi's reign, tnd
indeed it wts only killed by photography, ts so mtny other trts
have been killed by science.
The expense tnd ftnttstktloess of men's diets wts t
theme of sttite* * Fashions from prood lady* tod Frtoce
thrtys being imitated, tnd the talk* pkytd t grett part in the fife
[SPkteILJ Jewels, gold <&*
tod costly trinkets of til torts were woen by men tt mochas
by women. Both sexes wore round the oeckruffii of vukxtb0t
tndshtpes, Such fiuhiocs were confined to tbe wdl-to-do but
tUdtssesworebetcdt, 'TwwmenyinWlwhmbatrdiwtotd
tIL 1
cpcMk^
Miniature of a young man by Nicholas Milliard
THE MILITIA
For expeditions oversea such a system was gravely at fault,
indeed the only English troops who won any credit upon the
Continent between the Hundred Years' War and the time of
Cromwell were the long-service regiments of Englishmen in
Dutch or other foreign pay.
It was as well that the veterans of Spain did not effect a landing.
For the English militia no longer had the superiority over other
nations that the long-bow had once given. All through the
Queen's reign the caliver or harquebus man was displacing the
archer, in proportion as the gun, once so much inferior to the
long-bow in an expert hand, increased in range, in rapidity of
fire, and in force to penetrate plate-armour. At the beginning of
the reign, most even of the well-appointed London militia were
still bowmen, but the best companies already consisted of 'shot'
and heavily armoured pikcmen. After another generation had
passed, not one of London's 6000 trained militiamen bore the bow
during the alarm of the Armada, and it was the same in many
Southern counties, A decade later, Shakespeare wrote a scene
in which Falstaff is pressing Cotswold yokels by the authority
of the Justices of the Peace; he is not seeking archers but only
'shot*; 'put me a caliver into Wart's hand, Bardolph.* In IJ9J
the Privy Council decreed that bows should never again be
issued as weapons of war; and so a great chapter in English
history came to its end. [See 29, jo, 31, ja,]
In sport the substitution of firearms for bows followed more
alowly. As late as 1621 the Archbishop of Canterbury had the
misfortune to aim at a buck and kill a gamekeeper with his cross-
bow, But by that time many sportsmen used the 4 long gun*
especially in the stalking of wild fowl, though 'to shoot flying*
was still regarded as something of a feat
The good order preserved in Elizabeth's kingdom* in spite of
religious differences and foreign dangers* was due to the power
of the Crown exerted through the Privy Council, the real govern-
ing body of Tudor England, and the Prerogative Courts which
represented the Council** judicial power. Those Courts The
Sttr Chamber, the Councils of Wales and of the North, the
Chancery Court, the ecclesiastical Court of High Commission
were (til except Chancery) afterwards abolished in the Parlia-
mentary Revolution of Stuart times, because they were the rivals
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
of the Common Law Courts, and Ixrause they were a dancer tn
individual liberty with their inquisitorial procedure and their
avowed bias in favour of the Crown, Yet in the Tudnr ace it
was precisely these Prerogative Courts that saved the liberties of
Englishmen by enforcing respect for Jaw, and <avcd the FnelMi
Common Law by enabling and compelling men tn administer it
without fear or favour. The Privy Council ami the Prerogative
Courts stopped the terrori?ation of Judges and Juries bv local
mobs and local magnates; this restoration of the free working
of the Jury system in ordinary eases was a <crvirc in x*irtv that
far outweighed the Privy Council's occasional interference in
cases of a political complexion. In this way the Common J^u-
and its tribunals were saved by the very jurisdiction that was
their rival Moreover, the Prerogative Courts intr*x1ucccl many
new principles of law suited to modern time*, which were
eventually absorbed into the law of the land,
In foreign countries the old feudal law wa$ not xo good a
system as the Common I .aw of mediaeval Kngland* ami could
not be adapted to the uses of modern society, And so the feudal
law of Kuropc and with it the mediaeval liberties of Kuropc tt'crc
swept away in this epoch, by the 'reception* of Roman law, which
was a law of dc$p* >Hsm, But in England the mediaeval Uw, funda-
mentally a law of liberty and private rights, u-an preserved,
modernized, supplemented, enlarged, and above all enforced by
the Council and Courts of the 'Tudor despotism/ so that both
the old system of law and the old Parliament survived into a
new age with a renewed vigour,
So, too, in the sphere of administration, the Tudor Privy
Council blended the old with the new, local liberty with national
authority* The will of the central power was imposed on the
localities, not as in France by sending down bureaucrats and
King's Intendcnta to govern the province* in place of the local
gentry, but by using the more influential local gentry themselves
as the Queen's Justices of Peace, They were Elizabeth's maids
of all work. They had not only to carry out her political ami
ecclesiastical policy, but to administer petty justice, and to execute
all the ordinary functions of local government, Including the new
Poor Law, the Statute of Artificers and the regulation of wages
and prices. These matters were neither left to adjust themselves
on a principle of fassf^-fttrt, nor abandoned to the whims of
THE UNEMPLOYED. THE POOR LAW
local authorities. They were regulated on nation-wide principles
by Parliamentary Statutes, which it was the business of the J.P.s
to enforce in every shire. If they were slack in performing these
arduous dudes, the vigilant eye of the Privy Council was upon
them, and its long arm was soon extended. The J.P.s were not
yet a law unto themselves, as they became in Hanoverian times.
Squirarchical power and local interests were under the whole-
some supervision of a central authority thinking for the whole
nation.
Nothing is more characteristic of this aspect of the Elizabethan
and early Stuart regime than the manner of providing for the
poor and unemployed. Times were on the average better in that
period (1559-1640) than during the earlier Tudor reigns, but
there were recurrent periods of distress- Though complaints
were less loud of agricultural troubles and depopulating en-
closures, the growth of industries in the country districts was
accompanied by periodic unemployment, especially under the
domestic system then prevalent in most trades. Under the factory
system, which was still in its infancy, a capitalist employer is often
able and anxious to keep his works going as long as possible even
in bad times, and to accumulate stock, which he hopes to get
rid of when times improve. But the domestic worker was less
able to carry on, if the demand for his goods grew slack. When-
ever under Elizabeth there were bad times, as when a quarrel
with the Spanish Governors of the Netherlands closed Antwerp
to English goods, our cloth workers perforce left their looms idle
as soon as the merchants ceased to buy their cloths or provide
them with raw material. Periodic unemployment was a feature
of the doth trade, even during this period, which, taken as a
whole, saw it greatly increase.
To meet such exigencies the Poor Law took shape in a long
series of experiments and enactments. They were enforced
locally by the J.P.s under the strict surveillance of the Privy
Council; the Council had a real regard for the interests of the
poor, with which the interests of public order were so closely
involved There were to be no more bands of 'sturdy beggars'
iuch as had terrorized honest folk in the days of Henry VI0,
A compulsory poor-rate was now levied with increasing regu-
larity. From this fund, not only was poor relief given, but the
Overseen of the Poor in every parish were compelled to buy
KNGUSH SOCIAL HISTORY
material to provide work for the unemployed *a convenient
stock of Hax, hemp, wool, thread, iron and other start to set the
poor to work/ (Statute of 1601.)
So, too, in time of dearth, as during the scries of bad harvests
1 594-1 597, the Privy Council, acting as always* through the instru-
mentality of the J.P.s, controlled the price of grain, and saw that
it was imported from abroad and distributed where famine was
worst. No doubt both the Poor Law and the supply of food in
time of dearth were imperfect, and more so in some districts than
in others, but a compulsory national system existed both in
theory and in fact; the provision for the p*>or uas better than
anything there had been in an older Kn^land, and better than
anything there was to be for many generations tu come m France
and other European countries. (E. M, Leonard, LjigfaA Pwr
itf; W, j* Ashley, Ixonomit Qr&tutr$atfa* of
The judicial, political, economic and administrative powers
of the Justices of the Peace were so various and, taken together,
so important that the J,P,s became the most influential claw of
men in Bngland. They were often chosen for Parliament, where
they could speak as experienced critics of laws and policies which
they themselves administered. They were the Queen *$ servants,
but they were not in her pay, or in her dependence. They were
country gentlemen, living on their own estates and off their own
rents. In the last resort what they valued most was the good
opinion of their neighbours, the gentry and common folk of the
shire Whenever, therefore, as sometime* happened in Stuart
times, the class of country gentlemen strongly opposed the King 1 *
political and religious policy, on such occasions the Grown had
no instrument with which to govern UK countryside, So it
proved, for example* in 1688; but it was not so in i)88. Some
of the gentry, especially in North and West, disliked Elizabeth's
Reformation policy, but an increasingly large majority of their
class favoured the new religion, and J.P*s of that persuasion
could be used by government to restrain and occasionally to
arrest their more recalcitrant neighbours. Such coercion if it
had been exerted by paid officials sent down from London,
would have been more resented by the opinion of the County
and would have been more expensive to the Queen's exchequer.
-><
Honour,
tlonvillc and (4iu* Oillcgc,
, The Sktnncr Monument, i-ctlbury Church, Hcrcfordshirc-
i cltrth merchant's tomb
t
J
V
" f
21 \ pca?*ant wunun riding to market
Pillion riding
The J-ord Mayor of London
The Udy Mayoress of I-ondon
The aic-Uvnch with
a6 A moil at the mn
zj Dining at home
28 A privy chamber with pipe and tankard
) & *o Soldier* ot (unit's
vtith pike ami matehWk
3* The Art of Gunnery (1608) concentration of ike
32 Angle of fire
5 14 \Villum <^
M i he reates! t all mir
j5 Family worship in 1565
Contra tenor Vent creator < Rjcbxrd c Brimle.
bott from t^ffattjtr^tfon,? 506 of peart floue,
Corre,
}6 An Elixahcthan psalter the contra tenor part of the I'exi Crtalor
$17 A preaching it Old St. Piul'i (r.
58 A christening in 1624
59 Holy Communion in 1614
1
I
2
$41 Oxford wrbnltrs ((, H77)
41 Mimingcotm in ij6o
Chapter Two
SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLAND [1564-1616]
2. Religion and Universities* The social policy of the Elizabethan State.
Industry and Seafaring. Shakespeare.
(Queen Elizabeth* 1558-1603, The Armada, 1588.)
IN seafaring and discovery, in music, drama, poetry, and in
many aspects of social life, we can speak with assurance of the
golden age of Shakespeare's England, an age of harmony and
creative power. But the religious life of the time seems on the
face of it more obscure, less attractive and certainly less har-
monious. Except 'the judicious Hooker/ there is no name of
the first order that springs to the mind as connected with Eliza-
bethan religion. Yet, if we consider the fate that in those years
befell Spain, France, Geneva, Italy and the Netherlands on ac-
count of religion, we may see reason to be thankful that in
England ecclesiastical feuds were so kept in check by the policy
of the Queen and the good sense of the majority of her subjects,
lay and clerical, that religious fanaticism never got loose to
destroy or pervert the activities of Elizabethan man. Nor is
that negative merit the only one to be attributed to religious life
in the age of Shakespeare. He himself, and Edmund Spenser,
were children of their time and breathed its religious atmosphere,
just as the poets of other ages, Langland, Milton, Wordsworth
and Browning were each the outcome and highest expression of
a religious philosophy characteristic of their respective epochs.
There were among Shakespeare's contemporaries many violent
Puritans and Romanists and many narrow Anglicans, but there
was also something more characteristically Elizabethan, an atti-
tude to religion that is not primarily Catholic or Protestant,
Puritan or Anglican, but which evades dogma and lives broadly
in the spirit. It is common to Shakespeare and to the Queen
herself.
The first year of Elizabeth saw a crisis in the social life of every
parish, Cranmer's bequest to posterity, the English Prayer Book,
5J
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
was again ordered to be read in place of the Latin Mas*, But this
change of religion \vas not accompanied by a corresponding
change in the person of the parish priest, t)ut nf some 8coo
bcnefkcd clergy not more th?n 200 were deprived, The parson
obeyed the law as a matter of course, and his neighbours them-
selves equally obedient, thought none the wor>c nf him t^r that,
If he was a middle-aged man he was well accuMomcd to altering
his religious practice at the Ixrhcst of the powers that be. In
some cases he was an ex-monk or friar who had known a good
many 'varieties of religious experience.' In the \car when Queen
Mary was succeeded by her sister, the average parson \va,s seldom
a convinced Protestant; but he had no respect tor the authority
of the Pope; the idea of consulting hi* own 'private judgment*
was alien to his thought; and if he sincerely wished to obey
*thc Church/ where was he to hear her voice? It issued, he had
been taught to believe, from the mouth of the Prince, and in 15)9
it came to him from no other quarter. To accept religious Cervices
and doctrines because they were ordained by Crown, Parliament
and Privy Council, seemed to clergy and people not only ex-
pedient but positively right.
Such was the Eraustian attitude to religion that carried English-
mcn through that dangerous century of change. It is repugnant
to our modern ideas of denominational am! personal freedom,
but it was at that time a doctrine sincerely held by the majority
of conscientious men. Bishop Jewel, the beat exponent of the
ideas of the early Elizabethan settlement declared
'This is our doctrine, thai every *aul of whit aUUng loevcr he be,
b he monk, be he preacher, be be pruph, be be apMtili, ought to
be lubjcct to King and magistrate*/
The sphere of King and magistrates covered religion, AU wcrt
agreed that there could be only one religion in the Statc^ and all
except Romanists and very rigorous Puritans were agreed that
the State must decide what that religion should be.
This doctrine, equally opposed 10 mediaeval and modem
conceptions, suited Elizabeth*! England. Ic was the polmcal
corollary of the social revolt of the laity against the ckrgy in the
time of the Queen's father. The Tudor English were not irre-
ligious, but they were anti-clerical, and therefore they were
Erastun, This attitude of mind affected the ekrgy themselves,
54
THE ELIZABETHAN CLERGT
who had not been brought up in seminaries as a priestly caste,
but were themselves an integral part of English society. f -^
The clergy as a whole were therefore obedient and v eupinej in
the first years of Elizabeth. But there was an active and prosely-
tizing minority among them of zealous Protestants, who had
escaped the Smithfield fires by the accident of Queen Mary's
deathj or had returned from exile abroad full of Calvinist zeal
imbibed at the Genevan fountain-head. Such men were not
Erastian at heart. They would have disobeyed a Popish Prince,
but they knew that Elizabeth alone stood between England and
a Papal restoration, so they accepted her Church compromise,
intending to reform it as time and occasion should permit. As
against Rome and Spain they were the strongest defence of the
new settlement, but from another point of view they were its
most dangerous enemies.
The majority of the parish priests of 1 5 59, who were prepared
to take their religion ready-made from a Parliamentary Statute,
were lacking in any definite tradition that could give enthusiasm
and authority to their ministrations. But the extreme Protestants
had a living faith that made them for some decades the most
influential section of the clergy, at a time when the average parson
was deficient both in learning and in zeal.
Since the anti-clerical revolution of King Henry's day, priests
were no longer envied or hated, but they were often despised and
ill-used. Elizabeth herself continued to filch Church lands and
property, and sometimes to keep Bishoprics vacant in order that
the Crown should enjoy the rents of the manors. Her Arch-
bishops constantly sought the advice of her Secretary, William
Cecil, on purely religious matters, while complaining to him
unceasingly of the petty oppressions of powerful laymen. *The
Church was treated very much as an arm of the Civil Service, a
dignified but pleasantly helpless prey of an impecunious sovereign
and a rapacious court.* In the smaller sphere of parish politics,
the squire was equally dominant over the parson. The young
author of LWj Labour** Lost had seen much of the half kindly,
half contemptuous attitude of the laity towards the parish priest,
*a foolish, mild man, an honest man look you and soon dashed,
A marvellous good neighbour, faith, and a very good bowler/
AH this betokened that the ground-swell caused by the great
anti-clerical earthquake of Henry's reign was subsiding only by
JJ
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
degrees. Nevertheless it \vas subsiding. By the end of tl c Queen's
rci^n the Anglican clergy were already in a better pov-nn^, more
respected by their neighbours,, more sure of ihe!r ( <eKc$ and of
their message, \\Ticn the Stuart King? took the Church hy the
hand in an honourable partnership, the liity \\cre M>on com-
plaining once more l of the pride of the clergy," land encnuMgcd
the parson to look the squire in the fare,
It was an important change in socul hie ih.it the clere} under
Elizabeth were again, and this time finally, a;ih*)ri<rd t ukc
unto themselves wives. Many parsnns \\ln-* had Wen ready to
accept the restoration of Roman Cathnlui^m m im t tad been
deprived of their livings under Mary* for nn reason except that
they had been legally married by the la\V5 of I du ard VI, I'micr
Elizabeth their connubial liberty uas restored, It lu* been
shrewdly suggested that 'as the distribution nf nimutnc property
created among certain classes a vested intercut m the future of
the Reformation, so the removal of restriction* on the marriage.
of the clergy created what we may call a family mtcre^t in us
progress among sections of the clergy not sufficiently enlightened
to grasp the higher issues, an interest which W35 not
importance in guaranteeing its ultimate surcevt/ (Mi**
Grieved study of the fxrrsonal fortunes of the rlcrg\ m T>cx
deprived under Mar)*. R.f/.J. 1940.)
Freedom to marry must have been a real comfort tn many
honest men; and a fine race of children were reared m the par-
sonages of England^ for generations to conx% filling all the pro-
fessions and services with good men and true, and mot of all
the Church herself, But % in the tfrsi instance, clerical m*m*pc
involved certain difficulties; priests* wives were looked at askance
by El&abeth and many of her subject*, still under the prejudice
of old use and wont, Time was needed before the parson's wife
acquired the honourable and important position in pamh society
that she afterwards filled,
The need to support a wife and children ma<k ihe parson's
poverty yet more aeute. Because they were poor, it was not
usual for the parish clergy to marry gentlemen's daughters*
Clarendon himself, devoted as he was to the Anglican Church,
noted as a sign of the social and moral chaos produced by the
Great Rebellion, that the daughters of noble and illustrious
families bestowed themselves upon divines 'or other low and
J*
PROTESTANT. CATHOLIC. PURITAN
unequal matches/ The great rise in the economic and social
status of the clergy took place only during the Hanoverian epoch.
In Jane Austen's novels the squires and parsons form one social
group, but that was not the case in Tudor or Stuart times.
Clerical poverty helped to prolong simony and pluralities.
Those practices did not cease with the disappearance of Papal
jurisdiction, though the holding of English benefices by foreigners
Jiving in France and Italy had come to an end for ever.
In the middle of the reign, during the foreign and domestic
crisis that culminated in the Armada and the execution of Mary
Queen of Scots, English society in town and country was gravely
disturbed by the religious differences of neighbours ; the Jesuit
mission was hard at work in the houses of the unfortunate gentry
of the old religion, distraught between the claims of the two rival
loyalties. Fear brooded over the land. Men waited, expecting
ever)* day to hear of Spanish invasion, Roman Catholic rebellion,
the assassination of the Queen. The Jesuits flitted about in
disguise, hiding in 'priest holes' in the thickness of manor-house
walls, pursued by Justices of the Peace, occasionally caught and
executed.
Meanwhile the Puritans, not yet 'dissenters' but parish clergy-
men and Justices of the Peace on whom the State depended for
its existence in this crisis, were working hard to overturn and
remodel the Church establishment from within. They denounced
the Bishops as *limbs of anti-Christ/ They held lectures and
prayer-meetings forbidden by the authorities. Every merchant
of London, Elizabeth complained* 'must have his schoolmaster
and nightly conventicles, expounding scriptures and catechizing
their servants and maids, insomuch that I have heard how some
of their maids have not stickcd to control learned preachers,
and say that "Such a man taught otherwise in our house/* * In
many counties the Puritan clergy held conferences of ministers
which were dangerously like Presbyterian Synods, and were
intended, with the help of Parliament, soon to wrest authority
from the Bishops.
Already the Puritans showed that gift for electioneering anil
Parliamentary lobbying and agitation which in the next century
remodelled the English constitution. In 1584 they flooded
Parliament with petitions from clergy, town corporations,
Justices of the Peace and the lead&ng gentry of whole counties*
37
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
The House of Commons and even the Privy G^uncil were half
converted. But Elizabeth stood her ground. It was well that
she was firm, for a Puritan Revolution in the Church, effected at
that time, would almost certainly have resulted in a religious
civil war of Catholic and Protestant from which Spain would not
improbably have emerged as victor* In 1640 England was suffi-
ciently strong and sufficiently Protestant to indulge safely in a
course of ecclesiastical revolution and counter-revolution which
would have been fatal to her half a century before,
Queen Elizabeth and her stiff Archbishop \Vhiigift weathered
the storm, and the Anglican vessel slipped safely on between
the clashing rocks of Romanism and Puritanism- By the end of
the reign there had been a certain reaction. The Puritans had
for a time been reduced to some show of obedience within the
Church* Those who were outside the Church, like the 'Brownists,'
were few and despised. There had been hard hitting: some of
the more extreme Puritans had been hanged ind many more
imprisoned. And yet the bulk of the Puritan clergy, gentry and
merchants were loyal to the Queen. The wonderful woman still
'reigned with their loves/ But person even more far-seeing
and intelligent than Elizabeth 'if ever such wight were' might
have wondered how much longer the State would be able to im-
pose 'one religion* on this divided and obstinate race of English-
men, where even maid-servants 'sucked not to control teamed
preachers*! The abomination of Toleration might yet be the
ultimate issue, and England become famous for the 'hundred
religions/ which so much amused Voltaire oo his visit to our
island.
But Elizabeth itill hoped that all her subjects would accept
'one religion/ that of the middk way, wherein, aa Hooker waa
so eloquently and learnedly explaining, human reason and com-
mon sense were to have their place beside scripture and beside
Church authority. Certainly there was more chance that such a
religion would be acceptable to the English than the scriptuie-
pedantry of the Puritan who must find a tact to justify every act
of daily life, or the crushing Church authority preached by the
Jesuit Yet the idea of enforcing 'ooe religion* of any kind on all
England was utterly vain, and meant another hundred years of
strife and hatred, imprisonments and coofiscadoos, with blood
tragically shed oo the battlefield and the todbldL And oat of all
THE ELIZABETHAN CHURCH SERVICE
that misery it was destined that there should be plucked the
flower of our civil liberties and our Parliamentary constitution.
Truly the ways of man's history are strange and the fate of nations
is inscrutable,
As we still use the Prayer Book, it is not very hard to recon-
struct in our minds an Elizabethan service. But we must imagine
a wooden table in the body of the Church, instead of an altar
railed off in the east end. [See 38, 39,] There was no intoning,
cither of prayers or psalms. The prayers were said and the psalms
were sung. Congregational singing was a great part of the appeal
of Protestant worship. But instead of the modern hymns now
sung in Church, the psalms appointed for the day were sung in
the rhymed, metrical version of Sternhold and Hopkins. That old
psalter, so dear to many generations of Englishmen, is now utterly
forgotten; only the 'Old Hundredth' psalm is still familiar as a
modern hymn:
All people that on earth do dwell,
Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice;
Him serve with fear, His praise forth tell,
Come ye before Him, and rejoice,
The Elizabethan psalters, containing these rhymed versions of
the psalms, often supplied the music of the tunes in four parts,
*Cantus/ *Altus,* Tenor* and 'Bassus/ so that 'the unskilful with
small practice may attain to sing that part which is fittest for their
voice.* [See 35, 36.) The music of viols and wind instruments
might or might not accompany the psalm-singing of the congre-
gation, 1
The sermon was the parson's great opportunity, particularly if
he were a Puritan, It might be endured or even welcomed for an
hour, or haply for two. But the less learned or self-confident of
the clergy, especially those of the older generation, confined
1 In Hanoverian dmct, before orgtra and harmoniums were common la
chord**, the metric*! rations of the p*alm wat still tung to the accompaniment
of Tarioua inttnwnentt played in the galkty : Hardy in the R*/*rw tf tb Na&* f
Chap. V, recall* loch homely mu*Jc:
Ooc Sonday, I can wdQ mind, * b*-T*al day that dnw and Yeobright had
brought hit own. Twaa the Hondwd-and thirty-third [patltnj and (to the tune of]
"Lydk"; tod whtc tbc/d come to R^ ^ jfc*^^*VAkfl^/&f v#
wtov /fcrf, odgbbow Yeobrigbt, who htd }wt wanned to hfc work, diore hit
bow toto them ttringt th** glorioca grand that he e'en t'mott Mtwd the b*M-rfol
iatvopfeoM. Brocy wfcxte in church otttWwtf'nrOT
39
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
themselves to occasional reading of the Homilies provided by the
Church. Both sermon and homily, besides making for edifica-
tion, helped to form religious and therefore political beliefs. [See
37-]
Weekly attendance at church was a duty enforced by ihe State.
There was a statutory fine on absentees, but it was probably not
very regularly exacted, except from a known "Popish recusant/
We may be sure that in that highly individualistic society not
everyone consented to be *knollcd to church* every Sunday of the
year.
A Catholic gentleman of Cornwall, John Trcvclyan* who used
to attend church to avoid the fine, endured the reading of the
lesson and the singing of the 'Geneva jig* which was his name for
Sternhold and Hopkins' psalms, but always went out before the
sermon, calling aloud to the parson in the pulpit 'when thou hast
said what thou hast to say, come and dine with me, 1 He used to
frighten Protestant old ladies of his acquaintance by telling them
"they should expect worse days than they suffered in Queen
Mary's time* and that faggotts should be dear 'I He was merry
old gentleman of whom many stories were told,
Papers. Ctmdt* Soc>, P. II [1865, pp. 113-118] and Pt. Ill
p. xxii.])
In the course of Elizabeth's long reign, the younger generation,
brought up on Bible and Prayer Book, and sharing the struggle
for national existence agmiost Spain* Pope and Jesuits, became
for the most part fervent Protestants. Bible reading and family
prayer were becoming customs of the English. So early as the
first decade of the reign, Roger Ascham wrote in his JrAWawftr
'Blessed be Christ, In our city of London, commonly the com*
mandments of God be more diligently taught, and the service of
God more reverently used, ami that daily in many private men's
houses, than they be in Italy once a week in their common
churches,* No doubt such family worship was then more general
among the London citizens than in the country aa a whole, but
the custom spread fast and far.
In the year when the Queen succeeded her sister Mary, Puri-
tanism was mainly a foreign doctrine imported from Geneva and
the Rhineiaad; when the died, it was rootedly and character-
istically English and had added to haetf tome peculiarities
known to continental Calvinism, HKJI at rigid
GRAMMAR SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY
'the English Sunday* already at war with the idea of 'Merry
England.* Anglicanism also had taken root and shape in the
Queen's reign. In 1559 Anglicanism had been hardly so much a
religion as an ecclesiastical compromise, decreed by a shrewd,
learned and moderate young woman, with the consent of Lords
and Commons. [See Frontispiece.] But at the end of her reign it
had become a real religion; its services were dear to many, after
more than forty years of use in the ancient churches of the land;
and its philosophy and spirit were being nobly set forth in
Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity. George Herbert (1593-1633) is
the poet of an Anglican religion that is something better than
a convenience of State.
The improvement in the quality of the clergy and in the learn-
ing of clergy and laity alike, which marked the end of Elizabeth's
reign, was largely due to the grammar schools and Universities.
The mass of the people were either quite illiterate, or half taught
to read by village dames. But the clever boys of the most various
ranks of society received a good Latin education together, sharing
the benches and the floggings of the grammar school Classes
were not segregated, as in the schools of later generations.
The Universities, like most other institutions, had gone
through a bad time during the religious and economic troubles of
xj $0-1560. Their numbers and wealth had fallen, with the dis-
appearance of the convents of monks and friars which had com-
posed an important part of mediaeval Oxford and Cambridge. At
the same time an Act of Parliament sent back to their parishes the
crowds of middle-aged clergymen, who still, as for centuries past,
were wont to desert their cures and live in idleness at the Uni-
versity in no too reputable manner. The mediaeval character of
the two English seats of learning disappeared during these dis*
tressfuJ years of change and impoverishment
It was a new and more secular Oxford and Cambridge that re-
vived under Elkabeth and flourished exceedingly up to the out-
break of the Civil War, A larger proportion of the undergradu-
ates now looked forward to careers as laymen. The number of
great Elizabethans who had been at Oxford or Cambridge is
significant of a new attitude to learning in the governing class.
A gentleman* especially if he aspired to serve the State, would now
finUh his education at one of the 'learned Universities,* whence
4*
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORT
he usually came away with a familiar knowledge of the Latin
language and of classical mythology* a smattering of Greek, and
a varying measure of mathematical and philosophical acquire-
ments. Sidney and Raleigh^ Camdcn and Haklurt were at Oxford;
the Cecils, the Bacons and Walsingham were at Cambridge, not
to mention Spenser and Marlowe, Master Silence, J,P, is at the
cost of keeping his son Will, at Oxford, for some years before
he goes on to the Inns of Court; after that double training in the
humanities and in law, the young man will be fit to nuccccd his
father as a Gloucestershire landowner and Justice of the Peace,
(iH.IV.IIUi.) [Sec $40,41.1
One reason for this growing connection between the Uni-
versities and the governing class, was the improvement in the
conditions of academic life, The College system, rapidly replacing
the hostelries and lodging-houses of mediaeval times, afforded
some guarantee to careful parents. At Oxford and Cambridge,
alone of the Universities of Europe, the Colleges were it this
time taking over discipline, which the University had grossly
neglected, and the function of teaching, which it had fulfilled very
indifferently as regards the majority of students. There was as
yet no such officer as the College Tutor, but the student or hit
parents contracted privately with one of the Fellows of the
College to act both as teacher and guardian. Eiich of these private
tutors had half a dozen such pupils whom he lectured and coached.
Sometimes they slept Jnhis rooms. It wt t relationship analogous
to that of master and apprentice*
On the whole this system of private tutoring worked weD*
But there was a tendency for the tutor to neglect those of hi*
pupils who could not pty high fees, and to be too indulgent with
those who could. His richer pupils loved Co wear 'excessive ruflt,
apparel of velvet and silk, swords and rapiers/ contrary to aca
detnic rules, and to engage in forbidden pastimes, such as card*
and dice in the parlours of inns, fencing, coclcfighting and bear*
baiting. In 1587 William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, whose paternal
eye was turned into every comer of the kingdom over whose
welfare he watched, was credibly informed that through
'the great stipend* of tutors, not only the poorer son art not able to
maintain thdr children at the University, but the richer be to corrupt
trith liberty and remissnes* that the tutor i* afraid to displease hi* popfl
through the detir* of great gain,*
UNDERGRADUATE LIFE
Dons, like everyone else in those days, were 'respecters of persons/
Early in Elizabeth's reign., parson Harrison complained that
'gentlemen or rich men's sons often bring the Universities into much
slander. For, standing upon their reputation and liberty, they ruffle
and roist it out, exceeding in apparel, and riotous company which
draweth them from their books unto another trade. And for excuse,
when they are charged with breach of all good order, think it sufficient
to say they are gentlemen, which greeveth many not a little/
One may well guess that, without some eye-winking on the
part of the authorities, smart young men accustomed to the out-
door life of the manor-house or the gay life of the Court, would
never have endured the rigid College rules of that day, which
seem indeed more suitable to schoolboys than undergraduates. 1
In 1571 the Vice-chancellor forbade even the innocent diversion
of swimming in any stream or pool in Cambridgeshire to all
members of the University- Probably the objection was to the
danger of the exercise, like that of climbing the toof of the chapel
in our own more adventurous age. Organized games and ath-
letics did not exist, and sports were either discouraged or for-
bidden. But since youth must be served somehow, no wonder
there was much breaking of rules, But there were rules to break;
there had been none to speak of in the medkeval University.
In an age of patronage, nepotism was inevitable, and Fellow*
ships were freely given to the sons or clients of wealthy and
powerful men, or of lawyers who would intrigue and work for the
College, The Colleges were growing rich, while the University-
remained poor. During Elizabeth's reign the Great Court of
her father's foundation of Trinity at Cambridge grew up as the
rival of Tom Quad at Christ Church.
A generation later, in the reign of James I, when Simon d'Ewes
studied at St John's, Cambridge, the chief undergraduate diver-
sions were walking, swimming (in spite of the prohibition I),
bell-pulling, running, pitching the bar, and football, which was
little better than tn excuse for a free fight in the backs between
two Colleges*
Mot of the students slept four or more in a room. The poorer
* IaBtiri>e&'ttimetttd*rgi*du^ rnnny wete two
or thn* you* yooogec, bat h WM hocomlng tnctxttringiy recognized that tuch boyi
i too yooog ft* tfat Kodk* </ the place.
4J
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
were usually destined fur the Church, the richer for the world.
The Dons who taught them were still compelled to take holy
orders, and even to refrain from marriage which was now legal-
ized for other clergymen. To that extent Oxford and Cambridge
remained clerical and even quasi-monastic, until the Gladstonian
legislation of the late Nineteenth Century. Daily attendance at
College Chapel was enforced on all
A number of the undergraduates, including Kit Marlowe at
Corpus, Cambridge* and Philip Sidney at Christ Church, Oxford,
[see 64] were interested in poetry and the drama, which played
so great a part in the life of those davs. Plays and interlude*,
some in I^tin, were often acted by the students, One elaborate
*rag,' played off on the town by the gown in 1597, wa$ recorded
by Fuller in his history of Cambridge University:
'The young scholars, conceiving themselves somewhat wronged by the
townsmen, betook them fur revenge to their wits. . , They composed
a merry but abusive comedy (which they called CM l**m) in English,
as calculated for the capacities of such whom they intended spectator*
thereof. Ckrc Hdl was the place wherein it was acted, and the Mayor
with his brethren and their wives were invited to behold it, or rather
themselves abused therein. A convenient place was assigned to the
townsfolk riveted in with scholars on all tides where they might see
nd be seen. Here they did behold themselves in their own clothes
(which the scholars had borrowed) so lively personated, their hibtts,
gestures, language, liegcr- jests and expression*, that it was hard to
decide which was the true townsman, whether he thai sat by or he
that acted on the stage Sit still they could not for chafing, go out they
could not, for crowding, but impatiently ptuem were fain to attend
till dismissed st the end of the comedy/
The Corporation, like all Englishmen in Tudor times who
felt themselves aggrieved, appealed for remedy to the Privy
Council. His Majesty's sage advisers gave indeed 'some slight
and private check to the principal acton* but, when the town
became importunate for their further punishment, put an end to
the matter by merrily proposing to come down in state to Cam-
bridge to see the play acted again and judge it on the spot.
This curious incident illustrates ooc ooly the traditional hos-
tility but the personal intimacy that then existed between town
and gown. Elizabethan Cambridge was a small community in
which all the leading characters were likely to be koown to ooe
STOURBRTDGE FAIR
another and to the double public of townsmen and under-
graduates. In 1586 there were 6500 inhabitants of Cambridge,
and of whom i joo belonged to the University.
A large proportion of the tradesmen cultivated a few acres each
in the town field beyond the Cam, and there were besides many
small farmers ('husbands') in the borough: the shops and farm
buildings on the street were timber-framed, of 'mud and stud/
hiding labyrinthine alleys and courtyards, of which relics still
survive behind the modern street-fronts of brick. Such was the
town in which Hobson the carrier inherited in 1568 a cart and
eight horses from his father, and from that slender beginning
built up a transport service of riding and wheeled traffic which
became famous throughout all East Anglia, enriched our lan-
guage with the expression 'Hobson's choice/ and the town of
Cambridge with Hobson's Conduit, and finally was immortalized
by two short poems of indifferent merit by young Mr. Milton of
Christ's.
Cambridge was scarcely more famous for its University than
for its Fair, held for three weeks in September on the stubble of
the town fields, between the Newmarket road and the river.
There North and South England exchanged goods, brought by
land and water. Streets of booths were erected > where the North
bought its hops and sold its wool and cloth. Traders from the
Netherlands and the Baltic and great merchants of London did
big business there in cloth, wool, salt-fish and corn. In days
before the commercial traveller, fairs of this kind were essential
to trade, and Stourbridge was the greatest In England : goods of
every kind, wholesale and retail, were sold; housewives, thrifty
and gay f came from far to furnish their houses or replenish their
cupboards and to see *the fun of the fair/ And there too were
many of the fanners and half the bailifis of East Anglia, The
strange thing to our modern notions is that the jurisdiction over
this vast annual hive of commerce lay with the University, Stour-
bridge Fair could not be begun till the Vice-chancellor had come
in full academic pomp and proclaimed it open.
The fit*t necessary condition of the recovery and growth of
national pioapeiity under Elizabeth, was an honest coinage. [See
41.] Her fitthcr, as recorded above, had left behind him untold
ttoobk by debasing the currency in the last years of his reign,
45
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
and so causing under Edward VI and Mary a leap in prices with
which neither wages nor fixed rents could keep pace. After the
'settling of religion* in iss9 Eli/abcth's next great action was an
equally bold grasp of the financial nettle. In September 1560 she
called in by proclamation the existing currency of debased coins,
to be paid for in new money at a rate somewhat below their
nominal value* The skill and success with which this danpcrous
operation was carried through, bore witness that the new Queen
and her Privy Council well understood the economic aspects of
government, wherein many otherwise great ruler* have gone
fatally astray, From that moment forward, prices steadied them-
selves. They continued to rise gradually throughout the reign,
and more rapidly under Jarnes and Charles I, because of the in-
creasing effect of new gold and silver from the mines of Spanish
America* But wages were now better able to keep pace, and rents
were gradually adjusting themselves as leases fell in. The steady,
but no longer catastrophic, rise in prices hdpcd trade and in-
dustry to prosper, to start new types of manufacture tnd to find
new markets, (See VoL I, pp. 115-116.)
A great expansion of mining of all sorts lead, copper, tin,
iron and coal marked the reign of Elizabeth. German miners
opened out copper and other diggings in various parts of the
remote I^ake District. The Mcndip hills yielded more and more
lead for export by the merchants of Bristol. The innumerable
small dn-mines of Cornwall tnd Devon flourished. Salt pans
multiplied. Our iron was recognized as the best in the world* In
1601 an enthusiast told the House of Commons that iron *ap-
petrcth to be a particular blessing of God given only to England,
for the defence thereof, for albeit most countries have their iron,
yet none of them all have iron of that toughness and validity to
make such ordnance of.* And the navy demanded not only
cannon but gunpowder, of which the ingredients were rail col*
Iccted at home, till the East India Company in Stuart time*
brought them back in greater quantities from the East* (See $ 4),
44.45-]
These Industrial activities were a drain on the timber of the
island, increasingly felt Iron, lead and the new manufacture of
glaas, all burnt vast quantities of wood or charcoal * As the woods
about here decay, 9 said a native of Worcester late In Elizabeth's
reign, 'to the glass booses remove and follow the woods with
46
FUEL, WOOD. COAL
small charge/ Salt-works, Camden noticed, had recently con-
sumed Feckenham Forest in Worcestershire. Even the forests of
the Weald, in Sussex, Surrey and Kent, which had supplied the
iron furnaces with charcoal for thousands of years, were running
short at last, owing to the drain on the timber made by the in
creased demand for iron, and by Kent's new agricultural industry
which required poles for the hops to climb and charcoal for the
oast-houses to burn, {See 43, 46, 47.]
Household warmth and cooking still depended normally on
wood fuel. The yearly increase of shipping, and men's now clear
perception that the fbture of England lay on the sea, made it
needftil but difficult to maintain growing timber within reach of
the docks. Already it was noted that in the lands near the sea, even
as far away as Pembrokeshire, *the woods are consumed and the
ground converted to corn and pasture/ No doubt there were
trees enough in the island to supply all its furnaces, hearths and
shipyards a while longer, if all the timber in the realm could have
been used* But it could not, The horse-transport of that day and
the soft state of the roads made it economically and even physically
impossible to move great masses of timber for any distance, ex-
cept by water. In many upland districts, therefore, particularly
in the West, the 'youthful poet* of II Ptnssroso could still find
untouched primaeval woodlands
4 Of pine or monumental oak,
Where the rude axe with heaved stroke
Was never heard the Nymphs to daunt
Or fright them from their hallowed haunt,*
while in other districts the disappearance of wood fuel gave the
cottager a cold hearth and a bttstd-and-cheese diet, and sorely
restricted the output of the manufacturer. Indeed, works had
often to be moved to some place where timber could still be
found Ironworks were destined soon to invade and consume
the Forest of Arden*
Under these conditions of increasing wood shortage, coal
came more and more into use under Elizabeth, both for house-
hold purposes and for manufacture. But the difficulty of carriage
Ifrnfrftd the supply of coal to regions near the pits or near to
navigable water. 'Sea-coal' as it was called from its method of
transport, was in general use in London and the Thames valley,
47
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
and among other coastwise and riverside populations, as along
Trent, Severn and Humber, Chimneys and hearths originally
constructed for wood fuel had to be remade, and until this was
done the 'sulphurous* fumes were a constant nuisance, The great
increase of chimneys in Elizabeth's reign was largely due to the
increased use of coal. The manufacture of cast-iron fire-backs for
coal fires became an important part of the work of the Sussex
forges. [See 46,] An attempt to smelt iron with coal was made
at this period, but proved premature* Many other trades already
*A new kind of coaT in 1618
used coal where it could be got cheap. In 1J78 it was said that
brewers, dyers, hat-makers and others 'have long since altered
their furnaces and fiery places, and turned the same to the use tod
burning of sea-coal.'
Not only London but the Netherlands and other foreign ptm
were supplied from Tyneside and Durham. Much of the cod
went abroad in foreign bottoms, but the tiU greater trade Co
London was carried on by fleets of 'colliers' from Tyne. The
inadequacy of roads compelled everyone to send heavy goods of
all sorts by sea or river as far as possible, and even at the end of
the Queen's reign the coastwise trade of England was more than
four times as great as the growing export trade*
The two chief nurseries of English seamen were the 'colliers'
plying between the Northern ports and London, and the fisher-
men of Cornwall and Devon, many of whom ventured to the
foggy shores of Newfoundland for cod No less important waa
the growth in Tudor times of the herring-fleets of the East Coast*
Camden noted the size of Yarmouth, the ootport of Norwich,
now outstripping its rival Lynn, 'for it seems incredibk what A
FISHERMEN AND VlSH DAYS*
great and throng fair is here at Michaelmas, and what quantities
of herring and other fish are vended.*
The fishermen were favourites of government, because they
so often helped to man the mercantile and royal navies. Laws
were passed ordering the observance of 'fish days': none of the
Queen's subjects were to eat meat during Lent, or on Fridays
sometimes Wednesdays were added. It was expressly stated that
the object was not religious but political to maintain our sea-
faring population, to revive decayed coast towns, and to prevent
the too great consumption of beef and mutton which resulted in
the conversion of arable into pasture- These fish laws were en-
forced by actual penalties. In 1563 we read of a London woman
being pilloried for having flesh in her tavern during Lent. In
1571 we find the Privy Council busy with returns from Justices
of the Peace as to enforcement of this law in various counties.
Since people had been accustomed for centuries to observe, more
or less, the fasts of the Church, it was relatively easy to prolong
the fish-eating habit into a new age for purposes of State. The
*fish days* may not have been always observed in upland districts
where it was difficult to get fresh fish from the sea, but no doubt
salt fish was sent far inland; even in Northants and Bucks the
Justices of i s 71 were busy enforcing the law. It helped to prolong
the use of the stews and fishponds which had been so common in
the mediaeval countryside, and of which the dry beds are still to
be observed near many an old manor-house* [See 48*]
In this and every other way, Secretary Cecil strove to maintain
the seafaring population and shipping of the country. He ex-
empted seamen from military service on land; and he enforced
Navigation Laws against foreign ships, particularly in the coasting
trade. The English marine could cot yet carry the whole of
English exports, but the Navigation Laws were aiming in that
direction,
In the reign of Elizabeth, under the vigorous leadership of
Cedl and the Privy Council backed by Parliament, the industrial,
commercial and social system of the country wta brought under
national instead of municipal control
In the Middle Ages each locality, through its town council or
craft gilds, had decided questions of wages and prices; the rela-
tions of master, apprentice and journeyman; the right to trade
49 4
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
in a place; and the conditions under which trade should there be
carried on. In the Fourteenth Century national control had begun
to impinge upon municipal control, when Edward Ill's foreign
policy in France and the Netherlands had affected the whole
course of English trade, and when the Statute of Labourers had
vainly attempted to fix a maximum wage for the whole country.
Under Elizabeth the national control of wages and prices by
the Justices of the Peace was more wisely carried on, without
attempting to impose everywhere a fixed maximum wage. At
the same time, municipal control of conditions of trade and in-
dustry was replaced by State control. The reasons for this great
change were various : the decay of many towns and the spread
of industry into the country districts where there was no muni-
cipal authority; the decline of the craft gilds, which had received
their coup <k gr&c* in the confiscatory legislation of Edward VI
against gild property; the growth of the power of the Crown,
working through Privy Council and Parliament; and the joyous
sense -of nationhood which inspired the Elizabethan English.
A man no longer felt his first loyalty owing to his town, his gild,
or his *good lord,* but to his Queen and country,
Under these circumstances the Elizabethan State undertook
the control not only of wages and prices, but of apprenticeship,
of the right to set up trade and the conditions under which it
must be carried oa In these matters the substitution of national
policies for the narrower interests of individual towns and gilds
gave freer play to the initiative of individuals and to the operations
of the capitalist employer and merchant
The Elizabethan State was more liberal than naott towns and
gilds in encouraging the settlement of the foreign immigrant; be
was usually a Protestant refugee, and be often brought new skill
and new processes of manufacture into the land of refuge,
Economic nationalism, as Interpreted by the Tudon, gave greater
liberty to the individual, freeing him from the local jealousies that
usually inspired municipal policy.
But this economic liberty was not unconditional Idsst^fmrt.
The State that gave the individual RnglUhm^ or Huguenot the
right to manufacture and to trade, laid down rules that he had to
obey in the interests of the public And the craftaman whom he
employed was placed under the diHpHof of a fttdootl iptem of
JO
APPRENTICESHIP. OVERSEAS ENTERPRISE
The Statute of Artificers (1563) enacted that every craftsman
in town or country had for seven years to learn his craft under a
master who was responsible for him. The object was quite as
much social and educational as it was economic. 'Until a man
grow into 23 years/ it was said, *he for the most part, though not
always is wild, without judgment and not of sufficient experience
to govern himself/ After the age of 24, having served his
apprenticeship, he was at liberty to marry, and cither to set up
a business of his own, or to become a journeyman for hire.
