Elizabeth's handling of financial, social and economic affairs

Question 1

What financial issues did Elizabeth face when she came to the throne in 1558? (3)

Answer 1

• Inherited debts from Mary I of around £227,000 - nearly half of which was owed to the Antwerp Exchange and Elizabeth had to pay 14% interest on the loan.
  
  • Government finances were under strain from the war with France
• It was difficult for her to exploit sources of income (for example, because crown lands has been reduced by sales in previous reigns).
• She couldn’t levy taxation without the consent of her parliament and wasn’t in a position to increase texes as her right to the throne was not universally recognised.

Question 2

Which economic issues existed when Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558?

Answer 2

• Inflation - due to:
  
  • Harvests had been less productive in the late 1550s (also an outbreak of diseases, which exacerbated this issue)
  • Rapid population increase
  • Debasement under Henry VIII

Question 3

What were the positives of the financial and social situation that Elizabeth inherited in 1558? (3)

Answer 3

• She inherited a revised Book of Rates, which increased customs duties
• Elizabeth had the services of William Paulet, a highly experienced Lord Treasurer and financier, Sir Thomas Gresham.

Question 4

What counted as Elizabeth’s a) ordinary income b) extraordinary income?

Answer 4

a) landed estates, customs duties, profits of justice and fundraising from patronage
b) parliamentary subsidies

Question 5

What three reasons did Gresham give for Elizabeth’s financial difficulties?

What advice did he give?

Answer 5

1. Debasement of the coinage by Henry VIII ‘all your fine gold was conveyed out of this your realm’
2. ‘by reasons of war’ great debt had arisen
3. The privileged position of the Hanseatic League, which gave them control of the ‘carrying of your wool and other commodities out of your realm’

Advice: to maintain a good credit rating, relaxing laws on usury so that some interest could be levied and more money borrowed

Question 6

What did an Act passed in 1571 do to interest on loans?

Answer 6

Allowed 10% interest to be charged on loans within England.

Question 7

How did Elizabeth deal with her debts?

Answer 7

• She was a prudent housekeeper and did not spend lavishly, leaving big building projects to her courtiers
• She spent summers on ‘progresses’, courtiers and ministers would have to provide for her
• She avoided war for as long as she possibly could

Question 8

How successful were her attempts to deal with debt?

Answer 8

• By 1576, Walter Mildmay was able to tell the House of Commons that ‘Her Majesty hath most carefullly delivered this Kingdom from a great and weighty Debt’
• By 1584, she had a surplus of £300,000

Question 9

Did Elizabeth successfully exploit the crown lands? (1 piece of evidence for, and one against)

Answer 9

+ During her reign, revenue increased from £86,000 to £111,000

• However, land was let on long leases because she didn’t want to exploit her tenants so she didn’t fully profit from it.

Question 10

What was parliament willing to give to Elizabeth in taxation?

Why was this method of raising income sometimes not effective?

Answer 10

• Fifteenths and tenths (around £30,000) and a subsidy would produce around £100,000. it was normal for parliament to grant one subsidy and two fifteenths and tenths in a subsidy bill, bringing in around £140,000
• It wasn’t effective because the local gentry carried out assessments and collected taxes, many landowners were under assessed (Elizabeth didn’t want to pay for a professional tax collecting service)

Question 11

How did Elizabeth benefit from custom duties?

Answer 11

• She benefited from the revision of the Book of Rates (May 1558) - more items were taxed: 790 to 1170 and amount of tax substantially increased (sometimes to 100%)
• Customes revenue went from £29,000 in 1556 to £82,000 by 1559
• Elizabeth attempted to encourage more industrial processes to take part in England (eg. finishing off of cloth, which was usually done in the Netherlands)

Question 12

What evidence is there to suggest that Elizabeth didn’t fully benefit from customs duties?

