Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History

by Bucholz, Robert

  Despite in-migration from the countryside, most big towns went through a period of decline or stagnation in the sixteenth century, growing again only at its end. There were many reasons for this: the Dissolution of the Monasteries (which eradicated the business and tourism associated with pilgrimage while saddling towns with greater social responsibilities), the increasing decentralization of wool manufacture into provincial market towns and villages (which hurt larger regional centers like Norwich), and the rise of London as the country’s chief port. In 1520 London was already far and away the greatest city in England with perhaps 60,000 people. By 1600 it had grown to about 200,000 people and by the end of the seventeenth century it would reach over half a million.39 This was twice the rate of growth being experienced in the rest of the country. No wonder that James I worried that “with time England will only be London and the whole country be left waste.”40 In fact, while London’s phenomenal expansion offended believers in the Great Chain such as King James, it served as a demographic safety valve, absorbing people from the countryside who could not find work at home. Foreign refugees from the Wars of Religion, especially Dutch and French Protestants, also found safety and employment in London. At a higher social level, London provided opportunities for younger sons and apprentices to make their fortunes, while the landed elite could come to court and sample its cultural and intellectual life.

  In fact, early modern London needed these immagrants to grow, for its death rate was higher than its birth rate: out of every 1,000 people, 35 would be born each year, but 40 would die.41 The reasons for this are not difficult to understand. The metropolis was crowded and full of disease and crime, leading to an average life expectancy of only 25–30 years; there was a shortage of female immigrants; and apprentices, who comprised a high proportion of London’s population, were forbidden to marry. Epidemics were devastating: the plague killed 17,000 in 1563, 25,000 in 1603, and 26,000 in 1625 – over 20 percent of the population in each case. Thus, in order to grow at the rate noted above, between 6,000 and 8,000 new people had to come to London every year. What with in- and out-migration, perhaps one-sixth of all English people lived in London at some time in their lives.

  According to historian E. A. Wrigley, these facts had a profound effect on England as a whole. First, the growing city had to be fed. As a result, farms in Essex and Kent were forced to improve production rates and grain merchants to improve distribution. Cattle were driven from as far as Wales. In the years following 1603 a true market economy developed and England’s transportation system was forced to keep up via the dredging of rivers and better roads, carriages, wagons, and carrying services. The English shipping industry likewise expanded to service not only foreign trade but also the crucial coastal trade that supplied London with fish and coal from the north and west. By 1700 sophisticated credit facilities (bonds and bills of exchange), a penny post, and newspapers would arise, in part to facilitate trade and communication between capital and countryside.

  In the meantime, the London experience must have had profound social, cultural, and psychological effects on all immigrants. Imagine having grown up in the countryside in a small and relatively quiet village, with its own calendar and traditions. Everyone knew everyone else. Now imagine arriving in London to find more people crowded into one place than you had ever experienced in your life. The sights, the noise, the smells would have been nearly overwhelming. Many complained of London’s stink and filth. In 1606 Thomas Dekker was more concerned with noise and crowding:

  In every street, carts and coaches make such a thundering as if the world ran upon wheels: at every corner, men, women, and children meet in such shoals, that posts are set up of purpose to strengthen the houses, lest with jostling one another they should shoulder them down. Besides, hammers are beating in one place, tubs hooping in another, pots clinking in a third, water tankards running at tilt in a fourth.42

  Unlike the narrow world of the village, here you would encounter individuals from every part of England and many parts of Europe, with different accents and, perhaps, different religious and social traditions from yours. Your own customs would soon be left behind as irrelevant. Where, in the village, the sun and agricultural seasons (spring for planting, autumn for harvest) determined time, now your day ran according to your master’s watch; your job as a servant or a tradesman carried on irrespective of the season. Disease and sudden death would have been even more prevalent than in the village. This, plus changing economic opportunities, meant that your business relationships and friendships would be made and broken far more quickly, far more casually, and far more often than in the village. Membership in a livery company did provide a social network and safety net. But after peaking at three-quarters of London’s adult male population in 1550, guild membership declined. For those who did not join, London might be a very lonely place, especially for someone used to close, paternalistic village life. But if you had found the village community stifling, with its lack of privacy and enforcement of communal norms by your neighbors through rough music, skimmingtons, gossip, etc., you might revel in the economic opportunity, freedom, and anonymity to be found in the city.

