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The plague brought about many deaths in England in Tudor times. Bubonic plague is caused by bacteria called Yersinia pestis. These bacteria lived on the fleas that infest rats and mice. Rats came ashore in England from ships from Europe. As rubbish was dumped close to people's homes, rats and humans lived near to each other. When rats died, their fleas left in search of food. They bit people and passed on the bacteria, which gave humans the plague. Even fleas' droppings could infect people. When a person caught Bubonic plague they would start to feel horribly cold and get a high fever a couple of days after a flea bite. Swellings called buboes would appear and an ulcer that changed from orange to black appeared where they had been bitten. The victim was confused, delirious and restless and died after three to five days, though some people took as long as a month. Only about a quarter of people who caught plague got better. People could also catch primary pneumonic plague. This disease was spread by coughing and could kill its victims in two days. The royal court and rich people could leave the dangerous cities, but poor people had to stay where they were. Herbs and spices were used to try to prevent or cure the disease. Ginger was put in scented balls called pomanders that people carried with them to smell. Chervil, a herb rather like parsley with an aniseed smell, was thought to help prevent the plague. Plague doctors, who wore all-over leather protective clothes, put bergamot oil in the long beaks of their face masks. Bergamot comes from a plant that is related to oranges. It was thought to cure boils and abscesses. The doctors sprinkled themselves with vinegar and chewed the sweet herb angelica to fight off infection before seeing their patients. Some people thought that famine, war and plague were punishments from God, but by the end of Elizabeth I's reign others began to think of ways to prevent the disease and make cities more hygienic.

Guilds started in the middle ages as societies of merchants or craftsmen that could look after their members. They met in a local church or monastery. Craft guilds gradually grew into powerful groups. They made sure that their members made high quality products. Guilds trained their members. They looked after them whether they were working, sick or retired. Important guild members wore special clothes called livery. Leading cities like London were run by an elected Lord Mayor and council, who were members of merchant guilds. They built beautiful Guildhalls. Some of these buildings survive today. Streets in towns sometimes got their names from the trades that worked there, like Threadneedle Street (tailors) and Bread Street (bakers) in London. In 1563 an act of parliament said that all craft guild members should serve a seven year apprenticeship, followed by an examination by officers of the guild. If an apprentice passed he became a journeyman, paid by the day. Senior members of some guilds could be searchers. They could go into workshops to check on the quality of craftsmen's workmanship. Many surnames today come from crafts, like Goldsmith, Turner, Tailor, Cooper (barrel maker). Guilds would organise processions, feasts and pageants. Pageants were plays telling stories from the Bible. Guild members acted in the plays. They often made amazing sets and costumes and acted the plays in public from carts that toured the town.

People have been able to tell the time, with some accuracy, since the Pharaohs ruled Egypt. There were water clocks and sundials when the Tudors came to the throne. Most people didn't need to know what time of day it was. Without artificial lighting - even tallow candles could be expensive - they rose, and went to bed with the sun. Rich people had mechanical clocks, driven by a falling weight. But these were not a lot of good outside the house. Portable timepieces needed something else to drive them. And that was a spring. With its invention, in 1500, watchmakers could make clocks smaller and smaller - until they could be carried in a large pocket - or on a chain. The early watches were very precious -and very complex machines for their day. But they were not absolutely accurate. They had an hour hand - but no minute or second sweep. Henry VII is thought to have had a pocket watch. English watchmakers, called horologists, trailed behind European experts. Some French Protestants called Huguenots were at the cutting edge of the new technology. They were not very popular in their own country, which was Catholic. Thousands were killed in Paris during the St Bartholomew's Day massacre. Many of the people who escaped fled to England. They brought with them their skills which ranged from cloth making to watch making.

In 1492, explorer Christopher Columbus landed on the island of Cuba. When his sailors went on shore they met islanders with what seemed to be burning sticks in their mouths. Gradually explorers discovered many more people in the Americas doing the same thing - they were smoking tobacco. The word tobacco could come from a Caribbean name for the tube or pipe through which local people inhaled the smoke. It could also mean a roll of leaves, a bit like a rough cigar. Tabaco was the Spanish word for herbs used in medicines as well. Tobacco smoking soon caught on in England. Lots of people used to stand and stare at the first people smoking their clay pipes, as they had not seen anything so strange before. Sailor and courtier Sir Walter Raleigh became a big fan of smoking. As he was a very popular man in England lots of people quickly took up smoking as well. Sir Walter was one of the first people to grow tobacco in England - in his gardens in London. Physicians claimed that tobacco was good for people with toothache, falling fingernails, worms, bad breath, lockjaw and cancer. Some people believed that moderate pipe smoking was so good at keeping people healthy that they wouldn't need doctors! On the other hand tobacco was also called Sotweed in Tudor times because it made people feel dizzy when they smoked it. Sir Walter Raleigh's friend, Thomas Hariot tried tobacco on his travels in America and became a lifetime smoker. When he got back to England he wrote that tobacco smoke preserved the body and helped the native people keep healthy, without many of the serious diseases which people in England suffered from. He said that tobacco was 'a remedy for sores, wounds, infections of the throat and chest and the plague.' He died of a terrible cancerous ulcer in his nose, probably the first person in England to die of a disease related to smoking. There has been a tax on tobacco ever since the time of Elizabeth I.

