What was England like before the establishment of colonies?

Question

Did they have any major difficulties? Over-population? Poverty? Anything? Please add where you found your info too (source).

Answer 1

What info I have I found in such a variety of places, on the web, in history books, in genealogical books.
Before Spain "discovered" the New World, the British Isles, like all of Europe, suffered from starvation, caused by over-population and too little food. Within 100 years, from 1500 - 1600, the population of Europe DOUBLED (including England) due to the foods that were brought back from the Americas, such as corn, potatoes, melons, beans, etc.
(Side note: at that time, the only peoples in the world that could support their populations were the American Indians, due mostly to the foodstuffs they grew.)
Most people were poor; a few (percentagewise) were middle class; even fewer were rich. People are so used to the fairy tales and history books used in school that they don't realize that the kings and queens of the time did NOT have the fortune to wage wars or finance explorations.
This fell to the merchant classes; they financed wars, they financed the Mayflower, the Virginia colonies, whatever required a lot of money.
Some of the books I have read include:
"Mayflower Bastard, A Stanger Among the Pilgrims"
"A Martin Genealogy, Tied to the History of Germanna, Virginia" (mostly about German immigrants)
"The Mayflower Descendant" (an entire series of books).
Any of the good books on genealogy, especially for New England. Most of the immigrants to Virginia (and the Carolinas) were settled by debtors prisoners, etc.

Answer 2

Obviously England suffered from many problems, famine due to lack of farmland, attacks from Scotland and, their age old enemy, france, problems with the government against the monarchy dating back centuries. The colonies were neccessary in order to ensure England would not be crushed when the rest of Europe built their own empires..

Answer 3

Before they were out establishing colonies they were busy fighting off invading conquerers (not always successfully) and fighting with Scotland!