Increase of comfort.
The cessation of Welsh distractions had greatly favoured the advancement of Shrewsbury. Its grammar school—founded by Edward VI.—as the entrance register of Thomas Ashton, its first Headmaster, evidences, attracted scholars from a very wide area, and helped to bring renown and wealth to the town. Shrewsbury too was the market to which the Welsh cloth trade naturally gravitated, though the town had powerful rivals with which to contend. In the reign of Elizabeth it employed six hundred shearmen in the woollen industry. Camden, writing in 1586, describes it as “a fine city, well-inhabited and of good commerce, and by the industry of the Citizens is very rich.” From this period date the substantial homes of the tradesmen of Tudor times which still survive in not inconsiderable numbers to give so much picturesqueness to the streets of the town. This was the era of improvements in domestic architecture. “If ever curious building did flourish in England,” says Harrison[128], “it is in these our years.” Ireland’s mansion, which dates from 1570, and the house at the south-east corner of the Market Square, built by John Lloyd in 1579, are existing examples of this “curious building.” Their elegance, no less than their stability, betokens the advancement of manners as well as of wealth. Though these houses are “yet for the most part of strong timber” “brick or hard stone[129]” were beginning to be largely used. Rowley’s mansion (1618) is said to have been the first house in the town built wholly of these materials.
Everything combines to mark the reign of Elizabeth as an epoch in the history of England.
Economic policy.
The foundations of modern society were laid. We seem to come into the range of modern, as distinct from mediæval ideas and habits. The principal points in which modern society differs from mediæval are distinctly visible. The problem of poor relief in particular becomes acutely appreciated. The rise of capital is seen both in the modification of the Usury laws, spoken of above, and in the enhancing of rents: prices hitherto dependent on custom and regulation must now be decided by competition.
Not less remarkable is the permanence which attended Elizabeth’s legislation. Her economic settlement remained practically unchanged until the development of machinery altered those social conditions for which it had been adapted.
The Statute 5 Eliz. a turning-point in Gild history.
Many of the functions of the Gilds taken over by the state.
She made trade regulation national instead of local. The Act of 5 Elizabeth, c. 14, is a turning-point in the history of the Gilds. By it the whole system of Gilds was re-modelled. Their experience was by no means thrown away[130]. The information they had been accumulating was now appropriated by the state, which took over many of the functions they had hitherto performed.
What had long been common law now became statute law. The old minimum of seven years’ apprenticeship was still enjoined as a necessary preliminary to the exercise of any craft. Such apprentices when bound must be of an age less than twenty-one years, and could only be bound to householders in corporate or market towns. The proportion of journeymen to apprentices was regulated: there were to be three apprentices to one journeyman. The workman was protected from wilful dismissal. The hours of labour were defined, and Justices of the Peace or the town magistrates were to assess wages yearly at the Easter Sessions. All disputes between masters and servants were to be settled by the same authorities. The statute incorporated everything that was worth taking in the ordinances of the Gilds and applied it nationally to the regulation of the country’s trade.
Trade-regulation becomes national instead of local.
This allows development of new centres and encourages native workmen.