The Camelot Series.

Edited by Ernest Rhys.

ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND.

ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND:
FROM “A DESCRIPTION OF ENGLAND,”
BY WILLIAM HARRISON
(IN “HOLINSHED’S CHRONICLES”).
EDITED BY LOTHROP WITHINGTON,
WITH INTRODUCTION BY F. J. FURNIVALL, LL.D.

LONDON:
WALTER SCOTT, 24 WARWICK LANE,
PATERNOSTER ROW.

CONTENTS.

“FOREWORDS.”[1]

I am unwilling to send out this Harrison, the friend of some twenty years’ standing, without a few words of introduction to those readers who don’t know it. The book is full of interest, not only to every Shakspere student, but to every reader of English history, every man who has the least care for his forefathers’ lives. Though it does contain sheets of padding now and then, yet the writer’s racy phrases are continually turning up, and giving flavour to his descriptions, while he sets before us the very England of Shakspere’s day. From its Parliament and Universities, to its beggars and its rogues; from its castles to its huts, its horses to its hens; from how the state was managd, to how Mrs. Wm. Harrison (and no doubt Mrs. William Shakspere) brewd her beer; all is there. The book is a deliberately drawn picture of Elizabethan England; and nothing could have kept it from being often reprinted and a thousand times more widely known than it is, except the long and dull historical and topographical Book I.[2]—The Description of Britaine—set before the interesting account in Books II. and III., of the England under Harrison’s eyes in 1577-87.

How Harrison came to write his book[3] was on this wise. Reginald Wolfe, the Printer to Queen Elizabeth, meant to publish “a universall Cosmographie of the whole world,[4] and therewith also certaine particular histories of every knowne nation.” For the Historical part of the work, he engagd Raphael Holinshed, among other men; and when the work was nearly done, Wolfe died, after twenty-five years’ labour at his scheme. Then the men who were to have borne the cost of printing the Universall Cosmographie were afraid to face the expense of the whole work, and resolvd to do only so much of it as related to England, Scotland, and Ireland.[5]

Holinshed having the History of these countries in hand, application was made to Harrison, who had long been compiling a Chronologie[6] of his own, to furnish the Descriptions of Britain and England. He was then Household Chaplain to the well-known Sir William Brooke, Lord Cobham (so praisd by Francis Thynne[7]), and was staying in London, away from his rectory of Radwinter in Essex, and his Library there. He had also travelld little himself, only into Kent, to Oxford and Cambridge, etc., as he honestly tells Lord Cobham.

Still, mainly by the help of Leland—“and hitherto Leland, whose words I dare not alter”—as well as of “letters and pamphlets from sundrie places & shires of England,” and “by conference with diuers folk,”[8] and “by mine owne reading,”[9] together with Master Sackford’s charts or Maps,”[10] Harrison—notwithstanding the failure of his correspondents[11] and the loss of part of his material—“scambled up,” what he depreciatingly calls “this foule frizeled Treatise of mine,” to “stand in lieu of a description of my Countrie.” But, he says, “howsoeuer it be done, & whatsoeuer I haue done, I haue had an especiall eye vnto the truth of things.” And this merit, I think every reader will allow Harrison. Though he swallowd too easily some of the stories told in old chronicles,[12] etc., though (in his 2nd ed. only) he put Chertsey above, instead of below, Staines, on the Thames,[13] etc., yet in all the interesting home-life part, he evidently gives both sides of the case, “speaks of it as it was; nothing extenuates, nor sets down aught in malice” (Oth., V. ii. 341). When he tells with pride, on the one hand, of the grand new buildings and the many chimnies put up in his day; on the other hand, he brings in the grumble:

“And yet see the change, for when our houses were builded of willow, then had we oken men; but now that our houses are come to be made of oke, our men are not onlie become willow, but a great manie, through Persian delicacie crept in among vs, altogither of straw, which is a sore alteration.

“Now haue we manie chimnies; and yet our tenderlings complaine of rheumes, catarhs, and poses. Then had we none but reredosses; and our heads did neuer ake. For as the smoke in those daies was supposed to be a sufficient hardning for the timber of the house, so it was reputed a far better medicine to keepe the goodman and his familie from the quacke or pose, wherewith, as then, verie few were oft acquainted.”[14]

—when he describes the beauty, virtue, learning, and housewifery, of Queen Elizabeth’s Maids of Honour, he yet acknowledges that as the men

“our common courtiers (for the most part) are the best lerned and indued with excellent gifts, so are manie of them the worst men, when they come abroad, that anie man shall either heare or read of.”

Even the Papist Monks,[15] whom—as a marrid Protestant parson and vicar—he hates, he praises for their buildings. And when he does abuse or chaff heartily any absurdity, like Englishmen’s dress,—“except it were a dog in a doublet, you shall not see anie so disguised as are my countrie men of England,”—we may be sure it was deservd; Shakspere does it too[16] (Merchant, I. ii. 80; Much Ado, III. ii. 36, etc.).

Harrison’s book will inform and amuse the reader.

Besides writing the Descriptions of Britaine and England for Holinshed’s Chronicle, William Harrison also translated for it, from Scotch into English, Archdeacon Bellenden’s version of Hector Boetius’s Latin Description of Scotland. This work took him only “three or foure daies” he says: “Indeed, the trauell taken heerein is not great, bicause I tie not my translation vnto his [Bellenden’s] letter.” Harrison dedicated this translation—the Description of Scotland—to the Maister Sackford, or Secford, whose “cards,” charts, or Maps, had been of such use to him in his account of the English rivers in his Description of Britaine.

Happily for us, William Harrison was not one of those dignified prigs who are afraid of writing about themselves in their books. He tells us that he was born in London[17]—“I will remember the fame of London my natiue citie.”[18] Also that he was first at St. Paul’s school, and then at “Westminster[19] school (in which I was sometime an vnprofitable Grammarian vnder the reuerend father, master Nowell, now deane of Paules).” And again of the Deans of the see of London (or St. Paul’s), “I will deliuer in like sort the names of the deanes, vntill I come to the time of mine old master now liuing in this present yeare 1586, who is none of the least ornaments[20] that haue beene in that seat.” He was at both universities.[21] When speaking of Cambridge and Oxford, he says—

“In all other things there is so great equalitie betweene these two vniuersities, as no man can imagin how to set downe any greater; so that they seeme to be the bodie of one well ordered common wealth, onlie diuided by distance of place, and not in freendlie consent and orders. In speaking therefore of the one, I can not but describe the other; and in commendation of the first, I can not but extoll the latter; and so much the rather, for that they are both so deere vnto me, as that I can not readilie tell vnto whether of them I owe the most good will. Would to God my knowledge were such, as that neither of them might haue cause to be ashamed of their pupill; or my power so great, that I might woorthilie requite them both for those manifold kindnesses that I haue receiued of them.”[22]

He must have graduated at Oxford first, for in 1569 he proceeded to the degree of Bachelor of Divinity at Cambridge under a grace[23] which calls him M.A. of Oxford of seven years’ standing.[25] He was before this, Household Chaplain to Sir Wm. Brooke, Lord Cobham, to whom he dedicated, as we have seen, his Description of England, and who gave him the Rectory of Radwinter in Essex,[26] to which he was inducted on February 16, 1558-9, and which he held till his death. On January 28, 1570-1, he became a pluralist,[27] and obtaind the vicarage of Wimbish in Essex,[28] but resignd it in 1581, his successor being appointed on the 16th of November in that year. Between 1559 and 1571 he must have marrid Marion Isebrande, “daughter to William Isebrande and Ann his wife, sometyme of Anderne, neere vnto Guisnes in Picardie, and whome” (he says in his Will, referring no doubt to the sometime suppos’d unlawfulness of priests’ marriages) “by the lawes of god I take and repute in all respectes for my true and lawfull wife.” By her he left issue,[29] one son Edmund, and two daughters,—one, Anne, unmarried, and another the wife of Robert Baker. He tells us how his wife and her maid brewd him 200 gallons of beer for 20s., as he was “scarse a good malster” himself, and a poor man on £40 a year (Goldsmith’s sum too). And no doubt his kindly “Eve will be Eve, tho’ Adam would saie naie,” tho’ said of widows, shewd that he understood the sex, was “to their faults a little blind, and to their virtues very kind”—or however the old saw runs. At Radwinter he must have workt away at his Chronologie, collected his Roman coins, got savage with the rascally Essex lawyers, attended to his garden:

“For mine owne part, good reader, let me boast a little of my garden, which is but small, and the whole Area thereof little aboue 300 foot of ground, and yet, such hath beene my good lucke in purchase of the varietie of simples, that notwithstanding my small abilitie, there are verie neere three hundred[30] of one sort and other conteined therein, no one of them being common or vsuallie to bee had,”

kept his eyes open to everything going on round him, and lookt after his parishioners, when he wasn’t writing his Description of England in London, or visiting at Lord Cobham’s house in Kent.

On April 23, 1586, William Harrison was appointed Canon of Windsor, and was installd the day after. The Dean has kindly sent me the following extract from the Chapter Book, St. George’s Chapel, Windsor—

but says there is no grave-stone or other notice of where Harrison was buried.[32] (I can’t get a line from the now rector of Radwinter.)

For the following abstract of Harrison’s Will, I am indebted to Colonel Chester—

(81 Nevell.) “William Harrison, Clerk, parson of Radwinter and Prebendary of Windsor—dated at Radwinter 27 July 1591—to be buried at Radwinter or Windsor, as I may die at either place. My goods to be divided into 4 equal parts ‘of which one parte and an halfe shall remaine vnto Marion Harrison alias Marion Isebrande and the daughter of William Isebrande sometyme of Anderne, whome by the lawe of god, I take for my true and lawfull wife;’[33] another part and a half equally to my son Edmund and my daughter Anne—my son in law Robert Baker and his wife I remember not in this my will, as I have already given them their portion; to the quire in Windsor 40s.; to the poor of Radwinter 40s.; to the poor children of the hospital at London 20s.; to the poor of St. Thomas Apostle in London 20s.; to each child of my son Baker 10s.; to each child of my cousin Morecroft, Clerk 5s.—‘I make & ordayne the sayed Marion Isebrande alias Marion Harrison, daughter to William Isebrande and Ann his wife, sometyme of Anderne neere vnto Guisnes in Picardie, and whome by the lawes of god I take and repute in all respectes for my true and lawfull wife,’ and my son Edmund Harrison, my Executors.—Witnesses, Mr. Wm. Birde, Esq., Thos. Smith, yeoman; Lancelott Ellis, vicar of Wimbishe; & Thos. Hartlie the writer hereof.”

His Will was proved on November 22, 1593, by the said Edmund Harrison, son and executor named therein, the relict and executrix Marion, being dead. Letters of administration to the goods, etc., of Marion Harrison, late of New Windsor, in the county of Berks, were granted on December 12, 1593, to her son Edmund Harrison.

William Harrison had opinions of his own about public and social matters in his day, and also had often racy ways of expressing those opinions. I’ll extract some. He calls Becket “the old cocke of Canturburie;” notes how the Conferences of clergy and laity stirrd the parsons “to applie their books ... which otherwise ... would giue themselues to hawking, hunting, tables, cards, dice, tipling at the alehouse, shooting of matches, and other like vanities;” he complains of the subsidies and taxes that the clergy are made to pay, “as if the church were now become the asse whereon euerie market man is to ride and cast his wallet;” also of “the couetousnesse of the patrones, of whom some doo bestow aduousons of benefices vpon their bakers, butlers, cookes, good archers, falconers, and horsekeepers,” while others “doo scrape the wool from our clokes;” he notes how Popish “images ... and monuments of idolatrie are remooued” from the churches, “onelie the stories in glasse windowes excepted,” which are let stay for a while, from the scarcity and cost of white glass; he’d like to get rid of Saints’ Days; he commends the decent apparel of the Protestant parsons, as contrasted with that of the Popish blind sir-Johns, who went “either in diuerse colors like plaiers, or in garments of light hew, as yellow, red,[34] greene, etc., with their shooes piked,[35] ... so that to meet a priest in those daies was to behold a peacocke that spreadeth his taile when he danseth before the henne;” and then he denounces the cheating at elections for College fellowships, scholarships.

Harrison also tells us that he had for a time the “collection” (of MSS., maps, etc.) of “William Read,[36] sometime fellow of Merteine college in Oxford, doctor of diuinitie, and the most profound astronomer that liued in his time.” He has a cut at the Popes’ nephews—“for nephues might say in those daies: Father, shall I call you vncle?”—says that he knew one of the Norwich-diocese churches turnd “into a barne, whilest the people heare seruice further off vpon a greene: their bell also, when I heard a sermon there preached in the greene, hanged in an oke for want of a steeple. But now I vnderstand that the oke likewise is gone.” After saying what England in old time paid the Pope, he asks, “and therevpon tell me whether our Iland was one of the best paire of bellowes or not, that blue the fire in his kitchen, wherewith to make his pot seeth, beside all other commodities.”

In describing the Universities, Harrison dwells again on the packing and bribing practist at elections for fellowships and scholarships, and how “poore mens children are commonlie shut out by the rich,” whose sons “ruffle and roist it out, exceeding in apparell, and hanting riotous companie which draweth them from their bookes[37] vnto an other trade.” He also complains of the late-nam’d “idle fellowships” that are still a disgrace to our Universities, tho’ now their holders don’t work for “eighteene or peraduenture twenty yeeres,”

“For after this time, & 40 yeeres of age, the most part of students doo commonlie giue ouer their woonted diligence, & liue like drone bees on the fat of colleges, withholding better wits from the possession of their places, & yet dooing litle good in their own vocation & calling.”

And he repeats, in milder words, Ascham’s[38] caution against sending young men to Italy, for “an Italianate Englishman is a devil incarnate,” as the Italians themselves said.[39] “And thus much at this time of our two vniuersities, in each of which I haue receiued such degree as they have vouchsafed, rather of their fauour than my desert, to yeeld and bestow vpon me.”

Of his chapter on “Degrees of the People of England” the most interesting parts to me are those on the evil of sending young Englishmen to Italy; the anticipation of the modern J. S. Mill & Coöperative doctrine of the evil of too many middlemen in trade (the argument will cover distributors as well as importers), and lawyers in business; the improvement in the condition of yeomen; the often complaind-of evil[40] of “our great swarmes of idle seruing men;” and our husbandmen and artificers never being better tradesmen, tho’ they sometimes scamp their work.

Harrison’s chapter “Of the Food and Diet of the English” is very interesting, with its accounts of the dinners of the nobility “whose cookes are, for the most part, musicall-headed Frenchmen and strangers,” and who eat “delicates wherein the sweette hand of the seafaring Portingale is not wanting.” Then it notices the rage for Venice glass among all classes—as Falstaff says, A.D. 1598, in 2 Hen. IV., II. i. 154, “Glasses, glasses, is the only drinking.” This is followd by capital accounts of the diet of the gentlemen and merchants, and the artificers; the bread[41] and drink of all classes; and how Mrs. Wm. Harrison brewd the family beer, “and hereof we make three hoggesheads of good beere, such (I meane) as is meet for poore men as I am, to liue withall, whose small maintenance (for what great thing is fortie pounds a yeare, Computatis computandis, able to performe?) may indure no deeper cut;” with touches like Theologicum being the best wine of old, because “the merchant would haue thought that his soule should have gone streightwaie to the diuell, if he should haue serued them [the monks] with other than the best;” and this kindly opinion of working-men, for which one can’t help liking the old parson[42]:—

“To conclude, both the artificer and the husbandman are sufficientlie liberall, & verie freendlie at their tables; and when they meet, they are so merie without malice, and plaine without inward Italian or French craft and subtiltie, that it would doo a man good to be in companie among them.... This is moreouer to be added in these meetings, that if they happen to stumble vpon a peece of venison, and a cup of wine or verie strong beere or ale ... they thinke their cheere so great, and themselues to haue fared so well, as the lord Maior of London, with whome, when their bellies be full, they will not often sticke to make comparison, because that of a subject there is no publike officer of anie citie in Europe, that may compare in port and countenance with him during the time of his office.”

Chapter VII.[43] is the amusing one on the “Apparell and Atire” of English folk already referrd to (p. [xiii.] above); and though it’s not so bitter as Stubbes’s or Crowley’s, yet it’s fun, with its “dog in a doublet,” and its beard bit, if a man “be wesell becked [beakt], then much heare left on the cheekes will make the owner looke big like a bowdled hen, and so grim as a goose, if Cornelis of Chelmeresford saie true.”

In the chapter on the Parliament the only personal bit is Harrison’s saying that he copies from Sir Thomas Smith,[44] “requiting him with the like borrowage as he hath vsed toward me in his discourse of the sundrie degrees of estates in the commonwealth of England.” But in the next chapter, “Of the Laws of England,” after a dull account of the Trial by Ordeal, etc., we get Harrison breaking out again against the Lawyers, their prosperity and rascality, and taking fees (as barristers often do still) and doing nothing for ’em, with a good bit about Welshmen’s love of law-suits. We also find a pleasant notice of John Stow, the hard-working chronicler so shamefully neglected in his own age: “my freend Iohn Stow, whose studie is the onelie store house of antiquities in my time, and he worthie therefore to be had in reputation and honour.”

The chapter “Of Prouision made for the Poore,” notes the weekly collection made in every parish for the deserving poor, and gives Harrison’s opinion on the Malthusians of his day:—

“Some also doo grudge at the great increase of people in these daies, thinking a necessarie brood of cattell farre better than a superfluous augmentation of mankind. But I can liken such men best of all vnto the pope and the diuell, who practise the hinderance of the furniture of the number of the elect to their vttermost, to the end the authoritie of the one upon earth, the deferring of the locking vp of the other in euerlasting chaines, and the great gaines of the first, may continue and indure the longer. But if it should come to passe that any forren inuasion should be made, which the Lord God forbid for his mercies sake!—then should these men find that a wall of men is farre better than stackes of corne and bags of monie, and complaine of the want when it is too late to seeke remedie.”

The sham beggars, he says, “are all theeues and caterpillers in the commonwealth, and by the word of God not permitted to eat.” Then he makes extracts from Harman about the rogues, among whom, by statute, are “plaiers and minstrels,” Shakspere and his fellows, etc.

In the chapter on the “Punishments appointed for Malefactors,” our author notes that “our condemned persons doo go ... cheerfullie to their deths, for our nation is free, stout, hautie, prodigall of life and bloud;” that the punishment for “robbing by the high waie” (like Sir John Falstaff’s), “cutting of purses,” “stealing of deere by night” (like Shakspere’s, if he ever stole deer from Sir Thomas Lucy, who had no park in his time), was death; and that the punishment for adultery and fornication was not sharp enough:—

“As in theft therfore, so in adulterie and whoredome, I would wish the parties trespassant, to be made bond or slaues vnto those that receiued the iniurie, to sell and giue where they listed, or to be condemned to the gallies: for that punishment would proue more bitter to them than halfe an houres hanging, or than standing in a sheet, though the weather be neuer so called.”

He also complains of the robberies by unthrift young gentlemen, and “seruing-men whose wages cannot suffice so much as to find them breeches;” and that selfish men, and even constables, in the country, won’t leave their work to follow up thieves and take them to prison:[45] this “I haue knowne by mine owne experience.”

The chapter, “Of the manner of Building and Furniture of our Houses,” is perhaps the best, and the best-known, in the book. It describes how English houses were built, and notes these new things, 1. that rich men were beginning to use stoves for sweating baths; while, 2. all men were using glass for windows; 3. that timber-houses were giving way to brick and stone; and that though our workmen were excellent, their demands for high wages often causd strangers to be employd in building; 4. the increast richness of furniture, not only in rich men’s houses, but in those of “the inferiour artificers and manie farmers,” who “now garnish their cupbords with plate, their ioined beds with tapistrie and silke hangings, and their tables with carpets & fine naperie, whereby the wealth of our countrie ... dooth infinitelie appear;”

[5.] “the multitude of chimnies latelie erected;” [6.] “the great (although not generall) amendment of lodging, for (said they) our fathers (yea, and we our selues also) haue lien full oft vpon straw pallets, on rough mats couered onelie with a sheet, vnder couerlets made of dagswain or hopharlots (I vse their owne termes), and a good round log vnder their heads in steed of a bolster or pillow.... Pillowes (said they) were thought meet onelie for women in childbed. As for seruants, if they had anie sheet aboue them, it was well, for seldome had they anie vnder their bodies, to keepe them from the pricking straws that ran oft through the canuas of the pallet, and rased their hardened hides.”... [7.] “The exchange of vessell, as of treene[46] platters into pewter, and woodden spoones into siluer or tin. For so common were all sorts of treene stuffe in old time, that a man should hardlie find four peeces of pewter (of which one was peraduenture a salt) in a good farmers house, and yet for all this frugalitie (if it may so be iustly called) they were scarse able to liue and paie their rents at their daies without selling of a cow, or an horsse, or more, although they paid but foure pounds at the vttermost by the yeare.”

The farmer was very poor too; and yet now, though his £4 rent is raised to £40, he can not only buy plate, and featherbeds, etc., but can purchase a renewal of his lease, 6 years before the expiration of the old one; and the paying the money “shall neuer trouble him more than the haire of his beard, when the barber hath washed and shaued it from his chin.” Against these signs of prosperity, these fat kine, are 3, nay 4, lean kine, which eat up their plump brethren,

“three things ... are growen to be verie grieuous vnto them, to wit, the inhansing of rents, latelie mentioned; the dailie oppression of copiholders, whose lords seeke to bring their poore tenants almost into plaine seruitude and miserie, dailie deuising new meanes, and seeking vp all the old, how to cut them shorter and shorter, doubling, trebling, and now & then seuen times increasing their fines; driuing them also for euerie trifle to loose and forfeit their tenures (by whome the greatest part of the realme dooth stand and is mainteined), to the end they may fleece them yet more, which is a lamentable hering. The third thing they talke of is vsurie, a trade brought in by the Jewes, now perfectlie practised almost by euerie christain, and so commonlie, that he is accompted but for a foole that dooth lend his monie for nothing.”

