As regarded the domestic manufactures of this period, the woollen manufactures were the most important, and extended themselves greatly on account of the foreign demand. This manufacture had to contend with many old charters and restrictions which were introduced to monopolise the practice of it to certain towns and persons; but these were gradually broken through after much contest, and people in both town and country were allowed to make cloths and other woollen goods. Originally London, Norwich, Bristol, Gloucester, and Coventry were the privileged places. Essex became a clothing county; but by degrees the trade spread into those quarters where it still prevails. Berks, Oxford, Surrey, and Yorkshire made coarse kerseys for exportation; Wales manufactured fringes and coarse cloths; but Tiverton, Bridgewater, Chard, and other towns of Wilts, Gloucester, and Somerset were famous for their broad-cloths; those of Kidderminster, Bromwich, Coventry, Worcester, Evesham, Droitwich, as also of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, were in esteem. Manchester and Halifax were already noted for rugs and fringes, Norfolk for coverlets, and Lincolnshire and Chester for what were called "cottons," but which were a species of woollen. There was much complaint at that day of the adulteration of these fabrics by intermixture of inferior yarns, and by not taking the proper means to prevent them from shrinking on being exposed to wet. Norwich had manufactures of woollen different to ordinary cloth, in which it excelled all other places; and in Elizabeth's reign the Norwich manufacturers introduced new kinds under the name of Norwich satins and fustians.
The art of dyeing received a new impulse and new colours from the discovery of Brazil and other distant countries. Soap-making was also introduced, soap having before 1524 been chiefly imported. Many manufacturing processes in weaving, dyeing, and cleaning cloths were brought over by the refugees from the Netherlands, driven to England by the Spanish persecutions. During Elizabeth's reign the smelting of iron, which had been chiefly carried on in Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, became restricted there on account of the consumption of wood. Copper mines and alum pits were discovered in the time of Elizabeth, in Cumberland and Yorkshire, which contributed to the extension of the manufacturing arts.
Sir Thomas Gresham, the chief financial leader of the day, although a protégé of the Duke of Northumberland's, was received with much favour by Elizabeth on her accession. The great merchant then gave her advice—the following of which may well be called an epoch in the history of this country. He told her that all the debased coin should be converted into fine coin of a certain weight; that their monopoly should not be restored to the Steelyard merchants; that licences should be granted as seldom as possible; that she should incur no debt, or as little debt as possible, beyond the seas; and that she should keep her credit with her own merchants, as they would be her best and most powerful friends. These wise measures of reform were gradually carried out. Elizabeth probably perceived their value, but she could not find it in her heart to act altogether with the necessary self-denial and liberality. Thus she would not give up her power to reward favourites by means of special grants and licences. The monopoly of sweet wines which Essex enjoyed is an instance of her influence in this respect.
Gresham himself superintended the restoration of the coinage, and his advice with regard to the Steelyard merchants was also carried into practice. It was to him that the merchants of that day owed their first place of meeting for the transaction of business. Before that they had been "constrained either to endure all extremities of weather, namely, heat and cold, snow and rain, or else to shelter themselves in shops." Gresham therefore built a house for them, which the queen visited in 1570 and called the Royal Exchange. This building, like many others belonging to the City companies, was destroyed in the Great Fire. It was designed after the model of the Bourse of Antwerp, and was Flemish also in its architect, its workmen, and its materials. The commerce of Scotland during this century was affected by precisely the same circumstances as that of England.
During this century much progress was made in the improvement of London. Henry VIII. passed various Acts for the paving of the thoroughfares, which before were horrible sloughs, "very foul and full of pits."
