KNCOURAGED BY ELIZABETil. ^" 



feraarks, of all employments, requires the most reflec- 

 tion and experience. A great demand having arisen 

 for wool both at home and abroad, whole estates were 

 laid waste, while the tenants, regarded as a useless bur- 

 den, were expelled their habitations, and the cottagers 

 deprived even of the commons on which they fed their 

 cows ; no wonder there was a decay of the people ! 



(47.) Wool Trade encouraged hy Elizabeth. — 

 Elizabeth extended her protection to the Protestants 

 who fled from the persecutions of the Duke of Alva in 

 the Low Countries, and the woollen manufactories 

 became more flourishing than ever — so much so, that, 

 although in 1552, a large quantity of raw material was 

 exported, yet in less than thirty years, the people of 

 Germany, Poland, France, Flanders, Denmark, and 

 Sweden, were covered with British cloths ; two hun- 

 dred thousand pieces being annually exported, though 

 the price was nearly tripled. At that time the pro- 

 cesses by which woollens are rendered beautiful were 

 unknown in England, and as our exports consisted in 

 white undressed cloth, the profits upon dyeing and 

 finishing, amounting to nearly a million a year, were 

 lost. This was attempted to be remedied by prohi- 

 biting the exportation of white cloths, but the Dutch 

 and Germans, who benefitted by the dyeing processes, 

 forbade the entrance of any English woollens dyed in 

 the piece, into their territories, and the export conse- 

 quently fell immediately from 200,000 to sixty pieces. 

 Then the restriction was taken off. It was at this 

 crisis that the fabrication of medley cloths, or mixtures 

 of wool dyed of ditTerent colours and wrought into tti« 

 *ame web, was commenced. 



