0308B

Overseas migration was not all one way. The first English settlements in North America, were small, transient and poorly organised, but pregnant with promise for the future. There were more sustained attempts to encourage English settlement in Ireland. The success of the Protestant Reformation in England and its failure in Ireland created an antagonism based on religion more embittered than that between English and Irish. Under Elizabeth a small but determined colonial elite of soldiers, administrators and lawyers worked hard to impose English law, institutions and Protestantism on the Catholic population not just the Gaelic-speaking Irish, but Catholics of English descent, who regarded themselves as English. The resistance they provoked culminated in 1594 in a bloody, dirty war, which was still raging in 1600, and left much of Ireland a wasteland. Attempts to attract British settlers proved less successful than the programme of anglicisation. As yet, few Scots made the short crossing to Ulster and English farmers and craftsmen were reluctant to brave the risks of emigrating to what was seen as a potentially fruitful land, with a barbarous and hostile populace. The most numerically significant emigration, in fact, was to the northern provinces of the Netherlands. The many thousands who migrated from England and Scotland included religious dissidents, soldiers who fought, for pay or principle, in the Dutch war of independence against Spain, and artisans and sailors, seeking work in Amsterdam and other cities, which, by 1600, were among the most dynamic commercial and manufacturing centres in Europe.
With the possible exception of London, few British towns showed much evidence of such dynamism. For most, the decades before 1600 had been difficult, with economic stagnation and a growing problem of poverty. Nevertheless, many benefited from a growth in internal trade and in the purchasing power of landowners and farmers, who came to town to buy provisions and consumer goods. As the crown granted more towns the right to govern themselves, many celebrated by building town or market halls, but usually that was the limit of civic building: most almshouses and grammar schools were endowed by wealthy individuals. Most towns were congested and unplanned. As the population grew, they became more crowded, with subdivision or extension of existing houses and shacks and sheds appearing in back alleys and courts. Where the town had walls, more houses were built outside, in what became overcrowded and often unhealthy suburbs, denounced by respectable citizens for attracting the work-shy, the immoral and the criminal. This was equally true of London. As the capital came to engross more and more of the nation's overseas trade - well over half by 1600 - it grew in both population and wealth: by 1600 its population was over ten times that of Norwich or Bristol. Much of this expansion took place within the walls of the medieval city, despite the city fathers' attempts to prevent subdivision and infilling and to keep out lodgers. But the suburbs were also growing, along the eastern fringes of the City of London and the waterfront east of London Bridge, along the Strand to Westminster and across the river in Southwark. As elsewhere, the City corporation denounced the suburbs as centres of disease, foreign immigrants and crime, free of the regulations and labour discipline imposed within the City.
This discussion of urban development has focused on lowland England. A similar picture, on a smaller scale, would apply to the Lowlands of Scotland. But urban development requires a degree of order, in which trade can flourish. The upland areas of Scotland - the Highlands and Islands, the Borders - and most of Wales were notoriously lawless, dominated by the chiefs of clans or �names�. In a violent and brutal world the chiefs offered rudimentary protection and plunder and as such commanded loyalty, reinforced by a sense of 'family'. In Scotland the lords owned the local law courts, which gave them virtually absolute power over the peasantry. In 1500 similar social relationships could be found in much of upland England, especially the North: the tenants of the Earls of Northumberland, and their clients among the knights and gentry, traditionally put their loyalty to the earl before their loyalty to the crown. The relationship between lord and man was personal and reciprocal, resting on protection and reward in return for service. It was based on material self-interest and the need for physical protection and on a complex of loyalties between families which had grown up over generations and a value system which emphasised honour and mutual support. The North was a militarised zone, with much fending, rustling and crossborder raiding, as well as a need for constant preparedness against the Scots.
By 1500 the honour culture, which remained dominant in the North, had waned in lowland England. Whereas in the North, noble power offered a measure of order and redress for injuries, in the South order and redress had long been available through the law courts. Under weak kings powerful men had perverted the course of justice, but the Tudors were determined that this should not happen. Using exemplary punishments, they made it clear that recourse to violence and the abuse of power would not be tolerated. In addition, changes in military technology, especially the use of fire-arms, made the nobles' knightly skills appear outdated, and by 1600 their traditional military role had atrophied - at least in England. New nobles were recruited not among soldiers but from the king's civil servants - who from Henry VIII's reign were normally laymen, not priests. The ethos of the nobility became civilian rather than military and successive monarchs, from Henry VIII to Elizabeth, emphasised that the first loyalty of all subjects was to the monarch: the old honour culture was no longer acceptable. Disputes should be settled through the courts, not by force; and the law should run its course free from undue pressure from powerful men. With relatively impartial and impersonal justice available through the courts, lesser men no longer needed the protection of greater and to use violence in settling disputes became counterproductive. The English remained quarrelsome and often violent, especially when drunk; but the scale of violence was much diminished.
The consequences of this change were profound. By 1600 the English were probably the least militarised people in Europe. The state had a near-monopoly of weaponry: since the establishment of the militia in 1558, an increasing proportion of firearms were kept in county magazines, while private armouries contained weapons which were ornamental rather than functional. Town walls, once vital for defence, were allowed to decay: if they were maintained, it was to keep out undesirable incomers, especially plague carriers. Aristocratic houses changed too. The last major fortification of an English nobleman's home was at Kenilworth in the 1570s, but already this seemed anachronistic. New great houses, like Longleat (completed 1580) or Burghley House (started in 1555), were unfortified, concerned more with comfort and elegance than with defence. In older houses, the great hall, where the lord had dined with his retainers, was divided up into smaller, family-sized rooms. Gardens and landscaping, an expensive irrelevance in the days when nobles feared military assault, were becoming necessary areas of aristocratic display. England by 1600 had become an ordered and orderly society.
It had also become a much more governed society, even though the Tudors possessed no police force or standing army and their civil service was minuscule. Local government was self-government. Power lay in the hands of the 'better sort', in an economic and often a moral sense. In the counties, gentlemen justices of the peace maintained order and oversaw local administration. In towns, members of the business elite served as aldermen, dispensed justice and relieved (and disciplined) the poor. In rural parishes, farmers and craftsmen served as churchwardens and constables and tried to maintain good order. As the coercive power of the nobility withered away, citizens of all ranks, from peers to peasants, shouldered the obligations of office within their communities. Local officials took on new responsibilities, enforcing apprenticeship regulations and religious uniformity and (eventually) relieving the poor. These new tasks were imposed on them by Acts of Parliament: the 16th century saw an increase in the power of both the crown (notably through the assertion of the royal supremacy over the church) and Parliament (which legislated on more and more topics). Crown and Parliament co-operated in making the governance of England more comprehensive and effective.
More in Part C....