Chapter XX: Appendix: III (2)

The communication with Muscovy had been opened in Queen Mary’s time by the discovery of the passage to Archangel: but the commerce to that country did not begin to be carried on to a great extent till about the year 1569. The queen obtained from the czar an exclusive patent to the English for the whole trade of Muscovy;[*] and she entered into a personal as well as national alliance with him. This czar was named John Basilides, a furious tyrant, who, continually suspecting the revolt of his subjects, stipulated to have a safe retreat and protection in England. In order the better to insure this resource, he purposed to marry an English woman; and the queen intended to have sent him Lady Anne Hastings; daughter of the earl of Huntingdon: but when the lady was informed of the barbarous manners of the country, she wisely declined purchasing an empire at the expense of her ease and safety.[**]

The English, encouraged by the privileges which they had obtained from Basilides, ventured farther into those countries than any Europeans had formerly done. They transported their goods along the River Dwina in boats made of one entire tree, which they towed and rowed up the stream as far as Walogda. Thence they carried their commodities seven days’ journey by land to Yeraslau, and then down the Volga to Astracan. At Astracan they built ships, crossed the Caspian Sea, and distributed their manufactures into Persia. But this bold attempt met with such discouragements, that it was never renewed.[***]

* Camden, p. 408.

** Camden, p. 493.

*** Camden, p. 418.

After the death of John Basilides, his son Theodore revoked the patent which the English enjoyed for a monopoly of the Russian trade: when the queen remonstrated against this innovation, he told her ministers, that princes must carry an indifferent hand, as well between their subjects as between foreigners; and not convert trade, which, by the laws of nations, ought to be common to all, into a monopoly for the private gain of a few.[*] So much juster notions of commerce were entertained by this barbarian than appear in the conduct of the renowned Queen Elizabeth! Theodore, however, continued some privileges to the English, on account of their being the discoverers of the communication between Europe and his country.

The trade to Turkey commenced about the year 1583; and that commerce was immediately confined to a company by Queen Elizabeth. Before that time, the grand seignior had always conceived England to be a dependent province of France;[**] but having heard of the queen’s power and reputation, he gave a good reception to the English, and even granted them larger privileges than he had given to the French.

* Camden, p. 493.

** Birch’s Memoirs, vol. i. p. 36

The merchants of the Hanse Towns complained loudly, in the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign, of the treatment which they had received in the reigns of Edward and Mary. She prudently replied, that as she would not innovate any thing, she would still protect them in the immunities and privileges of which she found them possessed. This answer not contenting them, their commerce was soon after suspended for a time, to the great advantage of the English merchants, who tried what they could themselves effect for promoting their commerce. They took the whole trade into their own hands; and their returns proving successful, they divided themselves into staplers and merchant adventurers; the former residing constantly at one place, the latter trying their fortunes in other towns and states abroad with cloth and other manufactures. This success so enraged the Hanse Towns, that they tried all the methods which a discontented people could devise, to draw upon the English merchants the ill opinion of other nations and states. They prevailed so far as to obtain an imperial edict, by which the English were prohibited all commerce in the empire: the queen, by way of retaliation, retained sixty of their ships, which had been seized in the River Tagus with contraband goods of the Spaniards. These ships the queen intended to have restored, as desiring to have compromised all differences with those trading cities; but when she was informed, that a general assembly was held at Lubec, in order to concert measures for distressing the English trade, she caused the ships and cargoes to be confiscated: only two of them were released to carry home the news, and to inform these states, that she had the greatest contempt imaginable for all their proceedings.[*]

