Our Legal Heritage Part 80

Unlike the Muscovy Company, and Merchants of the Staple, individual members could not trade on their own account, but only through the corporate body on its voyages. Each particular voyage was regulated and a.s.sisted by the Crown and Privy Council, for instance when further subscriptions were needed, or when carpenters were needed to be pressed into service for fitting out s.h.i.+ps, or to deal with an unsuccessful captain. Its charter retained many of the aspects of the medieval trade guild: power to purchase lands, to sue and be sued, to make by-laws, and to punish offenders by fine or imprisonment. Admission was by purchase of a share in a voyage, redemption, presentation, patrimony (adult sons of members), and apprentices.h.i.+p. Purchase of a share in a voyage was the most common method. A share for the first s.h.i.+p cost one hundred pounds.

Cash payments for less than the price of a share could be invested for ultimate redemption. Occasionally presentation or a faculty "for the making of a freeman" was granted to some n.o.bleman or powerful member.

Members' liability was limited to their individual subscriptions. Each voyage had 1) a Royal Commission authorizing the Company to undertake the expedition and vesting in its commanders powers for punis.h.i.+ng offenses during the voyage, and quenching any mutiny, quarrels, or dissension that might arise; 2) a code of instructions from the Company to the Admiral and to commanders of s.h.i.+ps setting forth in great detail the scope and objects of the voyage together with minute regulations for its conduct and trade; 3) authorization for coinage of money or export of specie (gold or silver); and 4) letters missive from the sovereign to foreign rulers at whose ports the s.h.i.+ps were to trade. The first voyage brought back spices that were sold at auction in London for ten times their price in the Indies and brought to shareholders a profit equivalent to 9 1/2% yearly for the ten years when the going interest rate was 8% a year.

Town government was often controlled by a few merchant wholesalers. The entire trade of a town might be controlled by its drapers or by a company of the Merchant Adventurers of London. The charter of the latter as of 1564 allowed a common seal, perpetual existence, liberty to purchase lands, and liberty to exercise their government in any part of the nation. It was controlled by a group of rich Londoners, no more than 50, who owned the bulk of the cloth exported. There were policies of insurance given by groups of people for losses of s.h.i.+ps and their goods.

Marine insurance was regulated.

New companies were incorporated for many trades. They were a.s.sociations of employers rather than the old guilds which were a.s.sociations of actual workers. The ostensible reason was the supervision of the quality of the wares produced in that trade, though shoemakers, haberdashers, saddlers, and curriers exercised close supervision over these wares.Companies paid heavily for their patents or charters.

There was no sharp line between craftsman and shopkeeper or between shopkeeper and wholesale merchant. In London, an enterprising citizen could pa.s.s freely from one occupation to another. Borrowing money for a new enterprise was common. Industrial suburbs grew up around London and some towns became known as specialists in certain industries. The building crafts in the towns often joined together into one company, e.g. wrights, carpenters, slaters, and sawyers, or joiners, turners, carvers, bricklayers, tilers, wallers, plasterers, and paviors. These companies included small contractors, independent masters, and journeymen. The master craftsman often was a tradesman as well, who supplied timber, bricks, or lime for the building being constructed. The company of painters was chartered with a provision prohibiting painting by persons not apprenticed for seven years.

The prosperous merchants began to form a capitalistic cla.s.s as capitalism grew. Compet.i.tion for renting farm land, previously unknown, caused these rents to rise. The price of wheat rose to an average of 14s. per quarter, thereby encouraging tillage once more. There was steady inflation.

With enclosure of agricultural land there could be more innovation and more efficiency, e.g. the time for sowing could be chosen. It was easier to prevent over-grazing and half-starved animals as a result. The complications of the open system with its endless quarrels and lawsuits were avoided. Now n.o.blemen talked about manure and drainage, rotation of crops, clover, and turnips instead of hunting, horses, and dogs. The breed of horses and cattle was improved. There were specializations such as the hunting horse and the coach horse. By royal proclamation of 1562, there were requirements for the keeping of certain horses. For instance, everyone with lands of at least 1,000 pounds had to keep six horses or geldings able for demi-lances [rider bearing a light lance] and ten horses or geldings for light hors.e.m.e.n [rode to battle, but fought on foot]. One with under 100 pounds but over 100 marks yearly had to keep one gelding for a light horseman. Dogs had been bred into various types of hounds for hunting, water and land spaniels for falconry, and other dogs as house dogs or toy dogs. There were no longer any wild boar or wild cattle. The turkey joined the c.o.c.ks, hens, geese, ducks, pigeons, and peac.o.c.ks in the farmyard. Manure and dressings were used to fertilize the soil. Hay became a major crop because it could be grown on grazing lands and required little care.

