Read Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History for Free Online

networks, or “affinities,” which could be transformed quickly into large armies. Great magnates often used these forces against each other, or against the English king, in order to secure even more land and power. The rivalries among these mighty families, the ambitions of their chiefs, the “outlaw” nature of the Anglo-Scottish frontier, and the pervasive feeling that the North was often ignored at court rendered this part of the country a frequent source of instability early in our period. As in Ireland and the Welsh Marches, the English Crown often found that it had little choice but to rely on these great families to keep the peace in this far-flung part of its dominions.
    After the period covered by this book, the ruggedness of the Midlands and North became an advantage, albeit temporarily. During the first industrial revolution (roughly 1760 to about 1850), their downward rushing rivers, combined with rich coal deposits, provided perfect locations for the earliest large factories. This led to the expansion of moderately sized towns into the great cities of Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Bradford, and Sheffield. Even then, the money generated by these factories (and many of those enriched by it) tended to head south, toward London. In more recent decades, the collapse of heavy industry in Britain turned much of the North, in particular, into a rustbelt with high unemployment. Recovery only came at the dawn of the twenty-first century.
    Finally, remote as the crow flies but better connected to London through coastal navigation are the counties of Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, Norfolk, and Suffolk, which comprise the region known as East Anglia ( map 2 ). This part of England tends to be flat and barren, often fen (or swamp) land and subject to cold winds from the North Sea. But beginning in the sixteenth century, Norfolk and Suffolk’s sheep walks experienced an agricultural revolution and Suffolk in particular became rich on the wool trade. Nevertheless, all of these outlying areas had certain characteristics in common during the early modern period: their remoteness, their relative freedom from London’s influence and control, and, for most of the period, their relative lack of wealth (East Anglia excepted). These factors help to explain why these parts of England would often prove most ready to rebel against the political power of the king or the economic power of the ruling elite.
    As indicated above, the North and North Wales tend to be the most mountainous parts of Britain. The Pennine Range, in particular, runs like a backbone down the spine of the North and Midlands ( map 1 ). But even these peaks hardly compare to the Rockies or the Alps, English mountains tending to be very tall hills. Indeed, the highest mountain in England and Wales, Mount Snowdon, rises only 3,500 feet. The hilly terrain of the North did have economic consequences, as we have seen, and it could make military operations more difficult, but, by and large, mountains were not important in English history.
    Rivers, on the other hand, were very important. The most obvious example is the Thames, the great river in southeastern England which flows into the North Sea ( map 1 ). The Thames served as the highway by which nearly every one of England’s migrant groups penetrated its interior. Usually, they settled along its banks – another reason why the southeast is the most populous part of England. Later, the Thames, along with other major rivers (the Severn to the west; the Mersey, the Great Ouse, Humber, Trent, Tyne, and Tees to the north: map 1 ), served as principal highways and trade routes. In the eighteenth century, they would be linked in a great national canal system. Though England had a system of roads emanating from London as first laid down by the Romans, water transportation (around the coast or, internally, via the river system) remained the cheapest and safest way to travel or to ship goods.
    But if we were to somehow