Answer 12

• She could only increase the yield by raising rates or emcouraging more trade, given the recent revisions she was unable to raise rates and although overseas trade was supported, there was less concrete action to support it.
• The rise was not maintained and by the 1590s, it barely kept up with inflation, bringing in just £91,000 per year.
• Lack of development of industry (based on wool - unfinished, although Elizabeth did benefit from selling licenses to exempt merchants from the requirement that cloth should be finished)
• Elizabeth’s encouragement of industry was largely unsuccessful as higher duties led to smuggling on a greater scale (forcing parliament to increase regulation)

Question 13

How did Gresham and Paulet differ in their view of customs duties?

Answer 13

Gresham suggested that it might be more profitable to use customs farmers, who would pay the government a fixed rate and then collect the custom duties and keep any profit they could make. Paulet, on the other hand, preferred to use more officers, but he was overruled. Customs farmers often came off best in negotiations with the government.

Question 14

How were savings maximised under Elizabeth (2)?

Answer 14

• 3/4 of crown revenue was collected in the Exchequer so they had a better idea of royal finances and there was less duplication of officials.
• . Paulet was determined to end the storage of money in officials homes and insisted on their responsibility/accountaibility
• After his health deteriorated, Cecil and Mildmay introduced measures (but their success was limited)

Question 15

Why was increasing the efficency of savings largely unsuccessful (4)?

Answer 15

• After Paulet’s health deteriorated, power wavered and in 1571 it emerged that several Exchequer tellers had ‘defaulted’ £44,000
• Cecil and Mildmay’s measures had little success
• Elizabeth didn’t address the salaries for officials, meaning that officials increased their own income through ‘unofficial sources’
• The Exchequer now employed at least 80 people and they had a new building built at Westminster, costing around £8000 (the most expensive non-defensive building of the reign).

Question 16

Give three other ways Elizabeth increased her income

Answer 16

• Derived from Fruits and Tenths, a tax which had gone to the pope
• Elizabeth kept bishop seats vacant to gain the income
• Fines for attendance to church mounted (increased in 1581) - although these collections could be sporadic, especially in counties where Justices of the Peace were sympathetic to Roman Catholicism.

Question 17

How did hostility with Spain/conflict in the Netherlands benefit Elizabeth’s finances (5)?

Answer 17

• Flemings left Flanders in 1566 and brought their manufacturing skills to England
• Restricted the privileges of Flemish merchants (forced to spend in England, large customs duties)
• England was able to challenge Spain’s claim to trade with South America
• December 1568: stole loan from Genovese
• Able to license privateers to steal Spanish bullion (Francis Drake’s expedition 1577 - 1580, for which he ws knighted, captured carho worth £140,000 in Cadiz in 1587 - also forced the Spanish to postpone Armada)

Question 18

How did hostility with Spain/conflict in the Netherlands detriment Elizabeth’s finances (4)?

Answer 18

• War costs: paying military, weapons etc = £4million
  
  • The Treaty of Nonsuch committed Elizabth to providingan English force at an annual cost of £126,000 (half of her ordinary income)
• December 1568 stolen loan = trade embargo that was only lifted in 1573 (although the Spanish suffered more from this)
• In 1576, Spanish troops in Antwerp mutinied and harmed/exploited the Merchant Venturers there.
• By 1585, intervention in the Netherlands was almost necessary and in August a Treaty committed Elizabeth to providing a military force with an annual cost of £126,000

Question 19

Why was inflation worse in England compared to the rest of Europe? What was especially affected?

Answer 19

Debasement of the coinage in the 1540s. Food prices were especially affected.

Question 20

How did

a) the public
b) Sir Thomas Smith

explain inflation in England?

Answer 20

a) The public blamed price rises on the greed of individuals (referred to as ‘cormorants’ or ‘greedy gulls’)
b) Sir Thomas Smith argued that it was due to the important of bullion, claiming there was ‘a great store of treasure’ in England,

Question 21

What methods did Elizabeth use to control inflation (7)?