Interest has run up to 12 per cent.; wherefore, “helpe I praie thee in lawfull maner to hang vp such as take Centum pro cento, for they are no better worthie as I doo iudge in conscience.” The 4th grievance is that Gentlemen (!) have actually “themselves become grasiers, butchers, tanners, sheepmasters, woodmen, and denique quod non!”

The chapter, “Of Cities and Townes in England,” is dull, but has a short account of the antiquities found in old Verulam, and Harrison’s visit there in the summer of 1586 or 1585; and his groan over the decay of houses, their destruction by greedy land-owners, and the hard fare of poor men. He evidently would have put a limit to the land that one man might hold. In “Of Castles and Holds,” he wants the East coast fortified (p. 265), notes the frequency of old camps “in the plaine fields of England,” and says:—

“I need not to make anie long discourse of castles, sith it is not the nature of a good Englishman to regard to be caged vp as in a coope, and hedged in with stone wals, but rather to meet with his enimie in the plaine field at handstrokes, where he may trauaise his ground, choose his plot, and vse the benefit of sunne shine, wind and weather, to his best aduantage & commoditie.”

In the next chapter he describes the Queen’s palaces, but prefers the Henry VIII. buildings to the Elizabethan:

“Certes masonrie did neuer better flourish in England than in his time. And albeit that in these daies there be manie goodlie houses erected in the sundrie quarters of this Iland; yet they are rather curious to the eie, like paper worke,[47] than substantiall for continuance: whereas such as he did set vp, excell in both, and therefore may iustlie be preferred farre aboue all the rest.”

He then gives an interesting account of the virtues of the Queen’s Maids of Honour, the vices of the Courtiers; the studies of the young Ladies, and the medical powers of the old; all of them being able to cook admirably, and the Carte or Bill of Fare of the dinner having been just introduced. Lastly he notes the admirable order and absence of ill-doing in the Queen’s court. Her “Progresses” he approv’d of.

He treats “Of Armour and Munition;” but, says Harrison, “what hath the longe blacke gowne to doo with glistering armour?” Still, he echoes the universal lament of Ascham, the Statutes, etc., etc., over the decay of Long-Bow shooting in England:—

“Certes the Frenchmen and Rutters deriding our new archerie in respect of their corslets, will not let in open skirmish, if anie leisure serue, to turne vp their tailes and crie: ‘Shoote English,’ and all bicause our strong shooting is decaied and laid in bed. But if some of our Englishmen now liued that serued king Edward the third in his warres with France, the breech of such a varlet should haue beene nailed to his bum with one arrow, and an other fethered in his bowels, before he should haue turned about to see who shot the first.”

He then says that all the young fellows above eighteen or twenty wear a dagger; noblemen wear swords or rapiers too, while “desperate cutters” carry two daggers or two rapiers, “wherewith in euerie dronken fraie they are knowen to work much mischief.” And as trampers carry long staves, the honest traveller is obliged to carry pistols, “to ride with a case of dags at his saddlebow, or with some pretie short snapper,” while parsons have only a dagger or hanger, if they carry anything at all. The tapsters and ostlers at inns are in league with the highway robbers,[48] who rob chiefly at Christmas time, to get money to spend at dice and cards, till they “be trussed vp in a Tiburne tippet.”

Passing over the chapter on the “Navy,” Queen Elizabeth’s delight in it, and the fast sailing of our ships, we come on a characteristic and interesting chapter “Of Faires and Markets.” This subject is within Harrison’s home-life, as a buyer; and it’s on the buyer’s side, which includes the poor man’s, that he argues. Magistrates don’t see the proclamation price and goodness of bread kept to; bodgers are allowd to buy up corn and raise the price of it; to carry it home unsold, or to a distant market, if they want more money than the buyer likes to give; nay, they’ve leave to export it for the benefit of enemies and Papists abroad, so as to make more profit. Again, pestiferous purveyors buy up eggs, chickens, bacon, etc.; buttermen travel about and buy up butter at farmers’ houses, and have raisd its price from 18d. to 40d. a gallon. These things are ill for the buyer and the poor man, and should not be allowd:—

“I wish that God would once open their eies that deale thus, to see their owne errours: for as yet some of them little care how manie poore men suffer extremitie, so that they may fill their purses, and carie awaie the gaine.”

Good doctrine, no doubt; but “nous avons changé tout cela.” However in one thing the modern Political Economist can agree with Harrison:—

“I gather that the maintenance of a superfluous number of dealers in most trades, tillage alwaies excepted, is one of the greatest causes why the prices of things become excessiue.”

There’s a comical bit about the names for ale, “huffecap, mad dog, angels’ food,” etc., and the way

“our maltbugs lug at this liquor, euen as pigs should lie in a row, lugging at their dames teats, till they lie still againe, and be not able to wag ... and ... hale at hufcap, till they be red as cockes, & litle wiser than their combs.”

In his chapter “Of Parks and Warrens,” Harrison tells us how coney warrens have increast, from the value of the creatures’ black skins and the quick sale for young rabbits in London; and what a shocking thing it is that one Lady has sold her husband’s venison to the Cooks, and another Lady has ridden to market to see her butter sold! it’s as bad as an Earl feeling his own oxen to see whether they’re ready for the butcher! He then gives us a refreshing bit of his mind on owners of parks who enclose commons:

“And yet some owners, still desirous to inlarge those grounds, as either for the breed and feeding of cattell, doo not let dailie to take in more, not sparing the verie commons whervpon manie towneships now and then doo liue, affirming that we haue alreadie too great store of people in England; and that youth by marrieng too soone doo nothing profit the countrie, but fill it full of beggars, to the hurt and vtter vndooing (they saie) of the common wealth.

“Certes, if it be not one curse of the Lord, to haue our countrie conuerted in such sort, from the furniture of mankind, into the walks and shrowds of wild beasts, I know not what is anie. How manie families also these great and small games (for so most keepers call them) haue eaten vp, and are likelie hereafter to deuoure, some men may coniecture, but manie more lament, sith there is no hope of restraint to be looked for in this behalfe, because the corruption is so generall.”

The chapter “Of Gardens and Orchards” is interesting, not only as containing the bit quoted above on Harrison’s own garden, but for its note of how vegetables, roots, and salad herbs, that had gone out of use since Henry IV.’s time, had in Henry VIII.’s and Elizabeth’s days come into daily consumption, so that men even eat dangerous fruits like mushrooms. Also, hops and madder were grown again, and rare medicinable herbs. Gardens were beautified, plants imported; orchards supplied with apricot, almond, peach, fig, and cornel trees; nay, capers, oranges, lemons, and wild olives. Grafting was practist with great skill and success; even dishwater was utilis’d for plants. And as to roses, there was one in Antwerp in 1585 that had 180 leaves on one button or flower, and Harrison could have had a slip of it for £10 (£60 now?) if he hadn’t thought it “but a tickle hazard.”

The chapter “Of Woods and Marshes” is interesting, from Harrison’s laments in it over the destruction of English woods, which he saw yearly disappearing around him,[49] one man, as he says, having turnd sixty woods into one pair of breeches.[50] And then, mov’d by the thought of what will become of England without its oaks, the unselfish old parson utters the four dearest wishes of his heart:—

“I would wish that I might liue no longer than to see foure things in this land reformed, that is: (1) the want of discipline in the church: (2) the couetous dealing of most of our merchants in the preferment of the commodities of other countries, and hinderance of their owne: (3) the holding of faires and markets vpon the sundaie to be abolished, and referred to the wednesdaies: (4) and that euerie man, in whatsoeuer part of the champaine soile enioieth fortie acres of land and vpwards, after that rate, either by free deed, copie hold, or fee farme, might plant one acre of wood, or sowe the same with oke mast, hasell, beech, and sufficient prouision be made that it may be cherished and kept. But I feare me that I should then liue too long, and so long, that I should either be wearie of the world, or the world of me; and yet they are not such things but they may easilie be brought to passe.”

This same chapter contains the capital bit about the oaken men and willow houses and their smoke-dried inhabiters, quoted above; and a strong protest against rascally tanners and wood-fellers who, for private gain, evade the laws; also some good advice about draining.

In his chapter on “Baths and Hot Wells,” Harrison says that he’s tasted the water of King’s Newnham well, near Coventry, and that it had “a tast much like to allume liquor, and yet nothing vnplesant nor vnsauorie in the drinking.” From his description of Bath it is clear that he had been there, unless he quotes an eye-witness’s words as his own. His chapter, “Of Antiquities found,” tells us of his own collection of Roman coins which he intended to get engrav’d in his Chronologie, though, he says, the cost of engraving,

“as it hath doone hitherto, so the charges to be emploied vpon these brasen or copper images will hereafter put by the impression of that treatise: whereby it maie come to passe, that long trauell shall soone proue to be spent in vaine, and much cost come to verie small successe.”

His words seem to imply that he’d visited Colchester (as no doubt he had) and York, in his search for coins. His account “Of the Coines of England,” Chapter XXV., ends his Book II., the first of his Description of England.

This section[51] is longer than I meant it to be; and it doesn’t bring out the religious side of Harrison’s character. But I hope it leaves the reader with a kindly impression of the straightforward racy Radwinter parson and Windsor canon. A business-like, God-fearing, truth-seeking, learned, kind-hearted, and humorous fellow, he seems to me; a good gardener, an antiquarian and numismatist, a true lover of his country, a hater of shams, lazy lubbers, and evil-doers; a man that one likes to shake hands with, across the rift of 200 years that separates us.

F. J. FURNIVALL.

3 St. George’s Square, Primrose Hill,
London, N.W., 13th July, 1876.

EDITORIAL NOTE.

No book is more quoted and less read than Holinshed’s Chronicles. Since the original editions of 1577 and 1587 (the latter an expansion of the former), the work has been but once republished. Early in this century a syndicate of the great London booksellers issued an expensive reprint, far more inaccessible to the general reader than are the folios of the time of Elizabeth. Even morsels of the work have never been attempted until the issue by the “New Shakspere Society,” a dozen years ago, of Dr. Furnivall’s careful condensed edition of Harrison’s introduction to Holinshed. Now Harrison is the genius of the whole performance. Holinshed is a hodge-podge of many men’s endeavours. Remarkable as may be the portions contributed by other men, that of Harrison can be said to be unique. William Harrison is the only man who has ever given a detailed description of England and the English. He had the assistance doubtless of many special informants, directly and indirectly, some of which assistance overloads his ancient utterances with superfluous matter. His own views however are a running rill of delight. When it was only an amputation of interjected details, my task was easy; and Dr. Furnivall (to whom is due all credit of initiative in the publication of the work, and who has kindly accorded valuable suggestions during the rather anxious and difficult process) had already cut off the greater portion of dead issue and dead tissue. The work of disjointing and then rejointing Harrison’s own discourse is not so agreeable. Even Harrison’s interlarding of his own book-learning in his own inimitable fashion is a rare frolic for the mirthful mind. Badly as I may have finally wriggled through the task, seamy as may be the patchwork, the solace remains that no scrap of Harrison’s text lacks its own individual interest. Not without reason may an extract from Holinshed be entitled a

“Morsel of dead royalty.”

Holinshed is one of the monarchs and monuments of literature. It filled the channels of thought, and moulded the character of history. Harrison’s contribution to Holinshed is not only the most important but the most perfect portion of the work, and it evidently derives its perfect character from being a labour of love, and not written to order. John Harrison the printer doubtless got his country relative the parson to help out the heavy enterprise which tasked such an alliance of master-printers even to partially perfect. Not that William Harrison was a countryman by birth. He was a Cockney of the Cockneys, born right beneath Bow Bells themselves; but when you come to gather the threads of his connections, you seem indeed to

“Take all England up,”

jumping at once to the heart of Westmoreland fells, and traversing every shire in England and Wales for his cousinry. It was a stirring age, and great human upheavals made sudden shiftings and scatterings of kindred. It was this very factor which made such works as Holinshed possible. The complete Holinshed was issued one year before the Armada year, two years before Shakspere’s first play was printed. Harrison was old enough to have stood on Tower Hill and seen with infant eyes the author of Utopia (the “most perfect of Englishmen,” as Harrison himself allows) lay down his life for truth. Harrison’s own life just spans that stormy period which settled the destiny of the English race, and left the race the masters of the earth. The part played in this mighty struggle by the printer boys of Aldersgate is something beyond all exaggeration. They made and unmade men and measures, and uprooted empires as well as recorded their histories. Above all else, these printers kept their own secrets; for life and death were in every utterance. They furnished of their own ranks the pioneers of daring brain and varied knowledge who led the English race far to east and far to west. We can well imagine that these Aldersgate printers took delight in clubbing together to produce such a work as Holinshed, giving the story of the England they loved so well. Holinshed was eminently a printer’s book, produced out of the fulness of their hearts. Harrison himself belonged to a family of printers. Yet it is a remarkable fact that this present volume is the first attempt ever made to use any portion of Holinshed as a popular text-book, and to bring its text into familiar relations with modern eyes as regards orthography and typography. As to the diction, it would be impertinence to modify the work of such masters of our mother-tongue as William Harrison. The writers of his day make rules for us, not we for them. Their English is the only English which future ages will know, and their successors will be measured by their standard. In compiling this work, the end sought by me has been as much variety and as much Elizabethan England as possible, throwing aside matter however instructive which was not especially allied to the days of Elizabeth, making of most of Harrison’s second, some of his third, and a bit of his first book one concise story. Harrison’s Description of England is in three books, the second and third of which were reprinted by Dr. Furnivall, along with extracts from the first. An account of these books and their relation to Holinshed will be found in the Doctor’s “Forewords.” Using Dr. Furnivall’s text, his excellent and generally exhaustive notes have been inserted. As for my own follies, sprinkled here and there, they are as occasional relief for frivolous readers from the classical height of Harrison and the scholarly depth of the Doctor. There was no particular sacrilege in rearranging Harrison’s fragments in a new and compact fashion; for he varied his two editions in evident indifference. It has had to be cut to measure, and the difficulty has been to make a new garment out of odd cuttings. Suffice to say, well or ill jointed, the story here told plucks the heart out of the mystery of the cradle of the English race at the exact period of Shakspere’s youthful manhood. But this story no more than Shakspere’s own work is the exclusive property of the residents of one particular spot. England is not merely a matter of political arrangement. Race after race have swept over the island home and left lasting impression upon the soil. England is not a matter of bounds and barriers; it is a human fabric like Rome and Greece, living in distant climes, an inheritance of all who speak the English tongue and inherit the boundless treasures of English thought, far surpassing the known accomplishment of any other people. By far the greater portion of these treasures of the mind were worked out in the England of Harrison. It was the outcome of a young giant’s strength. The full realisation of the earth’s existence, the full grasp of man’s true relation to the footstool beneath him, produced this startling activity of mind, and this sudden leap to perfection. Such another epoch will never occur until we poor crawling mites on this rolling ball discover the socket it rolls in and once again feel ourselves masters of all knowledge and devoid of all doubts.

L. W.

HARRISON’S PREFACE.

To the Right Honourable, and his singular good Lord and Master, Sir William Brooke, Knight, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and Baron of Cobham, all increase of the fear and knowledge of God, firm obedience towards his Prince, infallible love to the commonwealth, and commendable renown here in this world, and in the world to come life everlasting.

Having had just occasion, Right Honourable, to remain in London during the time of Trinity term last passed, and being earnestly required of divers my friends to set down some brief discourse of parcel of those things which I had observed in the reading of such manifold antiquities as I had perused towards the furniture of a Chronology[52] which I have yet in hand; I was at the first very loth to yield to their desires: first, for that I thought myself unable for want of skill and judgment so suddenly and with so hasty speed to take such a charge upon me; secondly, because the dealing therein might prove an hindrance and impeachment unto mine own Treatise; and, finally, for that I had given over all earnest study of histories, as judging the time spent about the same to be an hindrance unto my more necessary dealings in that vocation and function whereunto I am called in the ministry. But, when they were so importunate with me that no reasonable excuse could serve to put by this travel, I condescended at the length unto their irksome suit, promising that I would spend such void time, as I had to spare, whilest I should be enforced to tarry in the city, upon some thing or other that should satisfy their request and stand in lieu of a description of my Country. For their parts also, they assured me of such helps as they could purchase: and thus with hope of good, although no gay success, I went in hand withal, then almost as one leaning altogether unto memory, since my books and I were parted by forty miles in sunder. In this order also I spent a part of Michaelmas and Hilary terms insuing, being enforced thereto, I say, by other businesses which compelled me to keep in the city, and absent myself from my charge, though in the mean season I had some repair unto my poor library, but not so great as the dignity of the matter required, and yet far greater than the Printer’s haste would suffer. One help, and none of the smallest that I obtained herein, was by such commentaries as Leland had some time collected of the state of Britain, books utterly mangled, defaced with wet and weather, and finally imperfect through want of sundry volumes; secondly, I gat some knowledge of things by letters and pamphlets, from sundry places and shires of England, but so discordant now and then amongst themselves, especially in the names and courses of rivers and situation of towns, that I had oft greater trouble to reconcile them one with another than orderly to pen the whole discourse of such points as they contained; the third aid did grow by conference with divers, either at the table or secretly alone, wherein I marked in what things the talkers did agree, and wherein they impugned each other, choosing in the end the former, and rejecting the latter, as one desirous to set forth the truth absolutely, or such things indeed as were most likely to be true. The last comfort arose by mine own reading of such writers as have heretofore made mention of the condition of our country, in speaking whereof, if I should make account of the success and extraordinary coming by sundry treatises not supposed to be extant, I should but seem to pronounce more than may well be said with modesty, and say further of myself than this treatise can bear witness of. Howbeit, I refer not this success wholly unto my purpose about this Description, but rather give notice thereof to come to pass in the penning of my Chronology, whose crumbs as it were fell out very well in the framing of this pamphlet. In the process therefore of this book, if your Honour regard the substance of that which is here declared, I must needs confess that it is none of mine own; but, if your Lordship have consideration of the barbarous composition shewed herein, that I may boldly claim and challenge for mine own, since there is no man of any so slender skill that will defraud me of that reproach which is due unto me for the mere negligence, disorder, and evil disposition of matter comprehended in the same. Certes I protest before God and your Honour that I never made any choice of style, or words, neither regarded to handle this treatise in such precise order and method as many other would have done, thinking it sufficient, truly and plainly to set forth such things as I minded to intreat of, rather than with vain affectation of eloquence to paint out a rotten sepulchre, a thing neither commendable in a writer nor profitable to the reader. How other affairs troubled me in the writing hereof, many know, and peradventure the slackness shewed herein can better testify; but, howsoever it be done, and whatsoever I have done, I have had an especial eye unto the truth of things, and, for the rest, I hope that this foul frizzled treatise of mine will prove a spur to others better learned, more skilful in chorography, and of greater judgment in choice of matter to handle the selfsame argument. As for faults escaped herein, as there are divers I must needs confess both in the penning and printing, so I have to crave pardon of your Honour and of all the learned readers. For such was my shortness of time allowed in the writing, and so great the speed made in printing, that I could seldom with any deliberation peruse, or almost with any judgment deliberate exactly upon, such notes as were to be inserted. Sometimes indeed their leisure gave me liberty, but that I applied in following my vocation; many times their expedition abridged my perusal; and by this latter it came to pass that most of this book was no sooner penned than printed, neither well conveyed, before it came to writing. But it is now too late to excuse the manner of doing.[53] It is possible also that your Honour will mislike hereof for that I have not by mine own travel and eyesight viewed such things as I do here intreat of. Indeed I must needs confess that until now of late, except it were from the parish where I dwell unto your Honour in Kent, or out of London where I was born unto Oxford and Cambridge where I have been brought up, I never travelled forty miles forthright and at one journey in all my life; nevertheless in my report of these things I use their authorities who either have performed in their persons or left in writing upon sufficient ground (as I said before) whatsoever is wanting in mine. It may be in like sort that your Honour will take offence at my rash and retchless behaviour used in the composition of this volume, and much more than that, being scrambled up after this manner, I dare presume to make tender of the protection thereof unto your Lordship’s hands. But, when I consider the singular affection that your Honour doth bear to those that in anywise will travel to set forth such profitable things as lie hidden of their country without regard of fine and eloquent handling, and thereunto do weigh on my own behalf my bounden duty and grateful mind to such a one as hath so many and sundry ways benefited me that otherwise can make no recompense, I cannot but cut off all such occasion of doubt, and thereupon exhibit it, such as it is, and so penned as it is, unto your Lordship’s tuition, unto whom if it may seem in any wise acceptable I have my whole desire. And as I am the first that (notwithstanding the great repugnance to be seen among our writers) hath taken upon him so particularly to describe this Isle of Britain, so I hope the learned and godly will bear withal, and reform with charity where I do tread amiss. As for the curious, and such as can rather evil-favouredly espy than skilfully correct an error, and sooner carp at another man’s doings than publish anything of their own (keeping themselves close with an obscure admiration of learning and knowledge among the common sort), I force not what they say hereof; for, whether it do please or displease them, all is one to me, since I refer my whole travel in the gratification of your Honour, and such as are of experience to consider of my travel and the large scope of things purposed in this treatise, of whom my service in this behalf may be taken in good part: that I will repute for my full recompense and large guerdon of my labours. The Almighty God preserve your Lordship in continual health, wealth, and prosperity, with my good Lady your wife, your Honour’s children (whom God hath indued with a singular towardness unto all virtue and learning) and the rest of your reformed family, unto whom I wish farder increase of his holy spirit, understanding of his word, augmentation of honour, and continuance of zeal to follow his commandments.

