Elizabeth I - Economic developments

Trade

• Value of internal trade exceeded foreign trade -> growth of shipping coal from Tyne to Thames = meet demands of London market
• Wider range of foreign luxury goods imported = becoming more affordable
• Cloth trade with Netherlands declined -> Antwerp cloth market declined early 1550s -> developed trade with Emden + Amsterdam
• Establishing new overseas markets remained economically marginal

Attempts to expand trade

• Main centre of African trade = Guinea -> starting point for John Hawkin's move to America = invented English slave trade -> 3 expeditions 1562 = slaves from Africa sold in South America
• 2nd + 3rd expeditions had royal support -> 3rd blockaded at port of San Juan de Ulua -> antagonised relations between England + Spain
• Main English wool markets moved to northern Netherlands + increased trade with Ottoman Empire

• Trading companies set up to widen trading interests -> Muscovy Company 1555 = trade with Russia + northern Europe -> Eastland Company 1579 = trade in the Baltic -> Levant Company 1581 = Turkish Company, developed trade with Ottoman Empire -> East India Company 1600 = trade with Asia

Exploration and colonisation

• Walter Raleigh = supported by prominent investors -> 1585 received patent from queen to colonise Virginia
• 2 expeditions made land on Roanoke Island -> attempts to colonise disastrous -> had to wait until James I

Prosperity and land

• Landed incomes rose + landowners acquired range of material possessions unknown to grandparents' generation
• Huge proliferation of building country houses
• Rise in agricultural prices = good for farmers -> improvement in farmer living standards

• Increase in agricultural production

Prosperity and trade

• Historians say trade was buoyant -> evident by shipbuilding
• Others say there was a desperate search for new markets

Urban prosperity

• Urban decay associated with corporate boroughs = heavily dependent on cloth industrry
• Condition of old-established towns continued to improve -> York + Norwich
• New urban settlements developed -> Manchester + Plymouth
• Towns doing well = range of manufacturing industry or were unincorporated towns
• Growth of London = detrimental effect on other towns + cities -> others benefited from supplying London's economic needs

Depression

• Real wages fell + harvest failures
• 9 of 44 harvests of reign = poor -> 1594-97, 4 successive bad harvests = catastrophic
• Starvation in far north -> Corporation of Newcastle reported burying 25 homeless people

Economic condition of the regions

• Wealthiest part of country = south-east -> followed by Norfolk + Suffolk + 'inner West Country
• Poorest counties = north + west Midlands -> reflected income levels
• Ministers' main priority was maintaning public order
• Relationship between Crown + landed elites became closer during reign -> joint-stock companies -> commercial expansion