Tudor Fortune Hunters
Money troubles...
Money was a huge problem for most of the English nobility. They had to keep up appearances even when the coffers were empty.
Posted by Eve Edwards on 19 April 2010
Fool's Gold
The world in which Ellie and Will live in The Other Countess had as many money problems as our own. So I thought you might to hear about the winners and losers at Elizabeth's court.
Five ways to lose a fortune...
- Spend all your money pursuing alchemy (the hunt to make gold from other substances). This really happened to the real Lord Mountjoy who appears as a minor character in the book. It was like the modern gambling or drug habit.
- Have Queen Elizabeth to stay. Courtiers tried to outdo each other impressing the queen. Most famous were Lord Leicester's Kenilworth entertainments, possibly witnessed by the very young Shakespeare, in 1575. No expense was spared.
- Fund the Secret Service. Queen Elizabeth was famously close with her money so courtiers often ended up funding what we think of as the civil service out of their own pockets. Sir Francis Walsingham, her spy master, spent most of his fortune on his network of agents to defend the realm against Spain.
- Outshine the Queen with your clothes. The Earl of Essex's mother (also Lord Leicester's second wife) fell out of favour for the richness of her apparel, had her ears boxed by the Queen and was more or less banished from court. Be warned!
- Fund an unsuccessful voyage to the New World. Many people tried to match the Spanish and Portuguese success with their colonies but most failed. Sir Walter Ralegh tried several times, but his timing was always immensely unlucky and none brought him the riches he had hoped. He wasn't even responsible for discovering tobacco and potatoes - but that's another story!
Five ways to gain a fortune...
- Careful land management. While many lords threw away their money on alchemy or speculation, Bess of Hardwick, a lady-in-waiting to the Queen and important landowner, built up her fortune by wise management of her land holdings to become one of the richest people in the land.
- Be prepared to sacrifice you best clothes. Sir Walter Ralegh supposedly came out of obscurity by laying his cloak over a puddle for the Queen to pass without getting muddy. Might not be true, but it should be!
- Singe the King of Spain's beard. In other words, turn pirate like Sir Francis Drake and raid the Spanish treasure ships. It made his fortune, particularly because not everything he took was declared to the Treasury.
- Get a court appointment. Much of the Queen's power lay in her ability to hand out lucrative jobs at court. Lord Burghley was made Master of the Court of Wards giving him the management of all estates belonging to under-age nobles. He was allowed to cream off lots of money for his own pocket as a perk of the job.
- Become a successful playwright. Not a fortune on the scale of the nobles, but William Shakespeare did very well for himself, thank you very much, from saving up his theatrical profits and buying land in Stratford-upon-Avon. Most of his contemporaries died in poverty, but he was able to retire in comfort.
Posted by Eve Edwards on 19 April 2010