Your Lordship’s humble servant
and household chaplain,
W. H.

ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND.

CHAPTER I.

OF DEGREES OF PEOPLE IN THE COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND.[54]

[1577, Book III., Chapter 4; 1587, Book II., Chapter 5.]

We, in England, divide our people commonly into four sorts, as gentlemen, citizens or burgesses, yeomen, and artificers or labourers. Of gentlemen the first and chief (next the king) be the prince, dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts, and barons; and these are called gentlemen of the greater sort, or (as our common usage of speech is) lords and noblemen: and next unto them be knights, esquires, and, last of all, they that are simply called gentlemen. So that in effect our gentlemen are divided into their conditions, whereof in this chapter I will make particular rehearsal.

The title of prince doth peculiarly belong with us to the king’s eldest son, who is called Prince of Wales, and is the heir-apparent to the crown; as in France the king’s eldest son hath the title of Dauphin, and is named peculiarly Monsieur. So that the prince is so termed of the Latin word Princeps, since he is (as I may call him) the chief or principal next the king. The king’s younger sons be but gentlemen by birth (till they have received creation or donation from their father of higher estate, as to be either viscounts, earls, or dukes) and called after their names, as Lord Henry, or Lord Edward, with the addition of the word Grace, properly assigned to the king and prince, and now also by custom conveyed to dukes, archbishops, and (as some say) to marquesses and their wives.[55]

Unto this place I also refer our bishops, who are accounted honourable, called lords, and hold the same room in the Parliament house with the barons, albeit for honour sake the right hand of the prince is given unto them, and whose countenances in time past were much more glorious than at this present it is, because those lusty prelates sought after earthly estimation and authority with far more diligence than after the lost sheep of Christ, of which they had small regard, as men being otherwise occupied and void of leisure to attend upon the same. Howbeit in these days their estate remaineth no less reverend than before, and the more virtuous they are that be of this calling the better are they esteemed with high and low. They retain also the ancient name (“lord”) still, although it be not a little impugned by such as love either to hear of change of all things or can abide no superiors. For notwithstanding it be true that in respect of function the office of the eldership[56] is equally distributed between the bishop and the minister, yet for civil government’s sake the first have more authority given unto them by kings and princes, to the end that the rest may thereby be with more ease retained within a limited compass of uniformity than otherwise they would be if each one were suffered to walk in his own course. This also is more to be marvelled at, that very many call for an alteration of their estate, crying to have the word “lord” abolished, their civil authority taken from them, and the present condition of the church in other things reformed; whereas, to say truly, few of them do agree upon form of discipline and government of the church succeedent, wherein they resemble the Capuans (of whom Livy doth speak) in the slaughter of their senate. Neither is it possible to frame a whole monarchy after the pattern of one town or city, or to stir up such an exquisite face of the church as we imagine or desire, sith our corruption is such that it will never yield to so great perfection; for that which is not able to be performed in a private house will be much less be brought to pass in a commonwealth and kingdom, before such a prince be found as Xenophon describeth, or such an orator as Tully hath devised.[57]

Dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts, and barons either be created of the prince or come to that honour by being the eldest sons or highest in succession to their parents. For the eldest son of a duke during his father’s life is an earl, the eldest son of an earl is a baron, or sometimes a viscount, according as the creation is. The creation I call the original donation and condition of the honour given by the prince for good service done by the first ancestor, with some advancement, which, with the title of that honour, is always given to him and his heirs males only. The rest of the sons of the nobility by the rigour of the law be but esquires; yet in common speech all dukes’ and marquesses’ sons and earls’ eldest sons be called lords, the which name commonly doth agree to none of lower degree than barons, yet by law and use these be not esteemed barons.

The barony or degree of lords doth answer to the degree of senators of Rome (as I said) and the title of nobility (as we used to call it in England) to the Roman Patricii. Also in England no man is commonly created baron except he may dispend of yearly revenues a thousand pounds, or so much as may fully maintain and bear out his countenance and port. But viscounts, earls, marquesses, and dukes exceed them according to the proportion of their degree and honour. But though by chance he or his son have less, yet he keepeth this degree: but if the decay be excessive, and not able to maintain the honour (as Senatores Romani were amoti à senatu), so sometimes they are not admitted to the upper house in the parliament, although they keep the name of “lord” still, which cannot be taken from them upon any such occasion.[58]

The most of these names have descended from the French invention, in whose histories we shall read of them eight hundred years past.[59]

Knights be not born, neither is any man a knight by succession, no, not the king or prince: but they are made either before the battle, to encourage them the more to adventure and try their manhood; or after the battle ended, as an advancement for their courage and prowess already shewed, and then are they called Milites; or out of the wars for some great service done, or for the singular virtues which do appear in them, and then are they named Equites Aurati, as common custom intendeth. They are made either by the king himself, or by his commission and royal authority given for the same purpose, or by his lieutenant in the wars.[60]

Sometime diverse ancient gentlemen, burgesses, and lawyers are called unto knighthood by the prince, and nevertheless refuse to take that state upon them, for which they are of custom punished by a fine, that redoundeth unto his coffers, and (to say truth) is oftentimes more profitable unto him than otherwise their service should be, if they did yield unto knighthood. And this also is a cause wherefore there be many in England able to dispend a knight’s living, which never come unto that countenance, and by their own consents. The number of the knights in Rome was also uncertain: and so is it of knights likewise, with us, as at the pleasure of the prince. And whereas the Equites Romani had Equum Publicum of custom bestowed upon them, the knights of England have not so, but bear their own charges in that also, as in other kind of furniture, as armour meet for their defence and service. This nevertheless is certain, that whoso may dispend forty pounds by the year of free land, either at the coronation of the king, or marriage of his daughter, or time of his dubbing, may be informed unto the taking of that degree, or otherwise pay the revenues of his land for one year, which is only forty pounds by an old proportion, and so for a time be acquitted of that title.[61]

At the coronation of a king or queen, there be other knights made with longer and more curious ceremonies, called “knights of the bath.” But howsoever one be dubbed or made knight, his wife is by-and-by called “Madam,” or “Lady,” so well as the baron’s wife: he himself having added to his name in common appellation this syllable “Sir,” which is the title whereby we call our knights in England. His wife also of courtesy so long as she liveth is called “my lady,” although she happen to marry with a gentleman or man of mean calling, albeit that by the common law she hath no such prerogative. If her first husband also be of better birth than her second, though this latter likewise be a knight, yet in that she pretendeth a privilege to lose no honour through courtesy yielded to her sex, she will be named after the most honourable or worshipful of both, which is not seen elsewhere.

The other order of knighthood in England, and the most honourable, is that of the garter, instituted by King Edward the Third, who, after he had gained many notable victories, taken King John of France, and King James of Scotland (and kept them both prisoners in the Tower of London at one time), expelled King Henry of Castille, the bastard, out of his realm, and restored Don Pedro unto it (by the help of the Prince of Wales and Duke of Aquitaine, his eldest son, called the Black Prince), he then invented this society of honour, and made a choice out of his own realm and dominions, and throughout all Christendom of the best, most excellent, and renowned persons in all virtues and honour, and adorned them with that title to be knights of his order, giving them a garter garnished with gold and precious stones, to wear daily on the left leg only; also a kirtle, gown, cloak, chaperon, collar, and other solemn and magnificent apparel, both of stuff and fashion exquisite and heroical to wear at high feasts, and as to so high and princely an order appertaineth.

The order of the garter therefore was devised in the time of King Edward the Third, and (as some write) upon this occasion. The queen’s majesty then living, being departed from his presence the next way toward her lodging, he following soon after happened to find her garter, which slacked by chance and so fell from her leg, unespied in the throng by such as attended upon her. His grooms and gentlemen also passed by it, as disdaining to stoop and take up such a trifle: but he, knowing the owner, commanded one of them to stay and reach it up to him. “Why, and like your grace,” saith a gentleman, “it is but some woman’s garter that hath fallen from her as she followed the queen’s majesty.” “Whatsoever it be,” quoth the king, “take it up and give it me.” So when he had received the garter, he said to such as stood about him: “You, my masters, do make small account of this blue garter here,” and therewith held it out, “but, if God lend me life for a few months, I will make the proudest of you all to reverence the like.” And even upon this slender occasion he gave himself to the devising of this order. Certes, I have not read of anything that having had so simple a beginning hath grown in the end to so great honour and estimation.[62]

There is yet another order of knights in England called knights bannerets, who are made in the field with the ceremony of cutting away the point of his pennant of arms, and making it as it were a banner, so that, being before but a bachelor knight, he is now of an higher degree, and allowed to display his arms in a banner, as barons do. Howbeit these knights are never made but in the wars, the king’s standard being unfolded.[63]

Moreover, as the king doth dub knights, and createth the barons and higher degrees, so gentlemen whose ancestors are not known to come in with William Duke of Normandy (for of the Saxon races yet remaining we now make none accounted, much less of the British issue) do take their beginning in England, after this manner in our times.

Whosoever studieth the laws of the realm, whoso abideth in the university (giving his mind to his book), or professeth physic and the liberal sciences, or beside his service in the room of a captain in the wars, or good counsel given at home, whereby his commonwealth is benefited, can live without manual labour, and thereto is able and will bear the port, charge, and countenance of a gentleman, he shall for money have a coat and arms bestowed upon him by heralds (who in the charter of the same do of custom pretend antiquity and service, and many gay things), and thereunto, being made so good cheap, be called master (which is the title that men give to esquires and gentlemen), and reputed for a gentleman ever after, which is so much less to be disallowed of for that the prince doth lose nothing by it, the gentleman being so much subject to taxes and public payments as is the yeoman or husbandman, which he likewise doth bear the gladlier for the saving of his reputation. Being called also to the wars (for with the government of the commonwealth he meddleth little), whatsoever it cost him, he will both array and arm himself accordingly, and shew the more manly courage, and all the tokens of the person which he representeth. No man hath hurt by it but himself, who peradventure will go in wider buskins than his legs will bear, or, as our proverb saith, “now and then bear a bigger sail than his boat is able to sustain.”

Certes the making of new gentlemen bred great strife sometimes amongst the Romans, I mean when those which were Novi homines were more allowed of for their virtues newly seen and shewed than the old smell of ancient race, lately defaced by the cowardice and evil life of their nephews and descendants, could make the other to be. But as envy hath no affinity with justice and equity, so it forceth not what language the malicious do give out, against such as are exalted for their wisdoms. This nevertheless is generally to be reprehended in all estates of gentility, and which in short time will turn to the great ruin of our country, and that is, the usual sending of noblemen’s and mean gentlemen’s sons into Italy, from whence they bring home nothing but mere atheism, infidelity, vicious conversation, and ambitious and proud behaviour, whereby it cometh to pass that they return far worse men than they went out. A gentleman at this present is newly come out of Italy, who went thither an earnest Protestant; but coming home he could say after this manner: “Faith and truth is to be kept where no loss or hindrance of a future purpose is sustained by holding of the same; and forgiveness only to be shewed when full revenge is made.” Another no less forward than he, at his return from thence, could add thus much: “He is a fool that maketh account of any religion, but more fool that will lose any part of his wealth or will come in trouble for constant leaning to any; but if he yield to lose his life for his possession, he is stark mad, and worthy to be taken for most fool of all the rest.” This gay booty got these gentlemen by going into Italy; and hereby a man may see what fruit is afterward to be looked for where such blossoms do appear. “I care not,” saith a third, “what you talk to me of God, so as I may have the prince and the laws of the realm on my side.” Such men as this last are easily known; for they have learned in Italy to go up and down also in England with pages at their heels finely apparelled, whose face and countenance shall be such as sheweth the master not to be blind in his choice. But lest I should offend too much, I pass over to say any more of these Italianates and their demeanour, which, alas! is too open and manifest to the world, and yet not called into question.

Citizens and burgesses have next place to gentlemen, who be those that are free within the cities, and are of some likely substance to bear office in the same. But these citizens or burgesses are to serve the commonwealth in their cities and boroughs, or in corporate towns where they dwell, and in the common assembly of the realm wherein our laws are made (for in the counties they bear but little sway), which assembly is called the High Court of Parliament: the ancient cities appoint four and the borough two burgesses to have voices in it, and give their consent or dissent unto such things as pass, to stay there in the name of the city or borough for which they are appointed.

In this place also are our merchants to be installed as amongst the citizens (although they often change estate with gentlemen, as gentlemen do with them, by a mutual conversion of the one into the other), whose number is so increased in these our days that their only maintenance is the cause of the exceeding prices of foreign wares, which otherwise, when every nation was permitted to bring in her own commodities, were far better, cheaper, and more plentifully to be had. Of the want of our commodities here at home, by their great transportation of them into other countries, I speak not, sith the matter will easily betray itself. Certes among the Lacedæmonians it was found out that great numbers of merchants were nothing to the furtherance of the state of the commonwealth: wherefore it is to be wished that the huge heap of them were somewhat restrained, as also of our lawyers, so should the rest live more easily upon their own, and few honest chapmen be brought to decay by breaking of the bankrupt. I do not deny but that the navy of the land is in part maintained by their traffic, and so are the high prices of wares kept up, now they have gotten the only sale of things upon pretence of better furtherance of the commonwealth into their own hands: whereas in times past, when the strange bottoms were suffered to come in, we had sugar for fourpence the pound, that now at the writing of this Treatise is well worth half-a-crown; raisins or currants for a penny that now are holden at sixpence, and sometimes at eightpence and tenpence the pound; nutmegs at twopence halfpenny the ounce, ginger at a penny an ounce, prunes at halfpenny farthing, great raisins three pounds for a penny, cinnamon at fourpence the ounce, cloves at twopence, and pepper at twelve and sixteen pence the pound. Whereby we may see the sequel of things not always, but very seldom, to be such as is pretended in the beginning. The wares that they carry out of the realm are for the most part broad clothes and carsies[64] of all colours, likewise cottons, friezes, rugs, tin, wool, our best beer, baize, bustian, mockadoes (tufted and plain), rash, lead, fells, etc.: which, being shipped at sundry ports of our coasts, are borne from thence into all quarters of the world, and there either exchanged for other wares or ready money, to the great gain and commodity of our merchants. And whereas in times past their chief trade was into Spain, Portugal, France, Flanders, Danske [Denmark], Norway, Scotland, and Ireland only, now in these days, as men not contented with these journeys, they have sought out the East and West Indies, and made now and then suspicious voyages, not only unto the Canaries and New Spain, but likewise into Cathay, Muscovy, and Tartaria, and the regions thereabout, from whence (as they say) they bring home great commodities. But alas! I see not by all their travel that the prices of things are any whit abated. Certes this enormity (for so I do account of it) was sufficiently provided for (Ann. 9 Edward III.) by a noble statute made in that behalf, but upon what occasion the general execution thereof is stayed or not called on, in good sooth, I cannot tell. This only I know, that every function and several vocation striveth with other, which of them should have all the water of commodity run into her own cistern.

Yeomen are those which by our law are called Legales homines, free men born English, and may dispend of their own free land in yearly revenue to the sum of forty shillings sterling, or six pounds as money goeth in our times. Some are of the opinion, by Cap. 2 Rich. 2 Ann. 20, that they are the same which the Frenchmen call varlets, but, as that phrase is used in my time, it is very unlikely to be so. The truth is that the word is derived from the Saxon term Zeoman, or Geoman,[65] which signifieth (as I have read) a settled or staid man, such I mean as, being married and of some years, betaketh himself to stay in the place of his abode for the better maintenance of himself and his family, whereof the single sort have no regard, but are likely to be still fleeting now hither now thither, which argueth want of stability in determination and resolution of judgment, for the execution of things of any importance. This sort of people have a certain pre-eminence, and more estimation than labourers and the common sort of artificers, and these commonly live wealthily, keep good houses, and travel to get riches. They are also for the most part farmers to gentlemen (in old time called Pagani, et opponuntur militibus, and therefore Persius calleth himself Semipaganus[66]), or at the leastwise artificers, and with grazing, frequenting of markets, and keeping of servants (not idle servants, as the gentlemen do, but such as get both their own and part of their masters’ living), do come to great wealth, insomuch that many of them are able and do buy the lands of unthrifty gentlemen, and often setting their sons to the schools, to the universities, and to the Inns of the Court, or, otherwise leaving them sufficient lands whereupon they may live without labour, do make them by those means to become gentlemen. These were they that in times past made all France afraid. And albeit they be not called “Master,” as gentlemen are, or “Sir,” as to knights appertaineth, but only “John” and “Thomas,” etc., yet have they been found to have done very good service.

The kings of England in foughten battles were wont to remain among them (who were their footmen) as the French kings did amongst their horsemen, the prince thereby shewing where his chief strength did consist.

The fourth and last sort of people in England are day-labourers, poor husbandmen, and some retailers (which have no free land), copyholders, and all artificers, as tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, brickmakers, masons, etc.[67]

As for slaves and bondmen, we have none; nay, such is the privilege of our country by the especial grace of God and bounty of our princes, that if any come hither from other realms, so soon as they set foot on land they become so free of condition as their masters, whereby all note of servile bondage is utterly removed from them, wherein we resemble (not the Germans, who had slaves also, though such as in respect of the slaves of other countries might well be reputed free, but) the old Indians and the Taprobanes,[68] who supposed it a great injury to Nature to make or suffer them to be bond, whom she in her wonted course doth product and bring forth free. This fourth and last sort of people therefore have neither voice nor authority in the commonwealth, but are to be ruled and not to rule other: yet they are not altogether neglected, for in cities and corporate towns, for default of yeomen, they are fain to make up their inquests of such manner of people. And in villages they are commonly made churchwardens, sidesmen, aleconners, now and then constables, and many times enjoy the name of head boroughs. Unto this sort also may our great swarms of idle serving-men be referred, of whom there runneth a proverb, “Young serving-men, old beggars,” because service is none heritage. These men are profitable to none; for, if their condition be well perused, they are enemies to their masters, to their friends, and to themselves: for by them oftentimes their masters are encouraged unto unlawful exactions of their tenants, their friends brought unto poverty by their rents enhanced, and they themselves brought to confusion by their own prodigality and errors, as men that, having not wherewith of their own to maintain their excesses, do search in highways, budgets, coffers, mails, and stables, which way to supply their wants. How divers of them also, coveting to bear an high sail, do insinuate themselves with young gentlemen and noblemen newly come to their lands, the case is too much apparent, whereby the good natures of the parties are not only a little impaired, but also their livelihoods and revenues so wasted and consumed that, if at all, yet not in many years, they shall be able to recover themselves. It were very good therefore that the superfluous heaps of them were in part diminished. And since necessity enforceth to have some, yet let wisdom moderate their numbers, so shall their masters be rid of unnecessary charge, and the commonwealth of many thieves. No nation cherisheth such store of them as we do here in England, in hope of which maintenance many give themselves to idleness that otherwise would be brought to labour, and live in order like subjects. Of their whoredoms I will not speak anything at all, more than of their swearing; yet is it found that some of them do make the first a chief pillar of their building, consuming not only the goods but also the health and welfare of many honest gentlemen, citizens, wealthy yeomen, etc., by such unlawful dealings. But how far have I waded in this point, or how far may I sail in such a large sea? I will therefore now stay to speak any more of those kind of men. In returning therefore to my matter, this furthermore among other things I have to say of our husbandmen and artificers, that they were never so excellent in their trades as at this present. But as the workmanship of the latter sort was newer, more fine, and curious to the eye, so was it never less strong and substantial for continuance and benefit of the buyers. Neither is there anything that hurteth the common sort of our artificers more than haste, and a barbarous or slavish desire to turn the penny, and, by ridding their work, to make speedy utterance of their wares: which enforceth them to bungle up and despatch many things they care not how so they be out of their hands, whereby the buyer is often sore defrauded, and findeth to his cost that haste maketh waste, according to the proverb.

Oh, how many trades and handicrafts are now in England whereof the commonwealth hath no need! How many needful commodities have we which are perfected with great cost, etc., and yet may with far more ease and less cost be provided from other countries if we could use the means! I will not speak of iron, glass, and such like, which spoil much wood, and yet are brought from other countries better cheap than we can make them here at home; I could exemplify also in many other. But to leave these things and proceed with our purpose, and herein (as occasion serveth) generally, by way of conclusion, to speak of the commonwealth of England, I find that it is governed and maintained by three sorts of persons—

1. The prince, monarch, and head governor, which is called the king, or (if the crown fall to a woman) the queen: in whose name and by whose authority all things are administered.

2. The gentlemen, which be divided into two sorts, as the barony or estate of lords (which containeth barons and all above that degree), and also those that be no lords, as knights, esquires, and simple gentlemen, as I have noted already. Out of these also are the great deputies and high presidents chosen, of which one serveth in Ireland, as another did some time in Calais, and the captain now at Berwick, as one lord president doth govern in Wales, and the other the north parts of this island, which later, with certain counsellors and judges, were erected by King Henry the Eighth. But, for so much as I have touched their conditions elsewhere, it shall be enough to have remembered them at this time.