Henry VIII., in order to fit out a navy, was obliged to hire ships from Hamburgh, Lubec, Dantzic, Genoa, and Venice, but Elizabeth, very early in her reign, put affairs upon a better footing; both by building some ships of her own, and by encouraging the merchants to build large trading vessels which, on occasion, were converted into ships of war.[**] In the year 1582, the seamen in England were found to be fourteen thousand two hundred and ninety-five men;[***] the number of vessels twelve hundred and thirty-two; of which there were only two hundred and seventeen above eighty tons. Monson pretends, that though navigation decayed in the first years of James I., by the practice of the merchants, who carried on their trade in foreign bottoms,[****] yet, before the year 1640, this number of seamen was tripled in England.[v]

The navy which the queen left at her decease appears considerable, when we reflect only on the number of vessels, which were forty-two: but when we consider that none of these ships carried above forty guns; that four only came up to that number; that there were but two ships of a thousand tons; and twenty-three below five hundred, some of fifty, and some even of twenty tons; and that the whole number of guns belonging to the fleet was seven hundred and seventy four;[v*] we must entertain a contemptible idea of the English navy, compared to the force which it has now attained.[*] In the year 1588, there were not above five vessels fitted out by the noblemen and seaports, which exceeded two hundred tons.[v**] [40]

* Lives of the Admirals, vol. i. p. 470.

** Camden, p. 388.

*** Monson, p. 256.

**** Monson, p. 300.

v Monson, p. 210, 256.

v* Monson, p. 196. The English navy at present carries about
fourteen thousand guns.

v** See note NN, at the end of the volume.
Monson, p. 300. Spaniards; and the queen equipped a
fleet and levied an army in a fortnight to oppose them.
Nothing gave foreigners a higher idea of the power of
England than this sudden armament.

In the year 1575, all the militia in the kingdom were computed at a hundred and eighty-two thousand nine hundred and twenty-nine.[*] A distribution was made, in the year 1595, of a hundred and forty thousand men, besides those which Wales could supply.[**] These armies were formidable by their numbers; but their discipline and experience were not proportionate. Small bodies from Dunkirk and Newport frequently ran over and plundered the east coast: so unfit was the militia, as it was then constituted, for the defence of the kingdom. The lord lieutenants were first appointed to the counties in this reign.

Mr. Murden[***] has published, from the Salisbury collections, a paper which contains the military force of the nation at the time of the Spanish armada, and which is somewhat different from the account given by our ordinary historians. It makes all the able-bodied men of the kingdom amount to a hundred and eleven thousand five hundred and thirteen; those armed, to eighty thousand eight hundred and seventy-five; of whom forty-four thousand seven hundred and twenty-seven were trained. It must be supposed that these able-bodied men consisted of such only as were registered, otherwise the small number is not to be accounted for. Yet Sir Edward Coke[****] said, in the house of commons, that he was employed about the same time, together with Popham, chief justice, to take a survey of all the people of England, and that they found them to be nine hundred thousand of all sorts. This number, by the ordinary rules of computation, supposes that there were above two hundred thousand men able to bear arms. Yet even this number is surprisingly small. Can we suppose that the kingdom is six or seven times more populous at present? and that Murden’s was the real number of men, excluding Catholics, and children, and infirm persons?

* Lives of the Admirals, vol. i. p. 432.

** Strype, vol. iv. p. 221

*** Page 608.

**** Journ. 25 April 1621.

Harrison says, that in the musters taken in the years 1574 and 1575, the men fit for service amounted to one million one hundred and seventy-two thousand six hundred and seventy-four; yet was it believed that a full third was omitted. Such uncertainty and contradiction are there in all these accounts.

Notwithstanding the greatness of this number, the same author complains much of the decay of populousness; a vulgar complaint in all places and all ages. Guicciardini makes the inhabitants of England in this reign amount to two millions.

Whatever opinion we may form of the comparative populousness of England in different periods, it must be allowed that, abstracting from the national debt, there is a prodigious increase of power in that, more perhaps than in any other European state, since the beginning of the last century. It would be no paradox to affirm, that Ireland alone could, at present, exert a greater force than all the three kingdoms were capable of at the death of Queen Elizabeth. And we might go further, and assert, that one good county in England is able to make, at least to support, a greater effort than the whole kingdom was capable of in the reign of Henry V.; when the maintenance of a garrison in a small town like Calais, formed more than a third of the ordinary national expense. Such are the effects of liberty, industry, and good government!

