Banks, shares and the new money
As trade grew, financial institutions arose to speed it up, and the number of banks increased. In 1553 the Merchant Adventurers formed a joint-stock company for the Russia trade, issuing 240 shares at 25 pounds each, according to the book. After each expedition the profits were shared and the capital was returned to be used again. The East India Company likewise financed its voyages, and the profit of 87 percent in its first voyage, which the book's text gives in a garbled form, drew courtiers, judges, clergymen, knights, widows, spinsters and merchants into the next. Men and women loved money then as fiercely as now.
From 1552 the law branded the taking of interest a most hateful sin, but the steady growth of business led Parliament in 1571 to pass an act that distinguished interest from usury and made ten percent legal. As share trading increased, exchanges sprang up where shares or goods were traded, and more money flowed to ease buying and selling. In 1566 Gresham founded the Royal Exchange for such commercial and financial dealings, and in 1573 the institution announced its first policy of life insurance, according to the book.
The city that became a world market
As London became one of the world's markets and centers, business thrived. Dark lanes glittered with goods, and a traveler who had visited many countries called the goldsmiths' shops of London the most splendid he had seen. Merchants often lacked premises, and some used the nave of St. Paul's Cathedral as a temporary office, confident that Jesus, after Calvin, had changed his mind about usury (a gloss from the translator: Jesus condemned usury, while Calvin did not forbid it). Lawyers talked with clients there, others counted money on the tombstones, and hawkers sold bread, meat, fish, fruit and ale. Pedestrians, peddlers, coaches and carts jostled in narrow streets deep in mud.
The Thames was the main highway, busy with barges, wherries and pleasure boats. At almost every landing a boatman cried out 'Eastward Ho!' or 'Westward Ho!' to carry passengers and goods up or down the river, and these cries later gave their names to plays in the reign of James I (1603 to 1625). As the river's many odors lessened, the waterway became a place for trade, recreation and courtship, and fine entertainments were staged along its banks, where wealthy people made their homes. London Bridge, built in 1299, was the city's pride and the only link between its northern and southern parts. South of the river lay taverns, theaters, disreputable houses and many prisons, while the north was the center of commerce. The merchant ruled here, and titled lords could hardly come and go. The royal family and nobles lived in country palaces outside London. Westminster, where Parliament met, was a separate town, where merchants too pressed their views. Around 1600 that place frightened the queen, and half a century later the king of England was beheaded there, as the book puts it.
Schools and the English tongue
In Shakespeare's day people were not used to formal education. They knew a little Latin and less Greek, somewhat more Italian and French, and read eagerly but hurriedly, putting what they read to the test at once. They went on learning to the end of life and spoke to their teachers with unprecedented boldness.
The language they used was not that of the schools. It was the inheritance of Celtic, Roman, Saxon and Norman English, rich in French and Italian words, in slang and provincial dialect, and they coined new words from every word, using a vigorous imagination to invent expressions. There has never been a tongue so lively, strong, flexible and rich. Spelling was unfixed, and no spelling dictionary existed before 1570. Shakespeare never spelled his own name the same way twice. Shorthand was in use, though it did not curb the impatience of hot-blooded merchants or produce poetry.
Regular education for girls had collapsed after Henry VIII dissolved the convents, yet all children, even in rural areas, could get free elementary schooling. Elizabeth founded a hundred free elementary schools, according to the book, and James I and Charles I opened 288 more. For the sons of gentlemen there were great schools at Winchester, Eton, St. Paul's and Shrewsbury, then Rugby (1567), Harrow (1571) and Merchant Taylors' (1561), whose headmaster Richard Mulcaster won great fame for his teaching. The classics and the rod made up the curriculum, and conformity to the Anglican faith was compulsory. At Westminster classes began at seven and ended at six, with breakfast at eight and a brief rest or nap in the afternoon. Parents believed a school should above all perform one duty to perfection: relieve them of their children.
Universities and learned women
Oxford and Cambridge still held the monopoly of higher education. Through the upheavals of the Reformation they recovered their importance, though they lacked the power and endless statutes of medieval times, and by 1586 each had about 1,500 students. At Cambridge Sir Walter Mildmay endowed Emmanuel College (1584), and Frances, Countess of Sussex, aunt of Philip Sidney, founded Sidney Sussex (1588). At Oxford a college was founded in 1571 with government and private funds (the Persian text says Christ Church, probably a slip for Jesus College), and Wadham (1610) and Pembroke (1624) followed under James I. In 1564 the queen's visit to Cambridge caused great excitement. She heard a Latin oration in her praise, answered a Greek address at Trinity College in Greek, exchanged Latin remarks with students in the streets and finally gave a Latin speech of her own expressing her eagerness to serve learning. Two years later at Oxford she delighted in its halls and meadows, and on leaving cried out, 'Farewell, my good subjects! Farewell, my dear scholars! God help your studies!' Elizabeth knew how to be a good queen.
Some Englishwomen rivaled her in learning. The daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke were famous scholars, and Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke, made her house at Wilton a meeting place for poets, statesmen and artists, with enough judgment to appraise their best talents. Women like her learned from private tutors. The elementary schools were open to boys and girls, but the great schools and the universities were for males only.
One great work of the age was done by one of Elizabeth's ablest financiers, Gresham, who founded Gresham College in London for law, medicine, geometry, rhetoric and other subjects useful to merchants. He ordered the lectures to be in both English and Latin, since 'merchants and other subjects of England' would attend. The gentry and the well-off completed their education with travel. Students went to Italy to study medicine or the art of Italian literature, and many enjoyed France along the way. Language was little barrier then, since every educated Westerner understood Latin. Even so, travelers came home with a little Italian and French and a particular taste for Italian ease in questions of conduct.