The directions of the Privy Council in 1597 seem to have had an immediate effect both as regards measures of relief and measures of repression.
As regards the repressive measures and the efficacy of Houses of Correction the opinion of Lord Coke is decisive. He had many opportunities of knowledge and had no reason for not being impartial. Speaking of the employment and correction of vagrants he says, "And this excellent work is without question feasible. For, upon the making of the statute of 39 Eliz. and a good space after whilest Justices of the Peace and other officers were diligent and industrious there was not a rogue to be seen in any part of England, but when Justices and other Officers became tepidi or trepidi Rogues etc. swarmed again." Speaking of gaols and Houses of Correction he tells us, "Few or none are committed to the common gaol amongst so many malefactors but they come out worse then they went in. And few are committed to the House of Correction or Working-House, but they come out better[576]." For a little time therefore vagrants were repressed, and the discipline and relief afforded in Houses of Correction were very efficacious.
There was also an improvement with regard to the administration of relief to the more deserving classes of the poor. We have already seen that special energy was displayed in the West Riding of Yorkshire at this time, and that there the justices found it very difficult to administer the law, but did execute it to a considerable extent. In Devonshire also the justices received a letter from the Lord Lieutenant, urging them to take especial care for the relief of those in want, and they too began to take measures for carrying out the law. They revoked the licenses granted for beggars, put in order the Houses of Correction and authorised a system of organised billeting on the rich. The poor were to be relieved with two meals a day, one to every household or two or more according to the ability of the householder. If there was any default the justices might assess any sum up to eighteenpence weekly "for every pole[577]." Moreover the justices were to raise stocks for setting the poor to work. All this points to a great increase in vigilance after the Order in Council of 1597 and it also points to the fact that the administration was recent. A general system of billeting was seldom adopted when the legal relief of the poor had been long put in practice. Moreover Devonshire and Yorkshire in later times were backward in administering the law, so that the improvement was probably at least as great in other counties.
We should also derive a favourable opinion as to the good execution of the law at that time from the Duke of Stettin's account of his journey through England in 1602. Speaking of the Royal Exchange he states, "It is a pleasure to go about there, for one is not molested or accosted by beggars, who are elsewhere so frequently met with in places of this kind. For in all England they do not suffer any beggars except they be few in number and outside the gates.
"Every parish cares for its own poor, strangers are brought to the hospital, but those that belong to the kingdom or have come from distant places are sent from one parish to the other, their wants being cared for until at last they reach their home[578]." The Duke of Stettin judges favourably most things that he sees in England but still his account could not have been written unless beggars had been out of sight in the parts visited by him and unless the poor had seemed to be relieved in England more effectually than in his own country.
After 1597 therefore the execution of the law appears to have been more vigorous and the improvement is likely to have been connected with the action taken by the Privy Council in that year.
5. Action of the Privy Council and administration between 1605 and 1629.
We will now see how the administration of poor relief was carried out between 1605 and 1629. We know that during these years the Privy Council did not make continuous efforts on behalf of the deserving poor. A commission however was contemplated in January 1619/20, and the special measures in connection with the years of scarcity of 1621 to 1623 were much more organised than in former years, and may have suggested an improved administration of the law about that time. We therefore find that on the whole the law appears to have been badly executed but that from 1621 to 1623 some improvement took place.
We will first see what are the grounds for thinking the law was badly executed between 1605 and 1629.