The good or bad working of apprenticeship varied greatly with
the character of the master. There must have been many hard
cases, with some of which the Justices of the Peace, who were
responsible for the granting of the indentures, were able to inter-
fere, as in the case recorded in the third chapter of Oliver Twist.
But, on the whole, the relation of master and apprentice at once
domestic, educational and economic served the purposes of
society well- For centuries apprenticeship was the school of
Englishmen. It was the very practical answer made by our
ancestors to the ever-present problems of technical education and
the difficult 'after-school age/ Apprenticeship continued until,
in the Nineteenth Century, the Industrial Revolution destroyed
it, and substituted, in the first instance, a /aisss%foire chaos by no
means to the advantage of the uncared-for youth of the land.
The situation so created has scarcely yet been made good.
But, after all, the greatest social change in Elizabeth's England
was the expansion of overseas enterprise. In her reign our
merchants found new and mote distant markets, some of them on
the other side of the globe, in place of that commerce with the
Netherlands and France which had from time immemorial
furnished the principal vent of English goods. Corresponding to
the change of markets was the change of mental outlook, In
Court and City, in Parliament and manor-house, in workshop and
field-farrow, talk ran upon the ocean and the new lands beyond
It, on Drake and Frobisher and Raleigh, on the romance and
profit of the explorer's and privateer's life, on sea-power as
England's wealth and safety, on the prospect of colonization as a
means of personal betterment and national strength. What was
the lots of Calais beside all this? Let the dead past bury its dead.
[See 5 1, J4-]
5*
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
Englishmen looked forward to new things. The most in-
fluential writer in the age of Shakespeare, if it were not Foxe the
Martyrologist, was Hakluyt, author of The Prhxipall Xe&igathns,
Voiages and Discoveries ofi/jf English Nation. That book was pub-
lished in the year after the Armada, and ten years later it was
enlarged and brought up to date in three magnificent volumes,
HakJuyt, in narrating the deeds of our explorers and seamen,
directed across the ocean the thoughts of adventurous youth, of
scholars, statesmen and merchants and of all who had money to
invest. Even up-country squires and farmers began to dream of
boundless expanses of virgin soil, waiting since the dawn of time
to be broken by the English plough.
In the lifetime of Elizabeth no colony was successfully planted,
though Sir Humphrey Gilbert tried in Newfoundland and Raleigh
in Virginia, But the expediency of occupying the temperate
regions of North America became a familiar doctrine of State,
As early as 1584 Hakluyt had won the Queen's favour and
patronage by urging it in his Distows* of Wtstern Planting? Mean-
while the actual achievement of the reign in Atlantic sea-power
and exploration made ready the path for the folk-wandering of
the English people that began in the next generation.
The character of the war with Spain, and ehc limited and
peculiar use to which our victory was turned in the years after the
Armada, proved fundamental to the future development of
English-speaking lands, and impressed a special character on
England herself. The triumph of Elizabeth's subjects over the
Spaniards was not a military conquest organucd by an Alexander,
a Pizarro or a Napoleon* Elizabeth had little in common with
those heroes, or with her famous predecessor Henry V: though
the tale of Agincourt berattled the common stages and made
Englishmen proudly conscious of their past greatness, no one
desired to renew such conquests on the continent, or even to find
a new field for them in Spanish America* The victory over the
Spaniards was merely the establishment oft naval superiority of
our ships over theirs, through the co-operation of individual
imtktive with a thrifty and cautious policy of State, Drake's idea
of glory was not Caesar's. He wanted no inch of Spanish soil
in the old world or the new. His objects were booty, trade,
freedom to sail the seas and to worship God aright, and ultimately
to colonize empty lands where the Red Indian nomad would be
5*
THE SEA-WAR AND ITS EFFECTS
the only person aggrieved. If Elizabeth's subjects had been less
averse to taxation and more in love with the glories of war, the
energy that afterwards peopled North America might have been
misdirected to the conquest and development of the tropical
colonies of Spain. But our sea-victory was not thus abused.
If indeed our triumph over Spain had been won by great
armies carried by the fleet, as the Spaniards had intended their
victory of the Armada to be achieved; if Spanish colonies had
been subjected by force to English rule, then the United States,
Canada and Australia that we know to-day might never have
come into existence. And in all probability the character of such
a military effort would have diverted English society and politics
in a martial and monarchial direction. 1
The Elizabethan sea- war had the opposite influence; it pro-
moted a tendency towards freedom. The possession of a royal
navy does not enable the monarch to hold down his subjects, as
a royal army may do. In England there was no royal army, and
in the Civil War of Charles I, the royal navy actually took the side
of Parliament I The other element of the new English sea-power
was private enterprise the action of Drake, Hawkins and their
like in American watcrs> and the merchant companies formed in
London to push trade into distant parts of the world: these
activities fostered the spirit of self-reliance and self-government*
These novel elements in English society the new City com-
panies and the fighting seamen exercised a great influence over
the country as a whole. Drake and his rivals and companions
became the national heroes. They and the capitalist merchants
who backed them were strong Protestants, the more so as their
enemies were the Spaniards, and ft common result of capture was
death by torture in the hands of the Inquisition. Their allies were
the French Huguenots from Rochelle and the Dutch Sea-beggars,
u-ith many a talc to tell of the tender mercies of Alva and Guise.
This rough set-fellowship, which saved the world from Philip
and the auto-da-fa was inspired by a fighting religion of Protest-
antism which reacted powerfully on English landsmen. The
seamen who beat Spain were rough customers, no respecters of
1 It Is true tbtt In 1759 French Canada wat conquered tad annexed, but by that
time the free character of the British polity at home and oretvets had been fixed.
In Elizabethan and Stout time* our political and *odal constitution waa still fiexibk
aod might lave mored either towardt or away from freedom.
55
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
persons in Church or State, but faithful to their proved captains,
of whom the greatest was the Queen. They took their lives in
thek hands, and few of them survived many years the chances of
battle, shipwreck and sea accident, and the terrible epidemics that
raged in die ill-provisioned ships of the period, where food was
rotten and the noles of hygiene were unknown.
During the Tudor reigns England changed her national
weapon. She laid aside the long-bow and acquired the broadside,
The long-bow, that had rendered her soldiers superior to all
others in Europe, had lured her into a hundred years of military
adventure in France. The broadside the rows of cannon pro-
truding between the timbers showed her a better way t along
the paths of the ocean to new knds. By the broadside, sea warfare
was completely changed. It ceased to be a game of soldiers
seeking to grapple thek ship to the enemy and fight deck to deck
as if on land; it became, instead, a game of sailors, nunceuvring
thek ship so as to fire her cannon with most effect The ship
ceased to be a platform for a storming party and became a
moving battery of guns,
This change in the character of warfare at sea was better under-
stood and more quickly exploited by the English than by their
enemies. The Spaniards had Mediterranean traditions connected
with the oared galley and the grappling of ship to ship. As late as
i jyi they fought the great battle against the Turks at Lc panto, by
sea tactics the same as those by which the Greeks had defeated
the Persians at Sakmis. These ancient and honourable traditions
hampered Spanish seamanship, even after Philip improvised an
ocean-going navy to conquer England in the Atlantic and the
channel His Armada was, in its real spirit, an army embarked;
the soldiers outnumbered and bullied the sailors, regarding them
as mechanic drudges, whose privilege it wts to bring the gallant
soldado to grips with his enemies.
But in the English Beet commanded by Howard, Frobisher,
Hawkins, Drake the Admiral and his Cup^iflf were f^mCT
and they were in full command of everyone on board The
soldiers were few and knew their place at tea* Drake, on his
voyage round the world (1577-1)80) had established the rule
that even the gentleman volunteer must haul at the ropes with
the mariner. The discipline and equality of the crew at set was
accepted by the RngOfrHttw^ while the Spaniard could not lay
54
THE ELIZABETHAN NAVY
aside his military and aristocratic pride even to save the ship. It
was a social difference between the countries, translated into
terms of war. 1
In the twenty years before the coming of the Armada, ocean
sailing and the tactics of the broadside had been perfected by
English seamen, who learnt their trade in various capacities in
service in the royal ships, as merchants, as explorers, and as
privateers. These parts could be easily combined or interchanged.
The fighting merchantship, accustomed to defend herself and to
force her trade on all the waters of the world, took a large share
in the battle against the Armada. But without the Queen's own
professional warships the victory could not have been won.
[See jo, 52, 53.]
Henry VHI had founded the royal navy. Under Edward VI
and Mary it had been permitted to decay. Under Elizabeth it
was revived, Yet during the first twenty years of her reign im-
provement in the royal dockyards was slow. Elizabeth inherited
a bankrupt State, and she dared not lay heavy taxes on her im-
patient and obstinate subjects. Her proverbial parsimony, though
sometimes applied in the wrong place, was as a general rule
necessary to the bare survival of her government Moreover,
what money she was able to squeeze out for the navy was much
of it grossly ill spent Cecil and the vigilant Privy Council kcked
not the will but the technical knowledge to detect and reform the
traditional corruption of the shipyards. Then, in a fortunate hour
(1578), Elizabeth put John Hawkins in charge of the building
and upkeep of her ships. During the decade before the coming
of open war, which the Queen had so long and so wisely post-
poned, Hawkins did as great a work in the dockyards as Drake on
the Pacific and Atlantic coasts.
The Queen's money was at kst honestly spent for full value
received. But Hawkins did more than stop corruption. This
great public servant, who in his trading and privateering days
between Africa and Spanish America had had experience second
only to Drake's, well understood what kind of ships he ought to
build for the new kind of warfare. His critics, clinging to the
* Hawkins and long race of successor* carried negro sltve*, crimped on the
cotst of Africa, to the Spanish Colonies of America. But the English seamen as
among themselves h*d the spirit of freedom. They always regarded with horror the
oat of gaBcy alaves ty French aod Spaniard** That was not the English idea of the
way in wiocn a acup should be awtnoed*
53
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
ideas of an older school, clamoured for vessels with a high super-
structure, impregnable to assault but difficult to manoeuvre, afford-
ing houseroom for crowds of soldiers who would consume the
stores. Hawkins would have no more of such castles. In spite of
protest, he built the Queen's ships low, long in proportion to their
beam, easy to handle and heavily gunned. Such a ship was the
Revenge, destined many years later to justify her designers when she
fought the Spanish navy for a day and a night. [Sec 65 , 66.]
The English merchants, in seeking out more distant markets,
were encouraged by the new potentialities of seamanship, and
inspired by the adventurous spirit of the age; but they were also
compelled along the new course by the closing of old markets
nearer home. The loss of Calais, where the wool Staple had
functioned for so many generations past, occurred a few months
before Elizabeth ascended the throne. It was a blow to English
wool-exporters from which they never fully recovered, as the
general trend of things was against them and in favour of their
rivals, the manufacturers and merchants of cloth. {See 49- J
After the loss of Calais there still remained the yet more
ancient trade centres of Bruges and Antwerp in the Netherlands,
as marts of English wool and cloth. But in the next few years
that opening also was dosed, The quarrel of the young Elisabeth
and her Privy Council with Granvelle, then governing the
Netherlands for Philip of Spain, arose from a diversity of political,
religious and economic motives, English piracy in the channel;
English friendship with the Protestants in the cities where they
traded, encouraged by the magistrates and people of Antwerp;
Spanish intolerance of heretical foreigners, all played their part
in the breach. But no less important was the economic clash of
the two mercantilist policies of Granvelle and Elizabeth. Each
side believed that the other was at its mercy. Granvelle was sure
that if the English were forbidden to sell their cloth in the
Netherlands they would not be able to sell it anywhere else, and
must perforce be content to bring their raw wool to be wrought
on the looms of the Netherlands. The English were *ure that
the Netherlands could not Sourish without English trade*
The quarrel came to a head in die first decade of Elisabeth's
reign, twenty years before actual war broke oat between England
and Spain. Excluded from the Netherlands, the English doth
NEW MARKETS
merchants moved in 1567 to Hamburg as their port of entry into
Europe, only to be driven thence ten years later by the mercantilist
jealousy of the Hanse Towns. 1
These changes of market caused much distress and periodic
unemployment in the cloth manufacture at home, but gradually
new markets were found further afield. New trading Companies
were formed in London which successfully pushed trade into
Russia, Prussia, the Baltic, Turkey and the Levant. Persia was
first reached by way of the Russian river system, and finally India
by way of the Cape of Good Hope, In 1600 the old Queen
granted a charter to the East India Company, destined to an
economic and political future surpassing all the tales of romance.
These new world-wide adventures rescued the trade of England
from the otherwise inevitable consequences of the loss of her old
markets on the coast opposite to her own shores. The change-
over was rendered possible by the adventurous spirit of the
capitalists of the City of London, by the quality of the new school
of sailors and sea-captains, and by the enterprise of English
explorers by land as well as sea.
Already in 1589, Hakluyt in dedicating to Walsingham the
first edition of his Viyqffs 9 had proudly written:
'Which of the Kings of this land before Her Majesty, had their banners
ever seen in the Caspian Sea? Which of them hath ever dealt with the
Emperor of Persia as her Majesty hath done, and obtained for her
merchants large, and loving privileges? Who ever saw, before this
regiment, an English Ligier in the stately porch of the Grand Signor
at Constantinople ? Who ever found English Consuls and Agents at
Tripoli in Syria, at Aleppo, at Babylon, at Balsara, and, which is more,
who ever heard of Englishmen at Goa before now ? What English
ship did heretofore ever anchor in the mighty river of Plate ? Pass and
repaas the unptsstble (in former opinion) strait of Magellan, range
along the coast of Chili, Peru and ill the backside of Nova Hispania,
further than any Christian ever passed, traverse the mighty breadth of
the South Sea, land upon the Luaonee, in despite of the enemy, enter
into alliance* tmity and traffic with the Princes of Moluccas, and the
isle of Java, double the famous Cape of Bona Speranza, arrive at the
ble of St. Helena, tad last of gll return home richly laden with the
commodities of China, as the tubjects of this now flourishing monarch
have done ?*
* a B, Rkh, Tbt Onto*** &* tf Ab M*rtb*ts tftb S**pk (i95?) <&*P< IV, tells
tfat ttocy oftbe katt of cbc Nethftritndt market red itt cootequeoco.
J7
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
By the end of Elizabeth's reign not only was English com-
merce and finance thus reviving and expanding on a modern
basis, but her ancient rivals were in rapid decline*
The withdrawal of English trade might not by itself have
proved fatal to the prosperity of the Spanish Netherlands, but
there followed the appalling religious persecutions and wars of
'The habit of taking tobacco in 1
was very general by the time the
Alva's rule* The complex of these events put an eod to the
supremacy which Antwerp had long held in the trade and finance
of Europe. Amsterdam and the other towns of the rebel Dutch
republic rose instead* Ere long the Dutch seamen were to be
chief rivals of the English in ail the waters of the world; bat
to the subjects of Elizabeth the Dutch mariners were more
important as allies in war than as rivals in trade.
Meanwhile the merchant cities of Italy were being rained by
the increasing difficulties of the overland trade-routes to the
DECAY OF GILD SYSTEM
East, and by the rivalry of the Cape route, which they left to the
Portuguese, Dutch and English. Italian traders abandoned the
big field of world competition. Venetian merchants ceased to
visit England in quest of Cots wold wool. In 1587 the last of the
argosies sent by Venice to Southampton was wrecked off the
Needles; with her sank the mediaeval system of trade and all
that it had meant to Italy and to England. Southampton, which
had been the Italian depot, declined, and London was further
enriched, as the trade with the Mediterranean and the Far East
now entered the Thames in English ships.
In the following century, tobacco played a great part in English
colonial and commercial expansion and in the trade of Bristol.
There were as yet no English colonies, but already in 1597 the
new American weed was being smuggled into the creeks of
Cornwall on a large scale, by French, Flemish and Cornish ships,
in open and armed defiance of the custom-house officers. The
habit of taking tobacco in long clay pipes was very general by
the time the Queen died.
The expansion of overseas enterprise was closely connected
with the growth of merchant capitalism, inimical to the old
municipal and gild system.
*The guild system [writes Mr. Fay] was not favourable to capital
accumulation. In their technique and the ordering of their life the
merchants and craftsmen of the Middle Ages surpassed perhaps the
centuries which followed. But the guild outlook was municipal and
its structure inelastic, and therefore it gave way to a system which lent
itself to expansion and change. This we call merchant capitalism, with
its complement domestic industry. The merchant capitalist was a
middleman who broke down ancient barriers* He defied corporate
towns by giving out work to the country, and evaded the monopolies
of privileged companies by interloping. , He committed excesses,
but he was the life-blood of economic growth/ l
This movement of merchant capitalism athwart the old muni-
cipal and gild system had been apparent in the wool trade as early
as the age of Chaucer* In Elizabeth's reign it took another great
step forward in the rise of oversea trading Companies of ft new
type. They were of two kinds. First the 'regulated company/
in which each member traded on his own capital, subject to
the common rules of the Corporation; such were the Merchant
1 C R. Fay, Gn*t Brfatofrm A&a* 5*itb to tf* Pwv*S Day, p. 1*7.
59
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
Adventurers, who had a great past as well as a great future as
exporters of cloth; the Eastland or Baltic, the Russia, and the
Levant Companies, The other class was joint-stock the East
India Company; the African; and two generations later the
Hudson's Bay. In this second class, trade was conducted by the
corporation as a whole, and the profits and losses were divided
among the shareholders.
To each of these companies, whether regulated or joint-stock,
a geographical sphere of operations was assigned by royal chartcr >
and no 'interloper* from England might trade therein. Such
monopoly was both just and necessary, because of the expenses
in the way of forts, establishments and armaments which the
Companies had to maintain; for the royal navy could offer them
no protection in distant waters. These Elizabathan companies
were in many respects similar in their privileges and functions to
the 'Chartered Company* that helped to develop and disturb the
interior of Africa late in Victoria's reign, That was, perhaps, an
age too late for such political and military powers to be wisely
entrusted to a private group of the Queen's subjects as Jame-
son's raid showed But under Elizabeth there was no other way
of promoting distant trade, and if the Company mismanaged its
policy in distant lands, its members suffered but the English
State was not involved in the consequences.
These great London companies, only very slightly dependent
on the State, worked under conditions which fostered the spirit
of private enterprise, self-government and self-reliance. Supreme
as was the ultimate importance of these corporations in the history
of India and North America, their influence at home was alto
very great on the development of the English character and on
social and political change, as the history of Stuart and Hanoverian
times was to show. A generation after the death of Elizabeth, the
traveller Peter Mundy noted as one of the 'seven things wherein
England may be said to excel, traffic and discoveries, viz, to many
incorporated companies of merchants for foreign trade, who
employ their study and means for the increase thereof, by ad-
venturing their goods and sundry fleets and ships into most parts
of the known world/ 1 Mediaeval England had been 'tnded
(chtefijr EiiatbetbtG) of these
h '
THE ELIZABETHAN THEATRE
with' by Italians, French and Germans; Elizabethan England
herself traded with remote shores. Commercially we had ceased
to be the anvil; we had become the hammer.
To remote posterity the memorable fact about Elizabethan
England will be that it produced the pkys of Shakespeare. It is
not merely that the greatest of mankind happened to be born
A pedlar and ballad-monger
in that age. His work would never have been produced in any
other period than those late Elizabethan and early Jacobean times
in which it was his luck to live. He could not have written as he
did, if the men and women among whom his days were passed
had been other than they were, in habits of thought, life and
speech, or if the London theatres in the years just after the
Armada had not reached a certain stage of development, ready
to his shaping hand, [See 60.]
It WES no accident that Shakespeare's pkys were more poetry
than prose, for the audience he addressed, as indeed the common
English in town and country alike, were accustomed to poetry
as the vehicle of story-telling, entertainment, history and news of
contemporary incidents and sensations. Not newspapers and
novels but ballads and songs were hawked about by Autolycus
61
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
and his comrades to satisfy the common appetite in the city street
and on the village green. Ballads were multiplied and sold, many
thousand of them, each with a story from the Bible, or classical
myths and histories, mediaeval legend or happenings of the day,
whether the Armada, the Gunpowder Plot or the latest murder
or runaway match. And lyrics and lovesongs, of which the words
survive as masterpieces of literature in our modern anthologies,
were sung as the common music and sentiment of the people*
Under these conditions, in the twenty years before Shake-
speare's first plays were acted, a new drama had suddenly grown
up, with a new school of playwrights of whom Marlowe was the
chief, and companies of highly-trained actors, taking their pro-
fession with a high seriousness. To the mediaeval clown and
barn-stormer outheroding Herod had been added men of subtler
art, of whom Burbage ere long became the most notable; these
men carried the art of interpretative acting to its height, and with
them were boy apprentices, strictly trained from childhood to
take the women's parts with dignity, gaiety and skill.
In the middle years of Elizabeth a way to wealth and honour
had been opened to the actor and the playwright. The travelling
companies had the patronage of literary noblemen, whose castles
and manors they visited as welcome guests, acting in hill or
gallery, like the players who had such princely entertainment tt
Elsinore. But even better *both for reputation and profit* were
the theatres built in the meadows on the Southwark bank of
Thames, to play before the motley and critical audience of the
capital; while citizens with their wives, and apprentices with
their sweethearts, walked over London Bridge to see the play,
men of rank and fashion came over by boat from Whitehall, and
sharp young lawyers from the Inns of Court,
The performances were given in the day-time; there was
neither curtain nor footlights. The front of the stage was in the
open air. The most privileged of the audience tat on 'stools*
almost among the actors. The 'groundlings' stood below, gaping
up at the spectacle, exposed to ndn and son. The covered
galleries, that enclosed die Vooden O* of the theatre, were also
full of folk. Here then were gathered together several classes of
society, differing from one another, more or less, in tastes and
education. It was Shakespeare's business to please diem aH (See
S i, *, *J
61
SHAKESPEARE AND HIS AUDIENCE
When he first knew this exacting audience, they were eager for
plot and pageant, noise and knock-about, gross clowning and
bouts of courtly and learned wit, and music of the best, for the
English had then the finest songs and music in Europe; and they
were eager too, as the ordinary modern audience is not, for the
rhetoric of poetry as a vehicle for play and passion. All these
things Marlowe and his fellow labourers had supplied, creating
in a few years the new drama that Shakespeare found ready to
his hand. He accepted the tradition, and in twenty more years
expanded it into something far greater than the most consummate
of public entertainments.
His poetry was of a yet higher strain than Marlowe's 'mighty
line/ and he invented a prose dialogue as subtle, as powerful,
and sometimes as lovely and harmonious as his verse. He made
both forms the vehicles not only of beauty, terror, wit and high
philosophy, but of a thing new in the drama, the presentation of
individual characters, in place of the types and personified passions
that had hitherto held the stage. Even the plot, even the action,
became subordinate to the character, as in Hamkt> and yet the
play pleased- So real were his men and women that we are for
ever discussing them as if they had a life of their own off the
scene. Indeed, for two hundred years past his plays have lived
even more in the study than on the stage. Yet pkys they are,
even when acted in the theatre of the mind; and only the stage
can give them full force, though too often it mars them* It is
to the Elizabethan theatre that we owe Shakespeare and all that
he created. For that let praise be given to the theatre and to
the Elizabethans.
The social historian of to-day cannot really describe the people
of the past; the most be can do is to point out some of the con-
ditions under which they lived But if he cannot show what out
ancestors were like, ShaJcespeare can. In his pages we can study
the men and women of those times. More, for instance, can be
found out i0 his plays about the real relations of the two sexes,
the poeition and character of Elizabethan women, than could
possibly be expressed in a social history,
As our study of the English scene emerges from mediaeval
into modern rimes, we obtain in increasing profusion that aid
of which Chaucer gave us a foretaste, the literature and fiction
thftt described men and women of the writer's own time, their
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
habits of thought, speech and conduct contemporary impres-
sions which have by the passage of years become historical
documents of priceless value. At the same time, intimate diaries
and memoirs become common in the Seventeenth Century, like
those of Evelyn, Pepys and, later, BoswelTs Johnson. These, and
the English drama, and the novels of Fielding, Jane Austen,
Trollope and a hundred others help social history in just that
region where legal and economic documents stop short.
All who crave to know what their ancestors were like, will
find an inexhaustible fount of joy and instruction in literature,
to which time has added an historical interest not dreamt of by
the authors. These are the 'books, the arts, the academes' of the
social study of the past, and the greatest of them all is Shakespeare.
BOO FOR PURTHK* RjUOtNO
Besides those mentioned in the text above, Dtrby,
(1936) Chap. X; MUs Taylor's CtmMs H^fW; Jtmc* Williamson Tbi Aft t>/
Drab (1958) and J. Corbett'a DrakMexdil* ftdbr N*?; W. Cunningham, C.rv+tbtj
Ert&M Irubutry end Comimrt*: Mtftr* Timfj t Pan I; Upton, /. Mil. */ B^hn^
Vol. II, III, A& of Mtrtanttlim (1934); Gnnvakr- Barker, Prtftrtj tf 5^4r//w*rr md
liny V to Hetmltt (British Academy Lecture, 192)); JTM/ Eiqfmil, Vol. II (cd*
H. D, Ttttill); Blomftcld, Short Hutory ofR/**ss**a Artbtobn m H^f^W; J, U.
Nef k Tb< RJJ< ettbt British Co*l I*Aaty For PJinhcihan bdl*a tec the fint
in Sir Cbules Finh's poathumotitiy publubed Efs^fj (Oxford (99*); Rowte,
Cornwall 1 1941 ; Mildred C&mpell (Protestor in Vam* CoUegt), Tit E*iuk Y
vndrr Eltybtb **d it* Early Stmrts (Yak Prcw 1941),
$45 "A great expansion of mining of all sorts"
$44 "These indtutriiladMtfc
s ft data apoa the
$45 **Gerasa minen opened out .
THF BLANCHES Of THE fTATVTE
$48 Observance of Fish days
jo The Ark K.ya/ flagship against the Armada
$51 Sir Water Kaldgh
*Ch *0d tacking gtw**d of the Spanish fleet
1* AttMtlL TteSpriahflMt (Wring boa driven
?H' f &t*Jr
r * **
*. *** *&
^ i*
^
V
vJ
the fttflto} titkder contioul English fire off the Goodwins
54 Sir Fnnds Dnke
GENERA1X HISTORIE
$f |'<GoMtt*i<x> wider three reigns
56 Peace with Spain and the Netherlands.
The Somerset House Conference, 1604
57 Virgmtt(<-. 1590)
.a
Cd
\Scn\ tv iKr EAST INDIA Co nip-Hiv
UNITED PROVINCES
to tlu*
JD TARTAR CHAM or HPrj&OVF <
C H I N
Chapter Three
THE ENGLAND OF CHARLES AND CROMWELL
The beginning of Colonial expansion. East India Company. Fen Draining.
Social conditions and consequences of the Great Rebellion. Household Life.
(James I f 1603-1625. Charles I, 1625-1649.
Long Parliament meets f 1640. Outbreak of Civil War> 1642.
Oliver Cromwell, 'Protector, 1653-1658.)
IN the realm of social and economic history, the period of the
Stuart Kingship in England up to the outbreak of the Great
Rebellion may be regarded as an uneventful prolongation of the
Elizabethan era,, under conditions of peace and safety instead of
domestic danger and foreign war. Agriculture, industry and
commerce all continued very much in the manner described in the
two preceding chapters. A rural society, in which landowner-
ship, opportunity and modest wealth were widely distributed,
gave ample scope and importance to the country gentlemen of
large and of small estates, and to the freehold and leasehold
yeomen. But there were hard times for many, partly owing to
the rise of prices. Industry and commerce moved forward on
the lines laid down in Tudor times. The companies founded in
the reign of Elizabeth for trading to distant parts of the world
grew in wealth and influence, and with them grew London, out-
stripping other cities more completely than before in population,
wealth, and all the attributes of power* In the country at large,
the apprentice system* the poor law, the regulation of wages and
prices, the economic and administrative functions of the Justices
of the Peace under the control and stimulus of the Privy Council,
were all much the same on the day when the Long Parliament
met as on the day when Queen Elisabeth died. No industrial,
agricultural or soda! change of importance took pkce in England
during the forty years when the Parliamentary and Puritan Revo-
lution was germinating beneath the soil of an apparently stable
and settled society,
The slow pace of change in the economic and social life of
England ia the first forty years of the new century was but little
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
accelerated by the union of the English and Scottish Monarchies
in the person of Elizabeth's successor. The peoples, Parliaments,
laws, Churches and commercial systems of the two Kingdoms
remained for another century as separate and as different as before.
Nor did any exchange of population result from the union of the
Crowns. Scotland was too poor to attract, too jealous to wel-
come immigrants from England. When James Sixth of Scotland
and First of England moved from Holyrood to Whitehall in
1603, he was accompanied or followed by a crowd of courtiers
and needy adventurers, the first trickle of the great stream of
Scots who have since come across the Border to seek their
fortunes. But it was long before that stream swelled to propor-
tions of national significance. Several generations were to pass
before Scottish farmers, mechanics, gardeners, administrators,
physicians and philosophers came swarming south, bringing
with them skill, industry and knowledge sufficient to affect the
life and increase the prosperity of England* Throughout the
Seventeenth Century it was not to Scotland but to Holland that
Englishmen looked for new ideas in religion, politics, agriculture,
land-draining, gardening, commerce, navigation, philosophy,
science and art*
Nor, under the Stuart Kings, did English thought and practice
greatly affect the Scots, whose pride took quick alarm at influences
emanating from their too powerful neighbour, Scottish religion
had clothed herself in a strongly woven garment of native fabric,
and was equally inimical to Anglicanism with its Prayer Book
and to English Puritanism with its unorthodox sects. So, too,
the peculiar spirit of Scottish society, feudal in the personal
loyalty of the vassal to his lord, but equalitarian in the human
intercourse between classes, was utterly unintelligible to the
English mind until Sir Walter Scott's novels retrospectively
afforded the key.
In overseas trade the merchants of the two countries were still
rivals, the purse-proud English everywhere betting the upper
hand, and shutting out the Scots from foreign and colonial
markets to the best of their power, At home the two peoples
glowered at each other across the pacified border. Three hundred
years of periodic warfare might be brought to an end by the union
of the Crowns, but the long tradition of mutual injury and revenge
from Falkirk aod Bannockbum to Flodden aad Pinkie Oeagh,
66
COLONIZATION
had left animosities that took long to abate. In the civil and
religious troubles of Stuart times, English and Scottish parties,
Churches and soldiers often acted together for Parliament or
for King, but the more they saw of one another the less they
agreed, for the men of the two nations still moved on different
planes of thought and feeling.
Slight and gradual as were the changes in England herself
during the first forty years of the Seventeenth Century, little as
the dynastic union with Scotland affected the social life of the
time, these quiet years witnessed the greatest change of all, the
beginning of the permanent expansion of the English race over-
seas. The successful founding of Colonies in Virginia, New
England and West Indian Islands like Barbados, and the estab-
lishment of the first trading stations on the coast of Hindoostan,
were the greatest events of the reign of James I and the early
years of King Charles. [See 55, 57,]
The English race began once more to move outside its island
borders, this time in the right direction. The attempt made
during the Hundred Years* War to reduce France to an English
province had been the first instinctive gesture of an awakening
national consciousness and a new-felt power to expand. After
it had foiled, the English had for a century and a half been con-
fined to England, strengthening themselves there in wealth,
intelligence and naval power; now they began once more to
expand, by very different methods and under very different
leadership from those of the day when
'Our King went forth to Normandy
With grace and might of chivalry/
This time the 'good yeomen whose limbs were made in
England* went forth again, but not with chivalry and not under
tfac King, not with the long-bow to sack and conquer an ancient
dvilization, but with axe and plough to found a new civilization
in the wilderness.
For this enterprise the first requisite was peace. So long as the
war with Spain continued, England's limited stock of wealth and
energy would run into fighting at sea, in Ireland and in the
Netherlands. Under war conditions, the Elizabethan attempt to
found Virginia had failed In the first year of the new reign,
67
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
James I had the merit of making peace, on good terms which
successful war had won* [See 56.] In many respects his subse-
quent foreign policy was feeble and inept; he let down the
strength of the navy and cut off Raleigh's head to please Spain.
But at any rate his pacifism gave peace to England, and his
subjects made use of that breathing space to sow the seed of the
British Empire and of the United States. The restoration of an
effective navy by Charles I and its maintenance by subsequent
rulers enabled the movement to go forward in safety. Govern-
ment maintained the conditions under which colonization was
possible, but private enterprise supplied the initiative, the money
and the men.
London Companies like the Virginia Company and the
Massachusetts Bay Company financed and organized the emigra-
tion, which could never have taken place without such backing.
The object of the noblemen, gentry and merchants who found
the money, was partly to cam a good percentage on their im-
mediate investments, but even more to create beyond the Atlantic
a permanent market for English goods, in exchange for the
products of the new world, such as the tobacco that Virginia
soon produced in great quantities. Both patriotic and religious
motives inspired many of those who supplied the funds, the ships
and the equipment for the enterprise. Between 1630 and 1645
200,000 was spent in conveying zo,ooo men, women and
children to New England in *oo ships: in the same period
40,000 more emigrants were conveyed to Virginia and other
coloaies. 1 [See 57, 58,]
The very efficient 'promoters* of the movement included some
of the noblest born and many of the wealthiest of the King's
subjects: but the colonists themselves were of the middling and
lower orders of town and village. In their minds, also, the
motives of colonization were in part self-regarding and econo-
mic and in part ideal and religious. The religious modve had
little or no weight with the majority of the settlor* ; but it inspired
the leaders in New England, like tie Pilgrim Fathers (1610), and
after them John Winthrop and his colleague*. Their teal im-
posed on the Northern group of colonies ft Puritan ^mtyr
which was destined to affect powerfully the sodal development
of the future United States,
Godfrey D*ri* B*rfrS*** (Oxfocd Hltt.
68
COLONIZATION
Those who crossed the Atlantic for religious reasons desired,
in the words of Andrew Marvel], to escape from 'prelate's rage.'
Under James, Charles and Laud, only one religion was tolerated
in England and it was not the Puritan. Some of these religious
refugees to New England desired to set up in the wilderness a
Kingdom of God on the Geneva model, to be enforced upon all
who chose to become citizens of the theocratic republic for
such in effect was early Massachusetts. But another type of
Puritan exile, like Roger Williams the founder of Rhode Island,
and the various groups of settlers in New Hampshire and Con-
necticut, not only wished to enjoy religious freedom themselves
but were ready to extend it to others. Williams had been driven
from Massachusetts because he maintained that the civil power
had no authority over the consciences of men. Thus the difference
between the two Puritan ideals, the coercive and the liberal,
which soon afterwards split the ranks of the victorious Round-
heads in the old country, had come to a head in New England
as early as 1655. An easy-going attitude towards varieties of
religion prevailed in Anglican Virginia, and in Maryland founded
by the Roman Catholic Lord Baltimore.
The settlers in Virginia, the West Indian Islands and to a large
extent even in New England, had not emigrated for religious
motives at all. The ordinary colonist had been drawn oversea by
the Englishman's characteristic desire to 'better himself/ which
in those days meant to obtain land. Free land, not free religion
was the promise held out in the pamphlets issued by the com-
panies promoting the emigration. It was a period of land-hunger
in England. Many younger sons of peasants and yeomen could
obtain no land at home, and former copyholders often found
themselves pushed out of their old secure franchise into the
position of lease-holders or tenants at will. Rents were rising and
tenants were competing hotly for farms. Unemployed craftsmen,
too, could be sure that in the new settlements their skill would
be in great demand. Many gentlemen adventurers were attracted
not only by the prospect of land, but by the lure of the unknown
and the marvellous, and by stories of fabulous riches to be won
in America, which In fact only their remote descendants were to
realize in ways undreamt Early New England was not a land of
great fortunes or of great contrasts in wealth.
All these classes of emigrants went freely, at the instigation of
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
private enterprise and persuasion. The government only sent
out convicts, and later on prisoners of the Civil Wars. These
unfortunates, and other youths kidnapped by private enterprise
to be sold into servitude in Barbados and Virginia, worked out
their freedom if they lived long enough, and often founded
prosperous families. For it was soon tacitly agreed that only
negroes from Africa ought to be kept in perpetual bondage,
The slave-trade, which Hawkins had begun with the Spanish
colonies, now supplied Virginia and the English West Indian
Islands.
During the Civil Wars of Charles and Cromwell the flow of
voluntary emigration diminished. Virginia and Maryland were
passively loyal to the King; and even the New England colonies,
though sympathizing with the Puritan cause, remained neutral.
For already the instinct of 'isolation* from the affairs of Europe
was strong in America, Three thousand miles was a very long
way, a voyage of several months of misery, during which death
took its toll in the ill-found ships. And so, after the first few
years, the social history of America ceased for ever to be a part
of the social history of England. The new society began to work
out its own characteristics* under pioneer conditions of life very
different from those that prevailed in the 'garden of England*
in the days of Shakespeare and Milton, None the less the Colonies
were an offshoot of English Seventeenth Century life, and derived
thence ideas and impulses that were to carry them far along new
paths of destiny.
England at that period and for two hundred years to come was
peculiarly fitted to provide colonists of the fight sort That is
why the English language is spoken in North America and
Australasia to-day. Until the later Nineteenth Century agricul-
tural life and tradition flourished in England The ordinary
Englishman was not yet a townee, wholly divorced from nature;
he was not yet a dcrk or a specialized workman of one trade only,
unable to adapt himself to pioneering conditions, unwilling to
abandon the advantages of a high standard of living at home for
a life of hardship and incessant toil in an unknown land* The
Englishman of Stuart and Hanoverian HTW* was more
than his descendants and had stronger incentives to emigrate,
No standard of life and no pensions for old age were secured to
him at home beyond what be could win by his own efforts. The
70
Blacksmiths
The Cottage Housewife
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
poor law would keep him from starving, but no more. Moreover,
the inhabitant of the Seventeenth Century English town still
knew something of agriculture, and the inhabitant of the English
village still knew something of craftsmanship. The townsmen
tilled their 'town fields/ The village contained not only men to
farm its land but men to build its cottages and barns, weave and
cut its clothes, make its furniture, farm implements and harness.
The cottage wives could bake, milk, cook, help in the harvest,
spin, mend or make clothes, as well as rear families of children.
A shipload of emigrants drawn from a number of such self-
sufficing villages were capable of creating and maintaining a new
village in the wilderness, even where there was no shopping
town behind it to supply its needs* 1
The makers of the early American settlements must have been
men and women of most admirable versatility, endurance and
courage. The greater part of the first colonists more than three-
quarters it is calculated -died prematurely, succumbing to the
miseries of the voyage, or to disease, famine, exposure and
Indian war. It was only a residue who survived the first years,
to people and extend the woodland townships. In many respects
it was the story of the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain over
again the struggle with virgin forest and marsh, the warfare
with the old inhabitants. Bat the Anglo-Saxon invaders had
been barbarians accustomed to savage life; the American settlers
were men of civilized intelligence, some of them highly educated.
In Massachusetts one of their first acts was to found a University
a Cambridge in the new land. For civilized people to endure
hardships incident to primitive life requires fine qualities, which
the England of that day was able richly to supply,
The newly founded colonies, whether on the mainland or on
the isknds, whether under the control of London Companies or
more directly tinder the Crown, at once assumed a large degree
of independence. They elected assemblies for Ac whole colony,
and made each township a self-governing unit In New England
the Church congregation strengthened the tie and dominated the
policy of the township. The instinct to extrude the authority of
the homeland, whether exerdsed by King or by Company, was
1 fa m of the >^ England towmhipttt*
tfce tyitem of open vilkge fitldi tod common p**nce to wbk& the? had beta K>
cottocnedinEcgkoi Gilbert Slttar, BqpW jt**fi'j ~4ttt ****** Op. XVL
71
EARLY COLONIAL DAYS
present in the earliest settlements, especially in Massachusetts,
though it only assumed continental proportions under George
Washington.
The instinct of the first English settlers to manage their own
affairs cannot be attributed solely to the great distance from
Europe. Spanish, French and Dutch colonies in America and
South Africa were no less remote, yet they long remained un-
democratic in government and amenable to the authority of the
homeland. The self-dependent attitude of the English settle-
ments was partly due to the circumstances of their origin : they
had not been founded by an act of State but by private initiative.
And many of the colonists had come out with rebellious hearts,
seeking to escape from the ecclesiastical government of England.
The King of France, on the other hand, would allow no Hugue-
nots in Canada*
Moreover, there were habits of self-government in old English
society that were easily transplanted oversea. Thus the squirar-
chical tradition at home, the local government of the English
shire by Justices of the Peace who were the local landowners,
gave rise ere long in Virginia to the rule of an outdoor equestrian
aristocracy of planters, whose life differed from that of English
country gentlemen chiefly in the possession of negro slaves.
This aristocratic system grew up naturally with the tobacco
plantations that soon became the staple of that Colony's wealth.
In New England a Puritan democracy of farmers and trades-
men arose, which also had its roots in habits brought from the
old country. In the early Seventeenth Century, the English shire
and village still retained elements of communal self-government,
beneath the higher control of the squires and Justices of the
Peace, The freeholders had their part in the proceedings of the
County Court, The Court Leet of the Manor was still attended
by the peasantry who were, nominally and to some extent
actually, the judges of the business there transacted. And in every
English village theft were various humble offices such as con-
stable, overseer of the poor, headborough, ale-conner, road-
repftircr, churchwarden, sidesman and innumerable other small
public posts which the common people filled, either by election
or rotation, These habits of local self-government at home
helped the creation of the New England Township and Court
House,
7J
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
The emigrants also carried with them the jury system and the
English common law, a law of liberty, Last but not least, the
right of Parliament, as representing the people, to vote or refuse
taxes was a doctrine widely diffused in the England of James and
Charles I, especially among the opposition leaders, like Sir
Edwyn Sandys, who did so much for the plantation of Virginia,
and among the Puritan gentry and yeomen of East Anglia who
took so leading a part in the settlement of New England. To
such men the immediate establishment of colonial Assemblies
seemed a matter of course.
The spirit of independence was further stimulated by the
Bible-religion which the Colonists brought with them from
home. Even in Massachusetts where the ministers and the godly
at first tyrannized over the plain man, there was no sanction for
the spiritual and social power they assumed, beyond the tem-
porary acquiescence of their fellow-citizens. The New England
ministers could not, like Laud's Anglican clergy, claim authority
drawn from the King. Still less could they, like the Catholic
priests who directed life in French Canada, exercise a spiritual
rule of dateless antiquity derived from Rome. The only founda-
tion for Church power in New England or in Virginia was
popular opinion. And so the religion of English-speaking
America soon became congregation*] rather than ecclesiastical,
and served further to enhance the democratic spirit of trans-
atlantic society.
In this way the American colonies were founded, by private
enterprise financial, commercial, agricultural, and politico-
religious. The first application of State policy and military power
to promote imperial development was Cromwell's conquest of
Jamaica from Spain (1655), followed by Charles ITs acquisition
from the Dutch of the regions that became New York, New
Jersey and Pennsylvania (1667). By that time it was beyond the
power of State action to alter the self-dependent character of
English colonial society. But the increasing need for the pro-
tection of colonial trade by the Royal Beet in the Atlantic, in the
face of foreign enemies* rendered possible a policy of State inter-
ference with the course of that trade, exercised through the
Navigation Laws. From the time of Cromwell onwards these
laws were partially at least enforced They aimed, noc without
a large measure of success, at enlarging die proportion of English
74
THE EAST INDIA COMPANY
commerce carried in English ships, and in keeping the trade of
English colonies mainly for England. 1
Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe, the ships of another
London trading company were beginning another chapter of
England's destiny. The East India Company founded by Eliza-
beth's charter of 1600, held thereby the monopoly among her
subjects of trading with the 'East Indies/ the power of legislation
and justice among its own servants oversea, and by implication
the power of making peace and war beyond the Cape of Good
Hope. For generations to come no ship of the Royal Navy
rounded the Cape. The Crown made .no pretence of being able
to take action in the Far East to protect the nation's trade in
those parts, as it protected the Atlantic trade with the American
colonies. The Company had therefore to defend its factories
with sepoys in its own pay; and at sea the great 'East Indiamen'
built, equipped and manned at once for commerce and for war,
replied with their broadsides to attacks made by Portuguese and
Dutch rivals and by the pirates of all nations* But the Company
was wisely careful to avoid quarrels with Indian Princes,and had
no territorial or political ambition,
The first great Anglo-Indian statesman, Sir Thomas Roe,
James I's Ambassador and the Company's agent at the Court of
the Mogul Emperor, kid down the policy which guided the
action of his countrymen in the East for more than a century to
come*
'A war and traffic are incompatible. Let this be received as a rule that
if you will profit, seek it at sea, and in quiet trade j for without con-
troversy it is an error to affect garrisons and land-wars in India/
So long as the Mogul Empire maintained its authority, as it did
during the Stuart era, the Company was able to follow Roe's
prudent advice. Only when the great Peninsula relapsed into
anarchy, the English merchants, in the days of Clive, were un-
willingly drawn into war and conquest to save their trade from
Indian and French aggression.
Under the early Stuarts the Company established small trading
stttions at Madras, at Surat north of Bombay, 8 and by 1640 in
1 A high authority on the original Settlements U Charles M. Andrews, Tbt
C*M*lf>#*>*9fAmtriam History* VoL X, TkSM&maifa (Ytfc Univ. Prew, 1953.)
1 Later ocx, Q*rks ITi Portuguese marriage brought Bombay itself a* pert of
the Qoeeo dowry*
7J
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
Bengal. The power and privileges they exercised within the walls
of the towns and "factories' assigned them were held by treaty
with the native princes. Their enemies were the Portuguese,
who soon ceased to be formidable, and the growing power of
the Dutch, who drove them by force out of the coveted trade of
the Spice Islands farther east (1623), compelling them to develop
instead their position on the mainland of the Peninsula. From
their factories in Madras and Bombay the English learnt to trade
with Canton; ignorance of conditions in the Farther East pre-
vented the London merchants from doing direct trade with China
to any purpose, but the Company's servants in India had local
knowledge enough to conduct it themselves, and to tap the great
resources of Chinese commerce, [See 59,] The London Com-
pany also sent ships direct to the Persian Gulf (first in 1628) to
the annoyance of the Levant Company, which endeavoured to
trade with the Shah's dominions by the overland route.