  London was at once the capital, court, legal headquarters, chief port, and entertainment center for the entire country. In many ways, it was really two cities joined by a river (see map 10): the city of London proper (i.e., more or less within the walls, ruled by the lord mayor and court of aldermen); and the borough of Westminster (administered by 12 burgesses selected by the dean of Westminster Abbey). First, let us examine the river. The River Thames was the reason for London’s existence in the first place. As with the English Channel and the seas around the British Isles, the Thames was a highway, connecting the southern interior of England with the Channel, those seas, and the continent. London sat at a crossroads: the westernmost point on the river wide enough for big ships to dock; the easternmost point narrow enough for land traffic to cross. This made London an intersection between traffic north–south and east–west. London Bridge (see plate 11) had linked the north and south banks of the Thames since the twelfth century. In fact, London mostly developed on its northern bank; to the south was the suburb of Southwark. Here, on the fringe of the city’s jurisdiction, flourished theaters such as the Rose and the Globe, bear-gardens (for bear- and bull-baiting), brothels, and taverns. In short, if you wanted an exciting – or a dangerous – time in London, you headed across the bridge.

  But for most Londoners, the crucial connection was between London in the east and Westminster in the west, between city and court. Since the road connecting London to Westminster, known as the Strand, was still not entirely (or reliably) paved in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the river continued to be London’s chief east–west link via watermen and their barges, which operated as water-taxis for its inhabitants. It was also its chief source of wealth, for the river below London Bridge and to the east was full of docks, and ships, lighters, and barges waiting to use them. These brought immense profits into the oldest part of London, later known as “the City” (map 10). “The City” is modern shorthand for the financial district which still sits within the square mile once bounded by the old Roman city walls. Here, ca. 1603, might be found the Guildhall, London’s city hall, where its lord mayor and 25 aldermen met to govern the metropolis; numerous smaller halls which housed the livery companies associated with each trade; Cheapside, a broad street lined with shops; and the Royal Exchange, built by Sir Thomas Gresham (ca. 1518–79) in 1566–7, where merchants met to strike deals. The merchants who struck those deals helped make London England’s greatest center of wealth. The greatest merchants would serve as aldermen: of 140 aldermen serving under James I, over a third died worth £20,000 or more. Loans from the London corporation and merchant community were crucial to the government, especially during crises. That, combined with its prestigious civic government and its great population, made the city a vital ally or a dangerous enemy to any royal regime.

  Map 10 Lon
don ca. 1600.

  Plate 11 Visscher’s panorama of London, 1616 (detail). The British Library.

  The city skyline was dominated by the spires of 96 parish churches and, towering over even them, old St. Paul’s Cathedral. The other landmark recognizable to all Londoners was the Tower of London, at once a former royal palace, a fortress that dominated the river approaches to the city, and a royal prison for high-ranking political prisoners. Here, the Tudors’ most prominent victims had met their ends. Apart from these great buildings, London within the walls was a maze of narrow medieval alleys and courts dominated by multi-story ramshackle wood and plaster buildings, their eaves projecting into the street. Many had been thrown up hurriedly to deal with the population explosion and were none too safe. These narrow lanes and rickety buildings, lacking modern sewer facilities or street lighting, bred crime, disease, and fire. They thus help to explain why London was such a dangerous place and, more particularly, why its death rate was so high.

  Plate 12 A view of Westminster, by Hollar. Palace of Westminster Collection.