3. The third and last sort is named the yeomanry, of whom and their sequel, the labourers and artificers, I have said somewhat even now. Whereto I add that they may not be called masters and gentlemen, but goodmen, as Goodman Smith, Goodman Coot, Goodman Cornell, Goodman Mascall, Goodman Cockswet, etc.: and in matters of law these and the like are called thus, Giles Jewd, yeoman; Edward Mountford, yeoman; James Cocke, yeoman; Harry Butcher, yeoman, etc.; by which addition they are exempt from the vulgar and common sorts. Cato calleth them “Aratores et optimos cives rei publicæ,” of whom also you may read more in the book of commonwealth which Sir Thomas Smith some time penned of this land.[69]

CHAPTER II.

OF CITIES AND TOWNS IN ENGLAND.

[1577, Book II., Chapter 7; 1587, Book II., Chapter 13.]

As in old time we read that there were eight-and-twenty flamines and archflamines in the south part of this isle, and so many great cities under their jurisdiction, so in these our days there is but one or two fewer, and each of them also under the ecclesiastical regiment of some one bishop or archbishop, who in spiritual cases have the charge and oversight of the same. So many cities therefore are there in England and Wales as there be bishoprics and archbishoprics.[70] For, notwithstanding that Lichfield and Coventry and Bath and Wells do seem to extend the aforesaid number unto nine-and-twenty, yet neither of these couples are to be accounted but as one entire city and see of the bishop, sith one bishopric can have relation but unto one see, and the said see be situate but in one place, after which the bishop doth take his name.[71]

Certes I would gladly set down, with the names and number of the cities, all the towns and villages in England and Wales, with their true longitudes and latitudes, but as yet I cannot come by them in such order as I would; howbeit the tale of our cities is soon found by the bishoprics, sith every see hath such prerogative given unto it as to bear the name of a city and to use Regaleius[72] within her own limits. Which privilege also is granted to sundry ancient towns in England, especially northward, where more plenty of them is to be found by a great deal than in the south. The names therefore of our cities are these: London, York, Canterbury, Winchester, Carlisle, Durham, Ely, Norwich, Lincoln, Worcester, Gloucester, Hereford, Salisbury, Exeter, Bath, Lichfield, Bristol, Rochester, Chester, Chichester, Oxford, Peterborough, Llandaff, St. Davids, Bangor, St. Asaph, whose particular plots and models, with their descriptions, shall ensue, if it may be brought to pass that the cutters can make despatch of them before this history be published.[73]

Of towns and villages likewise thus much will I say, that there were greater store in old time (I mean within three or four hundred year passed) than at this present. And this I note out of divers records, charters, and donations (made in times past unto sundry religious houses, as Glastonbury, Abingdon, Ramsey, Ely, and such like), and whereof in these days I find not so much as the ruins. Leland, in sundry places, complaineth likewise of the decay of parishes in great cities and towns, missing in some six or eight or twelve churches and more, of all which he giveth particular notice. For albeit that the Saxons builded many towns and villages, and the Normans well more at their first coming, yet since the first two hundred years after the latter conquest, they have gone so fast again to decay that the ancient number of them is very much abated. Ranulph, the monk of Chester, telleth of general survey made in the fourth, sixteenth, and nineteenth of the reign of William Conqueror, surnamed the Bastard, wherein it was found that (notwithstanding the Danes had overthrown a great many) there were to the number of 52,000 towns, 45,002 parish churches, and 75,000 knights’ fees, whereof the clergy held 28,015. He addeth moreover that there were divers other builded since that time, within the space of a hundred years after the coming of the Bastard, as it were in lieu or recompense of those that William Rufus pulled down for the erection of his New Forest. For by an old book which I have, and some time written as it seemeth by an under-sheriff of Nottingham, I find even in the time of Edward IV. 45,120 parish churches, and but 60,216 knights’ fees, whereof the clergy held as before 28,015, or at the least 28,000; for so small is the difference which he doth seem to use. Howbeit, if the assertions of such as write in our time concerning this matter either are or ought to be of any credit in this behalf, you shall not find above 17,000 towns and villages, and 9210 in the whole, which is little more than a fourth part of the aforesaid number, if it be thoroughly scanned.[74]

In time past in Lincoln (as the same goeth) there have been two-and-fifty parish churches, and good record appeareth for eight-and-thirty; but now, if there be four-and-twenty, it is all. This inconvenience hath grown altogether to the church by appropriations made unto monasteries and religious houses—a terrible canker and enemy to religion.

But to leave this lamentable discourse of so notable and grievous an inconvenience, growing as I said by encroaching and joining of house to house and laying land to land, whereby the inhabitants of many places of our country are devoured and eaten up, and their houses either altogether pulled down or suffered to decay little by little,[75] although some time a poor man peradventure doth dwell in one of them, who, not being able to repair it, suffereth it to fall down—and thereto thinketh himself very friendly dealt withal, if he may have an acre of ground assigned unto him, wherein to keep a cow, or wherein to set cabbages, radishes, parsnips, carrots, melons, pompons,[76] or such like stuff, by which he and his poor household liveth as by their principal food, sith they can do no better. And as for wheaten bread, they eat it when they can reach unto the price of it, contenting themselves in the meantime with bread made of oats or barley: a poor estate, God wot! Howbeit, what care our great encroachers? But in divers places where rich men dwelled some time in good tenements, there be now no houses at all, but hop-yards, and sheds for poles, or peradventure gardens, as we may see in Castle Hedingham,[77] and divers other places. But to proceed.

It is so that, our soil being divided into champaign ground and woodland, the houses of the first lie uniformly builded in every town together, with streets and lanes; whereas in the woodland countries (except here and there in great market towns) they stand scattered abroad, each one dwelling in the midst of his own occupying. And as in many and most great market towns, there are commonly three hundred or four hundred families or mansions, and two thousand communicants (or peradventure more), so in the other, whether they be woodland or champaign, we find not often above forty, fifty, or three score households, and two or three hundred communicants, whereof the greatest part nevertheless are very poor folks, oftentimes without all manner of occupying, sith the ground of the parish is gotten up into a few men’s hands, yea sometimes into the tenure of one or two or three, whereby the rest are compelled either to be hired servants unto the other or else to beg their bread in misery from door to door.

There are some (saith Leland) which are not so favourable, when they have gotten such lands, as to let the houses remain upon them to the use of the poor; but they will compound with the lord of the soil to pull them down for altogether, saying that “if they did let them stand, they should but toll beggars to the town, thereby to surcharge the rest of the parish, and lay more burden upon them.” But alas! these pitiful men see not that they themselves hereby do lay the greatest log upon their neighbours’ necks. For, sith the prince doth commonly loose nothing of his duties accustomable to be paid, the rest of the parishioners that remain must answer and bear them out: for they plead more charge other ways, saying: “I am charged already with a light horse; I am to answer in this sort, and after that matter.” And it is not yet altogether out of knowledge that, where the king had seven pounds thirteen shillings at a task gathered of fifty wealthy householders of a parish in England, now, a gentleman having three parts of the town in his own hands, four households do bear all the aforesaid payment, or else Leland is deceived in his Commentaries, lib. 13, lately come to my hands,[78] which thing he especially noted in his travel over this isle. A common plague and enormity, both in the heart of the land and likewise upon the coasts. Certes a great number complain of the increase of poverty, laying the cause upon God, as though he were in fault for sending such increase of people, or want of wars that should consume them, affirming that the land was never so full, etc.; but few men do see the very root from whence it doth proceed. Yet the Romans found it out, when they flourished, and therefore prescribed limits to every man’s tenure and occupying. Homer commendeth Achilles for overthrowing of five-and-twenty cities: but in mine opinion Ganges is much better preferred by Suidas for building of three score in India, where he did plant himself. I could (if need required) set down in this place the number of religious houses and monasteries, with the names of their founders, that have been in this island: but, sith it is a thing of small importance, I pass it over as impertinent to my purpose. Yet herein I will commend sundry of the monastical votaries, especially monks, for that they were authors of many goodly borowes and endwares,[79] near unto their dwellings, although otherwise they pretended to be men separated from the world. But alas! their covetous minds, one way in enlarging their revenues, and carnal intent another, appeared herein too, too much. For, being bold from time to time to visit their tenants, they wrought oft great wickedness, and made those endwares little better than brothel-houses, especially where nunneries were far off, or else no safe access unto them. But what do I spend my time in the rehearsal of these filthinesses? Would to God the memory of them might perish with the malefactors! My purpose was also at the end of this chapter to have set down a table of the parish churches and market towns throughout all England and Wales; but, sith I cannot perform the same as I would, I am forced to give over my purpose; yet by these few that ensue you shall easily see what order I would have used according to the shires, if I might have brought it to pass.

And these I had of a friend of mine, by whose travel and his master’s excessive charges I doubt not but my countrymen ere long shall see all England set forth in several shires after the same manner that Ortelius hath dealt with other countries of the main, to the great benefit of our nation and everlasting fame of the aforesaid parties.[80]

CHAPTER III.

OF GARDENS AND ORCHARDS.

[1587, Book II., Chapter 20.[81]]

After such time as Calais was won from the French, and that our countrymen had learned to trade into divers countries (whereby they grew rich), they began to wax idle also, and thereupon not only left off their former painfulness and frugality, but in like sort gave themselves to live in excess and vanity, whereby many goodly commodities failed, and in short time were not to be had amongst us. Such strangers also as dwelled here with us, perceiving our sluggishness, and espying that this idleness of ours might redound to their great profit, forthwith employed their endeavours to bring in the supply of such things as we lacked continually from foreign countries, which yet more augmented our idleness. For, having all things at reasonable prices (as we supposed) by such means from them, we thought it mere madness to spend either time or cost about the same here at home. And thus we became enemies to our own welfare, as men that in those days reposed our felicity in following the wars, wherewith we were often exercised both at home and other places. Besides this, the natural desire that mankind hath to esteem of things far sought, because they be rare and costly, and the irksome contempt of things near hand, for that they are common and plentiful, hath borne no small sway also in this behalf amongst us. For hereby we have neglected our own good gifts of God, growing here at home, as vile and of no value, and had every trifle and toy in admiration that is brought hither from far countries, ascribing I wot not what great forces and solemn estimation unto them, until they also have waxen old, after which, they have been so little regarded, if not more despised, amongst us than our own. Examples hereof I could set down many and in many things; but, sith my purpose is to deal at this time with gardens and orchards, it shall suffice that I touch them only, and show our inconstancy in the same, so far as shall seem and be convenient for my turn. I comprehend therefore under the word “garden” all such grounds as are wrought with the spade by man’s hand, for so the case requireth. Of wine I have written already elsewhere sufficiently,[82] which commodity (as I have learned further since the penning of that book) hath been very plentiful in this island, not only in the time of the Romans, but also since the Conquest, as I have seen by record; yet at this present have we none at all (or else very little to speak of) growing in this island, which I impute not unto the soil, but the negligence of my countrymen. Such herbs, fruits, and roots also as grow yearly out of the ground, of seed, have been very plentiful in this land, in the time of the first Edward, and after his days; but in process of time they grew also to be neglected, so that from Henry the Fourth till the latter end of Henry the Seventh and beginning of Henry the Eighth, there was little or no use of them in England,[83] but they remained either unknown or supposed as food more meet for hogs and savage beasts to feed upon than mankind. Whereas in my time their use is not only resumed among the poor commons, I mean of melons, pompons, gourds, cucumbers, radishes, skirets,[84] parsnips, carrots, cabbages, navews,[85] turnips, and all kinds of salad herbs—but also fed upon as dainty dishes at the tables of delicate merchants, gentlemen, and the nobility, who make their provision yearly for new seeds out of strange countries, from whence they have them abundantly. Neither do they now stay with such of these fruits as are wholesome in their kinds, but adventure further upon such as are very dangerous and hurtful, as the verangenes, mushrooms, etc., as if nature had ordained all for the belly, or that all things were to be eaten for whose mischievous operation the Lord in some measure hath given and provided a remedy.

Hops in time past were plentiful in this land. Afterwards also their maintenance did cease. And now, being revived, where are any better to be found? Where any greater commodity to be raised by them? Only poles are accounted to be their greatest charge. But, sith men have learned of late to sow ashen kexes in ashyards by themselves, that inconvenience in short time will be redressed.

Madder hath grown abundantly in this island, but of long time neglected, and now a little revived, and offereth itself to prove no small benefit unto our country, as many other things else, which are now fetched from us: as we before time, when we gave ourselves to idleness, were glad to have them other.

If you look into our gardens annexed to our houses, how wonderfully is their beauty increased, not only with flowers, which Columella calleth Terrena sydera, saying,

“Pingit et in varios terrestria sydera flores,”

and variety of curious and costly workmanship, but also with rare and medicinable herbs[86] sought up in the land within these forty years: so that, in comparison of this present, the ancient gardens were but dunghills and laistowes[87] to such as did possess them. How art also helpeth nature in the daily colouring, doubling, and enlarging the proportion of our flowers, it is incredible to report: for so curious and cunning are our gardeners now in these days that they presume to do in manner what they list with nature, and moderate her course in things as if they were her superiors. It is a world also to see how many strange herbs, plants, and annual fruits are daily brought unto us from the Indies, Americans, Taprobane, Canary Isles, and all parts of the world: the which, albeit that in respect of the constitutions of our bodies they do not grow for us (because that God hath bestowed sufficient commodities upon every country for her own necessity), yet, for delectation sake unto the eye and their odoriferous savours unto the nose, they are to be cherished, and God to be glorified also in them, because they are his good gifts, and created to do man help and service. There is not almost one nobleman, gentleman, or merchant that hath not great store of these flowers, which now also do begin to wax so well acquainted with our soils that we may almost account of them as parcel of our own commodities. They have no less regard in like sort to cherish medicinable herbs fetched out of other regions nearer hand, insomuch that I have seen in some one garden to the number of three hundred or four hundred of them, if not more, of the half of whose names within forty years past we had no manner of knowledge. But herein I find some cause of just complaint, for that we extol their uses so far that we fall into contempt of our own, which are in truth more beneficial and apt for us than such as grow elsewhere, sith (as I said before) every region hath abundantly within her own limits whatsoever is needful and most convenient for them that dwell therein. How do men extol the use of tobacco[88] in my time, whereas in truth (whether the cause be in the repugnancy of our constitution unto the operation thereof, or that the ground doth alter her force, I cannot tell) it is not found of so great efficacy as they write. And beside this, our common germander or thistle benet is found and known to be so wholesome and of so great power in medicine as any other herb, if they be used accordingly. I could exemplify after the like manner in sundry other, as the Salsa parilla, Mochoacan, etc., but I forbear so to do, because I covet to be brief. And truly, the estimation and credit that we yield and give unto compound medicines made with foreign drugs is one great cause wherefore the full knowledge and use of our own simples hath been so long raked up in the embers. And as this may be verified so to be one sound conclusion, for, the greater number of simples that go unto any compound medicine, the greater confusion is found therein, because the qualities and operations of very few of the particulars are thoroughly known. And even so our continual desire of strange drugs, whereby the physician and apothecary only hath the benefit, is no small cause that the use of our simples here at home doth go to loss, and that we tread those herbs under our feet, whose forces if we knew, and could apply them to our necessities, we would honour and have in reverence as to their case behoveth. Alas! what have we to do with such Arabian and Grecian stuff as is daily brought from those parties which lie in another clime? And therefore the bodies of such as dwell there are of another constitution than ours are here at home. Certes they grow not for us, but for the Arabians and Grecians. And albeit that they may by skill be applied unto our benefit, yet to be more skilful in them than in our own is folly; and to use foreign wares, when our own may serve the turn, is more folly; but to despise our own, and magnify above measure the use of them that are sought and brought from far, is most folly of all: for it savoureth of ignorance, or at the leastwise of negligence, and therefore worthy of reproach.

Among the Indians, who have the most present cures for every disease of their own nation, there is small regard of compound medicines, and less of foreign drugs, because they neither know them nor can use them, but work wonders even with their own simples. With them also the difference of the clime doth show her full effect. For, whereas they will heal one another in short time with application of one simple, etc., if a Spaniard or Englishman stand in need of their help, they are driven to have a longer space in their cures, and now and then also to use some addition of two or three simples at the most, whose forces unto them are thoroughly known, because their exercise is only in their own, as men that never sought or heard what virtue was in those that came from other countries. And even so did Marcus Cato, the learned Roman, endeavour to deal in his cures of sundry diseases, wherein he not only used such simples as were to be had in his own country, but also examined and learned the forces of each of them, wherewith he dealt so diligently that in all his lifetime he could attain to the exact knowledge but of a few, and thereto wrote of those most learnedly, as would easily be seen if those his books were extant. For the space also of six hundred years the colewort only was a medicine in Rome for all diseases, so that his virtues were thoroughly known in those parts.

In Pliny’s time the like affection to foreign drugs did rage among the Romans, whereby their own did grow in contempt. Crying out therefore of this extreme folly, lib. 22, cap. 24, he speaketh after this manner—

“Non placent remedia tam longè nascentia, non enim nobis gignuntur, immò ne illis quidem, alioquin non venderent; si placet etiam superstitionis gratia emantur, quoniam supplicamus, &c. Salutem quidem sine his posse constare, vel ob id probabimus, ut tanto magis sui tandem pudeat.”

For my part, I doubt not if the use of outlandish drugs had not blinded our physicians of England in times past, but that the virtues of our simples here at home would have been far better known, and so well unto us as those of India are to the practitioners of those parts, and thereunto be found more profitable for us than the foreign either are or may be. This also will I add, that even those which are most common by reason of their plenty, and most vile because of their abundance, are not without some universal and special efficacy, if it were known, for our benefit: sith God in nature hath so disposed his creatures that the most needful are the most plentiful and serving for such general diseases as our constitution most commonly is affected withal. Great thanks therefore be given unto the physicians of our age and country, who not only endeavour to search out the use of such simples as our soil doth yield and bring forth, but also to procure such as grow elsewhere, upon purpose so to acquaint them with our clime that they in time, through some alteration received from the nature of the earth, may likewise turn to our benefit and commodity and be used as our own.

The chief workman (or, as I may call him, the founder of this device) is Carolus Clusius, the noble herbarist whose industry hath wonderfully stirred them up unto this good act. For albeit that Matthiolus, Rembert, Lobell, and others have travelled very far in this behalf, yet none hath come near to Clusius, much less gone further in the finding and true descriptions of such herbs as of late are brought to light. I doubt not but, if this man were in England but one seven years, he would reveal a number of herbs growing with us whereof neither our physicians nor apothecaries as yet have any knowledge. And even like thanks be given unto our nobility, gentlemen, and others, for their continual nutriture and cherishing of such homeborne and foreign simples in their gardens: for hereby they shall not only be had at hand and preserved, but also their forms made more familiar to be discerned and their forces better known than hitherto they have been.

And even as it fareth with our gardens, so doth it with our orchards, which were never furnished with so good fruit nor with such variety as at this present. For, beside that we have most delicate apples, plums, pears, walnuts, filberts, etc., and those of sundry sorts, planted within forty years past, in comparison of which most of the old trees are nothing worth, so have we no less store of strange fruit, as apricots, almonds, peaches, figs, corn-trees[89] in noblemen’s orchards. I have seen capers, oranges, and lemons, and heard of wild olives growing here, beside other strange trees, brought from far, whose names I know not. So that England for these commodities was never better furnished, neither any nation under their clime more plentifully endued with these and other blessings from the most high God, who grant us grace withal to use the same to his honour and glory! And not as instruments and provocations unto further excess and vanity, wherewith his displeasure may be kindled, lest these his benefits do turn unto thorns and briers unto us for our annoyance and punishment, which he hath bestowed upon us for our consolation and comfort.

We have in like sort such workmen as are not only excellent in grafting the natural fruits, but also in their artificial mixtures, whereby one tree bringeth forth sundry fruits, and one and the same fruit of divers colours and tastes, dallying as it were with nature and her course, as if her whole trade were perfectly known unto them: of hard fruits they will make tender, of sour sweet, of sweet yet more delicate, bereaving also some of their kernels, other of their cores, and finally enduing them with the savour of musk, amber, or sweet spices, at their pleasures. Divers also have written at large of these several practices, and some of them how to convert the kernels of peaches into almonds, of small fruit to make far greater, and to remove or add superfluous or necessary moisture to the trees, with other things belonging to their preservation, and with no less diligence than our physicians do commonly show upon our own diseased bodies, which to me doth seem right strange. And even so do our gardeners with their herbs, whereby they are strengthened against noisome blasts, and preserved from putrefaction and hindrance: whereby some such as were annual are now made perpetual, being yearly taken up, and either reserved in the house, or, having the ross pulled from their roots, laid again into the earth, where they remain in safety. What choice they make also in their waters, and wherewith some of them do now and then keep them moist, it is a world to see, insomuch that the apothecaries’ shops may seem to be needful also to our gardens and orchards, and that in sundry wise: nay, the kitchen itself is so far from being able to be missed among them that even the very dish-water is not without some use amongst our finest plants. Whereby, and sundry other circumstances not here to be remembered, I am persuaded that, albeit the gardens of the Hesperides were in times past so greatly accounted of, because of their delicacy, yet, if it were possible to have such an equal judge as by certain knowledge of both were able to pronounce upon them, I doubt not but he would give the prize unto the gardens of our days, and generally over all Europe, in comparison of those times wherein the old exceeded. Pliny and others speak of a rose that had three score leaves growing upon one button: but if I should tell of one which bare a triple number unto that proportion, I know I shall not be believed, and no great matter though I were not; howbeit such a one was to be seen in Antwerp, 1585, as I have heard, and I know who might have had a slip or stallon thereof, if he would have ventured ten pounds upon the growth of the same, which should have been but a tickle hazard, and therefore better undone, as I did always imagine. For mine own part, good reader, let me boast a little of my garden, which is but small, and the whole area thereof little above 300 foot of ground, and yet, such hath been my good luck in purchase of the variety of simples, that, notwithstanding my small ability, there are very near three hundred of one sort and other contained therein, no one of them being common or usually to be had. If therefore my little plot, void of all cost in keeping, be so well furnished, what shall we think of those of Hampton Court, Nonsuch, Tibault’s, Cobham Garden,[90] and sundry others appertaining to divers citizens of London, whom I could particularly name; if I should not seem to offend them by such my demeanour and dealing.