The East India trade, implying voyages a year long of ten
thousand miles without breaking bulk, did more even than the
American trade to develop the art of navigation and the character
of ship-building. Already in the reign of James I the East
India Company built 'goodly ships of such burthen as never were
formerly used in merchandise/ While the ships of the Levant
Company ranged from too to 3 j o tons for the Mediterranean traffic,
the first voyage to India was made in a vessel of 600 tons, and
the sixth voyage (1610) in a vessel of i zoo tons. 1
The long Indian voyages would not have been possible as a
means of regular trade if the crews had been much exposed to the
ravages of scurvy* But from the very first (1600) the East India
Company supplied its crews with 'lemon water* and oranges.
The Royal Navy of Stuart and Hanoverian times was not pro-
tected in this manner, and the King's sailors suffered terribly,
until Captain Cook, almost as great a sea-doctor as a discoverer
of new continents, Introduced marked improvements in naval
drinks and diet
In Stuart times the East India Company owned some thirty
great vessels for the voyage round the Cape, besides numerous
smaller craft that never left the Eastern seas. A considerable
1 Grenvllk** Rmtgt, ooe of the tage ihipf of the EUnbetiMa mvy, wtt 500
torn. The &&/&** wt* ooly 180 tons; tht h*d preriootly baa aagftged to tfat
vine teKfe betWo Eoglkh tad Mftdhnrrinma pom.
THE VOYAGE TO INDIA
proportion were wrecked, or taken by pirates or by Dutch. But
those great ships that survived were so strongly built of the best
English oak as to be able to face the high seas for thirty or even
for sixty years. Already in James Fs reign c the Company laid out
at one time 300,000 in building shipping, which was more than
King James had then in the navy.' The Indian trade thus 'filled
the nation with great ships and expert mariners.'
Here was a private navy, heavily armed, added to the strength
of England. Knowledge of the most difficult parts of navigation,
and the habit of distant maritime enterprise became widely spread
among the English. London, as the headquarters of the East
India Company, drew to itself England's trade with the Orient.
Bristol shared in the tobacco and slave trades across the Atlantic,
and Liverpool soon followed suit ; but the general effect of the
American and Indian trades, and the increase in the size of
merchant ships, was to enhance yet further the supremacy of
London at the expense of many lesser ports that had sufficed for
the small ships and short voyages of earlier times.
The Indian trade increased not only the shipping, but the
wealth of England. It proved indeed impossible to sell more
than a limited quantity of English cloth in the warm climate of
the Far East, and the enemies of the Company always made that
a ground of accusation. But Queen Elizabeth had very wisely
permitted the Company to export a certain quantity of coin of the
realm, on condition that as much gold and silver was returned
after each voyage. By 1621, 100,000 exported in bullion,
brought back oriental wares worth five times as much, of which
only a quarter was consumed at home. The rest was resold
abroad at great profit and so, to meet the bulHonist criticism,
'the treasure of the realm was increased/
Before the Civil War, the chief articles conveyed to the Thames
in the Company's great ships were saltpetre (for warlike Europe's
gunpowder), raw silk, and above all spices, particularly pepper.
The scarcity of fresh meat in winter before the era of roots and
artificial grasses waa a chief reason why our ancestors craved for
spices; they were used both to preserve meat, and to season it
highly when it had little else to recommend it. After the Restora-
tion, tea and coffee came in, and silks manufactured in the East
for the European market, and porcelain of China. By the time
of Queen Anne, the East Indian trade had materially altered the
77
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
drink, the habits of social intercourse, the dress and the artistic
taste of the well-to-do classes among her subjects.
These long-distance trading companies, with their great losses
and greater profits, became an important part of social and political
life under the Stuarts. Their wealth and influence were generally
thrown against the Crown in the Civil War, partly for religious
reasons and because London was prevalently Roundhead, and
partly because the merchants were discontented with the treat-
ment they had received from James and Charles I. Monopolies
for the production and sale in England of many articles in com-
mon use, had been granted to courtiers and intriguing patentees.
This policy, enlarged by Charles I as a means of raising non-
Parliamentary revenue by his Prerogative, was frowned on by
the common lawyers and Parliament men, and was for very good
reasons unpopular with the consumer who found the price of the
articles raised, and with the merchant community who saw trade
restricted and disturbed.
But the merchants of the East India House felt even more
aggrieved because the King, while granting such unneedcd
monopolies in the home market, infringed their own much
needed monopoly of trade in the Far East, though the whole cost
of political and military action in that side of the globe fell on
the Company and not on the Crown. Charles I had set up a
second company for Indian trade the Courtccn Association
which by its rivalry and its mismanagement had nearly ruined all
English trade in the Far East, at the time the Long Parliament
met. The policy of Pym and Parliament, to suppress Monopolies
in England and maintain them for the companies trading oversea,
was much better liked in the City. One of the most important
results of the victory of the Parliamentary armies in the Gvil
War was the virtual abolition of monopolies inside the country,
Henceforward, though foreign and Indian trade was subject to
regulation, industry in England was free, as compared to Euro-
pean countries where mediaeval restrictions still hampered its
growth. This was one reason why England in the Eighteenth
Century led the world in the race of the Industrial Revolu-
tion.
The early Stuart Kings had done nothing effective either in
Europe or in Asia to restrain the Dutch from destroying the
Company's ship* and factories in the East. The 'massacre of
7*
HOW TO INVEST MONEY
Amboyna' (1623) when the Dutch drove the English traders
from the Spice Islands, was a memory that sank deep. More
than thirty years later Cromwell exacted compensation for this
old injury, by war and diplomacy in Europe. The Protectof
indeed did much to 'protect' English trade and interests all over
the world. But the expense of his military and naval establish-
ment was a burden that before he died was getting too heavy for
commerce, and the Restoration, bringing disarmament and lowei
taxes, came as an economic relief. Cromwell's posthumous repu-
tation as the great 'Imperialist' was in no sense undeserved. By
his conquest of Jamaica he set an example to all future govern-
ments which Elizabeth had never set, of taking the opportunities
afforded by war to seize distant colonies from other European
powers.
The rivalry of the Courteen Association followed by the
troubles of the Civil Wars in England, had almost destroyed the
East India Company and put an end to the English connection
with India. But during the Protectorate the old Company,
with Cromwell's help, re-established its shaken prosperity and
assumed its permanent financial form as a single joint-stock enter-
prise. Hitherto, money had been raised for each separate voyage
(usually indeed on the joint-stock principle). The earliest voyages
had often realized 20 or 30 per cent,, sometimes 5 per cent.,
sometimes a dead loss due to battle or wreck. But in 1657 a
permanent fund, the *New General Stock/ was instituted for all
future purposes. For thirty years after the Restoration the profit
on the original stock averaged first 20 and later 40 per cent, per
annum* The market price of ^100 stock touched 500 in 1685,
There was no need to increase the amount of the original stock,
since the Company was in so strong a position' that it could
borrow short loans at very low interest* sometimes 3 per cent,
and reap enormous profits with these temporary borrowings,
The great wealth derived from Eastern trade therefore re-
mained in a few hands, chiefly of very rich men. Under the last
Stuart Kings, Sit Josiah Child could set aside great sums of
money to bribe the Court before 1688, and Parliament afterwards,
in the interest of the Company's monopoly. The general public,
having to pay very high prices for the stock if they were allowed
to buy it at all, grew every year more indignant that no one except
a few fortunate shareholders in a close concern was permitted
79
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
to trade beyond the Cape, 'Interlopers' from Bristol and else-
where sent out ships to carry on a Tree trade/ But the Company's
monopoly, however unpopular, was legal, and its agents en-
forced the law with a high hand, in regions a year's sail distant
from Westminster, where strange, unreported incidents took
place by sea and land between English rivals in high rage with
one another.
The struggle between Josiah Child and the Interlopers in the
reigns of Charles and James II and William, was only a repetition
on a larger scale of the struggle between the Company and its
rivals under James and Charles I and Cromwell* AH through the
Stuart era, there was eager and angry competition, economic and
political, for a share in the profits of the Indian trade, all the
more because there was no easy, common way of finding invest-
ment for money, though savings were rapidly accumulating.
There was no rcgukr stock market where a man could make his
choice among a number of reasonably hopeful ventures offering
shares for sale. The usual way of investing money was to pur-
chase land or mortgages on land. But the amount of land was
limited, and it was, moreover, an article which owners were,
for reasons other than economic, exceedingly unwilling to sell;
the social and the sporting value of landed estate made it hard to
buy. And so the question what to do with one's money, other
than keep it in a strong-box at home, puzzled many people, from
the nobleman to the thrifty yeoman and artisan.
Four-fifths of the population was rilling the land, but a gradu-
ally increasing proportion were engaged in trade or industry,
more often in the country than in the town. It was a day of small
businesses, rapidly increasing in number. A yeoman or craftsman
who had saved a little money could not in those days use it to
buy Consols or railway or brewery shares* He might spend some
of it in a marriage portion to provide his daughter with t husband
as an establishment for life* For the rest be would very likely
invest his savings in a new venture of his own, employing a few
apprentices and journeymen to set up an industry or A shop, or
perhaps buying horses, cam and pack-saddle* to serve the neigh-
bourhood as a carrier.
The number of such small employers and tradesmen wa$ oo
the increase, nod they, like die Bast India Company often wanted
So
GOLDSMITHS AS BANKERS
to borrow money for their business. So, too, did landowners
not only the squire in distress due to extravagance, but the squire
prudently eager to drain, clear and improve his land, and increase
the agricultural acreage at the expense of wood and waste. How
did these various classes of 'adventurers' borrow money for their
enterprises? How were they put in touch with persons wishing
to lend and to invest ?
Society had at last, very gradually, in the course of the^ Tudor
reigns, abandoned the mediaeval doctrine that it was wrong to
lend money on interest. Lending money on reasonable terms
had now been made legal by Act of Parliament, and therefore
interest was less exorbitant. Thinkers who led opinion under
the early Stuarts, clearly saw the use of a money market. Tis a
vain thing/ Selden told his friends, 'to say money begets not
money, for that no doubt it does.' And the very practical mer-
cantile philosopher, Thomas Mun, wrote : 'How many merchants
and shopkeepers have begun with little or nothing of thir
own, and yet are grown very rich by trading with other men's
money/
As yet indeed there were no banks in England. But there
were persons who performed some of the functions of modern
bankers, receiving deposits and lending out money on interest.
Brokers and scriveners, in the way of their ordinary business,
had special opportunities to oblige clients by arranging such
operations, or by bringing borrower and lender together,
During the Commonwealth and after the Restoration the
holding and lending of money passed more and more into the
hands of the goldsmiths of London. The merchants of the Qty
had been accustomed to keep their spare cash in the Tower Mint,
but after Charles I seized it there, they preferred to trust the
goldsmiths. At the outbreak of civil strife, when the wealthy of
both sides melted their plate into 'pikes and musketeers/ the
goldsmiths* ordinary occupation of selling gold and silver vessels
was suspended during the years of war, and they were glad
instead to become *the merchants' cash-keepers, to receive and
pfty-for nothing, few observing or conjecturing the profit they had
for thek pains,* So great indeed was the profit, that the gold*
smiths soon found it worth while to encourage deposits by pay-
ing interest under Charles II they gave sk per cent, ! For they
employed the deposits to great advantage in lending to others*
81 6
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
The principal goldsmiths thus engaged were those in Lombard
Street 1
The goldsmiths' business as 'protobankers* was by no means
confined to dealings with city merchants. Many landowners had
their rents paid into the goldsmiths 7 hands ; while others, all the
country over, came to Lombard Street for loans. The va]ue of
these new conveniences can be illustrated by examining the actual
method by which a certain noble family managed its extensive
affairs in the reign of Charles I.
In 1641, the year of Stafford's execution, died Francis Russell,
Fourth Earl of Bedford. 2 There was no bank in which his money
could be kept; there were no cheques by which his heir could
pay it out. There was, however, a 'great trunk' in Bedford House
in the Strand, where his current cash ky guarded by the family
servants. The young Earl William, the first time he opened the
trunk as its owner, found therein 1557. 14. i. Out of this he
paid all the expenses of his father's funeral and other bills, in
money of the realm* But the trunk was speedily replenished ; in
the next twelve months, immediately preceding the outbreak of
the Civil War, the cash poured into it amounted to 8joo, a
sum worth many times as much in terms of present-day money.
It represented rents, and 'fines' for the renewal of leases, while a
thousand pounds were accounted for by sales of wood, malt,
tallow, sheepskins, hay and other produce of the Russell home
farms.
The Earl's principal Steward lived in Bedford House, kept the
key of the all-important trunk, and was, in fact, the family
treasurer or receiver-general, permanently residing in London.
Everything paid to the Earl, or almost everything, came up to
the Steward and was by him placed in the mink and taken out
again as required. In 1641 the largest single item came from the
great estates in Devon and Cornwall, which sent up ajoo that
year. For these western estates and for them alow a modern
1 The origin, or one of the origins, of cheques, took the facm of notes tea* to
goldimJthi or others taking them to p*y out to nmdb money to sacfa tod such
person from the money the writer of the note had lodged with hi recipient Tht
first printed cheques were issued by the Btnk of Engkod esziy in the Bfrfrffwh
Century,
* For whtt follow* tee the excellent boolt of Miss Scott Thoimon, JL#^AW*
Hmft^xd^~J7W^
its aspects,
8l
THE RUSSELLS AND THE DRAINING OF THE FENS
and convenient method had already been adopted of transferring
the money to London. The estates in East Anglia and other parts
sent up hard money guarded from highwaymen by the EarFs
mounted servants. But at Exeter there sat a 'Steward of the
West/ His office was an old Russell mansion in the western
capital^ to which the Bailiffs of the various manors in Devon and
Cornwall came with hard cash and accounted for the audit at
Lady Day and Michaelmas. The Steward of the West, with the
moneys thus received by him at Exeter, arranged for a bill of ex-
change to be drawn upon one of the London goldsmiths, the
celebrated Thomas Viner of Lombard Street. When Viner had
received the bill, he gave notice to the Steward at Bedford House,
who went with bags and porters to fetch away an equivalent sum
of coined money from 'Lumber-Street' and deposit it in the trunk. 1
But the Earls of Bedford, though certainly 'spacious in the
possession of dirt,* were by no means mere passive receivers of
rent Francis, the Earl who died in 1641, and his son William
the first Duke, who died in 1700, nearly covered the century
between them as owners of the Russell property, and as such did
a greater work for England than they achieved by their cautious
political patronage of *the good old Cause* in its more moderate
aspect. The kbour of their lives was given to the improvement
of their great and widely scattered properties in London, Bed-
fordshire, the South-west and in the Fen District. Their very
genuine but unobtrusive Puritan religion strengthened and in no
wise disturbed their fulfilment of the duties of an English country
gentleman upon the national scale*
To these two men, more than to any others, was due the suc-
cessful initiation of the drainage of Fenland. One of their
ancestors while serving Queen Elizabeth in the Low Countries,
had observed with wonder how Holland had been built up out
of the waters, and brought back with him a Dutch engineer to
look at the Russell estate in the Fens, formerly the land and water
of the Thorney monks. The project thus engendered in the
family mind was given reality forty years later by Earl Francis.
In 1630 he promoted the formation of a company of 'adventurers*
1 The importance of the operations of torn of these 'goldsmiths* may be fadged
from the fact th*t thit Thomaa Viner supplied large quantities of bullion and plate
both to Cromwell And to the East India Company, and contracted for coining it into
money* la 1656 he tod Alderman BJackveU bought Spanish prize plate to the
value of 60,000.
8}
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
to drain a large region of South Fenland round Ely Isle. The
Earl 'adventured' by far the greatest sum ultimately at least
100,000. The 'adventurers* were each allotted portions of the
land to be drained, answering to the amount of their several
investments.
On the advice of Vermuyden, another Dutch engineer, it was
decided that it would not suffice to deepen the old winding river*
courses; a straight canal, seventy feet wide and twenty-one miles
long, was cut from Earith to Denver Sluice, This became known
as the Old Bedford River, when twenty years later the New Bed-
ford River was cut in a parallel line to help it at its work. The
waters, constantly piling up from the distant catchment area of
the Ouse, at last ran freely away down these new channels*
instead of spreading over the Fenland as they had done from time
immemorial. Arabic and pasture were rapidly substituted on the
reclaimed lands for fishing, fowling, and reed growing. The
change was resented by the fenmen, whose ancestors had for
countless generations lived an amphibious life with a fixed
economy of its own- (See pp. 9-11 above.) Now, at one
blow, their occupation was gone. Whether they received proper
compensation for this loss of livelihood we have not the evidence
to decide* At any rate they waged a war of midnight raids to cut
the dykes as fast as they were built, seriously impeding progress.
During the Civil War the work of drainage was at a standstill,
or rather went back, for the destruction of the dykes by their
enemies went on apace in the disordered time. But under the
Commonwealth, partly through the labour of Scottish and Dutch
prisoners of war, the first great stage was completed. Under the
Protector, who favoured the enterprise, 1 crops were already
growing and cattle feeding over scores of thousands of tores, of
late the reedy home of bitterfi and wild duck. The Earl reaped
the reward of his own and his father's 'adventure,* Before 1660
he had paid off the mortgages on all the Russell estates, many of
them Incurred to drain the fenknd which had now made good
the investment
At the Restoration, the draining of the fens, so far as it bad
yet gone, seemed to be an engineering and an economic success*
1 la 1658 'Mr. CroarwelVtbeaofkxmicek^^
of the dimlnftgt twud la the Interest of the Gxomoott, bat he WM oot <
tbfi tcponvt of fockuxutttcQ* and io 1049 o^octtod to Act roc Id <
4
DRAINING THE FENS
But before the end of the Century new and grave difficulties had
arisen, due to the opposition not of man but of nature. At first
the rapid outfall of the new canals had scoured and kept open the
estuaries of Ouse and Nene, but as time went on these exits to
the sea began to silt up. Moreover, the level of the lands drained
by the new system began unexpectedly to fall; the black peaty
earth shrank as soon as it was dry, as a sponge shrinks when
water is squeezed out of it The consequence was that the Bedford
River and the other canals stood up above the surrounding
country, like the similar 'rivers' that drain Holland. Means had
therefore to be devised to pump the water up out of the low fields
into the high ditches and thence into the still higher canals that
were to take it to the sea. Throughout the Eighteenth Century
this was the problem, partly solved by the erection of hundreds
of windmills to raise the water; they formed a picturesque feature
in the flat landscape, but they were not wholly effective. The
solution came so far as it has ever come in the early Nineteenth
Century, when steam-driven pumps were employed instead of
windmills. [See 67, 68, 69.]
Even during the Eighteenth Century, when the drainage diffi-
culty was at its worst, the success of the work of reclamation
done in Southern Fcnland in the valleys of the Ouse and Nene,
was so manifest that similar undertakings were carried out in the
Northern Fens, watered by the Welland and the Witham, round
Spalding, Boston and TattershalL Wherever draining took place,
the shrinking and attrition of the peat brought the underlying
kyer of rich clay nearer the surface. In the Eighteenth and
Nineteenth Centuries the clay was increasingly dug up to manure
the land, or became the land itself by the total disappearance of
the peat To-day the Fenland is one of the best arable soils in
England.
Thus, in spite of natural difficulties which are not yet entirely
overcome, a great work was accomplished, and a new, rich
province, eighty wifca long, and ten to thirty miles broad, was
added to the farmland of the Kingdom. It had not, like the older
fields of England, been won from the waste by the gradual
encroachment of innumerable peasants and landowners, diligently
working through centuries to increase bit by bit each his own
estate. The victory over nature in Fenland was due to the accu-
of capital and its application to an enterprise conceived
8j
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
beforehand on a large scale by men who were ready to risk great
sums of money and wait twenty years or more for a return. The
draining of the fens is an old-world story, but it is an early example
of the working of modern economic methods, and as such worthy
of special remark in a social history of England. (H. C Darby,
Historical Geography of England, Chap. XII, and his book on The
Draining of the Fens, 1940; Gladys Scott Thomson, Uft of a Nob/t
Household.}
Before we return to the early Stuart period, let us follow a
little further the economic history of the House of Russell, after
the great venture of the fen-draining had turned out so well under
the Commonwealth, The family fortunes had been laid long ago
in trade with Gascony from Weymouth quay in the days of
Chaucer. Three hundred years later, in the days of William III,
the Russells went back into overseas trade by a marriage alliance
with the governing family of the East India Company, The first
Duke of Bedford, who had inherited the Earldom and the family
trunk from his father in 1641 and had seen the fens successfully
drained, was living at the close of the century in honoured and
prosperous old age, but melancholy from the loss of that loved
son William who, with less political moderation than his father
and grandfather, had given his life for 'the good old cause* by
the scaffold and axe in 1683. A dozen years later the old Duke
married his grandson and heir to Elizabeth, grand-daughter of
Josiah Child and daughter of John Howland of Streatham, the
rulers of the East India Company. The bridegroom was 14, the
bride i; years old. It was a marriage of great splendour, with
many coaches attendant* Bishop Burnet performed the ceremony.
But after the banquet arose a hue and cry, The bride and bride-
groom were missing. They had slipped away after dinner to
play together, and in their play the costly point lace trimming of
the young lady's dress had been torn to piece*. She was found
hiding in a barn, while her new lord and master was strolling
back with seeming innocence to the wedding company/
And so, by this child marriage, which in the course of years
proved happy enough, the Russells got in on the ground floor
of the East India Company. They did not come empty handed.
As they had formerly put their money into fen drainage, so now
they put it into building new docks at Rothcxhithe tod great
86
RISE IN PRICES. THE POOR LAW
vessels for the Cape voyage, which they presented in noble style
to the Court of Directors. One ship was called the Tavistock.
Another called the Streatham, built by the old Duke in the year of
his death in 1700, survived so many voyages that it carried Clive
back to India in 1755.
If the 'great families' had an overlarge share in governing
England in the Eighteenth Century, they had done something to
earn it. By wise activity in other spheres besides politics and
administration they played a great part in the development of
the country by land and by sea, they had the interests of trade as
much in their minds as the interests of land, and in their veins
flowed the blood of merchants and lawyers no less than of
soldiers and country gentlemen. The French noblesse* with
greater privileges, including exemption from taxes, was a close
caste with few functions and limited outlook.
But let us return to the generation that followed the death of
Queen Elizabeth. The gradual but constant rise of prices, krgely
due to the flow of silver from the Spanish- American mines into
Europe, made it impossible for James and Charles I to 'live on
their own revenues/ and their Parliaments were unwilling to
make good the deficiency except on religious and political con-
ditions which the Stuart Kings were unwilling to accept. And
the same rise of prices, though always injurious to people with
fixed incomes and often to wage-earners, tended to enrich the
more enterprising of the landowners and yeomen and above all
the merchants precisely the classes who were becoming most
opposed to the monarchy on religious and political grounds*
These economic causes contributed to bring about the Civil War
and to decide its issue,
The finftfidftl embarrassments of the Crown had an unfortu-
nate effect on the economic policy of the State. We have already
seen how the royal power to control trade, by the grant of
'monopolies' in the manufacture and sale of certain classes of
goods, was used not for the public interest but to raise revenue
for a distressed monarch, endeavouring to make his Prerogative
financially self-supporting, Those expedients were harmful to
trade and politically injurious to the popularity of the royal cause*
But in one aspect of economic and social policy the Poor
Law the continuance and enlargement of the system laid down
8?
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
under Queen Elizabeth was a credit to the Crown, and to the
system of Privy Council government with which the names of
Strafford and Laud are associated. The historian of the English
Poor Law has written l that the survival of an effective system of
poor relief in England alone of the greater nations of Europe
was mainly caused by the coexistence in England of a Privy Council
active in matters concerning the poor and of a powerful body of county
and municipal officers who were willing to obey the Privy Council.
Even in the reign of Elizabeth the Privy Council sometimes interfered
in enforcing measure of relief, but only as a temporary expedient for
relieving the distress caused by years of scarcity* But from 1629 to
1640 they acted continuously in that direction, and by means of the
Book of Orders succeeded* as far as children and the impotent poor
were concerned, in securing the due execution of the law* The Council
also succeeded in inducing the Justices of the Peace to provide work
for the able-bodied poor in many of the districts in the eastern counties
and in some places in almost every county, This provision of work
was provided either in Houses of Correction or in the Parishes, . .
The substance of the orders does not appear to have excited opposition.
Men of both parties sent in their reports to the Privy Council, and more
energetic measures to execute the poor law were taken in the Puritan
counties of the east than in any other part of England.
We shall have occasion in later chapters to consider the serious
faults of poor law administration in the Eighteenth Century,
Some of them resulted from the decline of the control exercised
by the Privy Council over local magistrates and parishes, a decay
of much-needed central authority which was the heavy price paid
for Parliamentary government and constitutional freedom. But
the Poor Law had taken such firm root in the days of Royal
Prerogative that it survived as custom of the country in Parlia-
mentary times.
The worst horrors of failure, of unemployment and of un-
provided old age were not suffered by the poor in England to
the same extent as in the continental countries of the *** rigm*
The regiments of beggars, such as continued to swarm in the
streets of Italy, and of France under Louis XIV, were oo longer
known over here. The scandal and danger of such congregation!
had alarmed the Tudor and early Stuart governments; the P&or
Law was meant to prevent them, and did prevent diem by the
* Mi* a M. Leooacd, * *&*? ^E*fc* *" K**tf 1900, pp.
See tbo VoL I, p, 107 of tbe prau work, tod p. ji bov.
88
THE POOR LAW
only practical method, the relief of distress and the provision of
work. 1 That is one reason why there was never anything like the
French Revolution in our country, and why through all our
political, religious and social feuds from the Seventeenth to the
Nineteenth Centuries the quiet and orderly habits of the people,
even in times of distress, continued upon the whole as a national
characteristic.
There was no effective system of police until that begun by
Sir Robert Peel in 1850. It was a disgraceful condition of things,
and had many evil consequences. But the wonder is that society
held together at all without the protection of a strong civic force
trained to control mob violence and to detect theft and crime.
That we dispensed so long with a proper police force is a testi-
mony to the average honesty of our ancestors and to the value of
the old Poor Law, in spite of all its defects.
The personal liberty of the poor was not a thing of which
much account was taken. The philanthropic action of the State
was curtailed by no such consideration. The Poor Law system
involved sending the idler (the 'unemployable') to the House of
Correction and clapping the drunkard in the stocks. Some, though
by no means all, of the Puritans* interference with the lives of
thek fellow-citizens, that became so intolerable under the Com-
monwealth, was common form to all religious sects and all shades
of political opinion*
The dear modem distinction between offences punishable by
the State on the one hand, and 'sins' not cognizable by a court of
law upon the other, was not yet so rigid in men's minds as it
afterwards became. Mediaeval ideas still survived and the Church
Courts still existed to punish *sin,' though with diminished
powers. In Scotland indeed the Presbyterian Church exacted
penance for sexual offences more rigidly than the Roman Church
had been able to do* In Laud's England the Church Courts
attempted something of the same kind, but much more cautiously
and even so with disastrous results. The 'libertines' joined the
Paritan* In the outcry against the Bishops* Courts, though for
very different reasons. The 'libertine' objected to standing
publicly in ft white sheet for adultery or fomicatiocu The Puritan,
1 In 1651 the Mayor *nd Racotdet of Klng'i Lynn reported that they had *bought
ntttetkli to tet the tfak-bodied poor on work, not roasting to our knowledge any
poet to itxifgfe tod beg op tad down the ittcet* of thfcBwgh/
89
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
on the other hand, thought even more strongly than the Bishop
that 'sin' should be punished, but he thought that he and not the
Bishop should punish it. The outcome was that the Englishman
threw off the yoke first of Bishop and then of Puritan, and the
attempt to punish 'sin' judicially lapsed after the Restoration and
was never seriously renewed south of the Border,
Under English Puritan rule, it was not the Church Courts but
the ordinary lay Courts of the land that were charged with the
suppression of sin. In 1650 an Act had been passed punishing
adultery with death, and the savage penalty was actually inflicted
in two or three cases. After that even Puritan juries refused to
convict and the attempt broke down. But during this period,
public opinion supported the laws to suppress duelling, which
had more success, until the Restoration restored the liberty of the
bravo. The employment of soldiers to enter private houses in
London to see that the Sabbath was not being profaned, and that
the Parliament fasts were being observed carrying off meat
found in the kitchen aroused the fiercest anger So, too, in
many places did the cutting down of Maypoles and the forbidding
of sports on Sunday afternoon. Yet the ban on 'Sabbath* games
substantially survived the Restoration, In spite of the Anglican
and liberal reaction of *66o, the Puritans left their sad mark on
the 'English Sunday* in permanence- [See 73t 74> 75 ?6*]
The horrible mania for persecuting witches, common to
Catholic and Protestant lands during the period of the religious
wars, was less bad in England than in some countries, but touched
its highest point in the first half of the Seventeenth Century, It
was caused by a sincere belief in the reality of witchcraft held by
all classes, including the most educated, and it only receded as the
governing class in the later Seventeenth and ctrly Eighteenth
Century gradually reached a point of scepticism on the subject
that induced them to stop the witch-hunt, in spite of the continued
credulity of the mass of the population, The two worst periods
in England were during the first half of the reign of the credulous
James I, and during the rule of the Long Parliament (1643-1647)
when 200 witches were executed in the eastern counties, chiefly
as a result of the crusade of Matthew Hopkins the witch-finder.
The government of Charles I and of the Regicide Republic and
Protectorate were both honourably marked by t cessation of
this foolish atrocity.
ANTI- CLERICALISM
In England before the Restoration it would have been difficult
to find more than a handful of men who openly avowed a dis-
belief in the miraculous sanctions of the Christian faith, in one or
other of its forms. But there were many Englishmen in whom a
dislike of the pretensions of the pious, whether Anglican priests,
or Puritan 'saints,* was stronger than positive enthusiasm for
any religious doctrine. In this limited, English sense of the word,
'anti-clericalism' has again and again been the decisive make-
weight in the balance between religious parties in England.
Anti-clericalism had been the chief motive force in the destruction
of the mediaeval Church under Henry VIIL In his daughter's
long reign it had nerved the national resolution against the Spain
of the Inquisition, while at home it had no quarrel with the modest
and unprovocative clergy of Elisabeth's tame Church. But
when, under Charles Ps patronage, Bishops and clergy raised
their heads again in social and political life, and even occupied
offices of State once more as in the Middle Ages, the jealous laity
took alarm. The anti-clerical feeling of great nobles, angry at
the presence of clergymen in the Council Chamber and the
Royal Closet, and of the London mob howling against Bishops
in Palace Yard (1640-1641), joined itself in a blind alliance with
Puritanism, then at the apex of its influence, and enabled the Long
Parliament to break the Laudian Church.
After the triumph of the Parliamentary armies came the 'rule
of the saints/ with their canting piety used as a shibboleth to
obtain the favour of the dominant party; their interference with
the lives of ordinary people; their closing of the theatres and
suppressing of customary sports. Anticlerical feeling, thus pro-
voked, reacted so violently as to become one of the chief causes
of the Restoration of 1660, A generation later it was one of the
chief causes of the anti-Romanist Revolution of 1688. For many
generations to come, hatred of Puritamsm took its pkce beside
hatred of Romanism in the instincts and traditions of the chapel-
burning mobs, as well as of the great majority of the upper class,
[See $76.]
The Cromwellian revolution was not social and economic in
its causes and motives; it was the result of political and religious
thought and aspiration among men who had no desire to recast
society or redistribute wealth. No doubt the choice of sides that
9*
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
men made in politics and religion was to some extent and in
some cases determined by pre-dispositions due to social and
economic circumstance; but of this the men themselves were
only half conscious* There were more lords and gentlemen on
the side of the King, more yeomen and townsfolk on the side
of Parliament. Above all, London was on the side of Parlia-
ment, Yet every class in town and country was itself divided.
[See 770
The stage of economic and social development which had been
reached in the England of 1640 was not the cause, but it was a
necessary condition, of the political and religious movements
that burst forth into sudden blaze. The astonishing attempt of
Pym, Hampden and the other Parliamentary leaders to wrest
power from the Monarchy in good earnest, and to govern the
State through an elected debating assembly of several hundred
members, and the degree of success which that bold innovation
actually attained in politics and war, pre-supposed not only an
old Parliamentary tradition but the existence of a powerful
bourgeoisie, gentry and yeomanry* long liberated from ecclesi-
astical and feudal control, and long accustomed to share with
the monarchy in the work for government. So too the rapid rise
to national importance, and for a while to national predominance,
of innumerable sects such as Baptists and Congregationalists
could not have occurred except in a society where there was
much personal and economic independence in the yeomen and
artisan classes, and in a country where for nearly a century past
the individual study of the Bible had been a great part of religion,
and the chief stimulant of popular imagination and intellect* If
there had been newspapers, magazines and novels to compete
with the Bible in manor-house, farm and cottage, there would
have been no Puritan revolution and John Bunyan would never
have written fttffints Progpss*
Indeed, the Puritan Revolution was itself, in its basic impulse,
a ^Pilgrim's Progress/ 1 dreamed [wrote Bunyan], and behold I
saw a Man clothed with rags, standing in a certain place, with his
face from his own house, a Book in his hand, and t great burden
upon his back I looked, and saw him open the book and read
therein; and as he read, he wept and trembled; and not being
able longer to contain, he broke out with ft VnMfrtflfrte cry,
saying 1W*tskl/I J*t n * [Sec $78,]
9*
PILGRIM'S PROGRESS
That lonely figure, with the Bible and the burden of sin, is not
only John Bunyan himself. It is the representative Puritan of
the English Puritan epoch. When Bunyan was a young man in
the years that followed Naseby, Puritanism had come to its
moment of greatest force and vigour, in war, in politics, in
literature, and in social and individual life. But the inner pulse
of the machine that drove all that tremendous energy tearing its
way athwart the national life
*To cast the Kingdoms old
Into another mould,'
the prime motive force of it all was just this lonely figure of the
first paragraph in Pilgrim's Progress the poor man seeking salva-
tion with tears, with no guide save the Bible in his hand. That
man, multiplied, congregated, regimented, was a force of tremen-
dous potency, to make and to destroy. It was the force by which
Oliver Cromwell and George Fox and John Wesley wrought
their wonders, being men of a like experience themselves.
But it would be a mistake to suppose that this earnestness of
personal and family religion was confined to the Puritans and
the Roundheads, The Memoirs of the Verney family and many
other records of the time show us Cavalier households as religious
as the Puritan, though not so wearisomely obtrusive with scrip-
ture phrases for every common act of life. Many of the small
gentry and yeomen, particularly in the northern and western half
of England, felt, like humble and patient Alice Thornton, that
the Church of England was thft 'excellent, pure and glorious
church then established, which for soundness in faith and doctrine,
none could parallel since the Apostles' time/ As her biographer
has said;
Her account of the religious life of the family must dispel any illusion
that to be Church of England, as opposed to the Nonconformists,
meant that religion was to be taken any more lightly. The whole
family was called to prayers by a little bell at six in the morning, at two
10 the afternoon and again at cine at night. (Wallace Notestein,
Many families in all ranks of life who fought and suffered for
the Church and the Prayer Book, by those sufferings learnt & love
of the Church of England which had not been so consistently
felt and expressed before the Civil War as it was after the
9*
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
Restoration, And that love for the Church as Laud had refashioned
it continued, until the Nineteenth Century, to be combined with
a family and personal piety and a study of the Bible that was
common to all English Protestants who took their religion
seriously.
But there are other things in Pilgrim's Progress besides the most
perfect representation of evangelical religion. The way of the
Pilgrims, and of the reader withal, is cheered by the songs, the
rural scenery, the tender and humorous human dialogues. It is
the England of Izaak Walton's Angler. It is stil! in great measure
the England of Shakespeare, though it is the scene of a soul's
conflict that afflicted the contemporaries of Shakespeare less often
than those of Bunyan. But the human background has little
changed* We should feel no incongruity if Autolycus displayed
his wares to the Pilgrims on the footpath way, or if Falstaff sent
Bardolph to bid them step aside and join him in the tavern*
The country through which the Pilgrims travel and the ways
along which they have to pass, arc the countryside, the roads
and the lanes of the English East Midlands with which Bunyan
in his youth was familiar. The sloughs, the robbers, and the other
accidents and dangers of the road were real facts of English
Seventeenth Century travel We must indeed except the dragons
and giants; but even those Bunyan got from no more alien
source than Sir Bevis of Southampton and other old English ballads,
legends and broadsides that used then to circulate among the
common people, instead of th$ flood of precise newspaper in-
formation that has killed the imaginative faculty in modern times.
In those days men were much left alone with nature, with
themselves, with God, As Blake has said:
Great things arc done when men and mountains meet,
These arc not done by jostling in the street*
The principle, thus poetically expressed* of the effect of quiet
contact with nature upon human achievement and quality, is
true not only of the mountains that nursed Wordsworth's genius*
but also of the far-stretched horizons of the feoland tod of
Cambridgeshire, over which the rising and setting sun and the
glories of cloudland were often watched by solitary men Squire
Cromwell for instance, and the yeomen farmers who became his
Ironsides* In the wide spaces of the East Anglian countryside
94
ANGLER AND MILKMAID
each of these men had felt himself to be alone with God, before
ever they joined to form a regiment. And that same principle is
true of the meadows, the lanes and the woodland fens of Bed-
fordshire, the nurse of Bunyan and all the strivings and visions
of his youth.
Fortunately most of the common people who kept the sheep
in Shakespeare's countryside, or wandered by Izaak Walton's
May Day
streams, fishing-rod in hand, were untroubled by Bunyan's and
Cromwell's visions of heaven and hell; but, saint and sinner,
happy fisherman and self-torturing fanatic, all were subject to
the wholesome influences of that time and landscape. Their
language was the crisp pure English from which the translators
of the Bible drew their style, now irrecoverable. As to the songs
of the common people^ they are well described in a dialogue by
Izaak Walton,
PISCATOR; I pray, do us a courtesy that shall stand you and your
daughter in nothing, and yet we will think ourselves something in
you* debt It is but to sing a song that was sung by your daughter
when I last passed over this meadow, about eight or nine days since*
Mai- WOMAN: What song was it, pray? Was it 'Come shepherds,
deck your herds? or *Ae at noon Duldna rested?* or Thillida flouts
me? or 'Chevy Chtoe? or 'Johnny Armstrong?* or *Troy Town?
95
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
PISCATOR: No, it is none of those; it is a song that your daughter
sung the first part, and you sung the answer to it.
MILK- WOMAN: Come, Maudlin, sing the first part to the gentleman
with a merry heart; and I'll sing the second when you have done,
So the song is sung: 'Come, live with me and be my love,'
When it is finished, Vtnaior says :
Trust me, master, it is a choice song, and sweetly sung by honest
Maudlin. I now see it was not without cause that our good Queen
Elizabeth did so often wish herself a milkmaid all the month of May,
Such were simple country-folk under the Puritan Common-
wealth, most of them little disturbed by its interfering rigours
and stern aspirations.
Here is a letter of June 1653 by that charming girl Dorothy
Osborne, reporting to her lover what she saw and heard one
morning near the 'open field' of a village:
You ask me how I pass my time here, . . The heat of the day is spent
in reading or working, and about six or seven o'clock I walk out into
a common that lies hard by the house where a great many young
wenches keep sheep and cows and sit in the shade singing of ballads. I
talk to them and find they want nothing to make them the happiest
people in the world, but the knowledge that they arc so. Moot com-
monly when we art in the
midst of our discourse, one
looks about her and spies bet
cows going into the com, and
then away they all run u if they
had wings at their heels,
Not all the your round could
maids 'sit in the shade ringing
of ballads/ and Queen Eliza-
beth only desired to be a
milkmaid in the month of
Mayl There was much hard-
ship, poverty and cold in
those pleasant villages and
farms; twt the
A Milkmaid
beauty of the life with nature
was aa historical reality, not
merely a poet's dream.
MUSIC AND SONG
The great generation
of men who between
them produced the
high English tragedy of
Roundhead and Cava-
lier, were not brought
up on the Bible and on
the influences of the
country life alone
though such a limita-
tion would almost be
true of Bunyan. The
age of Milton, Marvell
and Herrick was an age
of poetry and learning
often in close alliance.
Not only were simple
and beautiful songs
being written and set
to music and sung by
A Shepherdess
all classes, but in cultivated households more elaborate and
scholarly poems circulated in manuscript before they found their
way into print or passed into oblivion. When the music of Lawes
was married to the immortal verse of Milton's Comus for the
private theatricals of Lord Bridgewater's family (1634), English
domestic culture touched perhaps the highest mark to which it
ever attained. And the learning of the time, classical as well as
Christian, was very widely spread, [See 82.]
Political and religious controversy was conducted in books
and pamphlets forbiddingly learned to the modern eye, yet in
spite of their heavy display of erudition, they caught the eager
audience to which they made appeal. Even the famous pamphlet
In fevour of tyrannicide, entitled Killing no Murder, written by a
Republican and reissued by the Cavaliers with the very practical
object of inducing someone to assassinate Cromwell, is made up
of learned citations of classical as well as Biblical authorities.
Even under Puritan rule, what the Greeks and Romans had said
about tryannicide counted with ordinary readers as much as the
views of Hebrew Judges and prophets*
There were in fact a great many students among the upper
97 7
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
and middle classes both of town and country. Every reader had
in some sort to be a student, for, apart from poetry and the stage*
there was hardly any literature that was not serious. Fiction
scarcely existed except in ballads for the common folk, and in
the heavy 'tomes' of French romances like Grand Cyrus, which
seem to us as dull as sermons, but in those days pleased cultivated
young ladies like Dorothy Osborne.
Professor Notestein has in our day unearthed the diaries of a
Yorkshire yeoman named Adam Eyre, who at one time served
in the Parliament's army, but by 1647 had come home to his farm
in the Dales, No doubt he read and thought more than the
majority of his class, but the range and character of his reading
throws light on the intellectual habits of the time and shows why
yeomen were quite capable of choosing a side for themselves,
in politics and religion, often different from that of the neigh-
bouring gentry.
Adam had a carpenter in to furnish his study with shelves and his
friends (yeomen like himself) were always borrowing from those
shelves. Rarely did he return from a visit to one of the larger towns
without bringing home a book; sometimes he had a whole package
sent to him> and he went through them with care* 'This day 1 rested
at home, and spent most of the day reading/ such is a typical entry,
He began to make a table of a book called Tt* S/aft of E*n/*. He raid
A Disccttrss oftb* Cowtfj/ of Bast/, 'wherein as in all the actions of men
is little save corruption/ a comment that gives us an inkling of Adam's
philosophy of history. He read Lilly's queer books of prophecy, tod
Walter Raleigh's History of tb* World, a best seller of the century; he
dipped into Erasmus' Praist of Fdfy and James Howell's DnMogf*
(a political allegory of events from i6oj-4o). He owned Dalton'i
Country Justice, a practical manual concerning the duties of Justices
of the Peace and other local officials.
A larger part of his reading was in religious books, picas for presby-
tery, arguments for independency or Congregationalism, volume* of
sermons by this or that famous preacher. The number of religious
books he coveted is astonishing. This day I rested at borne til dty
and had various thoughts by reason of the variety of men's opinions I
find in reading/ Surely it was the beginning of wisdom to reflect upon
the variety of opinions. Adam wu oot a deeply spiritual man; be read
these books because religion was In the air* It filled the newsletters
and pamphlets * of the day, as strikes and sports items crowd oar
1 There wt* spate of printed ptmphlm bctweaa 1640 tod 1660, hot few pdtand
New* wts ocHiToysd by acwt-tettm writm in * ifffHtm^ and scot
98
CHOOSING SIDES
dailies. Religion was involved with village squabbles in the West
Riding as with factions at Westminster, (W. Notestcin, English Folk,
pp. 250-251.)
Such was the reading of this Cromwellian yeoman. In the
manor-houses of the gentry a larger proportion of poetry and of
classical learning circulated, or settled down on the library shelves,
besides the sermons and pamphlets. No doubt most yeomen,
most squires, and most merchants read very little, but many of
them read a great deal. The Civil War was a war of ideas, and the
ideas had been spread in print and in manuscript, as well as by
the voice of the preacher and the talk of men.
The Qvil Wars of Charles and Cromwell were not, like the
Wars of the Roses, a struggle for power between two groups of
aristocratic families, watched with disgusted indifference by the
majority of the population, particularly by the townsfolk. In
1642 town and country alike rushed to arms. Yet it was not a war
of town against country, though to some extent it became a
struggle for London and its appendages against the rural North
and West, Least of all was it a war between rich and poor. It
was a war of ideas in Church and State. [See 79, 80.]
Men chose their sides largely from disinterested motives and
under no compulsion. They made their choice on account of
their own religious and political opinions, and most of them were
in such an economic and social position as to be able to exercise
that choice with freedom. In the rural districts, feudal dependence
was mainly a thing of the past, and the great consolidated estates
were mainly a thing of the future. It was the golden age of the
small squire and the yeoman, who prided themselves on their
political independence, whereas the tenant farmers on the large
estates a hundred and two hundred years later were proud to follow
their landlords to the poll, in the interest of Whig or Tory, But in
1642 many yeomen drew sword against the neighbouring squires,
In the towns also it was an age of independence and individual-
ism* Corporate life had decayed; a man's municipal loyalty to
his town was already less important than this national loyalty to
a party or a sect which he chose for himself. Personal opinions
were strongly held in a society composed chiefly of small masters
down in manuscript to subscriber* in the country who circulated them among their
neighbours, Thi* continued to be the chief way of spreading news till after the end
of the century,
99
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
and their apprentices, so the inhabitants of the towns took free
and intelligent interest in the land's debate.
But on the outbreak of the Civil War it was easier for the
majority to seize power and muzzle the minority in a town, than
in a large country district Thus the Roundheads were able to
suppress the Cavaliers at once in London, the seaports and the
manufacturing cities. But in many shires of England a local civil
war dragged on spasmodically for several years together, distinct
from the campaigns of the main armies, though they too some-
times became involved in these regional struggles,
Where the local wars were conducted under the command of
gentlemen who had known each other as neighbours and often
as friends, though now differing in politics, there was little bitter-
ness and much personal courtesy, especially in the first year or
two. But some local wars had a fiercer character, where two
sharply contrasted systems of society were at each other's throats,
For example, in Lancashire the squires were many of them Roman
Catholics, representing the old half-feudal world of the Pilgrimage
of Grace; a deep gulf of misunderstanding and hatred was fixed
between them and their Puritan neighbours in the towns that had
recently sprung up with new industries of woollens, fustian,
cotton and linen.