William Tyndale translated a lot of the Bible into English for the first time. Before Tyndale, the Bible was only available in England in a Latin translation. Latin was the language of educated people. Tyndale was born in about 1494 and studied the Bible at university. He became very good at eight foreign languages. He wanted everybody in England, however rich or poor they were, to be able to read or hear the Bible in English. At first powerful people in the Church in England did not want the Bible to be translated into English and heard by ordinary folk. They called Tyndale a heretic. This meant he could be executed for his religious ideas. In 1524 he had to escape to Germany to be able to continue his translation. He lived in poverty and fear, but bravely carried on working. Pocket sized copies of Tyndale's New Testament were smuggled to England in 1526. His books were very popular, even though Church people collected and burned them when they could. Tyndale was betrayed and captured in Belgium. He was executed in 1536 after more than a year in prison. Not long after Tyndale's death Henry VIII allowed scholars to finish Tyndale's Bible. Henry's Great Bible was printed in English in 1539. He realised it helped his new Church of England. Today people still say many of the things Tyndale wrote, as he used clear and simple language. Here are some: let there be light; the salt of the earth; fight the good fight and a law unto themselves.

Some Tudors travelled widely. One or two even sailed round the world. But for most people travel was a luxury they could not afford. Most men and women never went further than their own village during the whole of their lives. Of the working classes, soldiers and sailors saw most of the world. They would be sent most often to France and the Low Countries, which is the old name for Holland and Belgium, to fight against the Catholic kings. Courtiers might travel further abroad, to Greece and Italy to study art and poetry. They would go by horse and boat. Progress would be very slow. But they could travel very fast when they wanted to. One of Henry VIII's statesmen managed to travel between London and Paris in less than 48 hours. Poor people travelled by foot, while people who had a little more money would go on horseback. Goods were carried by cart, or on the backs of mules. Wealthy people often travelled in convoys, with guards to protect them against thieves. The roads were very bad, rutted and muddy. During the summer, Queen Elizabeth would travel around her realm, visiting various noblemen. She took everything, including the kitchen sink, on her Royal Progress, packed into 400 wagons and onto 2,400 packhorses. The Queen preferred to ride on a horse. Coaches in those days had no springs, and passengers would feel every stone in the road. In London, people used the River Thames for travel - despite the fact that it was an open sewer. But this was better - at least for the wealthy - than walking through the streets. These were narrow and filthy - and thronging with pickpockets. Without police they had a field day.

Rich people had tapestries and beautiful wall hangings to decorate the walls of their rooms and keep out draughts. These were very expensive, so most families could not afford them. Wallpaper arrived in Europe from China in the 1500s. English printers started to produce it in Tudor times. Gradually it became popular, as it was a lot cheaper than wall hangings. There were designs like tapestries or flowers. Wallpaper was made by block printing. First the pattern was carved on wooden blocks, then it was printed carefully by hand on the paper many times. The oldest piece of English wallpaper that survives today was made in 1509. It is of pomegranates, which are delicious fruit. Some wallpaper was used to line deed boxes, which were used to store important legal documents. Some of this early wallpaper still exists today. It has royal motifs on it.

Henry VII realised that it helped trade if weights and measures were the same all over the country, so people could trust them when they made, bought and sold goods so he reformed them. In 1497 he sent new standardised copies to 42 important towns. The originals were kept in the Treasury. Elizabeth I carried on her grandfather's work. Like Henry VII, she knew how important it was to have really accurate standards for weights and measures. In 1574 she set up a committee to find out how to improve the accuracy of weights and measures. At first the committee used an old set of weights belonging to the Goldsmiths' Company in London. But not everybody agreed that they were correct. It took 18 years for sets to be ready. They were sent to the mayors of 57 important towns to keep and use to settle arguments about weights. They weigh from 1 ounce to 56 lb. Elizabeth followed the weights up with a set of measures in 1601, for the gallon, quart and pint. By replacing the traditional Roman mile of 5,000 feet with a mile 5,280 feet long she made it easier to work out distances accurately. The new mile measured eight furlongs. A furlong was a well-used size. It is 220 yards.

Gunpowder had been known to the Chinese for a thousand years before it came to England. Here it was used not to entertain the crowds as a display of fireworks, but to kill and maim. Gunpowder was an essential weapon of war used to propel cannon balls from cannons - and shot from guns. The Arabs were the first to use gunpowder in a gun. By 1304 they had designed a bamboo tube, reinforced with iron that fired an arrow. But there is evidence that an English scholar called Francis Bacon already knew of its use. He wrote about it in 1242. But the recipe was written in code - which no one could decipher. Gunpowder was made by mixing saltpetre, with charcoal and sulphur. The amounts were crucial. Too little and the powder would simply fizz, rather than explode. Saltpetre is a natural chemical. It is produced when organic matter decomposes. The Tudors found it in sewage soaked stables, and even houses, which they purified using a very complicated recipe. The mixture was then ground together - a very dangerous job. - because a single spark could cause it all to explode. The fireworker usually carried out the task on the battlefield - just before it was needed. The gunpowder was put down the barrel of the gun, the cannon ball placed on top. Then a smouldering wick was touched to the pan on top of the cannon. With any luck it would ignite the gunpowder causing an explosion - which would cause the cannon ball to leave the gun. There was one major drawback to gunpowder - apart from its explosive properties. It did not work when wet. This was a great disadvantage when it was used at sea.