ABSTRACT
It is not very original to state that Britain is an island. Yet in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries this fact was of crucial importance. The one hundred and fifty years before the Civil War saw almost constant warfare on the Continent; in England there was peace. National defence was looked after by the navy; there was no need for an army. After 1603 the frontier with Scotland no longer needed to be defended. England has excellent water communications, and water transport was in this period far cheaper than land transport. It cost as much to bring goods to London by land from Norwich as by sea from Lisbon. Coastal trade expanded rapidly. In the reign of Charles I the Thames was navigable as far as Oxford; York, Nottingham, Shrewsbury, Stratford-onAvon, Peterborough, Hertford, Bedford, and Cambridge were all ports. But government policy and social privilege combined to counteract the
advantages which geography had given England. In 1627 the city of Gloucester obtained a charter permitting it to levy tolls on all vessels proceeding up the Severn towards Birmingham; and ‘mighty men’ were able in the next decade to prevent improvements in Severn navigation which were essential for the Midlands industries. The real improvement of communications came after 1640 when aristocratic privilege counted for less.