CHAPTER IV.

OF FAIRS AND MARKETS.

[1577, Book II., Chapter 11; 1587, Book II., Chapter 18.]

There are (as I take it) few great towns in England that have not their weekly markets, one or more granted from the prince, in which all manner of provision for household is to be bought and sold, for ease and benefit of the country round about. Whereby, as it cometh to pass that no buyer shall make any great journey in the purveyance of his necessities, so no occupier shall have occasion to travel far off with his commodities, except it be to seek for the highest prices, which commonly are near unto great cities, where round and speediest utterance is always to be had. And, as these have been in times past erected for the benefit of the realm, so are they in many places too, too much abused: for the relief and ease of the buyer is not so much intended in them as the benefit of the seller. Neither are the magistrates for the most part (as men loath to displease their neighbours for their one year’s dignity) so careful in their offices as of right and duty they should be. For, in most of these markets, neither assizes of bread nor orders for goodness and sweetness of grain and other commodities that are brought thither to be sold are any whit looked unto, but each one suffered to sell or set up what and how himself listeth: and this is one evident cause of dearth and scarcity in time of great abundance.

I could (if I would) exemplify in many, but I will touch no one particularly, sith it is rare to see in any country town (as I said) the assize of bread well kept according to the statute; and yet, if any country baker happen to come in among them on the market day with bread of better quantity, they find fault by-and-by with one thing or other in his stuff, whereby the honest poor man (whom the law of nations do commend, for that he endeavoureth to live by any lawful means) is driven away, and no more to come there, upon some round penalty, by virtue of their privileges. Howbeit, though they are so nice in the proportion of their bread, yet, in lieu of the same, there is such heady ale and beer in most of them as for the mightiness thereof among such as seek it out is commonly called “huffcap,” “the mad dog,” “Father Whoreson,” “angels’ food,” “dragon’s milk,” “go-by-the-wall,” “stride wide,” and “lift leg,” etc. And this is more to be noted, that when one of late fell by God’s providence into a troubled conscience, after he had considered well of his reachless life and dangerous estate, another, thinking belike to change his colour and not his mind, carried him straight away to the strongest ale, as to the next physician. It is incredible to say how our maltbugs lug at this liquor, even as pigs should lie in a row lugging at their dame’s teats, till they lie still again and be not able to wag. Neither did Romulus and Remus suck their she-wolf or shepherd’s wife Lupa with such eager and sharp devotion as these men hale at “huffcap,” till they be red as cocks and little wiser than their combs. But how am I fallen from the market into the alehouse? In returning therefore unto my purpose, I find that in corn great abuse is daily suffered, to the great prejudice of the town and country, especially the poor artificer and householder, which tilleth no land, but, labouring all the week to buy a bushel or two of grain on the market day, can there have none for his money: because bodgers,[91] loaders, and common carriers of corn do not only buy up all, but give above the price, to be served of great quantities. Shall I go any further? Well, I will say yet a little more, and somewhat by mine own experience.

At Michaelmas time poor men must make money of their grain, that they may pay their rents. So long then as the poor man hath to sell, rich men will bring out none, but rather buy up that which the poor bring, under pretence of seed corn or alteration of grain, although they bring none of their own, because one wheat often sown without change of seed will soon decay and be converted into darnel. For this cause therefore they must needs buy in the markets, though they be twenty miles off, and where they be not known, promising there, if they happen to be espied (which, God wot, is very seldom), to send so much to their next market, to be performed I wot not when.

If this shift serve not (neither doth the fox use always one track for fear of a snare), they will compound with some one of the town where the market is holden, who for a pot of “huffcap” or “merry-go-down,” will not let to buy it for them, and that in his own name. Or else they wage one poor man or other to become a bodger, and thereto get him a licence upon some forged surmise, which being done, they will feed him with money to buy for them till he hath filled their lofts;[92] and then, if he can do any good for himself, so it is; if not, they will give him somewhat for his pains at this time, and reserve him for another year. How many of the like providers stumble upon blind creeks at the sea coast, I wot not well; but that some have so done and yet do under other men’s wings, the case is too, too plain. But who dare find fault with them, when they have once a licence? yes, though it be but to serve a mean gentleman’s house with corn, who hath cast up all his tillage, because he boasteth how he can buy his grain in the market better cheap than he can sow his land, as the rich grazier often doth also upon the like device, because grazing requireth a smaller household and less attendance and charge. If any man come to buy a bushel or two for his expenses unto the market cross, answer is made: “Forsooth, here was one even now that bade me money for it, and I hope he will have it.” And to say the truth, these bodgers are fair chapmen; for there are no more words with them, but “Let me see it! What shall I give you? Knit it up! I will have it—go carry it to such a chamber, and if you bring in twenty seme more in the week-day to such an inn or sollar where I lay my corn, I will have it, and give you ( ) pence or more in every bushel for six weeks’ day of payment than another will.” Thus the bodgers bear away all, so that the poor artificer and labourer cannot make his provision in the markets, sith they will hardly nowadays sell by the bushel, nor break their measure; and so much the rather for that the buyer will look (as they say) for so much over measure in the bushel as the bodger will do in a quarter. Nay, the poor man cannot oft get any of the farmer at home, because he provideth altogether to serve the bodger, or hath an hope, grounded upon a greedy and insatiable desire of gain, that the sale will be better in the market, so that he must give twopence or a groat more in the bushel at his house than the last market craved, or else go without it, and sleep with a hungry belly. Of the common carriage of corn over unto the parts beyond the seas I speak not; or at the leastwise, if I should, I could not touch it alone, but needs must join other provision withal, whereby not only our friends abroad, but also many of our adversaries and countrymen, the papists, are abundantly relieved (as the report goeth); but sith I see it not, I will not so trust mine ears as to write it for a truth. But to return to our markets again.

By this time the poor occupier hath sold all his crop for need of money, being ready peradventure to buy again ere long. And now is the whole sale of corn in the great occupiers’ hands, who hitherto have threshed little or none of their own, but bought up of other men as much as they could come by. Henceforth also they begin to sell, not by the quarter or load at the first (for marring the market), but by the bushel or two, or a horseload at the most, thereby to be seen to keep the cross, either for a show, or to make men eager to buy, and so, as they may have it for money, not to regard what they pay. And thus corn waxeth dear; but it will be dearer the next market day. It is possible also that they mislike the price in the beginning for the whole year ensuing, as men supposing that corn will be little worth for this, and of better price the next year. For they have certain superstitious observations whereby they will give a guess at the sale of corn for the year following. And our countrymen do use commonly for barley, where I dwell, to judge after the price at Baldock upon St. Matthew’s day; and for wheat, as it is sold in seed time. They take in like sort experiment by sight of the first flocks of cranes that flee southward in winter, the age of the moon in the beginning of January, and such other apish toys as by laying twelve corns upon the hot hearth for the twelve months, etc., whereby they shew themselves to be scant good Christians; but what care they, so that they come by money? Hereupon also will they thresh out three parts of the old corn, towards the latter end of the summer, when new cometh apace to hand, and cast the same in the fourth unthreshed, where it shall lie until the next spring, or peradventure till it must and putrify. Certes it is not dainty to see musty corn in many of our great markets of England which these great occupiers bring forth when they can keep it no longer. But as they are enforced oftentimes upon this one occasion somewhat to abate the price, so a plague is not seldom engendered thereby among the poorer sort that of necessity must buy the same, whereby many thousands of all degrees are consumed, of whose deaths (in mine opinion) these farmers are not unguilty. But to proceed. If they lay not up their grain or wheat in this manner, they have yet another policy, whereby they will seem to have but small store left in their barns: for else they will gird their sheaves by the band, and stack it up anew in less room, to the end it may not only seem less in quantity, but also give place to the corn that is yet to come into the barn or growing in the field. If there happen to be such plenty in the market on any market day that they cannot sell at their own price, then will they set it up in some friend’s house, against another on the third day, and not bring it forth till they like of the sale. If they sell any at home, beside harder measure, it shall be dearer to the poor man that buyeth it by twopence or a groat in a bushel than they may sell it in the market. But, as these things are worthy redress, so I wish that God would once open their eyes that deal thus to see their own errors: for as yet some of them little care how many poor men suffer extremity, so that they fill their purses and carry away the gain.

It is a world also to see how most places of the realm are pestered with purveyors, who take up eggs, butter, cheese, pigs, capons, hens, chickens, hogs, bacon, etc., in one market under pretence of their commissions, and suffer their wives to sell the same in another, or to poulterers of London. If these chapmen be absent but two or three market days then we may perfectly see these wares to be more reasonably sold, and thereunto the crosses sufficiently furnished of all things. In like sort, since the number of buttermen have so much increased, and since they travel in such wise that they come to men’s houses for their butter faster than they can make it, it is almost incredible to see how the price of butter is augmented:[93] whereas when the owners were enforced to bring it to the market towns, and fewer of these butter buyers were stirring, our butter was scarcely worth eighteenpence the gallon that now is worth three shillings fourpence and perhaps five shillings. Whereby also I gather that the maintenance of a superfluous number of dealers[94] in most trades, tillage always excepted, is one of the greatest causes why the prices of things become excessive: for one of them do commonly use to outbid another. And whilst our country commodities are commonly bought and sold at our private houses, I never look to see this enormity redressed or the markets well furnished.

I could say more, but this is even enough, and more peradventure than I shall be well thanked for: yet true it is, though some think it no trespass. This moreover is to be lamented, that one general measure is not in use throughout all England, but every market town hath in manner a several bushel; and the lesser it be, the more sellers it draweth to resort unto the same. Such also is the covetousness of many clerks of the market, that in taking a view of measures they will always so provide that one and the same bushel shall be either too big or too little at their next coming, and yet not depart without a fee at the first, so that what by their mending at one time, and impairing the same at another, the country is greatly charged, and few just measures to be had in any steed. It is oft found likewise that divers unconscionable dealers have one measure to sell by and another to buy withal; the like is also in weights, and yet all sealed and bronded. Wherefore it were very good that these two were reduced unto one standard, that is, one bushel, one pound, one quarter, one hundred, one tale, one number: so should things in time fall into better order and fewer causes of contention be moved in this land. Of the complaint of such poor tenants as pay rent corn[95] unto their landlords, I speak not, who are often dealt withal very hardly. For, beside that in measuring of ten quarters for the most part they lose one through the iniquity of the bushel (such is the greediness of the appointed receivers thereof), fault is found also with the goodness and cleanness of the grain. Whereby some piece of money must needs pass unto their purses to stop their mouths withal, or else “My lord will not like of the corn,” “Thou art worthy to lose thy lease,” etc. Or, if it be cheaper in the market than the rate allowed for it is in their rents, then must they pay money and no corn, which is no small extremity. And thereby we may see how each one of us endeavoureth to fleece and eat up another.

Another thing there is in our markets worthy to be looked into, and that is the recarriage of grain from the same into lofts and cellars, of which before I gave some intimation; wherefore, if it were ordered that every seller should make his market by an hour, or else the bailey or clerk of the said market to make sale thereof, according to his discretion, without liberty to the farmers to set up their corn in houses and chambers, I am persuaded that the prices of our grain would soon be abated. Again, if it were enacted that each one should keep his next market with his grain (and not to run six, eight, ten, fourteen, or twenty miles from home to sell his corn where he doth find the highest price, and thereby leaveth his neighbours unfurnished), I do not think but that our markets would be far better served than at this present they are. Finally, if men’s barns might be indifferently viewed immediately after harvest, and a note gathered by an estimate, and kept by some appointed and trusty person for that purpose, we should have much more plenty of corn in our town crosses than as yet is commonly seen: because each one hideth and hoardeth what he may, upon purpose either that it will be dearer, or that he shall have some privy vein by bodgers, who do accustomably so deal that the sea doth load away no small part thereof into other countries and our enemies, to the great hindrance of our commonwealth at home, and more likely yet to be, except some remedy be found. But what do I talk of these things, or desire the suppression of bodgers, being a minister? Certes I may speak of them right well as feeling the harm in that I am a buyer, nevertheless I speak generally in each of them.

To conclude therefore, in our markets all things are to be sold necessary for man’s use; and there is our provision made commonly for all the week ensuing. Therefore, as there are no great towns without one weekly market at least, so there are very few of them that have not one or two fairs or more within the compass of the year, assigned unto them by the prince. And albeit that some of them are not much better than Louse fair,[96] or the common kirkemesses[97] beyond the sea, yet there are divers not inferior to the greatest marts in Europe, as Stourbridge fair near to Cambridge, Bristow fair, Bartholomew fair at London, Lynn mart, Cold fair at Newport pond for cattle, and divers other, all which, or at leastwise the greatest part of them (to the end I may with the more ease to the reader and less travel to myself fulfil my task in their recital), I have set down according to the names of the months wherein they are holden at the end of this book, where you shall find them at large as I borrowed the same from J. Stow and the reports of others.

CHAPTER V.

OF THE LAWS OF ENGLAND SINCE HER FIRST INHABITATION.

[1577, Book III., Chapter 3; 1587, Book II., Chapter 9.]

That Samothes (or Dis) gave the first laws to the Celts (whose kingdom he erected about the fifteenth of Nimbrote), the testimony of Berosus is proof sufficient. For he not only affirmeth him to publish the same in the fourth of Ninus, but also addeth thereto how there lived none in his days of more excellent wisdom nor politic invention than he, whereof he was named Samothes, as some other do affirm. What his laws were, it is now altogether unknown, as most things of this age, but that they were altered again at the coming of Albion no man can absolutely deny, sith new lords use commonly to give new laws, and conquerors abolish such as were in use before them.

The like also may be affirmed of our Brute, notwithstanding that the certain knowledge, so well of the one as of the other, is perished, and nothing worthy memory left of all their doings. Somewhat yet we have of Mulmutius, who not only subdued such princes as reigned in this land, but also brought the realm to good order that long before had been torn with civil discord. But where his laws are to be found, and which they be from other men’s, no man living in these days is able to determine.

Certes there was never prince in Britain of whom his subjects conceived better hope in the beginning than of Bladudus, and yet I read of none that made so ridiculous an end. In like sort there hath not reigned any monarch in this isle whose ways were more feared at the first than those of Dunwallon (King Henry the First excepted), and yet in the end he proved such a prince as after his death there was in manner no subject that did not lament his funeral. And this only for his policy in governance, severe administration of justice, and provident framing of his laws and constitutions for the government of his subjects. His people also, coveting to continue his name unto posterity, entitled those his ordinances according to their maker, calling them by the name of the “Laws of Mulmutius,” which endured in execution among the Britons so long as our homelings had the dominion of this isle. Afterwards, when the comeling Saxons had once obtained the superiority of the kingdom, the majesty of those laws fell for a time into such decay that although “Non penitus cecidit, tamen potuit cecidisse videri,” as Leland saith; and the decrees themselves had utterly perished indeed at the very first brunt had they not been preserved in Wales, where they remained amongst the relics of the Britons, and not only until the coming of the Normans, but even until the time of Edward the First, who, obtaining the sovereignty of that portion, endeavoured very earnestly to extinguish those of Mulmutius and to establish his own.

But as the Saxons at their first arrival did what they could to abolish the British laws, so in process of time they yielded a little to relent, and not so much to abhor and mislike of the laws of Mulmutius as to receive and embrace the same, especially at such time as the said Saxon princes entered into amity with the British nobility, and after that began to join in matrimony with the British ladies, as the British barons did with the Saxon frowes, both by an especial statute and decree, whereof in another treatise I have made mention at large. Hereof also it came to pass in the end that they were contented to make a choice and insert no small numbers of them into their own volumes, as may be gathered by those of Athelbert the Great, surnamed King of Kent, Inas and Alfred, kings of the West Saxons, and divers other yet extant to be seen. Such also was the lateward estimation of them, that when any of the Saxon princes went about to make new ordinances they caused those of Mulmutius (which Gildas sometime translated into Latin) to be first expounded unto them; and in this perusal, if they found any there already framed that might serve their turn, they forthwith revived the same and annexed them to their own.

But in this dealing the diligence of Alfred is most of all to be commended, who not only chose out the best, but gathered together all such whatsoever the said Mulmutius had made: and then, to the end they should lie no more in corners as forlorn books and unknown to the learned of his kingdom, he caused them to be turned into the Saxon tongue, wherein they continued long after his decease.

As for the Normans, who for a season neither regarded the British nor cared for the Saxon statutes, they also at the first utterly misliked of them, till at the last, when they had well weighed that one kind of regiment is not convenient for all peoples (and that no stranger, being in a foreign country newly brought under obedience, could make such equal ordinances as he might thereby govern his new commonwealth without some care and trouble), they fell in with such a desire to see by what rule the state of the land was governed in the time of the Saxons that, having perused the same, they not only commended their manner of regiment, but also admitted a great part of their laws (now current under the name of “St. Edward’s Laws,” and used as principles and grounds), whereby they not only qualified the rigour of their own, and mitigated their almost intolerable burden of servitude which they had lately laid upon the shoulders of the English, but also left us a great number of the old Mulmutian laws, whereof the most part are in use to this day, as I said, albeit that we know not certainly how to distinguish them from others that are in strength amongst us.

After Dunwallon, the next lawgiver was Martia, whom Leland surnameth Proba, and after him John Bale also, who in his Centuries doth justly confess himself to have been holpen by the said Leland, as I myself do likewise for many things contained in this treatise. She was wife unto Gutteline, king of the Britons, and being made protectrix of the realm after her husband’s decease in the nonage of her son, and seeing many things daily to grow up among her people worthy reformation, she devised sundry and those very politic laws for the governance of her kingdom, which her subjects, when she was dead and gone, did name the “Martian Statutes.” Who turned them into Latin as yet I do not read, howbeit (as I said before of the laws of Mulmutius) so the same Alfred caused those of this excellently well-learned lady (whom divers commend also for her great knowledge in the Greek tongue) to be turned into his own language, whereupon it came to pass that they were daily executed among his subjects, afterwards allowed of (among the rest) by the Normans, and finally remain in use in these our days, notwithstanding that we cannot dissever them also very readily from the other.

The seventh alteration of laws was practised by the Saxons; for I overpass the use of the civil ordinances used in Rome, finally brought hither by the Romans, and yet in perfect notice among the civilians of our country, though never generally received by all the several regions of this island. Certes there are great numbers of these latter, which yet remain in sound knowledge, and are to be read, being comprehended for the most part under the names of the Martian and the Saxon law. Beside these also, I read of the Dane law, so that the people of middle England were ruled by the first, the West Saxons by the second, as Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, and part of Hertfordshire were by the third, of all the rest the most unequal and intolerable. And as in these days whatsoever the prince in public assembly commanded upon the necessity of his subjects or his own voluntary authority was counted for law, so none of them had appointed any certain place whereunto his people might repair at fixed times for justice, but caused them to resort commonly to their palaces, where, in proper person, they would often determine their causes, and so make shortest work, or else commit the same to the hearing of other, and so despatch them away. Neither had they any house appointed to assemble in for the making of their ordinances, as we have now at Westminster. Wherefore Edmund gave laws at London and Lincoln, Ethelred at Habam, Alfred at Woodstock and Wannetting, Athelstane in Excester, Crecklade, Feversham, and Thundersley, Canutus at Winchester, etc.: other in other places, whereof this may suffice.[98]

Hitherto also (as I think) sufficiently of such laws as were in use before the Conquest. Now it resteth that I should declare the order of those that have been made and received since the coming of the Normans, referred to the eighth alteration or change of our manner of governance, and thereunto do produce threescore and four several courts. But for as much as I am no lawyer, and therefore have but little skill to proceed in the same accordingly, it shall suffice to set down some general discourses of such as are used in our days, and so much as I have gathered by report and common hearsay.

We have therefore in England sundry laws, and first of all the civil, used in the chancery, admiralty, and divers other courts, in some of which the severe rigour of justice is often so mitigated by conscience that divers things are thereby made easy and tolerable which otherwise would appear to be mere injury and extremity.

We have also a great part of the Canon law daily practised among us, especially in cases of tithes, contracts of matrimony, and such like, as are usually to be seen in the consistories of our bishops and higher courts of the two archbishops, where the exercise of the same is very hotly followed.

The third sort of laws that we have are our own, and those always so variable and subject to alteration and change that oft in one age divers judgments do pass upon one manner of case, whereby the saying of the poet—

“Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis,”

may very well be applied unto such as, being urged with these words, “In such a year of the prince this opinion was taken for sound law,” do answer nothing else but that “the judgment of our lawyers is now altered, so that they say far otherwise.”

The regiment that we have therefore after our own ordinances dependeth upon three laws, to wit, Statute Law, Common Law, Customary Law and Prescription, according to the triple manner of our trials and judgments, which is by Parliament, verdict of twelve men at an assize, or wager of battle, of which the last is little used in our days, as no appeal doth hold in the first and last rehearsed. But to return to my purpose.