But in the great majority of the counties of England the
Royalists were Anglicans, decisively Protestant; many of them
had been opposed to Laud, Such a one was gtand old Sir
Edmund Verney, the King's standard-bearer, who died for his
master at Edgehill but declared, *I have no reverence for Bishops
for whom this quarrel subsists,*
To speak in general terms, Royalism was strongest where the
economic and social changes of the previous hundred years had
been least felt The King and the Church were best loved In
rural regions and market towns furthest from the capital, and
least connected with overseas commerce. Parliamentary and
Puritan sympathy was strongest where recent economic change
had gone furthest, as in London under the influence of the great
Elizabethan trading companies; in the seaports (including the
King's own ships and dockyards); and in die newer type of
manufacturing town or district like Tauntoo, Birmingham and
the clothing Dales on both sides of the Peonioes, The squires
who had moet business connection with Loodoo, or with tmde
100
PARTIES AND CLASSES IN THE CIVIL WAR
and industry anywhere, tended most to the Roundhead side in
politics and religion. The London area, including Kent, Surrey
and Essex, was at once seized for Parliament, and the Royalist
minority there was never able to raise its head. The same hap-
pened in the counties of East Anglia, organized in the 'Eastern
Association' and held in the firm grip of Colonel Oliver Crom-
well the region whence in the previous generation the majority
of the Puritan emigrants to New England had been drawn, and
where the first Ironsides were now enlisted among the Bible-
reading yeomen,
Cromwell himself was a man of good family, related to several
of the most important people in the House of Commons. He
was a gentleman farmer, owning a small estate near Huntingdon
which he worked himself until, in 1631, he sold his land to buy
leases of rich river pastures near St. Ives. This sale of his patri-
mony shows that he regarded land as a means of making a liveli-
hood., rather than as an hereditary possession and a matter of
social and family pride. He preferred to be a hard-working farmer
and business man, mixing on equal terms with common folk,
whose champion he became, in various local quarrels, rather than
to be a mere squire. This point of view is characteristic of the
kind of business agriculturist who was likely to be a Puritan and
a Roundhead, while the old-fashioned, west country squires, who
took a more feudal attitude to life and society, were the typical
Cavaliers, Even the great landed magnates of the Puritan party,
like the Earls of Bedford and Manchester, were deeply interested
in increasing their fortunes and estates by modern capitalistic
methods. The Puritan, high or low, was taught by his religion
to idealize business, enterprise and hard work. The Cavalier was
usually of a more easy-going and enjoying nature.
The Civil War was not therefore a social war, but a struggle
in which parties divided on political and religious issues, along
a line of cleavage that answered, roughly and with many personal
exceptions, to certain divisions of social type. In the events that
followed the War, during the Roundhead Commonwealth (1649-
1660), the class cleavage became more marked, The gentry as a
whole became more and more alienated from the Roundhead
cause and its leaders. Meanwhile democratic ideas of the equality
of men irrespective of their rank and wealth affected the political
happenings of the period But these 'levelling' ideas were more
101
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
political than social. The theorists in the ranks of the New Model
Army advocated manhood suffrage for Parliament, but not a
socialist redistribution of property. Only the small sect of
'Diggers/ under Winstanley, claimed that the land of England
belonged to the people of England and had been stolen by the
squires. They were quickly suppressed by the army chiefs.
When the Diggers warned the Regicide Government that the
political revolution would not stand its ground unless it was
based on a social revolution, they spoke the truth, as the Restora-
tion shortly afterwards showed.
Even the idea of political democracy was almost confined to
the Radicals of the triumphant army. There was no movement
in that direction among the mass of the people > and if a general
election had been held on a wide franchise it would have resulted
in a Cavalier Restoration,
But although there was no breaking up of estates into smaller
units of land on a democratic basis, a certain amount of land
passed for a short time from Cavalier to Roundhead ownership,
This consisted chiefly of the Church and Crown lands sold to
meet the needs of the Revolutionary government, as the monastic
lands had been sold a century before. The purchasers were for
the most part men of the advanced Republican party. But all
these lands went back to Church and King at the Restoration, so
that no *new aristocracy* was founded out of them. And indeed
the soldiers and merchants who held them for a decade on this
insecure tenure had made little attempt to set up as country
gentlemen in their new estates, which they had bought chiefly
as commercial speculations.
Otherwise the amount of land that changed hands was re-
markably small. The Cavalier squire had the government of the
county taken out of his hands, and had to pay heavy fine* for
'malignancy.* But severe as these fines were, they were paid by
cutting of woods, borrowing, economy and various arrangements
with family and friends. 1 Pot the squires were ready to make
1 Ooe of Chirk* I'i wealthiest and most loyal supporter*, the latf fitd of South-
ampton (owner of Bloomsbuty property that went to the fUtttetta by the marriage
of his daughter Rachel) WAS fined 6,466 for the put be ld tsfcea in the Chil War,
a sum reckoned to he a tenth of all hk landed property. He paid k, retired to his
country estates for awhile, and emerged as a rery wealthy T^?*4rmff at the Reloca-
tion. This is very far from rooting out a data, or fbrckig property to change baaxia
by fines. Miss Scott Thornton, Tk RMSM& fr fifeetifcr* Chqx O.
101
AFTER THE CIVIL WAR
great sacrifices to avoid parting with their lands. Recent detailed
research into ownership land-holding in several Midland counties
in the Seventeenth Century, shows how little private land changed
hands under the Commonwealth. Indeed, small estates were
more freely sold after the Restoration, from economic causes
which then became prevalent; but it is indeed possible that the
Parliamentary fines may have permanently embarrassed some
small estates and helped to compel their sale in a later genera-
tion.
In any case it does not appear to be true that, as has sometimes
been conjectured, the 'Whigs' of Charles IFs reign were a new
type of landowner who had risen in the country during the
Commonwealth period- The older squirearchy suffered much
indignity and distress and was put to many mean shifts, but it was
not uprooted. When in the autumn of 1654 the Cavalier diarist,
John Evelyn, made a sporting tour among his friends' country
houses in the Midlands, from the 'pleasant shire of Nottingham,
full of gentry/ to Cambridge and Audley End, he noted many
*noble seats' and says nothing of the ruin or absence of their
proprietors, or of any changes of ownership. [See 83*]
The nobility were even more in eclipse than the squirearchy,
for hardly any of the House of Peers followed the fortunes of the
Roundhead party in the regicide period. Under the rule of Saints
and Soldiers, Lords ceased to count for much in England.
Dorothy Osbome, ever sensible and ever gay, remarked on the
folly of her cousin in choosing a wife because she was an Earl's
daughter, 'which methought was the prettiest fancy and had the
least sense in it, considering that it made no addition to her
person, and how little it is esteemed in this age, if it be anything
in a better/ The 'better age* of the Restoration brought back,
sure enough, a respect for Earls and a more general desire to
majrry their daughters.
On the other hand, many important results of the victory of
the Parliamentary armies survived the Restoration, One of these
was the increased power of London and of the merchant com-
munity in high politics. Another was the triumph of the English
Common Law over its rivals* [See 8r,]
In Tudor times, to strengthen the Royal Prerogative and meet
the real needs of that age, there had been a great increase in the
number and the power of independent Courts each administering
103
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
its own legal system with little regard to the procedure and prin-
ciples of the Common Law. But the Parliaments that opposed
James and Charles I, instructed by Edward Coke, the greatest of
English lawyers, endeavoured to uphold the supremacy of the
Common Law, and in 1641 were able to enforce it by legislation;
the Star Chamber, the Ecclesiastical Court of High Commission
and the jurisdiction of the Councils of Wales and of the North
were then abolished. The Admiralty Court had already been
compelled to accept the control of the Common Law in the
development of the important commercial law of England,
Thus the English judicial system escaped the fate of being
broken into fragments. The only dualism left was the inde-
pendence of the Court of Chancery; but even that ceased to be
a weapon of Royal Prerogative, and became a complementary
system of Judge-made law, ingeniously dovetailed into the
principles enforced in the ordinary Courts.
The victory of the Common Law involved the abolition of
torture in England long before other countries, and paved the
way for a fairer treatment of political enemies of government
when brought to trial* Above all, the victory of the Common
Law over the Prerogative Courts preserved the mediaeval con-
ception of the supremacy of law, as a thing that could not be
brushed aside for the convenience of government, and could
only be altered in full Parliament, not by the King alone. This
great principle, that law is above the executive, was indeed
violated during the revolutionary period of the Commonwealth
and Protectorate, But it re -emerged at the Restoration, and was
confirmed at the Revolution of 1688, which was effected against
James II precisely to establish the principle that law was above
the King* That mediaeval idea of the supremacy of law as some*
thing separate from and independent of the will of the Executive,
disappeared in continental countries, But in England it became
the palladium of our liberties and had a profound effect on
English society and habits of thought
Under the Commonwealth and Protectorate, constitutional
law was trodden underfoot in the exigencies of Revolution, but
even during that period the common law tod the lawyers were
very strong, strong enough unfortunately to prevent the fulfil*
ment of a loud popular demand for law reform, t crying social
need which Cromwell vainly endeavoured to tupply. The
104
HOUSE DECORATION
kwyers were too many for him. Even he was not wholly a dic-
tator: the soldiers on one side, the lawyers on the other, at once
supported him and held him in check. When at the Restoration
the army was disbanded, the lawyers were left victorious.
It may well be imagined that there was scant building of
manor-houses between 1640 and 1660. But the peaceful genera-
tion that preceded the Civil War had been, on the whole, a
prosperous period for the gentry, great and small, who had con-
tinued the work of the Elizabethan age in filling the English
countryside with more and yet more lovely and commodious
dwellings. [See 70, 71, 72.]
Certain changes were taking place in the structure of the houses
newly built. The lofty, raftered hall, the essential feature of the
country house from Saxon to Elizabethan times, went out of
fashion. "Dining-rooms' and 'drawing-rooms' were now built
of one storey's height, as the various purposes of the old 'hall'
were divided up among a number of different chambers of ordin-
ary size. The courtyard in the centre of the older type of manor-
house, where so much of the life of the establishment used to go
on, also shrank or disappeared in the plans of the Jacobean
mansion; the yard was pkced no longer in the middle of the
house but behind it. [See 84, 85.]
Cornices and pilasters decorated the exterior in classical style.
Inside, the staircase and its landings were broad, and the baluster
elaborately carved. On the walls, Jacobean panelling more and
more displaced tapestry, hangings and wall paintings, for com-
mon use, though much fine tapestry was still manufactured and
highly valued. Framed pictures and marble sculpture were be-
coming common, after the example set by the art-loving Charles I
and his great subject the Earl of ArundeL Rubens, Van Dyck
and the homelier Dutch painters did much work for English
patrons. [See 86, 87 and Plate III.]
The plaster-work of the ceilings was elaborately decorative.
On the floors, rushes were giving place to carpets and matting;
that meant fewer fleas and diminished the chance of the flea-
borne Pkgue. Good carpets were now made in England, or
imported from Turkey and from Persia, But in 1645 the Verneys
at Qaydon had leather carpets for dininge and drawinge rooms/
*greene wrought velvet furniture' and *stooles with nailes guilt*:
IOJ
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
most of the company still sat on stools, chairs being reserved for
the elder or more honourable. The trestle table was giving place
to solid tables with ornamental legs. Many magnificently carved
beds and cupboards of the period still survive in their grandeur
of polished and time-blackened oak.
Out-of-doors, it was a great age for gardens in England, as
indeed it has been ever since. Bacon, after saying that *God
Almighty first planted a garden/ declared that without one
'building and palace are but gross handiworks/ The period of
late Elizabeth and the early Stuarts saw the development of the
flower garden as distinct from the garden of useful vegetables (to
which the potato from America had now been added)- Then,
too, there was the well-loved orchard with its green walks, and
the 'pleached bower* into which Beatrice stole
Where honeysuckle ripened by the sun
Forbids the sun to enter.
The flower-garden proper was arranged in rectangles and squares,
divided by broad walks, set in full view of the house. Box and
lavender were trimmed into hedges and ornamental shapes.
[See 88, 89, 90, 91,]
Many trees, plants and flowers were introduced into England
at this period, among many others the crown imperial, the tulip,
the laburnum, the nasturtium, the everlasting, love-in-a-mist,
honesty, the tulip tree, the red maple* The love of gardening and
of flowers that now became so characteristic of the English, was
in part taught them by Huguenot refugees from the low countries,
settled in Norwich and in London, The Huguenot weavers of
Spitalfields started the first gardening societies in England* In
the reign of Charles I, English books, such as PartJisMs, praising
and describing Bowers, taught and popularized the fashion of
gardening* (Eleanor Rohde, Story if fa Gmdbf, 19 j*,)
Besides the Sowers of this period that are still with us, our
ancestors had then a passion for herbs, which has not survived
to the same extent. Herbs were much used for medicinal and for
culinary purposes. Mazes and dials were laid out by plantations
of herbs and flowers. These verses of Andrew Marvell, the lesser
of Cromwell's two poet secretaries, tell of a side of life that ws
not destroyed by the wan of Roundhead aad Ctvmlier:
1 06
CO
d
<u
T)
rH
<M
rt
d
a
THE VERNEYS* HOUSEHOLD
Here at the fountain's sliding foot,
Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root,
Casting the body's vest aside,
My soul into the boughs does glide;
There, like a bird, it sits and sings,
Then whets and combs its silver wings,
And, till prepared for longer flight,
Waves in its plumes the various light.
How well the skilful gardener drew
Of flowers, and herbs, this dial new;
Where, from above, the milder sun
Does through a fragrant zodiac run,
And, as it works, the industrious bee
Computes its time as well as we I
How could such sweet and wholesome hours
Be reckoned but with herbs and flowers 1
The ideal family life of the period that ended in such tragic
political division, has been recorded once for all in the Memoirs
of the Vemy Family. Their household at Claydon, Bucks, repre-
sented all that was best in the Puritan and Cavalier way of life,
practised in unison by Sk Edmund Verney and by his son Ralph,
till the obstinacy of the King and the violence of his enemies,
forced even those two men of moderation to take opposite sides
in civil war, without less love for one another and without any
weakening of their common interest to maintain the family house
and estate intact in evil times.
The picture we get of the Vetneys at Claydon in the reign of
Charles I shows the English country house as a centre not only
of estate management but of domestic industry, in which the
members of the family, as well as their army of servants and
dependants of both sexes, have essential parts to play.
*A great house provisioned itself with little help/ writes the historian
of the Verneys.
The inhabitants brewed and baked, they churned and ground their
meal, they bred up, fed and slew their beeves and sheep, and brought
up their pigeons and poultry at their own doors. Their horses were
shod at home, thek planks were sawn, thek tougli ironwork was
forged and mended. Accordingly the mill-house, the slaughter-house,
the blacksmith's, carpenter's and painter's shops, the malting and
btewhousc, the woodyard full of large and small timber, the sawpit,
107
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
the out-houses full of all sorts of odds and ends of stone, iron and
woodwork and logs cut for burning the riding house, the laundry,
the dairy with a large churn turned by a horse, the stalls and styes for
all manner of cattle and pigs, the apple and root chambers, show how
complete was the idea of self-supply.*
The dovecots and the stew-ponds full of fish, and the decoy for
water fowl were not less important. And game brought down
by the hawk or the 'long gun* was the more valued in winter
because otherwise the only meat was that which had been salted
at the autumn slaughtering. Skin diseases were a frequent result
of the salt diet, at Claydon and in all other households high or low.
For winter vegetables were scarce; potatoes and salads were only
beginning to come into use,
'The work with the needle and the wheel was a very necessary part
of a lady's education, and as some of the poorer relations of the family
resided in great houses as "lady helps" (the equivalents of the pages of
the other sex) they were useful and welcome in carrying out these
important household labours* There arc letters from five or six of
these ladies, connected with the Verneys, well born, well bred, and as
well educated as their neighbours, who seem to have been treated with
great consideration/
Among the employments of the female part of the household
at Ckydon were spinning at wool and flax, fine and coarse needle-
work, embroidery, fine cooking, curing, preserving, distillery,
preparing medicines from herbs at the prescription of the doctor
or by family tradition, and last but not least the making of fruit
syrups and home-made wines from currant, cowslip and elder,
which played a great part in life before tea and coffee began to
come in at the Restoration.
Ten of Lady Vemey's children grew up. This large and affec-
tionate family, in which no hand was idle, found time for long
correspondence with absent members. In the Verney archives
four hundred letters survive from a single year* Frequent
journeys were taken by Sir Edmund and his children* oo the
King's or the Parliament's business, or on family and personal
affairs. They were made on horseback at t good pace along the
soft roads. In 1639 Sir Edmund rode 260 miles in four days with
the King from Berwick to London, Much slower was the
walking pace of the family *coch-t sort of cart without springs,
xo8
THE FAMILY COACH. THE STAGE COACH
with leathern curtains against the weather, which most un-
luxurious luxury was used only by infirm persons or delicate
women who could not ride/ [See 92, 104, 105.]
Public conveyances were becoming common in the period of
the Commonwealth, but were still expensive and slow. In 1658
A hackney coach
'stage coaches* set out from the George Inn, Aldersgate, London,
to various cities on the following terms:
To Salisbury in two days for 20 shillings.
To Exeter in four days for 40 shillings,
To Plymouth for 50 shillings*
and to Durham for 5 5 shillings (no time of arrival guaranteed)
and every Friday to Wakefield in four days for 40 shillings,
The breeding and purchase of horses of every kind and for
every purpose was an essential part of the Vetneys' way of life at
Qaydon. In that part of England horses were gradually replacing
oxen in cart and plough. Sir Edmund Verney's cart-horses were
sent periodically to an estate he had in the fens to 'gather flesh at
an easy charge/
When we compare the life and letters of the Verneys in the
reign of Charles I to the life and letters of the Pastons tinder
Henry VI, we are aware of the general resemblance, but we are
aware also of higher moral Instincts and traditions, of greater
109
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
kindliness and less hard outlook on family relationships and on
duty to neighbours. Long generations of peace and order in the
countryside, and possibly other changes as well, had made life
more gentle and more just. Sir Tobie Matthew, a courtier of
Charles I who knew several foreign lands almost as well as he
knew his own, and being a Roman Catholic convert was able
to take an outside and critical view of his countrymen, writes in
the preface to his Letters that the English had a monopoly of *a
. certain thing called Good Nature/ and that 'England is the only
Indies where this bottomless mine of pure gold is to be found.*
"No man is more remote than an Englishman from the dogged-
ness of long-lasting and indelible revenge/ These good qualities
were put to an exacting test when civil war came to every man's
gate, a war more ubiquitous in its scope and area than the Wars
of the Roses, but fought from less selfish and material motives.
BOOKS PQH FURTHBR
Mtrnfrs of tbt Vtrmy Ftmify t* tbi CM W*r ( 1 891); Dorothy Otbome't Lftttrr,
Mrs. Hutchimon'a Mtm&rs of Cekml ' lbfttbwm\ Upwn, Be. Ht'st* E*^.; Darby,
Hist, *g. E*X,, chap, xi; Margaret Jimes, Sotut/ PrcJMwr/ W Pttirj *faty *4*
JFWtf* Rjtwfotio*, 1950; Gotifrcy Daviet^ Tbt Etrfy Stmrto (Oxford Hi*. Eng.J.
chap, aci.
110
Chapter Four
RESTORATION ENGLAND
Charles II, 1660-1685. James II, 1685-1688.
(The devolution, 1688-1689,) William III, 1689-1702.
"QOLITICALLY, the Restoration of 1660 restored King,
JL Parliament and Law in place of the 'forced power' of mili-
tary dictatorship. Ecclesiastically it restored the Bishops and
Prayer Book and the Anglican attitude to religion, in place of
Puritanism. But socially and its social aspect concerns us most
in this work the Restoration restored the nobles and the gentry
to their hereditary place as the acknowledged leaders of local and
national life. The Englishman's proverbial c love of a lord/ bis
respectful and admiring interest in * the squire and his relations/
again had full play. Indeed, as events were to prove, the social
importance of the peer and the squire, of the gentleman and his
lady, was much more completely 'restored' than the power of the
King. The Englishman was, at bottom, something of a snob but
very little of a courtier.
Under the Commonwealth, with its democratic ideals and-
its military realities, the majority of the hereditary 'upper class/
being Cavaliers, had suffered an eclipse without parallel in our
social history. They had not been destroyed as a class, but had
been put into cold storage. They had not lost their lands or
more than a certain proportion of their wealth by fines. But their
place in national and local government and in social importance
bad for awhile been usurped by successful soldiers, or by poli-
ticians who could adapt themselves to the rapid changes of a
icrvolutionary era. Some of these, Algernon Sidney and Ashley
Cooper, had been men of good family; others, like Colonels
Pride and Birch, had been such 'plain russet-coated captains' as
Cromwell loved, whom he had raised up with him to rule the
land. At the Restoration many of the Roundhead leaders dis-
appeared into obscurity or exile; but others, like Monk, Ashley
Cooper, Colonel Birch and Andrew Marvell, retained their status
in th* lforlfc*n*n**ry o y fy*ywtrrn^ft1 ranks. Once the Regicides
in
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
had been disposed of, there was no proscription of former Round-
heads, except only of such as obstinately continued to attend
'conventicles/ as the places of Puritan worship were now called.
Throughout the reign of Charles II, religious nonconformists
suffered severe though intermittent persecution, under the laws
of the 'Clarendon Code/ The victims were members of the
middle and lower classes, chiefly residing in the towns. Many
of them were wealthy merchants, more were industrious artisans;
and statesmen were soon complaining that religious persecution
interfered seriously with trade. Very few of those who suffered
belonged to the landowning gentry: among the squires^ the
Roundhead spirit suffered change into the Whig, which refused
to hamper its worldly ambitions by too scrupulous an adherence
to the proscribed Puritan religion. A common Whig type was
that of the sceptical Shaftesbury or the blasphemous Wharton,
although these attitudes were no less fashionable among Cavalier
courtiers and Tory leaders of Parliament. There were, however,
plenty of Whigs who were good Christians, though never High
Churchmen; the Russells and other Whig families attended
the Anglican worship with sincere piety, while they engaged
silenced Puritan clergymen as private chaplains and tutors for
their children. The distinction between the two Protestant
religions was by no means absolute for all men.
After the Restoration, the members of the landowning dass
who attended conventicles and suffered persecution as Noncon-
formists were a mere handful, Anglicanism became distinctively
the upper-class religion, for more completely than it had been in
the days of Elizabeth or of Laud. There were indeed still a
certain number of Roman Catholic country gentlemen, especially
in Lancashire and Northumberland; they were shut out from
all participation in local and national government by laws which
the King was occasionally able to break for their benefit. Other-
wise the upper class, the gentlemen of England, were socially
united by common conformity to the Anglican worship. Hence*
forth the services of the parish Church were under the special
patronage of the ladies and gentlemen in the family pew; the
great body of the congregation were their dependants, the
farmers and labourers of the, village. Addisoo'i Sir Roger de
Coverley in church affords a pleasant rumple of the social tide
of rural worship as it remained for many geaeratioai to cooes
lit
$60 WiffiftDQ Shakcspc die eogwiviftg for the . <c Fk$t FoHo" (1623)
6 1 An inn yard with galleries The New Inn, Gloucester, fifteenth
century
64 Sir Philip Sidney
65 Sir Richard Grcnvilie
66 The last fight of the
THE FHNS
Ttte Trending
vfed us nt
Txie Trenchtiip 1 '
69 Trenching tools
70 Inigo Jones
71 Air view of the Queen's House, Greenwich
Copyright "Country Lift"
72 The Double Cube Room at Wilton House
THE
LAMENTABLE
COMPLAINTS
Of
NICK FROTS tibe'fi
RvtERost
Qmermitifbe rq
73 Sunday observance
in 1641
74 Abuses of the Spiritual
Courts
75 The Maypole
76 "The rule of the Saints"
THE *
LAMENTABLE
COMPLAINTS
NICK FROTH tfeeTafter, md
RVLEKOST
73 Sunday observance
in 1641
74 Abuses of the Spiritual
Courts
75 'The Maypole
576 "The rule of the Saints"
77 u An elected debating Assembly"
the House of Commons in 16 j \
$78 John Banyan "The lonely figure with its Bible
aad the burden of sitr. . . is the representative Puritan
of the English Puritan epoch" N
$79 ThcBsttkofNweby
Suftv:*',,; ' ' * > j* ? ' i ". ~^*
(/r faseriptm
80 "A War of ideas in Church and State"
(f&r txpktMJiw
RELIGION, POLITICS AND CLASS
My friend Sir Roger, being a good Church-man, has beautified the
inside of his Church with several texts of his own choosing. He has
likewise given a handsome pulpit cloth and railed in the communion
table at his own expense. He has often told me that at his coming to
his estate he found the Parishioners very irregular; and in order to
make them kneel and join in the responses, he gave every one of them
a hassock and a Common-Prayer book; and at the same time employed
an itinerant singing-master, who goes about the country for that
purpose, to instruct them rightly in the tunes of the Psalms. As Sir
Roger is landlord to the whole congregation, he keeps them in very
good order, and suffers no body to sleep in it besides himself; for if
by chance he has been surprised into a short nap at sermon, upon re-
covering out of it he stands up and looks about him, and if he sees
anybody else nodding, either wakes them himself or sends his servants
to them.
The dissenting congregations, on the other hand, alike in
times of persecution and toleration, were made up of men who
prided themselves on their independence, and who liked to feel
that the chapel and its minister belonged to themselves. Socially
at least they were *at ease in Zion/ safe from the inquisitorial eye
of the squire and his kdy. Until the Wesleyan movement, dis-
senting congregations and meetings were almost confined to
cities, market towns and industrial districts, though many villages
had isolated families of Quakers and Baptists. Some of the Dis-
senters were poor artisans like John Bunyan; others, especially
in London and Bristol, were wealthy merchants who could have
bought up the squires who persecuted them. And often such
merchants did in fact buy out needy gentlemen, after accumu-
lating mortgages on their land. In the next generation the dis-
senting merchant's son would be a squire and a churchman. Yet
another generation, and the ladies of the family would be talking
with contempt of all who attended meeting-houses or engaged in
trade I
Thus the social character of English religious divisions was
stereotyped at the Restoration and continued with little change
u0til the Victorian era*
Though the upper class was now substantially one in the form
of its reSgkms observance, it was divided politically into Whigs
tod Tories. Tbe Tories, who were far the most numerous,
sought to ertirpatc religious Dissent and to make the Anglican
nj 8
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
Church coextensive with the nation. But the Whig Peers and
gentry, an able and wealthy minority, advocated the new doc*
trine of Toleration, at least for all Protestants* They derived
their political power from alliance with the Puritans of the in-
dustrial and commercial regions, who were able to control the
municipal and Parliamentary elections in many boroughs. The
Tories, like the Cavaliers before them, were the section of the
society that stood most whole-heartedly in the old ways of rural
England. The Whigs, like their Roundhead fathers, were usually
those members of the landowning class who were in close touch
with commercial men and commercial interests. And therefore
Whig rather than Tory policies stood to gain in the long run by
the continuous process of economic change, as it moved with
gradually accelerating momentum towards an agricultural and
industrial revolution which would leave only too little of the
ancient ways.
The Restoration world had turned back from that preoccu-
pation with matters ecclesiastical which had characterized Crom-
wellian England, The popular reaction that overthrew the
Puritans had been less religious than secular. Hxdibraj is not a
work of Anglican piety. Indeed, the principal reason why the
English witnessed the return of the old Church establishment
with relief, was because it made less constant and obtrusive
demands for professions of religious zeal upon the common
occasions of life. The Puritans had made men 'eat religion with
their bread,* till the taste of it sickened them.
For a generation after 1660 the Puritans were often bitterly
persecuted, but more for political and social reasons than from
genuinely religious motives* The object of the 'Clarendon Code*
was to prevent the revival of the Roundhead party, and to avenge
the wrongs suffered by Anglicans and Cavaliers. But the spirit of
the persecution was not ecclesiastical; it was not a heresy hunt
The hard^lrinking fox-hunters of the manor-house hated the
Presbyterians of die ndghbouring Town not because they held
the doctrines of Calvin, but because they talked through their
noses, quoted scripture instead of swearing hottest oaths, and
voted Wh% instead of Tory.
In 1 6 77 the Writ D* Awnrtfe wmbtrmb wu abolished, and all
'punishment by death in pursuance erf any Ecclesiastical Closures'
was abolished by law; but in fact no beiedc had been put to
114
THE ROYAL SOCIETY
death in England since the Unitarians who had been burnt in the
lifetime of Shakespeare. Puritanism in the day of its power had
not made for orthodoxy; Cromwell's England had abounded
in strange doctrines and attenuated creeds, and had left to the
restored Kings an island of *a hundred religions/ Where re-
ligions are many and various, irreligion is less likely to be perse-
cuted. But in Presbyterian Scotland, whefe sects had little hold
and where the spirit of orthodoxy in doctrine was popular with
the masses, a lad of eighteen was hanged for denying the authority
of the Scriptures as late as the year 1697; whereas in England,
any time after the Civil War, a reputation for 'atheism/ though it
might be socially disadvantageous, no longer endangered a man's
life or freedom. By the end of the Century, Unitarian doctrines,
for which men were burnt a hundred years before, were not
uncommon among English Presbyterian congregations of the
highest bourgeois respectability, while many of the leading
statesmen, not to mention King Charles himself in his merrier
moods, were sceptics in the sense of being scoffers.
It was of graver import that experimental science was spreading
fast in England, Under the Commonwealth there had been a
group of remarkable scientists resident at the Universities and in
London, whose work came into the limelight of fashion and
favour at the Court of the Restoration, The Royal Society was
founded under the patronage of King Charles and of his cousin
Prince Rupert, himself a conductor of chemical experiments.
The uses to which science might be turned, in agriculture,
industry, navigation, medicine and engineering, appealed to the
practical English mind* Another hundred years were to pass
before the Industrial Revolution gathered foil force, ktgely as
a result of the application of science to manufacture, but already
in the reign of Charles n many subjects of daily importance were
befog studied in a scientific spirit, and this new spirit alteady had
ft great influence on educated thought in England. Robert Boyle,
Isaac Newton and the early members of the Royal Society were
tieBglous men, who repudiated the sceptical doctrines of Hobbes.
But they fiuniliadbed the minds of their countrymen with the
idea of law In the Universe and with scientific methods of inquiry
to discover truth* It was believed that these methods would
never lead to any conclusion inconsistent with Biblical history and
miraculous teligioo; Newton lived and died in that ftith. But
nj
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
his law of universal gravitation and his calculus supplied methods
of approaching truth that had no relation to theology. The
spread of scientific inquiry affected the character of religious be-
lief, though not as yet its content The age of latitudinarism piety
that followed the Revolution of 1688 was being prepared by
these intellectual movements of the Restoration, [See 96, 97.]
Early in the reign of Charles II, the first 'History of the Royal
Society/ its character and aims, was written by Sprat, some years
later Bishop of Rochester, a man highly characteristic of the new
age both in the versatility of his mind and the politic flexibility
of his opinions. This High Church divine commends the 'learned
and inquisitive age* in which he lives, praises the practical objects
of the Fellows of the Royal Society, c to increase the powers of all
mankind and to free them from the bondage of errors,* and claims
for these new philosophers the widest range of inquiry 'these
two subjects, God and the Soul, being only forborne: in all the
rest, they wander at their pleasure/ God was to be praised by
studying the plan of His creation, but no further attempt was to
be made to fit the findings of science into the scheme of theology,
as the schoolmen of old had striven so long and so painfully
to do. *God and the Soul* were taken for granted and left
aside. It was an orthodox position no doubt, but not essentially
religious. God was no longer all in all. In a world governed by
such studies, superstition would be exposed, and poetry would
yield pride of place to prose; would even religion be quite the
same again?
Sprat was one of the excellent writers who formed the ludd
prose of the Restoration era, but he was not an original thinker,
and his book on the Royal Society (1667) is on that account til
the more symptomatic of the mind of tfaenew age. Like Locke and
Newton a few years later, the Bishop concedes to 'the ancient
miracles' of Bible times a passport as privileged phenomena,
unusual interfereoces of God ^dth His creation- But modem
miracles were no longer to be expected in the Protestant, Anglican
climate* *The course of things,' Sprat declares, 'goes quietly
along, in its own true dhaood of nttutal causes and effects/
It is no longer even Shakespeare's wodd: *Klng Qberoa tod his
invisible army of fairies' are *&lsc ffrfrnreji^ to thfa philosopher
Bishop. When the EngUshrnen of the Revo^
at 'Popish miracles/ it was not ooiy bootuae tbey *rwe Popith but
BELIEF IN WITCHCRAFT
because they were miracles. Sprat even warns his too credulous
countrymen 'not to be hasty in assigning the causes of plagues, or
fires or inundations' to the judgments of God for sin. Finally,
<the new philosophy' of the physical sciences is to be the mother
of inventions useful to man, enriching and comforting his life.
'While the old philosophy could only bestow on us some barren
terms and notions, the new shall impart to us the uses of all the
creatures and shall enrich us with all the benefits of fruitfulness
and plenty.'
While the episcopal blessing was thus enthusiastically given
to the questioning spirit of science, it is not surprising that in the
kter years of the Century, the reaction of educated minds to
charges of witchcraft was very different from what it had been a
short time before. Evidence of these *odd stories' was now
critically and sometimes contemptuously examined by magis-
trates. Popular superstition on this subject was almost as gross as
ever, but the gentry were now predisposed to be sceptical. The
accused witches had two advantages; England was a country
where the common Law did not permit the use of torture to
extract confession; and the judges had almost as much control
as the juries over the course and outcome of trials. More gener-
ally speaking, it was lucky for the witches that England was still
aristocratically governed. In many rural parts the populace, if
it had not been restrained by the gentry, would have continued
to drown or burn witches down to the Nineteenth Century.
But in 1736, greatly to the indignation of many simple folk,
Parliament repealed the already obsolete law that condemned a
witch to die.
We can trace this gradual change of opinion, affecting in the
first instance the educated classes, in Sir John Reresby's account
of a witch trial that he attended at the York Assizes in 1687:
A poor old woman had the hard fate to be condemned for a witch.
Somtt tbat wrt mors apt to bsfavs tkosB things than me, thought the evi-
dence strong against her, the boy that said he was bewitched falling
into fits before the bench when he sec her. But in all this it was
observed that the boy had no distortion, no foaming at the mouth, nor
did his fits leave him gradually,, but all of a sudden; so that tbejitdgf
tboxgbtfittonpriwtktr.
However, it is just to relate this odd story. One of my soldiers,
being ttpoa thfi guied at ekrvm o'clock at night at Clifford Towet Gate
117
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
the night the witch was arraigned, hearing a great noise at the Castle,
came to the porch, and being there see a scroll of paper creep from
under the door, which, as be imagined by moonshine, turned first into the
shape of a monkey, then a turkey cock, which moved to and fro by
him. Where upon he went to the gaol and called the under-gaoler,
who came and see the scroll dance up and down and creep under the
door, where there was scarce the room of the thickness of half a crown.
This I bad from the mouth both of the sol&tr andgaokr*
It will be observed that Sir John Reresby and the Judge, the
men of education, were more sceptical than the Jury, the soldier
and the turnkey.
For their patronage of science, Charles II and his courtiers
deserve all praise. Their patronage of the theatre, struggling to
revive after its suppression by the foolish bigotry of the Puritans,
was also a well-timed service to the nation, but the manner of it
was less deserving of unqualified eulogy,
The revived theatres differed in several important respects
from those in which Shakespeare had first been played. The
whole playhouse was now roofed in, and the stage artificially
lighted with candles : there were 'footlights/ a drop curtain and
painted scenery. Moreover, the women's parts were no longer,
as before the Civil War, taken by well-trained boys, but by women
actresses. Men came to see the actress as much as the play. Nell
Gwyrme's personal vigour and charm counted for more perhaps
than, her professional skill. It was to a large extent a new theatre
and a new dramatic art, with new possibilities, and new dangers.
For many years there was one theatre open in London, the
Theatre Royal, at Dnary Lane, and sometimes one or two more.
But there were no fixed theatres in the provinces and the touting
companies were few and bad Acting was not, as music then was
in the age of Purcell, a national pastime and an art widely prac-
tised at home by many small groups of connoisseurs- The drama
was localised in London, and even there it appealed not to the
citizens but to the Court and the ftaWombks of the Town. It
was for their vitiated taste that the drama of die early years of the
Restoration catered. [See 95, 94.]
At that time a hard-hearted and cynical feivoJity prevailed in
Whitehall and Westminster mnch roore than in FfikH AS t
whole. The men who haunted
1*8
CHARLES II*S COURT
of the Whig and Tory parties in the time of the Popish Plot and
the Exclusion Bill, laughed at all forms of virtue as hypocrisy,
and believed that every man had his price.
What makes all doctrines plain and clear?
About two hundred pounds ajear.
And that which was proved true before
Prove false again? Two hundred more.
(Hudibras.}
So they thought, being themselves for sale. Yet two thousand
Puritan Ministers had just given up their livings and gone out to
endure persecution for conscience' sake (1662), following the
example of their enemies the Anglican clergy, who had suffered
like things for twenty years past rather than desert the Church
in her extremity. The Puritan and Anglican clergy who refused
to save their livelihoods by recantation were nearly ten times as
numerous as the Catholic and Protestant clergy who had similarly
stood out during the frequent Tudor changes of religion. Con-
science meant more, not less, than of old* England was sound
enough. But her courtiers and politicians were rotten. For the
King himself and the younger generation of the aristocracy had
been demoralized by the break-up of their education and family
life, by exile and confiscation leading to the mean shifts of sudden
poverty, by the endurance of injustice done to them in the name
of religion, by the constant spectacle of oaths and covenants lightly
taken and lightly broken, and all the base underside of revolu-
tion and counter-revolution of which they had been the victims.
For these reasons a hard disbelief in virtue of any kind was
characteristic of the restored leaders of politics and fashion, and
was reflected in the early Restoration drama which depended on
their patronage. One of the most successful pieces was Wycher-
ley's Cwmtry Wifo\ the hero, by pretending to be a eunuch,
secures admission to privacies which enable him to seduce
women; one is expected to admire his character and proceedings,
In no other age, before or after, would such a plot-motive have
appealed to any English audience,
However, the theatre had been restored, and much of its work
was good It tevived plays by Shakespeare and Ben Joason. It
was adotned by the poetic genius of Dtyden's dramas and the
muskal geoins of PuicelTs incidental tunes and operatic pieces.
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
And in the following generation Wycherley's brutalities went
clean out of fashion. They were succeeded by the new English
comedy of Congreve and Farquhar. Those great writers are
usually lumped with Wycherley as 'Restoration Dramatists/ but
in fact it would be more chronologically correct to call Congreve
and Farquhar 'Revolution Dramatists,* for they wrote in the
reigns of William and Anne.
So the Wycherley period of the English stage did not last long,
but it had done permanent harm, because it had confirmed many
pious and decent-minded families, High Church as well as Low,
in a hpstile attitude to the drama, which had in Shakespeare's time
been peculiar to rigid Puritans. Till late in the Nineteenth
Century, not a few well-brought-up young people were never
allowed to visit the theatre. And if such stringency was the ex-
ception rather than the rule, it is at least true to say that the serious
part of the nation would never take the theatre seriously* This
misfortune was not a little due to Puritan bigotry and to its out*
come in the licentiousness of the early Restoration drama. These
unhappy conditions were peculiar to England; the age of
Wycherley over here was the age of Moliire, CorneilJe and
Racine in France. There the drama, comic as well as tragic, was
decent and was serious, and the French have ever since token their
drama seriously, as the Elizabethan English took theirs, regarding
it as a civilizing influence and a criticism of life.
The age which produced Newton's Primipia^ Milton's Parodist
Lost, Dryden's Absalom and ArbifopM t PurcdTs Music and
Wren's Churches, and all the varied interests and curiosities of
the daily life recorded by Evelyn and Pcpys, such an age wai one
of the greatest for English genius and civilization. It could not
have been what it was without the printing press, yet it is
remarkable what a small amount of printing served itt turn*
In the first place thett was a rigid censorship. No book,
pamphlet or news-sheet could be legally printed without licence
obtained from the authorities, l^vm^ of the fyfaljw establish-
ment in Church or State, could only print their views in secret
presses, operated in London garrets by desperate mm,, who were
spied upon by informers in the pay of Roger Lestrange, and
savagely punished if caught
But the censorship that thus stifled debate no longer derived
CENSORSHIP AND PRESS
its sanction from the Royal Prerogative, as of old, but from an
Act of Parliament. The first Licensing Act, passed in 1663 by the
Cavalier Parliament, aimed at preventing the publication of
seditious and heretical works meaning in the first instance
Roundhead and Puritan writings. The Act was periodically
renewed, except during the period of the Whig Houses of Com-
mons and the years without a Parliament that followed (1679-
16$ j). Revived by the Parliament of James II, the Licensing Act
was finally allowed to expire in the more liberal age ushered in
by the Revolution. After 1696 an Englishman was permitted to
print and publish whatever he chose, without consulting any
authority in Church or State; only he could be called to account
for it on a charge of libel or sedition before a jury of his country-
men* Thus Milton's dream of 'liberty of unlicensed printing' was
realized in England, a generation after his death.
Under the restrictions of the Censorship while it still existed,
men of letters and science had been able to make a freer use of
the press than politicians. The ecclesiastical licensers, 1 while
refusing their sanction to the specific doctrines of Dissent, were
not so obscurantist as to prevent the publication of Para&se Lost
or Pi/gritit's Progress. Newton's Prindpia bears the imprimatur of
Samuel Pepys as President of the Royal Society in 1686.
Yet the aggregate of books and pamphlets published was not
large. By the provisions of the Licensing Act the number of
master-printers in the Kingdom was reduced to twenty and the
number of presses they might each use was rigidly limited.
Except for the two University Presses, all the master-printers con-
gregated in London > to the detriment of intellectual life in the
country at large. Ifl the following century, when the Licensing
Act was ao more, printing became widely diffused, to the great
benefit of the literary and scientific life of the Provinces. But in
Stuart times, London and the two Universities monopolized
printing and publishing. When William of Orange occupied
Exeter on his famous match from Torbay, the Capital of the West
was unable to furnish a single printer or machine to strike off
copies of his manifesto.
1 By the T[4c*m! n g Act of 1663 Political treatises -were to be licensed by the
Secretary of St*te Law books by thfi Lord Chancellor, boo& of Heraldry by the
E*ri Marshal or Kings of Arms, and all other publications by the Archbishop of
Caotarbttry and the Bishop of London, These authorities appointed Licensers to
read the book*,
I2Z
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTOR7
Except during the few years in Charles IPs reign when the
Censorship was in abeyance, there were practically no newspapers,
for the meagre official Gazette could not be so called. News
circulated in "newsletters' written by hand in London and sent
down to correspondents in distant towns and villages: the re-
cipients, if they wished, could read or lend them to their neigh-
bours. It was largely by this means that the Whig and Tory
parties were formed and held together in the constituencies.
And news of all sorts sporting, literary and general, went round
in the same way. The composition and multiplication of these
newsletters employed an army of scribes in London, answering
to the journalists and the printers of newspapers of later times.
Private libraries were growing more common, varying in size
and character from the noble collections of Samuel Pcpys and of
the Cotton family, to the modest bookshelf in the yeoman's
farm. That a fine country house ought to have a fine library was
an idea already becoming fashionable, but it was not yet put in
practice so generally as in Hanoverian times- [Sec 5 98.]
On the other hand, since public libraries were extremely rare
outside Oxford and Cambridge, it was difficult for readers of
slender means to obtain the use of books. In 1684 a public
library in London was established by Tenison, then Rector of
St. Martin's inSiie Fields, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury;
Evelyn writes in his diary:
0r, Tenison communicated to me his intention of erecting t library in
St. Martin's Parish, for the public use, and desired my assistance, with
Sir Christopher Wren, about the placing and structure thereof, a
worthy and laudable design* He told me there were thirty or forty
young men in orders in his pariah, either governors to young gentlemen
or chaplains to noblemen, 1 who being reproved by him on occasion
for frequenting taverns and cofiee-houses, told him they would study
or employ their time better* if they had books, This put the pious
Doctor on this design; and Indeed a great reproach ft is that so great
a dty as London should not have a public library becoming it,
Tenisoa built a krge house 10 the ground of St Martin's church-
yard, and used the upper part for the library, the ground floor
as a workroom for the poor. (Strype*s Stof* L****, 1720,
VI, p, 8,)
&e dm of ctag^ra mc*t
thet age of patronage*
111
THE PULPIT
Ten years before, Wren had been engaged by his friend, Isaac
Barrow, Master of Trinity, Cambridge, to design the noblest of
all College Library buildings; and the bookcases were adorned
by the wood-carving of Grinling Gibbons. If books were still
somewhat rare, they were held in all the more honour and were
housed like Princes. [See 99.]
A fair proportion of the people, even in remote villages, could
read and write. Accounts were made up; letters of business,
gossip and affection were exchanged; diaries, as we know, were
kept both in short and long hand, But though it was an age of
reading and writing in the conduct of the ordinary affairs of life,
very little printed matter came in the way of the less educated.
This gave all the greater importance to the sermon, which dealt
as freely with political as with religious doctrines. In the Puritan
era gone by,
The pulpit, drum ecclesiastic
Was beat with fist instead of a stick.
(Hudtbras.')
Now the jack-boot was on the other leg; it was^aid that the
country parsons of the restored Church preached more often
about King Charles the Martyr than about Jesus Christ. A fierce
political tone was no doubt too common, but much also was
taught and preached by the rural clergy that was better than
politics. Moreover, there existed, chiefly in London, an in-
fluential minority of the Anglican priesthood, whose sermons,
broadly human, learned and eloquent raised the reputation
of the Church and its pulpit deservedly high with all men. Such
were Tenison, StiUingflcet and Isaac Barrow, and above all
Tillotson,
Moreover, the Church of the Restoration and Revolution made
great contributions to learning. The ecclesiastico-political con-
troversies of the time, in which all sides appealed to the practice
of the past, set a premium on historical research, and helped to
produce in England the first great age of mediaeval scholarship.