The state of the English manufactures was at this time very low; and foreign wares of almost all kinds had the preference.[*] About the year 1590, there were in London four persons only rated in the subsidy books so high as four hundred pounds.[**] This computation is not indeed to be deemed an exact estimate of their wealth. In 1567, there were found, on inquiry, to be four thousand eight hundred and fifty-one strangers of all nations in London; of whom three thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight were Flemings, and only fifty-eight Scots.[***] The persecutions in France and the Low Countries drove afterwards a greater number of foreigners into England; and the commerce, as well as manufactures of that kingdom, was very much improved by them.[****] It was then that Sir Thomas Gresham built, at his own charge, the magnificent fabric of the Exchange for the reception of the merchants: the queen visited it, and gave it the appellation of the Royal Exchange.

* D’Ewes, p. 505.

** D’Ewes, p. 497.

*** Haynes, p. 461, 462.

**** Stowe, p. 668.

By a lucky accident in language, which has a great effect on men’s ideas, the invidious word usury which formerly meant the taking of any interest for money, came now to express only the taking of exorbitant and illegal interest. An act passed in 1571 violently condemns all usury; but permits ten per cent, interest to be paid. Henry IV. of France reduced Interest to six and a half per cent.; an indication of the great advance of France above England in commerce.

Dr. Howell says,[*] that Queen Elizabeth, in the third of her reign, was presented with a pair of black silk knit stockings by her silk-woman, and never wore cloth hose any more. The author of the Present State of England, says, that about 1577, pocket watches were first brought into England from Germany. They are thought to have been invented at Nurem berg. About 1580, the use of coaches was introduced by the earl of Arundel.[**] Before that time, the queen, on public occasions, rode behind her chamberlain.

Camden says, that in 1581, Randolph, so much employed by the queen in foreign embassies, possessed the office of postmaster-general of England. It appears, therefore, that posts were then established; though from Charles I.’s regulations in 1635, it would seem that few post-houses were erected before that time.

In a remonstrance of the Hanse Towns to the diet of the empire, in 1582, it is affirmed that England exported annually about two hundred thousand pieces of cloth.[***] This number seems to be much exaggerated.

In the fifth of this reign was enacted the first law for the relief of the poor.

A judicious author of that age confirms the vulgar observation, that the kingdom was depopulating, from the increase of enclosures and decay of tillage; and he ascribes the reason very justly to the restraints put oh the exportation of corn; while full liberty was allowed to export all the produce of pasturage, such as wool, hides, leather, tallow, etc. These prohibitions of exportation were derived from the prerogative, and were very injudicious. The queen once, on the commencement of her reign, had tried a contrary practice, and with good success. From the same author we learn, that the complaints renewed in our time were then very common, concerning the high prices of every thing.[****]

* History of the World, vol. ii. p. 222.

** Anderson, vol. i. p. 421.

*** Anderson, voL i. p. 424.

**** A compendious or brief Examination of certain ordinary
Complaints of divers of our Countrymen. The author says,
that in twenty or thirty years before 1581, commodities had
in general risen fifty per cent.; some more. “Cannot you,
neighbor, remember,” say she “that, indeed, to have been two
periods, in which prices rose remarkably in England;” namely,
that in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, when they are computed to
have doubled, and that in the present age. Between the two,
there seems to have been a stagnation. It would appear, that
industry, during that intermediate period, increased as fast
as gold and silver, and kept commodities nearly at a par
with money.

