Last week I discussed how England faced a series of severe crises in the mid-to-late sixteenth century. From the 1540s through to the 1560s, it was beset by religious uproar, high inflation, hunger, rural and then urban unemployment, a fall-off in its major export trades, and widespread unrest. It was diplomatically isolated too. And I did not even mention the epidemics: the terrifying “sweating sickness” returned in 1551, deadly influenza swept the country in 1557, and in 1563 some 17,000 people in London were reportedly killed by the plague.
Age of Invention: Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste
Age of Invention: Never Let a Crisis Go to…
Age of Invention: Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste
Last week I discussed how England faced a series of severe crises in the mid-to-late sixteenth century. From the 1540s through to the 1560s, it was beset by religious uproar, high inflation, hunger, rural and then urban unemployment, a fall-off in its major export trades, and widespread unrest. It was diplomatically isolated too. And I did not even mention the epidemics: the terrifying “sweating sickness” returned in 1551, deadly influenza swept the country in 1557, and in 1563 some 17,000 people in London were reportedly killed by the plague.