It inspired the researches of clergymen and religious laymen like
Sir William Dugdale of the Monastics, Anthony Wood and
Heatae of QxfbtcL, Jeremy ColHer, Nicholson, Butnet, the first
serious historian of the Reformation, Wkarton of Axglia Sacra,
Rymer of tbe J?**dera and Wake and Wilkins of the Concilia.
12}
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
The publication of mediaeval texts, and the study of Anglo-
Saxon and mediaeval antiquities by these men between 1660 and
1730 were astonishing alike in quality and volume. After that,
interest in mediaeval history died away under the influence of
encyclopaedic 'enlightenment' in the age of Voltaire, which was
in turn succeeded by the sentimental romantic antiquarianism of
the epoch of Ivanhot. But when, in the middle and later years of
the Nineteenth Century, the two Maitlands and Stubbs and a host
of other scholars unearthed the realities of mediaeval life and
thought, the work of these moderns was based upon that of the
scholars of the later Stuart period, whose exact and monumental
studies had been inspired by the desire to defend the Church of
England against Rome and Geneva, or by zeal to espouse one
side or the other in the Nonjuror and Convocation controversies*
(See English Scholars > Prof. David Douglas, 1929.)
In classical scholarship, Richard Bentley, Professor of Divinity
and Master of Trinity, Cambridge, shone supreme among the
English scholars not only of his own day but of all time. The
publication of his Pbalaris In 1699 made a new epoch in Greek
studies, as Newton's Principia had done in physical science only
a dozen years before. The feet that Bentley and his opponents
published their lucubrations on Pbalaris in English, not in Latin,
betokened the increasing number of the general public who
could take an intelligent interest in a learned controversy. But
even Bentley still published the notes of his editions of the classics
in Latin, just as Newton published his Prmeipia> for scholarship
and science still regarded themselves as cosmopolitan first and
national afterwards.
Meanwhile the Quaker community was spreading its influence
among the people faster than any other of the persecuted sects.
Founded by George Pox in the period when the sword of Crom-
well guarded the 'liberty of prophesying* against presbyter and
priest, the strange religion was able to take root, but the unusual
proceedings and manners of the first Friends subjected them to
much ill-usage even in that era of sectarian liberty. And when the
Restoration brought back the avowed persecution of Dissent,
the Quakers suffered most severely of all the sects cxpoeed to the
severity of the Clarendon Code. Avwse from institutional re-
ligion, regardless of sacraments, without priesthood or dogma,
THE FIRST QUAKERS
the Quakers, if they had come into existence half a century before
they did, would have been burnt in batches. But the kind of
persecution they had now to undergo, of stripes and imprison-
ment, enabled them to win proselytes by the display of patience
and meekness under suffering.
With the meekness went a strain of mild obstinacy exquisitely
calculated to infuriate the self-important bumbledom of that
time, as when the Friends refused to remove their hats before the-
Court that was to try them. Their protest against snobbery and
man-worship of the age was invaluable, but sometimes it took
very foolish forms.
The nature of early Quakerism in the lifetime of its founder
(Fox died in 1691) was a popular revivalism, profuse in its shrill
utterance, making converts by thousands among the common
folk. In the reigns of William and Anne, the Friends had become
numerically one of the most powerful of the English sects. They
settled down in the Eighteenth Century as a highly respectable
and rather exclusive 'connection/ not seeking to proselytize any
more, but possessing their own souls and guiding their own lives
by a light that was indeed partly the 'inner light' in each man
and woman, but was also a tradition and a set of spiritual rules
of extraordinary potency, handed on from father to son and
mother to daughter in the families of the Friends.
The finer essence of George Fox's queer teaching, common to
the excited revivalists who were his first disciples, and to the
*quiet* Friends of later times, was surely this that Christian
qualities matter much more than Christian dogmas. No Church
or sect had ever made that its living rule before. To maintain the
Christian quality In the world of business and of domestic life,
and to frw^tafo it without pretension or hypocrisy, was the gseat
achievement of these extraordinary people. England may well be
proud of having produced and perpetuated them. The Puritan
pot had boiled over, with much heat and fury; when it had
cooled and been poured away, this precious sediment was left
at the bottom,
The autobiography of Sk John Reresby, Baronet, of Thrybergh
in the West Riding of Yorkshire, supplies a typical instance of
the ffrqmgfog forttwes of a Cavalier landed femily. Sir John's
fether died to 1646, the year after Naseby, leaving the estate; in
IZJ
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
debt for iz,ooo, 'not through ill husbandry but through reason
of the war/ He had been taken prisoner by the Roundheads two
years before his death, 'confined to his own house/ and forced by
fines to sell tf a large wood, all of it great timber, that stood in the
Park/ His son, Sir John, aged twelve at the time of his succession
to the encumbered estate, managed, under the careful conduct of
his mother, to pull things round. In the next twenty years the
debts were gradually paid off, and in 1668 Sir John was in a
position to begin a series of improvements in his country house.
He rebuilt the exterior of the manor-house with stone in place
of rough-cast; he put *a new wainscot in several of the rooms';
he enlarged the deer park by taking in some arable fields, and
'encompassed it with a stone wall*; to replace the timber sold
during the troubles, he planted ashes and sycamores, chosen as
more suitable to the soil than 'trees of better kinds'; he brought
the garden up to date, making a *jttt d'eax or fountain, in the
middle of the parterre, and the grotto in the summerhousc and
brought the water in lead pipes/ and he raised the height of the
garden wall. These operations were frugally spread over a
number of years. Finally, just before the Revolution, he was *at
some charge to repair and beautify the Church and the windows
and to give a new bell to the steeple.*
So far from being aa 'illiterate squire/ Sir John was a fidr
Latin scholar and had a smattering of Greek; he talked Italian
fluently and French like a Frenchman, In his youth he had spent
some time in Padua University and in Venice, learning music and
mathematics. At home he was an active Justice of the Peace; his
clerk, he tells us, made ^40 a year out of the place* more than
many clergymen received ficom their livings. Sir John sat for the
rotten borough of Aldborough (Yorks), where there were only
nine electors, privileged owners of Tburgage houses/ A moderate
and cautious Tory, Sir John became a House of Commons man,
a courtier, sometimes a paid servant of the Crown* But he never
ceased to be, first and foremost, a country gentleman*
Landowners of this type, with estates of the nqfcMlfog gfeft tod
with outside connections and sources of profit, could more than
hold their own in the Restoration woddL But the small squirt
who lived on the proceeds of firming his own hod but had
little or no rents or other property, a man of meagre education
and no knowledge of the wodd outside Us own country,
126
DECLINE OF SMALL SQUIRES
beginning to lose ground in the latter part of the Seventeenth
Century. The economic situation was gradually turning against
him, for capital was needed to keep up with the new methods of
land improvement. The fines and losses of the Gvil War period
might be a weight round the neck of a small estate for many years
after the Restoration. And henceforth, more than ever, the great
landowners and the men who had acquired new wealth by law,
politics or commerce, were on the look-out for land, and ready
to buy up the needy small owner with tempting offers. In this
way the Dukes of Bedford added acre to acre, and manor to
manor, till it seemed as if all Bedfordshire were theirs.
This process of increasing the great estates by extinguishing
the small, culminated in the reign of George HI, but it had already
begun in the reign of Charles EL It accounts for much of the
bitterness of Tory feeling immediately after the Revolution of
1688 against the moneyed men and the great Whig Lords. The
small squire was usually a Tory and he specially detested the
burden laid on his vanishing patrimony by the land tax, raised to
pay for the wars of William and Marlborough, the more so as he
believed that the proceeds of the tax went into the pockets of
low-born army contractors, and of rich Dissenters, Londoners
and Dutchmen who lent money to government. Though less
fatal to the whole race of landowners than our modem Income
Tax and Death Duties, the Land Tax was a sore burden to many
small estates.
War and taxation certainly hastened the change, but at bottom
the creation of great estates out of small was a natural economic
process, analogous to the absorption of small businesses by large
in the industrial world of our own day. If once agriculture came
to be regarded as a means of producing national wealth, and no
longer as a means of maintaining a given state of society, the
change was inevitable* The capital in the hands of the great
acquisitive landowners* and their devotion to the business and
profit of landowning, were necessary* conditions of that 'agricul-
tural revolution' which in the Eighteenth Century so greatly
increased the productivity of the English soil by wholesale
enclosure and by the general apjplication of new agricultural
methods*
In the teign of Charles n these changes were still in the experi-
mental stage. Agricultural writers were advocating, and a few
127
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
more enlightened landlords and fanners were practising the im-
provements which became general in the following century
scientific rotation of crops, proper feeding of stock in winter,
roots and clovers, the field cultivation of turnips and potatoes,
oil-cake, silos, the storage of water. In the Restoration period all
these things were known, but their general adoption was retarded
by the open-field system with its half-communal agriculture > and
by the want of capital and knowledge among the small squires
and yeomen freeholders to whom so much of the land still
belonged. And even the big landowners, in the generation
immediately following the disturbance of the Qvil Wars, had not
enough confidence in the future, not enough capital or credit,
nor enough personal interest in agriculture to take the lead in
land improvement on a large scale, like their descendants in the
days of 'Turnip Townshend,* Coke of Norfolk and Arthur
Young.
After the Restoration rents were rising, but the landlords put
too little of them back into the land and failed to encourage good
farmers.
He that havocs may sit:
He that improves must flit
was a Berkshire saying of this time: *Our gentry are grown
ignorant in everything of good husbandry/ wrote Pepys. For
lack of leadership and capital the age of change was postponed.
So, under merry King Charles, the old rural world still sur-
vived, with its wide diffusion of rights in the soil, its comparative
economic equality, its open fields and its small productivity- But
the movement towards great estates, enclosed fields, and im-
provement of agricultural methods was already on the way. [See
95-]
For one thing, national policy was already promoting increased
production for the domestic and foreign markets. Acts of Parlia-
ment restricted the import of cattle from Ireland and of corn
from abroad, and offered the English farmer bounties for export
This policy, introduced step by step from Charles U to Anne, ww
partly meant as a set-off to the heavy incidence of the land tax
and was, of course, popular with the small squires aod freehold
yeomen. Yet, if it helped them ftt tfae expense ctf the home con-
sumer, it helped still more the larger hfvjWdt, tod the men with
$81 The Lord Mayor and the Court of Aldermen
8z John Milton
83 John Evelyn
^^ ^^^^ K
- F * V ' 3**P * :,' - ';v v a w . :. .
Copyngkt "Country Life"
Ham House, Surrey. The Jacobean north front (1610) with
alterations of 1672
"t a*ntfy l.tft"
85 Colcshill House, Berkshire (1650-64)
86 The Staircase at Tythrop House, Oxford$hiic (f. 1680)
$87 The GrinJing Gibbons carved room it Petworth House, Sussex
An Elizabethan formal garden with pleached bower (1568)
$9 A new orchard and
$90 Abacs and dials for the country housewife's garden (161 J)
91 Design for the garden at Wilton House (1645)
Tht Sweotoench
Road
95 Travelling players
$94 The Stwe of the Red Bull
of agrieotoaia} methods
'
96 Isaac Newton
97 Robert Boyle
9$ Pepys' library, in his original bookcases, at Magdalene College, Cambridge
$99 Grbliog Gibboes carvi
Ttiaky
on the book cases in the Library of
Cambridge
100 Water transport coal targes and "tik" botts
Coach and dray
104 A coach and four
$IGJ A travelling coach
BOUNTIES AND CORN LAWS
capital and enterprise to increase production for the market, the
men who were gradually buying up the small estates. 1
These protective corn laws and bounties did not have their
full effect until Hanoverian times, but their adoption under the
later Stuarts is significant of the social forces that were moulding
our national policy, the more so as export bounties on corn were
not a system in general use in other countries. Its singular adop-
tion in England was due to the control of economic policy which
Parliament had won from the Crown as a result of the Civil War.
The power of the House of Commons over the business affairs
of the country was confirmed at the Restoration and further
enlarged at the Revolution. And the House of Commons was
very much alive to the interests of the landowners, to which class
nine-tenths of its members belonged. The voters in the Parlia-
mentary boroughs, most of them small country towns, preferred
to be represented by neighbouring gentry rather than by real
*burgcsses* from their own ranks. By this arrangement, so
characteristic of the advantages of English snobbery, the interests
of the townsfolk received more attention at Westminster and
at the same time the political and social powet of the House of
Commons was increased. If, for example, Aldborough, instead
of electing Sk John Reresby, had sent up one of its small shop-
keepers to Parliament, neither King, Lords nor Ministers would
have cared what suet a man said or thought Only London and
a few other great cities chose their own merchant princes to
speak for them on the floor of the national Senate: for what they
said carded weight
But although the House of Commons was becoming, to an
ever increasing degree, a House of landlords, whose personal
interest was mainly agricultural, it did not follow that trade and
industry were neglected* After all, more than four hundred of
the fire hundted cocmbets sat for boroughs; such a Chamber
consisting mainly of squires whose constituents were townsfolk,
imy bawft&inthafoikrobgtQ&R&m 1675:
'Mixfc com i* bmiofc i^ to tfK ^
tot the tooourtgeoattrt tba tTffliTH*^ b*a ftt five sb tilings per quarter paid them At
($*<&> Pqxrs, Do*.
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
was more likely than any other assembly to give due consideration
both to the agricultural and to the trading needs of the nation.
Moreover, a large proportion of the landlords in both Houses of
Parliament, particularly the richer and more powerful among
them, were personally interested in industrial or commercial
affairs. It is therefore no surprise to find that in this same period
Parliament protected cloth manufacture as assiduously as corn
growing; forbade the import of foreign cloth and the export
of raw wool, killed the Irish cloth trade for the benefit of the
English clothiers, and ordained that everyone who died should
be buried in English cloth. 1
The Navigation Act, which aimed at keeping the trade of the
country for English instead of Dutch shipping, had been passed
in the Long Parliament in 165 1, at a time when State policy was
much under the influence of the merchant community of London*
The Restoration made no change in this respect. Court and
Parliament were at one on the policy of the Navigation Laws, to
keep the trade of England and her Colonies in English bottoms,
and on the concomitant policy of hostility to our Dutch com*
mercial rivals.
The Princes and Ministers of the Court of Charles II, as well
as their critics in Parliament, were in close personal contact with
the City magnates who conducted the great adventures of foreign
commerce. The highest persons in the land held shares in the
joint-stock companies trading in Indian, African and American
waters. James, Duke of York, Lord High Admiral and heir to
the throne, was Governor of the Royal African Company and
shareholder in East Indian stock; he succeeded Prince Rupert
as the Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company and was in turn
succeeded by Marlborougfcu
In this way the magnates who controlled English diplomatic,
naval and military policy were in the closest possible touch with
the mercantile community and personally shared its interests and
its outlook. The wars with Holland in the reign of Charles H,
and with France in the reigns of William and Anne were to a
large extent mercantile and colonial wars, on the necessity and
profit of which Court, Parliament and City were agreed
l in woolknl 'twooid * *int prorofce.*
Were the last wo*di that poor Kudu* tpoke.
130
ECONOMICS, POLITICS, WAR
The pacificist and 'little England' feeling of the squires with
small rent rolls and rustic outlook played its part in Tory election-
eering, but had not much influence on the action of statesmen at
Westminster and Whitehall. A series of wars of commercial and
colonial expansion, first against Dutch, then against French,
increased the English territories in America and pushed English
commerce into the markets of Europe and the world. These wars
were paid for largely by the land tax. It cannot, therefore, be
said that English policy from Charles II to Anne neglected the
mercantile or the national interest from a prejudice in favour of
the land, or from undue attention paid to the opinions of the
majority of the landowners.
Old rural England, on the eve of the wholesale enclosures and
the industrial revolution, is often presented to the mind's eye of
posterity in one or other of two rival pictures. On the one hand
we arc asked to contemplate a land of independent and self-
respecting peasants, most of them attached to the soil by small
personal rights therein, contented with the country quiet and
felicity which have been since destroyed, and celebrating their
rural happiness in ale-house songs about 'Harvesthome/ which
we have since promoted to the drawing-room; and the same
land, we arc reminded, was also the land of craftsmen in village
and market town, not divorced from rural pleasures because they
pursued industry, using tools instead of watching machines, and
therefore enjoying in their daily work the delight of the individual
artist, for which a poor substitute is found in the feverish excite-
ment of our modern amusements, organized m masse as a counter-
poise to the dullness of mechanical and clerical toil. On the other
hand we are shown the opposing picture: we are asked to
remember the harsh, backbreaking labour of the prc-mechanical
ages, continued for thirteen or more hours in the day; child-
labour instead of primary schools; disease and early death
uncontrolled by medical science or hospital provision; and
absence of cleanliness and comforts which we now regard as
necessities; neglectful and unimaginative harshness not only to
criminals and debtors but too often to women, children and the
poor at large; and, finally, a population of five and a half millions
in England and Wales, with less material comfort than the present
population (1959) of more than seven times that number.
Confibraation of both these pictures emerges from a study of
131
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
the period. But which picture contains the greater and more
important body of truth it is hazardous to pronounce, partly
because the dispute is about intangible values we cannot put
ourselves back into the minds of our ancestors, and if we could
we should still be puzzled; partly also because, even where
statistics would help, statistics are not to be had.
It is true that about the time of the Revolution, the able
publicist Gregory King made a calculation from the hearth tax
and other data of the probable numbers in various classes of the
community. The figures he gave represent a shrewd guess, but
no more. They will indeed serve negatively as a check on the
enthusiasm of the 'Laudator temporis acti, by recalling the fact that,
even before the great enclosure and the industrial revolution,
the number of fanners and yeomen was relatively small and the
numbers of the agricultural proletariat large.
The two largest classes by far in King's analysis of the nation
are the 'cottagers and paupers* and the 'labouring people and
outservants/ The former represent, we may suppose, those who
attempted to be independent of wages and, according to King,
made a very poor business of the attempt Yet such persons, who
picked up a living off the common whereon they had squatted,
or off the small field they owned behind the hovel, may have
been happier than King knew, even if they were poorer than is
realized by modern idealizers of the past. King's second large
class, the 'labouring people and outservants,* are the wage-
earners. But many of them had also some rights on the common,
some garden or tiny holding which added to the interest and
dignity of life, without entitling the owner to the proud rank of
English yeoman. Even the servants of industry had many of
them small gardens or plots of land to till in their off hours,
especially the woollen weavers in all parts of the island. On the
stony heights around Halifax each dothworker had a *cow or
two' in a field walled off on the steep hillside whereon his cottage
stood.
On the other hand, there were very large numbers of employees
both in agriculture and industry who had no rights in land and
no means of subsistence but their wages.
The wages in agriculture and in industry were supposed to be
regulated by schedules issued for each county by the Justices of
the Peace, who also occasionally set a limit to the price at which
LABOUR AND WAGES
certain goods might be sold. These schedules did not pretend to
fix either wages or prices exactly, but only to set a maximum
which was not to be surpassed. Variations were therefore per-
missible inside every county, as well as differences between one
shire and the next. Moreover, the maximum announced was very
often transgressed in practice. 1
Judging by negative evidence, we may conclude that con-
certed strikes and combinations to raise wages were not common;
we hear much more about strikes in the reign of Edward HI
than in the reign of Charles II.
The Elizabethan Statute of Artificers, that was still partially
in force, penalized the leaving of work unfinished, as well as the
giving or taking of wages above the maximum fixed by the
Justices of the Peace. But the maximum was often exceeded
when excess payment was to the interest of both employer and
employed. If there was little trade-unionism, there was much
individual bargaining about wages.
Even when the low prices are taken into account, some of the
wages paid seem low by modern standards. But they were high
in comparison with the Europe of that day. The national charac-
teristic of Englishmen, then as now, was not thrift but insistence
on a high standard of life, Defoe, writing as an employer, declared
that:
Good husbandry is no English virtue. English labouring people
eat and drink, especially the latter, three times as much in value as any
sort of foreigners of the same dimensions in the world.
The staple diet was bread, or rather bread, beer and usually
meat. Vegetables and firuit pkyed a small, and meat a very large
part in the English meal of that date. Among the middle and
upper classes, breakfast was often a 'morning draft' of ale with
a little bread and butter; that sufficed till the noonday dinner, a
tremendous meal of various fish and meats. As to the poorer
1 Wage* differed from one estate to another; in 1701 a Yorkshire squire wrote-
*The wage* of a good husbandman in the parts about Bamsley and Wortley I
find to be no more than 3 a year, and Sir Godfrey gives his keeper but 3 i^j*,, and
hit bailiff 4, so thtt we are worse served for high wages. About Wortley all the
hutbtndmen are up every morning with their beasts at three o'clock and in our
hoiuw they lie abed till near seven* But above aU Warne's 2.0 vexes me.' I expect
both food and lodging were given, as well as the wages mentioned. That year wheat
ttood as low as 34?. a quarter and other grain in proportion, and chickens could be
bought in the Wett Biding at twopence apiece.
135
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
households, Gregory King reckoned that half the population ate
meat daily, and that of the other half the greater number ate meat
at least twice a week. The million who 'received alms/ c eat not
flesh above once a week/
Reliable statistics of the population of England, and of the
classes into which it was divided cannot be obtained before the
first Census of 1801, but the calculations or shall we call them
guesses ? that Gregory King made with the help of the hearth
tax and other data at the time of the Revolution (1688) are well
worthy of examination. At least they represent the map of society
as it presented itself to the thought of a well-informed con-
temporary. The reader would do well to study the figures,
knowing indeed that they cannot be exact, but not knowing in
what direction the errors lie.
To interpret this table, several points should be borne in mind.
The 'heads per family' are the persons living under one roof: the
'family' includes the servants in the house as well as the children,
The poor, therefore, are put down as having much smaller
'families' than the rich, although the average number of children
still alive and still at home might be the same in all classes. The
'families and incomes* given are, of course, guesses at the avtragt
figure: in each class, some householders would have larger
'families* and incomes than the figure set down, while others in
the same class lived on a smaller scale* The Treeholders* include,
not only owners of their own farms, but also copy-holders and
tenants for life. Finally, it must be remembered that 'Labouring
people and out-servants/ and 'Cottagers and paupers,* the two
krgest classes in the community, indude many who had small
rights in land of one kind or another*
According to Gregory King over one million persons, nearly
a fifth of the whole nation, were in occasional receipt of alms,
mostly in the form of public relief paid by the parish. The poor-
rate was a charge of nearly 800,000 a year on the country and
rose to a million in the reign of Anne* There was seldom any
shame felt in receiving outdoor relief, and it was said to be given
with a mischievous profusion. Richard Dunning declared that
in 1698 the parish dole was often three times as much as ft com*
mon labourer, having to maintain a wife and three children, could
afford to expend upon himself; and that persons once receiving
outdoor relief refuse- ever to work, and 'seldom diiflfc other than
GREGORY KING'S TABLES, 1688
Number
f
Ranks, Degrees, Titles and
Heads
Number
Yearly
Income
^
Families
Qualifications.
per
Family
f
Persotis
per
Family
160
Temporal lords ....
40
6,400
3,200
26
Spiritual lords ....
20
520
1,300
Soo
Baronets .....
16
12,800
880
600
Knights .....
*3
7,800
650
3,000
Esquires .
10
30,000
450
12,000
Gentlemen .....
8
96,000
280
5,000
Persons in greater offices and places .
8
40,000
240
5,000
Persons in lesser offices and places .
6
30,000
120
2,000
Eminent merchants and traders by sea
8
16,000
400
8,000
Lesser merchants and traders by sea .
6
48,000
198
10,000
Persons in the law ....
7
70,000
154
2,000
Eminent clergymen
6
12,000
72
8,000
Lesser clergymen ....
5
40,000
5
40,000
Freeholders of the better sort
7
280,000
91
120,000
Freeholders of the lesser sort .
5i
660,000
55
150,000
Farmers .....
5
750,000
42 ior.
15,000
Persons in liberal arts and sciences .
5
75,000
60
50,000
Shopkeepers and tradesmen
4i
225,000
45
60,000
Artiaans and handicrafts .
4
240,000
38
5,000
Naval officers .
4
20,000
80
4,000
Military officers ....
4
l6,OOO
60
50,000
Common seamen ....
3
150,000
20
564,000
Labouring people and out-servants .
3i
1,275,000
15
400,000
Cottagers and paupers
3i
1,300,000
6 ioj.
35,000
Common soldiers .
2
70,000
14
Vagrants, as gipsies, thieves, beggars,
etc
30,000
Total .
5,500,520
(Printed In Obtries Dtvensnt's Works (1771), Vol. H, p. 184, -with further figures.)
135
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
the strongest ale-house beer, or eat any bread save what is made
of the finest wheat flour/ The statement must be received with
caution, but such was the nature of the complaint of some rate-
payers and employers about the poor-law.
These problems of outdoor relief have a family likeness in all
ages. But one peculiarity of the English Poor Law in the Restora-
tion era and the Eighteenth Century was the Act of Settlement,
passed by Charles IFs Cavalier Parliament. By this Act every
Parish in which a man tried to settle could send him back to the
parish of which he was native, for fear that if he stayed in his
new abode he might at some future date become chargeable on
the rates. Nine-tenths of the people of England, all in fact who
did not belong to a small ckss of landowners, were liable to be
expelled from any parish save their own, with every circumstance
of arrest and ignominy, however good their character and even
if they had secured remunerative work. The panic fear of
some parish authorities lest newcomers should some day fall on
the rates, caused them to exercise this unjust power in quite
unnecessary cases. The Act placed a check upon the fluidity of
kbour and was as much an outrage as the Press-gang itself on
the boasted freedom of Englishmen, Yet it was seldom denounced,
until many years later Adam Smith dealt with it in scathing terms-
It is hard to ascertain the exact degree to which it operated, and
Adam Smith appears to have exaggerated the harm done and the
number of cases in which cruel wrong was inflicted* But at best
it was a great evil; it is the reverse side of that creditable effort
of Stuart England to provide for the maintenance of the poor
through the local public authorities. That effort, on the whole,
was not unsuccessful, and largely accounts for the peaceable
character of English society.
Nothing marked more clearly the growing power of squire*
archy in the House of Commons and in the State than the Game
Laws of the Restoration period. By the Forest Laws of Norman
and Plantagenet times, the interests of all classes of subjects had
been sacrificed in order that the King should have abundance of
red deer to hunt; but now the interests of the yeomen and
farmers were sacrificed in order that the squire should have plenty
of partridges to shoot. Even more than politics, partridges
caused neighbours to look at one another askance: for the
THE GAME LAWS
yeoman freeholder killed, upon his own little farm, the game that
wandered over it from the surrounding estates of game preservers.
And so in 1671 the Cavalier Parliament passed a law which pre-
vented all freeholders of under a hundred pounds a year that is
to say the very great majority of the class from killing game,
even on their own land. Thus many poor families were robbed
of many good meals that were theirs by right; and even those
few yeoman whose wealth raised them above the reach of this
remarkable law, were for that reason regarded with suspicion.
The best that even the good-hearted Sir Roger de Coverley can
bring himself to say of the c yeoman of about a hundred pounds
a year,' e who is just within the Game Act,' is that c he would make
a good neighbour if he did not destroy so many partridges'
that is to say upon his own land.
For many generations to come, grave social consequences were
to flow from the excessive eagerness of the country gentlemen
about the preservation of game. Their anxieties on that score
had grown with the adoption of the shot-gun. During the Stuart
epoch shooting gradually superseded hawking, with the result
that birds were more rapidly destroyed, and the supply no longer
seemed inexhaustible. In Charles IFs reign it was already not
unusual to 'shoot flying/ But it was regarded as a difficult art,
the more so as it was sometimes practised from horseback. But
the 'perching* of pheasants by stalking and scooting them as they
sat on the boughs, was still customary among gentleman. [See
106, 107, 108,]
The netting of birds on the ground was a fashionable sport,
often carried on over dogs who pointed the game concealed in
the grass. [See 109.] It is written that Sir Roger 'in his youthful
days had taken forty coveys of partridges in a season' probably
by this means. To lure wild duck, by the score and the hundred,
into a decoy upon the water's edge was a trade in the fens and a
sport on the decoy-pond of the manor-house. Liming by twigs,
snaring and trapping birds of all kinds, not only pheasants and
wild duck but thrushes and fieldfares, had still a prominent place
in manuals of The Gtntlewan's Jtem&tion. But the shot-gun was
dearly in the ascendant, and with it the tendency to confine sport
more and more to the pursuit of certain birds specifically listed
as$w*. In that sacred category a place had recently been granted
by Statute to grouse and blackcock; akeady the heather and
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
bracken where they lurked were protected from being burnt
except at certain times of the year, and the shepherd transgressing
the law was liable to be whipped. Addison's Tory squire declared
the new Game Law to be the only good law passed since the
Revolution. 1
Fox-hunting, under the later Stuarts, was beginning to assume
features recognizably modern. In Tudor times the fox had been
dug out of its earth, bagged, and baited like a badger, or had been
massacred as vermin by the peasantry. For in those days the stag
was still the beast of the chase par excellence. But the disorders of
the Qvil War had broken open deer-parks and destroyed deer
to such an extent that at the Restoration the fox was perforce
substituted in many districts. As yet there were no county or
regional packs supported by public subscription, but private
gentlemen kept their own packs and invited their nearer neigh-
bours to follow. The idea that gentlemen should hunt c the stag
and the fox with their own hounds and among their own woods/
was gradually yielding to the chase across the country at large,
irrespective of its ownership.
In some countries earths were stopped and the endeavour was
made with frequent success to tun the fox down in the open,
Under these conditions runs often or even twenty miles were not
unknown. But in Lancashire and probably elsewhere *the hunters
ran the fox to earth and then dug him out; if he refused to
go to earth he generally got away. It is possible that there
had not yet been developed as tireless a breed of hounds as
to-day/ 2
The chase of the deer, with all the time-honoured ritual of
venery, still continued as the acknowledged king of sports, but
it was steadily on the decline, as the claims of agriculture for
more land reduced the number of forests and set ft limit to the
size of the deer-park that a gentleman was likely to keep enclosed
round his manor-house, [See $ x i i.J
More widely popular than the hunting of deer or fox was the
pursuit of the hare, with a 'tunable chiding* of hounds, the
x The two leading Game L*w* arc those of -*$ Chariet II, cap. 5, tod 4 W.
and M. cap., zj.
2 Thus Thomas Tyldesley wtitea in his diary 'went ctdy to Suflom fox
hunting to meet brothers Daltoo and Frost, found two foxea, bm could get neither
of them into the earth, 1 (Notestein, &ri$sb F0A, p, 17*,) Compare the accooot of
fox-hunting in Bloomed Gtxtkmarfs Rom/fa*, 1686, n pp. 157-139.
138
SPORTS* SPAS
gentlemen on horseback, and the common folk running, headed
by the huntsman with his pole. This scene partook of the
nature of a popular village sport, led indeed by the gentry but
shared with all their neighbours, high and low. [See no.]
Other popular sports were wrestling, with different rules and
traditions in different parts of the country; various rough kinds
of football and ^hurling/ often amounting to a good-natured
free-fight between the whole male population of two villages.
Single-stick, boxing and sword-fighting, bull and bear baiting,
were watched with delight by a race that had not yet learnt to
dislike the sight of pain inflicted. Indeed the less sporting events
of hanging and whipping were spectacles much relished. But
cockfighting was the most popular sport of all, on which all
classes staked their money even more than upon horse-racing.
But the turf was beginning to take a greater place in the national
consciousness owing to the patronage of Newmarket by Charles II
and the improvement in the breed of riding-horses by the intro
duction of Arab and Barb blood. [See 112.]
Under the late Stuart kings, Spas were much frequented for
purposes of fashion and of health. The waters of Bath were
beginning to attract the great, for the first time since Roman
days, but the fine town of Beau Nash and Jane Austen had not
yet been built [See 114.] Buxton and Harrogate were much
attended by northern gentry and their families. But the Court
and the world of London fashion were found oftenest and in
greatest number among the rustic cottages round the Tunbridge
Wells, where in 1685 the courtiers built a church for their own
use, dedicated to King Charles the Martyr. [See 123.]
As yet the seaside had no votaries : doctors had not yet dis-
covered the health-giving qualities of its air; no one wanted to
bathe in the waters of the ocean or to rhapsodize over its appear-
ance from the shore. The sea was 'the Englishman's common/
his way to market, his fishpond, his battleground, his heritage.
But as yet no one sought cither the seaside or the mountains for
the refreshment they could give to the spirit of man.
During the century of Stuart rule, frequent assessments of the
counties of England were made for fiscal purposes; the returns
indicate roughly the geographical distribution of wealth. The
richest county was Middlesex, as it included so much of London;
159
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
the poorest was Cumberland. Surrey, owing to the expansion of
London and its market, rose from the eighteenth place in 1636
to the second in 1693. Next in order of wealth came Berks
and the group of agricultural counties north of the Thames
Herts, Beds, Bucks, Oxfordshire and Northants. Their wealth
is remarkable, considering that they possessed no great towns,
industrial districts or coal-mines and that their agriculture was
chiefly open-field; but it was not far from the London market.
Thus the central counties were on the average the richest. Next
came the southern, including Kent and Sussex, with lands of old
enclosure and fruit gardens, and with downland sheep-runs; next
East Anglia, enjoying the farmer's blessing of a low rainfall, and
with Essex abutting on London; next in order of wealth came
the West, distant from the capital, and suffering from a damper
climate. And kst of all, the lately turbulent and still impoverished
North. The seven poorest counties in England were Cheshire,
Derybshire, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Northumberland, Durham
and Cumberland. The poverty of the Northern shires is the more
remarkable because they all had coal-mines, and Yorks and Lanes
had textiles as well. But the wealth produced by these industries
had not yet been applied on a large scale to the improvement of
agriculture in these backward northern parts. That was done in
the following century, when the wealth of the Tyneside mines
was poured out into the soil, to fertilize the moorland farms of
the neighbouring counties.
If a line be drawn from Gloucester to Boston, the area of
England without Wales is divided about equally into a North-
Western half and a South-Eastern half: to-day the majority of
the population live North-West of the line, owing to the develop-
ment of heavy industries, though a return drift towards the South
has recently begun. But in Charles IFs reign it is probable that
only a quarter of the population lived North- West of the line,
The land tax returns indicate that the wealth of the North-
Western half was only 5 : 14, while the Excise returns make it
i : 4. (Ogg, England in tb* rsigt o/C. II, p. 5 1 .)
In the course of the Seventeenth Century, changes had taken
pkce in Warwickshire significant of industrial progress and of its
reactions on agriculture. In Elizabeth's reign Camden had noted
in his 'Britannia that Warwickshire was divided by the Avon into
two parts, the Feldon or rich arable district of open field to Ac
140
GRASSLAND AND ARABLE
South-East of the river, and the Woodland (the Forest of Arden)
to the North- West. In the reign of William IE, Gibson, after-
wards the famous Bishop of London, brought out a new edition
of the 'Qritannia^ adding notes of changes that had taken place
since Camden's day: the Forest of Arden had disappeared, and
had become a rich arable district:
For the ironworks in the counties round [viz. in Birmingham and the
Black Country] destroyed such prodigious quantities of wood that
they quickly lay the country a little open, and by degrees made room
for the plough. Whereupon the inhabitants, partly by their own in-
dustry, and partly by the assistance of marl have turned so much of
wood and heath-land into tillage and pasture that they produce corn,
cattle, cheese and butter enough not only for their own use but also
to furnish other counties.
Meanwhile, on the other side of Avon, the Feldon, once the
great arable region supplying Bristol with corn, had been largely
laid down to grass, and the population of many villages had been
reduced, according to Gibson, to a few shepherds; the reason for
the change to pasture in the Feldon is, he thinks, the superior
arable quality of the old forest lands on the other side of Avon
recently brought under plough. Here, then, in both parts of
Warwickshire, we have a great increase of enclosed fields to
the North- West enclosure of old forest and heath, to South-East
hedging of former open fields. All this occurred in the Stuart
era, with very little said, for the feeling against enclosure,, so
vocal in Tudor times, seems to have died away. 1
In Stuart times, in spite of the rapid growth of iron trades in
Birmingham and the Black Country to the west of it, coal or coke
fires were not yet applied to iron. Coal, however, was used in
many other processes of manufacture; and it had become the
regular domestic fuel in London, and in all regions to which it
could easily be carried by water* Under these conditions the
Stuart era saw an increase in the coal trade, hardly less astonishing,
in the circumstances of that earlier time, than the second great
* In his 'Additions to Warwickshire* since Camden's day, Gibson also notes in
the 1695 edition of the Brftaftma (pp, 510-512) that Jn Stratford church 'in the
chancel lies William Shakespeare, a native of this place, who has given proof of
bis gtnius and great abilities in the 48 plays he has left behind him,' There are only
57 in the present canon I But the passage at least shows the considerable place
Shakespeare already held in his countrymen's estimation.
141
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
increase in the early Nineteenth Century, the age of
iron.' 1
ESTIMATED ANNUAL PRODUCTION IN TONS
1551-60 i6Si-go ijSx~QQ
Durham and Northumberland . 65,000 1,225,000
Scotland ..... 40,000 475,000
Wales 20,000
Midlands ..... 65,000
Cumberland .... 6,000
Kingswood Chase and Somerset . 10,000
Forest of Dean . . . 3,000
Devon and Ireland . . . 1,000
200,000
850,000
100,000
100,000
25,000
7,000
3,000,000
1,600,000
800,000
4,000,000
500,000
140,000
90,000
25,000
'coal and
790 /-ro
50,000,000
57,000,000
50,000,000
i oo>t 80,000
2,120,000
1,100,000
1,310,000
200,000
210,000 2,982,000 10,155,000 241,910,000
Approximate inmost : infold $fM *}fotd
The Midland coal area included mines in Yorks, Lanes, Cheshire, Derbyshire,
Shropshire, Staffs, Notts, Warwickshire, Leicestershire and Worcestershire.
Throughout the Seventeenth Century coal played a great part
in developing, not only the national wealth and therewith the
well-being of many classes of the community above ground, but
also the less pleasant characteristics of the Industrial Revolution
in the life of the miners themselves. Their "capitalist* employers
saw little and cared less about their conditions of life and labour.
As the pits grew deeper, the miners spent more time far away
underground, and were more and more segregated from the rest
of humanity; explosions due to fire-damp became more frequent
and more terrible, and women and children were more often
employed underground as bearers. In Durham and North-
umberland great combinations of thousands of miners and keel-
men in the Tyne coal-barges, strove with indifferent success to
better their conditions of life. In Scotland the miners were
reduced to the condition of 'bondmen* bound to the service of
the mine. In England this could not be done, but the condition of
the miners and their families were in many respects worse than
that of any other large class of the community,
Mr, Nef, who has collected a great body of facts relating to
mining conditions in Stuart and early Hanoverian times, writes:
Coal created a new gulf between classes. The mediaeval peasants and
artisans, whatever their disabilities and trials may have been, were not
1 The following figures given by Mr. Nef in his R/ oftbt British CW Imbsfiy,
pp. 19-20, [Routledge], show how ntpid was the advance in cod production between
the reigns of Elizabeth and William m, and snow also the geographk dJstribadoo
of the coalfields, much the same as at the present day,
142
COAL MINING
segregated from their neighbours to anything like the same extent as
were the coal miners of the seventeenth century in most colliery
districts.
Moreover, within the coal-mining industry itself, there was now
a complete barrier between the capitalist employer and the
manual worker, similar to that which became general in so many
other trades in later times. Indeed, under the later Stuart Kings
many new industries which sprang up as a result of the supply
of coal for furnaces, tended to be of the same large-scale
and capitalistic character. (Nef, Rjse of the British Coal Industry,
Vol. II, chap. IV.)
But there were many districts which could not obtain coal
either by sea or by river. Some of these regions, owing to the
decrease of timber, went short of fuel for the elementary needs
of warmth and cooking, and remained in that condition until the
improved roads, the canals and finally the railways of later times
brought coal to every door. Thus, in the reign of William III,
the adventurous Miss Celia Fiennes, 1 on a riding tour in the
South- West, found her supper at Penzance 'boiling on a fire
always supplied with a bush of furze, and that to be the only fuel
to dress a joint of meat and broth'; for the Cornish forests had
disappeared, and the French privateers in time of war prevented
the delivery of Welsh coal in the south Cornish ports. In
Leicestershire, cowdung, that ought to have enriched the fields,
was gathered and dried for fuel.
So, too, in 169$, Gibson, in his edition of Camden's Britannia,
comments on the description given by the Elizabethan antiquary
of the Oxfordshire hills 'clad with woods'; 'this is so much
altered/ writes Gibson, *by the late civil wars that few places
except the Chiltern country can answer that character at present,
For fuel is in those parts so scarce that 'tis commonly sold by
weight, not only in Oxford, but other towns in the northern part
of the shke/ Oxford town and gown could, however, warm
their parlours and cook their food with coal conveyed by the
Thames barges, whereas the 'towns in the northern part of the
shire* found the storage of wood fuel a more serious matter.
* TbtJoitrmytfCtliaFimws, edited by Christopher Morris (1947), This delightful
tad important cord was composed on tours made partly in the reign of
WiHkm HI, ptttly in that of Anne. Miss Rennes was a lady of means and a dis-
tenter. She WM ilstex of the Third Viscount Saye and Sele* She rode through
oo toon of pleasure and curiosity.
143
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
The bread-and-cheese diet to which many English working-
class families were increasingly limited in the following century,
was largely the result of this lack of kitchen fuel ; and in winter
time their poor cottages must have been terribly cold. In those
parts of the country where there was a time-gap between the
timber age and the coal age, there was much suffering for the
poor and some inconvenience for the rich.
But even before the days of hard roads, coal could at a cost be
carried far inland, at a great distance from the mines, wherever
the service was well organized. Thus Miss Fiennes describes the
barges with 'sea-coal 3 from Bristol coming up by river through
Bridgwater to a place within three miles of Taunton, 'where the
boats unload the coal, the packhorses come and take it in sacks,
and so carry it to places all about. The horses carry two bushel!
at a time, which at the place of disembarkation cost eighteen
pence, and when it's brought to Taunton cost two shillings.
The roads were full of these carriers going and returning/
[See 100, 101, 102, 103.]
The growth of London, more and more outdistancing aJJ other
cities, continued after the Restoration without a check. By the
year 1700 the capital contained well over a tenth of the five and a
half million inhabitants of England. 1 Bristol and Norwich, the
cities next in size, numbered about 50,000 each. And London
trade was proportionately great In 1680 the Custom House
administration of the Port of London cost 20,000 a ycar> of
Bristol 2000, of Newcastle, Plymouth and Hull 900 each; the
rest were nowhere. The port of Newcastle lived on the export
of coal, three-quarters of it to London; Hull flourished on the
whaling and fishing industries, and on its importance as the chief
garrison town of Northern England; Plymouth, like great
Bristol and rising Liverpool, benefited by the growing trade with
the transatlantic colonies, and on its owo importance as the
western base of the Royal Navy*
Whitby, Yarmouth and Harwich had flourishing shipbuilding
1 It has been estimated from the registers of baptisms that in 1700 when England
and Wales contained rather more than five and a half million inhabitant*, the Metro-
politan Area contained 674,5 jo. Of these the *Clty* proper contained about 100,000.
(Mrs. George, London LJft t etc,, pp. a4-*S 3*8-330.) On the figure* of population
for England and Wales see Talbot-Grlffith, Rg/ Stotistb*/ S*x$ Jmrnt, 1919,
Vol. XCH, Pt. II, pp 256-265,
144
UbNTURY SPORT
106 Partridge hawking
107 PtoccWflg tbe pheasant
Shooting flying
109 Netting birds OQ the ground
uo Hunting the hare
n i Unharbouring the stag
The last horse-race run before Charles II
at Dorsett(^Datchet) Ferry 1684
p
C3
.s
EC
r
CM
18
I
>
lir
17 John Lofting's Fire Engine of 1690
, ,8 Portland stone quarries in i?9
$,, 9 reporting Portland stone in
WREN CHURCHES
120 Air view of St. Paul's
i2i St. Bride's, Fleet Street
122 St. Magnus the Martyr
. (interior)
5 1 2. $ The Church of Kin
Charles the Martyr, Tur
bridge Wells (r.
$1 24 The Chapel, Petworth
House, Sussex
Thirteenth-century chapel
redecorated t* 1690
PLAGUE
yards. But many other ports, such as King's Lynn and the
smaller harbours of East Anglia, were declining as trade in-
creasingly sought the mouth of the Thames, or shifted to the
West to catch the American trade. The effect of the Navigation
Laws was to foster England's colonial trade across the Atlantic,
and diminish her foreign trade with Scandinavia and the Baltic,
to the disadvantage of the east coast ports, all save London.
And even in the West, smaller ports like Fowey and Bideford
suffered from the large size of ships necessitated by the long
oceanic voyages. Moreover, London merchants and London
capital controlled the trade of other cities.
The vital and recuperative force of London, perpetually fed
by the inflow of immigrants and of wealth from outside, was
heavily tested by the Plague and the Fire (1665-1666), disasters
of the first magnitude, which however seemed scarcely to affect
the onward movement of the power, opulence and population
of the capital.
