Elizabeth and finance Flashcards
(31 cards)
How much debt was Elizabeth left with? How did she gain her surplus?
£227, 000 owed to Antwerp
She kept revenue largely the same but reduced expenditure so by 1585 she has a £300, 000 surplus
How did Elizabeth reduce expenditure?
- End war with France
- Reduce royal household
- Used free monopolies
- Froze officials salaries
- Didn’t expand bureaucracy and used unpaid JPs
- Used old palaces such as Hampton Court
How did inflation affect the crown, aristocracy, wage earners and Catholics?
- Crown forced to sell lands as long leases lost value of rent
- Aristocrats sell of land due to leases benefiting gentry
- Rise in rock renting
- Wage earners have low wages and rising population results in 1596 food riots
- Catholics hit by recursant fines
What was the Statute of Artificers?
- 1563
- sets maximum wage and forces unemployed to be laborers
- but wage rise not a cause of inflation and passed on problem to the poor
What was the Statute against the conversions of pasture and Statue against the engrossing of farms?
- 1598
- stop enclosure after Tillage Act repealed
- but enclosure not a main cause, shows confusion over cause
What was the Act for Maintaining Tillage?
- 1563
- prevents enclosure
- repealed in 1593
What was the Statute Regarding the export of corn?
- 1592
- reduces export of corn which causes inflation
- no widespread impact tho
How did Elizabeth deal with the debasement of the coinage?
- All coins recalled and replaced with properly valued ones
- Improves England’s status and reduces inflation
What were the proposed causes of inflation?
- Enclosure (only 9% actually enclosed)
- Poor harvests (1594-7=inflation and famine in NW)
- War (loans and subsidies to raise £4 million spent)
- Coinage (1560 revaluing sees this as not a cause)
- Spanish silver (war=little trade, Silver from Peru)
- Population (1 million more people by 1601 increases grain prices)
How did Elizabeth raise money for war?
- Sold £600, 000 of crown lands which is short-sighted and forces her to depend on subsidies
- £2.5 million worth of subsidies. Quadruple subsidy in 1601
- £330, 000 in forced loans from rich which decrease popularity
What was the issue with monopolies and purveyance?
- Monopolies allow prices to be raised without restraint
- 1601 she looses control of parliament and has to get rid of worst and use Golden Speech
- Crown right to set own prices in hard times.
- Results in some Iron makers going out of business in Kent
Why was enclosure popular with landlords and unpopular with the poor?
- There was a large demand for wool at the time
- But poor lost rights to graze their livestock and arable farmers lost jobs
- It was blamed for inflation
Was enclosure a problem?
- Helped grain production meet raising population
- Only 9% enclosed
- Created new crops eg woad and tobacco
- Land used often unsuitable for pasture anyway
- Wool was used to increase trade
How else did agriculture improve in the era?
- Selective breeding eg Friesan Cattle
- New fertilizers eg Marl
- More land being cultivated
- Up and down husbandary
What was England’s largest industry? How did this expand?
- Textile eg Broadcloth
- Fleeing Protestants bring new draperies and finishing of the cloth
Why and how did the metal industry expand?
- Coal increases due to population rise
- War increases iron demand eg 3–>26 furnaces in 1590
What evidence is their that London’s industry expanded?
- Population increases by 80, 000
- Survey of London names it as fastest growing city in Europe
- 60 craft and trading guilds and Merchant Adventurers
- Migration creates cheap labour
What evidence is there that London’s expansion did/did not occur at the expense of smaller cities?
- Monopoly on cloth export takes away from smaller cities
- But it was an economy of scale
- Benefited other towns eg Bristol ports benefit from trad routes
How was the expansion of industry limited?
- Energy still depends on land and wind
- Dependency on ‘cottage system’ and casual workers
How was englsih trade limited?
- 75% of cloth trade was between Antwerp and England bringing in £35-50, 000 a year
- 74% comes from Netherlands and Holy Roman Empire
- More concerned with illegal trade in New World
Who were the main trade companies?
Merchant Adventurers- take cloth trade to Emden and Hamburg
Muscovy Trading Company- 1558 Jenkinson goes to Russia via Asia. Backed by court. Exports cloth, tin and wool worth £25, 000 a year
Eastland Company, 1579- imports naval supplies from Baltic
Levant Company, 1592- Imports spice and oils from Ottoman empire due to conflict with Venice. Mainly trade cloth for silk.
East India 1583- Newberry and Fitch journey to India.
What attempt were there to expand the demand for luxury goods?
- 1574 Frobisher reaches Buffin Island believing to have discovered the passage
- 1587 Davis explores coast of Greenland
- These voyages bring only geographical knowledge
What was the makeup of English trade in 1558?
- 75% of cloth from Netherlands
- Plichards exported to Portugal
- Barley and malt to Netherlands
- Wine and wood from France
- Coal, tin and fish from Scandinavian
- Iron, wool and wine from Spain
What were the causes of poverty?
- Population increase created decrease in living standards
- Discharged soldiers unemployed
- Enclosure results in Tillage Act but not real cause