  No wonder the royal family had long since abandoned the Tower and the city within the walls to move west, upriver and upwind, to the network of palaces around Westminster (map 10). Unlike neighboring London, Westminster was not an independent city with its own charter and government but an unincorporated part of Middlesex and the seat of royal government. At Westminster might be found a complex of buildings which formed the nation’s administrative heart (see plate 12). First, there was Westminster Abbey, where English monarchs were crowned and, prior to 1820, buried. Close by was Westminster Hall, originally a part of Westminster Palace but in 1603 the site of the courts of King’s Bench, Common Pleas, and Chancery. The law courts drew the elite to London, for the complications of land inheritance and purchase caused frequent litigation. Another such drawing card was Westminster Palace, located on the river, which was the home of the Houses of Parliament. This ancient structure was donated by Henry VIII to Parliament when he acquired Whitehall, just a few yards away, in 1529. The building was never adequate, either as a royal palace or the site of a legislature. It was to burn down in 1834 and be replaced by the present, far more splendid, Palace of Westminster.

  But the most significant attraction to London for the upper classes was the court at Whitehall. This massive, disorganized series of riverside buildings, consisting of well over 1,000 rooms, had been built for Cardinal Wolsey as York Place. Henry VIII confiscated it, renamed it, expanded it, and made it the sovereign’s principal London residence in 1529. Henceforth, Whitehall was the place where the great offices of Tudor and early Stuart government, such as the Privy Council and Exchequer, met; indeed, to this day the word “Whitehall” is synonymous with government in Britain. Thus, this was where the monarch’s chief ministers and foreign ambassadors might be found and conversed with, privately if necessary. This was where the latest play or poem or fashion or invention often made its first appearance. Above all, this was where the sovereign, God’s lieutenant on earth, attended the council; appeared in the Presence Chamber; presided over elaborate balls, plays, masques, or State dinners; and might be approached, and begged for favor. Courtiers thronged Whitehall’s galleries hoping to be noticed for bravery or beauty or talent or wit. As in Hollywood today, most failed. Still, if one wished to rise in the world or found a great family in 1603, one went to court.

  In order to be close to all of this opportunity, the aristocracy increasingly followed the court by moving west. As we have seen, many young gentlemen acquired a smattering of legal knowledge and social polish at the Inns of Court, four law schools (the Middle Temple, Inner Temple, Lincoln’s Inn, and Gray’s Inn) located just west of the walled city. Before the Reformation, wealthy bishops had built enormous palaces along the Strand between London proper and Westminster. After the confiscations of the mid-sixteenth century these palaces were awarded to great courtiers, many of whom renovated or rebuilt them. Thus, Protector Somerset built Somerset House and the earl of Essex, Essex House. The Russell family, earls of Bedford, had even bigger plans. They acquired a parcel of former Church land just west of the City and north of the Strand called Covent (i.e., Convent) Garden. In the 1630s they commissioned the architect Inigo Jones (1573–1652) to design accommodation for gentlemen who attended the royal court or the law courts. The result was the first London square, a form of civic design modeled on the open Italian piazzas and intended to provide airy yet private housing. During the seventeenth century, the ambitious aristocrats who flocked to court, along with rising merchants and professionals, would push even further westward, leading to the building of additional squares throughout what became known as the West End of London.

  Trade, Exploration, and Colonization

  London, like most cities, rose or fell on the profits from trade. At the end of the Middle Ages, international trade was dominated by great trading companies, the most famous of which was the Hanseatic League. The Hanseatic League was a union of merchants from Northern Germany who had been given trading privileges by certain countries, including England. Such leagues and unions were not investment opportunities; rather, they were like modern trade associations and lobbying groups. To maintain their privileges, they might build fleets of warships or lobby governments to keep out interlopers. Indeed, the Hansa maintained privileged trade zones in several English ports and even helped fund the Yorkists during the Wars of the Roses. In 1407 the English began to carve out a piece of the lucrative wool trade in Northern Europe by chartering their own rival to the Hanseatic League, the Merchant Adventurers. In theory, they were a national company, but most Merchant Adventurers were Londoners. This led to London’s increasing domination of that trade and the gradual decline of other wool ports, like Southampton. During the sixteenth century the Merchant Adventurers and port of London dominated England’s wool trade, which comprised at least three-quarters of the nation’s foreign trade. Before 1550 they shipped mainly raw wool to the continent for finishing; increasingly after 1550 finished wool cloth in England itself. The wool was sent from London to some great European port, usually Antwerp, where it was distributed to the continent. The Merchant Adventurers persuaded Parliament to wrest English trading privileges from the Hanseatic League in 1553, grant them a monopoly on cloth exports in 1564, and have the Hanseatic merchants expelled from England altogether in 1598.

