Society

• Society in Elizabethan England

  • Remained under aristocratic dominion
  • Nobility was comparatively more peaceable and less concerned with defence
  • Gentry class increased in size
  • Proportion of gentry who were seriously wealthy went up
  • Economic inequality widened
  • Beginning of a consumer society amongst the prosperous members of the landed, mercantile, and professional classes
• The highest peerage title of duke

  Carried inherent dangers
• Each of the four ducal titles that existed in England 1547-1572- Somerset, Northumberland, Suffolk and Norfolk- all suffered traitors' death
• After 1572 Elizabeth did not create any more dukes
• Houses built by the gentry

  • Wilton in Wiltshire built by the Earl of Pembroke
• Elizabeth chose to modify some of the many building projects of her father
• Range of the gentry class


  • Knights of the shire e.g. Sir Christopher Hatton
  • Modest local landowners
• County gentlemen dominated local government through their work as JPs
• Landed incomes increased especially after 1570
• Poorer sectors of the population were vulnerable to enclosure and the persistent decline in real wages
• By the end of the reign, population was 4 million
• Bulk of people lived in the countryside
• The only large city was London approx. 150,000
• Spike in rural to urban migration
• The largest provincial cities were Norwich and Bristol, but few other cities had populations in excess of 5000
• Elizabethan Poor Law Act of 1601


  1. Parish became designated as the institution required to raise the rates for, and to administer, poor relief

  2. Overseer of the poor appointed to ensure efficient collection of poor rates and appropriate distribution of relief to the poor

  3. Took upon the responsibility of ensuring a minimum level of subsistence for the deserving poor
• The treatment of the undeserving poor remained harsh
• In 1572 an Act added branding to the range of punishments available to the authorities
• England was more unified and peaceable than France or Spain
• The Northern Rebellion of 1569 was the only serious rebellion during Elizabeth's reign
• The tendency of the aristocracy and greater gentry to build indefensible country houses suggested a confidence in social order and peace
• Elizabethan attitude towards Ireland

  Ireland should be subjected to a policy of 'Englishness' in both religious and secular matters
• Elizabeth was proclaimed Supreme Governor of the Church of Ireland in 1560
• Elizabeth lacked the power to impose Protestantism on a largely Catholic population, mostly Gaelic in language and whose customary laws and land ownership differed hugely from that of the English
• Ireland became a 'breeding ground for fortune hunters'- John Guy
• The 'get rich quick' mentality of the English incomers and the frequent use of martial law led to bad relations with both the Gaelic Irish and the Old English (descendents of the Normans and English who had settled in Ireland since the 11th Century)
• Rebellions in Ireland


  1. 1569-73

  2. 1579-82 linked with a Spanish incursion into County Kerry

  3. 1595 centred on Ulster where the clan chief Hugh O'Neill rebelled with the Spanish attempting to exploit the situation
• The rebels were victorious at the Battle of Yellow Ford in August 1598
• Tyrone and his allies became in control of much of Ireland 'beyond the Pale'
• Elizabeth sent the Earl of Essex to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant in 1599 which was a mistake
• English response to Irish rebellions

  1. Significant progress under the new Lord Lieutenant, Lord Mountjoy, and Sir George Carew

  2. Tyrone retreated to Ulster before eventually negotiating a peace with Mountjoy in March 1603
• The Welsh language disappeared as a medium of government
• The Welsh language was preserved as a medium of religion with the translation of both the Book of Common Prayer and the Bible into Welsh
• The publication of dictionaries and grammars in Welsh also helped to preserve the language
• Poverty remained endemic and although many Welsh gentry seem to have prospered under Elizabeth, the disproportionate number of Welshmen implicated in the Essex 'rebellion' suggests significant level of discontent with the political situation towards the end of Elizabeth's reign
• Border regions of England and Scotland

  • Lawless subculture
  • Emphasis on casual violence
  • Rustling of sheep and cattle
• Henry VIII moved away from the policy of appointing wardens from the families of great northern magnates e.g. the Percies and the Dacres, which Elizabeth maintained
• Elizabeth sometimes resorted to appointing wardens from the second rank of northern landowners, the most notable of such was Sir John Forster who was more successful in exploiting his office for financial gain than maintaining border security
• Border security was an issue following the 1569 rebellion as some of the rebel leaders escaped into Scotland
• 1578-1585 when the grip on power of the Protestant lords in Scotland was tenuous, the governing of the borders once again became a key issue