There was never a time when the sober citizen was more sober, more responsible, more filled with a sense of his authority and dignity. “The man,” says the wise king, “who is diligent in business shall stand before princes.”
EARL OF SOMERSET AND HIS WIFE
From a print in the British Museum.
They did stand before princes, these merchants of London; as their prosperity leaped up increasingly year after year, they became the creditors, at least, of princes, for Elizabeth borrowed freely and repaid unwillingly—yet in spite of this too notorious weakness, she retained to the end the deepest affection of her people.
It has been a matter of reproach to the City that it seemed at this time wholly given over to trade and the interests of trade. To reproach a city which has always been a trading city with caring chiefly for the interests of trade seems somewhat unreasonable. But is it true that London has ever been wholly devoted to trade? I cannot find such a time in the whole long history of the City: certainly not in the reign of Elizabeth, when London cheerfully raised her men and her ships for the repulse of the Armada; and cheerfully gave the Queen whatever money she asked for; at the same time, while trade became larger than before, while the individual merchants became of more importance, the City certainly lost some of its political importance and was less dreaded, while it was more caressed, by the Sovereign.
It was, moreover, with the better class, a deeply religious age; men were not afraid or ashamed of proclaiming, or of showing, their religion. When Francis Drake saw the Atlantic on one side and the Pacific on the other, he fell on his knees in the sight of the company and prayed aloud, that God would suffer him to sail upon that unknown sea: if a cutpurse was hanged, he never failed to make a moving speech, deeply religious, while on the ladder. All classes preserved as yet the Catholic practice of going often to church; they studied the Bible; they made their ’prentices attend services; they listened patiently to sermons; doctrine was considered a vital point. By the end of the sixteenth century those who favoured the old Faith were either dead or silenced; to the common people the old Faith meant a return to the flames in Smithfield; torture at the hands of the Spanish Inquisition if any should haply fall into Spanish hands; and slavery under the Spanish King should he achieve the conquest of the country; whereas the new Faith meant freedom of thought, increased wealth, advancing trade, fighting the Spaniard and capturing the Spanish galleons. Religion, therefore, was allied with prosperity.
I have spoken of the sober guise of the London merchant. That sober guise belonged to the places where the merchant was mostly found: to the Royal Exchange, for instance, or Thames Street, beside the quays and warehouses. We must not think that there was no longer brightness of colour and even splendour in the streets. The rich liveries of the great nobles were chiefly seen on the river—remember that the front of the Palace faced the river, that the back belonged to the Strand, and that the river was London’s principal highway. Their varlets lolled about on the river stairs or escorted their master in his barge, but hardly belonged to the City. A Court gallant was dressed as extravagantly as he could afford, or as his estate would bear. He carried manors on his back, broad acres in his velvet cloak, with golden buckles and lace trimming, a year’s rents in his fantastic doublet slashed and puffed, in his silken hose, in his splendid sword, his scabbard and the handle set with gold, in his rings, his scents, his gloves and in his chains. But the Court gallant seldom showed on Thames Street.
In Norman and Plantagenet London there were no shops, nor was there anything sold in the streets except in the market-places, and the streets set aside for retail trade. But in the Tudor time Street Cries had already begun. We find, for instance, the following pleasant verses:—
“Who liveth so merry in all this land
As doth the poor widow that selleth the sand?