Prosperity and depression (22) Flashcards
What did landowners benefit from?
The economic trends present in Elizabethan England.
What rose?
Landed incomes rose and many landowners acquired a range of material possessions which would have been unknown to their grandparents’ generation.
What were large landowners able to profit from?
The generosity of Henry VIII and Edward VI when disposing for a quick profit often at knock-down prices much of the land which they had acquired through the dissolution of church property.
What was one of the consequences of profiting from the generosity of Henry VIII and Edward VI when disposing for a quick profit?
The huge proliferation of building, not just of great houses, but of more modest though nevertheless imposing country houses.
What were society farmers able to benefit from?
The rise in agricultural prices.
What was an overall increase in?
Increase in all aspects of agricultural production, though bad harvest provided interruptions to the trend.
What do historians argue about the relationship between trade and prosperity?
That trade was buoyant in Elizabethan England, a point reinforced by the evidence of shipbuilding which took place at the time; in the second half of the century a more pessimistic view tended to be predominate, with historians emphasising what was seen as desperate search for new markets to offset the long-term decline in the cloth trade.
Name two old-established towns that declined during Elizabeth’s reign.
1) Stamford
2) Winchester
Name two new urban settlements that continued to improve.
1) Manchester
2) Plymouth
What was significant about a settlement that was improving?
They had a broad range of manufacturing industry or were unincorporated towns in which industry was able to develop without hindrance from regulation.
How did Newcastle Upon Tyne benefit?
From supplying London’s economic needs.
What had fallen for many?
Real wages which was a particular problem at time of harvest failure.
How may of the 44 harvests of the reign could be described as poor?
9 of the 44
By 1596 what had collapsed?
Real wages had collapsed to less than half the level which they had been a mere nine years earlier.
Where were condition worse in the country?
In the far north with starvation the outcome both in more remote rural areas and in urban centre of Newcastle, which doubtless had attracted the poor and the indigent across the region.
