Neither was Nadia pleased with the so-called praising and tried so smile a small smile which didn't look
too weak. She
had been raised like a muggle... her own pureblood family had been responsible for it, for keeping so many -unneccessry- secrets.
Quote:
"Obviously he was extravagant because he got into such debts. But what specifically did he do with the money?" she pressed, pushing the student further, pressing for a more specific answer.
"He had aquired Elizabeth's debt of more than
400,000 and James, with a wife and two sons, had much larger household expenses than the unmarried queen.
"Elizabeth's debt consisted of war losts mostly. Also, a revolution in reading and writing was taking place, and by 1640 nearly 100 percent of the gentry and merchant elements were literate. Possibly 50 percent of the yeomanry but only 10 percent of the husbandry and none of the peasantry were able to read or write. The years between 1560 and 1650 were an age of school-building and educational endowment; by then 142 new schools had been founded and
293,000 given to grammar (secondary) school education."
"Land and duties from customs were the major sources of royal revenue, and it was James's good fortune that the latter increased dramatically after the judges ruled in Bate's case (1606) that the king could make impositions on imported commodities without the consent of Parliament. Two years later, under the direction of James's able minister Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, impositions were levied on an expanded list of goods, and a revised book of rates (1608) was issued that increased the level of duties. By these measures customs revenues grew by
70,000 a year."
Quote:
"Why were many plays of this period set in countries such as Italy and Spain as opposed to England?"
"It was the cultural explosion that produced Shakespeare, Marlowe, Spenser, Bacon, and Donne. Poets, scholars, and playwrights dreamed and put pen to paper. Adventurers responded differently; they went "a-voyaging." From a kingdom that had once been known for its "sluggish security," Englishmen suddenly turned to the sea and the world that was opening up around them. The outpouring was inspired not only by the urge for riches but also by religion--the desire to labour in the Lord's vineyard and to found in the wilderness a new and better nation. As it was said, Englishmen went forth "to seek new worlds for gold, for praise, for glory."