The great object of every European court during early modern times was
to get both the old feudal nobility and the newly promoted commoners to
revolve round the throne as round the centre of their solar system. By
sheer force of character--for the Tudors, had no overwhelming army like
the Roman emperors'--Henry VIII had succeeded wonderfully well.
Elizabeth now had to piece together what had been broken under Edward VI
and Mary. She, too, succeeded--and with the hearty goodwill of nearly
all her subjects.

Mary had left the royal treasury deeply in debt. Yet Elizabeth succeeded
in paying off all arrears and meeting new expenditure for defence and
for the court. The royal income rose. England became immensely richer
and more prosperous than ever before. Foreign trade increased by leaps
and bounds. Home industries flourished and were stimulated by new
arrivals from abroad, because England was a safe asylum for the
craftsmen whom Philip was driving from the Netherlands, to his own great
loss and his rival's gain.

English commercial life had been slowly emerging from medieval ways
throughout the fifteenth century. With the beginning of the sixteenth
the rate of emergence had greatly quickened. The soil-bound peasant who
produced enough food for his family from his thirty acres was being
gradually replaced by the well-to-do yeoman who tilled a hundred acres
and upwards. Such holdings produced a substantial surplus for the
market. This increased the national wealth, which, in its turn,
increased both home and foreign trade. The peasant merely raised a
little wheat and barley, kept a cow, and perhaps some sheep. The yeoman
or tenant farmer had sheep enough for the wool trade besides some
butter, cheese, and meat for the nearest growing town. He began to