There are new and bigger industries such as gla.s.sware, iron, bra.s.swares, alum and coppers, gunpowder, paper, coal, and sugar. The coal trade was given a monopoly. Coal was used for fuel as well as wood, which was becoming scarce. Iron smelters increasingly used coal instead of charcoal, which was limited. Iron was used for firebacks, pots, and boilers. Good quality steel was first produced in 1565 with the help of German craftsmen, and a slitting mill was opened in 1588. Small metal goods, especially cutlery, were made, as well as nails, bolts, hinges, locks, ploughing and harrowing equipment, rakes, pitch forks, shovels, spades, and sickles. Lead was used for windows and roofs. Copper and bra.s.s were used to make pots and pans. Pewter was used for plates, drinking vessels, and candlesticks. Compet.i.tion was the mainspring of trade and therefore of town life.

The mode of travel of the gentry was riding horses, but most people traveled by walking. People carried pa.s.ses for travel that certified they were of good conduct and not a vagrant or st.u.r.dy rogue. Bands of roving vagabonds terrorized the countryside. After a land survey completed in 1579 there arose travel books with maps, itineraries, and mileage between towns in England and Wales. Also, the Queen sent her official mail by four royal postal routes along high roads from London to various corners of the nation. Horses are posted along the way for the mail-deliverer's use. However, private mail still goes by packman or common carrier. The nation's inland trade developed a lot. There were many more wayfaring traders operating from town inns. In 1564, the first ca.n.a.l was built with locks at Exeter. More locks and ca.n.a.ls facilitated river travel. At London Bridge, waterwheels and pumps were installed.

New sea navigation techniques improved voyages. Seamen learned to fix their positions, using an astrolabe or quadrant to take the alt.i.tude of the sun and stars and to reckon by the north star. They used a nocturnal, which was read by touch, to help keep time at night by taking the alt.i.tude of the stars. They calculated tides. To measure distances, they invented the traverse board, which was bored with holes upon lines, showing the points of the compa.s.s; by means of pegs, the steersman kept an account of the course steered. A log tied to a rope with knots at equal intervals was used to measure speed. There were compa.s.ses with a bearing dial on a circular plate with degrees up to 360 noted thereon.

Seamen had access to compilations of Arab mathematicians and astronomers and to navigational manuals and technical works on the science of navigation and the instruments necessary for precision sailing. For merchants there were maps, books about maps, cosmographical surveys, and books on the newly discovered lands. In 1569 John Mercator produced a map taking into account the converging of the meridians towards the pole. On this chart, a straight line course would correspond to a mariner's actual course through the water on the earth's sphere, instead of having the inaccuracies of a straight line on a map which suggested that the world was flat. It was in use by 1600.

In 1600 William Gilbert, son of a gentleman, and physician to Queen Elizabeth, wrote a book on the magnetic properties of the earth. He cultivated the method of experiment and of inductive reasoning from observation and insisted on the need for a search for knowledge not in books but in things themselves. He showed that the earth was a great magnet with a north pole and a south pole, by comparing it to lodestones made into spheres in which a north and south pole could be found by intersecting lines of magnetism indicated by a needle on the stone. The vertical dip of the needle was explained by the magnetic attraction of the north pole. He showed how a lodestone's declination could be used to determine lat.i.tude at sea. He showed how the charge of a body could be retained for a period of time by covering the body with some non-conducting substance, such as silk. He distinguished magnetism from electricity, giving the latter its name. He discovered that atmospheric conditions affected the production of electricity, dryness decreasing it, and moisture increasing it. He expounded the idea of Copernicus that the earth revolves around the sun in a solar system. However, the prevailing belief was still that the earth was at the center of the universe.

Christmas was an especially festive time of good fellows.h.i.+p. People greeted each other with "Good cheer", "G.o.d be with you", or "Against the new year". Carols were often sung and musicians played many tunes. There was dancing and gambling. There were big dinners with many kinds of meat and drink. A hearty fire heated all the house. Many alms were given to beggars.

Parliament enacted laws and voted taxes. The Queen, House of Lords, and House of Commons cooperated together. There was relatively little dissension or debating. Bills in the House of Lords were read, voted on, discussed, and pa.s.sed with the lords, peers, bishops, and justices sitting in their places according to their degree. The justices sat on the wool sacks. A bar separated this area from the rest of the room, where the members of the commons stood. There were many bills concerning personal, local, or sectional interests, but priority consideration was given to public measures. The House of Lords still had 55 members. The Queen appointed and paid the Speaker, Clerk, and Sergeant at Arms of the Commons. The knights in the Commons were almost invariably from the county's leading families and chosen by consensus of knights with free land of at least 40s. in the county court. In the towns, the electors might be the town corporation, holders of certain properties, all the freemen, all the rate-payers, or all the male inhabitants. Disputed elections were not usually concerned with political issues, but were rivalries for power. The Commons gradually won for its members freedom from arrest without its permission and the right of punis.h.i.+ng and expelling members for crimes committed. Tax on land remained at 10% of its estimated yearly income. The Queen deferred to the church convocation to define Christian faith and religion, thus separating church and state functions.

