Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History (44 page)

A second common excuse for riot was a festival gone out of hand. The most famous example of this is the riots which traditionally occurred in London on Shrove Tuesday or during the Easter season. From the late Elizabethan period into the 1670s young men, usually apprentices, attacked the brothels and playhouses concentrated in London’s suburbs. These riots were large, sometimes involving hundreds, even thousands, of persons. They were also highly ritualized: the rioters were very specific in their targets and behavior, destroying property but not, generally, assaulting persons. Other, smaller, demonstrations might occur during or immediately after wartime when soldiers or sailors assaulted government officials, demanding their pay.

Food or enclosure riots generally happened in times of high food prices, when the community’s well-being was thought to be jeopardized: examples occurred in Gloucester in 1586, Kent, Somerset, and Sussex in 1596–7, in London throughout the 1590s, in the Midlands in 1607, and throughout southern England in 1630–1. They often began with women, who were, of course, especially concerned with putting food on the table. They were directed against middlemen such as grain sellers, corn factors, and millers. Unlike the ethnic riots mentioned above, these demonstrations were usually non-violent, involving theatrical or ritualized gestures and symbols rather than bloodshed: marching, burnings in effigy, cross-dressing, rough music, pulling down fences, even the ritual plowing or planting of an enclosed field. Sometimes tenants went on rent-strike or occupied disputed land. Clearly, these activities were meant to grab the attention of the ruling elite, inform them of a grievance, and remind them of their paternalistic duties. They were not meant to unhinge the prevailing social order: in fact, enclosure rioters sometimes carried copies of royal proclamations against that hated practice and they often petitioned the local lord or JP for redress. Still, the implied threat of mob violence must always have been apparent to such authority figures. Perhaps because they were outnumbered; perhaps because there was no standing army and the militia was ineffective against its own neighbors; perhaps because, as good paternalists, they often saw the rioters’ point of view, they frequently punished the gouging merchants or even, very occasionally, the enclosing landlord. A ringleader might be prosecuted, even hanged, but the vast majority of rioters were rarely punished severely. In this case, the village community asserted itself against the local elite or its subordinate allies and, sometimes, in the short term, won.

This may seem surprising given the Tudor reputation for savage reprisals against rebels and traitors. But rebellion and treason threatened the fabric of the national political order. Local bread and enclosure riots did not. Rather, they may have reinforced that fabric by reasserting the role of the king and the ruling elite to guide the economy. The inhabitants of early modern England – both elite and non-elite – seem to have known when to apply violence and when not to do so; generally, it was a last resort. Rioting was a necessary safety valve which the upper classes were careful and wise not to try to shut off completely. By not doing so, by, instead, redressing the immediate grievances of the rioters, the ruling class enhanced their reputation as paternal rulers and protectors, and so encouraged deference.

What of those who could not succeed or would not conform to the patriarchal, pastoral “paradise” outlined above? Were there no alternatives to neighborly charity, the Poor Law, or the local pillory? Of course there were; for starters, they could go to town.

Cities and Towns

In 1603, as in the Middle Ages, cities and towns represented freedom, an alternative social order, and economic opportunity borne of a developing capitalistic market economy. As we have seen, one alternative to the Poor Law was to take to – or be forced onto – the roads, which helps to explain the rising percentage of English men and women living in cities and towns. It has been estimated that by 1550 some 10 percent of English and Welsh people lived in cities of 2,000 or more inhabitants. For our purposes, urban England may be divided into market and county towns, provincial capitals, and London. Salisbury in Wiltshire, Dorchester in Dorset, and Rye in Sussex were good examples of market or county towns. A market town might have about 1,000 people; the county town, seat of the shire or diocese, perhaps several thousand people. But both would swell during a fair, after harvest time, or, in the case of a county town, during the assizes. There were only a few provincial capitals in England: Newcastle-upon-Tyne and York in the North, Norwich in East Anglia, and Bristol and Exeter in the West Country. Such cities held between 10,000 and 13,000 people ca. 1600 and had complex economies. They might trade with London or even be involved in international trade. Some towns specialized: Sheffield, Yorkshire was famous for its cutlery, Wigan, Lancashire for pewter. All such towns were connected to the countryside: yeomen and husbandmen brought their grain to sell, minor nobles and gentry came to attend meetings of the assize courts and quarter sessions, their sons to attend schools. Thus, these urban centers were closely linked to the rural social Chain, even if they were not part of it.

The reason they were not fully integrated into the traditional Chain of social ranks was that they had long before developed their own hierarchies, based not on birth or land but on mercantile and professional wealth. Since wealth fluctuates and may desert one family as it attaches itself to another, there was more economic, social, and even political mobility in town than in the countryside. At least that’s what people thought. Most people knew the myth about Dick Whittington (ca. 1350–1423), a poor but industrious kitchen scullion from the country who was supposed to have risen to be lord mayor of London through sheer dint of hard work. When later historians examined the facts, it turned out that Whittington was, indeed, lord mayor of London for three terms, but that, far from starting out poor, he had come from a Gloucester landowning family and had been apprenticed to a mercer, a trade which dealt in luxury fabrics. Perhaps the point is that cities were
thought
to be wide open centers of opportunity. In reality most were, like each county community, dominated by an oligarchy.

