Tudor British Isles - 1600

Trade and commerce is what economy is all about. Interestingly, the only difference between today's trade activities and that of the colonial era is imperial colonization. And when we talk about the country having the largest colonial empire in the modern world, we point towards the Great Britain. From the Americas to Australasia (or Oceania), the United Kingdom had/has colonies/dependencies spread out on all 5 continents, including Europe as well (Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey). But all this geared up not before the 18th century. The 1600s was the era when the British Isles was competing with the Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese in terms of trade and commerce but without any intention of colonization.

The English Crown colonization was different from its corporate counterpart. Although the colonization pursuits had already started in 1550s, it would be the East India Company's journey that would bring in the maximum share of wealth to uplift the Empire. And as the world knows it, the hotbed of Company profits was no other than the Indian territories. But that would all start only in the early 1600s, with the establishment of the East India Company in 1600.

Tudor England (1485-1603) was a tough phase which maybe today would be unthinkable. With minute traces of current fascism as commonality, Tudor England was in particular harsh for common people. A high infant mortality rate, struggling to reach even in the 40s, shorter life-expectancy of women, starvation, a church-controlled state and an ongoing plague had ravaged the island. This was the time when England had united with Wales to form Kingdom of England and had just made its colonies in Ireland. The common people had a very different concept of personal hygiene and it was believed that bathing would result in having plague. Toilets were not yet introduced and there wasn't any flush system and with lack of drainage-sewer systems, the excreta would had to be cleaned physically. This was the life among both commoners as well as those living in the castles. And this was also the time when William Shakespeare had written all its compositions and published a few of them as well.

London (also spelled as Londen on some maps) was always the largest city of the island. And the most dirtiest as well. With animals such as pigs, dogs, sheep roaming freely in the city and dumping their dungs and urine and open carcasses at butcher-houses made parts of the city unbreathable. But there are certain establishments whose architecture has survived the tests of time and even today they reflect the Tudor life to an extent. The Ludlow Castle (in Shropshire), Hardwick Hall (in Derbyshire), Buckland Abbey (in Devon), Anne Hathaway's Cottage (wife of William Shakespeare; in Warwickshire), the Charterhouse (in London), Little Moreton Hall (in Cheshire) etc. The map shown here is a [recreated] 1600-dated published map of British Isles by Iohan Buxemacher (Johann Bussemacher), a German publisher.