At the top end of society, fewer lords take arms and fight than in the past. Even though they are in command of armies, they themselves have become more gentrified – more ‘gentle’. They rarely even fight duels. At the bottom end, however, murder, rape and robbery are as common as they were two hundred years earlier. Fights often break out in alehouses, with the inevitable result that someone draws a knife and stabs his assailant. Killing a man in self-defence is legal under a law of 1532, but most people caught up in a fight will not hang around to stand trial; rather they will take flight and evade justice.4 Over and over again you will find instances of hot-headedness resulting in murder, violent affray being seemingly more common than logical argument. You will also come across calculated killings. Rather than face the humiliation of being named by a maidservant as the father of an illegitimate child, or being accused of rape, some men will murder the pregnant girl before she gives birth. A tailor of Maldon, for instance, kills a girl whom he has impregnated by beating her around the belly, trying to induce a miscarriage; he is hanged for it. You will hear rare but true accounts of starving vagabonds breaking into houses and smashing the skulls of the occupants with an axe, just so that they can look for food. Then there are the unprovoked, cold-blooded murders. A London painter-stainer, wishing to relieve a Barking widow of £8 12s, persuades one of the widow’s maidservants to steal it for him and, when she brings him the money, he breaks the girl’s neck.5
Some of the extreme cruelty that we usually associate with the medieval world is in reality more common in Elizabeth’s reign. Medieval English kings used to pride themselves on the fact that they did not employ torture except in extraordinary circumstances. As we have seen in the last chapter, Elizabethan society has no such qualms: torture is not just accepted as a necessary evil, but officially recognised as an instrument of government. It is used against women as well as men. When Margaret Ward helps a Catholic priest to escape from prison in 1588, she is kept in irons for eight days and suspended by her hands for long periods before being taken to Tyburn and executed. Unlike their medieval ancestors, Elizabethans maim and hang people for vagrancy and burn them for heresy (as we have seen in the case of the Anabaptists). Whether these punishments are more barbaric than being hanged, disembowelled and quartered is debatable; but both suggest strongly that Elizabethans are no soft touch.
You do occasionally come across official acts of mercy, but they are rare. Some women condemned to death for witchcraft are let off by sheriffs, unwilling to kill them for such dubious crimes.6 More commonly, when children under the age of fourteen are found guilty of theft, they are sentenced to hang, but then shown mercy; they are flogged instead. Perhaps it is also worth noting that the cruellest method of execution – being boiled alive – has been repealed as the statutory punishment for poisoning. Nevertheless it is a salutary thought that this punishment was only recently introduced by Henry VIII. It was enacted at least twice in his reign, the last victim being a young woman, Margaret Davy, who was boiled alive in 1542 for poisoning her employer.
Violence and cruelty permeate all areas of life in Elizabethan England. At home it is a father’s duty to whip his sons in order to instil in them respect for authority. Similarly at school a schoolmaster will see it as part of his duty to beat his pupils with a birch, or to rap their hands with a wooden rod. When schooldays are over, the boys will fight in the street, preparing for the disputes of later years, in the tavern or aboard ship. Young men are trained to serve in the militia, to defend the shores in case of invasion, and that training further sharpens their readiness to draw blood. Thus the Elizabethan character is an amalgam of rashness, boldness, resolution and violence – all mixed in a heady brew of destructive intolerance. And this behaviour in turn feeds back into the harsh rhetoric and pitiless sentiments of society. Enemies of the state, such as Mary, queen of Scots, are regularly described as ‘enemies of God and friends of Antichrist’. When the news that Mary has been beheaded arrives in London on 9 February 1587, church bells ring out, bonfires are lit and there is feasting and dancing in the streets for a week. The killing allows Elizabethan society a savage release which, to the modern visitor, has more in common with tribal warfare than civilised society.
Bribery and Corruption
As you have probably gathered by now, there is no equality of opportunity in Elizabethan England. It is taken for granted that everything is hierarchical. Cast your mind back to the beginning of this book and the story of William Hacket, the man who was proclaimed the risen Christ. His two supporters suffer very different fates: one dies in prison and the other is released due to his having friends on the privy council. That a man in office might intervene to save a personal friend is considered normal. You might think it corrupt but the whole of society is a network of people helping each other to get by, and that includes helping to get men out of prison. Therefore it is not stretching things to say that your life might depend on whom you know.
