“For I myselfe know many townes and villages sore decayed, for yt where as in times past there wer in some town an hundred householdes there remain not now thirty; in some fifty, ther are not now ten; yea (which is more to be lamented) I knowe townes so wholly decayed, that there is neyther sticke nor stone standyng as they use to say.
“Where many men had good lyuinges, and maynteined hospitality, able at times to helpe the kyng in his warres, and to susteyne other charges, able also to helpe their pore neighboures, and vertuously to bring up theyr children in Godly letters and good scyences, nowe sheepe and conies deuoure altogether, no man inhabiting the aforesayed places. Those beastes which were created of God for the nouryshment of man doe nowe deuoure man.... And the cause of all thys wretchednesse and beggery in the common weale are the gredy Gentylmen, whyche are shepemongers and grasyars. Whyle they study for their owne priuate commoditie, the common weale is lyke to decay. Since they began to be shepe maysters and feders of cattell, we neyther had vyttayle nor cloth of any reasonable pryce. No meruayle, for these forstallars of the market, as they use to saye, haue gotten all thynges so into theyr handes, that the poore man muste eyther bye it at their pryce, or else miserably starue for hongar, and wretchedly dye for colde.”[267]
The reduction of the acreage in tillage must have lessened the crop of the cereals, and accounts for their slight rise in value during the second quarter of the sixteenth century. Nevertheless this rise gave the farmer no relief, as, under competition, rents advanced faster than prices, and in the generation which reformed the Church, the misery of yeomen had become extreme. In 1549 Latimer preached a sermon, which contains a passage often quoted, but always interesting:—
“Furthermore, if the king’s honour, as some men say, standeth in the great multitude of people; then these graziers, inclosers, and rent-rearers, are hinderers of the king’s honour. For where as have been a great many householders and inhabitants, there is now but a shepherd and his dog....
“My father was yeoman, and had no lands of his own, only he had a farm of three or four pound by year at the uttermost, and hereupon he tilled so much as kept half a dozen men. He had walk for a hundred sheep; and my mother milked thirty kine. He was able, and did find the king a harness, with himself and his horse, while he came to the place that he should receive the king’s wages. I can remember that I buckled his harness when he went unto Blackheath field. He kept me to school, or else I had not been able to have preached before the king’s majesty now.
“He married my sisters with five pound, or twenty nobles apiece; so that he brought them up in godliness and fear of God. He kept hospitality for his poor neighbours, and some alms he gave to the poor. And all this he did of the said farm, where he that now hath it payeth sixteen pound by year, or more, and is not able to do anything for his prince, for himself, nor for his children, or give a cup of drink to the poor.”[268]
The small proprietor suffered doubly: he had to meet the competition of large estates, and to endure the curtailment of his resources through the enclosure of the commons. The effect was to pauperize the yeomanry and lesser gentry, and before the Reformation the homeless poor had so multiplied that, in 1530, Parliament passed the first of a series of vagrant acts.[269] At the outset the remedy applied was comparatively mild, for able-bodied mendicants were only to be whipped until they were bloody, returned to their domicile, and there whipped until they put themselves to labour. As no labour was supplied, the legislation failed, and in 1537 the emptying of the convents brought matters to a climax. Meanwhile Parliament tried the experiment of killing off the unemployed; by the second act vagrants were first mutilated and then hanged as felons.[270]
In 1547, when Edward VI. was crowned, the great crisis had reached its height. The silver of Potosi had not yet brought relief, the currency was in chaos, labour was disorganized, and the nation seethed with the discontent which broke out two years later in rebellion. The land-owners held absolute power, and before they yielded to the burden of feeding the starving, they seriously addressed themselves to the task of extermination. The preamble of the third act stated that, in spite of the “great travel” and “godly statutes” of Parliament, pauperism had not diminished, therefore any vagrant brought before two justices was to be adjudged the slave of his captor for two years. He might be compelled to work by beating, chaining, or otherwise, be fed on bread and water, or refuse meat, and confined by a ring of iron about his neck, arms or legs. For his first attempt at escape, his slavery became perpetual, for his second, he was hanged.[271]
Even as late as 1591, in the midst of the great expansion which brought prosperity to all Europe, and when the monks and nuns, cast adrift by the suppression of the convents, must have mostly died, beggars so swarmed that at the funeral of the Earl of Shrewsbury “there were by the report of such as served the dole unto them, the number of 8000. And they thought that there were almost as many more that could not be served, through their unruliness. Yea, the press was so great that divers were slain and many hurt. And further it is reported of credible persons, that well estimated the number of all the said beggars, that they thought there were about 20,000.” It was conjectured “that all the said poor people were abiding and dwelling within thirty miles’ compass of Sheffield.”[272]
In 1549, just as the tide turned, insurrection blazed out all over England. In the west a pitched battle was fought between the peasantry and foreign mercenaries, and Exeter was relieved only after a long siege. In Norfolk the yeomen, led by one Kett, controlled a large district for a considerable time. They arrested the unpopular landlords, threw open the commons they had appropriated, and ransacked the manor houses to pay indemnities to evicted farmers. When attacked, they fought stubbornly, and stormed Norwich twice.