Answer 21

• Revalued coins (1560)
• Furthered recoinage/debasement
• Reduced imports and enforced laws to prevent the purchase of luxury products
• Elizabeth declared a maximum price for French wines
• Elizabeth forbade the export of grain when harvests were poor and commanded for it to be sold in smaller quantities
• Attempted to enforce lent and fish days
• 1597-98 legislation: houses that had fallen into disrepair were to be refurbished, JPs to fix wage rates, acts to help poor and punish rogues

Question 22

Why were Elizabeth’s methods of controlling inflation largely unsuccessful (6)?

Answer 22

• The government didn’t understand that population increase was the main cause (Lord Treasurer said the PC didn’t know what they were doing)
• Recoinage led to suspicion and little confidence in the value of coins, new coins were circulated but prices didn’t decrease (demand outstripped suppl0
• Privy Council had to raise loans in Antwerp, leading to a decrease in the value of the pound
• Max price for French wines did little for the poor
• Attempt to enforce lent and fish days were protested by Puritans
• London had a greater concentration of food than the rest of the country

Question 23

What was overseas trade like in 1558?

Answer 23

• Export trade in cloth largely confined to Antwerp in 1558 (Merchant Adventurers base)
• The Muscovy company was developing Russian trade
• Some merchants traded with the Guinea coast
• Americas controlled by Spanish, East by Portugese and Venetians

Question 24

What were joint stock companies and which was the first major one set up in England?

Answer 24

They were companies whereby investors bought shared and received profits in proportion to their investment

The Muscovy Company (under Mary)

Question 25

What new trade routes were developed under Elizabeth (6)?

Answer 25

• John Hawkins: sailed to the Canary Islands, obtained slaved in the Guinea coast and transported to the West Indies, returned to England with goods
• 1570s: Began to trade directly with the Mediterranean (1580s became Levant Company)
• 1579: Eastland Company set up in Poland to try and break into Baltic trade
• Martin Frobisher and John Davis attempted to discover a north west passage to the East
• John newbery: cultivation of links with India (East India Company of 1600)
• Drakes piracy in the Americas

Question 26

What problems did purveyors of new trade routes face during Elizabeth’s reign (7)?

Answer 26

• European trade diminished by Dutch revolt
• Rivalry with the merchants of the Hanse who strove to win control of trade with Germany
• Danes charged heavy tolls on shipping in the Baltic
• Anthony Jenkinson of the Muscovy Company found court of Ivan IV difficult to circumvent and Persians didn’t recognise the importance of Elizabeth (preferred to protect relationship with Turks)
• Slave trade made difficult by Spain’s monopoly of Americas
• Geographical and weather obstacles in the way of north west passage to the East
• Other English ports tried to expand but were thwarted by the strength of London.

Question 27

Why did an influx of refugees from the Netherlands benefit towns like Canterbury, Sandwich and Norwich?

Answer 27

They had good cloth manufacturing skills

Question 28

What were monopolies and why were they so unpopular?

Why was Elizabeth reluctant to give them up when MPs complained?

Answer 28

They were grants made by the queen giving exclusive rights to a particular trade or manufacture. They were unpopular because prices increased due to lack of competition.

The queen was reluctant to forfeit them because they were used to reward (and maintain) the loyalty of courtiers and servants. There was some social unrest when some grants were eventually removed in 1597/98.

Question 29

What was purveyance?

Answer 29

The right of the crown to buy goods at less than market price

Question 30

Describe the conflict over purveyance/monopolies that occurred in the 1589, 1597 and 1601 parliaments

Answer 30

1589: MPs unhappy with abuses of purveyance, Elizabeth promised to act and established a committee to investigate as she was relunctant to do so
1597: MPs were concerned about monopolies and patents, the queen promised an amendment via Lord Keeper and some grants were withdrawn
1601: Elizabeth had made new grants so monopolies were a huge issue: ‘bread will be there before the next parliament’, Elizabeth summoned the Speaker he told the house she had agreed to suspend some grants. Also got all onside with Golden Speech and contentious monopolies were annulled in a proclamation (eg. salt, vinegar and starch)

Question 31

Which industry collapsed due to Elizabeth’s abuse of purveyance?

Answer 31

The Iron industry (due to war with Spain)

Question 32

Outline the 3 contemporary views of vagrancy that are in the textbook.