In most towns, the corporation headed that oligarchy. The corporation consisted of the mayor, the town’s council or court of aldermen, and various officers like the recorder (secretary) or chamberlain (treasurer). These officials administered civic government, enforced order, regulated trade, and, generally, made the law. In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, they gave orders to keep the streets lit and clear of refuse, to contain the plague, and to facilitate poor relief. If the town sent representatives to Parliament, the corporation were frequently the only townsmen who had a vote. In general, they comprised the oldest and wealthiest mercantile families and their rule was self-perpetuating. That is, they alone could appoint to vacancies on the aldermanic council and they were careful to name their own family members. To further secure their privileged position, they often intermarried and, increasingly in the sixteenth century, sought royal charters enshrining their privileges. They also did their best to maintain good political and social relations with the local aristocracy while trying, at the same time, to preserve their town’s independence of it.

Just below the corporation in the town government hierarchy were the guilds or (as they were called in London) livery companies. At the end of the sixteenth century, each small town generally had one guild consisting of all of its merchants and craftsmen. In a big town there would be guilds or companies for each trade or craft. Guilds had arisen in the Middle Ages because the Church was hostile to the idea of an unregulated market in labor and products, and suspicious of the pursuit of wealth for its own sake. In theory the guild sought to limit the wild swings of fortune associated with capitalism by acting as a combination of Better Business Bureau, trade association for standards and practices, lobbying group, fraternity, and mutual aid society all wrapped up into one. Thus, the guild set prices, wages, and standards of workmanship on locally made products. Consistent with their original association with the Church, guilds also founded schools and hospitals for members and their children and they tended to look after widows of deceased guildsmen. As in the Middle Ages, one had to be a member of the local guild (a “freeman,” i.e., “free of the guild”) to set up a shop and pursue trade. Unfortunately, getting into one could be difficult. Guilds were often accused of using high entry fines and strict (or arbitrary) standards of workmanship to keep membership low and, therefore, profits high. Moreover, in most towns only guild members were considered full citizens, though in some towns this encompassed most men. These freemen elected various lesser officers which kept the town running and in some big towns they, not just the corporation, voted for the MPs. As the sixteenth century wore on, the guild, full of small merchants and tradesmen, often found its economic and political interests at odds with those of the big merchants in the town’s corporation, not least because of the widening gap in wealth between the two groups. Moreover, the constant traffic of migrants made it more difficult for the guild to maintain its control of trade. Increasing numbers of merchants sought to avoid guild control by setting up their shops just outside the town’s walls and, therefore, the guild’s jurisdiction.

Despite in-migration from the countryside, most big towns went through a period of decline or stagnation in the sixteenth century, growing again only at its end. There were many reasons for this: the Dissolution of the Monasteries (which eradicated the business and tourism associated with pilgrimage while saddling towns with greater social responsibilities), the increasing decentralization of wool manufacture into provincial market towns and villages (which hurt larger regional centers like Norwich), and the rise of London as the country’s chief port. In 1520 London was already far and away the greatest city in England with perhaps 60,000 people. By 1600 it had grown to about 200,000 people and by the end of the seventeenth century it would reach over half a million.
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This was twice the rate of growth being experienced in the rest of the country. No wonder that James I worried that “with time England will only be London and the whole country be left waste.”
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In fact, while London’s phenomenal expansion offended believers in the Great Chain such as King James, it served as a demographic safety valve, absorbing people from the countryside who could not find work at home. Foreign refugees from the Wars of Religion, especially Dutch and French Protestants, also found safety and employment in London. At a higher social level, London provided opportunities for younger sons and apprentices to make their fortunes, while the landed elite could come to court and sample its cultural and intellectual life.

In fact, early modern London needed these immagrants to grow, for its death rate was higher than its birth rate: out of every 1,000 people, 35 would be born each year, but 40 would die.
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The reasons for this are not difficult to understand. The metropolis was crowded and full of disease and crime, leading to an average life expectancy of only 25–30 years; there was a shortage of female immigrants; and apprentices, who comprised a high proportion of London’s population, were forbidden to marry. Epidemics were devastating: the plague killed 17,000 in 1563, 25,000 in 1603, and 26,000 in 1625 – over 20 percent of the population in each case. Thus, in order to grow at the rate noted above, between 6,000 and 8,000 new people had to come to London every year. What with in- and out-migration, perhaps one-sixth of all English people lived in London at some time in their lives.

According to historian E. A. Wrigley, these facts had a profound effect on England as a whole. First, the growing city had to be fed. As a result, farms in Essex and Kent were forced to improve production rates and grain merchants to improve distribution. Cattle were driven from as far as Wales. In the years following 1603 a true market economy developed and England’s transportation system was forced to keep up via the dredging of rivers and better roads, carriages, wagons, and carrying services. The English shipping industry likewise expanded to service not only foreign trade but also the crucial coastal trade that supplied London with fish and coal from the north and west. By 1700 sophisticated credit facilities (bonds and bills of exchange), a penny post, and newspapers would arise, in part to facilitate trade and communication between capital and countryside.

In the meantime, the London experience must have had profound social, cultural, and psychological effects on all immigrants. Imagine having grown up in the countryside in a small and relatively quiet village, with its own calendar and traditions. Everyone knew everyone else. Now imagine arriving in London to find more people crowded into one place than you had ever experienced in your life. The sights, the noise, the smells would have been nearly overwhelming. Many complained of London’s stink and filth. In 1606 Thomas Dekker was more concerned with noise and crowding:

In every street, carts and coaches make such a thundering as if the world ran upon wheels: at every corner, men, women, and children meet in such shoals, that posts are set up of purpose to strengthen the houses, lest with jostling one another they should shoulder them down. Besides, hammers are beating in one place, tubs hooping in another, pots clinking in a third, water tankards running at tilt in a fourth.
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