CHAPTER IX

ENGLAND OF THE TUDORS

Books for Consultation

SOURCES

Hall, Chronicle of England.

Holinshed, Chronicles.

Harrison, Description of England.

More, Utopia.

Discourse of the Common Weal of this Realm of England.

Latimer, Sermons.

Hakluyt, Collection of Voyages of the English Nation.

Harrisse, Discovery of North America.

SPECIAL. AUTHORITIES

Cunningham, Alien Immigrants to England.

Thorold Rogers, Six Centuries of Work and Wages.

Cunningham and MacArthur, Outlines of English Industrial History.

Hewins, English Trade and Finance.

Ashley, Economic History.

Froude, History of England, Vol. I, Ch. I; English Seamen.

Seeley, Expansion of England.

Traill, Social England.

Corbett, Drake.

Creighton, Sir Walter Raleigh.

IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE

Kingsley, Westward Ho!

The Transformation of England. Modern England, a great maritime, commercial, and industrial power, began. to take shape under the Tudors. Social and economic conditions were changing, the old mediæval industrial system was breaking up, and trade and commerce, animated by a keener and bolder spirit, sought out new channels of enter

The Transformation of England

269

prise. In the fifteenth century England was still in the main an agricultural country; wheat and wool were her staple crops, and she bore to Flanders the relation that Australia now bears to the mother country. By 1600 wool was no longer sent abroad, and woollen cloth had become an important article of export.1

When the first Tudor ascended the throne, a royal navy scarcely existed, and much of England's carrying trade was in the hands of foreigners. The defeat of the Armada

in the reign of Elizabeth paved the way for the ultimate

maritime and commercial supremacy of England. Fore- Causes for most amongst the causes for these changes was the discovery change. of the New World. Trade with America became important, and England's position to the west of Europe gave her at once a superiority over all rivals. The religious conflicts. of the Continent, resulting as they did in the disturbance of trade and industry there, redounded greatly to England's advantage. It was the destruction of Antwerp by Alva that made possible the development of London into the leading mart of Europe. The order and peace of England under Tudor rule attracted capital, and the greater liberty of worship brought to her shores religious refugees, who enriched the kingdom with their industry and skill.

Nor should the effect of the policy of the crown be overlooked. The Tudor rule was despotic, but it was at least paternal. The statute books of the century testify to the unwearying interest of the government in the welfare of the people and in the development of national wealth. No aspect of industry was overlooked. Agriculture, commerce, manufacture, each received attention. Encouragement was given to new enterprises, efforts were made to stimulate decaying industries. Exports and imports were regulated, prices were fixed, and the character and quality of goods to be manufactured were prescribed. Wages were determined by law and the conditions of service settled by the govern

1 Exportation of woollen cloth amounted to 5000 pieces in 1354, to 120,000 pieces in 1547.

ment in minute detail. The records of the first session of Elizabeth's second Parliament illustrate the all-pervading activity of the State. On the same page stand acts for the maintenance of tillage, for the regulation of artificers, laborers, and apprentices, for the maintenance of the navy and fisheries, for the exclusion of divers foreign wares, and against the carrying of sheepskins and pelts out of the king

Traill, II, 544-550;

III,

114-118,

239-241,

351-359. 533-535

dom. Everywhere the State interfered to direct individual enterprise.

The Agricultural Revolution. In the latter part of the fifteenth century sheep-raising had become very profitable, because of the great demand for English wool and the high prices paid for it. There resulted a strong tendency to the formation of great sheep farms, and estates were rapidly converted from tillage to pasture. As land became increasingly valuable the commons were enclosed, and the

open fields, the arable lands tilled by the villagers, were Bright, II, not infrequently seized by the lord under a strained inter- 470, 471. pretation of his property rights. Evictions of the peasants became frequent; houses, whole villages even, were torn Enclosures. down, and the fields were converted into sheepwalks. The report of a royal Commission of Inquiry in 1517 gave many instances of villages made desolate. "All the houses

of Burton Lazars in the same vill (Choysell) are laid waste, and the inhabitants have departed; and there belong to the same houses 300 acres of land, whereof 40 are ploughed, but the rest are in pasture; and by this downfall, the church has fallen into ruins."

These changes brought profit to the landlords and to yeomen holding land in their own right, but they entailed great suffering on the cottagers and small tenant farmers. Rents were raised and at the same time the rights of common pasture were cut off. Moreover, work became scarce, for one man was now employed where formerly the labor of many was required. "For whereas," wrote Latimer, "have been a great many householders and inhabitants, there is now but a shepherd and his dog." Sir Thomas More, in his Utopia, voiced the popular grievance: "Sheep," he declared, "become so great devourers and so wild that they eat up and swallow down the very men themselves. They consume, destroy, and devour whole fields, houses, and citizens." The small holders were ruined, and many of them became homeless wanderers, swelling the ranks of paupers and vagabonds.

The government recognized the evil of this state of Legislation. things and strove to meet it by legislation. It was decreed that no man should keep more than two thousand sheep, and at the dissolution of the monasteries a statute was passed requiring the new owners to "occupy yearly as much of the same demesnes in ploughing and tillage of husbandry . . . as hath been commonly used." But these measures availed little, and as late as 1597 Parliament was still legislating against enclosures. The money-making spirit of the

age was too strong to be controlled. By fraud and petty persecution the small men were driven off the land. It was a common practice to run a single furrow over a field and then declare it ploughed. Hales, a contemporary writer, speaks of men "fathering sheep on children and servants," thus keeping within the limit of the law. The

evil continued until the beginning of the next century, when the diminished value of wool and the high prices of meat and grain brought about a change and led to the conversion of pasture lands back to tillage.

The Decay of Towns. Not alone in the country were great changes taking place. Side by side with laws which point to the miserable condition of the rural population are others that would seem to indicate the decay of industry