the people and the army in elizabethan times

The Great Chain of Being

The belief in a strict hierarchy: Queen > Nobility > Gentry > Yeomen > Tenant Farmers > Landless Poor.

The Rise of the Gentry

A socio-economic shift; as the old nobility lost wealth, wealthy landowners became the most powerful class in local government.

Enclosure

Fencing off common land for sheep; profitable for the Gentry but caused mass unemployment for the rural poor.

The Price Revolution

A century-long period of inflation; food prices rose by 500% while wages for labourers remained largely stagnant.

Wool Exports

80% of England's exports; the massive demand for wool drove the enclosure crisis and the growth of the merchant class.

Vagrancy Crisis

The rise of homeless people; the government feared "Masterless Men" would spread disease or start a revolution.

The "Deserving" Poor

The old, sick, and orphans; people unable to work who were seen as worthy of parish charity.

The "Idle" Poor

People able to work but didn't; they were treated as criminals and whipped under the Vagabonds Act.

1601 Poor Law

The first national system where each parish collected a "Poor Rate" tax to provide for the needy.

Overseers of the Poor

Parish officials who decided who received food/aid and who was sent to a "House of Correction."

Houses of Correction

Prison-workhouses where the "Idle Poor" were whipped and forced to do hard labour like spinning wool.

Almshouses

Houses provided by the parish for the "impotent poor" (old/sick) to live in; a key part of the 1601 social safety net.

Treaty of Nonsuch (1585)

Elizabeth promised military aid to Dutch rebels; this was the official "trigger" for the war with Spain.

King Philip II of Spain

The Catholic king who wanted to depose Elizabeth to restore Catholicism and stop English "sea dogs" from looting his silver.

Singeing the King's Beard

1587, Drake's raid on Cadiz destroyed 30 Spanish ships, delaying the Armada by a full year.