Friends in high places do not just act out of the kindness of their hearts. Any sort of preferment in society is generally in somebody’s power, and that power is used as much for the benefit of the patron as the candidate. As we have seen in chapter 2, if you are a prospective Member of Parliament you will need the support of a lord who can secure your ‘election’. However, once elected, you will be expected to adhere to your patron’s policies or you can expect to lose your seat at the next so-called ‘election’. A similar system prevails in almost every walk of life. Clergymen are appointed to livings by those who have rights of patronage. It goes without saying that gentlemen are advanced to lucrative offices in government through their connections; education and ability are of relatively minor importance.
If you don’t know the right people, there is only one other option open to you: bribery. The practice of paying men to deviate from the line of duty is probably as common as paying them wages to stick to it. Sheriffs and magistrates are notoriously open to bribes – and if they are not bribed, they are regularly found extorting sums of money from those they have arrested. Even the election of fellows to university colleges is open to bribery, so much so that an Act of Parliament has to be passed in 1589 to ensure that fellows have some academic merit, not just deep pockets. Bribery is practised all the way to the top of society. Sir William Cecil has to swear an oath as the queen’s principal secretary not to accept any bribes or presents in the performance of his office. Other members of the privy council have fewer scruples. When members of the Vintners’ Company try to stop legislation that would restrict their business, they give out presents and hold lavish dinners for their friends in parliament. Sir William Cecil does not accept any such presents of course; he is far too circumspect. And the Vintners know better than to try and tempt him. Instead they present his wife with high-quality table linen worth £40.7
The whole system of patronage and bribery is likely to leave you feeling that everybody is corrupt. But you will have to get used to it: the state itself adopts similar methods. Perhaps the best example of this is ‘dead-pay’ in the army. When an army is gathered, for example at Leith in 1560, not all the troops receiving pay actually exist: many of them are dead men whose notional presence allows the captains to overcharge the government. At Leith the government is paying the wages of 8,000 soldiers, but in fact there are only 5,000 men in the army. The remainder is ‘dead-pay’, which goes straight into the captains’ pockets. You might think this is even worse than bribery and nepotism. Nevertheless, in 1562 it becomes official government practice when it is proposed that for every ninety-five soldiers provided, the government will pay for one hundred. Corruption or not, the privy council agrees – on the condition that no more than 8 per cent of the wages bill should go on ‘dead-pay’.8
Pride
Violence and bribery are both means to an end, and even cruelty is rarely an end in itself. If you want to understand what really makes Elizabethans tick you will need to look deeper. In doing so, you will soon encounter the extraordinary l
evels of pride exhibited by some individuals. In many cases it is difficult to determine whether it is their religion or courage that drives them on, or a sense of pride in themselves: the desire to die a martyr’s death, for instance, or to fight to the end like a hero. Consider Philip Howard, earl of Arundel, a Catholic sympathiser. In April 1585 he is arrested for trying to leave the country without the queen’s permission. After spending ten years locked up in the Tower, having forfeited all his estates and titles and suffering from dysentery, he sends a message to the queen begging to see his wife and son just once more before he dies. What is Elizabeth’s response? If the earl attends a Protestant service, he may not only see his family again, but have all his titles and estates restored to him. You may wonder whether it is religious conviction or pride that makes Philip reply: ‘If my faith is to blame, then I am sorry I have only one life to lose.’
Pride, when considered in its many contexts and forms, is an important key to understanding the character of the English, collectively as well as individually. It encourages people to ape their social superiors, to spend beyond their means, to be seen as generous. In 1592 the duke of Württemberg’s secretary comments that Londoners ‘are magnificently dressed and extremely proud and overbearing … Many a one does not hesitate to wear velvet in the streets, which is common with them, while at home perhaps they have not a piece of dry bread.’9 Puritan writers in England similarly see pride as the greatest failing of their countrymen. Philip Stubbes in his famous Anatomy of Abuses declares that pride is ‘the root of all vices’ and ‘the principal abuse in England’. He is disgusted with men of distinction saying, ‘I am a gentleman, I am worshipful, I am honourable, I am noble, my father was this, my father was that …’ or dressing in extravagant ways.10
You will see evidence of such pride in every city and every county. Thomas Wilson comments that sons of yeomen are no longer content to be called yeomen, but rather prefer to be termed gentlemen.11 It is not just a matter of wealth; sensitivity to other people’s perceptions of one’s well-being and status drive the middling sort to obtain glass windows and chimneys in their houses, as we have seen in chapter 1. Even in death, pride has a role to play. Church monuments become more and more elaborate and ostentatious. In the act of dying itself, men, women and children are all expected to die a ‘good death’. By this people mean an acceptance of God’s will on your deathbed – a stoic perseverance and a calm resignation to your fate. No doubt pride is what keeps many people under control in such extreme stress.