The Treasury sought to keep a balanced budget by selling royal land and keeping Crown expenditures down. The Crown carried a slight debt incurred before the Queen's accession.

Violence was still a part of the texture of everyday life. Private armories and armed gangs were not uncommon. Agricultural laborers kept sword and bow in a corner of their fields. Non-political brutal crime and homicides were commonplace. There were frequent local riots and disturbances, in the country and in the towns. Occasionally there were large-scale rebellions. But the rebellion of the Earl of Ess.e.x in 1601 had no aftermath in violence. In 1590, the Queen issued a proclamation enforcing curfew for London apprentices, who had been misruly. The Queen issued proclamations to certain counties to place vagrant soldiers or vagrants under martial law because of numerous robberies. She ordered the deportation of vagrant Irishmen in 1594.

Theft and robbery were so usual that there were names for various techniques used. A Ruffler went with a weapon to seek service, saying that he was a servitor in the wars, but his chief "trade" was to rob poor wayfaring men and market women. A Prigman went with a stick in his hand like an idle person, but stole clothes off hedges. A Whipjack begged like a mariner, but with a counterfeit license (called a "gibe"); he mostly robbed booths in fairs or pilfered ware from stalls, which was called "heaving of the booth". A Frater had a counterfeit license to beg for some hospital, but preyed upon poor women coming and going to market. A Quire Bird was a person recently let out of prison, and was commonly a horse stealer. An Upright Man carried a truncheon of a staff and called others to account to him and give him a share or "snap" of all that they had gained in one month, and he often beat them. He took the chief place at any market walk and other a.s.semblies. Workers at inns often teamed up with robbers, telling them of wares or money travelers were carrying so the robber could profitably rob them after they left the inn.

Francis Drake sailed around the world from 1577 to 1580. Walter Ralegh made an expedition to North America in 1584 with the Queen's authority to "discover barbarous countries, not actually possessed of any Christian prince and inhabited by Christian people, to occupy and enjoy". He found and named the land of Virginia in honor of the Queen, who was a virgin, and started a colony on Roanoke Island there. Drake and Ralegh plundered Spanish s.h.i.+ps for cargo such as American gold and silver, much of which was used to pay for the war with Spain and much going to investors. Seamen on navy and pirate s.h.i.+ps raided captured vessels to seize personal possessions of the Spanish on board. The experience fighting Spanish s.h.i.+ps led to improvements in s.h.i.+p design; building s.h.i.+ps was no longer merely by copying another s.h.i.+p or a small model. When the seas were unsafe because of the war with Spain, the export of English wool was disturbed and later replaced by trading from world ports. Many London merchants grew rich from using their s.h.i.+ps for pirating.

In 1588, a Spanish Armada came to invade England, return it to Catholicism, and stop the pirating of Spanish s.h.i.+ps. In that battle off England's sh.o.r.es, Drake and other experienced sea fighters led two hundred English s.h.i.+ps, of which about 20 were built to sink other s.h.i.+ps rather than to board and capture them. These new English s.h.i.+ps were longer and narrower and did away with the towering superstructures at bow and stern. This made them more maneuverable and easier to sail.

Also, the English guns were lighter, more numerous, and outranged the Spanish guns. So the smaller English s.h.i.+ps were able to get close enough to fire broadside after broadside against the big Spanish troop-transport galleons, without being fired upon. The English sent fire s.h.i.+ps into the Spanish fleet when it was anch.o.r.ed, causing it's s.h.i.+ps to disperse in a panic. Then the direction of the wind forced the Spanish galleons northward, where most of them were destroyed by storms.

The English seamen had been arbitrarily pressed into this service.

A royal proclamation of 1601 offered a reward of 100 pounds for information on libels against the Queen. There had been mounting demonstrations against her monopolies, which mostly affected household items. There had been abuses of monopolies, such as the steel monopoly had been sold for 12 pounds 10s., but steel was then sold at 5d. per pound instead of the former 2 1/2 d. per pound. Further the steel was mixed and of a lesser quality. This so damaged the knife and sword industry that about 2000 workers lost their jobs from it and became beggars. Monopoly was a severe burden to the middle and poorer cla.s.ses.

Also, the power of patent holders to arrest and imprison persons charged with infringing upon their rights was extended to any disliked person.

