ABSTRACT
The importance of the changes that took place during the Stuart age ought not to be minimized, but they need to be seen in their proper historical context. The essential continuity of life in Stuart England and beyond is often overlooked. Between 1603 and 1714 England made tremendous economic progress and fundamental changes took place in its social structure. Since poverty is not an easily definable concept, King's attempt to assess the scale of poverty in late Stuart England is bound to be arbitrary. For most people, life at the end of the Stuart age was a grim struggle for sustenance and survival. The last Stuart monarch, like the first, set an example of reform. Queen Anne assigned all the crown's revenue from the first fruits and tenths of ecclesiastical benefices to a fund, Queen Anne's Bounty, to augment the salaries of poorly endowed ministers.