The famous 'Plague of London' was merely the last, and not
perhaps the worst, of a series of outbreaks covering three cen-
turies. Between the campaigns of Crcy and Poitiers, the Black
Death had first swept over Europe from some unknown source
in the Far East, with the ubiquity and violence usual to the in-
coming of a new disease. The obscurest hamlet had little chance
of escape. It is thought probable that a third, and possibly that
one half of the fellow-countrymen of Boccaccio, of Froissart
and of Chaucer, perished within three years. The Black Death
remained in the soil of England, and became known as "The
Plague/ It never again swept the whole country at one time, but
it perpetually broke out in different localities, particularly in the
towns and ports and the riversides, where the ship-borne, flea-
bearing rat multiplied* In London under the Lancastrian and
Tudor Kings the plague was for long periods together endemic
and neatly continual; under the Stuarts it came in rare but
violent outbursts* The rejoicing in London for the accession of
James I had been cut short by an outbreak of the Plague that
carried off 30,000 persons; the accession of Charles I was the
signal for another, no less destructive. [See 113.] Ini636a
slighter attack occurred. Then followed thirty years of com-
parative immunity for London, during which other events took
place calculated to make men forget in their talk the Plague
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
horrors that their fathers and grandfathers had endured. So when
the kst outbreak came in 1665, although it did not destroy a
much larger proportion of the Londoners than some of its pre-
decessors had done, it struck the imagination more, for it came
in an age of greater civilization, comfort and security, when such
calamities were less remembered and less expected, and it was
followed close, as though at the Divine command, by another
catastrophe to which there was no parallel in the most ancient
records of London. 1
The Great Fire (1666) raged for five days and destroyed the
whole City proper between the Tower and the Temple; yet it
probably did not unroof half the population of the capital. The
'Liberties' beyond the walls were only touched, and these con-
tained by far the greater part of the inhabitants. London had been
increasing with immense rapidity in the last sixty years. It was
just short of half a million. In all other cities of England the
townsfolk still lived within breath of the country, under condi-
tions of what we should now call country-town life. 10 London
alone the conditions of great-city life were growing up, in many
respects in a peculiarly odious form. The poor were crowded
out of the City into the slum districts of the 'Liberties' beyond
St. Giles's, Cripplegate, Whitechapel, Stepney, Westminster, Lam-
beth where they multiplied exceedingly in spite of an enormous
death-rate among infants.
The fire and rebuilding made little improvement in the sani-
tary and moral condition of the slum populations. For the seat
and origin of the Plague had always been in the 'Liberties' outside
the City, where the poorest dwelt. Now as these districts were
not burnt down they were not rebuilt, and in 1722 Defoe
declared that *they were still in the same condition as they were
before/ It is therefore evident that the 'rebuilding of London*
due to the Fire was not the main reason why the Plague disap-
peared from England after its last great effort.
1 During the Civil War (1641-1646) the Plague raged In other port* at the Utod.
particularly the South and West; in totne town*, such a* Cheater, quarter of tbe
inhabitant* died of it. The 'Plague of Loodoo* (1665) wat not quite confined to the
capital. East Anglia suffered very aerotiy, hot the Plague did not extend far wett
or north. In Langdale, Wettmotkod, ta^tktttrBpoiritotbe niinac^ariitolatt^
farmhouse where all the inhabitant* died of the Plague, owing to the infected
clothe* of a soldier being aent there; battbersatof the Talley ar^i district rttntiood
immune. The soldier's clothes presumably carried the flea that bore the Plague.
146
IV, Sir Christopher Wren
FIRE
The portion of London that was changed by the Fire was the
residential and business quarter in the heart of the Gty itself, the
great commercial houses where the merchants with their orderly
and well-fed households worked and slept. These abodes of
wealth, commerce and hospitality dating from the Middle Ages,
with their gardens behind and courtyards within, still presented
lath and plaster walls to the narrow and crooked streets; the
gables sometimes protruded so far over the shop fronts that the
prentices in their garrets could shake hands over the way. When
the Fire came racing before the wind, these old and flimsy struc-
tures were tinder to the flame. Only in the few pkces where the
Fire met brick walls was it forced to linger and fight. The
merchants took the opportunity to rebuild their houses of brick,
and in a more wholesome if less picturesque relation to the street.
Sanitation in the City itself was improved by the enforced re-
building of so many very ancient dwellings. [See 115, 116,
The fact that the Plague did not again recur in England is due
in part to the increase of brick building, and the substitution of
carpets and panelling for straw and cloth hangings, since the
infected fleas and the rats that carried them were thus deprived
of harbourage. But it is probable that the chief cause of the dis-
appearance of the Plague was due to no human agency at all, but
to an obscure revolution in the animal world; about this period
the modern brown rat extirpated and replaced the mediaeval
black tat, and the brown rat was not a catrier of the plague-flea
to nearly the same eartent as its predecessor. (Saltmarsh's article
in Cambridge Hist. Journal, 1941.)
The reconstruction of the City of London was accomplished
at a pace that astonished the world,
The dreadful effects of the fire [wrote Sir John Reresby] were not so
strange as the rebuilding of this great city, which by reason of the
King's and Parliament's care, and the great wealth and opulency of the
city Itself, was rebuilded most stately with brick (the greatest part being
before nothing but lath and Ume) in four or five years* time/
And London, which had lost a fifth of its population by the
Plague made good that loss also without seeming to notice it at
all, so continual was the flow of immigrants from all the shires
of England and half the countries of Europe.
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
The Mediaeval and Tudor City had disappeared in the flames;
only the ground plan of its rabbit-warren of streets and alleys
was retained. The kyout of the greatest city in the world con-
tinued to be the worst; and mortal eye has never yet had a view
of Wren's St. Paul's. 1
Eighty-nine churches, including the old Gothic Cathedral, had
been burnt. If they were doomed to perish, no happier date
could have been chosen for the holocaust since Christopher Wren,
just arrived at the height of his powers, was beginning to be
known in Court and City. His genius was stamped on the
ecclesiastical architecture of the new London. His churches>
which survived general rebuildings of the streets in which they
stand, still (1939) testify to the spacious classical dignity of the
age and of the man who put them in place of their mediaeval
predecessors, [See izi, 122, and contrast 124.]
The rebuilding of St. Paul's was a communal effort worthy of
a great nation. A tax on the coal entering the port of London
was voted by Parliament for the purpose. The great work went
steadily forward year by year, undeterred by all the excitements
of the Popish Plot, the Revolution and the Mar Iborough Wars,
It was completed in the height of Queen Anne's glory, a dozen
years before the death of its architect [See Plate IV and 1 20,]
The new St. Paul's was built of the white stone of Portland,
fetched by sea direct from the quarries of that strange peninsula.
Though the quarries had long been known, it was only in Stuart
times that Portland stone began to be extensively used. The
needs of Wren's colossal work gave a new life to the *Isle of
Portland' and its inhabitants. Vast quarries were opened and
roads and piers built. Great sums were spent on
'salaries to agents and wharfingers and repairing ways, piers and
cranes, with the expenses of several persons sent from London to
view and direct the same, to regulate the working of the quarries and
to adjust matters with the Islanders/ (&. Hr/A R*r., Nov. 1958.)
Henceforth the white Portland Stone plays an important part
in architectural history of England, and seems specially associ-
ated with the cold majesty of the monumental work of Wn*n
and Gibbs, just as the warm red brick suits the comfortable
1 This sentence vas written before the BUtt I
748
ARCHITECTURE
domesticity of the common dwellings of the same period. [See
118, 119, izo,]
BOOKS FOR FURTHER READING
Besides the books mentioned in the notes to this chapter, see Pepys' and Evelyn's
Diaries, and Arthur Bryant's Life of Pfpys ; David Ogg, England in the Rtign of
Charles II (1934), Chaps. II and III ; Basil Willey, The Scventemtb Century
149
LATE TUDOR
AND EARLY STUART
LONDON
IJO
IJI
DESCRIPTIVE NOTES
TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS
Thes are grouped Into three categories: i. Colour Plates; 2. Gra-vurc Pla_tes
(marked ) ; 3. Illustrations in the text
Colour Plate I 'Frontispiece (cf, text p. 41)
Queen Elizabeth. Crayon drawing by Federico Zuccaro (157 j).
Dept* of Prints and Drawings, British Museum.
Feaerico Zuccaro (1542/3-1609), a native of Tuscany, who Lad
worked on decorative schemes in the Vatican and at Florence,
came to England for four years, from 1 5 74 to 1 5 78, after whi ch
he returned to Italy, where he founded the Accademia^ di S an
Luca at Rome.
The delicacy and realistic simplicity of this crayon drawing
form a welcome contrast to the many elaborate portraits of
Elizabeth, in which interest is so often centred in her jewels
and dress, the face suggesting stereotyped representation rather
than portraiture,
Colour Plate II (cf. text p. zo)
Miniature of a young man by Nicholas Hilliard (c. 1^88),
Salting Bequest, Victoria and Albert Museum,
Nicholas Hilliard (1547-1619) was appointed goldsmith atid
Emner to Queen Elizabeth and enjoyed her continued patron-
age; he executed miniatures (or 'portraits in little*) of the Queen
herself and many of her courtiers. As the Queen's goldsmith
he executed her second Great Seal*
Interest in the miniature is thought to have derived in part
from the Elizabethan love of jewellery and of precious ston.es
in intricate settings. This portrait of an unknown young
man of about 1588 is one of Hilliard's most exquisite studies.
It portrays a youth leaning against a tree, enshrined in roses;
he wears a large lacy ruff, a padded doublet and short velyet
cloak, while long silk hose clothe his elegant legs. The miniature
is inscribed Dat potnas laudafa fides ([My] praised faith caus es
[my] pain),
Colour Plate HI (cf, text p. 105)
Painted room at Old Wilsley, near Cranbrook, Kent (c. r8o).
Photographed by kind permission of the owner, Ms. Herbert
Alexander.
This XVth century house was built for a family of Kentish
clothiers. At the cad of the XVTIth century a certain John
Weston (also a clothjler) was living there, and it was at this time
153
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
that the paintings shown in this illustration were carried out.
Biblical scenes in the upper panels of the decoration are com-
bined with sporting subjects in the lower ones, where harriers
are shown pursuing a hare. This is an interesting example of
the fashion of painted walls in a more modest house, where one
would expect at this date to find plain panelling, in contrast to
the sumptuous decoration of such great houses as Wilton and
Petworth (cf. 72 and 87).
Colour Plate IV (cf. text p. 148)
Sir Christopher Wren by Sir Godfrey Kneller (1687). From the
portrait in the possession of the Royal Society.
Kneller, born at Lubeck in 1646, came to England in 1675.
Besides royal portraits he painted nearly all his important con-
temporaries before his death in 1723, This painting of Wren
shows the architect against a prospect of his new St. Paul's.
Christopher Wren was born in 1632; at twenty-five he was
Professor of Astronomy at Gresham College, London. One of
the foundation members of the Royal Society, he became its
president in 1680, Besides his studies in medicine and anatomy,
he grew increasingly interested in architecture, becoming
surveyor-general to the King's works in 1669. After the Great
Fire he prepared his plan for rebuilding the city and was
appointed its principal architect. From 1668 he was engaged
on the rebuilding of St, Paul's, the first plan of which he com-
pleted in 1673, but later modified to that of the one we know
to-day, superintending the work of construction until 1710
(cf. 120). In addition to this he built fifty-two churches in
London (cf. 121 and 122), as well as numerous buildings out-
side London, including the Sheldonian at Oxford and Trinity
College library at Cambridge, He died in iyaj.
i (cf. text p, 7)
The Nobh Arts of Vmris or Hutting, by George Turbetville
(1611 edition). From the copy in the Dcpt. of Printed Books,
British Museum.
George Turberville (?ij4o-?i6io), like so many Elizabethans,
combined jhe activities of poet, scholar and diplomat. Hi*
Book* of Fattlfonrie and Tbt Nobk Art* of V*ntn* or Hunting
first produced in 1575, were useful compendium* of all matters
dealing with hunting and hawking, ranging from the care of
falcons and hounds to such difficult problems as 'the place
where and how an assembly should be made, in the presence
of a Prince or some honourable person, 1 and this our present
illustration from the 1611 edition shows. It is exactly the same
illustration as that in the 1575 edition, except for the substitu-
tion of the figure of James I for that of Elizabeth; the feasting
courtiers are regaling themselves on the same flagon* of wine
or ale and are being handed the same baskets of fat roast capons.
154
NOTES TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS
2 (cf. text p. 4)
Cwitatts Orbis Terrarum, by G. Braun and F. Hohenberg
(Cologne, 1577-88 edition). From the copy in the Cambridge
University Library.
This book gives maps and views of many of the chief cities of
Europe as well as of such far-flung places as Constantinople
and Cuzco, Jerusalem and Calicut.
Although engraved by foreigners and published abroad, this
map of Norwich (like those of London and Bristol reproduced
in 3 and 4) seems to have been faithfully copied from some
English original.
The map will repay close examination with a magnifying glass,
when the cathedral and castle can be easily discerned, and the
mediaeval walls with their gates, while in the left-hand corner
on the river bank, just inside c HeU Gates' (14), can be seen "The
new miUes' (15); to the right between the gates of St. Giles (16)
and St* Stephen (17) may be seen an archery contest in the
Archery Ground (to-day called Chapel Hill Fields); in the fore-
ground ploughing is going on and sheep are grazing; at the
top, in the distance (i.e. east) can be seen the wastes of Mouse-
hold Heath, and nearby, just outside the Bishop's Gate, 'the
place where men are customablie burnt/
The great influx of skilled Flemings and Walloons into Norwich
early in Elizabeth's reign increased the city's fame for the manu-
facture of woven goods, and the 'new tnilles' near the suburb
of Heigham may well be evidence of this flourishing trade.
3 (cf. text p. 4)
Ctvitatts Qrbis Terrarum > by G. Braun and F. Hohenberg
(Cologne, 1577-88 edition). From the copy in the Cambridge
University Library* (For general note cf. 2.)
Labelled by Braun 'florendssimum Angliae Emporium,' Bristol
is shown stretching from the former Abbey of St. Augustine's
to St. Mary RedciifTc outside the walls. The core of the city lies
below the castle and between the two arms of the river Avon
(now the floating harbour), with the Temple and St. Thomas's
lying beyond the bridge (with its houses spanning the river),
but within the outer girdling wall, which stretches across the
loop of the river* The churches of St. Nicholas (10) and St.
John (5) can be seen actually built into the city walls and
across two of the gateways,
Bristol's excellent facilities for a pott can be easily assessed
from this map. Het woollen industries (like those of Norwich)
derived fresh impetus from the immigration of Flemish weavers
in Elisabeth's reign,
4 (cf. text p. 4)
GfMfato Qrbis T*rrantm> by G. Braun and F. Hohenberg
(Cologne* 1577-88 edition). From the copy in the Cambridge
university Library* (For general note cf. z.)
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
While illustrating well the extent and character of London at
this date surrounded b^ fields and orchards and with gardens
and small open spaces In its heart, this map must not be taken
as accurate in all its miaute details. Its spelling in many cases is
of the peculiar type one might expect from a foreigner with
little knowledge of tie English language, and Mr. I. A. Shapiro
has recently shown in 3baksspeart Survty \ (1948) in his study
of early engravings of the Bankside theatres that we cannot
rely upon it for its representation of the south bank, for instance.
The foreground purports to show the Bear and Bull baitings,
but the student of the Elizabethan theatre should look rather at
Hollar's Long View of .London of 1647 ( c ^ 63) for the layout
of the south bank.
The Tower, Westminster, Lambeth Palace, London Bridge
with its rows of houses and jutting cutwaters* and Old St.
Paul's can be picked out, although the latter is shown with its
spire, which had alreadj collapsed in 1561.
5 (cf. text p. 9)
Crowland, Lincolnshire, during the floods of 1947. From an
air photograph by Aerofilms, Ltd,
The background of this photograph helps to recapture some
idea of what the mediaeval fen must have looked like, with its
"watery solitudes' and s mall 'oozy islands* here and there. The
great Abbey of CrowUnd, whose ruins (used as the parish
church) can be seen on the edge of the modern town, was set
on the highest land thus taking advantage of the rich fertile
soil for its fields and vineyards without danger of inundation,
6 (c text p. 1 1)
Map of the Fen round Wisbech, From a MS. map of 1597 in
the Wisbech Museura, Cambridgeshire.
This map, probably a revised copy of an earlier one, gives dear
evidence of the system of embankment and 'sewerage* already
evolved by this time. The dykes and banks, notably the
*Magna Ripa de Wisebech* can be traced, together with several
windmills, which weie used for draining the land. The number
of churches on even this small portion is some evidence of the
wealth of the area at thiat date. (For further note on fen drainage
c note to
7 <c text p. 11)
Ely Cathedral, From ac air photograph by Acrofilms, Ltd.
Ely Cathedral was pieocded by ft monastery, which was burnt
by the Danes in 870 but restored by King Edgar for the
Benedictines in 970, After the Conquest the wort Abbey
Church began to rise, consisting at first of the choir, tower and
transepts, the nave beic^g erected in the Xllth century. During
the next century the Norman eastern end was demoushedand
the presbytery built la its stead; in the XTVth century the
NOTES TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS
Norman tower fell, damaging the old Norman choir, and it
was then that the Octagon Tower and Lantern and the Lady
Chapel were built. By the end of the XlVth century the Abbey
Church was virtually the same in its main structure as we see it
to-day. In 1539 the monastery surrendered to the King, and
was dissolved, its church becoming the cathedral. Some of the
monastic buildings were destroyed and the others used as
houses for the officers of *the king's new college at Ely.' In the
foreground of the illustration can be seen, on the extreme right
the remains of the infirmary; the deanery (part of which was the
monastery guest hall) and its garden (the former cloister garth);
and on the left, just by the west door of the cathedral, the
Bishop's palace.
8 (cf. text p. 15)
The Cheviots. From an air photograph by Aerofilms, Ltd.
The air of remote desolation which pervades this scene is
probably little altered from Tudor times it is rather the state
of society which has changed.
9 and 10 (cf. text pp. 17, 18)
Newark Castle, Selkirkshire (XVth century). From an ak
photograph by Aerofilms, Ltd.
Darnick Tower, near Melrose (1569). From a drawing by
Edward Blore (1787-1879). B.M. MS. Add. 42,022, f. 24.
Darnick Tower, built in 1569 to replace an earlier tower burnt
by the Earl of Hertford, is not very different from the XVth
century peel tower of Newark and both should be contrasted
with what was happening in Elizabethan England (cf. 1 1 and
12 below),
n (cf. textp, 18)
Stokesay Castle, Shropshire. From a drawing by Edward
Blore (1787-1879), B.M. MS. Add. 42,017, f. 40.
This drawing of a Xlllth century half-fortified manor house,
with its strong tower and fortress-like aspect, but with a
timbered Elizabethan gateway, showing that it has reached a
time when its fortification is no longer serious, should be con-
trasted with 9 and 10 of Darnick and Newark, to show how
conversion from even semi-fortification was taking place in
England, at a time when fortification was still the main pre-
occupation in the Borders.
12 (cf. teactp* 18)*
Gharlccote Park, Warwickshire. From an air photograph by
Aerofilms, Ltd.
Built in the first year of Elizabeth's reign in the favourite E-form
with corner towers, Charlecote Park, in spite of later additions
and alterations, is representative of an Elizabethan manor house
set peacefully in its gardens, with gatehouse and stables com-
fortably removed from the main building. Its widespread
157
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
lawns and general layout, Its many windows, from ground
floor to gable, all bespeak an age of 'peace and economic
prosperity* far removed in material conditions from the world
of Darnick Tower (cf. 10) where as late as 1 569 the rebuilding
of a dwelling entailed the same grim, stone fortress-like aspect,
the same lack of windows, the same necessity for a self-contained
defensive economy; no spreading outbuildings or ornamenta-
tion appear and there is little change from XVth century
Newark (cf. 9).
13 (cf. text p. 1 8)
Montacute House, Somerset. From an air photograph by
Aerofilms, Ltd.
Montacute belongs to the closing years of Elizabeth. It was
built by Sir Edward Phelips, in the familiar H-fonn, of Hamdon
Hill stone, with generous window space and elaborate gabling.
It was completed about 1600. This photograph shows the east
side (note the roundels over the windows) including the
beautiful Jacobean garden forecourt enclosed by a balustraded
wall with delicate cupolas and corner pavilions all con-
temporary. The garden beyond, with yews and ornamental
pool is late XVIIIth century and probably replaced the earlier
formal garden with knots and dials (cf. 90).
14 (cf. text pp. 1 8, 19)
Moreton Old Hall, Cheshire. From an air photograph by
Aerofilms, Ltd.
This moated, half-timbered manor house was apparently
elaborated from an earlier building first by William Moreton,
and then by his son, John, between the fifties and eighties of
the XVIth century. Its irregular, almost top-heavy appearance*
its restricted window space, and the chequer of its black and
white, form a striking contrast to the dignified golden unity of
Montacute House (< 13).
15 (cf. text p. 19)
The Bradford Table Carpet, Dept of Textiles, Victoria and
Albert Museum*
This late XVItfa century table carpet was acquired by the
Victoria and Albert Museum in 1928 from the Earl of Bradford's
collection at Castle Bromwich Hall, Its centre is worked in a
design of trellised vines, while the border shows hunting Mid
pastoral scenes, all kinds of architecture, and wild animals,
against a rolling country background* It is worked in silk on
linen canvas in tent stitch in many colours. Orient*] rugs and
carpets, when first imported into England, were frequently
used as table, rather than as floor, coverings, and when copied
in English embroidery were still used for the same purpose
(cf. the table carpet in 56), It was only when tables themselves
NOTES TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS
became more ornate that table carpets went out, to come back
again eventually as floor carpets.
16 (cf. text p, 19)
The Great Hall, Montacute House, Somerset. From a photo-
graph by The Times.
The hall is of single storey height, with original stone door-
ways and chimney piece the latter supported by plain Ionic
columns. Across the upper part of the north wall of the hall
can be seen the Elizabethan plaster panel of the "Skimmity
ride.' This tells the story of the henpecked husband who tried
to fetch himself some ale while minding the baby. His wife
belabours him with her shoe and a neighbour seeing this,
collects the villagers, who make him ride the skimmington (or
pole) to the general derision of the village. The decorative
plaster frieze and the wooden panelling should be noted, though
the ceiling is plain. The stone screens are at the other end of
the hall and were elaborately plastered and painted at a kter
period.
17 (cf. text p. 19)
Gallery at Powys Castle, Montgomeryshire (1592/3). From a
drawing by William Twopenny (1797-1873). Dept. of Prints
and Drawings, British Museum.
Powys Castle, though of early foundation, was largely re-built
by the Herberts, to whom it passed in 1587. Abandoned in
1644, when the Parliament forces took it over, and again in
1688 when the Powys family went into exile, it was considerably
altered and restored in the ensuing years.
This wide, well-lighted gallery, panelled and decorated with
S \aster frieze and elaborately ornamented ceiling, is typical of
te XVIth and XVIIth century 'long galleries/ It was built
by Sir Edward Herbert in 1592, and the richly decorated
piasterwork of the ceiling is the original work of 1592/3. The
panelling is mid-XVIIth century; the furniture, however, dates
from 1722, when the second Marquess of Powys returned from
exile. The sashed windows replace earlier mullioncd ones and
the busts were not brought here from Italy until c. 1810.
18 (cf. text p. 18)
Gresham's Royal Exchange. Engraving from London Pros-
pects Portfolio, Vol. V> in the possession of the Society of
Antiquaries.
Sk Thomas Gresham (1519-1579), merchant and financier,
built the Royal Exchange at his own expense. It was named
and opened Jbv the Queen in January 1571, but was destroyed
in the Great rire of 1666, The golden grasshopper, Grcsham's
crest, can be seen on the column and the cupolas. The open
colonnade aad the statues in recessed niches should be particu-
larly noticed.
19 (cf. text p. i8j
The Gate of Honour, Gonvilie and Caius College, Cambridge.
From a photograph by A. F. Kcrsting.
Founded as the Hall of the Annunciation in 1348 by Edmund
Gonville, Gonvilie Hall was refounded by John Caius, as
Gonvilie and Caius College in 1 5 57, Elected Master the follow-
ing year Dr, Caius, who had travelled in Italy, France and
Germany, was able to devote himself to designing and building
additions to his college. He planned three gates, of Humility,
of Virtue and of Honour, symbolical of the scholar's career,
but the Gate of Honour was not built until 1575 (two years
after Caius' death); it was built, however, as he had himself
planned. Many of its original elaborations have since gone.
Pinnacles surmounted the lowest cornice and the corners of
the hexagonal tower, and sundials decorated the sides of the
hexagon. The arms of Caius can yet be seen in the spandril of
the arch. The details of the gateway were ornamented in colour
and gold on the white stonework. The architect was possibly
Theodore Havens of Cleves.
20 (cf. text p. 26)
The Skynner Monument, Ledbury Church, Herefordshire.
From a photograph by Sydney Pitcher, Gloucester,
The tomb to Edward Skynner, his wife and family in Ledbury
Church was erected in 1630. Edward Skynner was a wealthy
cloth merchant, but his alabaster altar tomb with its kneeling
effigies of himself and his wife, with the baby between them ana
their ten other children below, would not have shamed a
nobleman.
21 and 22 (cf, text p. 21)
Sketches from the Album of Tobias Delhafen of Nuremburg
(1623-5), BM MS. Egerton 1269, ff, 6j and 54 respectively.
23 and 24 (cf. text p, 5)
Sketcnes from the Album of George Holzschuher, also of
Nuremburg (1621-5). B.M, MS* Egertoo 1*64, ff* 15 add a6
respectively.
These four scenes showing on the one hand, t peasant woman
tiding to market with her basket of eggs, and a citizen with his
wife riding pillion^ and on the other the pomp and ceremony
which attended the Lord Mayor and his wife, are taken from
two Libri Amicorum the equivalent of the modem tuto-
graph album belonging to two visitors from Nuremburgto
this country at the beginning of the XVElth century. The
fashion of such books of blank vellum pages on which one's
friends inscribed their signatures or arms was started about the
middle of the X Vlth century by University students and spread
from one University to another, Somednaes they were inter-
leaved printed book*, the most popular being thoae with wood*
1 60
NOTES TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS
cuts or engravings by Jobst Amman and the de Brys. The
fashion spread to the court and the professions, and professional
illuminators were soon driving a flourishing trade. An en-
graving was chosen by the friend, who would then have it
illuminated and add his autograph or armorial bearings on the
opposite page. Sometimes notes of his friend's later career
would be added by the owner of the album.
The subjects illustrated here occur in both these MSS. with
slight variations, and over a wide range of these Libri Ami-
corum (belonging usually to Germans or Swiss) similar subjects
repeat themselves again and again. The style and content
steadily degenerated throughout the XVIIth century., heraldic
paintings disappeared and by the XVIIIth century these books
of friendship had become, in many instances, mere records of
ribaldry and debauchery, interspersed with miniature portraits
and later with silhouettes.
A very full study of the subject will be found in Arcbaeok^a >
vol* xii, 19x0, by Max Rosenheim,
55-28 (cf. text pp. 7, *$)
These four woodcuts are taken from ballads in the Roxburghe
Collection, Dept, of Printed Books, British Museum.
This collection consists of 'antient songs and ballads written
on various subjects and printed between the years MDLX and
MDCC chiefly collected by Robert [Harley], Earl of Oxford
and purchased in the sale of the late Mr, West's Library ir* the
year 1773* Encreased by several Additions in two volumes.
London. Arranged and bound 1774,*
These ballads with their rough woodcuts are typical of those
that were hawked about by Autolycus and his fellows (c. text
p. 6 a) irt city street and on village green. The type of pedlar
who sold them can be seen in text illustration (p. ox). The cuts
ace stereotyped and occur again and again in varying states
and attached to various ballads throughout the century, many
of them bearing little relation to the ballads they adorn.
5 *j. From *A Dialogue betweene Master Guesright and
poore Neighour Needy OR A few proofs both reall and true
Shewing what men for money -will doe. To a pleasant new
tune called, But I know what I know. Printed at London
for P. Cowles/ Roxburghe Collection, I, 74, 75.
a6. From *A Bill of Fare, For, A Saturday Night's Supper,
A Sunday morning Breakfast, and A Munday Dinner.
Described ia a pleasant new Merry Dittie. To the tune of
Cooke LaureU or Mlchelmaa Terme. London. Printed by
H. P. for Fr. Grove, neare the Sarazens Head without
Newgate/ Roxburghe Collection, 1, 18, 19.
17. From *A pleasant Countrey new Ditty; Merrily show-
ing how to dnve the cold Winter away. To the tune of
161 xx
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
When Phoebus did rest; Sec. Printed at London for H.G.'
Roxburghe Collection, I, 24, 25.
28. From *Ali is ours and our Husbands or the Country
Hostesses Vindication. To the tune of the Carmens Whistle
or High Boys up go we. Printed for P. Brooksby at the
Golden Ball in Pye Comer.* Roxburghe Collection, II, 8.
These four cuts illustrate eating and drinking at home or at the
inn. The ballad to 25 proclaims;
'What makes your In-keeper to harbour the pore,
And unto all comers set open his dore,
But that he intends if possible can,
To have his reward of every man/
While that to 26 tells of all the good things the company had
to eat one Saturday night when the 'Master of the Feast' paid
the score for all, till 'We rose from our mirthe with the i z oclock
Chimes, Went everyone home as his way did direct/ The
ballad concludes by describing the sort o breakfast his wife
gave the singer of the ballad next morning 'because she was not
bidden to supper.'
27 illustrates a ballad of winter revels in the country, which
tells how everyone gathers with 'carols and songs to orive the
cold winter away,*
< This time of the yeare
Is spent in good cheare kind neighbours together meete
To sit by the fire
With friendly desire each other in love to greet/
28 illustrates a very different scene on which mice hostess
sings;
*For if an honest company
Of boone good fellows come:
And call for Liquor merrily
In arty private Room:
Then if I fill the juggs with Froth
Or cheat them of one or two
If I can swear them out of both
The reckoning is my due, etc*
29 and 30 (cf. test p. 29)
Woodcut from a broadside (no, 239) in the possession of the
Society of Antiquaries, entitled *A Schoole for Young Soldier*,
containing in breife the whole Discipline of warre, especially
so much as is meet for Captains to t**^ or the Soldier to
learne, that is, to trayne or to be trayaed Fit to be taught
throughout England London. Printed for John Truodle
dwelling in Barbican at the signe of Nobody/
162
NOTES TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS
This broadside (temp. James I) consists of directions for the
sorting of arms and the forming of the company itself in
squadrons, files, etc. It then gives the various 'postures of the
pike, the Musket & Harquebuse' in turn and ends with the
words of command to be used in drilling. The posture direc-
tions explain loading and unloading, firing, etc. and show how
to carry the weapon.
31 and 32 (c text p. 29)
The Art* of Gunnery (3 Sept, 1608). B.M. MS. Cott Julius F. iv,
ff. 18 and 26.
This MS. is a treatise in English on gunnery and the theory of
ballistics, and is illustrated by crude diagrams to point the text.
32 is concerned with demonstrating the angle of fire of a
demi-culverin, while 31 illustrates concentration of fire on a
target, with the guns of the defenders replying,
33 (c textp, 3)
Michael Drayton, From the portrait by an unknown artist in
the National Portrait Gallery,
The Warwickshire born poet, Michael Drayton (1563-1631),
is illustrated here as the poet who sang of England's beauties
and her noble past. In his poetic topography of England the
Polyolblon (1613-22), (from the Greek meaning 'having many
blessings'), he set out to bring before his readers the native
beauties of their country
As Camden (c 34) in his "Britannia detailed for a slightly
earlier generation each county and its principal features,
geographical, historical or antiquarian, so Drayton in his
travels through England displays the streams and rivers of the
countryside with their legends and historical associations and
all kinds of lore about their flora and fauna as well,
34 (cf. text p. 3}
William Camden. From the portrait by an unknown artist in
the National Portrait Gallery.
William Caracten (xj 51-162}), headmaster of Westminster
School, herald, antiquary and historian, published his Brifanma
in i j86. This record of his famous journey through England,
by which (said Fuller) *he restored Britain to herself, used
Inland's notes to some extent, but built up a panorama of the
cities and towns he visited, w well as of the scenery and anti-
quities he saw on his way. The scholar and topographer in his
survey of England succeeded in enshrining his greatness in a
prose work of high literary achievement; originally published
in Latin, it was not translated into English until iio when
Philemon Holland gave it afresh to the world,
$ 55 and %6 (cf. text p. 59)
Tit Wbok Pstfas fafQ&tpartos by John Day (September * 5 6$).
Ftom a copy in the Dept of Printed Books, British Museum,
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
John Day printed the first collection of psalm tunes in England.
35 shows the frontispiece to his four oblong little volumes
devoted to Tenor, Contra Tenor, Bassus and Medius 'which*
(he says in his title) 'may be song to al musicall instruments,
set forth for the encrease of vertue: & abolishing of other
vayne & triflying ballades,* 36 is the first page of the Contra
Tenor part of the Veni creator in the same book.
37 (cf. text pp, 39, 40)
A Preaching at Old St. Paul's, f. 1616. From the original
painting in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries.
This painting (part of a wooden diptych) gives us a good idea
(in spite of some difficulty with perspective) of what Old St.
Paul's looked like in the reign of James I. It shows Paul's
Cross in the foreground with a Bishop preaching before the
King, whose court, judges and officials can be seen seated in
the galleries flanking the royal box. (Note the houses built
under the transept wall.)
The preaching is probably an imaginary one and not an actual
record, as the famous preaching by Bishop John King before
the King, which might well DC thought to have been the
inspiration for this did not take place until 1620 and this
diptych is dated 1616.
(For a full discussion of this picture, see Catalog* of Piftttrts
belonging fa tb* Society of Antiquaries, by George Scharf (1865).)
38 and 39 (cf. text p. 39)
Illustration from a broadside (no. 231) in the possession of the
Society of Antiquaries, entitled 'The Christian's Jewell how
to adorne the Heart and dccke the House of every Protestant.
Taken out of St. Mary Overis Church in the Lectureship of the
late deceased Doctor Sutton, 1624, Arc to be sold by Tho,
lener at the exchange/
This broadside sets out the Ten Commandments above the
Lord's Prayer and the Creed. In the corners are four small
engravings of Circumcision and Baptism, the Passover and the
Lord's Supper, with texts setting out the authority for Baptism
and Communion, At the bottom is a medallion portrait of
Dr, Button.
Note the swaddling clothes of the child being christened and
the way in which communion is being administered. The
table is in the body of the church, with the communicants
kneeling all round it the priest seems to be on the right (in
the middle) with his clerk opposite him*
40 (cf. text p. 42)
Richard Lyne's Map of Cambridge (*J74) From the copy in
the Cambridge University Library,
This beautiful copper engraving illustrates t university town in
Elizabeth's day. It was drawn and engraved by Richard Lyne
164
NOTES TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS
(fl, 1570-1(300), who was employed by Matthew Parker, Arch-
bishop of Canterbury and benefactor of the University of
Cambridge.
In factual accuracy this map cannot be compared with John
Hammond's plan of 1592, but it gives a vivid pictorial im-
pression of XVIth-ccntury Cambridge, and though we may
not accept his Castle or the relative scales of his buildings, we
do spy with pleasure the angler on the Backs just by Clare Hall,
and the boat with the drag-net coming from the bridge and
drawing level with John's; otherwise the streets are empty,
though he fills the meadows with sheep and cows, pigs and
horses,
41 (cf, text p. 42}
Civitatts Orbis Tsrrarum^ by G. Braun and F. Hohenberg
(Cologne, 1 5 77-88). From the copy in the Cambridge University
Library. (For general note cf, 2.)
Besides the large maps reproduced in 2, 3 and 4 there are
many delightful long views of such towns of interest as Wind-
sor or Oxford, and in these as well as in the maps groups of
people appear. In this illustration the two scholars 'disputing'
as they look down on Oxford towers, wear the long clerical
gown common to every European university town of the time*
4* (cf. text p. 45)
From HolinshecTs Cbronicls (i 5 77). From the copy in the Cam-
bridge University Library.
This picture of work at the Mint accompanies Holinshed's
account of how on the i j November 1 561 the Queen 'restored
to the Realtne diverse small peeces of silver money * . . And also
forbad all foreyne coynes to bee currant within the same
Realme, as well golde as silver, calling them to fair Majesties
Myntes, except two sortes of Crownes of Golde, the one the
Frenche Crowne, the other the Flemish Crowne/
43-45 (cf. text p, 46, 47)
From Agricola's D* Rt Metellica (Basle, *5<5i). From the copy
in the Cambridge University Libraty,
Georg Bauer (whose name was Latinised as Agricola) (1490-
1555) was regarded by German writers as the father of miner-
alogy. He practised as a doctor of medidne but his great work
the D* R* Mttaltiea (in twelve books) was on mining and
metallurgy.
43, In the second book Agricola discusses the use of the wand
ot twig from Grce's turning Ulysses* men into swine with it
to its use as a divining rod for finding metals* TWs illustration
shows prospecting by means of a divining rod and 'open cast*
mining.
J 44. In the fifth book he discusses the methods of mining
the sinking of shafts, the height and width of the galleries, etc,
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
The illustration shows a mine with timbered shafts (shown in
section). Note the winding mechanism on the right and the
men pushing barrows through the underground galleries.
Both this and 43 show how quickly the timber is being
used up in the vicinity of such workings.
45. In the sixth book he discusses how metals occur in the
earth, how they are extracted and transported, and afterwards
the many ways of working them. This illustration depicts
mining in difficult mountainous country, and can be taken as
showing the kind of methods probably employed by German
miners in the Lake District, In the background can be seen
packhorses, while in the foreground the busy scene of activity
at the mine itself is shown. In the centre stands the overseer
marking off the number of cartloads of ore on his tally stick.
An interesting feature is the two-wheeled cart on the right
drawn over a track of tree trunks (for easy and smooth running
on steep rough ground). On the left is a heap of ore, while
further back men can be seen with wheelbarrows and boxes
into which they are emptying the metal, The subject of this
picture is the treatment of gold-bearing ores and therefore
shows a stream for washing the ore,
46 (< text pp. 47, 48)
An Elizabethan cast-iron fire-back. From the Dept, of Metal-
work, Victoria and Albert Museum.
Cast-iron fire-backs and andirons first appeared in the late X Vth
century and were then mainly for royal use. The industry of
iron casting originated in the Weald and received great impetus
in the reign of Henry VIII, when Ralph Hogge or Hugge
offered to cast cannon in iron (instead of bronzejfor the King,
This proved a great success; besides cannon, fire-backs with
elaborate and accurate heraldic designs were also cast for the
King, From now on fire-backs were produced for the court;
Elizabeth used the old Tudor supporters for her royal arms,
the lion and the greyhound, as shown in this fine example,
47 (c text p. 47)
From Silva by John Evelyn (1679 edition). From * copy in
the^ Cambridge University Library.
This book (first published in 1664) on tree culture first drew
attention in England to the importance of forestry. In this
illustration Evelvn (for whom see note to $ 8 j) is concerned
with showing the method of charcoal burning in XVIIth
century England, doubtless the same as had been practised
for many centuries before,
In the central clearing wood is placed in a triangle round a pole,
and on this foundation timber is piled up to form a beehhre
shape, It is then covered with earth or day (as on the
and set fire to,
166
NOTES TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS
48 (cf. text p. 49)
From a broadside (no. 92) in the possession of the Society of
Antiquaries, entitled *A brief note of the benefits that growc to
this Realme by the observance of Fish-daies: with a reason and
cause wherefore the lawe in that behalf made, is ordained. Very
necessary to be placed in the houses of all men, specially common
victualers. Scene and allowed by the most honorable privie
Counsel!, in the yeare of our Lord God, 1 593. The 20 of March,
AT LONDON. Printed by Roger Warde dwelling in Fleete
Streete over against the Conduit at the signe of the Castle.*
This broadside sets out the law that only fish may be served by
victuallers, innkeepers etc., on the fish-days appointed. It then
explains the reason for this law, namely, that England is sur-
rounded by the sea, and her coast towns and villages are
decayed and need to be rehabilitated, so that fishing and all
allied trades of sail and rope making may flourish* It concludes
with an estimate of how much beef can be saved thereby, as
the increased eating of flesh is a cause of great concern to the
country.
49 (cf. text p. 56}
Calais. From a chart of the harbour and road of Calais, XVIth
century, B,M, MS. Cott Aug. L ii. 70.
This chart shows ships in full sail making up the roads to Calais
harbour, with the town above; beyond, eastwards, stretch the
difFs crowned with fortifications, with houses and windmills
interspersed.
50 (cf. text p. 55)
The *Ark Royal* (Lord Howard of Effingham's flagship against
the Armada). Woodcut, anonymous, t. 1588. Dept of Prints
and Drawings, British Museum.
Built by Sir Walter Raleigh for his own use this ship (originally
known as the 'Ark Raleigh') was sold to the Queen as her flag-
ship against the Armada, J. S* Corbett in Drafa and th Tudor
Nay, vol. ii (1899), p. 127, quotes Wynter, the Vice Admiral,
writing from the Downs:-*! pray you teU her Majesty from
me that her money was well given for the *Ark Raleigh* for
I think her the odd ship in all the world for all conditions. . . ,
We am see no ail great or small but how far soever they arc
we fetch them and speak with them/
$ 51 (cf. teartp. 51)
Sir Walter Raleighu From the portrait by an unknown artist
in the Nadontl Portrait Gallery.
Sk Walter Raleigh (?i 5 531-1618) forms a complete contrast to
Drake, no lew in physical appearance than in character and
attainment*. A soldier and explorer, he was also a poet and
tcholtt, as wella* a courtier. But falling under the Queers dis-
pleasure (on account of his marriage) he was imprisoned, and
167
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
freed again only to be re-imprisoned by James 1 on a charge of
treason. Inspired by romantic dreams of re-discovering the
city of Manoa, he was permitted to undertake an expedition in
search of its gold. His failure was rewarded by arrest and
execution (at the instance of the Spanish Ambassador). Most
of his prose writing dated from his years of imprisonment,
including his History of the World 9 of which only one volume
was completed, but the general purpose of which was to show
the judgment of God against the wicked,
52 and 53 (cf. text p. 55)
From ~ExpcdttiQnh Hispanorum in Angllam vtra dtseriptio (1588).
Line engravings by Augustine Ryther (fl. 1 575~9 2 ) after Robert
Adams. The accompanying text by Pctruccio Ubaldini was
published as Discourse (onceminge the Spanish* Fit eft in 1590.
From the copy in the Dept. of Printed Books, British Museum.
These beautiful handcoloured plates are a contemporary
authority based on Howard's own narrative and show the
successive positions of the English and Spanish fleets from the
first sighting of the Spaniards off the Cornish coast, until the
moment when, driven through the Straits, the latter arc being
forced northwards to the open sea,
5 2 (the second of the series) shows the English fleet hurrying
out of Plymouth harbour on the night of July aoth 1588; some
are seen beating to -windward inshore and taking up positions
in the rear of the Spanish fleet, while others make straight out
to sea in line across the Spanish van, thus leading Medina
Sidonia to believe himself caught between two squadrons,
whereas the latter ships were actually making for the main body
in the Spanish rear, preparatory to falling upon their starboard
and leeward wings.
y 5 (the tenth of the series) shows the final battle of G ravelin
which developed into a running fight, the Spaniards trying to
keep dose formation and escape to the open sea, while the
English try to cut off their foremost ships and drive the rest on
the Zeeland banks. Apart from the main action ome of the
English ships can be seen endeavouring to secure a disabled
Spanish ship off Calais and subsequently rejoining the main
Beet, after having had to abandon her capture. In this final
action the Spaniards were eventually driven out of the Channel
and forced northwards in disordered flight.
54 (cf. text p, 51)
Sir Francis Drake, From the contemporary engraving in the
Dept, of Prints and Drawings, British Museum.
Sit Francis Drake (?i 540-96), circumnavigator of the globe,
builder of English naval supremacy, implacable enemy of
Spain, pirate, adventurer and explorer, wt* typical of bit age,
168
NOTES TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS
in his capacity for hard work and untiring enterprise, his flam-
boyance and imaginative shrewdness. A firm believer in the
theory that attack is the best form of defence, he advised the
Queen to forestall a Spanish invasion by herself attacking
Spain, and his action at Cadiz postponed the coming of the
Armada for a year.
55 (cf. text p. 67)
Frontispiece of The General! Historie of Virginia, New England <&
tb* Summer Isles, etc. by Capt. John Smith. London, 1624,
From the copy in the Cambridge University Library,
Capt. John Smith (1580-1631) made one of the party which
set out to colonise Virginia in 1606. Everyone is familiar with
the story of how he was rescued from the Indians through the
good offices of their princess, Pocahontas (who later married
John Rolfe). Smith became governor of the colony of Virginia
in 1608, and was active in further explorations. He published
this book in 1624, The engraved tide page is by Jan Barra
(probably of Middelburg). Medallions of Elizabeth, James I
and Charles I appear at the top superimposed on a map, and at
the foot a landscape in which can be seen Indians, their dwell-
ings and a party in a dug-out canoe.
56 (cf. text p, 68)
The Somerset House Conference (1604). From the portrait
group attributed to Marc Gheeraedts II, in the National Por-
trait Gallery,
The commissioners of England, Spain and the Netherlands met
to discuss at this conference the future relations of England
with Holland and the Indies, The English representatives
are seated on the right of the picture, the figure in the fore-
ground being Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, (Cf, note to 1 5
for a note on table carpets.)
57 (cf, text pp. 67, 68)
From A Brutfandtrw report of the new found land of Virgnia^ by
Thomas Hariot, with engravings by Theodore de Bry from
drawings by John White. (TPrankfutt, 1590.) (English trans-
lation by Richard Hakluyt) From a copy in the Dejpt. of
Printed Books, British Museum,
Theodore de Bry (1518-98) settled in Strasbourg about 1560
and worked there as goldsmith and engraver. During visits to
England in 1586 ana 1588 he met Hakluyt who inspired the
idea of the great work of illustrated travels and voyages, De
Bry began with this volume, the report on Virginia by Thomas
Harlot, who was with the expedition sent out in 1585/6 by
Rsldgh; John White (also attached to the expedition) had made
the serie* of drawings, which de Bry, after having been intro-
duced to White, used for these engravings. The great illus-
toted series of American and African travels was thus begun
169
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
(in Latin, German, French and English editions), the work
occupying the rest of de Bry's life and being continued after
his death by his sons.
This plate is entitled 'The Arrival of the Englishmen in Vir-
ginia/ It shows how the coast is bordered by islands which
make access difficult, and the small pinnaces with which trial was
made to find entrance and to try the sandy shallows of the rivers.
58 (c text p. 68)
From a broadside (no. 1 5 1) in the possession of the Society of
Antiquaries, entitled 'A Declaration for the ceruine time of
drawing the great standing Lottery, Imprinted at London by
Felix Kyngston, for William Welby, the 22 of Fcbruarie, 1615.'
