We have not the same detailed information with regard to other towns, but we can see that this kind of action on the part of the Lords of the Council was by no means confined to London. We find them writing to Burghley himself and insisting on the appointment of Provost Marshals in Hertfordshire and Essex who were to take especial care to repress vagrants and idle persons[203]; they rebuke the Devonshire justices for not providing properly for old soldiers and sailors[204]. They write to Cambridge and order that care be taken to prevent the increase in the number of tenements in the town[205], and they especially commend the Norfolk justices for erecting a "fourme for the punishment of loyterers, stubborne servantes, and the settinge of vagabondes, roages and other idle people to work, after the manner of Bridewell[206]".
There is enough to show that the Privy Council was often active and that its interference had a considerable effect, but that before 1597 this interference was only occasionally exercised.
This pressure exerted by the Privy Council on justices and municipal authorities becomes the most important factor in the development of the English system of poor relief in the next century. Law was not yet enforced merely because it had been enacted, and in regard to the poor no force of continued habit as yet made public opinion compel negligent officials to do their duty. So far men objected to pay rates; they were not firmly convinced of the duty of the state to relieve the poor.
The pressure of the Privy Council was therefore necessary to enforce the law. But the habit of interference in these matters and the organisation that alone could make interference have much effect grew very slowly. Before 1597 we can see this habit of interference and this organisation growing, but as yet it is only utilised occasionally and to meet some special emergency; it is not part of a general system which almost everywhere commanded obedience.
CHAPTER VII.
1569-1597.
LOCAL ORGANISATION OF POOR RELIEF AND THE EVENTS OF THE YEARS 1594-1597.
- 1. The organisation of London with regard to the poor.
- 2. The organisation of Norwich.
- 3. The action of other towns,
- (1) Concerning the settlement of new-comers.
- (2) Concerning the unemployed.
- (3) Concerning the raising of funds.
- 4. The events of the years of scarcity 1594-1597.
- 5. Summary of the period 1569-1597.