Answer 32

Paul Stubbs: ‘They lie in the streets in the dirt…permitted to die like dogs or beasts without any compassion shown them at all.’

William Harrison thought there were 10,000 vagrants on the road.

Thomas Harman, a JP explained the ticks they used to part people from their money (hookers stealing clothes on washing lines etc).

Question 33

Causes of vagrancy/poverty? (5)

Answer 33

• Population was increasing at a rate that outstripped productivity.
• Living standards declined by a quarter over the reign, meaning that there was more migration of workers.
• Large number of labourers were unemployed.
• Former soldiers and sailors were discharged with little money and far from their home parishes (1561 beggar said he had been ‘maimed in the arm’ when serving in the queen’s galleys’.
• Contemporaries (William Harrison, Philip Stubbs and early parliaments - 1563 prevention legislation) believed that the enclosure of arable land for pasture led to unemployment but historians largely feel this view was an exaggeration.

Question 34

Which two causes of economic deprivation did the government do nothing to address?

Answer 34

• Rapid population growth (2.7million in 1540s to 4 million in 1601)
• War (arguably had tried to avoid it for as long as possible but they discharged soldiers irresponsibly, contributing to vagrancy)

Question 35

How did towns and cities try to relieve poverty? (5)

Answer 35

• London: St Bartholomew’s Hospital was a gift to London from Henry VIII at the Dissolution of the Monastries and the use of the Bethlehem Hospital for the insane. The city bought St Thomas’ Hospital and adapted the former home of Greyfriars into an orphanage, providing provisions for 3 types of vulnerable people. Bridewell was for the recaltriant poor. Rich city merchants remembered these institutions in their wills.
• Norwich: Begging was forbidden and 650 of the richer householders made regular contributions for the relief of about 200 townspeople.
• Ipswich, Exeter and Cambridge introduced taxes, where householders ‘of ability’ were assessed.
• In York a small daily payment was available for the old and infirm.
• In some rural locations, fines for non-attendance at church was used to support the poor but this relied on a large Roman Catholic popualtion.

Question 36

What was the government response to increasing poverty?

Answer 36

They realised that the Church could no longer be responsible as the Monasteries and Chantries had been dissolved and thus, began by identifying ‘idle’ and ‘deserving’ poor. The idle were supposed to receive help into work, whilst the deserving were given support.

Question 37

What was the government and individual response to poor harvests/enclosure?

Answer 37

Government

• 1563 - Act asserting that land which had been under plough for 4 consecutive years could not become pasture
• 1586: Hoarding of grain was banned and clergy ordered to preach against it. Elizabeth forbade the export of grain.
• 1593 - Tilage acts were repealed, implying enclosure was no longer an issue

Individual

• 1585: Two merchants chartered 5 ships and sent them to east coast ports to bring back grain to relieve the starving in Wales

Question 38

Unemployment was discussed in the 1559 and 1563 parliaments, resulting in the Statute of Artificers. What did this act decree? (6)

Answer 38

• Bound any unmarried people under 30 to serve any employer that needed them.
• Stated that everyone was to work on the land unless they were a scholar, at sea or in a skilled occupation.
• Wage rates were to be set locally and proclaimed by JPs (usually at a low level and rarely altered eg. Kent 1563 - 1589).
• Hours of work were enforced (5am - 7pm/dawn til dusk in winter, with a maximum of 2 and a half hours for meal breaks).
• Enforced a 7-year apprenticeship for those who exercised any ‘craft, mystery or occupation’, referring to the ‘better advancement’ of agriculture. Holders of 15 acres of landcould take anyone between 10 and 18 to serve as an apprentice until they were 21 or 24.
• In towns, occupations that were deemed crowded were restricted eg. mercers, drapers and goldsmiths could only have their sons as apprentices. Some cities (London) were exempt.

