grew wealthy, the name of England was made great in Europe, the foundations of our commercial preponderance and naval supremacy were laid. England was still in the main an agricultural country, and so continued for another hundred and fifty or two hundred years after the death of Elizabeth. But already the first and most difficult steps had been taken towards the formation of that great capitalist England, which some consider to be the acme of human civilization and advancement.

During this century also, most useful discoveries and inventions were made, from which the growing commercial and manufacturing powers derived the first and the largest benefit. In astronomy, Copernicus and Tycho Brahe extended the field of human knowledge with the happiest results even in practical affairs. Book-keeping by double entry, decimal arithmetic, and other improvements were introduced, and, according to some authorities,* the stockingframe was invented in an improved form at Cambridge. Thus everything tended to help on the new economical period, and to secure to England one of the first places at least in the new era. The change in the method of production, though still in its infancy, was by itself of the highest importance. Instead of the isolated labourer, we have henceforth an increasing number of wage-earners working together under one employer, who himself owns the means of production, and takes the product. This was a necessary step to bring about fully that social labour which is essential to all production upon a large scale. But it gradually shuts out, more and more, from the workman the chance which he had before of becoming an employer himself. He works now for the profit of a class

Anderson, vol. ii. p. 3.

*

above him, and the capitalist becomes a capitalist not because he is an organiser of labour, but, on the contrary, becomes an organiser of labour because he is a capitalist, and wishes to make the capital which he has obtained profitable to himself. Hence the tendency slowly manifested is to increase the scale of operations, the size of workshops, the number of men employed by one master, and consequently of course the amount of capital needed to start on good terms with others, to build workrooms, to purchase raw materials, &c. This is, strictly speaking, the time of simple co-operation, which leads directly to organised handicraft by division of labour, though the one speedily blends with the other, and in practice no separation by a clear line is possible. What follows is in any case an economy in the means of production, which necessarily enriches the employing class alone when they alone own those means.†

To begin with all this is only distinguished from the simple handicraft of the Middle Ages by the larger number of workers who are employed together on the same identical task, thus saving certain expenses; but very soon a radical change in the very nature of the work done takes place, by dividing the labour into portions, and splitting up the trades. This commenced in England in the sixteenth century. Consequently commerce first, and then manufactures, greatly increased by the influx of foreign capitalists and labourers, combined with exploration and piracy to give England her initial advantages in the competition for commercial wealth

*The language of the Statute, 43 Elizabeth, is a clear proof that the business of agriculture began now to be carried on by persons of capital.-Eden, p. 7.

† Marx, "Capital."

which followed. Usury laws, protective duties, monopolies, and so forth, were the expiring efforts of the old Middle Age polity to cope with this new international growth, and prevent it from benefiting one class alone. They had little permanent effect. The Elizabethan age, with all its glory, was the Iron Age for the mass of the English people.

CHAPTER III.

THE RISE OF THE MIDDLE CLASS.

Ar the death of Queen Elizabeth, England was the rising power of Europe. Disastrous as her reign had been to the multitude, there could be no dispute as to the regard in which this country was held abroad at the close of her long administration. The bitter struggle with Spain and the Papacy had ended completely in her favour; Ireland had been subjugated by vigorous and sustained effort; commerce had extended beyond all anticipation, the trade with the Netherlands alone having increased forty or fiftyfold; consequently when James I. ascended the throne, England was stronger in every respect than she had been at any previous period. Scotland was henceforth no longer a dangerous enemy in the event of foreign war, but a close and most serviceable friend; wealth abounded in the metropolis to such a degree that purely commercial considerations began to exert great influence in our foreign policy; nor could it be said that the campaigns of Gustavus Adolphus and the religious conflict throughout Europe were in any way harmful to this country.

During the reign of Elizabeth, Protestantism became finally the religion of the people of England and Scotland. This is essentially the creed of a trading community; keen competition for individual gain or loss in this world is supplemented by keen competition for eternal happiness or

*

damnation in the next. The Church of England, with the calm indifference to anything but personal advantage characteristic of its founders, was equally ready to crop the ears of Puritans or to stretch recusant Catholics upon the rack; though such was the fanaticism of the hot-gospellers, that in any attack upon Romish heresies the Anglican divines could always rely upon the support of those whom they had just outraged.

Some

The period of Tudor domination in which absolutism to a great extent replaced the feudal system, had strengthened the power of the Crown to all outward appearance. nobles had been bribed into submission for the time by large slices of the plunder of the Church, others who rose against the authority of the monarch were racked and gibbeted into quiescence. Thomas Cromwell was the English Richelieu. But the new landed aristocracy, whether nobles or squires, the new trading class, goldsmiths, manufacturers, or merchants, though ready enough to join with the Crown in oppressing the people, were nowise inclined to put up with much tyranny at their own expense. Even Queen Elizabeth, at the height of her popularity with these classes, found that out, and took care to remain on good terms with them at a temporary sacrifice of her own wishes. The first Stuarts, however, quite failed to understand that the House of Commons was the representative of the growing strength of the middle class in town and country, and were unable to see that Protes

Was there ever a better argument against a State Church than this of Petty's? "A third branch of the public charge is that of the pastorage of men's souls and the guidance of their consciences; which one would think (because it respects another world and but the particular interests of each man there) should not be a public charge at all in this." The "but the particular interests of each man there" seems to me erfect satire.