Perhaps the most pleasing feature of country life was that of the position of the yeoman, or man of small independent property. This class had been increased by the various distributions of great estates; and it is calculated that at this time one-seventh at least of the population consisted of men with their families who lived on their own little demesnes producing from fifty to a hundred pounds a year. The number of men who farmed the lands of the aristocracy at that time is affirmed to have been much fewer than those who farmed their own. This independence of condition gave them independence of mind, and it was amongst this class that the strongest resistance to the dominance and intolerance of the squirearchy was found. Many of them during the Civil War and the Commonwealth adopted the Puritan faith, and continued to maintain it in defiance of Five-Mile Acts, Conventicle Acts, and Acts of Uniformity. From them descended the sturdy spirit which, uniting with a kindred spirit in towns, continued to vindicate the liberties and manly bearing of the British population.
Nor amid the corruptions and bitternesses of the times had all the ancient poetical customs of the people disappeared. Neither the asceticism of the Puritan nor the profligacy of the Cavalier had been able to utterly extinguish such customs as had a touch of nature in them. The Londoners made their swarming excursions to Greenwich, and Richmond, and Epping Forest, where they gave way to all their pent-up fun and frolic, and enlivened the banks of the Thames with their songs as they rowed to and fro. The old holidays of the departed church still survived. Valentine's Day was still a day of love missives, and of presents of gloves, jewellery, silk stockings, and ornamental garters from gentlemen to their valentines. Mayday reassumed its jollity; may-poles, put down by the Commonwealth, again lifted their heads; and Herrick's beautiful verses resumed their reality:—
"There's not a budding boy or girl this day
But is got up and gone to bring in May;
A deal of youth ere this is come
Back, and with whitethorn laden, home."
The Puritans beheld the return of the custom with horror. In 1660, the year that Charles II. and may-poles came back again, a Puritan, writing from Newcastle, says:—"Sir,—The country as well as the town abounds with vanities, now the reins of liberty and licentiousness are let loose. Maypoles, and players, and jugglers, and all things else now pass current. Sin now appears with a brazen face." Just as Charles and James were landing in the merry month of May, at Dover, Thomas Hall published his "Funebria Floræ, the Downfall of May Games"—a most inopportune moment. With equal horror, the Puritans beheld the old sports at village wakes and Whitsuntide, the jollity of harvest homes, and the mirthful uproar of Christmas, come back. New Year's Day, with its gifts—a Roman custom as old as Romulus—not only reappeared as a means of expressing affection amongst friends, but as a source of great profit to the king and nobility. For as Numa ordered gifts to be given to the gods on that day, so gifts were now presented by the nobility to the king, and long after his time by the dependents of the nobility, and those who sought favour from them, to the nobles. Pepys says that the whole fortunes of some courtiers consisted in these gifts. But Christmas boxes, which originated in New Year's gifts, and have become confounded with them in England, have survived the New Year's gifts of the time we are reviewing.
The great evidences of the growth of a nation are the increase of its trade, its population, and its governmental revenue. When these three things continue to augment, pari passu, there can be no question of the substantial progress of a nation. All these had been steadily on the increase during this period, and the advocates of royalty point to these circumstances to prove the mischiefs of the Civil War and the Commonwealth. It would be enough in reply, even did we admit the reality of the alleged facts, to observe that the mischief, whatever it was, was necessitated by the crimes and tyrannies of royalty. But we have only to look carefully at the whole case to see that the prosperity following the Restoration had its source in the Commonwealth. In spite of the violent changes and dislocations of society during the period of the conflict with Charles I., these upheavings and tempests threw down and swept away a host of things which cramped and smothered the free action of commerce and internal industry. The lava which burst in fiery streams from the volcano of revolution, though it might for a time destroy life and property, only required a little more time to moulder and fertilise the earth. A host of mischievous monopolies were annihilated in this convulsion. The foreign commerce was carefully extended. Not only at home were Englishmen relieved from the incubus of Government absolutism, and interference with private speculation, but the haughty fleets of Dutch, and French, and Spaniards were swept from the ocean, and English merchants were encouraged to extend their enterprises, not only by the greater security at sea, but by the act of the Long Parliament allowing the import of commodities from its colonies and possessions in America, Asia, and Africa, only in English bottoms. This, it has been contended, did us no good, because it compelled the Dutch to turn their attention to the Baltic trade, and enabled them to get the precedence of us there. But this is a mistake; for the removal of the overbearing fleets of the Dutch, and the stimulus given to our commerce by this privilege, led to a far greater amount of mercantile activity in England, and helped us to assume a position in which at a later date we could safely introduce the principles of free navigation.
MAY DAY REVELS IN THE TIME OF CHARLES II.