Question 39

Outline the impact/effectiveness of the Statute of Artificers (4)

Answer 39

• Where cases were brought against employers not complying with the Act, it was often by a professional informer intent on personal gain.
• It did not succeed in immobilising the population as the majority of those charged with vagrancy were labourers and apprentices whose terms of service were complete.
• Attempts to bring the working population under the control of the government foundered from the lack of enforcement and a mixed pattern of employment. It is possible that less than half of the popualtion was entirely dependent on wages.
• Casual day labourers continued to be used in agriculture.

Question 40

Name the 6 laws that were passed in an attempt to relieve poverty.

Answer 40

• 1563 Alms Act
• 1572 Vagabonds or Poor Relief Act
• 1576 Act for the Relief of the Poor
• 1598 Act for the Relief of the Poor
• 1598 Act for the Punishment of Rogues, Vagabonds and Sturdy Beggars
• 1601 Act for the Relief of the Poor

Question 41

Outline the 1563 Alms Act

Answer 41

1563 Alms Act:

• Revived the statutes passed under Henry/Edward for the punishment of ‘sturdy beggars’.
• Distinguished between the idle/deserving so that ‘impotent, aged and needy persons’ received from the Poor Rate.
• Those who refused to pay the levy were reported firts to the bishop and then the JPs, who could force them to pay.

Question 42

What did the 1572 Vagabonds/Poor Relief Act do?

Answer 42

• Contributions towards the poor rate became compulsory.
• Begging was licensed in parishes where relief could not be provided.
• Anyone over fourteen found begging without a licence was to be whipped and ‘burned through the gristle of the right ear’ unless someone offered them a job. Under 14s were whipped.
• The term ‘vagabond’ was defined to include a wide variety of fraudsters, such as minstrels and scholars who begged without permission from their university.

Question 43

What did the 1576 Act for the Relief of the Poor entail?

Answer 43

• Able-bodied persons who had suffered the loss of their possessions and poor people who had particular needs were to be given licenses to beg.
• All large towns were to provide a store of wool, hemp, flax or iron so that the idle poor could work.
• Persistent beggars would be sent to the Houses of Correction.

Question 44

Describe the details of the 1598 Act for the Relief of the Poor. Which legislation made this permanent?

Answer 44

• A maximum amount was laid down for the compulsory poor rate,
• Pauper children were to be apprenticed until they were 24 (males) and 21 (females)
• Begging was forbidden
• JPs were to appoint four Overseers of the Poor at Easter who were to provide stocks of material for the adult, able-bodied poor and relieve the aged and infirm.
• Families of the ‘impotent’ were encouraged to provide for them
• Private endowment of facilities for the poor was to be encouraged as long as at least £10 per annum was provided by the endowment

The 1601 Act for the Relief of the Poor made this originally temporary legislation, permanent. It became known as the Elizabethan Poor Law.

Question 45

Details of the 1598 Act for the Punishment of Rogues, Vagabonds and Sturdy Beggars

Answer 45

• Administered by JPs
• Ear-boring ended but ‘sturdy beggars’ were to be whipped, ‘uuntil her or her body be bloody’ and then returned to their birthplace or the last place where they had lived and sent to a House of Correction or prison until a job was available.
• Dangerous rogues were banished or sent to the galleys.

Question 46

Provide examples of individuals offering support in an attempt to relieve poverty (7)

Answer 46

• The Reformation ended the idea that works of charity would earn merit in the eyes of God but Protestant (especially Puritan) ethics saw donations as a matter of conscience.
• Norfolk wills were often generous, reflecting the prosperity of the region.
• Ipswich in Suffolk benefited from the bequest of Henry Tooley, a merchant, and others that soon provided residential provision for 40 poor people, as well as a hospital and orphanage.
• The Earl of Leicester set up a hospital in Warwick for 12 men.
• Matthew Parker gave contributions to a Canterbury hospital and John Whitgift founded almshouses at Croydon.
• The annals of Bristol: In 1585, a year where the harvest was very poor, two merchants chartered 5 ships to transport grain to relieve te starving in the Severn valley.
• In 1584, a great fire destroyed many houses in Nantwich and the list of contributors to ease the situation was headed by Elizabeth, who gave £1,000.