The first is delivered unto us by Parliament, which court (being for the most part holden at Westminster, near London) is the highest of all other, and consisteth of three several sorts of people, that is to say, the nobility, clergy, and commons of this realm, and thereto is not summoned but upon urgent occasion when the prince doth see his time, and that by several writs, dated commonly full six weeks before it begin to be holden. Such laws as are agreed upon in the higher house by the lords spiritual and temporal, and in the lower house by the commons and body of the realm (whereof the convocation of the clergy, holden in Paul’s, or, if occasion so require, in Westminster Church, is a member), there speaking by the mouth of the knights of the shire and burgesses, remain in the end to be confirmed by the prince, who commonly resorteth thither of custom upon the first and last days of this court, there to understand what is done and give his royal consent to such statutes as him liketh of. Coming therefore thither into the higher house, and having taken his throne, the speaker of the parliament (for one is always appointed to between the houses, as an indifferent mouth for both) readeth openly the matters there determined by the said three estates, and then craveth the prince’s consent and final confirmation of the same. The king, having heard the sum and principal points of each statute briefly recited unto him, answereth in French with great deliberation unto such as he liketh “Il nous plaist,” but to the rest, “Il ne plaist,” whereby the latter are made void and frustrate. That also which his majesty liketh of is hereby authorised, confirmed, and ever after holden for law, except it be repealed in any like assembly. The number of the commons assembled in the lower house beside the clergy consisteth of ninety knights. For each shire of England hath two gentlemen or knights of greatest wisdom and reputation, chosen out of the body of the same for that only purpose, saving that for Wales one only is supposed sufficient in every county, whereby the number aforementioned is made up. There are likewise forty and six citizens, two hundred and eighty-nine burgesses, and fourteen barons, so that the whole assembly of the laity of the lower house consisteth of four hundred thirty and nine persons, if the just number be supplied. Of the laws here made likewise some are penal and restrain the common law, and some again are found to enlarge the same. The one sort of these also are for the most part taken strictly according to the letter, the other more largely and beneficially after their intendment and meaning.

The Common Law standeth upon sundry maxims or principles and years or terms, which do contain such cases as (by great study and solemn argument of the judges, sound practice confirmed by long experience, fetched even from the course of most ancient laws made far before the Conquest, and thereto the deepest reach and foundations of reason) are ruled and adjudged for law. Certes these cases are otherwise called pleas or action, whereof there are two sorts, the one criminal and the other civil. The means and messengers also to determine those causes are our writs or briefs, whereof there are some original and some judicial. The parties plaintiff and defendant, when they appear, proceed (if the case do so require) by plaint or declaration, bar or answer, replication, rejoinder, and so by rebut, surrebut, to issue and trial, if occasion so fall out, the one side affirmatively, the other negatively, as common experience teacheth. Our trials and recoveries are either by verdict and demur, confession or default, wherein if any negligence or trespass hath been committed, either in process and form, or in matter and judgment, the party aggrieved may have a writ of error to undo the same, but not in the same court where the former judgment was given.

Customary Law consisteth of certain laudable customs used in some private country, intended first to begin upon good and reasonable considerations, as gavelkind, which is all the male children equally to inherit, and continued to this day in Kent, where it is only to my knowledge retained, and nowhere else in England. It was at the first devised by the Romans, as appeareth by Cæsar in his Commentaries, wherein I find that, to break and daunt the force of the rebellious Germans, they made a law that all the male children (or females for want of males, which holdeth still in England) should have their father’s inheritance equally divided amongst them. By this means also it came to pass that, whereas before time for the space of sixty years they had put the Romans to great and manifold troubles, within the space of thirty years after this law was made their power did wax so feeble and such discord fell out amongst themselves that they were not able to maintain wars with the Romans nor raise any just army against them. For, as a river running with one stream is swift and more plentiful of water than when it is drained or drawn into many branches, so the lands and goods of the ancestors being dispersed amongst their issue males, of one strong there were raised sundry weak, whereby the original or general strength to resist the adversary became enfeebled and brought almost to nothing. “Vis unita (saith the philosopher) fortior est eadem dispersa,” and one good purse is better than many evil; and when every man is benefited alike each one will seek to maintain his private estate, and few take care to provide for public welfare.

Burrowkind is where the youngest is preferred before the eldest, which is the custom of many countries of this region: also the woman to have the third of her husband’s possessions, the husband that marrieth an heir to have such lands as move by her during his natural life if he survive her and hath a child by her which hath been heard cry through four walls, etc. Of such like to be learned elsewhere, and sometimes frequented generally over all.

Prescription is a certain custom which hath continued time out of mind, but it is more particular than customary law, as where only a parish or some private person doth prescribe to have common, or a way in another man’s soil, or tithes to be paid after this or that manner, I mean otherwise than the common course and order of the law requireth.

Whereof let this suffice at this time, instead of a larger discourse of our own laws, lest I should seem to enter far into that whereof I have no skill. For what hath the meditation of the law of God to do with any precise knowledge of the law of man, sith they are several trades, and incident to divers persons?

There are also sundry usual courts holden once in every quarter of the year, which we commonly call terms, of the Latin word terminus, wherein all controversies are determined that happen within the queen’s dominions. These are commonly holden at London, except upon some great occasion they be transferred to other places. At what times also they are kept, both for spiritual and temporal dealing, the table ensuing shall easily declare. Finally, how well they are followed by suitors, the great wealth of lawyers without any travel of mine can readily express. For, as after the coming of the Normans the nobility had the start, and after them the clergy, so now all the wealth of the land doth flow unto our common lawyers, of whom some one having practised little above thirteen or fourteen years is able to buy a purchase of so many one thousand pounds: which argueth that they wax rich apace, and will be richer if their clients become not the more wise and wary hereafter. It is not long since a sergeant at the law—whom I could name—was arrested upon an extent, for three or four hundred pounds, and another standing by did greatly marvel that he could not spare the gains of one term for the satisfaction of that duty. The time hath been that our lawyers did sit in Paul’s upon stools against the pillars and walls to get clients, but now some of them will not come from their chambers to the Guildhall in London under ten pounds, or twenty nobles at the least. And one, being demanded why he made so much of his travel, answered that it was but folly for him to go so far when he was assured to get more money by sitting still at home. A friend of mine also had a suit of late of some value, and, to be sure of counsel at his time, he gave unto two lawyers, whose names I forbear to deliver, twenty shillings apiece, telling them of the day and hour wherein his matter should be called upon. To be short, they came not unto the bar at all; whereupon he stayed for that day. On the morrow, after he met them again, increased his former gifts by so much more, and told them of the time; but they once again served him as before. In the end, he met them both in the very hall door, and, after some timorous reprehension of their uncourteous demeanour toward him, he bestowed either three angels or four more upon each of them, whereupon they promised peremptorily to speak earnestly in his cause. And yet for all this, one of them, not having yet sucked enough, utterly deceived him: the other indeed came in, and, wagging a scroll which he had in his hand before the judge, he spake not above three or four words, almost so soon uttered as a “Good morrow,” and so went from the bar. And this was all the poor man got for his money, and the care which his counsellors did seem to take of his cause then standing upon the hazard. But enough of these matters; for, if I should set down how little law poor men can have for their small fees in these days, and the great murmurings that are on all sides uttered against their excessive taking of money—for they can abide no small gain—I should extend this treatise into a far greater volume than is convenient for my purpose. Wherefore it shall suffice to have set down so much of their demeanour, and so much as is even enough to cause them to look with somewhat more conscience into their dealings, except they be dull and senseless.

This furthermore is to be noted, that albeit the princes heretofore reigning in this land have erected sundry courts, especially of the chancery at York and Ludlow, for the ease of poor men dwelling in those parts, yet will the poorest (of all men commonly most contentious) refuse to have his cause heard so near home, but endeavoureth rather to his utter undoing to travel up to London, thinking there soonest to prevail against his adversary, though his case be never so doubtful. But in this toy our Welshmen do exceed of all that ever I heard: for you shall here and there have some one odd poor David of them given so much to contention and strife that, without all respect of charges, he will up to London, though he go bare-legged by the way and carry his hosen on his neck (to save their feet from wearing), because he hath no change. When he cometh there also, he will make such importunate begging of his countrymen, and hard shift otherwise, that he will sometimes carry down six or seven writs with him in his purse, wherewith to molest his neighbour, though the greatest quarrel be scarcely worth the fee that he hath paid for any one of them. But enough of this, lest, in revealing the superfluous folly of a few brablers in this behalf, I bring no good-will to myself amongst the wisest of that nation. Certes it is a lamentable case to see furthermore how a number of poor men are daily abused and utterly undone by sundry varlets that go about the country as promoters or brokers between the pettifoggers of the law and the common people, only to kindle and espy coals of contention, whereby the one side may reap commodity and the other spend and be put to travel. But, of all that ever I knew in Essex, Denis and Mainford excelled, till John of Ludlow, alias Mason, came in place, unto whom in comparison they two were but children: for this last in less than three or four years did bring one man (among many elsewhere in other places) almost to extreme misery (if beggary be the uttermost) that before he had the shaving of his beard was valued at two hundred pounds (I speak with the least), and finally, feeling that he had not sufficient wherewith to sustain himself and his family, and also to satisfy that greedy ravenour which still called upon him for new fees, he went to bed, and within four days made an end of his woeful life, even with care and pensiveness. After his death also he so handled his son that there was never sheep shorn in May so near clipped of his fleece present as he was of many to come: so that he was compelled to let away his land, because his cattle and stock were consumed and he no longer able to occupy the ground. But hereof let this suffice, and, instead of these enormities, a table shall follow of the terms containing their beginnings and endings, as I have borrowed them from my friend John Stow, whose study is the only storehouse of antiquities in my time, and he worthy therefore to be had in reputation and honour.

A man would imagine that the time of the execution of our laws, being little above one quarter or not fully a third part of the year, and the appointment of the same to be holden in one place only, to wit, near London in Westminster, and finally the great expenses employed upon the same, should be no small cause of the stay and hindrance of the administration of justice in this land: but, as it falleth out, they prove great occasions and the stay of much contention. The reasons of these are soon to be conceived; for as the broken sleeve doth hold the elbow back, and pain of travel cause many to sit at home in quiet, so the shortness of time and fear of delay doth drive those oftentimes to like of peace who otherwise would live at strife and quickly be at odds. Some men desirous of gains would have the terms yet made shorter, that more delay might engender longer suit; other would have the houses made larger and more offices erected wherein to minister the laws. But as the times of the terms are rather too short than too long by one return apiece, so, if there were smaller rooms and fouler ways unto them, they would enforce many to make pause before they did rashly enter into plea. But, sith my purpose is not to make an ample discourse of these things, it shall suffice to deliver the times of the holding of our terms, which ensueth after this manner:—

A Perfect Rule to know the Beginning and Ending of every Term, with their Returns.

Hilary term beginneth the three-and-twentieth day of January (if it be not Sunday); otherwise the next day after, and is finished the twelfth of February; it hath four returns,

Easter term beginneth seventeen days after Easter, endeth four days after the Ascension Day, and hath five returns,

Trinity term beginneth the Friday after Trinity Sunday, and endeth the Wednesday fortnight after, in which time it hath four returns,

Michaelmas term beginneth the ninth of October (if it be not Sunday), and ending the eight-and-twentieth of November; it hath eight returns,

Note also that the Exchequer, which is Fiscus or ærarium publicam princeps, openeth eight days before any term begin, except Trinity term, which openeth but four days before.

CHAPTER VI.[99]

OF THE ANCIENT AND PRESENT ESTATE OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

[1577, Book II., Chapter 5; 1585, Book II., Chapter 1.]

There are now two provinces only in England, of which the first and greatest is subject to the see of Canterbury, comprehending a part of Lhoegres,[100] whole Cambria, and also Ireland, which in time past were several, and brought into one by the archbishop of the said see, and assistance of the pope, who, in respect of meed, did yield unto the ambitious desires of sundry archbishops of Canterbury, as I have elsewhere declared.[101] The second province is under the see of York. And, of these, each hath her archbishop resident commonly within her own limits, who hath not only the chief dealing in matters appertaining to the hierarchy and jurisdiction of the church, but also great authority in civil affairs touching the government of the commonwealth, so far forth as their commissions and several circuits do extend.[102]

In old time there were three archbishops, and so many provinces in this isle, of which one kept at London, another at York, and the third at Caerleon upon Usk.[103] But as that of London was translated to Canterbury by Augustine, and that of York remaineth (notwithstanding that the greatest part of his jurisdiction is now bereft him and given to the Scottish archbishop), so that of Caerleon is utterly extinguished, and the government of the country united to that of Canterbury in spiritual cases, after it was once before removed to St. David’s in Wales, by David, successor to Dubritius, and uncle to King Arthur, in the 519 of Grace, to the end that he and his clerks might be further off from the cruelty of the Saxons, where it remained till the time of the Bastard, and for a season after, before it was annexed to the see of Canterbury.[104]

The Archbishop of Canterbury is commonly called the Primate of all England; and in the coronations of the kings of this land, and all other times wherein it shall please the prince to wear and put on his crown, his office is to set it upon their heads. They bear also the name of their high chaplains continually, although not a few of them have presumed (in time past) to be their equals, and void of subjection unto them. That this is true, it may easily appear by their own acts yet kept in record, beside their epistles and answers written or in print, wherein they have sought not only to match but also to mate them with great rigour and more than open tyranny. Our adversaries will peradventure deny this absolutely, as they do many other things apparent, though not without shameless impudence, or at the leastwise defend it as just and not swerving from common equity, because they imagine every archbishop to be the king’s equal in his own province. But how well their doing herein agreeth with the saying of Peter and examples of the primitive church it may easily appear. Some examples also of their demeanour—I mean in the time of popery—I will not let to remember, lest they should say I speak of malice, and without all ground of likelihood.

Of their practices with mean persons I speak not, neither will I begin at Dunstan,[105] the author of all their pride and presumption here in England.[106]

Wherefore I refer you to those reports of Anselm and Becket sufficiently penned by other, the which Anselm also making a shew as if he had been very unwilling to be placed in the see of Canterbury, gave this answer to the letters of such his friends as did make request unto him to take the charge upon him—

“Secularia negotia nescio, quia scire nolo, eorum námque occupationes horreo, liberum affectans animum. Voluntati sacrarum intendo scripturarum, vos dissonantiam facitis, verendúmque est nè aratrum sanctæ ecclesiæ, quod in Anglia duo boves validi et pari fortitudine, ad bonum certantes, id est, rex et archiepiscopus, debeant trahere, nunc ove vetula cum tauro indomito jugata, distorqueatur à recto. Ego ovis vetula, qui si quietus essem, verbi Dei lacte, et operimento lanæ, aliquibus possèm fortassis non ingratus essè, sed si me cum hoc tauro coniungitis, videbitis pro disparilitate trahentium, aratrum non rectè procedere,” etc.

Which is in English thus—

“Of secular affairs I have no skill, because I will not know them; for I even abhor the troubles that rise about them, as one that desireth to have his mind at liberty. I apply my whole endeavour to the rule of the Scriptures; you lead me to the contrary; and it is to be feared lest the plough of holy church, which two strong oxen of equal force, and both like earnest to contend unto that which is good (that is, the king and the archbishop), ought to draw, should thereby now swerve from the right furrow, by matching of an old sheep with a wild, untamed bull. I am that old sheep, who, if I might be quiet, could peradventure shew myself not altogether ungrateful to some, by feeding them with the milk of the Word of God, and covering them with wool: but if you match me with this bull, you shall see that, through want of equality in draught, the plough will not go to right,” etc.

As followeth in the process of his letters. The said Thomas Becket was so proud that he wrote to King Henry the Second, as to his lord, to his king, and to his son, offering him his counsel, his reverence, and due correction, etc. Others in like sort have protested that they owed nothing to the kings of this land, but their council only, reserving all obedience unto the see of Rome, whereby we may easily see the pride and ambition of the clergy in the blind time of ignorance.[107]

And as the old cock of Canterbury did crow in this behalf, so the young cockerels of other sees did imitate his demeanour, as may be seen by this one example also in King Stephen’s time, worthy to be remembered; unto whom the Bishop of London would not so much as swear to be true subject: wherein also he was maintained by the pope.[108]

Thus we see that kings were to rule no further than it pleased the pope to like of; neither to challenge more obedience of their subjects than stood also with their good will and pleasure. He wrote in like sort unto Queen Maud about the same matter, making her “Samson’s calf”[109] (the better to bring his purpose to pass).[110]

Is it not strange that a peevish order of religion (devised by man) should break the express law of God, who commandeth all men to honour and obey their kings and princes, in whom some part of the power of God is manifest and laid open unto us? And even unto this end the cardinal of Hostia[111] also wrote to the canons of Paul’s after this manner, covertly encouraging them to stand to their election of the said Robert, who was no more willing to give over his new bishopric than they careful to offend the king, but rather imagined which way to keep it still, maugre his displeasure, and yet not to swear obedience unto him for all that he should be able to do or perform unto the contrary.[112]

Hereby you see how King Stephen was dealt withal. And albeit the Archbishop of Canterbury is not openly to be touched herewith, yet it is not to be doubted but he was a doer in it, so far as might tend to the maintenance of the right and prerogative of holy church. And even no less unquietness had another of our princes with Thomas of Arundel,[113] who fled to Rome for fear of his head, and caused the pope to write an ambitious and contumelious letter unto his sovereign about his restitution. But when (by the king’s letters yet extant, and beginning thus: “Thomas proditionis non expers nostræ regiæ majestati insidias fabricavit”) the pope understood the bottom of the matter, he was contented that Thomas should be deprived, and another archbishop chosen in his stead.

Neither did this pride stay at archbishops and bishops, but descended lower, even to the rake-hells of the clergy and puddles of all ungodliness. For, beside the injury received of their superiors, how was King John dealt withal by the vile Cistertians at Lincoln in the second of his reign? Certes when he had (upon just occasion) conceived some grudge against them for their ambitious demeanour, and upon denial to pay such sums of money as were allotted unto them, he had caused seizure to be made of such horses, swine, neat, and other things of theirs as were maintained in his forests, they denounced him as fast amongst themselves with bell, book, and candle,[114] to be accursed and excommunicated. Thereunto they so handled the matter with the pope and their friends that the king was fain to yield to their good graces, insomuch that a meeting for pacification was appointed between them at Lincoln, by means of the present Archbishop of Canterbury, who went off between him and the Cistertian commissioners before the matter could be finished. In the end the king himself came also unto the said commissioners as they sat in their chapterhouse, and there with tears fell down at their feet, craving pardon for his trespasses against them, and heartily requiring that they would (from henceforth) commend him and his realm in their prayers unto the protection of the Almighty, and receive him into their fraternity, promising moreover full satisfaction of their damages sustained, and to build an house of their order in whatsoever place of England it should please them to assign. And this he confirmed by charter bearing date the seven-and-twentieth of November, after the Scottish king was returned into Scotland,[115] and departed from the king. Whereby (and by other the like, as between John Stratford[116] and Edward the Third, etc.) a man may easily conceive how proud the clergymen have been in former times, as wholly presuming upon the primacy of their pope. More matter could I allege of these and the like broils, not to be found among our common historiographers. Howbeit, reserving the same unto places more convenient, I will cease to speak of them at this time, and go forward with such other things as my purpose is to speak of. At the first, therefore, there was like and equal authority in both our archbishops, but as he of Canterbury hath long since obtained the prerogative above York (although I say not without great trouble, suit, some bloodshed, and contention), so the Archbishop of York is nevertheless written Primate of England, as one contenting himself with a piece of a title at the least, when all could not be gotten. And as he of Canterbury crowneth the king, so this of York doth the like to the queen, whose perpetual chaplain he is, and hath been from time to time, since the determination of this controversy, as writers do report. The first also hath under his jurisdiction to the number of one-and-twenty inferior bishops; the other hath only four, by reason that the churches of Scotland are now removed from his obedience unto an archbishop of their own, whereby the greatness and circuit of the jurisdiction of York is not a little diminished. In like sort, each of these seven-and-twenty sees have their cathedral churches, wherein the deans (a calling not known in England before the Conquest) do bear the chief rule, being men especially chosen to that vocation, both for their learning and godliness, so near as can be possible. These cathedral churches have in like manner other dignities and canonries still remaining unto them, as heretofore under the popish regiment. Howbeit those that are chosen to the same are no idle and unprofitable persons (as in times past they have been when most of these livings were either furnished with strangers, especially out of Italy, boys, or such idiots as had least skill of all in discharging of those functions whereunto they were called by virtue of these stipends), but such as by preaching and teaching can and do learnedly set forth the glory of God, and further the overthrow of anti-Christ to the uttermost of their powers.

These churches are called cathedral, because the bishops dwell or lie near unto the same, as bound to keep continual residence within their jurisdictions for the better oversight and governance of the same, the word being derived a cathedra—that is to say, a chair or seat where he resteth, and for the most part abideth. At the first there was but one church in every jurisdiction, whereinto no man entered to pray but with some oblation or other toward the maintenance of the pastor. For as it was reputed an infamy to pass by any of them without visitation, so it was no less reproach to appear empty before the Lord. And for this occasion also they were builded very huge and great; for otherwise they were not capable to such multitudes as came daily unto them to hear the Word and receive the sacraments.

