There was, to begin with, an unstable throne. The Stuarts were weak rulers, and the people felt the relaxing of the strong hand of the Tudors. James I., untrained for his position, was a very undesirable sovereign, and earned for himself ridicule and dislike. One of his peculiarities was to affect a great contempt for women, and to scoff at men who treated them with respect. No wonder that he was held in abhorrence by the court ladies, and that there were loud complaints of his Majesty’s want of gallantry. Then there was a tendency to listlessness, and especially to mental inertia, after the revival of learning in the sixteenth century. The tension could not be sustained. And there were special difficulties arising from the circumstances of the time. The destruction of so many seats of learning by the dissolution of the Religious Houses was a blow to education. Nothing had arisen to take the place of the monastic schools. How little provision there was may be judged by the following remarks, made on the establishment of a school for the sons of gentlemen in the second half of the seventeenth century:-- “It is sufficiently known that the subjects of his Majestie’s dominions have, naturally, as noble minds and as able bodies as any nation of the earth, and therefore deserve all accommodations for the advancing of them either in speculation or action. Neverthelesse such hath been the neglect or undervalueing of ourselves and our own abilities, and over-valueing of forreigne teachers, that hitherto no such places for the education and trayning up of our own young nobilitie and gentrie in the practise of arms and arts have been instituted here in England as are in Italy, France, and Germany, but that by a chargeable and sometimes an unfortunate experience we, to our own losse and disgrace, doe finde the noble and generous youth of this kingdome is sent beyond the seas, to learn such things at excessive rates, from strangers abroad, wherein they might be as well, and with lesse expense and danger, instructed here at home.” If little attention were given to providing for the training of youths, still less was paid to that of girls, for whom there was not the compensation of being “sent beyond the seas.” Even for a gentleman’s daughters it was not thought necessary that they should learn anything thoroughly except housewifery.