There were two attempts made in this reign to settle colonies in America; one by Sir Humphrey Gilbert in Newfoundland, another by Sir Walter Raleigh in Virginia: but neither of these projects proved successful. All those noble settlements were made in the following reigns. The current specie of the kingdom, in the end of this reign, is computed at four millions.[*]

The earl of Leicester desired Sir Francis Walsingham, then ambassador in France, to provide him with a riding master in that country, to whom he promises a hundred pounds a year, besides maintaining himself and servant and a couple of horses. “I know,” adds the earl, “that such a man as I want may receive higher wages in France: but let him consider, that a shilling in England goes as far as two shillings in France.” [**] It is known that every thing is much changed since that time.

The nobility in this age still supported, in some degree, the ancient magnificence in their hospitality, and in the numbers of their retainers; and the queen found it prudent to retrench, by proclamation, their expenses in this last particular.[***] The expense of hospitality she somewhat encouraged, by the frequent visits she paid her nobility, and the sumptuous feasts which she received from them.

“I could, in this town, buy the best pig or goose I could
lay my hands on for fourpence, which now costeth
twelvepence; a good capon for threepence or fourpence; a
chicken for a penny; a hen for twopence?” (p. 35.) “Yet the
price of ordinary labor was then eightpence a day,” (p. 31.)

* Lives of the Admirals, vol. i. p. 475.

** Digges’s Complete Ambassador.

*** Strype, vol. iii. Append, p. 54.

Harrison, after enumerating the queen’s palaces, adds, “But what shall I need to take upon me to repeat all, and tell what houses the queen’s majesty hath? Sith all is hers; and when it pleaseth her in the summer season to recreate herself abroad, and view the estate of the country, and hear the complaints of her poor commons injured by her unjust officers or their substitutes, every nobleman’s house is her palace, where she continueth during pleasure and tell her an entertainment in Kenilworth Castle, which was extraordinary for expense and magnificence.” Among other particulars, we are told that three hundred and sixty-five hogsheads of beer were drunk at it.[*] The earl had fortified this castle at great expense; and it contained arms for ten thousand men.[**] The earl of Derby had a family consisting of two hundred and forty servants.[***] Stowe remarks it as a singular proof of beneficence in this nobleman, that he was contented with his rent from his tenants, and exacted not any extraordinary services from them; a proof that the great power of the sovereign (what was almost unavoidable) had very generally countenanced the nobility in tyrannizing over the people. Burleigh, though he was frugal, and had no paternal estate, kept a family consisting of a hundred servants.[****] He had a standing table for gentlemen, and two other tables for persons of meaner condition, which were always served alike, whether he were in town or in the country. About his person he had people of great distinction; insomuch that he could reckon up twenty gentlemen retainers who had each a thousand pounds a year; and as many among his ordinary servants who were worth from a thousand pounds to three, five, ten, and twenty thousand pounds.[v] It is to be remarked, that though the revenues of the crown were at that time very small, the ministers and courtiers sometimes found means, by employing the boundless prerogative, to acquire greater fortunes than it is possible for them at present to amass, from their larger salaries, and more limited authority.

Burleigh entertained the queen twelve several times in his country house; where she remained three, four, or five weeks at a time. Each visit cost him two or three thousand pounds.[v*] The quantity of silver plate possessed by this nobleman is surprising; no less than fourteen or fifteen thousand pounds weight;[v**] which, besides the fashion, would be above forty-two thousand pounds sterling in value. Yet Burleigh left only four thousand pounds a year in land, and eleven thousand pounds in money; and as land was then commonly sold at ten years’ purchase, his plate was nearly equal to all the rest of his fortune. It appears that little value was then put upon the fashion of the plate, which probably was but rude: the weight was chiefly considered.

*“She return again to some of her own, in which she
remaineth so long as she pleaseth.” Book ii. chap. 15.
Surely one may say of such a guest, what Cicero says to
Atticus, on occasion of a visit paid him by Cæsar. “Hospes
tamen non is cui diceres, Amabo te, eodem ad me cum
revertêre.” Lib. xiii. Ep. 52. If she relieved the people
from oppressions, (to whom it seems the law could give no
relief,) her visits were a great oppression on the nobility.