Wit
If you’re in need of some light-heartedness to cope with all this pride and violence, you will find it in the rapid, clever banter of the London playwrights. You will hear it in the ribald ballads sung or recited in the alehouses and taverns, mocking those in positions of authority. The plain sarcasm of medieval humour has diminished, replaced by a wit that is wry, intelligent and heavy with irony. Puns are all the rage, as are quips, satires and wordplay. So too are practical jokes. Gamaliel Ratsey, a highwayman condemned to hang at Bedford, is at the very moment of death with the rope around his neck when he indicates that he has something important to say to the sheriff. In front of the crowd he is let down from the gallows and allowed to speak to the official, who patiently waits as Gamaliel says his piece, which is lengthy. It begins to rain. In fact, it starts to pour. After a few minutes Gamaliel admits he has nothing to say: he just noticed a storm cloud coming and wanted to see the sheriff and the crowd get thoroughly drenched. Wit on the gallows is noted in several other cases. As George Brooke listens to his executioner and the sheriff argue over who should have his damask gown, he asks them when he should lay his head on the block, adding that he does not know because he has never been beheaded before.
Perhaps the sole requirement of a nation’s good humour is that it should be sufficient for its citizens. If so, there is no doubt that English people are well served, for they do love their own wit. ‘No country’s mirth is better than our own,’ writes Ben Jonson. The queen herself is known for her sense of humour. One day the earl of Oxford breaks wind as he bows down in front of her. Mortified, he leaves court immediately and does not return for seven years. When he finally does come back, the queen greets him cheerfully with the quip, ‘My lord, I had forgotten the fart.’ One could go on citing examples – and it is hard to resist. ‘Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set,’ smirks Francis Bacon. He also remarks that ‘laws are like cobwebs: the small flies are caught and the great ones break through’. Sir John Harington, the courtier and inventor of the water-closet, quips: ‘Treason doth never prosper; what’s the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.’ Everyone knows the famous poem ‘The Passionate Shepherd to his Love’ by Christopher Marlowe, which begins ‘Come live with me and be my love, and we will all the pleasures prove …’ In his rejoinder, ‘The Nymph’s reply to the Passionate Shepherd’, Sir Walter Raleigh writes:
If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd’s tongue
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love.
And so on. Let one more example suffice, for quickness of wit on the spur of the moment. John Manningham of the Middle Temple records in his journal for 13 March 1602 a performance of Shakespeare’s play Richard the Third, in which Richard Burbage plays the title role. A female member of the audience grows so smitten with Burbage that she urges him to come to her that same night. She tells him to knock on her door and announce himself as ‘Richard the Third’. Shakespeare overhears their conversation and goes to the lady’s chamber first. When the appointed hour arrives, Burbage knocks on the door and announces that ‘Richard the Third’ has arrived – only to hear Shakespeare reply from within: ‘William the Conqueror came before Richard the Third.’12
Literacy and Printing
Formal education is one of the things that changes rapidly in the sixteenth century. The Tudor monarchs have a huge need for literate men to fill bureaucratic offices, taking on everything from corresponding with foreign agents to the production of baptism, marriage and burial registers for every parish in the country. With such a high value placed on literacy, people increasingly recognise that there are financial advantages to educating their sons. But more importantly, the increasing availability of books in English encourages many people to teach themselves to read, including women. Recipes for meals, medicines and means of cleaning can be found in volumes such as The Good Houswives Treasurie (1588) and Thomas Dawson’s The Good Huswife’s Jewell (1596). If you want to know which herbs to pick to cure an ailment, you can find the answer in a book; likewise if you want to learn about the history of London or the Common Law or how to fire a cannon. Thomas Tusser’s Five hundred points of good husbandry is a good example: it is the essential guide for anyone trying to profit from agriculture. First published in 1573, it is in its thirteenth edition by 1600. There are therefore practical reasons to learn to read in Elizabethan England too.
