Her Majesty's Mails

Under the Tudor dynasty, marvellous strides were taken in the social progress of the country. The habits of a great nation can, of course, only change slowly; but, notwithstanding, the England of the Plantagenets was a different country to the England which Elizabeth left in 1603. The development of trade, which really commenced with the Tudors, gave the first great impulse to a new social era. People began to feel more interest in each other, and as this became manifest, the demand for interchange of thought and news became more and more urgent. In the reign of Henry VIII. the English people began a considerable trade with Flanders in wool. A commercial treaty subsequently gave free ingress and egress to the ships of both nations. The change that this new trade wrought was immediate and striking. English rural districts which had before been self-supporting--growing their own corn and feeding their own cattle--now turned their corn-land into pasture-land, and sought grain among their neighbours. The dissolution of the monasteries under the same monarch had the effect, among other results, of scattering broadcast over the country those who had previously lived together and enjoyed almost a monopoly of learning. The Reformation civilized as well as christianized the people. Other causes were at work which operated in opening out the country, and encouraging habits of locomotion and the spread of intelligence generally. Amongst many such, were changes, for instance, in the routine of law procedure, introduced by Henry. Up to his time, courts of arbitration had sat from time immemorial within the different baronies of England, where disputes, especially those between landlord and tenant, were cheaply and equitably adjusted. Now, such cases were ordered to be taken to London, and country people found themselves compelled to take journeys to London and sue or be sued at the new courts of Westminster.[7]