  As their parliamentary influence implies, the Merchant Adventurers were fabulously wealthy and powerful, the greatest of them rivaling important nobles in these respects. No government could afford to offend or ignore them, for their loans, their ships, and their ability to move goods might come in very handy in time of war. They dominated the corporation and city government of big port cities: between 1550 and 1580 nearly every lord mayor of London was a Merchant Adventurer. These men lived in great multi-story, multi-chimneyed houses, their rooms decorated with molded plaster ceilings, expensive tapestries, and ornate carved furniture, their presses brimming with gold and silver plate, their closets bulging with expensive gowns lined with velvet and fur. And yet, by the end of the Tudor period, their power and privilege was crumbling.

  The main reason for this was the increasing stagnation of the wool trade. The wool trade was England’s one major industry through the first half of the early modern period; its tentacles reached deep into the countryside, connecting remote villages with market towns and big cities. Shepherds and farm wives raised sheep in all parts of England, but especially in the rugged and forested country of the North, West, and Wales. These sheep were shorn in spring. The wool was carded or combed in the village, then spun into wool thread and woven into heavy wool broadcloth for sale to big London merchants (i.e., Merchant Adventurers). At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the last two steps in the manufacturing process took place in big towns, but by its end, technological improvements in spinning machines and looms made it possible to farm out even this part of the process to smaller towns and country villages, hence a decline in urban manufac
ture.

  Wool had been a very lucrative commodity through the boom years of the Yorkist and early Tudor periods. But by about 1550 this trade began to experience a century of stagnation or slow growth, punctuated by dramatic slumps in 1551–2, 1562–4, 1571–3, 1586–7, 1614–16, 1621–4, 1641–2, and the 1650s. One reason for the leveling off of wool exports was the chaotic political, religious, and military situation of Europe during the period 1550–1650. The Merchant Adventurers’ shipments to Antwerp were disrupted by the Wars of Religion, the Dutch revolt, the war against Spain, and, from 1618 to 1648, the Thirty Years’ War. As a result, after 1568, Antwerp was often closed to English trade. While the Merchant Adventurers found other ports in these storms (Emden, Hamburg, Stade), none was as convenient to them or to their customers as Antwerp. In addition, wool prices began to fall at the end of the sixteenth century because the European market was flooded. The inhabitants of the continent had enough heavy English wool. English manufacturers responded to this situation by embracing new, lighter, cheaper forms of wool cloth introduced by Protestant refugees from Europe, known as the “new draperies.” These were moderately successful, leading to some good years at the beginning of the seventeenth century. But the overall foreign demand for wool continued to lessen and its price to fall. During the bad years noted above merchant incomes stagnated, clothworkers lost their jobs, and farm families were unable to supplement their incomes in areas highly dependent on the trade, such as the West Country, Kent, Suffolk, and the north Midlands. Other areas saw regional industries pick up the slack: tin mining in Cornwall, lead in Derbyshire and Somerset, and coal around Newcastle and in Nottinghamshire and North Wales; ironmaking in Kent and Sussex; steelworking in and about Sheffield; pottery in Staffordshire; and shipbuilding along the Thames estuary. Coal shipments from the northeast to London alone rose from 50,000 tons in the 1580s to 300,000 tons in the 1640s. Under Elizabeth the Privy Council encouraged native industry and by 1640 England no longer had to import soap, starch, glass, paper, or pins. But none of these undertakings was large enough to put the nation to work. In early modern England, for good or ill, wool was still king.