When the House of Commons protested against monopolies in 1601, Elizabeth reduced them. She addressed her Council and the Commons saying that "Mr. Speaker, you give me thanks, but I doubt me that I have more cause to thank you all than you me; and I charge you to thank them of the Lower House from me. For had I not received a knowledge from you, I might have fallen into the lapse of an error only for lack of true information. Since I was queen yet did I never put my pen to any grant but that upon pretext and semblance made unto me, it was both good and beneficial to the subject in general, though a private profit to some of my ancient servants who had deserved well. But the contrary being found by experience, I am exceedingly beholding to such subjects as would move the same at the first. And I am not so simple to suppose but that there be some of the Lower House whom these grievances never touched; and for them I think they speak out of zeal to their countries and not out of spleen or malevolent affection, as being parties grieved. And I take it exceedingly gratefully from them, because it gives us to know that no respects or interests had moved them other than the minds they bear to suffer no diminution of our honor and our subjects' love unto us, the zeal of which affection tending to ease my people and knit their hearts unto me, I embrace with a princely care. For above all earthly treasures I esteem my people's love, more than which I desire not to merit. That my grants should be grievous unto my people and oppressions to be privileged under color of our patents, our kingly dignity shall not suffer it. Yea, when I heard it I could give no rest unto my thoughts until I had reformed it. Shall they (think you) escape unpunished that have thus oppressed you, and I have been respectless of their duty and regardless of our honor? No, no, Mr. Speaker, I a.s.sure you, were it not more for conscience' sake than for any glory or increase of love that I desire, these errors, troubles, vexations, and oppressions done by these varlets and low persons (not worthy the name of subjects) should not escape without condign punishment. But I perceive they dealt with me like physicians who, ministering a drug, make it more acceptable by giving it a good aromatical savor; or when they give pills, do gild them all over. I have ever used to set the Last Judgment day before my eyes and so to rule as I shall be judged, to answer before a higher judge. To whose judgment seat I do appeal that never thought was cherished in my heart that tended not unto my people's good. And now if my kingly bounties have been abused and my grants turned to the hurts of my people, contrary to my will and meaning, or if any in authority under me have neglected or perverted what I have committed to them, I hope Good will not lay their culps [sins] and offenses to my charge. Who, though there were danger in repealing our grants, yet what danger would I not rather incur for your good than I would suffer them still to continue? I know the t.i.tle of a king is a glorious t.i.tle, but a.s.sure yourself that the s.h.i.+ning glory of princely authority hath not so dazzled the eyes of our understanding but that we well know and remember that we also are to yield an account of our actions before the great Judge. To be a king and wear a crown is a thing more glorious to them that see it than it is pleasant to them that bear it. For myself, I was never so much enticed with the glorious name of a king or royal authority of a queen as delighted that G.o.d hath made me His instrument to maintain His truth and glory, and to defend this kingdom from peril, dishonor, tyranny, and oppression. There will never queen sit in my seat with more zeal to my country, care to my subjects, and that will sooner with willingness venture her life for your good and safety, than myself. For it is not my desire to live or reign longer than my life and reign shall be for your good. And though you have had and may have many princes more mighty and wise sitting in this seat, yet you never had or shall have any that will be more careful and loving."

About 1584, Richard Hakluyt, a Bristol clergyman, wrote "A Particular Discourse concerning Western Discoveries". This was to become the cla.s.sic statement of the case for English colonization. It held out hope that the English would find needed timber for masts, pitch, tar, and ashes for soap.

In Rome in 1600, Giordano Bruno, an Italian monk and priest, was burned alive at the stake by a court of the inquisition for not recanting, although tortured, his heretical and blasphemous philosophy. He had opined that Christianity was irrational and had no scientific basis. He declared that Christ was only a skillful magician, that the Bible could not be taken literally, that G.o.d and nature were not separate as taught by Genesis, that the Catholic Church encouraged ignorance from the instinct of self-preservation, and that the earth and planets revolved around the sun, as did other planets around the "fixed" stars and other suns.

The Jesuits, a new Catholic order br.i.m.m.i.n.g with zeal, sent missionaries to England to secretly convert people to Catholicism. The practice of Catholicism had gone underground in England, and some Catholic householders maintained Catholic priests in hidden places in their homes.

Although estate tails (estates descendible only to the heirs of the body of the original feofee) by law could not be sold or given away, this was circ.u.mvented by the fraudulent use of a "straw man". In collaboration with the possessor of the property, this straw man sued the possessor a.s.serting that the property had been wrongfully taken from the straw man. The possessor pleaded that the crier of the court who had warranted the t.i.tle should be called to defend the action. He failed to appear until after judgment had been given to the straw man. Then the straw man conveyed it to the possessor or his nominee in fee simple.