It would appear that this kind of provision was usually made in large towns, for one of the charges in a complaint brought against two Newcastle aldermen was that of making no provision of corn for the poor. The complaint was addressed to the Privy Council by the discontented burgesses of the town of Newcastle and could hardly have been made unless it were generally recognised that it was one of their duties[288] to provide a store of this kind.
How great the distress in Newcastle was at this time may be gathered from the bare statements of the town accounts.
"Sept. 1597. Paide for the charges of buringe 9 poore folkes who died for wante in the streets, for their graves making 3s.
"Oct. 1597. Paid for the charge of buringe 16 poore folkes who died for wante in the strettes 6s. 8d.[289]."
If a few people actually died of starvation many must have been nearly starved.
All this indicates that the existing organisation for the relief of the poor could not stand the strain of the continued distress of these years. There were disturbances and complaints in many counties and a disposition to lay the blame on the increase of enclosed land. The Dean of Durham writes that the poverty of the country arises from decay of tillage owing to the number of enclosures. The poor this year could neither pay their landlords nor sow their corn, while many had to travel sixty miles to buy bread[290].
There was trouble too in making men obey the orders for the help of the poor. Some were punished for ingrossing corn or for converting cottages into tenements[291], while one man seems to have been rebellious altogether: "They are knaves ... my goodes are my nowne," he said, "they nor the queene nor the Councelle have to doe with my goodes, I will doe what I liste wth them." The Court of Star Chamber sentenced him to be fined £100, to be imprisoned, to wear papers, confessing his fault and "to be bound for his good abearing[292]."
From Dorset and Wilts we hear rumours of discontent[293], and in Oxfordshire and Norfolk there were actual insurrections. The Oxfordshire rebels themselves say that they rose because of the sufferings of the poor and the high price of corn. Although Sir William Spencer, one of the gentlemen who had enclosed land, reported that the rebellion was not begun by the poorer sort of people, Lord Norris wrote to the Council, "I want your commission and some order to be taken about enclosures on the western part of the shire where this stir began, that the poor may be able to live[294]." It is thus evident that poverty had something to do with the insurrection. One of the Norfolk rioters said he had heard that the poor were up in the west country, and that four or five of his neighbours would go to a justice of the peace and desire to have corn cheap; if they could not get it reasonably they would arise and get it by force, and if they did arise they would knock down the best first; "they stayed onlye butt for a drum[295]."
A letter from a Somersetshire justice, Mr Edward Hext, to Cecil gives a vivid picture of the disturbed state of Somerset. One hundred and eighty-three persons were to be set at liberty from the Sessions in the year 1596, "And of these very few came to any good; for none will receive them into service. And, in truth, work they will not, neither can they without most extreme pains, by reason their sinews are so benumbed and stiff through idleness that as their limbs being put to any hard labour, will grieve them above measure: so as they will rather hazard their lives, than work. And this I know to be true: for at such time as our Houses of Correction were up (which are put down in most parts of England, the more pity) I sent divers wandering suspicious persons to the House of Correction: and all in general would beseech me to send them rather to the gaol. And denying it them some confessed felony unto me; by which they hazarded their lives; to the end they would not be sent to the House of Correction, where they should be forced to work." He estimates that only the fifth person that commits a felony was brought to trial, for "most commonly the most simple country man and woman ... are of opinion that they would not procure any man's death for all the goods in the world." He thought the Egyptians were not so dangerous for there were only thirty or forty in the shire while there were three or four hundred sturdy rogues[296]. Mr Hext wrote in a time of famine when the poor were on the verge of starvation and when the west part of the neighbouring county of Oxfordshire was in insurrection.