If you liked bad smells, bad teeth and absolutely no personal freedom at all - then yes, England was a merry place.
A large majority in 2010 wants to live this way cause they’re voting for serfdom.
Sort of like California.
Hmmm...good economy but limited freedom. The first fascist state?
my favorite thing was the raw sewage poored out peoples windows that just ran down the middle of the street.
I'm more inclined to accept the traditional definition as beginning with the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215 and ending with the death of Elizabeth I, the last Tudor monarch, in 1603.
During this 388 year period, there were a total of three monarchs who could be considered reasonable competent: Edward III (1327-77), Henry IV (1399-1413) and Elizabeth I (1558-1603). That's 109 years or 28% of the total. Edward III was, at best, mediocre and is makes the list of comparatively competent monarchs only because others in the same era (particularly his predecessor) were so bad. Take out his 50 year reign and you are left with only 15% or so of that era which has good leadership and even less considering a substantial part of their early reign was spent just cleaning up the messes left by their predecessors.
Many of the gains made by the average Englishman during the reign of Edward III were due to an abrupt rise in wages following the 1348-49 black plague which reduced the labor force by more than 30%. Supply and demand tends to do that!
Like modern Libtards, many historians defend the reigns of monarchs like Edward I and Henry VII and VIII because they maintained firm control on the country.
But said control was achieved at an extraordinarily high cost. Henry VIII, for instance, ruled a country of 2.5 million and sent 70,000 or so of them to the gallows or chopping block as a price of maintaining control. That's an execution rate of 2.8%! The United States would have to execute nine million Americans over 38 years to achieve a comparable scale of brutality!
In terms of international importance, from the death of Henry IV in 1413 until the Coronation of Elizabeth I in 1558, England went from a country having substantial holdings in modern-day France (Normandy, Burgundy, Picardy, Calais) to being a country flirting with extinction whom some saw the possibilities of survival dependent only by merging with France, Spain or some greater power.
“If you liked bad smells, bad teeth and absolutely no personal freedom at all - then yes, England was a merry place.”
They haven’t changed all that much since then.
Almost everybody lives better now than kings of old. We have central heat to keep us warm now and don’t have to put up with all those young lovely bed warmers the king had...............