But as the number of Christians increased, so first monasteries, then finally parish churches, were builded in every jurisdiction: from whence I take our deanery churches to have their original (now called “mother churches,” and their incumbents, archpriests), the rest being added since the Conquest, either by the lords of every town, or zealous men, loth to travel far, and willing to have some ease by building them near hand. Unto these deanery churches also the clergy in old time of the same deanery were appointed to repair at sundry seasons, there to receive wholesome ordinances, and to consult upon the necessary affairs of the whole jurisdiction if necessity so required; and some image hereof is yet to be seen in the north parts. But as the number of churches increased, so the repair of the faithful unto the cathedrals did diminish; whereby they now become, especially in their nether parts, rather markets and shops for merchandise than solemn places of prayer, whereunto they were first erected. Moreover, in the said cathedral churches upon Sundays and festival days the canons do make certain ordinary sermons by course, whereunto great numbers of all estates do orderly resort; and upon the working days, thrice in the week, one of the said canons (or some other in his stead) doth read and expound some piece of holy Scripture, whereunto the people do very reverently repair. The bishops themselves in like sort are not idle in their callings; for, being now exempt from court and council, which is one (and a no small) piece of their felicity (although Richard Archbishop of Canterbury thought otherwise, as yet appeareth by his letters to Pope Alexander, Epistola 44, Petri Blesensis, where he saith, because the clergy of his time were somewhat narrowly looked unto, “Supra dorsum ecclesiæ fabricant peccatores,” etc.), they so apply their minds to the setting forth of the Word that there are very few of them which do not every Sunday or oftener resort to some place or other within their jurisdictions where they expound the Scriptures with much gravity and skill, and yet not without the great misliking and contempt of such as hate the Word. Of their manifold translations from one see to another I will say nothing, which is not now done for the benefit of the flock as the preferment of the party favoured and advantage unto the prince, a matter in time past much doubted of—to wit, whether a bishop or pastor might be translated from one see to another, and left undecided till prescription by royal authority made it good. For, among princes, a thing once done is well done, and to be done oftentimes, though no warrant be to be found therefore.

They have under them also their archdeacons, some one, divers two, and many four or more, as their circuits are in quantity, which archdeacons are termed in law the bishops’ eyes; and these (beside their ordinary courts, which are holden within so many or more of their several deaneries by themselves or their officials once in a month at the least) do keep yearly two visitations or synods (as the bishop doth in every third year, wherein he confirmeth some children, though most care but a little for that ceremony), in which they make diligent inquisition and search, as well for the doctrine and behaviour of the ministers as the orderly dealing of the parishioners in resorting to their parish churches and conformity unto religion. They punish also with great severity all such trespassers, either in person or by the purse (where permutation of penance is thought more grievous to the offender), as are presented unto them; or, if the cause be of the more weight, as in cases of heresy, pertinacy, contempt, and such like, they refer them either to the bishop of the diocese, or his chancellor, or else to sundry grave persons set in authority, by virtue of an high commission directed unto them from the prince to that end, who in very courteous manner do see the offenders gently reformed or else severely punished if necessity so enforce.

Beside this, in many of our archdeaconries, we have an exercise lately begun which for the most part is called a prophecy[117] or conference, and erected only for the examination or trial of the diligence of the clergy in their study of holy Scriptures. Howbeit, such is the thirsty desire of the people in these days to hear the Word of God that they also have as it were with zealous violence intruded themselves among them (but as hearers only) to come by more knowledge through their presence at the same. Herein also (for the most part) two of the younger sort of ministers do expound each after other some piece of the Scriptures ordinarily appointed unto them in their courses (wherein they orderly go through with some one of the Evangelists, or of the Epistles, as it pleaseth the whole assembly to choose at the first in every of these conferences); and when they have spent an hour or a little more between them, then cometh one of the better learned sort, who, being a graduate for the most part, or known to be a preacher sufficiently authorised and of a sound judgment, supplieth the room of a moderator, making first a brief rehearsal of their discourses, and then adding what him thinketh good of his own knowledge, whereby two hours are thus commonly spent at this most profitable meeting. When all is done, if the first speakers have shewed any piece of diligence, they are commended for their travel, and encouraged to go forward. If they have been found to be slack, or not sound in delivery of their doctrine, their negligence and error is openly reproved before all their brethren, who go aside of purpose from the laity after the exercise ended to judge of these matters, and consult of the next speakers and quantity of the text to be handled in that place. The laity never speak, of course (except some vain and busy head will now and then intrude themselves with offence), but are only hearers; and, as it is used in some places weekly, in other once in fourteen days, in divers monthly, and elsewhere twice in a year, so is it a notable spur unto all the ministers thereby to apply their books, which otherwise (as in times past) would give themselves to hawking, hunting, tables, cards, dice, tippling at the alehouse, shooting of matches, and other like vanities, nothing commendable in such as should be godly and zealous stewards of the good gifts of God, faithful distributors of his Word unto the people, and diligent pastors according to their calling.

But alas! as Sathan, the author of all mischief, hath in sundry manners heretofore hindered the erection and maintenance of many good things, so in this he hath stirred up adversaries of late unto this most profitable exercise, who, not regarding the commodity that riseth thereby so well to the hearers as speakers, but either stumbling (I cannot tell how) at words and terms, or at the leastwise not liking to hear of the reprehension of vice, or peradventure taking a misliking at the slender demeanours of such negligent ministers as now and then in their course do occupy the rooms, have either by their own practice, their sinister information, or suggestions made upon surmises unto other, procured the suppression of these conferences, condemning them as hurtful, pernicious, and daily breeders of no small hurt and inconvenience.[118] But hereof let God be judge, unto the cause belongeth.

Our elders or ministers and deacons (for subdeacons and the other inferior orders sometime used in popish church we have not) are made according to a certain form of consecration concluded upon in the time of King Edward the Sixth by the clergy of England, and soon after confirmed by the three estates of the realm in the high court of parliament. And out of the first sort—that is to say, of such as are called to the ministry (without respect whether they be married or not)—are bishops, deans, archdeacons, and such as have the higher places in the hierarchy of the church elected; and these also, as all the rest, at the first coming unto any spiritual promotion do yield unto the prince the entire tax of that their living for one whole year, if it amount in value unto ten pounds and upwards, and this under the name and title of first fruits.[119]

With us also it is permitted that a sufficient man may (by dispensation from the prince[120]) hold two livings, not distant either from other above thirty miles; whereby it cometh to pass that, as her Majesty doth reap some commodity by the faculty, so that the unition of two in one man doth bring oftentimes more benefit to one of them in a month (I mean for doctrine) than they have had before peradventure in many years.

Many exclaim against such faculties,[121] as if there were more good preachers that want maintenance than livings to maintain them. Indeed when a living is void there are so many suitors for it that a man would think the report to be true, and most certain; but when it cometh to the trial (who are sufficient and who not, who are staid men in conversation, judgment, and learning), of that great number you shall hardly find one or two such as they ought to be, and yet none more earnest to make suit, to promise largely, bear a better shew, or find fault with the stage of things than they. Nevertheless I do not think that their exclamations, if they were wisely handled, are altogether grounded upon rumours or ambitious minds, if you respect the state of the thing itself, and not the necessity growing through want of able men to furnish out all the cures in England, which both our universities are never able to perform. For if you observe what numbers of preachers Cambridge[122] and Oxford do yearly send forth, and how many new compositions are made in the Court of First Fruits by the deaths of the last incumbents, you shall soon see a difference. Wherefore, if in country towns and cities, yea even in London itself, four or five of the little churches were brought into one, the inconvenience would in great part be redressed and amended.

And, to say truth, one most commonly of those small livings is of so little value that it is not able to maintain a mean scholar, much less a learned man, as not being above ten, twelve, sixteen, seventeen, twenty, or thirty pounds at the most, toward their charges, which now (more than before time) do go out of the same. I say more than before, because every small trifle, nobleman’s request, or courtesy craved by the bishop, doth impose and command a twentieth part, a three score part, or twopence in the pound, etc., out of the livings, which hitherto hath not been usually granted, but by the consent of a synod, wherein things were decided according to equity, and the poorer sort considered of, which now are equally burdened.

We pay also the tenths of our livings to the prince yearly, according to such valuation of each of them as hath been lately made: which nevertheless in time past were not annual, but voluntary, and paid at request of king or pope.[123]

But to return to our tenths, a payment first as devised by the pope, and afterward taken up as by the prescription of the king, whereunto we may join also our first fruits, which is one whole year’s commodity of our living, due at our entrance into the same, the tenths abated unto the prince’s coffers, and paid commonly in two years. For the receipt also of these two payments an especial office or court is erected, which beareth name of First Fruits and Tenths, whereunto, if the party to be preferred do not make his dutiful repair by an appointed time after possession taken, there to compound for the payment of his said fruits, he incurreth the danger of a great penalty, limited by a certain statute provided in that behalf against such as do intrude into the ecclesiastical function and refuse to pay the accustomed duties belonging to the same.

They pay likewise subsidies with the temporalty, but in such sort that if these pay after four shillings for land, the clergy contribute commonly after six shillings of the pound, so that of a benefice of twenty pounds by the year the incumbent thinketh himself well acquitted if, all ordinary payments being discharged, he may reserve thirteen pounds six shillings eightpence towards his own sustentation or maintenance of his family. Seldom also are they without the compass of a subsidy; for if they be one year clear from this payment (a thing not often seen of late years), they are like in the next to hear of another grant: so that I say again they are seldom without the limit of a subsidy. Herein also they somewhat find themselves grieved that the laity may at every taxation help themselves, and so they do, through consideration had of their decay and hindrance, and yet their impoverishment cannot but touch also the parson or vicar, unto whom such liberty is denied, as is daily to be seen in their accounts and tithings.

Some of them also, after the marriages of their children, will have their proportions qualified, or by friendship get themselves quite out of the book. But what stand I upon these things, who have rather to complain of the injury offered by some of our neighbours of the laity, which daily endeavour to bring us also within the compass of their fifteens or taxes for their own ease, whereas the tax of the whole realm, which is commonly greater in the champagne than woodland soil, amounteth only to 37,930 pounds ninepence halfpenny, is a burden easy enough to be borne upon so many shoulders, without the help of the clergy, whose tenths and subsidies make up commonly a double, if not treble sum unto their aforesaid payments? Sometimes also we are threatened with a Melius inquirendum, as if our livings were not racked high enough already. But if a man should seek out where all those church lands which in time past did contribute unto the old sum required or to be made up, no doubt no small number of the laity of all states should be contributors also with us, the prince not defrauded of her expectation and right. We are also charged with armour and munitions from thirty pounds upwards, a thing more needful than divers other charges imposed upon us are convenient, by which and other burdens our ease groweth to be more heavy by a great deal (notwithstanding our immunity from temporal services) than that of the laity, and, for aught that I see, not likely to be diminished, as if the church were now become the ass whereon every market man is to ride and cast his wallet.

The other payments due unto the archbishop and bishop at their several visitations (of which the first is double to the latter), and such also as the archdeacon receive that his synods, etc., remain still as they did without any alteration. Only this I think he added within memory of man, that at the coming of every prince his appointed officers do commonly visit the whole realm under the form of an ecclesiastical inquisition, in which the clergy do usually pay double fees, as unto the archbishop.

Hereby then, and by those already remembered, it is found that the Church of England is no less commodious to the prince’s coffers than the state of the laity, if it do not far exceed the same, since their payments are certain, continual, and seldom abated, howsoever they gather up their own duties with grudging, murmuring, suit, and slanderous speeches of the payers, or have their livings otherwise hardly valued unto the uttermost farthing, or shrewdly cancelled by the covetousness of the patrons, of whom some do bestow advowsons of benefices upon their bakers, butlers, cooks, good archers, falconers, and horsekeepers,[124] instead of other recompense, for their long and faithful service, which they employ afterward unto the most advantage.[125]

Certes here they resemble the pope very much; for, as he sendeth out his idols, so do they their parasites, pages, chamberlains, stewards, grooms, and lackeys; and yet these be the men that first exclaim of the insufficiency of the ministers, as hoping thereby in due time to get also their glebes and grounds into their hands.[126] In times past bishoprics went almost after the same manner under the lay princes, and then under the pope, so that he which helped a clerk unto a see was sure to have a present or purse fine, if not an annual pension, besides that which went to the pope’s coffers, and was thought to be very good merchandise.

To proceed therefore with the rest, I think it good also to remember that the names usually given unto such as feed the flock remain in like sort as in times past, so that these words, parson, vicar, curate, and such, are not yet abolished more than the canon law itself, which is daily pleaded, as I have said elsewhere, although the statutes of the realm have greatly infringed the large scope and brought the exercise of the same into some narrower limits. There is nothing read in our churches but the canonical Scriptures, whereby it cometh to pass that the Psalter is said over once in thirty days, the New Testament four times, and the Old Testament once in the year. And hereunto, if the curate be adjudged by the bishop or his deputies sufficiently instructed in the holy Scriptures, and therewithal able to teach, he permitteth him to make some exposition or exhortation in his parish unto amendment of life. And for so much as our churches and universities have been so spoiled in time of error, as there cannot yet be had such number of able pastors as may suffice for every parish to have one, there are (beside four sermons appointed by public order in the year) certain sermons or homilies (devised by sundry learned men, confirmed for sound doctrine by consent of the divines, and public authority of the prince), and those appointed to be read by the curates of mean understanding (which homilies do comprehend the principal parts of Christian doctrine, as of original sin, of justification by faith, of charity, and such like) upon the Sabbath days unto the congregation. And, after a certain number of psalms read, which are limited according to the dates of the month, for morning and evening prayer we have two lessons, whereof the first is taken out of the Old Testament, the second out of the New; and of these latter, that in the morning is out of the Gospels, the other in the afternoon out of some one of the Epistles. After morning prayer also, we have the Litany and suffrages, an invocation in mine opinion not devised without the great assistance of the Spirit of God, although many curious mind-sick persons utterly condemn it as superstitious, and savouring of conjuration and sorcery.

This being done, we proceed unto the communion, if any communicants be to receive the Eucharist; if not, we read the Decalogue, Epistle, and Gospel, with the Nicene Creed (of some in derision called the “dry communion”), and then proceed unto an homily or sermon, which hath a psalm before and after it, and finally unto the baptism of such infants as on every Sabbath day (if occasion so require) are brought unto the churches; and thus is the forenoon bestowed. In the afternoon likewise we meet again, and, after the psalms and lessons ended, we have commonly a sermon, or at the leastwise our youth catechised by the space of an hour. And thus do we spend the Sabbath day in good and godly exercises, all done in our vulgar tongue, that each one present may hear and understand the same, which also in cathedral and collegiate churches is so ordered that the psalms only are sung by note, the rest being read (as in common parish churches) by the minister with a loud voice, saving that in the administration of the communion the choir singeth the answers, the creed, and sundry other things appointed, but in so plain, I say, and distinct manner that each one present may understand what they sing, every word having but one note, though the whole harmony consist of many parts, and those very cunningly set by the skilful in that science.

Certes this translation of the service of the church into the vulgar tongue hath not a little offended the pope almost in every age, as a thing very often attempted by divers princes, but never generally obtained, for fear lest the consenting thereunto might breed the overthrow (as it would indeed) of all his religion and hierarchy; nevertheless, in some places where the kings and princes dwelled not under his nose, it was performed maugre his resistance. Wratislaus, Duke of Bohemia, would long since have done the like also in his kingdom; but, not daring to venture so far without the consent of the pope, he wrote unto him thereof, and received his answer inhibitory unto all his proceeding in the same.

I would set down two or three more of the like instruments passed from that see unto the like end, but this shall suffice, being less common than the other, which are to be had more plentifully.

As for our churches themselves, bells and times of morning and evening prayer remain as in times past, saving that all images, shrines, tabernacles, rood-lofts, and monuments of idolatry are removed, taken down, and defaced, only the stories in glass windows excepted, which, for want of sufficient store of new stuff, and by reason of extreme charge that should grow by the alteration of the same into white panes throughout the realm, are not altogether abolished in most places at once, but by little and little suffered to decay, that white glass may be provided and set up in their rooms. Finally, whereas there was wont to be a great partition between the choir and the body of the church, now it is either very small or none at all, and (to say the truth) altogether needless, sith the minister saith his service commonly in the body of the church, with his face toward the people, in a little tabernacle of wainscot provided for the purpose, by which means the ignorant do not only learn divers of the psalms and usual prayers by heart, but also such as can read do pray together with him, so that the whole congregation at one instant pour out their petitions unto the living God for the whole estate of His church in most earnest and fervent manner. Our holy and festival days are very well reduced also unto a less number; for whereas (not long since) we had under the pope four score and fifteen, called festival, and thirty profesti, beside the Sundays, they are all brought unto seven and twenty, and, with them, the superfluous numbers of idle wakes, guilds, fraternities, church-ales, help-ales, and soul-ales, called also dirge-ales, with the heathenish rioting at bride-ales, are well diminished and laid aside. And no great matter were it if the feasts of all our apostles, evangelists, and martyrs, with that of all saints, were brought to the holy days that follow upon Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide, and those of the Virgin Mary, with the rest, utterly removed from the calendars, as neither necessary nor commendable in a reformed church.

The apparel in like sort of our clergymen is comely, and, in truth, more decent than ever it was in the popish church, before the universities bound their graduates unto a stable attire, afterward usurped also even by the blind Sir Johns. For, if you peruse well my Chronology ensuing, you shall find that they went either in divers colours like players, or in garments of light hue, as yellow, red, green, etc., with their shoes piked, their hair crisped, their girdles armed with silver, their shoes, spurs, bridles, etc., buckled with like metal, their apparel (for the most part) of silk, and richly furred, their caps laced and buttoned with gold, so that to meet a priest in those days was to behold a peacock that spreadeth his tail when he danceth before the hen,[127] which now (I say) is well reformed. Touching hospitality, there was never any greater used in England, sith by reason that marriage is permitted to him that will choose that kind of life, their meat and drink is more orderly and frugally dressed, their furniture of household more convenient and better looked unto, and the poor oftener fed generally than heretofore they have been, when only a few bishops and double or treble beneficed men did make good cheer at Christmas only, or otherwise kept great houses for the entertainment of the rich, which did often see and visit them. It is thought much peradventure that some bishops, etc., in our time do come short of the ancient gluttony and prodigality of their predecessors; but to such as do consider of the curtailing of their livings, or excessive prices whereunto things are grown, and how their course is limited by law, and estate looked into on every side, the cause of their so doing is well enough perceived. This also offended many, that they should, after their deaths, leave their substances to their wives and children, whereas they consider not that in old time such as had no lemans nor bastards[128] (very few were there, God wot, of this sort) did leave their goods and possessions to their brethren and kinsfolks, whereby (as I can shew by good record) many houses of gentility have grown and been erected. If in any age some one of them did found a college, almshouse, or school, if you look unto these our times, you shall see no fewer deeds of charity done, nor better grounded upon the right stub of piety than before. If you say that their wives be fond, after the decease of their husbands, and bestow themselves not so advisedly as their calling requireth (which, God knoweth, these curious surveyors make small account of truth, further than thereby to gather matter of reprehension), I beseech you then to look into all states of the laity, and tell me whether some duchesses, countesses, barons’ or knights’ wives, do not fully so often offend in the like as they? For Eve will be Eve, though Adam would say nay. Not a few also find fault with our threadbare gowns, as if not our patrons but our wives were causes of our woe. But if it were known to all that I know to have been performed of late in Essex, where a minister taking a benefice (of less than twenty pounds in the Queen’s books, so far as I remember) was enforced to pay to his patron twenty quarters of oats, ten quarters of wheat, and sixteen yearly of barley (which he called hawks’ meat), and another let the like in farm to his patron for ten pounds by the year which is well worth forty at the least, the cause of our threadbare gowns would easily appear: for such patrons do scrape the wool from our cloaks. Wherefore I may well say that such a threadbare minister is either an ill man or hath an ill patron, or both; and when such cooks and cobbling shifters[129] shall be removed and weeded out of the ministry, I doubt not but our patrons will prove better men, and be reformed whether they will or not, or else the single-minded bishops shall see the living bestowed upon such as do deserve it. When the Pragmatic Sanction took place first in France, it was supposed that these enormities should utterly have ceased; but when the elections of bishops came once into the hands of the canons and spiritual men, it grew to be far worse. For they also, within a while waxing covetous, by their own experience learned aforehand, raised the markets, and sought after new gains by the gifts of the greatest livings in that country, wherein (as Machiavelli writeth) are eighteen archbishoprics, one hundred forty and five bishoprics, 740 abbeys, eleven universities, 1,000,700 steeples (if his report be sound). Some are of the opinion that, if sufficient men in every town might be sent for from the universities, this mischief would soon be remedied; but I am clean of another mind. For, when I consider whereunto the gifts of fellowships in some places are grown, the profit that ariseth at sundry elections of scholars out of grammar schools to the posers, schoolmasters, and preferers of them to our universities, the gifts of a great number of almshouses builded for the maimed and impotent soldiers by princes and good men heretofore moved with a pitiful consideration of the poor distressed, how rewards, pensions, and annuities also do reign in other cases whereby the giver is brought sometimes into extreme misery, and that not so much as the room of a common soldier is not obtained oftentimes without a “What will you give me?” I am brought into such a mistrust of the sequel of this device that I dare pronounce (almost for certain) that, if Homer were now alive, it should be said to him:

“Tuque licet venias musis comitatus Homere,
Si nihil attuleris, ibis Homere foras!”

More I could say, and more I would say, of these and other things, were it not that in mine own judgment I have said enough already for the advertisement of such as be wise. Nevertheless, before I finish this chapter, I will add a word or two (so briefly as I can) of the old estate of cathedral churches, which I have collected together here and there among the writers, and whereby it shall easily be seen what they were, and how near the government of ours do in these days approach unto them; for that there is an irreconcilable odds between them and those of the Papists, I hope there is no learned man indeed but will acknowledge and yield unto it.