** Biogr. Brit. vol. iii. p. 1791.

*** Strype, vol. iii. p. 394.

**** Stowe, p. 674.

v Strype, vol. iii. p. 129. Append.

v* Life of Burleigh, published by Collins.

v** Life of Burleigh published by Collins, p. 40.

But though there were preserved great remains of the ancient customs, the nobility were by degrees acquiring a taste for elegant luxury; and many edifices, in particular were built by them, neat, large, and sumptuous; to the great ornament of the kingdom, says Camden,[*] [41] but to the no less decay of the glorious hospitality of the nation. It is, however, more reasonable to think, that this new turn of expense promoted arts and industry; while the ancient hospitality was the source of vice, disorder, sedition, and idleness.[**]

Among the other species of luxury, that of apparel began much to increase during this age; and the queen thought proper to restrain it by proclamation.[***] Her example was very little conformable to her edicts. As no woman was ever more conceited of her beauty, or more desirous of making impression on the hearts of beholders, no one ever went to a greater extravagance in apparel, or studied more the variety and richness of her dresses. She appeared almost every day in a different habit; and tried all the several modes by which she hoped to render herself agreeable. She was also so fond of her clothes, that she never could part with any of them; and at her death she had in her wardrobe all the different habits, to the number of three thousand, which she had ever worn in her lifetime.[****] [42]

* See note OO, at the end of the volume.

** This appears from Burleigh’s will: he specifies only the
number of ounces to be given to each legatee, and appoints a
goldsmith to see it weighed out to them, without making any
distinction of the pieces.

**** See note PP, at the end of the volume.

The retrenchment of the ancient hospitality, and the diminution of retainers, were favorable to the prerogative of the sovereign; and, by disabling the great noblemen from resistance, promoted the execution of the laws, and extended the authority of the courts of justice. There were many peculiar causes in the situation and character of Henry VII. which augmented the authority of the crown: most of these causes concurred in succeeding princes; together with the factions in religion, and the acquisition of the supremacy, a most important article of prerogative: but the manners of the age were a general cause, which operated during this whole period, and which continually tended to diminish the riches, and still more the influence, of the aristocracy, anciently so formidable to the crown. The habits of luxury dissipated the immense fortunes of the ancient barons: and as the new methods of expense gave subsistence to mechanics and merchants, who lived in an independent manner on the fruits of their own industry, a nobleman, instead of that unlimited ascendant which he was wont to assume over those who were maintained at his board, or subsisted by salaries conferred on them, retained only that moderate influence which customers have over tradesmen, and which can never be dangerous to civil government. The landed proprietors also, having a greater demand for money than for men, endeavored to turn their lands to the best account with regard to profit; and either enclosing their fields, or joining many small farms into a few large ones, dismissed those useless hands which formerly were always at their call in every attempt to subvert the government, or oppose a neighboring baron. By all these means the cities increased; the middle rank of men began to be rich and powerful; the prince, who in effect was the same with the law, was implicitly obeyed: and though the further progress of the same causes begat a new plan of liberty, founded on the privileges of the commons, yet in the interval between the fall of the nobles and the rise of this order, the sovereign took advantage of the present situation, and assumed an authority almost absolute.

Whatever may be commonly imagined, from the authority of Lord Bacon, and from that of Harrington, and later authors the laws of Henry VII. contributed very little towards the great revolution which happened about this period in the English constitution. The practice of breaking entails by a fine and recovery, had been introduced in the preceding reigns; and this prince only gave indirectly a legal sanction to the practice, by reforming some abuses which attended it. But the settled authority which he acquired to the crown enabled the sovereign to encroach on the separate jurisdictions of the barons, and produced a more general and regular execution of the laws. The counties palatine underwent the same fate as the feudal powers; and, by a statute of Henry VIII.,[*] the jurisdiction of these counties was annexed to the crown, and all writs were ordained to run in the king’s name. But the change of manners was the chief cause of the secret revolution of government, and subverted the power of the barons. There appear still in this reign some remains of the ancient slavery of the boors and peasants,[*] but none afterwards.

