Elizabeth The Golden Age

The Elizabethan era 1558–1603 is often depicted as the golden age of English history, it is seen as a time of stability, literature, exploration and expansion, a naval triumph over Spain and a successful propaganda campaign by Elizabeth I. The historian John Guy says ‘England was economically healthier, more expansive, and more optimistic under the Tudors than at any time in a thousand years.’ To her supporters she was Gloriana, to her enemies she was a ruthless illegitimate who followed a false religion. If someone was rich and a protestant then maybe it was a golden age. But for many it was anything but.
Elizabeth has seduced a nation and historians for centuries. Diana Princess of Wales was one of the most photographed women in the twentieth

Often the punishments for Catholics in England was lenient in comparison to what happened in Europe at the time. Torture, death penalties and banishment were common place on the continent for nonconformists. Fines and confiscations were the favoured penalties in England.
As the reign progressed this policy changed, Puritans were sent abroad, as it was seen as important to rid England of these dissenters, Catholics were initially put under watch. Parliament did not want to banish then and let them escape to France or Spain where they could find help and support, ‘safer by far, therefore, to permit the Romanist to remain in England under careful supervision.’
Catholics saw a change in their treatment after the return to England of Sir Francis Walsingham in 1578. Walsingham was made Secretary of State and saw it his duty to protect the Queen. Using a very efficient and successful spy network he uncovered plots against Elizabeth and acted to stop those plots. A devout Protestant, he sanctioned the use of torture against Catholic priests and suspected conspirators. Catholic priest Edmund Campion was among hundreds of Catholics who were tortured and found guilty on the basis of extracted evidence, he was hung, drawn and quartered at Tyburn in 1581. It was Walsingham who eventually entrapped Mary Queen of Scots as a conspirator and against the better judgement of Elizabeth had her executed.

The majority of the population lived mainly in rural areas although London was growing rapidly. This growth in population was not matched by a growth in jobs and led to an increase in demand for food. Landowners met that demand with more intensive and more efficient farming methods which resulted in a surplus of labour and caused real hardship for tenant farmers who had to seek employment elsewhere, employment that was not readily