Nay, by Saint Mary, Sir, (quoth the lawyer), not so. For this kind of men must we make most of. For in them, as men of stouter stomachs, bolder spirits, and manlier courages than handicraftsmen and ploughmen be, doth consist the whole power, strength and puissance of our army, when we must fight in battle.”
So much for the serving-men of the rich, apt to be discarded to swell the ranks of poverty and crime. But further:—
“There is another cause, which, as I suppose, is proper and peculiar to you Englishmen alone.—What is that? quoth the Cardinal.—Forsooth, my lord, quoth I, your sheep that were wont to be so meek and tame, and so small eaters, now, as I hear say, be become so great devourers and so wild that they eat up and swallow down the very men themselves. They consume, destroy and devour whole fields, houses and cities. For look in what parts of the realm doth grow the finest and therefore dearest wool, these noblemen and gentlemen, yea and certain abbots, (holy men, no doubt), not contenting themselves with the yearly revenues and profits that were wont to grow to their forefathers and predecessors of their lands, nor being content that they live in rest and pleasure, nothing profiting yea much annoying the weal public leave no ground for tillage; they inclose all into pastures; they throw down houses; they pluck down towns and leave nothing standing, but only the church to be made a sheep-house. And as though you lost no small quantity of ground by forests, chases, lawns, and parks, these holy men turn all dwelling-places and all glebe-land into desolation and wilderness. Therefore the one covetous and insatiable cormorant and very plague of his native country may compass about and inclose many thousand acres of ground together within one pale or hedge; the husbandmen be thrust out of their own, or else either by cunning and fraud, or by violent oppression they be put besides it, or by wrongs and injuries they be so wearied that they be compelled to sell all. By one means, therefore, or by other, either by hook or crook, they must needs depart away, poor silly wretched souls, men, women, husbands, wives, fatherless children, widows, woeful mothers with their young babes, and their whole household small in substance and much in number as husbandry requireth many hands. Away they trudge, I say, out of their known and accustomed houses, finding no place to rest in. All their household stuff, which is very little worth, though it might well abide the sale, yet being suddenly thrust out, they be constrained to sell it for a thing of nought. And when they have wandered abroad till that be spent, what can they then else do but steal, and then justly, pardy! be hanged, or else go about a begging. And yet, then also they be cast in prison as vagabonds, because they go about and work not; whom no man will set a work, though they never so willingly profer themselves thereto.”
Thus were the gaols filled. The policy of Henry VIII. was to hang for petty theft—“twenty together upon one gallows.” And yet the lawyer, the defender of the king’s firm rule, “could not choose but greatly wonder and marvel, how and by what evil luck it should come to pass that thieves nevertheless were in every place so rife and rank.”
These descriptions of the state of England were written about 1517, and the recitals in various Acts of Henry VIII. bear them out. Thus, in 1514 and 1515 (6 Hen. VIII. cap. 5, and 7 Hen. VIII. cap. 1), the towns, villages and hamlets, and other habitations decayed in the Isle of Wight are to be re-edified and re-peopled. In 1533-4 (25 Hen. VIII. cap. 13), there is a more comprehensive Act against the aggrandisements of pasture-farmers, “by reason whereof a marvellous multitude of the people of this realm be not able to provide meat, drink and clothes necessary for themselves, their wives, and children, but be so discouraged with misery and poverty that they fall daily to theft, robbery, and other inconvenience, or pitifully die for hunger and cold.” Some greedy and covetous persons have as many as 24,000 sheep: no one to keep above 2,000 sheep under the penalty of 3s. 4d. for every sheep kept by him above that number. Ten years after comes the well-known Act relating to the decay of towns[797] (35 Hen. VIII. cap. 4).
Besides these recitals in Acts of Parliament, we have other glimpses of the causes of agrarian distress. Thus, in a letter of June 24, 1528, from Sir Edward Guildford to Wolsey: Romney Marsh is fallen into decay; there are many great farms and holdings in the hands of persons who neither reside on them, nor till, nor breed cattle, but use them for grazing, trusting to the Welsh store cattle[798].
