social class

wealth/property in britain

• gentry had 50%

• nobility had 15%

• rest held mostly by church or monarch

nobility - Charles I

• elite class - highest status

  • heads of nobility fams oft in HoL

• lots property + titles = inherited

• most wealth = from land ownership

  • oft tied to food prices + rent

• money from tithes

• ‘42 - Earl of Worcester donated £700,000 to royalist cause

  • Marquis of Newcastle donated £900,000

Interregnum

• ⭣ power

• HoL temporarily closed down

  • lost lord privileges

later years

• charles II + james II - reasserted nobility power

  • rights reaffirmed + in some cases extended

  • HoL re established

    • limited - cld be tried by peers for criminal accusations

• econ power ⭣ - inflation, growth of trade (⭡ power of merchants/gentry)

gentry - Charles I

• ⭡ power - created new hereditary title of baronet

  • cld be purchased by any fam w proof of coat of arms + cld afford cost

• gentry sons entering law careers

  • prerequisite for becoming mp/joining privy council

• pol power - most mps = gentry

  • Pym

  • post personal rule c had to turn to parl to help fight scots

  • parl ⭡ important in build up to civil war

Interregnum

• many gentry officers who fought for parl in civil war became high profile figures in republic

  • cromwell - became lord protector thru military/pol skill rather than wealth/inheritance

• HoL abolished - supremacy of the commons

• cld purchase confiscated royalist land

merchants

• status came from being landed

• oft lived in large towns

  • small group wealthy merchants (mayors, aldermen) developed in london

• benefited from pop growth, urbanisation, ⭡ consumerism

• began taking part in pol

• some recieved knighthoods

  • for contributing to econ etc

• soc aims = join gentry + provide children w edu

• power ⭡ as many became involved in oversea trade

  • America

  • East India Company

professionals

• ⭡ demand for professionals due to rising living standards of gentry/merchants

  • legal services

  • healthcare

  • edu

  • new buildings

• ⭡ no. lawyers, doctors, architects, bankers, academics

• ⭡membership of Grays Inn (an Inn of Court)

• 90% students training to be lawyers at Inner Temple = sons of gentry/nobility

  • edu ops still mainly limited to wealthier classes