Chapter 24 - The last years of Elizabeth

Question 1

why was there a decline in royal authority and the quality of administration in the 1590s?

Answer 1

• one reason revolved around anxieties over the succession
• another concerned the queen’s ministers and the problems in the privy council and between factions
• the crisis involving the earl of essex is indicitive of the difficulties which royal authority faced

Question 2

what had been achieved politically by 1603, despite the essex rebellion?

Answer 2

• a broad political unity

Question 3

why was there a broad political unity by 1603?

Answer 3

• all english people, apart from a small minority of militant catholics, were broadly loyal to the crown

Question 4

what negative are there about the poltitical condition of england by 1603?

Answer 4

• the queen had reigned too long; her reputation had been tarnished by the events of the last years of her reign
• she seemed out of the touch with teh aspirations of a younger generation who looked forward to the accession of a king

Question 5

what was evident by the beginning of the 17th century? (economics)

Answer 5

• some of the economic circumstances which would later in the century lead to commercial domination were in place, even if only in an early form
• for example the setting up of the trading companies to challenge the domination of the spanish, portugeuse and dutch and the beginnings of an interest in the americas

Question 6

why should the importance of setting up the trading companies not be exaggerated?

Answer 6

• the organisation of english capitalism, in particular, was crude in comparison with the commercial sophistication of the dutch

Question 7

what industries flourished in england?

Answer 7

• cottage industries such as nail making, hosiery, soap manufacturing and brewing
• and total production clearly rose substantially during the course of the sixteenth century

Question 8

what does total production of cottage industries rising suggest?

Answer 8

that domestic demand was thriving

Question 9

how were many people only just able to avoid poverty at the end of the sixteenth century?

Answer 9

only through thrift, multiple employments and hard work

Question 10

what constraints prevented society from breaking down, despite a huge difference in living standards?

Answer 10

• most of the time the majority of the population could be fed, apart from a subsistence crisis in the 1590s
• the poor laws limited the worst effects of poverty
• the nobility were subject to taxation, in contrast to many continental societies

Question 11

why could elizabeth look upon a favourable religious situation by the end of her reign?

Answer 11

• compared with the beginning of her reign the level of popular catholicism had declined
• moreover, english catholics were fundamentally divided between a majority who tried to accomodate conflicting loyalties to crown and faith and a minority who identified wholeheartedly with the bull of excommunication and who sought a catholic succession
• the church of england had become an institution in which the majority could identify
• puritanism as a dynamic movement had faded and and the majority of puritans had become assimlated with the anglican mainstream
• separatism had virtually disappeared
• there was a broad consensus surrounding the church of england, which ensured a substantial degree of religious unity