Learning, on its revival, was held in high estimation by the English princes and nobles; and as it was not yet prostituted by being too common, even the great deemed it an object of ambition to attain a character for literature. The four successive sovereigns, Henry, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth, may, on one account or other, be admitted into the class of authors. Queen Catharine Parr translated a book: Lady Jane Gray, considering her age, and her sex, and her station, may be regarded as a prodigy of literature. Sir Thomas Smith was raised from being professor in Cambridge, first to be ambassador to France, then secretary of state. The despatches of those times, and among others those of Burleigh himself, are frequently interlarded with quotations from the Greek and Latin classics. Even the ladies of the court valued themselves on knowledge: Lady Burleigh, Lady Bacon, and their two sisters, were mistresses of the ancient as well as modern languages; and placed more pride in their erudition than in their rank and quality.

Queen Elizabeth wrote and translated several books: and she was familiarly acquainted with the Greek as well as Latin tongue.[**] [43]

* 27 Henry VIII. c. 24.

** See note QQ, at the end of the volume.

It is pretended that she made an extemporary reply in Greek to the university of Cambridge, who had addressed her in that language. It is certain that she answered in Latin without premeditation, and in a very spirited manner, to the Polish ambassador, who had been wanting in respect to her. When she had finished, she turned about to her courtiers, and said, “God’s death, my lords,” (for she was much addicted to swearing,) “I have been forced this day to scour up my old Latin, that hath long lain rusting.”[*]

* Speed.

Elizabeth, even after she was queen, did not entirely drop the ambition of appearing as an author; and, next to her desire of admiration for beauty, this seems to have been the chief object of her vanity. She translated Boethius of the Consolation of Philosophy; in order, as she pretended, to allay her grief for Henry IV.’s change of religion. As far us we can judge from Elizabeth’s compositions, we may pronounce that, notwithstanding her application, and her excellent parts, her taste in literature was but indifferent: she was much inferior to her successor in this particular, who was himself no perfect model of eloquence.

Unhappily for literature, at least for the learned of this age, the queen’s vanity lay more in shining by her own learning, than in encouraging men of genius by her liberality. Spenser himself, the finest English writer of his age, was long neglected; and after the death of Sir Philip Sidney, his patron, was allowed to die almost for want. This poet contains great beauties, a sweet and harmonious versification, easy elocution, a fine imagination; yet does the perusal of his work become so tedious, that one never finishes it from the mere pleasure which it affords; it soon becomes a kind of task-reading, and it requires some effort and resolution to carry us on to the end of his long performance. This effect, of which every one is conscious, is usually ascribed to the change of manners: but manners have more changed since Homer’s age; and yet that poet remains still the favorite of every reader of taste and judgment. Homer copied true natural manners, which, however rough or uncultivated, will always form an agreeable and interesting picture; but the pencil of the English poet was employed in drawing the affectations, and conceits, and fopperies of chivalry, which appear ridiculous as soon as they lose the recommendation of the mode. The tediousness of continued allegory, and that, too, seldom striking or ingenious, has also contributed to render the Fairy Queen peculiarly tiresome; not to mention the too great frequency of its descriptions, and the languor of its stanza. Upon the whole, Spenser maintains his place upon the shelves among our English classics; but he is seldom seen on the table; and there is scarcely any one, if he dares to be ingenuous, but will confess, that, notwithstanding all the merit of the poet, he affords an entertainment with which the palate is soon satiated. Several writers of late have amused themselves in copying the style of Spenser; and no imitation has been so indifferent as not to bear a great resemblance to the original: his manner is so peculiar that it is almost impossible not to transfer some of it into the copy.