There were monopolies on cloth, tin, starch, fish, oil, vinegar, and salt. New companies were incorporated for many trades, the ostensible reason being the supervision of the quality of the wares produced in that trade. (Shoemakers, haberdashers, saddlers, and curriers exercised close supervision over these wares.) They paid heavily for their patents or charters.
There was no sharp line between craftsman and shopkeeper or between shopkeeper and wholesale merchant. In London, an enterprising citizen could pass freely from one occupation to another. Borrowing money for a new enterprise was common. Industrial suburbs grew up around London and some towns became known as specialists in certain industries. The building crafts in the towns often joined together into one company, e.g. wrights, carpenters, slaters, and sawyers, or joiners, turners, carvers, bricklayers, tilers, wallers, plasterers, and paviors. These companies included small contractors, independent masters, and journeymen. The master craftsman often was a tradesman as well, who supplied timber, bricks, or lime for the building being constructed. The company of painters was chartered with a provision prohibiting painting by persons not apprenticed for seven years.
The prosperous merchants began to form a capitalistic class as capitalism grew. Competition for renting farm land, previously unknown, caused these rents to rise. The price of wheat rose to an average of 14s. per quarter, thereby encouraging tillage once more. There was steady inflation.
The breed of horses and cattle was improved. There were specializations such as the hunting horse and the coach horse. Dogs had been bred into various types of hounds for hunting, water and land spaniels for falconry, and other dogs as house dogs or toy dogs. There were no longer any wild boar or wild cattle. The turkey joined the cocks, hens, geese, ducks, pigeons, and peacocks in the farmyard. Manure and dressings were used to better effect on the soil.
There are locks and canals as well as rivers. At London Bridge, water-wheels and pumps are installed. There are now four royal postal routes from London to various corners of the nation. Horses are posted along the way for the mail- deliverer's use. However, private mail still goes by packman or common carrier. There were compasses with a bearing dial on a circular plate with degrees up to 360 noted. The nation's inland trade developed a lot. There were many more wayfaring traders operating from town inns. There were new industries such as glassware, iron, brasswares, alum and coppers, gunpowder, paper, coal, and sugar. Coal was used for fuel as well as wood, which was becoming scarce. Small metal goods, especially cutlery, was made, as well as nails, bolts, hinges, locks, ploughing and harrowing equipment, rakes, pitch forks, shovels, spades, and sickles. Lead was used for windows and roofs. Copper and brass were used to make pots and pans. Pewter was used for plates drinking vessels, and candlesticks. Iron was used for fire-backs, pots, and boilers. Also in use was canvas, lead, and rice. Competition was the mainspring of trade and therefore of town life.
Parliament enacted laws and voted taxes. The Queen, Lords, and Commons cooperated together. There was little dissension or debating. There were many bills concerning personal, local, or sectional interests, but priority for consideration was given to public measures. The knights in the commons were almost invariably from the county's leading families and chosen by consensus in the county court. The commons gradually won for its members freedom from arrest without its permission and the right of punishing and expelling members for crimes committed. Tax on land remained at 10% of its estimated yearly income. The Queen deferred to the church convocation to define Christian faith and religion, thus separating church and state functions.
The Treasury sought to keep a balanced budget by selling royal land and keeping Crown expenditures down. The Crown carried a slight debt incurred before the Queen's accession.
After exhausting every other alternative, the Queen agreed on the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, for being involved in a plot to assassinate her and claim the throne of England.
Francis Drake sailed around the world from 1577 to 1580. Walter Ralegh made an expedition to North America in 1584 and named Virginia in honor of the Queen, who was a virgin. Drake and Ralegh plundered Spanish ships for American gold and silver, much of which was used to pay for the war with Spain, which planned to invade England, even after the unsuccessful attempt by the Spanish Armada in 1588. The two hundred English ships were built to sink other ships rather than to board and capture them. The English guns outranged the Spanish guns. So the smaller English ships had been able to get close enough to the big Spanish troop-transport galleons to shoot them up without being fired upon. The direction of the wind forced the Spanish galleons northward, where most of them were destroyed by storms. The English seamen had been arbitrarily pressed into this service.
- The Law -