The Tudor and Stuart eras marked a period of transition for Birmingham. In the 1520s the town was the third largest in Warwickshire with a population of about 1,000 – a situation little changed from that two centuries earlier. Despite a series of plagues throughout the 17th century, by 1700 Birmingham's population had increased fifteenfold and the town was the fifth-largest in England and Wales, with a nationally important economy based on the expanding and diversifying metal trades, and a reputation for political and religious radicalism firmly established by its role in the English Civil War.