This broadside is of particular interest in showing one way in
which money for colonisation was raised and also in depicting
the type of lottery boxes used. The broadside sets out the
various prizes and rewards which will be paid out by the
treasurer for Virginia, Sir Thomas Smith, Knight, and details
the arrangements by which the money for *Adventures* can be
entered. Everyone is invited to adventure money in this way
to help bring much-needed supplies to the colony as quickly
as possible, It is stated, moreover, that anyone leaving (on a
venture of iz.*o and upwards) his prizes in, shall have a bill
of Adventure to Virginia and shall be free of that company
and have his part in lands and all other profits according to his
first venture. The figures of Red Indians in the top corners of
this broadside seem to be based on John White's drawings (cf,
note on 57 on de Bry's Virginia),
59 (cf. text p. 76)
Title-page from An Embassy stnt by tbt Bos/ India Co. of tAt
United Prwiiwts to tbt Grand Tartar Cham vr Em&twr tf OirVw,
described by J, NieuhoE Translated by J* Ogilby (1675).
Engraving by W. Hollar (x668). From the copy of the second
edition (1073), Dept of Printed Books, British Museum*
This fascinating book tells of the Dutch embassy to the Emperor
of China in 1655 to procure free trade for Holland in China,
and of how the Jesuits already in Peking tried to prevent the
Emperor granting the Hollanders what they sought Richly
illustrated with engravings of the places and people the
embassy saw on its way from Canton to Peking, the book
covers all their difficulties and delays, the strange customs they
witnessed and the treatment they met with, until they came at
last to their audience with the Emperor*
Hollar's frontispiece reproduced here was apparently meant to
illustrate their description of the audience with the Emperor,
but also shows a globe giving the position of China, tnd a
prisoner or two to represent the power of the Cham. In their
own words the Dutchmen"* tight of the Emperor wi as
170
NOTES TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS
follows: 'On each side of the throne stood 112 soldiers, each
whereof bore a several Flag and likewise wore coloured Habits
suitable to his Ensign, only they had all black Hats with yellow
Feathers. Next to the Emperors Throne stood twenty two
Gentlemer^ each with a Yellow skreen or Umbrillo in his
hand; next these stood ten other persons, each holding a Gilt
Radiant Circle in his hand, resembling the Sun; next to these
stood six others with Circles imitating the Moon at the Full;
after these, were standing sixteen other persons, with half
Pikes or Poles in their hands, hung full of silk Tassels of several
colours, near to these stood thirty six more, each holding a
Standard, curiously adorned with Dragons (the Emperors
Coat of Arms) and other such Monsters after the Chinese
fashion. And in this manner were both sides of the Emperors
Throne Guarded and Adorned adding an infinite number of
Courtiers, all of them in very rich Habits, all of one Colour and
silk, as of a Livery; which added very much to the splendour
of the place.'
60 (cf. text p. 61)
William Shakespeare. From the engraving by Martin Droe-
shout for the title-page of the first folio edition of the plays,
1 623. From the National Portrait Gallery.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), dramatist, poet and actor,
became a member of the Lord Chamberlain's company of
players in London and acted at the Globe as well as at other
theatres. His acting experience and early journeyman work
in revising and reshaping plays for his company gave him a
useful apprenticeship in the technical details of his art, which
came to its full fruition in the great series of tragedies, comedies
and chronicle plays, which still bring glory to his name. The
plots and stories of his plays might be drawn from or based on
Italian romances, mediaeval collections of stories, Plutarch's
lives or Holinshed's histories, but his dramatic power and
poetic genius gave them new being and significance. The taste
of his times is reflected in his free mingling of tragedy and
comedy, of rustic by-play with courtly plot, while the EUfca*
bethan love of rich imagery and sensuous language combines
with psychological insight, wide range of emotion and a
powerful feeling for action and interplay, to make him the
chief dramatist of the English theatre in his own and subse-
quent times.
6 1 (cf. text p. 62)
The New Inn, Gloucester* From a photograph by R, A*
(Postcards) Ltd.
The X Vth and XVItfa century inn (the prototype of the Eliza-
bethan theatre) was built round three sides of a courtyard, the
guette* rooms opening on to the galleries, which thus gavea view
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
on to the yard itself. A rough temporary stage on trestles would
be set up by the players in the yard. They would probably
also utilise the staircase, archway and upper gallery as shown in
this illustration. The 'groundlings' would crowd about the
stage and those of higher position would watch from the
galleries. Plays were also acted in the halls of schools and
colleges, or great houses, where the 'screens* at one end (often
below a minstrels' gallery), faced the dais at the other end of the
hall ; through the 'screens* doors led to the kitchens. The
analogy with the innyard and the early theatre is easy to see
- (cf. 62).
62 (cf. text p. 62)
Interior of the Swan Theatre. From a sketch by Johannes de
Witt, made during a visit to London in 1596. MS. 842 (Van
355), f. 132 in the University Library, Utrecht.
This sketch, originally made by the Dutchman de Witt on a
visit to London, and recopied by his friend Arcnd van Buchel,
is now at Utrecht. It is the only contemporary picture of the
interior of an Elizabethan theatre, the Swan, which had only
been built in 1595, It shows a circular building, with close
affinities to the structure of the inn yard (cf. 61). The plat-
form stage juts out into the auditorium, where the * groundlings *
would be crowded, the whole enclosed by the covered, galleried,
circular wall. The back of the stage consists of a rooted struc-
ture supported on pillars and having two doors, which con-
cealed the 'tiring' room but which could be opened to reveal
an inner room (thus extending the stage to portray, for instance,
the interior of a house). Above these doors the first gallery is
continued right across the rear of the stage and couhTbe used
either for spectators or as an upper stage (a, the close similarity
here with the innyard in 61), From what we learn from the
agreement drawn up in 1600 when the Fortune Theatre was to
be built (on the lines of the Globe of 1 599) it would seem that
dc Witt's drawing is not wholly accurate, since it does not
provide for the 'shadow* to cover in the whole platform* and
to judge from stage directions of the time it appears more likely
that the doors for entrances and exits were further to the aide
and that a curtain between them gave access to the tiring room
and could be drawn back to give a view of an inner stage, if so
required by the plot*
63 (cf. text p, 62)
From Wcnceslaus Hollar's Long View of London, Amsterdam,
1647, From the copy in the Guildhall Library, London*
Wenceslaus Hollar, a native of Bohemia, worked in England
from 1655 until his capture by the Parliamentary forces at
Basing and subsequent escape to Antwerp. He returned to
xyz
NOTES TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS
England in 1652. His delicate topographical and costume
drawings build up a rich visual background to the period.
Mr. I. A Shapiro's studies of 'The Bankside Theatres: Early
Engravings* and 'An Original Drawing of the Globe Theatre'
in Sbakssptare Survey, I and II (1948 and 1949) should be referred
to for the arguments assessing this view as the most accurate of
the pre-Restoration representations of the Bankside theatres.
Even so it has to be remembered that Hollar (as Mr. Shapiro
proves) accidentally interchanged the names, so that the build-
ing with the flag is really the Beargarden and the one to the
left, showing twin gables, is the Globe (the second theatre of
that name but already pulled down in 1644). From all the
evidence available it appears that both the second Globe and
the Beargarden were circular buildings as was the Swan also
(cf. 62) and that Hollar's view gives us a reliable glimpse of
what the interior of the Globe (between 1614-44) was like, at
least in so far as the gabled halt roof of the 'Heavens' is con-
cerned, which must have been carried on pillars (cf. de Witt's
drawing of the interior of the Swan 6z),
64 and 65 (cf. text pp. 44* 56)
Sir Philip Sidney and Sir Richard Grenville from portraits by
unknown artists (1571 and 1577 respectively) in the National
Portrait Gallery,
64. Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86) is the epitome of the Eliza-
bethan ideal of nobility. As poet and statesman he was intimate
with Edmund Spenser and Fulke Greville and a favourite of
Burghley, The range of his interests is evidenced by the fact
that both Spenser's Sbtpbtarfas Calendar and Halfcuyt's Voyages
were dedicated to him. He was known to be deeply interested
m the colonisation of America and enthusiastic for Drake's
aggressive policy against Spain. Made governor of Flushing
he was wounded m fighting the Spaniards at Zutphen and
died at Amhem* His prose romance of Arcadia^ his Apoh&t
for Poitrb and the AstropM and SttUa sonnet sequence were
not published until after hia death.
65, Sir Richard Grenville (?i 541-01), cousin of Sir Walter
Raleigh, commanded the fleet which set out to colonise
Virginia, and was afterwards concerned in various measures
for strengthening English defences in the west immediately
prior to the coming of the Armada. He became second in
command of the Azores fleet under Lord Thomas Howard and in
1 591 his ship, the 'Revenge/ fought the Spanish fleet for fifteen
hours (cf. 66 fot this action), in which great sea fight he died
$ 66 (cf, tact p. 56}
The last fight of the 'Revenge,* August 1591. From the original
tapestry (dated 1598) formerly lent by Monsieur Hypollte
Worm* to the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich*
175
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
The 'Revenge* was Drake's flagship against the Armada and later
under Sir Richard Grenville (cf. 65) played her part in harry-
ing Spanish ships returning home laden with the spoils of the
Indies. This contemporary tapestry shows the 'Revenge/ her
foremast already shot away, hemmed in by four Spanish ships,
with the rest of the Spanish Heet standing by to the left, while
in the right background the English fleet (under Lord Thomas
Howard) is in retreat. The islands of the Azores can be seen
in the far distance.
67-69 (< text pp. 83, 84, 85)
Windmills and Trenching Tools. From The English Improver
Improved^ etc., by Wa: Blith (1652). From the copy in the
Cambridge University Library.
This 'survey of husbandry* was dedicated by its author *a lover
of ingenuity* to the 'Lord General Cromwell, the Right
Honourable the Lord President and the rest of the Council of
State.' It is divided into two parts, called 'Six Peeces of Im-
provement' and 'Six Newer Peeces of Improvement/ The first
part covers in its second section the improvement of land 'By
braining Fen, Reducing Bog and Regaining Sea-lands/ with
supplementary information on the tools with which to achieve
this. After describing the causes of bogs and the nature of the
Fen, the author details the chief hindrances to the work of
drainage. He advocates the drawing-off of the land floods from
the high lands outside the Fen before they reach the Fen itself,
and dealing with the Fen- water itself by straight, well-cut drains,
embanking and windmills (he has cautionary remarks to make
on watermills which he thinks may cause more harm than good
by being dammed too high and thus keeping all lands that lie
under their mill head boggy). He then describes the windmills
(as illustrated) : "Thy Engines may also be divers ; as an Engine
or Windmill made with a water wheel, planted in thy water
course, or Master drain, or very near unto it, which water
wheel must be made to that height as may be sure to take out
the bottom of the water, and deliver it at the middle of the
wheel, which wheel may be contrived into such a form, as that
the Ladles, as I may call them, or Peals or Scoops, as others call
them, will cast up, and cast out the water to a considerable
height, as a man doth with a hand scoop, pail or kit, cast water
out of a ditch . - - or else by a good chain pump or bucket
work, both which may be made Into * wind-mill Engine, or
else with an Engine made with a perpetual Screw; all which for
that height as is requirable to the draining of such a work, will
lay a good compass of land dry in a few daics,* He completes
this section by describing curving and burning of the Fen, the
crops to plant afterwards, and so ocu He then lists the tools
necessary, line and water level, a trenching plough or coulter
NOTES TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS
to cut out the trench this should be made from willow and
shod with iron and fitted with a "little brazen wheel' to bear
upon with the foot that *it may run more pleasantly.' A turfing
spade and a trenching spade, the latter fitted with broad up-
curving knife blades or 'Langets' to cut a clean deep furrow and
lastly a paring spade wholly of iron to cut out a trench in
shallow places (where the plough cannot work) or to pare old
trenches, whose sides arc grown thick with grass.
70 (cf. text p. 105)
Inigo Jones. From the portrait by Van Dyck, in the Hermit-
age.
Inigo Jones (1573-1652), architect, surveyor of works to
James I and Charles I and designer of masques, travelled ex-
tensively in Italy under the patronage of William Herbert,
jrd Earl of Pembroke, and whole there purchased works of art
for both Lord Pembroke and Lord ArundeL By Ms graceful
and imaginative interpretation he established a taste for classic-
ism in England, designing such buildings as the Queen's
House at Greenwich (1617-35) (cf. 71), the Banqueting Hall
in Whitehall (1619-22), envisaged as part of a new palace, the
Piazza of Covent Garden, and (at the end of his life and with
the help of John Webb) such interiors as those for Wilton
House (1648) (c 72), besides superintending repairs to Old
St. Paul's.
71 (c text p. xojj
The Q ueens House, Greenwich (1617-35)* From an air
photograph by Aerofilms, Ltd, (c note on Inigo Jones 70),
In complete contrast to Wilton House (cf. 72) is the dignified
simplicity of Inigo Jones' work in the Queen's House at Green-
wich, Completed thirteen years before Wilton, the decoration
is mostly concentrated in the elaborate ceilings, the walls being
plain, occasionally relieved by the elaboration of the fireplaces*
The exterior is classically simple, the only decoration being a
plain balustrade round the roof, and balusters beneath the
windows, and a pillared loggia on the first floor. In the back-
ground of this illustration can be seen Greenwich Hospital
with its twin domes designed by Sir Christopher Wren (for
whom cf. note under Colour Plate IV), to harmonise with the
already existing Queen's House.
5 71 (cf. text p, 1 05)
The uouble Cube Room, Wilton House (164$)* F*om a
photograph by Country Life, Ltd. (cf, with 87 of the Grinding
Gibbons room at Petworth House),
The Italitnjue magnificence of the great suite of rooms along
the south front of Wilton House owes its inception at least to
;h moat of the work was actually carried out
i f g direction. The whole decoration of the
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
double cube room is in pkster (cf. with Grinding Gibbons'
carved woodwork at Petworth 87) in gold and white, the
walls being divided into panels by swags of fruit and Sowers
depending from masks. The decoration forms an elaborately
designed setting for the great Van Dyck portraits; the doorways
are pillared and surmounted by broken pediments, upon which
recline sculptured figures; the carved mantelpiece supports an
elaborate arrangement of pilasters and figures Framing a picture;
and upon the whole looks down de Critz's painted ceiling.
When we remember that this was accomplished in the dis-
turbed period of the Civil War, the achievement seems the more
astonishing (cf. 91 for de Caus* garden plan for Wilton).
73 (cf. text pp. 89, 90)
Tide-page from 'The Lamentable complaints of Nick Froth the
Tapster and Rulerost the Cooke. Concerning the restraint
lately set forth against drinking, potting, and piping on the
Sabbath day, and against selling meate' (1641). From the
Thomason Tracts, Dept. of Printed Books, British Museum.
This tract takes the form of a dialogue between the tapster and
the cook concerning the new regulations *whereby we are com-
manded not to sell meat nor draw drink upon Sundays.* They
both defend their trades and the cook bemoans 'the lusty
Surloines of roast Beefe which I with much policy divided into
an innumerable company of semi-slices, by which, with my
provident wife, I used to make eighteene pence of that which
cost me but a groat (provided that I sold it in service time)/
The tapster says that after ail there's one good thing about the
new law, that whereas previously he had had to pay a fee to the
Apparitors so that he shouldn't be brought into Court and
prosecuted for selling drink on Sunday, now he will be able to
save a Noble a quarter (c note to 74), The cook agrees but
says he paid in kind and *a stone of beef was no more in one
of their bellies than a man in Pauls/ They get some comfort
from the thought that they're all out of a job together.
74 (cf. text pp. 89, 90)
Title-page from 'The Proctor and Parator their mourning: or,
The Lamentations of the Doctors Commons for their Downfall.
Being a true Dialogue, Relating the fearful abuses and exorbit-
ancies of those Spiritual! Courts, under the names of Sponge
the Proctor, and Hunter the Parator* (1641). From the Tnomt-
son Tracts* Dept of Printed Books, British Museum.
This dialogue gives the other side of the picture to that de*
scribed in the note to 73 above. The two rascals discuss how
business is going and Parator describes how he went out and
found transgressors among 'Chandlers, Alehouses, Tsvemes,
Tobacco-shops, Butchers, Comfit-makers, Gunsmiths, Bakers,
Brokers, Cookes, Weavers, etc.* while the Proctor stt at home
NOTES TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS
and 'framed interrogations against them.' They gloat together
over their ways of getting wealth from 'Popish recusants and
Seminary Priests for concealing their haunts, as well as from
Nuns and Novices , . . Brownists, Anabaptists, etc/ in fact,
from all those who want to keep out of the spiritual courts.
Now* however, times are not what they were and they decide
finally they'd 'better turn journey-man to Gregory the hang-
man, for it is reported he has great trading, anything rather
than stand out, better live by a Rope, than by the Pope/
75 (cf. text pp. 89, 90)
From The Ploughman's Reply to the Merry Milk-maid's
Delight/
'I am a ploughman brisk and young
And well I like the Milkmaid's Song/
Tune of: I am a Weaver to my Trade, printed for William
Thackeray, T. Passenger and W. Whitwood/ Douce Collec-
tion, ii 177*, Bodleian Library, Oxford. Reproduced from
Tbt *Bagfard Ballads, collected by J. W. Ebsworth, (1876-8),
from the copy in the Cambridge University Library.
76 (cf, text pp. oo, 91)
From *A Glasse for the Times, by which according to the Scrip-
tures, you may dearly behold the True Ministers of Christ,
how farre differing from false Teachers with a brief Collection
of the Errors of our Times and their Authors names -drawn
from their own writings, also ptoofs of scripture by way of
confutation of them by Sundry Able Ministers. Collected by
T. C. a Friend to Truth. Printed by Robt. Ibbitson, 1648,'
From the Thomason Tracts, Dept. of Printed Books, British
Museum.
The illustration to this tract of error corrected contrasts the
orthodox minister with the canting imposter, whose sayings
are confuted in the body of the text.
$ 77 (c text p, 9*). The House of Commons in 16 j i.
From the reverse of the second Great Seal of the Common-
wealth (1651). Seal XXXIV. 17. Dept of MSS., British
Museum.
This seal, the work of Thomas Simon (1625-65), the medallist
and seal engraver, bears on its obverse a map of England,
Wales and Ireland, and on its reverse fas shown here) the
House of Commons in session, with the Speaker in the chair,
A member (said by Vertue to be Harrison (Cromwell's brother-
ia-law)) witk arm outstretched. Is speaking to the House* The
words round the dm of the sfol are: In the Third yeare of
Frcedome by Gods Blessing Restored, 1651,'
The geoexal design is the same as that of the first Great Seal of
the (Swnmonweiitb, tat more carefolly elaborated. It was used
*77
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
from 26 March 1651 to ^. 1658 and though supplanted by the
Seal of Oliver Cromwell as Protector, was again used during
the Interregnum 14 May 1659 to 28 May 1660,
78 (cf. text p. 92)
John Bunyan. From the frontispiece to Tbe Pilgrim* s Progress
by John Bunyan. Third Edition, 1679, From the copy in the
Dept, of Printed Books, British Museum.
This portrait of Bunyan occurs for the first time in the third
edition and is repeated in most of the immediately following
editions. Bunyan (1628-88), son of a Bedford tinsmith, himself
served in the Parliamentary forces for a time, and undergoing
conversion became a preacher and writer of tracts. Since he
was an unlicensed preacher he soon found himself in prison,
where he remained for some twelve years. While in prison,
however, he was allowed to preach to his fellow prisoners and
to write. After the Declaration of Indulgence by Charles II in
1672 he was left free to preach and write as he would, and Tbt
Pilgrim's Process was first published in 1678*
79 (cf. text p. 99)
The Battle of Naseby, From Anglia R$viva> by Joshua Sprigs,
1647. From the copy in the Dept, of Printed Books, British
Museum*
This illustration shows the disposition of the King's and Sir
Thomas Fairfax's forces before the Battle of Naseby (14 June
1645). Anglia Rsdiviva (an account of the successes of Fairfax's
army) was compiled by Joshua Sprigg, a retainer of Sir Thomas
Fairfax, Sprigg relates how on the night of the 13th June the
vari of the Royalist army was reported at Harborough, the
rear within two miles of Naseby, At j o'clock on the following
morning Fairfax advanced with the intention of retarding the
Royalists from going to Leicester, but on seeing the Kong's
Horse advancing towards them on the hill top this side of
Harborough, Fairfax drew down into a large fallow field about
one mile broad on the N.W. of Naseby, flanked on the left
with a hedge, and taking advantage of a ridge of hill running
E.W. he drew down behind this and awaited the Royalist
attack, The Royalist seeing them draw back thought they were
retreating to avoid an engagement and rushed on* leaving most
of their ordnance behind them. The main body was repelled,
but the right wing under Prince Rupert worsted the left wing
of the Parliamentary forces and followed his success up almost
to Naseby Town, but on his return be tried to seize doe Train
of Artillery, but it was strongly defended with 'Firelocks and
Rearguard* and yhfy and the Parliamentary success in the
main battle forced Rupert to withdraw hastily to the King's
rescue, where the Royalist horse had been worsted and thdr
foot were at Fairfax's mercy . Meanwhile the Parliamentary foot
178
NOTES TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS
had got left some quarter of a mile behind their horse and Fair-
fax decided to wait for them before pressing on the attack with
horse, foot and artillery. This further attack broke the Royalist
forces completely and they were pursued within two miles of
Leicester (i.e. says Sprigg some fourteen miles), losing five
thousand prisoners, all their artillery, arms and equipment,
together with the King's papers and treasure.
This plate shows the Parliamentary army in the foreground,
with General Ireton on the left wing, Lt, Colonel Pride in the
rearguard and General Fairfax and Lt. General Cromwell on
the right wing; In the left foreground can be seen the artillery
guarded with firelocks. In the background are opposed the
Royalist forces, with the King in the centre, on the left Prince
Rupert and Prince Maurice, other Royalist officers on the right,
and the King's bodyguard and Prince Rupert's foot behind the
main body,
So (cf, text p. 99)
Oliver Cromwell. From the engraving after William Faithorne
for Tfo Embkm of England's Distraction (1658). B.M. MS.
Add. 3*, 352, 228.
This symbolical picture shows Olivet Cromwell, attended by
Fame and trampling on Error and Faction. In the foreground,
to the left is represented *They shall beat their speares into
pruning hooks/ and to the right "their swords into Plow-
shears, In the top left-hand corner is depicted the Ark upon
Mount Ararat and below it Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac
with the ram caught in the thicket, while in the top right corner
are Scylla and Charybdis.
In other versions of the engraving all these symbols or 'em-
blems' Are labelled with their meanings, as was the fashion in
the 'emblem-book,* Cromwell's sceptre being labelled 'Pro
Deo lege et grege* and the building above the figures of Anglia,
Scotia and Hibernia 'Horeant Protector et Parliamentum
Angliae/ etc. For a plate giving the emblem inscriptions,
cf. S. R. Gardiner's QHvsr Cr0jaw//(i899) Goupil Monographs.
$ 81 (cf. text p. 103}
From the frontispiece of Tb* Pww/ Sfatt ofl^ndon^ by T, de
Laune (1690). From the copy in the Cambridge University
Library.
This book sets out to be a full and succinct account of the
'Ancient tad Modem State of London its Original, Govern-
ment, Rights, Liberties, Charters* Trade, Customs, Priyeleges
and other Remarkable* etc* Chapter 4 of Section z gives an
account of the temporal government of London and lists all
the Lord Mayors and Sheriffs from 1189 up to 1690, Later
follows A brief account of the Court of the Lord Mayor and
Aldermen, shown in this illustration, and of the various
179
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
sub-courts for 'Orphans, Wardmote, Hall-mote, Conservation
of the Water and River of Thames, Coroner and Escheaker,
Policies and Assurances to Merchants, the Tower, the Common
Council, and the Chamberlain/
The Court of the Aldermen is described as being one of record
'principally instituted for the redressing and correcting the
Errors, Defaults and Misprisions which happen in the govern-
ment of the City. Held on Tuesdays and Thursdays.* Of the
temporal government of the City of London De Laune savs:
*This great and populous City is governed with that admirable
order and Regularity that it is even astonishing. For therein
(as in most other things) she excells all other cities of the world/
82 (cf. text p. 97)
John Milton. From the engraving by William Faithorne (1670)
in the National Portrait Gallery.
John Milton (1608-74), poet and scholar, and Latin secretary
to the Council of State. The erstwhile *Lady of Christ's/ the
political idealist, the poet who set out *to justify the ways of
God to men,* the pioneer of the liberty of the press, illustrates
all that was best on the Parliamentary side, and it is perhaps
salutary to set his figure against the preconceived idea that
every member of the Parliament side was necessarily a ranting,
psalmsinging boor of a Roundhead*
83 (cf. text p, 103)
John Evelyn. From the engraving by Robert Nanteuil in the
National Portrait Gallery.
The Royalist, John Evelyn (16^0-1706), may similarly (df. note
to 82 above) be set against the popular picture of the Cavalier,
with wanton lovelocks and plumed hat A nun of cultivated
tastes and enquiring mind is revealed in his Diaries, which
describe his travels and his contemporaries. Apart from the
Diaries he is remembered chiefly for his interest in landscape
gardening, and for the part he played in promoting the founoa-
of the Royal Society.
84 (cf* text p* 105)
Ham House, Surrey. From a photograph by Country Life, Ltd.
This illustration shows the Jacobean north front built originally
about 1610 by Sir Thomas Vavasor, but altered attentively
about 1671 when the Countess of Dysart married (as her second
husband) the second Earl (later Duke) of Lauderdale, It is thus
an example of a traditional house with the additions and ilten-
tions of later XVIIth century taste. On this tide, roundels
have been cut out (after the classic*] model) above the ground
floor windows, the earlier gables have been replaced by a hipped
roof and cornice, and bavs have been thrown out from the end
of the wings. It should be contrasted with the following plate
of Coleshiff.
i So
NOTES TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS
85 (cf. text p. 105)
Coleshill House, Berkshire, From a photograph by Country
Life, Ltd.
With this illustration we have an example of the later develop-
ment of the Inigo Jones school in the transference and adap-
tation of the classical Italian style to England. (It should be
contrasted with the foregoing plate of Ham House, which
shows classical influence on an existing house in an earlier
style.) Built between 1650 and 1664 by Roger Pratt (possibly
with some preliminary advice from the aged Inigo Jones (who
was dead by 165 z)), Coleshill replaced an earlier manor house.
Roger Pratt (cousin of Sir George Pratt, for whom Coleshill
was built) had returned in 1649 &ora travels in Italy (in John
Evelyn's company), and is said to have persuaded Sir George
to pull down the house he was beginning to build (to replace
his old manor house which had been recently burnt) and let
him design him a house in the Italianate style. The restrained
dignity and purity of design of Coleshill was the happy result.
The rich cornice, the outstanding chimney stacks and the
balustrade and cupola should be noted.
86 (cf. text p, 105)
Staircase at Tythrop House, Oxfordshire fa 1680), From a
photograph by Country Life, Ltd.
Note the beautifully carved balusters and the pierced work of
the panels, the wide shallow treads and the broad landings,
87 (cf, text p. 105)
The Grinling Gibbons carved room at Petworth House, Sussex
(1689 and after)* From a photograph by Country Life, Ltd,
(Cf. with 7* of the interior of Wilton by Inigo Jones and
Webb,)
The splendour to which carved panelling could attain is well
illustrated by this room decorated by Grinling Gibbons (1648-
1710) for the seventh Duke of Somerset about 1689, The walls
are panelled with oak and are decorated with carved swags of
fruit and flowers in Umewood, which form an elaborate setting
for the great portraits, for which he also designed the frames.
(Cf. 99 for the carving in Trinity College Library, Cambridge,
which he also carried out)
$ 88 (cf. text p. 106)
An Elizabethan formal garden with pleached bower fij68j,
from TA* Projtiabb Art* ofG*rdsmn& by Thomas Hill (1568),
From a copy in the Dept of Printed Books, British Museum.
Thomas Hill compiled and translated many books on garden-
lag. In this little treatise he shows a formal garden, enclosed
with pillars tod balustrade within a hedged fence* On the right
can be seen a pleached arbour and on the left a well and bucket
for watering the beds*
181
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
89 (c text p. 1 06)
A New Orchard and Garden* by William Lawson (1618), From
a copy in the Dept. of Printed Books, British Museum,
William Lawson discusses in his book planting and grafting as
well as layout. This little plan allows for orchard and kitchen
garden, walks and garden knots as well as bees and 'still room
houses/ and says Lawson e if the river run by your door and
under your mount, It will be pleasant/
Key to illustration,
*A, All these squares must be set with Trees, the Garden and
other Ornaments must stand in spaces betwixt the Trees
and in the borders and fences.
B. Trees twenty yards asunder.
C. Garden Knots.
D, Kitching Garden,
E, Bridge.
K Conduit,
G. Stairs,
H. Walks set with great wood thicke,
L Walks set with great wood round about your orchard,
K. The out fence,
L. The out fence set with stone fruit,
M, Mount To force Earth for a mount or such like, set it
round with quick and lay boughs of Trees strangely inter-
mingled, the tops inward, with the Earth in the middle,
N. Still house.
CX Good standing for Bees, if you have an house.
P. If the River tun by your door and under your mount, it will
be pleasant/
90 (cf, text p. 106)
Tbt Country Houstwft's Gardtn, bound up with A Nt QrtbcrJ
and Garden (cf. note to 89 above), and Ttx husbandry tfBus * . ,
'being the labours of forty eight yeares of William Lawson'
(1618). In spite of Lawson's statement, Tt* Com
Tt* Comtrj H
Garden is Gervase Markham's, being reprinted from his Ctmtrj
Contmtmwt^ of 1611, From t copy in the Dept, of Printed
Books, British Museum,
The author says engagingly that 4 the number of mazes and knots
is so great ana men are so diversely delighted that 1 leave every
housewife to herselfe, especially seeing to set dovne many had
bin butt to fill much paper, yet lest I deprive her of til delight
and direction let her view these few choice, new, formes*' He
gives several pages of diagrams of the grotuid pUos for knots:
cinkfoyle, Flower deluce, Trefoyle, F*ette, Lotenges, Crose-
boowe, Dkinond, ovall and maae, of whkh foot are shown in
this illustration.
181
NOTES TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS
91 (c text p. 1 06)
Plan of Wilton Garden^ by Isaac dc Caus (1645). From a copy
in the Dept. of Printed Books, British Museum.
The Horfus 'Pcmbrochianus shown in this plate was designed by
Isaac de Caus, who may have been the nephew of the Norman
architect and engineer, Salomon de Caus, one of whose particu-
lar studies was the motive power of water. Isaac was primarily
a mathematician, also interested in hydraulic problems. During
the Civil War years while John Webb was occupied on Wilton
House, Isaac de Caus laid out the gardens. In this plate can be
seen (in the extreme distance) the orchard, divided from the
enclosed garden by a raised terrace and balustrade with a small
building, having a flat roof and arches. The garden is divided
into three parts, the furthest of which is laid out with trees and
grass, round a central gravelled space and statue. Along the
sides run pleached alleys, which are repeated in the middle
section of the garden, which is mainly given up to a plantation
of trees, through which runs a stream. In the foreground are
the knots (cf. 90) laid out in formal evergreens, with fountains
<tnd statues*
91 (< text pp. 108, 109)
From tne frontispiece by Wenceslaus Hollar to Britannia, by
John Ogilby (1675). From a copy in the Map Room, British
Museum.
This road book of England and Wales is the forerunner of the
sectional map book. At the top of the plate can be seen three
cherubs who have scrolls showing sections of road, while
below can be seen a fortress, in the foreground a number of
men occupied at a table with a globe and numerous mathe-
matical instruments, while a couple more set out on the long
winding road, with a road map for guidance. On every side
men can be seen carrying on their daily jobs, some are rlshing
in the river, a stag hunt is in progress through quite undis-
turbed sheep, horses and cattle, ships are putting out from the
castellated port, and far up the road, climbing towards the
windmill on the summit, is a travelling coach,
93 (cf. text p. 118)
Frontispiece to Corned &otrtan& of A Company of Stay Playtrs,
the English translation of Paul Scarron's Ifaman Contiqut,
engraved by W, Faithorne (1676). From a copy in the Cam-
bridge University Library.
Scarron was a crippled French burlesque dramatist (his wife
later became Mme, de Maintenon), whose travesties of Virgil,
etc.* had A great influence on the burlesque writers and trans-
lators of the later X Vllth century in England. The frontispiece
depicts * touring company of players arriving for a performance
la * provincial town. In the background can be seen their
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
stage already set up, with a play in progress before an audience
of townspeople. In the foreground, one of the actresses is just
drawing up at the inn; she rides, seated high on the 'props,' in
a cart drawn by two bullocks, with a horse and pony running
alongside; beside her walk an old man with a bass viol on his
back, and an actor with sword and gun, and a brace of birds
slung at his hip*
94 (cf. text p, 118)
The Stage of the Red Bull (or possibly of the Cockpit) from
The Wits, or Sport upon Sport* by Francis Kirkman (1675).
Reproduced by permission of Messrs* Duckworth from Karl
Mantzius* History of tbt Drama (1904).
In the early years of the Restoration, with the raising of the
Puritan ban on the theatre and before new theatres such as the
Theatre Royal in Drury Lane (1674) and the Duke's Theatre in
Dorset Gardens (1671) were opened, some old theatres, notably
the Red Bull (1605) and the Cockpit (1617), were utilised. Our
illustration thus shows a stage of the interesting intermediate
period, completely roofed in, with candelabra and footlights,
but retaining the old platform stage with the audience still
surrounding the players- It does not yet have the proscenium
arch, drop curtains and scenery and modified apron stige of
the Restoration theatre proper, which owed its development
to the influence of the court masque brought into England by
Inigo Jones during the early years of the X Vllth century,
The plav being enacted is one of the short 'drolls* which
managed to sustain a precarious existence even during the
Commonwealth itself. These were usually one act farces nude
out of incidents in full length plays (Falstaff and mine hostess
can be seen in the left foreground). Tbi IT///, published in
1673, was a collection of these drolls.
95 (cf. text p. 128)
From Sjstirrra Agfadtur**, MM fix Mjstoy of H*skm&j Dit*
tmrtd&ndkgdopW) by J[ohn] Wforiidgc] (1669). Prom copy
of the second edition (1675) In the Dcpt. of Printed Book*,
British Museum.
This book 'published for the commoa good by J. W. Gent* (u
the title-page runs) was the first attempt to advise oo agricul-
tural methods on a large scale. The explanation of the fiootii-
piece is worth quoting;
* First cast your eye upon a Rtwtick eat,
Built strong aad plain, yet well cootthr*d and neat,
And situated on a healthy Soyi,
Yielding much Wealth with little co*t> ot toyL
Near by it stand the Barns fiam'd to contain
Enriching stores of Hay, Pul$e, Com and Grain;
With Battens large, and placet when to feed
184
NOTES TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS
Your Oxen, Cows, Swine, Poultrey, with their breed,
On th'other side hard by the House, you see
Th* Apiary for th' industrious Bee.
Walk on a little farther, and behold
A pleasant Garden from high Winds and cold
Defended (by a spreading, fruitful waU
With Rows of Lime, and Fir trees straight and tall),
Full fraught with necessary Flow'res and Fruits,
And Nature's choicest sorts of Plants, and Roots,
Beyond the same are crops of Beans and Pease,
Saffron and Liquorice, or such as these;
Then Orchards so enriched with fruitful store,
Nature could give (nor they receive) no more,
Each Tree stands bending with the weight it bears
Of Cherries some, of Apples, Plums and Peats ;
Not far from thence see other Walks and Rows
Of Cyder-fruits, near unto which there flows
A Gliding Stream; the next place you discover
Is where St Foyn, La Lucetn, Hops and Clover
Are propagated: Near unto those Fields,
Stands a large Wood, Mast, Fewel, Timber yields,
In yonder vale hard by the River stands
A Water Engine, which the Winde commands
To fertilise the Meads, on t'other side
A Persian Wheel is plac't both large and wide
To th* same intent; Then do the Fields appear
Qoathed with Corn* and Grain, for th' ensuing year,
The Pastures stockt with Beasts, the Down with Sheep,
The Cart, the Plough, and all good order keep;
Plenty unto the Husbandman, and Gains
Are his Rewards for's Industry and Pains,
Peruse this Book, for here you onely see
Th' following subject in Epitomy/
Other plates in the book show in detail the Persian Wheel.
farm implements, etc.
96 (cf. text pp. 115, 116)
Isaac Newton* From the portrait by Knellet (1689) in the
possession of the Earl of Portsmouth,
Isaac Newton ( 164*-* 727), the natural philosopher and mathe-
matician, was the first to grasp the idea of a law of universal
gravitation, which is considered in his Philosophic NaturaKs
Prbfipfa Matbematita (1687). Besides becoming Master of the
Mint and President of the Royal Society, he also wrote on
theological subjects mid submitted reports on the coinage,
$97(< text pp. 115, i*6)
Robert jJoyle, From the portrait by Frederic Kerseboorn in
the potsessicm of the Royal Society*
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
Robert Boyle (1627-91), chemist and natural philosopher, the
promulgator of *Boyle's Law* (of which he gave experimental
proof in his Defence against Ljnus^ which was appended to the
second edition of his New Experiments Physico-Mccbamcal
(1662)), combined these studies with a pious fervour for the
propagation of Christian doctrine. He was a governor of the
Corporation for the Spread of the Gospel in New England, a
founder of the Royal Society and a director of the East India
Company.
98 (cf. text p. 122)
Pepys' bookcases at Magdalene College, Cambridge. From a
photograph by A. F. Kersdng.
Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), the diarist and Secretary to the
Admiralty, left his library to Magdalene (where he had been a
sizar), with instructions that it should be housed in the new
building (not finished until 1703), now accordingly known as
the Pepysian Library,
This illustration shows some of his books in Pepys' own fine
mahogany glassed bookcases, in which he had haa them placed
in 1606, when he wrote in his Diary (24 August 1666); 'Comes
Sympson, to set up my other new presses for my books, to my
most extraordinary satisfaction; so that I think it will be as
noble a closet as any man hath; though, indeed, it would have
been better to have had a little more fight/ (It is of interest to
note that on 5 October 1665, Pepys nad been reading John
Evelyn's translation (1661) from the French, called Instructions
concerning Erecting of a Library (which had been sent him), and
had noted 'but the book is above my reach/
99 (cf. text p. 123)
Grinliag Gibbons* earring on bookcases in Trinity College
library, Cambridge. From a photograph by A. F. Renting.
When Wren planned the library of Trinity he is thought to
have borrowed the general design from that of the library of
St. Mark's at Venice, where the library is also raised above a
cloister (c J. W. Clark's Tl* Cm o/Bocte (1902) ). But Wren
aisd paid great attention to the interior arrangement and fittings
of his library ; in his Memoir he writes : The disposition of the
shelves both along the walls and breaking out from the walls * . ,
must needs prove very convenient and graceful!, and the be*t
way for the students will be to have a little square table in each
Celle with a chaires' (*. Clark, p, 480 f,). Even the bookcases
themselves were designed by him as well as ttooU tad tablet.
The bookcases were intended to carry statues, but instead are
surmounted by busts introduced by Grinling Gibbons, who
also carved the panels of fruit and flowers (which cany tbe
monograms of those who subscribed to the building of tbe
library) on the ends of the bookctM*.
1 86
NOTES TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS
100-103 (cf. text pp. 108, 109, 144)
Road and river transport. Details from D. Loggan's Canta-
brigia Illustrata (1690) and Qxonia Illustrata (1675). From copies
in the Cambridge University Library.
100. Detail from plate of Magdalene College, Cambridge,
showing barges and 'tilt boats/ the former carrying coal, -while
the latter had canopies and carried passengers for fares.
101. Detail from plate of University College, Oxford, show-
ing a stage waggon drawn by six horses. This was an ordinary
cart covered over with doth and carried goods and passengers
together, rather like a carrier's cart.
102, Detail from plate of St. Mary's Church, Oxford, show-
ing a string of loaded packhorses.
103. Detail from plate of Exeter College, Oxford, showing a
dray loaded with barrels, as well as a horse with panniers.
104 and toj (cf, text p. 109)
Coaches,
104, Detail from D, Loggan's Oxonia Illustrate (1675)* From
a copy in the Cambridge University Library.
This shows a coach and four arriving at the Sheldonian Theatre.
Note how low the coach is swung between the great wheels,
and the lack of window space*
loj, From an engraving by John Dunstall (fl. 1644-75) in the
London Prospects Portfolio, Vol, V, in the possession of the
Society of Antiquaries.
This pkte shows an ornate travelling coach, with its leather
curtains let down. In the distance can be seen Old St PauFs
(which would seem to place the engraving prior to the Great
Fire of 1666). Across the bottom of the plate the coach can
be seen on the open road, drawn by six horses and with a
mounted escort, ihave not been able to identify the occupants
of the coach, though it would seem that the engraving is meant
to portray some particular event.
$ 106-111 (cf. text pp. 156, 137, 138, 139) <,', >
Sport in the XVIIth century. Engravings from The Gsnthm&rj
K*matiM> published by R. Blome (1686), From a copy in the
Dept, of Printed Books, British Museum.
Every brand* of XVIIth century sport and pastime is covered
by the engravings in this book, which are mostly the work of
Francis Eadow (1646-1704), the earliest English artist to
delineate sporting subjects^ The engravings speak for them-
selves and form an interesting commentary on sporting usage
g supersedes hawking, 'shooting flying* vies -with
as shooting supersedes v . ,
*perching the pheasant" or hunting partridge with dogs and
net Hunting toe hue and the stag are both here: some of the
187
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
plates, notably 1 10, 'Hunting the hare with deep mouthed
hounds/ have a delightful sense of pattern and movement,
112 (c text p. 139)
The Last Horse Race run before Charles II at Dorsctt (~Dat-
chet) Ferry, 1684. Etching by Francis Barlow (1687). From
the Dept. of Prints and Drawings, British Museum.
This etching by Francis Barlow (1626-1704) (cf, note under
106-111) shows the king watching for the last time the
racing he had himself inaugurated at Windsor; as the caption
indicates the race at this time was run at Datchet Ferry (not
until Queen Anne's time was it changed to Ascot).
113 (cf. text p. 145)
Flying from the Plague in 1630. From a broadside (no, 304)
in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries, entitled 'London
Soundes a Trumpet, that the countrey may hear it.*
*When death drives, the Grave thrives,
Coachman, Runne thou away, never so fast
One stride of mine, cuts off the Nimblest haste.
Printed for Henry Gosson, 1630* London/
This same illustration is also used for a similar broadside
(no. 303) entitled *A Looking Glasse for City and Countrey.*
Both broadsides are concerned with the flight of the towns-
people to the country. The first apostrophises London; *Now
doe thy coaches * * . runne tfaorow thy streets* and so out at
thy gates, full of brave rich people, to live safe (as they hope)
in the Countrev; not caring now sorrowful a life thou leadest
here in their absence- How little doc they regard the poore,
which they leave behind them. . . ,* It then goes on to admonish
the country people to show more kindness to the sick coming
from the towns, and continues by comparing the lot of London
with such cities as Mantua, Parma, etc., where plague mortality
is much higher and more frequently experienced. It concludes
with a prayer that the whole land as well as the city may prosper
again soon and the plague be removed from them*
114 (cf. text p, 139)
Bathing in the King's Bath at Bath in 1679* From an engraving
by Thomas Johnson (1675) in the Dept. of Prints and Draw-
ings, British Museum.
Thomas Johnson was a follower of Hollar, the Bohemian
engraver, whose careful topographical tod costume drawings
of England and the English people of the middle XVIIth
century, have added so much to our visual knowledge of the
period (cf. note to 65). Johnson's engraving gives t very
vivid picture of what a visit to Beth for one's health entailed
in the i6yo's. It shows the oldest of the batha the King's
188
NOTES TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS
Bath, with the Queen's Bath adjoining it on the left. In the
middle of the King's Bath is a wooden pavilion, called the
Cross, which had been built over the hot water spring itself
in 1664. Here the water was naturally hottest and the
recesses below were known as the Kitchen. Obviously the
bath attracted many onlookers and there is hardly a window
without a spectator or two. Mixed bathing is the rule and
people duck or wade as they choose: one woman appears to be
towing her two children along behind her, while another (in
the lower right-hand corner) is taking a glass of the waters, as
she bathes.
it j and 116 (cf. text pp. 146,147)
London after the Fire, from an engraving in the London
Prospects Portfolio, Vol. V, in the possession of the Society of
Antiquaries.
This is an XVIIIth century engraving after Hollar's 'True and
exact prospect* of London after the Fire (1667), (For note on
Hollar cf. 63), The shell of Old St. Paul's can be distin-
guished clearly and the gutted ruins of churches and houses can
be traced along the river-bank beyond London Bridge to the
Tower, On London Bridge itself the houses at the northern
end had been burnt down in 1632 and later rebuilt, only to
suffer again in 1666; the extent can be seen here.
The diaries of John Evelyn and Samuel Pepys give vivid eye-
witness accounts of the Fire, and a very full discussion of it,
with plans and prints, can be found in The Great Fin ofLondon
ift /666, by W. G. Bell (19*0).
117 (c text p> 147)
John Lofting** Fire Engine (1689/90). From an engraving by
j. Kip In the London Prospects Portfolio, Vol. V, in the
possession of the Society of Antiquaries.
John Lofting (?i659-i74z)> a Dutchman, settled in London as
a manufacturer of fire engines, patented this one in 1690,
The engraver has shown the engine being tried out on the new
Royal Exchange (which had Been built in 1669 to replace
Greaham's Royal exchange, destroyed in the Great Fire, the
second building was itself destroyed by fire in 1858). Presum-
ably it was chosen to test the height to which the jet could be
thrown, in view of the height of the tower (160 feet to the
grasshopper at the top)* In another later and more elaborate
pltte (in the same portfolio) Lofting describes by means of a
series of smtll inset pictures (with a key) how his *new suckine
worm fire engine* worked This plate is apparently imitated
ftom illustrations in Jan Van der Jieyde's book on fire engines
with leather hoe (published 1690); it shows sections of a house
on fire, and different ways of treating fires, from those in ships
to tboie in cellars, The engine could either be worked direct
189
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
from a pool of water or a river, or could be supplied with
water at a greater distance by the help of the smaller engine and
the long canvas or leather pipes.
118 and 119 (cf. text p. 148)
Portland Quarries. From drawings by S, H. Grimm (1790).
B.M. MS. Add. 15,537, 158 and 198.