Printing is often described as one of the greatest inventions in human history. It certainly sets the Elizabethan world apart from the medieval. But it is the mass production of books in English that prompts the shift to a more literary culture, not printing itself. Books produced in the fifteenth century were intended to be as fine and desirable as illuminated manuscripts; they were produced in relatively short print runs and were very expensive as a result. They were also predominantly scholarly in subject matter and mostly written in Latin. These could never have induced a revolution in reading. It is the availability of self-help books in English from the 1540s, as well as controversial texts on religion and new works of literature, that induces a revolution in reading.
One book above all others transforms reading: the English Bible. The Bible in the vernacular is the ultimate self-help book, allowing the reader to consider the word of God and its meanings for himself or herself; thus it is the most desired of all books in the sixteenth century. Most copies of William Tyndale
’s first edition of his translation of the Bible (1526) are destroyed by the authorities as soon as they are printed, but the first authorised translation, ‘the Great Bible’ (1539), quickly becomes a prized possession. The same can be said of the Geneva Bible (1560) and the Bishops’ Bible (1568). If you travel through England in 1600, almost every self-respecting yeoman householder has a Bible, often alongside a psalter, a prayer book and an almanac.13 The desire to read thus takes over from education: people start to teach themselves. As a result, male literacy increases from about 10 per cent in 1500 to about 25 per cent in 1600. Female literacy similarly increases, from less than 1 per cent to about 10 per cent. More than 400,000 people in England can read by the end of Elizabeth’s reign.
Which books are available in English apart from the Bible? Take 1594 as an example. That year 269 titles are published, 228 of them in English. The booksellers’ stalls in St Paul’s Churchyard are stocked with new titles ranging from practical arithmetic to religion, including bibles, Acts of Parliament and sermons. But you will also find such titles as Robert Greene’s Anatomy of fortune. Wherein is disoursed by a pithie and pleasant discourse that the highest state of prosperitie is oft times the first step to mishap and that to stay upon fortune’s lot is to tread upon brittle glass. Gardeners have a choice of Thomas Hill’s The Gardener’s Labyrinth … with instructions for the choise of seedes, apt times for sowing, setting, planting and watering and the anonymous The Orchard and the Garden, containing certaine necessarie, secret and ordinarie knowledges in grafting and gardening. The year 1594 also sees the publication of two veterinary works: a new edition of Sir Nicholas Malby’s A plaine and easie waye to remedye a horse that is foundered in his feete and the anonymous Remedies for the diseases in horses. The human-medicine section of the bookstall is enlarged with John Hester’s translation of The Pearl of Practise for Physick and chirurgerie (surgery) and a similarly salutary Good councell against the plague … shewing sundry preservatives for the same, by holsome fumes, drinkes, vomits and other inward receits. These will be read carefully by men and women responsible for the health of their families; medical books for professional physicians still tend to be written in Latin. Female readers might also pick up a copy of the anonymous A good huswife’s handmaide for the kitchen, containing many principal pointes of cookerie as well as how to dresse meates, after sundrie the best fashions used in England and other countries, with their apt and proper sawces … or W. A.’s much more straightforwardly titled A booke of Cookrye. But it will be the chance to lay your hands on a first edition of a literary classic that will really appeal. You might choose Michael Drayton’s Matilda, Henry Constable’s sonnets or Samuel Daniel’s Delia. But perhaps Drayton’s Peirs Gaveston earle of Cornwall is more to your fancy? Somehow I suspect you will pass over Drayton’s epic poem of the reign of Edward II for another work concerned with the same subject: the first edition of Christopher Marlowe’s masterpiece The troublesome raigne and lamentable death of Edward the second, king of England, with the tragicall fall of proud Mortimer. Just possibly you will see a treasure that might cause you even to drop Marlowe. By the north door of St Paul’s Cathedral there is a bookshop known as the Gun, where Edward White and Thomas Millington do business: they have in some copies of the quarto editions of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus. Look around further and you might find unsold first editions of Shakespeare’s The first part of the contention between the two famous houses of Yorke and Lancaster (better known to us as Henry VI Part Two), and his poems Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594).
The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England Page 13