Beneath the gentry were those who laboured for their survival. There were many prosperous tenants who were styled yeomen to denote their economic independence and the social gulf between them and those who eked out a bare existence. Some were the younger sons of gentlemen; others aspired to enter the ranks of the gentry, having amassed sufficient wealth to be secure against the fluctuations of the early modern economy. Like the gentry, the yeomanry were involved in local government, performing most of the day-to-day, face-to-face tasks. Yeomen were village elders, constables, and tax collectors, and they composed the juries that heard cases at quarter sessions. Most owned sufficient freehold land to be politically enfranchised and to participate in parliamentary selections. Filling out the ranks of rural society were husbandmen, cottagers, and labourers. Husbandmen were tenant farmers at or near self-sufficiency; cottagers were tenants with cottages and scraps of land, dependent on a range of by-employments to make ends meet (“an economy of makeshifts”); and labourers were those who were entirely dependent on waged employment on the land of others. They were the vast majority of local inhabitants, and their lives were bound up in the struggle for survival.
In towns, tradesmen and shopkeepers occupied the ranks below the ruling elites, but their occupational status clearly separated them from artisans, apprentices, and labourers. They were called the middling sort and were active in both civic and church affairs, holding the same minor offices as yeomen or husbandmen. Because of the greater concentrations of wealth and educational opportunities, the urban middling sort were active participants in urban politics. Government and society
Seventeenth-century government was inextricably bound together with the social hierarchy that dominated local communities. Rank, status, and reputation were the criteria that enabled members of the local elite to serve the crown either in the counties or at court. Political theory stressed hierarchy, patriarchy, and deference in describing the natural order of English society. Most of the aristocracy and gentry were the king’s own tenants, whose obligations to him included military service, taxes, and local office holding. The monarch’s claim to be God’s vice-regent on earth was relatively uncontroversial, especially since his obligations to God included good governance. Except in dire emergency, the monarch could not abridge the laws and customs of England nor seize the persons or property of his subjects.
The monarch ruled personally, and the permanent institutions of government were constantly being reshaped. Around the king was the court, a floating body of royal servants, officeholders, and place seekers. Personal service to the king was considered a social honour and thus fitting to those who already enjoyed rank and privilege. Most of the aristocracy and many gentlemen were in constant attendance at court, some with lucrative offices to defray their expenses, others extravagantly running through their fortunes. There was no essential preparation for royal service, no necessary skills or experiences. Commonly, members of the elite were educated at universities and the law courts, and most made a grand tour of Europe, where they studied languages and culture. But their entry into royal service was normally through the patronage of family members and connections rather than through ability.
From among his court the monarch chose the Privy Council. Its size and composition remained fluid, but it was largely composed of the chief officers of state: the lord treasurer, who oversaw revenue; the lord chancellor, who was the crown’s chief legal officer; and the lord chamberlain, who was in charge of the king’s household. The archbishop of Canterbury was the leading churchman of the realm, and he advised the king, who was the head of the established church. The Privy Council advised the king on foreign and domestic policy and was charged with the administration of government. It communicated with the host of unpaid local officials who governed in the communities, ordering the justices to enforce statutes or the deputy lieutenants to raise forces. In these tasks the privy councillors relied not only upon the king’s warrant but upon their own local power and prestige as well. Thus, while the king was free to choose his own councillors, he was constrained to pick those who were capable of commanding respect. The advice that he received at the council table was from men who kept one eye on their localities and the other on the needs of central policy.
This interconnection between the centre and the localities was also seen in the composition of Parliament. Parliament was another of the king’s councils, though its role in government was less well defined than the Privy Council’s and its summoning was intermittent. In the early 17th century, Parliament was less an institution than an event; it was convened when the king sought the aid of his subjects in the process of creating new laws or to provide extraordinary revenue. Like everything else in English society, Parliament was constituted in a hierarchy, composed of the king, Lords, and Commons. Every peer of the realm was personally summoned to sit in the House of Lords, which was dominated by the greatest of the king’s officers. The lower house was composed of representatives selected from the counties and boroughs of the nation. The House of Commons was growing as local communities petitioned for the right to be represented in Parliament and local gentry scrambled for the prestige of being chosen. It had 464 members in 1604 and 507 forty years later. Selection to the House of Commons was a mark of distinction, and many communities rotated the honour among their most important citizens and neighbours. Although there were elaborate regulations governing who could choose and who could be chosen, in fact very few members of the House of Commons were selected competitively. Contests for places were uncommon, and elections in which individual votes were cast were extremely rare.
Members of Parliament served the dual function of representing the views of the localities to the king and of representing the views of the king to the localities. Most were members of royal government, either at court or in their local communities, and nearly all had responsibility for enforcing the laws that were created at Westminster. Most Parliaments were summoned to provide revenue in times of emergency, usually for defense, and most members were willing to provide it within appropriate limits. They came to Parliament to do the king’s business, the business of their communities, and their own personal business in London. Such conflicting obligations were not always easily resolved, but Parliament was not perceived as an institution in opposition to the king any more than the stomach was seen as opposing the head of the body. There were upsets, however, and, increasingly during the 17th century, king and Parliament clashed over specific issues, but until the middle of the century they were part of one system of royal government. James I (1603–25)
James VI, king of Scotland (1567–1625), was the most experienced monarch to accede to the English throne since William the Conqueror, as well as one of the greatest of all Scottish kings. A model of the philosopher prince, James wrote political treatises such as The Trew Law of a Free Monarchy (1598), debated theology with learned divines, and reflected continually on the art of statecraft. He governed his poor by balancing its factions of clans and by restraining the enthusiastic leaders of its Presbyterian church. In Scotland, James was described as pleasing to look at and pleasing to hear. He was sober in habit, enjoyed vigorous exercise, and doted on his Danish wife, Anne, who had borne him two male heirs.