These drawings by the Swiss artist Samuel Hieronymus Grimm
(1734-94) show the galleries of a Portland stone quarry and
the method for transporting the great unfashioned blocks
across to the mainland. Though they are of a century later, it
is unlikely that there had been much change in the interval in
either the method of quarrying or in that of transport,
120 (cf. text p. 148)
St. Paul's CathedraL From an air photograph by AerofUms, Ltd,
The splendour of Wren's design can perhaps be most truly
appreciated from this angle, for in spite of the devastation of
1940, it is still difficult to get an uninterrupted view of its pro-
portions from ground level. (For a note on Wren cf. note to
Colour Plate IV.)
After the Great Fire Wren produced his plan for the rebuilding
of London, which owing to the private haste and self-interest
of property owners was never implemented, His earliest
design for St. Paul's itself was rejected and it was not until
1675 that a second design was granted the royal warrant, and
with certain alterations (principally the substitution of the
present dome) the building was finally completed in 1710,
although it was usable for services some thirteen years earlier,
Its classical beauty is in striking contrast to the Gothic of Old
St. Paul's (cf. 37), Wren's complete break with the mediaeval
can be seen also in his City churches (cf. lit and 122).
I2i (cf. text p. 148)
St. Bride's Church, Fleet Si. From a photograph by A, F,
Kersting,
Built by Wren (cf, note under Odour Plate IV) in 1680 to
replace the earlier church destroyed in the Great Fire, St.
Bride's was itself destroyed in the hUts of 1940, though its
gutted steeple still survives* This steeple with its lovely
diminishing tiers was not completed until the turn of the
XVIIth century.
122 (cf. text p, 148)
Church of St Magnus the Mtrtyr. From a photograph by
A, F, Kersdng.
Rebuilt by Wrea (c note under Colour Htte IV) in 1676 after
the destruction of the earlier church in the Great Fire, St.
Magnus, though damaged, survived the 1940 blit*. Note in
this interior how completely the columns and ceiling break away
from the Gothic conception of a church.
190
NOTES TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS
123 (cf, text p. 139)
Church of King Charles the Martyr, Tunbridge Wells. From
a photograph by A. F. Kersting.
Built in 1685 the plain brick exterior of this church conceals an
ornate plaster ceiling of great beauty and sophistication as
shown in this illustration.
124 (cf, text p. 148)
The Chapel, Petworth House, Sussex. From a photograph by
Country Life, Ltd,
The only part of Petworth House, which is earlier than the
late XVIIth century is the chapel (A 1250) and this was also
redecorated when the Duke of Somerset was rebuilding the
rest of the house (1688-96). It forms an interesting example of
the change of taste, the Xlllth century pointed windows and
slender shafts retiring oddly behind the heavy panelling, while
the gallery with its great carved canopy and the pillared screen
below might almost belong to a college hall.
Text illustration, p. 3 (cf, text p. 2)
Woodcut from *The most rare and excellent History of the
Dutchesse of Suffolke's Calamity* To the tune of Q. Dido.
London, Printed for Ed, Wright, Dwelling at Christ Church
Gate,* Roxburghe Collection of Ballads, I, 94. Dept. of
Printed Books, British Museum.
(For general note on the Roxburghe Collection cf. note on
25-28 above.)
After detailing a list of martyrs this ballad tells how the Duchess
of Suffolk escaped with her husband, nurse and child from
Gravesend for Germany, where they stayed, suffering many
hardships, until Elizabeth came to the throne and they could
return to England.
Text illustration, p. 48 fcf. text p. 48)
From a Broadside (no. aoi) in the possession of the Society of
Antiquaries, entitled: *A most Excellent offer of a certaine
Invention for & new kind of fire, being both cheape and Good,
and most necessary for all men* especially in these deare times
of FuelL Printed at London, by T\ C for M S, i<5*8/
The scarcity And expense of fuel is pointed by this broadside,
which described *an artificial fire (ot coale) for rich and poore*'
It claims that by mixing stiff mortar, water and small sea-coal,
rolling the mixture into round balls and 'piling them in a hand-
some manner, . * , in 4 Children there may be saved 3 load* which
*t thirty shillings a Chaldren, 4 Children comes to six pounds,
and there may be saved in that forty-five shillings, which I
thinkfi being cast up in Brewhouses, Dyehouses, Bakers,
Cookea and private houses, would rise to a large summe in a
yeare.
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
Among such qualities in its favour as its durability, lack of
smoke or cinder, saving of timber for ships, etc., the author
claims that it will give employment in the making of it to
maimed soldiers and orphans *and thus might our poor idle
children be employed to work, to save the citie store, and
parish Churche stocks of coals.*
Test illustration, p. 58 (c text p, 59)
From the title-page of ibe Roaring Girl* or Moll Cut-Purst* by
T. Middleton and T. Dekker (161 1). From a copy in the Dept,
of Printed Books, British Museum.
Moll Cutpurse was a real person, a thief and a forger, but
Middleton and Dekker make of her an honest, well-meaning,
swaggering wench, who wears breeches and smokes tobacco,
and the plot of their play turns on her success in bringing
together the lovers, who have been kept apart by a coveteous
father. There are frequent references throughout the play to
smoking and tobacco> showing how common a habit it had
become by this date.
Text illustration, p. 61 (c text pp. fix, 6z)
Woodcut from 'The Sorrowful Lamentation of the Pedlars,
and Petty Chapmen for the hardness of the times and the decay
of Trade. To the tune of My Life and My Death. This may be
printed. R .P. Printed for L Back at the Black-boy at London-
bridge.' Roxburghe Collection of Ballads, II, 404. Dept. of
Printed Books, British Museum.
(For general note on the Roxburghe Collection cf. note to
25-28 above.)
A typical Autolycus with pack on back and his dinner in his
hand calls
'Then Maidens and Men
Come see what you lack
And buy the fine toys that I have in my pack, 1
He recounts all the things he has to sell, points and garters,
pins and cotton, bodkins and lace and songs 'all Pleasant,
witty. Delightful and New,' and concludes with the frank
statement *To buy a new Licence* your money I crave/
Text illustration, p* 71 (c text p, 7*)
Woodcut from *A merry new Ballad, both pleasant and swcete
In praise of the Blacksmith, wiiich is very mete. To the tune
of Greensleeves, etc* Roxbur&he Collection of Ballads, 1, 150,
251. Dept of Printed Books, British Museum.
(For general note on the Roxburghe Collection cf. note to
25-28 above,)
This rollicking ditty begins by retailing that A blacksmith's
trade is the best of all; traces it back to Cyclops and Vulcan;
and tells how many proverbs arise from A bUciamitb'i trade
and how useful a trade it is.
19*
NOTES TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS
Text illustration, p. 71 (cf. text p. 72)
Woodcut from 'Ragged and Torne and True. To the tune of
Old Simon the King. Printed by the Assignes of Thomas
Symcocke.' Roxburghe Collection of Ballads, I, 352, 353.
Dept. of Printed Books, British Museum.
(For general note on the Roxburghe Collection cf. note to
25-28 above.)
The housewife sits spinning at her door, while a stag hunt goes
by (rather improbably) in the background. The woodcut is not
directly illustrative of the ballad, which is a somewhat smug
song by a young man, who though poor and ragged, is con-
tented, and therefore better off than everyone else:
'What though my backe goes bare
I'm ragged and torne and true.'
Text illustration, p, 71 (cf, text p. 72)
Woodcut trom *A lanthorne for Landlords. To the tune of the
Duke of Norfolk* London. Printed for John Wright.' Rox-
burghe Collection of Ballads, I, 180, 181, Dept of Printed
Books, British Museum.
(For general note on the Roxburghe Collection c note to
25-^8 above.)
This doleful ballad tells how a poor widow helped in the
harvesting near Norwich and of how her two little children
wandered away among the broad cornfields and were lost and
miserably diea. The woodcut shows haymaking instead of
harvesting,
Text illustration, p. 95 text p. 96")
Woodcut from T& Sbspbtariles Cakndar^ by Edmund Spenser
(1581 edition). From a copy in the Dept of Printed Books,
British Museum*
This woodcut for the month of May may be described in
Spenser's owot words from the dialogue between Piers and
Palinodie, The dialogue treats actually of a discourse between
Protestant and Catholic, but disregarding this we may take the
following passage purely for its description of the English
countryside on May morning and the doings of the country
youth.
'Is not thilke the mery month of May,
When love lads masken in fresh aray?
* *
Yongthes folke now flocken in everywhere,
To gather may buskets and smelling brere
And home they hasten the postes to dight,
And all the Kirke pillours eare day light
With Hawthorne buds, and swete Eglantine,
And girionds of roses and Sopps in wine,
193 ^
ENGLISH SOCIAL HISTORY
Sicker this morrowe, ne longer agoc,
I saw a shole of shepheardes outgoe.
With singing, and shouting, and jolly chere:
Before them yode a lusty Tabrere,
That to the many a Home pype played,
Whereto they dauncen eche one with his mayd.
To see those folkes make such iouysaunce,
Made my heart after the pipe to daunce.
Then to the greene wood they speeded hem all,
To fetchen home May with their musical!:
And home they bringen in a royall throne,
Crowned as king: and his Queene attone
Was Lady Flora, on whom did attend
A fayre flock of Faeries, and a fresh bend
Of lovely Nymphs. (O that I were there,
To helpen the Ladycs their May bush beare)/
Test illustration, p. 96 (c text p. 96)
Woodcut from "The Milkmaid's Life; or, A pretty new Ditty,
Composed and Pend, The praise of the Milking paile to defend.
To a curious new tune called The Milkmaids Dumps. Printed
at London for T, Lambert.* Roxburghe Collection of Ballads,
I. 244, 245. Dcpt, of Printed Books, British Museum.
(For general note on the Roxburghe Collection c cote to
25-28 above.)
Text illustration, p. 97 (cf. text p, 96)
Woodcut from *Thc Merry conceited Lasse* To a pleasant
northern tune. Printed at London for Thomas Lambert at the
signe of the Horse-shoe in Smithufield.* Roxburghe Collection
of Ballads* 1, 240, 241. Dept. of Printed Books, British Museum.
~?or general note on the Roxburghe Collection cf. note to
25-28 above-)
Text illustration, tx 109 (cf. text p. 109)
Woodcut From *Tfae Coaches overthrow or A loviall Exalta-
tion of divers Tradesmen, and others, for the suppression of
troublesome hackney Coaches. To the tune of old King
Harry/ Roxburghe Collection of Ballads, I, 546, 547. Dcpt,
of Printed Books, British Museum*
(For general note on the Roxburghe Collection cf. note on
zj-z8 above.)
The ballad is all for the suppression of hackney coaches for
'They make such a crowde
Men cannot passe the towne/
It calls for room for "the Carmen* Can and the Merchant*
Wares/ and in one verse declares
194
vx* *
t
NOTES TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS
* A rise Sedan
Thou shalt be the Man
To beare us about the Towne.'
The oft repeated refrain is
*Heigh downe, dery dery downe^ with the hackney coaches
downe.*
(For other illustrations of different types of road traffic cf,
100-105.)
INDEX
ACT of Settlement, 136
Acting, Actors, 62-5, 118; Elizabethan,
62-3
Addison, Joseph, Sir Roger de Coverlcy
of, 112-13, J 37
Admiralty Court, 104
Adultery, Puritan Act against, 90
African Company, the, 60, 130
Agincourt, battle, 9, 52
Agricultural labourer, wages, 133 andn,
Agricultural revolution, 127
Agriculture, open field cultivation, 7, 8,
128; enclosure, 7-8, 28, 127; sub-
sistence agriculture, 7; industrial
crops, 7; in time of Charles II, 127-
129; improvement in, 117-8; land
improvement, 128; great estate
system, 128
Ale and Beer, the ale bench, 23
Alva, Duke of, 53, 58
Arnboyna, 79
American Colonies, the, 53, 67-74
Amsterdam, 58
j*lntitn rigfmi, 88
Anglicanism, 38, xn-ij, 123
Antickricftltsm, in reign of Henry VIII,
91; subsides, 35-6; in Elizabeth's
days, 91; the Laudian church, 91;
retcts t gainst Puritanism) 91.
Antwerp, jz, 56, 58
Apprentice!, 24; of London, 25;
pauper apprentice*, 5 1
Apprenticeship, national system, 50-1;
indentures, 51; of younger sons, 24-5
Archery, 18
Architecture, Gothic, 17, 18; Italianate,
1 8; EUaabethan, 17-19; Early Stuart,
105; the Jacobean mansion, tojj
EccfetlastkaX 18, 148; Wren's
churches, 148; Public buildings, 18
Artkn, Forest of, 6, 47, 141
Aristocracy: Tudor, 24; Restoration
epoch, *a6. Sit tlft Nobility
Armada, Spanish, the, 28, 29, 37, 52-5
Army: development, 28-9
Artificer!, Statue of, 51, 155
Aruadd, Earl of, 105
Ascham, Roger. Sebootmtsttr of, 40
Audley End, 18, 103
Austen, Jane, 139; novels of, 23, 37, 64
Australia, 53
BACON, Sir FrancivS, 42, 106
Bacon, Sir Nicholas, 42
Ballads, 2, 62, 96-8; Border Ballads, 16
Baltic Trading Company, 60
Baltimore, Lord, 69
Banking Trade, 81-2
Banks, 81
Baptists, 92, 113
Barbados, 67, 70
Barley, 5, 6
Barrow, Isaac, 123
Bath, 21, 139
Beards, wearing of, 20
Bedford, Earls and Dukes of, 24, 81-7,
JOT, 127
Beds and Bedding, 106
Beggars, 31; in continental countries,
88. Sto Sturdy beggars
4 Belted Will Howard,' 17
Bentley, Richard, 124; Letttrs of
P&a/arij, 124
Berry, Afaj,-Gen., 12
Bible, the, I, 40, 62, 92-3; reading of,
and religion, 40; in American
colonies, 74; in Puritan epoch, 92*5;
scientific enquiry and, 115-16
Bideford, 4, 145
Birch, Colonel, ni
Birmingham, 100, 141
Bishops, the: denounced by Puritan
clergy, 37, 38; under Charles I, 91
Black Death, the, 145
Black well, Aldermen, 83*.
Blake, William, 94
Bombay, 75 n.
Books and reading, 97-9
Border Ballads, 16
Border Country, the, 14-16
Boswell, James: Lift of Johnson, 64
Bosworth field, 12
Boyle, Robert, 115
Bread, 6 and n.
Bridgewater, Lord (1634), 97
Bristol, 4, 59 77. *44
197
INDEX
Browning, Robert, 33
'Brownists,* the, 38
Bruges, 56
Building, ecclesiastical, 18
Bullion export, 77
Bunyan, John, 92, 113; Pilgrim's Pro-
grtss> 92,93-4, 121
Burbage, actor, 62
Burial shrouds, 130
Burnet, Bishop, 86, 123
Buxton resort, 21, 139
CALMS, 51, 56
Calvinists, 35, 40
Cambridge, 43 -5 ; town and gown riots, 44
Cambridge Fair, 45
Cambridge University, Nineteenth and
Twentieth centuries, 44; Colleges
mentioned: Caius, 18; Clare, 44; St.
John's, 43; Trinity, 18, 43, 123, 124
Camden, William, 3,26, 42; his Britannia
cited, 6, 21, 47, 48-9, 140. Set a/so
wuttr Gibson
Canada, 53 and n. t 73
Canals, 84, 85
Capitalism, 59; merchant capitalism, 59
Carlisle, Bishops of, 16
Carpets, 105
Carriers, 5
Cattle, 8; breeding of, 8; fairs, 8
Cattle raiding, 14
Cavalier Parliament, the, 136, 137
Cavaliers, xoi, 102, 112, 114; changing
fortunes of, 125-7
Cecil, William: Lord Burldgh, 55, 41,
49, 5 5; the Cecils, 42
Ceilings, 105
Celibacy of the clergy, 36
Censorship (Licensing Act, 1663), ui-
122 andn.
Census figures (iSoi-xSji), 134-5
Chairs, 106
Chancery Court, 29, 104
Charcoal, 46, 47
Charity Schools, 13
Charles I, 78, 90, 91, 104; and mono-
polies, 78; Church under, 91; and the
Tower Mint, 81
Charles II f 74, it 8; Court of, 118-19; **
quisitions from the Dutch, 74; patron-
age of science, nj, ri8
Charhons, the: Border clan, 1$
Chartered Company, the, 60
Chaucer, Geoffrey: Canttrbun Tabs of, 6 x
Cheques, 821.
Chester, 3
Child, Sir Josiah, 79, 80, F6
Child betrothal and marriage, 86-7
Chimneys and increased use of coal, 48
China (or Cathay), 76
China porcelain, 77
Chipchase Cnstlc, 1 5
Christ Church, Oxford, 4*
Church, the: Anglican, under Elizabeth,
n, 35-41; and Stuarts, 69, 91, 9**, at
Restoration, i n - 1 j, 125. Stt Sofatft
Hrodttigs
Church architecture, 18, 148
Church attendance, enforced, 40
Church Courts, 90
Church Service: Klizabcthan, 59-40;
Hanoverian, 39*,
Cider, 6
Civil \V/ar% the, 99-101, in, 158;
economic causes, 8?; fines ami lowcs,
127; London in, 4, 77-8, 94, 99-100
Clarendon Code, the, 1 1 a, 1 14; object of,
114
Clarendon, Earl of, 36
Classical scholarship, 124; clautcitm in
the England of Shakespeare, i-a
Clergy: Anglican, under hlixabeth, it,
39-6, 39*41; under Stu*ro, 16; the
release from celibacy, j6; rise in
status, 37; under Common wealth, 119
Clive, Robert, 75, 87
Cloth manufacture, 4; periodical un-
employment in, 51, 57
Cloth trade, 56-9; faltered by Govern-
ment, $o; affecting foreign policy,
56-8; Far Hait market, 78; Imh cloth
trade, 150
Coal, Cod trade, 17, 47-* U-4i
coal, 17, 47*8, 144; at domestic fuel,
47-8, 141; export of, 48; transport of,
144; trade development Stuart era,
141; production advance, 14**-; coal*
fie Ida dutribuiion, 141^,; applied in
smelting of iron, 4!; coJ and iron age,
*4*
Coal-mining, 17; tar&ee mining 17;
miners* cooditkwa, 141*5; fire drop
explosion, 142; female and child
labour, 141; the 'bondmen' in Scot*
198
INDEX
Cock-fighting, 139
Cod-fishing, 48
Coffee, 77
Coinage: debasement of, by Henry VIII,
45; restored under Elizabeth, 45-6;
and rise of prices, 6
Coke, Edward, 104
Coke, Thomas, of, Norfolk, 1 28
Collier, Jeremy, 123
Colonial expansion, 51, 52-3, 67-70
Common Law of England, 29-30, 74,
104; and Prerogative Courts, 29, 104
Commonwealth, the: social cleavage,
101-2; upper classes and, m
Congregational singing, 39
Congrc^ationalists, 92
Congreve, William, 120
Connecticut, 69
Conventicles. Puritan, the, 1 1 2
Cook* Captain James, 76
Cooking, 7
Cooper, Anthony Ashley, ist Earl
Shaftcsbury, m, 112
Corn, export, j-6; bounties, 128, 129
end .
Corn LAWS, 129
Corncille, no
Coswsy, Richard, 20
Cotton family library, 121
Country gentleman, the 24- j, 51, 65,
1*6-7; Tudor and Stuart, 24-5, 6j;
wealth and power, 14; attitude to
trade, 126-7; the small squire, 12-13,
14, 101, 126-7
Court, the, of Charles II, 118*19
Court Lcet (Manor Court), 27, 73
Courteen Auocittion, 78, 79
Cox, Biahop of Ely, 1 1
Craft-gilds, mediaeval, 49, 59; decline,
$o. 59
Crtnmcr, Thomas, Archbishop, 33
Cromwell, Oliver, 94, 95, 97, 101, 106,
115; Imperial development under, 80;
and protection of English trade, 79;
and land reclamation, 84-6
Crottbow, the, 28
Cumberland, *4 *6 *4&
DAOUS, the, 14, 16
Dames* schools, 41
Dearth, time* of: Poor Law and food
supply in, 51
Decoration, 18, 105-6
Deer, 7; hunting of, 138
Defences, before days of standing army,
28-9. See Military system
Defoe, Daniel, observations of, 133
Deforestation, 46-7, 141, 143
De baerctico combttrendo, 114-15
d'Ewes, Simon, 43
Dickens, Charles: Oliver TWtf, 51
'Diggers' sect, the, 102
Dissenters (or Nonconformists), Puri-
tans, 37-8, 92-4, 101, 111-13, 118; per-
secution of, under the Restoration,
111-13, 118, 121, 124; the dissenting
congregations, 113; and the Church
Establishment, 38. See also under Bap-
tists, Quakers, Wesleyan
Dodds clan, the, 15
Domestic industry (of the housewife),
107-8
Dovecots, 7, 108
Drake, Sir Francis, 52-5
Drama, Elizabethan, 62-4
Dress, Eliaabethan, 20-1
Drinking glasses, 19
Drury Lane: Theatre Royal, 118
Drydcn, John, 119, 120
Duelling, 21
Dugdale, Sir William: Mowstmn t 123
Dunning, Richard, 134-5
Dutch, the, 58-9, 66, 73, 76; as allies in
w-r, 3 5, 58; attitude to rivalry of, 130;
Sea-beggars, the, 53
EAST India Company, 57, 60-1, 75-80,
86-7, 130; charter, 57, 75; powers and
policy* 75 -6; trading stations, 76;
chief articles of trade, 46, 77; Far
Eastern cloth trade, 77; fleet of, 76,
87; bullion export, 77; and mono-
polies, 78; re-established under Crom-
well, 79; New General Stock, 79
Eastknd Company, 60
Ecclesiastical Architecture, 18, 148
Ecclesiastical Court of High Commis-
sion, 29, 104
Economic Nationalism, Tudor, 50
Edgehlll, ico
Education, 23, 123-4; Elizabethan, with-
out segregation of classes, 23, 41; and
s# Subjtct Hidings
Edward HI, 50
199
INDEX
Edward VI, 36
Elizabeth, Queen, 2, 3, n, 36, 37, 38,
52, 55, 56, 77; Chaps, \andl\passim
Elizabethan drama, 61-3
Elizabethan seamen, the, 52-6, 58
Ely Isle, 9-11, 84
Ely Place, Holborn, i r
Emigration and colonisation, 67 ft stq,
Enclosure, 28, 141
Encyclopaedists, the, 124
English tongue, the, in Seventeenth
Century, 95
Erasmus, i
Erastianism, 34-5
Essex county, 5
Evelyn, John, 64, 103, 120
Eyre, Adam: Yorkshire yeoman, 98-9
FACTORIES, employment in, 31
Fairs, 45
Family life, Seventeenth Century, 107-
110
Family prayers, 40
Farm animals; oxen draw the plough,
8-9 and n*
Farm labourer, Set Agricultural
labourer
Farquhar, George, 1 20
Feckenham Forest, Worcestershire, 47
Fcldon, the: Warwickshire, 6, 140, 141
Fencing (sword-play), 21
Fcnknd, 9-11; drainage, 83-6; Wind-
mills, 85
Fcnmcn, the, 9-10, 84
Fiennes, Celiaj Diary* *4$ J 44
Finance and the Crown, a8, 55, 87
Fire of London* 146-7
Firearms, 29
Fiscal assessments of Counties, 139-40
Fish laws, the, 49
Fishermen, 49
Fishing industry, 48-9; cod-Hshing, 48;
herring fishing, 48*9
Fletchers, the, of Redesdale, 1 5
Flodden, 66
Floor coverings, 105
Footwear, S
Foreign immigrants, 50. Sit /w
Huguenots
Forest laws, the, 136
Forest of Arden, 6, 47, 141
Forty-shilling freeholders, a6
Fowey, 145
Fowling, 10; and set Shooting
Fox, George, 95, 124, 125
Foxe, John, 52
Foxhunting. Sff Huntincr
Franco, 67, RS; nrtttssf, the, 2*, 8^
Franchise, the, 26
Freedom, principle of, 27
French drama, the, 120
French privatccr5, 14^
Frohishcr, Martin, 5:, 54
Froissart, 28
Fuel, 47-8, 14^-4
Fuller, Thomas, 44
Furniture, Jacobean, 105-6
GAU.ET slaves, 550,
Game, Game laws, irS, \ 56-8
Gardens, and garden f>Iant5, 10^*7
Gentleman, the, statm fif, ij-6
Gent/tmtn*j Rtfrtatw* t the, t $?, ijSn,
Gentry, Set Country gentlemen
German wnrkmcn in Hnphml, 18, 46
Gibbons, GrinHnp, m
Gibson, Edmund, Ri^hop of London,
14 1; edition of Cjmdcn*i Br/Vi*rirjd,
quoted, o-to, 141, 145
Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 52
Gilds, 50* S 4//o Trafr gilds
Gilpin, Bernard, 16
Glaw, 19; drinking g1aA*c>, 195 industry,
19, 46-7
Gold and prices, 187
Goldsmiths of London, the, 8t-i; func*
tion of is 'profo-binkcrt,* Bi
Gothic architecture, 17, 18
Grahams clan, of Netherhy, 16, 17
Grain, pricet, conirol of, jt
Grammar tchoob, 1-1, 25, 41
Grand Cyrus > 98
G ran v elk, 56
Great fimilict and development, 87
Grethtm*! Roytl Exchange, 18
Guise, Duke of, jj
Gunpowder, 46, 77
Gwynne.Nell, n8
HABDON Hall. 18
Hakluyt, Rkhwd,
Halla clan, the, 1 5
5*. 57
2OO
INDEX
Hamburg, 57
Hampdcn, John, 92
Hansc, towns, the, 57
Harbotdc Castle, 15
Hare hunting. Sft Hunting
Harrison, Rev. William, cited or quoted,
3, 6., 19 and ff., 22, 43, passim
Harrogate, 339
Hatton, Sir Christopher, n
Hawking, 157
Hawkins, Sir John, 2, 54-6, 70
Hearnc, Thomas, 123
f Icdlcys clan, 15
Henry V, 52
Henry VIII, and break-up of monastic
establishments, 91; debasement of
coinage, 45; naval policy of, 55
Herb garden, the, 106
Herbert, George, 41
Heresy, death punishment for, 1x4-15
Herrick, Robert, 97
Herring fishery, 48-9
Highlands the, and the Highlanders, 15
Highwaymen, 22
Milliard, Nicholas, 20
Historical research, 123-4
Hobbcs, Thomas, 115
Hobton, Cambridge carrier* 45
Hobion'a choice, 45
Hobion'i Conduit, 45
Holland, 58, 66; atdstt Dutch, the
Homilici, 40
Hooker, Richard, 53, 38; Ectkmstic&l
Hopkin*, Matthew, 90
Hop*, Hop growing, 47
Horn-breeding, 8-9, 109, 139
Hone-racing, 199
Hone transport, 47
Hou*e of Common*: powers over
buiincaa affaire, 129-50
Houae of Lordi, 24
HQUICS, 105 j Tudor, 18-20, 27
Howard, Lord Admiral, 54
Howland, Elizabeth, 86
Howland, John, 86
Hudtoo'i Bay Co,, 60, 1 30
Huguenott, 53, 73: in Norwich and
London, 106
Hull, 144
Hundred Yean' War, the, 67
Hooting, 133-9
INDUSTRIAL Revolution, effect of, on
free industry, 78; and application of
science, 115; and apprenticeship, 51
Industry, freedom in, 78; domestic
system, 31
Inns, Elizabethan 21-3; seamy side of, 22
Inquisition, Spanish, the, 2, 53, 91
Investment of money, 8o-r
Ireland: under Tudors, 2, 12; cattle trade,
128; cloth trade, 130
Iron and Steel, 46-8; smelting of iron, 48
Ironsides, the, 101
Italy, trade with, 59; merchant cities of,
58-9; beggars in, 88
JACOBEAN mansion, the, 105-6
Jamaica, 74, 79
James, Duke of York (afterwards King
James II), 130
James I of England (and VI of Scotland),
17, 66, 67, 68, 90
James II of England, 104
Jameson's Raid, 60
Jesuit missionaries, the, 2, 13, 40
Jewel, John, Bishop, 34
Joint stock companies, 60, 130
Jonson, Ben, 119
Judicial system, 29-30, 103-4
Jury system, 30, 74
Justices of the Peace: under Tudors, 29-
32, 37; under Stuarts, 31, 73, 88, 133;
in 1688, 31, 133; Eighteenth Century,
31; functions of, 29-32, 51, 133
KENTLWORTH, 1$
Kent county, 5
Killing m Mttrdsr, 97
King, Gregory, 132; his analysis of the
nation, 134, 1 35
King's Lynn, 89*., 145
LANCASHIRE, too
Landowners, building-up of great es-
tates, 127
Langdale, 146*,
Langland, William, 35
Language, English, the, 95-7
Latitudintrlaniam, n6
Laud, William, Archbishop, 35, 74, 88
2O1
INDEX
Law: law reform, 104; supremacy of law,
103-4
Lawcs, Henry, 97
Lead, 46
Leather industries, 8
Lcland, John, 3, 6
Lepanto, 54
Lestrange, Roger, 120
Letters, Letter-writing, 108, 122
Levant (Company or Turkey), 60, 76
Libertines, the, 89-90
Libraries, private, 122; public, 122
Licensing Act (1663). See Censorship
Liddcsdale, 15
Life, standard of, 20, 47, 135-4, 144
Literacy, 123
Literature and thought, 63-4, 97-8
Liverpool, 77, 144
Local administration, 30-1
Locke, John, 116
Lombard Street, 83
London, Tudor, 4-5; Growth of, 4,
65, 144-5, 147; in Civil War, 4, 78,
92, 99-101; at Restoration, 103, 139-
140; self-government, 4; and the
Monarchy, 4; the City proper, 4-5;
Westminster, 5
Apprentices of, 25
Bridge, 62
Commerce and industry of, 5, 77-8,
144
Fire of, 146-7
Plague of, 145-7
Population, 4
Port of, 77, 144
Tower, The, 5
Longbow, the, 28, 19
Long gun, the, 19
Longleat, 18
Long Parliament, the, 90, 150
Lords Lieutenant, a8
Lynn, 48
MAGISTRATES. Stt Justices of the Peace
Maitland, Prof. F. W,, 114
Mancheiter, Earl of, 101
Manor Court (Court Leet), *y, 73
Manor Houses: Tudor, x8-ao, 105?
Courtyard, loj; furnishings, 19-10,
105-6
Mansfield, Lord, Judgment, 17
Marcher Lords, the 1 1, n
Marches, Wardens of the, 14, 17
Marlborough, Duke of, 1 50
Marlborough wars, 127, 148
Marlowe, Christopher, 42, 44, 62, 6j
Marriage: child marriages, 86-7
Marvel], Andrew, 69, 9-^ 106-7, in
Mary, Queen of Scots, ^
Mary Tudor, Queen, 36
Maryland, 69, 70
Massachusetts, 69, 7?, 74'. university, 72
Massachusetts Bay Co., 68
Matthew, Sir Tobic, no
Mayflanvr, the, 76/1.
Maypoles, 90
Mazes, 106
Meat, in diet, 5, 7, 155; Rcarciry in
winter, 77, 108; spicing of, 77; salted,
loS
Medicinal spas, 21, 159
Mendicancy, 51. ^VfWjo
Merchant, Tudor, the, 26
Merchant Adventurer*, the, 59-60
Merchant capitalism, 60
Middle ARCS, the, interest in, nj, 124
Middlesex, 159
Milboumes clan, the, 15
Military service, altitude to, a8
Military tyttem, 28-9; (he Militia, 28, 29*
Sfff eiso Army
Milton, John, jj, 45. 97. *> uJ
Conrtft t 97; // Pt*JtrvM t 47; f**r*fr/*
Lost, 120
Miniature painting, 20
Mining expansion, 46. JW // Coal
Mogul Empire, 75
Molifcre, 120
Monaiteries, the, diwolurion of, in
Wtks, 1 5; dwtribuiion of the estates,
24, 56. Sit //0 Pilgrimage of Gt*ce
Money: borrowing, 8t; lending, 81 -a;
interest, 81; investment, to-i
Money market, 81
Monk, Coloocl, 1 1 1
Monopolies, 78, 87
Montacuce, 18
Moreron Old Hall, Cheshire, 18
Moryson, Fyncs, 5,^-7, 11
Mosstrooping, 9, 15-17
Mun, Thomas, 81
Mundy, Peter, 60
Mumdptl Cootrol in Middk Ages, 49-
50. S* also L**t A4m*utr*ti*t
Musk, Elizabethan, to Church, 59
2O
INDEX
NASH, Richard ('Beau Nash'), 139
National consciousness, 67
National control of industrial, commer-
cial and social system, 49-50
Naval tactics, 54, 55
Navigation, 76
Navigation Laws, 49, 74, 130, 145
Navy, the, 53, 54-5, 68, 76; relation to
merchant navy and seafaring popula-
tion, 49, 54-5; development under
Elizabeth, 46, 49, 55; in Civil War,
5 $; under Stuarts, 68; conditions in, 76
Nevilles, the, 14, 16
Newcastle, 17, 144
New England Colonies, the, 67-74
Newfoundland, 48, 52
New Hampshire, 69
Newmarket, 139
New Model Army, 102
Newsletters, 98-9*,, uz
Newspapers, 91, 94, 98*,, 122
Newt iheets, lao
Newton, Sir Isaac, 115, 116; Prtntfpia f
120. IZI, 124
Nicholson, William, 123
Nobility, the, 24-5, toj
Nonconformist!, JW Dissenters
Norden, John, 5
North, Council of the, 12, 29, 104
Northern counties, n, 15 tt stq,\
feudal &nd religious loyalty in, 14*15;
Pilgrimage of Grace, 13, 14; rebellion
of (1570), 16,18
Northern Earls, rebellion of, 16, 28
North Tyne, 14-17
Northumberland, 14 tt stq*
Norwich, 4, 4*. 144
OAT*, 6
Oflfencea, puniihment of, 89-90
Open field syttem. SH Agriculture
Otborne, Dorothy, 96, 98, 105
Ovcrseta enterprise, expansion of, 2, 5 l-
61, 67-80; trade, 66-7
Oxen as draught animals, 8-9
Oxford, 14$
Oxford University, under Elizabeth,
41*3; Nineteenth and Twentieth
Centuriet, 44; Christ Church, 45
PAINTMI, painting, 19, to, 105
Ptraphkti, religiou* and political, 97,
98 W*.
106
Parish Church, the, Restoration period,
112-13
Parliament, 37
Pnston family (the Paston letters), 109-
no
Peasantry, 65
Peel, Sir Robert (2nd baronet), police
system initiated by, 89
'Peel towers/ 17
Peers of the Realm, Tudor times, 23-4.
See also Nobility
Penshurst, 18
Pepper, 77
Pepys, Samuel, 120; diary, 64, 120, 128;
library, 122
Percy family, 14, 15, 16
Perry, Worcestershire beverage, 6
Persia, Persian Gulf, 57, 76
Photography, 20
Pictures for wall decoration, 19, 105
Pilgrimage, custom of, 21
Pilgrimage of Grace, the, 13, 14
Pilgrim Fathers, the, 68
Pinkie Clcugh, 66
Piracy in the Channel, 56
Plague, the, 4, 105; of London, 145-6*
147. Set also Black Death
Plays and Players, 61-3, 118-20
Pluralism, 37
Plymouth, 144
Police: no effective system, 89; Peel's
police, 89
Political, controversy, 97; democracy, 102
Poor Relief; Tudor and Stuart, 31-2, 72,
88-9, 136; the Privy Council control
of, 88-9; in Restoration era and
Eighteenth Century, 88-9, 136; the
Act of Settlement and, 136
Pope, the, and Henry VIII, 34
Popish plot, the, 119
Population, 5*4, 152, 134, 1 35 London*
3, Stt a/so Birth Rate, Census, Death
Kate
Portland stone, 148-9
Portrait painting, 20
Portuguese, the, 76
Potato, the, 106, 108
Prayer Book, the, 33-4, 39
Prerogative Courts, 29, 104
Presbyterian Church, soda! discipline in,
89
Presbyterians: English, 115; Scottish, 113
05
INDEX
Press-gang, the, 136
Prices: rise in, under Tudors and Early
Stuarts, 24, 30, 45-6; control under
Elizabeth, 30-1, 50
Pride, Colonel, i n
Printing: Printing press, 120-1; restric-
tions on, under Stuarts, 121-2; the
Master Printers, 121; University
presses, 121
Privy Council, 29-32, 49, 50, 55, 88;
control of the Poor Law, 88; loss of
power, 88
Protectorate, the, 91
Protestants, Protestantism, 34, 35, 39-
41; ideas and practices of, 34; in
Northern counties, 16; the minority
of extreme Protestants, 35
Psalms, Psalters, 39
Public conveyances, 109
Publishing trade, 121
Purcell, Henry, 120
Puritan Commonwealth, 91 tt stq.
Puritans, Puritanism, t, , 37-41, 91 */
seq. t 101, 1 14-16, 120; under HIizabcth,
37-41; persecution of> under the Re-
storation, 114-16, 1 20; and orthodoxy,
ii 6; Scripture pedantry of, 38. Stt
a/so Dissenters
Pym, John, 78, 92
QUAKERS, the, 113, 124-5; persecution
of, 124
RACINE, uo
Raleigh, Sir Walter, 42, 51,
Reading of books, i 23
Redesdale, 14-17
Reeds clan, the, i j
Reformation, the, in England, n, i6
68
Regicides Republic* 90
Regicide, xn-xa
Religion and daily life: Elizabethan, 18,
33-41; Cromwell's time, 92-4
Religious controversy, 97; difference*,
35, 37, 114-15; persecution, 38-9
Renaissance, the, i*a
Rcresby, Sir John, 1x7-18, xaj-6, 119;
account of a witch trial, 117-18.
Restoration, the, 94, 105, in; and
religious divisions, 111-15
Restoration drama, x 18-20
nge, the, 57, 76*.
Revolution of 1688, 91, 104, 116
Rhode Island, 69
Roads, 47, 48
Robsons clan* 1 5
Roc, Sir Thomas, 75
Roman Catholicism, 13, 16-17, 33-8
passim ', 100, 112
Roman law, 30
Roses, \Vars of the, \ i, 24, 99, 1 10
Rotherhithe docks, 86
Rotten borouchs, 126
Roundheads, the, 12?, 112, 114
Royal Society, the, iM-f*, 121
Royalists, the, in Civil VTar, 100
Rubens, Peter Paul, 105
Rugby, trade, 8
Rupert, Prince, 115, MO
Rural worship, social side, 1 1 a-n
Russell family, 82-4, 86-7. xtt
Russia, 57
Russia Company, 60
Rye, 6
Rymer, Thomas, u$
SABBATARIANISM, Stt Sunday ob*er-
vance
Saffron balden, 7
St. Martin-in-ihc-FicklA, in
St. Paul's Cathedral, 148
Salads, 108
Salamis, btttk of. 54
Salt, 46
Sandys, Sir Edwjrn, 74
Scholarship, 115*16
Schoolmen, ehe, 116
Schools, S Charity School*, Grammar
Schools.
Science and Religious belief, 115-16
Scientific enquiry, progress of, ii)-t8
Scotland; policy of Henry Vlll and Ed-
ward VI towards, 14; and the border
counties, 75*17; in Elizabeth's reign,
14-17; the union of ctowm, 17, 66-x
antipathy with the Engliih, 66-1; T*>
itricted intercourse, 66; in Stuart times,
66-7; character and religion, 66, 115.
Dorrvmk babitt, S
Minea, the 'boodmeti' in, 141
Sit *//t Edinburgh, Jacobite*,
Pretbyteriant
Scott, Sir Wdwr, 66
204
INDEX
Sculpture, 105
Scurvy, 76
Sea-coal, 17, 48, 144, and ttndtr Coal
Sea-faring population, 49, 53-4
Seamen, Elizabethan, the, 53-7
Sea-power, 53^ 55
Seaside, the, as resort, 139
Seldcn, John, 81
Sermon, the: Puritan and Restoration
period, 39-40, 123
Sexes, relation of, 63
Sexual offences, 89-90
Shaftesbury, First Earl, 112
Shakespeare, 33, 35, 61-4, 118, 141^;
play* of, 2, 35, 61-4, 118, 1410.; and
seamy side of English inna, 21-3;
idiom of, 62; Hamttt, 63; Lovt's
Labour* f Lost> 55
Shakespeare's England, 95; and Chapters
land II
Sheep, sheep fanning, 8, 9
Shipbuilding, 55, 77
Shipping, 47-9
Shooting, sport, 19
Shot gun, the, 28, 19
Shrewsbury, Earl of, it
Sidney, Algernon, i x i
Sidney, Sir Philip, 42, 44
Silence, Master! 42
Silver and price*, 46, 87
Sir Btris of Soxibemptot, 94
Skin diseases, 108
Slave trade and slavery, negro, x, 55/7,,
70,75
Sly, Christopher, 47
Smith, Adam* 156
Smithfield market, 5
Smlthfield fire*, 55
Smoking, 59
Smuggling, 59
Society, Elizabethan, 24-6
Somersettj runaway slave, 27
Southampton, 59
Southampton, last Earl of, 102*,
Spain, i f *> 91; war with* *8, 19, $8, 51-
56, J8
Spanish Netherlands, j8
Spa*, medicinal, ax, 159
Spotter, Edmund, * 55, 41
Spice !skoda the, 76, 79
Spices, 77
SptaUfields, 106
Sporting guns, 29
Sprat, Thomas, Bishop of Rochester,
116-17
Squires. See Country Gentlemen
Stage coaches, 109
Stag-hunting, 136, 138
Standard of life, 20, 50, 133-4, 142
Star Chamber, the, 12, 29, 104
Statute of Artificers, 30, 5 1
Statutes of Labourers, 50
Statute: De hacrstico comburendo, 114-15
Stcmhold and Hopkins, 39, 40
Stewponds, 49
Sullingflcet, Edward, Bishop of Wor-
cester, 123
Stock market, 81
Stourbridge Fair, 45
Stow, John, 25
Stratford, Thomas Wentworth, Earl of,
82, 88
Strafford-on-Avon, 6
Stubbs, William, Bishop, 124
Sturdy beggars, 31
Sunday observance, 40-1, 90; and
Puritan Intolerance, 90
Surrey county, 140
Swords, wearing of, 20-1
TABLES, 106
Tapestry, 19, 105
Taunton, too
Taxation, 53, 55
Tea, 77
TenisoQ, Thomas, afterwards Arch-
bishop, 122
Theatre, 62-3, 118-20; in Shakespeare's
England, 62-4; Stage, 62, nSj
women^s parts, 62, nSj touring com-
panies, 62, 1 1 8; effects of Puritan
bigotry, 119, 120
Thorney monks, 83
Thornton, Alice, 93
Tillotson, John, Ardbbishop, 123
Timber, 46-7
Tin-mining, 46
Tobacco and smoking^ 59, 68, 77
Toleration, 114
Tories, 114, 127
Torture, 104
Towo, Towns, the; Elizabethan, 5-4,
joj Seventeenth Century, 99-100
'Towo field,' the, 5
205
INDEX
Townshend, Lord (Turnip Townshend),
128
Trade: national control of, under
Elizabeth, 49-51; external, 57; coast-
wise, 48; colonial, 75; and royal grant
of monopolies, 87
Trading Companies, 57-60, 65, 75 et
seq, t 130. Sst a/so under names of tbe
Companies
Travel, no
Trevelyan, John, 40
Tunbridge Wells, 139
Turf, the, 139
Tusser, Thomas, 9
Tyldesley, Thomas, 158/7.
T, 31, 32, 88, 89 andn,
Unitarianism, 2, 115
United States, the, 5 3
Universities, the: the College system,
42; Tudor and Stuart, 41-5; governing
class and, 42; private tutoring in 42;
age of undergraduates, 43*,
University Presses, the, m
VAN DTCK, Sir Anthony, 305
Vehicles, improvement in, 109
Venetian traders, 59
Venison , 6-7
Vermuyden: Dutch engineer, 84
Verney family, the, 93, 100, 107-10
Village, the: characteristics of, in Six-
teenth and Seventeenth Centuries, 37-
*875
Viner, Thomas, 83 atdrt*
Virginia, 52, 67-74; equestrian aristo-
cracy of planters, 73
Virginia Company, 68
Voltaire, 38, 124
WAGB-eaming class, 27, x$a-3
Waget, 49-50, 132-3; and price rite
tinder Tudors and Stuant, 46; con-
trol by law, jo; regulation by J.P/i,
50-1, 153; local variation, 133; bar-
gaining, 153; Statute of Artificer* and,
133; strikes and combinationt, 133
Wake, William, Archbishop, uj
Wales and the Welsh, 11*13;
c&entary and adrninistrative
with England, 12; people of, 12-15;
religion in, 13; agricultural system,
13; \Vales, Council of, is 29, 104
Wall decoration, 19
Vvalsingham, Sir Francis, 42, 5?
Walton, Izaak, 94-6
Warfare at sea, 54
Wars, mercantile and colonial, 131
Wars of the Roses, n, 24, 99, no
Warwickshire, 6; industrial progress
in, 140-1; reactions on agriculture,
140-1
Washington, George, 75
Weapons, 28, 29, 54
Welsh, the, Stt Wales
Wesley, John, 93
Wesleyan movement, uj
West Indian Islands, 67-70
Westminster, municipality of, iiH
Whartoa, Henry, iu f uj
Wheat, 5, 6
Whigs, the, 103, na, 114* 117
WhitehaU Palace, j, nfi
Whitgift^ Archbishop, 38
Wild-fowl, 10
Wilkins, David, uj
William HI (of Orange), m
Williams, Roger, 69
Windows, 19
Wine, j
Winstanley, Currard, 101
Winthrop, John, 63
Wiicbcrafc, belief in, 90; rcacijon igminit,
117-18
Witches, witch trait, a, 90, 117-18
Wood, Anthony, 115
Wool production, I
Woo) trade, 96, 59; raw wool upon
prohibited, ijo
Woollen doth, Jivdoeh
Word* worth, William, jj, 94
Wren, Sir Christopher, no, u$, 14!;
Churches of, 14!
Wrestling, 1)9
Wycbedey, William, 119, 110
YARMOUTH, 4!
Yeomen, 14, 6*7 t 6j t 9*, 99
Young, Arthur, uf
Younger soot, and appccntkethlp to
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