come forward with all their resources at every national crisis precisely as the Crown was expected to work for the common weal at all times.  When the resources of the Crown and favored courtiers sufficed, no parliament was called; but whenever they had to be supplemented then parliament met and voted whatever it approved.  Finally, every English freeman was required to do his own share towards defending the country in time of need, and he was further required to know the proper use of arms.

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 ’garnish his cupboards with pewter and his joined beds with tapestry and silk hangings, and his tables with carpets and fine napery.’  He could even feast his neighbors and servants after shearing day with new-fangled foreign luxuries like dates, mace, raisins, currants, and sugar.

But Elizabethan society presented striking contrasts.  In parts of England, the practice of engrossing and enclosing holdings was increasing, as sheep-raising became more profitable than farming.  The tenants thus dispossessed either swelled the ranks of the vagabonds who infested the highways or sought their livelihood at sea or in London, which provided the two best openings for adventurous young men.  The smaller provincial