The public amusements of the nation underwent as great a revolution during this century as its religion or its literature. The fall of the Church and the introduction of firearms were fatal to the spirit of chivalry, and the whole host of religious pageants and plays. Henry VIII. and Elizabeth exerted themselves to prolong the exercises of chivalry, but they had lost their spirit, and fell lifeless to the ground. In vain was the tournament of the Cloth of Gold, or the jousts at which Elizabeth presided at Greenwich. They were become mere mockeries of what once had been the all-engrossing contests of knightly honour. In vain did they endeavour to keep alive the long bow and the feats of archery. The musket and the sportsman's gun had made the bow and quiver mere playthings. The tournament made way for the joust, in which the contest was conducted with headless lances, and fighting at the barriers with blunted axes; and that gave way to "riding at the ring," in which the gentlemen did not run their lances through their antagonists, but through a ring suspended for the purpose. The last of the ancient exercises was the contest with the sword and buckler; but the sword was deprived of both edge and point, and as the combatants were not allowed to lunge, but only to strike, the practice was perfectly harmless. In the time of Henry VIII., however, the art of fencing was introduced; and in the time of Elizabeth the use of the rapier and the deadly thrust rendered the acquirement of the art of fence a matter of the first importance.
But though the chivalric exercises went out in this age, never was the love of pageant and display more alive. The revival of the Greek literature brought forward a crowd of gods and goddesses, who figured in public processions and galas; and the strangest allegoric absurdities were gazed upon by grave princes and their counsellors, as well as by the ladies, with all the enthusiasm of country lads and lasses gaping at a strolling theatre or a puppet-show.
Strange masquerades and allegoric pageants were got up in London for Mary and Elizabeth; and readers of worthy Laneham's description of the nineteen days in which Queen Bess was entertained at Kenilworth by Leicester, will find plenty of giants, distressed Ladies of the Lake, "salvage men," presents from Bacchus, Pomona, Ceres, floating islands, and sham Arions riding on sham dolphins. More healthy but little less romantic were the holiday sports which had survived the Church, and were mingled in by both princes, nobles, and people. The old Mystery did not for some time disappear before the secular drama, and the Coventry Play was played before Elizabeth at Kenilworth. May-day had its grand may-pole still; and Henry VIII. did not disdain, on May-day, 1515, to go a-maying to Shooter's Hill, with his queen and his sister, the Queen-Dowager of France. May-day was also the great day of the milkmaids, who danced from door to door with a pyramid of plates on their heads.
Stubbs—who, Puritan as he was, seems to have enjoyed what he describes so well—gives us the following description of the amusements of the merry gentlemen of the Temple in those days:—
"First, all the wild heads of the parish covening together, choose them a grand captain of mischief, whom they ennoble with the title of My Lord of Misrule, and him they crown with great solemnity and adopt for their king. This king anointed chooseth for him twenty, forty, threescore, or a hundred lusty guts like to himself to wait upon his lordly majesty and to guard his noble person. Then every one of these his men he investeth with his liveries of green, yellow, or some other wanton colour. And, as though they were not gaudy enough, they bedeck themselves with scarfs, ribbons, and laces, hanged all over with gold rings, precious stones, and other jewels; this done, they tie about either leg twenty or forty bells, with rich handkerchiefs in their hands, and sometimes laid across over their shoulders and necks, borrowed for the most part of their pretty Mopsies and loving Bessies.... Thus all things set in order, then have they their hobby-horses, dragons, and other antics, together with their pipers and thundering drummers to strike up the devil's dance withal; then march these heathen company towards the church and churchyard, their pipers piping, their drummers thundering, their stumps dancing, their bells jingling, their handkerchiefs swinging about their heads like madmen, their hobby-horses and other monsters skirmishing amongst the throng; and in this sort they go to the church (though the minister be at prayer or preaching), dancing and swinging their handkerchiefs over their heads in the church like devils incarnate, with such a confused noise that no man can hear his own voice. Then the foolish people they look, they stare, they laugh, they fleer, and mount upon forms and pews to see these goodly pageants solemnised in this sort. Then, after this, about the church they go again and again, and so forth into the churchyard, where they have commonly their summer halls, their bowers, arbours, and banqueting-houses set up, wherein they feast, banquet, and dance all that day, and peradventure all that night, too. And thus these terrestrial furies spend the Sabbath-day in the country."