The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir [10]
The prevailing disorder of the period did not stem the creation of wealth by the merchant class. After 1450 the wool trade slowly declined in importance, but at the same time there was increasing demand abroad for other English products, such as woollen cloth, tin, lead, leather and alabaster carvings from Nottinghamshire.
The English-owned port of Calais in north-west France was the chief market-place for England’s wool. A monopoly was enforced by the Merchants of the Staple, who sold the wool exported there to merchants from all over Europe. The stability of Calais was all-important to the merchant classes, but it was undermined during the Wars of the Roses when feuding magnates regarded it as a refuge in exile or, more alarmingly, as a springboard for invasion of England.
Many merchants, especially those in London, grew rich by importing luxury goods from the Mediterranean, which was a centre for commodities from even further afield – spices, medicines, paper, oriental silks, manuscripts, armour, wines, cotton, sugar, velvets and precious stones. For centuries the English had imported wine from Bordeaux and Gascony, and mercifully, with the cessation of the Hundred Years War and the victory of the French, the trade did not cease or suffer unduly.
Fortescue was of the opinion that ‘the common people of this land are the best fed and the best clad of any nation’. Serfdom had declined after the Black Death, and a shortage of labour had resulted in magnates and other landowners being willing to pay men to work on their land. Government efforts to impose wage controls had not succeeded, and hired labour was much in demand. Many lords had vacant tenancies for lease, since leaseholds were rapidly replacing feudal service, and rents were attractively low.
With the disappearance of serfdom the peasants enjoyed greater freedom and mobility, but their lot was often a gruelling one, especially in winter when food was scarce and there was little protection from the cold. Many peasants lived in tiny cottages with one or two rooms, earthen floors, a small window and basic items of furniture. Their livestock lived with them. Many existed in grinding poverty and relied on the charity dispensed by the Church or rich lay persons.
Few peasants suffered hardship, however, as a result of the agricultural depression that lasted from the late fourteenth century to around 1460, during which much land was converted into pasture for sheep. The depression led to falls in rents and prices, which meant that the peasant class, whose labour was so much in demand, had never before been so prosperous. Many farms fell into ruin, especially in the north, and land could be had cheaply. A phenomenon of the age was the self-made peasant who had managed to buy his own land and become prosperous. One such man from Wiltshire gained rich profits from making woollen cloth and left £2000 in his will, an enormous sum for the time.
The average peasant earned between £5 and £10 a year; in 1450 labourers were paid 4d a day, while skilled craftsmen earned between 5d and 8d. It cost around £3.4s.od. (£3.20) to build a cottage. Food, however, was half the price it had been in the fourteenth century, with eggs at 5d for a hundred, milk or beer 1d a gallon, and luxuries such as red wine 10d a gallon, sugar 1s.6d. (7½P) per pound, and pepper 2s (10p) per pound.
The government of the country was carried out by the king’s Council, which sat almost continuously and was made up of lords both temporal and spiritual as well as able men of lesser rank. The king sometimes presided over the Council but his presence was not always necessary to its smooth functioning; however, all its business was carried out in his name.
The Council’s chief functions were to assist the king in the formulation of policy and to carry out the day-to-day business of government. The long minority of Henry VI strengthened