In Becon’s Jewel of Joy, written in the reign of Edward VI. the same condition of things is described:
“How do the rich men, and specially such as be sheepmongers, oppress the king’s liege-people by devouring their common pastures with their sheep, so that the poor people are not able to keep a cow for the comfort of them and of their poor family, and are like to starve and perish for hunger, if there be not provision made shortly.... Rich men were never so much estranged from all pity and compassion toward the poor people as they be at this present time.... They not only link house to house, but when they have gotten many houses and tenements into their hands, yea whole townships, they suffer the houses to fall into utter ruin and decay, so that by this means whole towns are become desolate and like unto a wilderness, no man dwelling there except it be the shepherd and his dog.” The interlocutor in the dialogue answers: “Truth it is. For I myself know many towns and villages sore decayed; for whereas in times past there were in some town an hundred households, there remain not now thirty; in some fifty, there are not now ten; yea (which is more to be lamented) I know towns so wholly decayed that there is neither stick nor stone, as they say.... And the cause of all this wretchedness and beggary in the common weal is the greed of gentlemen which are sheepmongers and graziers[799].”
Again, in Bullein’s Dialogue of the Fever Pestilence (1664), the groom Roger who accompanies the citizen and his wife to the country, in the direction of Barnet, points out an estate on which the rents had been raised; the fields had been turned into large pastures, and all the houses pulled down save the manor house: “for the carles have forfeited their leases and are gone a-begging like villaines, and many of them are dead for hunger.”
Vagabonds, beggars, valiant beggars, sturdy beggars, and ruffelers continue to occupy the pages of the Statute Book for many years. In 1530-31 (a long and elaborate Act), and in 1535-6, they are to be repressed by the stocks, by whipping, and ear-cropping; “and if any ruffeler, sturdy vagabond, or valiant beggar, having the upper part of the right ear cut off as aforesaid, be apprehended wandering in idleness, and it be duly proved that he hath not applied to such labours as have been assigned to him, or be not in service with any master, that then he be committed to gaol until the next quarter sessions, and be there indicted and tried, and, if found guilty, he shall be adjudged to suffer death as a felon.” A still more distracted Act was made by the Lord Protector in 1547 (1 Ed. VI. cap. 3): if the vagabond continue idle and refuse to labour, or run away from work set him to perform, he is to be branded with the letter V, and be adjudged a slave for two years to any person who shall demand him, to be fed on bread and water and refuse-meat, and caused to work in such labour, “how vile soever it be, as he shall be put unto, by beating, chaining, or otherwise.” If he run away within the two years, he is to be branded in the cheek with the letter S, and adjudged a slave for life; and if he run away again he is to suffer death as a felon. Similar provisions are made for “slave-children;” while the usual exceptions are brought in for the impotent poor. The above statute remained in force for only two years, having been from the first a monstrous insult to the intelligence of the nation, and never applied. It was succeeded by two meek-spirited Acts, 3 and 4 Ed. VI. cap. 16, and 5 and 6 Ed. VI. cap. 2, in which the impotent poor are provided for:—collectors in church to “gently ask and demand alms for the poor.” By the 1st of Mary, cap. 13, the collections for the poor were made weekly. When Elizabeth came to the throne, greater pressure was put upon the well-to-do to support the poor: by the Act of 5 Eliz. cap. 3 (1562-3) those who obstinately refused voluntary alms might be assessed. A more important Act of Elizabeth was that of her 14th year (1572-3) cap. 5, “For the Punishment of Vagabonds and for Relief of the Poor and Impotent.” A vagabond, as before, is to be whipped, and burnt on the ear; for a second offence to suffer death as a felon “unless some honest person will take him into his service for two whole years;” and for a third offence to suffer death and loss of lands and goods, as a felon, without allowance of benefit of clergy or sanctuary. Aged and infirm poor, by the same Act, are to be cared for by “overseers of the poor” in every parish, and to have abiding places fixed for them. In 1575-6 (18th Eliz. cap. 3), the Act of 1572-3 was amended and explained: “collectors and governors of the poor” are to provide a stock of wool, hemp, iron etc. for the poor to work upon, and “houses of correction,” or Bridewells, are to be built-one, two or more in every county for valiant beggars or such other poor persons as refuse to work under the overseers or embezzle their work. The last and greatest poor-laws of Elizabeth’s reign were those of her 39th year (1597-8) caps. 3 and 4 and her 43rd year (1601) cap. 2. These remained the basis of the English poor-law down to a recent period. Overseers of the poor are appointed in every parish—the churchwardens ex officio and four others appointed by the justices in Easter week: the overseers to meet once a month in the parish church after divine service on the Sunday: contributions to be levied by the inhabitants of any parish among themselves, or the parish or hundred to be taxed by the justices, failing the contributions, or, if the hundred be unable, then the county to be rated “in aid of” the parishes.