We find therefore in the time of the primitive church that there was in every see or jurisdiction one school at the least, whereunto such as were catechists in Christian religion did resort. And hereof, as we may find great testimony for Alexandria, Antioch, Rome, and Jerusalem, so no small notice is left of the like in the inferior sort, if the names of such as taught in them be called to mind, and the histories well read which make report of the same. These schools were under the jurisdiction of the bishops, and from thence did they and the rest of the elders choose out such as were the ripest scholars, and willing to serve in the ministry, whom they placed also in their cathedral churches, there not only to be further instructed in the knowledge of the world, but also to inure them to the delivery of the same unto the people in sound manner, to minister the sacraments, to visit the sick and brethren imprisoned, and to perform such other duties as then belonged to their charges. The bishop himself and elders of the church were also hearers and examiners of their doctrine; and, being in process of time found meet workmen for the Lord’s harvest, they were forthwith sent abroad (after imposition of hands and prayer generally made for their good proceeding) to some place or other then destitute of her pastor, and other taken from the school also placed in their rooms. What number of such clerks belonged now and then to some one see, the Chronology following shall easily declare; and, in like sort, what officers, widows, and other persons were daily maintained in those seasons by the offerings and oblations of the faithful it is incredible to be reported, if we compare the same with the decays and oblations seen and practised at this present. But what is that in all the world which avarice and negligence will not corrupt and impair? And, as this is a pattern of the estate of the cathedral churches in those times, so I wish that the like order of government might once again be restored unto the same, which may be done with ease, sith the schools are already builded in every diocese, the universities, places of their preferment unto further knowledge, and the cathedral churches great enough to receive so many as shall come from thence to be instructed unto doctrine. But one hindrance of this is already and more and more to be looked for (beside the plucking and snatching commonly seen from such houses and the church), and that is, the general contempt of the ministry, and small consideration of their former pains taken, whereby less and less hope of competent maintenance by preaching the word is likely to ensue. Wherefore the greatest part of the more excellent wits choose rather to employ their studies unto physic and the laws, utterly giving over the study of the Scriptures, for fear lest they should in time not get their bread by the same. By this means also the stalls in their choirs would be better filled, which now (for the most part) are empty, and prebends should be prebends indeed, there to live till they were preferred to some ecclesiastical function, and then other men chosen to succeed them in their rooms, whereas now prebends are but superfluous additiments unto former excesses, and perpetual commodities unto the owners, which before time were but temporal (as I have said before). But as I have good leisure to wish for these things, so it shall be a longer time before it will be brought to pass. Nevertheless, as I will pray for a reformation in this behold, so will I here conclude my discourse on the estate of our churches.

CHAPTER VII.

OF THE FOOD AND DIET OF THE ENGLISH.

[1577, Book III., Chapter 1; 1587, Book II., Chapter 6.]

The situation of our region, lying near unto the north, doth cause the heat of our stomachs to be of somewhat greater force: therefore our bodies do crave a little more ample nourishment than the inhabitants of the hotter regions are accustomed withal, whose digestive force is not altogether so vehement, because their internal heat is not so strong as ours, which is kept in by the coldness of the air that from time to time (especially in winter) doth environ our bodies.

It is no marvel therefore that our tables are oftentimes more plentifully garnished than those of other nations, and this trade hath continued with us even since the very beginning. For, before the Romans found out and knew the way unto our country, our predecessors fed largely upon flesh and milk, whereof there was great abundance in this isle,[130] because they applied their chief studies unto pasturage and feeding. After this manner also did our Welsh Britons order themselves in their diet so long as they lived of themselves, but after they became to be united and made equal with the English they framed their appetites to live after our manner, so that at this day there is very little difference between us in our diets.

In Scotland likewise they have given themselves (of late years to speak of) unto very ample and large diet, wherein as for some respect nature doth make them equal with us, so otherwise they far exceed us in over much and distemperate gormandise, and so ingross their bodies that divers of them do oft become unapt to any other purpose than to spend their times in large tabling and belly cheer. Against this pampering of their carcasses doth Hector Boethius in his description of the country very sharply inveigh in the first chapter of that treatise. Henry Wardlaw also,[131] bishop of St. Andrews, noting their vehement alteration from competent frugality into excessive gluttony to be brought out of England with James the First (who had been long time prisoner there under the fourth and fifth Henries, and at his return carried divers English gentlemen into his country with him, whom he very honourably preferred there), doth vehemently exclaim against the same in open Parliament holden at Perth, 1433,[132] before the three estates, and so bringeth his purpose to pass in the end, by force of his learned persuasions, that a law was presently made there for the restraint of superfluous diet; amongst other things, baked meats (dishes never before this man’s days seen in Scotland) were generally so provided for by virtue of this Act that it was not lawful for any to eat of the same under the degree of a gentleman, and those only but on high and festival days. But, alas, it was soon forgotten!

In old time these north Britons did give themselves universally to great abstinence, and in time of wars their soldiers would often feed but once or twice at the most in two or three days (especially if they held themselves in secret, or could have no issue out of their bogs and marshes, through the presence of the enemy), and in this distress they used to eat a certain kind of confection, whereof so much as a bean would qualify their hunger above common expectation. In woods moreover they lived with herbs and roots, or, if these shifts served not through want of such provision at hand, then used they to creep into the water or said moorish plots up unto the chins, and there remain a long time, only to qualify the heats of their stomachs by violence, which otherwise would have wrought and been ready to oppress them for hunger and want of sustenance. In those days likewise it was taken for a great offence over all to eat either goose, hare, or hen, because of a certain superstitious opinion which they had conceived of those three creatures; howbeit after that the Romans, I say, had once found an entrance into this island it was not long ere open shipwreck was made of this religious observation, so that in process of time so well the north and south Britons as the Romans gave over to make such difference in meats as they had done before.

From thenceforth also unto our days, and even in this season wherein we live, there is no restraint of any meat either for religious sake or public order in England, but it is lawful for every man to feed upon whatsoever he is able to purchase, except it be upon those days whereon eating of flesh is especially forbidden by the laws of the realm, which order is taken only to the end our numbers of cattle may be the better increased and that abundance of fish which the sea yieldeth more generally received. Besides this, there is great consideration had in making this law for the preservation of the navy and maintenance of convenient numbers of seafaring men, both which would otherwise greatly decay if some means were not found whereby they might be increased. But, howsoever this case standeth, white meats, milk, butter, and cheese (which were never so dear as in my time, and wont to be accounted of as one of the chief stays throughout the island) are now reputed as food appertinent only to the inferior sort, whilst such as are more wealthy do feed upon the flesh of all kinds of cattle accustomed to be eaten, all sorts of fish taken upon our coasts and in our fresh rivers, and such diversity of wild and tame fowls as are either bred in our island or brought over unto us from other countries of the main.

In number of dishes and change of meat the nobility of England (whose cooks are for the most part musical-headed Frenchmen and strangers) do most exceed, sith there is no day in manner that passeth over their heads wherein they have not only beef, mutton, veal, lamb, kid, pork, cony, capon, pig, or so many of these as the season yieldeth, but also some portion of the red or fallow deer, beside great variety of fish and wild fowl, and thereto sundry other delicates wherein the sweet hand of the seafaring Portugal is not wanting: so that for a man to dine with one of them, and to taste of every dish that standeth before him (which few used to do, but each one feedeth upon that meat him best liketh for the time, the beginning of every dish notwithstanding being reserved unto the greatest personage that sitteth at the table, to whom it is drawn up still by the waiters as order requireth, and from whom it descendeth again even to the lower end, whereby each one may taste thereof), is rather to yield unto a conspiracy with a great deal of meat for the speedy suppression of natural health than the use of a necessary mean to satisfy himself with a competent repast to sustain his body withal. But, as this large feeding is not seen in their guests, no more is it in their own persons; for, sith they have daily much resort unto their tables (and many times unlooked for), and thereto retain great numbers of servants, it is very requisite and expedient for them to be somewhat plentiful in this behalf.

The chief part likewise of their daily provision is brought in before them (commonly in silver vessels, if they be of the degree of barons, bishops, and upwards) and placed on their tables, whereof, when they have taken what it pleaseth them, the rest is reserved, and afterwards sent down to their serving men and waiters, who feed thereon in like sort with convenient moderation, their reversion also being bestowed upon the poor which lie ready at their gates in great numbers to receive the same. This is spoken of the principal tables whereat the nobleman, his lady, and guests are accustomed to sit; besides which they have a certain ordinary allowance daily appointed for their halls, where the chief officers and household servants (for all are not permitted by custom to wait upon their master), and with them such inferior guests do feed as are not of calling to associate the nobleman himself; so that, besides those aforementioned, which are called to the principal table, there are commonly forty or three score persons fed in those halls, to the great relief of such poor suitors and strangers also as oft be partakers thereof and otherwise like to dine hardly. As for drink, it is usually filled in pots, goblets, jugs, bowls of silver, in noblemen’s houses; also in fine Venice glasses of all forms; and, for want of these elsewhere, in pots of earth of sundry colours and moulds, whereof many are garnished with silver, or at the leastwise in pewter, all which notwithstanding are seldom set on the table, but each one, as necessity urgeth, calleth for a cup of such drink as him listeth to have, so that, when he has tasted of it, he delivered the cup again to some one of the standers by, who, making it clean by pouring out the drink that remaineth, restoreth it to the cupboard from whence he fetched the same. By this device (a thing brought up at the first by Mnesitheus of Athens, in conservation of the honour of Orestes, who had not yet made expiation for the death of his adulterous parents,[133] Ægisthus and Clytemnestra) much idle tippling is furthermore cut off; for, if the full pots should continually stand at the elbow or near the trencher, divers would always be dealing with them, whereas now they drink seldom, and only when necessity urgeth, and so avoid the note of great drinking, or often troubling of the servitors with filling of their bowls. Nevertheless in the noblemen’s halls this order is not used, neither is any man’s house commonly under the degree of a knight or esquire of great revenues. It is a world to see in these our days, wherein gold and silver most aboundeth, how that our gentility, as loathing those metals (because of the plenty)[134] do now generally choose rather the Venice glasses, both for our wine and beer, than any of those metals or stone wherein before time we have been accustomed to drink; but such is the nature of man generally that it most coveteth things difficult to be attained; and such is the estimation of this stuff that many become rich only with their new trade unto Murana (a town near to Venice, situate on the Adriatic Sea), from whence the very best are daily to be had, and such as for beauty do well near match the crystal or the ancient murrhina vasa whereof now no man hath knowledge. And as this is seen in the gentility, so in the wealthy communalty the like desire of glass is not neglected, whereby the gain gotten by their purchase is yet much more increased to the benefit of the merchant. The poorest also will have glass if they may; but, sith the Venetian is somewhat too dear for them, they content themselves with such as are made at home of fern and burned stone; but in fine all go one way—that is, to shards at the last, so that our great expenses in glasses (beside that they breed much strife toward such as have the charge of them) are worst of all bestowed in mine opinion, because their pieces do turn unto no profit. If the philosopher’s stone were once found, and one part hereof mixed with forty of molten glass, it would induce such a metallical toughness thereunto that a fall should nothing hurt it in such manner; yet it might peradventure bunch or batter it; nevertheless that inconvenience were quickly to be redressed by the hammer.[135] But whither am I slipped?

The gentlemen and merchants keep much about one rate, and each of them contenteth himself with four, five, or six dishes, when they have but small resort, or peradventure with one, or two, or three at the most, when they have no strangers to accompany them at their tables. And yet their servants have their ordinary diet assigned, beside such as is left at their master’s boards, and not appointed to be brought thither the second time, which nevertheless is often seen, generally in venison, lamb, or some especial dish, whereon the merchantman himself liketh to feed when it is cold, or peradventure for sundry causes incident to the feeder is better so than if it were warm or hot. To be short, at such times as the merchants do make their ordinary or voluntary feasts, it is a world to see what great provision is made of all manner of delicate meats, from every quarter of the country, wherein, beside that they are often comparable herein to the nobility of the land, they will seldom regard anything that the butcher usually killeth, but reject the same as not worthy to come in place. In such cases also jellies of all colours, mixed with a variety in the representation of sundry flowers, herbs, trees, forms of beasts, fish, fowls, and fruits, and thereunto marchpane wrought with no small curiosity, tarts of divers hues, and sundry denominations, conserves of old fruits, foreign and home-bred, suckets, codinacs, marmalades, marchpane, sugar-bread, gingerbread, florentines, wild fowls, venison of all sorts, and sundry outlandish confections, altogether seasoned with sugar (which Pliny calleth mel ex arundinibus, a device not common nor greatly used in old time at the table, but only in medicine, although it grew in Arabia, India, and Sicilia), do generally bear the sway, besides infinite devices of our own not possible for me to remember. Of the potato, and such venerous[136] roots as are brought out of Spain, Portugal, and the Indies to furnish up our banquets, I speak not, wherein our mures[137] of no less force, and to be had about Crosby-Ravenswath,[138] do now begin to have place.

But among all these, the kind of meat which is obtained with most difficulty and costs, is commonly taken for the most delicate, and thereupon each guest will soonest desire to feed. And as all estates do exceed herein, I mean for strangeness and number of costly dishes, so these forget not to use the like excess in wine, insomuch as there is no kind to be had, neither anywhere more store of all sorts than in England, although we have none growing with us but yearly to the proportion of 20,000 or 30,000 tun and upwards, notwithstanding the daily restraints of the same brought over unto us, whereof at great meetings there is not some store to be had. Neither do I mean this of small wines only, as claret, white, red, French, etc., which amount to about fifty-six sorts, according to the number of regions from whence they came, but also of the thirty kinds of Italian, Grecian, Spanish, Canarian, etc., whereof vernage, catepument, raspis, muscadell, romnie, bastard lire, osy caprie, clary, and malmesey, are not least of all accompted of, because of their strength and valour. For, as I have said in meat, so, the stronger the wine is, the more it is desired, by means whereof, in old time, the best was called theologicum, because it was had from the clergy and religious men, unto whose houses many of the laity would often send for bottles filled with the same, being sure they would neither drink nor be served of the worst, or such as was any ways mingled or brewed by the vinterer: nay, the merchant would have thought that his soul should have gone straightway to the devil if he should have served them with other than the best. Furthermore, when these have had their course which nature yieldeth, sundry sorts of artificial stuff as ypocras and wormwood wine must in like manner succeed in their turns, beside stale ale and strong beer, which nevertheless bear the greatest brunt in drinking, and are of so many sorts and ages as it pleaseth the brewer to make them.

The beer that is used at noblemen’s tables in their fixed and standing houses is commonly a year old, or peradventure of two years’ tunning or more; but this is not general. It is also brewed in March, and therefore called March beer; but, for the household, it is usually not under a month’s age, each one coveting to have the same stale as he may, so that it be not sour, and his bread new as is possible, so that it be not hot.

The artificer and husbandman makes greatest account of such meat as they may soonest come by, and have it quickliest ready, except it be in London when the companies of every trade do meet on their quarter days, at which time they be nothing inferior to the nobility. Their food also consisteth principally in beef, and such meat as the butcher selleth—that is to say, mutton, veal, lamb, pork, etc., whereof he findeth great store in the markets adjoining, beside sows, brawn, bacon, fruit, pies of fruit, fowls of sundry sorts, cheese, butter, eggs, etc., as the other wanteth it not at home, by his own provision which is at the best hand, and commonly least charge. In feasting also, this latter sort, I mean the husbandmen, do exceed after their manner, especially at bridals, purifications of women, and such odd meetings, where it is incredible to tell what meat is consumed and spent, each one bringing such a dish, or so many with him, as his wife and he do consult upon, but always with this consideration, that the lesser friend shall have the better provision. This also is commonly seen at these banquets, that the good man of the house is not charged with anything saving bread, drink, sauce, house-room, and fire. But the artificers in cities and good towns do deal far otherwise; for, albeit that some of them do suffer their jaws to go oft before their claws, and divers of them, by making good cheer, do hinder themselves and other men, yet the wiser sort can handle the matter well enough in these junkettings, and therefore their frugality deserveth commendation. To conclude, both the artificer and the husbandman are sufficiently liberal, and very friendly at their tables; and, when they meet, they are so merry without malice, and plain without inward Italian or French craft and subtlety, that it would do a man good to be in company among them. Herein only are the inferior sort somewhat to be blamed, that, being thus assembled, their talk is now and then such as savoureth of scurrility and ribaldry, a thing naturally incident to carters and clowns, who think themselves not to be merry and welcome if their foolish veins in this behalf be never so little restrained. This is moreover to be added in these meetings, that if they happen to stumble upon a piece of venison and a cup of wine or very strong beer or ale (which latter they commonly provide against their appointed days), they think their cheer so great, and themselves to have fared so well, as the Lord Mayor of London, with whom, when their bellies be full, they will not often stick to make comparison, because that of a subject there is no public officer of any city in Europe that may compare in port and countenance with him during the time of his office.

I might here talk somewhat of the great silence that is used at the tables of the honourable and wiser sort generally over all the realm (albeit that too much deserveth no commendation, for it belongeth to guests neither to be muti nor loquaces), likewise of the moderate eating and drinking that is daily seen, and finally of the regard that each one hath to keep himself from the note of surfeiting and drunkenness (for which cause salt meat, except beef, bacon, and pork, are not any whit esteemed, and yet these three may not be much powdered); but, as in rehearsal thereof I should commend the nobleman, merchant, and frugal artificer, so I could not clear the meaner sort of husbandmen and country inhabitants of very much babbling (except it be here and there some odd yeoman), with whom he is thought to be the merriest that talketh of most ribaldry or the wisest man that speaketh fastest among them, and now and then surfeiting and drunkenness which they rather fall into for want of heed taking than wilfully following or delighting in those errors of set mind and purpose. It may be that divers of them living at home, with hard and pinching diet, small drink, and some of them having scarce enough of that, are soonest overtaken when they come into such banquets; howbeit they take it generally as no small disgrace if they happen to be cupshotten, so that it is a grief unto them, though now sans remedy, sith the thing is done and past. If the friends also of the wealthier sort come to their houses from far, they are commonly so welcome till they depart as upon the first day of their coming; whereas in good towns and cities, as London, etc., men oftentimes complain of little room, and, in reward of a fat capon or plenty of beef and mutton largely bestowed upon them in the country, a cup of wine or beer with a napkin to wipe their lips and an “You are heartily welcome!” is thought to be a great entertainment; and therefore the old country clerks have framed this saying in that behalf, I mean upon the entertainment of townsmen and Londoners after the days of their abode, in this manner:

“Primus jucundus, tollerabilis estque secundus,
Tertius est vanus, sed fetet quatriduanus.”

The bread throughout the land is made of such grain as the soil yieldeth; nevertheless the gentility commonly provide themselves sufficiently of wheat for their own tables, whilst their household and poor neighbours in some shires are forced to content themselves with rye, or barley, yea, and in time of dearth, many with bread made either of beans, peas, or oats, or of altogether and some acorns among, of which scourge the poorest do soonest taste, sith they are least able to provide themselves of better. I will not say that this extremity is oft so well to be seen in time of plenty as of dearth, but, if I should, I could easily bring my trial. For, albeit that there be much more ground eared now almost in every place than hath been of late years, yet such a price of corn continueth in each town and market without any just cause (except it be that landlords do get licences to carry corn out of the land only to keep up the prices for their own private gains and ruin of the commonwealth), that the artificer and poor labouring man is not able to reach unto it, but is driven to content himself with horse corn—I mean beans, peas, oats, tares, and lentils: and therefore it is a true proverb, and never so well verified as now, that “Hunger setteth his first foot into the horse-manger.”[139] If the world last awhile after this rate, wheat and rye will be no grain for poor men to feed on; and some caterpillars there are that can say so much already.

Of bread made of wheat we have sundry sorts daily brought to the table, whereof the first and most excellent is the manchet, which we commonly call white bread, in Latin primarius panis, whereof Budeus also speaketh, in his first book De asse; and our good workmen deliver commonly such proportion that of the flour of one bushel with another they make forty cast of manchet, of which every loaf weigheth eight ounces into the oven, and six ounces out, as I have been informed. The second is the cheat or wheaten bread, so named because the colour thereof resembleth the grey or yellowish wheat, being clean and well dressed, and out of this is the coarsest of the bran (usually called gurgeons or pollard) taken. The ravelled is a kind of cheap bread also, but it retaineth more of the gross, and less of the pure substance of the wheat; and this, being more slightly wrought up, is used in the halls of the nobility and gentry only, whereas the other either is or should be baked in cities and good towns of an appointed size (according to such price as the corn doth bear), and by a statute provided by King John in that behalf.[140] The ravelled cheat therefore is generally so made that out of one bushel of meal, after two and twenty pounds of bran be sifted and taken from it (whereunto they add the gurgeons that rise from the manchet), they make thirty cast, every loaf weighing eighteen ounces into the oven, and sixteen ounces out; and, beside this, they so handle the matter that to every bushel of meal they add only two and twenty, or three and twenty, pound of water, washing also (in some houses) their corn before it go to the mill, whereby their manchet bread is more excellent in colour, and pleasing to the eye, than otherwise it would be. The next sort is named brown bread, of the colour of which we have two sorts one baked up as it cometh from the mill, so that neither the bran nor the flour are any whit diminished; this, Celsus called autopirus panis, lib. 2, and putteth it in the second place of nourishment. The other hath little or no flour left therein at all, howbeit he calleth it Panem Cibarium, and it is not only the worst and weakest of all the other sorts, but also appointed in old time for servants, slaves, and the inferior kind of people to feed upon. Hereunto likewise, because it is dry and brickie in the working (for it will hardly be made up handsomely into loaves), some add a portion of rye meal in our time, whereby the rough dryness or dry roughness thereof is somewhat qualified, and then it is named miscelin, that is, bread made of mingled corn, albeit that divers do sow or mingle wheat and rye of set purpose at the mill, or before it come there, and sell the same at the markets under the aforesaid name.